tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-56746809779049836412024-03-13T02:47:40.505+00:00figments & pigmentsMatthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.comBlogger87125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-24216965336420033972016-03-24T10:20:00.001+00:002022-01-27T10:30:03.822+00:00I've moved!Hi! I don't use this blog any more, but I am still making games all the time and writing about them some of the time.<br />
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All my recent stuff gets posted on <b><a href="https://twitter.com/crowbarska" target="_blank">Twitter</a></b> and <a href="http://crowbarska.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><b>Tumblr</b></a> (or <a href="http://crowbarska.tumblr.com/tagged/blog" target="_blank"><b>head here</b></a> if you want to filter my Tumblr into <i><b>blog posts only</b></i>).<br />
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I also have a <a href="https://www.mattglanville.com/" target="_blank"><b>portfolio</b></a> which has links to all my major projects and social stuff.<br />
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Thanks! :)Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-41487908059237788932013-05-17T19:13:00.000+01:002013-05-17T19:13:04.981+01:00Luminesca's still swimmingLuminesca's going strong at the moment. Check out this new video, then come and pre-order! You can play Chapter 1 straight away, and I'm adding more in the near future.<br />
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Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-44325724030584799482013-02-28T11:39:00.000+00:002013-02-28T11:39:25.270+00:00Confused Rogue prototype<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<strong>Confused Rogue</strong> (working title) is a game prototype I made over the past two days. I was inspired by Roguelike games, stripped the idea down to 1D movement, übersimplified the mechanics, and added just a dash of <a data-mce-href="http://mightyvision.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/glitch-tank.html" href="http://mightyvision.blogspot.co.uk/2011/12/glitch-tank.html" style="color: #444444;" target="_blank">Glitch Tank</a>'s randomised deck of moves.</div>
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The aim of the game is to get to the exit on the far right, pushing through neverending waves of barbarians as you go. But your set of available moves is shuffled (that's the confusion part!) and each time you choose one a random new one takes its place. Losing all your hearts or getting trapped at the left side of the screen results in game over.</div>
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<strong>[<a data-mce-href="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5370568/RogueConfusion/web.html" href="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5370568/RogueConfusion/web.html" style="color: #444444;">Play it now</a>] </strong>or<strong> [<a data-mce-href="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5370568/RogueConfusion/RogueConfusion.zip" href="https://dl.dropbox.com/u/5370568/RogueConfusion/RogueConfusion.zip" style="color: #444444;">save it for later</a>]</strong></div>
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I'm quite pleased with the overall concept (even if it does steal shamelessly from Glitch Tank) but there are some quite clear flaws in its design.</div>
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<li>Randomised deck of moves has no smart filter, so you can end up with 3 of the same. While this has its advantages (discouraging being picky) it is a non-choice for the player.</li>
<li>The randomised enemy spawning can throw a line of adjacent barbarians, which is impossible to defeat without taking damage.</li>
<li>As <a data-mce-href="https://twitter.com/smestorp" href="https://twitter.com/smestorp" style="color: #444444;" target="_blank">Michael Brough</a> pointed out on Twitter, it lacks potential for mid-to-long-term strategy. The ability to charge up moves may rectify this.</li>
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I'm going to shelve development of this prototype for now and crack on with my main project, <a data-mce-href="http://www.luminesca.com/" href="http://www.luminesca.com/" style="color: #444444;" target="_blank"><strong>Luminesca</strong></a>. That's not to say I won't return to it in the future. I'd like to add more complexities and aesthetic fluff. I think a competitive 'race mode' akin to Puzzle Fighter could work well.</div>
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It's been a fun experiment though and I learned a few things about rapid prototyping. Give the game a try and let me know what you think!</div>
Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-46476059338936960582012-09-17T13:33:00.000+01:002012-09-17T13:33:43.538+01:00Pushing forward in Rage<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<b>Note:</b> I've been toying with the idea of fully migrating this blog to <a href="http://crowbarska.tumblr.com/" target="_blank"><b>Tumblr</b></a>, but until I actually commit to that I'll continue to cross-post here.</div>
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">One of Rage’s defining features, I found, was its focus on getting the player to push forward and become a driving force. This is embodied in its low-level combat mechanics, its mission structure and its narrative overtones.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">The combat and mission structure empowers the player to press into hostile enemy territory and throw some rather large spanners into the works. There is often a strong sense that, until you showed up, those baddies were just going about their usual baddie business. This places the player in an active role which is characteristic of most id games, in contrast to the reactive role of Gordon Freeman in the first Half-Life, who’s just trying to get out alive.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">Rage has drawn my attention to the slow pace commonly found in the modern CODesque cover-based shooters. In those games, player and enemy alike rely on ducking in and out of cover to take pop-shots. This creates a very detached experience in which you are waiting for brief glimpses of heads and torsos, waiting to clear an area so you can safely progress, waiting, waiting, waiting. In Rage you are very much capable of taking the fight directly to the enemy by storming their cover and tearing right through them. Conversely, the enemies who fight at close range will force you to move around a lot and engage with the intense spatial dynamics.</span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">The story of Rage revolves around a man who brings disruption and chaos to the world, but I found this falls short in its execution. While the player’s character is touted as this powerful presence, their actions are the only thing that appears to move the plot forward in any meaningful way. This is extrapolated to the point of absurdity when every mission relies on the player going out to complete some difficult objective while the NPCs sit around and wait for their return. This is true right up to the games anti-climactic final mission, in which you must penetrate the impenetrable fortress and do </span><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">something or other</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"> while your mission-givers stand on the spot and do… nothing. Half-Life 2 - the almighty benchmark against which I compare most games - at least gave the impression that everyone else was kind of busy </span><em style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">not dying</em><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;">.</span><br />
