The Episode Problem

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 2, 2010

When Robert Jordan was still alive and his Wheel of Time series was The Hot Thing in fantasy (I guess that was a while ago, huh?), I deliberately avoided it. My wife finally coerced me into listening to the first book on tape when I had a long commute a few years ago, but I am still holding with the first book. When asked, I simply responded that I was afraid the author would die before the series was concluded – a concern that was completely justified, in retrospect, although now my friends are more excited about Brandon Sanderson’s conclusion to the series than the last few books Jordan penned himself.

It took me a while to finally take the plunge and start reading the Harry Dresden series, too. Again, it was partly the same concern, about jumping into a planned series that didn’t have a conclusion yet. However, I was finally convinced, and read through the entire series, JUST in time to be stuck with the massive, horrible cliffhanger / shocker in the latest novel of the series, Changes. D’oh! I knew my mistrust was not misplaced!

Anyway, I don’t know if my paranoia about incomplete series is entirely unique. Maybe it has been bred by seeing too many promising TV series unceremoniously canceled, or playing too many video games that end in loose threads with the expectation of a follow-on that never happened.

Or maybe because, as a follower of the indie / hobbyist scene, I’ve been overwhelmed with promises of trilogies that only saw one or two releases.

Maybe it was the childhood trauma of having to wait three years to find out what happened to Han Solo.

Whatever the case – I find myself paranoid about unfinished stories. Intellectually, I realize the silliness of this problem. I have voluntarily abandoned many stories (especially with games and TV shows), and not always out of a lack of interest. My response is probably not a rational one. When dealing with “episodes” – parts of a greater story – if they don’t stand on their own well enough, it probably indicates a poor story in the first place.

But the end result is that I find myself resistant to playing what is advertised as the  first game of a planned series. My immediate thought is “unfinished!” Unless I somehow find reason to trust the developer, I will often wait until at least the second game proves the developer’s intent and ability to make good on their promise.

With the “Orbs of Magic” sub-series, starting with Aveyond: Lord of Twilight, Amaranth Games had already proven itself with previous game releases. While the other Aveyond games did make up something of a series (especially if you include the free “prequel,” Ahriman’s Prophecy), they weren’t advertised as being a part of anything. They stood alone quite well.

I don’t know how then-newcomer Basilisk Games convinced me that all was well with Eschalon: Book 1. That’s pretty much the textbook case for the sort of titles / series I would avoid (if only the game wasn’t so good…). Right away, it sends a signal that it is only part of the larger series, and might not stand on its own very well (but probably better than the second or third book…). Fortunately, I played it anyway.

And it’s really more of a perception problem anyway, as in many cases the second or third “parts” of the game series stand alone just fine, providing plenty of background for new players to get into the thing.

And a s a side note, does anybody remember how “The Bard’s Tale” was originally supposed to be part of a series, ‘Tales of the Unknown“? It was volume 1. The series just became “The Bard’s Tale.” It’s a good thing that my friends didn’t refer to it by its full title back in the day when they got me interested in it.

One advantage to making a game appear to be an integral part of a series is that each new release can encourage players to go back and play earlier games in the series. You don’t get that with more “loose” series – the release of Madden NFL 2010 probably doesn’t trigger a surge of buying Madden NFL 2009. But this benefit is probably overshadowed by the number of people who won’t buy the sequel until they’ve finished the original.

Of course, here I am doing pretty much the same thing with Frayed Knights, which is probably why I’m obsessing over this little problem right now. Are many gamers like me in this respect? Is it really a problem? And if so, what can be done to overcome it?

Filed Under: Production - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Historical Note: Lord British Half-Apologizes for Ultima VIII

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 1, 2010

A long time ago, I bought Ultima VIII: Pagan on CD, but never actually ended up playing more than a few minutes of it. Didn’t quite get into it. And some of the grumblings I heard from other players and critics made me a little less than optimistic to “power through” the beginning of the game in hopes of finding great rewards of fun at the end.

