I was thinking recently about what cool ideas could be implemented to preserve physical items. Especially for games that are distributed via appstores etc, there is nothing phyiscal anymore, like a CD or diskette or something. Today of course we enjoy the convenience of simply pressing a button in order to install a game instantly and we probably wouldn't want to go back to ordering full versions on diskettes that arrive a few days later.

But still, there's something nice about having a phyiscal product, I guess we all know that And apart from being just nice, it's also something that you can e.g. give away as a present, which is something that you can't do with digital products.

So I was wondering if it's possible to create some new cool things to bring back that kind of thing. Obviously, there are some developers who offer "boxed" versions of their games in a nice DVD case and such, but this is already not even an option anymore for phone and tablet games. Soon we will have consoles like Ouya and more and more laptops without optical drives, so if we still want to be able to have something phyiscal, we should probably get creative

Maybe we could brainstorm a little bit about new ways of offering "touchable" games

A few thoughts -

 * Sound would be nice
 * Theme is initially unclear - prison escape?
 * After beating a level, really need a "Next" button or something indicating advancement - options are "Retry" and "Back" which makes it seem like you've reached the end after the first level - maybe just rename "Back" to "Next".
 * By level 3, I didn't understand the purpose, or what was going on - the counters up top aren't labeled - sometimes they count down in real time, and sometimes it counts down only while you're moving - when there are 3 guys onscreen, suddenly it seems to switch to a "cached movement" mode, where moving puts an arrow on the guy instead of moving directly - then is C an "execute" command? And sometimes I could switch guys with X and sometimes not. Bug? Also what are the colored tiles with numbers, and what do those numbers mean? The whole thing left me pretty confused.

Definitely some instructions at least would help.

Did that stop the PS1, PS2, or the Wii? There's your answer. Yes, it's worth it. When your previous console has sold as much software as it has, and has as sizable a back catalog as the 360 has managed to accrue, yes it's worth it.

Lowered hardware performance has never really damaged a console's marketability. Never.

There's too many other factors in those to claim they show backward compatibility is worth sacrificing performance. Of course though, it depends on how large the sacrifice is. Also, I'm not saying this was necessarily the decision MS faced anyway.

The biggest advantage that an x86 architecture gives the XBox One is that it will be easier for developers to port their games between the PS4 and the XBox One.

Oh, you have inside information from MS? So what is the AMD APU costing them and what were the backward compatible alternatives which used Power Architecture?

nikki: Thanks.
Trolls: grow up and stop spamming this thread with your stupid comments.

As I said before, I'm tinkerer - I find new applications for things that has been around for some time, but haven't been used this way before. I'm not an artisan [programmer] who has the actual skills to create a viable product.

Anyway, back to the merits of the project. I see a lot of comments denigrating the concept of focusing only on creative side. It takes years for project to take shape [from idea to product]. In the meantime, idea constantly evolves, taking inspiration from various sources.

There are also external factors like technical/resource constraints, for example the technology simply wasn't there or it was prohibitively expensive. Fortunately, the progress brings costs down [sometimes to zero - opensource!]. So, things impossible yesterday are possible today. It is therefore remotely possible [let's say 1 in 100] this project might turn into a product.

I have thoroughly checked the list of MC clones and derivatives, and haven't found one that is essentially similar to mine. Which can be explained in two ways: 1/ somebody had this idea before and failed - idea was either crap or was ahead of it's time, 2/ this is unique idea - either too crazy or too obvious for anybody to take it on

Personally, I've had trouble finding a tutorial that really teaches me what I want about "Game engine architecture". They teach a lot about all the little sub systems, but in the end, my main problem is how to actually tie everything together.

ABCDEFG ... how I wonder what you are.

Oh yeah, can see that now. Was a bit distracted by the massive gray blob motion blur.



Snappier 

walk without arms:

I dig the idea, sounds like it'll work great with the rift.

Cool, thanks for checking it out. You can drill nickel ore initially, which unlocks the nickel drill, and similar with copper, etc. I think I'll change the nickel drill to always unlocked, though - it'd be clearer to have it available to buy from the start, and a better motivator to get rid of the shitty drill.

Shrimp drop things occasionally (~10%), coins and "shrimp snax" and hearts if I remember right. And the larger red shrimp always drop loot. I think I'll update enemies to drop coins every time though - more satisfying, and a little extra cash would help the balance, I think, since it feels like items are a little on the expensive side now.

Lighting, deep sea creatures etc. would be cool - definitely on the list.

yes but it's absolutely the best return on investment in the videogame industry right now