Making a Game

I've signed up for a 3-week mapping contest at rpgmaker.net and it turns out that making a game, even one that doesn't require any real programming, takes quite a bit more time than actually playing one. While the contest still has nearly three weeks remaining, I've been spending pretty much all of my free time working on the game to get it finished as soon as possible and I'd say it's around 35-40% done. Here's some screenshots of what I have so far:

This setup looks cliche, but the puzzle here is a bit different.

The place in this screenshot is one of the first secrets in the game.

The only rules of the contest are that it has to all take place on one map and it has to have a 'dungeon' theme, but the word 'dungeon' is up to individual interpretation. The contest only takes aesthetics into account, but my entry is going to have a heavy focus on puzzles and storytelling; my entry probably won't stand a chance of actually winning (there's no prize though), but I'm having fun making it and I'll post a link to it on here when it's finished and the contest is over. I'm drawing heavily on La Mulana and Dark Souls for storytelling and puzzle techniques with an in media res-style of storytelling where the player is never blatantly told the full details, but where the puzzles work to flesh out the story.

Here's a link to the contest topic: http://rpgmaker.net/forums/topics/11454/

Pause Menu: Fraxy Boss - Palenque

So, Fraxy is a fantastic game/engine/thing for anyone who likes any type of shoot-em-up. I'll do a detailed recommendation of it soon enough (and likely do one for Knytt Stories too), but the best way to sum it up for now is to say it is an extremely flexible engine which lets you make and fight shoot-em-up bosses which can range anywhere from Gradius-style shoot the core bosses to Touhou levels of bullethell to outright stages.

Right now though, I'm just going to go ahead and recommend a specific boss for everyone to try out, Palenque. Palenque was originally the boss of the sixth area in La Mulana (and in turn is based off of a real-life mural) and, unlike other bosses in the game, the fight against him plays out sort of like a shoot-em-up. Even so, the Fraxy remake of this fight is remarkably well-done and is really fun to play through, especially since it changes around the boss's hitbox and which parts of the ship deflect bullets to better fit Fraxy's gameplay. The Fraxy version even adds an entirely new second phase to the fight which is substantially harder and is loaded to the brim with special effects. Here are some comparison screenshots:

La Mulana

Fraxy

 

Here are a few relevant links:
The latest version of Fraxy can be found here: http://monz.sp.land.to/wp/fraxy/
A gameplay video for this boss and the download links can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XeKmODn0jL8
The Wikipedia article related to the original mural can be found here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/K%27inich_Janaab%27_Pakal

Hey I'm on YouTube!

I just thought it might be a good idea to let anyone know that I have a YouTube channel as well. At the moment it's just my personal one so there are a few videos of video games on there not related to the blog, but once Penultimate Boss expands more I'll probably make a blog-specific channel for it and reupload any relevant videos there. I'm still new to the video editing process, so please bear with me if the recording quality is not perfect (I do have a registered version of Bandicam though, so there are no watermarks at least aside from on some earlier videos).

Since I recently finished the remake of La Mulana, I went ahead and uploaded videos of two of the bosses, which are both really fun fights with great music. One of these bosses also ties in with the message above this one.

My channel can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/user/Seeric/videos

Pause Menu: Lessons on Puzzles from La Mulana

The remake of La Mulana is amazing and the puzzles are probably its best feature. Puzzles are also probably its worst feature. I'll start with what works.

La Mulana's puzzles are awesome mainly for two reasons. First, they integrate themselves directly into the plot, a gameplay decision which painfully few games do. By the end of the second dungeon, players will have a basic understand of who 'Mother' is as well as of the history of La Mulana and some of its past inhabitants. Almost all of  this information is gained without any dialogue and instead is found on stone tablets throughout the ruins with the names of places and people being vital to solving puzzles; not knowing why the nine giants divided into two factions and exactly which one is which can prove both costly and outright deadly. This 'puzzle-based storytelling' takes advantage of the interactive strength of video games as a medium and, like flavor text, streamlines the experience by fleshing out the world and characters without relying heavily upon awkward exposition; Fez uses this same method of storytelling with its puzzles to the point that players learn an entirely new alphabet by the end and this is hopefully a trend which will catch on in the future.

