Really...did this have to leave the forums and be posted on TIGSource itself?

Sorry, architekt is right. With all of the great independently developed games out there that TIG Source has yet to even put in the database, much less display on the front page, I think it's kind of unfortunate that this is what ends up getting posted.

Wow.

Oh wow. I forgot about this one. My dad and I would sit down and play this for hours.

[recovery of costs from John Bruce Thompsonin the amount of $43,675.35]

I'm in law school, allow me to translate: he can no longer practice law in Florida, and cannot reapply to practice law in Florida at some later date. The opinion explains why: he kept wasting the court's time and resources with motions and filings that had no substance to them, he violated a court order, he lied in his filings, and he went out of his way to intimidate, harass, and publicly embarrass the people he was opposing in his lawsuits.

Simpler translation: he was a dickhead, so now he doesn't get to be a lawyer anymore.

The moral: if you're a lawyer, play nice with your state supreme court, because they have the power to disbar your ass pretty much at will.



Oh snap, I just noticed this:

Judgment is entered for The Florida Bar, 651 East Jefferson Street,
Tallahassee, Florida 32399-2300, for recovery of costs from John Bruce Thompson
in the amount of $43,675.35, for which sum let execution issue.

The judges ordered him to pay the Florida Bar's cost of going to court and getting him disbarred. Ouch.

Beast Wrestler for the Genesis. I somehow managed to waste hours playing it despite the fact that it was probably one of the worst games in existence.



The Immortal, also for Genesis. It was really fun despite the fact that the game was incredibly frustrating and unfair.

Did anyone ever play Sword of Vermillion for the Genesis?



Really ugly and muddy-looking, and overall just kind of bland, but for whatever reason I dug it.

Yes! Terrible game, but fairly addictive.

It seems like most of the Japanese doujin scene is making shoot'em ups and fighters with anime characters, sadly.

What's sad: that they're making those types of games, or that they're making them with anime characters?

I agree with haowan: it's annoying as all hell to lose all of your power-ups when you die in a shmup. But I think they pretty much all do that to you, don't they?

[E]

Also I would make there some way to control the whole thing with just keyboard or just mouse so you don't have to switch.

I've taken your advice and updated TRPG3 with battle hotkeys! Here they are: E = rotate right; Q = rotate left; Space = End Turn; Z = undo move; X = ? Button; 0 = Surrender; 1-8 bring up the reticle for the associated attack, then launch the attack on the second press.

Maybe it will seem that way, but actually be like Ender's Game, where Bob is being used by the future-government to fight a war against a race of alien bugs.

I love making games because they're the total package: I can express my ideas in virtually every medium at once, they're satisfying to make, and (I think moreso than in any other creative industry) there's real potential to make a living off of it while working solely for yourself.

I also agree with rinku as far as the potential of games (much like stories) to change the way people think about things. That is part of what makes it satisfying for me.

I think it is a major design flaw, to make a story game that people can't finish. I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that cave story is too hard a game for most of the people I'd want to recommend it to - it's too hard for me, anyway - and I'm a fan of cave story.

It just depends on your audience. Though I do think that many action/platformer games get way too difficult by the end of the game.

Hey guys, thank you for the feedback! Back in Telepath Chapter 2, I actually tried making combat controllable entirely with the keyboard, but it was extremely buggy. I should probably give it another try now that I'm a bit better at programming.

@ Gnarf: I appreciate your detailed critique about the setting. You're probably right that I could do more to make telepathy feel "special" in the game. Still, it's not like everyone you can't read is necessarily a telepath. It usually has more to do with the skill of your character in digging out things which the subject is trying to avoid thinking about.

Ghosts actually play a substantial role in the plot, which is why the you're introduced to them so early on. But your point is well-taken about making it relevant to the gameplay. That actually gives me a neat idea... 

Arrogant piece of shite. Arrogance is one thing I think developers should never have.

What about arrogancy?

[you can try the game here.]

Telepath RPG: Servants of God is my latest project, and while it's far from done, I'd love to hear what you guys have to say about it.

Here's a composite screenshot showing the battle system in action:



Here is a trailer that is roughly 1 year old as of the time of this edit:



There are a few things I've tried to do with this game that (I hope) will make it stand out in the RPG genre:

1) Interesting characters. I'm doing my best to flesh out the main characters so they're not just inch-deep puddles of cliche. I want them to feel "real" in the context of the game. So you'll notice that they have a lot of optional dialog, if you choose to talk to them.

2) A relatively original message. The central conflicts of this game involve religion: religious bigotry, a takeover of the political establishment by a religion, and attempts to reestablish a representative system of government. It's been said before, of course, but to my knowledge, there hasn't yet been an RPG that serves as an allegory for church-state tensions in the real world.

3) Strategic combat. I hate Final Fantasy's turn-based combat. Phantasy Star's, too. I wanted something that involved tactics and thought. It'll get deeper as I add new attacks and create more challenging battles.

4) Player freedom and consequences. I'm trying to give the player lots of dialog options that affect (1) the way he can solve problems in the game, and (2) that affect his relationships with the other characters.

