Tales of the Rampant Coyote

Games Should Be Easy?

2009-11-20T05:08:00.000-08:00

Jeff Vogel has come to the realization that old-school difficulty is not necessarily a good thing:

Make Your Game Easy. Then Make It Easier.

I have a rant brewing about difficulty levels. It's a simple one. Suffice to say that I don't think throwing multiple difficulty levels into the game is, by itself, a miracle cure to appeal to all players. Not even close.

But in general, I agree with his new philosophy which replaced his old, 100% wrong one:

"People will happily forgive a game for being too easy, because it makes them feel badass. If a game is too hard, they will get angry, ragequit, hold a grudge, and never buy your games again."

Sounds about right. Although I think ragequit isn't necessarily the case. People will just give up and not come back, anticipation the frustration they last felt when playing the game. It won't be a vindictive thing. It's just that an occasional butt-kicking might be good for the soul, but only a handful of people will actively seek out the constant experience of a whuppin'. I hear there are special clubs for people like that, but they play different kinds of role-playing games.

Speaking personally - I like to be challenged. But if I'm feeling fully challenged every single minute, I'm gonna get tired of a game quickly. It becomes a source of stress.

But I also get bored if a game is too easy. If I don't find myself forced to actually puzzle my way through some situation at some low level of frequency, I may not come back to the game for a next session. The challenge doesn't have to be excessive and force me to reload. But it should make me exercise some brain cells (even in an action game).

Czech Adventure / RPG "Legie" Now In the Coyote's Den

2009-11-19T06:47:00.000-08:00

You know, just a few weeks ago I was thinking to myself, "Self, you know what we need? We need more indie Adventure/RPGs where you have to clean up vomit!*"

And then, appearing as if by summons, comes Legie. Legie, meaning "Legion," is a Czech adventure / RPG that starts out with you as an innkeeper's assistant, serving beer and - yes - cleaning up vomit. Most RPGs start you out at the bottom, but Legie has to stoop a little lower, as everybody in this game is already in pretty sad shape. Plague is ravaging the land, the economy is dying, and people are giving up hope. Instead, they seek solace in their alcohol and the local pub - which means you.

And then you run out of beer.

Ah! Quest time! A quest that will take you deep into the neighboring mines, battling enemies, and consuming alcohol. What's not to like?

Legie eschews the trappings of traditional fantasy to tell a story set in the medieval Czech town of Jilemnice. There are no elves, dragons, wizards, or so forth. Or save-the-world quests.

The movement system takes a little getting used to - you move in ten-foot steps in spite of the environment being "true" 3D. The demo, in particular, is all adventure-game style, though it has some RPG elements later on. It is probably not a game that will appeal to brute-force hack-and-slashers. But I have a soft spot for the strange, quirky, and different, and all three seem to apply pretty well to Legie. Plus, it's a 3D, first-person perspective game (and not cute-anime style, WCG!), which also makes it stand out amongst most other indie RPGs these days.

So I've added Legie to the (rapidly expanding!) collection of RPGs for sale at Rampant Games.

As always, give the free demo a try and see what you think:

Download Legie here

* Okay, no, I didn't, but I should have!

Twitter-ified

2009-11-18T18:06:00.000-08:00

After holding out for months because its one of the most stupid things ever that I couldn't conceive of actually using, I'm on Twitter.

And it's actually, um, a little cooler than I thought.

So if you are interested in following me, well - here I am on Twitter. Woot.

Beware - like the forums, it can get a little bit more personal and informal there than I usually am on the blog. Anticipate weirdness. In 140 characters or less.

A Videogame Symphony..

2009-11-18T06:58:00.000-08:00

If there's a better way to pack seats of the symphony with twenty-somethings than having a symphony of video game music, I don't know of one. I think a recent symphony featuring the music of Star Wars might have done a similar trick - but lets face it, Star Wars ain't nearly the property it used to be, courtesy of Whineakin Skywalker and Jar-Jar.