The second reason La Mulana's puzzles are awesome is they tend to function like actual puzzles. In many games, 'solving' a puzzle usually requires simply finding the right item to use. At best, this approach creates puzzles which require a few seconds or a minute of thinking to arrive at a solution and then a significantly larger amount of time executing the plan. At worst, this leads to the problem many adventure games suffer from of the player blindly flailing around trying to combine every item and use every item everywhere. This is not to say that La Mulana does not have its share of (usually clever) block pushing puzzles and item fiddling, but the majority of puzzles in the game simply ask players to use skills they already possess in order to forge a path with most puzzles consisting of hunting down and mentally combining the dozens of vague clues scattered throughout the game. As a result, puzzles require a large amount of thinking outside the box and players can get stuck on a puzzle for hours, but it is astoundingly satisfying when a mysterious clue from much earlier in the game suddenly becomes relevant and everything clicks into place.

Unfortunately, La Mulana also has some major issues with its puzzles. Probably the biggest issue is simply that very few of the puzzles are optional and, very much unlike Fez, there are many moments where, despite the seemingly open appearance, one or two puzzles absolutely must be solved in order to make any sort of progress. This wouldn't be horrible on its own, but La Mulana gives no indication as to if a room still has 'important stuff' in it and, since two vague clues in two entirely different areas are relatively frequently expected to be used together in order to find a puzzle solution somewhere else in order to unlock something in yet another area, there are several moments, especially near the end, where it becomes a matter of either resorting to a guide or asking a friend for help or wandering around for several hours looking for a clue or just the proper room for solving a puzzle, let alone actually figuring out exactly what to do.

As an example, one of the later puzzles in the game involves getting to a closed off part in one region in order to modify a different region, but in order to get to this closed off area players must interact with a pot in a third area which looks like every other pot in the area in which it is found; there is a clue for this, but what the clue doesn't say is that this is the only pot in the entire game which must be used like a pipe from a Mario game by standing on top of it and pressing down. So, in this case, even if a person understands the clue, breaking the pot causes nothing to happen and a player may think that he or she was simply wrong and go look for a solution elsewhere. This is just one example, but there are many such puzzles where a player can understand a clue, but simply interact with the indicated object or room incorrectly and, since there is no indication that they are 'on the right track', it is all too easy to get the impression that an interpretation of a clue is completely wrong.

It is important to stress that this is not a problem with obtuse and/or multi-step puzzles, it is a problem with conveying basic information. Fez, the Metroid series, and many other open exploration games have various ways of informing players of if a room is 'completed' and/or if something important is still present, La Mulana plays a noise after the player solves 'something' and any time saved by not relying upon messy exposition and dialogue is more than made up for by the sheer amount of time players will inevitably spend endlessly backtracking just looking for what they need to do. Clues also frequently refer to room names or to the names of statues found in specific rooms, but again there is a lack of information as players can only ever see the name of the room they are currently in (and even then must interrupt play by pressing the pause button and bringing up the map); the lack of a way to look at the names of previously-visiting rooms, let alone after acquiring area maps, is simply a sloppy and tedium-inducing decision as it leads to either pausing in every single room to write the name down for future use or systematic backtracking through every unlocked area in the game, which still leads to constantly pausing to see room names.  Vague clues and clues which don't pay off until significantly later in a game are great, a complete lack of basic information-related features like being able to scroll through room names and a simple binary system for if a room is 'completed' or not is not so great, especially in a game as expansive and backtrack-heavy as La Mulana.

In the end, La Mulana is generally a great game with engaging and clever puzzles which successfully link plot and gameplay, but its frustrating moments serve as indications of how important it is for any non-linear game to convey general, overarching information.

An Update on Non-Updates

So, I haven't posted anything here for about a week and, while I certainly do not yet have anything resembling an established community for this blog, it would be good to let anyone stopping by know what's going on.

One thing that's been going on is I've been writing reviews for the National Game Development Month (NaGaDeMo) Review Drive at rpgmaker.net and both writing the reviews and playing the actual games takes up a fair amount of time. Since the games I have been reviewing are demos and generally need some polishing up, I have not been posting about them here, but the bottom of this post will have a link to my reviews for anyone interested.