(Kinda like how / why I never finished Final Fantasy XII, come to think of it…)

Stumbling across the CD a couple of weeks ago, I decided to install it again just to reacquaint myself with it. Now, this was a re-release of the game, which originally shipped on floppy discs in 1994 for DOS. The re-release came fully patched and at a discounted price (IIRC). Anyway, as I was figuring out how to install it (in DOSBox), I came across a text file to fans by Richard “Lord British” Garriott that kinda surprised me. Here’s the full text of the message:

Dear Ultima Fans,

With each Ultima we have created, we have made massive changes in technology, interface and approach.  This pattern was started with the first few Ultimas.  Back in those days we were just learning how to make games.  By the time one was finished it was clear that there was a much better way, so the best plan was usually to start over from scratch.  Interestingly, it had another effect as well.  Since each game was really, measurably, noticeably better than its predecessor, it also sold better.  Whereas, most of Ultima’s competitors, were cranking out sequels in the same old engine and selling to a subset of their initial market.  So our pattern of innovation and experimentation that began as a learning experience became a powerful tool to insure success.

With each new game it is always the interface and play style experiments that cause the most debate.   With each product it is interesting to note how changes we have made are received.  I remember how much debate there was about converting from keyboard control to mouse control, a decision I am very pleased with now.  There is still an ongoing debate about ‘mono scale maps’ like we have had in the last few Ultimas.  In fact it appears that for Ultima IX we are going to have two scales, town scale and outdoor travel scale.  This will allow more interesting travel by horses, ships, dragons and such.  I’m sure these debates will continue.  Probably the most debated play style changes, though, came in Ultima VIII.

In Ultima VIII, we worked very hard to reach a lofty goal of audio visual impact.  We wanted the Avatar to be seen in greatly  detailed animation.  We wanted it to feel like you were really there.  In addition we were concerned by the fact that Ultimas had become so big, that only hard core gamers were willing to play them. They were especially daunting to new, non-Ultima-playing gamers.  So we decided to really focus on the scope and pace of the game to try to reach some of this ‘new’ audience.  To a large degree, we succeeded at many of our goals.  Ultima VIII is easily the most beautiful Ultima to date; the animation is smooth and detailed.  This  helped draw new players to the product who had never bothered to look before, especially in Europe.  This did, however, come at some cost.

Many aspects of what people had grown accustomed to in an Ultima were less emphasized, and some new aspects felt a bit out of place. And, overall, there was so much change that I think we had not yet mastered the new style.  Like they say, hindsight is 20/20…

We have studied and examined Ultima VIII, considered customer feedback, and debated new directions for Ultima IX.  We have come up with a plan that, we believe, will retain the strong advancements we made in Ultima VIII and really give people the epic game that will be worthy of the last game in the trilogy of trilogies!

Origin has always prided itself on strong customer interaction.  Customer feedback consistently mentioned issues with the implementation of jumping, the arcade feel, a frustrating user interface, holes in the storyline, and low interactivity. The design of Ultima IX (which is still in progress) relies heavily on this feedback and has resulted in a dramatic turnaround back toward classic role playing. Even better, it has resulted in a classic Britannian Ultima.

Some of the new design features were tested in the Ultima VIII engine. The jumping was improved by removing the fixed distance and allow a ‘targeted’ jump. The user interface was also improved.  Ultima VIII game play was enhanced so much that Origin decided to publish a patch.  As long as a patch was going to be published, some members of the Ultima VIII team got together and fixed other parts of the game: interface, story, and even some map details. In all, nearly 100 different modifications and enhancements were made.

I am confident that if you try out this patch, you will be very pleased.

Lord British

I imagine this is only of interest to geeks like me who are as fascinated by the history of video games as the games themselves. I know there’s a few of you.

While the awesomeness that was supposed to be Ultima IX didn’t quite materialize as planned (but then Ultima Online came out and changed everything), this was a surprisingly frank note to the fans from Garriott explaining why they made the decisions they did, and asking the players to give the game another chance with the patch – and to not give up faith in the next Ultima. And it acknowledged, it seems, the fan’s misgivings about having yet another Ultima set in a different world from the one they loved (as much as I’m sure the designers were sick of it).

I don’t know if this was the right PR move for Origin, to have the founder and originator of the series issue this semi-apology, but I think it reflects a level of integrity, accountability, and personal ownership in the game that gets lost in the modern mainstream games biz today, with the designers and developers shielded by layers of middlemen and lost in committees. One more reason I’m more and more into indie games these days.

I think it also demonstrates the difficulty and risks taking a “hardcore” game series and trying to make it more accessible to a new audience.  It’s a good goal, certainly, but there is a chance you can lose the vets and not pick up the newbies. Fundamentally altering the style of gameplay – in this case, providing more arcade-style feel and mechanics – is probably a mistake. It seems here that they smelled money (or were pushed that way by their new owners, EA) in the more console-style world and made a hybrid that wasn’t appreciated by either side very much. They patched it to eliminate the more aggravating aspects for their core audience – but was it too late?