But video games are more popular than ever, and the music has gone from being highly synthetic single-note beeps to full-on orchestral scores worthy of a major motion picture. And being able to listen to an orchestra celebrating the music of the video games kicks all kinds of butt. We know it, they know it, and so these concerts of video game music have been gaining steam over the last few years.

I don't think traditional audiences at the Abravanel Hall in Salt Lake City whoop and holler when the conductor announces that the next number will be Mozart's Symphony No. 40 in G minor. I can't say - I don't go that often.

But tonight, when the conductor of "Play! A Video Game Symphony Live!" announced Castlevania as the next piece - or better yet, Kingdom Hearts - the audience went wild as if they were at a rock concert. And I really doubt the Utah Symphony or the chorus knew what to expect when conductor Eric Roth (substituting for Arnie Roth) announced that the encore presentation would be the notorious "One Winged Angel" - Sephiroth's theme from Final Fantasy VII.

Other music performed during the evening included music from the Super Mario Bros. series, the Battlefield series, the Sonic the Hedgehog series, Halo, Shenmue, Lost Odyssey, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Chono Trigger / Chono Cross, World of Warcraft, and the Legend of Zelda series.

My wife and I attended the Video Games Live concert a couple of years back, and really enjoyed it. This time we took the kids. They loved it. The event was simply a huge success.

Compared to the Video Games Live concert, I felt that this one had better musical arrangements overall, but Video Games Live was a little more fun. This one lacked the lasers, a couple of little on-stage games, and Tommy Tallarico hamming it up trying to fulfill his fantasies of being a rock star. This concert was much more sedate and traditional... relatively speaking.

But still full of awesome. My only complaints are for the music they didn't include.

Cute Knight Kingdom. 'N Stuff

2009-11-17T05:30:00.000-08:00

Yeah. I'm a Cute Knight fan. Yeah, that sounds kinda awkward admission, doesn't it? But there it is. The game really does rock. It's a melding of an old-school dungeon-crawler with a life "sim" done in a cute anime style. With a zillion or so endings and huge replayability. While it's specifically designed to appeal to girls, I have to admit that I really enjoyed it, too. It was a fun, quirky melding of ideas into a very fun whole.

The sequel - Cute Knight Kingdom - is now available. And I expect it to be just as fun. Even though the inventory screen to the right here is a little over-the-top. I have not played it yet, as Hanako managed to release it when I am TOTALLY SWAMPED. She did that to taunt me, I am sure. I've only been bugging her about the sequel for like three years.

What are you doing still reading this? Cute. Knight. Kingdom. Don't make her get all medieval on you. She can out-cook, out-clean, AND out-fight you, you know!

Unfortunately, the current version is only available for Windows. But I expect, like the original, we should see Mac and Linux versions soon.

Speaking of the original (well, the Deluxe version of the original), Hanako has decided to reduce the price to a mere $9.95 for it. And making me change the price on my website first thing in the friggin' morning (durn British indies!). If that's what you have been waiting for, you can pick up Cute Knight Deluxe here.

Well - I've been waiting for this one for a while.

Cute Knight Kingdom Demo (Windows Only)

A Kingdom for Keflings Coming to PC

2009-11-16T15:15:00.000-08:00

NinjaBee announces: A Kingdom for Keflings Coming to PC

Beta testers needed! Score the game for free for your labors!

My total work on this title consisted of maybe a week working on the dynamic music system which may not actually still be in the code. But the really cool thing as an indie - besides it being an awesome indie title by some friends of mine - is that it originated (kinda) as a "Game in a Day" experiment called "Rome" back in 2005 or so. I wrote up a bit about Steve Taylor's talk on successful Game-In-A-Day-ing in my report on the Fall 2009 Utah Indie Night.

See? Those Game-In-A-Day "experiments" can really bear fruit!

I hope it does well on the PC. If you want to check out some other NinjaBee PC titles, take a look at Outpost Kaloki and Band of Bugs. Neither of which I really had much to do with, either. Except for kibitzing.