The second reason I haven't been updating much this week is the English remake of La Mulana launched recently and I have become rather addicted to it. The remake of La Mulana costs $15, so I normally would not post about it here since I'd prefer to limit this blog to entirely free games, but it is worth noting that this remake has some massive changes in it which go far beyond the aesthetics, so even people did not care for the original version (myself included) may still get a lot of entertainment out of the remake.

This means that any posts made in the usual fashion this week would have probably been shorter than usual and not as detailed, so I would be rather unhappy with them. However, starting tomorrow I will introduce a new post category called Pause Menu, so that there is at least something for when I do not have the time to play through and write about recommendable free games. Pause Menu posts will probably end up being just as lengthy as usual, but some may also be much shorter and they will not stick to the usual categories. For example, a Pause Menu update tomorrow will likely be about the remake of La Mulana even though it's not a free game. Pause Menu will also have the potentially nice effect of leading to the permanent implementation of more weekly topics to add some more variety.


Link Time!

My reviews of RPG Maker games can be found here: http://rpgmaker.net/users/Seeric/reviews/
There are still games in need of reviews by August 15 for the NaGaDeMo Review Drive, if you want to help out or just check out more reviews and games, go here: http://rpgmaker.net/events/nagademo_review_drive/ 
If you want to check out the remake of La Mulana, you can find it here: http://la-mulana.com/en/

The Wonders of Flavor Text

I've frequently commented on flavor text in Game Alerts, so I figured it's about time to take a look at why it is such a nice thing for a game to have. Flavor text is most commonly associated with RPG's and action RPG's, but it can be used in any game with an inventory system or interactive environments or sometimes even menu options, so it can really be used in games of any genre, such as with the trophies in Smash Bros. games and planet descriptions in Meteos.

Flavor text also can have a wide range of uses, such as added a bit of humor to an otherwise serious game or supporting an existing lighthearted tone, such as in pretty much anything made by Nippon Ichi, while more serious flavor text can be used to make individual items sound more awesome, such as describing the history behind a demon-slaying sword, or even outright giving useful background information instead of trying to fit such information into clunky exposition scenes, such as with Dark Souls.

However, the largest general reason to utilize flavor text is it makes tasks seem 'worth doing'. Reading the stats or use for an item in its description is often vital for determining just what an item does or if a piece of equipment is an upgrade, but flavor text concerning any given item can make an otherwise bland task interesting in addition to indirectly expanding upon the game's world as a whole. Furthermore, as I have mentioned in previous posts, the main strength of video games comes from 'touch' and interaction with environmental objects not only shows that a designer has put effort into a game, but also adds plenty of variety to the world; one of the most disappointing things in any game is to reach a library in an RPG and either get the equivalent of "nothing interesting is on the shelf" for any given bookcase or, worst of all, simply not being able to interact with the books all around the room.

In addition, many RPG's, and sometimes games from other genres, have useful items hidden in objects such as barrels, pots, clocks, fireplaces, and all sorts of other things, but getting no feedback or a bland "it's empty" message on most objects can make item hunter feel like a chore. Putting unique flavor text on many objects which players are likely to search when looking for objects not only makes the item hunt less of a chore, but comments made by the protagonist or between party members can go a very long way towards making likeable characters with well-established personalities and relationships without needing to rely upon awkward exposition dialogue.

So, to sum things up, flavor text is useful because it:
1) reduces the need for clunky exposition
2) compliments the overall tone of a game
3) helps to establish characters and character relationships
4) expands upon a world's lore
5) makes tasks such as item hunting and stat checking feel fun instead of tedious
6) increases the overall amount of things to do in a game
7) shows that a developer actually cares about his or her creation

For examples of free games which use flavor text to great effect, check out the Game Alerts for Intelligence and Star Stealing Prince.

Game Alert: Treasure Tower

Today's Game Alert will be a little shorter than usual, but by no means is the game covered any less worthwhile. Treasure Tower is a simple enough concept, yet surprisingly varied in its execution and highly addictive. In it, you play as a knight and you must reach the top of a tower after passing through several single-screen rooms. There are enemies and traps along the way, but neither of these kill you. Instead, the main adversary of the game is the clock as it is constantly counting down to your demise; taking 'damage' will significantly reduce the remaining time on the clock while clearing a room or finding food will increase it. There is, of course, also tons of treasure to collect along the way to increase your total points which, along with simply completing modes, are used to unlock new modes of play.

