Kinda like Rogue-like. Like.

The rogue-like genre is one I first heard of maybe last year or so.  The name comes from an old PC or Arcade game called Rogue.   The Genre is marked by a couple features:  One is procedurally generated dungeons, which means that the dungeons are invented by an algorythm, not created by designers piece by piece.  So the levels are different every time you play.  The other thing is permadeath.  When you die, you die.  No continues. Tough shit. 

That second feature is not so popular.  In fact, for example, probably one of the most famous Rogue-like-likes from our time is Diablo.  But there wasn't permadeath until Diablo II, which was dubbed 'hardcore.'  I think Blizzard realized that they could sell more copies of the game if it wasn't quite so punishing. 

If you have any interest at all in the genre, I highly recommend checking out the IndieStatik Roguelike-primer by Dominic Tarason.  It's an article that breaks down the best games in the genre into entry level, intermediate and expert.  And then there's a final bit for genre bending games like FTL.  

From the list in the above article, the games that stand out for me are: Dwarf Fortress, Unreal World RPG and Roguelike Doom (the id software classic reimagined as a roguelike).  

A quote from the blurb on Dwarf Fortress:

"I can’t think of many other games where you can deliberately twist an embedded blade to cause pain, hoping to drive your foe into unconsciousness."

I just really like that quote.  Moving on.

An exciting new entry into the Rogue-like genre is a game called Rogue Legacy.  Rogue Legacy was featured in Extra Credits - 'games you may not have tried 6'.  And the guys over at the Experience Points podcast listed it as a game of the year in 2013. Frankly, it sounds like a great game.  I love the generational aspect; it's a cool idea  that when you die, the next playable character is from the next generation of your family, and inherits all the money you earned in your last play.  This is doubly cool, because it is a side scrolling, castle-dungeon game, with a basic story that your family has tried through the generations to invade this particular castle and destroy the evil within.  

Well, holy shit.  This is basically the entire Castlevania series boiled down into one game.  It seems to me that Konami only has one available choice:  Rip this idea off completely, and create a Castlevania Rogue Legacy-like in which generations of Belmonts try to bust through the castle to kill Dracula.  Probably they should use a procedurally generated castle to keep the game fresh when starting different legacies.  Also, Alucard should be a hidden character somehow.  Yes.  Do this. NOW.

-D


P.S. uh oh! looks like someone already beat you to it, Konami!  But come on, it's not too late to show them how it's really done!

QWOP and proprioception

I recently heard a really cool episode of the radio show Radiolab.  If you don't know Radiolab, I recommend checking it out.  This episode on body-mind connection is as good a place to start as anywhere. The portion I'm referencing is a story on a man with a condition called proprioception.  His body is alienated from his mind - he has no sense of touch. This man has to teach himself to move without the use of the body-mind connection.  Has to teach himself how to make every single, minute movement of his body.  He has to do this using only visual feedback.  It took him a long while, but he got really good.  For more details, give the episode a listen.

Listening to this story reminded me of the game QWOP.  This is a game where you control the movements of a runner by pressing buttons to move his joints.  The results are hilarious, then frustrating, then hilarious, and so on and so forth.  The exercise in unplayability that is QWOP has always been an interesting experience, but catching this Radiolab episode really brought forth a real world example.  I can't help but wonder if QWOP resembles, even a little bit, this man's experience at moving his body without the sense of physical feedback we take for granted.

-D

Play QWOP

Play CLOP (the unicorn based sequel)

Listen to Radiolab episode 

Watch an actual successful run of QWOP!

Ball of Game Ideas

Listening to the Big Ideas episode of A Life Well Wasted podcast, and reflecting on an episode of the Experience Points podcast, Taking Action in Open Worlds episode.