(Personally, I doubt it was… I think the real problem was that Ultima IX was too late, but that’s just an uninformed opinion).

Anyway, there are undoubtedly some more lessons to be gleaned from this for RPG makers. As indies generally have to learn everything for themselves, without a support network of experienced vets to guide them, it’s helpful to devour whatever lessons history provides us.

Filed Under: Retro - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

Orcs and Elves are Mainstream Now?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 31, 2010

It’s kinda weird. Back when I was a young’un playing Dungeons & Dragons, elves were Santa’s helpers, and almost nobody outside of the geek set had a clue what we meant when we talked about orcs.

Nowadays, principally due to the the success of the Lord of the Rings movies and World of Warcraft, elves and orcs have permeated the geek membrane to enter mainstream understanding. Maybe not  immediate recognition, but in the same way that a casual listener might understand references about a “727″ to be “some kind of jet airliner.”

I guess in some ways this is a geek victory that I always wanted to see when I was a kid – when our joy of Tolkien and fantasy RPGs might catch on within the greater culture. But it also feels a little weird when I overhear people in the movie theater talking about their Night Elf or their guild raid. It’s like the raw, untamed wilderness once explored as a youth turned into an amusement park.

And in the world of video games, a game involving a Tolkienesque fantasy world is kind of a “safe, familiar” setting. Particularly for “core” gamers. A game set in Victorian England? Or at the height of the Mayan civilization? Or the American West? Now that’s weird and risky!

Filed Under: Geek Life - Comments: 11 Comments to Read

“We Sold One and a Half Million Copies of a Dying Genre on a Dying Platform”

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 30, 2010

Here’s a fun little interview with Tomasz Gop about The Witcher 2 at Gamasutra:

Working in ‘a Dying Genre on a Dying Platform’

The quote that makes the title of this article is their favorite joke – their way of sticking it to the publishers and pundits that still predict doom if you make PC-only games, or especially a hardcore RPG. There’s no market for either anymore, right?

Shyeah. Right.

Granted, I kinda considered The Witcher to be more of an action-RPG, and the video preview I’ve seen of the sequel looks very… well, even more action-gamey. Tomasz protests the action-RPG label in this interview: “The most important thing that we know is that people still believe good hardcore RPGs are playable. People want to play these. There’s one misconception many people have… This is not ‘action RPG,’ this is not ’slasher RPG.’ We’re trying to really make a solid RPG.”

And I will have to concur. I mean, I love my turn-based RPGs. But I don’t think that the action-y aspect precludes it from being a hardcore RPG.  Din’s Curse, Ultima VII, and Baldur’s Gate are all pretty action-oriented and few would argue that they aren’t hardcore RPGs. Not that I have a great working definition for “hardcore RPG” in the first place.

Really,  I just love these guys’ attitude – from their work on RPGs to the awesomeness that is GOG.COM, they seem to be kindred spirits. Now I feel an urge to finally finish The Witcher. Just… need… more… time…

Filed Under: Biz, Interviews - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

Making a Game – On Fast Forward

Posted by Rampant Coyote on

Wouldn’t it be cool if we could make a game this fast?

But no – this is a time-lapse look at Markus “Minecraft” Persson’s Ludum Dare 18 entry – a “game in a weekend” competition. As with many of the competitors, it’s dang impressive what was accomplished in only 48 hours of development time.

The cool thing about this video, though, is the insight it can give new developers into the process of developing the game. I haven’t really dissected the video in detail, but you can see the stages that take place from the early conceptual prototype with squares of color to the final game. Persson knows what he’s doing – probably better than I do.

You can play the final game here:

Metagun

I’m pretty impressed with the game. It’s — well, not exactly a shooter. More of a puzzle game. Involving shooting.

Have fun!

(Hat tip to gamr src for the link!)

Filed Under: Free Games, Game Development - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Reinventing the RPG Genre?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 27, 2010

When I read some smarmy designer-turned-marketing guy brag in the press about how they are making an RPG that is “reinventing the genre” (or effectively making such a statement, using only slightly more humble terminology), I generally read this as code for, “We’re making it more like God of War or some other action-game.”

