Ancient Ultima Games Now at GOG.COM

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 1, 2011

I think these have now become the absolute oldest games in GOG.COM’s repository… the first Ultima Trilogy, and Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar are now available from Good Old Games.

And as a side note, am I the only one who calls them “Gog-dot-com?” I notice they call themselves “Gee-Oh-Gee-dot-com.” Maybe it’s because they don’t want to be associated with the the forces of darkness at the end of days referred to in the book of Revelation so much. Or to emphasize that it stands for “Good Old Games.” Probably more the latter.

But anyway: the early Ultimas. Ultima IV is free from the site, as it has been free from many sites over the years, courtesy of EA. If you really want a taste of the past, that’s a pretty low-risk way to start.  I’d personally recommend XU4 with the graphics update.  The last time I checked (and it was a while ago), you needed the original Ultima IV (the data files) to run XU4 anyway, so now’s your chance. GOG.COM nicely provides some extra materials and support for the game for your price of free, so it’s a win / win.

Sadly, these Ultima versions (for DOS) are pretty inferior to other versions. PCs back in the day were boring business machines, with none of those gamer frills like color graphics and quality sound. And they were just ports.  So Ultima III: Exodus, for example, runs in 4 colors (instead of 16), and only has sound effects that would run off a PC’s built-in speaker. CRAP. But there’s really no other way to get a legal copy of the game short of E-Bay extortion.

And while I snagged them just to show my support for what they were doing, I didn’t really expect to play these old titles. But I’ve found myself playing Ultima III. There’s one good thing to say about the grindy gameplay of some of these RPGs – it’s really easy to drop and pick back up again for a fifteen minute “fix.”  Some aspects of the game were better than I remembered. Others were far, far worse. I will say that the game really provides you with a money sink for you gold. Between food, and the cost of raising your attributes, you can never have too much gold. Well, actually, that’s not true, as an amount in excess of 9999 gold in any character will cause gold to go negative, which is a bad thing. So yes, yes there is such a thing as too much gold.

Would I recommend these titles? Ultima IV, definitely, for anyone who is more than idly curious about the history of computer RPGs. It’s like looking at modern RPGs in embryo. You really have to put on your retrogamer hat to enjoy it through cumbersome interfaces and a lot of “do it yourself” requirements that modern titles do for you. But it is a landmark title in gaming history. I really can’t say there isn’t any part of the game that hasn’t been done better many times over, but in some ways the simplicity of the approach is half of what makes it so appealing. Once you get past the limitations of the technology and design, there is still an entertaining adventure to enjoy in there. It’s like enjoying a silent movie.

The previous three Ultimas are another story.  Ultima III really blew my mind back in the day. It can’t do that today. After all, I have very little mind left… a small target. But it has also been clearly surpassed in every way (particularly by later Ultimas). Somehow I still find it to be fun and enjoyable, but the first Ultima trilogy may be something mostly for the hardcore retrogamers or collectors. Or designers of old-school-style RPGs. 🙂

In fact, I’ll go ahead and share four design elements from Ultima III that – while hardly unique (or even original, at the time) – stand out simply because the game is so simple (relative to today’s offerings):

1. Multiple paths to power. Experience points are only a small part of the equation. Equipment – except for finding the Exotics – was all available for sale at the various shops (though only one shop carried the best stuff), so that wasn’t even a big factor. But gaining power through the “marks” in dungeons, and spending a TON of money on increasing your stats, were just as important.

2. Money sinks – besides buying equipment and increasing stats, you needed a positive cash flow to stay alive due to the constant use of food, and using certain expendable items – namely gems, powders, keys, and torches. And occasional healing in town.

3. Adventure-gamey elements. So much of getting to the end game can only be achieved through figuring out clues scattered across the world. Or, I guess, reading spoilers.

4. Dungeons: Fountains in dungeons that invite you to drink from them (with different effects). Other (critical) artifacts in dungeons. And weird funky dungeon layouts that make navigation a challenge.

5. Open-world design. Generally a hallmark of the Ultima games, but not exclusive to them.

Now bring on later Ultimas!

Filed Under: Retro - Comments: 12 Comments to Read

They Are Like Text Adventures Without a Command Prompt, See..?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 31, 2011

So I’m going for a slight deviation of usual topics here.

One of the regrets of my lifestyle is that I don’t have much time to read fiction. I don’t have time for a lot of things, like TV, but I generally don’t regret much missed TV, as I have no real interest in remaining “current.” And I don’t mind watching shows on DVD (or streaming online) that were popular years ago.  But I do wish I could read more. I have a big list of novels to read that grows faster than I can get through them.  Since my social group tends to be avid readers, I’m always feeling a little like the slow kid.

