Thursday 27 November 2008

Unrelated news

Balai basically stole half of what I had in mind for this next post, but this teaches us all a lesson, check the body, don't always assume the first shot killed.

I could add to what he said right now, but I won't because I've been hard at work and need to lie down for a very long time, I'm just not used to it, I need do one thing explained first though. The last month and a bit I've been writing an essay on World of Warcraft for a project I've been working on, I even spent a week of this time taking part in the Wrath of the Lich King beta just to inspire me, and during this time I've been fine. Yesterday someone mentions the words 'Line of sight', in the context of physics I might add, and then I spend the next few hours thinking about how much it makes me want to play WoW again, then I discover that 'The Guild' season 2 is on Xbox Live, which, naturally, does nothing to help alleviate my current predicament. What the hell is wrong with me? A month working on an essay and dabbling in the beta leaves no affect on me, but a phrase and a 6 minutes short and I feel the old pangs of addiction kicking back in?

Fate is, as they say, a cruel mistress.

Load up on guns and bring your friends

Wednesday 26 November 2008

For the masses...

Given that when we started we may have started somewhere around the middle I am presenting to you all a possible ending that we are deciding on.

Filling the River
You are tasked by a toaster with filling a river with either honey or Marmite.

Now you may ask yourself
"What the hell, a TOASTER!?"
and I can fully understand your desire to know the reason for this ridiculous quest but, I assure you Ridiculous is part of our plan... No it really is.

"Our Game:
  • Must be a sandbox game
  • Must include zombie
  • WILL be ridiculous" - Taken directly from some conversation me and Iced had
If we actually had a game design sheet I'm sure it would look something like that anyway.

TBA

I'm about start working on the big 'explanation post', expect it within the next couple of days, it won't take that long to write but I want to make sure that Balai see what I put down before it gets posted, so that he may point out any changes to be made, IE. where I have made a ton of shit up, which I will unconsciously do.

I partly wanted to make a post now to break the two day radio silence (as if that is really a big deal) and also force my thoughts about the Xbox 360's new 'community games' feature upon you all. Think of it as mental surprise sex.

As per usual, Microsoft is unmoving on their pricing policy, which is something that is, finally, going to bite them in the arse. They got away with it on arcade games because, lets face it, when the strenuous mental exercise of figuring out the actual, real world price of these games they were selling was completed, you generally ended up with a figure you would expect to pay for the product that was being delivered, a middle ground between the 400 and 800 price points was not as necessary. It is now. Indie games are hard enough for developers to price, on the PC most devs stick to around the £5 mark, but there is allot of deviation even there, the problem with Microsoft's nebulous space bucks system is that 400 points is roughly £3, I don't want to spoil too much about how much money the 800 points mark roughly translates into, but suffice to say that it is double that of it's compatriot.
The minimum price point on community games is 200 points and rather sadly almost everything sitting at that number would require significant budgetary adjustments before I even considered buying it. It's a shame really, this was the feature I was most looking forward to in the NXE, but most of the content is either unplayably bad or lacking enough polish to justify the entry fee. The main problem with these releases is that most of them focus on a single aspect of game play way too much on a single aspect of game play, 'Bad Atom Episode 1' for example, may be a modern day messiah of innovation, but with a UI as incomprehensible as its', I may well never know.
'Artoon' is another example of being overly focused on a single aspect, although unlike most of its' comrades it focus almost solely on presentation, this means that it is playable, sadly the game play, which is OK at first, prevents it from being replayable. To elaborate, I was bored before the end of trial screen was summoned forth to boot me off, and that thing kicks at after only five or ten minutes. Pretty looking game though.

I promise we'll get down to business soon.

I have a secret that I cannot say

Sunday 23 November 2008

P.S

There should be a seperate leaderboard on 'Audiosurf' for people playing using graphics tablets with the pen sensitivity jacked right up. It seemed like such a good idea at the time.

Edit: for the unenlightened.

My field notes

I know that I don't have to post daily but I can't help myself, but within a week or so the novelty will wear off, this is a good thing, it means that more of the posts made here will be, you know, relevant to game design. For now though...

So I've spent a few hours with Left 4 Dead I've come to some conclusions. First off, if you plan on playing through entire campaigns in one go then don't play co-op, unless it's just with someone physically sitting next to you, I say this because so far it seems that co-op tends to either devolve into a team killing match, or have everyone else leave shortly after starting.
Second, if you do play single player, then you are doing it wrong. Left 4 Dead is okay as, at best, when played single player, yet it truly shines when there are three other people there screaming bloody murder into their microphones at every turn.
Finally, if you are playing in co-op, you are, once again, doing it wrong, why so? Because there is only a single thing more terrifyingly hilarious than watching a hulking tank punch a helpless survivor off the top of a building, which is being said tank and roaring with blood thirsty glee the entire time.

Actually, forget what I said earlier, consider this research, what better way to figure out how to make a zombie game than play one? See? Totally relevant.

On veut juste vous bouffer le cerveau