Dollhouse Eulogy

2009-11-16T06:10:00.000-08:00

Well, it came as a shock to probably nobody that Joss Whedon's and Eliza Dushku's science fiction series Dollhouse was officially canceled last week. I guess what is more surprising is that they decided to renew it in the first place for a second season, and then only to cancel it four episodes in.

A friend of mine in the sixth grade told me her gauge of whether or not a movie or TV show was "great" was whether or not she was still thinking about it the next day, and it's actually served me as a pretty good rule of thumb ever since. Yeah, there's a few horrible shows that left me still pissed off and picking them apart the next day, but I guess great can be either good or bad.

I mention it because the most recent episode of Dollhouse really left me thinking. "Belonging" - directed by "Commander Riker" Jonathan Frakes - was probably the most violent and disturbing and brain-twisting episode of the series so far. And possibly the best.

And it made me realize: Dollhouse is great science fiction, but it is not so great television. It does what science fiction is supposed to do - ask questions about humanity and our relationship with the world and universe in a hypothetical context. In the case of Dollhouse, it very pointedly asks - and in a way, has answered (for itself) the question of what makes us who we are. Are humans merely computers with brains that can be reprogrammed? A set of behaviors generated by chemicals working through a neural network of learned responses? Is there a soul that is more than pure chemistry and physics at work?

The implied answer is "yes." So I guess Dollhouse did its job there. Human beings are programmed like computers - given brand-new personalities and skills for whatever their assignments may be. A new, custom person is created inside an old body. But - repeatedly - aspects of their "true" nature - their deep-seated desires, quirks, loves, and hatreds - keep coming through.

But it is never clear if this is something truly metaphysical, or simply some glitch or unmapped bit of brain that the Dollhouse / Rossum Corporation hasn't figured out yet. But it's been a very interesting bit of exploration - not just for the dolls themselves, but an exploration of how people treat or react to these reprogrammable people. And all the other questions it raises about morality, free will, and so forth. It's a very smart show, and it's good SF.

But good television? The "dolls" don't really have any character, because their personalities are constantly changing (which really shows off the actor's abilities). And the staff and ancillary characters? They are all, to some degree, morally corrupt. It's hard to get away from the knowledge that they are basically operating an extremely expensive prostitution / slavery ring. Sure, some of the 'dolls' may have originally signed up of their own free will, but after that nothing is consensual. They have surrendered control of their bodies completely to the corporation, which will make them do anything - even kill - without their knowledge.

So it's kinda hard to like these guys. They aren't the good guys. That's the point. It's deliberately morally ambiguous (at best). But it makes it very hard to relate or care about any of the characters. And that's why it kinda fails as a television show.

I'm gonna miss it. I do like the show. But unlike, say, Firefly ... I do understand why it's getting the axe.

Frayed Knights: Some More WIP Screens

2009-11-14T14:56:00.001-08:00

For those who don't frequent the forums:

Screenshots from the Hobgoblin Bunker

These are still very much work-in-progress, and pretty raw, but I warned you that would be the case, didn't I? I'm still a beginner level-designer, so these won't be set-piece levels or anything. But there are some pretty basic levels where I figured even my n00b skills wouldn't do too much damage.

What I did notice is that this was far easier to create than the Tower - partly because it's a much simpler design, but also because I think I'm sucking a little less. Go, me!

A PSA for Indie Developers:

2009-11-13T11:32:00.000-08:00

Getting control of your own destiny is important.

Getting revenue and profitability is important.

But your soul and the well-being of your customers is far more important.

So don't take lessons from this schmoe, who brought the (alas, insanely popular) Mafia Wars and other games to Facebook, who admits to scamming customers in the name of bootstrapping his company.

Just ... Don't.

Give Innovation a Chance!

2009-11-13T06:46:00.000-08:00

So Jeff Vogel sez: "People say they want innovation. But actually give them something different that they have to adjust to and they get all angry and full of nerdrage."

