Don't Let CPS Happen To You!

First off, I'm sad about the 49ers losing Super Bowl 47.  Yes, I am a San Francisco 49er fan.  I always have been, at least as long as I've been a fan of football, which has been most of my life.  I remember wearing a Dwight Clark jersey a lot during kindergarten, although I seem to recall being a little sad when I found out/realized it wasn't a Joe Montana jersey.  Whatever.  I also wore a shirt that depicted a gold prospector carrying a dolphin in a net (which probably wouldn't fly with PETA today for advocating the capturing of dolphins in tuna nets).  The point is, I didn't just jump on the recent 49er bandwagon and I am legitimately sad that they lost the Super Bowl.  And yes, I will still wear the 49er Super Bowl XLVII shirt my mother sent me.

Now that that's out of the way, I just received Scribblenauts Unlimited in the mail on Saturday and I've played about 30 minutes of the game.  This isn't a "First Impressions," so I'm not going to review it just yet.  The point is, is that I took The World Ends With You out of my 3DS and I need to tell myself that I did that only just to give Scribblenauts a quick go and then I'm going to get back to TWEWY,  It's not gone for good.

That's kind of the point and something that I have had a problem with in the past.  Christmas Present Syndrome?  Is that a thing?  Apparently not, but what I mean is that growing up, every Christmas Day, our family would drive to Oakland for Christmas with my Mom's side of the family and I would usually pick out a gift that I'd received so that I could not only keep playing with it, but show it off to all my other cousins who would frequently do the same thing.  What I mean by Christmas Present Syndrome, is that feeling that you absolutely have to play with that new thing and for a while, only play with that one thing.  I do that with video games and I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one.

The problem with CPS and video games for me, is that I will sometimes not finish a game that I started, regardless of how far I am in the game.  If I'm not careful, I feel like this could happen to TWEWY, and I really don't want it to because it's the kind of game that you build up memory and skills and I feel you can lose them if you don't keep practicing.

Two games that this has happened to me with were Final Fantasy XII: Revenant Wings and Shin Megami Tensei: Strange Journey, both on the DS.  With FFXII:RW, I was only a couple of hours into the game before I picked up a newly purchased game, it might've even been the first Scribblenauts game, but I may be making false connections here.  I don't know what game it was that got me to put down SMT:ST, but I was very close to finishing that game.  As in I think I was in the second to last area and I was raising levels of the demons in my party to fight the area boss to progress to the final stage.  SMT:ST is a game that deals very heavily with mazes (even though there are in-game maps) and knowledge of demons and their abilities), oddly named abilities and skills and when I tried to quickly pick it up a few months game to re-orient myself, I felt lost and confused, not sure where I was or what I was doing when I last played.  Most recently this has happened with Legendary, the FPS about mythological creatures and having to kill them all with a shotgun or SMG.  I had stopped playing because of increasing FPS and because I started playing the Left 4 Dead series.

The threat of restarting from the beginning is present in both SMT:ST and FFXII:RW, but I would rather not.  I would rather have not let Christmas Present Syndrome happen and finished the games while my brain was in them.  I do not think that I will have to restart SMT:ST, but I think FFXII:RW may be a lost cause.  I was only a couple of hours in anyway. . . I think.  The point is, The World Ends With You, you need not worry, I will not let you fall into unfinished obscurity.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

Now I Will Stay With You, Until I Have Saved Yours.  That Is My Vow.

Video Game Artwork

Who remembers fuse beads?  Perler Fuse Beads?  My younger sister had these when we were growing up and at some point I thought it'd be cool to use these to create video game related artwork.  I remember trying to create something that resembled the "Z" logo from A Link to the Past, although I don't have it anymore and I don't know if any pictures of it exist.

I got into cross-stitching back in the summer of 1994.  My older sister was starting to do it and I'd watch her after I got back from school.  I'd been playing Mario Paint for about a year at that point and while watching her stitch little X's onto fabric, I realized that I was basically doing the same with with Mario Paint's pixel creation portion of the game.  Dr. Potts actually was the wizard when it came to looking at in-game pixels and recreating them in Mario Paint.  If I remember correctly, he made two separate characters for the main character in Secret of Mana and was able to animate them to look like he ran in the game.

That summer of 1994, I decided that I would create a pattern, using the pixels from Super Mario Bros. and The Legend of Zelda.  Specifically, from Super Mario Bros., Super Mario World, The Legend of Zelda, and A Link to the Past, with the Nintendo logo in the middle.  My initial plan was to have the characters facing each other with the Nintendo logo in the middle and a border of various items from the game and turn it all into a pillow.  At the time, Super Mario World and A Link to the Past were the most recent and current iterations of those various franchises (1990 and 1991 respectively).  I began this project back in 1994 and only last February 2012 did I finally complete the last item in the border.