But between some audio books on a trip to Oregon, and catching up on the newly-released post-cliffhanger of a favorite series, August wasn’t too bad for me in terms of enjoying the written word. So I feel a little like sharing this strange little linear entertainment form I’ve rediscovered. 🙂

First off: Ghost Story, by Jim Butcher. It follows the cliffhanger ending of the last novel in the Harry Dresden series, Changes. Unfortunately, I can’t say much about this one without it being a spoiler, especially if you haven’t read Changes.  If you are unfamiliar with the series, Harry Dresden is a wizard living in modern-day Chicago. He’s got a problem with authority figures, be it the council of wizards which he ostensibly serves, the age-old status quo of supernatural races which he’s alternately worked to preserve and destroy,  and even godlike beings of legend whom he (later in the series) has increasingly frequent contact with. The first couple of books in the series are definitely weaker than the later ones (no big surprise), but they are still quite enjoyable. What I do like best is that the author is not afraid to take the series on quick 90-degree turns that really change everything.

He’s done it enough that I trust him with the changes by now. With the latest book, my wife wasn’t too satisfied with the ending. I, on the other hand, felt it was a good “transitional” novel. While I wanted Harry to avoid a particular fate at the end, it is probably more satisfying (and more interesting in future novels) that he rather discovered some truths about himself and the nature of said fate that he is able to go in on his own terms.

And that’s as specific as I want to get.

On the trip to Oregon, I was able to enjoy the audiobook Wyrd Sisters by Terry Pratchett.  I’ve not read many Discworld novels, though some players and readers have stated that Frayed Knights has a similar style / approach to turning fantasy tropes on their ear. Wyrd Sisters is something of riff on Shakespeare, particularly MacBeth, generally taking the point of view of three witches in the unfolding of political treachery and regicide. While neither this book nor most books in the series have the kind of humor that makes me laugh out loud, it’s instead the kind that makes you just grin and inwardly smirk as you find yourself truly drawn into the story.

On the return trip, we listened the the recording of The Warrior’s Apprentice, by Lois McMaster Bujold. With my long list of unread novels, there aren’t many that I’ve re-read, let alone read three or more times. This was the third time for me, but I got to share it with my daughters. I was wondering how well they’d get into some good ol’ space-opera adventure. Based on their enthusiasm and laughter, I’d say they did. Yes, it is at times laugh-out-loud funny, though that’s often as much from a release of tension as from the humor of the situation.

I’ve recommended this book before on this blog, and I’ll do it again here. It’s not necessarily the “beginning” of the series, though it’s really where the story of Miles Vorkosigan starts, and a great introduction to the series. He is the young son of a famous hero and powerful political lord of a space-faring empire, one with a dangerous reputation in the galaxy for its recent history of conquest and expansion. A failed assassination attempt on his parents during his mother’s pregnancy gave Miles some extreme physical limitations and a stunted form. But he’s also something of a hyperactive genius with a nose for getting him into trouble. In this first book of his adventures, what begins as a simple off-planet vacation with a childhood friend he’d like to turn into a romance quickly escalates to Miles becoming an arms smuggler, mercenary captain, and soon the de facto commander on the formerly losing side of an interstellar war.  If that sounds like a wild ride, it is.

Not all the Vorkosigan books are rollicking space opera like this one – in fact, one of the hallmarks of the series is how the science fiction, far-future setting is really just an interesting setting for all kinds of different story styles: Mystery, political intrigue, and even romantic comedy. I’m thrilled my daughters have now been introduced to the series. Probably just as thrilled as my wife was when she finally got me to start reading the books.

So there you go – some urban fantasy, some humorous fantasy, and some science fiction. Maybe you are like me and those books will go in on a very long “to read” list, but there you go!

 

Filed Under: Books - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Sword & Sorcery Underworld Gets New Paint

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 30, 2011

I meant to post this over the weekend: Do you remember “Sword and Sorcery: Underworld” by Classic Games Remade? It’s an indie RPG inspired heavily by the early Might & Magic titles. The mechanics are pretty decent, overall, but when even *I* can tell that the visuals were jarringly poor, something’s wrong. If you can turn a blind eye to it, it’s a fun and very old-school game.

But it seems that in a couple of months, the game should become far easier on the eyes. It’s in the process of a complete graphical overall. You can check out the details here.

And you can see the early results here:

I really hope that this graphical upgrade gives the game the shot in the arm that it needs, sales-wise.  I want to see more games of this style that aren’t limited to 1980s-era technology limitations.