In the Exp Podcast, they talk about the size of the world of GTAV, and all the mini games, and how many hours people can dump into this game.  And then, on the other hand, they also talk about how the mini games are okay, but not that great.  But apparently there are a whole ton of them.  I wholeheartedly endorse the inclusion of bunches of mini-games.  Okay, so combine the idea of an open world game, with an idea for a 3d browser I'm lifting from my friend Ghost, with another idea I had when I played Earthbound and went to the Arcade, and I have a new nifty idea.

So, the Earthbound idea was that I wanted to be able to play games in the town arcade.  I thought that would be so rad.  Like, to move my character to a pinball machine and then play pinball.  Or Tetris.  Or Ninja Turtles or a clone of those games.  I don't know why, but I really really liked this idea.  And I know it exists somewhere in that era... maybe Legend of the Mystical Ninja...No, that's not it...Oh, the Gold Saucer did this in FF VII.

This combines well with the game mechanic article I posted the other day.  The mini game is a game mechanic I always wanted to see more of.  Here's another article on mini games.  Looks like I got my wish, too!  Animal Crossing lets you play NES Games.  But this is a different idea.

Okay, so here's the  idea.  It's for Console makers, Sony, Nintendo, Valve or Microsoft.  So, the browser in your console -- is a game.  Right?  So, you boot up your Wii Z (fictional game system from Nintendo) and you control your little Mii around in some funny in-game world.  Perhaps like Animal Crossing.  Yes.  Exactly like Animal Crossing.  So, in your Animal Crossing world, you can set up your sweet living room with a TV, console and a bunch of games.  Or you can set up an arcade room, where all the games are represented by arcade cabinets.  And you just have to pull up to them, and play the actual games in your library.

But-But-But, the game is also Wii-Sports, and you just have to go to the bowling alley if you want to play bowling.  And, of course, it's the magic inter-dimensional Bowling ally that allows Miis from all over the world to bump into each other online and bowl.  Of course, you can have your own private alley to play with your friends who are actually physically with you.

Right?  This makes sense, right?  The file browser is a game, with its own mini-games a-la Wii sports and Animal Crossing.  But on top of that, you can access and play the games you own from within the browser.So yeah, there's the idea:  Animal Crossing is preloaded into the Game System firmware, and you can access your video game library through it.  All the Social Media of Animal Crossing, combined with your Console Browser.  I'm surprised Nintendo hasn't done this yet, especially with the huge success of Animal Crossing.

-D


P.S.  Also, here's a goofy Animal Crossing/Sim City game idea:  It would be hilarious if one of the disasters in Sim City was that a Katamari would come rolling through your city, snatching up pieces of it.  Same for Animal Crossing... But like, if the Katamari was big enough,  you could just walk around like normal, because it would have taken your whole town as a single piece.

Mid-month update without purpose or direction. Hi!

Right now, it's pouring the-fuck down rain in Austin.  Which has provided me an excellent setting to do some writing.

Another thing about Austin:  Mosquitos.  At least the part I'm in.  There are a lot of f-ing mosquitos.  Like an increase of a factor of 10 over where I'm used to living.  So many that I don't like to be outside.  Like, five minutes is too many.  Which really sucks when I want to sit on the porch for a few minutes, because it's stuffy in the house, or perhaps to make a phone call.

That actually reminds me of a game idea: Mosquitos.  That is to say, if you are traveling in a region that is ripe with them, then maybe you receive 1 damage every few seconds, like a really mild poison.  I don't know why, but I'm frequently thinking in terms of weak status ailments in a mid 90s JRPG game.  Probably because my teenage years were the peak years of gaming for me.  Now that I'm twice as old, I guess I'm just living in the past.

Another thing to mention is that I'm listening to the experience points podcast, which I've mentioned before.  I really like this podcast.  The hosts are articulate and critical, and they're pretty good speakers.  Not a lot of 'ums' and 'uhhhhs' in the podcast.  I just listened to their review of 'the last of us' which is a majorly hyped game, and I really like how they break it down.  I get a sick joy from hearing that it's not 'the greatest game ever' and more of just a great game that does some things really well and other things really mediocre.

