In these days a new game was released for Wii: the on-rails shooter Dead Space: Extraction. The latest news (today/yesterday) say that the game has made a really slow start in the stores around the world, selling a mere 9.000 units in the first week.
Now news sites will once again start saying that Wii hasn't got a mature audience, that Wii owners only want casual games, and developers will start worrying about creating new Wii mature games, and shy away (more than they do now).
While I can see the point of the news sites, because I didn't buy Dead Space: Extraction myself and I don't plan to, I don't think the fault of all of this resides all in the gamers and it's not also a blame for the developers. Maybe Extraction is a good game, I am sure they put a lot of effort in it. But come on... let's analyze this.
PS3 and Xbox got Dead Space, a very good game. It sold under 2 millions (at least this is what I can find) on 3 platforms, despite being a good game and a new IP. Wii gets nothing, because it's not powerful enough. Ok, honest. But then? What do Wii owners get? An watered down on-rails shooter, just to say that Wii has got its Dead Space? No, please.
Not to mention the fact that Wii already got two Resident Evil on-rails shooters, and House of the Dead: Overkill (which at least is not an on-railified version of something else), how did they come with the big idea of porting a good IP in a - obviously - cut form on the Wii, and expect good sales?
It already happened with the Resident Evil shooters (placeholders for RE 5), Call of Duty: World at War, and other notable titles which I can't remember now. What did they hope for??
By the way, the same will happen with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare. Already on the internet there are image comparison between the Wii version and the PS3/X360 ones. And this doesn't bode well for the game's performance in shops.
Please, developers, try honestly and don't place the blame on the customer.
Thursday 22 October 2009
Wednesday 23 September 2009
Wolfenstein
Germany has a long story of bans related to games. Censorship is higher there when it comes to blood or violence, and there's a rumor that the Government is considering a ban on all action games.
Recently Raven Software has published a game called Wolfenstein, which is the sequel of the famous Wolfenstein 3D which was retired from the market in 1994 due to its nazi references. Ah, I forgot to mention this: nazi references are banned from Germany altogether.
In fact during the localization process the guys tried to remove all references to nazism, SS, Hitler and such.
But they failed: they missed some minor textures and the publisher, Activision Blizzard, made the decision to pull the game from the German market due to this small portion of 'offending' images.
Here's a confrontation of the European version vs. the German one. Just to show how many symbols they removed, and how much damage they made to the game.
It's crazy.
Tuesday 1 September 2009
Wii Internet Channel Update
Just what I was waiting for. Well, actually not, but it's important all the same.
Nintendo released today an update to the Internet Channel for Wii, with an updated Flash Player. I haven't yet tried which version it is, I guess it's 9 or 10. (edit: read below)
The incredible news is that now Wii will be overwhelmed with GOOD Flash games rivaling Wiiware offerings. Is Nintendo crazy? Waiting for an answer, I hope that the good folks at Wiicade will update their Flash APIs for the Wii to ActionScript 3.0
Moreover, the channel is now free to download and the ones who bought it will get a refund. They will download a NES game worth 500 Wii Points for free. This is really kind from Nintendo.
EDIT: The Flash Player has been updated to Flash Lite 3.1, which means it can play Flash 8 movies or lower. No AS 3.0. WHAT A SHAME.
Nintendo released today an update to the Internet Channel for Wii, with an updated Flash Player. I haven't yet tried which version it is, I guess it's 9 or 10. (edit: read below)
The incredible news is that now Wii will be overwhelmed with GOOD Flash games rivaling Wiiware offerings. Is Nintendo crazy? Waiting for an answer, I hope that the good folks at Wiicade will update their Flash APIs for the Wii to ActionScript 3.0
Moreover, the channel is now free to download and the ones who bought it will get a refund. They will download a NES game worth 500 Wii Points for free. This is really kind from Nintendo.
EDIT: The Flash Player has been updated to Flash Lite 3.1, which means it can play Flash 8 movies or lower. No AS 3.0. WHAT A SHAME.
Monday 20 July 2009
The Conduit
I just tried The Conduit for the Wii and I just can't believe how bad it is, from a graphical point of view. For months the developers bragged about the engine behind the game, and still from what I could see on the internet I wasn't convinced.
