Indie Game Spotlight – Today I Die
Indie Game Spotlight is the hopefull to continue being weekly feature where I will highlight an independent game that deserves attention. Given the difficutly these developers have in being heard, every little bit helps. Some will be free, some may cost money, but they are deserving of some attention.
This game is a relatively older one, as far as I can tell it came out back in April. Created by Daneil Benmergui with music by Hernan Rozenwasser, Today I Die is another art game. Again, not a bad thing, as the feelings the game tries to evoke in the player is part of the enjoyment.
Today I Die defies normal video game genres and conventions. If I had to liken it to something I;d call it a descendant of point and click adventure games. Your mouse pointer is your only means of interaction. You are given no instructions beyond “Click Here to Start.” The only words are the shot three line poem that takes up part of the screen. It’s a puzzle game that embraces its simplicity, in both mechanics and art design.
Design wise it runs with the idea of giving you no instructions and instead allows you to explore and with a few simple aesthetic choices is able to guide you to what you are suppose to do. It’s not long and can be finished in under five minutes, but that would be missing the point. It’s a game not so much about beating it as experiencing it.
After playing it, you can follow the link to where you can download it for free or donate some money. You need Flash and can play it in your broswer here: http://www.ludomancy.com/games/today.php
Indie Game Spotlight – Small Worlds
Indie Game Spotlight, at the moment, is an irregularly schedualed feature where I highlight an independantly funded and created game. Each game will be one worth taking a look at as abreak from the usual AAA and other studio made titles. These games need all the visibility they can get and I’d like to do my part for those I think deserve a look. (I hope to have the time to make this a weekly feature.)
Small Worlds is an indie entrant into the Causal Gameplay design 6th challenge, going on right now. The competition’s deadline was October 18th and it has been up since then. The compition’s parameters are as follows:
Design a game that incorporates our theme (see below). It doesn’t have to be complex nor large in scope. Since you will have just 6 weeks to complete your design, simple ideas are probably the best way to go. You may use any browser-based technology platformyou are comfortable with (Flash, Unity, Shockwave, Javascript, etc.). If we can embed your finished game file on our competition page, you may use that platform to design and develop your game.
For the 6th Casual Gameplay Design Competition, we are asking for entries designed to incorporate this theme: EXPLORE. You are free to interpret that any way you choose; however, the extent to which your game embodies the theme is left up to the competition judges to decide. Use your imagination and be creative. We will select the best entries submitted to represent the competition just like we have done before. Impress us with your game design and production skills.
With that in mind David Shute created a game that emphasises the theme perfectly and with an increabaly atmophereic resonance. Small Worlds is a platformer that utilizes very old school pixel art design that creates a canvus almost as much as it creates a level. The game did have some issues with the jump button that that the creator did apologize for, saying:
“I’m really sorry the jumping control is so screwy – In an ill-fated attempt to streamline the movement code, I changed the order in which key presses are processed, which had an unintended side effect: ‘Jump’ gets ignored if you’re moving sideways off a ledge or walking down a slope.
I’d really love to be able to upload the fixed version right now, but a deadline’s a deadline – and for better or worse, this is the version I submitted.
As soon as the competition’s over I’ll send Jay the improved version though – It’ll give me a chance to fix some other (minor, cosmetic) problems that slipped through the net too.”
He and all the other contestants were allowed to upload updated versions. Another note, Small Worlds proudly wears the Art Game label, whether or not it was intentional. I don’t wish to spoil anything, but it is an expirience well worth having. The game is work safe. Try and play it in an eviornment where you wont be bothered. The music, by Kevin MacLeod is that good.
I am amazed that Small Worlds took only 6 weeks to make, not because it is brimming with compexity in its code or visual, but rather its concept. The design is subtle and intricate that it is able to draw you in with a few colored blocks and slowly reveal itself . It is so basic and succedes at being art better than most AAA PC and console titles published today. Don’t take that as a negative, art is not the direct opposite of fun or engaging; the two words have nothing to do with each other. The best works are those that are engaging and consumable as well as deep and meaningful. This is one of those games.
The Big Triangle in Game Design
An interesting article came to my attention today about the Big Triangle. For those who don’t know the Big Triangle is a concept that Scott McCloud explains in his book Understanding Comics. I highly advise reading the book. The link below is the translated post of the original. Here he surmises on the usefulness of this categorizing system for games as more conducive to game design. Recently there has been talk about the unhelpfulness of modern game genres and whether if there isn’t a better way to categorize them. This is an interesting way to think of things and change from First Person Shooter, Third Person Shooter, Real Time Strategy, Action/Adventure, Rhythm, Platformer, etc etc.
Rather than repost all the thoughts here I’d rather just link you.
http://wordsonplay.wordpress.com/2009/10/12/the-big-triangle/
Indie Game Spotlight – Norwegian Wood
I haven’t got a full intro ready for this new and hopefully weekly feature. Indie Game Spotlight is planned at the moment to be every Friday to highlight and inform you, the readers, about an independently developed game. That is a game not funded, designed, developed or otherwise made by a large studio, or in some cases, a studio of any kind. This is a little late due to sever problems and we didn’t have access for a while. Anyway, on with the inaugural edition.
In the wake of The Beatles: Rock Band coming out a few weeks ago, No Fun Games Studio created a very different sort of rhythm game. Norwegian Wood, named after the early Beatles song of the same name, it is less a game about following the music of a game, but avoiding it.
It is a simple game, with only one song, which due to licencing regulations you have to supply the mp3 for yourself. You don’t need the music and can play it in silence, but it is a bit dull to do so. There are four instruments in the corner of the screen that when that instrument is played it launches a spray of notes for each time a string is plucked. You play as the disembodied head of the late John Lennon controlled with the arrow keys as you try to avoid all the flying notes. You rack up points for not getting hit and after some time you gain multipliers. Should you be hit you lose the multipliers and 100 points per hit. There is an online scoreboard and frankly I don’t know how some of these people got such scores.
It’s simple, it’s fun and each try wont take any longer than the song that inspired it. Quick warning, it is incredibly addictive. My top 30 score has since been erased from the leaderboards. Give it a go.
You can download the game and check the high scores here: http://norwegianwood.gangles.ca/
Uncharted 2 Mod Mode
There have been plenty of games before that have had a variety and widespread modding community. Some games have even opened up their engines and provided tools so that amateur modders could delve into the system More deeply and more efficiently. Unreal, Half-Life, and Neverwinter Nights come immediately to mind. Now Uncharted 2 seems to be a console game to add such a comprehensive set of tools.
They aren’t as in depth as say Valve’s Source Engine or the ability to create levels like Little Big Planet, but Uncharted 2: Among Thieves offers a set of Machinima tools in a “Cinema Mode.” You can take recorded video footage from matches and change camera angles or alter things and upload the edited recording. But probably most impressive is a green screen mode that allows you to take the characters from the game and put them into any setting the game can offer and move them around as you will. It even allow you to use the blue-tooth headset to record dialogue that the game with lip-sync the character’s lips too.
I’m not sure how indepth the movie creation aspect of the game will be or if it will allow you to drop in you’re own features, but as a basic concept it is an interesting new look into the possibilities of user generated content.
Uncharted 2: Among Thieves comes out October 13th for PS3 at $59.99.