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Why the RPG Genre is Losing its Distinctiveness

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 29, 2011

The top names in the mainstream games biz – many of whom have a history of producing computer and console RPGs, have now come to question the relevance of the genre. A former Interplay producer claims that RPGs always wanted to be action games at heart, but just lacked the technology to do so.  Even Bioware’s Greg Zeschuk has questioned the value of the distinctiveness of the genre, and isn’t really sure what an “RPG” means anymore.

Answering this is a Gamasutra blog article by Eric Schwarz which I think will resonate with a lot of RPG fans who aren’t newly minted in the last five years:

The Self-Made Irrelevance of RPGs

What I take away from the article is that the dismissal of the traditional RPG style by certain RPG developers in the mainstream industry over the last several months is due to an identity crisis of their own making:

“I think it’s safe to say that the question of relevance on Greg’s mind comes either from a misunderstanding or change in perception of what an RPG actually is, or from a desire to no longer make RPGs.  BioWare have, for many years, been at the forefront of delivering cinematic and story-driven videogame experiences to players… considering the ease at which many of these games can be divorced from their mechanical underpinnings, and their narratives told in a way unhindered by statistics, it becomes questionable whether BioWare are, or even have been for the last eight or so years, in the practice of creating RPGs at all.  RPGs have traditionally been about universal rulesets, and even the best narratively-charged CRPGs have governed those narrative qualities via mechanics – Planescape: Torment, Fallout, and even more recently Alpha Protocol, have all built their stories around the fundamental notion that it is the player’s choices in statistically developing a character or a party, rather than around the idea that the player’s decision-making be conceptualised as a choose-your-own-adventure novel.”

It’s a medium-sized article, and well worth reading the whole thing.

This sort of thing comes from the inevitable arguments over the question, “What is an RPG?” It’s a fun little discussion to have, one that should be revisited regularly for the good of the genre, but it never results in a definitive answer. I think that’s probably a good thing.

I don’t think I’d go so far as to argue that the products that Bioware has been making lately are not RPGs. But I think they are making the kinds of games that once upon a time would have represented the fringe of the genre, and have now come to represent the mainstream view of the genre. It’s perfectly understandable why the distinction would become so blurry, and the relevance of the genre would come into question.

What led to the migration to the fringe, and possible extinction of the genre (in the minds of mainstream developers)? I think it really comes down to to much of a good thing. These guys have been at it for years, and have had numerous iterations optimizing the experience for the broadest possible market. There’s nothing fundamentally wrong with that. They just took the “average gamer’s” answers to questions to the extreme:

* What’s more fun & interesting: Making a story-based decision like “Who lives and who dies?”, or making a stats-based decision like, “Do I raise my Strength or my Intelligence this level?”

* What’s more fun & interesting: Decisions which have immediate, clearly game-altering results, or decisions for which the results are subtle and may not be noticed for several hours?

* What’s more fun & interesting: Walls of text, or dramatic spoken lines by popular actors?

* What’s more fun & interesting: Visceral, high-speed action sequences, or methodical slow-moving “action” sequences?

Granted, for some of us, our answers may not be the same as that of the average gamer. I think my answer is largely the same same as that of the average gamer, but I like variety.  I love turn-based RPGs so much now partly because they have become such a novelty. The problem is only that the those preferences have been cranked up to eleven as design requirements.   Story-based decisions with immediate results are generally more exciting than slow-burn character building decisions? Well, hey, then exclusively doing the former and doing away with the latter is the way to maximal fun, then, right?

It’s not quite all-or-nothing yet, but it’s been on that path for a while now. And that trajectory will eventually take it completely out of RPG-ville, as far as I am concerned. I don’t think that needs to be a call to turn the clock back to making turn-based wargamey titles again (though Knights of the Chalice did a spectacular job of it). But I do think it’s a great time to go back and revisit some of those old RPG features that have been “optimized out” in recent years. The indies are doing it, but it doesn’t have to be just them.

I know I keep singing the same song, but it’s a good tune.

 

Filed Under: Biz, Design - Comments: 14 Comments to Read

Indie RPGs: One Goodbye, One Hello

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 26, 2011

Jason Compton recently made it official and announced that he has canceled The Broken Hourglass as a commercial product. I’d heard this off-the-record about a year ago, and by this point most people following the game expected as much. It’s been a long time with little to no updates. While sometimes big delays in updates may only be that the indie in question is up to their elbows in hard work (honest!), going dark for an extended period of time usually means that the project is failing.