The most interesting aspect of Treasure Tower is probably its randomization. There are hundreds of rooms in the game and each gameplay mode will pull from a certain 'set' of these and distribute them in a random order, so going through the same mode twice can lead to not only a different room order, but different rooms entirely.

There are many modes to unlock and they each can affect not only the rooms, but many other aspects, such as food frequency, time, and room quantity. For example, the 'Collector' set has a twenty-room tower and requires players to collect every piece of treasure in each room while 'Blitz' only consists of twelve rooms, but also only puts thirty seconds on the clock and has no food. There is also a Time Attack section with online high scores which consists of over a dozen non-randomized sets of rooms (though the order is still random), including one featuring all 200 rooms in the game. The only downside is the The Attack leaderboard for the downloadable version is no longer function, but the newer browser version still works.

Even basic math can give you an adrenaline rush with that clock in the corner

The aesthetics of the game are also fairly nice. The graphics aren't particularly amazing, but they're not outright hideous either and the ever-present clock looks quite nice and suitable iconic. The music is not original, but it consists entirely of ragtime, which is both fun to listen to and perfectly fits the frantic pace of the game. There are also some nice little touches, such as a heartbeat noise when time is almost up and a different-looking 'room counter' for each mode.

So, if you like fast-paced, highly replayable games, go ahead and give Treasure Tower a shot and you'll likely be hooked for hours.


Treasure Tower and other games by its creator can be downloaded here: http://www.clickteam.info/davidn/games.php
The newer browser-based version can be found here: http://www.clickteam.info/davidn/games/treasuretower/

The R in RPG: Part 2

Last time we looked at how 'role'  in Role-Playing Game refers to a specific character role. However, this time we'll be looking at the other common interpretation of 'role', as a vague or outright undefined role in a world.

This is by far at least currently the more popular interpretation of role in the Western market, and it's fairly easy to see why as it places a stronger emphasis on 'freedom' and 'individuality'. Such a take on 'role' usually still has a small amount of background attached to it, such as being 'the chosen one' or 'the savior' or more mundane backgrounds such as 'the new squire for Sir So-and-so', but even in these incidents players often are given a choice of background during character creation, such as in Dragon Age: Origins.

While there is often a main quest, the player is not tied to a predefined character so the world tends to be far more open to exploration right from the start. This lack of a predefined character also opens up more options for just what 'role' the player chooses when actually bothering with the main quest; the player can act as a villain, a hero, a neutral figure, or even forsake a 'realistic' character role altogether and instead focus on chaotic fun, making whichever choices seem to lead to the most amusing results. In some games, such as Dark Souls, the main quest isn't even a 'chain' and instead allows players to decide which order to tackle the various parts of it in.

Since the role is undefined, many such games place an emphasis on interacting with the supporting cast. While a game with a predefined role usually will develop character relations through non-controllable cutscenes with any choices at most determining which of a handful of endings a player may receive, games with undefined protagonist roles usually have frequent, more casual conversations between the controlled character and the supporting cast, with choices not only helping to solidify a general personality for a player's character, but also often outright determining friends and foes or who lives and who dies.

Although the freedom of an undefined role can be a huge advantage over a predefine character role, it is not without a few downsides. Perhaps the most obvious downside is the complete lack of a memorable main character. Although many may be quick to triumph the freedom granted in games with a player-created character, such freedom results in a lack of a memorable main character, such as Cecil from Final Fantasy IV  or Maxim from Lufia II. Even if it played exactly the same way, it would be pretty hard to imagine a Nintendo game with the equivalent of a Mii in the place of their iconic protagonists, such as Mario, Link, or even Olimar. Such games also have great difficulty with making memorable 'scenes'; while it is still quite possible for a game with an undefined protagonist role to have a memorable supporting cast and memorable places, it is far more difficult to make an impressive 'event' take place unless some degree of freedom of choice is removed from the player or said event focuses upon a member of the supporting cast.