Upcoming Tech – Procedurally-Generated City
So I was messing around the internet was I was passed this link. Video Games, specifically open world sandbox type games, have a notion of external architecture, but little to no internal architecture. Basically you see the outside to a lot of buildings, but you either aren’t allowed inside of them or into only some of them. One marketing bullet point on the game True Crime: Streets of NY that extolled the game on being larger than any before it by having at least one building a block be enterable.
This is a five minute video demo, no sound, of a new set of algorithms by Marco Corbetta and Miragoli Gianluca that creates buildings with complete destructible interiors. The video itself also has word overs explaining details of the system.
Following the link are two other quick demo videos showing the behind the scenes architecture of the program. With game systems and PC’s pushing the limits of what the next technically impressive thing, here are two people who do something much more impressive and remove another stopgap to the uncanny valley of game worlds using less than state of the art tech. That deserves a look, no?
Link: http://createdigitalmotion.com/2009/06/18/ever-woke-up-in-a-procedurally-generated-city/
Flower: A Dad’s Expirience – User Experience Design
Last weekend after a movie I sat my Dad down and started up Flower for him to try out. Now my Dad hasn’t tried a video game since the mid-90s and those were the PC adventure games. We’d play them together. But given Flower’s casual nature, simple controls and pleasing aesthetic, I figured he would get into it and I wanted a non-gamer’s take on it.
I quickly explained the controls, all two of them, started him on the opening level and then watched him play. It took a little while, but he was enjoying flying all over the place.
While the overall experience was pleasant for him, if I wasn’t there to nudge him in the right direction when asked he might not have gotten as much out of the experience as a normal gamer would have. For starters the game doesn’t explain the controls explicitly. If you are paying attention throughout the start up screens and the room you might figure out that it works by tilting the controller. Then you’d only have the problem of pushing a button to move forward. But on your own you would have had this problem in trying to understand what the buttons do.Through experimentation you’d learn that X would send you forward, but it might cause problems if the player didn’t realize that all the buttons do the same thing as they try to figure out any differences.
At one point my dad asked me, “what am I supposed to do now?” This was before he hit his first flower. As an environment he thought it was pretty, but it needed a purpose and that purpose wasn’t obvious. Once he got the hang of it he began looking for the halos that surrounded the colored flowers, but to find them he often went to get an areal view, because he couldn’t find his way or where the next one was. Many of the visual clues that gamer’s take for granted escaped him. In the first level he didn’t connect yellow grass with where the flowers would be based on the earlier experience at the beginning of the level. he often ignored the few seconds where the game took the camera away from him and kept trying to play. This was a problem, because he then found he didn’t know where to go next.
The problem may come from the total immersion style that Flower goes for. Most games have a definitive break between gameplay and cutscenes or in game indications to signify them as such. Flower just moves the camera. There is no switch in the engine or even a cut in camera angles to signify a change. The simple shift in the camera in the same manner that the petals flow doesn’t signify stop laying and pay attention to this. A person who plays games even only occasionally would be able to pick up on this, but a non-gamer might not be able to understand some of the language games have crafted for themselves. Flower is using the basic language of games, but is doing it far more subtly than nearly ever other game out there. The break between the parts are nearly unnoticeable.
Finally there is the last section to the design. The end of the level. To end the level you simply enter the swirling vortex at the end. This wasn’t understood at first by my dad. At first he took no notice of it and was looking for more flowers despite having bloomed them all. He then saw it, but just saw the swirls as wind and nothing special. I eventually gave up hoping he would figure it out and just told him.
The design choices for Flower seem a bit divided. On the one hand they are creating an environment to be experienced, but also they are creating a symbolic narrative. The first requires a quick rundown of the controls and what some basic interactions, but the latter needs a non-intrusive interface. The designers did a good job in trying to meld the two together, but I think that it only ended up going against one of the things they were shooting for. The choice to rely on game language to convey the game requires the player to be a gamer or at least subconsciously aware of it. However, this is not the case with non-gamers that Flower is trying to be open towards.
That was a look at the design of the game, now you can follow the link to the game’s aesthetic effect on the experience.
http://www.thegamecritique.com/recent-posts/flower-a-dads-expirience-aesthetic/205/
Killzone 2 commercial – Engaging Motion Graphics
The ad for Killzone 2 has been around for a few weeks now and I’ve seen it several times on TV, which means Sony is learning from the LittleBigPlanet marketing debacle that games do not sell themselves. Most other action games seem to follow a similar formula in they show off the gameplay in quick short cuts of high intensity action sequences to loud nu metal music. The Killzone 2 ad takes all those ideas and throws them into a fire. Take a look.
Instead what we have is a complexly rendered scene of supreme elegance. The whole thing is slowed down surreal. The bullet doesn’t move at realistic speeds, yet that doesn’t matter. You follow its quick journey across the battlefield. It is only a piece of the fight. Helghast and Humans battle each other, on kicking the other over as it passes through them without hitting anything. Concrete explodes from the impact of other shots, the debris passing around the bullet. One Helghast seems to follow it with his eyes as it passes by. Finally it’s journey ends right between the eye of the force’s commander as he directs an advance. All of this beginning from a patient soldier.
It isn’t just the gorgeous visuals or the artsy presentation that makes the ad unique. It is the sound that accompanies it. There is no music. The mix is turned way down on the battle around it. The loudest sound is the sonic ring as the bullet vibrates through the air. There is a serene quality to it all. A calm moment in the storm.
The ad doesn’t evoke adrenaline powered machismo, but of awe that finally culminates in the title and tagline. “Killzone 2 War. Perfected.” It is a perfect end to the style and presentation chosen for the ad. The shot is perfection within chaos; an oxymoron in progress. And most importantly at the very end comes up the words “only on Playstation 3.” If Sony wanted to get attention for their shooter, this was definitely the way to accomplish it. Regardless on the eventual quality of the title it needed marketing of this caliber to sell. It also needed visible marketing if it’s going to sell well. I mentioned LittleBigPlanet earlier. Sony figured such a family friendly title would be the exclusive the PS3 needed to break ahead. They thought that Sackboy would appeal to everyone and the game would sell on its own merits. It didn’t do anywhere near as well as they’d hoped. It wasn’t the system seller they thought it would be. Why? Because there was no visible marketing for it. The general public did no know it existed. It’s good to see that they are fixing that with their next high profile exclusive release.
Killzone 2 is rated M for Mature and is out now for $59.99.
The 13 Basic Principals of Game Design
I did not come up with these myself, you have Matt Allmer of EA to thank for that. Reading them over they make sense when you read them, but it is easy to see how they can get lost in the shuffle. From a game critiquing standpoint you can articulate why something seems off or doesn’t work. When working on a game it is easy to say that this feels boring and unengaging, or there is something wrong here I feel confused or it could simply be a case of nagging little man in the back of your mind reminding you that you are playing a video game and are not being sucked into the experience. Yes, you know you are playing one, but you do not want to know that while you are playing it. In these cases it is sometimes hard to know what to fix or even where to look. These principals I don’t think are the end all be all to good game design, but with creativity there has to be a level of structure.
Either way its a good read over at gamasutra. Read it here.
BoRT’cast over at Man Bytes Blog
BoRT stands for Blogs of the Round Table. It is a monthly challenge run by Corvus Elrod of Man Bytes Blog. There he describes a challenge and any that wish to take it up in a post can. For the month of January the challenge was as follows:
Putting the Game Before the Book What would your favorite piece of literature look like if it had been created as a game first? In a time when bits of Dante’s Divine Comedy are being carved out and turned into a hack-n-slash game, I find myself longing for intelligently designed games–games with a strong literary component–not merely literary backdrops. So rather than challenge you to imagine the conversion of your favorite literature into games, I challenge you to supersede the source literature and imagine a game that might have tried to communicate the same themes, the same message, to its audience.
