Spore

Spore is a good game. It consumed my attention for a whole weekend that I very much enjoyed, until I felt I'd exhausted the game's possibilities. It troubles me, therefore, that I'm having trouble expanding on calling it "good". It's reminds me of that type of film which is hugely entertaining for its duration, and utterly forgettable outside it.

You control and develop a creature from its first appearance in the oceans to its dominance over the entire galaxy. The game is split into five stages, each representing a different level of development, and the first four stages are tutorials. Apparently the goal was to make each stage ten times as complex as the last - an arbitrary measure but the notion holds - so that casual game-players could get up to speed. The corollary is that final stage will be greater in scale and complexity than the sum of all that precedes it - and that's the case. The Space stage is almost a different game, and will be the subject of a later post.

This isn't a weakness. The early stages teach you everything you need to play Space. I've talked about good tutorials elsewhere but this is something very different. Where Advance Wars teaches specific mechanics in each lesson and uses these to deliver more abstract concepts, Spore teaches you how to play a complex PC game, that can be compared to Elite, even if you have no knowledge of playing such a game before. Everything, from selecting units by clicking on them, to concentrating on one target at a time, to controlling the map with keyboard controls, is introduced at the right time. I fancy that a player could go from Solitaire through the University of Spore and emerge able to play Starcraft.

The creators are incredible too - but they're creators. You can construct esoteric and individual animals just by dragging, scaling and tweaking parts. Hands clip to arms, that attach in neat mirrored pairs to bodies, that twist and distort manipulating the vertebrae. Entertaining and ridiculous creations sprout forth without effort. This is all a diversion from the game. The creature creator is a toy, but not a game. I suspect that Spore, the game, exists to serve Creature Creator, the toy.

There are equivalent tools for the buildings, vehicles and spaceships you build later in the game but these are less enthralling. It’s less impressive to create and control, say, your own airplane. It’s also unimpressive for the game to animate it: rolling is easy, walking is hard. Asking you to design custom factories is almost a joke – and in Space you’ll be asked to design a new set on every planet you colonise. (There are plenty of default choices, which spare you time if you wish and demonstrate the power of the tools.) It’s a perversity that creating inanimate objects comes later, after you’ve developed an amazing creature.

The stages can be quick, if you know what you’re doing (I completed them in a couple of hours, minus time in the creator), or milked for a very long time (my housemate spent weeks at Creature stage, interacting with every other creature and killing one of the giant creatures that stalks the map). There isn’t much to any of the stages except Space, and there is little consequence from one stage on your abilities on the next. It’s a deceptive game, with each stage an imitation of something else: the creature stage, for example, is like World of Warcraft shorn of everything but kill quests. At times, it almost feels like the game is telling you lies as to the importance of your actions. If the game is committed to the vision it presents, then my decisions as a tribe should affect more than what bonus I receive for my spaceship.

Impressive but empty, Spore feels unfinished and founded on an uncertain idea – one of those “Would This Be Cool” ideas that does not stand up to the scrutiny of execution. It is a flawed effort, but still an achievement I respect.

Red Cross - The Game

No, really: Emergency Response Unit is a Flash game intended to promote the Red Cross (and Red Crescent) and educate people on what they do. A tutorial and two levels are available free, with the full game $19.95. I played another Red Cross game a couple of years ago (think it was called Response Force) but that was more a collection of minigames. This is designed like an RTS, only saving refugees and distributing medical supplies.

In practice, the interface is so streamlined that it plays like Diner Dash: tasks appear at the bottom, and it's easy to move from alert to site to response by pressing the right buttons. Also, it presents the work of the Red Cross as a series of tasks to be done. It doesn't present any dilemmas that must be faced in the field - the answer is always clear. I suspect that in a real earthquake, the response to a group of wounded civilians is not as simple as 4x4 + Medical Team + Medical Supplies.

Still, this is a sophisticated offering, it shows what the Red Cross do in the field and it is a diverting game. I hope it's a success.

Panzer Dragoon Orta

I would like to write something about Panzer Dragoon Orta but I can't. I'm having a little difficulty. As though games with mechanics from a time when game design criticism ended like this:

GRAPHICS 88%
SOUND 76%
PLAYABILITY 82%
LASTABILITY 71%
OVERALL 81%

...can't really be described with any greater sophistication. This was a time when the main criticism of a game review, apart from simple disagreement, was "...but the sub-scores don't average the overall score!"

Panzer Dragoon Orta is from the Xbox era, and is part of a sequence born on the Saturn, but its roots are back with early Sega arcade classics, and it proudly continues that trend. It's an on-rails shooter where you lock on targets and dispatch them in salvoes while dodging or shooting down counter-fire – like After Burner, but on dragons.

I've talked about judging visuals according to more interesting criteria that simply "quality" before. Orta's detailed, lots going on, no slowdown - good for its time, but all this is just not fucking up in a representational game. (Representational of dragons: what that word means in terms of game art is another matter.) The imagery is stunning: all steampunk air-warships and bio-engineered snakes bursting through waterfalls.

Although the gameplay lifts from After Burner, the look is pure Space Harrier. Part of the drive to progress lies in wanting to see something amazing and novel. (Level 6, "Forbidden Memories", is a highlight: an archive and its security systems, depicted as hallucinated tunnels and spectral guardians.) Most games don't reward you in this way - modern games are notoriously grey- or brown-tinted - and it wouldn't necessarily be improved by HD. You're being dazzled by a different sort of spectacle, more Pan's Labyrinth than Spider-Man. Instead of impressing us with scale, like the promise of a thousand elephants, we are slowly inching towards being impressed with inventiveness.

