ViolentSleep

National Game Development Month 2012

2012-05-18T15:00:00.000-07:00

This year marks the first year of NaGaDeMo, the National Game Development Month. It's kind of a misnomer, but I'll forgive them. It's kind of like one of those many, many game jams you see occurring on the internet, where people are tasked with making a game in two days or so. Someone came up with the awesome idea of merging game jams with NaNoWriMo, the National Novel Writing Month. The result?

This spectacular event.

I'll be taking part. Up until now I've been so busy with college I haven't been able to take part in game jams or anything like that. But NaGaDeMo occurs in the middle of the summer break, so I have plenty of free time. I'll also be using the event to learn a new game framework or engine. It's an unnecessary level of difficulty I've decided to add, but I learn things best when under some kind of pressure to learn it. Having to learn a whole new game engine and framework, and finish a game with it in under a month, should give me the impetus to actually get some good work done.

I'll keep a weekly blog update of my success (or lack therein) regarding the game I hope to have made during the event. True to the spirit of the event and my own rules, I won't be practicing with the engine nor writing up any design docs until the 1st of June. Please don't expect anything awesome, since I'll be working with limited time and will be a beginner in whatever I'm making it with. I'll do some simple puzzle game I guess. So here's hoping I can actually accomplish this goal of mine.

Or else I'm going to look really stupid.

Electronic Arts: Worst Company 2012

2012-05-06T11:56:00.002-07:00

And sweet burning orphanages did they ever earn it. It's nigh impossible for me to put into words the loathing I feel for EA Games, so vitriolic is my reaction to their very existence that it degrades the ability of my brain to function until I'm left stabbing things in a blind rage.

Urge to kill....rising.

I used to be a fan of Electronic Arts. Once upon a time, they made good games themselves, and built up quite a portfolio of enjoyable and fun to play games. Then I stopped paying attention, sort of became lax on keeping up with new games and suddenly I notice that they've dedicated themselves to being the biggest assholes the gaming industry has possibly ever seen. Maybe I'm overreacting, but it's my honest opinion that EA is the cancer that is killing the games industry and I'm not alone in my opinion I can guarantee you that. There have been so many revolting actions committed by EA that I find it increasingly difficult to take them at all seriously.

Let's take a look at the list of grievances I have against them, shall we?

Forcing people to pay again because their online passes expire (in fact, EA's general treatment of customers in their bid to fight piracy is outrageous).
Their blatant invasion of users' privacy through their Origin software.
Everything here (as an aside, Forbes is really interesting to read).
This guy.

That last one is what finally got me to write this article. Paul Barnett, Senior Creative Director at EA and probably my new most hated person ever. That is probably the absolute worst way to talk about your customers. Oh because they don't make video games, their opinion doesn't matter? Way to sound like a conceited jackass Mr. Barnett. While it's understandable that gamers won't understand a lot of the difficulties involved in making a game (just look at some of the demands being made by the Hold the Line group for solving the ME3 controversy. WAY too optimistic in my honest opinion), that doesn't negate their opinions. I've never made a movie in my life, but I'm all too well aware of when I've watched a terrible one. Similarly, despite having made simplistic games so far I'm all too capable of knowing when a developer has screwed up. This is a terrible attitude to have in any industry, least of all an industry revolving around entertainment like the gaming industry. This guy is a grade A asshole, and nothing is going to make me change my opinion.

Courtesy of IndieGameMag

Recently EA has been getting a lot of slack over their upcoming Indie Bundle. This is one thing I'm going to speak out against, although I agree with some of it. The term "indie" has recently become synonymous with the cool crowd of the gaming industry. The indies are the saviours of a dying industry, ya-da ya-da ya-da. I agree with this in part, but too many people seem to think if you have any kind of major success you have to give up your indie title. Or if your game is too similar to the "mainstream" in style, gameplay or graphics it's not a 'true' indie game. Maybe I'm just reading too much into it, but that's the distinct impression I'm getting from the Indie crowd lately.

To me, an indie game is one made entirely, and owned entirely, by the developer. It's 'independent' of the publishers and big dogs of the gaming industry. In that regards, as much as it pains me to say it, the EA Indie Bundle kind of counts. None of the games in it have any attachment to EA beyond EA having published it. The games were made without EA funding, by companies in no way owned nor controlled by EA and the games themselves were made entirely without EA influence. So they are, I suppose, indie games. But I think what most people (myself included) are pissed off about, is the fact that EA is clearly just trying to leech off the recent popularity of indie games and the huge market out there for them. In short, EA is abusing the term "indie" for their own purposes, with a complete disregard for the market they are selling in to.