Feel free to ignore the technical constraints of the era in which the book was written. In fact, feel free to ignore the technical constraints (within reason) of today and push the envelop a bit. Also notice that I didn’t specify video game. Feel free to imagine a board game, card game, RPG, or sport, that could have been created during the same time period as the book in question. Be as vague, or as detailed, about the design particulars as you like. Work together with another blogger, or work alone.
I look forward to seeing what you come up with!
Well many blogs contributed their design concepts, including yours truly. It was an interesting game design challenge and will be further continued in February:
Turning Over a New Leaf: (We’re trying something new with the topic this month, so please read carefully.) February’s BoRT invites you take a game design suggested by another blogger in last month’s Round Table and build upon it. You should ignore the literary source of the original design, but attempt to communicate the same themes and/or convey the same mood as the proposed game. This means you can alter the game genre, change the setting, and add new layers to the game mechanics. This is not an opportunity to critique a previous design, but to honor it by striving to reach the same goals, while adding your own personal touch.
After the January challenge concluded at the end of the month, Corvus held the first ever Round Table podcast. He drafted in three guests to talk about their favorite entry and why it was their favorite. They also get into some of the design aspects of the ideas. It’s a good listen and only around 30 minutes long.
You can listen/download here:
http://blog.pjsattic.com/corvus/2009/02/bortcast-january-2009/
Winter and Wii
“Game journalism,” quotation marks intended, is not known for actual journalism. More like just rewriting the press releases. As one person put it, “it’s like being told by Deep Throat to follow the money and only writing an article about the existence of money.”
That is why I find this sort of interview refreshing. It isn’t PR bull, but actual questions being answered and some insightful comments into how the industry thinking when it makes video games. Personally I think the game Winter sounds like one hell of an experience, but unfortunately it’s been shelved. The reason? Because a standard, done before survival horror game is too risky. This is an interesting looking game. See for yourself.
I didn’t get it either, until I understood how a publisher’s mind thinks in this era of gaming. See the game was ideally supposed to be on the Wii, which publishers see as a kiddy game console, mainly because all they see on it are kiddy games. Kind of a stupid loop of consequence. We have an industry where publishers go to where they can make the most money, i.e. the console with the largest install base, and shark away from unsure things, making innovation a difficult and slow process. Now, ironically, they are in a situation where the console with the largest install base IS the most innovative thing to hit gaming since 3D.
I personally don’t own a Wii, because I figure it would be a waste of money on my part. There are games I want to play on it and it has Gamecube backward compatibility, but even with that the number of games I want to play can be counted on one hand. Not really worth the $250 price tag. This comes to the problem with the Wii. Financially it is a success, but when it comes to software it is very lacking. Mature and innovative games are absent for the most part on the console. Innovation might not be as big a problem if it weren’t for the unique control system. For new and innovative game to develop they have to take advantage of the unique control system otherwise we are left with bad ports and mini game compilations. Or we are given games that make better use of a Gamecube controller than the actual Wiimote. Irony aside I’d rather try innovative games on an innovative console rather than a game I could play on my PS3 or 360 on it. I could play those games on the PS3 and do. The Wii offers something different and I wish it live up to it.
This game could have opened the flood gates and still can. But it is a two step process. One it has to get made and two it has to sell well. Otherwise it will become further evidence against the viability of such games. Well that’s my rant and anyway here’s the link to the interview.
Call of Duty: World at War – Stunning & Creative Motion Graphics
Hey Everyone, I just thought I would share this awesome piece of motion graphics. I was playing through this game with fellow Creative Fluffer, Chris Prince, and when we saw the intro to Call of Duty: World at War, we just had to share it with you guys. Not only is it a great intro, but the game mechanics and fun value are off the charts. Enjoy!
Geek Out Tote Bag
Feeling the urge to “geek out” you accessories, then I may just have the thing for you. From the Himeya Shop is a tote bag with a very old school style to it. How old school? 16-bit ear old school.
The Sega Genesis tote bag. Niche? Maybe, but still cool to look at. Comes in black only and made of nylon. $55 pricewise. Just thought I’d share it.
http://www.himeyashop.com/product_info.php/products_id/11854
Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune – a critique
Warning: This is not a review. If you want a review of this title go here, or here, or here etc, etc. This is a critical look at the game itself, both design wise and from the perspective as a piece of art. Oh and another note, MASSIVE SPOILERS AHEAD. This is written with the idea that anyone who read this has played the game.
Uncharted is a year old, but I recently got my platinum trophy and I feel that enough time has passed that I can take an unhindered look at the game.
First the basics, Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune is about Nathan Drake, a supposed descendant of Sir Francis Drake in the search of a lost Spanish treasure they later find out is El Dorado. He has an elder partner Sullivan and female journalist/documentarian, Elena, following him around/chasing him with a camera. Unfortunately Sully couldn’t keep his mouth shut and told Gabriel Roman, a man who he owed money to and who put a contract out on his life. He brought along a bunch of pirates and mercenaries to help in getting the treasure. This leads everyone to an uncharted island in the middle of the Pacific, thanks to a WWII Nazi map. Just run with it, it makes less sense explaining it than it does in game. I wont bother with a full plot summery, because one, that would be boring and two, I’m expecting that you have already played the game or have read it elsewhere.
If you read other articles of mine you may have noticed me gushing over this game a little. It is a phenomenal, well executed, tightly designed game. I mentioned it before in relation to how it merges story elements with its gameplay ones. Because of this, to look at Uncharted one has to look at the term cinematic gaming. Uncharted is the very definition of well-executed cinematic gaming.
I would rate the architecture of the game was one of the best I’ve seen in the last few generations let alone years. I played through the game numerous times and never once hit a glitch. The loading screen that happens during gameplay where I am warned not to turn off my machine during appears only once: at the beginning of the game. It is seamless throughout. I checked the game data next; this is where the disc downloads data from the disc to facilitate load times. The other great games of the PS3 have any where to half a gig of data to MGS4 incredible 4.5 gigs of downloaded data, which gets replaced after ever chapter. Uncharted has none. Everything runs off the disc. The 13megs are for when it was updated with trophy support.
On the gameplay aspects, everything within the game has been refined to a mirror shine and I don’t just mean the graphics. Few games respond like Uncharted do. The cover system works as well as it possible can and the shooting has certain nuances that I didn’t know about or take advantage of until I played through on high difficulties. The collision detection is far better than I’ve ever seen. Objects are recognized perfectly and there is no clipping between the models. Finally the platforming has been called reminiscent of Tomb Raider, but it flows much better so I would liken it more to Prince of Persia, minus the ability to wall run.
Graphically it is one of the best looking games in the present generation. The environments are vibrant and realistic and a wonderful change from the browns and grays of modern gaming. The animations are top notch as the development team put extra effort into facial animations and character movements. What’s even more amazing is the detail that goes into differentiating the enemy characters. Each one is different. Roman is sophisticated and calculated in his movements. Navarro is very hard and deliberated. Eddie Raja is like a man unhinged, flailing wildly all over the place. The mercenaries are very professional in the firefights and are tougher opponents because of it. The pirate characters on the other hand are more ambitious in their attacks. They take more risks than the mercenaries. One of the animations has the character jump out fast and fire wildly around. This makes them an easy target, but infuses a lot of personality into them. Another type of pirate will advance steadily and take hit time with his shots with a very powerful gun.
