Closure – Yet another brilliant Flash game
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/480006 (Avaliable 30/01/09)
I just found out about Closure, a brilliant puzzle flash game. It requires you to use light and darkness as tools to progress through each level. I think it's amazing. It's a very simple concept really but it offers an immense amount of play.
I admit, I'm not very good at the game but I still enjoy it. This is one of those game that should compete in "Best concept"-competitions. The game in itself isn't perfect. The presentation is so so, the controls are mediocre but the core but the very essence is exactly the kind of thing that makes for an interesting game.
It's a great thing that so many can create and somewhat distribute games nowadays with platforms like Flash. I really think it nourish game development.
Great job guys!
Closure
Bad Design – Blue Dragon
I started playing Blue Dragon for the 360 by Mistwalker today. I've played it just a bit over four hours and right now I'm not sure I'll ever dedicate enough time to finish it. I've encountered two major problems.
1. Absence of story
After four hours I've still only encountered one "story part" of the game and that was right in the beginning. It set things in motion but didn't deliver more than it absolutely had to. I've yet to find any long term goal for the characters in the game. Just to clarify, I'm a fan of JRPG-games and I don't demand constant narrative but after over three hours just running around in dull and empty environments killing foes, I get bored and question my motives.
2. Constant
Here's the big one. See, almost everywhere in the environment there are rocks and threes and you can interact with pretty much everyone of them, searching for treasures such as items, XP, gold, attritube points like Agility and "Nothing". Yes, the player CAN ignore this but I, as many other I assume, run around and search almost all of them. Almost all of them got something of value inside too, so it's not a waste of time.
This is BORING. There is no joy whatsoever in running around, pressing A and getting another "Medecine". It halts the games flow, forcing me to run around along every edge of the terrain and makes me wait for the "searching animation" to finish.
It's just like destroying every single barrel, searching every chest and turning over every stone in Diablo (Blizzard) but much, much, much slower.
Personally I think this feature should be cut completely and limit finding stuff to treasure chests and such.
I heard from someone, sometime, somewhere that in Fable 2 (Lionhead) you can destroy barrels etc. in search of items but the game explicitly tells the player "Go ahead, but you won't find anything of value there". I can't say for sure that this is true, but if it is; I applaude them! That way I won't bother when I play Fable 2.
The shadows are quite dull to look at to be honest.
These two things might very well be deciding factors on whether to try and finish the game or not. Silly of me? Perhaps. But if a game hasn't got me hooked after four hours, we have a problem.
I envy Ethan Nicholas
I hate Ethan Nicholas!
... Well, actually I just envy him so much it hurt! Another thing that hurt is my lef thumb because I accidently cut a bit of it off yesterday while chopping lettuce. But that's another story, the bleeding just stopped so I'm okay except for the fact that I can't navigate the left analogue stick for a while.
Anyway, this Ethan Nicholas guy.
He makes this game for the iPhone and iPod Touch and guess what? Now he's filthy rich!
I found out about it on Finger Gaming:
What’s particularly interesting, however, is that the article reveals the numbers needed for a title to become the App Store’s biggest seller in the Games category. iShoot reached the top spot after achieving more than 10,000 daily downloads — that’s a daily cut of $21,000, after figuring in Apple’s percentage of the take. So, Nicholas is unbelievably rich now, basically. Good job, man.
http://fingergaming.com/2009/01/ishoot-developer-gets-10000-downloads-daily-quits-day-job/, Jan 20th -09
iShoot. Guess I'll have to buy it so the guy gets even richer...
Foods first appearance in games?
Different varieties of food in games are common as power ups in games, most common as extra health or score.
I started thinking, what was the first food to be in a game, what was its effect and in what game?
I honestly have no idea, but I can't stop thinking about it and would really like to know.
I'm Guessing it's either meat or an apple. Fantasy based roleplaying games might have had meat as an health item at the beginning of time as far as I know. I can't say for sure but my guts tells me that the apple was the first fruit to be used. Maybe Snake was the first game to include food? I doubt it, but heck, I don't know.
If you know of any really old game having food in it, please let me know!
Tino's Fruit Stand
Great 2D Flash Platformer… Damn it!
http://www.bornegames.com/mirrors-edge-beta/ (14/01/09)
Let me just say; it's great! It's terrific! The controls work very well and the game is really slick. It's easy to understand but brings more enjoyment if you "master it".
It's the best platforming mechanic made with Flash I've ever played, period.
The problem? I have a pretty much complete game design document for a game just like it. I called it Park Runner. Although I admit I did not imagine it for Flash.
It's pretty much useless now. Well... At least now I know that the idea is fun for real and not just in theory.
