Steam has at last launched their Greenlight program which allows the community to vote on if they desire or do not desire submitted indie games. Personally, I think it's a wonderful experiment and only time will tell if it actually succeeds, but everyone should probably go try it out. Here are some of my thoughts on what I like and don't like about the program in its current form:
What I Like:
1) Developer Requirements - Currently, all developers are required to post a minimum of one video and three screenshots. Any game can have a neat description, but actually being able to see the game in action can really help consumers to make a decision. It also is good for the developers themselves as it's a relatively risk-free way of learning what does and does not work when marketing a game.
2) No Time Limit - Unlike some programs, games can stay up on Greenlight for as long as their developers desire even if they never gain enough interest to get approved. This is a great way to advertise a game as, regardless of its acceptance on Steam, it will inevitably gain attention and people can check it out on other services.
3) In-Development Approved - Since Greenlight is a way of monitoring community interest in games, developers are encouraged to post their projects on it even if they are not finished. This allows developers to receive feedback from Steam's massive userbase, which can save a ton of time and effort in the future.
4) Ease of Feedback - This may be my favorite thing about Greenlight. It's really easy to get in touch with developers in an open environment simply by posting comments on project pages. Greenlight is a competitive environment (games are approved based on relative interest and not just by raw vote numbers), so many developers frequently check the comments sections for their respective games and leave comments of their own. This is a far better alternative to posting on the forum of a niche indie game site as it allows for large amounts of feedback from a diverse audience.
What I Don't Like:
1) Vague Voting - There should really be more data collected during the voting process than if a person did or did not like a game. For example, a simple binary yes/no question concerning if a person already knew about the game before seeing it on Steam after a person upvotes a game could be really useful. Some games on Greenlight have been advertised or even available on other services for months, sometimes years, so these games have a much, much higher chance of receiving a large amount of votes. Since Greenlight approves games based on relative interest, the lack of such questions means it will probably be very hard for newer games to be approved even if significantly more interest is shown for them compared to other 'new games'.
2) Game Collections - Games on Greenlight can be a part of a 'collection'. While this can potentially make it easier to find high-quality games or similar games, it also creates an unbalanced market. More experienced developers with connections in the indie world will have a much higher chance of getting their games noticed regardless of quality simply by being able to attach them to a 'collection' while newer developers will have more time getting their solitary games noticed even if the games are quite good. This could have the potential benefit of encouraging new developers to work on getting acquainted with other developers, but I suspect more than one game will slip through the cracks while others rise in approval because of this system.
3) Vague Pricing - While a game in development probably shouldn't be expected to have a set price, it would be helpful to at least give a rough estimate of the 'expected price' such as "$10 or less". Free games also seem to be having a bit of an issue as it's possible to sort games so that only free ones are displayed, but many have received downvotes from people who saw them within one of the other game lists and simply were not aware that there would be no price attached; having something like a special border or a small symbol to denote that a game will be freeware would likely be a great help.
Well, those are my thoughts on Greenlight. It's a bit rough around the edges in some spots, but it is overall a fascinating system and, like Kickstarter, is an interesting new way of simultaneously supporting both developers and consumers which I can only hope to see more of in the future.
Greenlight can be accessed via Steam or via this link.
Friday, August 31, 2012
Thursday, August 30, 2012
Backlog Bonanza Month
Ok, so it's not quite the start of a new month and this is more because I have decided to go through my backlog of games than anything else, but I figured it could make for some interesting posts as well.
The way this will work is I am currently going through my rather embarrassingly large backlog of console and PC games which for one reason or another I never got around to playing or only played very briefly. I will be trying to play each game through to the end (not necessarily 100% runs) and will make at least one post either during my playthrough or after completion. There are a few differences from the usual 'Game Alerts' though, which are as follows:
1) Many of these games are on the obscure side and, since i am going into them with little or no knowledge, not all of them will be good. As a result, these won't necessarily be 'recommendations' so much as mini-reviews.
2) I won't necessarily discuss every aspect of each game. Instead, I will likely focus on one or two elements and analyze how and why they work or don't work alongside a brief game overview.
3) Most of these games will not be freeware, but I will be sticking to games under $5. So, if anyone sees a game which interests them, it will always be relatively affordable as long as they own the respective console.
4) I currently have no way of capturing footage of console games, so posts concerning such games will not have screenshots to accompany them. I will be looking into alleviating this issue as soon as possible.
With this in mind, I hope this ends up being a fun experiment both for myself and anyone reading this blog and if I am satisfied with the results I may end up turning tis into a recurring feature from time to time.
In honor if this experiment, it's really only appropriate to end with a link to The Backloggery
The way this will work is I am currently going through my rather embarrassingly large backlog of console and PC games which for one reason or another I never got around to playing or only played very briefly. I will be trying to play each game through to the end (not necessarily 100% runs) and will make at least one post either during my playthrough or after completion. There are a few differences from the usual 'Game Alerts' though, which are as follows:
1) Many of these games are on the obscure side and, since i am going into them with little or no knowledge, not all of them will be good. As a result, these won't necessarily be 'recommendations' so much as mini-reviews.
2) I won't necessarily discuss every aspect of each game. Instead, I will likely focus on one or two elements and analyze how and why they work or don't work alongside a brief game overview.
3) Most of these games will not be freeware, but I will be sticking to games under $5. So, if anyone sees a game which interests them, it will always be relatively affordable as long as they own the respective console.
4) I currently have no way of capturing footage of console games, so posts concerning such games will not have screenshots to accompany them. I will be looking into alleviating this issue as soon as possible.
With this in mind, I hope this ends up being a fun experiment both for myself and anyone reading this blog and if I am satisfied with the results I may end up turning tis into a recurring feature from time to time.
In honor if this experiment, it's really only appropriate to end with a link to The Backloggery
Sunday, August 26, 2012
Spikes Around the World: Usage
Last time we looked at several of the most common types of spikes found in video games, but we have yet to explore reasons for why spikes are such a popular environmental hazard. Today, we'll be doing exactly that, looking at the many reasons why spikes are just so frequently utilized.
Versatility of Placement: One of the main reasons spikes are used in many games is they are simply easy to use just about anywhere. Unlike other environmental hazards such as lava, poison, or electricity, which all either have to have a 'source' (ex: cut wires for electricity) or generally appear in specific ways (ex: lava is almost always exclusively on the ground), spikes can be attached to just abut anything without looking silly or odd. They can be placed on ceilings, on floors, on walls, on enemies, and just about anything else at any angle and still look 'natural'. Spike placement is especially versatile because they can be placed directly on top of surfaces, inside surfaces (spike traps), or alongside surfaces (spike pits) and, maybe most importantly of all, they can be placed on multiple sides of surfaces to allow for things such as blocks which can be safely touched from the bottom, but not from any other direction.
Versatility of Movement: Not only can spikes be placed just about anywhere, they can also move just about anywhere. They can suddenly stab outward from traps in the floor or walls, they can drop, they can be tossed out at all sorts of angles by enemies, and they can even shoot up or horizontally. While spikes generally move in a straight line, they can come from just about any source at any angle and any speed.