The heroes also have their own animations that personify them beyond just polygonal avatars. For instance, Drake is not a superhuman, he is a real person, a highly skilled person, being an adventurer, but among us mere mortals and his animations display this in the subtle small movements. Up until chapter 4 I was convinced Nathan was just another video game character Mary-Sue persona that can get up from just about anything (until the player takes control of course). Then the intro cutscene to chapter 4 has Nathan acting all heroic, making Elena get out first and he tried to take control of the plane, for like 2 seconds, after which he exclaims, “What am I doing?” and then proceeds to leap out of the plane, count at a rapid pace, of which I am almost positive he skips a number and pulls the cord a little too late and get caught on a statue. This reminds me of the good Indiana Jones movies where he would survive by the skin of his teeth. In the platforming sections where the grips Nathan is holding on are crumbling, you’ll hear him pleading “oh, no, no, no.” Which brings me to my next item, the voice acting.
The voice acting is top notch. In the first chapter, when the pirates are seen in the distance, Drake gives Elena a gun and asks her if she know how to use one. She nervously replies, “Yeah, sure. Just like a camera. You point and shoot.” The delivery is perfect with a nervous waver in her inflection. We know that this person can use a gun, but is rather nervous, if not frightened for what is about to happen. Sullivan gets his own little moment that separates him from being just another stock character. After the first firefight is over and the boat blows up, Sullivan is introduced and helps the Elena in and complete ignores Drake’s hand. It happens with such a sense of panache that it presents Sullivan’s character perfectly and the game continues with it every time he shows up.
The story is told though a variety of ways. Cutscenes are the most obvious means, but the game also uses in-game conversations, environmental and quick button clues that shift the camera to look at certain points. Even the animations in the gameplay are telling about the characters. And none of these elements are really intrusive on the experience. The cutscenes are short. The longest one couldn’t have been more than a minute or two long. The conversations take place during lulls in the fighting or other action-oriented sequences, like travel time or puzzle elements of the game so you aren’t distracted. There are a few points when the game will flash the R2 button in the corner. If you hit it Drake will look to the point of interest, but it isn’t necessary to push it, but if you do, it adds to the experience. The time that sticks out the most was during the complex hiding the treasure. In the second section, before opening the gate the R2 icon will appear. If hit, it will make Drake look into the corner and see a figure scamper away on a different stairway in the distance. This is foreshadowing to a future plot development. After you hear Drake comment, “What was that?” you move on. It isn’t necessary, but is fun and remakes a useful literary device into the language of video games.
I’ve heard the allegation that the story is cliché and that its filled with stock characters and a lot of the story falls flat. I don’t think that’s true. Does the story have elements from over half a dozen different movies and adventure serials? Can the characters be boiled down into archetypes? Yes on both counts, there is no way to deny it, but there are enough nuances in the story and the characters that it doesn’t matter. The characters feel alive and the story compels you to want to continue with the adventure, not just for the gold. There is a good section of the game where they give up on that in favor of getting out alive, until they realize all the boats are with the bad guys…who are looking for the gold.
Uncharted has been likened to the Indiana Jones movies, but those in turn were based off of the old adventure serials of the 1930s. The pacing of the story follows that model instead of a movie and it shows. That model is much more suited to the medium of a video game. Games that are based off of movies always seem to have the need to add levels or stretch out certain plot points just so it will be a worthwhile gameplay experience. That is all well and good from the gameplay side of things, but it suffers in the story telling department. However, serials are much more suited to this type of medium. There are set backs, new twists or rather further developments whose scope is not limited to a two-hour time frame.
The game is tight in every sense of the word. Not once did the game hiccup on a glitch or bug. The story elements all mesh together. You may think I will put far too much thought into the game in the next segment, that I am reading too much into it, but I think of it more as a natural occurrence of great design with a compelling story all polished to a mirror shine. When a great design team brings on a writer at the start, one who has credentials on previous games something wonderful comes out of it. The following is a result from the compilation of all the quality work I detail above.
A major theme running through Uncharted is greed. I’m sure that seem pretty obvious given that the characters are searching for El Dorado and I was willing to leave it at that, until I thought about it a little further. The story revolves around El Dorado and everyone wants some piece of it, but each character’s motivations as to why they are after it are different.
The bad guys are almost uniformly motivated by greed. They want their stake in the treasure. Navarro is slightly more nuance in wanting the dangerous, mystical dust inside the golden statue. The good guys are also after the gold, with Elena more interested in the story of finding it than the material worth itself, but you cannot really call them greedy. They don’t throw away everything else for their avarice. In fact it’s this difference that makes them more relatable and puts you on their side despite the fact you are killing legions of human beings.
The true display of greed for the characters comes in what the characters are willing to give up and how far they are willing to go in their search of El Dorado. (I’m sure there is a Heart of Darkness reference I could make here.) Eddie Raja and his men sacrifice their lives for the gold in the face of their fears and common sense of what has been happening to them the entire time they were on the island. The one time Eddie wants to abandon the search, he is threatened to be cut out. Navarro sacrifices everything, his men, any semblance of honor, and the life of his employer; he holds the price of his ‘weapon’ above all else. Gabriel Roman is behind all the bad guys and is financing the whole thing, but he’s only going so far so that he’ll get a sizable return. Money is his only objective and foolishly sacrifices his life and literally humanity for it. The Spaniards are the ultimate representation of greed consuming them. Much like as described in Dante’s Inferno, they have succumbed to their sin and have become the embodiment of that sin. They are slavering humanoids only interested in killing and feasting on their prey. They consume others in a metaphorical fashion of how greed had consumed them. The entire island itself is a further display of the effects of greed in its almost angel of vengeance like repercussions, from the crumbling fortress, to the sunken city, to unholy cathedral.
On the other side of the fence are the three ‘heroes.’ Let’s go with protagonists. They all start out with aspirations to get the treasure before the other guy, though Elena is more interested in the search itself. They do not remain solely focused on El Dorado as other factor change their priorities. Drake wants to save his skin, valuing his own life over the gold and later the lives of Elena and Sully, once he learns he is still alive. Elena’s moment comes at the rickety bridge, when she fall through the wood and is clutching the camera with one hand and Drake with the other, in a situation more than slightly reminiscent of the end of Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade. Elena makes the better choice in those two situations. Finally, Sully, like Drake, just wants to get out of this alive. The treasure becomes secondary and they are only still hinting it because their ride off the cursed island are still hunting the treasure and later is revealed that the treasure is a danger to the whole world and so they act altruistically for the last chapter and half of the game.
Maybe I did over think a game that’s aspiration was to be like the old adventure serials of the 30s and 40s and only provide a source of entertainment. Maybe I did, but what is also evident is that my analysis of the game holds up when you think about it. Was it the designer’s intent to have thematic resonance in the game? I don’t know, but I doubt that much literary thought was put into it. It just occurred naturally as the team tightened up every other aspect of the game.
If on the other hand you like this type of analysis applied to video game you can check out my new site dedicated to this sort of thing. See it at www.thegamecritique.com. I will continue to give design related analysis, for what its worth, here on Creative Fluff.