If you follow the patter from the lower left corner to counter clockwise (New Link - Old Mario - Old Link - New Mario) that by the time it reaches around, that there's only once space between the pouch and chest from A Link to the Past.  The question of what to put in this square tied me up and kept me from finishing this project for almost 20 years.  Keeping in mind that I didn't map out and line everything up as it probably should have been, I think it turned out rather well, considering it was the first thing I'd ever cross-stitched.  You'll also have to forgive me for not having/using the correct color pallet in respect to Mario from Super Mario Bros.

Since then though, I've done a couple of other pieces that have incorporated either aspects of video games or used artwork from video games as a frame of reference.

Eternal Darkness (Gamecube)

I created the seven seal Protect Area sigil using the Mantarok sigil as the power source.  It's currently above the bedroom door.

Admittingly, this one turned out more pixelly than I had intended and I probably could have made it larger, but it was my first project in roughly 13 years.  I still don't have a frame for it yet.

Plants vs. Zombies
Each of these are about two inch squares.

The Konami Code

A pattern I created for Dr. Potts as a Christmas turned birthday present last year (2011 Christmas - 2012 birthday).

That's all I've made for the time being.  I'm not sure if I'll do anything this year as I want to focus more time on painting miniatures, of which I will most likely post pictures from that endeavor.   

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian

It Happens All At Once

Indie Games and the Return of the Console Wars

Sometimes I slip into an incorrect assumption:  that Indie games are universally accessible to anyone with a computer, regardless of operating system.  This is not so, as there are definitely games, such as Journey, which are console-exclusive.  This has been frustrating for me, so I'm going to write a post about it, to work on the subject a bit, so that I can be better prepared and to avoid disappointment in the future.

To start off with, here's a nice little 7-minute mishmash of indie game promotion supported by some design theory:

I went through this video with a few thoughts.  One:  Wow, look at all those rad games, I can't keep them all straight!  Two:  Wow, look at that crazy atari-graphic style first person game?  What's it called?  I really want to play that game!   Three:  Wow, I'm overwhelmed.  Fourth:  Oh, that bird jumping game looks fun!  I want to play that.  What's it called? 

Jaconian tells me that the bird jumping game is called Tiny Wings, and Conkelderp has it on her ipoodle.  Google, Google, Google...And I found out it was only available on Apple products :P   So this proprietary platform thing happens between handhelds and game consoles vs PC.  Not to mention Linux/Windows/Mac. With big-budget games and little productions as well.

So, it's the Return of the Console Wars.  I guess they never really left.  Truly, it's my own return to the Console Wars.  After some time spent away from gaming, as my re-interest in gaming grows, I realize that I am limited by platform.  Not to mention time and money.    

I would like also to mention that in the description portion of the above youtube video, there are dozens of games listed (all those featured in the video).  So many that it may be overwhelming.  In my next post I will be copying and posting that list, with a brief mention of which platforms each game is available for.  And, over the following months, I will be plundering this list for games to play and to talk about.  Special attention to free games and demos, of course.  

-D


This video was originally shown to me by none other than JP Bruneau.  

Read the TV Tropes breakdown of the Console Wars for a great overview of the subject.

Full Review: Gunman Clive

After 1 hour 57 minutes and dying 76 times, I was able to finish Gunman Clive, playing as Clive.  I could spend another hour playing as Ms. Johnson and probably another hour and-a-half playing as The Duck (you read that correctly) and write a full comprehensive review, but that word is not part of our title.  So I'll begin this review of Hörberg Productions' Gunman Clive with just having played as Clive.

Until I learn how to take screen caps on my 3DS, you'll have to settle with this.

Graphics

The graphics for Gunman Clive are pretty simple, in that their line drawn and have a constant "sketching" appearance.  It reminds me a lot of the FMV used in the updated Final Fantasy Tactics: War of the Lions.  Initially you might think it would be distracting to have everything around the character looking like it's constantly being sketched, but I didn't notice any distraction.

3D Effectiveness

The 3D effect in this game was subtle and while it looked cool while it was on, I didn't feel like. . . ok wait.  With the exception of the glitch during the second boss battle, I had the 3D effect at about 75% on the rest of the time.  There wasn't a whole lot that made me feel like it needed to be on, but when it was, it pushed the background back and added a subtle cool factor that the game didn't have when playing in 2D.  Is the game playable in 2D?  Yes, very much so, but at certain times, like on the train stage, it was cool having the things. . . I don't know what their called, I'm not up on my train car anatomy, the things that hold logs and such, but having those on both sides of the train car in 3D, it looked pretty cool.

