Level design reminds me a bit of Zool, good times

 


Also, I freaking love breakfast.

Man, I liked that article. Train of thought stuff, but good to read. And it raises an interesting point. Conclusion was kind of iffy, though. Hope you add some reasons to your arguments - I think they're pretty important to see, even in an informal article. Keep it up. I'd like to see more of these thoughts on gaming.


Now, I hope I'm not quoting this out of context or anything, but

...[GTA is] an action game. It's like getting mad at porn because the sex isn't justified: "Why are these people getting it on!? They're not in love?! They've only just met! He's just supposed to fix the tv!!!".

Naturally. However, continuing the metaphor, wouldn't it be nice if some big-name games decided to be something other than pornography?

To re-use GTA (4), it really tried to introduce a soid plot, characters you care about and a world you can live in. At first, I felt it was doing a good job. Indeed, it did such a good job I killed barely no civilians. Even stopped stealing cars at one stage. Sadly, this level of immersion was undercut by the killing of swathes of enemies after every pub crawl, every date, every cruise through Liberty City listening to reggae. The violence not only felt cheap (and ridiculous!), but it cheapened any legitimacy the world had.


I love my action games. They're endlessly entertaining, and I don't know what I'd do without them. Moreso, I have no problem with the so called "realistic violence" in something like Gears of War - games like these still have the Soul of an old arcade shooter. This is Not a "Vidja Games Make Mah Kids Violence" call. But I'd love to see action games which tone down the body-count, tie the violence to the plot and make me think about the violence without causing a total schism between game and world.

Starting to come together.

I'll admit, I laughed. Planes look cool also.

Glee! Might throw out an asset or two. Nothing spesh, but I'll try and make 'em fun. Hell, maybe I'll even try my hand at a small game. I think I'm actually ready this time. Gonna be some nice results. Will the asset makers be able to actively collaborate with the game makers?

Also, sweet poster! Though, at first I thought it was a Sad Man rather than a Happy Birdy.

Also Also, Assembleeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee.

Yay! A host! I hope he likes breakfast.

Also, I don't know why exactly, but I the name "Anything Beats Everything" is one of the better ones I've heard in ages. And it suits the art nicely.

I freaking love breakfast.

Well you have a cat as your avatar. Am I to assume you are in fact a cat?

To be perfectly honest with you, I tend to assume everyone is their avatar. Much simpler that way. Naturally, this becomes an issue when folk keep changing. Also zomg V is a gurl.

ALSO, nice mockup there Ishi! I love the terrain, especially the ceiling.

Ah well, Farbs. I loved the idea of it when I first played, and even though it was enormously punishing I kept on plugging away. Then the updates stopped and I kind of forgot about it. An episodic game that blogs! I still want to see it happen. As long as you learned something, I guess that's cool. What's this TickyTacky?

To Little Shit Planet! 



PS: YOU RELEASED THIS A YEAR AGO. IT'S BEEN ONE YEAR. GOOD LORD.

[D:]

I had several, although Roald Dahl has already been mentioned, I enjoyed some particular stories of his the most- Esio Trot and The Minpins. They could make some pretty cool movies out of both (providing they didn't ruin with modern day crap)

ESIO TROT! I forgot about that one! Marvellous. Very sweet. Pu! Pu! The Minpins... I remember that cover, but I think I've forgotten the story. Roald Dahl is fantastic, though. Read most of his books. Crazy-Imaginative and Fun and... a little dark, I think. Always loved the accompanying illustrations by Quentin Blake, too.

Hans Christian Andersen- We still have the Little Match Girl book somewhere at home 

Oh man, I remember reading that. When I hit the end I kind of went D: . Merry Freakin' Christmas. 

So Derek is going to go with whatever he has in mind? Well, that's fine and all but can't we at least vote on something?

Man, we haven't even finished this year's line-up. Pretty sure there's still one left. Though, you're right, it seems to be about time to start figuring out 2010's.

Personally, I like Derek picking out ideas - he has a good eye for what would make for an interesting time. But, having a way to see what the People want is always nice.

