Category Archives: Games and Game Development

Thoughts on games and game development

Games Played

depict1 and Robot Unicorn Attack

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Two games to discuss tonight, go!

First up is depict1, a platformer that’s also kind of a mind trip. It’s full of smiley surprises, and it has a subtle way of playing with our natural instinct to trust and listen to the tutorial man. In a way, it probes something deep down and makes me a little squirmy, but just barely, and not enough to decrease how enjoyable the game is.

The trick is not to get frustrated by its initial premise and the search for controls. Just check the readme file, it’s not that big a spoiler.

Secondly is the ever-popular Robot Unicorn Attack (short ad before the game). Now, I thought that Canabalt was pretty clever, what with its procedurally generated courses and all, but I played it like 2 or 3 times and then shrugged it off. Robot Unicorn Attack, on the other hand, I can’t stop!! The music! The rainbows! The sparkles! I cannot resist their juiciness!

It just goes to show how important the theming and aesthetic wrapper of your game can be. (For those who don’t feel like playing them or don’t have the time, here’s the spoiler: it’s the same game).

Also, I want that song, surely that song has to be in downloadable form someplace by now, right?

Musings on Game Design

Football insight

While watching the Superbowl tonight, I had an insight. I realized that the time I started enjoying football corresponded with when they started using augmented reality to render the first down line.

I used to be all, “I don’t know what’s going on! Wait, why are they switching out? What happened? Was that a good thing? Did something good happen?” And I pretty much gave up on attempting to watch the sport.

Now it’s easy, I just look at the screen and think “Okay, they have to get to there, got it.” Suddenly, football is enjoyable to watch!

It’s amazing how a little piece of technology can make something so much more accessible to a casual audience!

Musings on Game Design

Game Design Toolbox

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One of my favorite assignments in Game Design was building the Toolbox. We had to think of games we’d played from every year starting when we were 5 years old, and jot down a useful memory about the game. Useful in terms of something we learned from it game-design-wise. It was a very useful tool, and I’m always adding onto it.

However, I wanted to do two things: 1) Put the toolbox in a format that would be easily categorized, searchable, and easy to add on to, and 2) A format that was easy to share with others.

As such, I’ve started a new blog: Wertle’s Game Design Toolbox

I’ve already copied over the information from the original toolbox, but there is still MUCH to add. For example, as a preliminary exercise, I made a list of every video game I can ever remember having played EVER. Now I have to add each one to the toolbox with a corresponding memory.

I have about 200 entries to add, and that’s just video games. I haven’t even started a list for other types of games!

This is a huge project, but I intend to catch up, so that eventually adding new entries will be gradual. I also intend to make lots of tags, so that I can look up entries by system, by genre, or by insight.

How long do you think it’ll take me to add all my games?

Games Played

Sheep

Today’s favorite of the Gamasutra weekly indie game pick is Sheep, a game where you are a sheepdog herding sheep! Well, sort of.

See, in this situation, the sheep chase the dog instead of the other way around.

Regardless, I found it had a few nice little twists on game mechanics that I’m used to. For example, the rams will hurt you if they touch you, so you have to keep away from them. But you are still leading them, so you can’t let any of them die by falling into water or getting caught by the wolf.

I don’t think I’d ever played a game before where you have to preserve and keep safe the thing that is chasing and trying to hurt you. I’d like to explore that idea further!

There are a few quirky things about the game, such as the difficulty ramping being a little sporadic (I found the hardest levels to be sprinkled throughout, rather than each level being more difficult than the last). Regardless, I found the interaction to be fresh and fun, and the music was nice in all of its midi-ness.

It’s very short, so give it a try!

Musings on Game Design

A Silent Protagonist Does NOT Guarantee Awesomeness

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The theme of today’s entry is “correlation does not imply causation,” except I’m not talking about vaccines. I’m talking about the frequent notion that a silent protagonist in a video game makes for a more immersive experience. A recent Kotaku article got me thinking about this, but I intend to look at the matter in a more specific and less, uh, prickly point of view. Now, I’m going to slim the playing field a bit and talk specifically about silent heroes in first person shooters, in interest of time and clarity of point.

This blog post is Longsville, you have been warned.

A long train of thought…

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Busy times

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I’ve packed more social activities into this week than I have in ages! Granted, they all took some form of nerdery, but it’s still hard to stay “on” for so many consecutive nights. I shall look forward to a day of rest in the morning. Not to say that I’m complaining!

