I'm Still Alive!

I realized it's been almost 2 months since I posted here, sorry about that! Here's what I've been up to!

• Circle Circle Dot Dot - Game 2 for my Experimental Game Design Class
  
  This was the second game for my experimental gaming class. From the concept of "Repulsion".
• Game 1 for my Experimental Game Design Class
  
  This was the second game for my experimental gaming class. From the concept of "Repulsion".
• CfD - Game 0 for my Experimental Game Design Class
  
  This was the first game that I created for my experimental gaming class. To play it, you need to have Python and Pygame installed to play it. The instructions are haikus, which made me happy.
• I released the version 1 rules for Hexcape out into the world.
• There's an official play day for Hexcape at Redcap's Corner in Philadelphia on May 18th. I'm making good forward steps with this game, it's very exciting!

Yes, I've been very busy, but I'm going to try to stop ignoring this blog as I have been. I promise.

Defend The < Insert Anything >!

Happy New Year! It's been a while since I last posted but I've started a few other posts, and will hopefully will be getting them out of the tube sometime soon. 

When I was younger, my dad, who was in the military, told me that whenever the Army is going to attack a fortified position, they always tried to have a 3 to 1 advantage on the defenders, to minimize their casualties. This is because it is much easier to hold ground than it is to gain it, especially if you know the lay of the battlefield better (or even fortified it yourself). You can concentrate your resources in certain chokepoints, and gain significant advantages on your adversaries. Unless taken by surprise, it is very easy for a defensive position to hold back wave after wave of attackers.

I think that this is one of the primary reasons that the "Tower Defense" style of games is getting very popular, especially in the casual/mobile gaming scene. Usually termed as "Strategy", "Action Strategy", or something similar, these games have a very basic premise: you've got a thing, the bad guys want to blow up your thing, don't let them blow up your thing. It's actually quite ingenious the way game designers have kind of spun us on our heads. Back in the days of yore, the player was always attempting to get past the defenses, rescue someone or something, or blow something to smithereens. Now, players are tasked with keeping out all those pesky interlopers, though the basic characterizations are the same.

What do I mean by that, you ask. Well, when one character was able to singlehandedly slaughter the entire Russian army with nothing but a toothbrush, some people called that "unrealistic." However, when that single person is tasked with repelling wave after wave of robotic archer demons, that's much more believable.

Like in my post about zombies, people who play video games like to suspend disbelief far enough to accept the game world, the (usually ridiculous) story, and the mystical powers that they are somehow imbued with. However, granting a modicum of realism, such as having them set up defenses, and actively engaging swarms of enemies, allows them to feel empowered, but not invincible. When the player feels like they can do anything with little or no consequences, the game breaks down somewhat, as the player tears through the levels, unconcerned about what will become of their avatar.

That's all I have to say on the subject, don't worry, I promise that my next post will have some code in it. ;-P

Thoughts on Advertising

This is actually a topic that I've been thinking about for a while now, going back to a conversation I had at with Corvus Elrod at his "moving to the West Coast" party. We were discussing advertising in games, and generated a lot of interesting points. As a storyteller, it is anathema for him to see anything that pulls a player out of the game experience, and have them thinking about products in the real world. I agree with this, to a point. When one thinks of the rise of casual games, and the free product business model, it has to be conceded that advertising is one of the main revenue streams (and therefore driver of) the games industry. Armor Games was a company that I though had nothing but cheesy, vapid fare, until I was given a disk by the people of the Indie Games Showcase. Some of their offerings, particularly in the puzzle category (which I usually avoid), blew my mind with their innovations. This company, which is producing quality (though flash) games, is completely supported by the ads on their site (as far as I can tell). 

However, I just bought a new cell phone (a Google G1, in fact, and I love it), and got my first telemarketing call on it a few days afterward. Rather than encouraging me to buy whatever product they were hocking, all that call did was remind me to add my number to the "Do Not Call" list. So, the real question here is, why don't I mind unsolicited advertising next to games I play online, or even in my email, but there's a national response to telemarketing and spamming?

One word: Interference.

If advertising interferes with what you're trying to do, then it's a problem. Calling my phone, or sending me email, wastes time that I would otherwise spend doing other things. Interrupt me, and you're not hooking me as a customer. If I'm already on a website (or watching TV, or at some sort of sporting event), I'm an audience member already. If I happen to look at an ad that is up while I'm waiting for the next play, that's not interfering with what I'm trying to do, it's not breeding any resentment in me. In fact, if it's entertaining enough, I might even be glad it's there. Just look at how many funny/amazing commercials have been posted, by random people, up on YouTube. I readily admit that I would not buy Brawndo if they hadn't gone with an over-the-top, hilarious ad campaign.