High Definition

My housemate bought a big TV a couple of weeks ago - a 50" LCD rear-projection. It is, by the tenets of conventional interior design, too big for the room. However, it with an HDMI feed from an Xbox 360, it resembles a portal into another world. I was a bit cynical about HD, but the improvement over a normal widescreen CRT is huge. Everything's sharper, brighter, more real. Graphics are a dazzling sensory experience again.

The effect on my housemates has been especially interesting. They've gone from occasional dabblers to fanatics. Games have been bought, battle stratagies refined, cars compared. Some aliens abducted my housemates and replaced them with gaming doppelgangers.

The new TV has changed the games that get played. Forza 2 has become a staple, with much track study and pimping of rides. GTA4, which was a previous favorite, has been ignored. Bioshock is a new and popular purchase, as is DOA4. Table Tennis is gathering dust. Lego Star Wars has only seen the light once.

It's not yet obvious which games are most improved by HD, but I guess it's those that depend on sensory output to impress the player. GTA4 is a funny game whether explosions are crisp or not. Funny is funny: you only need to see what's going on. With Forza, the pleasure of driving fast is proportional to the fidelity of the image presented. Ninja Gaiden 2 is surprisingly underwhelming - DOA4 in comparison is stunning.

That's not to say the HD approach is wrong - in fact, I'm glad there is a school of "gorgeous" visual design in games. It doesn't even require the creation of vast textures and meshes, as Geometry Wars shows. It will be necessary for some games to develop a more informative style in contrast. The only surprise has been the games that seem to need it most.

Half-Life 2: Episode One

I'm a pauper, which means I can only play games, in most cases, a while after they come out. It's a pain trying to stay current on modern gaming trends but I do what I can. It does mean I avoid the hype-cycle of the gaming press. It means I'm waiting to play some absolute gems: Bioshock for example, and Portal.

I also get motion sickness from playing first-person shooters. An hour is the most I can stand, before I feel sick. It's worse with more modern games. It pushes the FPS way down the list, and I pick and choose the ones I play carefully because I don't get to play many. As a consequence, Portal will squeeze my head like a lemon.

Still, I'm excited to play it, and the rest of the Orange Box, as soon as I finish HL2: Episode One.

Alyx is the big addition: she follows you, generally pouring lead into everything you see. (An amazing section in darkness gives you responsibility for what she sees, using your flashlight.) With her unlimited ammo, apparently recharging health and zombie-stopping melee attacks, she can look after herself. (It is possible for her to die, but not easily.)

It's good to have an escort that doesn't blunder about like an escort, but she's so powerful that you're better off luring enemies to her. It's an interesting change, but too often you don't fire at enemies because she can deal with them without an ammo cost. Balancing your use of different weapons so you don't run out of anything critical was a good feature of the series, and this undercuts it. Also, later in the game she picks up a shotgun. Why doesn't she take any of the extra weapons you find before then?

Despite that, I like her a lot. Her AI is good. She doesn't get stuck in doorways, nor does she get left behind, and she gets involved where she can without doing anything stupid. You never have to hold her hand, nor let her hold yours. She doesn't steal ammo and health pick-ups (The "Chaos Engine" maneuvre). She doesn't grate, even when she makes a wisecrack or too.

Other than that, it's a largely competent extension of HL2, and doesn't do anything radical. It feels like an expansion pack, which it is I suppose. There are several good set-pieces, although nothing quite matching HL2, and it delivers peril and plot points at a fair old clip. It shows a need to break out of City 17 (which Episode Two does).

I'm perhaps three-quarters of the way through it, and I've enjoyed it almost as much as HL2, which was the best thing I'd played in years. Once Episode One finished I'll buy the Orange Box and crack on with Episode Two. Portal can wait a little longer, for my brain's sake.

Forza Motorsport 2

After getting stuck on Ninja Gaiden II, I switched to the other game I bought the same day, Forza Motorsport 2. I thought it would make a good weekend game with housemates, generally passing the pad and aruging about which car to buy next. It didn't turn out that way - I played it for three weeks straight.

In my eyes, FM is at least the equal of Gran Turismo now. The improvements in this version (and this is less a sequel and more a v2.0) can be split into three types: cosmetic upgrades; small sensible corrections, and attempts to find the killer bullet point that will nudge it ahead of GT in the minds of the public. I think we can score it for the first two, but not the third.

First, it looks beautiful. The game benefits from the spit and polish given to the graphics. Racing is an aesthetic experience, and attention lavished here is well spent. (I haven't yet played this on an HD TV, but it will be the first game tested when it arrives, no doubt.) The user interface and music is tweaked - the animation for a new car is a highlight - and the experience is generally more pleasing. Cars have been updated but the roster is not radically altered, and nor is the track selection. However, the point-to-point races have gone, which I miss, but the game is more focused on track racing.

Second, the difficulty is slightly higher. The game offers you much flexibility in terms of driving aids, but now the "normal" difficulty has stability management (STM) turned off, which affects the lighter cars severely, and a driving line is only given when braking is required, helping you through corners but not holding your hand too much. Full telemetry is now available at any time.

Finally, the game tries to offer a few killer touches, but they feel slightly gimmicky. A detailed photo and decal mode have seen some attractive results, but they sit outside the core of the game and don't stand up well to more specialist tools. However, I appreciate they may appeal to the dedicated racing fan. I've always been more excited by engines and drivetrains than by outer decoration and rims, but my tastes are also catered for.

The greatest failing of Forza is that it assumes you're using a wheel. You can't take certain turns with sufficient precision using an analogue stick, nor can you control your speed accurately with the triggers, both of which will always cost you time. The game does not handicap for this, which it could, either by improving your car, or assisting your steering, or best of all reducing the aggression of the AI - particularly at corners.