Now that I saw it first hand I see nothing but cool (?) effects, blur, bloom lights, some bump, depth of field blur and the like. But taken together they don't do a pretty picture, they are misused and pumped to the extreme just to show that they're in the game.
It's like the first movies that use 3D glasses, they are constructed so you really NOTICE that there's a 3D effect... (I'm referring to Coraline, which anyway is a good movie by itself)
For The Conduit... it just doesn't work. I didn't play it to the end, actually I just spend a few minutes with it. But the developers filled the first part with all the graphical tricks to show off, and it wasn't enough. I'm sorry but the bad art direction shines through instead. Plus, the bloom effect and blur are overused, and the bump mapping shows the different texture planes that float on each other, when seen at a close range.
This is really disappointing for them, because The Conduit's selling point was the graphics (and the controls, which work) and a bad sign for the Wii, which gets another marred exclusive.
I hope they don't fall into the same errors for their two upcoming games, The Grinder and Gladiator AD, but I think they'll just do the same.
Now that I saw it first hand I see nothing but cool (?) effects, blur, bloom lights, some bump, depth of field blur and the like. But taken together they don't do a pretty picture, they are misused and pumped to the extreme just to show that they're in the game.
It's like the first movies that use 3D glasses, they are constructed so you really NOTICE that there's a 3D effect... (I'm referring to Coraline, which anyway is a good movie by itself)
For The Conduit... it just doesn't work. I didn't play it to the end, actually I just spend a few minutes with it. But the developers filled the first part with all the graphical tricks to show off, and it wasn't enough. I'm sorry but the bad art direction shines through instead. Plus, the bloom effect and blur are overused, and the bump mapping shows the different texture planes that float on each other, when seen at a close range.
This is really disappointing for them, because The Conduit's selling point was the graphics (and the controls, which work) and a bad sign for the Wii, which gets another marred exclusive.
I hope they don't fall into the same errors for their two upcoming games, The Grinder and Gladiator AD, but I think they'll just do the same.
Thursday 2 July 2009
Mental models in games - part 2
How do we create a mental model?
Mental models are, like the word says, entities that live in our minds. They are created by observing reality and taking away only the important details, in a cycle that looks something like "Observation -> Distillation -> Application of the model -> Observation" and so on.
The observation phase is where our mind fills with all the necessary details to create the model, or at least the details that seem important. In fact the same situation can have different models based on the ultimate goal that we intend to achieve at the time of examination. Let's think, for example, of a situation in which we want to find a barber shop in an unknown urban area. The shop windows must be decoded to find one that matches our idea of a barber shop. If we were to find a big concert though, the sound cues would be a much better information compared to the visual signs, to track where the concert is.
In videogames, the ultimate goal of the game itself defines the necessary information that the player must get from the game world. This is why feedback and User Interface is so important in games: for the player to build a model of the game world, he must have all the necessary information during play. Because he only has a limited time to obtain them (he lives in the game world only for some hours) the vital informations must be presented in the best possible way, and not cluttered with unuseful bits of knowledge, unless the target of the game is to confuse the player by purpose with this information overflow (like in detective games).
Going back to PES for Wii, the designers devised a great arrows and icons sign system to provide the player with all the information she needs. For instance, each time the human player orders a shoot by shaking the nunchuck and the ball is loose, a red diamond pops on the head of the nearest player on the field. In defence, the same command orders the nearest player to clear the ball, and a blue icon pops up. Colors, iconic graphics and sounds are always the best ally when a designer is creating a model that he wants to be easy to read.
While the great deal of icons and arrows on-screen might seem an unnecessary feature, it's actually a simplified mental models that the developers provided for the player to better digest the game.
The right way
We sometimes also see games who add real-life aspects to a game. Sometimes this is done deliberately, giving frustration because the player has to keep in mind aspects which are not really related to the goal, or the ways to achieve it. Other times this is done in an efficient and effective way.
Let's take Gears of War cover system as an example. A much praised feature, it's surely a step forward that the game takes towards reality, but if we look closely to it uses the same model defined structure that we talked about at the beginning.
