MAGFest Kicks Off Tonight With New Years Eve Party
Don't have plans yet for tonight or the rest of the holiday weekend? If you're anywhere near Alexandria, VA (several miles away from Washington, D.C.), head over to MAGFest, the four-day Music And Gaming festival. Along with its rooms dedicated to console, tabletop, LAN, and arcade games, the event promises tournaments, auctions, an indie game showcase, and several panels.
MAGFest will bring in game industry legends like Sid Meier, game culture personalities like the Angry Video Game Nerd, and twelve different bands like Metroid Metal. Several chip music performers and VJs will also provide music and entertainment: Animalstyle, Zen Albatross, Enso, No Carrier, and more.
Though the festival formally begins tomorrow, MAGFest is holding a Secret Agent-themed New Year's Eve party starting at 8PM tonight, promising performances by Jake "Virt" Kaufman, Double Ice Backfire, and others. If you haven't pre-registered, you might need a full-weekend badge to get in, but if your James Bond outfit looks super suave, maybe you can charm your way into the guest list.
Event Report: Blip Fest 2009 - Everything You Need To Know
[We've covered New York's awesome chiptune-based Blip Fest for a few years now - here's our 2006 write-up and a 2007 mega-report (though we skipped a 2008 in-depth report.) But GSW's committed NYC correspondent Matthew Hawkins has returned with a frankly mammoth write-up on this year's fest, held earlier this month.]
Every winter for the past couple of years, New Yorkers with an ear for 8-bit music have known what to expect: the Blip Festival. Formed in 2006 by two local dudes, who also happen to be celebrated superstars in the world of the chiptunes, Bit Shifter and Nullsleep, along with a little help from their various colleagues and good friends at the net label they run, 8bitpeoples, and the local performance art space that has become the de facto HQ for NYC chipunters, The Tank, Blip Fest has been since 2006 the grand stage in which all 8-bit musicians have aspired to stand upon. Name a heavy hitter from the world of NES/Game Boy/etc music, and he or she has been a featured performer. Hence the burning question once fall began to approach... what else is left?
I first began to ask this question after hearing about Blip Fest Europe, which took place in Denmark over the summer. Myself, and others, made the almost natural assumption that the show was hitting the road; after bringing pretty much every single notable act from the world of beeps and boops to NYC, it only made sense to share the love with some other lucky city. What else needed to be done back home?
Perhaps my ignorance is already downright offense to some, but it gets even better: eventually word did arrive that Blip was happening once again in NYC this winter, yet I then found myself not nearly as jazzed as in the past, and for a variety of reasons. Mostly due to the seen it/heard that feeling that I had developed. Make no mistakes, I'm good pals with some of the best of the best, and as much as I love Bit Shifter, Nullsleep, and Glomag, I've seen then perform like a billion times by now (hence why I haven't been to hardly any chiptunes shows since the previous Blip) and was aching for something new, something different.
And that's what's precisely what I got. Once names for this year's festival were finally dropped, all my friends scratched their heads as to who the heck were these people. Whereas I because instantly excited; I too barely recognized anyone, which meant new discoveries and new potential favorites. It was also more than abundantly clear that during this time in which I had stopped paying attention, the whole world had passed me by.
I was also pleasantly surprised by the increase in excitement surrounding the festival; you not only had the festival itself but countless other chiptune related events surrounding it. The night before was a Pre-Blip open mic at The Tank, which is in the heart of Times Square, yet I decided to check out the chiptune workshop and indie arcade opening at Babycastles, which is another art space in the basement of Silent Barn, a music space in the heart of Ridgewood, which is either Brooklyn or Queens depending on whom you ask.
On one side you had the aforementioned indie arcade; highlights included Jottobots, which I had been dying to get my hands on ever since its debut at the Giant Robot/Attract Mode show earlier this year, which I believe was its only other appearance (please correct me if I'm wrong) and everyone's favorite, Canabalt, along with its creator, Adam Atomic, who was hanging around that night.
And on the other side of the room you had a table filled with circuit benders, all creating their own chiptune producing devices. My favorite would have to be the guy using a Jiffy box as a circuit board!
Helping them along the way were Kunal and Syed, who not only runs Babycastles, but are also members of Loud Objects, that group which soldered circuits as a performance piece at Blip Fest 2007. Didn't totally get what they were going for at the time, but looking back, it was pretty neat. You also had Little Scale, one of the featured performers of Blip Fest 2009 on-hand, with his custom modded Mega Drive...
The original plan was for him to take everyone's workshopped creation and throw together some kind of massive mix, but it was running late and he had to jet. So instead, the evening ended with Adam sharing some thoughts and insight behind his game. My favorite tidbit was the learning how Canabalt's animation is essentially an homage to Out Of This World/Another World and Flashback. How many frames is that run cycle btw? 32, which elicited a “Smooth!” reaction from one guy in the room. Adam claimed that it was actually quite easy to take the original 16 or so and simply expand upon it, mostly since there’s only like two colors to play with.
Night one began with... hate to be negative, but... a certain degree of trepidation. Another reason why I wasn't initially jumping for joy for this year's installment of Blip was due to memories from the previous year's. Specifically the crowd; my complaints regarding the rambunctiousness has long been a point of contention with certain performers and show goers, but I totally understand their point of view, at least the former's. If I were an artist, I'd be super stoked if I was causing the crowd to go nuts, enough to incite a gigantic mosh pit and crowd surfing galore. Though it's a different story when you're in the thick of things and just trying to enjoy the music, without errand kicks to the back of the head.
But less time spent discussing the nuances of your average mosher at a chiptunes show as opposed to one you'll find at a regular old hardcore show the better. Yet that being all said, quite a few others also recalled how oddly aggressive the audience was last time. The thing is, each edition of the Blip Fest brings together a somewhat different crowd, and this year, the attendees somewhat mirrored the vibe of the proceedings. Which long story short, was serious business; more so than any previous 8-bit music show that I've personally attended, it was for the true devotees and connoisseurs, the faithful. Not to say that they weren't there for a good time of course!
To state that Blip 09 almost didn't happen would be both over-dramatic and misleading, but the fate of the festival was at one point on somewhat shaky ground. Times have been tough for everyone this year (like you all needed to be reminded this for the billionth time), so the event's organizers faced an uphill battle from the very start, though when a very important grant from the state that they have heavily relied upon in the past was denied, new plans were drafted.
Key to this was The People's Fund To Support Blip Festival 2009. $5,000 was the goal, and close to $9,000 was reached. Quite the achievement, which perhaps contributed to the feeling of accomplishment and ownership that marked the entire event. Many of the show goers were simply ecstatic to be there, and felt as if it was truly theirs, since in many ways it was.
Blip 08 was held at The Bell House, situated in the middle of the Gowanus section of Brooklyn, which feels like the middle of nowhere, despite being situated smack in the middle of two very popular and happening neighborhoods (Carroll Garden and Park Slope), and that's where Blip 09 was held as well. But it definitely felt different this time around; hard to say why precisely, but whereas the setting was definitely foreign, as well as somewhat awkward, this time the place felt nice and warm, almost like home.
Again, spirits were high, with a sense of camaraderie, as many got together, not just to enjoy the music, but also enjoy each other's company. Or to simply hobnob with superstars from the world of indie gave dev, including the aforementioned Adam Atomic, along with Phil Fish, creator of Fez, the one game that's on pretty much everyone's most wanted in 2010 lists. Dude pretty much spent the entire at the bar instead of the show floor proper, but his outfit was a sponsor, so he certainly was entitled to do whatever the hell he wanted.
It was also the place to make stuff; the first thing I saw upon entering the building were two guys sitting on couches at the lounge, punching up code on their laptops (which I foolishly didn't think of taking a picture, but at least ByteJacker snapped some videos. I would discover later that it was a fellow from Gaijin Games, and another from Robotube, in the midst of creating their title, which they actually finished that night.
I was under the impression that it was going to be playable at the show, and Chris Osborn of Gaijin would later explain that it was indeed the plan, until they realized that putting their laptops... which they use to do all their work back in HQ... in the hands of inebriated show goers was perhaps not the brightest of ideas. At least everyone can play the game right here, right now.
Okay, enough talk about everything else: what about the music? Night one was as hoped: unexpected, though rocky.
Silent Requiem was a great choice to kick things off, whose beats were loud and fast, intensely rhythmic. Though I personally found his transitions to be somewhat awkward, but certainly not deal breakers.
Failotron was all over the place, but his pieces had a great sense of cohesion, tranquil and melodic, and as a result told a fine story. Sucks that he had so many technical issues; a corrupt Game Boy cart (excuse my untrained ears and its inability to discern if he was using LSDJ or Nanoloop) required the utilization of back-up files, played via a laptop. It's generally preferred that each artist perform their compositions via the hardware they were written in, but stuff like that just happens unfortunately.
Leeni, the girl from my old stomping grounds of Seattle and who immediately followed, also had similar issues, but at least most of her performance is based upon her vocal talents and was easily able to deal.
As much as I was looking forward to discovering something new, I was always happy to see and hear a familiar face, such as Minusbaby, who I've been a big fan of since almost forever. His mix of ambient and dancehall simply needs to be experienced, especially live (though the same exact thing could and should be said for every chiptune artist).
Chromix was the first performer of the night to remind everyone that the instruments they're using is primarily associated with video games, via his cover of the Chemical Plant Zone from Sonic 2 (which actually sounds better as a Game Boy tune as opposed to the Genesis original, believe it or not). Though my absolute favorite from night one would have to be Je Deviens DJ en 3 Jours, whose French infused pop and sweat got the whole crowd hot and bothered....
But it was one particular move that was the biggest hit, an ode to Nullsleep, whose fond of doing the following on-stage: thrust your right hand out, snatch some energy that's floating out there in the air, and then slowly draw your fist in. After seeing Jeremiah perform for close to six years now, it had never occurred to me that he's been doing the same move every single time! Another highlight was Je Deviens DJ en 3 Jours's dancing buddy on-stage. Wish I had taken some video, cuz that guy cut the rug like nobody else.
Afterwards was Albino Ghost Monkey, a small town kid that finally made it in the big city (guy's originally from Wisconsin I think) and was clearly enjoying every single minute of it, with his infectious enthusiasm simply enhanced his set. As for the closer, it was another French guy, this time wearing a rabbit mask; Eat Rabbit's offerings was precisely what one might imagine: wacky and even at times creepy circus music, but in 8-bit format...
Night one had been immensely enjoyable, as well as very much successful; turn out was awesome, especially for a Thursday night. Friday's was even greater, to the point that it was sold out. I was somewhat afraid of a change in mood, to something similar to the year before, but that thankfully was not the case.
Yet another really great about this year's edition was the change from four nights to three. When I asked the festival's publicist, Jenn de la Vega, what prompted the shift, and the response was: "Everyone has finals to deal with." A humorous reference to the pure number of attendees, as well as performers, who are all currently attending NYU, Parsons, and the numerous other colleges across the city. Though The Tank's quite personable and hard working intern (who unfortunately was forced to man the merch table the entire time) had the full explanation:
"As it was, we had all experienced the absolute HELL of the 4th day. After four days of going to bed at 4-5am and waking up at 10am to get back in time for a workshop, we all thought that the 4th day was just TOO much. Everyone hated life on the 4th day. Also, everyone got the blip-flu this year and the 4th day would have been sparsely attended, or the flu would have gotten that much worse."
Funny enough, despite the fact that there were less days to the proceedings, everything just felt bigger, more fleshed out. When asked about any specific challenged going into this year, the intern again noted that the fund-raising effort was a tremendous asset, but overall, extra help and extra planning was what ultimately led to success:
"Kickstarter was important to the preservation of how big blipfestival was this year. [It] was a smart play that turned out well and proved that our community puts it's money where it's mouth is. While the days of the festival shrunk from four to three, the lack of initial money was not a factor in this decision. The organizing team expanded to account for a number of different things; this year we had 8+ people working on the festival for a couple of months to get everything just right.
We had a crack publicity/sponsorship team this time and we added the much needed help of wordsmith Peter Swimm [the festival's media manager] to liven up all the our avenues of output, and Chris Burke [aka Glomag] who slayed dragons to keep our artist relations alive and well. So personally I would say that our aim was not to present simply MORE concert, it was to thicken the quality of the concert that we had."
And it did feel like a well oiled machine, even to the casual observer, as well as a bigger deal, with all the big name sponsors and local indie radio station WFMU being on-hand to share the good vibes to the rest of the world. They helped to make those who were on-hand feel especially fortunate. Social media also played a significant role; of course there was an official Twitter feed, and attendees were asked to add #blip09 while at the show when broadcasting, which many were more than happy to oblige.
But back to the music. Night two kicked off with Disasterpeace, Starscream, and Fighter X; all three units comprised of young dudes fusing 8-bit sounds across the aural spectrum, everything from prog rock, to trance, to metal.
More than anything, the current crop of chiptuners continue to demonstrate the versatility of 8-bits. When asked about the scene as a whole these days, Jenn noted:
"It's bustling! More and more fans are trying it for themselves. It's become less about "videogame" culture, but more about music production. Some of the younger generation weren't even around for when the originally NES came out. It's fascinating to see them pick up a Game Boy with LSDJ and treat it solely as an instrument."
So 8-bits sounds great, but what about 16? Just as good, as demonstrated by Little-Scale, who got the warmest reaction of all the new faces the entire weekend. The wall of sound that he created with the help of his custom Mega Drive is hard to put into words, though tribal and haunting are somewhat fitting, I hope.
The one to provide the smoothest of sounds was easily I, Cactus; his soundscape was serene, like a walk on a pixilated beach. Not at all rockabilly as I expected (since that's how the dude dresses). Though immediately afterwards was when things started getting real. That's when Nullsleep hit the stage,and again defied all expectations. As noted in the past, I have plenty of friends who simply cannot get into chiptunes, or flat-out hate the stuff, no matter who or what I pass along. But every single one of them has said the same exact thing: "But I do like that guy Nullsleep's stuff. He's pretty interesting."
Believe the hype: the man is an innovator. Every single performance is completely different, and no other performer thinks and performs at such a level, let alone exhibit such familiarity and confidence with such tools to make them sound the way he can make them. Though afterwards, Jeremiah did admit to being nervous beforehand, over the reaction he might receive for his latest work, which pushes boundaries that no one else has previously touched, not even him. Though the crowd definitely hung in there. Again, these weren't dorks that are into video games and like the idea of music made with consoles (not that there's anything wrong with that, btw), but serious music aficionados, who know what is up.
With such an impossibly tough act to follow, Rainbowdragoneyes had quite the task ahead of him. Plus the dude decided to forgo the use of actual instruments and simply rely on his laptop to do most of the work, which was a curious decision to say the least. And then the dude started headbanging, and kept headbanging, and all was good. Unfortunately, all attempts at photograph his long blonde locks were not successful, as they kept spinning around and around.
Though my new favorite performer of Friday night was hands down Patric C, who officially closed down night #2; his sounds were diverse and challenging, yet still very much approachable and danceable. And a fine way to end the evening... but that wasn't all folks! Later that evening, early Saturday morning to be honest, was a special late night treat for those that had donated at $100 level or more, headlined by Covox and Random, playing together as CONDOM. But the real icing on the cake was the last minute addition of Japanese chiptune megastar Hally...
Earlier in the evening, Hally confessed to me that he was afraid of disappointing the audience later on with a set that was more or less identical to the one he utilized two years prior. I'm not clear of all the details, but one gets the impression that even he didn't know he was playing at Blip till just a few days prior. I tried explaining to him that he would find absolutely no complaints from anyone. And that most certainly was the case; to say that he tore the roof down with his amazing remix of the Gradius boss rush tune is a vast understatement.
Unfortunately I had to tend to a friend of mine who had too many to drink that evening (far and away the most popular drink at the fest was "dark velvet", which is Guinness mixed with champagne or cider, and which everyone was pouring down their throats by the bucket-loads, myself included admittedly), so I couldn't stick around for CONCOM all that long, but I was able to take this picture...
That image has to make zero sense for most, I know. Basically, both Covox and Random donned skin-tight body stockings, all black, and all their accoutrements were pitch dark as well, plus there was zero lighting in the room. All that illuminated was their goggles and the hypnotic visuals behind them, which they also controlled. I'm hoping that it appears in a future documentary from Two Player Productions, but I can't recall seeing their cameramen anywhere during the set, since the light from their cameras would ruin the effect. Guess you had to be there.
Night number three brought with it snow, lots and LOTS of snow. A blizzard hit NYC earlier in the afternoon and by the time I made it to The Bell House, it was already a wintery wonderland, though little did anyone know that it was just the beginning.
I would later discover that there was fear earlier in the day if the white powder would scare show goers. After all, I recall a heavy snowfall the previous year, which in fact kept a few friends at bay. But now so this time, which still managed to sell out. All things considered, the night went as smooth as silk; people were still in high sprits throughout the evening, with the absolute only issue I can think of being the lack of food (the two previous nights had burgers cooked on a charbroiled grill for attendees, but the sudden change in weather meant no cooking was possible).
When I asked those behind the scenes what their personal highlights was, the answer was practically unison: the shy guy from Toronto, aka The J. Arthur Keenes Band. His reputation from 8bitcollective and his Pamplemousse EP (which is one of the most acclaimed chiptune release in recent memory) had clearly preceded him, hence why many were not expecting a 17 year old kid. One who, btw, had the awesomest shirt ever: an image of Ray Romano giving the thumbs ups. Or at least I think that was the case; I've since seen other pics of him wearing Ray Romano, but in a different pose. I hope to God he has 30 different kinds.
Then you had a guy from Sweden who calls himself Trash Can Man. Simply put, the man owned the stage, and it's hard to recall another instance in which ambience was simultaneously so poppy. His vaguely David Bowie-esque persona was nothing more than an added bonus. And as expected, perpetual crowd favorite Bubblyfish gave another high energy, block of noise for everyone to dance to...
One complaint I had heard throughout was the lack of Japanese acts. Personally, and as most can already tell, I absolutely loved the line-up of this year, perhaps the strongest ever, but I do have a soft spot for J-chip. Thankfully, in addition to Hally, you also had The Hunters...
Not only did they bring the noise from Japan, they also brought the cute! Their sound could be best described as YMCK-like, yet slightly harder, and more thump-y. Though the highlight of their performance was easily the visuals, based upon the artwork of band member Coova, helping to form a mixed-media one-two punch.
Soon it was time for the home stretch, led by Glomag, whose performance was one of the most rousing of the entire weekend; from his Ennio Morricone cover, to his original tunes, everything about Chris was (and usually is) high energy and impact, like the backdrop to a chase scene. Immediately afterwards was Bit Shifter, and another first; hearing the crowd sing along to one of this song, not word for word, because their particular song had no words, but beep for beep.
The guy gave another epic performance, as he is prone to do, despite the fact that he was not feeling all that well. I believe it was stomach related? The third man to keep the party going was no other than the Ricky Davis of chiptune as I like to call him, David Sugar.
I've been a Sugar fan for years, and was there for his last NYC performance in October of 2005. Since then, he went into semi-retirement when it came to 8-bit music, to instead concentrate on other music genres, such as classical. But when he decided to pick up the Game Boy for old time's sake earlier this year, and more importantly Twittered about it, Jeremiah, Josh, and Chris all knew that they had to bring him over. The chance to bask in his glory once again at long last was not just my highlight but of many others, as evidenced by Josh and Chris, who could not help but allow themselves to get lost in the dance party that Sugar was commanding.
Sugar's mix of pop ditties and hardcore breakcore is completely unique and must be witnessed first-hand. Excuse the so-so audio quality, but this quick and dirty video shows a bit of his proficiency when it comes to mixing Game Boy beats. Look at this hands go...
The last act to grace the stage was another heavy hitter from the world of 8-bit sounds, Swedish megastar Psilodump. His intoxicating "you bet you had no energy left to dance, but I'm going to prove you wrong" beats and grooves was the perfect choice to close the show. But after all was said and done... the party was not quite over! Just a few blocks away, at the basement of a bar was the official after-party. Unfortunately, the gigantic drifts of snow that had formed during the show made the walk towards the venue far longer and trickier than anyone could have anticipated. But once there, the faithful were treated to a performance by Larry, which is a two-man unit comprised of one guy from Anamanaguchi and another from Graffiti Monsters...
The guys from Babycastles were also present and were nice enough to bring their arcade with them, via wearable video game gear. Here's Syed wearing a chest mounted version of Fractal Fighter being played by Hally...
... I made my exit around 3 am, just as things were kicking into high gear. Guess I'm no longer some kid who can party till 10 the next morning. I desperately needed some rest (the bug that was going around had most definitely bitten me), plus I knew my train ride back to Manhattan would be extra long and annoying due to the snow. And the need for rest along with the fear of a crippled mass transit system was also why I never made it out of the apartment the next day, for the half dozen or so Post Blip Fest happenings, including a show headlined by both Anamanaguchi and Hally, let alone the Post-Post Blip showcase on Monday night. [Those who want to know more about the Blip Fest 2009 artists should note that there are excellent bios and links at the official site.]
But the mission had been accomplished. Whereas my faith and interest in the chiptune scene had somewhat waned, well, not any more. As the previous Blips had done so before this latest edition, though perhaps even more so, the world (and not just lucky New Yorkers this time around) was once again treated to yet another brilliant display of the artistry, the passion, and simply the good times that the 8-bit movement embodies. Again, it was easy to forget the uphill battle that everyone involved behind the scenes had to deal with this year, harsh realities that forced so many others on the sidelines.
When asking those behind the festival what they hope for in the future, I get the sense that I'm not the only one who feels as if the world of chiptunes is somewhat at a cross roads. Peter Swimmm noted: "I am glad to see it solidifying as a genre, but I hope traditionalism does not over take its youthful enthusiasm.". For the final word on the subject, here once again is The Tank's intern:
"I want to see Blip [become] more of [an actual] festival... I would love to see an art show attached, possibly a collaboration night were everyone gets together an switches carts/files and possibly an album comes out of it... But these are all just my dreams because I am only the intern.... In the end I just want it to happen next year, it seems like a miracle when it comes off."
[Matt Hawkins is a New York-based freelance journalist and GameSetWatch's NYC correspondent. He also designs games, makes comics, and does assorted “other things.” To find out more, check out Fort90.com.]
X-Men Children of the Atom Saturn Store Sample Released
While most companies used to send condensed or time-limited versions of their titles when giving shops sample games for their customers to try before buying, Capcom took a different approach with its Sega Saturn store samples in Japan; the publisher usually gave shops a build based on early code that sometimes had noticeable differences from the final release.
Segagaga Domain released one of those Japanese prototypes for a limited time: X-Men: Children of the Atom for Sega Saturn. This version has some neat departures from what ended up on store shelves, many of them holdovers from the arcade edition. For example, the sample features different copyright/logo screens, graphic glitches, no speed selection, and a red screen effect for special moves.
The site plans to take the download links down tomorrow, so if you're interested in having rare prototype copies of games, grab this one now while it's still available!
Indie developer Gaijin Games shared this preview image for the next entry to its Bit.Trip WiiWare series, Bit.Trip Runner. Unlike the studio's previous music-based games like Beat, Core, Void, this one appears to have a more traditional concept, featuring series star Commander Video in what looks like a 2D platformer (which makes sense with the Runner title).
Considering Gaijin's eccentric catalog and the giant blocky fish on the monitor, maybe it's not so traditional after all! Hopefully, we'll hear more details about the game's features and release date soon -- I'm also anxious to find out what chiptune artist the developer will feature this time around, as previous Bit.Trip titles included music from performers like Nullsleep and Bit Shifter.
As for the Xbox 360 controller shown at the bottom right corner, Gaijin reassures fans that it isn't jumping to Microsoft's console for Bit.Trip Runner. No, the developer says the controller was simply left on the desk after another play session. Still, it would be interesting to see the series brought to Xbox Live Indie Games...
[GameSetLinks is GameSetWatch's semi-regular link round-up post, culling from hundreds of weblogs and outlets to compile the most interesting longform writing, links, and criticism on the art and culture of video games.]
Continuing in the long road to catchup on GameSetLinks, we'll start out with Schlaghund taking a good look at Treasure World for DS, a game that is definitely worth taking a look at for its innovative gameplay concepts, despite its relatively shallow nature.
Also in this set of links - a look at seminal pre-MMO Habitat, plus some excellent IGF tips from David Edery, some fun videos from the latest Japanese version of Yakuza, and a look at Planet M.U.L.E., as well as plenty of other randomness.
Apocalypse POW!: Videogame Cinema
'These are films that make use of readily-identifiable gaming tropes and attempt to comment, with varying degrees of success, on the omnipresence of videogames in contemporary society.'
Hardcore Gaming 101 - Blog: Yakuza Kenzan interviews in English
'With the recent confirmation that Yakuza 3 is coming to the west, plus continuing release of information regarding Yakuza 4, I thought now a good time to post links to Eastern Mind's translation of the Yakuza Kenzan production videos.'
Planet M.U.L.E. - First thoughts - The Gameshelf
'Last night I played a couple of games of the brand-new Planet M.U.L.E. - one with some friends over the internet, and one by myself. It is a faithful (sometimes a little too faithful) adaptation of Dani Bunten's original economic simulation from the 1980s.'
Seven months after we originally featured the game, Shinobi has finally released Invaders! Possibly from Space!, the Space Invaders clone modeled after the epic shoot'em up battle in Futurama's "Anthology of Interest II" episode.
The free PC game is a near-perfect re-creation of the "Raiders of the Lost Arcade" scene, featuring identical enemy Nintendian ships, Rush's "Tom Sawyer" soundtrack, and even sound bites from the episode. Shinobi also added new elements not shown in the cartoon, like power-ups, bombs, and bosses (the first boss appears on level 31).
Grab it before someone (e.g. Fox, Futurama, Rush, and probably a dozen other groups) sends a cease and desist order to knock this game off the internet!
Something Awful's bored but Photoshop-talented forumites worked their magic on dozens of movie posters to match the film (or at least its promotional images) with a video game title/logo. Some are obvious pairings like King Kong and Monkey Island or Twilight and Vampire: The Masquerade, but there are a few clever combinations like Last Action Hero and You're In The Movies.
As usual, I've included my favorites after the break -- the Black Knight one cracks me up way more than it should, and it's probably funnier than the actual film You can look through them all in this big Something Awful thread (Warning: Though you won't find anything too vulgar in the link, you might find some of the posters offensive).
Opinion: 2009 - The Last Days of the Japanese RPG?
[Where have the vital Japanese role-playing games gone? Game Developer's production editor Jeff Fleming looks back at the past year of Japanese RPG releases in North America in a piece that's already been controversial on Gamasutra - claiming troubling signs of a genre in decline.]
The post-PlayStation 2 era has not been kind to the Japanese role-playing game. At the start of the decade it was easy to imagine Japanese RPGs taking over the world. Titles like Final Fantasy X and XII, Shin Megami Tensei: Nocturne, Xenosaga, Shenmue, Shadow Hearts, Skies of Arcadia, Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, and Phantasy Star Online were just some of the highlights of time when another new JRPG was added to the stack faster than we could play them.
But as console hardware transitioned, JRPGs began to drift into the background. Some might say that no one except the hard-core aficionado is very interested in them any more. Sure, there are a few exceptions. Final Fantasy XIII will sell like crazy. Western-developed RPGs like Dragon Age and Fallout 3 are doing very well. However, the unique style of Japanese developed RPGs is in distinct abeyance.
But what makes a Japanese RPG different and worth preserving? Beside the obvious points that they are made by Japanese people and generally have something to do with magic and dragons, they can be tricky to define in concrete terms.
Linear narrative, turn-based combat, anime-style art direction are all good points of reference. Perhaps more than any other mechanical aspect, the defining characteristic of Japanese role-playing games is their unapologetic sentimentality. Feelings of nostalgia, wistfulness, and longing are the emotional currency of Japanese RPGs. Emotions that I struggle to conjure, as I look across the JRPG landscape in these last days of 2009.
Senescent Paedomorphosis
Nintendo's DS handheld has been the platform of choice for the bulk of this year's new JRPG releases, and it is this fact that I find most troubling. What was once a grand adventure of color and sound has shrunk down to a three-inch screen. This is what we have to sustain us.
Atlus published some of the best JRPGs of the year and their SMT: Devil Survivor for the DS was a terrific entry in the long running Shin Megami Tensei series. The publisher also brought over experimental titles to the DS such as The Dark Spire and Knights in the Nightmare that were less successful, but welcomed for their unique art direction that dared to step away from anime stereotypes.
Square-Enix brought a few original titles to the DS including one of tri-Ace's better efforts -- Valkyrie Profile: Covenant of the Plume. The game deviated from the side-scrolling action/RPG play that the Valkyrie Profile series is known for, and instead presented itself as a tactical RPG. Although Covenant of the Plume stayed closed to genre conventions, its somber storyline was given extra weight thanks to a smart translation from Alexander O. Smith. For those who like spiky haired teens and Disney characters, Kingdom Hearts 358/2 Days was money in the bank for Tetsuya Nomura.
While not strictly a RPG (although it does contain a fully realized out Dragon Quest clone called Guadia Quest), indieszero's Retro Game Challenge was one of the year's best games. However, like so many games, the high critical praise it received in the press totally failed to translate into strong sales.
NIS America brought the kid-oriented titles A Witch's Tale and Atelier Annie: Alchemists of Sera Island to the DS. Sega revisited Ragol with Phantasy Star 0 and Nintendo gave us another finely polished Zelda game in The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks. Media. Vision, the creators of Wild Arms tried something different with The Wizard of Oz: Beyond the Yellow Brick Road but it was a hard sell, straddling the line uncomfortably between children's game and role-playing. Based just on its name, Nostalgia from Red Entertainment and Matrix had a lot of expectations to live up to. Unfortunately, it didn't quite hit the emotional mark that its title inspired.
Despite having been extremely popular, I suspect that the market for the DS is quietly eroding. The hardware will soon be in its fourth revision and there is no stated plan for what comes next from Nintendo. A quick look around on local public transportation will show that most Americans are far more likely to be fondling a cell device or an iPhone/iPod during their idle moments than a Nintendo DS.
Once the generous slate of announced DS games for 2010 clears the deck, it will probably be apparent that many of the developers who had previously been focused on the aging handheld will have already left the party. But where will they have gone?
PSPooped
Despite having the highest technical specs for a handheld, Sony's PSP continues to be under-utilized as a platform for RPGs. Marvelous Entertainment's Half-Minute Hero was one of the more interesting games of the year with its sly deconstruction of JRPG tropes -- but other PSP titles seemed less compelling. NIS America gave us two PlayStation 2 ports in Mana Khemia: Student Alliance and Disgaea 2: Dark Hero Days.
Square-Enix dropped Dissidia Final Fantasy in our laps, which was about as welcome as Ehrgeiz was back in the day. Capcom had some success with Monster Hunter Freedom Unite, but the series has yet to really capture the North American imagination the way it has the Japanese. Sega kept trying with Phantasy Star Portable, a game that attempts to emulate Monster Hunter, which is itself inspired by Phantasy Star Online. Atlus published Class of Heroes but most buyers played hooky.
Wiither Thou?
It could be argued that Nintendo has done more than any other company to bring the Japanese RPG to worldwide attention. Nintendo hardware has been home to such touchstone games as Final Fantasy, Final Fantasy VI, Chrono Trigger, Dragon Quest, Earthbound, and of course, Zelda. But that was a long time ago. Nintendo consoles have not been a significant platform for new JRPGs since the SNES days and the Wii is no exception.
This year Square-Enix brought two entries in its action-oriented Crystal Chronicles series to the Wii, Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: Echoes of Time and Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers. I'm not sure where the audience for this series is coming from but I'm increasingly reminded of Square's ill-conceived Final Fantasy Mystic Quest for the SNES. I doubt that any but the most obsessive Final Fantasy completionist will spend much time with them.
Little King's Story was an under ppreciated title from ex-Love-de-Lic staffer Yoshirou Kimura, who had previously produced the obscuro game Chulip. NIS America brought Phantom Brave: We Meet Again to the Wii, a remake of the original 2004 PlayStation 2 title. Those Wii owners with ken for radish farming interspersed with some light dungeon exploring can look to Rune Factory Frontier, part of the long running Harvest Moon franchise.