You don't get anything for collection everything.
iBought one
I simply couldn't resist anymore; I've ordered myself an iPhone (3G), 16gb.
The phone in itself isn't really that good spec-wise, but the software got me hooked. With over 10'000 programs available at the AppStore, there's plenty for everyone. The iPhone alone sold more than all Windows Mobile phones together the third quarter of 2008 (http://www.mobil.se/artikel/iphone_storre_an_windows_mobile_mob_081205160206-250.html, jan 14th -09) which truly is proof of it being a solid plattform.
The problem with getting new software for phones is usually that there are so many different models. Something that works on one WM Phone might not work with another. Resolution differs, processing power, interface, etc.
Since the iPhone is doing so well and has created a reliable plattform for developers, new content is created constantly; which I think is great!
iPhone 3G
I can't wait to start trying out the games for the little machine. Don't get me wrong, my expectations are overall quite low but there aren't as many excuses as earlier as of why it's difficult to create a good mobile phone game.
The next Metal Gear game is coming for the iPhone, I'm really looking forward to see what they can deliver.
I would love to get the opportunity to develop games for the iPhone. I know you can get the SDK, but I'm can't develop the games by myself. Why didn't I start programming when I was a kid?!
Any skilled iPhone coder out there looking for a designer?
Spotify Winner
Congrats Daniel Kaplan. He won the previously mentioned Spotify contest.
How I decided on a winner? I asked Cozy Dave to choose a number of 1, 2 or 3. He chose #2. Kaplan was the second person to compete, hence he won.
And I thought I could give a shout out to his blog as well since he's also a game developer working on games for the XNA Community at:
www.danielkaplan.se (Jan 9th, 09)
Actually I was a part of assembling the team creating the company Ludosity Interactive back before I got a job at GRIN, but then I left for my new job before things got serious and they created their games.
I wish all the guys there the best of luck!
Once again, congrats Kaplan.
In what ways can we NOT apprehend games?
I was watching/listening to an interview with Hal Barwood earlier today. Barwood is a movie and game creator. Among the games you'll find Indiana Jones: Fate of Atlantis from LucasArts.
Anyway, he was talking about how we've learned how to understand movies. In the beginning you started the camera, the actors did their thing and when the film ran out, you had your movie. It wasn't until later on people started cutting end editing. At first, the use of zooming in on chest and up seemed like the people on the screen grew! But our minds quickly figured out that that's not the case and made sense of the jump and realized that the camera moved.
Today we use several tricks like that in both movies and games, with cutting, editing, not showing things chronologically, zooming, etc.
What I really started thinking about then was:
What kind of tools of game development can the player not apprehend if we were to use it now, but being able to learn if they were to be exposed to it?
What is the next step of progress? Something to do with switching avatars? Something time related? I'll admit that I have absolutely no idea but I'm very eager to find out!
When changing scenes at the theatre, they shut the drapes without the viewer getting confused. Just like when we cut in movies.
Time for XNA
Earlier today I registered myself as a Premium Member at the XNA Creator's Club. Even though I left the university last fall, I could still get a free account (normally it cost $100/year) as a "student".
Right now I'm installning Microsoft XNA Game Studio 3.0. Recently I just installed Visual Studio.
It's time for me to give XNA-programming a try! I'm a pretty lousy C++ programmer and I've never tried C# at all before, but I'm hoping that with a lot of help from tutorials I'll be able to create a little something something.
I'm really hoping I'll get a hang of this, since the idea behind XNA is amazing. Using the same code on both PC and the Xbox 360.
Well, wish me luck!
XNA
Save-file location
I'm guessing a lot of you won't agree with me on this one, but when I play a game on the PC I would like to set the save-file destination. Most games have a "save"-folder in the installation catalogue or they create one My Documents. I don't like either one of the solutions.
The first time I run a PC-game, I would like to set the destination and if I want to change it afterwards I should be able to do so via the Options.
Why? Because making back-ups for Save-games are a hassle. Making back-ups, why would you do that, you ask? For example, if you're gonna format the computer or if you're getting a new computer all together, then I want to keep my saves, of course.
However, that is not the reason right now. I've been playing Resident Evil 4 on my laptop during last week and I want to be able to play it on my laptop and stationary PC whenever, without having to bother to move my save-file around using an USB-stick and stuff. I want to keep my save-file in my synchronized folder that's shared on my laptop, stationary and work computer, so no matter where I choose to play it, I can.
And let me make one thing clear. I hate it when some stupid 360-games ask what storage-device I want to use for my data every single time I start the game!
Note: I use DropBox to have my data synced. http://www.getdropbox.com/ (available 4/1-09)
Let me decide where!
[Btw, if you've missed it. I'm giving away a Spotify-account in an older post here on this blog.]
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