Forza probably shouldn't adjust for your control method: it is a racing simulation game. No other racing simulation game has solved the problem, and perhaps it isn't possible to do so. The car is as fast as it is, and turns as it does, and if you direct it with a tiny stick instead of a wheel, that's your loss and not the car's. Forza probably has the best solution, in that you can apply the aids you feel will give you help in the right area. If the AI keeps turning you on corners, turn it down. If you keep turning yourself at corners, turn the STM on. Use a full line, no damage, whatever suits.

I have hit my limit, either due to skill or using a pad, but I've enjoyed Forza greatly and like the first game, I expect it will be re-visited often. Especially when the big TV arrives.

Ninja Gaiden II

I played Ninja Gaiden II recently, and enjoyed it very much. Not a huge leap forward but decent steps, definitely.

The box claims it's suitable for "casual players to the most hardcore", which is half a lie. No game suitable for casual players throws you up against four ninjas in your first fight on the easiest setting (they have ranged attacks and guard-breakers too). That's at first control - the first game let you run about and practise the gymnastics to get a feel for Ryu, but not here. There's an assumption that you've played the first game.

It plays like the first game, but rationalised. Switching weapons and magic can be accessed quickly from the d-pad, a good choice. It looks like there won't be an obvious best weapon for each situation. The moveset has better balance too. You can save at statues with a button press, and they recharge health the first time you find them. There's a neat system in fights where some damage is temporary and some permanent: you don't have to nurse your health between fights, or milk weak enemies for health drops.

Everything good about the first game is still there - the combat is as supple as ever, enhanced by injured enemies making suicide attacks. This gives the game a new texture, as you're not just judging the position and action of enemies but also their status in order to predict what they could do next. You have new "Obliteration Attacks" that dispatch the wounded, so your moveset also changes.

The bosses are still rubbish. They look great and make a good spectacle but I don't think I can call them fun to fight. There's little to them except pattern recognition. In some cases the pattern is pretty obtuse, and sometimes only one attack leaves them vulnerable to a counter. One boss has stopped my play altogether, which is disappointing. I want to return but even FAQs aren't helping me with it.

If a film was otherwise good but had inaudible dialogue, you'd put it down to a technical problem. It would be a barrier between you and the good content of the film. Why not the same for a game-blocking boss? Just a thought. I'm sure it's turn will come soon, but until then it loses big marks for the bosses.

Audiosurf

I bought Audiosurf last weekend. I resisted buying it for this long on the grounds that when I got it, I wouldn't get anything else done for while. That turned out not to be true - it favours short bursts of play rather than extended sessions.

Some games draw you in for long periods. They tend to be either long games with a lot of story (for a game) and exploration - lots of new content per hour. I call these games "story-form", because even when they don't tell much of a story, they still follow a story arc. The story may be roughly "shoot this monster, flick this switch, another level done" but it's still a story, making sense to videogame aesthetic. There are save points and not too much backtracking - the player expects a reward of content for invested time. I'll talk more about these in later articles.

There are also well-constructed non-linear games. A good example is Football Manager - many otherwise non-gamers will lose about a month of their lives to the hypnotic exchange of matches and subtle tactical and squad alterations available. Yet it's not a story-form game - all the content is available at the beginning, and each player's story is unique.

There is another type of game that is deeply compelling for long periods, but not continuously. The classic arcade game is usually not fun for a very long time - try playing scrolling beat-'em-ups on MAME for hours straight - but sticks in the players mind. After a couple of games the player is satisfied, but wants to play again soon. (The similarity between this and the addiction pattern of narcotics is best left to other writers, I feel). Crazy Taxi is a great example: more than a few minutes of its hyper-bright and furious dashing leaves you sick and exhausted, but a break from the game leaves you wanting to play again.

Audiosurf has this magic property. After half a dozen games I'm pretty tired of playing, but I soon think of other songs I want to put through it. Perhaps the design of the game as a score attack sits badly with the curiosity of turning your music collection into a set of levels. With the choice of every mp3 in existence, why play any of them more than once? Surely exploring the results from different songs is more exciting?

There are other criticisms that can be levelled: the algorithm puts too much emphasis on sharp drums, meaning that snares can dominate the rest of the song. Sometimes this leads to a jerky effect for dance tunes that are supposed to be more sinuous than stop-start. A few more looks and colour schemes would be appreciated too, rather than general filters.

Still, I love it. I'm always tempted to fill five minutes with a quick go, and it always turns into half an hour. I hope that its novelty doesn't put other people off the idea: it looks like a bold development and further work on the song conversion algorithms could lead to even more exciting possibilities.

Advance Wars

Started playing Advance Wars a few days ago. I played it a little a few years ago, but I'd forgotten everything so I started afresh. The tutorial was impressive, introducing new units and aspects of the game with each training level. It reminded me of the "programmed" rules from the original Squad Leader. This approach suits wargames very well, but it's applied to most games in one way or another.

Programmed rules were about the only hope for Squad Leader to be comprehensible. It was a brilliant but demented squad-level WWII wargame . The scenarios introduced new concepts in stages. The first just had infantry, leaders and machine guns, that formed the core of the game. Each following mission introduced a few new counters and a fresh concept (say, radios, and calling in artillery strikes). By the end of the game, there was quite a party happening on the board, but you could understand it because everything was introduced sequentially, in digestible chunks.

Advance Wars demonstrates perfect programmed tuition. Each training mission has you defeating a powerful new enemy unit with specific counter-tactics: usually the starting unit locations give you the edge. The first mission, with just two infantry apiece in the open, works because the computer has one unit lagging so you can double-team each one with your two infantry. The positions also ensure you will get to strike first: guided by your assistant, you cannot lose.