 However, many of the issues facing both defined and undefined character roles can be fixed, or at least avoided, by the increasing number of games which find a balance between the two. In some games, such as The Witcher, players step into the role of a specific character, yet are still given a wide variety of choices; Geralt will never be a saintly paladin nor a demonic overlord, but the events which occur can change significantly based upon decisions players make while taking on his role. Other games, such as the Shin Megami Tensei series, and especially the more recent entries in the Persona spinoff series, have main plots which generally play out the same way no matter what with just a handful of different ending, but players are given a significant amount of freedom when it comes to shaping the personality of the protagonist and choosing how sidequests play out. Thus, these 'hybrid' games tend to lack or greatly reduce the weaknesses found in games which take a more focused interpretation of 'role', but it can be argued that such games may also lack either of their strengths as well.


In the end, which interpretation of 'role' is better will ultimately come down to personal preferences as each has its own set of strengths and weaknesses, but by being aware of the general traits for these interpretations, we can perhaps all learn to respect and enjoy every type of role even more than before.

Game Alert: Star Stealing Prince

Ok, so the title may sound like a bad romance novel, but Star Stealing Prince is likely one of the best RPG's out there, which is quite nice since it's also entirely free. The basic premise for the plot is Prince Snowe is the prince of the small and isolated, yet perfectly-happy snow-covered kingdom of Sabine, but one day he learns of a girl trapped in a tower and sets out to rescue her. Obviously, the plot quickly becomes a bit more complicated than this, and it would be best to not give too much away, but it is safe to say that you will see some creepy scarecrows, demons, psychopaths, and more than a few unexpected plot twists along the way. The game also makes excellent use of foreshadowing and interacting with objects and NPC's often rewards you with hints of past events. Speaking of interaction, this game certainly has a lot of it; nearly everything in the environment can be interacted with, often with different flavor text even for two of the same 'type' of object, useful items are hidden everywhere, there are secret passages to be found, and the dialogue for every NPC changes as the story progresses.

If you can see it, you can probably interact with it.

The amount of effort put into this game is honestly astounding and the end result is simply refreshing. For example, even the most minor of NPC's has a hand-drawn character portrait, or often even multiple portraits to reflect changing emotions, so there aren't any of the awkward 'happy portrait with grim dialogue' incidents which often plague RPG's. Cutscenes themselves also frequently consist of a series of impressive hand-drawn pictures. However, even outside of the hand-drawn stuff, the graphics are impressive with a lot of nice little touches and the music always compliments settings and scenes well. The writing is also quite good and even many of the characters outside of the main party are very memorable and interactions between characters never feel awkward or forced. For that matter, I cannot stress enough how pleasant it is to see a male lead who acts in a mature, responsible manner instead of the typical sword-toting 'well-intentioned idiot' (Snowe doesn't even use a sword, he uses a mace and is far better at using both offensive and especially healing magic than he is at melee). Likewise, the female lead is neither a blatant love interest nor a fragile healer. Oh, and you get a dual-wielding skeleton for a party member who is probably about as awesome as you'd expect a dual-wielding skeleton to be.

Combat is fun and challenging, though it is nothing particularly 'new'. There are no random encounters as normal enemies are usually represented by a moving white cloud, although just which enemies are in a fight are randomized. Status ailments, debuffs, and elemental weaknesses play a huge role in boss fights, but even normal enemies can be a legitimate threat if you're not careful as groups of only one or two enemies can still quickly kill the entire party if you simply try to spam normal attacks. Spells tend to drain MP quickly, but are also extremely useful and there are enough MP-restoring items in the game that this usually only becomes a threat during boss fights or if you are too conservative with item use. In addition to spells, there are abilities which consume IP (Item Points); these abilities are directly attached to equipment and there's no way to permanently acquire them while IP itself is consumed in terms of percentage and is gained when characters are hit. A final note on combat is that the fourth party member is the tank of the group and has significantly higher defense than any other character, but unlike most RPG's where such a character either has a 'provoke' ability or, worse, only is useful for soaking up damage if enemies decide to attack it, this character has the much more useful passive ability of automatically taking a hit for any other party member if the hit would have otherwise been fatal to greatly increase the survivability of the group as a whole.

Yes, even butterfly swarms can be deadly if you're not careful.