Ease of Identification: This may very well be the most important reason why spikes are so beloved by developers. If you've played a decent number of games, you can probably recall at least one time when you encountered an object which you simply couldn't identify - a power-up that looked like a bullet, an enemy which looked like a healing item, a damaging platform which looked safe, something in the background which you thought was in the same plane as your character, etc. The point is, you've probably taken damage from what you thought was an 'upgrade' or passed up a threatening-looking health capsule or some other unfortunate event simply because you had no idea what it was you were looking at. However, only in extremely rare circumstances is this the case with spikes. Part of this is due to just how common they are in games in the first place; play a handful of games and you'll know to avoid them. Yet, the main strength behind spikes is they are easy to identify as 'threatening' even for a person who has never before played a game. Regardless of if the spikes in question are tall, short, skinny, fat, singular, multiple, made of metal, or made of stone, they likely look sharp and pointy and not at all like things a person would generally think look safe to touch. A pit may look like a tunnel, a bullet an upgrade, and a background tile a platform, but spikes will almost certainly always look like a hazard. Which is why the next reason is...
Surprise: Spikes are so easy to identify as something to avoid that they make the perfect environmental tool for toying with a player's expectations. A player may very well know to avoid spikes and be safe in the knowledge that as long as he or she stays away from them the quest can continue, yet this sense of 'safety' is exactly what will allow the player to be caught off guard when a slightly off-colored spike suddenly shoots or falls away from its brethren straight onto the player's head. On a similar note, since spikes are so frequently attached to surfaces, it is not uncommon for players to suddenly find themselves being chased by, forced upwards by, or (of course), about to be crushed by an entire wall of spikes which decides to start moving. More mischievous developers may also rely upon this same knowledge of 'spike safety' in quite a different way by making a certain patch of spikes breakable or even just a harmless illusion, completely blocking progress (usually poor design) or blocking off a handy upgrade (better design) with this neat trick. It is also easy to innovate with spikes because of just how frequently they appear as a complete hazard; give the player a way to nullify or outright destroy spikes, such as in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, or make spikes function differently than usual, such as in Spelunky where they can be safely touched from the sides, and the player will likely be thrilled at this surprising break from tradition.
Ease of Creation: This is another big reason and one which was touched on in Ease of Identification because it overlaps somewhat. To put it simply, spikes are really easy to make; as long is it's sharp and pointy, it's probably easy to identify as a spike. For a start, this means they're easy to make for independent developers regardless of artistic talent. More importantly, this means they're flexible. It's very easy to make spikes of any size without risking the loss of identity, so for 2D games this means spikes can be used to fill up a full tile, half a tile, multiple tiles, or any other space while for 3D games the size and quantity can also easily be adjusted to fill any given region. Spikes also fit into hitboxes exceptionally well; while other hazards such as fire, lightning, or poison can be a nightmare for developers and/or players when it comes to identifying just where they end and where they begin, spikes have a clearly defined width and height and can easily be fit into a 'box'; even if there is a lot of 'empty space' to the sides of a spike at its tip, a developer needs only to add in one or two more overlapping spikes and the problem is solved.
So, that's some of the basics of spikes. They're easy for players to identify and easy for developers to create. They can be placed just about anywhere in many different sizes, shapes, and quantities. They even can be used to play with expectations and surprise players in various ways throughout a game. Gamers and developers alike love, hate, and love to hate spikes, but they have served video games well for decades and likely will continue to do so for many years to come.
Versatility of Placement: One of the main reasons spikes are used in many games is they are simply easy to use just about anywhere. Unlike other environmental hazards such as lava, poison, or electricity, which all either have to have a 'source' (ex: cut wires for electricity) or generally appear in specific ways (ex: lava is almost always exclusively on the ground), spikes can be attached to just abut anything without looking silly or odd. They can be placed on ceilings, on floors, on walls, on enemies, and just about anything else at any angle and still look 'natural'. Spike placement is especially versatile because they can be placed directly on top of surfaces, inside surfaces (spike traps), or alongside surfaces (spike pits) and, maybe most importantly of all, they can be placed on multiple sides of surfaces to allow for things such as blocks which can be safely touched from the bottom, but not from any other direction.
 |
| Spikes can be placed in all sorts of areas |
Versatility of Movement: Not only can spikes be placed just about anywhere, they can also move just about anywhere. They can suddenly stab outward from traps in the floor or walls, they can drop, they can be tossed out at all sorts of angles by enemies, and they can even shoot up or horizontally. While spikes generally move in a straight line, they can come from just about any source at any angle and any speed.
Ease of Identification: This may very well be the most important reason why spikes are so beloved by developers. If you've played a decent number of games, you can probably recall at least one time when you encountered an object which you simply couldn't identify - a power-up that looked like a bullet, an enemy which looked like a healing item, a damaging platform which looked safe, something in the background which you thought was in the same plane as your character, etc. The point is, you've probably taken damage from what you thought was an 'upgrade' or passed up a threatening-looking health capsule or some other unfortunate event simply because you had no idea what it was you were looking at. However, only in extremely rare circumstances is this the case with spikes. Part of this is due to just how common they are in games in the first place; play a handful of games and you'll know to avoid them. Yet, the main strength behind spikes is they are easy to identify as 'threatening' even for a person who has never before played a game. Regardless of if the spikes in question are tall, short, skinny, fat, singular, multiple, made of metal, or made of stone, they likely look sharp and pointy and not at all like things a person would generally think look safe to touch. A pit may look like a tunnel, a bullet an upgrade, and a background tile a platform, but spikes will almost certainly always look like a hazard. Which is why the next reason is...
 |
| Spikes are easy to identify regardless of perspective. |
Surprise: Spikes are so easy to identify as something to avoid that they make the perfect environmental tool for toying with a player's expectations. A player may very well know to avoid spikes and be safe in the knowledge that as long as he or she stays away from them the quest can continue, yet this sense of 'safety' is exactly what will allow the player to be caught off guard when a slightly off-colored spike suddenly shoots or falls away from its brethren straight onto the player's head. On a similar note, since spikes are so frequently attached to surfaces, it is not uncommon for players to suddenly find themselves being chased by, forced upwards by, or (of course), about to be crushed by an entire wall of spikes which decides to start moving. More mischievous developers may also rely upon this same knowledge of 'spike safety' in quite a different way by making a certain patch of spikes breakable or even just a harmless illusion, completely blocking progress (usually poor design) or blocking off a handy upgrade (better design) with this neat trick. It is also easy to innovate with spikes because of just how frequently they appear as a complete hazard; give the player a way to nullify or outright destroy spikes, such as in Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, or make spikes function differently than usual, such as in Spelunky where they can be safely touched from the sides, and the player will likely be thrilled at this surprising break from tradition.
 |
| Games like I Wanna Be The Guy use spikes to take advantage of player assumptions. |
Ease of Creation: This is another big reason and one which was touched on in Ease of Identification because it overlaps somewhat. To put it simply, spikes are really easy to make; as long is it's sharp and pointy, it's probably easy to identify as a spike. For a start, this means they're easy to make for independent developers regardless of artistic talent. More importantly, this means they're flexible. It's very easy to make spikes of any size without risking the loss of identity, so for 2D games this means spikes can be used to fill up a full tile, half a tile, multiple tiles, or any other space while for 3D games the size and quantity can also easily be adjusted to fill any given region. Spikes also fit into hitboxes exceptionally well; while other hazards such as fire, lightning, or poison can be a nightmare for developers and/or players when it comes to identifying just where they end and where they begin, spikes have a clearly defined width and height and can easily be fit into a 'box'; even if there is a lot of 'empty space' to the sides of a spike at its tip, a developer needs only to add in one or two more overlapping spikes and the problem is solved.