The game is also secretly showing you something else: concentration of force. Bring two units to bear on the enemy's one, while denying him the same chance, and you will win. It's a principle of military strategy, one of the most basic.

At the end of the tutorial, you'll know how every unit works - which you'll need, because knowledge of the unit relationships and hierarchy are essential to success. Not knowing whether a "B Copter" can attack a "Medium Tank", or the potency of that attack, will hamper your success. With about twenty different units available, it's testament to the tutorial that it successfully teaches you all the information you require.

Metroid Prime (and Meta Ridley)

I've been meaning to record what I'm playing in this blog, including when I start and stop playing long story-form games. I've just finished Metroid Prime, but I nearly gave up before the end due to Meta Ridley. That stopped me on my last play-through.

All Metroid games follow an amazing design: near the end of a game you feel like you know the game-world inside out. (My friend used to think of the map like the London Underground - "Take the Overworld line, change at Chozo Ruins West"). I love it, but I've never finished a game because somewhere there is a boss so infuriating that it makes me quit. Meta Ridley is that boss in Prime.

From the nearest save-point, it's two minutes before I can fight him. The fight always takes at least ten minutes, usually longer. (When I first beat him, the second part of the fight took nine minutes alone.) He is a classic multi-attack boss: a big metal dragon with an area-effect smash, a sweeping laser, a bombing run. There's a counter-move to each, and as long as you spot the cue it isn't difficult, just laborious. With perhaps a quarter of his energy left he switches to his ground stage, introducing his special pause-and-charge - my big gripe with this boss.

There is a signature movement that warns you that a charge is coming - a bull-like duck with his head. Early on, it's best to move soon: the quicker you dodge, the more likely you'll escape. Later, the tactic changes: you must move at the last second. Moving early won't help because he aims at you later. His head movement doesn’t change.

Let's get this straight: all bosses are about learning cues and reading them to land counter-blows against their massive attacks. Meta Ridley throws out the cardinal rule: he gives the same clue, but the trick you've practised, optimised against him, because ineffective. The better you got at it, the less effective it becomes! Brilliant.

There are other niggles - the many attacks that can only be dodged with no opening (the bombing swoop is a particular offender, taking an age), the inconsistent escapes from other attacks, and the lack of a save point immediately following (Yes! I beat him once but didn't survive to a save point. Thanks for that) amongst them. I don't understand why people rave about it. It reminds of people's tendency to over-rate very long books because they've managed to finish them. I think people rate Meta Ridley because it puts them through the emotional wringer, for all the wrong reasons.

I am particularly angry because I expect this bullshit from bad games, or arcade games designed to prise coins from your pocket (hello, Time Crisis). I have loved playing through Prime, and not only were many problems suggested by the switch to 3D (how will jumping work? The Morph Ball?) answered comfortably, but several innovations were introduced by this game (The HUD, the visors, scanning for story details). One horrific design mis-step near the end of the game almost denied me the chance to finish it.

Hey! Presto!

I saw Wall-E last night (amazing), but the short beforehand reminded me of something. In Presto, a magician has two hats, and what goes into one exits the other. In attempting to entice his resistant rabbit on-stage with the hats, physics-bending hilarity ensues.

They've played Portal. It's not really that much like Portal: more of a Looney Tunes cartoon using the same idea. I'm more impressed with how Pixar have taken a cue from a game. It's promising that such a high-profile animation syudio draws on a game for inspiration - on a game mechanic for inspiration.

Mirror's Edge (and a note on aesthetic)

Mirror's Edge looks amazing because it doesn't resemble anything else. Its visual aesthetic is different from any other game I can think of, let alone the major titles currently in development. At a glance, I find it hard to tell Dark Void, Dead Space and Gears of War 2 apart. I always recognise Mirror's Edge.

We should be exploring more interesting looks for our games. This point was made when Jet Set Radio was released and nothing changed. Let's learn something from this one, eh?

No Links Must Read 30 June 2008

Inspiring, interesting, useful this week:

Crystal Castles repond to accusations of sample theft
Torontoist contribute a counter-point
I do like Crystal Castles, but they should just admit they like videogames.

BBC: How gaming is running with sport
More thoughts on using games as motivation to train a real ability.

Brave N00b World: The Geology of World of Warcraft
Not that big, Azeroth, is it?

Gamasuton: Opinion - Touch Generations? Con Generations!
Not wrong, and a counter-point to the BBC article above.

Talking Balls

Is football a game? What about a football?

A football is not a game. It is a toy you use to play a game. It's a physical object designed specifically for a game.

Football is a game. It's a set of rules that define winning and losing, permitted actions, violations and penalties. Although there are written laws of association football, the basics are quite flexible. You can twist a lot of variables and still, basically, be playing football. You don't need to play for 45 minutes, or with regulation nets, or 11 a side. You don't need to play offside or fixed goalies or even fouls, if you're very violent or very honest.

You don't even need a football. Playing football with a tennis ball in a park with makeshift goalposts is something you should do at least once in your life. You can also use a can, or a beach ball. Some people can't see a stone on the pavement without taking round a few imaginary defenders.

You dont need to use your football just to play football. There are other games: volleyball is good with a football. Basketball less so, but it works. Tennis, using your feet over a net, is very good. So is golf, against an object across the park with a ball each. There are more outlandish things: hide it in a garden and send kids to find it, throw it at stacks of tins, build a giant pinball set for it.

All this is pretty obvious for a football, but it applies across all games (and toys). Chess is not a set of pieces: a chess set is a toy that lets you play the game Chess. Nor is a disc containing the program *Quake* a game: it is a program for playing the game Quake. Most games have many subtle variants: Quake can be played single- or multi-player, and each level and map is a subtle variant. A deck of playing cards is possibly the most flexible toy ever created - except for a ball.