The Old Man of the Mountain
The PlayStation 2 continues to soldier on. NIS America brought Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy and a buggy version of Ar tonelico 2: Melody of Metafalica to the console but the real reason to keep the machine hooked up was to enjoy Atlus' Devil Summoner 2: Raidou Kuzunoha vs. King Abaddon.
Released in an absurdly oversized collectible package, the game was overlooked by all but the most die-hard Mega Ten fans. Too bad, because it was as slickly playable as the more popular Persona 3 and 4 games but with the addition of Kazuma Kaneko's deviant art direction.
In Case You Missed It The First Time
Another sign of the declining Japanese RPG market is the proliferation of rereleases and remakes of the genre's classic titles. While it certainly helps maintain the audience's flagging enthusiasm and is invaluable for preserving the history of JRPGs, it can't be a healthy development for some of the best games of the year to be revisited classics.
This year the PlayStation Network got Final Fantasy VII, the 1997 PlayStation game that brought JRPGs to a mass audience. It's fashionable now to dismiss Final Fantasy VII as a jumbled mess of a game that hides an incoherent narrative behind visual smoke and mirrors. The game's memory is not well served either by Square-Enix's determined efforts to extract every last bit of emotional (and physical) currency from players with the "Compilation of Final Fantasy VII" project.
However, spend some time with Final Fantasy VII, and you'll find a game that is still as engrossing as you remember it. The next game in the series, Final Fantasy VIII, was a late December release to the PlayStation Network store. Perhaps I can finally figure out the "correct" way to play this game so that it is fun.
Square-Enix also brought Final Fantasy Tactics to the PlayStation Network. Designed by Yasumi Matsuno (Vagrant Story, Final Fantasy XII), Tactics is the art house alternative to Final Fantasy VII's blockbuster aspirations. Be warned however that this is a straight port of the original PlayStation release, with all of its garbled translation intact.
The PlayStation game Star Ocean: The Second Story was remade for the PSP by Square-Enix as Star Ocean: Second Evolution. Presumably so that players of Star Ocean 4 can discover just how little progress the series has made over the decade plus of its existence. The PlayStation Network also got Wild Arms 2, which was a solid, workman-like entry in a series that has never quite earned the love that its contemporaries enjoy.
Atlus is to be commended for bringing the first Persona game to the PSP in a remastered form that corrected many of the heavy-handed English localization cuts from the game's 1996 PlayStation release. However, the original Persona was the product of an earlier time and many of its awkward game mechanics will come as a shock to players who were introduced to the series by the smoothly playable Persona 3 and 4 entries.
Despite the lack of JRPGs on the Nintendo Wii, the console's Virtual Console service remains a compelling reason for RPG fans to embrace the hardware. This year saw a number of classic titles added to the list including Yasumi Matsuno's Ogre Battle: The March of the Black Queen, Phantasy Star, The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, and the original Final Fantasy. The Virtual Console was also home to Final Fantasy IV: The After Years (a cell phone port no less!), which presents a newly created sequel to the almost two-decade old game with a retro-style graphics.
The Nintendo DS was home to some nicely executed remakes. Atlus started the year off with a deluxe release of Legacy of Ys Books I & II. Nintendo revisited the very first Fire Emblem with Intelligent System's Fire Emblem: Shadow Dragon. Square-Enix gave us perhaps their best title of the year in Dragon Quest V: Hand of the Heavenly Bride which marked the game's first appearance in North America, despite having been originally released almost two decades ago.
Letters To Santa Will Be Shredded
Conspicuously absent from under this year's Christmas tree is Final Fantasy XIII. For the past decade Final Fantasy games have traditionally been released in North America during the fall season but this year Square-Enix has decided to join the general publisher flight from Christmas by pushing Final Fantasy XIII to March of the new year, where it can the join a slew of other high-profile Q2 releases.
It will certainly be a big event when the game arrives in the spring, but I doubt that it will signal a flood of new RPGs from the company. Here we are, over four years into the current hardware cycle, and Square-Enix has been slow to commit its signature widescreen adventures to the new consoles. Instead, the company has largely traded on its past with RPG remakes for handhelds, and now seems more focused on action and strategy titles for the bulk of its future catalog.
The company's only big console release of 2009 was tri-Ace's Star Ocean 4: The Last Hope for Xbox 360 and that offering was a distinctly stale and soulless affair. I single Star Ocean out for extra vituperation for its ridiculous "Children are the future!" message, its shameless pandering to the recursive obsessions of anime fandom, and its reliance on tired game design modes that are long outdated.
The first Star Ocean was released thirteen years ago and one would imagine that the developers of the series (as well as the fans) would have undergone some life changes during the intervening years; moving through adulthood, taking on new responsibilities, experiencing love and loss. Absolutely none of these concerns are reflected in their work.
It's Over Johnny!
There are a variety of reasons why the JRPG has been diminishing in recent years and Japanese RPG developers will find themselves increasingly sidelined unless they begin to acknowledge the pressing need for change.
Everyone has a story. In the past, one of the key selling points of an RPG was that it had a fairly involved narrative; something that was usually lacking in most other action oriented video games. However, video games as a whole have become much better at telling a story. For example, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves tells a story that is at least as literate as the average RPG, better paced, and in a fraction of the time.
RPGs are labor intensive and expensive to create. The hardware transition to the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 hit Japanese developers hard. The demand for high fidelity visuals made asset creation an order of magnitude more difficult. In the West, sophisticated middleware solutions have sprung up to help mitigate some of this complexity but many Japanese studios have been slow to adapt to the new development landscape. Because of their large scale, RPGs have been particularly squeezed by the technological demands of the new consoles, resulting in only a handful of truly next-generation titles.
The anime and manga bubble has burst. The late 90s saw a tremendous surge in Western interest in Japanese pop culture. Book and comic stores rushed to create floor space devoted to vast piles of manga. Video retailers that had previously only carried the odd Akira or Ghost in the Shell tape suddenly embraced anime with shelves of outrageously expensive box sets and bizarrely titled movies, all delivered on the new DVD format. Kids were buying up anything sporting multicolored hair and big eyes and JRPGs benefited greatly from this hunger for all things Japanese. The current reality, however, is that the teens that were driving all this economic activity are now adults with different priorities and like all fads, anime and manga has somewhat run its course in the West.
Grown-ups don't like kids stuff. Despite the industry's fixation on serving a youth demographic, the audience for games is aging and it will age out completely unless developers create work that is relevant to adults. Western RPG developers seem to understand this but Japanese studios continue to target 13 year olds. From Software's Demon's Souls for the PlayStation 3 was one of the most successful Japanese RPGs of the year in North America, both critically and commercially, because it refused to conform to genre expectations. Here was a game that was serious. It demanded focus and attention and in return it gave players a meaningful experience that was refreshingly free from the adolescent cliches that are so prevalent in JRPGs.
The Sun Rises in the West
None of this is to suggest that the RPG genre is going away for good. On the contrary, North American and European developers are making some of the most compelling RPG experiences in recent years. Western developers seem far more willing to take creative chances and push game play in new directions. They also have the money and manpower to tackle big, ambitious projects.
While the future of RPGs is secure in the hands of the West, I fear that as the Japanese become less relevant to the genre something essential will have been lost. As more "badass biotic bitches" take center stage, the RPG will slip away from the world of dreams and longing. The fantasy will be gone.
We already know Richard "Lord British" Garriott as a game designer, astronaut, and even movie star, but apparently he's also a collector of creepy items -- really strange stuff like infant skulls, vampire bat skeletons, and a display case filled with rows of eyeballs.
UK's Bizarre Magazine and magician Simon Drake visited the multi-millionaire's house to see his collection earlier this year, publishing an interview in the magazine's 150th issue. The video above shows several of Garriott's odd pieces, including a very painful looking chastity belt with a special trap to ward off suitors.
Bizarre also uploaded photos from its visit, which you can see in this set (NSFW due to a topless vampire mannequin). I've also included some of the weird items from his collection below:
In other album release news, Konamistyle revealed an upcoming original soundtrack for PSP's Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. Along with the game's score, the CD will include the "Heavens Divide" song featured in Peace Walker's trailers, performed by Donna Burke (excerpt embedded after the break).
The CD will ship in Japan with Peace Walker's release there on March 17th (likely appearing on online import shops shortly afterward). There's no word yet on whether Konami will bring the album to North America, though the publisher did end up including a reduced version of the Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots soundtrack with that game's U.S. limited edition bundle. Fingers crossed!
Donkey Kong's second highest scoring player Steve Wiebe is running a limited promotion for his newly released debut album, The King of Song, an 11-track Christian music collection of songs like "Pilot In My Soul" and "A Song For The World".
If you buy the $9.95 (shipping included) CD online before January 1, 2010, he'll include a free signed DVD copy of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters, the documentary following his attempt to take Donkey Kong's high score record from current holder Billy Mitchell, with your order "while supplies last".
You can preview all of the tracks from The King of Song through his online shop. If you don't really need the DVD but want to buy his music in a digital format, you can also purchase them through iTunes.
Best Of Indie Games: Let's Do the Cha Cha at El Dorado
[Every week, IndieGames.com: The Weblog co-editor Tim W. will be summing up some of the top free-to-download and commercial indie games from the last seven days on his sister 'state of indie' weblog.]
This week on 'Best Of Indie Games', we take a look at some of the top independent PC Flash/downloadable titles released over this last week.
The goodies in this edition include a physics-based remake of the classic Oregon Trail, a short adventure game from the prolific Ben Chandler, a pair of submissions for the Experimental Gameplay Project's art game theme, a one-switch arcade game for the Christmas holidays, and a tactical defence game from the developers of Closure and Fig. 8.
Here's the highlights from the last seven days:
Game Pick: 'Let's Go Find El Dorado' (Justin Smith, freeware)
"Let's Go Find El Dorado is a physics-based remake of Oregon Trail, made by Justin Smith (Enviro-Bear 2000) as an entry for the 16th Ludum Dare competition. Your objective here is to guide the family wagon to the city of El Dorado safely, and to achieve this goal you will have to navigate treacherous mountain range, cross polluted rivers, and brave the dangers of visiting native tribe camps that might assist or impede your journey to the promised land."
Game Pick: '!' (Ben Chandler, freeware)
"! is a game about !, Robot, and his assignment to finding the missing town monument. Count Can't has stolen it for his own nefarious schemes, and the mayor wants you to get it back before his afternoon golf session is over. Like Ben's other releases, this adventure game is short in length and can be completed in under twenty minutes."
Game Pick: 'We The Giants' (Peter Groeneweg, browser)
"We The Giants is a 2D platformer which took Peter Groeneweg five days to put together, though most players will probably spend less than ten minutes to reach the end of the game. It is recommended that you stick around for the credits, as anyone who completes the short adventure will receive a small (if unsubstantial) reward for their efforts."
Game Pick: 'Earth' (Alexis Andre, freeware)
"Earth is a Space Invaders-type shooter with a message, made for the Experimental Gameplay Project's art game theme. Besides playing the game in the conventional way, the developer has included optional methods to complete your mission as well. This experimental project isn't going to appeal to everyone, but it does fits the bill perfectly as an installation in a Space Invaders-themed art exhibition."
Game Pick: 'Dracula Cha Cha' (Lobo, freeware)
"Dracula Cha Cha is a one-switch game created by Lobo for the year-end festive season, in which you play a cheery vampire who goes on a quest to collect presents and gifts. You have sixty seconds to grab everything and reach the finish flag, and if that's not enough you can also earn extra seconds by picking up mystery gift boxes or scoring combos."
Game Pick: 'Tetraform' (Tyler Glaiel and Greg Wohlwend, browser)
"You'll need to keep your wits about you if you're going to achieve a decent score in Tetraform, a tactical defence game from the brilliant minds of Tyler Glaiel and Greg Wohlwend. It's your job to protect 'that geometric thing in the middle' by selecting enemy ships and crashing them into each other, while building up your planet with powerups."
Using data recovered from Atari's original reel-to-reel tapes sent to chip design firms decades ago (pictured), Atari Museum's Curt Vendel has been working to reconstruct several of the company's proprietary chips such as the GTIA (used in Atari's 8-bit computers and 5200), the MARIA (Atari 780), and the TIA (from the Atari 2600).
"The effort has been successful for the most part and several of Atari's proprietary chips are coming back to life in simulation," says Vendel. "Now we need to see if they can be recreated in a [chip frabricator] at a reasonable cost. What is the potential of this? Doing the chips in smaller SMT packaging, and potentially bringing back to life some of the later CMOS designs of combo chips which could lead to a SoC - System on a Chip."
I don't understand all the technical details of Vendel's achievements, but he explains, "The future just got a little brighter in terms of preserving and continuing the legacy of Atari's custom IC chips." You can follow the discussion about reconstructing the chips at the Atari 8-bit Computers Forum, where you'll also see several high-resolution images of the chips (resized versions included after the break).
Tatsuya Koyama's Genetos starts off as a basic fixed shooter, giving you a cannon to push around the bottom of the screen and fire at advancing rows of Space Invaders-esque aliens. By the final stage of the game, though, you're dodging thousands of bullets while darting across the stage to shoot streams of enemy-seeking lasers at ridiculously designed bosses.
Genetos, which saw its 1.00 version released last week, is designed to take you through the evolution of shoot'em ups, updating your ship to handle the challenges introduced with each level/generation. In the third stage, for example, your ship receives the ability to drop bombs (along with its increased firepower) to deal with the dozens of enemies filling the screen.
Q&A: West Meets East: Makoto Shibata On Quantum Theory
[Director Makoto Shibata (Fatal Frame) talks to our Christian Nutt about the inspiration for his West-targeted PS3/Xbox 360 shooter Quantum Theory, and details Tecmo's internal development process and plans.]
Tecmo has been one of the most consistently successful Japanese developers in appealing to a Western audience -- with its Dead or Alive and Ninja Gaiden franchises, as well as the lesser but notable success of its cult survival horror franchise Fatal Frame. This is so true that Koei Tecmo president says he sees Tecmo as the part of the merged company which will teach Koei how to appeal to Westerners.
Makoto Shibata, director of the company's upcoming Quantum Theory, worked on the Fatal Frame games but now has a bigger mission: to create a third person shooter that can appeal to a broad Western audience, not a select one.
A fan of Western games and a man with an eye for detail, he's serving up a PlayStation 3/Xbox 360 title which seems to owe a great deal in inspiration to Western titles -- particularly Epic's Gears of War.
The game does have a Japanese sensibility, too -- your AI partner isn't another lumbering soldier, but a lithe female warrior who dashes in for Devil May Cry-style combo attacks. Shibata calls out Japanese games -- Resident Evil 4 and his company's own Ninja Gaiden -- as influences.
Two years into its development, the game is due early next year. We tracked down Shibata and discussed the development processes and technical decisions Tecmo made with the title, and its influences and aims:
It's still pretty rare for a Japanese developer to make a shooter, so I was wondering, are you a big fan of the genre? How did you come to make the decision to make a game like this?
Makoto Shibata: Yeah, I am a big action fan -- a big third person shooter fan. But looking at it from the company as well, we have action games; we have fighting games like Dead or Alive. So as sort of the next challenge for us as a company to take on, we thought a third-person shooter would be the way to go.
And this is your own engine for this game, right? You developed it all internally?
MS: Yes.
Last year, I spoke to Kikuchi-san about sharing some of the Team Ninja tech across Tecmo; has that progressed at all within the company?
MS: We definitely looked at the Ninja Gaiden engine, but this is for an action TPS, so it's a little bit different; we can't just reuse things as-is. So we have essentially come up with this on our own. We of course looked at the Ninja Gaiden engine for technical knowhow -- to borrow some of that knowhow and ask them how they do things, but it's not like we're using their tech.
You announced the game last year, but it wasn't playable.
MS: Yeah, there wasn't anything at the Tokyo Game Show last year that, game-wise, we could really show. We were still working on the engine at that point. We started from the engine, so just doing that work, even before it became a game, laying the ground-level work of making the engine took up quite a bit of time. Other third-person shooters and first-person shooters use a lot of middleware, and we're not doing that; so we had to sort of take our time to make it as we went along.
Did you consider using any middleware solutions and then decide not to, or did you feel that you wanted to develop your own technology from the start?
MS: We wanted to do it from the start; we wanted to make our own. We looked at some middleware, but in the end we decided to make it all on our own. It's worth it to make our own engine. That's what we felt.
How did you tie that into your game design process? Are you document-oriented, or prototype-oriented?
MS: There are of course areas where we planned it out on paper first, but since we were coming up with the engine -- literally everything from scratch -- it's sort of been adding to that as we go along, seeing what our needs are, and putting them into the engine. Even within Tecmo, this sort of development style is kind of different.
Since this is the first current-generation game for your team, it's probably a different process than you would follow for the next game. The next time, you'll actually have your technology set from the beginning, I'm guessing.
MS: Yeah, once the engine gets completed, we should be able to take ourselves back to more thinking about things before and planning it out before putting it into the game.
In Japanese game development I often see the concept of "planning" as a job, including production work, managing schedules and managing schedules alongside gameplay design. In America it's more split out, so some people are producers and some people are gameplay designers. How does planning work within your studio?
MS: Really, to sum it up, it's the guy who's thinking about how to make the game fun. Once you have sort of that idea -- what's going to be fun -- you look at that and say, "Okay, well what parts do we need?"
You talk to the audio, you talk to the graphics, you get the models; put them together. The planner can look at that and say whether that's what he was aiming for or not, and you can fix for that. When you're talking about basing things on a paper plan, the planner can sit down there, and that's what you're looking for; the core of the game -- what's going to make it fun. You set that there at that time.
How much documentation is typically written for a game like this? There's a lot of debate in America about how much is right, these days.
MS: There's documentation that the planner will come up with in the beginning for the concept, and that sort of becomes the core. Then, as the game progresses, in order to make sure that everybody is still on the same page, we do have some documentation that gets updated regularly for, you know, feature sets and the way things should play out. Internally, we have like a wiki page for the project, and that's the design document that has the topics for the various teams to look at, and gets updated as the game progresses.
Since this is aimed for the Western market, did you guys actually do any focus testing in the West, or any sort of user experience, or anything like that?
MS: Not official focus tests, but we were listening to sort of the opinions of our U.S. office and the people over there -- we get feedback from them.
When you're making a game like this -- more of a shooter -- is there a way to make the genre more appealing to a Japanese audience? Why do you think the Japanese audience just hasn't gotten really super interested in the genre?
MS: I'm not really sure. I'm also curious about why Japanese people haven't taken to shooters as well. I think that shooters are accepted -- you know, Resident Evil sells really well over here. So people are familiar with them; it's not like they hate them. But yeah, others just haven't taken off.
I was talking to Rex Ishibashi, who is the president of EA Japan, and he said that Western games only account for 5 percent of the Japanese market. That's a very small percentage.
MS: We think games from overseas are very high quality, so looking at the kind of stuff that they're doing now, I think that you're going to see more of a percentage and more growth in Japan for overseas games.
Do you feel like there are design elements and techniques coming out of Western games that you didn't see coming out of Japanese games, that you feel do appeal to a Japanese audience -- maybe if they were just presented in a different way?
MS: There are good points and bad points to Western games, but you look at a game like Fallout 3 and the kinds of things that you're doing within Fallout 3 -- it's an RPG, and you're going around an open world... You would think that Japanese players would like that. Maybe there's something about the setting and the world view and the look of the game that they don't like; we're not sure. But as far as game design goes, that just seems like it would be very appealing to a Japanese audience.
Quantum Theory is specifically targeted to a Western audience, but you're going to put it out in Japan as well, right?
MS: Yeah, it's going to come out here as well.
Do you have an expectation that maybe, because it comes from a Japanese team that has a lot of influence from Western games, it might actually get a better reception?
MS: Yeah, yeah. With the character design, the action elements -- we think those will appeal to a Japanese audience. When you're looking at even the visual design, we think that there's a Japanese design sense in here that informs the overall look and feel of the stages. We think Western games look gorgeous; they obviously have excellent visuals and all of that. But we want to try something that a Japanese audience would like and make it just as pretty and just as powerful as Western games.
Way back when you were making the Fatal Frame games, they were more popular in America than maybe people expected at first. Did the inspiration to make this game come from previous experience in the West, or did it come from just your desire to challenge yourself and see if you could do that deliberately?
MS: It's kind of a little bit of both. Obviously, we had success in the West, so we knew that was a possibility; and the Western market is bigger than the Japanese market, so from a business sense we wanted to succeed in the West. But it's also that I like third person shooters. I like shooters, so I wanted to make a game that I like.
Making a horror game and making a third-person shooter are very different; the process is very different. With a horror game, you're trying to control the player's emotions; you control the way they think -- the way they feel. For a third person shooter, it's more about the mechanics and responsiveness and how the game's being played. So the way you're looking for and what you're looking at are very different.
8static Rewarding Donations With Chip Music CDs, Shirts
Though 2009's Blip Festival, arguably North America's biggest chip music event, is now behind us, that doesn't mean you'll have to wait another year for another concert featuring video game hardware as instruments. There are lots of smaller shows popping up all the time, and don't forget about monthly events like Pulsewave in New York City and 8static in Philadelphia.
In fact, 8static is looking to raise some money to fund its performances, free workshops, and open mic sessions. Visual artist Don "No Carrier" Miller launched a project at donation-ware platform Kickstarter looking to bring in $2,000 to buy a subwoofer, on-stage monitors, and a projector. He points out that local artists and fans have pieced together some of the equipment, but they still "need dedicated gear for the future of *static."
As incentives, 8static organizers are offering exclusive MP3 compilations of unreleased tracks by local chip artists, CDs from Alex Mauer and Animal Style, T-shirts designed by Animal Style and Enso/No Carrier, pixel art prints featuring Enso's art shown at Ready>Run, Animal Style's Teletime cartridges, glitchNES 0.2 cartridges, Pro-sound modified Game Boys, and more depending on the size of your pledge.
8static has already received more than $1,400 pledges toward its $2,000 goal with 45 days to go, so it's likely the project will reach it's target soon. Even if the project hits its goal before you have a chance to donate, though, you can still pledge money to collect one of the rewards.
Send A Belated 8-Bit Xmas NES Cart To Friends, Family
After reading about Sivak Games's Battle Kid: Fortress of Peril, the homebrew Mega Man-esque game releasing for NES next month (trailer, demo ROM ), I checked RetroZone to see if the online shop is taking preorders and discovered another neat NES cartridge that I wish I knew about weeks ago.
RetroZone's 8-Bit Xmas 2009 cart features a four-player homebrew game called Snowball Fight, which is pretty straightforward: throw as many snowballs at your friends as you can before the time runs out. What really separates this from traditional NES cartridges, though, are the LEDs installed in the clear shell and the option to add in-game custom text messages/player names.
Ordering one of the personalized carts will run you around $48 before shipping ($43 without the messages). The package includes a black dust sleeve for the cartridge and a printed Christmas card with a pin-up style cover. Though December 25th is already past, Retrozone is still taking preorders until the 31st. You can also download a free ROM for Snowball Fight from 8-Bit Xmas 2009's product page.
Despite the wide range of video game topics we cover here, I don't think we've talked about online slot games much (probably for the best, as it reduces the amount of spam comments from online casinos). This video slot cinematic comes from a collection of clips recently uploaded by producer/composer Frank Baudille, who specializes in the audio design for these games.
Cryptologic, one of Baudille's clients, has purchased licenses to create online slot games based on a number of properties: Marvel Comics characters (The Incredible Hulk, X-men), DC Comics characters (Wonder Woman, Superman), Paramount Pictures films (Forrest Gump, Brave Heart), and even video games like Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Street Fighter IV.
The descriptions Cryptologic uses for its branded games, tying their slot mechanics into the licenses, are entertaining:
"Forrest Gump says that life is like a box of chocolates and the same holds true for the new 25 line Forrest Gump slot machine. You never know what you're gonna get... a big payout or one of three bonus features including the smashing new 5-level Hollywood Jackpots. It all goes together like peas and carrots, just like Jenny and Forrest in the newest 25 line branded, jackpot slot game from Cryptologic."
I've included a couple more videos and descriptions below for Cryptologic's Batman and Braveheart online slot games:
"Join the Dark Knight as he battles The Joker in the world’s first and only Batman slot machine. This groundbreaking 50 line game features stacked wilds and a Batman Re-spin feature where all prizes are doubled as 3 free spins are played with one reel completely Wild! Activate the bonus bet for a chance to play the ‘Descent into Madness’ bonus feature. Armed with your Batarang, you must fight your way through the inmates of Arkham Asylum to stop The Joker, earning cash prizes and up to 100 times your triggering bet."
"The new Braveheart slot machine isn't eligible to win an Academy Award, but the movie that inspired it took home five of the golden statues. The sights, sounds, and excitement generated in this, the first in a series of Hollywood Jackpot movies is worthy of awards and accolades. Will the Scottish side prevail in the Battle Free Games feature or will the Longshanks put down the rebellion? You'll have to play to find out."
[GameSetLinks is GameSetWatch's semi-regular link round-up post, culling from hundreds of weblogs and outlets to compile the most interesting longform writing, links, and criticism on the art and culture of video games.]
Continuing the GameSetLinks goodness as the holiday season wanders onward, here's a few new links for your delight and browsing pleasure, including - as a starting points - some good work by Retro Gamer in recapping the history of Crash, a seminal early UK game magazine.
Also in this set of links - ten years of Penny Arcade, Kim Swift looks back on pre-Portal student title Narbacular Drop, an interview with Christian gaming veterans, some NES game covers you might not have seen before, and various other bits of neatness.
Good good:
25 Years of Crash | Official Retro Gamer Blog
The classic UK ZX Spectrum magazine gets interviews, video excerpts - the full thing is in the Retro Gamer mag, but this on its own is great history. (Via Driph.)
As the two studios promised it would, Gaijin Games and Robotube posted a playable Flash version of the game the developers created together in just 18 hours during Blip Festival 2009. Titled Bit.Tonik, it plays like a combination of Gaijin's Bit.Trip series and Robotube's Bloktonik, using assets and ideas from both to create a Breakout-style puzzle game.
Robotube's Jason Cirillo admits that the game is far from complete, as it has no game over screen, includes a "crotch bug", features an incomplete scoring system, doesn't fully integrate chip musician Glomag's score/sound effects, and needs a lot of polish. He says this is all because the game was released exactly as it was when the "Battle of the Brands" event ended.
Cirillo adds that Robotube and Gaijin plan to further develop Bit.Tonik and will also release a video diary from the event, a postmortem, and other "special little secret treats." You can play the game on Robotube's site.
French publisher Ubisoft has released the first officially licensed Nintendo DS title developed by a team in India, according to a report from SiliconIndia. The game, 100 All Time Favorites, was worked on by the company's studio in Pune, which Ubisoft bought in May 2008.
Before the acquisition, the studio functioned as a mobile developer for Gameloft, originally established in 2006. The group had a headcount of 120 programmers and testers when Ubisoft took over and has grown to 160 employees since -- its staff increased by 35 percent since January, adding artists and game designers.
"It was a very novel experience, we got a lot of help from our headquarters," says Ubisoft's HR manager Aurelie Busollo. "Three programmers went in for training as well to Quebec. We had a couple of expatriates, who came in from other Ubisoft studios to help us streamline the processes, and give guidelines."
Around 40 of Ubisoft Pune's workers pitched in to create 100 All Time Favorites. The team first spent six months on preparation and testing before devoting eight months on production work. The resulting title is a collection of 100 puzzle, board, and card games like Solitaire, Poker, Backgammon, Chess, as well as up to 30 original games, all packed into a 32 MB cartridge.
The studio was initially acquired to work on porting titles to handhelds, developing for DS, and assisting Ubisoft's testing teams, but it's also worked on Cell-Factor Psychokinetic Wars for XBLA/PSN and Just Dance for Wii. Studio head David Blanchard adds that Ubisoft Pune is looking into social network games and MMOs, too.
I should also mention that while this is the first licensed DS title out of India, there's at least one homebrew DS game that was developed in the country. Mumbai-based Yellow Monkey Studios entered an interesting looking adventure title called Mortley: A Stitch in Time into the 2009 IGF Mobile competition.
Though Yellow Monkey hasn't put out anything commercially, as far as I know, it is a licensed Nintendo DS, iPhone, and Android developer.
['Homer in Silicon' is a biweekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column by Emily Short. It looks at storytelling and narrative in games of all flavors, including the casual, indie, and obscurely hobbyist. This week she looks at Zylom/GameHouse Studios Eindhoven's Delicious: Emily's Holiday Season, a Christmas-themed time management game with an unusual amount of story content.]
Ever since Miss Management, I've been hoping for another time management game with a decent narrative arc, memorable characters, and a connection between gameplay and story. Delicious: Emily's Holiday Season is the best I've yet seen in that line. (Disclaimer: I gather there are a number of previous Delicious games starring Emily. This is the first I've played through, though I did sample the demo of Emily's Taste of Fame.)
Perhaps unsurprisingly, Delicious: Emily's Holiday Season shares a number of features with Miss Management. It's briefer, but it has a similar structure: there are five major stages to the plot, each with its own mini-arc.
Many of the levels incorporate some small optional challenges, which knit the gameplay and the story together more tightly. There's a lot of dialogue, and Emily's Holiday Season skips having a single villain in favor of a number of sometimes-friendly NPCs who nonetheless impose on the protagonist in irritating ways.
In a couple of respects, Emily's Holiday Season is actually smoother than Miss Management. To my mind, the difficulty is better balanced; there were times playing Miss Management where I got stuck on a level and had to play over and over to get through, enough that it passed through "entertainingly difficult" into the territory of "enraging." Emily's Holiday Season is carefully calibrated so that -- played in Normal difficulty mode -- one just occasionally fails a level but usually succeeds on playing it through a second time. I particularly appreciated the way that customers seem to arrive in waves, rather than as a steady stream: this means that if you manage to get through a difficult period, there's a little rest time to regroup, restock parts of the restaurant, and work on optional problems.
Emily's Holiday Season also goes farther than Miss Management in offering the player some actual choices to make. There are a number of places, both in the cut scenes between levels and in little interludes embedded in the levels themselves, that allow for conversation with the other characters. Just about uniquely in time management games, Emily's Holiday Season lets the player choose what the responses will be some of the time. There are some important questions with yes/no answers; other places where the player can pick a conversational strategy (flirtatious or innocent); and even a couple where freeform typed answers are allowed.
As far as I can tell, these answers don't significantly affect the course of the story until the very end. (This isn't surprising: anything else would require a lot more implementation work.) Nonetheless, the option to control even the short-term interactions gives the player an investment in the character development that is missing from most other games of this genre. Likewise, succeeding or failing at the special optional challenges will sometimes produce small but amusing scenes with the other characters at the end of a level.
The story itself is not as good as Miss Management's, in part because it lacks the snappy writing -- the dialogue is just not at the same level, nor are the characters as entertaining and distinctive. Still, it's miles better than most others of its kind. As often in these columns, I am going to have to spoil the story elements and interaction heavily in order to discuss them; consider yourself warned.
The essential arc of the story looks initially like the stuff of romantic comedy. Emily is approached by two suitors, the aloof boss, Richard, and the clingy coworker, Paul. In the first part of the game, Richard behaves in a way of the game that made me think "sexual harrassment suit" -- asking that Emily kiss him in exchange for a piece of needed equipment (she refuses) and flirting with her aggressively. From a gameplay perspective, Richard is mostly troublesome at the outset, with lots of special requests that complicate her job.
In subsequent levels, Richard becomes a bit more sympathetic. He sometimes even serves as her busboy. Since the busboy makes the player's life significantly easier, by cleaning tables on Emily's behalf, this encourages some sort of positive feeling toward him. There's even one inspired level in which Emily hurts herself and Richard actually fills in for her for the whole level, so he's the character being controlled. Nonetheless, the balance of the relationship is all about his business and what he needs.
Paul is more attentive to Emily's feelings -- too much so. He serves as busboy more often than Richard -- appropriately, given their relative status in the restaurants -- but he's way too over-clingy and possessive. He asks Emily a host of personal questions, calculated to find out what she wants from life (and, as a secondary effect, to make the player think about how Emily should be characterized). In one level he litters the restaurant with roses for her to find: a romantic gesture in theory, but in practice an added annoyance, since the search is one more thing the player has to keep track of while serving guests. I am all in favor of having romantic prospects (in games) who are also a source of conflict -- but Paul is more of a source of nattery irritation than of passionate disagreement. There's no voice acting in the game, but I imagine Paul's utterances in a nasal whine.