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<strong style="border: 0px; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px; margin: 0px; outline: 0px; padding: 0px; vertical-align: baseline;">Lesson learned:</strong><span style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit; line-height: 20px;"> make the player feel like they have an effect on the world, but also make them feel like the other characters are actually capable of doing something too.</span>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-17965226752215093092012-09-13T10:20:00.000+01:002012-09-13T10:20:44.514+01:00Speaking with stilted enthusiasmLast week night I was describing two of my <a href="http://luminesca.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">personal</a> <a href="https://twitter.com/CrowbarSka/status/239717565914546176/photo/1" target="_blank">projects</a> to a few colleagues, and I realised how inept I am at describing these things with any kind of enthusiastic conviction.<br />
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When I start to describe one of the games I'm working on my mouth is often trying to say <i>"I'm making this cool thing!"</i>, yet my brain is thinking <i>"...but it's not really a cool thing until you work out all these kinks"</i>. The result is I uncertainly drag out a <i>"I'm making this... ehhh... thing. It's kind of like this and stuff, but there are all of these problems"</i>.<br />
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It's not that I don't have confidence in the concepts, it's just that there's something about being in the early/mid stages of the game design process that makes me painfully aware of <i>how much more</i> there is to work out, how many problems there are to solve, how many of its elements conflict with one another, how the tertiary mechanics fail to support the core mechanic, how I'm going to have to resolve that pesky ludonarrative dissonance, etc, etc. None of these things are easy to communicate over drinks after work when peoples' attention is divided.<br />
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But I guess it's OK. That design gap is is a driving force which I find myself compelled to fill. It's just sometimes a little tricky to convince others of its potential merits.<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-36746981639903694682012-08-19T11:37:00.001+01:002012-08-19T11:41:37.949+01:00Source Filmmaker - Terminal TensionI finally got my hands on the Source Filmmaker beta! I made this animated short in about a day so I could get to grips with it. I'm a bit of a novice when it comes to keyframe animation, but oh well, I had fun making it and learned a few tricks!<br />
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Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-73166509214115833582012-08-06T23:04:00.002+01:002012-08-06T23:04:26.949+01:00Slender Thoughts<a href="http://www.parsecproductions.net/slender/"><i>Slender</i></a> is a small, low-fi horror game based around the <a href="http://theslenderman.wikia.com/wiki/Slender_Man">Slender Man</a> urban legend. It achieves a lot with a very simple system and very few extraneous elements, resulting in a very pure design with maximum impact (sheer terror). If you haven't played it yet you should do that, alone, at night, before reading any more about it.<br />
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One of the things that makes <i>Slender </i>such a terrifying experience is the element of uncertainty. The underlying system is dynamic and non-linear, so experiences can play out differently depending on how you explore and you can never truly be sure where or when the Slender Man will appear next.<br />
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The forest you inexplicably find yourself in is repetitive and dense, which would make it impossible to navigate if it weren't for the odd landmarks dotted around... An abandoned truck here, a concealed shower block there... Your eyes begin to play tricks on you in the monotony and you can easily end up going round in circles if you're not careful.<br />
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But perhaps the most frightening mystery in the game is the very nature of the Slender Man himself, particularly his unpredictable way of moving. In what is perhaps Slender's most clever trick, the eldritch antagonist remains perfectly motionless when you are looking at him and only moves when you turn away. This would be fine, if it weren't for the fact that LOOKING AT HIM FOR TOO LONG KILLS YOU. You are forced to look away and therefore allow him to come closer, and the resulting effect is that you are never fully sure how fast he moves, or even how he moves at all. Aside from being a clever method for reducing the game's animation requirements to <i>zero</i>, this put me at such a frightening level of panic that I quit after a single game.<br />
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It also turns the game's villain into a kind of horrific, humanoid <a href="http://youtu.be/fzzjgBAaWZw">ninja cat</a>.<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-31897807989993811912012-06-24T14:33:00.001+01:002012-06-24T14:33:24.328+01:00Need for Story?The recent announcement of a <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/172895/">movie</a> based on the Need for Speed franchise caught my attention. Movies based on games are nothing new, nor are they usually worth the degradation of a franchise's reputation in the eyes of its fans.<br />
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But when IP-holders greenlight such movies I think it highlights an underlying misinterpretation of the role of story in games, and that is the notion that we as players are in it for the spectacle, to observe some dramatic events unfolding, to find out what happens next, and not to - you know - <i>do it ourselves</i>. Need for Speed is appealing to its fanbase because <i>it let's you drive fast cars</i>. It has nothing to do with characters or plot or dramatic arcs.<br />
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<i>Emphasis on character </i><i style="background-color: white;">disproportionate to actual game experience.</i></div>
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Tadhg Kelly recently <a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/172639/Opinion_Narrative_turns_creepy_in_Tomb_Raider.php">stirred up a bit of a debate</a> by claiming that we do not care about player characters in the same way we care about movie protagonists; we merely see them as <a href="http://www.whatgamesare.com/doll.html">dolls</a> or conduits for our actions and do not regard them empathetically. I'm inclined to agree, and there has never been a better example of this than a game of racing cars having human relationships shoehorned into it.
