Game design. So I managed to rent DK returns on the week my brother went abroad on holiday. In 4 days of play (together with other activities :P), I could reach world 6 (canyon of skeletton dinosaurs) with some help of Super Kong in Tidal Terror. A few boss fights put some stress on me, but with a stock of ~200 golden coins, there's not much I really fear. The game is globally great, and I love how it comes with a lot of new (imho) ways to hide secrets in the levels, with breakable items, flowers to blow over and funny things like "keep bouncing and the bananas keep flowing. Keep collecting bananas and Something Good Will Happen (tm). A la base, Donkey Kong Returns n'avait pas franchement attiré mon attention. Comme d'habitude dans un DKC, il y aura des objets spéciaux à trouver dans le niveau pour accéder au monde caché. Diddy's jetpack is somehow a curious replacement to Dixies haircopter, but well, here it is and it's gonna be useful. I do have a major complain about the game, though:
Critical-Gaming Network - Blog - Dialogue: The Mechanics of Language. Scene: KirbyKid stumbles across a podcast recording session at a gaming conference. The podcasting group consists of an avid gamer, a host that writes reviews for a popular website, and a game designer from a AAA game. KirbyKid listens in on their conversation from a distance. KirbyKid is joined by a passerby. Passerby: I wonder if that game those guys are talking about really does have innovative mechanics. KirbyKid: Innovative whats? Passerby: Innovative mechanics? KirbyKid: Oh. Passerby: I read, play, and talk about video games a lot.
KirbyKid: Good luck. KirbyKid hands the Passerby a business card. 8-bit Mario and Donkey rest at the bottom. Passerby: Cool. KirbyKid: Actually, I'm curious. Justin: It's any working part of a video game. KirbyKid: I really appreciate that you bothered to present specific examples, and picking Super Mario is icing on the cake. Justin: Why is it terrible? KirbyKid: Actually, there are free game design glossaries out there. Justin: Whoa! KirbyKid: Really? 31 Years of Power-Ups by =TheBourgyman on deviantART. Special! Youpie! Ma fée m'a retrouvé mon GBA micro avec Super Mario World dedans ^_^. Et à reprendre ce jeu-là, je me rends compte que je m'étais assez fourvoyé sur le compte du monde "Spécial".
Je le considérais comme le passage secret ultime, d'une difficulté crasse, qui ne raccourci rien et qui mêne à un objectif bizarre et pas drôle: la transformation de toutes les couleurs du jeu (plus terne) et le remplacement des tortues par des "faux mario"... Wéé ... A l'époque, j'avais du mal à passer le deuxième monde du jeu, et je n'avais plus aucune chance de terminer un niveau en une vie une fois arrivé dans la forêt illusoire.
Maintenant que j'ai atteint un niveau un peu correct (jusqu'au chateau avant la vallée de Bowser sans game over), les choses m'apparaissent différemment. Quand je jette un oeil au niveau tubular sur Youtube, la réaction c'est "wow! Donc oui, c'est dur (parce qu'on pousse en avant les nuances du gameplay et les Et les koopa-mask, alors ? Critical-Gaming Network - Blog - Mario Melodies: Interplay part.1. In order to describe how a game is played over time, one must take into account the range of effects the players actions have on the characters, enemies, and the environment. Previously on Critical-Gaming, we've described game mechanics as being concrete versus abstract, and existing in one of three levels: primary, secondary, and tertiary. Primary mechanics are a limited set of mechanics that make up the core of the player's interactivity and the core feeling/action of a game.
Secondary mechanics are typically designed to support the primary mechanic by giving it more variation and rounding out the feel of a game. Tertiary mechanics are actions that can only be executed in limited contextual situations that depend on an outside source (ex. an enemy). In real life, every action has an equal and opposite reaction. Interplay is the back and forth encouragement of player mechanics between any two elements in a game.
Now for some examples. Donkey Kong Jungle Beat Super Mario Galaxy. Run, you fools! Mario, Sonic, Rayman ... chacun d'eux peut courir, mais l'impact sur le gameplay est chaque fois différent. Voilà un petit dessin-du-dimanche pour refaire le point. L'élément intéressant (pour un platformer) n'est pas tant qu'on va plus vite en courant, mais plutôt la manière dont on va exiger plus de maîtrise de la part du joueur quand il doit affronter "un saut plus compliqué". It's not that much about going faster, but rather about clearing longer holes with a jump. In most platformers, this is achieved through the RUN mechanics ... but not all. Check out my scribbled notes for details ^_^ Dans SuperMario, il faudra gagner en vitesse, donc essentiellement contrôler l'absence d'obstacles.
Le "triple saut" des épisodes du nouveau millénaire poussent cette contrainte encore plus à l'extrème. Rayman, en comparaison a un bouton de course "binaire". The Power of Mario. Voilà, c'est mon tour d'avoir fini "l'Histoire de Mario" de William Audureau. Bien intéressant, même si j'avoue que le côté "pourquoi lui ?
" mis en avant par l'auteur ne correspond pas à ce qui m'intéresse le plus. Ce qui me tente, moi, c'est de comprendre comment sont apparu les mécanismes qui en font à ce point un jeu hors pair. Au risque de décevoir, je dirais que graphiquement, Super Mario Bros était dépassé techniquement avant même sa sortie. J'en veux pour exemple Pac-Land en arcade en 1984. Non, ce qui est extraordinaire dans ce "premier" Mario, c'est les mécanismes de level design. Un des grands absents de ce point de vue, dans le livre d'Audureau est sans doute le bloc-question. I'm pretty lucky we have Pix'n'Love editions around, to provide us great retro-gaming material. Mais alors, que s'est-il passé avec la forme ? But the genious part of the level design imho lays somewhere else -- and is unfortunately un-covered by the book. Autre grand absente: la carapace de Koopa.