I haven't played Brütal Legend yet (maybe it will arrive under the Christmas Tree for me a few weeks). So I can't speak to the review. But I can definitely speak to the frustration.

There's a quote I love by Howard Aiken: “Don't worry about people stealing your ideas. If your ideas are any good, you'll have to ram them down people's throats.” I like to tell this one to indies who get all caught up in secrecy and NDAs around their "game idea."

And truth be told, most innovative / original ideas really ain't all that awesome. The path of innovation is the path of failure. That's the whole point. When you abandon the tried-and-true, you are exploring the space of the untried-and-possibly-untrue. You are entering the realm of the experimental. And if every experiment succeeded, it wouldn't be very experimental now, would it?

But as much as we rip on designers for staying in the safety of their comfort zone, the average player is even worse. Heaven help the poor designer that messes with the "standard" interface for games of a particular type, even with a damned good reason! For people who really enjoy such cutting edge entertainment, we can be real sticks-in-the-mud when it comes to innovation.

I'm no different. I find myself complaining sometimes too, asking, "Why did they do this? Why didn't they just let me do what I've always done in previous games? Why'd they try to 'fix' what wasn't broken?" I guess my knee jerks as quickly as anybody else's. But I believe that I'm at least slightly more generous than the average gamer these days. After all, my love of the hobby was born in the extreme Darwinian Deathmatch days of the arcades, when there were no rules to be broken and every week offered something new, original, and sometimes downright stupid. We played them all.

All I'm saying is that if we gamers claim we want innovation to break us from some of the ruts we find gaming in, we need to put our money where our mouths are. Be willing to try out something different that changes the status quo. And accept the fact that not every innovation is going to come bathed in angelic light - sometimes they'll really stink. But we need to give them the chance.

Mothers, Don't Let Your Children Grow Up To Be Game Developers

2009-11-12T07:15:00.000-08:00

Bruce On Games has a very good list of reasons why you don't want to work in the (mainstream) games business:

Bruce On Games: You Don't Want to Work in the Video Games Industry

For the most part, I think his list is pretty accurate insofar as my experience goes. Though I think in American companies, there are quite a few more game designers than he seems to indicate. The role of "designer" isn't what most wannabes think it is, though. It's not designing games whole cloth - more like being a level designer on the design committee. There's a lot of scripting involved. And filling out spreadsheets. And whining to programmers that you need such-and-such a feature.

I used to recommend the experience for people who might want to become indies down the road. It's still good on-the-job training, but the larger studios are so compartmentalized now that it doesn't provide the breadth of experience that used to be worthwhile. So I'm now hesitant on that recommendation - unless you get a job with a small studio.

The Secret of Monkey Island - The Lost Scenes!

2009-11-11T05:50:00.000-08:00

So while creating the Special Edition of The Secret of Monkey Island, Adam Bormann came across a lot of commented out / unused scripts in the original SCUMM code. And some fascinating comments inside the code.

Fortunately, they did not try to re-integrate these "lost scenes" and alternative plots into the remake. From Bormann's perspective, Gilbert & Co. probably had very good reasons for leaving them out. But he's copied the "lost scenes" in a blog post for fans who may enjoy this glimpse into development of the classic game.

The Secret of Monkey Island - The Deleted and Extended Scenes

An excerpt:

When Guybrush gets out of the water after being thrown in by Shinetop, he runs into Governor Marley, and then this alternate exchange starts.

Guybrush

“You came down here to rescue me?”

Elaine

“Well…”

Guybrush

“You were going to dive into that icy water and drag me out?”

Elaine

“…Something like that.”

Guybrush

“You were going to brave the sharks and the eels to save my life?”

Elaine

“Sharks? What sharks?”

Guybrush

“And then you were going to give me mouth-to-mouth resuscitation?”

Elaine

“Don’t push it.”

Enjoy!

Hat tip to Greg Squire of MonkeyTime for sending me the link!