Personally, I have no problem with advertising. In its most basic form, it's just trying to get you to buy something. That's fine, if we didn't buy things, we wouldn't really have an economy. Buying things drives innovation, and makes our lives easier. I even don't have a problem with targeted advertising. Some people say it's an invasion of privacy, and it is slightly, but personally, I'd rather not be pitched Depends while I'm checking my email. I see nothing wrong with companies collecting information about buying habits, customer satisfaction and whatnot. It's all supposed to make things more efficient and convenient.

However, if advertising gets too pervasive, too omnipotent, then we have a problem.

Lock's Quest Recap

This is sort of a game review, but also a discussion about interface design, and the nature of fun in games. I recently purchased Lock's Quest, which was the best Strategy game at E3, which for a DS title, is pretty impressive. It's developers also put out Drawn to Life, a game that I wanted, but never got around to purchasing. Basically, you're a special boy in a war...blah blah blah, the story isn't really that important, but the game itself is really involving. 

You have so build walls and turrets to fend off increasingly large and tough armies of clockwork robots. That in and of itself sold me, but the DS's touchscreen is really well implemented in both combat and repairing damaged structures. Depending on what you're trying to do, there's an associated task (pulling a lever, spinning a gear, etc) that makes the action you're attempting go faster, or more effective. While this sounds kind of hackneyed and repetitive, they're mixed up nicely, and you don't just sit around for 10 minutes doing the same thing over and over again.

I'm also really impressed with how they set the flow of the game up. After a few rounds with your defenses, you have an impenetrable death-fortress, and you're able to handle even the most vicious onslaughts. Then, the game tells you that you have to go grab an objective all the way on the other side of the map. It's frustrating, yes, but it breaks the whole build-repair-fight cycle, which is nice. It's also worth noting that there's few things more awesome than watching wave after waves of bad guys crash on the rocky cliffs of your defenses.

One thing is infuriating though. The screen doesn't zoom out, and there's a fixed speed to the camera, so panning from one wall to another can sometimes take precious seconds. This in and of itself is not too bad, since (if you're like me) you can set up relatively smaller, close defenses. However, when you pan to a location, and then tap (which tells your character to move there), the AI that keeps the main character from running aimlessly into a tree is a little bit lacking. So far, I have lost a solid number of turrets, and even a level or two, just because there was a rock or tree or bit of something in the way, and the flax-haired hero did nothing except struggle against the properties of matter until I realized and gave him an easier location to get to (after a while, you get used to tapping out smaller, shorter paths).

With that behind me, I do have a few more good things to say about this game. Despite the "ehh" story, the game has a good length to it. I thoroughly enjoy the game mechanics that are in place, and was worried that with all the cool stuff in it, that the levels would be cut tragically short, leaving me wanting more, much like when you when you visit home, and only get a single strip of bacon, because that's "healthier." Don't worry, this game has platters of bacon. I've been playing it for about two solid weeks now, mostly during my commute and at home and I think I'm only 2/3 of the way through it. 

Also, the difficulty is really well done. While I didn't like that there wasn't a standard dial-a-difficulty, which would be pretty easy to do with this game, I was able to clear most of the levels on the first try, though a good number of those were nail-biters, and a couple of them required a do-over. The increases in challenge over time are well-paced. I never felt too bored, and when I was right on the edge, something new popped up. Also, there's a fun little seige mini-game which would be right at home as a flash game.

Variable Scope Issues

Again, here's a new link to my latest project. http://www.cs.drexel.edu/~asc38/Projects/CdlC/
I think it's actually pretty fun, so I hope you try it out.

The only major issue left to tackle is the high score board. When the game ends, you can submit your score to the online scoreboard (I'm currently in first place, go figure.) It was a chance for me to play around with flash's internet communication abilities. It works pretty decently as well, if you ask me. The problem is that, for some reason, the scoreboard only shows up the first time you play it (per page refresh). What that means is that if you press the "Play again" button, play the game, end the game, and submit your score, you won't see the scoreboard. I'm completely scoobied as to why that is. The code to update the scoreboard is as such:

trace(event.target.data);
htmltext = event.target.data;
scoreBox.htmlText = htmltext;

If you're not familiar with flash, trace is a command that outputs things to a special "output" window. Therefore, the event.target.data variable should be shown on my screen. The problem is that despite the fact that I do get the correct text outputted to me by the trace call, the scoreBox.htmlText doesn't reflect what it was given on anything other than the first time through the game. I had a similar issue (in fact it was the only real major "bug" in the first iteration) with the images from the last scoop being present on replays as well, and that was fixed by making sure that everything was reset properly at the appropriate time.