Dungeon design is, unsurprisingly by this point, also well done. Most dungeons are fairly short if you want to simply head straight to the end, but they tend to also have many side-paths to explore filled with all sorts of nice rewards. Perhaps most importantly, characters do not learn spells simply by leveling up and instead learn them through books found in dungeons; dungeons usually have one new spell for each party member, so if a party member seems to be falling behind in spell quantity, you probably just missed one of his or her books and, with a single exception, you can always go back and look for it. Even though leveling up doesn't grant new abilities, stats in Star Stealing Prince are fairly low, so even one level can make a huge impact if a boss fight feels too tough and the amount of experience enemies give usually increases significantly between dungeons so grinding never takes long. Puzzles are plentiful and, while usually not particularly challenging, usually don't feel outright handholdy either. Dungeons are also even designed to be convenient; if it is a dungeon on the world map, such as a forest, you can simply choose to skip it after the first time through while the larger dungeons often have shortcuts that open up as you go through them to save on travel time if you need to backtrack.

If I had to nitpick, I'd say normal enemies and especially bosses frequently feel as though they have a bit too much health, but this is such a minor issue that it can be outright ignored. Otherwise, Star Stealing Prince is an amazing game with a solid 10-12 hour length, an engaging story, memorable characters, fun combat, clever dungeon design, and a lot of polish and care.

You can download it from here: http://starstealingprince.wordpress.com/

All About Titles: Odd Words

In the last All About Titles article, I discussed the important of keywords. Keywords are handy because they have a whole host of connotations attached to them which can easily grab a person's attention. Unfortunately, they are also a bit on the bland side on their own, so you need something more 'unique' to compliment them. Therefore, today's installment of All About Titles will cover some of the more common types of 'odd words'.

Scientific Name: This is surprisingly common in the indie community, but far more rare in games with bigger budgets. Although this is a popular trend, it is generally a horrible name choice for anything other than an 'art game' simply because it sounds 'artsy'. For example, if you have an action platformer where you use a plasma gun to fight off an army of evil alien toads, it would be a really bad idea to name it Bufonophobia (fear of toads) as people looking for an art game will be disappointed while others will pass it by because it sounds like an art game. While such a name may catch the eye, it is neither catchy nor does it give any clues at to what the nature of the game is as, even if someone knows what the name means, it will have no connotations attached to it in the gaming world. To top it all off, it is unlikely that a person will simply stumble upon the name while trying to search for a different game, further reducing visibility. Avoid this.

Odd Name: Unlike a scientific name, an odd name in the title can do wonders for drawing attention to a game. This involves using an exotic or outright made-up name of a protagonist/planet/item/etc in the name of your game. Using this alone is usually a bad idea, but it can really make your game stand out in addition to giving some information and raising curiosity. An obvious example of this would be The Legend of Zelda; we all know who Zelda is now, but when the game first came out the title likely caused quite a stir. Legend implies adventure and myth, what is so wondrous about this 'Zelda' person that she has a legend? Is Zelda the protagonist? Zelda is a female name, but it's an uncommon one, so what's the setting? Such a title combines the familiar with the exotic and raises curiosity while still keeping things simple and catchy; The Legend of Zelda is easily one of the best titles out there and is a great model to base your own title off of.

Uncommon Word: This is another good option for your title. Specifically, this refers to a word which people are probably familiar with, but which they probably don't see on a daily basis. This gives your game a unique name while still not completely confusing. The name of this blog is an example of this, with the uncommon word 'Penultimate' and the common word 'Boss'. The Ambitions of Quamuza is yet another example, although it is one of how not to use uncommon words; 'ambitions' is an uncommon word which helps to draw attention and Quamuza is an exotic-sounding 'odd name', but there are no keywords, which makes it unlikely that the game will come up in searches and gives possible players little indication as to what it is (and when a person is looking through a list of several hundred or several thousand games, they'll probably only stop at games which give at least some indication via the title).

In short, avoid using a 'scientific name' for your title, but using an odd name and/or an uncommon word is great as long as it has at least one common, familiar keyword to compliment it.