And, sadly, I’m almost always right. The experiment-averse mainstream video game industry unfortunately keeps chasing last year’s hits, “evolving” towards one lowest-common-denominator monogame that is sure to be enjoyable to everybody (but truly loved by very few).  Yeah. I’ve gotten cynical.

And then I see hints of something that very well may pull off what these blowhards claim. I’m inevitably disappointed by the final result striking short of the mark, but it’s enough of a success for me to quiet my inner cynic and experience the joy that I felt when I first discovered video games.

But that kind of experience isn’t coming from the usual sources these days.  Nowadays, more often than not, it comes from the indies. Sure, many of them play it safe as well, but there’s a big enough pool of risk-takers to yield interesting and successful results now. So rare that you get both at the same time…

I had something like that happen a few years ago when Soldak released Depths of Peril. I was expecting Yet Another Diablo Clone. But while it was far from perfect, and some of its more experimental elements probably interfered with the “fun” factor for many players, it was an experiment that pushed the boundaries of what an RPG could be. It was an amazingly fresh experience for me. While it of course didn’t represent the New Direction All RPGs Must Travel, it certainly blazed a trail into some new territory.

That’s what I expect from a game “reinventing” a genre. (And yeah, Cute Knight Deluxe did it for me, too. ) I keep talking about evolution not being a single a linear path to a single ultimate destination, but rather a variety of specialist offshoots that take the genre in new and different directions, some of which don’t work and die off, but others that find a way to survive in a particular ecological niche. I want to see more of this. For me, “reinventing the genre” isn’t necessarily blazing a trail for ALL to follow, but some to follow and then improve on.

I have hopes of seeing this again. Soon. But apparently not in 2010. But there’s a particular indie RPG I’ve now got my eye on.

I’ve mentioned “Zombie RPG” here a few times. It is now officially titled, Dead State.

The design updates have continually caught my interest. With the publishing of an interview at RPS with Brian Mitsoda, I have officially gone from being merely intrigued to out-and-out enthusiastic.

If these guys pull it off – and as veteran mainstream devs I give them far better odds than most first-time indies – then I think this game really could “reinvent the genre.” They are forging off into uncharted territory with a hell of a lot of cool ideas, and most of them have nothing to do with zombies.

I became a fan of RPGs because of the potential for just these kinds of new experiences. Sure, I can enjoy some plain-ol’ (but well-designed) traditional RPG experience with a fun storyline and some interesting mechanics. I mean, I’m making a game like that. But really, I became a fan because I saw the potential to experience not just epic battles and cool locations but also the kind of tough, meaninful choices and human drama found in gripping novels and movies. And we get that, sometimes, in dice-and-paper RPGs. Just not so much in the cRPG analog.

Doublebear seems to have an idea of one way to explore these neglected aspects of the genre. While its success may be limited to only the veteran players of the genre, I think it could do a lot more to “reinvent” things than anything Molyneux or Bioware has pulled off recently.

So – to the Mitsodas and everyone else working with Doublebear on Dead State – please don’t screw this up.

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: 3 Comments to Read

At Least Some Things Don’t Change

Posted by Rampant Coyote on

We bought a minivan (also known in Utah as a “Mormon Assault Vehicle”). Not that we have enough kids to justify it – we only have the two. But see, my youngest daughter entered junior high school this week.  And the ladies in the neighborhood carpool to school and other activities, and to participate in some of the carpools one needs to have enough room for more than four kids. Yeah. She’s now a (gasp!) “soccer mom.” And then there’s the fact that most “wagons” nowadays don’t have trunk space to handle camping gear & farmers market sales stuff & trips to visit the in-laws at Christmas time with all the presents…

That means our crappy old wagon with the hatch that no longer opens goes to the older daughter, who is taking driver’s ed now and will be eligible for a license in December.

Last week, I hurt my back. Again. Not too badly, this time – I took care of it immediately. It’s due to a cracked vertebrae I got when I was approximately seventeen years old. Whether from gymnastics or all that running around in chain mail hitting people and being hit by fake swords, I’m not sure which.

The sex-symbols of my youth – those who didn’t die of drug overdose – are starting to look… *gasp* … old.

I have eyebrow hairs that are turning gray.

I just have one question:

HOW THE FREAK DID THIS HAPPEN?

