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...

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.

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.

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.

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:

http://flyclyde.blogspot.com

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.