I'd also like to mention that out of nowhere, I had a stage theme form TMNT for the nes stuck in my head.  If you'd like to listen, it's the first portion of the stage theme link I've provided, and it goes on for 30 minutes, in case you just can't get enough! hah.  Also, this reminded me that the mini boss theme really is rad.

Also, here's an idea for gaming difficulty:  Start a game on nightmare difficulty - no choice, there is only one setting.  After the first 5-10 deaths, you unlock 'very hard.'  And then after another 10-20 deaths, you unlock 'hard mode'  and so on until you unlock easy mode.  I think that might be a fun way to balance difficulty in a game.  The first difficulty setting change would have to come early, so the player wouldn't just give up.  I'd like to see how this would work with test audiences.

-D

P.S.  Check out this short episode of RadioLab about Quicksand.  I'll give you a teaser:  Apparantly kids aren't really afraid of quicksand anymore.  wha?

Steam's Summer Sale 2013 Part IIb: The Collectible Card Game: Special Executive Limited Edition #13,847/29,835,627

If you haven't noticed already, Steam's Summer Sale is in full swing.  From July 11th (which is now in the past) through July 22nd, Steam will have sales on too many games that I kind of want to play but because it's now 75% off and is now $4.99, I have to buy it.  Right now.  If there ever was an online event where the Shut Up And Take My Money meme was intended for, this surely seems it.

Recently Steam has also introduced a collectable card game-type thing for a select number of games.  The cards don't really do anything aside from just being there.  Let's take Portal 2 for example.  As you play Portal 2, you can randomly acquire cards during "drops," which are then viewed only after you close down the game.  You'll be notified that you have something new in you InBox and then you can view your pretties.  Each game has about eight available cards and once you have acquired each card, you're able to "craft" them into a badge, something that Steam has already been doing for a while.  

For Portal 2, this is what my screen looks like:

Notice the blue typescript "No card drops remaining."  So how do I collect the rest of the cards?  By trading and/or buying them.  You might also notice the "I'm A Potato! 100XP."  That's part of the badge system-thing too.  Each Steam account has an associated "Experience Points," that. . . um. . . do something?  Steam says that "Your Steam Level [XP] is a summary of your badges and participation in Steam events.  Each badge earned increases your XP, and earning XP progresses you towards the next Steam level."  That's like saying the definition of "Difficult" is saying that, "it's something that difficult."  Thanks Steam.

As for the cards themselves, you can acquire more than one of the same card and when/if this happens, you can do a couple of things with your duplicates.  1) Do nothing and just have multiples.  2) Trade them with your Steam friends.  3) Put them up for sale.  

A couple of weeks ago, I was able to sell three duplicate cards for a grand total of $0.85, but that was because I was selling the cards for about $0.05 less than the average asking price.  That "earned income" then went to whatever it was that I recently purchased during SSS; it might've been BIT.TRIP Presents. . . Runner 2: Legend of Future Alien or the Complete Half-Life collection.  The last four days have been a bit of a blur really.

I only have a slight problem/issue with the whole cards thing.  It seems/feels kind of gimmicky.  Back when Mafia Wars was in it's heyday, there were events/sales/missions where you could acquire a super-special-awesome-weapon with killer stats (pun intended) that you can only acquire if you complete this mission that you can only complete if you have a lot of friends to help out and if you recharge your energy at an exorbitant rate, which you can only do if you spend real money to buy energy refills which you then use up trying to get that one damnable item that works like an untraceable cellphone but is special-event specific and you know that you may not have enough to complete the overall mission before the end of the special event runs out.  You know, one of those type of things.  Anyway, that's kind of what the cards and badges thing feels like to me.  I'm not going to spend real money for these.  

Now, I might spend money that I make from selling cards, but that's just real fictional money anyway.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Enjoying My Burrito