mokesmoe: Very true. I guess that's sort of the price to pay in an endless game, too.

Chao, what do you mean by "add a timer"?

recorded a playthrough of the first kilometer on the potential mode http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-6X1BYsSamM in rather average quality (only 20 fps, somewhat skipping on my slow pc)

being over 9 minutes, this is near longest that i can upload to a single youtube video, i'll have to cut my longer playthroughs or upload to rinku's privileged channel

yesss

Even if not monstrous, this is by far the best Probability 0 playthrough video I've ever seen :D

(Also I feel slightly uncomfortable with the fact that pzero speedrun is impossible; I'm not sure whether that's a good thing, or a bad one.)

Camstudio? Camtasia? Something like that?


oh dang doesn't require an install

;_; no idea

Vanguard you are a monster.  

Agreed

I had a really boring short-term job last year. Boy did I have some great game ideas.

This sounds exactly like my going to university except I'm going to have to keep doing it |:

I don't know if it's good or bad, but I'm hoping most of my classes become more interesting.

Also, long bus rides.

(In case it wasn't clear, 1 hour of bus each way + 7 hours of boring classes/waiting for next class = lots of ideas)

That's not a zero! Even in slashed zeroes, the slash doesn't escape the edges!

However, people with empty sets in their names are no more trustworthy.

:facepalm:

I guess you guys all missed the boat on this, huh...

http://www.chromeexperiments.com/detail/browser-pong/

I've seen it. A lot more could be done with window, though. This doesn't use them for anything but rendering; the fact that the game is composed of windows really has no bearing on how the game plays :p

[ALSO, pathfinding is totally fixed now so you'll never find blocks completely blocking your path. If you DO, please send the picture to PO box.. er, I mean. Post the picture on the thread if you manage to get one.]

Marach I am the slowest to respond, but really, good job and thanks for putting all that effort in :D (also you're a manbaby)

I wish I could fix the flickering, but as I said to you I think it's a problem with the way Ubuntu or Linux in general handles some numbers which Windows handles differently... and I don't have a Linux system @_@
If I did I'd probably figure out how to neatly package up everything the user needs so I don't have to make them hunt everything down ):


Vanguard, Good job.
Also, somehow I think I might have done something to fix that from happening but I seriously doubt it!

The heart does pump larger. When it does that, it means it's advanced to second-level horrible heart core and it moves three times faster if you like exact numbers. :3

Chao: Online score tracking is something I could probably do, although I'd need to learn a bit more about encryption and I'd also need a server. It won't be coming anytime soon.


... Oh yeah! And update! Links in first post (or if they're not, they'll be there within a few minutes).

ALSO, pathfinding is totally fixed now so you'll never find blocks completely blocking your path. If you DO, please send the picture to PO box.. er, I mean. Post the picture on the thread if you manage to get one.

Perhaps if you take damage while wearing the jetpack, there's a chance it'll be damaged and no longer function? Something that lets you continue to use the jetpack as freely as ever, but reward skill with it.

( or blow up and killll you ( yeah that was a joke ) )

[Movement]

PsySal, you make good points: however I will still assert that a game must have "open ended mechanics", else it becomes not a game at all. That's what defines a game, isn't it? If every mechanic is a "directed mechanic" then it exists only to slide you along to the next directed mechanic.

Movement, of course, is usually the most basic yet important of the "open ended" or "fun" mechanics.


I believe a bit of bias is important, because whatever pure Level Keys do, they don't (alone) bring about fun. There may be a Fun Mechanic built into it (the timing for bombs, for example) or the Level Key may exist to prolong what is hopefully a fun experience (grabbing a key before getting to the door means you travel a greater distance -- hopefully this travel is made fun by the Fun Mechanics in the game).

I suppose there needs to be some blurring of the concepts, but I think that the bias of these terms is quite appropriate upon some further inspection! What do you think?

Oh shit that sounds right

It even has a "2" at the end that I remembered, and it's for DOS which makes sense, and it feels much more correct, and

when I found it in one of those 1,000 Games compilations

this is probably what happened oh my god I'm downloading it right now


Thank you :D

[Zelda Songs.]

One awesome self-contained example of Fun Mechanic vs. Good Level Key vs. Dull Level Key

Zelda Songs.

Jabberwock, a good Dogs of War info page exists here; look under "possible download sites". I can't give them a try at the moment, because I'm in class!

I'm at school so this is going to be short!