Ah, an updated Samurai Railroad Mansion? Fantastic! Really loved your original. Simple, but cool. And the visual detail looks incredible.

-has to run on portable machines(psp, cellphones) so it can compete with the likes of Bobby Bearing

Whoa whoa whoa, let's not get ahead of ourselves here. You're competing with Beloved Retro Classic Bobby Bearing, by Edge Games? Lurk, you just plain old crazy.

I always forget it was part of the VGNG - I think you were the only person who avoided the inherent absurdity of potential Hitler's Jetpack Kombats, or Distinguished Octopus Summoners.


ALSO: There is a segment of a screenshot of a shmup on your website. It is beautiful. What is it?

 

I never knew you were from the future! Always assumed it was Canada.


Also, Zath, those arthropod photos are really great.

I'd like to tweak the design a bit, but I'm not sure exactly how yet.

That Textbox man, you've gotta fix up that Textbox on the back. I'm no design fiend, so I can't really say HOW to fix it, but at the moment it doesn't go well with the background. For one, it's kind of jarring - smooth gradient over a textured, "natural paper" background. Secondly, is the font on the back the same as the font on the front? It looks a little different. Again, maybe it's the box it lives in.

But, uh, card's cute! Looks like little paper-art characters, actually. 

Still working on it 
finished a Tile-priority engine thingy so it can determine BackGround from Platforms automaticaly
...
So now I don't have to lay down a collision-map for each room 

Current size for all the graphics on screen and code is 6.4Kb ... so it might become quite big in size depending on the amount of rooms and additional coding 

Wait ... this isn't GameMaker emulating the look of a MasterSystem game.. this is like.. real deal, if you could write this to a cartridge it would work in my Master System, kind of real deal!   

Good Lord. That's fantastic. How're you doing it?

What is... this feeling? LOVE?

I also got the pleasure of meeting Mr Tan! It was awesome! He came around to my primary school and brought some of his original pictures from the books!

 

That must've been so cool. I remember being wowed by The Rabbits when I was 6. So grim, and yet so beautifully illustrated. I must track down all of his books I haven't yet read! Especially The Arrival.

Ah, good, another Awesome Art thread. We used to have one, but I think it got lost. At least, I can't find it anymore.

ANYWAY,



Shaun Tan. I'm going to go out on a limb and say he's possibly my favourite. Mostly does picture books.







Do I win a prize?

ALSO: Pina is fantastic!

Awwwwright! I've emailed. I quite like surveys.

It's immediately fun and has an good hook, but there's not a lot to keep pulling you back in once it starts feeling repetitive.

I like being happy and positive, but yeah. Man, it looks really nice, and I played many levels simply to see the changes in the environment - the blimps, the hanging laundry, those kinds of things. Wished there was another exposition cutscene or two. Opener was cute.

But, uh, the game itself, well! It sets itself up nicely - shooting crates, stacking crates, jumping on crates is all rather entertaining. Normally I dislike crate-doing in games because it's slow and tedious. So, speeding up the process is really nice!


HOWEVER. That's all for naught, 'cause the levels don't really take advantage of it. I know this is supposed to be a puzzle game, but almost every level is solved by "Spam Crate". The trickier levels seem to depend on finicky box stacking* to get over a gap. There were some good levels - the Icecream Trucks were used well, for example. But, I felt the entire experience to be kind of numbing - click click clickitty click. I know it counts the crates, but there seems to be no real incentive other than a low number.

The game either needs to add new elements (like the Icecream Truck), or have more devious level design. At the moment it's good idea, slick presentation, sloppy excecution. Sorry.


AND ANOTHER THING: If I'm looking for my, uh, Biplane, why am I collecting Damsels? And why are they still simply a collectable? They could at least give us a wave before vanishing into pocketspace.


*At, uh, Level 22-ish I just decided to give up.

Whoa, Sega's back! Thought you'd left us forever. Hello, Sega!

That was a bewildering post, which turned into quite a nice thread. Think I was still a lurker then.