So, that's some of the basics of spikes. They're easy for players to identify and easy for developers to create. They can be placed just about anywhere in many different sizes, shapes, and quantities. They even can be used to play with expectations and surprise players in various ways throughout a game. Gamers and developers alike love, hate, and love to hate spikes, but they have served video games well for decades and likely will continue to do so for many years to come.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
Game Alert: Fraxy
Fraxy is one of the best 'things' out there for fans of shoot-em-ups, especially since it's 100% free with no strings attached, and it has developed a loyal, if rather niche, fanbase over the years. But pinpointing just what Fraxy is can be a rather difficult task.
Well, it may be best to start by looking at what you get out of Fraxy when ignoring the community and the editor (two of Fraxy's biggest strengths). In this simplistic look, Fraxy is basically a shoot-em-up boss rush game. Players control a ship which has multiple weapons that can be switched between as well as a 'boost' feature for getting out of the way of attacks. Shooting and boosting both drain energy, which is used for health as well, so constantly moving fast and attacking generally results in having such low energy that even the smallest of attacks instantly destroys the ship; energy regenerates quickly though so taking a small break will generally put it back up to full in about a second, although the rate energy drains and restores at depends on the ship chosen and weapons used.
Bosses can be chosen from a list or selected randomly and the ones which come by default with the game are generally simplistic and fairly easy to kill, but bosses can be set to become more aggressive after each defeat so even these can be threatening in the long run. Bosses in Fraxy are composed of a central 'core' and various breakable and non-breakable parts which function in a parent/child way, so killing the 'parent' part, such as a subcore, can destroy 'child' parts of the boss associated with it while killing the main core kills the boss outright. Possibly the most unusual part about Fraxy is the 'arena' these bosses are generally fought in; while it is possible to set a fight to take place in a fixed screen, generally both the player and the boss can move around in any direction with the only risk being that getting too far from the boss destroys it and restarts the fight. There are also infinite continues, so boss fights in Fraxy are technically impossible to lose, but the fun comes from trying to kill bosses in as few lives as possible.
When the editor and community are taken into account, Fraxy becomes significantly more complicated. The editor offers well over 200 parts to play around with, some of which are purely aesthetic, but many of which have actual functions. On top of this, Each part is highly modifiable as most have several default 'behaviors' to choose from which can significantly impact how the part functions and traits such as health, vulnerability, and when/if it is visible can all easily be tinkered with. There are also more complex functions, such as event triggers, which can be used to make the parts do some truly surprising and impressive things. In short, the editor is simple enough for those who just want to make a quick boss in a handful of minutes, but it has enough hidden complexity and flexibility built into it that it is just as easy to spend dozens, or even hundreds, of hours carefully crafting an extremely impressive boss fight for those who choose to do so.
Even those who do not enjoy creating bosses themselves can enjoy the thousands of bosses the Fraxy community has created over the years. There are bosses for just about any type of shoot-em-up fan. Some bosses stick to Fraxy's standard form of combat, others are bullethell-style fights, many have multiple forms or phases or consist of multiple bosses while others are short and sweet, some boss fights are in fixed screens while others allow free movement, some bosses simply look cool, some emulate fights from other games, some fights have scrolling walls, some are vertical while others are horizontal (such as the Palenque fight I discussed previously), and some 'boss fights' are outright entire levels; people have even created various mods which change some of the core mechanics of Fraxy. So, if you like any type of shoot-em-up at all, you're bound to like at least some of the things people have created with Fraxy.
Due to Fraxy's flexible nature as both a game and a tool, it's difficult to find much in the way of fault with it. Perhaps the one 'issue' with the game is it takes at least a small amount of commitment on the player's part to get the most out of it. The bosses which come with the game are fairly dull and tend on the easy and simplistic side, so players will need to look around the Internet for better challenges. While there are several sites which offer dozens or hundreds of bosses, I have found that many members of the community simply post their bosses on YouTube or similar sites with a download link in the description, so there is no one 'definitive source' for Fraxy bosses. The editor also can take a while to get used to as there is no built-in tutorial and it can seem a bit overwhelming at first, but I have found that the best way to get accustomed to the editor is to just try it out for a few hours and tinker around with some of the mechanics as it's fairly easy to understand once you get a hang of just what everything does.
Otherwise, I'd suggest fans of any sort of shoot-em-up to go check it out and even those who normally don't care for the genre may want to give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised.
The official homepage with the latest versions can be found HERE
The Fraxy Compendium has plenty of bosses HERE
The Fraxy HQ forum is another good source HERE
A video and download link to one of my bosses can be found HERE
Well, it may be best to start by looking at what you get out of Fraxy when ignoring the community and the editor (two of Fraxy's biggest strengths). In this simplistic look, Fraxy is basically a shoot-em-up boss rush game. Players control a ship which has multiple weapons that can be switched between as well as a 'boost' feature for getting out of the way of attacks. Shooting and boosting both drain energy, which is used for health as well, so constantly moving fast and attacking generally results in having such low energy that even the smallest of attacks instantly destroys the ship; energy regenerates quickly though so taking a small break will generally put it back up to full in about a second, although the rate energy drains and restores at depends on the ship chosen and weapons used.
Bosses can be chosen from a list or selected randomly and the ones which come by default with the game are generally simplistic and fairly easy to kill, but bosses can be set to become more aggressive after each defeat so even these can be threatening in the long run. Bosses in Fraxy are composed of a central 'core' and various breakable and non-breakable parts which function in a parent/child way, so killing the 'parent' part, such as a subcore, can destroy 'child' parts of the boss associated with it while killing the main core kills the boss outright. Possibly the most unusual part about Fraxy is the 'arena' these bosses are generally fought in; while it is possible to set a fight to take place in a fixed screen, generally both the player and the boss can move around in any direction with the only risk being that getting too far from the boss destroys it and restarts the fight. There are also infinite continues, so boss fights in Fraxy are technically impossible to lose, but the fun comes from trying to kill bosses in as few lives as possible.
When the editor and community are taken into account, Fraxy becomes significantly more complicated. The editor offers well over 200 parts to play around with, some of which are purely aesthetic, but many of which have actual functions. On top of this, Each part is highly modifiable as most have several default 'behaviors' to choose from which can significantly impact how the part functions and traits such as health, vulnerability, and when/if it is visible can all easily be tinkered with. There are also more complex functions, such as event triggers, which can be used to make the parts do some truly surprising and impressive things. In short, the editor is simple enough for those who just want to make a quick boss in a handful of minutes, but it has enough hidden complexity and flexibility built into it that it is just as easy to spend dozens, or even hundreds, of hours carefully crafting an extremely impressive boss fight for those who choose to do so.
