Inspired by this post on tigsource I decided to build my own collage of unfinished projects and prototypes. My count is a puny 31 compared to Dr. Petter’s 116… Although this only includes stuff that I have easy access to, and is missing a few really good ones (LD48 entries Crisis Team, Sheep Wars, Nightmare Kid and Guardian X, a failed dating sim game, Dojo, Campus Rumble) Some of these are just art mockups, not real playable games (the cactus game), although it blurs the line with projects that have mockups and playable prototypes (penguin pop, beatball and lifesim.) Some were meant to be games, but never actually acquired any gameplay, others are just shameless tech demos. All of it is glorious programmer art, except Corpus (which is still in development, just abandoned by me) and Poker Fighter (which blatantly rips sprites from Garou Mark of the Wolves.) Some are in active development (FantasyGen), others are on indefinite hiatus (LifeSim, ShadowWorld), or are solid games that need to be made properly (Frooter, Penguin Pop.) Some are even somewhat “finished” (Conformity.)
I’ve been meaning to do a “prototype of the week” feature explaining the goals behind some of them. Some, like Poker Fighter, are pretty interesting ideas. Languages represented include Java (Processing), Python (PyGame), C# (XNA) and C++ (DirectX.)
Okay, so, XNA has quaterions, so you have {x,y,z,w}
Lets say you want to turn that back into {yaw,pitch,roll}
So you hit up Wikipedia and find some equations:
{x,y,z,w} = {q0,q1,q2,q3} right?
Well…NOOO, freaking XNA, that’s not right, hmm, perhaps its alphabetical?
{w,x,y,z} = {q0,q1,q2,q3}???
Once again, XNA slaps you around for nooo reason, here’s the right match-up:
{x,y,z,w} = {q2,q1,q3,q0}
{w,y,x,z} = {q0,q1,q2,q3}
Also, here’s some code to turn a quaterion into a vector of pitch,yaw,roll
Sure, you’ve seen all sorts of crazy things in games, like guns that shoot chainsaws, chainsaws that you can then pick up and attack with.
How about a boss inspired by this video:
It’d be a simple boss, he’d start by turning of gravity, and then attack via hurling cats at you. Cats in 0 Gravity seem like great weapons, they’re like furry spinning ninja stars that meow. Nothing is more terrifying then a meowing ninja star…nothing!
It’s that time of year again. Half assed and a little too late, here are my IGF predictions and comments. Unfortunately it seems like there are less playable games than ever before, so many of my impressions will be based on hype, concept and screenshots :).
Yes
1) Fret Nice - Cool looking . Innovation, audio nominations. I really want to play this to see how the controls work out.
2) Noitu Love 2 - Noitu Love was a pretty well done platformer\beat ‘em up with great pixel art. Chalk was an innovative mouse driven “draw ‘em up” with much better gameplay. Hopefully Noitu Love 2, with mouse driven controls, will be the best of both worlds, “meatier” and more polished than chalk, but with the same level of innovation and quality gameplay. Gameplay, perhaps art.
3) Pixeljunk racers - Q-Games PSN game. It looks pretty nice, and I’m sure it will play nice also. There is a lot of controversy about how “indie” this game is, considering the status of Q-Games and the fact that its a PSN game. The thing is, many of the top IGF games are on or are coming to XBLA and PSN, so I don’t see it being a big idea. The game is self-funded, developed by a small team, and relatively “indie” (whatever that is), probably more so than many of the past winners.
4) Fez - Phil Fish’s interesting looking platformer with cool pixel art. The crush\paper mario 2D to 3D mechanic could make for some great gameplay. art and innovation nominations.
Maybe
1) Gish 2 - The sequel to the 2004 IGF finalist and 2005 IGF winner, the question is what does Gish 2 bring to the table that’s new and does IGF need more Gish?
2) Crayon physics deluxe - Crayon physics was an interesting prototype made by Kloonigames. Its a game about drawing rigid bodies to solve a puzzle. Like Armadillo run, there is a potential for crazy free-form solutions. Hopefully the deluxe version can take a good mechanic and cool art style and make it into a good game.
3) Schizoid - The first “professional” XNA game. Schizoid looks interesting, but I’m still not so clear on how it actually plays. It will be on live arcade soon enough so we’ll see.
4) Undertow - XBLA action game about an underwater war. It looks good, but not nearly as good as Corpus.
Personal favorites
These are games that I have actually played, personally like a lot, but am not quite sure are IGF finalist material.
1) Masq - Masq is a cool open ended adventure game. The choose your own adventure style interface makes it easier to play than Facade, but at its core its basically just an interactive comic book.
2) Dangerous Highschool girls in Trouble - I really enjoyed this game when I played the beta last year. It didn’t make it in the 2007 IGF, I wonder if the level of polish and gameplay has improved enough to catch the judge’s eyes?