The Horror of Big Bird

2009-11-10T05:56:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid, I always assumed Sesame Street was as old as dirt. I thought it had been around forever. As it turns out, it was a few months younger than me. It first aired on this day in 1969. And I was among its most ardent fans a couple of years later.

I loved Big Bird. I think I even referred to the show as "Big Bird" when I was three or something. I wanted to watch Big Bird. All the other characters - Kermit, the Cookie Monster, Mr. Snuffleupagus, Ernie and Bert - they rocked, too. But for me, the show was all about Big Bird.

But periodically, my parents would ban me from watching the show. Because, while I consciously loved big bird, subconsciously he apparently scared the hell out of me. At night, when the lights were out, Big Bird would haunt my nightmares, with his smiling, dopey expression. And I'd wake up screaming and crying about Big Bird.

Not that I remember much of this. I take this on faith from my mother's telling of it. By the next day, I'd have forgotten the entire experience. I would want to watch more Sesame Street and provide my subconscious brain with yet more ammunition to assault me with the following night. Oh, yes. Ours was an abusive, dysfunctional relationship.

There is only one time I really remember Big Bird's reign of terror. I was for some reason pushing an empty cardboard box to my room. Big cardboard boxes are the ultimate toy for a four-year-old. Anyway, the box was so large that I could barely peek over the top of it. For some reason, the hallway was dark, and it was at night, shortly before bedtime.

You know how your eyes play tricks with you in the darkness, and you can't see very well when moving from a well-lit living room down a darkened hall? Yeah. Well, the after-image of the light (and television?) got jumbled up, and as I peeked into the darkness over the top of the box, I saw - faintly - the disembodied head of the Evil One himself, Big Bird. His head filled the hallway, and his smiling beak beneath his dopey eyes was wide open, ready to accept his next meal with cardboard and all. Fortunately for me, I'd had the foresight to look where I was going before stumbling right into that felt-covered gaping maw.

So I screamed and ran, howling over tears to my parents that Big Bird's head was in the hallway! The fact that it was trying to eat me was left unspoken, because that was just plain obvious. Why else would he have been lurking in the darkness in front of the door to my room?

Now, okay, I completely understood that it wasn't the REAL Big Bird in the hallway. And that this giant head was far too large to belong to the real Big Bird. And that the phantom-y transparent image I'd seen was probably not something of true physical form. But was I going to take that risk? HELL NO!

And as far as I know, I might not be here today if I'd kept going. Nor do I know if I was the only succulent little pre-schooler Big Bird had intended as his victim. How many other children fell victim to his appetites?

My parents renewed the ban on Sesame Street that night, much to my chagrin. It was no fair! Why wouldn't they let me watch Sesame Street? I wanted to watch Big Bird some more!

So happy birthday, Sesame Street. You taught me a lot about numbers, letters, and how human beings should treat each other --- and muppets. But most of all, you taught me the meaning of the word, "terror." I'd no be who I am today without you.

Frayed Knights; Wait, Wait, Let Me Explain...

2009-11-09T06:01:00.000-08:00

The world of Frayed Knights, the indie computer RPG under development at Rampant Games, could perhaps be described as an apologist's rendition of an old-school fantasy RPG campaign.

In the early days of the hobby, very few game masters (or game designers) thought too hard about the rhyme, reason, or ecology of their adventures and worlds. Why are the monsters segregated by difficulty level in this dungeon? What's with the weird, bizarre artifacts in the dungeon that nobody but the players actually try to use? How come these traps aren't set of by the gazillions of giant rats that seem to infest the dungeon? How do the lower levels of the dungeon stay ventilated? What do these monsters eat (besides adventurers and giant rats)? Why are there all these devices that serve no practical purpose to anybody but to vex the occasional treasure-hunting adventurer?

The creativity caught up with itself as players smartened up, and game masters were forced to evolve. After all, if you have an illusory dragon in one room - the hint to the deception being that the exits are all too small to accommodate the dragon's bulk - then you can't get away with sticking a real dragon in a similar room without some really good explanation. If you start using logic and some vague appeals to reason against the players, you need to be pretty consistent with its usage yourself.