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<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-59965703185249052182012-06-08T09:50:00.000+01:002012-06-08T09:50:15.469+01:00I can't tell them I'm a complete ignoramus<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: -webkit-left;">"Try to imagine the test-chamber sequence at the beginning of </span><em style="font-family: inherit; text-align: -webkit-left;">Half-Life</em><span style="font-family: inherit; text-align: -webkit-left;"> if Gordon Freeman were wisecracking all the way through, or telling his colleagues he didn't have a clue what to do. The game would grind to a halt. Instead, the player thinks, 'These scientists all act as if I know what to do, and I can't tell them I'm a complete ignoramus.' I live to create that kind of tension in the player."</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><span style="text-align: -webkit-left;">Marc Laidlaw, on the mute protagonist (<a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/131227/marc_laidlaw_on_story_and_narrative.php">source</a>)</span></span><br />
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One of my criticisms of <b>Silent Hill: Downpour</b>'s puzzle design is the way the challenge would often lie in simply identifying all the necessary components.<br />
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In one particular 'Otherworld' section very late in the game you enter a room which is mirrored vertically; the floor is reflective and you can see a copy of the room below you although it has two monsters in it and two large cages raised off the ground, which don't exist in your version of the room. You can turn a valve to rotate the room and switch between versions. The idea is to get the monsters to stand in the right spot by scaring them with bright floodlights, then hit a couple of buttons to drop the cages down and trap them. The problem was that I didn't actually notice the buttons, because they had a dull colour in a dull room and were way off at the edges away from all the other important stuff.<br />
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I thought I had to use the valve to rotate the room and make the cages fall when it turned the right way up, which I think is a fairly logical assumption (despite being in a very illogical, nightmarish setting). When I eventually noticed the buttons I nearly kicked myself, and the resulting realisation was not a satisfying or rewarding conclusion to the challenge because the solution was simple and obvious. The term 'puzzle' is applied very loosely here. It's like trying to solve a jigsaw puzzle with several pieces missing, but having no clue that those pieces should even exist in the first place. When you finally find them, well <i>of course</i> they go there.<br />
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It occurred to me that a puzzle is best when the player is fully aware of all its working parts, they're just not sure how they fit together (or perhaps whether they <i>do</i> even fit together, but red herrings are another story). Downpour failed in this respect, several times, and the resulting effect was plain frustration that these key objects were not signposted well enough.<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-74103553904426973442012-03-28T14:02:00.000+01:002012-03-28T14:05:02.516+01:00Level With Me by Robert Yang[<i>An old post I wrote in immediate response to Level With Me, but didn't get round to posting at the time.</i>]<br />
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<a href="http://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/">Robert Yang</a> has posted his conclusion to <i>Level With Me</i>: a series of discussions with seven sideline game designers culminating in the collaborative development of a <i>Portal 2</i> mod. The regular drip-feed of articles has now come to an end and we can experience the resulting piece first-hand and first-person.<br />
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<li>Read the entire discussion series on Rock, Paper, Shotgun <a href="http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/tag/level-with-me/">here</a>.</li>
<li>Play the Portal 2 mod <a href="http://www.moddb.com/mods/level-with-me/downloads">here</a>.</li>
<li>Read the concluding words <a href="http://www.blog.radiator.debacle.us/2012/01/level-with-me-post-mortem-some.html">here</a>.</li>
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Yang's interpretation of the whole exercise holds a mirror up to a deep-seated approach to game design and interpretation. It reminds us how much power we wield, yet how much we still have to learn about our craft.</div>
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Yang draws the conclusion that we place too much importance on the cold, mechanical structuralism of game design. That we reduce our creativity to systems and formulas when there is so much more to be derived. I think that this is true of many designers, although your average journalists and consumers also seem to be a further step behind (through willing restraint or otherwise) and generally lack the vocabulary and critical eye required to deconstruct games on even this mechanical level. This is to be expected and by no means frowned upon; a layman will always use layman's terms after all.<br />
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But Yang urges us onwards and upwards to a higher level of <i>game reading</i>, one in which mechanics, art, sound and structure combine to produce <i>meaning</i>. It is this meaning that the games industry seems painfully unaware of (or worse: indifferent towards). Those involved in development owe it to themselves, the medium and the consumers to read games more closely, to never take conventions for granted, and to examine the underlying messages these texts communicate. Words on a page are worth more than mere ink and paper.</div>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-8382165915976344122012-03-10T15:39:00.000+00:002012-03-10T15:41:12.487+00:00Nuggets of Wisdom: the Joy of DiscoveryJonathan Blow, creator of <i>Braid</i> and <i>The Witness</i>, recently spoke about what he thinks modern Japanese games tend to do badly.<br />
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They don't just give you a simple situation and let you work it out. They explicitly tell you what to do and then say "It's not hard, don't be worried, go ahead, <i>you </i>try now". You know? And then you try and you do it and half-way, when you're in the middle of doing it, it stops you and it says "Now remember: during the next part rotate the block to the right!".</blockquote>
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Once you've done that it eliminates the joy of discovery which, as I've said, is something I really value. I really value that click that happens in your head between you see something and you don't quite understand it and then suddenly you <i>do</i> understand it. And that is a fundamental part of human existence in the world, is that kind of mental growth, that kind of expanding my sphere of understanding the world around me. And when you build an entire game that's "I tell you what to do then you do it", OK you're not going to lose the player, but you've prevented that player from having any of joy of discovery at all, and I don't want to play games that are like that.</blockquote>