A scant fifteen years ago (er, I guess almost sixteen, now) I was a fresh-faced kid right outta college who was the youngest employee at a newly-funded game company called SingleTrac. Employee #16. I was “the kid.” Surrounded by “old guys” in their mid-30’s to pushing 50. Yeah, even then we recognized that the employees at SingleTrac were WAY-WAY older than the median in the games biz. Still – I was self-conscious about being the “kid.”

Things change.

When I was in school, I assumed that once I got married, had kids, etc. I’d have to give up the gaming lifestyle and burning the midnight oil. I’d eventually outgrow all that silly gaming stuff.

Fortunately, I married a (moderate) gamer. We still get together with friends weekly to play D&D or some other RPG – many of the same folks we’ve been playing with since college.  We’ve sporting a few more pounds and a few more gray hairs than we did back then, but we’re still the same bunch of gamers.  Our kids are playing now, too… though they don’t get to play in the “grown-up” games except in one-shots on Thanksgiving or whatnot. We’re embarrassed enough by what they overhear in our regular weekly gaming sessions. Yes, mommy and daddy sometimes make jokes about wild gnome sex.

And I’m still playing video games. Sometimes the same games I was playing twenty years ago. And I’m still staying up until 1 or 2 in the morning either making or playing games. People keep telling me how they used to do it but found they couldn’t do it anymore as they got older. How old? Oh, about thirty or so, they say.

Hah. Wusses.

So maybe this is some indication that my mental and emotional progression is completely stunted while my physical age, unfortunately, marches on.  It’s no fair when life decides to keep going when you decide you are happy where you are at. But I’m really glad that some things don’t change.

Viva la games!

Filed Under: Geek Life - Comments: 4 Comments to Read

The Dungeons & Dragons Effect

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 26, 2010

Jason Wilson explores the influence of the original dice-and-paper RPG, Dungeons & Dragons, on the video game industry — from the early days until today. The article includes comments from Brenda Brathwaite (Wizardry series, among other games), Thomasz Gop of CD Projekt (The Witcher), and Tony Evans of Obsidian  (Neverwinter Nights 2: Storm of Zehir, and others) and now Bioware.

Gamespy: The Dungeons & Dragons Effect

Evans in particular takes the “RPGs are dead, long live the RPG” attitude. He notes that while many gamers view RPG as a “badge of honor,” for most gamers it is a “dirty word,” and believes that attitude needs to shift. One assumes that means making RPGs more accessible, something which Bioware seems intent on doing.

Which of course, we old-school hard-core RPGers see as a code-word for “dumbed down.” But when selling to the masses, they ain’t got much choice anymore.

Filed Under: Retro - Comments: 12 Comments to Read

Are JRPGs “True” RPGs?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 25, 2010

Kombo.com makes the assertion, “An RPG is not an RPG when it’s a JRPG.”

I wanted to get all up in their grill with that and whip out Persona as the counterpoint, but they already made that exception themselves.  D’oh. So instead, as a fan of (some) jRPGs, I still feel a desire to defend them against this accusation – particularly with all the RPGs I have of that style that I promote on the Rampant Games website.

But I gotta admit that they do have a point.

Not that I agree wholeheartedly with the point, or that I’m about to replace Final Fantasy VI with Elite on my personal list of RPGs. There are folks who claim that no computer RPG is a “true” RPG who also have a point.

I have a somewhat broad definition of RPGs, so I do take a bit of an issue with something that excludes around half the games in the market (more, if in terms of sales) but ensures Mass Effect 2 is on the accepted list. That sounds a little arbitrary to me.

Open-ended, sandbox-y worlds with lots of player freedom is certainly a preference of mine. It’s how I roll.  But it’s not a completely exclusionary principle for me, especially with so many shades of that freedom available in both western and eastern RPG design styles. I mean, when the Final Fantasy games open up character development and finally give you an airship or equivalent to allow you to travel just about anywhere in the world (although most of it has already been visited), is that really that far from something like Knights of the Old Republic, with it’s pre-generated party members (your own character had somewhat fixed development path and, it turns out, an established pre-game history as well).

Or was KotOR not a ‘true’ RPG either?

I won’t call the argument a straw man, but it does seem to place the extremes of the jRPG design approach as a more typical or generic case. And as I really haven’t played THAT many “true” jRPGs (meaning console RPGs coming out of Japan) – so many don’t even make it officially to the U.S. shores  -  I can’t really claim with any authority that they aren’t a typical case. But based on my experience, I just don’t feel I can draw a clear line along such a wide, fuzzy border.