TheGameCritique – a new website is here
The story goes like this: As time went on at Creative Fluff and I was found to be the main contributor for the game design section I was eventually made into that section’s content editor. We were looking into how we could expand the examinations of games. The first point we looked to was how were we going to handle reviews. Our esteemed Editor-in-Chief, Megalongcat, decided it should be on a five point scale and left the task up to me on what criteria would constitute our scores. We are a design web site after all, not a game review site. As I thought and worked on it, I realized that we either have to look solely at the mechanical functions of a game’s programming or as its effectiveness as a whole as a work of artistic expression. The problem with the first was, we are not entirely qualified to speak intelligently on that subject. The issue with the second is the fundamental idea that you can rate a piece of artwork quality by its cultural significance with a numerical score. Trust me I tried. Instead of numbers I assigned a concept to each number related to its effect. It makes more sense when fully explained, but not by much.
Then I thought, what if I turned it around. The review score is a conclusion reached from the text evidence of the written part where the reviewer relates his experience of his time with the game. What if I had the review score at the beginning of the concept and used it as a thesis rather than a representation of its worth. Of course after more consideration and discussion, if that is where we are moving with the idea of examining specific titles, then why would we need a score at all? Sufficed to say, the entire idea fell through. But it spawned a new one. I was still interested in exploring video games critically. That is when another of our contributors, Katharine O’Brien, stepped in with the question: why don’t we set up a sister site for the specific purpose of doing just what I had envisioned?
And so we are. From the writer of such articles as “The Portal Effect” and the “Single Player Game: Story vs. Gameplay” series, a new website devoted to the idea that games are an art form and that they should be examined critically.
TheGameCritique.com is up and running.
The Unfinished Swan – A Preview
This here is a little interesting indie game that I came across a while ago. It’s not finished without any plans for a release date as of yet. So why show it to you? From what we’ve seen, the game does something very unusual in games. Like Portal and Fracture it looks into design space that I loosely call special manipulation. Unlike the previous two game where they change the area or level design around them, this game reveals it.
Unlike most first person shooters that have a gun used to kill enemies to allow you, the player, to move on through the level, here the paintball gun is used to reveal the level so you can move through it. I suppose you could do the whole level blind, but where would the fun in that be. Instead of describing it further, why don’t you just watch the video.
The Unfinished Swan – Tech Demo 9/2008 from Ian Dallas on Vimeo.
The paintball gun aspect means that there are no enemies per say, instead the world could be called the enemy. It is a puzzle game, reminiscent of Portal. You have to figure out how to get from one end to the other. That much is evident. It is unique in its approach.
Beyond just the design aspect of being a really innovative idea, but it is also creates a artistic design that creates an ominous atmosphere, both ‘inside and outside.’ I’ll explore that meaning when it comes out on my new site. So see it there. (*hint hint*) Any possible story could be chilling, if this is any evidence.
I can’t wait to see where the designers go with this. The man responsible for it has also worked on The Misadventures of P. B. Winterbottom, another indie design gem yet to be released.
Find out more here on his blog: http://iandallas.com/
And the game: http://iandallas.com/games/swan/
The Single Player Game: Story vs. Gameplay Pt[3]
First of all I didn’t think this would last more than one article. It got kind of long so I split the original article into two. You can read part one here and part two here. Then Leipzig happened and certain announcements were made that seem to say exactly everything I had been looking for in the ultimate merging of story and gameplay that I had been talking about. Then I thought of just highlighting them in a different article, but then I though the first article was mainly about past innovations, the second was about where we are now, so this one will look to the future, albeit maybe only a few months to a year. Of course I cannot attest to the eventual quality or success of these games achieving their promises. With that in mind, we’ll hope for the best.
The first game I’m going to focus on it Fable 2, an exclusive coming out for the X-box 360. The promise of the game is many folds. Like the last game, Fable 2 makes the promise of choice that will change how you look and the how the world looks. An early choice released to us, was one of do you let a little girl get scarred for life or do you take one for the team. Though if you do, people, including your children, will recoil in disgust. There will be effects to the choices you make. These choices also affect how people view you and feel about you. You can influence their reactions with your own actions and be able to build relationships with the NPCs, up to and including marriage. There is also a system of law in the game world where you actions can be dealt with. If you kill someone in town and are spotted, you’ll have to deal with the law. Actions in the game will have consequences. If you aren’t seen you get away with it, but it will still affect your character’s soul. As with the last game, your personality also affects your appearance.
The game offers a lot of choice to the player. That has been its moniker since it was introduced. Here Fable 2 promises to live up to the expectations of Fable 1 by allowing that choice to have an effect on your character and play experience.
(Update: Since I started this article, Fable 2 has actually been released. I have not played it, so I do know first hand, but from what I have been told in regard to the subject I am talking about, it falls short. All of the above is in the game. The problem is that mechanically it set to a bunch of sliders that determine your characters personality and is then matched to the sliders of a given NPC. This is all well and good; until it becomes apparent the player can manipulate those sliders until he gets the reaction he wants from them. You can do some of the dastardliest deeds possible, like sacrifice your children in some ritual for power and the slider will turn you evil, but do enough heroic deeds and the slider will go to the other extreme, like you hadn’t done what you’ve done. So morality, instead of being a choice or character building, becomes a momentary inconvenience. There are no lasting consequences. I suppose this takes effort on the part of the player and if you play the character as that, a character, the game will obliged just fine.)
Next is Fallout 3. Like Fable 2, Fallout 3 has a system where your actions have effects in the world. The actions of NPC will depend on your actions and dialogue choices when speaking with them. One noted example is you can miss an entire side quest if you tell a boy who comes up to you to get lost, because he then wont ask for your help in rescuing his father. The effect on the story makes perfect sense in response to your actions. Further more there are real world consequences to your actions that will also change which on the touted 120 different endings you might get. The most extreme example of choice has to do with an unexploded nuclear bomb in a town. Should you detonate it, the town is gone. Anything that might have related to that town is gone. Any further effects on the story that town might have had are gone. We are told there are many choices like this, not all big, but they will all have an impact on your playing experience.
(Update mark 2: Fallout 3 has also been released. I have really been slow on this. And for the most part of what I’ve heard is that the game executes this very well. The world is so expansive that it would take multiple play throughs to see everything anyway that being able to do things differently is practically built into the game. Of course, while action matching up with consequence is great it is only one aspect of the gameplay. Now that we have an example of a game that can do this, we can focus on improving other aspects of the game.)
Another title, this one exclusive for the Playstation 3, which seems to be taking measure to mix the two elements. Infamous starts you at ground zero of a cataclysm that has some how given you electrical powers. Though the game you can either make yourself famous or infamous, hence the title. The story offered is you playing Cole must figure out what happened at that cataclysm. The world is open and you are free to either subdue enemies or kill them that will have an effect on how the world views you and will craft a reputation through your actions. Beyond that, the story is rather open in that the main thread seems to involve a mystery rather than an opposition, from what we know at this time. Some of the abilities you can gain and level up have effects on the game, like the ability to peer into a person’s memories post mortem using an ability called Post Cognition. This give you information. I can only suppose that this avenue of information gathering would not be available without the ability. I do not know for sure.