Even those who do not enjoy creating bosses themselves can enjoy the thousands of bosses the Fraxy community has created over the years. There are bosses for just about any type of shoot-em-up fan. Some bosses stick to Fraxy's standard form of combat, others are bullethell-style fights, many have multiple forms or phases or consist of multiple bosses while others are short and sweet, some boss fights are in fixed screens while others allow free movement, some bosses simply look cool, some emulate fights from other games, some fights have scrolling walls, some are vertical while others are horizontal (such as the Palenque fight I discussed previously), and some 'boss fights' are outright entire levels; people have even created various mods which change some of the core mechanics of Fraxy. So, if you like any type of shoot-em-up at all, you're bound to like at least some of the things people have created with Fraxy.
 |
| Fraxy bosses can |
 |
| have lots of |
 |
| variety! |
Due to Fraxy's flexible nature as both a game and a tool, it's difficult to find much in the way of fault with it. Perhaps the one 'issue' with the game is it takes at least a small amount of commitment on the player's part to get the most out of it. The bosses which come with the game are fairly dull and tend on the easy and simplistic side, so players will need to look around the Internet for better challenges. While there are several sites which offer dozens or hundreds of bosses, I have found that many members of the community simply post their bosses on YouTube or similar sites with a download link in the description, so there is no one 'definitive source' for Fraxy bosses. The editor also can take a while to get used to as there is no built-in tutorial and it can seem a bit overwhelming at first, but I have found that the best way to get accustomed to the editor is to just try it out for a few hours and tinker around with some of the mechanics as it's fairly easy to understand once you get a hang of just what everything does.
Otherwise, I'd suggest fans of any sort of shoot-em-up to go check it out and even those who normally don't care for the genre may want to give it a try, you might be pleasantly surprised.
The official homepage with the latest versions can be found HERE
The Fraxy Compendium has plenty of bosses HERE
The Fraxy HQ forum is another good source HERE
A video and download link to one of my bosses can be found HERE
Friday, August 17, 2012
Video Game Death Penalties Part 1
Anyone reading this probably knows what a Game Over is, yet it is far from the only penalty for dying in a video game. Over the years, a surprising amount of ways of penalizing players for dying have been invented, each with their own strengths and weaknesses. In this article, we'll be looking at some of the most prevalent types and looking at the pros and cons of each of them as well as just which types of games they are good (or bad) for.
Literal Game Over: In this case, the words Game Over are taken on a simplistic, literal level. The player has no more chances and the game is at an end and must be restarted from the beginning with nothing carried over. This was one of the earliest death penalties and is most prevalent on systems up to the 8-bit era, although it has faded away over time to the point that it's actually probably one of the rarer penalties now. This penalty is suitable for shoot-em-ups and other games of under an hour in length as it generates a large amount of tension for players while not actually taking away too much progress. Games which take longer than an hour to complete or which do not grant the player roughly ten lives are usually poor fits for this penalty as frequent restarts or losing large amounts of progress are both scenarios which result in frustration and outright boredom.
Insert Coin: This penalty is exclusive to arcade games because it involves real money. Instead of an in-game penalty for failure, the player is penalized for dying through needing to pay more money (almost always equal to the initial cost to start playing, which is usually a quarter) in order to avoid a Game Over. This was a brilliant strategy back in the day of arcades for three reasons. First, it works in a similar way to modern-day 'microtransactions' in that the total amount of money spent seems like less than it actually is because it is spread out in small increments; paying $5 all at once for twenty continues would probably make most people hesitate, but paying this same amount or more over the course of a game is much harder to take notice of. Secondly, it is a self-motivating way to keep people playing; even if the final boss of a game constantly kills the player in a handful of seconds, many players would be more than willing to continuously pay this 'death penalty' because of all the money they already spent to make it to that point. Finally, this penalty is a payment towards the ability to continue playing and little else; the player is not buying the game so regardless of if he or she wins or quits, all progress is inevitably lost and at a bare minimum a person would have to pay the fee to start up the game on any subsequent replays.
Non-literal Game Over: Unlike a literal Game Over, this does not result in a complete loss of progress. Instead, once all lives are lost the player is simply sent back to the beginning of a level or an area, such as in Mega Man games. This penalty can be found in more or less any genre and makes a nice fit for most of them too. It's a steep enough penalty that it still gives players a sense of tension if they are low on lives, but ultimately results in only a few minutes of progress loss. The only games this would be a bad penalty for are ones with notably long, involved, or exceedingly difficult areas.
Back to Save: As the name suggests, this penalty sends the player back to the last time progress was saved, either at a savepoint or in general. Players still lose progress, but it allows for large dungeons to be broken up into sections while still technically only giving the player one life. This was, and likely still is, most commonly found in RPG's as savepoints served not only as checkpoints, but also as a way of hinting to players that they should prepare for a boss fight or some other challenge in the near future. The downside to this system when it revolves around savepoints is in many cases (though not usually in more modern games) this can result in needing to rewatch cutscenes, needing to go through a long part of the game again if savepoints are placed poorly (such as after a boss fight instead of before it), and/or becoming outright stuck in the middle of a dungeon without the proper supplies or stats needed to progress. With the popularization of autosaves and the ability to simply save anywhere, some of these issues have been fixed or reduced, but autosaves can still leave players stranded in poor locations and the ability to save anywhere when not paired with frequent autosaves can often lead to players losing an hour or more of progress simply because of the lack of savepoints to remind them when to actually save.
Money Loss: Another common penalty for RPG's and my personal favorite. This penalty can seem steep as it often involves the player losing a significant amount of money, usually half, and being sent back to the nearest town or an equivalent 'safe area'; party members other than the protagonist also sometimes remain dead and must be revived. However, there are several substantial benefits to this penalty when used properly. First, nearly all games which utilize this system have a bank to store money in to prevent it from being lost and/or an 'equivalent exchange' type of item which can be bought and sold for the same price so the actual penalty is usually quite small unless the player found a large amount of money while inside a dungeon. Secondly, this penalty allows a player to keep all experience points earned and items found before death, so a player will not only be able to go through a dungeon faster and more efficiently on a second attempt due to being stronger and better geared, but also because he or she will know the way up to the point he or she died at without needing to waste time and resources running into dead ends or taking sidepaths to find loot since they still have it. This can be problematic in games which don't have a way of storing money or which have excessively long dungeons, but it is otherwise usually a minor penalty which takes away little in the way of progression. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls use a fairly unique version of this system which is worth mentioning as souls are used both as money and experience points and all souls carried are lost upon death, but reaching the point of death without dying a second time results in being able to gain them all back.
Refight: This is a penalty which has become common in modern RPG's and games with RPG elements. Upon loss, the player is simply asked if he or she wants to retry, with an affirmative answer leading to the ability to simply restart the fight against whichever creature he or she lost to with no other penalty while declining results in a Game Over and being sent back to the last save. This is especially useful for games with challenging bosses as it allows players to formulate a strategy against a boss and not need to worry about any progress loss other than against the boss itself upon defeat. However, even more action-oriented games often utilize this system by taking the player to the beginning of a room he or she died in. There aren't really any downsides to this method since it is a very minor penalty, but not outright insignificant as players still need to worry about staying alive on a fight-by-fight basis.
Permanent Death: This is very common in rogue-likes and very rare everywhere else. If the player dies even once, all progress is completely lost and the player must restart from scratch. It adds an enormous amount of tension to games as it is even more punishing than a typical Game Over (which usually only occurs after multiple deaths). This can be a useful way to make players think carefully about their every move and is usually paired up with short games or ones with random generation as a way of increasing replayability. The downside to this penalty is it can be outright frustrating, especially if used in a lengthy game, and may result in players simply giving up or not wanting to start at all instead of being encouraged to to utilize knowledge gained and be more careful on future attempts.