Game Design Patterns. Triple Town Beta (Now with Bears) Exciting times. You can now play our puzzle game Triple Town in your web browser. We are releasing it as a beta and the game should evolve quite substantially over time. Huge kudos to Cristian Soulos for making this project blossom after a long winter. You can play it here.
Triple Town is a special game. On the surface, it is a simple match-3 variant, but after a few games you'll start noticing the strategic depth. The big addition for this release? Bears, bears everywhere Triple Town helped solidify how I construct the world and setting in my games. (You can read a bit more on the theory of how games are unique suited to creating emotional experiences in my previous essay on Shadow Emotions and Primary Emotions.
Tuning emotions When I revisited the Triple Town design, the emotions were already clearly evident. Emotions are complex to say the least so we need some sort of entry into the topic. There are a variety of theories. Monsters or children? Evil bear & Good bear cognitive label. Mass Effect: Massive Interface Fail Part I. Mass Effect received a lot of praise when it came out. It still receives a lot of it. It is considered as one of the prime examples of next-gen western RPGs. It is a status I don’t think it quite deserved. Yes, Mass Effect offers a visually and thematically rich, cinematic experience. But that thin veneer only barely covers an otherwise amazingly unpolished game. It is a game with great but unfulfilled ambitions. “You won’t get away with your sloppy interface design this time. One can argue a lot about the various shortcomings of the game and whether or not they bear a significance to judge the game.
The endeavor turned out to be more laborious than I thought. Character Customization Lazy interface design. The game greets you with a series of menus for customizing the appearance and character of the player’s avatar. Blind re-using of generic interface elements: Facial features can be controlled by adjusting horizontal sliders. The HUD. Let us move to something more common: The HUD. Three Hundred :: Three Hundred Mechanics. Autosokoban. Platforming Games 101: Running, Jumping & More.
Presented by Gamerforlife The Racketboy crew is back with yet another ambitious effort to educate the masses on some retro-gaming (and even some modern gaming) essentials. In this Retro Gaming 101 installment, we will be taking a lot at one of the most essential and popular genre in video games. Platforming games really kick-started and pushed the 8-bit and 16-bit generations and the genre has remained an integral part of modern gaming culture. Of course, the Super Mario Bros. and Sonic the Hedgehog series are the most well-known examples of the genre, however, there are many games that preceded them and there are many subsequent games that broadened what we can expect from the genre.
Genre Foundations What is a Platform Game? Strictly speaking, a platform game (or platformer) is a game where much of the gameplay revolves around moving from one platform to another. Background Info The platform genre is arguably the most important and most successful genre in the history of gaming. Critical-Gaming Network - Blog - Complex Time Simplified pt.2. Take a 2D fighting game for example. Using the dynamics of 2D space the animations and matching hitboxes for attacks create a variety of timing challenges. Intercepting an enemy target with an attack of your own is the equivalent of hitting a moving target with a moving target from a moving position.
It can be difficult to wrap your mind around the fact that most attacks move the character in one way and strike in another and that both of these aspects can be used to create tight strategies. So if you haven't already checked out my An Examination of Skill article series, at least watch the video on the various timing challenges in Super Smash Brothers Brawl found at the bottom of the page here.
Of course, playing at such a level is something most players will never experience. Far before achieving that next-level of skill, it's common for starting players to simplify fighting games into turns. See for yourself here. Image from capcom-unity.com The answer is hit-stun and block-stun. Visualizing the Creative Process. As I coach new developers, I've taken to scribbling out the same useful diagram for visualizing the creative process again and again on coffee-ringed napkins.
In order to limit my future abuse of culinary paper wares, I've reproduced my images in a more formal fashion in this essay. The conversation usually starts with the following statement: "Creativity is like a snake swallowing a series of tennis balls. " And when confused looks inevitably result, I sketch some variant of this odd little picture: Using this as a starting point, we start chatting about joys and pitfalls of creativity.The Brainstorming PhaseFailures in brainstormingThe Culling PhaseFailures in cullingCyclingFailures in cycling The Brainstorming Phase We all start with an idea.
Brainstorming starts out small and expands over time There are several activities that occur during this phase:Ideas: Generate new ideas related to your initial insight. A multitude of experiments arise during brainstorming Problems with brainstorming. Graphics News #14 « Frogatto & Friends. November 20th, 2010 by Jetrel We’ve added a new tileset to the game, which is exclusive to the new “arcade mode”. Unlike our full, story-mode tilesets, which are essentially a hybrid mix of 16×16<->64×64 tiles, intermixed in lots of wacky combinations, this tileset is a strict collection of 16×16 tiles. It’s not possible to do very organic rock faces and such in this tileset; everything will feel very blocky – however, it makes for much more flexible arrangements of tiles (since quite a few up-close arrangements were not possible with our story-mode tiles).
Especially for our arcade mode, which will be based on some very tight platforming challenges, this is a good fit for gameplay. Ultimately, we decided that rather than choosing between either style of tileset, we’d choose to have both. Why not? Also, here are some updates on forest stuff; showing off some new branches, better foliage, and one of the new palette shifts. (click to zoom in) VG -Development.