No Links Must Read 23 June 2008

Interesting, inspiring, useful this week:

Guardian: Hiddink Rekindles the Spirit of Total Football
Association Football is a game too, you know.

Rock Paper Shotgun: Multiwinia Hands-On
More abstract graphics! MORE!

Guy Debord's Kriegspiel
I find Kriegspiels fascinating, but one designed by a French Situationist, who thought games may sweep cinema aside? Easy sell.

New York Times: The Shootout Over Hidden Meanings in a Video Game
In which the NYT does not laugh at its own headline once. This is progress. Nice to see Leigh Alexander quoted in the big sheets as well.

New York Times: Mystery on Fifth Avenue
Did you ever find something cool in a house months after you moved in? Was it anywhere near as cool as this?

Falling

"Everybody's falling. Hit the ground last." Could this be the best theme ever?

Falling was the first real-time game from James Ernest. It's a neat filler that suits several replays to fill the time available.

One player acts as the dealer and de-facto referee. Cards are dealt round the table, which may be played in front of other players (or yourself) to affect the cards dealt to that player next turn. Ground cards lie at the bottom of the deck, and the last person to get one wins. A few other cards push and pull the cards around and act as all-purpose cancels.

It doesn't take long to grasp the strategy: while it's obvious to play Skip [turns] on yourself and Hit [extra cards] on other players, the opposite is true early on, in order to stockpile cards for the endgame. Timing the switch from stockpiling to fighting is the key to victory, which I didn't expect to find - a classic RTS mechanic in a 5-minute filler.

The game works because the dealer can resolve the timing conflicts as a neutral: without this, it could become an unholy mess. Later Ernest real-time games resolved this by playing to a tableau, which is scored at the end of the game. However, nobody will demand exact fairness in such a short, silly and pleasing game, where victory is only another plummet away.

Falling has just been re-released in a goblin-themed edition. It's exactly the same game though, and worth picking up.

No Links Must Read 16 June 2008

Links and items I found interesting, inspiring or useful this week:

BBC: Real Racing in the Virtual World
GPS telemetry from motor races could be pumped to PCs, with players racing Raikkonen in real time. Exciting, if they can answer a thousand design questions.

RetroSabotage presents "Twenty Lines"
Tetris and 2001 collide in this tidy Flash pastiche. Check out the rest of the site too!

Flickr: Balakov
My favourite art is that where established forms overlap. Balakov's photos combine classic photograhy references with pop interpretation. And Lego.

Yahoo Design Pattern Library: Reputation Solution Patterns
Only just published to the public, this is a great overview of reputation patterns, which can function in games as player rewards. The whole library is interesting. Great stuff from Yahoo - thanks also to Habitat Chronicles for the tip.

BBC: "Darlings" of UK Games Honoured
Apparently the queen is a Fantasy Island Dizzy fan.

Gamasutra: In-Depth: Audiosurf - A PC Gaming Postmortem
Not a postmortem in the sense of others Gamasutra has published in the past, but interesting all the same. Also good motivation for pushing your own original ideas: genuinely good and original designs sometimes do rise to the top.

Gamasutra: The Adventurer's Guide To Thievery
A look at the new 4th Edition Dungeons & Dragons, with particular emphasis on things to steal for computer game design. As for 4th Edition itself, it has a much tighter (almost MMO-like) ruleset, but one that leads to more fluid improvisation. For the unconvinced, don't despair - Paizo are effectively maintaining 3rd Edition through the Pathfinder project.

The Perils of Honest Feedback

"How's your blog going?"

"I haven't updated it for a while-"

"Yeah, to be honest I stopped reading after the third boring World of Warcraft post."

Ouch. Accurate, though - the diary was pretty poor. I was tempted to excise the offending posts, but I wrote it: I can't unwrite it. There may be more concrete analysis of WoW later (involving some actual, you know, numbers), but I'll leave it for now.

Expect more frequent posts in future, covering a more varied range of games. I'll report on some of the board games I've played recently as well, and there'll be a weekly round-up of articles that I've found interesting.

No Resurrections

Gary Gygax died today, at 69. He's responsible for a huge section of modern gaming, for new ideas and for paradigms we now take as a given - levelling and XP, polyhedral dice. His influence cannot be understated.

UPDATE: Penny Arcade, bang on the nail as ever.

I fell off the internet

...for a while there, and so my WoW diary was cut short a few days too early. I still have some entries to make though, and normal service will be resumed.

WoW Diary Day 1: The Barrens

A series of side-quests have already pulled me toward The Barrens, but now my attempt to discover how to become The Bear – to me, he has become The Bear – will also take me there. My side-quest involves walking to The Crossroads, supposedly the point where the Tauren and Orc trails meet and the site of their first allied camp and town (WoW is full of mythical details like this that give the world history and weight). As it turns out I stride right past the Moonkin Stone that is the key to becoming The Bear.

The Barrens is a very different place: a dust-bowl with monsters too tough to look twice at, at least for me now. The towns are temporary camps on a road that's no more than tighter-pressed earth. It's still quite something to see, against the gaudiness elsewhere.

It's at The Crossroads that I have my first gentle brush with PvP. As I approach a warning message arrives, frequently. “The Crossroads is under attack!” The “LocalDefense” channel is ablaze. I pick up the pace to town while working out exactly what to do. I think, as a beginner that I'm safe from random PvP on this server. However I also thought this when I blundered out of Moonglade once and was cut down with one stroke.