Carry Over: A 'softer' version of permanent death which borrows a little from money loss. Players are still given only one life in most instances and death is still permanent, but there isn't a complete loss of progress. When players restart with this penalty, something carries over from their last run, such as an item/items, a percentage of stats, and/or actual progress (dungeon warp activations and other such shortcuts). Thus, even though players restart from the beginning with a new character, they get a bit more of a boost to make the second run easier than the first; depending on what carries over and in what quantity, this can be a constant cumulative increase so that every run is easier than the last. This is usually found in rogue-likes (and the Lufia series's randomized Ancient Dungeon does it too) and usually makes for a good balance of harsh without being entirely frustrating. It can be a downside for veteran players of rogue-likes who are more accustomed to permanent death, but it is otherwise a suitable penalty for newer players or for those who become bored or frustrated after potentially losing several hours of progress.
Score Loss: This penalty can either be great or horrible depending on the game and the game's audience. This is most commonly found in shoot-em-ups and other short games which focus on replay value. With score loss, players can continue as many times as they want right from where they left off, even in the middle of a boss fight, but their score is either severely reduced or outright reset. This allows new players to 'learn' a game and even players who aren't particularly good at a game can still reach the end if they persevere while it serves as a steep enough penalty for veteran players that they may outright restart the game instead of continue on with a low score. This is great for games with online leaderboards (and, in the past, arcade games) with competitive communities. On the other hand, games without online leaderboards which are played in the house instead of in an arcade, such as many NES games, have little to no competition so in these cases, and in the case of players who simply don't care about score, the 'penalty' can seem so insignificant that any sense of challenge or any desire to 'play well' are erased.
MMORPG Penalties: There are many penalties which are commonly found in MMORPG's yet which are rare in other genres. Generally, these penalties are timesinks which would be ill fits for single player games, but which are excellent (as far as developers are concerned) for multiplayer games as they help to keep people playing for long periods of time. There are enough of these that they will be covered in their own segment in the near future.
Literal Game Over: In this case, the words Game Over are taken on a simplistic, literal level. The player has no more chances and the game is at an end and must be restarted from the beginning with nothing carried over. This was one of the earliest death penalties and is most prevalent on systems up to the 8-bit era, although it has faded away over time to the point that it's actually probably one of the rarer penalties now. This penalty is suitable for shoot-em-ups and other games of under an hour in length as it generates a large amount of tension for players while not actually taking away too much progress. Games which take longer than an hour to complete or which do not grant the player roughly ten lives are usually poor fits for this penalty as frequent restarts or losing large amounts of progress are both scenarios which result in frustration and outright boredom.
Insert Coin: This penalty is exclusive to arcade games because it involves real money. Instead of an in-game penalty for failure, the player is penalized for dying through needing to pay more money (almost always equal to the initial cost to start playing, which is usually a quarter) in order to avoid a Game Over. This was a brilliant strategy back in the day of arcades for three reasons. First, it works in a similar way to modern-day 'microtransactions' in that the total amount of money spent seems like less than it actually is because it is spread out in small increments; paying $5 all at once for twenty continues would probably make most people hesitate, but paying this same amount or more over the course of a game is much harder to take notice of. Secondly, it is a self-motivating way to keep people playing; even if the final boss of a game constantly kills the player in a handful of seconds, many players would be more than willing to continuously pay this 'death penalty' because of all the money they already spent to make it to that point. Finally, this penalty is a payment towards the ability to continue playing and little else; the player is not buying the game so regardless of if he or she wins or quits, all progress is inevitably lost and at a bare minimum a person would have to pay the fee to start up the game on any subsequent replays.
Non-literal Game Over: Unlike a literal Game Over, this does not result in a complete loss of progress. Instead, once all lives are lost the player is simply sent back to the beginning of a level or an area, such as in Mega Man games. This penalty can be found in more or less any genre and makes a nice fit for most of them too. It's a steep enough penalty that it still gives players a sense of tension if they are low on lives, but ultimately results in only a few minutes of progress loss. The only games this would be a bad penalty for are ones with notably long, involved, or exceedingly difficult areas.
Back to Save: As the name suggests, this penalty sends the player back to the last time progress was saved, either at a savepoint or in general. Players still lose progress, but it allows for large dungeons to be broken up into sections while still technically only giving the player one life. This was, and likely still is, most commonly found in RPG's as savepoints served not only as checkpoints, but also as a way of hinting to players that they should prepare for a boss fight or some other challenge in the near future. The downside to this system when it revolves around savepoints is in many cases (though not usually in more modern games) this can result in needing to rewatch cutscenes, needing to go through a long part of the game again if savepoints are placed poorly (such as after a boss fight instead of before it), and/or becoming outright stuck in the middle of a dungeon without the proper supplies or stats needed to progress. With the popularization of autosaves and the ability to simply save anywhere, some of these issues have been fixed or reduced, but autosaves can still leave players stranded in poor locations and the ability to save anywhere when not paired with frequent autosaves can often lead to players losing an hour or more of progress simply because of the lack of savepoints to remind them when to actually save.
Money Loss: Another common penalty for RPG's and my personal favorite. This penalty can seem steep as it often involves the player losing a significant amount of money, usually half, and being sent back to the nearest town or an equivalent 'safe area'; party members other than the protagonist also sometimes remain dead and must be revived. However, there are several substantial benefits to this penalty when used properly. First, nearly all games which utilize this system have a bank to store money in to prevent it from being lost and/or an 'equivalent exchange' type of item which can be bought and sold for the same price so the actual penalty is usually quite small unless the player found a large amount of money while inside a dungeon. Secondly, this penalty allows a player to keep all experience points earned and items found before death, so a player will not only be able to go through a dungeon faster and more efficiently on a second attempt due to being stronger and better geared, but also because he or she will know the way up to the point he or she died at without needing to waste time and resources running into dead ends or taking sidepaths to find loot since they still have it. This can be problematic in games which don't have a way of storing money or which have excessively long dungeons, but it is otherwise usually a minor penalty which takes away little in the way of progression. Demon's Souls and Dark Souls use a fairly unique version of this system which is worth mentioning as souls are used both as money and experience points and all souls carried are lost upon death, but reaching the point of death without dying a second time results in being able to gain them all back.
Refight: This is a penalty which has become common in modern RPG's and games with RPG elements. Upon loss, the player is simply asked if he or she wants to retry, with an affirmative answer leading to the ability to simply restart the fight against whichever creature he or she lost to with no other penalty while declining results in a Game Over and being sent back to the last save. This is especially useful for games with challenging bosses as it allows players to formulate a strategy against a boss and not need to worry about any progress loss other than against the boss itself upon defeat. However, even more action-oriented games often utilize this system by taking the player to the beginning of a room he or she died in. There aren't really any downsides to this method since it is a very minor penalty, but not outright insignificant as players still need to worry about staying alive on a fight-by-fight basis.
Permanent Death: This is very common in rogue-likes and very rare everywhere else. If the player dies even once, all progress is completely lost and the player must restart from scratch. It adds an enormous amount of tension to games as it is even more punishing than a typical Game Over (which usually only occurs after multiple deaths). This can be a useful way to make players think carefully about their every move and is usually paired up with short games or ones with random generation as a way of increasing replayability. The downside to this penalty is it can be outright frustrating, especially if used in a lengthy game, and may result in players simply giving up or not wanting to start at all instead of being encouraged to to utilize knowledge gained and be more careful on future attempts.