We’ve started up a mostly-weekly board game night at work, and this week I brought my cards to the table in the form of Give Me the Brain and my favorite card game, Once Upon a Time. It is an absolute joy to play Once Upon a Time with a group of creative storytellers who play in to the cooperative part of the game! I really do need to get a whole deck of blank cards to expand the storytelling arsenal. It’s an exhausting game, however, requiring a lot of creative energy, so it is paired well with Give Me the Brain, which is quick and low-key.

Friday night was the first in a twice-monthly D&D campaign, again with friends from work, and it is a fantastic adventure so far! I love pen and paper RPGs, and have nothing but respect for people who are willing to DM. The format is lax enough that people can come and go from the core group, so that we don’t face the often-game-killing dilemma of not being able to get everyone together at the same time. We’re playing 3rd edition, as it was all of our favorites (I have no experience with 4th edition, but the ones who had played it didn’t like it at all compared to 3rd).

Today I visited with Josh and we gave Borderlands a try, and ended up playing all day long! I really enjoy the game, but I can see how it shines best when played cooperatively. I think the music in the game has been under-appreciated – it sets the mood so well! It’s a good combination of genres for my tastes, too. The FPSness is pretty mild, and the RPGness isn’t too deep. A good “casual” blend, though I realize that casual is probably an inappropriate word for what I’m trying to describe. Plus, anything with quests is a hook in my mouth, and I foresee playing more in the future.

Tonight, I went to Will’s to kick off the Venture Brothers Marathon which we have been talking about doing for some time. We skipped season 1, since I’ve seen it in full several times, and got good headway into season 2 tonight. It always surprises me what a well put-together show that is!

As for tomorrow, I intend to do some nesting, a bit of cooking, and then spend the rest of it in bed. Is the last week of January upon us already?!?

Games Played

Defend Your Honor

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I post links on twitter a lot to various short indie games that I like, but I’m trying to get into the habit of making more thoughtful journal entries on them (like I did for Continuity).

Today’s game of choice is Defend Your Honor, a Flash fantasy-themed tower defense game. I went into this one cautiously, because I’m generally not a huge fan of tower defense games.

This one, however, was great! It has a silly story and a rudimentary but appealing art style, and the music is quite enjoyable (the theme that plays when you’re out in the dungeon picking out which door to go to is delightful and addictive).

I think the theme wrapper of the game as a sort of classic, D&D-style dungeon fantasy adventure helped hook me in. The units you control are quite simple, and the battles themselves are relatively short. I never failed a battle more than twice, but there were plenty of close calls that made me feel clever and kept things interesting.

Having the meta-game of getting the keys and statues to progress through dungeon rooms really helped to break up the pacing, as tower defense games I’ve played in the past have exhausted me with their format. Plus, having the units be introduced to you as characters is a nice little tie-in, but they didn’t overdo it by trying to over-explain things (like how you can buy multiple units of what appears to be a single character). The lightness and crudeness of the story makes this tactic acceptable.

I played through the whole thing in an evening, but it does save your progress. So, if you’ve been “meh” about tower defense games in the past, give this one a try. It’s quick and fun!

Games Played

Continuity

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If anyone’s been following my tweets recently, you’ll notice a fair amount of the recent ones were about an awesome little web game, Continuity

This game is a combination slider puzzle, maze, and platformer. Basically you move the tiles around to arrange the space for your little guy to traverse. You can’t move between two panels if their walls (or floors or ceilings, depending which direction you’re trying to go) don’t match up. Get the keys and reach the door, pretty simple, but a very elegant game.

Continuity demonstrates something very strange that happens when you inject simple movement interaction into the main stop-and-think puzzle solving part. It does delightful things to the pacing! It’s as though the simple act of moving your little guy is a reward for how clever you are for solving which panel to put where. It also helps break up the heavy thinking in the later, more difficult puzzles – just work at finding one piece you can match up, and getting to move there is a reward. The platforming is very mild, even in the later levels, but you do eventually have to do tricky things, like jumping up into a panel, then pulling out and switching out the one you’ll fall into.

It also makes beautiful use of the music to communicate which mode you are in – puzzle slidy mode, or move-your-guy mode.

The other thing it does really well is ramp across all of its levels. Every time a new tricky mechanic is introduced, you face an extremely simple level where just that mechanic is involved, so it’s very clear you will have to use that little trick in the upcoming levels.

Lastly, I love that there is no formal instructions in the game. You figure out what you’re supposed to do and how to move by the constrictions of the first level, and then you’re all set for the rest of the game.

I beat the last level today, and of course yearn for more. I’m very curious about the process these guys used to design their puzzles – if they had a step-by-step method or if they were something more reverse engineered. Puzzle design is something I take for granted.

Anyway, I hope you try it out. Enjoy!