Emily is also supported by a friend, François, who reads as gay: the game never quite spells this out, but it gives him a European mustache, a pink shirt, and a yen for interior decorating, at which point we have all the necessary cues to guess why he's never considered a romantic prospect for Emily in his own right. I'm not sure it's a great blow for gay rights that so many movies and books aimed at women -- and, apparently, the occasional game -- now feature an Obligatory Gay Friend: the best of these characters are observantly and affectionately drawn, to be sure, but in its core form the stereotype seems to suggest that these men belong permanently in a supporting role in other people's lives. I should be fair, though: François, I know from the beginning of Emily's Taste of Fame, is a recurring character in the series, so perhaps there is more to his personality than this installment lets on.
At first the game seems to be about choosing between Paul and Richard, but neither of these is a very compelling prospect: Paul is needy and possessive, Richard rude and self-centered, and their relationships to Emily are not based on much of substance. François is her most consistent and least demanding ally, there for her when one of her suitors lets her down, often filling in with serving help; and if he very occasionally makes things more difficult by having an accident that needs to be cleaned up -- he's a bit of a klutz -- nonetheless that's forgivable compared with the antics of the other two.
What I found as I played was that I did not want either Paul or Richard, and that the gameplay heavily encourages that decision. Various relatives show up with conflicting advice, and Emily's mother, herself a rather one-dimensional type, is keen to have her daughter dating at all costs. But Emily herself seems vaguely exasperated by both Paul and Richard most of the time.
The choices offered by the game play into this sense of exasperation. The third section (of five) opens with Richard and Emily having dinner together. The player can choose to make Emily flirtatious or innocent, but even the most innocent behavior leads to Richard kissing her at the end of the evening -- and the sequence in which he does makes him seem a bit insensitive to the signals he's been sent. It is not, as far as I can tell, possible for the player to completely avoid getting into a brief, ill-fated relationship with Richard at this point, but the interaction is such as to put the player a little on guard about him.
The conversation choices the player can make when interacting with Paul go in a different direction. Paul asks a lot of questions about marriage and commitment (which he favors) and the need for freedom (which might drive Emily away from him). These encourage the player to think more about the central problem in deciding between Paul and Richard: would you rather be smothered with support, or not given enough of it?
Paul is also responsible for all of the freeform questions the player may answer by typing -- things like "what's your favorite flower?" and "where would you go on your ideal date?" The game does nothing at all with the responses to the freeform questions, but they give the player a chance to think about the character for a moment. Meanwhile, the fact that Paul asks about such personal preferences might seem endearing, but he presents them as part of a mandatory on-the-job interview, which tips the sequence over into "creepy" territory instead.
By the time, therefore, that the player reaches the game's final choice, she may not be surprised to find that there are three options: returning to a relationship with either Paul or Richard (each of whom she has briefly dated at this point), or remaining a close friend of François with no romantic commitment. I picked François, of course. The credits give the statistics on how beta-testers answered the questions in the game, and reveal that 70% of those testers also chose François over either of the romantic rivals. The remaining players split evenly, 15%/15%, mirroring my sense that Paul and Richard are equally obnoxious.
So here is an interesting thing: a casual game with a much larger narrative component than most, which gives the player a choice to make about the protagonist's destiny, but whose content still heavily influences most players toward a particular outcome. And yet the story has a much different feel than the same story told with no choices in it. It is in part Paul and Richard's shared failure to take account of what Emily tells them -- how she acts towards them, the selections the player makes -- that demonstrate their romantic unsuitability. Both, at the end, repent and apologize for their earlier behavior, but it's too little, too late. Neither is able to negotiate the terms of a relationship effectively -- and that is driven home by having the player, throughout the midgame, make conversation choices that do not change anything.
What I can't quite tell is whether this structure was the result of accident or deliberate choice. I did come back and play the ending where the protagonist picks Richard. It's cute, and not written with any obvious intention of being an inferior ending. I could believe the designers intended to write a more balanced game and saw the romantic leads as viable options (with the player's own relationship preferences determining which she liked better).
All the same, I prefer to read Emily's Holiday Season as a kind of anti-romance, a gentle comedy on the virtues of not settling. Even if your mom keeps warning you that you'll die alone with your cats.
(Disclosure: I played a copy of this work that I purchased at full price. I have had no commercial affiliations with the publisher at the time of writing.)
[Emily Short is an interactive fiction author and part of the team behind Inform 7, a language for IF creation. She also maintains a blog on interactive fiction and related topics. She can be reached at emshort AT mindspring DOT com.]
I should've posted these weeks ago so you could buy them as presents for your independent game-loving friends/family, but I just noticed them! Developer Nicklas "Nifflas" Nygren (NightSky) is selling two shirts with fantastic black and white artwork drawn by Sara Sandberg and depicting scenes from beloved indie platformers Knytt/Knytt Stories.
They're a bit expensive at 200 SEK each (around $28) before shipping, but they're printed on "fairwear" and 100 percent organic shirts at EarthPositive. There's also a limited amount available, as Nifflas ordered only 100 shirts. You can buy a tee from the developer site.
Round-Up: Gamasutra Network Jobs, Week Of December 28
In our latest employment-specific round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from 5th Cell, Terminal Reality and more.
Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.
It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.
Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:
Robot Entertainment: Game Developer
"Robot Entertainment is a world-class independent game development studio owned and operated by many of the founders of Ensemble Studios. With a team that has proven experience and expertise in creating games that appeal to massive audiences, Robot Entertainment is focused on titles that set new standards for their respective genres as well as groundbreaking original IPs."
Terminal Reality: AI Programmer
"Terminal Reality Inc, is an independent Dallas-area developer devoted to developing top-quality games and technology. Since opening its doors in 1994 Terminal Reality has developed & shipped over 28 game titles including the recently released Ghostbusters: The Video Game on XBox 360, PS3 and PC. Terminal Reality is looking for a programmer who will be able to develop state of the art AI systems. This is your chance to be a part of a talented team working on an exciting AAA Natal Title!"
WB Games Senior Software Engineer, Archives
"WB Games Inc. is a new production studio formed in Kirkland, WA, dedicated to the development of games and interactive entertainment across all major console, PC and handheld platforms. A division of Warner Bros. Home Entertainment Inc., the production company works closely with other Warner Bros. divisions, such as Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment (WBIE) and Warner Home Video (WHV), to bring games to market."
Arkadium: Junior Artist
"Are you ready to be excited every morning for your day to begin? Arkadium employees share the common trait of loving their jobs. Why? Because they are surrounded by the smartest, most talented and fun professionals in gaming. At Arkadium we work hard and play hard and are looking for exceptional people to join us in our quest to become the most successful casual games company in the world."
5th Cell: Lead 3D Level Designer
"This position will report to our Creative Director, with the responsibility of leading a team of level designers and artists in designing and developing top notch level content for our upcoming original IP Xbox360 title. The ideal candidate has experience in a Senior or Lead position, and the right coupling of creativity with management acumen. Passion and a desire to work on original IP is essential to this position."
To browse hundreds of similar jobs, and for more information on searching, responding to, or posting game industry-relevant jobs to the top source for jobs in the business, please visit Gamasutra's job board now.
TIGRadio, a new online radio show catering to independent game developers, broadcasted its inaugural episode last night. It's hosted by several notable indie figures, including Flashbang Games's (Off-Road Velociraptor Safari) CEO Matthew Wegner and art director Ben Ruiz, as well as Super Meat Boy co-developer Tommy Refenes.
"We decided to avoid the complication of producing content for people other than ourselves (Do we make the show for gamers interested in indie games, or actual developers of indie games?)." explains Wegner. "In the end we realized we're much better off just doing what we know best. I think the show will be of interest to non-developers, too, but essentially we're trying to do interesting stuff for all of you guys!"
For the first show, TIGRadio brought in several guests from the indie games space -- Edmund McMillen (Super Meat Boy, Time Fcuk), Brandon Boyer (Gamasutra alum, Boing Boing contributing editor), Danny Baronowsky (Canabalt composer), Colin Northway (Fantastic Contraption), and Adam Saltsman (Canabalt) -- to talk about 2009 titles and their 2010 predictions.
TIGRadio plans to broadcast a show via Ustream (audio from a Skype conference, video from a shared whiteboard) every week, accompanied with a live chat enabling listeners to interact with the guests and hosts. You can hear the first episode and see when the next show will air on TIGRadio's official site.
Flickr user Dangerous Business has uploaded over a dozen photos of posters featured at The Museum of Soviet Arcade Games. The decades-old artwork, featured alongside a collection of 37 restored Soviet-era arcade machines (around 20 operational) originally built in military factories, advertise unfamiliar titles like Steep Turn and Well, Just You Wait!
You can see a couple posters below and the full set in this Flickr set. DB also uploaded a few videos showing what games like Tankodrome and Air Fight look like when played. I've included a clip of Winter Fight, which features a rifle controller, below:
We seem to have survived the holidays thus far, so it's time to go through the top full-length features of the past week on big sister 'art and business of gaming' site Gamasutra, plus our GameCareerGuide features for the week.
Anyhow, there's obviously our _gigantic_ compilation of best-ofs as one Gamasutra feature, but presumably you've seen much of that already. Luckily, as well as that, there's a neat Ron Gilbert interview, a new Ian Bogost column on puzzle games, a fun multi-interview piece on adding polish to games, and some new Game Design Challenge neatness. So there.
Go for the tipoff:
Gamasutra's Best Of 2009
"Ending out 2009, Gamasutra puts together the definitive compilation of our year-end lists, from disappointments through game of the year and beyond, with bonus reader feedback."
Persuasive Games: Puzzling the Sublime
"Good puzzle games are often described as addictive, elegant or deep, but in reality they can elicit deeper feelings of overwhelm, vastness and abundance, says designer Ian Bogost."
The Art Of Game Polish: Developers Speak
"Polishing a game can lead to vastly increased user satisfaction -- but how do you identify, execute, and allocate resources for the polish process? Developers from BioWare, Epic Games, and other studios weigh in."
Ron Gilbert: A New Adventure
"Adventure game veteran and Monkey Island creator Ron Gilbert talks to Gamasutra on the production processes behind his once-episodic title DeathSpank, and how the very nature of game development influences creative direction."
GCG: Results from Game Design Challenge - The New Sound
"Is there a way to get the music genre back into gear after a disappointing 2009? Our entrants aim to offer a new way of playing with sound in the results from the latest Game Design Challenge."
[When's the right time to begin developing for a specific platform? Digital distribution consultant David Edery writes explaining factors like market behavior and platform qualities, offering essential guidelines.]
In my experience, one of the problems that most seems to bedevil game developers is the problem of timing; specifically, understanding when is the "right time" to begin developing for a specific platform.
To understand why this is such a challenge for developers, you need to understand how a games platform tends to evolve.
Here's the typical scenario: A platform -- for example, XBLA, or the iPhone App Store, or Facebook -- comes into existence. Most people regard the platform suspiciously, for a variety of reasons. It's an unproven market, for starters.
The platform owner's commitment to growing the platform may be unclear. The pros and cons of working with the platform owner in this context are unknown. There are lots of other platforms to choose from. Etc. Most developers take all this into account and decide to pass on the platform for the time being.
Then the platform begins to take off. The inevitable articles in respected publications such as Gamasutra and Edge appear; developer ABC claims to have made a million bucks; game XYZ has sold half a million units; average conversion rates are through the roof; etc.
Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics
The platform's owner is probably out there cheering more loudly than anyone. They publish statistics which are 100% true, but which may or may not actually convey a complete picture of what's actually happening on the platform.
(For example, I've noticed that PlayStation Home presentations are full of great-sounding statistics which tell you almost nothing about your chances of actually generating a profit on that platform, or even your chances of indirectly generating profit via secondary effects -- like the buzz that platform helps generate for your IP.) But please don't take this as Sony-bashing, because as far as I know most platform owners are guilty of this.
Even if the platform's stats really do paint an accurate, unexaggerated picture of what is happening on the platform, those stats likely reflect a past that has no bearing on the future competitive nature of the platform. Remember the early days of XBLA on the 360? Remember 20% average conversion rates? All that positivity was totally legitimate, but it reflected an ecosystem that was benefiting from an extreme mismatch between consumer demand (which was high) and content supply (which was low -- back then one game a week was considered a very large amount of content for XBLA, and even the retail ecosystem was still pretty short on content.)
And that's where the first big wave of developers get themselves in trouble. They rush to develop games for this wonderful new platform, not realizing (or simply disregarding the fact) that everyone else is doing the same thing. Content supply explodes, because even on a closed platform internal and external pressures push platform managers to lean towards distributing more content rather than less. After all, it's hard to predict hits, so why turn away something that has a chance of positively surprising you? There's also the tricky politics of rejecting content from your long-time partners, which can be a painful thing for any platform owner.
Equilibrium's a Bitch
While content supply is exploding, consumer demand also increases, but not nearly enough to keep pace with the content explosion. Consequently, the supply/demand imbalance quickly corrects itself, and in some cases even over-corrects. Worst of all, many developers (some new entrants to the platform, but also some veterans) fail to realize that greater competition means a higher bar for success, and as a result they fail to increase the quality of their games and/or their marketing efforts and ultimately get lost in the crowd. The easy money is gone, and while some developers continue to succeed, a large number fall flat on their faces. Many do not recover. Sierra Online's stunning fall from top XBLA publisher to total irrelevance is a good (and sad) example of this.
As the pain spreads, the general buzz about the platform begins to sour. Reports of games flopping appear everywhere. Developers complain loudly that the platform is being mismanaged, that there's too much content, that pricing pressure is too great, and any other number of complaints. (Piracy? Cloning? Favoritism? 1st/3rd party politics? You name it!) Some developers get scared away. Some stay engaged but never figure out how to compete effectively. Does this sound familiar? It should, because it happened to XBLA and it's happening on the iPhone even as we speak.
But if (and here's a big if) the platform's economics are fundamentally sound and if the platform isn't being too badly mismanaged, some developers ultimately will find a way to raise the bar and stand out from the crowd. They create remarkable games; they market themselves effectively; they adopt more profitable business models where possible; they establish a good relationship with a key publisher or the platform owner itself. These developers benefit from the fact that while the platform has become dramatically more competitive, it has also continued to grow and attract new consumers who still want to download games! (Even if, as is often the case, the new consumers download fewer games on average.) Basically, the ecosystem has inevitably evolved into a hit-driven ecosystem, and while that sucks for most developers, it's a truly wonderful thing for the few companies that actually manage to crank out hits!
Hope Springs Eternal
And now something funny happens: the new hits inspire new confidence in the platform. Bigger players, who may not have taken the platform seriously in the early days, or who experimented with it and failed, begin to show their faces -- perhaps even in force. EA's recent releases on XBLA (Battlefield, Madden, etc) are a great example of this. Some truly enormous hits (examples: Trials HD, Battlefield 1943) are launched to great fanfare. The buzz cycle turns positive again!
So, can you guess what happens next?
Nobody knows how long it will take, but eventually the cycle will turn negative. Too much higher-quality content. Too much content with higher marketing budgets. Games that “should” have succeeded start to fail, for any number of reasons. And the wheel keeps turning.
Of course, there may be aberrational moments which disrupt the cycle. For example: a big price drop in the price of a console which causes many new consumers to flood into the market. Or a big change in a console's dashboard (i.e. NXE) which improves merchandising or introduces features that drive consumers to certain content. But the wheel never stops turning entirely… until the platform dies, that is.
Enough Storytelling… What's the Punchline?
So if you're a developer, what can you actually do about all this? One answer: try to time the cycle; start investing when everyone else is cutting back! Unfortunately, timing a market has never been easy -- if it was, we'd all be stock market millionaires wouldn't we? And remember the "big if" I mentioned earlier: only fundamentally sound platforms ultimately recover from down cycles. Others languish or fail altogether. (Can you imagine the pain that developers who doubled down on WiiWare must be feeling right now? Who knows how long it will take Nintendo to truly fix that platform's many problems?)
So if timing the market is tough, how about trying to earn the "easy money" by focusing on new platforms that haven't yet become very competitive? Unfortunately, that's also quite difficult, because you just don't know which platforms will ultimately succeed. Just ask all the Android developers who were sure they'd be rolling in cash by now.
The truth of the matter is there's simply no magic answer -- just lots of little rules to keep in mind. Focus on platforms that demonstrate reasonably high upside for hit games, even if the competition is rough. Avoid platforms with terrible merchandising and apathetic management (or worse, management that is actively hostile to third parties.) Develop a good relationship with the platform owner. Market the heck out of your game for months (if not years) before it is released. Keep your costs reasonable. Develop something that stands out and delights people. No matter how competitive a market gets, there is always room for a Braid. Or a Crayon Physics. Or a Flight Control. These were not expensive games to develop.
And above all else, be ready to try, try again. Predicting hits is hard. Developing hits is even harder (especially when it comes to original IP!) Odds are, you're going to fail. But whatever doesn't kill you makes you stronger, right?
[David Edery is Principal of Fuzbi, an independent consulting firm focused on the business and design of digitally-distributed games. Prior to founding Fuzbi, David was the Worldwide Games Portfolio Manager for Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade service. He regularly writes for his personal blog, Game Tycoon.]
[We haven't been highlighting these on GSW recently, but the Gamasutra Blogs section is still producing a lot of good writing, so here's a compilation of both Expert and Member best-ofs from last week for your delectation.]
In this new weekly round-up, we showcase notable pieces of writing from members of the game development community who maintain Expert Blogs and Member Blogs on Gamasutra.
Member Blogs can be maintained by any registered Gamasutra user, while the invitation-only Expert Blogs are written by development professionals with a wealth of experience to share.
In this latest round-up, Expert Bloggers write about multiplayer game matchmaking, forcing player progress, and the state of the Indian video game developer market, among other things, whereas Member Bloggers examine social game players, the PlayStation 3 game Demon's Souls, and slow disc loads.
Gamasutra Expert Blogs
- On The Practical Application of Multiplayer Matchmaking (Nick Halme)
Relic's Nick Halme looks at some of the problems with Microsoft's Xbox 360 and Windows PC matchmaking system Trueskill, presenting "not a complaint or a rant against Trueskill, but an attempt to point out what it's doing to players."
- The Cattle Prod (Radek Koncewicz)
Consultant and Incubator Games creative lead Radek Koncewicz discusses ways to go beyond encouraging player progress with the "cattle prod," which he defines as "A mechanic based on diminishing resources that forces the player to advance in order to avoid game death."
- Game Development in India: The Road Ahead (Pallav Nawani)
Designer, programmer and Dehradun-based IronCode co-founder Pallav Nawani looks at how "disruptive content" can help the Indian game market get up to speed -- and how "marketability" is even more important than innovation right now.
- Gifted Games (Christine Kenney)
Anthropologist Christine Kenney provides in-depth specifics for developers on how to make sure your game is a Christmas gift, from price and placement to promotion.
Gamasutra Member Blogs
- A Peek into the Mind of a Social Gamer (Hsiao Wei Chen)
Social games are monumentally successful, but they are also quite young, and relatively under-discussed compared to their more mature gaming brethren. Hsiao Wei Chen is a self-described social gamer, and in this post she provides a profile of the segment's audience.
- Slow Disc Loads (David McClurg)
Longtime game programmer David McClurg isn't a big fan of long disc load times, and yet they're still extremely common in games today. Here, he offers two reasons for the persistence of that pitfall.
- Selling Souls: Demon's Souls Analysis (Josh Bycer)
Josh Bycer knew he'd love From Software's unlikely hit Demon's Souls even before he started playing it, and in this post he goes into great detail as to why.
- Disturbing Happenings in iPhone Land and more... (Marshal Hernandez)
Pay-to-play reviews and interviews are apparently alive and well in the Wild West-like world of iPhone games, as developer Marshal Hernandez recently discovered. He shares his unfortunate experiences here.
Interview: Level-5 On White Knight Chronicles And RPG Gamer Taste
[Our own Christian Nutt talks to Level-5 (Professor Layton, Dragon Quest IX) manager Yoshiaki Kusuda on the dev's PS3 debut, designing RPGs in Japan, and the benefits of game creation outside of Tokyo. ]
What's up with the difference between Western and Japanese RPGs -- and their audiences -- anyway? Professor Layton and Dragon Quest IX creator Level-5 might be in a position to know.
The developer is finally planning to release its first current-gen game, White Knight Chronicles, for the PlayStation 3 in Europe and North America early next year, with Sony publishing.
White Knight Chronicles, which launched on PS3 in Japan on Christmas Day, 2008, has been through a long localization and improvement process -- what was primarily an offline RPG at launch has had its online mode boosted in quality and features and expanded through patches. The overseas version will include all changes made to the Japanese version over the last year.
The game has a uniquely Japanese conceit -- the player creates his or her own character who is not the hero of the story in the single-player mode, but, instead, is just a member of the hero's party -- the hero being a pre-set character, Leonard -- a typically brash, young Japanese RPG protagonist. However, when the player goes online, it's to form a party of these neglected create-a-heroes and play with others.
It's all a bit weird, isn't it? We spoke to Level-5 development manager Yoshiaki Kusuda about distinctly different RPG styles, the process of addressing two kinds of audiences, and the benefits of developing outside of Tokyo.
It's been a long time since the Japanese release of White Knight Chronicles, and you've since added what seems like a lot of content and made some changes. Can you talk about the thinking behind delaying the title and adding this content for the Western release?
Yoshiaki Kusuda: This is partly because we really value the international market and the users outside of Japan and we would like to focus on it. In addition to that, White Knight Chronicles has features of an online game, and it has been easier for us to receive feedback from users, and based on that user feedback we have made a lot of improvements and additions by way of patching.
Above that, the Dark Cloud series has become very popular in the overseas market or international market, so therefore, in releasing White Knight Chronicles in the international market, we really wanted to make it in the form of the second wave of features, which are currently available in the Japanese market today.
This game is the first Level-5 game, I think, that has had really a strong online component, which means that suddenly you're running a service; it's not the same as just releasing a game. What kind of challenges has that presented, and what kind of lessons have you learned since you released the game in Japan?
YK: In reference to the operation or the administration of the online side, Level-5 is working closely with Sony Computer Entertainment. In fact, this game is a first for Level-5 in many ways: it's the first PS3 title; it's the first RPG with online elements, and it's the first time for us to provide services in the form of online gaming support.
It's been really challenging for us, but at the same time we have been learning a lot because, with the online element, we have been able to receive feedback from the users real-time compared to the other games that we have launched in the past.
What is really interesting and surprising to us now is that the players would find very different ways of playing the game. They wouldn't follow the ways of playing anticipated by us before the release, so we find that there are many different ways of playing the game, which is a very good experience for us.
When you say "different ways of playing the game," do you mean in terms of how they progress through the quests, or enjoying activities outside of the stated goals? What is that teaching you about user behavior and how you should design future titles?
YK: Yes, exactly. Some players wouldn't proceed with the quests in a linear way from the start one to the goal and so forth. In White Knight Chronicles, we decided to give a high degree of freedom in terms both of the character creation, appearance, or skill set up of combos and so forth, but because of the high degree of freedom we find that some users have a lot of discussions of what kind of playstyle is ideal in the game and so forth. We find it very interesting, and we learn a lot from this.
Some Western users have been perhaps frustrated with the lack of freedom in Japanese RPGs compared to some of the Western RPGs -- obviously also many enjoy the Japanese style, so it's not one or the other. Is this feedback teaching you something about that the audience expectations, even inside Japan, may be different than you anticipated?
YK: I would say that different users have different tastes in different areas of interest because, as an RPG, White Knight Chronicles has a story -- of course -- but at the same time it has online elements. On top of that, we provide online communication elements with, for example, Geonet or Georama and so forth; so I would say that the options would be a lot more for the users to choose from, but different users may have different areas of focus or interest.
Some people say that they are only interested in proceeding with the story, or there may be some others who are really devoted into Georama, or there may be some others who only use the blog feature of the game, and so forth. So I think that there should be a lot of different areas of interest among users.
It's interesting the game has two lead characters; the story mode has Leonard, and then the online mode has your own player avatar. It would be more typical, I think, at least for a Western-developed game, to just have the creatable character across the whole game -- why did you proceed the way you did?
YK: Sorry I'm giving a lengthy answer, but in fact in order to answer your question, I need to talk about one basic concept for White Knight Chronicles. When we decided to create a PS3 title, we decided that one of the basic concepts of the game should be an online introduction RPG because, among the PC users, many have already been accustomed to online games; however, among the PS3 and other console users, there are many people who say that they don't like online games.
So one of the challenges or the theme for us at the time was to see how smoothly we could draw these people into the realm of online games. In order to do so, we could include many features. In playing an ordinary online game, you have to log onto the lobby, look for people who might be interested in partying up with you, discuss what kind of quests you are going on, and so forth, which might be quite troublesome for some people who haven't played any online games before.
In White Knight Chronicles, you can play the story mode, and then maybe between some events you might want to go on for just a couple small quests; and then for these people, we provide the matching system with which you can gather together and meet up with other players and set off on the quest. So, from the world map, you can easily go into the online mode to go for a quest; and then, after completing the quest, you can go back to the world map in a casual manner.
It's not just an online game solely with avatars, so for many players it would be interesting for them to proceed with the story where Leonard, the protagonist, rescues the abducted princess, but at the same time, by lowering the barrier for these people to the online game, we thought that we would draw many people into the online game and make sure that these two worlds are combined with a linked world to each other.
So your own avatar, which is created for the online mode, also participates in the adventure with Leonard in the story mode; and then this avatar -- your avatar -- would leave the team for awhile to set off on online quests.
Did you ever consider making the main character of the story being the player character rather than Leonard, who is a defined character?
YK: It would be very interesting if we could do it successfully, but, as the story unfolds, the characters -- especially the main character, the protagonist -- would be very important. In fact, in story mode, your avatar hardly speaks because, if the avatar speaks in a totally different way than you would conceive, you would find it very difficult to sympathize with the avatar, although it's supposed to be pretty much you.
So if the protagonist is not a set-up character but you could create the protagonist, it would happen the same way, because as the story unfolds you might think that the other character you created would not say this thing or would not behave this way and so forth, which might ruin the story; so for the story, we thought that it's better to give a specific name with a specific kind of characteristic to the protagonist, rather than allow players to create their own characters to play the hero.
Some games let you pick and choose what you want to say, and it's like a role-playing game with the emphasis on the role-playing; whereas some games -- obviously like this -- have a well-defined character, and it's more like a film or something where you can enjoy a story.
There's a lot of debate, I think, inside the industry of which is the better tactic to go with. Is the story-driven approach, the defined character approach, the creative approach that Level-5 finds best, or is it something that is defined by user expectations? That's what I'm curious about; what inspires Level-5 to make the decisions they make creatively on a game like this?
YK: Basically, in creating a scenario, we think what kind of character would be the most appropriate for the story, and then we have a lot of discussions within Level-5 to decide on one character.
And to change track completely, what's it like to be based in Fukuoka? There are not many studios there compared to Tokyo.
YK: In fact, the city of Fukuoka is an ideal mixture of an urban city and countryside; living in Fukuoka, you don't feel the stress of commuting everyday on a crowded train, but when you want to do shopping or dining out, it is also convenient, with a lot of shops and restaurants in the neighborhood. It's a town where you feel the least stress, I would say, which is very important for creative types of jobs, and we believe that it's really essential to provide an environment that wouldn't pose a lot of stress on creators so that they can make the most of their talents.
[GameSetLinks is GameSetWatch's semi-regular link round-up post, culling from hundreds of weblogs and outlets to compile the most interesting longform writing, links, and criticism on the art and culture of video games.]
Continuing with these recently dredged set of GameSetLinks going back a few weeks, we kick off with author Steve Poole's set of the top games of the decade, always a nice starting point for an ensuing apocalypse of commentary - there's one of those lists coming up on Gamasutra next week too, uhoh.
Also in this set of links - Tynan Sylvester on the concept of the 'skill ceiling' in games, more info on the almost completely mythical, MST3K-related Darkstar, Edge on the making of the MUD, and lots more things besides.
Advanced technology:
Steven Poole: Colossi
'Everyone seems to be compiling lists of the best games of the decade, so here, with minimal special pleading or argumentation is mine'
Tynan Sylvester: Skill Ceiling
'People talk about the depth of games a lot, but it’s tricky to figure out exactly what that means. I’ve been thinking about a new way to measure the depth of games. It’s the Skill Ceiling.'
Video games collector site Digital Press has started posting downloadable PDF issues from Ion International's early 80s magazine Videogaming Illustrated. The bi-monthly publication debuted in August 1982 under several variations of its original title (Videogaming and Computer Gaming Illustrated, Video and Computer Gaming Illustrated) before that magazine was killed off in March 1984.
The selection of PDF images is still incomplete, but you can already grab seven different installments full of classic video game advertisements, previews, and feature articles like "Astronaut Defends Videogames" (April 1983) and "The Videogame Which Takes Six Months To Play" (Dec. 1982). You can download the Videogaming Illustrated issues here.
GameSetPics: 2009 Game Company Xmas Cards - WB to Namco
After the first and second parts were posted pre-Xmas, we're finishing up (for now!) our round-up of the most fun game publisher and developer 2009 Christmas cards we got into the offices of GDC, Game Developer magazine, and Gamasutra.
In any case, here's the third and final Xmas set for 2009 - we'll round up stragglers and Japanese New Year cards in the, uh, New Year:
The Warner Bros. holiday card showcases their move into games with a bunch of their franchise characters, including those from Batman, F.E.A.R., Scribblenauts and the Lego games, hanging out and playing a cute retro game featuring... themselves? Blimey.
Square Enix's card is themed around - what else - Final Fantasy XIII, which just launched in Japan, and features the game's protagonists posing in fine form alongside a pleasant holiday greeting.
Take-Two's card references the upcoming 2K-published Mafia II with a sinister mafioso Christmas scene, complete with references inside to the 'silent night' they hope you will all have. Yes, we're officially scared.
One of our favorite cards for this year, the folks at LA indie dev Giant Sparrow, currently fleshing out IGF paint-splatter flecked student finalist The Unfinished Swan into a full game, crafted a special handmade card with black paint and cut-out swans. V.cool.
Nintendo's holiday card has another of those neat cut-out effects that people seem to be using a lot, and is obviously themed around New Super Mario Bros Wii and its perennial cast of quite adorable characters. It's a me, holidays!
This is the only electronic card we're featuring in the round-up (sorry to others who we neglected on this front!), but it's a cute Pac-Man 30th Anniversary holiday scene from Namco Bandai, and it was sent to me at an opportune moment, so there you go...
The Japanese import publisher NIS America sent out one of its customary Japanese-style postcards with all kinds of characters, including plenty from fan favorite series Disgaea, hanging out with panache.
Ending with a bang, the holiday card from the Japanese indie devs at Nigoro (the folks behind upcoming MSX-inspired WiiWare platformer La-Mulana, as well as period slapping drama game (!) Rose & Camellia) cook up some gorgeous retro artwork for their game. And that's all, folks.
[If you'd like to be featured in our late Xmas card round-up or add us to your list for subsequent years, our HQ address is on the parent company page, mark c/o Gamasutra or GameSetWatch.]
Irem Corporation recently introduced R-Type: Flash of the Void, a 3D minigame version of its 2D shoot'em up franchise, to its online lounge in Japan's PlayStation Home. For those of you who haven't had a chance to check it out but are still curious about the attraction, Psyvariar has posted a photo tour of the minigame and Irem's virtual space.
Along with exploring the hangar of R-Type ships and the official gift shop, the photo set includes shots of Irem's festival area and the prizes you can win there. One of the prizes is a virtual R-Type fighter model that you can display in your PS Home apartment! It's not as impressive as the real thing, but it's much cheaper!
If moving images are more your thing, I've also embedded a three-minute video from R-Type: Flash of the Void below:
Illustrator, game designer, and professional yo-yoer Brian "Doctor Popular" Roberts created this watercolor and ink remake of Activision's Atari 2600 cover art for Pitfall. Inspired by the comic book recreations at Covered, he added a few details like the broken ladder rung, underground human remains, and the scorpion's lobster claws, while keeping the art as colorful as the original.
"Pitfall was one of my earliest video game addictions," says Roberts. "As a longtime fan of the 'platform game' genre, I’ve always considered Pitfall to be the godfather of the genre. Although it’s not technically the oldest side-scrolling game, I feel that modern platformers more closely resemble Pitfall than Donkey Kong. The art on all the classic Activision games were great and usually worked the Activision rainbow into the art in interesting ways."