Honorable mention
1) Corpus - This is “my”game in a very early prototype stage. Entered because I’m working with an overconfident artist that insisted on entering the game. If you check the IGF site you’ll realize that rctorres.net, not mawsoft.com is linked. The developer is also “Team Corpus” and not Maw!Soft, because RC Torres does not like the name. Wait, it will win for art because the artwork is amazing. It would have won for innovation also if it had a chainsaw gun in it. Nuff’ said.
2) Cortex Command - While I’m personally not a huge fan of this game, it has a big following. Entered in the IGF in the past, I hope Dan makes it this year.
3) Clean Asia - Unfortunately this is a game maker game, so I haven’t had a chance to play it as much as I’d like. I played it briefly on my old machine, but I’m running Vista now. Its a well done stylistic shmup.
4) Samurai Soul Hunters - Dan MacDonald and Chris Hildenbrand’s cool looking XNA game. It didn’t make finalist for Dream build play, but can it make it in IGF?
The winner of the WTF award is Zoo Race. This game looks awesomely retarded. I’d like to see it as a finalist just because its ridiculous.
Is it just me or is there an over abundance of “blob” games this year? Gish 2, World of Goo, Goo, Gumboy Tournament, etc.
So, its been a while since I posted about RE4, mostly because work and working on games has gotten in the way.
But, I had two interesting ideas, one that’s not really unique and one perhaps that is.
First, the non-unique one, my thoughts on the game’s perspective. RE4 is an over-the shoulder 3rd-person game. While this provides for easy navigation, it doesn’t quite give the player a feeling of total immersion. Compared to an FPS, say Half-Life, the game is not as much of a simulator. And, speaking of Half-life, I think its interesting to note just how well that game does simulate the life of Gordan Freeman. There’s Zero cut-scenes in the game which show his body, compared to a game like Metriod Prime, which is a simulation for certain parts, and for the story parts removes the player from Samus to show part of the story. I think that disassociation during the non-interactive parts is jarring, but it feels natural for RE4, since the player is never really playing as the character, they are just controlling him. What is interesting also is games like Max Payne which clearly separate the player from the character and also give them inner-thoughts as voice-overs, thus creating an intimate link to the character despite non-simulation-style-view.
While I think the perspective stuff is worthwhile, it just seems like a million people would have come to the same conclusion, so I’ll move along to what I think might be more unique.
At some point in RE4, the player will come across a shooting gallery…that moment made me realize what the overall gameplay of RE4 is, essentially the game is a moving Shooting Gallery. This is enforced by how the player needs to stop-aim-shoot, unlike other 3rd person games like Max Payne. This analogy seems interesting when viewed in contrast to the survival-horror theme of the game. Why? I think of shooting galleries as a safe place, a non-threatening venue to practice one’s shooting skills. The targets don’t shoot back, they don’t even come after you. But RE4 hearkens back to an era where “shooting galleries” did pose a real threat…that is the Wild West. Many shoot out sequences in the game bring about a wild-west-shootout feeling for this very reason. Cover isn’t very useful, because things are coming at you. Essentially, the player has no choice but to enter into constant show-downs with whatever beasties are coming at them. This game mechanic ties back to the themes of isolation, fear, urgency I wrote about previously. Had the game been set in a Science-Fiction-invasion-of-the-giant-bugs-corny setting, the mechanic would have failed to match, and the game probably would not resonate so well with gamers.
So, I must applaud the authors for such a pairing, the constant show-down mechanic really does achieve a constant sense of fear in the player but still allowing them moments of exploration.
Now, does anyone out there have any thoughts about this?
A new comment on the post #33 “My IGF picks” is waiting for your approval
http://mawsoft.com/blog/?p=33
Author : Anikrichard (IP: 72.9.235.218 , server6.barronhosting.com)
E-mail : anlikivanna.80@mail.ru
URL : http://wwwwww.com
Whois : http://ws.arin.net/cgi-bin/whois.pl?queryinput=72.9.235.218
Comment:
hello , my name is Richard and I know you get a lot of spammy comments ,
I can help you with this problem . I know a lot of spammers and I will ask them not to post on your site. It will reduce the volume of spam by 30-50% .In return Id like to ask you to put a link to my site on the index page of your site. The link will be small and your visitors will hardly notice it , its just done for higher rankings in search engines. Contact me icq 454528835 or write me tedirectory(at)yahoo.com , i will give you my site url and you will give me yours if you are interested. thank you
Approve it: http://mawsoft.com/blog/wp-admin/comment.php?action=mac&c=14252
Delete it: http://mawsoft.com/blog/wp-admin/comment.php?action=cdc&c=14252
Spam it: http://mawsoft.com/blog/wp-admin/comment.php?action=cdc&dt=spam&c=14252
Currently 7 comments are waiting for approval. Please visit the moderation panel:
http://mawsoft.com/blog/wp-admin/moderation.php
This is a crappy entry for Gamma 256. It’s a 1×32 vertical shmup expanded 4x. If you have an XBox 360 controller hooked up it should work if you press A to start the game. Otherwise press Z to start.