This is a bummer. I know Compton has invested plenty of his own money and tons of labor into this project, and others have made significant contributions as well. The idea of an indie building on the foundation of the Baldur’s Gate / Infinity Engine style RPGs was pretty dang appealing. Maybe somebody will pick up the torch. IMO, though, I think at this point trying to do a game like that in 2D, with that level of detail, might be more trouble than an actual 3D game. But that’s just technology.  The actual concepts – turn-based-with-pause combat, party-based, heavy on story, etc. – are still ripe ideas for an indie to expand upon.

I’m sad to see The Broken Hourglass disappear. But with indie games, that’s often as likely as not.

However, as one indie RPG with great potential disappears, another one rises. The Legend of Grimrock is looking pretty awesome at this point. One could call it a Dungeon Master / Eye of the Beholder “clone,” but after a couple of decades it’s really not so much a clone as a modern re-envisioning of the game style.  From the new gameplay video, it looks like they adhering pretty closely to the Dungeon Master formula and style. This isn’t a bad thing.  I’m sure they’ll add their own twists and flavor.

The team, Almost Human Games, includes four experienced mainstream developers, and so far they’ve managed to do an awesome job of marketing and – we hope – putting together a decent game. It’s about time for another dungeon crawler like this! I’m just a tiny bit annoyed that their game is prettier than mine.  🙂

UPDATE: Just as I was publishing this, the Legend of Grimrock website got “slashnotched” – tweeted about by Markus “Notch” Persson.  It may be slow / down for a few hours.

 

Filed Under: Game Announcements - Comments: 8 Comments to Read

Frayed Knights Update: A Whole Lotta Maps

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 25, 2011

I’m currently sick with a rather fast-acting cold. As I was still working a bit on Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon through a haze induced by both illness and medication (counteracted – or exacerbated – by a dose of Red Bull), I got decidedly un-productive and decided to make a collage of the maps from the game. Amusingly, in the process of doing so I found a couple of issues I needed to fix (the flaws are still there in this picture, but I’m fixing them for the release).

This image could perhaps be viewed as a spoiler, though not much of one, but if you wish to remain unsullied, don’t look to closely. I think the testers who have already played may have some challenges identifying all the maps at this resolution.

 

This shows the six “outdoor” areas, which don’t have the same hand-drawn quality as the indoor ones.  And as you can see, some of these are vertical maps, as the levels do get pretty vertical. Really, most of these maps have problems being shown in two dimensions. In one case I had to break the dungeon into two areas with two completely separate maps simply because it was too hard to read the layers.

But the maps are really intended to be an aid, and not an exact representation of the level. Secret doors and areas aren’t always shown.

People keep asking: When is the game going to be released? I don’t mean to tease folks with details from a game that looks complete, but never quite deliver. The experience is 10x more frustrating on this end. There are still a few dozen high-priority issues with the game that need to be addressed one way or another, in addition to some more polishing and fine tuning. And the demo has to be finished (which will resemble the pilot). And I still need to finish the manual, the strategy guide, and a bunch of biz / marketing / website stuff.

So that’s a lotta stuff needs to happen, and I can’t nail down when all of these things are gonna come together. But I suspect we’re talking weeks, not days or months at this point.

It’s impossible for me to be unbiased about this game. I know it’s not going to appeal to “everybody” – in fact, it was specifically designed to appeal to a niche. Maybe that niche is only a few hundred players, in which case I really shot myself in the foot. But hopefully there are a lot more of you out there who have (or can have) a soft spot for an old-school style of gameplay that was ridiculously entertaining not that many years ago, but largely abandoned today. And hopefully you’ll find this low-budget, tongue-in-cheek, modern expansion on those concepts to be fresh and lots of fun.

Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 12 Comments to Read

Why Game Industry Talent is Going Indie

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 24, 2011

Yet another article about the migration of veteran mainstream game developers going indie:

Feral Developers: Why Game Industry Talent is Going Indie

I remember the first IGF. I was a mainstream game developer with three hit games under my belt. These poor IGF guys were standing next to their creations as we walked by. I took a look, briefly, but my arrogant assumption at the time was that these guys were here at GDC with their creations in hopes of finding employment with a major studio.

Later, even after I was “going indie” myself, it seemed that I was moving backwards. While many indies were content to remain indies (especially when casual games were starting to make their run-up to success), many developers saw indie game development as a launchpad for a career in bigger-budget, mainstream games.

I don’t know if I could say that trend has reversed, but it definitely goes both ways now. Being indie is a very tough row to hoe. But for developers who really crave freedom, creativity, entrepreneurship, and just plain love games, it may be the best way to go.

Hat tip to Gareth Fouche for the link.