It's that last thing which is EA's major problem. They don't give a damn about their consumers or their players. They're content to sell Day One DLC, and release carbon copies of their sports games year after year in order to bleed their customers of their money. What pains me more than anything is that EA owns the games industry now. They've bought (and killed off) so many game developers (when was the last time you heard of Maxis, or Pandemic? I still mourn their deaths) that they've got a stranglehold of sorts on AAA quality games. Which means I have to put up with all their bullshit if I want to play any kind of high quality game.

I don't believe in Boycotts, never have and probably never will. If I like a product (in this case, games) I'm going to buy it. And unfortunately, I like games, and EA releases a fuckton of games. Going through my gaming library, I have a startling small number of EA owned games, and I hope to be able to keep it that way. But if something amazing comes out, and I can't resist wanting it, then I'm going to have to deal with EA's terribly arrogant and money hungry nature.

Fortunately, I don't have the money to buy games in the first place. So that's good.

[/whiny bitchiness]

Ludum Dare 23: My Selection

2012-04-27T07:16:00.004-07:00

This is the first time I've paid close attention to a Ludum Dare competition. For those who don't know, Ludum Dare is a competition where game developers from all across the indie world come together for a weekend of game development. At the end of the weekend, they submit all their games and are judged by their peers and fans.

I didn't enter this time (god knows I don't have the time nor skills), but I have played quite a few of the games already submitted and thought I might share some of the ones I played with all of you good people.

Obsolescence

How morbidly entertaining

This one is seriously impressive for just 24 hour's work. The gameplay and art are actually fairly simple, so it's easy to see how it got done in such a short space of time. But it's very fun to play regardless. You take charge of humanity in its final years, rushing to find new worlds to colonise before your current home runs out of resources and humanity starves. The pace is fantastic, and the atmosphere is amazing. There's a genuine sense of panic to find the next viable world to colonise before humanity dies out. It's delightfully dark and morbid, because there's no real way to win the game beyond hoping to get a higher score than your friend.

Disregard All Humans

D'awww. He's so cute.

Disregard All Humans is one of those fun to play games which really has no point to it. You're a monster. You walk around the world smashing human cities and then stomping on the humans which run screaming away from you. If the cities shoot you, you get smaller. If you stomp on squishy meatbags, you get bigger. Once you're big enough, you jump off the planet and are free to go do...whatever giant monstersaurs do. Simple to understand, simple to play and thoroughly entertaining. Nothing is quite as satisfying as standing on people.

Lililput

Oh god the spelling

Fuck this game. I don't mean that. Wait...yes...no... Dammit.

Lililput is based on typing. You defend a giant face as little purple guys walk up to it and punch you. How do you defend the giant face? By typing words. Sounds simple enough until you realise every word is spelled wrong. On purpose. What kind of sadist does that to a player? The panic of typing words really quickly while trying to save your precious giant face is one which got the better of me. I'm not a good typer on the best of days, and being forced to type words that are misspelled in some truly horrific ways is just evil. That said, just because I suck at a game doesn't mean it isn't fun. If it did, I'd never play games every again. If you can control your inner grammar nazi, I recommend giving Lililput a try.

Tiny War

This one's not terribly exciting or anything, but I enjoyed playing it and it served its purpose as a distraction of sorts so I thought I'd give it an honorary mention. I'm most impressed by the accurate orbit mechanics of the game, and the fact that distance from your home to your target dictates how strong your fleet is. Waiting to attack worlds when they get close to is all part of the strategy of this game, and it can be difficult to predict the orbits of worlds. If you leave it for too long, the AI might suddenly be too powerful for you to take over when they get closer. But striking too early might mean you waste a fleet because it loses ships along the way. For such a simple game, it's surprisingly strategic.

A New Space Race?

2012-04-24T14:24:00.005-07:00

For those who have not been following technological or scientific news lately (I can't blame you, a lot of it is pretty boring), they may have missed everything regarding a new company called "Planetary Resources". Let me summarise it all for you. Planetary Resources have come forward, with utter seriousness and some very impressive backer, to propose to the world that it is possible to begin mining asteroids for much needed resources within the next 18 years.

I am very excited.

The beginning of Weyland-Yutani

This is a massive deal, not only for how outlandish the claims are, but for how Planetary Resources are absolutely adamant that this is possible. Near-Earth Asteroids exist in the thousands, with 9000 already catalogued and almost 1,000 discovered every year. 1,500 of the currently discovered ones are easier to get to than the Moon, and is these 1,500 that the eggheads at Planetary Resources plan on targeting.