Your choices in the game (coupled with the way you've built your character) let you to avoid some major battles that might, at first, seem unavoidable. On a related note, since your main character is a telepath, he can read minds if you give him high enough Aptitude. This, in turn, will give you more dialog options, since he'll know more about who he's talking to.

Also, you alone choose how to "level" your characters. Characters don't gain experience points--you just get gold, and use it to train them however you like. However, your characters will gradually get stronger with the attacks they use the most, and lag behind with attacks they don't use.

Things I know kinda suck about it right now:

1) There isn't tons of content in the game yet. Just a couple of plot-related missions and a side mission, a card game, and exploration of the few areas I've finished designing.
2) It can run slowly. (Try turning off level shadows and/or reducing the graphics quality if it's chugging for you!)
3) The first part is basically one giant cut scene. I figured out that new Telepath players need a lot of hand-holding at first, so it's basically there to ease them into the game world while introducing the combat system.

Well, that's all I've got. Hopefully you'll like it and/or have some good feedback for me.

EDIT: Maybe it would help if I actually posted the link? *smacks forehead* Okay:
you can try the game here.

What makes a game meaningful? I think that's the easy part! That's decided by the individual artist. You decide on a message you want to impart to the player, and you think of a way to disguise it: you craft a narrative and game mechanics to propel that narrative forward. You give the player meaningful choices, and gradually, the player should become aware that there's some greater, overarching structure to his/her experience, because the consequences of his/her actions all seem to slope up toward a common point (the tip of the pyramid). With a little thought, they'll determine the intended meaning, provided you structured the thing right.

I'm sure there must be a way to impart meaning with pure game mechanics, but I haven't figured that part out yet.

[A tulip shaped glass]

A tulip shaped glass


Alien type blacksnail shell

Nice use of Lathe there.

Over thinking things usually ruins them, and I really don't think you can set out to make an art game.

Why not? Painters set out to create "art" paintings; poets set out to create "art" poems. T.S. Eliot didn't write masterpieces purely by accident. DaVinci didn't produce masterpieces out of sheer serendipity. These were skilled artists who understood their craft and knew exactly what they were doing. Game designers shouldn't expect to produce art games by accident. Good art requires careful thinking-through. Heck, any art does. Non-art games do too, for that matter. (That's why we have design documents.)

ah, but i think you wanted to include the level of consciousness of the reader into the model as well. but that's complicated too, because every reader sees and interprets things differently.
hm, and it gets even more complicated to map, when the player/reader will be able to do other things as well, than just making choices on different plot points. for example, when he can walk around, or can change things in the world and even type in questions (like in 'Façade'), and influence the story that way.
these completely unforseeable actions would add kind of non-mappable, additional dimension... ok, but the effects on the actual game would still be limited, although the player could type in all sort of nonsense... but it would be part of his actual experience, and of the meaning... hmm

Yes, that's difficult. But I'm a little old-school in my view of art. I'm partial to the idea that author is responsible for imparting his intended meanings to the observer/reader/player. As they say, if the reader (after careful thought and consideration) comes away from a story misunderstanding what the artist meant, the artist has simply failed. The whole point of a work of art is to introduce meaning to the player in an indirect, usually emotional way. The idea of a work of art as something arbitrary where anyone can simply map whatever meanings they want onto it...well, that just smacks of laziness to me. Why make art to begin with if you have no particular vision you want to impart? And if you fail to impart your vision, haven't you simply failed to make successful art?

Hence, the pyramid model. You've got one singular vision (the top point) you want the user to eventually come away with a sense of, and all first-order meaning in the game should lead the user inexorably up to that conclusion. But because it's a game with many variations on what would (in another medium) otherwise be a purely linear narrative, this requires a lot more work and planning.

Crimson Star looks pretty.

[one extra dimension]

Nice post, 0rel!

I've been thinking about it, and a good, artistic narrative game should be (fundamentally) like traditional, linear narrative art (e.g. a book) with one extra dimension.

Suppose you've got a well-crafted tale infused with meaning, intended to elevate the reader's consciousness. Envision the story as a perfectly flat, 2 dimensional piece of paper stood on end on a tabletop. The story extends principally in one direction along the tabletop, from one end of the paper to the other (the x-axis). By mechanically reading a story without reflection, the reader sees the very bottom edge of that sheet of paper from beginning to end. The more the player thinks about it, though, the more they see of the paper that exists above the baseline (so meaning is being represented by height, or y-axis, here).

An artistic narrative game should be like the paper, but extruded into 3 dimensions. The "depth" (z-axis) represents possible variations on what the player experiences (x-axis) as they proceed through the game, with very shallow depth for very linear games, and a deep box for highly non-linear games. The goal of the artist in this instance is to fill up all of that y-axis space with meaning--to write a meaningful narrative, and then account for all the other things the player can do, and make those meaningful as well.

EDIT: I'm going to refine this thought further. So, a(n art) game should be thought of as a pyramid. At the base are all the various possibilities for interaction that the player has in the game world. And up top, the pinnacle of the pyramid is the single Unifying Theme. As much as possible, all interactions should provide meaning that points in direction of the Unifying Theme up top.