Game Alert: Dungeon Chaos

Pacing is a vital element in any form of media, yet it is so easily forgotten. If you've ever seen a movie or read a book or played a game and were absolutely sure that it was 'good' or 'bad', but had trouble explaining why, it was probably thanks to good pacing or a lack thereof. Likewise, if you've ever played a Sonic game, you probably know how it feels to be zooming through a level and then suddenly come to a dead stop for one reason or another - pacing has always been one of Sonic's greatest adversaries. Thankfully, pacing is one thing which Dungeon Chaos has in spades.

Dungeon Chaos is a painfully short game which can be completed in about a half hour, but a great deal to care went in to ensuring that the game constantly flows to create a remarkably energetic and satisfying experience. The opening cutscenes only take a handful of seconds to establish protagonists, antagonist, and the basic setting before sending you straight into the action. The game itself consists of a series of single-screen rooms with every fourth or fifth room being a 'hub' room where players can buy upgrades and turn in quests; pressing Enter rapidly sends the player forward through completed rooms and dying or pressing Backspace at any point sends the player back to the closest hub, meaning the entire 'dungeon' can be traversed in a matter of seconds. Even the tutorials simply consist of a series of single sentences written on the walls of the first few rooms the player traverses, meaning there is not once a moment when the gameplay is interrupted or even slows down.

The actual combat is simple enough, yet surprisingly fun. The player starts with a gun which can be aimed with the mouse and fired by holding down left click, but upgrades such as a jetpack, firing speed increases, and grenades (or rather, Granades) are quickly acquired and both food and leveling up permanently increase HP.  Rooms usually consist of a giant wave of several dozen enemies rapidly spawning and can quickly become overwhelming if the player doesn't kill fast or find a good position to attack from. Perhaps the most interesting mechanic in Dungeon Chaos is the way rooms 'wrap' as there are no pits and instead falling into a hole or walking to the right side of the screen simply results in reappearing from the opposite side in a way similar to Bubble Bobble or Kid Icarus, although enemies will frequently utilize the wrapping to their advantage as well.

This snake-like boss wraps itself around most of the room.

So, that's Dungeon Chaos. It's a short little game with fairly standard gameplay, but an extremely clever sense of pacing keeps the action flowing from start to finish. On a final note, you will probably want to make sure you download the newest version of the game (the 'Xmas' edition); it lacks a magic system and local multiplayer found in earlier versions, but several improvements such as the mouse-controlled aiming and a vastly superior food system more than make up for the loss of magic and multiplayer.

The newest version of the game can be found here: http://sandbox.yoyogames.com/games/191586-dungeon-chaos-xmas

The R in RPG - Part 1

While RPG's have had a significant influence on both the PC and console gaming communities for decades, it has become increasingly difficult to determine just where to draw the line between an 'RPG' and a game which happens to have RPG elements. This line is only going to become more blurred as time goes on and I certainly am not going to try to place it, but it may help to take a look at the two main interpretations of what the word 'role' even means.

The first take on 'role' is the one generally favored by JRPG's and most indie RPG's; the protagonist is a predefined character who will inevitably take certain actions and the player takes on the 'role' of this character. Although games which use this take on role-playing are frequently referred to as 'Japanese' RPG's, this interpretation is extremely similar to the way actors usually portray roles in plays even in Western cultures.

Basically, the important actions, motivations, and general personality traits for the protagonist remain the same, but the player-as-actor has some freedom in their 'interpretation' of this character (answering with Yes or No, ignoring sidequests or actively searching for them, etc). Likewise, an actor in the role of Romeo in Romeo and Juliet may make different movements than other actors, may stress different words, or may even change a line or two, but, with rare exceptions, will still kill Tybalt in Act 3 and inevitably will take his own life specifically via drinking poison at the end.

Silent protagonists not just in RPG's, but in general (ex: most Nintendo protagonists) fall into this interpretation as well as any character with an extensive amount of predetermined dialogue (the protagonist in any main game in the Final Fantasy series starting from Final Fantasy IV, Kratos, Master Chief, etc). While some people tend to call this take on role-playing 'inferior' or 'outdated' due to a lack of total freedom or due to silent protagonists 'lacking personality', there are two things to keep in mind.

First, such claims have the repercussion of extending outside the realm of video games; if playing a predetermined character role is automatically 'inferior' to more freeform roles, this would mean any actor in a play or movie is inferior to any given improv artist.