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

Twenty Years…

Posted by Rampant Coyote on

Okay, not really a game-related post this time. I just wanted to note that twenty years ago today I married my dream-girl and best friend. I wasn’t even out of school yet when we decided to continue our journeys together. It’s been an awesome trip so far.

Filed Under: General - Comments: 9 Comments to Read

Subtlety. Or Not.

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 23, 2011

A few years ago, at a Utah Indie Night we got into a discussion of subtlety in video games. Herb Flower (of LinkRealms) half-jokingly said, “Subtlety in games is a sledgehammer against a baby’s skull.”

In other words, video games don’t do subtle.

Or rather, they don’t do subtle for anything that the player is expected to recognize on a conscious level. 95%+ of the players just will not get it. Half of the players won’t get it when it’s spelled out to them. Video games have traditionally bombarded players with sensory information. Lots of things moving, lots of sounds, explosions, things happening.

AI programmers regularly complain about how the subtly intelligent enemies don’t get recognized as such – they have to throw in some really stupid and artificial hints to the player that the AI is actually being clever. They will have to say loudly enough for the player to hear, “I’m sneaking around behind the player, so I can shoot him in the back!” or something. Brilliant. But otherwise, the player is just going to get annoyed that he was suddenly shot in the back by an enemy that wasn’t there a few seconds earlier, and will assume it was either a bug or the game being cheap.

There are several subtle tricks games use to encourage player behavior without the player needing to be conscious of them. There are some rules of architecture that encourage movement in particular areas. A nicely-lit, open area will be more encouraging for the player to go there than a dark, cramped spot. So the latter is better for optional areas, and the former is better to marking the “main route” so the player doesn’t get lost.

I’m one of those players who usually won’t get subtle, either.  So I thought I’d just ask readers – what kind of subtle (or even subversive) elements have you discovered in games. Little nuances or hints that were not intended to be obvious?  Shades of meaning? How has it been employed successfully in the past? Or perhaps veiled references?

Filed Under: General - Comments: 10 Comments to Read

Are Games Too Long?

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 22, 2011

According to CNN, fewer players are “finishing” long games now:

Why Most People Don’t Finish Video Games

When I first saw this article last week, my first thought was, “Crap! Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon is taking testers 30+ hours now. Is it too long?”

Maybe.

The article cites several key reasons why – they suspect – fewer players are seeing the end of games.  And I don’t think they are incorrect. The average gamer is older and… well, has a life. When I was fourteen, I could fill an entire lazy summer day with game-playing. And I often did.  Nowadays, spare time is at more of a premium. I still found the time to finish Fallout: New Vegas earlier this year, so it’s not like a long game is an impossibility for me. But historically, I’ve left the majority of games unfinished. So this isn’t a new issue with me, either.

Although there are plenty of new games to distract me from finishing a current game, one factor the article doesn’t mention which may not be entirely unique to me is the availability of older titles. For me, a Dragon Age has to compete with a Might & Magic. That may be pretty extreme for most players, but as consoles get a few years into their life-cycle, they experience exactly the same problem. In fact, it can be somewhat worse, as older titles are not technologically that inferior to their more recent counterparts.  So players not only face a plethora of new releases, but a glut of older titles at used or discount prices to distract them from completing their current game.

But none of this is a new problem. When I was working for Infogrammes / Atari in 1999, the company was already talking about these studies. The problem may have gotten slightly worse, but it’s hardly a new problem.

I have a radical suggestion about where the real problem lies. It’s not that games need to be shorter, or that games need to all be multiplayer. No, here’s what I think:

Games are just too frickin’ boring in the middle!

You guys know I love games, and I love big, meaty games I can sink my teeth into and play for weeks. That’s all good. Many games have spectacular beginnings which combine with the novelty of being a “new game” which can sustain play for hours. And many have some pretty cool, interesting endings. But between that explosive beginning and the equally explosive ending, there’s this vast wasteland of grueling repetition punctuated by moments of interesting story progression and the very occasional change of gameplay to spice things up. A little bit of a slowness in the middle can be forgiven in a 2-hour movie. But in a 30+ hour game, it’s very easy to lose focus and enthusiasm. As a younger, inexperienced gamer, it may be easier to stick with it, but jaded gamers probably grow bored more quickly.

This is exactly what happened to me with Dragon Age: Origins. And Mass Effect, come to think of it. I had a great time in the intro. For DA:O, in particular, I remember thinking, “Okay, this is heavy-handed and a little formulaic, but I don’t care. I think I could really love this game.” And then, a few hours later, I found myself loading up the game and trying to remember what I was supposed to be doing, and why I should care.