So which is it going to be - no dragon, or jumping through hoops to justify its existence?

In many cases, Frayed Knights takes the latter approach. I think the wild contortions of logic and rationalization are part of the fun of the world. It's not necessarily that the world itself is over the top bizarre and comedic, but that the off-beat answers to the questions of "why" have a cumulative effect that keeps getting weirder and weirder. And then we have a group of explorers in this world for whom this is all pretty run-of-the-mill stuff.

And so what you end up with is a group that can get into an argument over whether or not it is wise to rescue an apparent damsel-in-distress... because it is one of the oldest tricks in the book to sucker-punch adventurers in this world. And bizarre relationships between groups of monsters to justify their not killing each other.

But as amusing as the "Why" answers get, it's the "why not?" that tends to drive the silliness. If you postulate a world where there's weirdness X and Y, why not ... weirdness Z?

That's where I got temples dedicated to a god of pimples. And an automaton constructed out of pus.

And, as it turns out, getting the answer to the "why" questions is what drives the entire plot. It's one thing to know that an Ancient Evil™ is on the rise. The natural response for your typical red-blooded adventurer upon discovering this news is to put a stop to the Ancient Evil™ once and for all (at least until the sequel).

But our heroes, the Frayed Knights, are anything but typical. And - quite by accident - they end up asking "Why?" Why is the Ancient Evil™ rising? What does he really want? Is there something more going on here?

And, as usual, the answers get more convoluted as they go.

Game Design: Quest For the SideQuest

2009-11-08T20:46:00.000-08:00

Hmmm - so does Frayed Knights get a free pass or not?

In general, I think the question game designers should ask themselves is: Is the thing you're asking the player character to do the most obvious, straightforward, or fastest way to solve the given problem? Asking the player to go downstairs and get a key for a shoddy wooden door is not unreasonable. I certainly wouldn't smash a door if the key was just downstairs. Asking the player to climb to the top of Mt. Evil and fight the Soul-Devouring Dragon-Wraith of Pestilence to get the same key is completely ridiculous, because at that point it's less trouble to just kick the door down or call a locksmith or something. (Exception: All comedy games get a free pass for plot doors because the stupidity of the side-quest is part of the joke.)

Shamus Young addresses the issue of ridiculous side-quests and "find the key" type puzzles / plot progressions in games. A great rant:

The Escapist Magazine: Quest for the Side Quest!

Okay, I worry about my own guilt with some of these things - but at least on a theoretical level, Shamus is my kind of gamer. I often feel myself wanting to shout "Amen!" with his rants. This is no exception.

The Golden Age of Indie

2009-11-06T06:54:00.000-08:00

So we've got the Unity 3D engine free for indies --- the Unreal 3 engine now in the price range for indies --- a new version of Torque that looks pretty impressive (and still priced within the "professional" indie level of affordability), an upcoming less-restrictive license for Ogre 3D (still free), and a host of existing engine choices from the usual suspects.

While those who have trained with the more expensive commercial counterparts complain endlessly about their difficulty getting used to them, Blender 3D and The Gimp are outstanding content development tools that are absolutely free. Blender 3D is readying for its big 2.5 release very soon now.

We've got indie games on consoles. Downloadable games are becoming the norm. Indie MMOs are competing head-to-head for dollars with the big boys (at least all the ones not named World of Warcraft).

The latest copy of Game Developer magazine lists the fifty most influential people in the industry over the last year or so - and indie developers (and evangelists) made up a reasonable chunk of the list.

Indie games are being talked about by mainstream press. Not just the token mention in a list in half-page columns near the back of the magazine like they used to get, but real honest-to-goodness attention. Two or three years ago, an average gamer had no idea what an "indie game" was. Now, they might not have played one, but they've at least heard of them. This is significant.

It sounds to me like the Age of Indie has fully arrived! (Jussincase we hadn't figured that out in the last two or three years.)

