Roblog

I have a few hours of KIRBY AIR RIDE instead of the usual hour this time.  My little brother was playing with one of his friends and, being that the game allows up to four players, I thought I’d join in to see what they were up to.  KIRBY AIR RIDE is for the GameCube and is made by Nintendo.  There are at least a couple different modes (the main one being a kart-style racing game), but we spent all our time playing the “City Trial.”  City Trial mode is like free-form kart game interspersed with mini-games.  The idea is that Kirby (Nintendo’s adorable pink puff-ball hero) drives/glides around a large city map on various “stars” (vehicles) collecting items.  The stars are all dispersed throughout the city and have (sometimes vastly) different handling characteristics and each use the “boost” button for different effects–some use it to go faster, some can only turn when using the boost button, some drift when boosting, etc.  The items the players are trying to collect affect the stats of their rides.  There are speed up, speed down, handling up, increased HP, and the like.  The concept is to go find a star you’re comfortable piloting then collect as many power up items as possible in the amount of time allowed in the city map.  These stat changes will be used in the mini-game to follow to (hopefully) give you an edge over your opponents.  All the while, your buddies are trying to level up their stars and can even knock power-ups off yours.  The mini games vary from races, to battles, to who can glide the farthest and, when set to random, you never know what the competition at the end of the City Trial you’ll be in and whether you collected the right power-ups for it.

All-in-all, it is surprisingly entertaining (even considering how primitive the graphics look), though it can get rather cutthroat with the item collection (especially with eight- and nine-year olds).  The different stars are fun, and actually do provide enough variety that each player tends to have their favorite and that favorite is often different from someone else’s.  A lot of the rounds I had with my brother and his friends turned into their own games of hide-and-go-seek, destroy all the stars, or any number of emergent game-modes we came up with on our own.  We never did manage to defeat the King DeDeDe battle, though . . . so I’m not so sure about the balance of that one ; )

Perusing my little brothers game collection I ran across Sega’s SONIC MEGA COLLECTION for the GameCube and decided to get my old school game on and play one of the Sonic games I never got around to when I was younger.  I was a Sonic follower when I was little and I had a small collection of the games on the Genesis.  I’d never gotten a chance to play the fourth installment, though, so I was actually kind of excited to finally try out SONIC & KNUCKLES.  (The collection includes SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, its two sequals, SONIC & KNUCKLES, SONIC 3D BLAST, SONIC! SPINBALL, and DR. ROBOTNIK’S MEAN BEAN MACHINE.)

The first SONIC THE HEDGEHOG, in case you haven’t played one of the original Sonic games before (I know, I’m getting old), was built for the SEGA Genesis and was a 2D platformer to compete with the Mario games from Nintendo.  The big sell-point was the amazing speed at which Sonic could traverse his tile-based levels and  the fun roller coaster design that resulted from all that speed.  SONIC & KNUCKLES was the fourth installment of the series and was the final 2D version.  The game plays exactly like its predecessors, though the designers added a couple new abilities for both Sonic, and his new rival, Knuckles.  These abilities allow the designers to create sections of a level that are character-specific, only Knuckles could reach some places with his smashing power.  Basic mechanics included moving and jumping (the basics of a platforming game precedented by SUPER MARIO BROS.) to progress from platform to platform, avoid dangers, and attack enemies.  The Sonic games also added the ability to roll into a spikey spinning ball in order to attack some enemies from the ground.  Springs and loop-de-loops are characteristic of most Sonic levels and spinning gold rings were the collection item of choice.

It was interesting to go back to this game and see how strongly the arcade mentality influenced the design of the game.  The arcade industry was still fairly strong and console designers were constantly chasing arcade-quality.  Generally big successes were games that were big arcade hits and were then ported to the consoles, though with lower quality graphics due to the limitations of the console hardware. Despite (as far as I’m aware) never being an arcade title, SONIC & KNUCKLES still held on to a three lives, no continues philosophy, leading to a very challenging game.  The player has to earn new lives and learn the levels in order to progress to the later stages.  If he fails to get to the end before his life stock has run out, the game is simply over and the player must restart from the beginning.  Game design since has changed to favor helping a player play through and enjoy the game, with automatic saves, infinite “lives” (see my REPUBLIC HEROES post), and a focus on playing levels again after completing them in order to find other bonuses or increase score.  This is in contrast to having to play a level over before completing it due to failure to reach the end and having to learn how best to accomplish the task.

As a side note, I still find it amazing to play a Sonic game on a Nintendo platform.