When I reach The Crossroads there are people flying everywhere – the most players I've seen in one place, even more than Thunder Bluff. I can't even work out what's going on: from mouse-overs there are level 50+ characters involved. I am level 10 at this point and decide to sidestep the chaos.

Unfortunately my contact, Tonga's brother Tuska, has been killed in the attack. It's a nuisance, and if it were my critical to my needs I'd be much more frustrated. Maybe critical NPCs are better protected, or maybe it's just part of the risk. Either way, I choose not to wait on this occasion. The front of the war feels closer than ever.

I catch a dragon back to Thunder Bluff, because I can't find the Moonkin Stone. The option to move quickly between major towns for a fee is common in MMOs, but WoW lets you watch the subsequent ride, further adding to the sense of wonder. It turns out I'm just being dense. The stone is just off the path on the near edge of The Barrens, behind a big rock. I get my buffs up, consider my strategy, and use my moon-dust.

The guardian of the stone appears: it's a close and satisfying fight, that threatens to go against me, but I shade it at the last. With this final step completed, I take another dragon back to Thunder Bluff – I am too excited to count pennies. Tonga finally imparts the wisdom of The Bear to me, and it sits there, a tiny icon just above the action bar, like a tab. I click it, and everything's different. I'm a bear, and I have a new action bar, with new powers, and no mana bar – but something promising called Rage instead.

That seems a good place to leave the first day. It's been long and satisfying, but I've done little else today. The Bear awaits tomorrow...

WoW Diary Day 1: Thunder Bluff and Moonglade

On reaching Thunder Bluff, the first thing I notice is the explosion in the chat channels. As I move through the world, WoW has kept me abreast of the area's local chatter, except it's more of a whisper. Once you reach the big city though, the effect is that of a market. It is a market. Strange and exotic items are hawked and hailed, guild masters tout for members and banter is heard loud across the metropolis.

There are so many traders, there's a baker. Not a food vendor, but a baker, separate from the city's butcher and cook. There's a bank. You can even have a friendly word with the Chief, and cower at some brutal quests. I've come here on a different sort of quest: a personal one. Here I will find Tonga Runetotem, who will complete my shamanic training and grant me the power of the bear.

He's not in a hurry. He teaches me a spell that will take me to Moonglade, where I will meet those with the strongest connection to the Earthmother. Moonglade is gorgeous – all gloomy forest and stone villas. Running into alliance druids in this neutral druidic space is strange, but a reminder that the enemy in the war is not so different from you. Another druid tells me to commune with the Great Bear Spirit. To the north-west. Some things do not change.

After passing an incredible demigod lurking about looking bored, I find the ghostly bear. We exchange meaningless dialogue and I return to be told that I should go back to see Tonga Runetotem. In a classic fable-matching moment, I try my spell, to find myself back at Moonglade. It won't take me back to Thunder Bluff. Checking the map, I realise I'm half a continent away from Mulgore. I don't fancy the walk. Fortunately I set my hearthstone (a well-considered “take me home” item that works once per hour) to Thunder Bluff, but another beginner may not have, or may not think of this.

Tonga has one more step for me. I must go to the edge of the next area, sprinkle some dust on a magic stone, and defeat the creature that appears. Once this step is taken, I will be granted the wisdom of the bear. Already however, side-quests call me to explore the new area – The Barrens.

WoW Diary Day 1: Bloodhoof Village

After a break I return to WoW and travel on the road north to Bloodhoof Village. On the way I pass the enormous border guards that presumably make the entry areas safe for new players. Most races have their own entry area spread around the map, giving you a chance to find the feel of the game before turning you loose. Bloodhoof Village is a halfway area, packed with side-tracks and diversions. There are more traders and opportunities to train.

There are also more opportunities to get butchered. Here, on the plains of Mulgore I suffer my first death. I pick a fight with a wolf nearby: soon, another joins in and I'm overwhelmed. No friendly Orc passes by. I “release my spirit” and find myself in a ghostly version of the world (pretty again, and it's obvious at a glance that you've died), hanging around a graveyard. My corpse is marked on the map. I trudge toward it, thinking of other players seeing the words as they mouse over it: Corpse of Buushasa. When I arrive I can resurrect, within a few yards of the corpse. I'm not quite sure what the penalty is, apart from the tedium of the walk.

Exploring the many options available from the village, I find myself dying many times. Many, many times. The pacing here is a little off – it seems every beast is two levels higher and has a mate and can outrun me. I make the long walk from the graveyard many times. Often the original cause of my death is still there, stalking about my corpse, daring me to retrieve before killing me again. I find with some relief that the ghostly angel that hangs over each graveyard is a “spirit healer”. She will restore my corpse on the spot, at the cost of damaging my items. Since this damage is cheap to repair, it's a minor blow.

At first, I thought the death system was wrong, it seems a pathetic punishment that only inflicts tedium on the player – always the worst negative feedback. I now think it's cunning. Death is the end of one given excursion, but WoW is a long trail of progression and nobody wants to be pushed far back down the slope. To a beginner though, death is a nuisance. If I had died in the caves at Red Cloud Mesa, my trek from the grave would have been massive, and the extraction miraculous. No beginner needs that.

I am on the verge of despair with the supposed mid-level quests I have agreed to (cleverly, their colour in your log indicates their difficulty for you now: sadly you can't check the difficulty before you agree to it), when one takes an odd and glorious turn. I have to break up a mine by butchering miners, collecting five picks and breaking them on a forge. There is one at the mine itself. I size up the guards and plan how to pick off the guards, when an Orc Rogue turns up and starts killing things.

