Archive for the ‘Games’ Category

Status Update with the Ferocity of a Thousand Status Updates (recursively)

October 10, 2008

Well, not quite that exciting.

But thing are moving along pretty well, albeit a little delayed (I think I’m 2 weeks off schedule currently, but who’s counting?)

One interesting little bit of fun is localization.  The Dishwasher is coming out in English, French, Italian, German, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, and Chinese.  Since I drew my own font, I had to add all sorts of special characters to the graphic.  For Japanese and Chinese I had to change the way the game handled fonts so that it could draw some using my font and others using a SpriteFont (the alternative would be hand drawing a couple thousand Asian glyphs).  It took a couple of days to get everything working right with all of that, but the big hassle comes with adding changes.

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On those crazy XBLA price tags…

August 28, 2008

So, here we are: Braid’s on XBLA for 1200 points, and now Castle Crashers has hit XBLA for another 1200 points.  They’re two excellent games (I unsurprisingly gravitated toward the latter, going as far as to dub yesterday “Castle Crashers Day”) and they both embody much of what the indie games industry can do right.  Also, they’re both taking some of the most ridiculous flak I’ve ever heard over their price.

Such gems include:

“$15 for 5 hours of single player?”

“I could get [insert old game name here] for $5 less at Gamestop!”

“If it were $10, I’d pay, but at $15 it’s just too much.”

Probably my first reaction should be to not listen to anything morons say online.

However, assuming I failed to do the first part, here’s my second reaction: (more…)

Focus Groups are Driving us into Oblivion

July 24, 2008

No, not that Oblivion.

I have to wonder how “marketing” efforts from 100 years ago would have stood up to today’s. People made things they thought people would like, they marketed them in ways they thought would appeal, and everyone went on their merry way. Today, we have focus groups, market research, and all sorts of other data aimed squarely at allowing us to craft the most precise, effective marketing campaigns ever. Market research is an iterative process–each generation of marketing is more effective than the previous. But wait–this isn’t an anti-capitalist rant! It’s an anti-people rant. Bear with me…

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About All of Those Ninja Gaiden 2 Reviews…

June 11, 2008

By now you probably know that I’m a Ninja Gaiden fan. If you’ve read any reviews, you probably also know that the biggest complaint leveled at Ninja Gaiden 2 is that the camera is broken–nay, adversarial. Here’s my take:

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Disclaimers and apologies

October 9, 2007

I should probably put up a disclaimer regarding comments:

Disclaimer: Anonymously posted flamebait will be summarily deleted.

Moderation is in effect!

Also, I should clarify my remarks on repetition and the titles I used as examples. I really liked Halo 3 and God of War 2. I just felt that Halo 3 was over too quickly without giving the player enough chances to play with a lot of the toys. Likewise, God of War 2 was an amazing game, but DMC3 was really more my cup of tea–I liked replaying levels over and over until I could take on the harder difficulties. Basically, my argument is that familiarity can be a good thing.

Granted, apologizing for honest criticisms of games is no way to win over the flamebaiters, but I should probably do my best to not come across with too much negativity.

More on repetition and games

October 8, 2007

I just thought of another game that could’ve used more repetition: God of War 2.

Granted, it was an amazing game with some crazy cool parts, but like Halo 3, some of the protagonist’s badassery was dampened by the fact that you would be thrust from one completely unfamiliar situation to the next with no common frame of reference. It’s the classic picture of a vengeful hero who has been going in circles in the west wing of the antagonist’s base because he can’t find the right lever or whose quest of revenge comes to a very non-epic end when he doesn’t notice a particular climbable rock wall during an intensely cinematic moment and plunges with the platform he was riding on into the lava for the sixth consecutive time.

I thought Bioshock really nailed the whole repetition thing. Little variety in monsters, recognizable environment hazards (oil slicks, water, security systems), good level layout and a nice checkpoint arrow.

Also, The Dishwasher was in magazine (an Edge magazine, to be exact). Here’s a cell phone screenie:

Dishwasher on EDGE

The article is mostly on XNA, but it’s nice that they put some juicy screens in there.

Halo 3

October 5, 2007

Like most people out there (I hear) I got a copy of Halo 3. It’s a pretty sweet game, though, like others, I tend to think the single player experience skimped out a bit while still being pretty awesome.

Of course, we all know that multiplayer is where it really shines. I’ve only played a couple of games and already I’ve come across a lot of new content or better use of content that the campaign lets you play with for a grand total of about a minute. Spartan Laser, anyone?

I guess the prevailing idea for a good game is less repetitiveness = better game, but I tend to like familiarity. When they keep throwing new concepts at the player, it starts to feel like by the time you get used to one thing, they’ve moved you on to the next, and you never get to feel totally lethal because you’re always a bit bewildered (and bewildered and lethal are pretty much polar opposites). That being said, guess which gritty, gothic comic art style XBLA game on the horizon is awash with repetition?

I do have a stupid Halo 3-related question that needs to be answered–how on Earth do you search for a multiplayer Campaign game? I’ve found matchmaking, and have been able to start local Campaign games that other XBL users can evidently join, but is there any way to search for a Campaign game or are Campaign games expected to populate solely on invites? Seems like a dumb question, but I need resolution.

Anyway, I’d better get back to Dishwasher stuff. I’ve been playing around with adding the Katana into non-Katana weapons, which doesn’t change gameplay much but looks pretty cool. When the Dishwasher slams a cyborg while dual wielding a chainsaw and Katana, it just looks like it seriously hurts.

New Music

September 4, 2007

Here’s a sweet new track that’s going to be gracing The Dishwasher soundtrack. Listen for keyboard sweetness!

Dishwasher gets exposure

August 21, 2007

It’s been a fun week since the big news, and I’ve been loving all the notice I’ve gotten from the webs. Here are some good ones:

TeamXbox:

Earning a master’s degree in Computer Science is no small feat, and neither is creating a highly-polished video game han-solo-style in only six months. Yeah, James is one the smart ones, but his humble beginnings as a dish hand inspired the chaotic elements found in his winning entry The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai.

Kotaku:

One of the winners of Microsoft’s Dream-Build-Play competition, The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai will be making its way to an Xbox Live Arcade near you in the coming months. This XNA Game Studio Express hallmark was the fruit of James Silva’s labor, a stylish, two dimensional action shooter with all the right shoot ‘em up standards.

Gamespot:

The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai is a side-scrolling action game featuring over-the-top violence and a main character that uses an array of blades and guns to mow down adversaries.

Check out the buzz!

Also, thanks a ton to Epsicode for the good press!

Seattle Ho!

August 12, 2007

I just reached Seattle!

They charge $10/day for Internet.

More info to come!