In the game you can't press a button to cover behind everything (like you would do in real life), instead the developers chose to clearly emphasize objects which can be used as cover. This is done by displaying an iconic graphic that is overlayed on the game world.
They mapped a button to it, to make it easy and secure: you are either under cover, or not. Besides, you don't have to turn your back to the cover or duck before. As it was not enough, when you can cover yourself behind something you see a 'cover icon' that also tells which button to press.
Going further, they also placed covers in key points, maybe just before the coming of some enemies. This gives the player the knowledge that if an enemy is coming, he surely can hide behind something (90% of the time).
This way, taking cover becomes part of the mental model of shootings in Gears of War in a very simple and effective manner: it's a very clear action, you are covered or not, the only thing to do is to press a button. Reality is here, in a distilled form.
So what?
So as always in this case there's no dos and don'ts. Adding 'unnecessary' or out-of-reality features to a game is always a perilous process, but as you can see it can actually add to a game if done the right way. Sometimes it can also lead to an entirely new conception of an aging game genre, bringing some fresh perspective to it.
The message here is to always try to distill the action that we want to put in the game, and see if it fits the mental model that a gamer could possibily build on top of the game itself. Is it ok? How can we rethink the game instead, to make space for this new action?
The game designer must always be very wary of the mental model of his game, trying to anticipate the one made by the player so both can possibly match as much as possible with each other.
Mental models are, like the word says, entities that live in our minds. They are created by observing reality and taking away only the important details, in a cycle that looks something like "Observation -> Distillation -> Application of the model -> Observation" and so on.
The observation phase is where our mind fills with all the necessary details to create the model, or at least the details that seem important. In fact the same situation can have different models based on the ultimate goal that we intend to achieve at the time of examination. Let's think, for example, of a situation in which we want to find a barber shop in an unknown urban area. The shop windows must be decoded to find one that matches our idea of a barber shop. If we were to find a big concert though, the sound cues would be a much better information compared to the visual signs, to track where the concert is.
In videogames, the ultimate goal of the game itself defines the necessary information that the player must get from the game world. This is why feedback and User Interface is so important in games: for the player to build a model of the game world, he must have all the necessary information during play. Because he only has a limited time to obtain them (he lives in the game world only for some hours) the vital informations must be presented in the best possible way, and not cluttered with unuseful bits of knowledge, unless the target of the game is to confuse the player by purpose with this information overflow (like in detective games).
Going back to PES for Wii, the designers devised a great arrows and icons sign system to provide the player with all the information she needs. For instance, each time the human player orders a shoot by shaking the nunchuck and the ball is loose, a red diamond pops on the head of the nearest player on the field. In defence, the same command orders the nearest player to clear the ball, and a blue icon pops up. Colors, iconic graphics and sounds are always the best ally when a designer is creating a model that he wants to be easy to read.
While the great deal of icons and arrows on-screen might seem an unnecessary feature, it's actually a simplified mental models that the developers provided for the player to better digest the game.
The right way
We sometimes also see games who add real-life aspects to a game. Sometimes this is done deliberately, giving frustration because the player has to keep in mind aspects which are not really related to the goal, or the ways to achieve it. Other times this is done in an efficient and effective way.
Let's take Gears of War cover system as an example. A much praised feature, it's surely a step forward that the game takes towards reality, but if we look closely to it uses the same model defined structure that we talked about at the beginning.
In the game you can't press a button to cover behind everything (like you would do in real life), instead the developers chose to clearly emphasize objects which can be used as cover. This is done by displaying an iconic graphic that is overlayed on the game world.
They mapped a button to it, to make it easy and secure: you are either under cover, or not. Besides, you don't have to turn your back to the cover or duck before. As it was not enough, when you can cover yourself behind something you see a 'cover icon' that also tells which button to press.
Going further, they also placed covers in key points, maybe just before the coming of some enemies. This gives the player the knowledge that if an enemy is coming, he surely can hide behind something (90% of the time).
This way, taking cover becomes part of the mental model of shootings in Gears of War in a very simple and effective manner: it's a very clear action, you are covered or not, the only thing to do is to press a button. Reality is here, in a distilled form.
So what?