He continues, "I particularly like the art on the Pitfall package and enjoyed having an excuse to study it more. One of the surprising things about this classic cover is that the protagonist is the least interesting thing on the whole image. I doubt that was on purpose, so I was glad to add a little more depth and excitement to our swinging hero."
Roberts says he painted the piece over a week's worth of BART rides, but you can hardly tell it was painted on a train! You can compare his version with the original below:
No year-end retrospective would be complete without a look back at the top games. Gamasutra staff together selected what we feel were the finest, most groundbreaking and impressive games of 2009.
Our individual staffers also chose honorable mentions, personal picks that didn't fall within our group top ten, but that we nonetheless wanted to single out.
Without further ado, we present our Top 10 Games of the Year:
10. Retro Game Challenge (Namco Bandai, Nintendo DS)
Retro Game Challenge isn't really just one game. It's a compilation of brand new retro games wrapped in a clever metanarrative that traps the player in 1980s Japan, forced to master a slew of cartridges. The games start basic but reach the NES' early '90s peak -- starting out with classic arcade titles and culminating in Haggleman 3, a ninja action game with the complexity (and quality) of later era NES games like Castlevania III or Ninja Gaiden II.
Retro Game Challenge doesn't just ape retro games shamelessly. No, what it does is ape them lovingly, with a real attention to detail and sense of exuberant fun. This is a compilation that can remind you why you once cherished Galaga (via its knock-off, Cosmic Gate) or illustrate why Japanese kids were so crazy for 2D shooters like Star Soldier (thanks to RGC's Star Prince). There's even a full-featured Dragon Quest-style RPG, Guadia Quest, to play through -- in addition to three Haggleman games and racer Rally King.
Each game is enjoyable in its own right. The attention to detail is impressive, the understanding of what made 2D gaming compelling to a generation of kids is apt, and little touches make the games accessible to gamers unwilling to put up with the truly archaic. It's all wrapped into a sly, charming story (based on cult Japanese TV show Game Center CX, though you need not be a fan to play). Retro Game Challenge is always charming and engrossing, has a lot of variety, and is an obvious labor of love on the part of its developers.
9. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War II (Relic Entertainment, PC)
Despite the shrinking of the real-time strategy genre since its heyday, Relic Entertainment has consistently turned out some of the most inventive and clever RTS games around. Dawn of War II is one of the studio's riskiest, and that risk paid off.
Relic went full-bore in the direction it's been heading in its recent games, dropping traditional base-building entirely to point a laser focus at squad-level tactics and fast-paced resource management. Even then, the single-player and multiplayer components are almost entirely different games: the campaign shares much in common with the persistent "just one more level" character progression of Diablo-esque dungeon crawlers, while the multiplayer is a lean, stripped-down, team-based action/strategy hybrid that draws from Relic's own Company of Heroes as much as from class-based multiplayer shooters.
It's an unlikely but inspired melting pot of genres and mechanics that speaks to Relic's long-term RTS innovation. And the Vancouver studio has kept support for the game strong, with patches and free additional content this year, and a full expansion in March.
8. Plants vs. Zombies (PopCap, PC)
PopCap's Plants vs. Zombies took the tower defense genre and turned it on its side with its six-row, horizontal gameplay. Like other PopCap games, Plants vs. Zombies became a huge time sink this year -- if you were willing to sacrifice a crop of potatoes to ward off a horde of zombies determined to cross your lawn and invade your home.
Plants vs. Zombies is a success for a few reasons. First, it's a weird, unique premise. People hear "Plants vs. Zombies" and their interest is piqued because they're already wondering how the two things can possibly be at odds. Secondly, the wonderful art style of the game takes something horrifying -- mutated self-aware killer plants and reanimated human corpses -- and turns it into something you would see on a Saturday morning cartoon.
Once players are drawn in, it's hard to escape the game's addictive, accessible gameplay, which takes the staples of real-time strategy games like resource and unit management, and artfully condenses them into something a six-year-old could understand. While it is accessible in that regard, Plants vs. Zombies is still entertaining to a wide range of audiences. PopCap said shortly after the game's release that it estimated over half of all Plants vs. Zombies buyers fell in the "hardcore" category. We guess that's just the magic of zombies at work there.
7. The Beatles: Rock Band (Harmonix/MTV, Xbox 360/PS3/Wii)
It’s not surprising that a music game would make our Top 10 for 2009. But with band-specific music titles sometimes being no more than glorified song packs (sorry, AC/DC, Van Halen), what made this much-awaited Harmonix and The Beatles collaboration shine?
Firstly, the art direction was absolutely supreme – from the wonderfully created intro cinematic through to the subtle stylization given to John, Paul, Ringo, and George. Certain other music games have strayed a little too far into the Uncanny Valley at times, but these characters, featured in carefully dressed sets reflecting particular stages of their careers, just felt right.
Of course, the gameplay works, even with only incremental additions, and the multi-part harmonies were a good technical addition – and vital for a band like The Beatles. And overall, the game was a fully formed, lovingly crafted experience, with the 'dreamscapes' filling out the otherwise drab studio visuals a particularly nice touch.
Perhaps it helps that The Beatles have such diverse – and now mythologized - set of audiovisual shifts. Playing through them felt like a mystical, magical journey. And, last but not least – well, it’s about the music, dummy.
6. Flower (ThatGameCompany/Sony, PlayStation 3)
A lot has been said about Flower over the last year – perhaps too much, at times. But the game, created by ThatGameCompany, took a different approach to games, and to game development, and made it work. The company is very iterative and prototype-based in its approach, and the dynamic duo of designer Jenova Chen and president Kellee Santiago have emerged from indie obscurity and into the media spotlight, while still retaining a different view on what games should be.
Flower exemplifies this view – its non-violent, non-competitive gameplay remains attractive and compelling (if linear), and the integration of sight, motion, and sound make for a cohesive product. Indeed, for a time Flower (a PlayStation Network exclusive) was one of the PlayStation 3’s major selling points, discussed alongside Metal Gear Solid 4. The game made motion control work on the PS3’s Sixaxis controller in ways that no other really did (you could make an argument for Warhawk, I suppose).
The game has received numerous awards and accolades since its early 2009 release, and we feel they are deserved. Though some might argue that the premise is pretentious, it makes you feel good to tell those who decry video games for their violence about a title that allows you to play through the dream of a flower – and that they might actually enjoy it, too.
5. Batman: Arkham Asylum (Rocksteady, Xbox 360/PS3/PC)
Batman: Arkham Asylum is not only the best Batman game to date, but to many, it's the best superhero video game of all time. Developed by UK-based Rocksteady, Batman: Arkham Asylum went beyond Batman's penchant for butt-kicking and batarangs (both of which are implemented masterfully, by the way) and explored the disturbing -- and sometimes moving -- pieces of his psychological makeup.
The game is essentially built around a very solid core fighting mechanic that allowed for perhaps the most intuitive and effective 3D beat-em-up we've ever seen. A simple system made up of one-button counters and attacks, combined with directional input, let players feel like they were part of a Batman comic or film, or even a kung fu movie, in which a highly-skilled martial artist is able to incapacitate waves and waves of thugs using only his well-trained body.
The feeling of improvisation during fight sequences added to the experience -- you could master the timing of the controls, as evidenced by challenge room high scores on the game's leaderboards, but button-mashing is also extremely satisfying for more casual players. Throw in some unlockable moves and gadgets that make you feel like an ever-evolving human weapon, and you have a solid base upon which to build several layers of badassery.
Among those layers are villains like the maniacal Joker, hulking Bane, spunky Harley Quinn, sexy Poison Ivy and the enigmatic Riddler. And of course, there's Scarecrow, who acts as a means to uncover Batman's background in some amazing ways, portraying a vulnerable side to the incorruptible crime fighter. With Batman: Arkham Asylum 2 confirmed, we're anxious to see just how Rocksteady, with its focused approach to game design, can improve upon the original.
4. Left 4 Dead 2 (Valve, Xbox 360/PC)
Left 4 Dead 2 is perhaps not the "best" game released in 2009, but it is unquestionably the game many people will be playing well into 2010. Left 4 Dead’s multiplayer co-op game set a new standard for the cooperative first person experience, and L4D2 takes it a step further. Though the systems are slightly more complicated, they are layered in such a way that they really work – and inspire greater teamwork than ever before.
The game wants you to combine its tools in clever ways to stay alive, and makes you feel clever for doing it (even if some hints are given in the form of achievements). On top of that, new modes like Realism, which takes away your superhuman ability to see your teammates (and health, and weapons) through walls, changes the dynamic even further. And on top of the more cerebral interworkings of the various poultices and weapons upgrades, you’ve got melee weapons, which allow you to slice and dice your way to freedom – you’ll wonder how you ever did without it.
On top of the systems, the game is simply more fun to play than ever, and looks completely gorgeous (especially when not in split-screen). The lighting, the set pieces, and even the enemies are rendered superbly, even if zombies to get a rather unfair free ticket out of the Uncanny Valley. The AI feels even sharper than before, and the game simply throws you into a hostile world with a bunch of interesting tools, and sees how you’ll work it out. Giving the player agency is something we're all in favor of.
3. Demon's Souls (From Software/Atlus, PS3)
A focus on accessibility and intuitiveness in game design has helped make gaming friendlier to a much wider audience... and then there's Demon's Souls, mercifully there to remind us that not all challenge is bad.
So detailed is the steeply difficult melee combat design and so logical are the worlds and their enemies that in discovering their way through the game -- even through repeated deaths -- players have the rare and deeply satisfying experience of meaningful learning.
The game also deserves major props for its creative approach to death, which tasks players with reclaiming their bodies. It implements an inventive multiplayer system, too, by which anonymous ghosts can help one another through battle assistance or simple messages scrawled in eerie runes.
The most addictive game experience of the year reminds us not to be so quick in ditching tradition in favor of one-touch inputs and gesture-controlled simplicity, as there's still much joy to be found in detailed, complex gameplay.
2. New Super Mario Bros Wii (Nintendo, Wii)
Almost since the beginning of the Wii generation, Nintendo took hard knocks from core fans for "abandoning" them. Thanks to New Super Mario Bros Wii, Nintendo deserves credit for addressing, even if slightly imperfectly, several of the major criticisms against it in one joyful, faithful swoop.
The game design essentially makes the difficulty level malleable for each player, depending on how many players who join and what kind of challenges they take on -- attacking the perception that Mario's gone too easy for single-players.
At the same time, the multiplayer is expressly designed to make players talk and interact, which in practice can give the dominant paradigm -- remote interaction over Xbox Live or PSN -- something of a run for it. These brilliant little victories abound, and the impressive result is a current-gen Mario that truly is for anyone and everyone.
1. Dragon Age (BioWare, Xbox 360/PS3/PC)
BioWare once reinvigorated the Dungeon & Dragons-inspired line of PC fantasy RPGs with Baldur's Gate. After a decade of evolutions, the studio has attempted to bridge the gap between that early milestone and its modern refinements.
Dragon Age: Origins succeeds both in that goal and as a masterful, ambitious roleplaying game in its own right. On its surface, it seems full of the same dwarves-and-mages-and-elves dynamic that's been so thoroughly mined, with stock visuals to match. But as you explore the game's considerable volume of content, its fascinating subtleties begin to reveal themselves -- class, gender, and race roles form the underpinnings of a compelling world without becoming too heavy-handed.
On the personal scale, Dragon Age features some of the most affecting and entertaining character interactions in gaming, implemented dynamically and seamlessly. Party members idly chat amongst themselves -- affably, dourly, indifferently -- and comment on the player's own choices. The game's overarching story is nothing special; it's the context and the personal moments that count, and they count for a lot. Rarely are virtual characters so believable.
The game itself demonstrates an impressive RPG design fluency born of hard experience, particularly on the PC where it fluidly shifts between a modern third-person RPG and an old-school top-down dungeon crawler at the player's whim. It strikes a satisfying balance between intricacy and intuitiveness, rewarding player investment but not becoming overbearing.
The remarkably diverse origin stories that serve as the subtitle's namesake just add further personality and depth to one of the most surprisingly unique RPGs in recent memory. With Dragon Age: Origins, BioWare has succeeded in reprising its own revival.
Honorable Mentions
In addition to our team top ten, each member of our core staff has chosen honorable mentions, personal favorites that didn't make the final aggregate list:
Simon Carless, Global Brand Director, Think Services Game Group
Uncharted 2 (Naughty Dog, PlayStation 3)
Ratchets up from its predecessor on every level, and brings carefully-plotted filmic narrative into games without feeling trite or overly guided to me. Multiple thumbs up.
Trials HD (RedLynx, Xbox 360 Live Arcade)
Perhaps my most-played title this year, it improves the genre of physics-based motorbike trick/race games with an awesome cacophany of microchallenges and mini-games. This is how fast, sharp play for a new millenium should be.
Assassin's Creed II (Ubisoft Montreal, Xbox 360/PlayStation 3)
That craziest of things -- a carefully reverent freeform romp through Renaissance Italy with practically transcendent art and carefully iterated gameplay.
Brandon Sheffield, EIC, Game Developer Magazine
Street Fighter IV (Capcom, Xbox 360/PlayStation 3/PC)
Capcom’s reinventing of the franchise, alongside developer Dimps, took 2D fighting back to the masses, proving that it can – and should – be popular again.
Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes (Capy Games, Nintendo DS)
It’s a Puzzle/Strategy RPG with far more organized randomness and more strategic head-to-head play. And it was good enough for me to beat twice!
Devil Survivor (Atlus, Nintendo DS)
DS strategy meets Dragon Quest battles, with an interesting branching story. It's the game made just for me! (Well, maybe not the punishing difficulty on the last day...)
Leigh Alexander, News Director, Gamasutra
Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars(Rockstar Leeds/Rockstar North, Nintendo DS)
Blah blah, who cares whether M-rated content can sell on the DS or how many units Chinatown Wars sold or what Michael Pachter thought about its numbers? It's still one of the most stunningly-designed DS titles I've ever seen, all the more impressive as Rockstar's first.
Silent Hill: Shattered Memories (Climax Studios, Wii)
Shame it was released just a bit too late for the holiday hype window, and often either incorrectly pegged as a simple "Wii-make" of the original old title or overlooked by franchise diehards for its liberties -- this reimagining of Silent Hill is an absolute must-have for every Wii owner, from the rare brilliance in its implementation of Wii controls to the fun and clever little ways it responds to the player's behavior.
Noby Noby Boy (Namco, PlayStation 3)
So you don't really know what you're supposed to "do" besides free-form play -- good. Games need more of this kind of simple, colorful pleasure, and seeing players strive to collectively "reach" the outer planets of the solar system prompts a warm, whimsical twinge we hardly ever get from games anymore.
Christian Nutt, Features Director, Gamasutra
Flight Control (Firemint, iPhone)
Instantly accessible, oddly addictive, and thematically neutral -- its inclusive yet appealing theme is probably a big part of its success. It's a snappily-executed, 99 cent hero.
Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure (EA Tiburon, DS)
A great example of synthesis -- it pairs two genres (platforming and puzzling) with cleverness and great success. This is a game that learned from the classics yet still has its own clever personality, and also represents a budding of unique talent in a huge studio.
Shin Megami Tensei: Persona (Atlus, PSP)
A remake done right: the game's pace was quickened, its interface was brought up to date, the translation was completely reworked, and once-excised content was restored. The result is a highly playable new version of an unfairly overlooked cult classic.
Chris Remo, Editor-At-Large, Gamasutra
Brutal Legend (Double Fine Productions, Xbox 360/PlayStation 3)
Double Fine's ballsy genre mashup has snappy writing, a bad ass soundtrack, great vocal performances, some of the most breathtaking environments in gaming memory, and Ozzy Osbourne.
Empire: Total War (The Creative Assembly, PC)
The latest Total War takes on the period arguably most formative to our own world, depicting the colonial era in grand style. Games can depict history like no other medium can, and The Creative Assembly's work feels important.
Torchlight (Runic Games, PC)
Remember how Diablo insidiously ensnared you, coaxing you yet one floor deeper into its seemingly endless dungeon even though you had to be at work in three hours? Torchlight is like that. With the guy who made Diablo's music.
Kris Graft, Senior Contributing Editor, Gamasutra
Forza Motorsport 3 (Turn 10, Xbox 360)
Sure, it's aimed mainly towards automobile enthusiasts, plays best with an expensive steering wheel controller, and takes the "bigger, better, prettier" route to racer design, but if you're a gearhead gamer, this is a must-have.
Infamous (Sucker Punch Productions, PS3)
An original superhero game, Infamous gives players a great sense of continuous evolution and increasing power. It's a fine departure from the developer who brought us Sly Cooper.
Borderlands (Gearbox, Xbox 360/PS3/PC)
This gun-loving loot-fest is tough to put down when playing alone, but is even more magnetic when you have three friends to play with. A great multiplayer game with a vibrant art style.
After years of working on mobile and downloadable titles, Toronto-based indie studio Capy put out its first retail release this month, Might and Magic: Clash of Heroes for the Nintendo DS, but there's one special build for the addictive puzzle/RPG game that you won't find in stores.
According to one of the game's developers, his 5-year-old loved the game so much that he drew a title screen for the game. "He's been a big fan and a great tester, so I decided to make a special build with his drawing," says Buckets. "With a little help exporting the art from [Capy president and co-founder Nathan Vella], we were able to play what is arguably the best version of Clash in existence!"
As you can see below, the alternate art is an epic piece. It's a shame it wasn't included in the final build.
GameSetPics: 2009 Game Company Xmas Cards - Denki To Hudson
After yesterday's start, we're continuing to round up the most fun game publisher and developer 2009 Christmas cards we got into the offices of GDC, Game Developer magazine, and Gamasutra. Why? We think scanning them and making them available online is a neat Xmas-y thing to do. And we're pretty much game nerds, so we love the custom artwork.
In any case, let's get straight on with this second (of three) sets of Christmas cards from various friends and colleagues throughout the world:
The fine folks at Scottish indie developer Denki, currently making the wordgame-tastic Quarrel for Xbox Live Arcade, went for a special card featuring one of the in-game characters (we discover when opening the card!) peering through a Christmas tree, with bonus Scrabble-y holiday greeting writing.
Los Angeles-based Naughty Dog, fresh off the triumph of Uncharted 2, put together their holiday card featuring all of that game's protagonists and antagonists (with bonus skeleton with submachine gun!) carousing contentedly and wishing everyone a happy holiday. As indeed they should.
This is a fun card that I suspect might confuse some, since they might consider it's about 15 years late and got stuck in a time warp. Nope, in fact it's the holiday card for the unofficial PlayStation Museum, which is currently digging out all kinds of PS1 game prototypes and presenting info on them for public display.
Capcom Japan's card is a straightforward holiday greeting that includes nods to some of the company's most anticipated games of the next few months, including Super Street Fighter IV and Lost Planet 2.
The LucasArts and Lucasfilm holiday card is actually featured on StarWars.com already, where they note: "Designed by artists Harrison Parker and Kelly Smith, the card appears to be a gingerbread cookie tin which opens to reveal several Clone Wars characters in gingerbread form, complete with cookie-dough "ghosting" on the reverse of the interior panel." If you look closely, you'll see the embossing pattern has slipped on ours (though the card is still cute anyhow) - but misprints are clearly a Star Wars collector windfall in future years!
Finally for this set, Hudson's holiday greeting comes in a typically explosive form, as you might expect from the creators of the perennial Bomberman, which they doubtless hope many of you will consider playing as alternative post-Christmas dinner entertainment. Just be prepared to counsel your uncle after he blows himself up yet again.
[If you'd like to be featured in our late Xmas card round-up or add us to your list for subsequent years, our HQ address is on the parent company page, mark c/o Gamasutra or GameSetWatch.]
Hydorah For The Holidays: Shoot'em Up Demo Released
Spanish indie developer Locomalito (8bit Killer) released a PC demo for Hydorah, his upcoming horizontal-scrolling shoot'em up inspired by classic shmups, not just in its 16-bit style graphics but also in its design. This preview build only includes the game's second level (one of 17 stages), but the absence of a checkpoint system should give you enough challenge to make this last a bit.
Locomalito says the final release will feature "short and intense levels, fantasy spacial landscapes, unlockable weapons, secrets, and a large library of enemies and bosses." Though Hydorah was obviously influenced by similar titles like Gradius and R-Type, the developer says he also took some design cues from non-shmups like Castlevania and Turrican.
You can download Hydorah's free demo from Locomalito's site, where you'll also find a dozen screenshots for the title.
"As a product of the eighties, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe was a big part of my childhood, so I was super excited to be a part of this show," explains Buffum. "One thing I love about the characters is that they are so iconic and colorful that they can be reduced to very few pixels and still read."
Gallery1988 sometimes sells limited edition prints of artwork it's shown in its galleries -- perhaps there will be an opportunity to buy one of "Battle Bones" once the show's ended?
Interview: Kill Screen & The Evolution Of Game Magazines
[In this GameSetWatch-first interview, writer Lee Bradley sits down with Jamin Brophy-Warren to discuss the imminent debut of Kill Screen, a magazine that is trying to take a distinctly different approach to print writing about video games.]
"We're so concerned about the minutia that we've missed the much more interesting question of 'how does this game make me feel?'"
Kill Screen is the ambitious new magazine from ex-Wall Street Journal reporter Jamin Brophy-Warren and collaborators such as Chris Dahlen. Launching in January, it's a project that promises a fresh approach to games journalism. Rejecting the established cycle of news, previews and reviews, Kill Screen aims instead to provide literate, thoughtful pieces on the people, culture and meaning of the medium. In Brophy-Warren's own words, "We want to be what early Rolling Stone was to rock n' roll or Wired was to tech. We want to look like the Fader and walk like the Believer." It's an enticing prospect.
To achieve this lofty goal, Brophy-Warren has enlisted an impressive line-up of talent. Kill Screen's 'Issue Zero' boasts the work of writers from the likes of the New Yorker, GQ, The Colbert Report, PopMatters and Paste.
As the names of these publications may suggest, many of the contributors do not usually write about games. Indeed some, such as The Colbert Report's Rob Dubbin, have never written on the subject. "But that's kind of the point," says Brophy-Warren. "We wanted to get people who didn't necessarily have an encyclopedic knowledge of games, but people who wrote well and games were merely one possible piece of their portfolio."
It's an editorial approach that hints at a broader dissatisfaction with the current scope of video game coverage. "I see a lot of items, but I want to see more stories," says Brophy-Warren. "A lot of video game writing is focused on the now and there's an arms race for news. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, but that leaves a lot to be developed in terms of narrative.
"I want more stories like Daniel Radosh's The Beatles: Rock Band piece and Esquire's Jason Rohrer profile. That's the writing that really matters. Those are pieces I'll go back to and read, because they help me make better sense of my world. With a lot of game sites/blogs/whatever, everything matters, so nothing really matters at all."
So with a focus on long-form profiles and reflective pieces, will Kill Screen will forgo video game criticism entirely? Not at all, says Brophy-Warren. But he's keen to outline how Kill Screen will do things differently. "I find a lot of games criticism horribly boring," he says. "They read like CNET reviews -- a complete focus on the technical aspects of the game. That works well for a reviewing a flat-screen television, but it's a terrible way to write about games. If we continue to buy into the delusion that games are merely software and should be evaluated solely on their graphical fidelity and feature set, then we cannot expect the medium to go forward.
"So if you mean criticism as it's widely practiced in game writing, then absolutely not. But if you mean writing that is critical of games as art form, then of course. But only insofar as that is a feature of good writing in general. I think everyone who's interested in Kill Screen should read Gay Talese's interview with the Paris Review on the art of non-fiction writing. That's what I'm interested in."
Admirable stuff, but Kill Screen isn't just relying on its editorial ambitions. The magazine is an aesthetic and physical experiment as much as a textual one. Indeed, such is Brophy-Warren's focus on elegant, clean design that he "bristles" at the idea of ads "spraying juvenilia all over my lovely pages." A high-end, lavishly produced journal, Kill Screen is the type of project that he believes publishers have shied away from in recent years, much to the detriment of the medium.
"Most publications have had it backwards," he says. "People read newspapers not just for the stories, but for the relationship with the object itself. And so the smaller and cheaper you make it, the less you're respecting the love and dedication of your readers. You're telling them: 'This thing you adore is truly worthless.' And then they start to believe you.
"The commodifying of the written word is a given. It's worthless. And I say this as a writer. What I mean is that written words are infinitely distributable across a myriad of platforms so the reading of those words has a lower value. But, and this is our presumption, there is value in an expensive product with high production value. People pay for physical objects everyday. We are not living post-singularity yet. As long as there are tactile experiences to be had, there will be value in the held thing."
Of course, for all the magazine's grand plans there is a chance that there just isn't a market for such a product, something Brophy-Warren openly admits to worrying about, but the early signs are positive. With interest and momentum gathering, independent funding -- at least to a breakeven point -- secured via Kickstarter and Issue Zero complete and ready to go, things seem to be shaping up, thanks to the ambition on show.
Triumvir Opens Preorders For Shadaloo Psycho Brigade Gear
Finally, a new line of clothes to replace my Wu Wear wardrobe! Triumvir debuted its new line of Capcom-licensed clothing for its Shadaloo Psycho Brigade brand. The Shadaloo (not to be confused with "the shoobadoop"), for those of you who don't follow the Street Fighter series' story, is the crime syndicate run by Mr. Psycho Crusher himself, M. Bison.
The gear is similar to Fangamer's more subtle merchandise, opting to present a stylish set of militant apparel with logos alluding to the fictional organization, instead of doing something obvious like slapping a mushroom on the center of a bright green t-shirt, writing in big letters "1UP" underneath the design.
"What I wanted to do with Shadaloo Psycho Brigade was to create an unorthodox approach from the 'video game/anime x clothing line' genre that we are used to seeing here in the USA," explains Triumvir's creative/art director Brian Chen. "... In my opinion it is more about the concept of the Psycho Brigade character than the clothing itself, because the clothing was created for the character."
As a result of the thought put into the items (and the quality of the materials/construction), the Shadaloo hats/vests/shirts/tees/etc. are probably priced higher than what you're used to seeing with video game apparel. The Psycho Brigade “Cold Weather” M-65 Jacket with its Shadaloo unit/flag patches, for example, is $200. Preorders over $100 receive a free Pyscho Brigade Folded Skull Cap, at least.
I've included a few of my favorite pieces from the collection below, but you can see the full line on Triumvir's shop. Orders are expected to ship on January 8th.
Festive Wallpapers, Level Pack For LocoRoco: Midnight Carnival
If you're still having trouble getting into a Christmas mood, the European PlayStation blog might have the cure for you: holiday-themed LocoRoco: Midnight Carnival wallpapers for your computer and your PSP. The U.S. PlayStation blog also put out backgrounds for the game, and they're near identical except for one slight difference (see after the break).
While you're thinking of LocoRoco, don't forget that Sony released a new Midnight Carnival level pack in the U.S. with three different stages: Shamplin 3, BungaBongo 1, and BuiBui Fort 3. Even if you don't own the game, you can still buy and play the level pack so long as you first download Midnight Carnival's free PSN demo first. Neat!
We've already covered the top five developers of 2009 -- and a fine crop of studios it is. But there's more to the world of games than development skill, and there's more to Gamasutra than recognizing it.
No, in a challenging year and a splintering market, there are several companies that stood out as companies. Some are developers, and some are not -- but the point is that just as studios deserve to be recognized for their fantastic games, so do industry companies that do exceptionally well.
Here's our pick for a list of the top companies influencing the game biz this year, and what made them so vital:
Top 5 Game Companies of 2009 (listed alphabetically)
Apple
Apple has done tremendous things for the game industry this year. While we all now recognize that the iPhone has not been the faultless goldmine that developers hoped for in late 2008, the platform is still empowering real developers to make really interesting games and make real money in the process.
Apple isn't a passive participant in this process, either. While the workings of the App Store can be oblique to the inexperienced, and the approvals process for apps is opaque, the company supports developers by promoting apps not based on budget or ad buys, but quality and buzz. Big hits can come from indies, not just major publishers. And someone at Apple is knowingly promoting games like Tiger Style's Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor and Firemint's Real Racing as "best of 2009" games over shinier, better-marketed titles from bigger companies.
The company also chose 2009 as the year to truly take gaming seriously from a marketing perspective: it started advertising the iPod Touch as a gaming device on TV, in print, and on billboards. Apple spokespeople have also continuously talked tough about the company's competition in the mainstream handheld gaming space -- Nintendo and Sony. And it has introduced improvements to the hardware and to the market, including new versions of the iPod Touch and iPhone, and enabling transactions in free apps, something many had been asking for.
While its approvals and other processes could stand to become more transparent, Apple has opened up a huge new market for games and shaken up the stagnant mobile gaming space completely.
Epic Games
Epic Games continued its dominance in current generation engine licensing -- no surprise, that, as the house that built Gears of War has had no trouble signing up licensees for its popular tech since the start of the Xbox 360's reign as the top console for hardcore gamers. In the face of increased competition coming to market, the firm has held strong.
And to increase its market share, and in the face of free toolsets being distributed by its competition, Epic this year made the intelligent decision to offer Unreal Engine 3 for free. While you can't release a commercial product built under these licensing terms, this move doesn't just get indies working with Unreal. It also ensures that Unreal will continue to march into schools -- training the next generation on its tech.
And though the acquisition took place last year, this year is when it paid its dividends: Chair Entertainment's Shadow Complex came out to massive acclaim and sales, proving conclusively not only that the right developers and game can make a tremendous success of Xbox Live Arcade, but that Unreal Engine 3 is the right tool for that job: a double win for Epic.
Its Epic Games China subsidiary's Titan Studios also launched Fat Princess for Sony's PlayStation Network, showing that Epic knows how to play both sides of the hardcore console audience. Also, as the name implies, it shows that the company is not ignoring Asia but, instead, embracing it -- with localized versions of its tools that specifically incorporate enhancements aimed at genres, such as MMOs, popular in Asian markets.
Unity
From an academic project to an engine contender -- Unity has become a major player in the market as of 2009, and there's more to come. Like Epic, Unity moved to launch a free version of its toolset, which is more flexible than Epic's implementation -- the free version of Unity can be used commercially. In the wake of that, the company reached 33,500 registered developers in November.
Important, too, was Unity's announcement that it's moving into the Xbox 360 market. XBLA, as we said above, is a tremendous market for developers to tap into, and while Unity might be considered lightweight for a full-fledged Xbox game, its tech fits into the downloadable space well.
Of course, that's proved by its success on the iPhone -- where Unity is one of the leading engine solutions. And while there was a brief, serious hiccup for Unity on the platform this year, it was quickly fixed by the Unity team.
And the company opened up a new UK office under the stewardship of former Criterion man Graham Dunnett -- expanding its capabilities beyond its San Francisco and Copenhagen locations. 2009 has been a majorly up year for Unity, and as the web and iPhone continue to rise in importance, and as Unity's support for Wii and Xbox 360 help bolster it, the engine becomes a more and more major player in the market.
Valve
Valve, the only company to cross over between the Top 5 Developers and Top 5 Game Companies, is one that many admire greatly. Writing about why Valve is so great is frankly getting kind of boring. But it's still worth exploring it -- and also exploring precisely why the company is the only one to make both lists, because that's key to its success.
Nobody doubts that Steam is an excellent platform. Some developers are less thrilled than others, but with indie titles like Zeno Clash getting their due thanks in no small part to the seamless digital distribution of the Steam platform, it's hard to argue that it is not a net positive. In addition, the service's cloud features, including game-saves, are innovative and value-additive. Its popularization of frequent discounts and has created a positive disruption to the PC business model, and the service's overall popularity with its user base has hastened the move toward digital distribution.
Notable, too, is the release of Left 4 Dead 2 -- not just because it's a great and highly successful game, but because the company adapted beautifully from its notoriously slow release model to one much more in line with today's market. It also rolled with the punch of a boycott -- turning the ire of fans into a major marketing coup by flying in the organizers of an online petition against the game's release, and turning them back to the community full of praise for the title.
And, of course, the whole reason that L4D2 thing blew up in the first place is because of Valve's peerless reputation for running its games as services. Its users have gotten so used to meaningful downloadable content and post-release support that their main complaint about L4D2 was that the first game's support would be truncated. Take, for example, Team Fortress 2 -- two years old, it's still getting major updates.