We form a party and work together. It takes ages because I can't find the button that lets me say things, and I don't speak the shorthand that most players have developed. It's glorious, though! Good teamwork leads to the guards being overwhelmed quickly, then the workers one-by-one, the forge reached and the picks broken. We cover each other against the monsters on the plains, all the way back to Bloodhoof to complete our quests. I just get off “thanks” before he's gone.

WoW is obviously designed for many people to play together, with its classes intended to work together, but still the spontaneous cooperation is a surprise. It happens again later on, as another druid gives me a glimpse of his bear form and rampages with me through another mine. It looks awesome. He's only level 10! I immediately want to turn into a bear, more than anything in the world. As a quest to follow a spirit vision leads me to the city of Thunder Bluff, I intend to find out how to be a bear.

WoW Diary Day 1: Camp Narache

World of Warcraft is a fairly painless experience to start. Creating an account is not significantly more complicated than creating one for, say, Amazon. You don't need to submit credit card details from the off, and cancel your account later. (As it turns out, they do not need to deceive people into paying for WoW.) The download client is small – the trial version streams content as you need it, but you can download the 5 GB full version if you want – and the details of logging on are kept out of sight. Only your password is required with each new session.

Once logged in, there is a choice of many “realms”, each an individual instance of the game world. Some realms follow different rules, but I'm playing a vanilla realm, Bloodhoof. The program recommends a a few realms for you. Character creation is simple – choose a side (Alliance or Horde), a race and a class. A few cosmetic choices later, such as gender, skin colour and face shape, and you're ready to go. I quickly create Buushasa, a Tauren (glorious bipedal cow) Druid.

As everything is streamed in the trial, there's a few minutes while the first area loads, as it's unique for each race. I'm finally placed in Camp Narache. A quick look over Red Cloud Mesa to the south confirms that this game is pretty. WoW's unique lo-fi bright style is different from everything else: simultaneously undemanding and staggering, casual and gorgeous, gauche and... pretty. It runs on low-end systems, where it looks just as good. I have seen some pretty games in my time, but I can't name many where I've been excited to just see the next thing.

I'm told to fetch feathers and meat from the plainstriders that are south of the camp. They look like ostriches, and I collect their feathers and meat by hitting them with a stick, until they are dead. It's the quintessential MMO experience – butchering animals for items to impress an NPC. Once this is done, I'm sent to collect mountain cougar skins, slightly south-west. My foes at this point are too weak to present a serious threat. After three of these slaughter quests I'm getting fed up, and the drip-feed of slightly better armour is not enough to compensate. I decide to play one more quest and have a break.

I'm sent to butcher some “quillbacks”, I think, to the east. If I could finish their chief as well, that would be great.

Weary, I trudge back to where I was just butchering some mutant boars to find the camp, and suddenly my heart leaps as a hole in the ground leads seamlessly to a cave and an underground warren, crawling with critters. My heart leaps again. It is a peculiar quirk that killing animals on the plains felt like butchery, since there was no real hunt – I just picked the animals off one at a time. However, fighting a humanoid tribe – enemies of my proud and mighty tribe – feels like war. This is suddenly meaningful. The corpse of another player, just inside the door, emphasises the point.

WoW is very good at showing you something amazing just as you are about to smash your keyboard. I don't know how it does this, but it's the reason play the game hour after hour, day after day, month after month. Quests are offered such that you can push past the butcher quests to more interesting things (though there are far too many of them), so players can explore to their taste. To some players, exploring means seeing new things: to others, it's mastering and expanding their own powers. Whether the combat is, or can be, truly interesting is another question.

You can certainly get better, however. In the cave I get out of my depth and I'm on the verge of depth when a passing Orc, controlled by another player, saves me. He tells me to be careful: “long way from graveyard here”. I can't even get the chat up in time to say thanks before he's gone. It's my first real contact with another player, and I'm the one who acts like a dick.

I kill enough of the enemy to complete my punitive quest, but I settle for not getting the chief. Now, my growing visions and trials as a druid direct me out of the enclosed camp, designed to let me find my newbie feet, and I head out north for Bloodhoof Village.

WoW Diary day 0

I have been putting off a true encounter with World of Warcraft with many excuses: lack of time and money being the main two. Mostly though, out of fear of turning into a total dork. I am slightly scared of WoW: it looks alluring and all-consuming and is the sort of number-heavy experience I love, and yet I am scared of its ability to consume time, and lives, and effort.

It seems to be full of empty calories.

Yet, I'm supposed to be some sort of game designer or something, and I need to investigate it, properly, by playing it. Tomorrow, my girlfriend flies home for a break of exactly ten days. The free WoW trial lasts exactly ten days. I refuse to accept this is a coincidence.

From tomorrow, I'll be playing the WoW trial and posting every day. To make the most of the time, I've made the key decisions that can be made (Tauren, Druid), and I'll be concentrating on key solo elements - interface, control, early combat - Wow is too big to explore within ten days. The other strict rule involves only playing for an hour each working day. If the game is that amazing, I will be in for thirty more, I'm certain.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I'm going to prepare myself. In the pub.

Areas

Areas is an abstract minimal 2D Flash-based shooter. The player controls a ship that fends off expanding white circles from filling the play space. The player completes each level by surviving for a set period of time: they lose if they are crushed by the circles.

Areas uses a no-click interface: the game is controlled solely by the position of the mouse, including all menu navigation and options. The reasons for this aren’t clear - the suggestion that it’s designed for playing on the Wii doesn’t hold up – but it’s probably artistic whimsy. It doesn’t quite work: there are moments when it screams out for a left-click (especially in the menus, which are unclear). However, it throws up an incidental quirk that alters the game from Geometry Wars and other similar two-stick shooters.