My guess is that this is a variable scoping issue, partially because that was the issue the first time, and partially because Flash's scoping is about as confusing as watching Memento when you're tripping acid. As far as I can tell, variables instantiated within a frame are scoped globally, unless they're within a loop or function. However, commands, or anything else for that matter, only apply at that specific frame. This kinda makes sense. You might want to use a variable you defined somewhere else in the program, and you don't want all of your code executing at once. The issue here is, when are objects (like the scoreBox) that are defined in the scene, not in the code, created? Are they global? Can I change their values before they're visible? I'm still trying to figure it out, so if anyone has any suggestions, feel free to leave them in the comments.

As far as I can tell, it's only used for debugging, as my experiences with the actual Flash debugger were about as pleasant as shaving with a rusty butter knife.

Get Ready To Grind Yourself Retarded

One of my current favorite web video series at the moment is The Escapist's Zero Punctuation. Ben Croshaw definitely has his own brand of humor, but I feel the need to comment on one of his common criticisms: grinding for inordinate amounts of time. First, a definition.

Grind (v): To repeatedly perform an identical action or sequence of actions in a game solely for the purposes of advancement otherwise unreachable.

Being forced by a game to perform the same action or actions over and over again is actually what gaming is usually about. Take any game you can think of. FPS, RTS, casual games especially, they're just an endless repetition of doing the same thing over and over and over, until you either fail to perform that action correctly a certain number of times, or you get bored/tired, and go to do something else. This isn't necessarily bad. Can you imagine a game where controls changed every two minutes, along with the perspective, goals, and game mechanics? It would be horrible and confusing. It could be intriguing to some (see: masochists,) but for most people, it would something that would be set aside almost instantly.

So, assuming that almost all games are a set of repeated actions, what makes some mechanics fun, while others are more boring and tedious than de-lousing your grandpa? Why is it that battling 500 rats or goblins to level up is mind-numbingly sloggy, whereas blasting your way through the Combine, Covenant, or NOD fun?

Pardon me for using programmer-speak if you're not into that, but the answer is shifting arguments. If you're the Ruby or Python interpreter, you don't mind seeing the same function called with the same values 500 times. You're a computer program, you don't even have feelings. In fact, why are you reading my blog? Get back to work, damnit.

Ahem.

As I was saying, people are not computers. We like things to change frequently, but in small and occasionally medium-sized ways. For example, most JRPGs I've played are basically big grinders wrapped in a tissue-thin container of plot. You encounter some bad guys, you have to hit "Attack" or "Magic," and direct death towards your enemies. Occasionally, there's a cool cut scene thrown in. This could be fun for a while, but eventually you know the key controls that you could be a blind vegetable (personally, I like carrots, but some people are partial to broccoli) and achieve the same results. The original Pokemon games (Red and Blue, for you youngsters) realized this, and also realized one of the potential ways to fix it. If you have so many different enemies that you only counter the same one every once in a while, it isn't that monotonous. Eventually, that will get boring, but before it does, they let you advance onto a new area with a new set of creatures to brutalize and enslave.

Causal games are the kings of grinding. In fact, it's pretty much their modus operandi. You take one concept, one mechanic, and apply it ad nauseum until the player is either comatose or victorious. Why are they still ridiculously fun (and addictive)? Variation. Bubble bobble and Sudoku wouldn't be fun if they had the exact same patterns every single time. Even before computer games were invented, we had crossword puzzles that had the exact same concept. Do a thing, change the parameters, do the thing again, etc.

So how does fun repetition become painful grinding?