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Of course, this flaw is not exclusive among Japanese games. Many Western games fall into the same pitfalls in their relentless quest to ensure games are seen 'the way they're meant to be seen' and the player is reduced to little more than a kind of 'God of the gaps' role. Japanese games do tend to be a little more heavy-handed in their approach, though (<i>Ghost Trick</i> springs to mind as a recent example).<br />
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I strongly recommend you listen to the full interview with Jonathan Blow.<br />
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<br /></div>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-1720193684518301872012-02-15T21:04:00.000+00:002012-02-23T21:18:50.383+00:00Nuggets of Wisdom: Zelda's Storysense<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">All right, I'll come clean: I've never finished a Zelda game. The early ones passed me by. I didn't own an N64 so I never played much of <i>Ocarina of Time</i>, the game everyone loves to remind me is the 'greatest game ever' (it's not, it's <i>Half-Life 2</i>). The ones I have played failed to hold my interest for more than a few hours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;">But thanks to the plethora of articles available I've been able to learn a great deal about the design of the Zelda games and, because </span>I have no personal attachment to any of them,<span style="font-family: inherit;"> I think I've actually managed to retain a somewhat objective view of the series. The latest essay I read was</span><span style="font-family: inherit;"> an opinion piece by Tevis Thompson about where the games went wrong over the years, notably how their stubborn commitment to convention hampers the very essence of exploration: a voyage into the unknown.</span></div>
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In many ways this statement (and indeed the whole essay) could apply to games as a whole when we examine how they have changed over the years. There is an ever-growing tendency fill in all the gaps, to tighten the designer's grip on the experience, to ensure that every secret gets discovered at just the right time and no one gets too far ahead of themselves lest they feel lost or confused. My goodness, what a terrible experience that might be in a game about exploration! There are certain kinds of games in which 'hand-holding' is appropriate, but there are other kinds in which it utterly undermines the central idea the game attempts to convey.<br />
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Anyway, this whole post was made to highlight one particular part of the essay which has little to do with any of the stuff I just said. But it is about <i>story</i>, which I find interesting. Enjoy.<br />
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><i><br class="Apple-interchange-newline" />The game mechanics of early Zeldas provided plot enough, the kind that is boring to tell (then this, then this) but thrilling to play. They required no narrative scaffolding to be justified; they justified themselves. And strangely, the iconic simplicity of early Hyrules fired the imagination the way a good map does, opening up story possibilities rather than narrowing them down to just one. Story flowed from world instead of world from story.</i></span></blockquote>
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<span style="font-family: inherit;"><b>Source:</b> <a href="http://tevisthompson.com/saving-zelda/">Tevis Thompson: Saving Zelda</a></span></div>
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<b>UPDATE!</b> I'm now playing Ocarina of Time on the 3DS. Check me out.</div>
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<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-5033780824513632942012-02-13T22:22:00.000+00:002012-02-13T22:43:16.438+00:00Episode One's Place in the Grand Scheme of ThingsI was off work sick today and decided to use to the time to revisit <i>Half-Life 2: Episode One</i>, generally considered to be the weakest link in the series and indeed earned <a href="http://www.metacritic.com/game/pc/half-life-2-episode-one">the lowest Metascore</a> of all the Half-Life games. I had a blast with it today, as I did when I first played it in 2006, and it got me wondering why it has earned a somewhat sour reputation among hardcore fans.<br />
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<b>Friendly warning:</b> this post is full of spoilers and intended for those who have finished <i>Half-Life 2</i>, <i>Episode One</i> and <i>Episode Two</i>.<br />
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<i>Episode One</i> occupies this strange transitory space between <i>Half-Life 2</i>'s broad narrative strokes and <i>Episode Two</i>'s relatively heavy-handed exposition. There is a great deal of foreshadowing of events to come: the transmission from Judith, the emphasis on Eli and Alyx's strong father-daughter relationship, establishing the Vortigaunts and the G-Man as key players in the greater conflict, and of course bringing the dreaded Advisors creeping into the limelight. Yet much of this foreshadowing can go unnoticed on your first play-through as we know very little about the importance of these elements until <i>Episode Two</i>, so your attention remains focused on the pressing urgency of stabilising the Citadel core and escaping City 17.</div>
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Given that <i>Episode One</i> largely takes place in environments familiar to players of <i>Half-Life 2</i> it comes as no surprise that many felt it was too derivative of its predecessor. We return to the Citadel interior and fight through war-torn city streets much as we did in <i>Half-Life 2</i>, albeit with a far greater emphasis on indirect combat through use of the Gravity Gun, various inventive gadgets/weapons, and your trusty sidekick. Indeed, the vast majority of its art and sound assets are recycled and it features only two new enemies, one of which was present but posed no threat in <i>Half-Life 2</i> (the Stalker) and the other being an amalgamation of two other enemies (the Zombine).</div>
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But one point that <i>Episode One</i> really nails is the sense of a world in motion (the storysense as Tadhg Kelly would put it). From the very beginning, we bear witness to world-changing events that affect the lives of every individual in the vicinity, be they fleeing citizens or desperate Overwatch soldiers. This is an area in which <i>Half-Life</i> games have always excelled in my opinion, ever since the series opened with the Resonance Cascade which still hangs heavy on Eli's conscience. In this particular episode we witness the changes brought about by our own actions as the Citadel reels from a heavy blow, eventually leading into a cataclysmic eruption that opens the gateway to vast legions of alien invaders.</div>
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At the end of the day <i>Episode One</i> functions as a great segue from the monolithic release of <i>Half-Life 2</i> into the bite-size episodic format. It has some obligations to tie up certain loose ends (the fate of Gordon, Alyx and the people of City 17) which flow into subsequent events (the opening of the Combine superportal and the hidden transmission of the Borealis data packet) but it places such a firm focus on the immediate goals that I for one was swept up in the adventure before stopping to consider how it all fit into the bigger picture. I believe it is for this reason that replaying this - or any <i>Half-Life</i> game - remains such a joy even more than 5 years later.</div>