Many years ago, I attended a game design panel where they mentioned the success of jRPGs. The speakers noted that the Japanese developers had determined that the average length of a play session (at the time… this was in the late 90s in Japan – a somewhat different market from today’s western market) was about two hours in length. The speakers noted how most jRPGs had sub-quests or story segments that — SURPRISE! — took about two hours to complete, with their own sub-story and climax / boss / whatever. The upshot was that the games were designed to be consumed and fully enjoyed in smaller chunks. Each play session was a complete experience, which combined formed a larger whole.

My own average play-session is probably closer to about forty-five minutes. Interestingly, I felt that most of the sub-quests in Fallout: New Vegas were able to be completed in about that much time. Some were a lot shorter. But that game was all about sub-quests and just exploring stuff at your own pace. Once I started getting bored, I was able to quickly play through the end-game.  I’ve still probably only seen around two-thirds of what the game has to offer, but it’s pretty cool that I could choose when to hit the end-game.

So I don’t know that shorter games are necessarily the answer. I’m not too keen on spending $60 on a 10-hour game,  and 90% of the time I’m completely uninterested in multiplayer.  But what we need to learn how to do is to make our games more interesting through the entire 30+ hour experience, not just padding them out.

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 15 Comments to Read

Gentlemen (and Ladies) … Start Your Game Engines!

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 19, 2011

Ludum Dare #21 kicks off in just a few hours, where game devs around the world will take the next 48 hours to create a game “from scratch.” I won’t be participating, as all the game development I’m doing in the next 48 will be to get the next beta of Frayed Knights out the door to testers.  My own personal competition.

If you can move your schedule around to participate, however, these “game jams” are awesome experiences. If you just want to learn to make games, I can’t think of a better way to do it. Much like my “game in 40 hours” experiment, it’s a way to experience the entire development cycle on fast-forward. It’s like a boot camp for game development.

And sometimes it gives rise to ideas that form the seed of a major commercial project.

If you are interested in participating, go visit the Ludum Dare Compo Site.

Otherwise, keep an eye out for what might emerge from this weekend. Some very cool, unusual game concepts emerge from the pressure-cooker of a weekend game jam.

And to those participating: I salute you!

 

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: Comments are off for this article

On the Ungainliness of CRPG Development

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 18, 2011

Maybe we indie RPG developers will get it right, eventually. As much as I do enjoy the little RPG Maker – created jRPG-style indie RPGs out there, the ones that really thrill me are the big-concept RPGs that hearken back not to the old 16-bit console RPGs of yore, but rather the classics of the PC and other home computers of the late 80’s and early 90’s.

I don’t just want retreads of the old games that I’ve already played, however. I want all new adventures in new worlds that borrow more from the spirit of these old games than their forms. And fortunately, the indies seem to be delivering. For many years, Spiderweb Software was the only game in town for this style of RPG. But now many others – some of which have been a long time in development – are finally appearing. It’s good. But some remain still on the horizon, possibly vaporware in the minds of the niche audience that is aware of these games.

Yes, I’m responsible for one of them.

Another of these games with the highest “vaporware” suspicion level is Cleveland Blakemore’s Grimoire. After the website disappeared once again from the web,  Grimoire has returned – in the form of a blog. With something of a verbal playthrough now that it “beta complete.” I look at how long my game has now been in testing, and I really don’t expect to see this game shipping anytime soon. Especially considering its size. From accounts of the oooold Beta version from many years ago, this is not a short game. Testing it all will no doubt take some serious effort.

Still, it looks very sharp, and inspired by all the right things.  It looks like it could be the epic spiritual sequel to Wizardry 7 and similar titles many of us have been waiting for. For a Long Time. But, considering how “close” it has been to release for the last several years, I think that in all likelihood we may still have a long time yet to wait.

I don’t know Cleve Blakemore, nor am I very familiar with his apparently storied history. But on one level, I can totally sympathize with him. Working on an epic RPG in one’s “part time” is amazingly time-consuming, and it is even more amazing to see how quickly the weeks pass into months. And no matter how much you work on it, how much you tweak, clean, polish, adjust, and re-balance, the RPG is a beast of a genre that will just never, ever, ever be “perfect.” What was once simple and clean becomes complex and unwieldy very easily, and no matter what you do it is never enough.

Steve Taylor, president of Wahoo Studios / NinjaBee, has a favorite quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, author of The Little Prince:  “Perfection is achieved, not when there is nothing more to add, but when there is nothing left to take away.” At least that’s one variation of the quote. I put that up on my wall in my home office.