Valve's reputation as an excellent developer and a great service provider are intertwined. The company's success at producing amazing games like Portal feeds its reputation with gamers, driving them toward its Steam service; its success as a service provider builds confidence in its game releases. Other developers can't parlay their goodwill into other revenue streams -- but Valve can, and that makes it a savvy contender.
Zynga
Of course, the shining star of performance this year has been Zynga -- the company which rode the social gaming trend to the top of the revenue heap, creating the most popular games on Facebook and reaping the microtransaction-based rewards.
Sure, plenty of people don't like to hear it. There's the obvious and disheartening question of the fact that the company's games are largely unoriginal from both a design and theme perspective. So goes the trope: Harvest Moon begat Happy Farm begat Farm Town became FarmVille -- a copy of a copy of a copy. And there's no doubt that the company's strength in marketing is what has drawn players to its particular executions of popular social gaming themes.
But execution is not to be underestimated, says Zynga VP Hugh de Loayza: "Our games are pretty distinctively different from the traditional Asian farm games. A shooter is a shooter, so a harvest mechanic is a harvest mechanic. But the story you wrap around it is different. The other thing to pay attention to is that you've got a service that you're running." It's obvious the company is doing something right with its generic-seeming games. And there's more to the service than strongarm user acquisition tactics -- though they're indubitably a key part of the strategy.
And there's no doubt that this rapid growth has caused some growing pains -- unethical offers got FishVille banned from Facebook, though the game did come back.
Yes, people love to hate Zynga and the social games market (check the comments on that last link.) And that hate is comprehensible. But Zynga proves that, in the short time since the phenomenon has emerged, a business can be built on it. While we can never say "yes, this one will be a long-term success," Zynga is the power player in the market and the absolute company to watch out for, and is also one of the most meaningful and disruptive success stories of 2009.
Honorable Mentions
Zenimax, parent of Bethesda, deserves a shout-out for its acquisition of id Software. The lawsuit with Interplay is a bit of a black mark, though, and so were Wet and Rogue Warrior (it's time to sort out your non-internally developed games efforts, guys).
Also worthy is Square Enix -- not only did the Japanese company successfully acquire Eidos this year, it also shipped the most popular game in its massive Dragon Quest series and instantly became the PS3's record-holder for units sold in Japan with Final Fantasy XIII.
GameSetPics: 2009 Game Company Xmas Cards - Twisted Pixel To Rare
Well, it's that time of year again where video game companies send out their Christmas cards - some of them very cool, actually - and so here at GameSetWatch, we thought we'd break out the scanner and bring back a holiday tradition - neat game developer Xmas card scanning! (It's nice to showcase the often-custom artwork to the world, especially if it arrives in physical form and isn't posted online anywhere.)
The alert among you may recall that GSW did just this in 2006 and 2007 - lots of cool cards there, and links to other people scanning them. But we skipped it in 2008, partly because we were too freakin' busy - but also because there were lots of other outlets, including C&VG, the folks at Joystiq, and the GamerTell guys on the case.
This year, it seems to have been a lot quieter on the scanning front, but I did find a GamerTell gallery with a number of neat Xmas cards in it. (Comment or ping us if you know of other outlets showcasing cards, or have some you've scanned yourself.)
Anyhow, having pooled the GDC, Game Developer magazine and Gamasutra office's cards for this good cause, we'll be showcasing some of the best cards we got across multiple posts today, tomorrow, and Xmas day. Here goes:
The awesome Austin, TX-based indie studio Twisted Pixel, creators of The Maw and 'Splosion Man, sent along this card, complete with 'Season's Meatings' salutations and Splosion Man himself handing out all kinds of slabs of raw flesh for the holidays. Also, if you're going to put hilarious gurning employees and Die Hard references on the back of your card, don't expect us not to scan it, yay:
Anyhow, what's up next? Ah yes, something a little more... austere:
This postcard is from Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, and continues the subtle snowflake/holiday season-like effects with Sony icons that the company has sent out in previous years. Neat.
The nice folks at Natsume's U.S. office have made Harvest Moon a big part of their business, so it's no surprise that their Xmas card features plenty of sheep, chicken, and vegetables -- with some bonus Xmas elves and naughty monkeys.
Zoonami's Bonsai Barber for WiiWare was one of the most under-rated games of the year for us, and Martin Hollis' Cambridge, UK company's Xmas card features the main characters hanging their hair-cutting implements from the Christmas tree for everyone to admire.
Finally for this batch, and not too far away geographically of course, the chaps at Rare sent over this card featuring the famous Rare logo swathed in holiday trappings, with lots of cute ephemera scattered around it. Hints on their next games anywhere in there? No idea, we'll leave that to the legions of conspiracy theorists out there, but it sure is a cute card anyhow. More cards soon...
[If you'd like to be featured in our late Xmas card round-up or add us to your list for subsequent years, our HQ address is on the parent company page, mark c/o Gamasutra or GameSetWatch.]
Famitsu Explains Darius's 'Burst', Hosts Live Zuntata Performance
To promote the Darius Burst's release in Japan this week, Taito teamed up with Famitsu to create a page separate from its official site to share details on the PSP game's impressive but expensive preorder bonuses, previews of the bosses, and short interviews with series composer Hisayoshi Ogura and Taito's in-house band Zuntata.
The latest update to Famitsu's Darius Burst site has three new videos demonstrating some of the game's mechanics. In the above clip, you can see why Taito added "Burst" to the game's title, as the burst gauge is a vital feature that helps you quickly eliminate waves of enemy ships and make short work of bosses.
Famitsu actually held an event for the release last night, in which it previewed Darius Burst, showed superplays (expert playthroughs) for Darius Gaiden and G-Darius, interviewed developers, and hosted a live performance from Zuntata. Fortunately, KoshitsuVideo captured some choppy video of the Zuntata portion (the band starts playing around 2:30):
I'm upset that I came across this video far too late to send it to friends as a Christmas gift suggestion, but I'm holding onto hope that Santa has this blog in his RSS newsreader and will leave a Segata Sanshiro statue in the stocking hung over my fireplace.
Sega Toys manufactured this tribute to the Sega Saturn mascot -- the least they could do after he sacrificed his life to save the company's executives from a missile attack -- some time around 1998. Though the packaging has English text like "He Became Legend" scattered around, I don't think I've ever seen this in any North American shop.
The back of the box reads: "SEGATA SANSHIRO is an authority of justice who guides young men to SEGASATURN Do. He hates to things by halves! In pursuit of SEGASATURN Do, he practices asceticism and keeps challenging various things day and night!!"
The Saturn Junkyard, which stumbled upon the above video, also has photos for another Segata Sanshiro figure, which came with an inflatable bop bag!:
Mobile Castlevania's Soundtrack Saved From The Shadows
Castlevania: Order of Shadows has always seemed to me like an odd game in Konami's vampire-slaying franchise, not just because it's the oft-forgotten mobile installment but also because of the people who worked on it.
Though series producer Koji "IGA" Igarashi was involved in its creation, Konami contracted several Western developers to work on the game.
Tyrone Rodriguez, now at Nicalis working on the Cave Story WiiWare remake and Night Game, was the lead designer on Order of Shadows. And Vincent Diamante, who composed the music for Thatgamecompany's acclaimed PSN game Flower, also worked on the mobile title's soundtrack for Konami.
Diamante has uploaded every song he composed and arranged for Order of Shadows online ("delivered by a collection of Roland JV patches"), including a couple tracks that didn't make it on the final game. You can hear the full soundtrack, one of the few saving graces of a mostly panned game, on his YouTube playlist. Highlights below:
Castlevania: Order of Shadows - "Title (Roland Mix)":
Castlevania: Order of Shadows - "Dancing the Stairs Away (Roland Mix)":
Castlevania: Order of Shadows - "Imposing Wall (Roland Mix) (unused track)::
[In this interview, our own Christian Nutt talks with Gaijin Games art director Mike Roush about the studio's popular retro-inspired WiiWare series Bit.Trip -- now in its third iteration -- the Santa Cruz company's vision, and the indie landscape.]
Mike Roush, director of art at Santa Cruz, CA-based Gaijin Games, has made a splash with the retro-influenced aesthetics of the Bit.Trip series -- Beat, Core and Void -- all released for WiiWare by Aksys Games.
The company, has only three staffers -- Alex Neuse on design, Chris Osborn on programming, and Roush -- yet has shipped three downloadable titles and built a community of fans.
In addition to the series' hip, retro style, we talked to Roush about the company's history, philosophy, and influences -- and how he sees the landscape of the digital download gaming market for indies.
(And if you're looking for more Gaijin, you can read Gamasutra's postmortem of Bit.Trip.Beat, the studio's first game, which ran earlier this year.)
What made you decide suddenly to start doing this?
MR: Well, Alex is a great talker. It's kind of an interesting story. I was going to move to Oakland and be with my girlfriend, and try to get a job up in the San Francisco/Oakland area.
When I was going to join Gaijin Games, Alex's pitch was, "We're going to make Pong with music." So, it's not a very big selling point, but Alex's enthusiasm won me over and essentially made me stay there, in Santa Cruz, 80 miles from Oakland.
So your girlfriend wasn't happy?
MR: No. Well, she wasn't happy for six months, but then she moved down to Santa Cruz, so it all worked out. But essentially he was like, "We'll make a company. We're going to make great games. We're going to have a lot of fun." It's basically my trust in Alex.
Bit.Trip became a series very quickly. Was that always planned?
MR: Yes. The six-game series was planned from day one. We wanted to do the series, because there is a giant story here with all six games, and they all tie in. So we planned the series from day one.
We were a little concerned about doing a big series, just because people lose their interest. But the games are so different that we're not losing people's interest. And I think it's going to make a set of games stronger. Also it gives us a chance to make, essentially, a game with almost a two-year development, in stages, and that was really appealing to us, too.
You stake out this aesthetic and basic concept, but then you can just build around it. What are the advantages of doing it that way? Are there, for example, tech advantages or art advantages?
MR: Sort of. Having the basic beat system in there is something that carries over. For the most part, I don't really reuse any of the art because I want it to remain fresh for the player, because the player is what we really care about. So I would say in a lot of ways it's sort of a disadvantage, because each game is so different that we don't really get to reuse a lot of our tech or the art.
We're sort of rethinking. I mean the basic principles are there, but there's not a huge advantage to it, especially the way our next three games are planned out. We want to keep everything different, so there's not a whole lot of advantages to that, I don't think.
That's funny. And honest.
MR: Well, we want to keep quite a bit of transparency with what we do, and that honesty and interaction with people, I think is why people like Gaijin Games.
How's your relationship with Aksys? I'm sure there has been a lot of discussion whether to go direct or whether to work through a publisher.
MR: Yeah, we are very happy with Aksys. It's rare for a publisher to be so flexible. They put a lot of trust in us. When they put that trust in us, we perform better. We don't want to disappoint. We don't want to have deadlines that we don't meet. That is something that was very important to us. If we would have gone with a more well‑known publisher, we feel that our artistic vision would have been compromised. Working with Aksys is absolutely fantastic.
I think part of the danger with working with a large publisher is also that you are a smaller piece of their pie. Do you find that to be the case, also?
MR: Aksys wants to have a relationship with us. They have BlazBlue, obviously, that they've published, but they give us all of the attention that we ask for.
Why did you start with WiiWare rather than Xbox Live Arcade, or multiplatform even?
MR: Essentially we all just got off of a Nintendo project, so we were all very familiar with Nintendo's process and tools. That was a main selling point for Nintendo. Also, Alex is a huge Nintendo fanboy. So, it has been a dream of his to work for Nintendo for a long time.
Above and beyond that, they have really good tools for indie developers to get their game and their vision out there quickly. We were able to make Beat in three and a half months and start a company. Now, that isn't to say that we couldn't do that with another platform, but in Nintendo a lot of the things were set up for us already, and we had the knowledge.
Are you happy with the performance of the games commercially?
MR: We are happy with the performance of the games. We have had some critical success which is very pleasing. WiiWare -- I think it's a great service. I'm seeing a lot of very good games coming out for Wii.
Super Meat Boy, I think is something that's very exciting and that's kind of like [representative of] Nintendo's openness. Having something like Super Meat Boy on WiiWare, I just think that's really exciting, because Nintendo is a very open company on that aspect. They don't mess around with your creative vision.
Xbox Live Arcade pioneered the downloadable games model, and it also still seems like XBLA gets the largest share of attention relative to WiiWare -- what do you think?
MR: I think WiiWare is still a young service, for one thing. We do a lot of work to promote our game. And we have a lot of interaction with the public. If a kid in Ohio emails us, we respond instantly. It is not to say that these other companies don't do that, but we really push the game. We try to really make a presence out there.
Also another thing that helps us is we do have a series. It's not like this, "oh we made one game." We always have something. Every couple of weeks we have something to share with the community, and that's really helped.
When it came to now making Core and then Void, were the development cycles the same length? Or has it changed as you got into the process of making these games?
MR: So far, the development cycles have all pretty much been the same. Beat was three and a half months, but we were also building our company. We started development on Void in the first week of E3, so that whole week was out of the development process. I can't recall if we went over and made up that extra week, but I think that they've all been relatively the same.
Can you squeeze more out of that period of time, or has it been a pretty consistent production process?
MR: Well that's actually, back to your other question, one of the things that making these games in a series has done, is we know it better. And we know the process better. So, we are able to do things faster. The process is getting faster and faster because we can get results quicker, just because we know the series and we know the style. We know what the gameplay is like.
I feel like there is some inherent cleverness to this series concept. Teasing out what the advantages are is actually pretty interesting.
MR: Well, when we first pitched it to our friends, one of our friends, who works for a pretty big company, he sat there and he looked at us and he laughed. We're like, "What's going on?" He basically told us that this might be the most brilliant thing he's ever seen.
Because part of our philosophy is, we're going to design a game that's fun in the time we have. We sort of designed this game around our limitations. And it's also a tool. It's going to be a two-year dev process for the whole series, and we're building on to the bigger and better games that we want to make as Gaijin Games.
Is the ultimate goal to stay in download, or to move on to larger projects? I mean, by the time you finish this series, the landscape is going to have evolved in terms of from where it is now.
MR: Yeah, for sure. We want to continue making bigger and better games and Gaijin Games is going to evolve to do that. We're very careful how we're going to do this. Basically, we don't want to make products that suck.
Now, does that mean we're going to stay with Nintendo? I don't know. My guess is we like Nintendo and Nintendo treats us very well. But one of our core philosophies is we want to be a semi‑green company and having digital downloads is a green practice.
That is to say, are we ever going to release a disc game? I don't know. Maybe. If disk games are around in five years and we have to make a game that's going to be four gigs then we might release a disc game. But we do want to stay a digital distribution as much as we can.
Well, the scope of what you can do digitally, also even on the console side, is evolving. Obviously, Shadow Complex came out and was the biggest XBLA launch ever, and it's a really sizable, full‑featured game compared to what the service started out with.
MR: That game's 800 megs. Well, I'll tell you right now, we were downloads of 40 megs. So we kind of chuckled around the office because, as an artist, I will take up all the space. Like, if you were to give me 39 megs of that 40 megs I would fill it up in a month. And so we are very interested in making bigger, better games. But we're cautious about it and we want to take the right steps. Our priority is the end user.
Does the retro art approach feed well into the size limitation or is it a pure aesthetic approach?
MR: We get this question a lot. You would be surprised how much space I was able to fill up with this retro look. We get reviews that people say, "Oh, it's just all 2D." I mean, the whole thing is 3D. I did the whole thing in 3D.
If you sort of look at how much is going on in all the animations, which aren't super stellar animations, but if you look at all the stuff that's happening with camera fly‑throughs and stuff, it didn't really help the download size -- if that's what you want to know. And also we are music games and music takes up a lot of space.
The retro aesthetic is a totally valid aesthetic, and it has a lot of cachet right now.
MR: Yeah, and that was another thing I wanted to try to get away from. Right off the bat we were like, "Oh, we're going to go full Atari‑style." And I was like, "That's cool but there's a lot that's in that style now." I wanted to have an individual style that was kind of bred from the Atari style but was sort of uniquely ours.
It's funny and fun in Beat, when you get down to the low level and it's completely black and white.
MR: Yeah. It's scary. It's funny too, because people say, "Oh in Bit.Trip you only get one life" but it's just not true. When you level up, you get a new life. You've earned a life.
Well it's like Rez. Don't know if you intentionally modeled it on Rez...
MR: Yeah. We definitely did. Rez was one of our main influences actually. We definitely drew from Rez and Guitar Hero. We drew from them because they're super badass games.
It's funny how it seems like Rez didn't get its due back when it originally came out but then it seemed so in sync when Rez HD arrived on XBLA. It seems like the aesthetics of games have sort of also caught up to what Rez was trying, because Rez was really different, aesthetically, when it came out.
MR: Yeah. It was so far ahead of its time. I mean it is kind of funny. It's like all of a sudden there was sort of like, this retro backlash, and then Rez HD comes out and it just hit.
How many people are in Gaijin now?
MR: It's still just the three of us.
Is it your goal to keep it tight‑knit?
MR: My guess is that we will remain relatively small. We definitely have plans on growing. My vision for an art team, even if we were working on a bigger title, would be to have four artists that are super tight and super in sync with each other. I can't speak for Chris or Alex, but I definitely know that Chris feels the same way.
For Alex, I think, he's so open with getting input, that having the whole team help out with the design and the making of the game, we're able to remain small, because we all have so much input. I think we will grow, definitely, but we will always remain a small studio.
What I find interesting about Bit.Trip.Beat is that it's a really simple core gameplay concept. Does that help from an audience standpoint?
MR: Yeah. Alex has the philosophy of working from the controller to the television. He also wants players to sort of play out his vision that he's designed for them instead of just having them make their own experiences.
Having a simple mechanic is just so much more beneficial because it limits the process, and by limiting it in some weird way you can be more creative. And the funny thing about Beat is there are really only like five places that you need to be. I have watched people just freak out -- but it's like you only really have to be one of five places at one time.
It is hard to be that analytical as a player.
MR: Well, I will let you in on a little secret. I have never finished Beat. I can't beat my own game. Then with Core, I am just terrible at Core. So, it is to say that I made the game, and I still have problems processing it and figuring this stuff out.
Does that ever worry you, or do you think it's just because of your personal skill?
MR: Well, it doesn't worry me personally. I feel that even not being able to complete Beat myself, I still have so much fun with it, and part of that fun is that I can't beat it. It's still just a challenge. I will beat it someday, absolutely.
Headsoft, the same homebrew team that released Manic Miner In The Lost Levels and Warhawk DS, has completed another unauthorized remake of a classic title: Sam Manthrope and Argus Press Software's The Detective Game, originally published for the Commodore 64 in 1986.
As with the original game, The Detective takes place in London in 1974, placing you in the role of a Scotland Yard investigator looking to solve the murder of a rich aristocrat. While looking for clues at his mansion, you learn that someone is killing off the departed noble's friends, relatives, and employees. To beat the game, you need to collect 10 pieces of evidence and identify the murderer.
The remake features new graphics and music, and is adapted for the Nintendo DS's two screens -- the moving question marks in the second screen seem distracting, though. The group also created new packaging with original art (complete with a "Not Official Nintendo Seal), in case you want to print the designs and decorate a blank game case.
I've included videos from both The Detective and The Detective Game below so you can compare how the games look. You can download The Detective's ROM for free at Headsoft's site, and you can play it in either a Nintendo DS emulator or on an actual system, provided you have a homebrew flashcart device.
As part of a recent residency in Vienna, tinkerer Kyle Machulis developed a couple projects for local robotics cocktail party Roboexotica. One of those projects is Adult Mario, which uses a combination of the original Super Mario Bros. playing on an NES emulator, a Phillips amBX system, and a Trance Vibrator to provide "an interactive immersive version of Mario [that] also serves you alcohol".
With the setup, the fans spin as you run and the lights change from blue to red when you hop on an enemy. Killing an enemy also drips a tiny bit of rum into a nearby cup, while collecting coin adds coke to your drink. If you die, however, Adult Mario dumps water into your cup. The vibrator buzzes when you jump onto the flagpole at the end of each level, vibrating longer if you jump to a higher position.
Machulis also developed a similar modification for Tetris called Bartris, which I've included a video for below. Though Roboexotica in Vienna has already passed, he plans to bring the two setups to the upcoming Roboexotica in San Francisco on February 17-18, 2010. You can find more details on the event here.
2009 brought many welcome surprises and accomplishments that the video game industry can be proud of -- whether it's the ever-broadening definition of "gamer," the proliferation of risky indie video games, or just the higher profile that the industry has today in general.
But not everything in 2009 was worth celebrating -- some very notable shortcomings occurred this year, from continuing third party issues with the Nintendo Wii, to slowing retail game industry sales.
Perhaps the worst thing about our top five picks for disappointments is that all of them are still open-ended problems that have yet to be solved...
5. Ongoing Third Party Wii Hurdles
For some time, Nintendo management has been fighting a PR war against the perception that Nintendo platforms are inhospitable for third parties. In 2009, Nintendo honchos continued to wrestle with that perception. Nintendo president Satoru Iwata noted in January this year that there were 30 third-party Wii titles that have sold over 1 million in the U.S., up from just 12 in March 2008.
At the time, he predicted a trend that third-parties would become increasingly successful on the platform -- a prediction that occurred just months after Nintendo of America boss Reggie Fils-Aime said, "I will be able to say our licensees 'get it' when their very best content is on our platform. And with very few exceptions today, that's not the case."
We'd venture to say that Fils-Aime still wouldn't think third parties "got it" in 2009, with "very few exceptions." We saw third party Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 titles regularly top the charts, but we never did see a third-party Wii game lead monthly sales this year in the U.S.
2009's high-profile M-rated Wii third party titles didn't seem to fare that well. The sales performance of Madworld, House of the Dead: Overkill, and Dead Space Extraction not only cemented the console's reputation as cold towards third parties, but also seemed to show that the console, like previous Nintendo platforms, isn't friendly towards more adult-focused content.
What third-parties do get the Wii? Capcom apparently gets the Wii, releasing successful iterations of Resident Evil. Take-Two gets the Wii with Carnival Games. Before it went into bankruptcy, Midway got the Wii with Game Party; Activision with Guitar Hero; Ubisoft with Rayman: Raving Rabbids; Namco Bandai with Wii Ski and Active Life; and THQ with Big Beach Sports, apparently. All of these are million-selling third-party Wii titles -- some of them not exactly known for their high-production values.
Who "got it" this year specifically? Electronic Arts had success in the West with EA Sports Active, which released in May this year. The workout game has sold around 1.8 million units and is the publisher's best-selling Wii game to date. EA CEO John Riccitiello insisted: "Third-parties can do a lot better on the platform with the right support from Nintendo. They've always been first party-centric, and they're learning how to be third party supportive. The Wii is not gone."
However, the EA CEO added, "But if [Nintendo] maintains a $199 [price] and doesn't innovate, they're going to have a hard time competing with what's already been announced from Microsoft and Sony [their motion controllers]." And seems like there may already be issues, as Gamasutra's Matt Matthews recently illuminated with a study of U.S. retail game sales.
Matthews noted an estimated 34% Wii market share of all U.S. retail games in November 2008, dropping to 29% in November 2009 -- as the Xbox 360 overhauled the Wii, rising to 37%. If you consider that Nintendo's own first-party games are included in that 29% total, and the relative flood of Wii titles thanks to ease of development, it looks like the Wii game market may be markedly tougher going forward.
4. Clunky Digital Platform Approval Processes
In 2007, industry stalwart and Space Giraffe developer Jeff Minter described Xbox Live Arcade's extensive approval process as "soul-crushing." For many other XBLA developers, it might not be quite that dramatic, but the process for gaining approval to many digital services -- including the iPhone App Store, PlayStation Network, WiiWare, and others -- certainly could have done with continued optimizing in 2009.
There's a contrast in the issue, but it tends to be strict, specific technical requirements that trip most developers up. Surprising holes can open up -- such as an issue with the Unity engine for iPhone -- that can exclude or disapprove entire classes of titles.
For the much more exclusive Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network approval processes, developers have to jump through various greenlight hoops and meet strict technical requirements before hitting the storefront for each release. This stops poor quality or significantly broken games from appearing, but leads to extremely long approval processes at times -- sometimes difficult for indie studios to afford.
But let's not just pick on console approval processes. The iPhone App Store, with its 100,000-plus Apps and more than 22,000 games, has an approval process that is "starting to crack from the seams" thanks to the sheer amount of content flowing through it, Kimmo Vihola, CEO of Minigore developer Mountain Sheep told Gamasutra this year.
While the barrier to entry is much lower, the result of the 'gold rush' on iPhone is that approval times for the App Store can range from a couple days to six weeks, he said. In addition, games do get 'stuck' in the approval process at times, it appears.
And as digital distribution becomes more prevalent, these issues look like they're going to persist for some time.
3. Devaluation of Games
The App Store made the term "Race to the Bottom" a common phrase among video game editors covering the iPhone gaming market. But might that just be rank snobbery from those who don't understand Apple's radical free market approach?
We're not just talking about the avalanche of 99 cent software, although that is at the root of the predicament of value perception on iPhone. We're also seeing impressively fully-featured games that might sell for $20-$30 on a PC or other platform sell for a measly $5-$10 on the App Store.
Ian Bogost, video game designer and academic, wrote about this skewed value perception earlier this year on Gamasutra. He said that a person may buy a $5 magazine, read it for a bit, then leave it on an airplane with no qualms. Or a badly prepared coffee might cost $1.49, and you'd just trash it without much of a second thought.
But people buying games off of the App Store have different value expectations for games as opposed to a cup of coffee, and in 2009, that skewed perception was not in favor for higher game prices, much to the chagrin of iPhone developers. A September analysis by UK site Pocket Gamer found that the average price for a top-100 iPhone game was $3.20; a top 10 game was $1.89.
But what else should we expect? The App Store encourages this Race to the Bottom with its storefront, which lists games according to unit sales. Of course, when a game is listed at 99 cents as opposed to $10, the 99-cent game is already at a distinct advantage over more expensive games, and likely to land a higher billing. (Apple did add a 'highest-grossing games' chart with a lower billing in 2009, however.)
Obviously, low price points can be great for consumers, and there are games that have seen admirable success at the 99 cent price point. But even at rock-bottom prices, consumers still aren't guaranteed to bite, and the market becomes even more hit-driven than normal, as devs cut prices to vault into the Top 100. As Bogost noted, "Apparently 99 cents is a risk worth taking on a cup of coffee, but not on a sophisticated, long-form video game worth ten times more on another platform."
2. Market Broadening Is Hit-Driven
The "Long Tail" was supposed to be a driving factor behind the expansion of the video game market -- more people would play a wider array of games across easily accessible digital platforms, and everyone could make a good living satisfying those niches.
While we continued to see an expansion of the video games market, it turned out that the Long Tail had a limited impact on the games industry's broadening in 2009. Companies that had enough marketing and advertising resources to turn a game into a hit are the ones that drove expansion.
Even in a digital world, it's the sales-leading companies that grab more market share. Just take Activision Blizzard with World Of Warcraft, Zynga with Farmville and Mafia Wars, and even -- on a more conventional retail front -- Nintendo with Wii Fit (and just about all of their other internal titles).
Just because there's more choice doesn't mean that people will buy games more evenly, as consultant David Edery has been pointing out and a recent The Economist article defined particularly well across all creative media.
As the magazine noted, under a subheading called 'The Tyranny Of The Hit': "As sales become ever more concentrated, it is becoming both more urgent and harder to establish a foothold near the top of the market. A book or film that fails to attract a mass audience tumbles quickly into the depressed middle."
It's this danger that even larger games are increasingly falling into, which is why you're seeing executives like Take-Two's Strauss Zelnick recently commenting: "The demand for top-tier products is okay. The demand for lower-tier products is not so clear... The safest place to be is in triple-A."
And if you think the same thing isn't happening on digital platforms - check out the swift hit status of Zynga's latest Facebook games, thanks to heavy cross-promotion with existing hits like FarmVille and Mafia Wars, as well as Electronic Arts and Gameloft's domination of the iPhone's top revenue games charts.
1. Retail Video Game Sales Down
We started this year well aware of 2008's ugly economic environment, confident that video games could weather -- or even flourish -- during tough financial times in the new year.
Early in 2009, there were reports that video games would even benefit from the credit crunch, as people may opt to stay home for cheaper entertainment, rather than venturing outside for expensive trips or meals out.
That seemed to be the case at first. January U.S. game retail sales were up, as were February's. NPD called it a "fantastic start." But that growth would not be sustainable, as the next six consecutive months would see U.S. retail video game industry sales revenues decline. The excuse of tough year-on-year monthly comparisons, while legitimate to an extent, couldn't explain the ongoing shortfalls.
The recession was affecting even the resilient games industry. Through November, video game sales were down just over 12 percent from 2008. NPD analyst Anita Frazier said following the results for that month that "Breaking even [with 2008] seems more out of reach."
But 2008 video games generated a record-breaking $22 billion at U.S. retail (up 23 percent from 2007), which does make for a truly a tough comparison, particularly when the economic odds are stacked against this and virtually every other industry.
In particular, the rise of the online game and digital distribution -- not tracked at all in these high-profile retail charts -- has birthed suggestions that social network gaming (FarmVille), free-to-play online games (MapleStory), digitally distributed titles (Steam), and subscription MMOs (World Of Warcraft) are more than compensating for the retail slump.
But in an industry that has gotten so used to such strong growth over the years, recording an annual retail game decline can be labeled as nothing other than disappointing -- and it is in no way clear that digital is completely making up for the loss.
Best of FingerGaming: From Ridge Racer to N.O.V.A.
[We round up the week's top news and reviews from sister iPhone site FingerGaming, as written by editor in chief Danny Cowan and authors Louise Yang and Jonathan Glover.]
This week, FingerGaming highlights recent releases like Namco's Ridge Racer: Accelerated, EA's street racing sim Need for Speed: Shift, and Gameloft's Halo-like FPS N.O.V.A.
The site also checks out the top free and paid iPhone games of the week, as well as examining an update to hit title Canabalt, and other notable App Store debuts such as SNK's Metal Slug.
Here are the top stories from the last seven days:
- Top-Grossing Game Apps: Where's Waldo? Beats Call of Duty
"Activision's Call of Duty: World at War Zombies drops to second place in today's rankings, as Ludia's iPhone adaptation of the Where's Waldo? series of puzzle books climbs up to the top."
- Gameloft's N.O.V.A. Now Available for iPhone
"Gameloft's sci-fi first-person shooter N.O.V.A. turned heads when it was revealed earlier this year, both for its impressive graphics and because of its obvious similarity to Bungie's Halo series."
- EA Releases Need for Speed: Shift for iPhone
"Shift is a sim-styled street racing title that features a lineup of 20 licensed cars. Each vehicle can be customized in both performance and in appearance -- players can choose from a variety of spoilers, rims, and specialized paint jobs."
- Top Free Game App Downloads for the Week
"Donut Games' Traffic Rush tops the free charts for the second week in a row. RuneScape developer Jagex comes in at second place with its debut iPhone title Bouncedown, as Storm8's iMobsters takes third place."
- Canabalt Updates with Global Leaderboards, New Obstacles
"Think you've finally beaten your Canabalt addiction? Think again. Semi Secret Software has rolled out a Canabalt update that includes new gameplay elements, a new music track, and global leaderboards."
- Ridge Racer: Accelerated Premieres for iPhone
"Accelerated features much of the same drift-heavy racing that defined previous entries in the series. In a controversial move, however, Namco has locked the majority of the game's content away as optional in-app purchases."
- Top-Selling Paid Game Apps for the Week
"Where's Waldo? tops the paid app charts in its debut week. The recently updated Doodle Jump drops to second place, as Bejeweled 2 follows at third."
- SNK Playmore Premieres in App Store with Metal Slug Touch
"Metal Slug Touch is simplified take on SNK's run-and-gun franchise -- one that could be better suited to the iPhone's capabilities. Players control the Metal Slug vehicles using the accelerometer, with an on-screen button triggering alternate fire."
While not as low-tech as the Thumb Stadium, the hardware for this handheld PIPER (a recursive acronym for PIPER Is a Portable Embedded Roguelike) console won't outclass the Game Boy, either. The system features a 4 MHz-speed microcontroller, 8KB code flash ROM, 368 bytes of variable RAm memory, and a 128x64 pixel LCD.