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<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-88808520790439593632012-01-28T13:55:00.003+00:002012-01-28T13:55:39.206+00:00Badcat Wants Salty Bacon update 2<b>MAJOR UPDATE:</b> THE GAME NOW HAS GRAPHICS<div>
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Play it in the same place as before: <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5370568/Badcat/WebPlayer.html">here</a>.<br /><div>
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<b>Coming next:</b> stuff to do with scores and front end stuff</div>
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</div>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-43749319609080727742012-01-28T12:37:00.002+00:002012-01-28T12:37:54.528+00:00Badcat Wants Salty BaconI've often wanted to participate in a 48-hour game jam but have always been to sleep-deprived or busy to actually do it. Yesterday, a friend at work challenged me to make a game in 10 minutes. This is a far more reasonable amount of time to allocate to game development so I accepted the challenge and set myself the following guidelines:<br />
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<li><b>The game must be a game</b> in a vague sense; it must have a clear goal which can be attained. This was one area where <a href="http://figpig.blogspot.com/2011/10/cold-relief-game-made-in-0-hours.html">my previous game jam</a> fell down.</li>
<li><b>The game must be feature-complete</b>; all the gameplay elements I plan to include must be included in the first pass.</li>
<li><b>Graphics and sound are low priority</b> and can be added later. They just need to be at a functional level so you can tell what's going on.</li>
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As it turns out, 10 minutes is an unreasonable amount of time in which to make a full game so it spilled over to the 30 minute mark. Still, I met my goals, and the game is winnable with a vague sense that you could have done better if you tried a bit harder next time.<br />
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The first pass of <b><i>Badcat Wants Salty Bacon</i></b> is <a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5370568/Badcat/WebPlayer.html">playable in your browser here</a> (I accept no responsibility for any keyboard damage incurred).<br />
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<b>Coming next:</b> GRAPHICS.</div>
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-89397207214190733912011-12-16T17:35:00.003+00:002011-12-17T13:51:35.929+00:00Hero Core: Observations<div style="text-align: left;">
<b>Hero Core</b>, sequel to Hero, is a little action/adventure/shooter game available for <i>free </i>on author <a href="http://www.remar.se/daniel/">Daniel Remar</a>'s website. It blends elements of Metroidvania (world exploration) and side-scrolling shmups (spacially-restrictive combat).<br />
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I finished the main quest (100%) in 2 hours 19 minutes which is more time than I've been willing to give a lot of full-price AAA games. I didn't tackle the bonus modes (harder difficulties, boss speed runs, etc.) as they're not my cup of tea, but the 'story mode' was a blast. If you haven't played it yet I highly recommend that you stop reading now and <a href="http://www.remar.se/daniel/herocore.php">do so</a>.</div>
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In this piece I will identify some of the design decisions Remar made and what I thought of the experience as a whole (short version: I loved it!).</div>
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<li><b>Move and shoot, move and shoot!</b> Player movement is mapped to your standard <i>Up/Down/Left/Right</i> buttons, while shooting is mapped to <i>Shoot Left</i> and <i>Shoot Right</i>. Splitting the shoot direction into two buttons was a smart move which allows a lot of flexibility in player manoeuvres. Often in games you have to change the direction you are facing to shoot in that direction, but here you can move in a smooth arc while alternately shooting enemies on either side. When enemies close in from all angles this is a useful ability.</li>
<li><b>Compressing vertical space.</b> You can only shoot along a horizontal plane, (not up and down or even diagonally) so you are forced to close the height gap between yourself and your target. For several of the enemy types this means putting yourself directly in their line of fire.</li>
<li><b>Compressing horizontal space.</b> In addition to the vertical space restriction mentioned above, there is an interesting effect which comes as a result of only allowing 6 of the player's bullets to be on-screen at any one time. If you position yourself far away from your target you must wait for your bullets to travel and hit something before you can fire another shot. This encourages you to get close to your target so that this delay is reduced. But of course getting close means giving yourself a shorter time to react when the enemy shoots back. This classic example of risk and reward allows skilled players to get right up in their enemies' faces and hammer away without any enforced delay, while giving less-skilled players a fighting chance at the cost of <i>time</i>. Time is obviously an important element if you are trying to speed run the game.</li>
<li><b>Excellent boss battles.</b> There's not a lot I can say about these without going into specific detail about each one, but they were all great fun to fight and stood out as intense, climactic moments. Most of them explored unique ways of compressing space and promoting different <i>move-and-shoot</i> patterns on the part of the player. My favourite was <i>Liquid Metal Processor</i> (pictured above), whose weak points were on the <i>inside</i>, forcing you to get in, quickly deal damage and get back out before it crushes you. Another interesting boss was the <i>Eliminator</i>: a relentless hunter who can randomly appear almost anywhere in the game whenever you enter a new room. He retreats after taking some damage, so defeating him is tough until you have upgraded your gun. It was a joyous occasion when I was finally able to take him down (about 4/5 of the way through the game).
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<li><b>Unhindered exploration.</b> Several elements combine to make exploration as hassle-free as possible, the most significant of which is the liberal use of <i>save points</i>. Touching a save point restores all of your health and you can teleport to any save point you have touched from anywhere in the game at any time. This massively reduces time spent back-tracking to get into that one little room you now have the right abilities to access. As well as this, you never have to unlock gates and doors more than once. Many rooms have their exit locked until you have defeated all the enemies in there. While enemies respawn upon re-entering any room, any unlocked doors stay unlocked permanently, even if you die before reaching a save point. When you pass through these rooms again later on you can skim past all the enemies if you wish.