Game Play

The game plays like your standard platformer.  There's stuff to jump on that moves while enemies and automations shoot at you.  there are ducks, wolves and horses to avoid while said jumping.  Pretty standard stuff and not breaking any new ground.  BUT!, that's perfectly fine and not a fault I find with the game.  It was a refreshing short platformer that was quite difficult at times.

Some of the gameplay differences though lies with the different characters.  Clive is a straightforward character.  He runs, jumps, ducks and shoots.  Ms. Johnson can hover, similar to Princess Toadstool (before she became Princess Peach), but she'll only hover as long as the B button is depressed.  I did notice with Ms. Johnson that bullets will pass through her hair, which sticks up even when she ducks  The Duck can fly/hover for 5-6 flaps of its wings.  That's it.  The Duck can't attack so your approach to the game is run and dodge.  It's a pretty clever way to play through a standard action platformer.

Story

Depending on who you're playing as (Clive, Ms. Johnson, The Duck), the story is pretty straight forward.  Either Ms. Johnson or Clive are kidnapped and you have to rescue them.  As The Duck, um. . ., I don't really know.

Music

I commented on my own post about Gunman Clive after it's initial posting that the soundtrack was available to buy from the composer, Arne Hörberg.  I also noticed that the music runs continuously through the stages.  When you die, the music doesn't abruptly stop, but continues indefinitely until you complete the stage and the next stage begins with either a new music cue or the same music.

Final Thoughts

There are a lot of games that try to recreate both the platforming glory days of the 1980s and 90s, as well as the difficulty level of games like Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mega Man, or Ninja Gaiden.  Gunman Clive manages to create some of the difficulty, but also the fun at being able to kill a boss that has killed you a half dozen (or even a baker's dozen) times and still not be frustrating to the point that you don't want to play anymore.

Gunman Clive is a short game, comprised of four leves, each having five stagesl including a boss fight.  Sure it's short by most game standards, but it's an independently created game that's selling for only $1.99, a price probably created by Nintendo, possibly because of the shortness of the game.  I would have been happy even if I had paid $5 for the game.  

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
"Shut Up and Take My Money!" Very Much Applies Here

Weekend Link Dump

Indies guide to game making

http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/11/03/the-indies-guide-to-game-making/

This is a great, informative and compact article that reviews six different game making programs.  The writer dedicates one page to each, and the review comes in the form of an interview with a person who has completed and released a game using that system.  Examples are:  Cannabalt, To the Moon, AAAaaAAaa, Spelunky and more.  Written by Tom Francis, currently developing a game called Gunpoint.
Wow, I have to say that there is WAY more going on in the world of gaming than I can ever hope to contain!

Some kind of art   

http://jpbruneau.tumblr.com/

This is the tumblr maintained by my friend John.  Like many of us, I tend to just consume and talk about games, but John studies, works with, curates and organizes games and events.  He doesn't seem to sleep all that much, though.  Anyway, he turns me on to a lot of good stuff.

Extra Credits  

http://www.penny-arcade.com/patv/show/extra-credits

This is my favorite video game related series of videos.  I love these guys; for me, they really sparked a new interest in the craft of video game design.  Something I have always been interested, ever since I was a wee lad.  They've got four full seasons now, and I recommend s1ep21: 'Narrative Mechanics', s2ep2: 'playing like a designer' , s2ep13: 'Games you might not have tried'. 
Or just start from the beginning.  The episodes run about 10 minutes, and they always come with cool rearranged video game music at the end.

Free Indie Games

http://www.freeindiegam.es

A website for free indie games.  I just glanced at it, but I want to spend some more time here.  I think it just may be a gold mine.  Or... a... umm... some other kind of mine.  It seems that there are a lot of experimental or abstract games here.  Anyway, the game that brought me here is called Corpse Garden.  And I want to check it out.  The images are pretty rad.
And then another game that I just happened to wander over to, and just take a good look, was called Anne Hathaway: Erotic Mouthscape.   It seems to be a poetry game dedicated to Anne Hathaway's Mouth.  Amazing. Weird.

Nintendojo

http://www.nintendojo.com/

I can't believe this website is still active.  Way back in 1997, when I was a newbie to the internet, Nintendojo was one of three sites I used to cruise.  It turns out, they stayed alive, even when n64.com was swallowed up by IGN, and ... the other... one.. that I can't remember.  Anyway.  1997 was a lont time ago, and it turns out Nintendojo still has archives going back that far.  It's very interesting to me to see how defensive some of the game reviews on.  Those console wars were turbulent times.