So what is the Age of Indie? Heck if I know. It's up to the indies themselves to define it. But what's cool is that those guys defining it are the folks with gumption, skill, and the willingness to put in a lot of hard work. NOT just the folks with the big bucks or publisher contracts.

ANYBODY can make a game now. That's been true for a long time, but technology is becoming even less of a factor. And anybody can sell it. Yeah, marketing and selling a game is even harder than making it, in many ways. But it is happening. And web-based gaming --- I have no idea how far that rabbit hole will go!

I doubt indies will ever be in the same league as "the big boys" again, as they were when indie "shareware" shops hit their peak in the early-to-mid 90s. But I think the dividing line is going to get even blurrier. It's becoming more and more of a spectrum.

But the excuses are gone. Tools, training, support, opportunities, even console releases are now available within an indie's grasp. Gaming is now back in the hands of the gamers.

Take us to cool places, please.

Din's Curse - Screenshots Now Up

2009-11-05T10:28:00.001-08:00

For those following Soldak's new indie role-playing game:

Din's Curse - First Screenshots

Yeah, it does look a bit like Depths of Peril and Kivi's Underworld. Are you at all surprised?

I'm excited about this one, personally. It sounds like its got more Depths of Peril-ish-ness to it.

Unreal 3 Engine - FREE! Er, kinda...

2009-11-05T09:35:00.000-08:00

Well, if you weren't planning on selling your game, you can now use the Unreal 3 engine for free. Have at it!

Unreal Development Kit

They have also released a more "indie friendly" commercial license. It's a royalty-based license - 25% (YIPE!) of your revenue after the first $5000. That could eat into an indie's profit margin by a pretty significant amount... or not. Your business decision, folks!

Dragon Age: Origins - Hype Overload?

2009-11-05T08:01:00.000-08:00

Okay, I do intend to get Dragon Age: Origins. For the PC, of course. That's been in the cards for a long time. I remain a Bioware fan, even if you can see traces of their Borg implants.

But holy crap, guys... the hype / marketing for this game is off the scale. We're talking near Halo-levels, here. It's been on TV, all over the web - for months. We've been inundated with previews, interviews, press releases, and now reviews.

So is it worth all the hype? I'm interested in hearing what real RPG fans think who have had a chance to play it. While I have some faith in Bioware and I'm sure the game has a great story and is fun to play, it so far has come off sounding pretty generic to me. Yeah, it's pretty tough to make traditional sword-and-sorcery / high fantasy sound fresh and new, but it still happens. Just not here.

So - what's the scoop? What are your first impressions, those of you with more money and time than me? Is it truly heir to the legacy that was Baldur's Gate? And, I ask again - is it worth the hype?

Game Design: Overwhelmed By Choice?

2009-11-04T07:10:00.000-08:00

As a player, I'm a guy who loves open-endedness in my games. In role-playing games, I may as much of a goal-oriented player (the "Dungeon Upwardly Mobile Professional," as author / designer Tracy Hickman once called it) as any hardcore gamer, but I love to approach a goal my own way.

In dice-and-paper RPGs, I can be every game master's worst nightmare as I deviate from the script and start asking questions and manipulating parts of the GM's world that were never fleshed out beyond being the flat cardboard background setting. Consequently, my efforts frequently come to naught, as the players who take the conventional, predictable, and prepared-in-advance approach get rewarded.

I really loved the magic system in White Wolf's Mage: The Ascension. Apparently, we're a weird, strange animal. The magic system in that game was apparently incomprehensible and subjective for many players. While there were "rotes" - predefined spells - for the most part magic was something you created on-the-fly within broad guidelines. It was a very goal-oriented, open-ended kind of thing. Instead of looking over a menu of options and picking the one that might be most effective in this situation, you really had to think outside of the box, come up with a plan of action based upon some very broad powers, and then custom-build a spell that would both meet your objective and (preferably) appear to be nothing but a coincidence to any observer. It was very fun for those who got into it. Practically impossible for anybody else. It has little to to do with intelligence, and a lot to do with preference for style.