You control a cursor with the mouse. If the cursor is far from your ship, the ship approaches it a proportionate speed. At short range, the ship stops and fires towards your cursor. You can’t simultaneously move and fire. With a limited range of fire, the player must frequently consider whether to sacrifice firepower for position – the “difficult choice” that constitutes all gameplay.

2D shooters are about negotiating space. The movement and location of enemy fire defines locations you can’t go, and the smaller the safe areas are, the more likely you’ll be killed. They’re usually about controlling space too: destroying enemies creates new safe spaces, because bullets stop coming from that location. Usually everything is moving, so the player needs to think about where the safe spaces will be in the future.

In Areas, the only hazards are the relentless white circles that fill the play area (a much larger black circle). They appear randomly, and can only be checked by player fire. Contact with the circles is not fatal, and there are no lives: the player is only pushed back by the expansion. Many levels end with the player fending off the wall of white that approaches, while running the clock out. It’s genuinely claustrophobic.

Of course, with every enemy circular and expanding, it’s not obvious where the strategy in positioning lies. Enter the “magic circles”, areas left by destroyed circles that alter fire passing through them in various ways. Some split bullets in two; some expand bullets; some turn bullets into lasers, or rockets, or absorb bullets to power an explosion when they expire. But their effects combine: bullets may be enlarged, multiplied and then directed to the nearest circle. Under its frantic surface, Areas is a puzzle game. Most shooters are: spatial problems solved through vigorous gunplay. Some lie closer to puzzles (such as Ikaruga), while others lie closer to technicolour carnage (step forward, Robotron 2084), but all require a little thought to navigate with skill.

It's trying too hard to be an art piece, and it has a few balance problems, regarding its later levels and luck with the magic circles, but Areas is a game that demonstrates, more than a traditional example, what lies at the heart of the shooter.

It's been a while

...since I posted, partly because I've been unwell. However some things I'm currently writing are:

• An in-depth look at Areas, which I think is really great
• A few other Kongregate reviews
  
• A good look at Call of Duty 4, and what it tells us (and doesn't tell us) about war
• Thoughts on God of War, Resident Evil 4 and Killer 7
• A diary of my descent into the dark heart of World of Warcraft
  

In other news: how good does Audiosurf look?

MAD: Mutually Assured Destruction

Mutually Assured Destruction is a Missile Command clone, updated in the modern idiom: polished graphics, cities with recharging shields and the upgrade grind that so many flash games mistake for a genuine difficulty curve. It’s a well-executed but ultimately traditional interpretation. However, the sound in this game is incredible. An apocalyptic Wagnerian score conveys the desperation of your defence. The chorus loops intensify until it feels the end of days is raining through your headphones. Explosions and missiles are crisp and pleasing too. The skilful use of sound elevates a good game to a truly great experience.

Meritous

Meritous is a PC freeware game of exploration with a novel combat mechanic and a strong touch of the roguelike. You control Merit, a rogue psychic exploring the Orcus Dome, an area of natural power that has recently been abandoned. You must explore the ruins room by room, searching for items to reactivate the ley lines that power the city. Your progress is blocked by “the shadow”, enemies that fire some manic shooter-inspired bullet patterns.

The battles against the shadow are unique. Your psychic attack must be charged and unleashed as a shockwave. Longer charging leads to a more powerful attack, but also a longer recharge time. You could charge immense attacks before entering a room, but some enemies need to be hit several times: the long cooldown time of these attacks will leave you vulnerable. Your attack clears bullets, while your shield takes up more space as it gets stronger, making evading enemy bullets a very complex and satisfying task. As the attack hits every enemy in range, the game splits from ordinary shooters: accurate timing is the new concern. Positioning is only important in terms of evading enemy fire.

Crystals dropped by defeated enemies can be cashed in for upgrades to your attack, shield and cooldown rate, allowing you to confront meaner shadows deeper in the city. This, combined with the world’s procedural generation, gives the game the feel of a dungeon hack. The randomly generated city isn't really beneficial – it isn’t something you might care to replay once you’ve finished it, and there’s little benefit in knowing the layout except it saves you time. In fact, the most interesting areas appear to be re-written, whereas the randomly-generated rooms feel samey.

The game gets too easy near its end, where you are capable of dealing with pretty much every foe the game throws at you. The only risk comes from stumbling into surprisingly small rooms, where the concentration of fire is too great to apply any skill, or the boss rooms, which are a good change of pace and difficulty. There are a few clumsy control issues too - when you touch a door you are teleported immediately to the other side. You can find yourself blundering through several unknown shadow-filled rooms by accident in this way, which usually leads to your demise.

This game is a great mechanic welded to the wrong game type. The shockwave-shield mechanic is brilliant, but while this could act as the cornerstone of an inventive shooter, instead it is the sole attraction of a routine collect quest.

What is this?

Hello. My name is Gareth Briggs, and I'm an amateur game designer. Welcome to my blog. This is intended as an outlet for my opinions on contemporary game design. Although I specialise in computer games, which are the main focus of this blog, as far as I'm concerned anything that may be called a game may be considered here.

This blog will contain three things.

First, I'll review games I'm currently playing for a game design perspective. They'll be reviews in the artistic sense - no scores or buying advice, just judgemnet and critique of games against their own ambition, and appraisal of that ambition.

Second, I'll offer thoughts on design issues thrown up by games I've reviewed. These will be more in-depth and will hopefully offer some insight on the significant questions posed by contemporary game design.

Finally, as my skill improves I'll exhibit some games I've written myself. These will be a combination of updated classics and new works that showcase my ideas on good and creative game design.

I welcome comment and debate (although abusive or inappropriate posts will be removed). Although this is about contemporary game design, I will consider many older games here, with the intention of illuminating modern practice. Also, if you want to see something specific, make a request - I am open to suggestion.