I did another link dump a while back, if you're at all interested.

Emulator Hour: Nintendo 64 - the return

Hey all, so, when I moved into my new place, I discovered an old friend:  My Nintendo 64!

Nintendo 64 was the first video game system I purchased entirely with my own money.  This system was certainly controversial for being cartridge based in a brave new, cd world.  And for the lack of RPGs, which is totally related.  Or at least it seems to be.  The games were also pretty expensive, most being between 60 and 80 bucks, while the Playstation was pitching out hockey pucks at a cool 50 a piece.

No worries or concerns, that just meant I had to love the games I owned all the more.  And I still do!  Waverace, Pilotwings 64, Goldeneye, just to name a few.  I played the ever loving SHIT out of these games.  got all the qualifiers.  Or... almost all of them.  Still no 2 RCP 90s and there's one gold I can't get on Pilotwings.  But I got some pretty high trick attack scores on Waverace.

So, the unfortunate news is that some of my games are lost.  As in I don't know where they are.  I want to believe I gave them away to some needy collector, during a brief period when I was giving away all my worldly possessions.  Or something.  But the thing is, I can't find my copy of Ocarina of Time, the oft declared Greatest Video Game of All Time.  Nor can I find the gold controller I received with my purchase--  You damn well bet I pre-ordered that game!

Actually, I don't really give a shit.  I will probably change my mind about what kinds of shits I give, but at this moment, I can shrug it off.  I'm pretty sure Jaconian has his gold controller (though it was sacrificed during a period of house-wide 1080 Snowboarding competition)  and also his copies of Ocarina of Time and Majora's Mask.  That's good enough for me.  He kept the fires burning and I succumbed to  the darkness.  Oh well.

It's cool, I'm rebuilding.  That is to say, I saw that the website half.com has a bunch of used n64 games for cheap!  I bought Blast Corps, Tony Hawk's Pro Skater, Excitebike 64, Turok 2 and Body Harvest.  It cost me about as much as it would have cost me to rent those games in 1998.  If you're too young to remember Video Rental, then I'm sorry.  There were some good times to be had in those stacks.

Anyhow-- the nintendo 64 is a real fun machine.  I had great times alone, and I had even more great times with friends.  It was a joy to play these games again and indulge in some nostalgia.  

-D

First Impressions: Gunman Clive

It is fun!


I have however experienced a bug during the second level boss that seems to be a fairly common occurrence.  Hörberg Productions (the creator of Gunman Clive) has issued a forum post saying that they'll be releasing a patch sometime after the holidays in 2013.  The current pre-patch fix is to have the 3D turned off during the boss fight then set back to normal after the boss.  I don't even care I like the game so much.

In the game you can chose to play as either Clive or Ms. Johnson.  As Clive, you're trying to save Ms. Johnson and as Ms. Johnson, you're trying to save Clive who is kidnapped in the exact same way/animation.  The only difference (that I've experienced) is that Ms. Johnson can float as she descends, similar to Princess Toadstool in Super Mario Bros. 2.  Even the ruffles on Ms. Jonson's dress flutter while she's descending.  It's a nice little touch.

The graphics are very brown, as almost everything is in this game.  It also has a sketch look that adds some kind of charm.  I think it does anyway.  I've linked the trailer below (again), because really, really like this game.  Even more so because it was only $1.99, but that's not the only reason.  The game play is simple: Jump w/ B, Shoot w/ Y, Move w/ either the directional pad or the joystick.

Like Contra, there are a number of powered up guns you can collect.  Apart from your single shot pistol, there's a scatter shot gun; there's a "heat" seeking bullet; and lastly (at least through the 2nd level anyway), there's a large slow moving large bullet that does extra damage against the enemies.

I guess I should talk briefly about the enemies.  There are your standard thugs who shoot at you from the ground, windows and blue colored trap doors and all take only one hit to kill.  At times they ride horses at you and sadly, your only defense is to shoot the horse so it jumps over you then stumbles and presumably dies.  Okay, I lied.  You can simply duck and the horse and rider will jump over you, but where's the fun in that?  There are also wolves that charge you, pelicans that drop bombs, jumping rabbits and a duck.  Maybe the duck is a cultural thing?  Maybe they're like the monkeys in Time Splitters?