I pulled this one of my brother’s half of the PS3 shelf since he and his friends had been playing a lot of it recently.  STAR WARS – THE CLONE WARS: REPUBLIC HEROES is from Krome Studios and follows some of the adventures of the main heroes from The Clone Wars series.  It seems to cross back and forth between a beat-’em-up with some minor platforming and a ROBOTRON-style, two-joystick shooter.  The player controls a Jedi for the former and a clone trooper for the latter.  Both styles play from a third-person perspective, though the camera is not controlled by the player.  Generally this system works well in both play styles. In some instances, however, the fixed camera can make lining up jumps for the platforming elements tricky because of ambiguous jump directions.  In the clone trooper segments the camera often runs through awkward moments as it tries to move from one cinematic angle to another, leaving the player to deal with suddenly wanky controls while being pummeled by blaster fire.

Level design is straightforward (at least through the hour I played), with platforming segments separated from battling segments and no real alternate routes.  The designers chose to use trails of glowing spheres (physical manifestations of the force, implies Yoda) to help the player figure out where to go when playing a jedi level (trooper levels don’t have any platforming, so the path is more or less obvious in most cases).  The platform elements are greatly simplified, where simply jumping toward a platform will auto-land the character on the platform regardless of the width of the landing space much like Ubisoft’s PRINCE OF PERSIA.  The controls, however, are nowhere near as smooth or responsive.  There are often delays in direction changes or actions, leading, for instance,  to frustrating situations where Anakin will simply jump straight up and fall to his demise.  Luckily, “dying” simply resets you to the nearest checkpoint and checkpoints appear for nearly every screen, making it more about playing through the levels than worrying about making it through a level, a decision I standby given the audience and the style of the game.

The actual battling aspects are fun in the same way most beat-’em-ups are.  In order to fight the eventual boredom of swinging a lightsaber through waves and waves of droids, the designers added some simple force abilities and the ability to “droid-jak,” which is to hop on a droid and be able to control it.  This gives the player some variation in their droid butt-kicking and bonus points are awarded for continuing to destroy enemies in creative ways (much like STAR WARS – THE FORCE UNLEASHED does).  The clones get their variation through the ability to drive vehicles and the use of special guns (both of which I had not gotten a chance to try in my hour of play).

Overall, REPUBLIC HEROES comes off as simple fun.  The mechanics are proven and the designer added some interesting variations through the “droid-jak” abilities.  The basic controls and the camera could have used a bit more love, but are adequate in most cases.  Looking at the game’s case, I see it’s rated T (teen), but it feels to me, with it’s simplified play-mechanics, LEGO game-style co-op play, and silly bonuses (funny hats, heads, and droid dances), that it really wanted to be E (everyone) or E10+ (everyone 10 and up).  I suppose the blaster fire and lightsabers forced the T rating, though I find it no more violent (and maybe even less, since the characters only destroy robots) than THE LEGEND OF ZELDA: WIND WAKER, which carries an E10+ rating . . . just my observations.

Hello all you beautiful people.  It’s been a while since my last post here.  A lot and not that much at all has happened since the last post.  I’ve tried out quite a few games and been reading through 10-year old Game Developer magazines.  I’ve also gotten up to speed on general iPad/iPhone development using Objective-C and the iPhone SDK.

I’ve been getting into the habit in the last few weeks of sitting down with a game I’ve never played and trying it out for an hour.  I have a few reasons for doing this: a) as a designer, I want to look at what other games are doing/have done, b) I want to analyze how well other games pull a gamer in within the first moments of a game and how much of the game the player can get a feel for in those moments and c) I like to play games.  My plan was/is to write up my impressions of the games I’ve been running through.  So pretty soon you should be able to look forward to some notes on Muramasa: The Demon Blade, Assassin’s Creed, NickToons Unite!, Open Season, Sonic Heroes, Sonic & Knuckles, Jimmy Neutron: Attack of the Twonkies, Kirby Air Ride, and World of Warcraft. As you may have noticed, I’ve been raiding my little brother’s library for titles I hadn’t played.

Reading through the old Game Developer magazines has been interesting.  Not only has there been a lot of great information I’ve left sitting on my shelves for all these years, but it’s pretty fun reliving the history of game development through articles written when I was in college.  I’ve been reading them chronologically and just got to 2002 last night, a time when the Front Line Awards were praising the nVidia GeForce 3 graphics card, Maya 4, and the “new” Titanium Powerbook G4.  It was also funny to notice an ad for the 2002 Game Developers Conference while wearing the freebie shirt I got from attending the 2002 Game Developers Conference.

lastly, I just want to mention that the Pragmatic Programmers’ iPhone SDK Development by Bill Dudney and Chris Adamson is a great book for getting up to speed on the basics of iPhone/iPad development using Apple’s iOS SDK.  I found it well written and the progression of topics well thought-out.  I also liked that the authors chose to be tutorial-level detailed with new topics, but as the reader progresses through the book, the authors leave the implementation of previously learned material to the reader.  It does the dual job of forcing the reader to actually learn what there doing and practice it, while also making the book itself more readable and hold more information (since they don’t have to reprint the same instructions over and over again, lots of space is saved).  so yeah, good book.  Great resource.  It’s been super helpful in getting me my first iPad gig.