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<li><b>Free-form exploration.</b> The game world has been designed in such a way that you have a lot of choice in how to explore and in what order. Bypassing many of the obstacles requires certain abilities and upgrades, which are unlocked by defeating bosses. You can take on the bosses in pretty much any order and each boss will increase your level by 1. As far as I am aware, your suit abilities are upgraded with your level in a pre-determined order so you don't have to defeat a specific boss to gain a specific ability. This means you can, for the most part, branch out quite early in the game and choose your own route through the world as long as you make an effort to defeat a few bosses along the way. Your final goal lies at the centre of the world map so you will most likely spiral around it a few times as you search for rooms that have been made accessible by your new abilities.</li>
<li><b>The final boss is waiting for you.</b> As soon as you can find the entrance to his domain and feel ready to take him on you can do so. This gives skilled players a significant upper hand in speed runs. Less skilled players (like myself) can continue to explore the surrounding world and build up their suit abilities to make the fight easier.</li>
<li><b>Story snippets.</b> I wouldn't be able to deconstruct a game without mentioning story somewhere. Hero Core takes what I call the 'book end' format: a short introduction sets up the premise and the overarching goal, and an ending sequence closes the arc when that goal is met. Everything in-between is player-driven action. There are two noteworthy methods used to give snippets of backstory along the way. Firstly, the player will gradually find 10 computer terminals which download data in a sequential order, causing their character to reflect on his mission. The order seems to be fixed regardless of which order you find the terminals. Secondly, the layout and appearance of the scenery hints at its purpose and therefore the story behind it. You progress from uneven rocky asteroid caverns through to the harsh orthogonal structures of the machine factories. Numerous 'sleeping' enemies can be seen locked inside parts of the level geometry, hinting at massive production lines and giving a terrifying sense that you are outnumbered by something vast and unending. This gives an elegant, unobtrusive impression of the game world without ever stopping the player to burden them with exposition.</li>
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If you haven't played Hero Core, <a href="http://www.remar.se/daniel/herocore.php">do it now</a>! If you have, what did you think?</div>
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<br /></div>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-43701824357966113902011-12-08T21:47:00.001+00:002011-12-08T22:06:03.718+00:00Nuggets of Wisdom: Portraits Not Stories<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white;"><span class="Apple-style-span"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">I've noticed Tadhg Kelly's comments on Gamasutra draw a fair number of negative responses, particularly when he declares that games are undebatably ill-equipped to tell stories. This week I took the time to read through several of his </span></span><a href="http://whatgamesare.com/" style="font-family: inherit; line-height: 19px;">blog posts</a><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"> and was </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">pleasantly</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"> surprised to find a lot of correlation with my own game narrative philosophies, particularly the importance of brevity and the argument against heavy-handed, one-way gushes of tedious exposition. I'm sure this is something many writers and designers would agree with, but few seem willing to take an axe to quite so much of their painstakingly crafted 'content', whatever that's worth.</span></span></span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;">I think this </span></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">excerpt</span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; font-family: inherit;"><span class="Apple-style-span" style="line-height: 19px;"> sums it up nicely (the <b>emphasis</b> is my own), but I urge you to read the full article when you have time.</span></span><br />
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;">Storysensing is not storytelling. In a dramatic arc, the structure, pace and timing matter a great deal for delivering impact, but <b>storysensing is better when focused on enhancing the portrait of the game world</b>. Unlike storytelling, storysensing does not need to be dramatic. It can afford to be loose around the edges as long as those edges are not too apparent to the point that the player is </span><em style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">seeing the frame</em><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">.</span></blockquote>
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Left 4 Dead<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"> </span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;">creates a zombie-infested world and places guns in the player’s hand. Through a combination of co-operative dependent loops, and a game dynamic that deliberately paces out the encounters and objects, the game conveys a world in motion. Add a layer of snappy character dialogue and numina such as posters on walls and other touches, and Left 4 Dead draws the player into its world so completely that he wants to play it again and again.</span></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px; text-align: left;"><b>S</b></span><span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"><b>torysensing is best when deft rather than deep.</b> <b>Roleplaying and adventure games have tried for decades to use mechanisms like branching dialogue to storytell to the player, but in practise these mechanisms are heavy handed.</b> Mass Effect in particular is an example of a game whose rush to storytell is so replete with redundant detail and branched dialogue that it just becomes tedious. It actively works against the sense of story because it reminds players too often that they are watching a mechanical game system simply go through motions.</span></blockquote>
<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: white; line-height: 19px;"><b>Source:</b> <a href="http://whatgamesare.com/2011/02/video-game-writing-and-the-sense-of-story-writing.html">Video Game Writing and the Sense of Story</a></span><br />
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Incidentally, the idea of 'painting a portrait' rather than 'telling a story' is a technique I have been experimenting with for <b><a href="http://luminesca.blogspot.com/">Luminesca</a></b>.<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-2853401909639532632011-12-08T20:47:00.001+00:002011-12-08T21:42:10.539+00:00Super Mario 3D Land: Observations<br />
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This post is a list of observations I made while playing through <b>Super Mario 3D Land</b> on the 3DS. It's part opinion, part design analysis, and all waffle.</div>
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<li><b><b>It is short and easy, but with reasons to come back. </b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-weight: normal;">Completing the 8 worlds is not particularly difficult if you're vaguely familiar with Mario games. There is an abundance of 1-Ups if you take the time to search the nooks and crannies as well as a generous, widespread distribution of coins which seem to reward a vast array of actions in a way that is reminiscent of certain online FPSes. By the end of the game I had over 130 lives. But then you have the Star Coins to find (three giant coins hidden in each level, which usually require extra poking around) and completing the game unlocks a large number of 'special' levels. I have only played a couple of these so far, but they seem to mix up the standard formula with special twists to the usual rules like a 'Dark Mario' who chases you round and prevents you standing still.</span></b></li>
<li><b>It shows off the 3DS' capabilities.</b> There are few cases where stereoscopic 3D actually brings something worthwhile to the table (mainly depth perception which greatly helps with judging your position mid-jump). But beyond this, SM3DL is packed full of little moments that would simply not look/feel as cool in 2D. Some memorable highlights were the giant screws on the airship levels that come hurtling towards the camera in synchronised aggression, seeing Mario bounce up into your face in the top-down perspective levels, and the Piranha Plants that spit inky goo on to the screen.</li>