Prince of Persia comes out much later this year and unlike the past titles is not a linear experience. The world will be open offering choice to the player of what to do and where to go first. And after they finish freeing the land of corruption in that location. They have the choice to go somewhere else. The player wont be forced to go anywhere. That is all well and good, but the actual gameplay mechanics will offer something to the story as well. The little details like Eleka never being in your way when platforming. She will always be behind you, even should you turn around she makes her way to your other side. Plus Prince of Persia has a double jump thanks to Eleka’s magic, which allows her to give you another boost in midair. There are ways mechanics fit the story. Like the fighting system, and how every enemy is fought like a boss battle, making how a fight is fought more realistic. One neat addition, or I should say omission, is the continue screen. You never die in the game. This may sound like a cop out, until you see how it is pulled off. For instance, if you fall to your death, the game goes to a short cinematic of Eleka pulling you back safely to the last checkpoint using a magical ability. If you fall into corruption, she will pull you out. It acts like a continue screen in that it signifies when you mess up, but never pulls you out of the experience. This step forward is unique and powerful step in merging the two elements of video games.
Finally, the game that inspired this look into the future possibilities that games are offering, the PS3 exclusive: Heavy Rain. At the Germen Games Convention the demo showed was prefaced with these comments by stating that Heavy Rain will be an adult/mature emotional thriller with five overriding points involved within the design. First, it will be a story-driven experience that is provided not necessarily through cutscenes but through player action. Second, players’ actions will have serious consequences. Third, the experience will be emotionally driven and will invoke a dramatic response in the player. Fourth, the story and subject matter are very much adult in nature. And finally, the game will be broadly accessible to a wide variety of players. The challenge will play out in the player’s mind, not on the controller.
The demo shown was not part of the game itself, but was instead there to show what the game would be capable of. The game is entirely contextual based. White outlines will appear on objects that can be interacted with, when you walk near them. The outlines correspond to the button on the controller needed to interact with it, triangle, circle, square or X. It plays like an adventure game, but so much more visceral. In the sequence when confronted with a serial killer in his own house you have to run around avoiding him and the button images appearing on screen for only flashes as the player quickly moved through the rooms. Sometimes he pushed them, which caused the character to interact with the object in a way that made sense the context of the scene. One point before when the character came near a mailbox, they were allowed to open it, using the directional cue that appeared on screen for the Sixaxis control. Depending on how fast you moved it, would determine the speed the character would open it. It all looks like a cutscene, but you are in full control.
Further more, of the information I have gathered, is that there is no continue screen for death. The game will continue from beginning to end without pause. Should your character die, you will switch perspective to a new one. There are so many stories to be told using this method. There is a beginning and an end, but the journey in the middle is the true story. I spoke last time of the holy grail of gaming when it came to merging story and gameplay. A short time later, I think I may have found it. Let us hope.
The effort of designers in this aspect of game development has recently been focused on choice. Give the players more choice and freedom to impact the story and make the experience their own. The designers at the moment are doing this from the outside in. The branching pathways are from the big decision in quests or mission, rather than the small action of a player. This is fine. Get the process down first, but it seems they are getting a handle on it. This is what makes Heavy Rain very unique. Smaller decisions in the game supposedly will have an impact on the unfolding of the story. Who knows where this will bring us down the line.
Differences of Faith
Despite the title, this article has nothing to do with religion. Faith is the main character in the upcoming parkour platformer from EA, Mirror’s Edge. Below you will find two images of her. The key is, the one on the left was an image by EA of what she will look like in the game, while the one on the right is a fan representation of the same character.
A little background first. The game will be shipped in North America in Europe in a few days, while the localized version for Japan will be released in mid-December. Give that and the images it has been said that the Faith’s design has been skewed to western tastes of an exotic look. Torokun, the creator of the second images points out, “There is always a huge complaint from Asian gamers whenever Western developers design Asian female characters…this is mainly because many Westerners’ definition of what is considered as ‘Asian’ beauty is very different from what Asians consider beautiful.”
Here are the images side by side.
The most obvious difference between the two is the missing tattoo below Faith’s left eye. Personally I found it a rather odd choice for Character design, but I let it go. The next notable difference is the chin in the facial structure. In EA’s design the jaw is more pronounced, much more in line with a westerner’s chin that gives Faith a harder look, while the fan’s drawing has a smoother jaw that is softer and younger looking. The face also becomes more rounded in the changes. Also there is the matter of Faith’s eyes. In EA’s design they are little more than slits with the makeup/tattoo emphasizing their sharpness. In Torokun’s version they eyes are wider and what I noticed is the iris are given actual color, in this case green, rather than having what looks like overly large pupils.
The final change, which had to be pointed out to me, is bust size. When I first saw the official design I was happy that Faith’s figure looked more realistic than what is usually accepted as normal in video game action heroines. The fan version did up her cup size, but is still better representation than is average.
The original story can be read here: http://kotaku.com/5062933/faith-from-mirrors-edge-fan+designed-for-asian-tastes
Rock Band: Back in Black
I talked about the role the metal band Metallica has with the rhythm games as they were releasing a big track pack that week. Now its another great High Voltage band’s turn in the spotlight.
AC/DC has long been wanted in the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band, but has only recently made the transition in Rock Band 2 with “Let There Be Rock.” On November 2nd for the PS3 and Xbox360 and November 16th for Wii, AC/DC will be releasing AC/DC Live: Rock Band Track Pack. As with their upcoming new album Black Ice, this disc based track pack will only be sold at Wal-Mart locations and their Sam Club subsidiary. Hell, It Ain’t a Bad Place to Be. If you want to play the tracks in Rock Band 1 and 2, they will come with an authentication code that will allow the tracks to be played in PS3 and Xbox 360. There are no plans to make these songs available for download at this time.
All of the 18 songs are live versions from various shows throughout their Highway to Hell carrier. Here’s the track list:
-Thunderstruck
-Shoot to Thrill
-Back in Black
-Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be
-Heatseeker
-Fire Your Guns
-Jailbreak
-The Jack
-Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap
-Moneytalks
-Hell’s Bells
-High Voltage
-Whole Lotta Rosie
-You Shook Me All Night Long
-T.N.T.
-Let There Be Rock
-Highway to Hell
-For Those About to Rock (We Salute You)
Game Preview: Fracture Demo
The demo for Fracture came out on the PSN last Thursday. I’m a little late on this. I’m hoping to get faster at these. I’ve got like three or four articles backed up. But you don’t care about that. You want to hear about Fracture.
This is a demo, but its short, really short. It’s only a little longer than Heavenly Sword’s demo. There is a lot to go over in the demo. I’ll start with the most touted part of the game, the new environment changing weaponry. The main question that has been raised is, can this mechanic sustain an entire game? The detractors say it’s a bit too gimmicky and only one tool, while other cite Portal as a game that did that sort of thing well. After going through the demo a number of times, I say no. Not on its own. Portal was a masterpiece success not because of its mechanic, but how it used it and the world it formed around it. That and the game was only six hours long. I’ll explain what I mean.
The main weapon in Fracture is a machine gun with two extra functions. You can’t swap out this gun for one lying around. You have a second slot for that purpose. The extra functions are connected to the left and right trigger buttons (L1 and R1). When shot into the dirt one will raise the level of the ground, the other will cause it to lower. These allow for some basic puzzle solving of the run and gun variety. See a sewer pipe filled with dirt, shoot it out of the way by lower it. Can’t jump over a wall; raise the dirt in front of it to get some height. Raising the ground also can create a shield in an otherwise open section of the level. Doing it under an enemy throws them into the air. There are two sets of grenades that serve the same function. The lowering ones act as normal grenades in the absence of dirt. The only other landscape-using weapon in the game shown is something like a bomb tunneler. It travels under ground and blows up either when you hit the detonate button or it hits a wall.