Apparently it doesn’t do me any good.

I keep hearing mainstream game developers harping on this principle – stripping the RPG down to its barest principles (and, too often I fear, beyond that). But for me, the thrill of this genre is often in its vast scope – the breadth of possibility space.  It is in that illusion that the world is alive and complex and full of possibilities, where the exceptions are the rule. To me, the heart of CRPGs is the opposite of streamlined and simple, though as a player I want it to be packaged that way. I want it to be ridiculously easy to learn and get into, yet unfold into marvelous detail and scope as I play.

As a developer, I still don’t have my head around what it really takes to make this happen. All those layers and systems that interact with each other tangle and coil with each other in a Gordian Knot of a game system. I really do understand the desires of many mainstream guys to simply hack it to pieces with a sword.  RPG systems are often inherently fragile. A powerful weapon with an incorrect price  or two skills that somehow form an unbeatable combo that slipped through testing can throw your entire carefully balanced gameplay out the window.

But put too many safeguards in there to enforce balance and keep the gameplay “clean,” and you lose a big chunk of the charm of the genre. Magic becomes formulaic and mundane, the curious details become window-dressing on a world in stasis, battles become routine, exploration becomes a waste of time, and an epic adventure becomes little more than an exercise treadmill with fancy dialog.

It gets very easy to see why these big-concept hand-crafted indie RPGs have development cycles that stretch into years.

Part of me still says, “Then we must be doing it wrong.”  It shouldn’t be this hard. Shouldn’t — but then I find myself spending two hours just writing dialog that a player will breeze through in two minutes, and I really don’t know.

Filed Under: Indie Evangelism - Comments: 17 Comments to Read

With Great Power Comes Greater Demands

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 17, 2011

Long before anybody was talking about the “Uncanny Valley,” I was informed about the issue at my first post-college job, at the then new start-up Singletrac. I was one of the few “fresh” faces hired, as many of the employees were from the simulation industry. (It’s amusing that they went from simulation to games, and here I am, years later, having gone from games to simulation in my day-job career field).

One of the programmers explained to me the problems that they’d encountered as the graphics became more and more realistic. The customers began complaining more. For example, runway lights were now the “wrong shade of blue.”  Nevermind that they’d taken the shade directly out of photographs (which looked fine to the pilots) – in the simulation, they looked wrong in the context of the rest of the world. As the graphics became more realistic, the inconsistencies from reality became increasingly noticeable.

This had nothing to do with human-like models. I actually came to understand this better when I read Scott McCloud’s book, Understanding Comics. The less realistic graphics allow us to treat them as abstract representations – iconify them – so that we can project our own imagination into them.  We “fill in the blanks” with our minds, and that’s enough to satisfy us. But as we approach realism, that same mental trick works against us. We still “fill in the blanks” with our expectations, but then the object behaves in a way contrary to those expectations. And that bugs us.

It’s not limited to realistic graphics. Anything that is supposed to model reality can annoy us with even minor failures. Physics issues are a great example. Or it can be something like the cost of a real-world item. The less iconic and more like the real-world analog an object is, the more the deficiencies annoy us.

Unfortunately, it can cut both ways. Falcon 4.0 had a not-undeserved reputation for bugginess on release.  Unfortunately, this caused a lot of realistic elements included in the game to be dismissed as “bugs” even though they accurately modeled real-world behavior. It took some real-world F-16 drivers and military experts to convince some forum-dwellers of these facts, and even then the latter often accepted this information only grudgingly.

Even complex game systems (an increasingly rare beast) that don’t really attempt to model “reality” can generate these kinds of demands.  If one aspect of the game offers a great deal of visibility and control to the player, then all systems are expected to be as consistently transparent and interactive. Where consistency with reality may not be a mandate, internal self-consistency then becomes the rule.

Put it all together, and you have Minecraft getting away with AI behavior that would be unforgivable in a more ‘realistic’ first-person shooter or 3D RPG.  You have accepted limitations in 2D games that would confuse or even infuriate players in a 3D game.  For indie developers, this means they need to pick their level carefully based not just on what they can do, but where they want to set the player’s expectations and manage the demands. Otherwise, they can quickly grow out of control.