<li><b>Mario loses his hat when he's small.</b> Did this happen in other 3D (not stereoscopic) Mario games? I suspect it is because you no longer have the consistent sense of scale that you get in 2D ones, so this change was probably made to provide additional visual feedback.</li>
<li><b>The Tanooki suit makes jumping easier.</b> You just need to hold the jump button after lift-off and Mario will slowly glide back to the ground. This makes long-distance or precise jumps much easier to execute. I suspect this may be a response to both the inherent flaws of distance-gauging in 3D (although the 3DS should alleviate this) and an attempt to make the game 'more accessible'.</li>
<li><b>The boss battles were repetitive.</b> There were only 3 types of boss battle in the game, although each one changed the arena layout and added threats like fire pits in the floor. Figuring out and exploiting the attack patterns of the bosses is one of the things that makes them so rewarding to beat, so it was a shame to diminish this by making you fight the same boss with the same patterns several times (although the game pretty much redeems itself with the exhilarating final boss battle).</li>
<li><b>The contraptions make you look before you leap.</b> There are these <a href="http://youtu.be/NJYr7wdAcHg?t=3m">platforms that flip between red and blue every time you jump</a>, leaving a drop into oblivion wherever the other side of the platform was. It's very easy to jump about wildly when you play Mario games, but these really make you stop and think one step ahead to anticipate where the platforms will move to. They can, however, be somewhat undermined by the Tanooki suit as seen in the linked video.</li>
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<b>Next stop on the 3DS Express:</b> the special worlds, then Mario Kart 7!</div>
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<br /></div>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-64015980193718676192011-11-17T23:17:00.001+00:002011-11-17T23:26:47.149+00:00Nuggets of Wisdom: Power vs CuriosityThe combined power of the nifty iPad app <a href="http://www.instapaper.com/">Instapaper</a> and an hour-long commute has helped me catch up on some bookmarked game design articles I had been intending to read for a while.<br />
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As I consume them I tend to pick out little nuggets of wisdom which I feel compelled to share. This may or may not become a regular feature, who knows?<br />
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I'll let the nuggets speak for themselves (except my <b>bold</b> highlights) and simply provide a link to the full article for those interested in further reading.<br />
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<i>The intrinsic motivators of power and curiosity are at odds with each other. The more you are motivated by curiosity, the stronger the desire to test your new understanding becomes. And against increasingly difficult challenges, the more you fail, the more motivated you become to switch over to an learning playstyle to build your skills up. As this pendulum of motivation swings back and forth, it can be very stressful and dangerous to fun if the user is significantly restricted from freely moving between these motivations. <b>Being forced to learn when one expects to flex or being prevented from learning when one desires to understand can cause players to lose motivation and therefore lose play and fun.</b></i></blockquote>
<b>Source: </b><a href="http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2011/11/10/the-zero-sum-funomaly-pt7.html">Critical-Gaming Network: The Zero-Sum Funomaly pt. 7</a><br />
Part 1 in the Zero-Sum Funomaly series is <a href="http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2011/10/24/the-zero-sum-funomaly-pt1.html">here</a>.<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-63616315908501643692011-11-16T22:57:00.001+00:002011-11-17T23:29:41.986+00:00Nuggets of Wisdom: Game Development in a Bubble<span class="Apple-style-span" style="background-color: #fafafa; font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; line-height: 15px;">An argument for why the industry needs to encourage fresh perspectives on the games we make:</span><br />
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I'm just saying my misunderstanding of the games industry, as a non-gamer, coming in making games -- I was taking the subject matter and the content in the cutscenes seriously. I was honestly looking for the stories that are on the back of the box, or the media, the propaganda, that they put out about the game. </span></i></blockquote>
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<i><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">I was thinking, "Oh, all this content is in there somewhere, and I just have to find it and I'm missing it," whatever. When in actuality, no, they really want to make another fucking first-person shooter. That's amazing to me. Still, to this day, I'm amazed by that. </span></i></blockquote>
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<b><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;">Auriea Harvey (<i>Tale Of Tales</i>)</span></b></blockquote>
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<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif;"><a href="http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/6539/passionate_frustration_tale_of_.php"><b>Full interview</b></a> with Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn can be found on Gamasutra.</span></div>
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<br /></div>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-51418650737067082072011-10-30T09:59:00.000+00:002011-10-30T14:23:31.474+00:00Cold Relief: a game made in 0 hours<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
As I was up late I decided to take part in the <a href="http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/2011/10/25/0h-game-jam-make-a-game-in-zero-hours/">0-hour game jam</a>: a challenge to make a game in the hour gained when the clocks go back.</div>
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It was impromptu and entirely unplanned so the final game is a result of listening to Lustmord at 1:00am, combined with some floaty uncontrollability inspired by a dream I had. The original goal was to have an Antarctic environment based on the trek in <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_the_Mountains_of_Madness">At The Mountains of Madness</a>, but this soon shifted to a more abstract dream world when it dawned on me just how quickly an hour passes.</div>
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I spent another half an hour or so polishing it off and fixing up the code a bit.</div>
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<b><a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5370568/ZeroHourGameJam/WebPlayer.html">Play Cold Relief in Unity Webplayer</a> ~ 22 MB</b></div>
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<a href="http://dl.dropbox.com/u/5370568/portfolio/images/screenshots/ZeroHour.jpg"><img border="0" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-qqARxkC6rAM/Tq0df--ELhI/AAAAAAAAAJI/t3t86jZgVP8/s1600/ZeroHour.jpg" /></a></div>
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The audio was sourced from Freesound.org: <a href="http://www.freesound.org/people/hammerklavier/sounds/49289/">here</a> and <a href="http://www.freesound.org/people/zuben/sounds/36744/">here</a>. The first-person character controller is the Unity prefab with tweaked jump and movement parameters.<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-30431381346953594452011-10-24T22:34:00.000+01:002011-10-24T22:38:57.854+01:00Resurrected Post: Luminesca Evolved<b>I removed this post last year, and decided to re-post it for the sake of completeness. </b>It has a new date stamp now, but you can see from the comments' date stamps that it's quite old! Ahh, those were the days.<br />
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Luminesca is now, of course, a fully-fledged project <a href="http://luminesca.blogspot.com/">in development</a>.<br />
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Original post:<br />
