Friday 19 December 2008

World of Goo Level Editor


Today's the day. World of Goo is going to be available on the European WiiWare service. I'll buy it as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, I found out that someone called "nitrozark" started a project for a free World of Goo Level Editor. It's available on SourceForge here: http://apps.sourceforge.net/mediawiki/wogedit
The guys at 2D boy know that, and they gave their blessing to the editor. Hurrah!

Monday 15 December 2008

You can't fool a casual (gamer) thrice


What I mean is... why software houses are trying so hard on the average casual gamer? How long do they think it's gonna last?
If a person that just got close to videogames buys a really bad game, one of those games that swears "Fun for the whole family!", and then turns out to be boredom for the whole family and even the pets, maybe he will try again.
He could buy another bad game, but that's it. There's a company (whose initials are D.D.) who developed a complete series of bad games in a few months, each one similar to all the other ones (although being different genres). How many they think they can sell, after this bad service to the player?
I'm referring of course to Wii and DS situation, I'm sick tired of seeing a bunch of cash-ins every month. If they keep going like this, each casual and potential hardcore player will turn off in disgust from videogames.

You can trick a casual gamer into buying your game once. Maybe you can fool him twice. But you can't fool a casual THRICE.

(actually some get fooled more than ten times... but not all!)

Tuesday 2 December 2008

Fieldrunners

Surely Fieldrunners came a bit ago, it's not new and neither is the concept. But on the iPhone this is the greatest execution of the Tower defence gameplay. As you can see the graphics are really sharp and both towers and troops are fully animated.
The only downside is that, as of now, there's only 2 maps and 4 types of towers, but Subatomic Studios add features with every release, so maybe the situation will get better.

I got really hooked by Fieldrunners, of course it's only tower defense after all, but if you own an iPhone or iPod Touch, you should give it a try. I think the current price is around 3 dollars...

Sunday 30 November 2008

UFHO has been entered for the Independent Games Festival

UFHO, my Flash game, has been entered as a contestant for the 11th Independent Games Festival. The entrance fee was 95 dollars, that's why it took so long for us to submit it, we're stingy (whenever I say "we", I mean me and my boss, it's a "company we").
I can't say I think it could win in any cathegory for there could be spectacular games out there, but deep in my heart I know UFHO has a great concept and if it was managed in a better way could have been a big hit as far as puzzle games go.

Wednesday 1 October 2008

The Retro Remakes 2008 competition

Some time ago I discovered this competition about making retro games. Well, not every category is retro, but 5 out of 6 are, so... It's called Retro Remakes Big Competition, and is hosted by the Retro Remakes site. You can see the rules and all on the competition blog, and everything else on the forums.
They accept games in almost every form, for every platform, but the deadline is December the 2nd, so hurry up.

I'll be entering with a game in the Games For Helen category, that is games that can be played by people with physical difficulties. There's two subcategories: one for games that have a one-button control scheme (if you can call it a scheme), and games that are controlled with the gaze of the eye. Yes. Gaze, you read it well. Look here (look, ah ah).
My game will use Flash as platform of development and will be called Paper Circus, it's a game in which you are a boy that dreams of his paper circus becoming real, and the player must perform a circus show to please the public. The game will be made up of very small mini-games...
I can't share much for now because I just started, but more will come soon.

Tuesday 23 September 2008

Wario Land: Shake It creative advertising


This is something that HAD to be shared:
http://it.youtube.com/experiencewii
Let the video run for at least 20 seconds and you'll see...

Beside the very funny commercial, I love this game. Too bad that the first reviews say that it's a little bit short...

Thursday 18 September 2008

A custom class to draw dashed lines in Flash

Ever wanted to draw a beautiful dashed line in Flash with a single line of code?... Well you can't do it yet, but my code needs only three or four to intialize the object and then one for each line.

I made a custom class called DashedLine, which is an extension of the flash.display.Shape class. With it you can create a DashedLine instance that has the following methods:
drawDashedLine - Draws a dashed line between to points. You have to provide four coordinates.
drawDashedLineP - Draws a dashed line. You have to provide two Point objects.
drawDashedRectangle - Draws a dashed rectangle. You have to provide the two coordinates of the left top corner, and then width and height.
clearAll - Deletes all the lines

I wrote every explanation at the top of the class file DashedLine.as. Don't forget to import the file, I put it in a package called ccontinisio (so you'll remember me when you use it).
Don't bother to quote me when you use it, I'm not after personal glory :D

Here's the file:
DASHEDLINE_CLASS (.zip)

(manually copy this link if the above doesn't work...
http://ccontinisio.altervista.org/varie/DashedLine_class.zip)

Tuesday 16 September 2008

Spore: Space stage

Well, this post actually talks about everything except the Space stage, because I reached it only at 3.00 AM last night, so I was forced to turn the game off (I have a daytime work, you know).

After trying the demo I bought the game, so how is the full game? Is it worth 54,90 € (italian price)? The answer can be yes, for the most part. Spore is a fun, addictive game, maybe a little short since I arrived at the final stage in two days of gaming.
I also find it a little bit annoying at time, with some stages (the tribal and the civilization ones) a little bit too tedious due to the small repeating tasks and the slow pace. As most reviewers wrote before me, the game feels like an action game, a sim game, a strategy game, all stripped down in some way and packed together. So a little disappointing from this point of view.

