Overly complicated Action with Overly Simplified Controls...

I remember the first time I played God Of War and experienced "quick-time events", which is basically seeing your character preform a move which is so extremely cinematic in nature that it could never be done with the standard controls used, and being amazed while being slightly disappointed.

I wasn't disappointed at the concept or the practice of the move or the action itself but rather disappointed that my character could never do that constantly in the game. I mean why couldn't every move be so stylistic and extreme in action? Why did I have to wait for these unprecedented events to take place in order to seem my character to something amazing. Every moment should be amazing? Shouldn't it?

Well, thats when I understood the basics of story telling and presentation. God of War did multiple things while performing these "quick-time" moments. They showed the character preform something that made him stand out from the rest of the supporting characters while at the same time give the player the opportunity of being a part of it. So that if you were to preform the event and fail, the character's failure would be your failure. Of course the alternative would be that if you succeeded that character's success would be your success and thus your small victory over the general story. In a way enhancing the over all story and gameplay experience.

Presentation falls into the mix when these events make a clear showing on the character nature and style. That way he would kill or take down his opponent would influence the player on his "badassness". The showing of force would give a direct impression on the main characters position as the hero or villain, in this case as the anti-hero.

Other games have attempted doing this, while some have succeeded, others have failed miserably. The reason of my writing on the subject is to focus on these event as this seems to be a trend in games, the problem is that these events are present to a degree that you may just have a game completely made up of "quick-time" events. Now I'm not going to say this is wrong, but that along with a great many other things, they seem to turn negative with excess. However as the title implies, the general trend in games seems to be simple controls with overly complicated gaming, that may be great in theory but sometimes can be horrible in practice. So in the end you'll end up with game that's basically a non-stop romp of "quick-time" events. You press a button and that cause some kind of complicated combo move, while progressing through that story. A lot of this reminds me of old SEGA Saturn FMV games. Which were cinematic "quick-time" events that determined whether the player progressed or not. Some were popular but as an over all genre it has nearly died out, like the text based games in the US.

My thoughts are whether this may be good thing on games like Edward Nigma, which is a text adventure game at heart or with an action game like God of War? Can they work on both? Or do they need the graphical and visual capabilities of a full 3d game? All these questions will be answered to me as I further develop the fighting system but anything may change as we refine the system. While at the same make the best use of the tools available to us. Its a very hard decision to make with our the huge amount of resources available to "formal" development houses.

PS - Why can't the psp play formated mp4 movies under lua player? OUTRAGE!!! I want to speak to the manager!

Evolving gamplay aspects with technical limitations.

As we progress through final stages of development in Edward Nigma: Fantastic Fanboy, we experience new challenges and limitation while working with relatively advanced hardware. The limitation we face is due to the fact that we work within the sphere of the homebrew development, so most of the resources used are not official. We can get around these problems by using relatively simplistic gameplay in a fresh way. 

Presentation is essential to get the play involved and committed to playing the game. What was first concept is now practice, and in practice some concept are not as effective as they once seemed to be. I must admit that the once simple turn base game has turned into something more complicated with visual tutorials, multiple options, custom soundtrack and the possibility of adding episodic chapters.

My original train of thought is that if we produce a visual stunning game while at the same time offer a decent story and presentation, we can capture the players attention and thus increase the experience of the game. Turning a relatively simple game into a complex world of characters and themes. I often have seen absolutely wonderful homebrew games die out because of a lack of graphical refinement and presentation. Games that showed innovative game-play aspects have been crippled by horrible GUIs and bleak graphics. If we can set the bar higher for presentation and visual game-play then maybe the rest of the homebrew community would also put more effort in that aspect of game development.

Another thing I want to make more of a trend is to allow homebrew development to become something more of a group effort. Where a game is not made by the individual but rather by the community, they make or break games. So games can literally have an infinite amount of creative potential and refinement,  if the gamer has the ability to create or edit his/her gameplay experience then they also feel a responsibility to create and support something they may be apart of.

The idea of the having a youtube of gaming is not something new, but it is something has yet to be achieved. Games that are turning into community made gaming is id, bungie, bioware, microsoft, sony and others. However the rate that this is moving is at a turtle's pace, this may be due to several factors. One being that the development house and/or IP owners being protective of their product and the question of possible profites. I believe that the best way to create a youtube of gaming to give the player to tools to create and customize their own environment. Allowing people to then share creation would be create community fueled gaming. The greatest challenge would be development a set of tools that would make game creation/editing easy. Phil Harrison once made a presentation of Game 3.0 but now with his split from SCE WWS, the true potential of this concept is still in doubt...

[Pre-Production]Shadow of the Creator: Chaos

This is a project that is in Pre-Production and planned for a late 2008/early 09 release. At heart this projects takes a lot from the M.U.G.E.N. fighting engine for windows/linux. But focused to take advantage of more modern technologies, the original version is planned to be produced for the PLAYSTATION PORTABLE system. While some function will be focused on the system, such as ad-hoc multiplayer, others will be based current game standards, such as downloadable episodic content, user produced content, online play, and support.

The fighting system planned is to be very simple in order to allow for easy content creation. This is heavily influenced by SmashGP which was released for the PSP/GP32x. The problem by these versions released is the lack of refinement in the graphical interface and the programmed code. While at the time of its released it was herald as a great proof of concept. Although it lacked to have enough support by the creators to reach its full potential. This project intends to expand and improve on all the things presented before, while allowing for a maximum amount of user created content. This idea of community fueled gaming isn't new or fresh but we hope to add a standardized system to it. A system which would allow the player to have complete control over their gameplay experience.

Still in pre-production the original concept over how this fighter will work is based on platform-fighting while having the ability to have standard fighting perspective. Level design is based on "free-roam" fighting levels. The fighting system will be simplified to have a 2/3 button attack system, with a standard grab and defend buttons. We also plan to allow for a special finishing move to be created for each character by the creators. Things are still in the development stage so some features are not final but we have a clear goal to create the greatest piece of homebrew possible.

Say hello to Edward...

Edward Nigma: Fantastic Fanboy, is a homebrew game for the psp, a visual media text-type video game developed by Team Zero.

 

Currently under final stages of development, a demo is planned to distributed online. Edward Nigma is based around debate/information gamplay. This game is completely presented in 2d and using manga/comic-like sprites. Where the user would navigate Edward around a convention to interact with other characters, where some would be friendly and others, fanatical fanboys, Edward would have to do battle with to defend his fanboy honor. Topics stem from a wide selection of subjects in Popular Culture. The story itself is based on the fan-fictionalized adventures of a young, Edward Nigma, who would later be known as The Riddler from Batman fame.

 

Edward is a product tester of new nano-technology, developed by WayneTech, he is sent to Japan to deliver the now tested and approved final build of the techology for final production. Nigma being the nerd at heart, takes advantage of the situation, and decides to use the trip as an excuse to travel around Japan to fulfill his fanboy fantasies.

 

These adventures have him going to Anime Conventions, Marketplaces and other locals in search of all things nerdy. We hope you get excited about this project as much as we are producing it. Keep checking this blog for updates on gameplay, movies, characters, and more details.