<blockquote>
<i>I've been toying with the idea of an updated <a href="http://figpig.blogspot.com/2008/07/first-year-coursework-luminesca.html">Luminesca</a> game, and came up with this mock-up screenshot. All comments and criticism are more than welcome! </i></blockquote>
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<a href="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/crowbarska/blog/mockup.jpg" target="_blank"><img alt="lum,luminesca" border="0" src="http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v223/crowbarska/blog/mockup_thumb.jpg" /></a></blockquote>Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-62323910491019999342011-10-15T00:39:00.000+01:002011-10-15T01:43:59.507+01:00The Binding of Isaac (demo deconstruction)This small yet cloying <a href="http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/581168">sample of <i>The Binding of Isaac</i></a> is an admittedly incomplete experience of the game, but due to its procedurally-generated nature there is no such thing as a complete picture; only random cross sections cut at unpredictably obscure angles.<br />
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The game is reminiscent of the 8- and 16-bit <i>Zelda</i>s in its mechanics, enemy design and level design, although dungeons are made up of never-the-same-twice rooms and the whole thing is draped in a nightmarish basement aesthetic loosely inspired by an ancient <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Binding_of_Isaac">story</a> about child sacrifice.<br />
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<a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-34FgcahaWdE/Tpi6dv6eOwI/AAAAAAAAAIs/j1TUm1aUZrg/s1600/isaac.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="300" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-34FgcahaWdE/Tpi6dv6eOwI/AAAAAAAAAIs/j1TUm1aUZrg/s400/isaac.jpg" width="400" /></a></div>
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<i>The Binding of Isaac</i> almost overcomes its lack of melee combat by compressing the ranged attacks to just the four cardinal directions, placing additional importance on aligning yourself with your targets either horizontally or vertically, and complicating this process using various static obstacles (such as piles of degrading faecal matter). When enemies close in on you it is possible to move and shoot in different directions, but I did encounter the odd occasion where the available space was too confined, the enemies advanced too quickly and my fire rate was simply too slow. Randomisation has its drawbacks.<br />
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Its fictional premise is unique compared to most games and the intro cinematic was certainly entertaining, if a little overt in its Biblical themes, but I sense that it takes the <i>Shadow of the Colossus</i> / <i>Metroid</i> approach of using cinematic sequences to merely bookend the lengthy action part of the story. That is to say it opens with a 'premise cinematic', lets you spend a very long time <i>doing stuff</i> in response to that premise and closes, when you reach your goal, with a 'job done cinematic'. I may well be wrong (please correct me if I am), but that's how it appears from the demo. It's an effective enough structure (and has been touched upon <a href="http://www.actionbutton.net/?p=591">here</a>) but does leave the bookends feeling like exposition overkill when the rest of the game's narrative is delivered so sparingly.<br />
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For all its flaws (which I tend to dwell on when I deconstruct a game) <i>Isaac </i>is a shining example of a top-end indie game which demonstrates a strong understanding of the challenges presented by overhead camera angles in 2D games.<br />
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It's dirt-cheap on <a href="http://store.steampowered.com/app/113200/">Steam</a> (with soundtrack available too) and the free demo is playable in your browser on <a href="http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/581168">Newgrounds</a>.<br />
<br />Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5674680977904983641.post-46377314878721581412011-06-13T19:09:00.007+01:002011-06-27T17:37:05.123+01:00Rocket Knight - Folded Level DesignI've been intending to play <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rocket_Knight" style="font-weight: bold;">Rocket Knight</a> for a long time and finally got round to it today. It's a solid game which knows what it's about. It clearly understands what makes a good 2D platformer and has some interesting level design in certain sections.<br />
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The <i>Cyberswine Labs</i> level provides a great example of <a href="http://critical-gaming.squarespace.com/blog/2008/8/5/folded-level-design.html">folded level design</a>. A 'fold' in the level occurs when the player has to backtrack through areas they have already visited. While backtracking can easily become tiresome if those areas are now empty and devoid of challenge, a folded level can retain interest by changing the way the player interacts with the environment the second time through and providing challenge variation. A folded level can be broken down into "the way there" and "the way back". The way back often provides the more difficult or complex gameplay.<br />
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</div><iframe allowfullscreen="" frameborder="0" height="400" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/dJOtrZDUEsE" width="520"></iframe><br />
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In the example in the video above Rocket Knight has to ride the moving platforms down through a maze of dangerous energy beams. As the platforms lower the player must <b>Rocket Burst</b> between them to avoid the beams. On the way down gravity is on the player's side so they can simply fall down on to the next platform as they drop below.<br />
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<div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XRAinP6vkHs/TfZeM4G4CPI/AAAAAAAAAIU/Z2MH1Au6Ajk/s1600/rocket-knight.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-XRAinP6vkHs/TfZeM4G4CPI/AAAAAAAAAIU/Z2MH1Au6Ajk/s1600/rocket-knight.jpg" /></a></div><div style="text-align: center;"><i>The Rocket Burst ability forces the player to commit to </i><i>moving in</i><i> a fixed direction and is restricted by their fuel supply (which is limited in the ice level). But it doubles as a fast attack and is the strongest tool the player has to defy the platform game's most persistent obstacle: gravity.</i></div><br />
However, when the level folds (when the player hits the switch at the bottom and reverses the direction in which the platforms move) the player has a new layer of difficulty added to the challenge. Because the platforms are now moving up, the player has to fight against gravity to keep up with them by jumping as well as Rocket Bursting in a test of precision timing at a fixed pace.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">A second overarching fold occurs in full glory during the dramatic escape sequence at the end of the level. Rocket Knight destroys the laboratory core, setting off a massive explosion which constantly swells in size. The player must now backtrack through the entire level with the explosion hot on their tail (literally -- Rocket Knight is an opossum). So <i>the way there</i> features all the standard level design features and challenges the player is used to in the game, while <i>the way back</i> entails a test of speed and precision timing, as well as a slightly modified path to allow short-cuts and less stilted movement through the level. The whole thing now mostly takes place above a bottomless pit, meaning the constant force of gravity is always working against the player.</div><br />
After the second fold, most players will probably race back through the aforementioned 'moving platform energy beam room' so quickly that they won't even realise they've passed through it twice before. Thankfully, the beams and platforms have now deactivated so Rocket Knight can burst freely and bounce off its walls at great speed.<br />
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Through this smart level design, Rocket Knight gets extra mileage out of its restricted space (as nearly all game spaces are restricted) without ever becoming repetitive or tedious.Matthttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17574183434667093252noreply@blogger.com3