SirNiko: Nicely said! There certainly are level keys that are enjoyable because of the thought behind figuring out how to use them, even if there is little actual choice in terms of "how do I want to go about doing this?". And even obvious level keys can simply be fun to use (I am reminded of clairvoyance in Psychonauts).

jotapeh: I'd like to hear how you use these items! I'm aware that Deku Nuts stun things, but not about much else. Bombs seem like they'd be terribly difficult to use properly, but perhaps they can be of great assistance when used properly. I don't mean to totally write them off, I just want to highlight the examples to differentiate between the polar extremes of "Fun Mechanic" and "Level Key" which certainly do have overlap.

neoshaman: Thanks! Definitely, the most PURE level key would, quite literally, be a key in most games! I'm glad you liked the things I had to say, and ... wow, I failed at making this short. But those are some good examples.

jump: Perhaps. They can certainly be used to guide the player, and in some games a reasonable amount of path-guiding is totally necessary.

The story is shaping up to be a lot like the first one at the moment. How many more times are they gonna recycle the System Shock 2 plot? 

What's with your name? o_o

And. Yes, you can only repeat the "yeah I'm totally helping you -- oh wait no I'm not I've been manipulating you this whole time!" plot so many times before players catch on.

I think this "so many times" = "one time". So it's not really repeating.

(I know almost nothing about Bioshock 2 so I cannot validate this claim, nor am I even certain I'm jumping to the correct conclusion! Oh well.)

System Shock 2 was great though, so I like bioshock on principle.

I think I would have enjoyed Bioshock more if I had never played System Shock 2.

As it was, it felt like a weak imitation with half the intent and none of the depth.

Oh, and it was pretty. Bioshock was pretty.
(Plus: I also don't like bullet sponges. Bleh.)

Jabberwock, it seems right and yet looks/feels wrong!

Of course, it's been many years. Too many years.
And I was less than ten years old.

So I'll have to see if I can find a download to set my mind straight!

Oh holy shit why didn't I ever know about this thread.

There were two games I have strong memories of wanting to play as a kid, but I couldn't really play them much because they worked better with two players and I never had a second player.

Both games were on PC.


The first was Hunter Hunted, but it's the other one I can't remember the name of.

I don't even remember many details about the game; it was top-down, there was shooting, I think as you... got to further levels, the colour scheme changed and things because tougher. The players might have changed colour too. I'm not even sure if there were different weapons or ammo pickups.

The only name I remember was "Dogs of War" but that wasn't it; that name on google only brings up dogfight games.

Anyway: Topdown, with local (I'm not sure if it had LAN) multiplayer (probably), around the time maybe of Hunter Hunted. You were also some kind of soldier or human; not a vehicle or something else. I think you were fighting other humans too.

It also took place indoors.

Cargo, I certainly agree with you. There's still a nice pleasant feeling you get (whether it's fun or not, it's something that makes the game enjoyable) when you figure out you can hookshot yourself over there, and that this new thing is possible, and that all those chasms are now (probably) passable with your fancy new tool.

I never said I didn't enjoy the Zelda games; I do. But that doesn't mean the game is "perfect" (whatever that means).


Cagey, definitely; I agree. There are the physics puzzles (and then the physics not-really-puzzles that still require the Gravity Gun) and then there's the raw enjoyment of AHAHAHA TAKE THAT SAWBLADE YOU DAMN ZOMBIES


Parthon (best for last obviously), yay :D I get your responses. (my preciousss)
I love the list. Bottles are arguably level keys too, most of the time, but I still enjoy picking things up in bottles.

if you have to put a level key in, find a way to make it fun as well.
..
The other thing that could be done, remove the level key part from all items. Allow the game to be finished naked and itemless if the player is so inclined.

I agree strongly with these sentiments.

If you have a level key with a fun purpose, who's to say it's not just a fun mechanic with an obstacle geared towards it such that you don't need to make a level key for that obstacle?

And being able to finish a game totally itemless would be nice. It should definitely be tougher, though. If you're not able to finish said game without any items, and it's not entirely obvious as to where you can get the items, you should at least be able to tell the player why they can't pass an obstacle, or give them a hint as to where to find the "level key" that they need.


I think that level keys are important, really, in many genres. They fix items to some purpose, and there's definitely a nice feeling when you realize you have to use X for Y, and you fit those puzzle pieces together. But it'd be nice to be allowed to go around too, and use a totally different item for Y, just in a different way (and at a different cost?).

Short-range tractor beam plus enemy collision.

Don't know if it's feasible for you, but it'd be awesome. Grab nearby enemies and smash them into other enemy ships, or block attacks with them.