Carry Over: A 'softer' version of permanent death which borrows a little from money loss. Players are still given only one life in most instances and death is still permanent, but there isn't a complete loss of progress. When players restart with this penalty, something carries over from their last run, such as an item/items, a percentage of stats, and/or actual progress (dungeon warp activations and other such shortcuts). Thus, even though players restart from the beginning with a new character, they get a bit more of a boost to make the second run easier than the first; depending on what carries over and in what quantity, this can be a constant cumulative increase so that every run is easier than the last. This is usually found in rogue-likes (and the Lufia series's randomized Ancient Dungeon does it too) and usually makes for a good balance of harsh without being entirely frustrating. It can be a downside for veteran players of rogue-likes who are more accustomed to permanent death, but it is otherwise a suitable penalty for newer players or for those who become bored or frustrated after potentially losing several hours of progress.
Score Loss: This penalty can either be great or horrible depending on the game and the game's audience. This is most commonly found in shoot-em-ups and other short games which focus on replay value. With score loss, players can continue as many times as they want right from where they left off, even in the middle of a boss fight, but their score is either severely reduced or outright reset. This allows new players to 'learn' a game and even players who aren't particularly good at a game can still reach the end if they persevere while it serves as a steep enough penalty for veteran players that they may outright restart the game instead of continue on with a low score. This is great for games with online leaderboards (and, in the past, arcade games) with competitive communities. On the other hand, games without online leaderboards which are played in the house instead of in an arcade, such as many NES games, have little to no competition so in these cases, and in the case of players who simply don't care about score, the 'penalty' can seem so insignificant that any sense of challenge or any desire to 'play well' are erased.
MMORPG Penalties: There are many penalties which are commonly found in MMORPG's yet which are rare in other genres. Generally, these penalties are timesinks which would be ill fits for single player games, but which are excellent (as far as developers are concerned) for multiplayer games as they help to keep people playing for long periods of time. There are enough of these that they will be covered in their own segment in the near future.
Sunday, August 12, 2012
Game Complete!
It took longer than expected, but Enrasil's Prison is now complete. It is an RPG Maker game made for a mapping contest where the requirement was to make a dungeon using only one map. I decided to avoid combat and instead it focusing on plot and puzzles.
It's most heavily inspired by La Mulana and Dark Souls as far as storytelling goes as information about the setting and the characters is initially sparse with the puzzles and flavor text found through environmental interactions primarily serving to flesh out the world; I still have more outright exposition than I would have liked, but i do not believe it to be an overly excessive amount. The puzzles themselves are also somewhat inspired by these two games as looking for and correctly interpreting clues found in the environment is essential and several of the puzzles are designed to be near-impossible to simply brute force.
The part that I'm happiest with is probably the way the puzzles themselves are setup. There are only 3 puzzles absolutely needed to reach the end, but players will need to find additional puzzles to acquire mysterious chants needed to actually finish the game with the paths to these additional puzzles generally being hidden within the 3 main puzzles and sharing a common theme or element. I also am happy with the way the music turned out; I spent a lot of time searching for appropriate music (legally free with the respective artists given credit within the game of course), and I am happy with the end result. I also think the story and the characterization of Gil, the protagonist, turned out better than I was expecting them to.
Now for things I don't like about my game. For a start, it mainly sticks to RTP graphics 9the basic graphics for RPG Maker games); this was a decision I made early on since I wasn't too familiar with map building and worried about not being able to find consistent tilesets within the time constraints, but it still looks bland, generic, and is easily the top priority amongst 'things that I would change' if I ever remade Enrasil's Prison in the future. Secondly, there aren't emotion-based character portraits; Gil only has one portrait used for whenever he talks and, while this is in part due to the limitations of RPG Maker's character generator, it annoys me and is again something I would change in a remake. Third, the game has a boss fight in it (although said fight is itself more of a puzzle than an actual fight) and I am happy with the fight itself, but I had to draw the boss myself and stuck with the default background; my drawing skills are poor to say the least and the background is of course bland because it's default so for a full-fledged remake I'd hire/find a graphic artist since I wouldn't have a three-week time constraint. Fourth, too much empty space; I wanted to give players the impression of being surrounded by a massive dark abyss and to somewhat emulate the style of some dungeons in The 7th Saga, but the screen simply isn't used to its fullest potential in the end and it needs more platforms and rooms closer together, so a complete layout redesign is another thing I would change in a remake. Fifth, this was a 'learn as I go' project, I'm ultimately happy with the end result, but the event handling in the earlier parts could have been done much more efficiently had I been more familiar with the program. Sixth, I do have one very lengthy exposition dump near the end of the game which fills in a lot of the backstory; I probably could have easily spread this information out with better planning and more content (something like the dog fetch quest in Cave Story would have been preferable, a bit tedious and still an exposition dump, but spread out a bit). Finally, seventh, the game gets a bit laggy at some points. The lag is due to roughly 700 events all being crammed into a single map for the sake of the contest, so it's not really something that could be helped without removing several events or shortening the game, but it still annoys me so of course a future remake would spread the content across multiple maps to remove lag.
So those are my thoughts on my own game. I'm not going to cut it slack, it feels like a 'my first RPG' (largely because it is) and there are a lot of things about it that I would like to change. On the other hand, it still turned out better than I was expecting it to and simply finishing it is something I'm happy about. I also think the puzzles and/or plot are things at least some people may legitimately enjoy, so I still would appreciate it if people gave it a shot.
The link to the contest with everyone's entries can be found here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/4347/
The download to my game specifically can be found here: http://www.mediafire.com/?pdj3cj5qaxuqu34
The VX Ace RTP needed to actually play the game is here: http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/download/run-time-package
It's most heavily inspired by La Mulana and Dark Souls as far as storytelling goes as information about the setting and the characters is initially sparse with the puzzles and flavor text found through environmental interactions primarily serving to flesh out the world; I still have more outright exposition than I would have liked, but i do not believe it to be an overly excessive amount. The puzzles themselves are also somewhat inspired by these two games as looking for and correctly interpreting clues found in the environment is essential and several of the puzzles are designed to be near-impossible to simply brute force.
 |
| This innocent-looking setup is probably by far the hardest puzzle in the game. |
The part that I'm happiest with is probably the way the puzzles themselves are setup. There are only 3 puzzles absolutely needed to reach the end, but players will need to find additional puzzles to acquire mysterious chants needed to actually finish the game with the paths to these additional puzzles generally being hidden within the 3 main puzzles and sharing a common theme or element. I also am happy with the way the music turned out; I spent a lot of time searching for appropriate music (legally free with the respective artists given credit within the game of course), and I am happy with the end result. I also think the story and the characterization of Gil, the protagonist, turned out better than I was expecting them to.
Now for things I don't like about my game. For a start, it mainly sticks to RTP graphics 9the basic graphics for RPG Maker games); this was a decision I made early on since I wasn't too familiar with map building and worried about not being able to find consistent tilesets within the time constraints, but it still looks bland, generic, and is easily the top priority amongst 'things that I would change' if I ever remade Enrasil's Prison in the future. Secondly, there aren't emotion-based character portraits; Gil only has one portrait used for whenever he talks and, while this is in part due to the limitations of RPG Maker's character generator, it annoys me and is again something I would change in a remake. Third, the game has a boss fight in it (although said fight is itself more of a puzzle than an actual fight) and I am happy with the fight itself, but I had to draw the boss myself and stuck with the default background; my drawing skills are poor to say the least and the background is of course bland because it's default so for a full-fledged remake I'd hire/find a graphic artist since I wouldn't have a three-week time constraint. Fourth, too much empty space; I wanted to give players the impression of being surrounded by a massive dark abyss and to somewhat emulate the style of some dungeons in The 7th Saga, but the screen simply isn't used to its fullest potential in the end and it needs more platforms and rooms closer together, so a complete layout redesign is another thing I would change in a remake. Fifth, this was a 'learn as I go' project, I'm ultimately happy with the end result, but the event handling in the earlier parts could have been done much more efficiently had I been more familiar with the program. Sixth, I do have one very lengthy exposition dump near the end of the game which fills in a lot of the backstory; I probably could have easily spread this information out with better planning and more content (something like the dog fetch quest in Cave Story would have been preferable, a bit tedious and still an exposition dump, but spread out a bit). Finally, seventh, the game gets a bit laggy at some points. The lag is due to roughly 700 events all being crammed into a single map for the sake of the contest, so it's not really something that could be helped without removing several events or shortening the game, but it still annoys me so of course a future remake would spread the content across multiple maps to remove lag.