So as always in this case there's no dos and don'ts. Adding 'unnecessary' or out-of-reality features to a game is always a perilous process, but as you can see it can actually add to a game if done the right way. Sometimes it can also lead to an entirely new conception of an aging game genre, bringing some fresh perspective to it.
The message here is to always try to distill the action that we want to put in the game, and see if it fits the mental model that a gamer could possibily build on top of the game itself. Is it ok? How can we rethink the game instead, to make space for this new action?
The game designer must always be very wary of the mental model of his game, trying to anticipate the one made by the player so both can possibly match as much as possible with each other.
Wednesday 1 July 2009
Mental models in games - part 1
I was pondering on Wii Sports and its relation to reality. I sometimes see people trying to play Wii Sports (tennis, for the most) like it was real tennis, and they marvel at the fact that they can't do all the gestures they would do on a real tennis court. This often happens when the person complaining has a real-life experience with the sport or activity involved in the videogame. Of course the number of people who complain about this is very, very low, as we all know Wii Sport is mainly accepted as capable of providing the most accurate real-life feel of the sports included in the package (except for Boxing, due to the Nunchuck's rough control).
This is maybe due to the fact that we humans tend to dissect reality in mental models created by our own brain. When we see a match of baseball, we strip down the movements of the players to the essential ones that dictate the game's outcome. We don't pay too much attention to all the body movements of the batter, we only need the swing movement.
In a recent book, game designer Jesse Schell says: "The only way our minds are able to get by all is by simplifying reality so we can make some sense of it. [...] Our brain do a tremendous amount of work to boil down the complexity of reality into simpler mental models that can be easily stored, considered, and manipulated1."
Very often games are based only on the mental model of a given activity, this is a very common approach that generated a lot of milestone titles in the history of gaming, we can think for example of the Sims or Sim City, flying simulator, and most sport games. They mirror a real life activity only in its most important aspects, they are (under the graphics) the same mental model that our brain creates when dealing with that activity. Useful data, possible actions, nothing more. This gives the brain a relief because it doesn't have to draw the model itself, so it can concentrate on the gaming, on the goals, on the ways to achieve them.
Actually, some game designers of old performed this simplifying activity only because of technical limitations. A game like Pac Man permits movement only on two perpendicular axes because the hardware running it permitted only two-dimensional input (up, down, left, right).
As hardware and consoles move on, new possibilities open and game designers take advantage of them.
That's were I trace a big divide. There's two main flow of thinking: one is the people that use the new possibilities to add complexity to the game by making it more similar to reality, and those who do so to enhance gameplay (and sometimes even purposedly waste the expanded capabilities of technology just because they don't need them!).
Mind me, no-one is wrong here. Sometimes players actually like to see more complexity just for the sake of it, just to feel more immersed in the game. This is the case for shooters, driving games, flying simulations. We see better lighting, better physics, better textures, and so on. It's ok and it's a good accomplishment which I honestly like, but it's not the only way to go, as some products showed us.
A bold move
Speaking of the other branch of game concept enhancements, I really appreciated the decisions made by Konami and the designers that worked on the Wii edition of PES 2008. They made a very bold move by actually moving away from reality with this new iteration of the series, but the game is an overall success and, moreover, it provides players with a very new angle on soccer games.
For those who had not played the game, in short, it lets the player control all his team at once by moving the players on the pitch like in an RTS, with a point-and-drag style. The different players are assigned to tasks, like 'mark this opponent man-to-man', 'guard this area', 'run to that spot' and so on. Actually in the attacking phase you can also control the bearer of the ball, shoot and pass, in the typical soccer games fashion. The passing is not handled by pressing a button and a direction, but by pressing a button and pointing to the spot where you want the ball to go to.
Where other games (the very same PES 2008 for the other consoles too) chose to enhance graphics, give the player more detailed and fluid animations, better commentary and so on, this Wii edition chose the unbeaten path by adding arrows on the field, icons on the head of the players about to shoot, the possibility to control both your player and the teammates, resulting in a very enjoyable, refreshing and satisfying experience.