Those are the functions and from what I’ve seen this is a clear example of the Portal Effect that went over in my previous article. The idea is that this is an end result and not a new source of design space. Portal as great as it was could not support new ideas or expand the concept further than it had. I believe that Fracture is the same way, though this maybe because the designer decided to go the shooter route. Really the two games take up the same kind of design space of exploring new ways to distort/change the landscape around the player.
In Fracture there are plenty of other weapons, rocket launcher, sticky grenade launcher, sniper rifle, machine gun. A few others are shown in the loading screen at the beginning, but are not in the game as shown. From other previews around the net there are even more guns that can terraform, but they didn’t show up here. Other than the gimmick there is really nothing else new here. The gimmick is fun, especially when they added real gravity physics to running up and down surfaces does give an additional sense of strategy of how you can use the landscaping tools, but honestly the way the shootouts are, I doubt you’ll have the time or the reason to use any of them. Now come the most dreaded part of this preview.
Stop me if you’ve heard this before. The character is also a gruff, grizzled supposedly brown haired marine in a suit of armor with regenerative shielding with a HUD that is explained as seen by the character through an ocular implant. The story is about fighting a general who was gone off and declared war or something. It’s your job to take him down, except he has an army at his back full of genetically enhanced soldiers. This is all we get from the demo, though I suspect that there isn’t much else there.
Overall the sound is good, the visuals are a little sub par and there are times when the game has to freeze for a second or two to load. Honestly this seems like another run of the mill shooter. The idea of terra formation and deformation sounds interesting, but did they have to put it into a shooter. That’s an idea that sounds like it could have been a great platformer or game based on exploration.
Fracture is a third person shooter by the developer Day 1 Studios set to be released on the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 on October 7th.
The Single Player Game: Story vs. Gameplay Pt[2]
I said previously that there is a debate going on between the gameplay elements of a game and the storytelling aspects. This of course is not an actual dehbate with words, but one expressed through the designers’ games. Last time I went through the extremes in the medium and then various techniques over the years designers have tried to combine story and interactivity. You can read it here. (Edit: Part 3 can be read here.)
One more technique designers use that I didn’t get to last time follows the rule stories have endings. In interactive fiction there are two types of endings. Those that the player has been led to by the events of cut scenes and those that are dependent on the action the player has taken. The later set of games that have multiple endings reflect the consequences of how you played the game, but most fall into a black or white duality category. Where the consequences are either all is right with the world or everything has gone to hell. Fallout 3 is truly ambitious in offering around 120 different possible endings. I will reserve judgment until I see how different those endings really are. If there is meaningful difference between them I will call it a success, but if the end cut scene is merely the same actions with a different backdrop then it is anything but that.
Recently games have further evolved in their efforts to blend the two. While games still continue to make games of the start and stop variety, games have also evolved further into two notable styles.
The illustrious Grand Theft Auto III popularized the first style. It is now known as the sandbox game. Of course there are many imitators, but few actually managed to accomplish a quality title with an open world. The idea here is to create a world and let the player loose into it to let them do whatever they want. Of course there is a main story, but there are also many side stories or quick play ideas that the player can take part in at any point he or she so wishes. It offers total freedom, or as much as can be accomplished in a video game. Action/Adventure games are given this title, but it also applies to many RPGs.
The idea is to allow the player to do what they want, but the designer, if he wishes to do his job properly, then must be able to allow the story to be able to progress at its own pace. Some games accomplish this, others still force a certain amount of inflexibility because of the demands of the story. To keep the two merged requires a certain kind of story that allows this kind of leeway. Grand Theft Auto IV is the story of an immigrant and his integration into the American lifestyle. He just so happens to take jobs along the way and confront his past. This allows the player to do what he wants, when he wants to.’
Finally there is the last of major styles of note on how to combine these two elements is what has been called cinematic gaming. It takes elements from movie story telling and integrating it into an interactive experience. In a way it is another type of start and stop game, cut scenes in this case, but the points in which this happens are short and far between. It also uses a number of other techniques described in the previous article. Atmosphere, environmental clues, in game dialogue, subtle hints and so forth to bring an all around experience, but also one more thing. Something that is much harder to nail down in describing it, but I’ll give it a try.
Cinematic gaming is like a threshold of quality for the sandwich games.’ It is the fluidity of the story coming out like a Hollywood movie, but still allows the game to take place. The game allows the player to move through the level without there being the feeling of a start and stop. The idea that the story and gameplay are so integrated with one another that neither stops for the other.
Really this is the ultimate use of the techniques innovated by the games that came before it. Half-Life may have introduced the idea of having characters talk outside of cutscenes to further the story, but though the player remained the experience they were still locked down to wait for the scrip to finish before they could move on to the next part. It still had the stop and start. Cinematic gaming takes this technique and allows movement and the game to continue. The voices are a soundtrack in addition to the gameplay. Also cutscenes for the most part have been shortened for these types of games and camera angles and techniques are used to highlight moments in the game while never stopping it.
I could try and define it all I want, but the best way to explain it is through examples. Two of the best games that I feel pull of the cinematic gaming concept are Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune. Each of these games do simple things that add to the experience to the game. There is a point in Uncharted where there is an indicator to press the R2 button comes up. It isn’t necessary to push it, but if you do the camera angle changes a little to look up and you catch a glimpse of foreshadowing and Drake saying, ‘What was that” In Sands of Time when entering a new area the camera sweeps around like the camera is on a crane to give the player a sense of what they will have to do.
Shadows of the Colossus also did this. When you start the fight the camera give you a shot of the colossus that just makes you say almost each time, ‘You expect me to do what!’ In each of these examples it happens for less than ten seconds. These are only some small examples of what is being accomplished right now to blend the two elements.
It may seem that I have come down hard on single player games where the gameplay is merely the ham between the cutscene slices of bread, but I don’t mind the essence of the idea. What I mind is the execution when the story is done in such a minimalist manner, where designer’s sacrifice story for gameplay or vice versa. There are many single player games that I hold in very high regard for the ability to blend gameplay and story, the aforementioned Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time and Uncharted: Drake’s Fortune, along with Assassin’s Creed, Resident Evil 4, Metal Gear Solid and Indigo Prophecy just to name a few. Whether or not you liked the games or their stories, they pulled off the combination of the sandwich formula admirably.
Of course the holy grail of gaming is to have a truly interactive experience with the player having dynamic effects on the world around him, both in gameplay and in story. Of course this might not be achievable with any amount of technology, due to the human mind being a somewhat unpredictable thing. (googafal) But we can always hope.
Playstation Home is Coming
Great news for PS3 users has been announced. Martijn Van der Meulen, a producer on Home, a project that will allow a free Second Life like environment for players to socialize in, told game journalists that it is 100% certain to be released before this calendar year is up. Van der Meulen has also assured us that the service will remain free and will not change its status at any point in the future, even the far future.
A number of other features were talked about. Everyone will be given their own studio apartment that they can customize as they wish. Further things like clothing, furniture and other assorted knickknacks can be unlocked through they player of normal games, an added bonus.
There will also be public areas. Most notable was the Playstation Event space that was shown off. Here you and other Home users can watch live streaming conferences and even talk with developers directly.