I have a tough enough time explaining why I don’t feel X-Com was an RPG. If you were to place it side-by-side with Mass Effect, Titan Quest, and Fable II, and ask, “Which one isn’t a REAL RPG, and why?”, it might not be the one I pick.

So sure – you can probably point at some extreme cases in the jRPG genre and make a case for rejecting them as “true” RPGs. The RPG genre has been one of the most borrowed-from, mashed, and played with that there are lots out outliers which are really arguable. That’s cool.  Those are fun, if sometimes heated, debates.

But rejecting the entire design style outright (even with exceptions) as members of a genre seems more a case of defending a style preference than adding clarity to the discussion.

Hat tip to GameBanshee for the link!

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

Three Tales of Indie Game Development …

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 24, 2010

Imagining riches with your l33t indie game-making skills? It’s definitely possible. Here are some reflections on some semi-recent projects grounded firmly in reality. One is a traditional single-player game for PC that I thought (at the time) would be a sure-fire hit, blending one hit game with rock & roll mystique. Another is an indie Massively Multiplayer Online game. And a third is a follow-up to a hit iPhone game.

The Long Tail: Rock Legend Game Sales Statistics

Don’t Quit Your Day Job? Here’s Why I Haven’t…

Chopper 2 Post-Mortem

There are some outstanding excerpts I can’t help but note. On Chopper 2:

“Initially, I saw Chopper 2 as roughly twice as complicated as Chopper 1, so thought it would take twice as long. But this was a mistake. I’d neglected to think about all the complexities introduced by the relationships between all of the new features. An analogy would be a number of people shaking hands. Two people means one handshake, but double it to four people and you get six handshakes. Much of the coding complexity is in the handshakes.”

Been there, done that, and he is SO correct in ways that many gamers and inexperienced game developers do not realize.

And a note in the comments about how Cliffski misjudged his market:

“When I did KRL, I was vaguely targeting the casual games portals, but I screwed up. The game was too edgy and unpolished to be casual games fare, and too simple and cuddly to be hardcore games fare. In retrospect, having some sex and drugs with the rock n roll would have been much much better. Huge variety of equipment for the band would have been better, too.”

Good stuff to think about.

Filed Under: Biz, Indie Evangelism - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

“Eschalon” Creator at Low Hit Points After Epic Victory Against His Own Appendix

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 23, 2010

So at the risk of sounding like a total gossip-blog…

As Thomas “Eschalon” Riegsecker of Basilisk Games put it on Saturday, “At hospital. My appendix decided it had enough of living with me.”

He has since tweeted that he’s at home, recovering from surgery. Good luck, Thomas – and best wishes & prayers for a speedy recovery!

Filed Under: News - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Our Colorful Past…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on

Many years ago, when our youngest daughter was probably around five or so, she asked us if the world had color when we were children. We chuckled and explained to her that the world had always had color, but it was merely the photographs and movies we had back then that were in black & white.

We laughed. We knew it was a cute story we knew we’d drag out in later years to embarrass her.

What I didn’t realize until a few days ago was that I subconsciously believed her.

Then I saw these photographs taken from Russia and neighboring regions one hundred years ago:

Russia In Color A Century Ago

I was floored. I realized that, in my imagination, I’ve always pictured that era as being drab and colorless. Consciously I knew better, but my mental image was apparently driven by all those black & white images.

While harmless enough, I guess my take-away is how, in spite of our best intentions and conscious rejection, our mental images and models of things are still colored (or not) by the media to which we are exposed. In my opinion, that’s one more reason to fight to maintain freedom of speech and media in general (including video games) – so we don’t end up viewing the world through a single, inaccurate lens.

But mostly, I thought those were just amazingly cool photos of life a century ago in a beautiful part of the world.

Filed Under: General - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

Make a Game Too Fun, and Get Sued!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 21, 2010

Ah, America. Used to be the land of the free and the home of the brave. Now it’s the land of the entitled and the home of people who don’t want to take responsibility.

So apparently, if you are a loser who can’t get a life and instead spend all your waking hours playing MMOs, you can sue the game makers for making their game so fun and addictive that you just can’t help yourself but let your life go to pot while you play. Sounds way more lucrative than gold-farming to me!