To add all those features they took some mechanics out of the game to balance the overall complexity. They for example inhibited the possibility to direct the shoot, handing this task to the AI. Some players felt betrayed by the impossibility of controlling what were key aspects of the other editions and this, together with the apparent deep complexity of the game, cut short the game sales and success. (by the way Konami made some steps back in the 2009 edition to satisfy everyone, adding shoot directioning and the possibility to play with traditional controls)
Those willing to embrace the task though, found that the game is not so hard. Reality is that the designers, headed by Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka and Naoya Hatsumi spent a lot of time in finding the right way to create a new model of gaming based on mental model of soccer that gamers could find easy to decode and use. This model resembles more a soccer game as it is watched in tv than one actually played.
On the Nintendo Channel on the Wii there's a video showing the producer of the game doing experiments with eye tracking. The video clearly shows that the model works: the player doesn't have to keep an eye on the player that possesses the ball, his eye goes back and forth on the field in an effort to find an unmarked man, or free space to pass the ball. This deep testing gave the developers the assurance that the control scheme they envisioned was, if not easy, at least possible to handle for the average player.
This is maybe due to the fact that we humans tend to dissect reality in mental models created by our own brain. When we see a match of baseball, we strip down the movements of the players to the essential ones that dictate the game's outcome. We don't pay too much attention to all the body movements of the batter, we only need the swing movement.
In a recent book, game designer Jesse Schell says: "The only way our minds are able to get by all is by simplifying reality so we can make some sense of it. [...] Our brain do a tremendous amount of work to boil down the complexity of reality into simpler mental models that can be easily stored, considered, and manipulated1."
Very often games are based only on the mental model of a given activity, this is a very common approach that generated a lot of milestone titles in the history of gaming, we can think for example of the Sims or Sim City, flying simulator, and most sport games. They mirror a real life activity only in its most important aspects, they are (under the graphics) the same mental model that our brain creates when dealing with that activity. Useful data, possible actions, nothing more. This gives the brain a relief because it doesn't have to draw the model itself, so it can concentrate on the gaming, on the goals, on the ways to achieve them.
Actually, some game designers of old performed this simplifying activity only because of technical limitations. A game like Pac Man permits movement only on two perpendicular axes because the hardware running it permitted only two-dimensional input (up, down, left, right).
As hardware and consoles move on, new possibilities open and game designers take advantage of them.
That's were I trace a big divide. There's two main flow of thinking: one is the people that use the new possibilities to add complexity to the game by making it more similar to reality, and those who do so to enhance gameplay (and sometimes even purposedly waste the expanded capabilities of technology just because they don't need them!).
Mind me, no-one is wrong here. Sometimes players actually like to see more complexity just for the sake of it, just to feel more immersed in the game. This is the case for shooters, driving games, flying simulations. We see better lighting, better physics, better textures, and so on. It's ok and it's a good accomplishment which I honestly like, but it's not the only way to go, as some products showed us.
A bold move
Speaking of the other branch of game concept enhancements, I really appreciated the decisions made by Konami and the designers that worked on the Wii edition of PES 2008. They made a very bold move by actually moving away from reality with this new iteration of the series, but the game is an overall success and, moreover, it provides players with a very new angle on soccer games.
For those who had not played the game, in short, it lets the player control all his team at once by moving the players on the pitch like in an RTS, with a point-and-drag style. The different players are assigned to tasks, like 'mark this opponent man-to-man', 'guard this area', 'run to that spot' and so on. Actually in the attacking phase you can also control the bearer of the ball, shoot and pass, in the typical soccer games fashion. The passing is not handled by pressing a button and a direction, but by pressing a button and pointing to the spot where you want the ball to go to.
Where other games (the very same PES 2008 for the other consoles too) chose to enhance graphics, give the player more detailed and fluid animations, better commentary and so on, this Wii edition chose the unbeaten path by adding arrows on the field, icons on the head of the players about to shoot, the possibility to control both your player and the teammates, resulting in a very enjoyable, refreshing and satisfying experience.
To add all those features they took some mechanics out of the game to balance the overall complexity. They for example inhibited the possibility to direct the shoot, handing this task to the AI. Some players felt betrayed by the impossibility of controlling what were key aspects of the other editions and this, together with the apparent deep complexity of the game, cut short the game sales and success. (by the way Konami made some steps back in the 2009 edition to satisfy everyone, adding shoot directioning and the possibility to play with traditional controls)
Those willing to embrace the task though, found that the game is not so hard. Reality is that the designers, headed by Shingo 'Seabass' Takatsuka and Naoya Hatsumi spent a lot of time in finding the right way to create a new model of gaming based on mental model of soccer that gamers could find easy to decode and use. This model resembles more a soccer game as it is watched in tv than one actually played.