So those are my thoughts on my own game. I'm not going to cut it slack, it feels like a 'my first RPG' (largely because it is) and there are a lot of things about it that I would like to change. On the other hand, it still turned out better than I was expecting it to and simply finishing it is something I'm happy about. I also think the puzzles and/or plot are things at least some people may legitimately enjoy, so I still would appreciate it if people gave it a shot.
The link to the contest with everyone's entries can be found here: http://rpgmaker.net/games/4347/
The download to my game specifically can be found here: http://www.mediafire.com/?pdj3cj5qaxuqu34
The VX Ace RTP needed to actually play the game is here: http://www.rpgmakerweb.com/download/run-time-package
Friday, August 3, 2012
Game Alert: Banana Nababa
For a game consisting of only six boss fights, Banana Nababa generated a fair amount of attention when it first came out and a sequel was in development for quite some time, but since then the sequel is all but cancelled and Banana Nababa itself has gradually faded into the murky depths of the past. Which is a shame, since it's quite fun.
Players take on the role of Harry Flowerpower, off to save Neo-Africa from a Wizard's curse by collecting six mystical hearts and...yeah, the little plot that it has is far from serious. To keep things simple: the game consists of using axes and spears to kill six bosses which are each located on a higher level of a tower (no, you don't get to physically climb the tower).
Boss fights in Banana Nababa may be all that it has, but they get quite involved. Most of the bosses either have two or three forms, so learning how to mitigate damage while taking on the first form or two is essential as health pickups are generally few and far between. The first two bosses of the game are challenging, but can be defeated after an attempt or two while the latter four bosses can take may attempts as they can get very involved. For example, the first form of the third boss hops around while spewing purple globs on the ground which slow the player while stepping in them while also shooting out homing bullets which not only cause damage, but temporarily disable attacks; there are even instant-death pits on both sides of the boss room just to top it all off.
The weapons and movement are probably both one of the strongest and weakest parts of Banana Nababa. Players have both an axe and a spear and can quickly switch between the two of them at any time. The axe has a short range, but has a high vertical arc while the spear can go far, but sticks close to the ground. The weapons simply compliment each other nicely and players will generally need to utilize both of them between the various phases of the boss fights. Jumping is a bit stiff and takes a while to get used to, but fights are designed to take this into account and a somewhat more floaty jump would probably only make many of the attacks harder to avoid.
The downside to all this is weapons are highly spammable, but the button cannot simply be held down, so your fingers can start to feel sore from all the rapid button pressing after a while. In addition, the controls themselves are odd with jumping assigned to C and F, attacking to V and G, and weapon switches to the space bar, although this can of course be easily alleviated with the use of a controller.
Aesthetically, Banana Nababa is simple, yet pleasant. It sticks to a color scheme consisting mainly of a yellowish orange, red, green, and grey, but the colors work together well and bosses are simplistic in terms of their basic design, yet are creative and surprisingly detailed overall. Harry Flowerpower himself joins the ranks of Ogmo and Meat Boy as yet another indie game protagonist who is memorable and charming despite being little other than a square with basic facial features. Judging by the Readme included with the game, none of the music is original, but it is honestly hard to tell as the songs chosen fit perfectly and are both energetic and catchy.
Banana Nababa also has a few things which give it a high amount of replay value. The biggest draw is bosses can be refought after initially defeating them and both time and score are tracked; there are unfortunately no online leaderboards, but trying to beat your own records is still fun and most fights last somewhere in the 1-3 minute range, so it's a great game to pull out for a few minutes every now and then. Secondly, Banana Nababa comes with an editable Game Maker file, so those familiar with Game Maker can modify the bosses and add new ones (or change the controls).
Overall, Banana Nababa is short, addictive, and lots of fun. It makes an especially great game for anyone looking for something they can go back to and simply play for a few minutes every now and then.
Banana Nababa can be found here: http://www.thegamehippo.com/game/33
A video of the sequel/remake that never was can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J_YmkwKUwY
Players take on the role of Harry Flowerpower, off to save Neo-Africa from a Wizard's curse by collecting six mystical hearts and...yeah, the little plot that it has is far from serious. To keep things simple: the game consists of using axes and spears to kill six bosses which are each located on a higher level of a tower (no, you don't get to physically climb the tower).
Boss fights in Banana Nababa may be all that it has, but they get quite involved. Most of the bosses either have two or three forms, so learning how to mitigate damage while taking on the first form or two is essential as health pickups are generally few and far between. The first two bosses of the game are challenging, but can be defeated after an attempt or two while the latter four bosses can take may attempts as they can get very involved. For example, the first form of the third boss hops around while spewing purple globs on the ground which slow the player while stepping in them while also shooting out homing bullets which not only cause damage, but temporarily disable attacks; there are even instant-death pits on both sides of the boss room just to top it all off.
 |
| The second phase of the third boss adds helpers and changes its movement pattern. |
The weapons and movement are probably both one of the strongest and weakest parts of Banana Nababa. Players have both an axe and a spear and can quickly switch between the two of them at any time. The axe has a short range, but has a high vertical arc while the spear can go far, but sticks close to the ground. The weapons simply compliment each other nicely and players will generally need to utilize both of them between the various phases of the boss fights. Jumping is a bit stiff and takes a while to get used to, but fights are designed to take this into account and a somewhat more floaty jump would probably only make many of the attacks harder to avoid.
The downside to all this is weapons are highly spammable, but the button cannot simply be held down, so your fingers can start to feel sore from all the rapid button pressing after a while. In addition, the controls themselves are odd with jumping assigned to C and F, attacking to V and G, and weapon switches to the space bar, although this can of course be easily alleviated with the use of a controller.
Aesthetically, Banana Nababa is simple, yet pleasant. It sticks to a color scheme consisting mainly of a yellowish orange, red, green, and grey, but the colors work together well and bosses are simplistic in terms of their basic design, yet are creative and surprisingly detailed overall. Harry Flowerpower himself joins the ranks of Ogmo and Meat Boy as yet another indie game protagonist who is memorable and charming despite being little other than a square with basic facial features. Judging by the Readme included with the game, none of the music is original, but it is honestly hard to tell as the songs chosen fit perfectly and are both energetic and catchy.
Banana Nababa also has a few things which give it a high amount of replay value. The biggest draw is bosses can be refought after initially defeating them and both time and score are tracked; there are unfortunately no online leaderboards, but trying to beat your own records is still fun and most fights last somewhere in the 1-3 minute range, so it's a great game to pull out for a few minutes every now and then. Secondly, Banana Nababa comes with an editable Game Maker file, so those familiar with Game Maker can modify the bosses and add new ones (or change the controls).