Is it worth it? That's what PR plan on finding out, but the numbers are extremely positive. A small asteroid barely 500m in diameter could potentially provide more of the platinum group of metals (Platinum, osmium, iridium and so forth) than are known to exist on Earth. A water rich asteroid of the same size could produce enough rocket fuel to fly every rocket launched in mankind's history 200 times! Those are staggering numbers, and entirely feasible given what we know about NEAs already. PR claim that when they start mining, they will be able to add trillions to the global GDP every year with the materials they mine.

I will give you all of Africa for it

It's a pretty huge claim, and the starting capital will be immense. But there are some very prominent people backing it. Director James Cameron for one, the Google chief executive for another. And Planetary Resources have a plan to go with it. Their first objective is to launch a series of satellites with the sole purpose of looking at asteroids with greater clarity, which they hope to start launching in 2014. Then, find some asteroids with water. Once these water-rich asteroids are found, they can start creating fuel in orbit, potentially shaving billions off all space flight for the rest of humanity by using the extracted water to refuel rockets and spaceships, lessening the amount of fuel those rockets will need to bring up with them. After that?

They get digging for all that delicious metal.

Already though the environmentalists are up in arms. "We'll destroy our solar system! We can't do to it what we did to Earth!"

These people are silly, and I will tell you why. I can understand why they're concerned. We have done awful things to Earth, but planets are tough sons of bitches. Earth will live on. What we've buggered up is it's biosphere. Like, all the things that live on it. Earth is the only planet in our solar system with an ecosystem, and it's one which we've done awful things to. It's unique, and carefully balanced. Other planets don't have that. They are lumps of rock which can take huge amounts of damage and still stand there yelling "Come at me bro!" But I too would be pretty peeved if I looked up at night and the moon was covered in cities and stuff. Or if the beautiful gaseous landscape of Jupiter were marred by traffic. But that stuff is decades, maybe even centuries off.

What we're dealing with now are asteroids. Irrelevant lumps of rock which have zero use other than be mined or float around space getting in our way. May as well make them useful. Heck, you can't even see them from Earth without a seriously powerful telescope. Mining the useful asteroids will have no more effect on the "environment" of the solar system than you digging a hole to put in a swimming pool would have on the environment on Earth.

YOU MONSTER!

What I hope more than anything, however, is that the Chinese or the Russians get on this bandwagon. When the Soviets and US were racing to put a man on the moon, we advanced space travel by an order of magnitude in a very short space of time. By having that kind of mentality with regards to this will ensure that the public gets interested in space again, it will make sure Planetary Resources get the attention they deserve for trying to change the face of humanity. For trying to bring our economic zone out to the entire solar system, and not just leaving our area of relevance trapped here on this ball of rock.

If this succeeds and flourishes, humanity will be changed forever. And in my opinion, it will be changed for the better.

ZoopTEK and Mastery: So freakin' epic

2012-04-18T05:05:00.001-07:00

Recently, on a whim, I decided to check in on an old game developer I first discovered many years ago. His names is ZoopTEK, and he is awesome.

ZoopTEK first won me over with his NationStates: Battlegrounds game, which was pretty fun but not exactly mind blowing. It helped lead me to the truly masterful game Mastery however. See what I did there? Mastery was amazing. A randomly generated world every round, coupled with multiplayer persistence allowed you to conquer the world. Fighting against other players across land and sea, building massive armies and forging alliances complete with trade and deception was all part of the game.

Mastery

Not to brag, but I was pretty good at it too. Mainly, though, because I was the master of diplomacy. I didn't get a chance to play too many games, being in school meant I couldn't keep up with my empire's security, forcing me to only play during the holidays. But there were more than a few games I managed to win, with my good friend and ally SavesTheBacon (I believe that was his name. He was a good man, and a loyal ally. About the only one I kept through multiple games).

But then time crept onwards and I moved away from Mastery. When I next returned, the server was down. And the time after that. And after that. Mastery, to me, was dead.

So imagine my surprise when on a whim I return to ZoopTEK and find that he's releasing another Steam game. I decide to see if the Mastery page is still up. It is. I download Mastery to see if the server is up. It is. Cue rampant imperialism on my part. I don't know how many people still play Mastery, or if there's even anyone else in the world I'm currently marching through. But just in case there is:

Beware the Nequam. We are coming for you.

I have exams at the moment, but I will return and reclaim my rightful place at the top of the Mastery leaderboards. Mark my words.

Solitaire is a bad game

2012-04-12T04:49:00.000-07:00

I swear this has nothing to do with me being terrible at it.