Powered by three AAA batteries, PIPER is designed to run a "light" roguelike game that you can program into the system. Pic-Rogue, the first roguelike designed to fit the portable's low memory requirements, features 25 randomly generated levels (six enemies and three traps each), 25 monster types, 13 spells, seven special attacks, and six abilities (e.g. HP, AC, power).
The developer behind the project isn't selling the system but has made available PIPER's circuit schematics and PCB layout/construction, as well as Pic-Rogue's source code. The hobbyist also notes that he or she is redesigning a smaller version of the 12x8x1.5 cm handheld with four times more memory, and might consider selling the custom portable in the future, too.
Llamasoft founder Jeff Minter showed off his latest progress with developing a game for iPhone, and while it doesn' feature the impressive "goatflow" manipulation previewed in his engine demonstration last month, its tentative title, Attack of the Mutant Oxen, sounds promising!
This clip shares "a prototype of a bit of the first level", in which you tilt the iPhone to maneuver around and shoot at planes, occasionally throwing fruit at them. Minter notes that nothing in the video is final, as both the graphics and the name are placeholders.
"[It] starts out very Time Pilotty as you can see, but it'll have more complex missions on some levels than 'just shoot the planes then warp', and it'll get a bit Star Forcey as well along the way," adds the British developer.
In related news, Llamasoft announced that it's added online scoreboards for all of Gridrunner Revolution's play modes, viewable in-game and on the company's site. Also, the studio has discounted Gridrunner Revolution and Space Giraffe to $10 each for the holiday season ($14.99 for a bundle including both titles) -- the deal is available right now when you buy direct from Llamasoft, and Direct2Drive should put it on sale soon, too.
You might already be familiar with Glen Brogan's work -- the illustrator's recent t-shirt design for "Mario's Closet" has picked up a lot of press from major video game blogs, and it's likely to be voted up for a production run at Splitreason.
That Mario tribute isn't his latest gaming piece, though. He posted the above pinball girl last weekend as part of a pinup drawing contest to win an original painting from Bill Presing, known for his own cartoony pinup girls. Brogan didn't win, but I still wanted to highlight his excellent art.
It's actually a great complement to another one of his earlier works, a "Girl Gamer" arcade pinup available to purchase at Split Reason as both a baby tee and an art print. You can see the full piece after the break.
[GameSetLinks is GameSetWatch's semi-regular link round-up post, culling from hundreds of weblogs and outlets to compile the most interesting longform writing, links, and criticism on the art and culture of video games.]
Having just completed the first GameSetLinks trawl in a couple of weeks (don't ask how long it takes - lots of hours!), I handed over a few neat visual links to Eric, and now have another 35 misc. links of gaming goodness to parcel out.
Some of them you may have seen before - this set is some of the more obvious ones - but they are still well worth checking out as we head into the holiday season, from Brandon Boyer's spot on alt.game picks to the Slate end-of-year game retrospective pieces.
Media: A world of hits | The Economist
Fascinating long-form piece on the world getting more hit-driven, at least in some areas: 'Although small films can do astonishingly well (the latest is “Paranormal Activity”, a cheap thriller that has sold more than $100m-worth of cinema tickets in America alone), they do not do so at all dependably.'
I missed this back when the UK studio originally uploaded it earlier this month, but Kuju subsidiary Zoë Mode shared this tutorial video for Chime, its Xbox Live Arcade music game created for video game industry charity/publisher OneBigGame.
Chime will feature five different levels, three difficulty modes (based on time limits), and a free-play mode. Zoë Mode plans to donate more than 60 percent of the game's price to OneBigGame (which sends its donations to charity partners Save the Children and Starlight Children’s foundation). You can learn more about the puzzler and follow its development at Chime's official site.
[We're trying to do something different with the Nuovo Award at the Independent Games Festival this year, and here's info on the jury which is even now discussing what's new and different among IGF entrants.]
Organizers of the 2010 Independent Games Festival have revealed jurors for the $2,500 Nuovo Award, which is intended to honor abstract, shortform, and unconventional game development which "advances the medium and the way we think about games."
The IGF's Nuovo Award, which was won (when called the Innovation/Nuovo Award) by Jason Rohrer's acclaimed abstract multiplayer title Between in 2009, allows more esoteric 'art games' to compete on their own terms alongside longer-form indie titles.
For the 2010 Independent Games Festival, the IGF Main Competition judges, numbering over 160 in total, will recommend games entered into the IGF Main Competition this year to be considered for this award.
But a separate panel of notable game and art world figures will decide the finalists and winner for the Nuovo Award in juried form, mirroring similar, artistically important awards in other industries.
Organizers have now announced the full jury for the award, which will be given out during the Independent Games Festival Awards on the evening of Thursday, March 11th, 2010 during Game Developers Conference 2010.
It consists of the following individuals:
- Clint Hocking (Creative director of games including Far Cry 2 at Ubisoft Montreal and GDC Advisory Board member.)
- Eric Zimmerman (co-founder of New York-based independent game studio and Diner Dash creator Gamelab, teacher, game designer, and co-author of notable game book Rules Of Play.)
- Eddo Stern (Los Angeles-based artist and game designer behind machinima and interactive art exhibits like Tekken Torture Tournament and Waco Resurrection.)
- Frank Lantz (Veteran game designer and co-founder of crossmedia game company Area/Code, behind games like Parking Wars, Sharkrunners, and Spore Islands, and Director of the NYU Game Center.)
- Rod Humble (Head of The Sims label at major publisher Electronic Arts, as well as art-game practitioner with games like The Marriage and Stars Over Half Moon Bay.)
- Jason Rohrer (independent game developer of Passage and Between, which was the IGF’s Innovation/Nuovo Award winner in 2009.)
- Carl Goodman (Senior Deputy Director of the Museum of the Moving Image in New York, one of the first museums in the world to collect and exhibit video games.)
- Marcin Ramocki (director of the film ‘8 BIT: A Documentary about Art and Videogames’ and widely worldwide-exhibited new media artist.)
- Mare Sheppard (co-creator at Metanet Software of IGF winning indie game N -- subsequently expanded into Xbox Live Arcade hit N+ -- as well as the upcoming game Robotology.)
- Jesper Juul (author of the MIT Press book ‘A Casual Revolution’, game design-centric writer and visiting professor at NYU.)
The five finalists for the IGF Nuovo Award will be announced -- alongside a jury statement detailing reasons for picking the finalists and honorable mentions -- on January 4th, 2010 on the official Independent Games Festival website.
Eroge Characters Comment On Hentai Game Restrictions
Commenting on regulations enacted by Japan's Ethics Organization of Computer Software (EOCS) earlier this year to prevent the sale of erotic video games (eroge) with content simulating forced sex, developer Softhouse included a couple notes in its latest Japanese release about the ban.
In Shinobi Ryuu, players follow several ninja/samurai clans filled with warriors who somehow end up having presumably consensual sex. Before players can even start the hentai PC game, though, they're greeted with this disclaimer:
"All the characters appearing in this game have gone through special training and all actions carried out are done on the basis of mutual agreement. Even if you’re a inhuman person who believes that fictional characters in creative works do not have human rights, please do not ignore this.
We also thank all the kind people who see a character in the story saying phrases such as “help me” and take it as a real call for help. However, even though you are worrying for the characters in the story, these are all lines spoken from a script.
They are not saying all this from the bottom of their hearts. We are sorry that they have put in so much effort into their acting that some people will confuse it as something that is really happening. This game is a fictional story."
Players are also reminded about the new eroge restrictions in the game's story, too, as Softhouse sarcastically programmed this casual conversation between two of Shinobi Ryuu's characters, as translated by Canned Dogs:
Surprised Suigen Ninja: I’ve recently learnt something that surprised me.
Listening Suigen Ninja: What is it?
Surprised Suigen Ninja: We, fictional characters, apparently have human rights.
Listening Suigen Ninja: Huh?
Surprised Suigen Ninja: There are apparently some special people that will get angry and show sympathy for us if we get raped. And they’ll start lobbying for us too.
Listening Suigen Ninja: Wow, we even can’t do anything ourselves without a creator or a player but we have human rights.
Surprised Suigen Ninja: Surprising isn’t it?
Listening Suigen Ninja: Yeah. But since they acknowledge that we have human rights, I wonder if they’ll acknowledge that we have the right to vote too. Our creators will work hard to do some political manipulation.
You can read Japanese eroge developer Softhouse's full comments at Canned Dogs.
[Virtual items are the subject of much contention. Are free-to-play games devaluing retail products? Are they changing the industry? In an editorial originally published in the December 2009 issue of Game Developer magazine, editor in chief Brandon Sheffield weighs in.]
Early this month, I was having a discussion about free-to-play games and virtual items with Raigan Burns of Metanet Software. He was arguing that virtual items represent the equivalent of digital snake oil -- you’re paying for a few altered lines of code.
It’s a question of degrees, because all games are lines of code after all, whether they be many or few. And in fact Metanet’s latest game, N+, is primarily sold via digital distribution on Xbox Live Arcade. In many ways it's a larger, more involved virtual item.
But I understand his point very well. The idea of paying money for something that a designer maybe spent an hour tweaking, or which an artist only adjusted the colors on, just doesn’t sit well with me.
This is rooted in our consumer-oriented society. Ultimately all value is perceived. Why is a diamond more valuable than cubic zirconia? Mostly because we say so. As a society we’ve decided that between these two similar subjects (though the latter is synthetic), one is worth more, and the other less. Meanwhile both are worth more than food, which we actually need to survive.
Food, air, and water have intrinsic value, because we can’t live without them. Aside from those stand-out examples, our entire value system is fabricated -- so depending on one's desire to have these things, they're worth as much as or more than anything else. It’s quite relative, and in a society in which most of us actually do pay for the water we drink, this perception of value is very important to a lot of people, including, I’m dismayed to say, myself.
Dr. Sheffield’s Cure-All
For me, if there’s an object I can own versus a digital version, I’ll go the ownership route every time. I still buy CDs, DVDs, and records, and prefer physical copies of games I really enjoy over digital ones. Over time I’m letting go of this -- after all, my enjoyment of these media is not based on their physicality, but rather the data contained on them. Still, I find much more value in a full game I can purchase that has physical weight than I do in a game that must be purchased in bits and bytes.
For a lot of people, that need for the physical simply isn’t there, and that’s why the individual is the most important part of perceived value. For someone playing MapleStory who really wants that purple sword because it matches their outfit, that sword is possibly one of the most important things that person could buy.
Raigan’s point was this: "Goods like a paperback novel, a pen, or a shovel might have a resale value that's close to zero, but they still have some sort of ‘functional’ value in that they can be used for some purpose. For example, I can read or write or dig a hole.
"In comparison, most virtual goods are purely useless. Of course, I'm referring to Animal Crossing 'cool yellow shirt'-type goods; something like a really good sword in WoW would actually be useful, because it will allow the owner to farm gold more effectively and then sell the gold on the black market or whatever. But even that is a contrivance, the developer could easily modify a variable to let the player do a lot more damage, they don't 'need' the sword -- it's an artificial constraint imposed by the developer."
"This is typically benign in ‘normal’ games because it's done in the service of gameplay, but once you enter virtual goods land though, the rules are designed to extract more money out of people rather than to provide people with an enjoyable experience. This seems very different and possibly awful."
A book or a physical version of a game may lose its value after it’s completed once, unless you plan to go through it again, much like a virtual item. Still, I do agree with Raigan mostly, and my discussion of perceived value was partially to be contrary. But perceived value is also exactly the reason this model is working. There are people for whom the physical element of the purchase isn’t important. They’re paying for added fun, and if that fun is in the form of a yellow shirt, so be it.
That’s perhaps the most important part: For those who play these games, these items aren’t perceived as designed to extract money, they’re part of a fun experience. For instance, I’m not a religious person -- but what seems to me to be a method of controlling a populace appears to others as a way to approach the divine and achieve personal fulfillment. It’s all a question of perception.
Gimme That Olde-Tyme Religion
While the concept of paying for something so virtual initially seemed alien to me and my experience, I thought back to good old La Val’s Pizza in Berkeley, where I grew up. How many quarters did I scam out of my parents so that I could get a few more lives in Final Fight, or another go at Rampart? In essence I was renting time with the game -- the virtual items I was paying for were lives. In practice, these free-to-play games that run on microtransactions (even moreso subscription or pay-per-play games), which many core or old-school players decry, extrapolate from a revenue stream that comes from the very source of electronic games.
Anyone who’s been reading my editorials and interviews for some time (more the fool, you) will note that I’ve covered the free to play space, especially in Korea, rather extensively. In the two years since I wrote my editorial titled "Why You Should Care About Korea," that country and its business models for games have been more and more on the minds and lips of game developers around the world. One might presume I would be happy to see this model continue to gain traction among consumers, as microtransactions bleed into Facebook’s social games, and iPhone apps. I am not.
Like Raigan, I am curmudgeonly reluctant to admit the value of the piecemeal experience over the whole, finished one. But the fact is that more and more people see that free-to-play experience not as piecemeal, not as incomplete, but rather a living experience that can grow and change. Or perhaps a new kind of experience with a low required investment and barrier of entry.
And some of us fogeys may do well to recall that this model is not so different from that on which we were raised, or for the fogey-er amongst us, the games we created. The trick is how to make these virtual items actually worth what the users pay for them. But that’s a yarn for another day.
Gaijin, Robotube Slave Over Bit.Tonik At Blip Fest
As we covered earlier in the month, Blip Festival 2009 sponsor Gaijin Games (Bit.Trip series on WiiWare) teamed up with Flash/iPhone developer Robotube (Zyrx, Bloktonik) to produce a game inspired by last week's chiptune event in just one day.
The resulting Pong/puzzler hybrid, which appears to be titled Bit.Tonik, was designed as the "tasty lovechild of Bit.Trip Beat and Bloktonik", with music supplied by chip musician Glomag. Indie game review show Bytjacker was at Blip Fest and shot several videos of the two studios working on the game -- you can see a few seconds of an early build after the break.
"I’d say we did very well," says Robotube's Jason Cirillo. "We ended with some bugs and some weird gameplay issues, but I think we created a clever and fun mechanic that we’d like to further explore. I think the consensus was that we have an 80 percent finished game." Gaijin Games and Robotube plan to post Bit.Tonik online "very soon".
Fans of Gaijin Games should definitely check sister site Gamasutra today for an interview with art director Mike Roush, in which he talks about "the studio's popular retro-inspired WiiWare series Bit.Trip, the Santa Cruz company's vision, and the indie landscape."
ASCAP Wants Licensing Fees From Guitar Hero Arcade Operator
At least one Guitar Hero Arcade operator has received demands from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), to pay a licensing fee for its music game units. According to the organization, the arcade machine, which plays dozens of popular rock and pop songs like the home console versions, is akin to a jukebox and thus requires similar "public performances" fees.
The operator Mdrago has two Guitar Hero Arcade units at his bar, and though his establishment often hosts bands, it doesn't pay for an ASCAP license because the performers only play original music and not cover songs. He shared his troubles with the organization on the International Arcade Museum forums:
"My understanding was this was a legally licensed game, but ASCAP is saying that it isn't. We had one in a music venue and they are wanting us to pay a fine because they are basically saying it is used like a jukebox, but it's not because patrons are paying for the entertainment of the game, not for the listening value of the music. ...
ASCAP is saying we have to pay the $800 a year license to have it in this bar. ... We gave the lady hassling us [Guitar Hero Arcade manufacturer] Raw Thrills' number because our distributor told us that should clear it up, but it has not. ASCAP is saying they are going around the St. Louis area and is going to push every one of these out."
While Raw Thrills hasn't commented on the issue, an ASCAP spokesperson recently told GamePolitics, "ASCAP is currently in negotiations with the manufacturer for the commercial use of these machines." I wonder why this issue is just coming up now when similar music-playing arcade games like Dance Dance Revolution have been around for years?
Big Bang Mini developer Arkedo Studio released 03 Pixel, its third Xbox Live Indie Games and its collaboration project with officemate Pastagames (Maestro: Jump in Music). The adorable 2D platformer, which we've previously shared screenshots and video for, is available for 240 MS points (around $3.10) and has a free demo.
With the third game from its Arkedo Series out the door, Arkedo is already teasing an upcoming forthcoming entry. Titled 04 Slash!, the game is described as a cross between The Legend of Zelda and Geometry Wars. I'm not sure what that would look like, but having played Arkedo's previous titles, I'm sure it will be interesting to say the least.
I know lots of people say this for the most mundane things, but I really feel like Christmas has come early!
As the final pre-Xmas week ends, it's time to go through the top full-length features of the past week on big sister 'art and business of gaming' site Gamasutra, plus our GameCareerGuide features for the week.
Lots of neat things in here, including the latest NPD analysis, a retrospective of the Warcraft franchise from the Blizzard folks, a postmortem of Top Gun for the iPhone, a neat MMO design piece, some new GCG articles of note, and rather more things besides.
Go go go:
Fifteen Years of Warcraft: The Interview
"Blizzard's Samwise Didier and J. Allen Brack chart the history of the Warcraft RTS and now MMO franchise from humble beginnings, while discussing the present and future of the series, the company's evolution, and the mainstreaming of geek culture."
Rethinking the Trinity of MMO Design by Brian Green
"Experienced MMO designer Brian "Psychochild" Green pulls at the MMO trinity -- Tank/Healer/DPS -- to examine whether or not this pillar of combat design can be pulled apart, modified, or even changed fundamentally."
A Brave New Medium: Facebook versus World of Warcraft
"We speak with key figures at Facebook, ngmoco, EA, and others about interaction, interfaces, and accessibility in a digital world comprised of everything from Facebook to Modern Warfare."
Sponsored Feature: Former Game Creator Taps Unreal Engine 3 For World of Chadam
"In this sponsored feature, part of Intel's Visual Computing site, former Monolith head Jace Hall discusses Chadam, a new Unreal Engine-powered animated series using the engine for surreal, intriguing -- and initially non-interactive -- means."
Postmortem: Freeverse's Top Gun For iPhone
"Freeverse designer and programmer Justin Ficarrotta recounts what went right and what went wrong with the development of the iPhone game Top Gun, and how fans should always be in mind when working on a licensed game."
NPD: Behind the Numbers, November 2009
"Gamasutra's in-depth analysis of November's NPD U.S. game retail sales numbers looks at year-to-date highs and lows, the Xbox 360's surprising sales reversal against the PS3, Wii's 2009 individual Top 10 domination, and much more."
GCG: Game Narrative Review: Persona 3 FES
"In our latest Game Narrative Review, we take a look at the surprise RPG hit that changed the way players think about Japanese-developed role playing games with its rich and textured, and highly personal, story."
GCG: Excerpt - Foundation Game Design With Flash
"Want a leg up on working with Flash? We offer an excerpt from a book aimed at Flash novices with plenty of helpful tips on working with Adobe's popular program."
It's been an incredible year for fans of indie games. The 2010 Independent Games Festival recorded a 35 percent increase in submissions, indie games have gained more prominence and recognition in the mainstream industry, and quite a few of them even turned out to be decent commercial successes for their developers.
To celebrate the achievements of these up-and-coming game designers, we thought it'd be great idea to list out a couple of our favourite independent video games from the past twelve months.
Bear in mind that for every game mentioned here, there are twenty more that are dear to us which got left out, so we'd like to apologize in advance if your picks didn't make an appearance in this article.
Here are our picks for the top ten independent games of this year:
Created for the TIGSource Cockpit Competition - and, rightly so, the winner of the competition - Enviro-Bear 2000: Operation: Hibernation is what you might call 'downright genius'. Taking control of a bear just as winter is approaching, the task is to gobble down enough fish and berries and then find a place to hibernate before the snow starts to fall. All this takes place in a car. Obviously.
This is where the hilarity begins, as - and prepare for the bleeding obvious - our bear isn't the world's best driver. In fact, he's only able to grab one part of the car's controls at a time. Cue trying to accelerate with your paw, then frantically grabbing the wheel and dodging around that pine-cone tree, or that angry looking badger, or even the other bears who are, of course, driving their cars around looking for food too. Feeling clever? Jam a rock on top of the acceleration pedal and away you go - let's just hope you can stop in time. Failing at a game has never been such incredible fun, and by the time your car is brimful of leaves, stones, bees and badgers, there will be tears of laughter in your eyes. Magical.
9. Meat Boy (Edmund McMillen, Jonathan McEntee) [Flash, freeware]
A fruitful year for Edmund indeed. Spewer and Time Fcuk were great platform games, but Meat Boy is definitely the prime cut here. They've even made a map pack for it, yet fans apparently couldn't get enough of our hero and his quest to save Bandage Girl. Count on Mr. McMillen to capitalize on the popularity of his creation, as he has teamed up with Tommy Refenes to produce Super Meat Boy (the enhanced version created from the ground up) for release on WiiWare and Steam sometime next year.
SMB will be a tricky game, any way you look at it, and we'd recommend putting a few hours into getting some practice with the original Flash build first.
I'm a big fan of puzzle games, and it's easy to recognize one in any community - hand them any version of Tetris, and it would keep them entertained for hours. It is from this simple concept that Lazy 8 Studios' Rob Jagnow built the solid foundation of Cogs on. All you have to do in this game is to move the tiles around a surface until the level objective is achieved, which is usually connecting one end of an object to another with a set of cogs or pipes. Sounds like Pipe Dream, yes? Even better.
The sheer satisfaction of solving a puzzle on your own was one of the things that Jonathan Blow wanted players to experience when playing Braid, and it is that same exact feeling you get in Cogs when the tiles click into place and contraptions whir to live. Sure, you can find the solutions online, but where's the fun in that?
Cogs is a game that everyone should try, regardless of whether they're fond of puzzle games or not - simply because it's one of the best puzzlers of its kind to be released in the past few years. The grandmaster of puzzle games Alexey Pajitnov has played Cogs at E3 recently, and even he couldn't bring himself to stop playing it. That is Lazy 8 Studio's bullet point, right there.
Dejobaan Games' basejumper takes the idea behind the extreme sport and turns it into one of the best arcade games of the year. Players duck, dodge and dive their way over and under floating obstacles, waving to their fans and flipping off the rest. What makes Aaaaa! so worth your time is the feeling of speed players can experience from the comfort of their living room. As scenery zooms by, the rush is simply staggering.
The game is balanced to perfection, allowing casual gamers to pick it up and enjoy that rush of streaking past buildings and deploying the parachute at the last minute, whilst also giving the hardcore players more of a challenge, with perfect paths set out in the sky for maximizing score and achieving those 5 star honours. There's also a vein of ridiculous humor running throughout which cuts the action up nicely, with relaxation videos and special announcements made at random intervals.
Dot Zo Games' Journey to the Center of the Earth received a whopping 75 comments on the Indie Games Blog, most of them involving the word 'wow' - and with good reason! Players guide their little explorer down into the depths of the Earth's crust, grabbing treasure, opening locked doors and fending off beasts. A treasure map gives a hint as to where each chest lies, and each area has its own unique atmosphere.
Of course, where would an explorer be without his unlimited supply of bombs to destroy enemies and provide himself with an little extra jumping power. The depth of this game (quite literally) is phenomenal, and since there is no save function, it's an experience you really need to sit down and focus on for a good, long while. Clever puzzles continuously block your way, and only the most skilled explorers will make it out safe and sound with their plunder. Platforming at its best.
The premise is simple - take control of a small, star-shaped hero as he pelts his way through worlds which appear to have been designed via Microsoft Paint. Make sure nothing can stand in his way - every wall can be bounced off, every brick and bad guy smashed and every hole can simply be jumped back out of. Then throw in a mixture of folk, blues and jazz music to
give the whole experience just that little bit more excellence, and you're away!
Many claimed that RunMan was the Sonic the Hedgehog game they'd been longing for since the blue streak turned 3D, and it's really not hard to see why - this game wants you to run really, really fast and it does everything in its power to help you achieve this goal. Our starry friend can't die, he leaves a trail of fire in his speedy wake and he shouts 'ROCK ON' as he powers along. And yet, even though it was all fairly easy - it's always going to be if the matter of death is taken away - it took really determination and skill to collect gold medals on each level. A masterclass in platforming.
A platform game for people who have fond memories of classic platformers. The developer chose to use CGA-like colours for this production, and we're delighted to report that his decision to limit the palette for graphics has paid off handsomely. It looks great, controls smoothly, and there is never a period where you would not be shooting at enemies or avoiding the carefully-laid traps in every area.
Star Guard also features a checkpoint system and an infinite number of lives, making it a very accessible game to players of all skill levels. A hard mode is also included, and I've tried to speed run this platform game as a personal challenge more times than I cared to count - hours spent on trying to beat the nine stages in the quickest time possible, and without a single life lost. For that alone it surely deserves a mention in our picks, and we'll be looking forward to future retro creations from this up and coming developer.
3. Canabalt (Adam Atomic, Daniel Baranowsky) [Flash, freeware - paid iPhone version available]
The rate at which Adam Atomic's Canabalt got around the internet on its release was staggering, but not at all surprising. Here was a game that was pretty much impossible not to like, and forums and message boards went berserk with people trying to best each other's runs. What makes Canabalt such an achievement is its control scheme, which goes as follows - press X to jump.
Simple as that, yet as an experience it's so frantic, so tense... so incredible. Our hero is escaping along rooftops as the buildings around him are falling to the ground, and it's the players job to get him safely from one rooftop to the next, and repeat. Other obstacles attempt to foil his escape plans - like huge missiles falling from the sky - and there is such a glorious atmosphere to it all. Such questions as 'Who is he running from?' and 'Why is the world falling down around him?' get lost in the sheer astounding intensity - part of the tension due to your knowledge that the only end is his demise... but how far can you get before that happens? That question is one which has kept the game alive long after its release, which high score tables for the iPhone edition still being fought over. A prime example of how one-button games should be done.
Terry Cavanagh has made quite a few gems lately, and while Don't Look Back, Bullet Time and Bullfist were fantastic games, VVVVVV is definitely the jewel of this crown. A simple gameplay element is introduced early on, but things quickly become challenging as each room has its own set of traps or devices that will turn everything you've learned topsy-turvy (figuratively and literally speaking). Rescuing your crew members in this retro-looking platformer might not be such an easy task after all.
VVVVVV is currently only available to play via a small donation to the developer. People who have experienced the game firsthand can attest to how good it is, and judging by the recent postings on the developer's site there are many who couldn't wait to get their hands on it too.
This is such a gorgeous, gorgeous game, we just had to use the same word twice to describe it. Amanita Design made their name with the Samorost series and could have repeated their commercial success by making another sequel, yet Jakub Dvorsky (leader of the team) chose to take a risk by creating a brand new game that had no connections with anything they've done in the past. Turns out that risk was one worth taking, as every reviewer and journalist who got their hands on Machinarium had only positive things to say about it.
The game is a true work of art, and by the end of the adventure you couldn't help wanting more. So much thought and love went into the development of the game, and thanks to Machinarium the bar has now been set very high for commercial Flash games. We can only sing praises for this one, so here's hoping we don't have to wait another two long years before Amanita Design resurfaces with their next project.
Honorable mentions: Pathways (Terry Cavanagh) [Windows, freeware]- Such simple graphics, such a moving message. And Yet It Moves (Broken Rules) [Windows, paid, free demo, WiiWare version soon] - Platformer with a literal twist. Osmos (Hemisphere Games) [Windows/Mac, paid, free demo] - Relaxing puzzler which requires complete concentration. Minecraft (Markus Persson) [Browser, paid, free previews] - Wonderful sandbox-style world builder. Blueberry Garden (Erik Svedang) [Windows, paid, free demo] - Very experimental, very atmospheric. Time Gentlemen, Please! (Zombie Cow) [Windows, paid, free demo] - One of the best adventure games I've played. Ever.
['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which documents the history of video game magazines, from their birth in the early '80s to the current day.]
My dog and one of my ferrets would be happy to wish you a merry Christmas and happy second-half-of-December. They would, that is, if they knew what Christmas, December, or "merriness" was, or were even paying attention to you, which they sadly aren't.
This will be my last column of 2009, since I'll be home with the folks next week and generally not thinking about video games for a little while. Things in print mag-dom this year have been largely the same as last -- low page counts, gamers proclaiming their imminent demise, the usual. It's an encouraging sign, though, that nearly every outlet is actively trying new things, from Game Informer's redesign to GamePro's campaign to shed its kiddie image once and for all. The really big efforts, the EGM remake and Future's WOW: The Magazine, both got delayed to next year, but at least we're ensured something to talk about in '10, right?
That said, click on to check out all the game mags that crossed my desk over the past two weeks. Enjoy the rest of December!
One of the more impactful subscriber-only covers we've seen on an NP, yeah? For once, it's a lot better than the newsstand version, which is a simple clip-art collection of Nintendo icons with some neat captions. It advertises a "250 reasons to love Nintendo" 24-page feature that's packed with neat stuff, although it's a little pedestrian in design.
The reviews section takes it in the chin a little bit as a result of this, but I'm not complainin', especially because of the MM10 coverage and the three pages the editors spent interviewing Takahashi-meijin, the sort of cross-generational hero that I only wish I was.
If last month's GI was a celebration of everything that's great about print mags, this month's is a reminder of the industry's problems. The book size went from 132 to 104 pages in a single issue now that Christmas is "over," and GI has a house-ad spread for their website on the inside front cover (some of the most coveted and costly adspace in a magazine, after the back cover) instead of a paid advertisement.
Now that the 200th-issue celebration is over, Issue 201 goes back to the more familiar GI format of feature, feature, feature, previews, reviews. The features were the bit that changed the least with the redesign, and like traditional GI articles, they take the kitchen-sink approach. It suits them, though, and if you're into the subject games, they're engrossing.
In the letters page, GI confirmed that retro reviews are a thing of the past in the print mag, as well as editor bios that showed each contributor's likes and dislikes. I can't say I will cry over either omission too much, although Lord knows I slaved over the 50-word bio I got in EGM when I freelanced there half a decade ago. There's a game trivia quiz in the back page again, too -- "The Game Over section will now have a few different rotating features to change things up," GI writes, "so you'll still see an occasional quiz on the final page." Hmm. I dunno. That sort of thing, I wonder if the few dozen people (ballpark guess here) who complained to GI about the quiz's absence are the only ones who actually read it. Wishful thinking on my part, maybe, but...
Hey, Conviction's back on the print-mag circuit! The feature inside is classic Future -- big, flashy, packed with eye-catching sidebars and such. It's almost to the point, in fact, where you have to hunt for the main body-text. Almost.
Besides the MW2 blowout and Bayonetta on the disc, the main draws are a couple of funny quickies -- a profile of four annoying gamer personalities and a concept for a Toyota Tacoma designed to be a Pimp My Ride-style portable Xbox lounge of sorts.
Gary Steinman starts next month (former EIC Eric Bratcher is at Games Radar now), so nothing too drastically different this issue -- just a lot of previews, mainly. The vast cover-touted roundup is bookended by more MW2 mayhem and a bunch of quick, humorous one-off pieces like "the worst water levels in PlayStation history."
Did you know that Brutal Legend cost $24 million to make? Yow! Just one of the things I learned reading this cover feature. Another: If I want to keep my sanity, I probably better not angle for a job at Double Fine anytime soon.
There's also a long, technical piece on character creation that blew most of my mind to pieces and immensely fascinated the surviving remainder of it.
Videogames Hardware Handbook Volume 1
Ah, the final magazine of the year! Adios, 2009! This is simply a collection of hardware-oriented features from the pages of Retro Gamer magazine -- 255 pages of pure content for $20, covering everything from the NES and 2600 to more obscure byways like the Konix Multi-System. Useless if you have the individual issues, of course, but man, this volume really packs a presence on the coffee table. (It's an excellent cheapo Xmas gift for a gamer friend, come to think of it. I shoulda thought of that before the local B&N sold out of copies.)
[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a really cool weblog about games and Japan and "the industry" and things. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]
[‘Design Diversions’ is a biweekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column by writer Andrew Vanden Bossche. It looks at the unexpected moments when games take us behind the scenes, and the details of how game design engages us. This time - musings on class, from Dungeons & Dragons to Team Fortress 2 and beyond.]