Secondly, even if a silent protagonist does nothing in terms of speaking other than answer questions with binary choices, actions taken and the way other characters interact with the protagonist both go a long way towards giving at least a basic feel for the personality of the protagonist; it would be rather difficult to argue that Chrono of Chrono Trigger is 'Lawful Evil' for instance and even someone who never played a Nintendo game before could get a good sense of the personality behind the mostly-silent Luigi from playing Luigi's Mansion.

In short, this is very much the 'older' interpretation of role-playing as it has its roots in the realm of theater, stretching back thousands of years. It doesn't allow for quite as much freedom as the second common interpretation of 'role' in games, but it is balanced out by allowing for a more focused narrative and more well-defined character relations.


Well, that's it for today's look at role-playing. In part 2 we'll take a look at the second common interpretation, of the character playing an undefined 'role' in the world, which is often favored by Western RPG's.

Game Alert: Intelligence

While I try to stick to talking about finished games, Intelligence is a rather good game to make an exception for. Plus, it's still a good five hours long and is up to Act 2 and will likely go up to at least Act 5, so it's probably not going to be 'finished' anytime soon and what is there is satisfying (not to mention that the Act setup means the existing story arcs are finished even if the overarching story is not).

So, what's it about? In a nutshell, humans have left Earth and animals have somehow become very intelligent as a result and a green dog named Rolly, a red cat named Pep, and a kangaroo named Tristy end up having to save the world/galaxy/universe from intergalactic monstrosities. As you can probably guess from the plot, the game doesn't take itself very seriously at all and quickly goes off the rails.

Above all, Intelligence is a game with a lot of 'little things',

There are all sorts of little touches on all aspects of the game which really make it enjoyable.There's a surprisingly large amount of unique flavor text for nearly anything you try to interact with, from closed doors to cabbages, and NPC's will often have a variety of things to say if you talk to them multiple times, which in turn goes a long way towards giving personality to the characters instead of constantly relying upon awkward and overly-long cutscenes, a lesson more than a few developers could use. There are also a lot of neat little aesthetic touches to be found in the game, such as a rather nice main menu with lots of personality, a bestiary, graphics for inventory items, a respectable amount of custom graphics which fit together surprisingly well RPG Maker's assets, and even decent voice acting from time to time. Bosses, and enemies in general really, tend to be massive (though rarely challenging), which adds a satisfying, somewhat ridiculous, scale to most fights.

Even early fights have a massive sense of scale

There are also a fair amount of not-so-nice little things in this game. While the sheer amount of flavor text in this game means a mistake or two would be understandable, there are plenty of grammatical errors (though spelling errors are rare), even by RPG Maker standards, especially in regards to misplaced or missing commas and apostrophes. The story also is at least initially somewhat convoluted and sloppy as the first hour or so consists of a jumble of flashbacks and flashforwards combined with occasional globs of exposition from various NPC's. There is also an oddly preachy passive-aggressive overtone to the game concerning how the way humans lived before they left Earth was 'wrong' and how living with nature was the way 'things were meant to be'; there is nothing wrong with supporting environmentalism, and the setup for Intelligence more or less requires such an underlying message, but the game sometimes lays it on a bit too thickly. However, the oddest 'not-so-nice' aspect of Intelligence is just how linear it currently is; the world is surprisingly big and open, but there is only ever one thing to do in one specific place (there are even little guide arrows to show you the way); there is no flavor text for parts of the game which are not 'on track', unrelated tasks which in other games would probably be sidequests must here be done in a specific order, and even what you fight (and when!) is entirely predetermined as there are no random encounters and, while the bestiary has an 'optional boss' tab, there are not currently optional bosses.

Mr. Universe may not want to tell everyone what to do, but that blue guide arrow sure does.

Judging by sheer text-quantity, it would seem like the bad outweighs the good, but this isn't the case. Intelligence is a flawed game, and it's unlikely to satisfying anyone looking for something particularly 'deep', but the flaws rarely dampen the overall experience. Rather, the flaws are, at worst, 'noticeable', but never frustrating while the amount of effort that was put into 'little touches' transform would have have easily been a very 'average' experience into a unique and memorable one where you can simply sit back, relax, and have fun.

The latest version of Intelligence  (1.1.9 as of this writing) can be found here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/3073/