WIRED: Addicted Gamer Sues Game-Maker, Says He is ‘Unable to Function’

The frightening thing is that this lawsuit wasn’t dismissed out-of-hand. Maybe this is the judge’s way of getting back at all the people who kicked his butt at Street Fighter 2 in college. I dunno, but hey, way to create a chilling effect on the entire industry!

You know, the semester I discovered the Stainless Steel Rat novels by Harry Harrison, my grades took a definite plunge. I was blowing off classes to read these books. I’ll betcha I could make a case that my starting salary in my first job would have been higher had my GPA been higher, and all my raises and salary progression from that point on could have been higher building upon that foundation. Yeah, I should sue the publisher for failing to put a warning on those books! I could get hundreds of thousands of dollars in compensation!

Or at least a free copy of the new Stainless Steel Rat novel…

Sheesh. So do I need to put disclaimers on all my games now?

Filed Under: Politics - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Frayed Knights: Goblinville Reborn

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 20, 2010

Yeah. That Frayed Knights thing. The indie computer RPG with its tongue planted in its cheek in development. This is an update. And I’m sure you will find it the latest of all of my updates up until this point.

For the last couple of weeks, I’ve been working on content. Specifically, the LAST dungeon of Frayed Knights 1. Actually, it’s not the last one the player will visit, but with its completion we have all of the world geometry in place. It’s all tweaking / polishing / optimizing now.

This was a replacement for another level that had already been “done.” Done, but it just wasn’t working. The previous was poorly laid out, and had proven impossible to optimize correctly. (Programmers terms – the engine uses portals – old-school tech – to optimize “interior” geometry. These are notoriously finicky in this engine and have very explicit requirements to have a prayed of a chance of working correctly. And without them, your interior level runs poorly and the lighting looks like crap).

So after a bunch of debate, vague discussions about “fixing” the level, and some concentrated efforts to try and tame / redesign the thing, we finally agreed that it just needed to be completely redone.  Brian, who had done the original, was more than happy to agree. It had been his first completed dungeon with the tools / engine, and he’d learned a lot of tricks since then to make better levels.

Unfortunately, after agreeing to this, Brian has been afflicted with a bad case of Real Life, and so all work from him has stopped for the time being. This is the problem with being an indie and working with contractors whom you can only compensate in intermittent, token payments of beer money.

I’ve been working around the problem for a bit, but finally decided to do it myself. This is, in areas of artistic endeavor, generally not a Good Idea. I’m not exactly the talent when it comes to this kind of thing – as an artist, I’m a pretty okay programmer. However, I do suck less than I used to, and I decided I was going to cheat.

Specifically, I was going to borrow some geometry from the previous dungeon and re-use it. And not only that, but I was going to swipe some geometry from another level that never been used in the game. By borrowing the best pieces of two previous dungeons, I could maybe arrange them according to the desired gameplay, and link them with some custom material of my own that might not suck too badly.

Of course, I underestimated the time requirements of even that.

However, we’ve ended up with a big freakin’ dungeon. Maybe not quite Tower of Almost Certain Death big (my other major contribution to the dungeons in the game), but still big. The entrance, a couple of bridges, and what we call the “Escher Room” remain mostly intact from the previous dungeon. I don’t know what Brian was on when he created the Escher room – it certainly wasn’t part of my specs – but he took it and ran with it. His justification for it was folded into the storyline around the dungeon, which we’re keeping.

Story-wise: This is currently the lair of a tribe of goblins which are now divided into two factions – a larger but weaker majority oppressed by a nasty thug named Gorash and his army of goons. But they didn’t build this place.This place is far older than them. And it has its own secrets. One secret was discovered by Gorash and allowed him to make his bid for overlordship (with a bit of clever deceit and misdirection to find a use for it). But the dungeon is divided into an area principally occupied by non-hostile commoners, and the rest of the dungeon off-limits to any but the hostile elites.

Of course, there’s a lot more to it than that, but those are the basics that drove the dungeon design.

One odd bit that I’m still working with is that the dungeon is encountered before it is possible to “complete” it and unravel its biggest secret. I’m still working out the hints and dialogs in the game necessary to make sure the player “gets” that the solution is going to require a great deal more adventuring outside this dungeon itself. What I really don’t want is players as stubborn as I am refusing to leave the dungeon until they’ve figured out the final “trick,” searching endlessly for something they may have missed. Instead, the party will have to retrace Gorash’s actions to discover what he learned, a quest that took him all over the caverns.

Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: Read the First Comment

Indie RPG News Round-Up, Aug 19 2010

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 19, 2010

Some Indie RPG Goodness that has been happening lately…

Road Gangs

This is a vehicle based RPG set in a post-apocalyptic United States by new game-maker Blackwater Games. Your gang must find a number of nuclear scientists hidden in cities all over the country and use them to disable a certain number of nuclear silos before it’s too late. Vehicle combat is real time, there are 23 vehicle types in Road Gangs and all vehicles have over a dozen upgrade options available.

Road Gangs is currently available for the PC, with a Mac version planned “soon.”

Check out Road Gangs

Darkwind: War on Wheels

Keeping with the vehicular combat theme, Olena Korskii of Psychic Software emailed me to let me know that Darkwind: War On Wheels is still going strong.  It’s not really an RPG – it’s an online persistent world turn-based 3D wargame. But it’s cool enough to be worth mentioning here.  Again. I look at this video, and I think, “Holy crap, it’s like Car Wars.”

You can check out the game at the Darkwind: War On Wheels website.

Timelapse Vertigo

This has been chatted about in the forums, and it’s really starting to look like it’s coming together in a cool way. Timelapse Vertigo is an indie RPG set in the far future. Life on the Earth’s surface has long since been made impossible and the remnants of humanity now dwell in the Underrail, a vast system of metro station-states that, it seems, are the last bastions of a fading race.

Bizarre, huh? Yeah, and it looks cool. Here’s another video (two cool vids in a row…), provided by StygSoft:

Check out more information here: Timelapse Vertigo

Alpha Kimori

Alpha Kimori is, according to the website, “a cute, bright, and colorful Japanese Anime inspired episodic casual 2D Role Playing Game (RPG) which features an intricate action-adventure epic story with a delightful mix of sci-fi and fantasy elements.”

Check out the Alpha Kimori website for more info.

Din’s Curse

Din’s Curse is up to a beta patch 1.006.  It looks like it’s mainly some enhancements / fixes on the beta patch 1.005. If you haven’t tried Din’s Curse in a while, check it out with the latest changes. It still feels like the same game (which is GOOD), but it looks much better. Just when I thought I was over the game, the new patch got me sucked back into it.

Planet Stronghold

Planet Stronghold is an upcoming sci-fi RPG from veteran indie game-maker Winter Wolves Games. It promises to be a story-heavy RPG with turn-based combat a little like many older console RPGs.

If you want to try the public alpha – to get a feel for it and provide feedback – the public al is now available. You can check it out here.

Age of Decadence

As previously reported, the game has hit what I’d call the “alpha” stage. Now is the long, grueling stage of fixing, cleaning, tweaking, changing, improving, re-doing, and so forth.  There’s no ETA, but I’m becoming hopeful that it won’t be too many more months before Age of Decadence becomes available.

RPGDX Game-in-a-Week Competition

RPGDX finished its RPG-in-a-week competition, with the theme of “alternate history.” You can check out the final results here (just follow the [Alternate History] tags).

Konsoolo RPG Editor

The Konsoolo RPG Editor, an indie-created Flash-based alternative to RPG Maker, is under development. There’s a new video out showing the the “auto tile layering” technique being incorporated into the editor. If this thing flies, it may soon be far easier to create web-based RPGs.  Though I don’t know how well it can be adapted to making something that’s not so jRPG-like.

But here’s a video demoing this part of the editor:

Frayed Knights

Did I mention this awesome RPG in development called, “Frayed Knights?” Once or twice, probably.  Anyway – progress continues. I’ll have an update tomorrow. Short version: Progress is speeding up again, and the very last dungeon is now built, textured, and awaiting final touches and filling with adventure.  This doesn’t mean the game is close to release or anything, just that “principal development” is finally drawing to a close. For the first game, at least…

Aaaaand….. that’s all for now, folks. I’m sure I’m missing a ton of stuff. If you have an announcement and I’m not being too lazy, email it to me so I can include it here.

Filed Under: News - Comments: 10 Comments to Read

Activision Answers Indie Contest Questions

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 18, 2010

For those who were interested in what the heck a big mainstream publisher like Activision was doing sponsoring an indie game competition:

Activision and the Indies: How Does This Contest Work?

Note: You have only a few days to enter the contest, so get cracking if you are interested.

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: Read the First Comment



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