To me, the idea of a game is that it should be "winnable". People don't play games to be struck down with feelings of inadequacy. They play games for fun, and Solitaire has a bad habit of kicking fun seeking players in the crotch the moment they deal out a new deck. It is 100% possible (and by my standards it's apparently incredibly likely) to be dealt a hand of cards which causes you to enter an unwinnable situation after a single move. Which forces the player to lose without actually being able to even play the game.

That is a bad game. And it is stupid. And I'm not complaining because I'm terrible at the game at all and bored and wanted to rant. Honest.

Mass Effect 3: At least they tried. SPOILER WARNING

2012-03-24T08:29:00.002-07:00

If you're at all involved or following the gaming industry, there's a good chance you've heard of the huge controversy over the Mass Effect 3 endings. People wiser and with more following their words than I have done a better job at explaining just what the fan base is at odds with in regards to the ending. For the most part, I agree with them, and I'm pained by the huge amount of insults that have been thrown at those of us displeased with the endings. IGN calling us entitled whiners was particularly aggravating. Not that I ever read them anyway, but still.

I'm most annoyed that Bioware promised multiple endings which would vary depending on your choices throughout the series, but by the end of it none of your choices matter. You've one ending (with three colourful variations) regardless of anything you've done throughout the game. I can ignore plot holes and shitty writing, but this is just straight out insulting from Bioware. I won't be satisfied until this is rectified, because the whole reason I bought Mass Effect 3 was due to what Bioware had said about the huge variation in the endings.

That's not my only grievance, but it's my main one. A lack of closure is also a problem. No good ending is supposed to leave you with more questions than you had going in (or, as the ME3 devs called it, 'pulling a Lost'), and the ME3 endings are so full of plot holes, poorly introduced characters, and absolutely no closure regarding your squad mates and friends which you've got to know during the series. Garrus and Tali are about to die because they can't eat the same food as the rest of the Normandy crew. Unless the world they crashed on is Dextro-based. Then Garrus and Tali will survive, but everyone else is going to die. So...yeah. Plus, galactic travel is fried due to the loss of the Mass Relays. How does Bioware plan on dealing with that? I don't want a perfect happy ending (though in the spirit of Mass Effect, I absolutely believe the option should be there. Player's choice after all), but I do want an ending that makes sense and doesn't cheapen the lore of the entire series.

I won't be pulling any of the cheap stunts some of the other people who dislike the endings have done. Review bombing, insulting Bioware employees and so on (a minority, but loud enough to be a problem). I will continue to play ME3 because I enjoy 99% of the game. But I probably won't be buying anymore Bioware games without waiting for user reviews to come out. They screwed up, and naturally people are pissed off. Bioware even lied about listening to our concerns. They're releasing DLC to clarify the already existing (shitty and badly written) endings, which is not what anyone fucking wanted. We wanted more choice, we wanted an ending that made sense, we wanted our choices to matter. Ultimately, Bioware only heard what they wanted to hear. Which is a shame. I used to like Bioware, but they are fast running out of goodwill in my books.

I don't want Bioware to change the endings if it is absolutely against what they want to do. It's their product, and it's theirs to control and edit as they see fit. But as consumers we have every right to be upset when a product doesn't live up to its selling points. I don't buy into this artistic integrity crap, because there are plenty of cases where artists, writers and so forth have changed their minds based on feedback from those who purchased their creations. A game is art, yes, but is also a product. And as a product, the consumers have a right to make noise when it doesn't meet the expectations we were fed by Bioware.

Welcome to my new digs!

2012-03-23T07:25:00.000-07:00

It's always a sad thing to bid farewell to the old and move on to the new. Especially when it's not something you particularly wanted to do. Unfortunately, due to funding issues I can't keep my old site up and have to shift the hosting over to something free. The closest free hosting option which provided what I wanted? Blogger. Which is a shame, Wordpress is vastly superior, but you have to work with what you have. And I have no money, so I have to work with no money.

Still, having a fresh start can't hurt. It's always nice to begin again, to forget the sins of the old and move on to a brighter, new and fresher future where you are limited only by your dreams. And in my case, my laziness and ability to write stuff. Which we all know about by this stage. Assuming you were here for the old sit, if you weren't.... I was pretty bad at this whole "blogging" thing. Even after doing it for five+ years.

In time, hopefully, I'll be able to move back to my Hostgator account. They served me well for about five years, and I don't like having to leave. Tutorials on game making coming up (giving away my not-so-secret secrets) along with random musings as I normally do. A fresh start, with useful stuff being shared. Here's hoping I don't fuck it up.