Overall, Banana Nababa is short, addictive, and lots of fun. It makes an especially great game for anyone looking for something they can go back to and simply play for a few minutes every now and then.
Banana Nababa can be found here: http://www.thegamehippo.com/game/33
A video of the sequel/remake that never was can be found here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J_YmkwKUwY
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
Spikes Around the World
Spikes. You know them, you love them, you hate them, nearly every platformer out there has them. But just why are spikes so popular and in just how many ways are they used? Well, let's look at the types of spikes out there first.
Instant Kill: These are the type found all over the place in older platformers, but they are still probably the most common type even today. Touch them with even a single pixel from any side and you're dead. Even invincibility won't always save you from these things.
High Damage: This is the kind found most commonly in action adventure games like La Mulana and Castlevania games starting from Symphony of the Night. While instant kill spikes are suitable for games such as Mega Man where levels are short and checkpoints are frequent, spikes which deal large amounts of damage, but allow some room for error are more suitable to games which aren't divided into separate levels and/or have significant stretches of time between checkpoints. These are also found in 'easier' platformers, such as the Kirby series.
Low Damage: The last type of damage, and probably the least common amongst spikes. Spikes found in Metroid games and RPG's tend to deal small amounts of damage, although low damage spikes can be found in many other games as well. Generally, spikes deal low damage either because they are just another way of wearing the player's health down alongside normal enemies, such as when they appear in RPG's, or because they are placed in a room containing enemies which are more than happy to knock the protagonist into them over and over.
'Falling' Spikes: Plenty of spikes fall. These often are a slightly different color from spikes around them and may be hidden amongst stalactites or even be stalactites. This type rarely is of the instant kill variety, but they often are mixed in with pits and spikes of the more lethal variety. Spikes don't just fall down though and can fly across the screen from any given direction, sometimes from multiple directions at once.
Spike Wall: This type of spike has quite a bit of variety to it. Sometimes a boss will need to be forced into a spike fall to damage it, sometimes an enemy will try to do the same to you, or sometimes it's simply there as a fancy way of blocking progress or making vertical platforming much harder. Of course, some spike walls also move to create a more deadly auto-scrolling level; such moving spike walls may also shoot out spikes periodically at the player for added fun.
Natural Spikes: These are spikes which are a 'natural' part of an enemy, although the enemy itself may be organic or robotic. Spinies, frequently tossed by lakitus in Mario games, and Metroid's Kraid are two of the more recognizable examples of this. Such spikes may only be for the sake of appearance, may be projectiles, or may deal more damage when touched than other parts of the enemy.
Platform Spikes: Mega Man games usually love placing a chain of these in at least one level. These are spikes which occupy one side of a floating platform while the platform itself flips either at timed intervals or shortly after the player jumps on it. These are rarely a direct cause of death, but they may frequently punish players by knocked them into pits and can often appear alongside low-damage enemies specialized in knocking players off platforms.
Direction-Specific Spikes: These are pretty rare, but they seem to be catching on. I personally love these and will likely post an article about them specifically in the near future. These spikes usually damage players when landed on from above, but can be safely walked through when approached from the side. They are usually placed as a way of blocking access to a passage from one direction while allowing access from another; this type is also usually of the high damage variety, so if a player falls into a spike pit he or she suffers a harsh penalty, but can safely walk across the rest of the way.
Fake Spikes: And of course some spikes are simply not spikes at all. Either a few hits will knock them away or they are simply an illusion which can be safely walked on or through. f the only form of progress seems to be blocked off by spikes, they are probably fake and the only way to tell for sure is likely to take the risk and jump into them. Fake spikes can be a fun trick if implemented properly, but more often than not they are simply an annoyance.
While there are likely dozens of other spike varieties out there, these are amongst the most common ones. In the next installment of Spikes Around the World, I'll be taking a look at some of the reasons for why spikes are frequently favored over other environmental hazards.
Instant Kill: These are the type found all over the place in older platformers, but they are still probably the most common type even today. Touch them with even a single pixel from any side and you're dead. Even invincibility won't always save you from these things.
High Damage: This is the kind found most commonly in action adventure games like La Mulana and Castlevania games starting from Symphony of the Night. While instant kill spikes are suitable for games such as Mega Man where levels are short and checkpoints are frequent, spikes which deal large amounts of damage, but allow some room for error are more suitable to games which aren't divided into separate levels and/or have significant stretches of time between checkpoints. These are also found in 'easier' platformers, such as the Kirby series.
Low Damage: The last type of damage, and probably the least common amongst spikes. Spikes found in Metroid games and RPG's tend to deal small amounts of damage, although low damage spikes can be found in many other games as well. Generally, spikes deal low damage either because they are just another way of wearing the player's health down alongside normal enemies, such as when they appear in RPG's, or because they are placed in a room containing enemies which are more than happy to knock the protagonist into them over and over.
 |
| Why yes, the screen below this one DOES end in a spike-filled pit. |
'Falling' Spikes: Plenty of spikes fall. These often are a slightly different color from spikes around them and may be hidden amongst stalactites or even be stalactites. This type rarely is of the instant kill variety, but they often are mixed in with pits and spikes of the more lethal variety. Spikes don't just fall down though and can fly across the screen from any given direction, sometimes from multiple directions at once.
Spike Wall: This type of spike has quite a bit of variety to it. Sometimes a boss will need to be forced into a spike fall to damage it, sometimes an enemy will try to do the same to you, or sometimes it's simply there as a fancy way of blocking progress or making vertical platforming much harder. Of course, some spike walls also move to create a more deadly auto-scrolling level; such moving spike walls may also shoot out spikes periodically at the player for added fun.
Natural Spikes: These are spikes which are a 'natural' part of an enemy, although the enemy itself may be organic or robotic. Spinies, frequently tossed by lakitus in Mario games, and Metroid's Kraid are two of the more recognizable examples of this. Such spikes may only be for the sake of appearance, may be projectiles, or may deal more damage when touched than other parts of the enemy.
Platform Spikes: Mega Man games usually love placing a chain of these in at least one level. These are spikes which occupy one side of a floating platform while the platform itself flips either at timed intervals or shortly after the player jumps on it. These are rarely a direct cause of death, but they may frequently punish players by knocked them into pits and can often appear alongside low-damage enemies specialized in knocking players off platforms.
Direction-Specific Spikes: These are pretty rare, but they seem to be catching on. I personally love these and will likely post an article about them specifically in the near future. These spikes usually damage players when landed on from above, but can be safely walked through when approached from the side. They are usually placed as a way of blocking access to a passage from one direction while allowing access from another; this type is also usually of the high damage variety, so if a player falls into a spike pit he or she suffers a harsh penalty, but can safely walk across the rest of the way.
Fake Spikes: And of course some spikes are simply not spikes at all. Either a few hits will knock them away or they are simply an illusion which can be safely walked on or through. f the only form of progress seems to be blocked off by spikes, they are probably fake and the only way to tell for sure is likely to take the risk and jump into them. Fake spikes can be a fun trick if implemented properly, but more often than not they are simply an annoyance.
While there are likely dozens of other spike varieties out there, these are amongst the most common ones. In the next installment of Spikes Around the World, I'll be taking a look at some of the reasons for why spikes are frequently favored over other environmental hazards.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)