BUT they're packed together with the best editors out there (except for the anthem creator), and they are really one of the best accomplishments of videogames of all times. The game also has a plethora of accomplishments, like 50 in all. From the Spore Addict (play for more than 100 hours) to the Deja Vu (see a creature you created before in a new game on a different planet).
And the cutscenes are too much fun, I will play the whole game again just to see them.

So yes, it was worth it. I expect to create at least 50 beings before the end of the month...

Wednesday 10 September 2008

Pro (R)Evolution Soccer

Tonight I have to talk about one of the most surprising games of the latest years. Yes it's Pro Evolution Soccer 2008 for the Wii, and I'm gonna tell you why. Meanwhile, watch some movies of the game if you don't know about it.

This game does what I dream I could do at least once in my life, to take game mechanics unchanged since ten or more years, and change them. The team at Konami (I think the name is Greyhound) took classic aim-with-the-dpad-and-pass-with-a-button mechanic and reworked it, giving the gamers so much freedom that when I watched the first video I thought: "ok, this looks good but... is it gonna work?"
Thanks God that team was creative and looking really forward, everyone could have said "the Wii doesn't have PES, let's take the last version and port it there". After all they could have taken the PS2 graphics (and it's what they did) and only port the controls.
Instead they built a game from the ground specifically for the Wii, and changed things so much that I think I will never play an 'old conception' football game without feeling deprived of something. I'm not going to explain every move in the game, I only want to make clear that you can move every single player in the game, whether with the ball or not, and pass in every single space, pixel perfectly. And move at about ten different speeds. It's the ultimate football control.
And all of this when the other versions of PES let you move and pass only in eight directions. Think about it.

Monday 8 September 2008

On board of the spore mania

As a big fan as I am of game editors, I couldn't resist to give Spore Creature Creator a try.
For those who don't know the game, Spore is a simulator game in which you build your creature and then take it through all the stages of evolution. The game is full of editors to create your creature, buildings, spaceships and so on, and Creature Creator is one of them.
What I didn't knew though is how powerful the editor is. It lets the user assemble a monster in so many ways that it's simply overwhelming. Also from a technical point of view, it's also an enourmous accomplishment in character animation since every creature that you do, no matter if the legs are stitched on the forehead, animates properly, walks, jumps, and so on. Even the textures stretch to fit the form YOU created, not some shape that the developers thought of in advance. It's complete freedom. Well not 100% complete, but you get the point.

I thank God I only have the Demo edition so the pieces to create my creatures are limited, otherwise I could spend days creating the latest fashion in monsters.

Speaking about Spore, I once had an interesting conversation with my uncle about why he didn't like videogames. He said that games are only a big, very big bunch of predetermined game states, and playing is only going through them. What he meant is that games aren't interesting because you're essentially doing something that someone else set for you, in a way he had already predicted.
While I see this is ultimately true, I don't see this as a problem... after all, games are like a story that the developers are telling us, so it's ok if they know how we're going to play it.
With Spore though, I think that even the developers haven't foreseen every possibility. And I think it's the first time in the history of games... well ok, maybe I'm too excited about it and I forget other games who had editors before it, but seriously: try Spore Creature Creator Demo.

PS: did I mention that Spore CC lets you take screenshots and videos of your creations and upload them on Youtube directly from within the game? Here's my latest one:


Oh my I also forgot another thing. The creature creator features dynamic simplicistic music, that changes based on the action you do. There's a basic beat and then the music changes when the game is loading a texture or you attach a part to the creature... Spore's dynamic music is poetry for me...

UPDATE: I just found this nice article on Spore's dynamically generated music.

Wednesday 3 September 2008

MMORPG: How can we make people play less?

I wrote an article about MMORPGs. Long story short:

This article deals with my thoughts on online multiplayer role playing games that push the player to stay hours and hours in front of the screen and make him lose contact with real life and relatives/friends. Since this behaviour is obviously wrong, this article proposes some ways to actually force the player to play less time. This is done by incorporating elements that makes the player lose if he plays too much. Further, a number of proposals are made to make the player feel "rewarded" as much as he is by playing other MMORPGs.

To read it:
http://www.notesongamedev.net/inspiration/play-less/

Careful: it's long.

Sunday 31 August 2008

UFHO

Is there a better way to start one's blog rather than talking about his first real game in the role of designer?

UFHO has been launched three months ago on http://www.ufho.it. It's a puzzle game online, where you can (and ultimately must) play with a friend in a game that is so tactic that it reminds of chess. The concept is simple: move through a maze of hexagon shaped rooms and head for the gem that randomly appears from time to time.
The game is turn-based, so you have to think of the possible moves the opponent is going to make, and plus there's a timer of 20 seconds to execute yours.

Now for the summer UFHO experienced a bit of a stop, but I hope he won't quite die. We plan to do an iPhone version soon, although that version is not mine in programming. I will check that the design stays intact even on the small screen.

Meanwhile I invite you all to try the Flash game, you can find me as ness in the lobby from time to time. You can login in the game as guest - guest, or you can sign up freely to retain your gaming stats after each match.
I advice however to login with a friend to play together, since users come and go...