On the Nintendo Channel on the Wii there's a video showing the producer of the game doing experiments with eye tracking. The video clearly shows that the model works: the player doesn't have to keep an eye on the player that possesses the ball, his eye goes back and forth on the field in an effort to find an unmarked man, or free space to pass the ball. This deep testing gave the developers the assurance that the control scheme they envisioned was, if not easy, at least possible to handle for the average player.
Monday 29 June 2009
Game design concepts
Today saw the start of the game design course by Ian Schreiber. The course is online and it's free, and will be published on his blog for everyone to see. The first predictable post is on the definition of 'game' and 'play'.
Here's the post:
Game design concepts - Lesson 1
If you are a game designer still learning like me, it will be an invaluable experience.
Here's the post:
Game design concepts - Lesson 1
If you are a game designer still learning like me, it will be an invaluable experience.
Monday 20 April 2009
Braid
I am always against latest fashions, and this happens also for games. Whenever I see a game getting enormous acclaim, I think that it's somehow overrated.
I did the same with Braid, a game by Jonathan Blow, but then I tried the demo all the same. Only one play through the first two level was needed to change my mind. Braid is deserving every bit of the good reviews it already has. Check the demo on Steam.
I did the same with Braid, a game by Jonathan Blow, but then I tried the demo all the same. Only one play through the first two level was needed to change my mind. Braid is deserving every bit of the good reviews it already has. Check the demo on Steam.
Sunday 29 March 2009
Shift
Shift is a wonderful game I just discovered. As usual, the most marvelous and innovative games are Flash...In Shift you play the part of a monochromatic man who runs in black and white labyrinths, trying to get to the exit. What sets the game aside from the rest is the ability to press Shift to turn the world upside down, and go where you couldn't before. If you're white you're walking on white blocks into black space, and vice versa (if you're black you stand on black and can move into white space).
The author, Antony Lavelle, has made three of them. I recommend playing the third first if you only want to give it a quick go, otherwise start from the first (they tend to repeat the first tutorial levels).
Shift 1
Shift 2
Shift 3
Amazingly, the second and third games also have a level editor! I love level editors!!
Thursday 29 January 2009
Froggle
A nifty little game from team HardCode, a group of DigiPen students. Directly from their site:
"You control a small frog-like creature that can use his extraordinarily long tongue to grapple, bounce and swing around a world of beautiful terrariums. Navigate and explore a variety of picturesque environments, complete different sets of entertaining challenges, all while licking flies and flicking other froggles. The interactive cartoon world of Froggle comes to life as you discover where your tongue can take you."
Team HardCode also submitted it to the IGF for the students' showcase...
"You control a small frog-like creature that can use his extraordinarily long tongue to grapple, bounce and swing around a world of beautiful terrariums. Navigate and explore a variety of picturesque environments, complete different sets of entertaining challenges, all while licking flies and flicking other froggles. The interactive cartoon world of Froggle comes to life as you discover where your tongue can take you."
Team HardCode also submitted it to the IGF for the students' showcase...
Tuesday 27 January 2009
Back to the roots
Today on the site ArsLudica a guy posted a small article about the fact that SEGA and EA are cutting a number of new IPs in favor of tested franchises. He complained that people writing comments in response to the news didn't understand the situation and only asked for sequels of the storical SEGA franchises.
Part of a comment (in italian) to the blog post says:
"- credit crunch fucked Factor 5: Nintendo blocked the development of Kid Ikarus Wii because she was let down by Eggebrecht & co.'s work and they didn't have credit warranties.
- A massive credit crunch could bring the [videogames] sector to "casualize" even more, killing risky AAA titles in favor of silly games that will put someone like EA or Ubisoft on the same level of a start-up company."
I say, this isn't bad at all. Ok, some people will get fired, and this is sad, but I'm an optimistic person and I think that in the end those ex-employees will find something to do.