1. When you want to advance in the storyline, but can't because you have to grind some more. This is almost more of a pacing issue than it is a game mechanic issue. Of course, you don't want to just shuffle the player from cutscene to cutscene, with barely any gameplay (unless you're Devil May Cry 4, of course) but at the same time, you don't want the player to be so bored that they turn off the game before they get to the next plot point.
2. When the challenges don't change at all. This should really be a no-brainer. It's why Postal workers used to go crazy. All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy. If you don't want your players to be bored, than switch things up a bit. Vary the enemies somehow. Difficulty, color, tactics, numbers, whatever, just try to throw a wrench in the player's grind machine every once in a while. They'll be surprised, possibly angry at first, but hey, angry beats bored.
3. When the types of challenges don't change. This is subtly different from #2, but important. It's actually the reason why the concept of "boss battles" has done so well throughout the course of video game history. This is the "medium-sized" shift I was talking about earlier. The game mechanics can still be the same here, but there has to be a significant shift in what the player is doing with them. Instead of slicing through hordes of little enemies, they're fighting one very difficult one. Instead of building up a base and defenses, building an army and attacking, the player is given an army, and shoved out the door to complete an objective. Minor changes like the ones mentioned in #2 will hold off the feelings of grinding, but nothing abates them faster then having their usual plans rendered temporarily useless.

Whenever I design a game, or even a game mechanic, I always have to ask myself "would this still be fun after two hours?" I think that if more game designers did the same thing, then we wouldn't have to hear about how someone had to grind all night to get the items necessary to get up to level Y so they could make beef stew.

Why I Hate Flash

I could apologize for this being the first post in two months, but I won't. This is my third rewrite, mostly due to my incompetence, but frankly it's beginning to wear thinly on me.

I'm currently taking a game design course at my university along with two of my friends. Woo and yay. A class that actually may have some bearing on what I might actually do with my life. Don't get me wrong, but I don't see any time in my future when explaining if the character in John Updike's A&P will be required of me in the line of work. Anyways, I love gaming, I love game design, I love talking about game design, and I like several people in the class. However, after our first meeting, I feel a little down. Why? This sentence:

"2D Games will be done in Flash."

Well, there's the chandelier made of rabbit droppings. I despise Flash, and apparently most people cannot understand why, so I'm going to lay it out here, as much for me as it is for the half-dozen other people who will read it.

First and foremost, I don't like Flash because I have to pay to program it. This, if you didn't know, is a bit of an anomaly in the programming world. With the exception of Flash, there isn't a single other programming language that you have to pay to use. Even Microsoft's .NET languages have an open framework, and if you'll really itching to do some Mac-Based VBscript, you can use the (open-source, no less) Mono project headed by Miguel de Icaza.

As a student, the cheapest I could get flash for is around $250. If I wasn't a student, this price point goes up to $700. I have no problem with Macromedia Adobe wanting money for their code, that's all well and good. However, there is NO WAY to do anything in flash without using their IDE. Microsoft's Visual Studio is a great IDE. It comes with lots of awesome tools built in, and that's effing sweet. It also costs around the same amount as Flash. I couldn't find the exact price point, mostly because I was bombarded with offers for trial and free versions. There is a free edition of almost every Microsoft Developers product. They're called the "Express" editions, and though they lack the bells and whistles of the paid versions, they still get the job done. In fact, if you're a student, you CAN get free versions of the full product. Yes, that's right, you can get Microsoft products for FREE, if you're a student.

The reason for this is that Microsoft wants to get students used to using their products and their languages. It's a little sinister when you think about it, them baiting you with freebies when you're a poor college student, but Adobe doesn't even attempt to do the same thing, and basically just flips you the middle finger.

When I bring this point up, most people say "Why don't you just pirate it? Problem solved!" No, you vacuum-craniumed dolt, I'm a programmer. I want to get paid for the programs I write. If someone wants to charge for their program, that's fine by me. I love open source, but hey, someone's got to make a living somehow. If I don't want to pay for their development environment, then that should be their problem, not mine. My problem is that I cannot do Flash development without buying their product. Stealing it would be similar to a wheat farmer stealing potatoes. It's just wrong. Hell, I'm sure that half the reason Flash is so expensive is to offset the lost profits from people pirating it.

The other big pro-flash reason I get is this: artists use it. Well you know what, screw the artists. Last time I checked, a game artist should be doing artsy things, like drawing or modeling or whatnot. My job is programming, not theirs. If some beret-topped punter is going to tell me that he likes using Flash because he can program in it, that let me get my paintbrush out, cram it up my bum, and start "composing assets." Images are all the same. A JPEG in Flash is a JPEG to PyGame, or OpenGL, or DirectX. You want vector graphics? Awesome. Fireworks does SVG. I checked. If artists want to start doing programming, then I might as well go fly helicopters, because apparently I'm not needed anymore.

As vitriolic as I'm being, there would be one simple thing that Adobe could do that would make them a-ok in my book. Don't sell the platform, sell the IDE. If I can program Flash using a text editor, I'd go for it. Eventually, once I'd made some cash, I'd see the benefits to using the IDE, and purchase it. Having an up-front cost is nothing but an unnecessary barrier that is a relic of a bygone era.