Not everybody likes to play that way. And frankly, a "sky is the limit" approach can be frustrating to players regardless of style. Especially without being provided concrete sub-goals, as I learned to my detriment running a recent pen & paper campaign. An infinite number of choices often results in no choice, and players will simply drift, feeling rudderless, overwhelmed, confused, and frustrated.

I wouldn't exactly call that "fun."

In general, I've always been of the opinion that more choices means more fun. But even for me, I do have my limits. The Elder Scrolls series is perhaps the best known for being open-ended games. While I am apparently one of the few players to ever actually complete the storyline in the second game, Daggerfall, I admit I got lost in the open-ended world of the follow-up, Morrowind. The open world led me further and further from anything resembling the games' goal (and I never really understood what that was), and so I just played until I got bored.

How could I possibly get bored? There was so much game left for me - so many more choices and opportunities! But I did. I, too, found myself rudderless and confused, and not entirely certain what my end-goal was for the entire game. At least Oblivion solved this last problem, making the end-goal almost TOO obvious throughout the game.

I'm a fan of open-endedness and having plenty of choices, but it seems there's a limit. In my pen-and-paper games, it seems that - as a group - more than two or three major options to select from causes the group to get bogged down with indecision. I think with individuals, the number might go up a bit more, depending on style. But there seems to be a "magic number" after which the number of options becomes a detriment, not a benefit. Or players adapt by ignoring many options.

Hmmm - maybe that's why I keep ordering the same thing when I go out to favorite restaurants.

There is a tendency - especially by less experienced game sesigners, to try to include everything (even the kitchen sink) - in their game. While the increased breadth sounds cool and fun and all, it's important to note that besides the obvious difficulties of increased development and balancing work, the end result may actually be less than the sum of the parts for many players.

I Want To Get Rich So I Can Take This Vacation

2009-11-03T09:56:00.000-08:00

While I loved going to Hawaii again last month, here's where I'd really love to vacation at some point in my life:

Space Hotel To Open in 2012

So, uh, do hotel guests get any training on what to do in an emergency? Pressure leak, anything like that?

And most importantly - does it offer free cable TV and wireless?

Stonesense - for Dwarf Fortress

2009-11-03T06:25:00.000-08:00

This looks... way cool.

Cool enough to make more people Dwarf Fortress fans? I dunno. The game is pretty hardcore regardless of graphics. And unfortunately, it "kills the framerate." But I do love seeing stuff like this.

Stonesense (At TIGSource)

Free Indie Game Today Only

2009-11-02T06:20:00.000-08:00

Tale of Tales is offering the full version of their indie game and last year's IGF finalist, The Graveyard, for free - today only.

Tale of Tales: Visit The Graveyard Today - For Free!

As per its description on the website:

The Graveyard is a very short computer game designed by Auriea Harvey and Michaël Samyn. You play an old lady who visits a graveyard. You walk around, sit on a bench and listen to a song. It's more like an explorable painting than an actual game. An experiment with realtime poetry, with storytelling without words.

I haven't even played the demo version yet, so I can't offer any opinion. But hey, the price is right, so if you feel so inclined, today is the day to check it out.

Castle as Malcom Reynolds

2009-10-30T06:52:00.000-07:00

This week's episode of Castle didn't just offer a nod to fans of Firefly & Serenity - it treated us to a full 35-second inside joke (and then another couple minutes of Nathon Fillion walking around in a Captain "Mal" Malcom Reynolds-esque costume).

Has it really been five years?

I'm often wary of that heavy of an inside joke placed inside a show. I can just see someone unfamiliar with either Firefly or Serenity scratching their head. But hey, I guess I'm a fanboy. I loved it.

Happy Birthday, Internet!

2009-10-30T04:19:00.000-07:00

Apparently, October 29th was arguably the 40th birthday of the Internet.

Happy Birthday, Intertubes. Life would not be the same without you.