What gives me hope is that, if this scenario is realized, all the indie companies will get more power, more sales, and more funds. Games will get better thanks to this renewed competition, and for people like me (small independent aspiring developers) it will be easier to break into the industry with some small concept turned into reality.
Those same people fired by the great companies will try to put up their business and maybe succeed, and get their revenge with some quality games. It would be a great renewal! It would be like in the eighties when individuals coded a game from start to end...
The games industry would only get better this way.
Part of a comment (in italian) to the blog post says:
"- credit crunch fucked Factor 5: Nintendo blocked the development of Kid Ikarus Wii because she was let down by Eggebrecht & co.'s work and they didn't have credit warranties.
- A massive credit crunch could bring the [videogames] sector to "casualize" even more, killing risky AAA titles in favor of silly games that will put someone like EA or Ubisoft on the same level of a start-up company."
I say, this isn't bad at all. Ok, some people will get fired, and this is sad, but I'm an optimistic person and I think that in the end those ex-employees will find something to do.
What gives me hope is that, if this scenario is realized, all the indie companies will get more power, more sales, and more funds. Games will get better thanks to this renewed competition, and for people like me (small independent aspiring developers) it will be easier to break into the industry with some small concept turned into reality.
Those same people fired by the great companies will try to put up their business and maybe succeed, and get their revenge with some quality games. It would be a great renewal! It would be like in the eighties when individuals coded a game from start to end...
The games industry would only get better this way.
Saturday 17 January 2009
Will Flash 9 ever arrive on Wii?
Everybody knows that Wii has got a browser, that the browser is Opera, and that it can only play Flash movies up to the version 7.
Now everybody knows that Flash 7 is old now, there was 8 who added filters, enhanced video playback, there was 9 (the current standard) that brought ActionsScript 3.0, and now there's 10, which brings to the table some nifty features like 3D APIs, image processing effects and so on.
I am investigating into making some games for Flash on the Wii, thanks to some great APIs created by the guys at Wiicade, which let you use the wiiremote in awesome ways even in a Flash game. You could use buttons other than A, you could read the rotation of the wiimote, the distance from the sensor bar and wether or not it's pointing at the screen. This is all good things and actually I already made a small game, although it's incomplete.
The problem is that with Flash 7 we're not going anywhere. I'm tired of ActionScript 2.0, and besides, I can't even port things to the Wii easily from now on. So Nintendo should really let Opera update the browser, and a rumor has it that they are just doing that. The rumor appeared in December, so it's a bit old now, but I'm not desperate yet. Some things point at the fact that while that rumor is not accurate and the screenshot provided is a fake, the Wii could receive a Browser Channel update sometime soon.
1 - There was a post at the Opera forums that told people why the browser could only play Flash 7 movies. That post was sticky, meant to be seen from everyone, but not it's not the case. Maybe the Opera team means to bury that thread because it's becoming old? Will this be a hint that the browser will add Flash 9 or 10 soon?
2 - The PS3 can play Flash 9 movies. They haven't got an exclusive, so there's no reason Nintendo couldn't have them.
3 - Adobe released some sort of kit of APIs to let everyone port Flash to every device. They mean to spread the player even more, to conquer more than the PC scene. This could mean that Nintendo doesn't need a deal to use Flash 9 on his browser, but I can't bet on it.
Some people think that Opera has a new version of the Wii Browser already, they are only waiting for Nintendo to give the green light. Let's keep fingers crossed.
Now everybody knows that Flash 7 is old now, there was 8 who added filters, enhanced video playback, there was 9 (the current standard) that brought ActionsScript 3.0, and now there's 10, which brings to the table some nifty features like 3D APIs, image processing effects and so on.
I am investigating into making some games for Flash on the Wii, thanks to some great APIs created by the guys at Wiicade, which let you use the wiiremote in awesome ways even in a Flash game. You could use buttons other than A, you could read the rotation of the wiimote, the distance from the sensor bar and wether or not it's pointing at the screen. This is all good things and actually I already made a small game, although it's incomplete.