On the X axis you are moving in RGB space. You kill enemies with bullets of the same color. If enemies collide with you when you are the same color you will take a hit, you will also take damage when enemies reach the bottom of the screen. Sometimes two enemies will spawn at once, resulting in a two hit enemy of the same color or a complementary color (yellow, cyan or magenta).
Keyboard controls
Arrow keys: move\change color.
Z: Attack XBox 360 Gamepad controls
Left analog stick: move\change color.
A: Attack
So, my break began, and I started looking around for some other articles, and as luck would have it, Simon over at www.gamesetwatch.com had found one for me And, that reminded me of a few other great articles, all by the same person:
What appeals to me is the care given to the techniques used by the game to create its experiance. The discussion takes the game seriously, and tries to relate the ideas to the human condition amongst other interesting connections. I had actaully played “Dead Rising”, and I found the ideas in his review to be really spot on. And something amazing, his review actaully increased my enjoyment of the game! That’s typically not something that happens.
But, the articles got me thinking about what my analysis might be lacking, in particular analysis techniques unique to video games. Sure, people look at the plot of a film much the same way they would for a book, but a film offers much much more. Sound, space, music, acting, makeup, costume, etc. There are many many things in a film which allow for a deeper analysis. One of my favorite film classes focused on spatial relationships in film, looking at how actions were framed, the use of space, engendering spaces / locations etc. After that class, I had a much greater appreciation for film.
And such, I contine to pause looking for new ways to analyze this game. Most likely the control method, the interface, the gameplay, essentially the interactions are what I’m curious about, as they set the game apart from a movie. So, in that regard if anyone has some suggestions that would again be great.
Sure, you’ve heard the hype, you’ve seen the reviews, people claiming its the highest rated game ever since that zelda game that wasn’t all cartoony, the one where link plays the flute.
I know, you can’t get the demo cause Steam has been slammed harder than a $2 whore at an IGF afterparty, so you don’t know if you can really trust those reviews yet.
That’s right, 5/10 overall score. Some pretty serious flaws pointed out, I mean, compressed textures, yesh, why didn’t they just make the game on HD-DVD instead of using loss-less compression techniques on everything, I mean, just cause the image is 100% accurately reconstructed doesn’t mean you can’t tell those bits are missing! Yea, I think I’ll wait for BioShock to hit the PS3, because even a $4,000 cannot compete with the god-machine that Sony has created.
I would like to say for those who have not played Resident Evil Four, and wish to remain ignorant of the plot, you need to stop reading this analysis.
Those who choose to continue should note that I’m posting the analysis in a rough form, my ideas aren’t fully fleshed out and I might change my mind about certain things, especially if the comments encourage me to.
Still reading? Awesome, well onto what I’ll be talking about. Overall I feel the game centers around a few key themes: Isolation, Scarcity, Fear (no surpise, its horror-survival game).
The opening movie to the game quickly sums the previous game and the initial cutscene drops the player off into the woods of a foreign town. The player is forced to venture into the town alone, his partners stay behind. The muddled grays of the dirt and the dark depressing leaf-less forrest offer up a sterile, dead welcome for the player as s/he begins the game. The villagers in the town speak a foreign language, and as shown in the first encounter, are very hostile to the player. The first encounter also kills the two men partners the player began with, isolating him/her even further. While the player does have a radio to communicate with, the transmissions are not player-initiated, you cannot call upon someone to help you. The communication serves to direct the player to points of interest, keeping him/her focused on the rescue mission.
Companionship is not the only scare resource in the game, ammunition, money, save points, and just about any other benifition item is in very short supply. While exploration of the area is rewarded with ammution, money, or other items, the additional powerups only help a small amount. Regardless of how much the player explores, nothing turns up in abundence. The scarcity in the game forces the player to run away from encounters at times. The scarcity punishes the player more for each mistake (a missed shot, getting hit, taking a wrong turn). The game’s plot also follows with the scarcity theme, the player does not know where the girl is, what is happening to the town, and how to stop it. Just like the items, plot details are rationed out slowly and there only an abundance of questions.
Isolated from help and equipped with few resources, most likely players will begin to panic, which leads to another strong theme: Fear. The first hostile encounter transforms the entire enviroment into a frighting place. Houses might contain zombies and even escape paths might have bear trap hidden in them. The music helps highlight times when the player is in danger, if a hostile creature is attacking, music will play. Silence quickly becomes the player’s friend, as it indicates a safe state to rest, though that is not always the case.
By placing the player in a truly scary situation, the game is able to create enjoyment when the player survives. Each encounter brings with it a reward, always progression of the story but perhaps also health, ammo, or money. The three themes are strongly expressed in the beginning chapters of the game, but as the player progresses, other elements are thrown into the mix.
Those additions will be discussed in a future post.