Laters!

~R

Currently playing: World of Warcraft Trial Edition

I figured since it’s a new decade and everyone else wants to make their “top 10” lists for movies, books, and whatnot, I’d throw in my ten cents.  So here are my top ten video and computer games released in the previous decade.

#10 — Gran Turismo 3: A-Spec (released in 2001 for the Playstation 2)

I’m a huge fan of the Gran Turismo series and have been playing them since the first one came out for the PlayStation.  The third installment was the peak of the series for me.  I know it didn’t have as many cars as Gran Turismo 2 and maybe not as advanced in display and options as Gran Turismo 4, but the balance of the races and the progression through the game was by far the best of the series to date.

#9 — Plants vs. Zombies (released in 2009; I played on Mac OS)

PopCap Games is the Pixar of casual games.  All of their games are great.  Plants vs. Zombies is their best.  My eight year-old brother’s friends still come over just to play this game.  It didn’t matter that we had two Playstation 2s, a GameCube, a Wii, a DS or two, or even a Playstation 3 — everyone fought over who would get to play Plants vs. Zombies next.

#8 — Rock Band 2 (released in 2008; I played on Playstation 3)

I was late to the party, playing my first plastic guitar game a little after Guitar Hero II came out, but I was instantly hooked on the games.  I’d been a fan of other rhythm games in the past (yes, it’s true, I played Dance Dance Revolution and Donkey Konga, and the lesser known game by Harmonix, Amplitude, had been a favorite of mine), but I thought Guitar Hero was a stupid idea . . . until I played it.  Now I host plastic guitar parties with my extensive collection of Guitar Hero and Rock Band games.  Go ahead and bundle all the titles from the two franchises in with Rock Band 2.  The Beatles Rock Band is probably the best designed, but I still have more fun rocking out to the Rock Band 2 catalogue, which is why Rock Band 2 gets to be named.

#7 — Kingdom Hearts II (released in 2005 for the Playstation 2)

I love this franchise and I think the second one was the better of the two major installments.  The mix of the Disney locales and characters with Square Enix’s gameplay polish and control of the genre made for a very satisfying play.  More console role-playing games should play like these games.

#6 — Ico (released in 2001 for the Playstation 2)

Beautiful, beautiful game.  I still marvel at the look that developers managed to create on the now dated Playstation 2 hardware.  The puzzles were very well done and challenging, and the story, though simply presented, was compelling and provided enough glue to perfectly keep the game together.  Did I mention that it’s a beautiful game?

#5 — The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker (released in 2002 for the GameCube)

Wind Waker held classic Zelda-style gameplay in a new, wide-open setting.  Traversing Wind Waker’s water world and its islands was far more fun than I would have expected and really did give me a sense of exploration.  The cell-shaded art style was amazing in the game.  Screenshots never did it justice.  A great game and nearly, NEARLY beats out my all-time favorite of the series, The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past, which is saying a lot.

#4 — God of War (released in 2005 for the Playstation 2)

Brutal. Awesome. Epic. I was not prepared for the amazingness that poured forth from my TV when I put this disc in.  God of War did things I’d never seen before in a game and did other things I had seen, but did them far better.  It’s a brawler, and a platformer, and a puzzle game and it’s great at all three.  Put that with an epic story and even more epic visuals and you’ve got one of the top ten games of the decade.  Oh, and God of War II is just as good, though a bit more cruel.

#3 — Prince of Persia (released in 2008; I played on Playstation 3)

My only real complaint with this game is its ending, and maybe because of that it shouldn’t be in the top three.  I had so much fun with it and the superbly polished gameplay Ubisoft created in it, though, that I’m keeping the latest installment in the Prince of Persia franchise high on my list.  It is a beautifully put-together game, with stunning vistas galore, and ingenious design elements.  The interactions between the “prince” and the princess were fun, informative, well-written and well-delivered.  The feel of the controls make other platformers feel clunky, imprecise, and unresponsive in comparison. Great game.

#2 — Battlefield 1942 (released in 2002 for Windows PCs)

Much time was spent (and arguably wasted) playing Battlefield 1942 and later Battlefield Vietnam at the 11:11 offices when these games came out.  We couldn’t wait to set off renders, take a break, skip lunch, or stay late for rousing battles online and locally.  We played so much during that time that when I went outside and heard a prop plane flying over from the nearby airport, I’d start to take cover . . .