The problem is that with Flash 7 we're not going anywhere. I'm tired of ActionScript 2.0, and besides, I can't even port things to the Wii easily from now on. So Nintendo should really let Opera update the browser, and a rumor has it that they are just doing that. The rumor appeared in December, so it's a bit old now, but I'm not desperate yet. Some things point at the fact that while that rumor is not accurate and the screenshot provided is a fake, the Wii could receive a Browser Channel update sometime soon.
1 - There was a post at the Opera forums that told people why the browser could only play Flash 7 movies. That post was sticky, meant to be seen from everyone, but not it's not the case. Maybe the Opera team means to bury that thread because it's becoming old? Will this be a hint that the browser will add Flash 9 or 10 soon?
2 - The PS3 can play Flash 9 movies. They haven't got an exclusive, so there's no reason Nintendo couldn't have them.
3 - Adobe released some sort of kit of APIs to let everyone port Flash to every device. They mean to spread the player even more, to conquer more than the PC scene. This could mean that Nintendo doesn't need a deal to use Flash 9 on his browser, but I can't bet on it.
Some people think that Opera has a new version of the Wii Browser already, they are only waiting for Nintendo to give the green light. Let's keep fingers crossed.
Thursday 15 January 2009
Kind Code
Some days ago Kotaku and other sites published an article about a patent filed by Nintendo (from Miyamoto itself actually) about something called Kind Code.I read a big deal of the patent itself, and came out with the following: Kind Code is a fanciful name for something that actually exists in some way, and then some more.
The patent describes various ways to play a game: "Play", "Digest" and "Scenes select".
"Play" is the normal way of playing a game, and then it adds a hint button that the player may press to get a hint for riddle and puzzles in the games (I guess it won't work for action games).
"Scenes select" is also something already seen (lately in Alone in the Dark): the player can select, from the first time he starts the game, the chapter that he wants to play. So he can choose the last level, and clear the game in 5 minutes. It's an option, a bad one for me, but not too stupid.
"Digest" is the new part that generated a lot of chaos: the player is allowed to see a video of the developer playing the game (thus turning the game in a sort of movie) and by pressing a button, he can drop in the game and take control. Playing in digest mode does not allow to save.
While I can see that some people tremble at the thought of "games as movies", I think it's not something to worry about too much, since the patent clearly states (I'm quoting it directly):
"That is, a player who desires to easily play the game or a player who dose not have a lot of time for the game is allowed to easily enjoy the game by selecting the "digest" (or "scene menu" described below). On the other hand, a player who desires to enjoy the game as much as possible is allowed to thoroughly enjoy, by selecting the "game", the game including, for example, a trick event, and a sub-story (elements other than the main game story) which are not provided in the "digest". Further, data of the game obtained by his/her own attacking can be stored as saved data."
So the key is in the hands of the developers and hardcore players do not need to worry about it. Furthermore it's only a patent for now, so it's higly possible to misunderstand it.
I'm having a big discussion with people at ArsLudica (sorry, it's in italian)... it seems that people like a lot to bash new things, just for the pleasure of bragging. Some of them twist the meaning of the article that started it all, just to say something. Every discussion is impossible.
Sunday 11 January 2009
Fly! Clyde!
This being the title of a game for the iPhone I'm working on, with the help of three other guys from the Rome scene of development ;)
It's a vertical shooter set between the two World Wars. It has a comical feel to it, kinda like Metal Slug (I'm not saying it will have that class though!)
I just finished the preliminary work on the blog, we're going to post some things about the development... for everyone interested, here's the URL:
Friday 9 January 2009
IGF has come and gone, for me at least
Some time back I entered UFHO for the Independent Games Festival. Yesterday the finalists were nominated and we aren't among them. I can't but feel a little disappointed, but after all I wasn't expecting too much. Don't get me wrong, I love UFHO and I still really believe in the concept, but I think it needs a little bit of polish still to get noticed. Oh well...
Anyway at IGF the judges tend to prefer smaller concept games, but this is not a critic! There are wonderful games among the finalists, I just tried The Graveyard by Tale of Tales, a Belgian developers duo. It's kinda poetic.
There's also You Have to Burn the Rope! It's a crazy game, very very long, it takes five months to beat it. Play the game first, and if you get struck read the manual and the complete walkthrough.
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