The music is very nice too.  There's a western flare to it that doesn't come across as unintentionally hokey.  Think of the music in Blazing Saddles.  It knows the genre and what our expectations for a western/cowboy world are and it delivers and all the music I've come across has been catchy.  Kudos to Arne Hörberg for his compositions.

So if you have a 3DS (it's also available on Android and Apple iOS), I highly (highly) recommend Gunman Clive.

~JWfW/JDub/Jaconian
I Can Still Feel My Toes

Sim City IV and emerging storylines

The above video is an hour-long lecture by Jonathan Blow.  I think he's the guy that wrote Braid.  Yup, the guy who wrote Braid.  Braid is an award winning indie game, a puzzle platformer.  Braid effectively weaves, or "braids" if you will, great graphics/sound, game play and story.  Recommended for everybody.  If you have the time, go ahead and listen to that lecture.  Maybe you'll like it, maybe you won't.    I enjoyed it.  I like seeing all this college-level theory stuff as applied to games.

In the lecture, he talks about the concept of an emerging storyline in games.  The idea is that there isn't a written storyline, or what storyline there is is minimal, and the story comes out through play of the game.  I think this is a pretty cool idea.  And I think I 'get it.' I think that my previous experience playing MineCraft had an emerging storyline.  Today I want to talk about Sim City IV, a game I've been playing lately, and another example of an emerging storyline.


I should let you know that Sim City is a city simulator.  If that wasn't yet clear from the title.  In Sim City, you play the role of an all-powerful 'mayor,' with complete control over the cities budget, zoning choices, and even the ability to cause natural disasters.  (But let's leave that last one alone for now.)  The gist of the game is: If you build it, they will come.  People will populate your city as long as you provide the basic needs of modern industrial society:  residential, commercial, industrial zones and infrastructure such as roads, power and running water. After setting up shop in your city, the residents will immediately begin approving or disapproving of your job as mayor, and this is the driving force behind my own emerging storyline.

I play this game with the overarching goal of winning approval of the residents.  I have sub-goals of increasing population, of using clean energy and public transportation.  I've got the first goal down, but the following goals are proving to be a lot trickier.  Twenty four hours and five cities deep, My story has gone from the need for approval, to a near-obsessive desire to build an ideal city according to my own design.

I realized that emergent storylines make games like Sim City IV more like a toy than a game, as my esteemed colleague Conklederp put it in her post about the Sims series of games.  Playing Sim City is not unlike playing with Legos or blocks, with the specific theme of city building and a near infinite number of resources.  Watch the video below for an example of an emergent storyline using more traditional toys:

I don't imagine that the Gene Simmons doll featured in the above video was originally intended to be used to crush matchbox cars. But through the emerging storyline, Al was able to find a new role for Gene to play.  

The key difference between toys and video games is that, with video games, there is a computer program providing feedback.  This is a role that used to be occupied by the imagination of the individual player, or the cooperating imaginations of a group of players.  I'm not quite sure how I feel about this.  What is it about computer controlled feedback that is so alluring?

Perhaps it is easier and more relaxing to allow a computer to run the simulator, rather than using my imagination to fill in all the gaps?  I certainly know I'm tired most days after work, and if I were to engage in imaginative play as Al did above, all my toys might just talk about how tired they are.  

There is also, for me, a challenge in figuring out the dynamics of the computer feedback.  Similar to figuring out an opponent in a multi-player game, I am trying to learn how to balance the programmed needs of my Sim-citizens, with my own, changing concept of my perfect city.  And I must admit, while I sometimes want to invite Gene Simmons to come visit my failures, I don't have the heart to destroy them.  Fortunately for me, the cities remain in stasis when I'm not playing them.  It would certainly add another dimension of challenge if they did not.

Sim City IV was released in 2003, and there has been a long drought of Sim City titles since.  However, there are plans to release another in the series, simply titled Sim City. This game is slated for March of this year, 2013.  There is talk of online, co-operative play and for these features, I am excited.  

I would love a chance to build neighboring cities with a friend, and perhaps work together to help one another with our particular mayoral shortcomings.  Sim City IV has the ability to cooperate with neighboring towns, but it is only a one player game, so I am only able to cooperate with myself.  I'm pretty good at playing with myself... ... ... but the possibilities of emerging storylines increase greatly when more than one mind is at play.

Sim City is a game which is a great abstraction.  The player views the action from above, removed from the concerns of the individuals in the town, which can number in the thousands.  This makes it a good candidate to talk about emerging storylines and also a bad one, because the abstraction may interfere with the players ability to relate.  

However, it is a game that has its hooks in me now.  I will continue to meditate on the subject of emergent gameplay, and I will try to see if I can find it in other games as I play them.