And now a drum roll for my number one game of the last decade . . .

#1 — Fallout 3 (released in 2008; I played on Playstation 3)

This game is awesome.  I’d never really gotten into the previous Fallout games (my college roommate would probably yell at me for that).  I was always intrigued by the open-ended character options, but the chunky graphics and cludginess of the isometric three-quarter view kept me from really enjoying the series.  Then Bethesda got their hands on it and created a first-person role-playing game that actually allowed me to create practically any type of character I wanted and (in the true role-playing sense) allowed me to be successful being evil or good, a talker or a fighter, intelligent or a goober.  I keep replaying this game just to see how situations I’ve already played in the game turn out if, say, I’m a kleptic, gullible guy with fists of steel; or I follow in my father’s footsteps as a scientist who is just trying to survive; or a sweet-talking, gun-nut, gambler with a good heart. All that and I still haven’t even touched the expansions.

So there you are.  The top ten games I played this past decade.  There are some honorable mentions: Quake 3, Starcraft, and Soul Calibur were all games that I had a great deal of fun playing with my buddies in college in the earlier half of the decade (but they all came out before 2000) and I think Civilization IV and the Lego Star Wars, Indiana Jones, and Batman games were all great fun and deserve some mention.

~r

Currently playing: Lego Indiana Jones 2: The Adventure Continues

Capsule Defense

I present to you: Capsule Defense

To Play:

• Move the turret by moving the mouse left and right.
• Fire by pressing the mouse button.
• Go here to try it out.
• Come back and add a comment on this page telling me what you think.

About the Process:

This week’s prototype comes from the mind of my little brother . . . though it doesn’t nearly do the original concept justice.

My Brother’s Concept: Let’s make a tower defense game like Plant vs. Zombies where you get to build your own weapons from parts you earn each level.

What Actually Happened: I only managed to get done with a single gun and a mindless capsule target.  So today, before writing this post, I added a little swivel and a Mindless Capsule Target instantiator and made a sort of Missile Command clone.  Yay!

You might have detected a discrepancy between concept and result.  That would be from not putting enough time into it to do the concept justice. C’est la vie.  Perhaps another week we’ll get a more fleshed out version.

~R

Currently playing: The Beatles Rock Band

Ben 10 Protector of Earth

I decided last night, when I was too zoned out to keep doing any “real” work, that I wanted to do something more than just play a game or watch one of the several things on my list of things to watch (which includes some great stuff like Police Squad! and Cowboy Bebop).  So instead I thought I’d start going through my 8 year-old brother’s game collection and make notes on what I found.  I started with what he was playing before he went to bed last night: Ben 10 Protector of Earth for PlayStation 2.  Ben 10 is based on the Cartoon Network animated series of the same name and involves a young Ben Tennison who fights baddies with an alien “watch” that allows him to transform into different alien forms.  Sounds like a good premise for a game.

The game has a cell-shaded graphical style and seems to use the same voice actors from the show, giving it a pretty authentic feel for the IP.  I’d seen my little brother play it before, so I knew I was about to play a brawler.  What I didn’t realize is that the developers had almost completely reused the mechanics from one of the best brawlers on the Playstation 2 (and on almost any system to date), God of War.  Ben 10 Protector of Earth is God of War for kids!  If you haven’t played God of War, know that it is a 3D platforming brawler with some character progression and puzzle elements.  It features an ancient Greek setting and epic boss battles against creatures of immense size.  Ben 10 pulls many of the same game design elements: from the larger than life boss battles with their timing-based mini-games to the unlocking of new combos to increase your alien forms’ powers and versatility. I was surprised at how many game mechanics were pulled directly from God of War.

That was a brilliant move on the part of the developers (Cartoon Network Interactive, 3D Publishers, and High Voltage Games).  The game system is proven and would just need to be rebalanced for a slightly less skilled player.  This costs less in design time and allows the developers to focus more on integrating the IP and giving it justice.  I wonder how many other Teen and Mature-rated games could be reworked into E and E-10+ games, giving them a wider available audience . . .

Aside from the brilliance of reusing game elements from successful older rated games I think the game is pretty good.  The character progression, unlockable alien forms, and decent story kept me involved.  The brawling itself is a little repetitive and more obvious than its God of War inspiration.  Falling off the level in the first couple stages is absurdly easy to do and causes instant failure, but failure has little consequence in the game as there aren’t a limited number of lives or continues.  If I didn’t have a gazillion other things to play right now, I could see myself going through the whole game.  Not bad for a kid’s cartoon IP.

Game on,

~R

PS – The trailers for the live-action movie based on the teenager version of Ben 10 looks pretty cool.

Currently playing: Ben 10 Protector of Earth