Whether you use the service or not, doesn’t matter. If you don’t care about it, do recognize that as a business decision it is very important for both the company and the players. Sony will be able to see wall space and billboards that they can easily add in for advertisement dollars. It wont be any more intrusive than walking down the street in real life and, even though they have promised to keep the PSN network free, these dollars will allow them to keep that promise without unwarranted expense. On the player’s side of things, Home will give developers further details to consider when designing and programming their games, just as trophies will do. The importance is it is an incentive for developers to take greater care in designing their games. I wont say they always will, but if it influences even one game to be better because of it, it is a worthwhile venture.
If you are a PS3 owner, you do not have use it, but do respect what it is. It is not mandatory to enjoy your PS3 or online play. It is simply another option given to you, with possible unseen benefits.
Invites to the Home beta have been sent out and is now open. I sadly did not get invited, so no insider insight from me.
The Single Player Game: Story vs. Gameplay [ I ]
(Edit: Part 2 can be read here. Part 3 can be read here.)
In a recent set of articles I read a certain debate on video games came to mind; the debate of what video games are, as they are still trying to define themselves as a new medium. In simplistic terms the debate is story vs. gameplay. Are they just a new purely interactive medium with the only difference to games is that they have changing colors or are they a new medium of story telling allowing developers to present stories that could not be told in other mediums properly?
Over the years video games have done both. Interactive media falls somewhere between the pure gameplay model of board games and the pure story telling model of movies. Anything that falls between the two is classified as a video game. But where do modern video games fall between these two mediums?
One complaint often heard is that a game has little to no story at all or one so underdeveloped that it doesn’t merit attention and the game is almost solely devoted to the gameplay experience. This is not really much of a problem. Older games and arcade style games fall into this category. The arcade’s simple style and nature of the game don’t require much of a story. And the limitations of older technology meant there wasn’t going to be much complex story telling. However, now with the technology does exist to present in depth stories.
Fighting games also do this, but the expectation of a fighting game is for the gameplay and not the story. Players, most of the time, do not even realize a fighting game has a story other than this guy will end up fighting everyone else for some reason. The reason doesn’t really matter.
On the other side of the scale is that some games are not interactive enough or at all to be called ‘interactive’ storytelling where you spend most of the time reading rather than contributing anything of your own. Interactive movies are the extreme. These games are a string of static choices that lead along a path imitating choose your own adventure books.
The idea is to find a suitable middle ground. Most Japanese RPGs are in the middle ground, but fall into a precarious position in the middle. They keep the story and the gameplay as separate as possible, with sparse exceptions to the rule. High walls are erected between the two and it can be annoying to players who want one and have to deal with long stretches of the other. The only interaction between the two in general is a trigger that opens up new areas after a certain conditions are met. This separation between the two elements seems to be par for the course, not only J-RPGs, but in most action games as well. It is only how high and thick the walls are between the two.
Most single player games are like the aforementioned J-RPGs. They are a composition of set pieces that you play through and are strung together by the story told through cut scenes. This manner of story telling does not make the most of the genre and depending on your point of view one element gets in the way of the enjoyment of the other. This is only basic explanation, but over the years developers have added more detail to the process in an attempt to create a more immersive experience.
Some developers liven it up with the computer only taking partial control over and can only continue with player’s input in the style of Simon says button-mashing sequence. This adds variety and gives the player a sense that their own reaction time is the character’s.
If I may go back in time for a minute. Subtlety was the name of the game back in the 8-bit and 16-bit eras. With the lack of processing power of the machines cut scenes were limited and pre-rendered cinematics were non-existent. Any story in the game had to be told through a Star Wars style scrolling exposition, subtle hints or other visual cues that the player would have to recognize. In Japanese released especially, though granted much was lost in the translation. Thinking about it, this could be the present problem with video game story telling. Though homes consoles may have been around since the 1980s, it is only recently that we have a full set of tools to tell the story with and were are only now getting the hang of how to use them. Think of it of having to write a book in stone tablets and then a few years later you have access to pen and paper and the language just got around to making symbols for the vowels. Of course visual clues to story telling are still part of gaming.
Half-Life introduced another method for cut scenes to play out in that there are none. You the player never leave the game and the dialogue is spoken while you are present still in your game avatar. The audio is affected by distance as it would in real life and will alter pitch and volume depending where you are in relation to the speaker. This manner of story telling keeps you immersed in the story, but by itself this really only works for simple ideas and action. The method is direct and can only be useful in delivering information. Half-Life complimented this with more the more subtle idea of background events. Things going on outside of the player’s area of influence, but within sight as to add pieces of information, sense of mystery, or simply to add atmosphere.
Bioshock and long before it Baldur’s Gate had an idea of giving the player access to rich and detailed story, but didn’t make it required reading. The pieces were there if the player wanted to know every little detail, but if the player wasn’t so inclined they could ignore it and stick with the main points. They were delivered by additional set pieces filled with story and world information. Bioshock had audio diaries and Baldur’s Gate had books. Both were optional sources of information. They added a further sense of atmosphere and provided tidbits, that weren’t critical, but allowed the player to delve as deep as they wanted to into the world.
These are only techniques to give further variety to the world and give the sense of further choice and interaction for the player. The game still runs along a rigid course with separation firmly set between gameplay and story. In the recent generation developers have come up with complete game concepts that meld the two components together even more. I will go over these in part 2.
The Portal Effect
Portal was the award winning game of last year by Valve Studios. The same company makes the Half-Life series. Set in the same universe, Portal is a unique take on not only the first person shooter, but also video games in general. The team created a game where you have to puzzle your way through several levels using a unique device called the portal gun. Instead of bullets it shoots portals, an orange and a blue one. They connect to each other; in effect changing the dynamics of how you can move around. It is one of the most innovative titles to come out in a very long time. This connects us to the debate of innovation in games. How should game designers innovate? What is the next evolutionary step? It was easy to see about 12 years ago. Simply move from 2d to 3d. Now it is not as simple. There is a lot of repetition in the game of recent years, with only incremental improvements at best. Several people have looked to Portal to lead the way into new design space to be explored. I think otherwise.
Yes it was one of the most innovative games of the year, probably the decade, but for all its innovation it is a dead end. The ability to shuttle from one location to the other instantaneously like in the game is a feat of massive proportions technologically, but it opens a door into a very small room. Conceivably the portal concept would only work in an enclosed space. The coding would be near impossible to create in an open environment. For example, if the player were to shoot a portal under a tree, how would the environment react and what would happen when you moved the portal elsewhere. It is also a question of challenge, because you could skip an entire level by just portaling to the other side. Other problems pop up when you consider what would it be useful for? What would be the point in game? What type of game could make use of the idea? Only an action/adventure title could really use it for any real benefit. But with an idea as unique as the portal gun it would only end up hindering any attempts other than how it was used in Portal. It is a device to solve puzzles with. It has no other viable application.
The portal itself has no alternative application, but the thinking behind it may lead to other areas of innovation. The developers played with the concept of space. Like how when consoles moved onto the N64 and Playstation they added a dimension, developers now can play with that dimension like they never had before. It may even be possible to add another dimension as a game mechanic. Prince of Persia did this sort of thing with its rewind mechanic, but it may be possible to take it a step further. Innovation is about taking the old idea a step further. Games have so many concepts put together that finding the next thing is really about finding the right combination of changes.