Dungeons and Dragons was the manual video game, with calculations done by hand and images drawn with imagination and graph paper. D&D has been the bible for both game and world design in the RPG and all of its many sub-genres. D&D’s influence is only becoming more widespread, and more games than ever are taking a page from its most defining concepts.
Class, or the ability for players to specialize and customize their characters, has become increasingly popular in genres outside of the RPG. Class is a great tool for allowing players to customize their game experience according to their strengths and expectations, which is big draw in all kinds of games. One genre that has seen a particularly pronounced increase is the FPS, especially since the release of games like Team Fortress 2. This may be because class was integral to the sort of teamwork encouraged by early Dungeons and Dragons.
Gary Gygax’s vision of D&D was very nearly like a team sport. When he and the many others working at TSR created the first character classes, they made them with the intent that they would be used like a team. Players were supposed to work together and compliment each other, and class-based design was meant to encourage this team effort problem solving. A successful group relies on each other, and compensates for the weaknesses in other members. What’s wonderful about class based design is that it creates a feedback loop in which the classes encourage good teamwork, and teamwork encourages exploration and mastery of the classes.
If Guns are Classes, is Ammo EXP?
Plenty of single player games are getting in on the class action, and there are a lot of advantages to the approach for the individual, from basic convenience to the flow of gameplay. In older games everyone started out the same, and part of the experience was running around until you found your favorite gun. Games like TF2 let you start out with them. This is a small difference, but it means more time with teammates and less time spent equipping yourself.
Different guns are quite comparable to different classes, and in TF2 they are still the most defining features of each individual class. Games like Unreal Tournament made have started everyone out the same, but each gun was wildly different and fairly well balanced so that players could pick weapons equal to the situation or their playstyle. In practice, players would self-select even without more strictly defined classes.
On the opposite end of the spectrum is the experiment in monotony called instagib, in which the only weapon is an instant hit instant kill weapon. This led to a game that was more or less a point and click adventure for the hyperactive. While in a sense it levels the playing field by making everyone the same, it means that there is only one way to win: point and click the fastest. When no other skills are important, only those talented or interested in that particular skill will enjoy playing.
Minimize and Maximize
Different weapons and abilities allow room for players with different kinds of skills and interests. Where TF2 really becomes different is in the inherent class advantages, those minor or major adjustments to basic things like speed and health that can make a big difference in how the character is played, along with their weapon. While they may have weaknesses, each classes is more or less guaranteed to be very good at a particular aspect of the game.
This sort of personal min/maxing almost feels like cheating, which might be why it’s so appealing. Further increasing personal strength at the expense of weaknesses is what optimizing is all about, and in team games like TF2, you also have friends to cover for your weaknesses. In a way, it’s much more fair, because players (in theory) only have to fulfill the role they find most enjoyable.
This concept of min/maxing was something that grew out of the character design method of D&D. Depending on the character a player wanted, they could throw all of their weakness onto an irrelevant stat and turn themselves into a monster. TF2 characters are premade with this design in mind, so there’s less room for play customization, but less worry about game balance.
Each Class is a Different Game
D&D is famous for being abusive in the respect of min/maxing but there’s actually nothing wrong with the approach taken by the players. The classes in TF2 are designed to take advantage of their strengths. Of course, in order to be well balanced, there needs to be equivalent strengths and weaknesses among the party members. Having no weakness makes for poor play, and this is something that needs work, but there’s nothing wrong with optimization.
For example, the Heavy has both high damage weapons and huge health pool. His chaingun was even specially designed to require less work to aim. He is balanced by being very slow, and because of this is dependent on medics or backup from friends. A player that enjoys slowly advancing on the enemy, playing defensively, or charging in with friends will find it very easy to ignore these weaknesses because the player knows how to compensate for them, and isn’t interested in the kind of playstyle they prevent.
When a class fits a person’s playstyle, their weaknesses feel less pronounced. If the Heavy player values strength over speed, he won’t feel cheated or weak by a slow character. If they player did, they could simply switch to something like a Scout. In the same round of TF2, each player may be playing what amounts to a different game depending on their class. The Spy sneaking behind enemy lines is playing a stealth mission, while the Scout is playing a race against the enemy flag carrier.
Team Effort
The other important part of the class based system is that it originated from a game that was always meant to played as a group. Team fortress continues this philosophy, forcing coordination through class design just as Dungeons and Dragons did. D&D was never intended as a single player game; Gygax’s minimum was three (two players and one referee). It was a game about teamwork, and it is this philosophy that makes class work so well in a team game.
The classes in D&D aren’t simply meant to be different play styles. Each is meant to provide unique advantages, fulfill certain roles, and compensate for the weaknesses of others. Coordinating this is where the social aspect of the game comes in, which was something Gygax was also concerned with. In the D& books he wrote at length about how important proper social behavior for players—something that’s more of an issue now than it ever was.
Scouts, for example, are the most mobile class, which makes them fantastic for capturing objectives. However, engineers can set up sentries that are extremely difficult for scouts to get by on their own. In turn, there are classes that can easily get by sentries, but will have a comparatively hard time capturing the actual objective. Of course, the engineer now needs more teammates to deal with the increased threat, and it escalates from there. Because you can change class constantly in TF2, the game encourages players to adapt to the situation, break deadlocks, and shift to help on teammates in trouble.
Gygax took a bit of a curmudgeonly attitude; he felt that players that went against the team spirit of the game should meet a swift death deserving of their selfishness, and that eventually enough appropriate ends would convince them of the error of their ways. It is not a dissimilar method. Class based gameplay means that the gap of skill can be overcome with appropriate class synergy; in other words, teamwork.
Teamwork is extremely important to any team based game, or team based anything for that matter. What class accomplishes for game design goes beyond just letting players focus on their strengths. It encourages, even forces players to complement each other.
[Andrew Vanden Bossche is a freelance writer and student. He has a blog called Mammon Machine, which discusses videogames for the most part, and can be reached at AndrewVandenB@gmail.com]
[Every week, IndieGames.com: The Weblog co-editor Tim W. will be summing up some of the top free-to-download and commercial indie games from the last seven days on his sister 'state of indie' weblog.]
This week on 'Best Of Indie Games', we take a look at some of the top independent PC Flash/downloadable titles released over this last week.
The delights in this edition include a brand new 2D platformer from Nifflas (Knytt Stories, NightSky), a Wario Ware-type arcade game for the browser, a score-based vertical shooter with achievements and multiple ships to pilot, a short interactive fiction game, a 3D action extravaganza that features a glowing tiki totem, and a puzzle game about breeding green frogs to beat each level.
Here's the highlights from the last seven days:
Game Pick: 'Saira' (Nifflas, commercial indie - demo available)
"Saira is a non-linear 2D puzzle platformer in which levels are separated into worlds that you can travel to at any time, although every journey uses up your ship's energy and the batteries must be charged first before you can embark on another trip. The objective of the game is basically to search for parts that could be used to build a teleporation device, so that you can reunite Saira and her friend Bobo who is on a distant planet somewhere in the galaxy."
Game Pick: 'Obey the Game' (John Cooney, browser)
"The elephant is back for another twisted yet beautiful gaming experience in the form of Obey the Game. This time around he's participating in a Wario Ware style minigame-a-thon, but with a catch - if the game tells you to DISOBEY the objective, it's opposites time! There aren't that many different tasks to undertake, but the fact that there are actually two different ways to win each one makes for some frantic play."
Game Pick: 'Walker and Silhouette' (C.E.J. Pacian, freeware)
"Walker and Silhouette is a short interactive fiction game about a pair of detectives named Nate and Ivy, working together to solve a case for the Oldchester Criminal Investigation Department. The interface is an easy one to use, and all a user has to do is to click on a highlighted keyword to investigate further or progress the story forward. Writing is solid, the storyline is intriguing, and there are some clever puzzles designed just for the single keyword system."
Game Pick: 'Irukandji' (Charlie's Games, commercial indie - demo available)
"Irukandji is a score-based vertical shooter that currently contains only one level to play, although by beating the game for the first time you do get another ship that can be used for your subsequent attempts at unlocking more achievements. There are multipliers and power-up items to collect, and you can also destroy enemies with your special missile weapon."
Game Pick: 'Igneous' (Going Down in Flames, freeware)
"Created by a team from DigiPen and entered into both the main IGF competition and the student contest, Igneous is the story of one tiki totem's frantic rush through an erupting volcano and it's quite literally a face-melter. It's a pretty short experience with around 15 minutes of play, but there is also Impossible mode which does what it says on the tin. Honestly, you won't have felt a rush like this is a good long while and that final level is incredibly epic."
Game Pick: 'Endless Frog Kids' (James Andrews, browser)
"Endless Frog Kids is a puzzle game centered around the mating habits of our green amphibian friends, mixed together with a cautionary tale that is told using charts and graphs. You need to have a Java-enabled browser and also an open mind to play, as the game might possibly offend some players with its innuendos and sexual undertones."
Brooklyn artist Bryan Green (of Paper Foldables fame), who also created the brilliant CommanderVideo papercraft featured here last month, produced these five new paper foldables for the characters of BioShock 2. I'm amazed that even in this boxy form and cartoonish style, they look just like their video game counterparts.
2K Games's Cult of Rapture site has posted downloadable PDFs for each of the characters, so you can print, cut out, and fold them yourselves. Community manager Elizabeth Tobey adds, "The sky's the limit on how big these guys can be - as long as you have paper large and sturdy enough to support the final figure." So, if you want to create a giant stand of a creepy Little Sister to keep in a bedroom corner to watch you at night, no one's stopping you!
Round-Up: Gamasutra Network Jobs, Week Of December 18
In our latest employment-specific round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Guerrilla Games, Tencent and more.
Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.
It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.
Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:
Guerrilla Games: Senior Environment Artist
"Saving the environment is easy - just hit CTRL-S. Making the environment convincing and awe-inspiring at the same time is a far more interesting challenge. As a Senior Environment Artist at Guerrilla, you'll work with the Level Designers to create cutting edge architectural designs, themes and compositions. You'll become part of a highly talented team, acting as a mentor, problem solver and source of inspiration for the people around you."
High Moon/Activision: Senior Sound Designer
"High Moon Studios is looking for a talented Senior Sound Designer to design and implement audio assets for a high-profile, action-packed title for PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The individual will frequently collaborate with the audio team, game designers and producers to push the bar for creating a sonically rich, high-quality game. The ideal candidate must be passionate about making great games, be a strong problem-solver and an effective communicator."
Telltale Games: Senior Lead Tester
"Telltale is currently looking for an experienced Senior Lead Tester to join the team! The ideal candidate will have management experience, an eye for detail, strong analytical skills and a background in computers. In addition to management responsibilities, the Senior Lead Tester will also regularly test Telltale’s PC and console products. "
Sledgehammer Games Systems Engineer
"Check out our brand new studio, headed up by industry veterans Glen Schofield as Vice President and GM and Michael Condrey as Vice President and COO, the leaders of the Dead Space franchise. They are joined at Sledgehammer Games by many award winning developers from across the industry. Sledgehammer Games is actively recruiting top industry talent to join their development team. Our studio based in sunny Foster City and is walking distance to plenty of restaurants and shopping, or one of our two free gyms."
Tencent Inc.: Business Development Manager: Gaming Licensing
"Tencent U.S. currently seeks a candidate to work on business development for online games, directly reporting to senior management. Candidates must demonstrate strong ability to think independently and strategically and should be highly knowledgeable of the online gaming space in both the U.S., China and globally."
To browse hundreds of similar jobs, and for more information on searching, responding to, or posting game industry-relevant jobs to the top source for jobs in the business, please visit Gamasutra's job board now.
Dracula Cha Cha: Tomena Sanner For The Holidays, Vampires
If Konami's Tomena Sanner is, as my friend described it, "like Canabalt but with more dancing", then Lobo's new one-level game Dracula Cha Cha is like Tomena Sanner but with a dapper Dracula and a Christmas theme. In fact, the developer says the look and concept were "proudly stolen" from the strange iPhone/WiiWare game.
Like Tomena Sanner, Dracula Cha Cha has you pushing only one button for all the different actions -- jumping, doing the twist with a green-skinned Santa, and playing rock-scissors-paper with a reindeer. It's pretty much the best Christmas game ever (not counting other better Christmas games). Lobo says he might produce more stages if no one has sued him by the time the end of January rolls around.
Development studios primarily earn their reputation on the strength of the games they release, and rightly so. But many studios make a name for themselves beyond that, based on interaction with their fans, impressive post-release support, strong first impressions, or succeeding in genres or business models that are traditionally particularly challenging.
These five studios fulfilled some of those criteria. Eligible groups released at least one game during 2009. Only specific development teams, offices, or divisions were considered; entire publishers were not.
Top 5 Development Studios of 2009 (listed alphabetically)
Harmonix Music Systems(The Beatles: Rock Band, Rock Band Network)
In addition to having kicked off the current wave of music-driven video games, Cambridge-based Harmonix Music Systems has stayed at the forefront of it through its ambitious but relatively restrained stewardship of the Rock Band franchise.
The company's sole internally-developed retail release this year, The Beatles: Rock Band, was a cut above the rapid-fire band tie-ins that populate the genre, serving as a self-contained tribute to an iconic band that built on the design framework the studio has perfected.
But more broadly, Harmonix's stewardship of the mind-boggling voluminous and diverse Rock Band song catalogue has ensured the franchise's increasingly-broad appeal. It's a lineup that ranges from The Who to Roy Orbison to The Zombies to the Pixies to Alice in Chains to Lucinda Williams, totaling more than 1000 tracks across individual downloads, bundles, and full albums.
And that number will only increase with the full launch of the Rock Band Network, a suite of community-driven tools allowing musicians to create their own Rock Band-compatible tracks. The software is already available, so when the marketplace opens up, it should start with a healthy stock.
Naughty Dog(Uncharted 2: Among Thieves)
Aside from garnering considerable praise for its action-adventure sequel Uncharted 2: Among Thieves, Naughty Dog set a particularly strong example this year for its desire to document and demonstrate its development practices to its fans and to the rest of the game development community.
On the public-facing side, Naughty Dog developers -- not just marketers -- produce a surprisingly high number of behind the scenes videos discussing its design philosophy, development goals, and general studio culture. Staffers also participated in multiple extensive real-time chats with fans, answering questions about all aspects of the project.
The company also addressed its development peers, sending staffers to demonstrate extensively at shows like Game Developers Conference and Develop; the company is planning to give numerous talks during GDC 2010 drilling down deep into Uncharted 2's production.
Rocksteady Studios(Batman: Arkham Asylum)
London-based Rocksteady Studios' first effort, the 2006 shooter Urban Chaos: Riot Response, was relatively well-received, but generated little attention. With its followup, this year's Batman: Arkham Asylum, the studio created a new first impression for itself overnight, establishing a top-notch reputation on the back of one of 2009's most acclaimed releases.
What's more impressive about the feat is that Arkham Asylum succeeds where nobody else has. It's tough enough to make a truly great licensed game -- after all, the segment doesn't have much of a quality threshold, and it's been demonstrated that tie-ins can sell well regardless -- but it's even harder to make a truly great Batman game. For over two decades, the dark knight's video game presence has been, with few exceptions, abysmal.
But Arkham Asylum is highly playable, strongly evocative, and inventive from a design standpoint, showing that all the license needed was the right caretaker. IP owner Warner Bros. clearly agrees, having recently announced Rocksteady will be hanging on to the caped crusader for another round.
Runic Games(Torchlight)
Seattle-based Runic Games hit the ground running this year. Starting with an open-source renderer -- already an unusual choice -- the startup churned out its highly-polished debut effort Torchlight in only 11 months.
The Diablo-esque action RPG was widely praised as fun and addictive in the way the genre strives to be, but it's Runic's approachability and receptiveness to feedback that has particularly distinguished it beyond its development prowess. Developers from the company have made an effort to respond to fan concerns and suggestions, provide information and context, and participate in a heroic number of community interviews and podcasts.
In a particularly famous incident, the studio set a bar for accessibility concerns. Mere hours after a forum member mentioned that one of the game's camera effects left her unable to play sections of the games due to an uncommon eye condition, a Runic developer patched in a user toggle for the option -- at 8:00 am on a Sunday morning, no less.
Valve Software(Left 4 Dead 2, DLC for Team Fortress 2 and Left 4 Dead)
Valve goes to great lengths to share its philosophy on ongoing post-release content with the rest of the development community, but it still arguably acts on that philosophy better and more frequently than anyone else, supporting its games long after their ship dates with free content (at least on the PC) in an era when day-one paid DLC is becoming the norm.
But that's most evident with the two-year-old multiplayer shooter Team Fortress 2, which has played host to a dizzying (and seemingly neverending) stream of new content, gameplay tweaks, and almost joke-like additions. It's almost a totally different game than it was at launch; it's seen more persistent evolution than some MMOs.
The game's fundamentally tongue-in-cheek premise of warring corporate entities provides a perfect canvas for the studio's continuing content insanity, as documented by its consistently hilarious blog. Case in point: the game's Soldier and Demoman classes are currently locked in a community-wide war that has seen the Demoman equipped with a new shield and claymore (the sword kind).
Developer Honorable Mentions
Ace Team (Zeno Clash)
BioWare (Dragon Age: Origins)
Dejobaan Games (AaaaaAAaaaAAAaaAAAAaAAAAA!!! - A Reckless Disregard for Gravity in it)
From Software (Demon's Souls)
Rockstar North (Grand Theft Auto IV: The Lost & Damned, Grand Theft Auto IV: The Ballad of Gay Tony, Grand Theft Auto: Chinatown Wars [co-developed with Rockstar Leeds])
Telltale Games (Tales of Monkey Island, Wallace & Gromit's Grand Adventures)
Twisted Pixel Games (The Maw, 'Splosion Man)
As briefly mentioned in our recent post on General Computer Corp., the Ms. Pac-Man arcade game was based on Crazy Otto, an unauthorized mod kit GCC created for Pac-Man. The game was never released and was instead sold to Midway, which changed the sprites and its hero before sending it out to arcades (Both companies eventually transferred the rights to Namco to avoid a lawsuit.).
Though the original Crazy Otto was thought lost, someone from the MAME project has kept in touch with GCC co-founder and former engineer Steve Golson, and a playable dump of the game could be available soon, according to a report from Rotheblog. Perhaps we'll even see it at California Extreme next year, which is also slated to debuted another unreleased GCC project, Nightmare?
Game Informer actually put up several interesting videos from Crazy Otto's October 12th, 1981 prototype version yesterday, which shows the game's attract mode and a couple animations before Midway changed the sprites.
SFIV Keychain Arcade Sticks: Here Come Three New Challengers
Way more exciting than Capcom's forthcoming Super Street Fighter IV follow-up, online trinket seller Strapya has updated its line of SFIV Action Voice Command Key Chains. The tiny arcade sticks, which yell out special moves when you input their commands with the stick and buttons, were previously available for only Ryu, Ken, Dhalsim, and Chun-Li.
The mini controllers are now available for three other World Warriors: Guile, Sagat, and Akuma/Gouki. So, if you've always had trouble pulling off Yoga FLames and Dragon Punches, you can just get the Guile keychain to do his relatively simple Sonic Booms and Flash Kicks. Or you can get one for a friend as a Christmas gift -- they're already on sale for $13.40 each.
This didn't occur to me before but makes perfect sense to me now: with PixelJam's games released by Adult Swim and featured on the cable network's site, the channel promotes the indie web releases with TV commercials. So, don't be surprised if you see a spot for the addictive, Pachinko-like Mountain Maniac the next time you're watching The Venture Bros.
Pixeljam recently redesigned its site and shared its future plans, revealing that its two most recent titles, Sausage Factory and Mountain Maniac, are part of a four-game series called the 8-bit Rejects. The next two releases from the set will be Turbo Granny and Cream Wolf, both of which have fantastic titles and are meant to be "in poor taste".
The developer says it also has a winter-themed pinball game releasing in early 2010, an iPhone title in mid-2010, and a sequel to its Gamma Bros. shoot'em up that "won't be out any time soon. Of course, I'll keep an eye on those projects and will let you know if any news comes out on them.
['@ Play' is a monthly column by John Harris which discusses the history, present and future of the Roguelike dungeon exploring genre. This time - a look at definiting Roguelikes through 'The Berlin Interpretation'.]
Last time when covering Dungeon Hack, I noted that it doesn’t quite fit up to all of the most common definition of a roguelike. While it has random dungeons, hack-and-slash gameplay, and even items that must be identified, it is a first-person game.
And not even an Ultima Underworld kind of first-personness, but the same kind of discrete, right-angled rotation, corridor-centered perspective and step-based movement used in the Wizardry games, which were many years old by that point. And it was a real-time game, too!
For me, the game is obviously rougelike enough to be covered here, since we’re more concerned with what it is that makes roguelikes fun to play than adherance to a laundry list of similarities. But for those who are interested in such classification, we have the Berlin Interpretation.
Arrived at last year at the International Roguelike Development Conference, starting from a document over at Temple of the Roguelike, the Berlin Interpretation is a set of feature descriptions that fairly well encapsulates what a lot of people consider when they think of roguelikes. It covers both graphical and gameplay elements, and has the added advantage of not being posed as a mere checklist. They recognize that some games that are probably roguelike do not meet the exact description presented by the list, and so it is divided into High and Low value factors.
We’re going to take the game through several unusual cases we’ve covered in the past: ToeJam & Earl, Shiren the Wanderer (SNES version) and Dungeon Hack. We’ll also compare Nethack, Dungeon Crawl and Diablo to the list as controls. Let’s have a look!
To fold together how roguelike each of these games is, we rate them on a scale from 1 to 5. At the end we add the scores together can compare them to each other. Please note that this system is essentially arbitrary and probably counter to the intended use of the system. I’m using it just to give us a value to compare. This methodology probably wouldn’t stand close observation. For example, I myself have a problem with ASCII graphics being given any kind of priority. So there you go.
High value factors
Random environment generation
The game world is randomly generated in a way that increases replayability. Appearance and placement of items is random. Appearance of monsters is fixed, their placement is random. Fixed content (plots or puzzles or vaults) removes randomness.
Dungeon Hack: 5, levels are surprisingly good, though a little same-ish
TJ&E: 4, levels are fairly complicated but more same-ish until later on
Shiren: 4, levels have more pizazz but some levels are actually static, or drawn from a pool of possibilities
Nethack: 4, its level generator is aging a bit. The “fixed content” thing works against Nethack, which has lots of that.
Dungeon Crawl: 5, the best generator of those presented here
Diablo: 3, good generator visually, but less varied than the others due to a comparative lack of gameplay-relevant dungeon features
Permadeath
You are not expected to win the game with your first character. You start over from the first level when you die. (It is possible to save games but the savefile is deleted upon loading.) The random environment makes this enjoyable rather than punishing.
Dungeon Hack: 2, offers permadeath as a custom option, but unless it’s on for everything it doesn’t make much difference
TJ&E: 4, has a system of lives, but the game is hard enough that many are lost at higher levels and there are no continues, so it works out the same
Shiren: 4, the between-trip continuity options work slightly against it
Nethack: 5, good ol’ permadeath. Note that Nethack contains Discover Mode, which lets players revive after death endlessly, but a Discover win doesn't count as a win to either the community or the high score list.
Dungeon Crawl: 5
Diablo: 2, Diablo 2 introduced permadeath in the form of Hardcore Mode
Turn-based
Each command corresponds to a single action/movement. The game is not sensitive to time, you can take your time to choose your action.
Dungeon Hack: 2, game is a mix of turn-based and real time. Real time wins, generally.
TJ&E: 1, not turn-based at all
Shiren: 5
Nethack: 5
Dungeon Crawl: 5
Diablo: 1
Grid-based
The world is represented by a uniform grid of tiles. Monsters (and the player) take up one tile, regardless of size.
Dungeon Hack: 4, at first the game doesn’t look it, but really it’s the same as most roguelikes, just first person instead of overhead view
TJ&E: 1
Shiren: 5
Nethack: 5
Dungeon Crawl: 5
Diablo: 1
Non-modal
Movement, battle and other actions take place in the same mode. Every action should be available at any point of the game. Violations to this are ADOM's overworld or Angand's and Crawl's shops.
Dungeon Hack: 5
TJ&E: 4, due to mail order
Shiren: 5
Nethack: 5
Dungeon Crawl: 4, due to shops
Diablo: 4, due to shops
(It seems a unfair to punish games for not including a signature feature of Hack, but it's in the description.)
Complexity
The game has enough complexity to allow several solutions to common goals. This is obtained by providing enough item/monster and item/item interactions and is strongly connected to having just one mode.
Dungeon Hack: 2, each class typically has only one solution to a given kind of problem, but often different classes have their own solution. This is against the spirit of the document though.
TJ&E: 4, a lesser variety of solution than other games, but still offers many ways through different situations depending on presents on-hand
Shiren: 5
Nethack 5, and more, it is Nethack’s great strength
Dungeon Crawl: 4, solutions are less universal than in other games
Diablo: 1, most solutions come down to killing things with either swords or spells
Resource management
You have to manage your limited resources (e.g. food, healing potions) and find uses for the resources you receive.
Dungeon Hack: 3, most resources have only one use, but it does make the player rely on them
TJ&E: 4
Shiren: 5
Nethack: 4, Nethack doesn’t hold the player’s feet to the fire as much as predecessors Hack and Rogue
Dungeon Crawl: 5
Diablo: 1, its shops break scarcity
Hack'n'slash
Even though there can be much more to the game, killing lots of monsters is a very important part of a roguelike. The game is player-vs-world: there are no monster/monster relations (like enmities, or diplomacy).
All except TJ&E: 5
TJ&E: 1, the players can only fight monsters using certain presents, and further receive no experience for it
Exploration and discovery
The game requires careful exploration of the dungeon levels and discovery of the usage of unidentified items. This has to be done anew every time the player starts a new game.
Dungeon Hack: 5, surprisingly, the dungeon has a lot of character, there are several important features generated, and the items are much like in Rogue
TJ&E: 4, held back a little from presents being the only kind of item
Shiren: 5
Nethack: 5
Dungeon Crawl: 5
Diablo: 2, item ID is faked. Dungeons have some important random features scattered about though.
Low value factors
Single player character
The player controls a single character. The game is player-centric, the world is viewed through that one character and that character's death is the end of the game.
Dungeon Hack: 5
TJ&E: 5 in single-player, 4 in two-player mode, the game’s two-player mode is a big part of its appeal actually, but it does fall outside the realm of the document. Even in two-player mode the game is still very roguelike-ish, just with a second player played by a second person. Still, many games are played in one-player mode.
Shiren: 5
Nethack: 5
Dungeon Crawl: 5
Diablo: 5 in single-player, 2 outside of it. It beefs up of monsters in multiplayer games necessitating teamwork, which might be good game design but isn’t roguelike so much. Diablo is so strongly focused on multiplayer that I’m rating it as 3 in the aggregate scores.
Monsters are similar to players
Rules that apply to the player apply to monsters as well. They have inventories, equipment, use items, cast spells etc.
Dungeon Hack: 2, no inventories, limited abilities
TJ&E: 1, enemies are very limited compared to players
Shiren: 3, monsters have no inventory, but move much like player
Nethack: 5, intelligent monsters are extremely flexible
Dungeon Crawl: 4, monsters use weapons and armor but only a small number of magic items
Diablo: 1, monsters are simply enemies
Tactical challenge
You have to learn about the tactics before you can make any significant progress. This process repeats itself, i.e. early game knowledge is not enough to beat the late game. (Due to random environments and permanent death, roguelikes are challenging to new players.) The game's focus is on providing tactical challenges (as opposed to strategically working on the big picture, or solving puzzles).
Dungeon Hack: 1, tactically light
TJ&E: 3, getting around opponents through evasion is challenging and fun, and evading danger is a big aspect of any good roguelike. There is little actual combat though.
Shiren: 5, arguably the game’s strongest feature, there are many dangerous situations that can only be escaped through clever use of the tools at hand
Nethack: 4, after the mid-game, many characters can bulldoze through most situations
Dungeon Crawl: 5, tactical combat is a focus of the game
Diablo: 3, focuses on the bad parts of hack-and-slash but still pretty good
ASCII display
The traditional display for roguelikes is to represent the tiled world by ASCII characters.
(I don’t place a lot of stock in this one myself.)
Dungeon Hack: 1
TJ&E: 1
Shiren: 1
Nethack: 5, has an ASCII mode available
Dungeon Crawl: 5
Diablo: 1
Dungeons
Roguelikes contain dungeons, such as levels composed of rooms and corridors.
Dungeon Hack: 5, actually has excellent dungeons, its level builder is among the best
TJ&E: 1, its weird land-and-space levels may be dungeon like, but they aren’t dungeons
Shiren: 3, many of its early areas are outdoors. If that sounds petty, well, it is, but it’s a rather petty criteria.
Nethack: 5
Dungeon Crawl: 5
Diablo: 5, Diablo 2 introduced non-dungeon play environments
Numbers
The numbers used to describe the character (hit points, attributes etc.) are deliberately shown.
Dungeon Hack: 5, HP bar can be switched to numbers and the PC, as a D&D 2E character, flaunts its statistics
TJ&E: 1, only score is visible numerically
Shiren: 5
Nethack: 5
Dungeon Crawl: 5
Diablo: 5, it places a strong emphasis on increasing your stats however you can, usually through equipment
The maximum score is 60, the minimum is 12. These scores seem to me to be fairly consistent with the rogue-likeness of each of these games. Most games that, subjectively, have nothing to do with roguelikes would probably score in the low 20s at most, with lots of them coming in at 12. Rogue itself would probably get a 56 or 57, the only thing it lacking being monster similarity to the player (monsters there don’t have inventories).
It seems to objectively be a good measure, but I wonder. Is it possible to devise a game that seems roguelike subjectively, but purposely fails most of the tests of the Berlin Interpretation? Spelunky might be a good game to hold up against it as an edge case. We may come back to this later....
The 'Miyamoto Never Had To Work For Press Like This' Shirt
Some backstory on this in-joke shirt: If you read Gamasutra's feature interview with Spelunky developer Derek Yu last week (and if you didn't, you should!), titled Pondering Indie Spirit, you might have seen the embarrassing but hilarious comment thread that actually had little to do with the topics discussed in the article.
In the comment section, indie developer Adam Coate lamented the lack of press coverage for his own title, Flytrap for Xbox Live Indie Games, criticizing Gamasutra for devoting a feature on what he described as a "Boulder Dash clone". A heated discussion followed involving other indies, gaming journalists, and Spelunky defenders, and Coate eventually posted the following:
"I apologize for my negative first impression, but after having spent a year of my life struggling to survive while I create a game that even my girlfriend didn’t believe in (which changed once she saw how blind playtesters reacted to it), it’s a little disheartening to just be completely ignored by the world. Miyamoto never had to work for press like this."
Orbus Gameworks president (and maker of the Meggy Jr. roguelike) Darius Kazemi described the statement as "simultaneously heartbreaking and legendarily self-delusional", and after some goading by Crayon Physics Deluxe dev Petri Purho to create a shirt based on that last sentence, he actually produced one with Matthew Wasteland!
And that's how the "Press Like This" shirt was born. Kazemi advertises, "Show everyone just how hard life is as an indie game developer! These real-life words succinctly capture the drama and the pathos of the struggling auteur." It's available for both boys and girls in several sizes and colors, and you can even purchase a "Macmillan Special Edition Stein" with the phrase!
Now that you know a little bit about the shirt's history, go read the 100+ comments that spawned its creation. The part where someone demands that Coate return his wife's GameCube game alone is worth spending half an hour reading the thread.
Earlier this week, I shared with you several stellar submissions from Valve's Team Fortress 2 propaganda poster contest, a competition pitting fans of the game's Demoman and Soldier classes against each other. The publisher counted more than 11,000 entries by the time it stopped accepting submissions.
Valve announced the top three posters, each of which receives customized in-game items. The grand prize-winning artwork was chosen for its excellent design and for capturing the spirit of a propaganda poster with a catchy slogan: "Give 'Em the Boot Right in the Fruit".
There are also 25 other runner-ups that the company will reveal later. I've included the first-, second-, and third-prize posters below, as well as two other impressive pieces picked out by Super Punch. The "We Can Do It" parody definitely deserves some recognition!