 

Filed Under: Design - Comments: 6 Comments to Read

A Brief History of Wing Commander

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 16, 2011

Okay, you may not think two full articles to be all that brief, but considering the scope and significance of the series, this seems pretty well abridged to me. G4TV has a two-part history of the series:

The History of Wing Commander, Part 1

The History of Wing Commander, Part 2

As a young gamer, there were probably many times when I thought, “It would be cool to make a career out of making video games.” But I never thought seriously about it until Wing Commander.  I even called Origin to ask about what sort of qualifications they were looking for with potential hires after playing this game. Fortunately, I didn’t take the H.R. lady’s advice, as she pretty much downplayed the whole “finish your degree” thing. And by the time I finished my degree, they were a wholly owned subsidiary of EA and beginning the downhill slide. But Wing Commander was the game that made may decide to pursue what I thought was a ‘dream job.’

Were it not for Wing Commander, who knows what I’d be doing right now?

Unfortunately, this genre – the cinematic mission-based space fighter sim – is largely dead now, though there are some indies and smaller studios that continue to carry the torch. The direction I wanted to see it go – after playing Wing Commander: Armada – was in the direction of the multiplayer strategy / action-combat direction. However, as Microsoft proved with the awesome but poor-selling Allegiance, that might not have had commercially super-powered potential.  But as the FreeAllegiance community has proven, indies and open-source can do some great things with a small niche.

In an alternate universe where the genre popularized by Wing Commander didn’t go the way it did – where Freespace and Freespace 2 were mega-sellers in spite of lacking the big cinematics of their inspirational series – how could the genre have “evolved” (much as I hate the connotations of that word). What sort of advancements could we have seen in the genre and series?

Filed Under: Retro - Comments: 7 Comments to Read

Frayed Knights: Initiative and Haste

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 15, 2011

We’re in the final stretch of development for Frayed Knights: The Skull of S’makh-Daon, and today I wanted to talk about some more of the nuts-and-bolts of the game system. Some of it is discussing features that even the beta testers haven’t seen yet (though many have requested them). Much of this is post is taken right out of the current draft of the manual.

In a turn-based game like this, initiative is pretty important. Being able to act first in a turn is a key advantage – especially for spellcasters who can change the entire flow of a combat with a single spell. And then there’s Haste, which allows characters to act more than once per turn.

Initiative
Every turn, all active characters get to act in an order of initiative determined by their Reflexes, equipment, feats, and a random factor. In general, a character with a high Reflexes score, light weaponry, and light or no armor will get to act earlier in the turn than others. But due to the random factor, there are no guarantees.

The order in which your party members act is displayed by the initiative order marker – a gold circle with a black number inside it. This is updated with each action, so characters who have already taken their action(s) will have no marker. The markers only show the order of the party members, not enemies. You won’t know exactly when the enemies will act.

Nuts and Bolts: The actual formula for determining initiative order is the characters Reflexes + Weapon Speed Modifier + Armor Speed Modifier + a random value between 1 and 6. It is also increased directly by haste modifiers. The “Ready for Action” feat provides a +5 bonus to initiative on the first turn of combat.

In the case of a tie, player characters get priority ahead of enemies, ad characters closer to the front of the party get priority over those behind them.

Haste
Most of the time, a character only gets one action per turn in combat. However, a character with a haste effect (usually obtained through the Speedy or Extra Speedy feats, spells, or magic items) or a high reflexes score can perform multiple actions in a turn. This usually doesn’t happen every turn. But haste effects cause a “build up” which can be seen from the character sheet status page. When ten haste points have been accumulated, the character can take an additional action in combat.

This additional action isn’t shown in the initiative display. After taking a first action, the character gets a new (lower) initiative order for their next action. This may even occur before other characters have taken their first action. Speed has its rewards.

Heavier armor inhibits haste point build up, subtracting any speed penalties from any haste points accumulated during the turn. Weapon speed adjustments have no effect on haste build-up.

Nuts and Bolts: When the base initiative score (before adding haste modifiers or the Ready For Action feat modifier) is greater than 12, one point of haste build-up is accumulated “naturally” for the turn. It’s not much, but characters with fast weapons, light armor, and high reflexes can enjoy the occasional extra action without any magical boosts.

 

Filed Under: Frayed Knights - Comments: 2 Comments to Read

Google+ Opens Social Gaming

Posted by Rampant Coyote on August 12, 2011

Like this was ever in doubt…

Google+ Launches First Set of Social Games

There are some curious differences between this and Facebook. First off – it’s not an “open platform.” At least not yet. They are starting with only a few partners for now and gradually letting more onboard to effectively beta-test their system.

Will it be more open in the future? So will plain ol’ indies be able to make Google+ games in the future? We’ll see.

Gamasutra also reports that they intend to keep their games a separate section of Google+. As I nearly swore off Facebook entirely after it became little more than a wall of spam for games I had no desire to play, I welcome that extra layer of filtering.

Filed Under: Biz - Comments: 2 Comments to Read



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