Also, I'm hoping my artist friends take my slurs against them as being all in good fun. ;-P

Gettin Things Done

I went to a meeting for my university's local game dev group yesterday. The discussed topic was "What To Do Break Into The Game Industry." There were some helpful hints as to languages, networking events and the like, but one point that the speakers drove home (and I felt was VERY important) was this:

Make Games

It's so simple, but a lot of people, and not just those in the game development field, have a problem with it. Not just games, but all sorts of programs. In school, we usually just make some throwaway scripts that we use once for an assigment, and never look at again. Knowing how to do stuff is very important. Actually doing stuff, that's a whole nother level. If you go into an interview and say "I know how to do X,Y, and Z," they might be relatively impressed. However, if you can say "I did A, using X and Y, but I didn't get a chance to implement Z yet," that is umpteen times better than the first one. Companies don't care if you know how to do stuff. I know the basics of how to play baseball, that doesn't mean that the Phillies manager is going to be beating my door down trying to get me to join the team.

The problem with this is: making stuff can be tedious, and boring. For every cool bit, there are probably ten times that much of boring stuff that you have to slog through before you get there. It's hard to strike a balance, especially if you're like me and hate doing work in your free time. It's boring, but everything's boring if you do it enough. Try to add new stuff to the boring bits wherever possible, and you'll be okay.

Most importantly, though, do stuff, don't just learn stuff.

Open-ness: The Business Practice of...Tomorrow

I could explain why I haven't posted in a while, but I'm not going to. Anyways...

I still recieve the dead-tree version of Wired magazine, even though with how long it takes to get to me all the content is online, anda few of their stories really got me thinking. In one camp, there are the articles about how open-ness an freedom is the "new wave" and how businesses are doing well by "opening up." See this article for what I mean. However, this month's cover story (not to mention a slew of similar articles throughout the internet and traditional media) is on Apple's successes in the last couple of years, despite the fact that they're bucking the trend by being as "closed", or as I prefer "evil" as a tech company can be. Sure they're realeasing an iPhone SDK, but with enough stipulations that you basically have to be having your hand held by Apple the whole time if you ever want to do anything.

While I was thinking about that (my rants on Apple are usually more bile-filled, and much longer, consider yourself lucky,) I began thinkning about another tech company that the mention of doesn't fill me with seas of bloodcurdling rage: Nintendo. Not only are they completely locked down in terms of hardware and software, but their adherents and fanatics closely mirror each other when it comes to the amount of devotion said groups express. Everyone gives Sony a bad rap for being so proprietary (which is justly deserved) , but when you think about it, Nintendo is even worse. Their newest-gen console doesn't even play DVDs, for christ's sake. Imagine how (much more) awesome the DS would be if it took SD cards, played Mp3s/Oggs, and had an active and egaging (and supported) dev community. Yeah, there are "hacker" groups that do some cool stuff with it, but when you come down to brass tacks, if you want to make anything for the Wii, or the DS, or the PS3, or anything uncrippled for the 360, be ready to pay through the nose.

My point is thus: Open technologies are awesome, I love them, I can't imagine making anything nowadays without assuming it would be open somehow. HOWEVER, you can still make big bucks by staying closed, and until someone (I'm looking at you Google/Android,) can prove that being "closed" is going to lose to being "open," there isn't going to be a major shakeup anytime soon.

Open Gaming

One of the things that's always bothered me about video games is that they're usually very restrictive. You have to have X platform, Y controller, give money to Z publisher. Personally, I look at the Xbox 360 and PC (in particular,) and say "why can't they play games together." I bought Team Fortress 2 for my PC, and can't play with people on XBox live. I know a solid bit of that is because Microsoft (and Sony, and Nintendo) want to make more money, but as the consumer, I feel shafted.

I had an idea the other day, along lines similar to this: make a game that everyone can play. Publish the game state data as an xml feed. Allow platform developers to make their own interfaces to the game, and have them send responses back to a server, which can be either dedicated, or one of the participants of the game. You'd have to worry about people cheating, but it my mind most of the actual processing would be on the server side. That way, even thin clients or browser-based interfaces would be able to play in the same game as a $4,000 PC, running a DirectX10-based interface with HDR and all the bells and whistles.

I don't know, this may just be a pipe dream, but I think that at the very least it's an interesting concept.