J.Axer's Dapper Topper's "Give'em The Boot" (first prize):
Amber's Rad As All Hell Item's "That Blue Devil" (second prize):
John Freeman's "Do The Right Thing" (third prize):
Do you remember the launch of Microsoft's Xbox Live Arcade for the Xbox 360 back in 2005? On offer, it hosted games like Gauntlet, Joust, Smash TV and Bejeweled 2 -- titles that most of us had played before and all limited to their 50MB file size.
But there was a little gem stuck in there called Geometry Wars, and that addictive little top-down shooter has shaped what the Xbox Live Arcade -- and digitally downloaded console games -- have become today.
Four years later, PlayStation Network and WiiWare have joined the mix -- as well as DSiWare and PSP Minis. We’ve got games hitting 2GB in size, we’ve got a digital-only Battlefield game that has sold well over a million copies, and we’ve got individual indie guys like James Silva (Dishwasher: Dead Samurai). The industry has certainly changed its perspective.
And just the leaps in quality are amazing. Just try to go back and play Jewel Quest on Xbox Live Arcade – it’s a mess of an interface, limited by the ideas of the time and the file size. We’ve come a long way. Just for consoles, we’ve seen over 250 games this year for Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and WiiWare.
And 2009 has been a testing ground of sorts. Xbox Live Arcade began the year with a test of player’s wallets with the rise of the $15 game -- producing variable results. The PlayStation Network showcased many stylish games, with Flower and Noby Noby Boy headlining the world of the strange, while WiiWare’s arguably best tactic was mining our childhood memories with Contra Rebirth and Excitebike: World Rally.
Now, as the year comes to an end, we're choosing five favorites. Every person will have a different experience, but these 5 titles were the ones we had the most fun with:
5. Defense Grid: The Awakening (Hidden Path Entertainment, Xbox Live Arcade)
Sure, Defense Grid first came out on the PC late last year, but it’s still one of the best 'tower defense' games that has been released, and its XBLA conversion is excellent. The mixture of strict placement levels and levels with path creation were a ton of fun. It becomes a puzzle game in some respects, but can also be played in all kinds of ways, depending on what you're in the mood for.
I’ve played many Tower Defense games this year – South Park Let's Go Tower Defense Play! for XBLA, Ninjatown on DS, Defender Chronicles, 7 Cities, Star Defense, geoDefense Swarm and The Creeps on my iPhone, and I still feel Defense Grid beats them all.
Even though you don’t control a guy on the field like PixelJunk Monsters, the controls for Defense Grid fit great with a console controller. The stages were challenging without feeling unfair, and the game is filled with plenty of modes to keep me interested.
And I haven’t even mentioned the raspberries.
4. Peggle and Peggle Nights (PopCap Games, Xbox Live Arcade / PlayStation Network)
Yes, Peggle came out back in 2007, but the Peggle spirit lives on, and made a perfect transition to consoles this year.
What makes the XBLA and PSN versions even better is online Leaderboards. People have been addicted to besting scores on the PC by trading YouTube videos, but nothing beats the simple Leaderboard structure that the Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3 allows.
Another huge addition was Peg Party mode, a four-player variant of Peggle which again makes you think more about hitting those pegs as best as you can -- something not usually supported in PC games of this style.
3. ‘Splosion Man (Twisted Pixel, Xbox Live Arcade)
A simple platformer is exactly what I’ve wanted for the longest time on Xbox Live Arcade, and Twisted Pixel delivered. The keep-it-simple-stupid mentality of Sonic The Hedgehog has long been lost on Sega, but indie darling Twisted Pixel was able to find that magic with ‘Splosion Man.
‘Splosion Man is just what an Xbox Live Arcade title should be – it makes no attempts to emulate a retail title within a smaller package, has a simple and interesting control scheme -- and of course, is just really fun.
2. Shadow Complex (Chair Entertainment, Xbox Live Arcade)
Chair Entertainment’s Undertow on XBLA was a bit of a downer – a simple underwater shooter that wasn’t really that entertaining for me. It’s amazing to see how far they’ve come with the release of Shadow Complex.
A game that harks back to the days of Super Metroid and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night but with a next-generation twist, Shadow Complex delivered in spades, and it was a lot of fun along the way.
It's just little things that keep you going -– like showing how well your friends are doing at booting robots across the room, or seeing that rocket canister in the background that you know you’ll be back for later.
1. Trials HD (Redlynx, Xbox Live Arcade)
Before Trials HD came out, I was tester at a video game company. I had access to pre-release games on Xbox Live Arcade via a test system, and one of those games was Trials HD. When we stayed back late to test a build, we would bide our time by playing Trials. When our game was basically finished, the artists had a brief quiet period, so they started playing Trials HD. All day.
RedLynx has created one of the most addicting, fun and frustrating games ever, and you don’t get bored of it. You may press that restart button 300 times, but that’s not going to stop you from beating that level.
The Leaderboards integration is fantastic, showing off everyone in your friends list in the corner so you can make sure you’re that little bit ahead of them. It’s addicting to try and beat your own score as well as your friends'. And with the level editor and downloadable content coming, RedLynx is able to pile on the replayability over time -- even more reason to vote it our top console downloadable game of the year.
Honorable Mentions
Battlefield 1943 (DICE / EA Games, XBLA / PSN): For those like me who’ve never tried a Battlefield game before, 1943 is a fantastic way to test the waters, and now has me far more interested in Bad Company than I ever was before.
Banjo Tooie (4J Studios / Rare, XBLA): The Nintendo 64 did its best to make Banjo Tooie playable, but the framerate was so iffy that I didn't want to complete the game. The XBLA version fixes everything and adds more to the game -- and is a blast the whole way through.
Swords & Soldiers (Ronimo Games, WiiWare): Conceptually, real-time strategy games sometimes have issues on consoles, but wonderful, cartoony art direction and a really clever gameplay adaption, this WiiWare title from the original creators of De Blob was decidedly slept on.
Critter Crunch (Capybara Games, PSN): Though not my favorite puzzle game this year, Critter Crunch is notable for making the puzzle genre actually look striking. No “blocks” or “gems” -- you’ve got your bugs and your Biggs and that instantly makes me more interested.
Death Tank (Flat Games, XBLA): I was a huge fan of the original Death Tank on the Sega Saturn, and the new version certainly delivered. Its only problem was the lack of players, likely due to the higher (1200 MSP) price, which is kind of sad.
Bit.Trip series (Gaijin Games, WiiWare): Amazingly, all of the first three titles in this series from the Santa Cruz-based indie were released during 2009, and while they're bite-sized, they're also adorably retro, well-constructed, and a lot of fun to play through.
Dishwasher: Dead Samurai (Ska Studios, XBLA): Proof that one guy can do just as well as a full studio. Solid design and excellent entertainment twinned – can’t wait for what’s next from this guy.
Flower(ThatGameCompany, PSN): Certainly one of the more interesting games this year – you’ll be seeing it in a lot of Top 10 lists in the next couple of weeks. It does what it intended to do, but I feel there were more fun games out there over the last 12 months.
LostWinds: Winter of the Melodias (Frontier Developments, WiiWare): While it does simply expand on the mechanics of the original Lost Winds, it’s still one of the few Wii games out there where I really enjoy the Wii remote controls. Plus, it’s also still the best-looking series on WiiWare.
Marvel Vs. Capcom 2 (Capcom, XBLA / PSN): My favorite fighting game finally goes online, and was a ton of fun – until you run into a Sentinel / Cable / Storm combo, of course. It’s still as delightful as it was back in the early 2000s.
The Maw (Twisted Pixel Games, XBLA): Twisted Pixel’s debut game brought a solid 3D platformer to the Xbox Live Arcade, and much like ‘Splosion Man, it knows exactly what it is – a well-crafted $10 game.
Mushroom Wars (Creat Studios, PSN): A very simple strategy game which really surprised me. It has a particularly addictive quality to it, and plays like I like my real-time strategy games – rushing the enemy.
Bonsai Barber (Zoonami/Nintendo, WiiWare): Martin Hollis' debut title for WiiWare wasn't what you might expect from the GoldenEye co-creator - but a really interesting 'few minutes per day' play style and time-unlockable elements meant that it was both innovative and beguiling. Good use of Wii controls, too.
Red Alert 3: Commander’s Challenge (EA Games, XBLA / PSN): Surprisingly ignored by the general populace, Red Alert 3: Commander’s Challenge is the perfect way to get console players to try RTS controls on their system. For $10, you can get a quick taste. It certainly proved the series on console to me, and I will be eying a copy of Command & Conquer 4 for the Xbox 360 next year.
Shatter (Sidhe Interactive, PSN): A fantastic revision of the classic bat-and-ball game that brings it to the next generation from the New Zealand-based dev. Arkanoid Live was a disappointment, but Shatter exceeded my expectations.
Trine (Frozenbyte, PSN): A wizard, a thief and knight must bind together through some beautiful side scrolling action. An evocation of classic gameplay styles with some intelligent updates.
2010 Game Developers Choice Awards Open For Nominations
Organizers have announced that the 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards, the most prestigious honors in the world of video game development, are now open for nominations through Jan. 4, 2010.
In its tenth year of honoring the best games and developers, the Game Developers Choice Awards -- the leading awards voted on by developers, and created for developers -- has adopted a new voting methodology.
Nominations - as always - are selected by any game professional worldwide, simply by submitting ballots via the Game Developers Choice Awards website. (Submitters are required to log in with a Gamasutra.com username and password so professional developer status can subsequently be verified.)
Category finalists and Special Award winners are selected by the 20 person-strong Game Developers Choice Awards Advisory Committee, including notable industry veterans from Harmonix, Valve, PopCap, Ubisoft, BioWare, and more.
Starting this year, winners are now being selected by the Game Developers Choice Awards-specific International Choice Awards Network (ICAN), which is a new invitation-only group comprised of 500 leading game creators from all parts of the video game industry.
Choice Awards organizers believe that, in tandem with their goal of having the most focused, impartial awards in the game industry, this additional voting transparency will further boost the awards' reputation.
The 2010 award categories are open for nominations to any member of the video game community until January 4th, combining both Regular and Special Award nominations, are:
Regular Awards
- Best Audio
- Best Debut Game
- Best Downloadable Game
- Best Handheld Game
- Best Game Design
- Best Technology
- Best Visual Arts
- Best Writing
- Innovation Award
- Game of the Year
Special Awards
- Lifetime Achievement
- Pioneer Award
- Ambassador Award
The ceremony, produced in association with the Game Developers Conference, will take place on Thursday, March 11, 2010 at 6:30 pm. The ceremony, which is open to all game developers, is held immediately following the Independent Games Festival Awards, and will be hosted in North Hall D of San Francisco's Moscone Convention Center.
“Since its inception in 2001, the Game Developers Choice Awards have come to represent one of the highest honors in game development," said Meggan Scavio, event director of the Game Developers Conference. "We're humbled by the incredible talent that is showcased in the awards, and consistently awed by the amazing gameplay experiences we see every year. I can't wait to see what games the development community will be honoring on March 11th.”
The official Microsoft Surface blog published the second half of its interview with one of the CMU students working on SurfaceScapes, the Dungeons & Dragons virtual tabletop gaming application, and with the Q&A shared a video demonstrating the team's progress adapting the pen and paper RPG for the large multi-touch screen after an extra eight weeks of work.
Some of the improvements you'll see here since the first demonstration clip posted last October include support for story slides, action points, adding new players in between battles, NPC miniatures, and more. The video also shows the Dungeon Master's interface on a separate laptop.
At the end of the video, the CMU group hints that they plan to show off more of SurfaceScapes at PAX East next March.
Blip Festival 2009 kicks off tonight, and while most of us are miles and miles away from New York City and unable to attend, thanks to modern technology and the endless wonders of the internet, that doesn't mean we can't watch our favorite micromusicians perform at one of the year's biggest chiptune events.
Radio station WFMU (91.1 in Jersey City) will host a live webstream from the three-day concert this Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Leading up to Blip Festival, WFMU has brought in several slated acts like Patric Catani and Je Deviens DJ En Trois Jour to play songs live on their Sound and Safe program. You can listen to those performances here.
For those of you actually attending the event, make sure to stop by at "Post Your Blips" section of the official Blip Festival 2009 site to share your pictures, videos, and impressions.
If you already have trouble slow dancing and need to watch your partner's feet while shuffling around, this probably isn't for you! Designed by the Dept. of Covert Athletics, this art project allows a couple to play a game of Pong, displayed on each others' chests, while wearing specially designed hoodies.
The hoodies have patches of conductive fabric on the shoulders, hips, and cuffs, as well as an accelerometer attached at the back of the neck, all communicating with a LilyPad Arduino to control the game. To move their game paddle left and right, players have to tilt their partner accordingly.
The group plans to eventually put up instructions on how to create your own Pong Prom setup, but for now, you can read more about the project and see close-up photos of the hoodies at the Dept. of Covert Athletics's site.
This Week In Video Game Criticism: The Minimal Approach
[We're partnering with game criticism site Critical Distance to present some of the week's most inspiring writing about the art and design of video games from commentators worldwide. This week, Ben Abraham looks at minimalist game design and real vs. fictional in games.]
Reader and contributor Eric Swain does a fantastic job of sending me links, this week being no exception. In the week before last, Daniel Bullard-Bates writing for the criminally underrated ‘Press Pause to Reflect’ blog discusses Mitch Krpata’s own piece on the minimalism of Uncharted 2 which we linked in TWIVGC a few weeks gone.
The Borderhouse blog continues steaming ahead, and I was pointed towards an excellent post about ‘character versus gameplay’. Relating an anecdote where a player picked a character they identified with only to be frustrated by the unique rules applicable, the author discussed the void between character and gameplay:
“[The in game character] may have represented her in the way she would like to be perceived, but [that character’s] rules/style didn’t represent her as a player. This disconnect may have lead her to have a poor experience with the game because the game didn’t reward her for how she likes to play.”
Denis Farr continues his obsession with BioWare’s Dragon Age: Origins, turning the spotlight of his personal blog’s series on LGBT characters onto Zevran. Looks like no one will be winning the TWIVGC pool this week.
After a protracted absence, The Runner finishes its lengthy jog. For our more recent readers, The Runner is a first-person account of Mirror's Edge that blends image, story and game critique together into one big delicious mix.
Charles J Pratt writes about ‘The Jungle of the Real’ and the blurry, contested line that separates the ‘real’ from the ‘fictional’ in a game. He particularly notes:
“There is a way in which part of every game is real. Perhaps rules are arbitrary, but what’s more important is that the consequences of those rules are not. When we play a game we pretend that we have certain constraints on our behavior, but the actions we take and the decisions we make as a result of those constraints are not pretense. Instead they are the explorations of the logical space of possibility that’s generated by the arbitrary rules we’ve adopted.”
Elsewhere, Richard Clark at Christ and Pop Culture writes about the 2009 that was, and ‘How gaming changed us’ – essentially, it’s one person’s picks of some of the trends that have cropped up time and again this year.
Conversation across the blogspohere is a wonderful thing, so here’s Eric Swain responding to Danc of Lost Garden’s post we linked to last week. Those are fighting words!
Finally, Matthew Burns-nee-Wasteland seems to have taken up Duncan Fyfe's mantle for unconventional, non-essay style criticism, this week explicating an all too believable situation from a game developers point of view in 'Soft Body Dynamics'.
Get Lamp Preorders Now Open, Premiering At PAX East
Digital archivist Jason Scott has opened preorders for Get Lamp, his forthcoming documentary on the history of text adventure games and their creators. The Textfiles.com maintainer, who also directed 2005's BBS: The Documentary, has worked on the project for three years and expects to release the Get Lamp DVD in March 2010.
Get Lamp features interviews with dozens of developers who were instrumental in shaping the 30+ year history of interactive fiction and text adventures games (e.g. Steve Meretzky). Scott says he shot more than 120 hours of footage for the film, and spent "many hours editing, planning, contacting parties, and doing all the behind-the-scenes work that comes with putting together a top-quality product."
He was able to find time for the project and his other computer history pursuits thanks to a successful pledge drive at donation-ware platform Kickstarter, which brought in $26,658 to fund his 3-4+ month sabbatical from his day job as a computer administrator. Scott rewarded benefactors with access to updates on his projects, comiplations of his Textfiles.com site, and DVD copies of BBS and Get Lamp.
As for preorders on the two-disc Get Lamp DVD, the director is offering them for $30 (a 25 percent discount off the planned $40 price) until December 30th. He says that the early cash he receives will help him build up money for a good production run, make deposits to the duplication firm, and order wrap-in objects to include with the packaging.
Scott also recently announced that the documentary will premiere at the inaugural PAX East convention in Boston, Massachusetts next March. After the film is screened, he plans to host a Get Lamp panel and will be hanging out with many of the people he interviewed for the documentary. You can watch an old trailer for Get Lamp released back in 2007 below:
GDC 2010 Reveals First Summit Sessions and Keynotes
[We're just in the process of announcing lots more GDC 2010 sessions, and here's the first set of Summit keynotes and notable talks -- with lots more neatness coming down the pipe.]
Organizers of next March's Game Developers Conference 2010 in San Francisco have revealed keynotes and first sessions for Summits, with notables including Facebook's Gareth Davis (Social & Online Games Summit) and Spider's Randy Smith (Independent Games Summit).
Taking place March 9-10th, the GDC Summits highlight the leading edge of game development in emerging and notable areas including; iPhone Games, Social & Online Games, Game Localization, Mobile/Handheld Games, Independent Games, Artificial Intelligence and Serious Games.
Of the major Summits, Facebook's platform manager Gareth Davis will deliver a keynote at the newly formed Social & Online Games Summit titled 'How Friends Change Everything'. It will discuss Facebook's massive disruption in who plays games, as well as how games are best discovered, distributed, designed and monetized on the service.
In addition, Randy Smith, owner and game designer at Tiger Style will keynote the Independent Games Summit. Tiger Style is the developer of the critically and commercially successful iPhone game, Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor, named by Apple as their top-rated game of 2009. Smith, who is also a veteran of Thief creator Looking Glass, will deliver a broad keynote address, 'Increasing Our Reach: Designing to Grab and Retain Players.'
Alongside these notable announcements, all of GDC's market-leading Summits have announced initial lectures, with a large number of new speakers and topics now confirmed for the event.
Other notable featured talks at the one and two-day Summit events include:
"We're thrilled by the content already programmed for this year's summits at GDC 2010 and there is so much more yet to come," said Meggan Scavio, GDC event director. "Like last year, the summits are an outlet to explore the emerging segments of our industry and these keynotes highlight exactly that mission."
Alumni registration for the show ends December 22, 2009 and Early Bird rates end February 4, 2010. For more information about the 2010 Game Developers Conference, including the eight summits, visit the official Game Developers Conference 2010 website.
Matt Hazard Memorabilia Auctioned For Child's Play
A few interesting items showed up on eBay recently: Matt Hazard memorabilia from the action hero's decades old games like Adventures of Matt in Hazard Land, Haz-Matt Karts, Choking Hazard: Candy Gram, You Only Live 1,317 Times, and Matt Hazard 3D. A total of four actions have popped up, each offering t-shirts, drink coasters, and friendship slap bracelets, all '80s artifacts from Marathon Software's heyday.
This would probably be believable if Marathon Software actually existed and if the Matt Hazard series made its debut some time before February of this year. Those of you familiar with the faux-retro Matt Hazard franchise, from its PS3/360 "revival Eat Lead to its upcoming PSN/XBLA downloadable Blood Bath and Beyond, likely already suspected something was amiss, though.
The fabricated collectibles are for a good cause, as the seller plans to donate all of the proceeds from the auctions to Child's Play, the gaming industry-supported charity dedicated to donating toys and games to sick children in more than 60 hospitals worldwide. You can find links to all four of the auctions here.
This was a tough one. Usually I'd come up with a list like this with a snap of my fingers, but the changing face of journalism, coupled with better PR and more avenues of release meant that most games that deserved recognition got it.
Who would imagine that I’d be living in a world where Demon’s Souls was one of the most talked-about games of the year, at least in games journalism? With sales to boot?
But not everything decent made it through the cracks. Here, we present 10 titles that deserved more recognition than they got (I avoided indies, as choosing just a few to add to a list of 10 would’ve been completely unfair to all the rest).
These include some titles from larger publishers that should’ve known better – and niche publishers that should’ve known better to boot. Special thanks to Chris Remo, Kris Graft, and Leigh Alexander for suggestions:
Javaground’s UniWar is a hex-based strategy game for iPhone that didn’t get nearly enough play. While Hudson was providing inferior ports of Military Madness to XBLA (and a decent port to Android), UniWar took the tried-and-true formula to the next state, with simple tweaks and clever unit pairings.
This was one of my favorite iPhone games of the year – it wasn’t amazing, but it provided a solid tactics experience in a year where that was really difficult to find on a handheld. Unfortunately it didn’t really get picked up by the masses.
With more swearing than an American porno, HotD: Overkill rubbed a lot of people the wrong way. Its over-the-top exploitation film love, married with the classic light gun gameplay was too much for some people. But it was not too much for Gamasutra’s Kris Graft, who loved this game to pieces and put this on our list.
I do welcome the return of the light gun genre, and Headstrong did an excellent job of recognizing what was good about the genre from a gameplay perspective. Shame the “hardcore” Wii userbase doesn’t really seem to dig the old lightgun thing.
This was one of my personal surprises of the year. With Raiden, you pretty much figure you know what you’re getting, and to some extent I did. But there was so much more there under the surface. Raiden Fighters Aces got me to fall in love with scores again, through its perfect implementation of arcade fun. Big explosions, chunky pixely graphics, and ridiculously responsive controls, it’s the best I could hope from a shooter, in this day and age, or any previous.
I found myself going back to attempt single credit playthroughs, because the game essentially teaches you itself. Far from the bullet-hell shooters of the current era, RFA winds up being more accessible and more inclusive than even modern indie shooting games. Well worth a spin, especially given the value price in the West.
Chinese developer Meridian hit it out of the park with Alive4Ever, but it was understandably somewhat glossed over. It’s one of many twinstick Smash TV-style shooting games on the iPhone, so is easily dismissed. But the responsive controls, and more importantly the different missions - from rescuing survivors, to defeating enemies in specific ways, to harvesting gold - kept the missions fresh.
The game is plain fun, and when you layer on a level system with various upgradable weapons, accessories, and attributes, you’ve got a game that really caters to the “just one more” voice in all of us.
This is another one that I totally understand people skipping over. The fighting genre is niche to begin with, and SNK releases so many KOF variants and ports that nobody but the hardest of the hardcore can keep up. But KOF 98 UM is a rebalanced version of the most popular KOF ever, with new characters to boot.
The game feels more kinetic and more explosive than ever, and the balances really help make the game work much better in versus mode. But in the shadow of the arguably regressive KOF 12, 98 UM really didn’t get the chance to shine. If you like fighting games and have ever wondered what KOF was all about, this is the game to start with. It showcases almost everything that is good about the series.
The Silent Hill series has taken some serious knocks, after the third. Most recently development shifted to the West, and for better or for worse, it seems here to stay. Double Helix dropped the ball on Homecoming, and Climax’s Origins didn’t fare much better – but the latter developer got a second chance with Shattered Memories, a reimagining of the original, and it works quite well. Though it doesn’t have the scares of the PSX game, it does have thoughtful puzzling and a very well developed UI.
I’ve argued about this with the developers in person, but the blue iced environments just don’t have the scare factor of the original rust-colored chainlinked worlds of Silent Hill for PlayStation – but the newest entry is the best Silent Hill in years, and it seems most have written off the series entirely at this point.
Shattered Memories is worth a shot for fans of the adventure genre more than the survival horror genre. Fans and critics alike will discount the game based on the downturn in the legacy - but if you can get past the arguable lack of horror, you’ll have a nice game experience on your hands.
Here’s a protip if you want to get on the overlooked list – release a good, but very niche handheld game for $40. That will assure almost nobody will play it in spite of its quality, as is the case with Kenka Bancho: Badass Rumble, the third in Spike’s awesomely irreverent look at the world of highschool delinquents, released for $10 too much by Atlus in the U.S. (and not at all in Europe, so far).
This third person action game has you starring as an ambitious young gangster (bancho) who lacks street cred. As you progress, you use your eye beams to stare down other gangsters, (unfortunately staring at peoples’ butts and crotches has been severely de-emphasized in this, the third entry in the series. It was rather hilarious.)
Crouch on the ground like a hooligan to regain your power, and engage in smack talking battles to raise in ranks and achieve dominance without fighting (of course, you do wind up fighting an awful lot). The ridiculous humor, fun action, and B-level nature of this game would have you singing this game’s praises to your pals – if only it weren’t priced out of most people’s “sure, I’ll try that” range.
There have been many theories as to why this game didn’t get the popular reception it should have, in spite of overwhelming critical approval. Marvelous blames its own lack of brand appeal. The development lead, producer Yoshiro Kimura worries that the game might appear too kiddy for more sophisticated audiences. But the fact is, this bizarre Pikmin-like game had way more to offer than most people realized.
It came from the mind of the creator of Chulip (Kimura), a game in which you must kiss people of all genders in order to make the world a happier place. In Little King’s Story, you play as an unintentional king who must unite the land, in an increasingly bizarre adventure full of game and culture references, both obvious and obscure, which charmed the pants off of journalists, but they got it for free.
Those who had to pay kept their pants firmly affixed to their belts, and didn’t shell out for the title. Which is a shame, because if any third party Wii game was trying to make something to fit the core audience while pleasing the casual, this was it.
It sure feels odd to put an EA game on the overlooked list, but here I go. This is the final release from a whole Pandemic Studios, and in my opinion, their best game. I’ll admit to not being a huge fan of the studio’s last work, but this one hits the right chords. It’s a GTA-like in which you throw Nazis to their doom (that’s fun), while liberating Paris (well, Paris is awesome), and driving sports cars and running around on rooftops (I’ll admit, I have a mild videogame rooftop fetish).
Like Infamous, Prototype, and Assassin’s Creed before it, The Saboteur features parkour as a main method of getting around (it’s admittedly the worst of the bunch at it – still fun though), and uses the player’s abilities to get into some interesting situations. One of my favorite aspects is sneaking, in which you can sucker punch, garrote, or otherwise stealthily disable a Nazi and then steal their clothes to blend in and engage in subterfuge. Throwing a Nazi off a building, stealing his clothes, then blowing up his sniper roost has a certain kind of satisfaction associated with it.
The icing on the cake though, is the Will to Fight mechanic. The world of The Saboteur is black and white when controlled by the Nazi, and in color in areas where the French resistance is strong. This works surprisingly well – in the black and white areas, the main color you can see is the red of Nazi insignia – on armbands, on buildings, and on every Nazi target you can blow up with dynamite (you do a lot of this).
This not only shows you an easy list of targets, it actually feels oppressive. There are enemies everywhere, and in fact they’re the most visible thing in the environment. The environment changes back to col
[We've covered New York's awesome chiptune-based 
[GameSetLinks is GameSetWatch's semi-regular link round-up post, culling from hundreds of weblogs and outlets to compile the most interesting longform writing, links, and criticism on the art and culture of video games.]
[Where have the vital Japanese role-playing games gone? Game Developer's production editor Jeff Fleming looks back at the past year of Japanese RPG releases in North America in a piece that's 
Donkey Kong's second highest scoring player Steve Wiebe is running a limited promotion for his newly released debut album, 
[Every week, 
Using data recovered from Atari's original reel-to-reel tapes sent to chip design firms decades ago (pictured), Atari Museum's Curt Vendel has been working to reconstruct several of the company's proprietary chips such as the GTIA (used in Atari's 8-bit computers and 5200), the MARIA (Atari 780), and the TIA (from the Atari 2600). 
[Director Makoto Shibata (Fatal Frame) talks to our Christian Nutt about the inspiration for his West-targeted PS3/Xbox 360 shooter Quantum Theory, and details Tecmo's internal development process and plans.]
After reading about Sivak Games's 
[GameSetLinks is GameSetWatch's semi-regular link round-up post, culling from hundreds of weblogs and outlets to compile the most interesting longform writing, links, and criticism on the art and culture of video games.]
French publisher Ubisoft has released the first officially licensed Nintendo DS title developed by a team in India, 
['Homer in Silicon' is a 
At first the game seems to be about choosing between Paul and Richard, but neither of these is a very compelling prospect: Paul is needy and possessive, Richard rude and self-centered, and their relationships to Emily are not based on much of substance. François is her most consistent and least demanding ally, there for her when one of her suitors lets her down, often filling in with serving help; and if he very occasionally makes things more difficult by having an accident that needs to be cleaned up -- he's a bit of a klutz -- nonetheless that's forgivable compared with the antics of the other two.
In our latest employment-specific round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's 
We seem to have survived the holidays thus far, so it's time to go through the top full-length features of the past week on big sister 'art and business of gaming' site 
[When's the right time to begin developing for a specific platform? Digital distribution consultant David Edery writes explaining factors like market behavior and platform qualities, offering essential guidelines.]
[We haven't been highlighting these on GSW recently, but the 
[Our own Christian Nutt talks to Level-5 (Professor Layton, Dragon Quest IX) manager Yoshiaki Kusuda on the dev's PS3 debut, designing RPGs in Japan, and the benefits of game creation outside of Tokyo. ]
[GameSetLinks is GameSetWatch's semi-regular link round-up post, culling from hundreds of weblogs and outlets to compile the most interesting longform writing, links, and criticism on the art and culture of video games.]
[Closing out big sister site 
After years of working on mobile and downloadable titles, Toronto-based indie studio Capy put out its first retail release this month, 
[In this GameSetWatch-first interview, writer Lee Bradley sits down with Jamin Brophy-Warren to discuss the imminent debut of Kill Screen, a magazine that is trying to take a distinctly different approach to print writing about video games.]
[In the latest in big sister site Gamasutra's look back at 2009, Christian Nutt presents a list of the top companies in the business -- and what got them there this year Previously: 
Castlevania: Order of Shadows has always seemed to me like an odd game in Konami's vampire-slaying franchise, not just because it's the oft-forgotten mobile installment but also because of the people who worked on it.
[In this interview, our own Christian Nutt talks with Gaijin Games art director Mike Roush about the studio's popular retro-inspired WiiWare series Bit.Trip -- now in its third iteration -- the Santa Cruz company's vision, and the indie landscape.]
Headsoft, the same homebrew team that released 
[Continuing big sister site Gamasutra's 2009 retrospective, Kris Graft looks at the top 5 major disappointments of the year -- spanning game retail failure through approval process difficulties and beyond. Previously: 
[We round up the week's top news and reviews from sister iPhone site 
While not as low-tech as the 
[GameSetLinks is GameSetWatch's semi-regular link round-up post, culling from hundreds of weblogs and outlets to compile the most interesting longform writing, links, and criticism on the art and culture of video games.]
[We're trying to do something different with the Nuovo Award at the 
Commenting on regulations enacted by Japan's Ethics Organization of Computer Software (EOCS) earlier this year to 
[Virtual items are the subject of much contention. Are free-to-play games devaluing retail products? Are they changing the industry? In an editorial originally published in the December 2009 issue of 
As we covered earlier in the month, Blip Festival 2009 sponsor Gaijin Games (Bit.Trip series on WiiWare) 
At least one Guitar Hero Arcade operator has received demands from the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), to pay a licensing fee for its music game units. According to the organization, the arcade machine, which plays dozens of popular rock and pop songs like the home console versions, is akin to a jukebox and thus requires similar "public performances" fees. 
As the final pre-Xmas week ends, it's time to go through the top full-length features of the past week on big sister 'art and business of gaming' site 
[Continuing our 2009 retrospective, Tim W. and Mike Rose of sister weblog 
[Every week, 
[Continuing our 2009 retrospective, Chris Remo rounds up this year's top developers, based on factors beyond simply the quality of their games. Previously: 
['@ Play' is 
Resource management
Low value factors
[Continuing our 2009 retrospective, Ryan Langley of sister site 
Organizers have announced that the 2010 Game Developers Choice Awards, the most prestigious honors in the world of video game development, are 
Blip Festival 2009 kicks off tonight, and while most of us are miles and miles away from New York City and unable to attend, thanks to modern technology and the endless wonders of the internet, that doesn't mean we can't watch our favorite micromusicians perform at one of the year's biggest chiptune events. 
[We're partnering with game criticism site 
Digital archivist Jason Scott has 
[We're just in the process of announcing lots more 
[Continuing the 2009 retrospective, our very own Brandon Sheffield examines his take on the top 10 Overlooked Games of 2009. Previously: 