So I’m doing some research into Roguelikes for reasons that shall remain secret for now. I have been looking at some examples to get a general taste for the myriad of flavors there are. One could say that I did a Wine Tasting with Rogulikes. Here are my notes.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup

Unaccessible depths.

Dungeon Crawl Stone Soup is apparently a branch of a pretty old Roguelike. It’s quite apparent. The game is incredibly deep with lots of commands and abilities at your disposal. Apparently, the interesting thing about the “Stone Soup” branch is it’s focus on interface and on the graphic Tileset. Unfortunately, it doesn’t really work for me which is actually something I encounter very often in Roguelikes. Some of it is simply for technical reasons. I use a Mac notebook keyboard with a German layout. In Germany, the keys Z and Y are switched. Most of the punctuation signs are in different places on the keyboard. Some keys just don’t exist, such as the keypad. Mac keyboards don’t even have the NUM Lock functionality. Using the Keyboard only gets me so far. Stone Soup has a lot of GUI workarounds but they don’t really work that smoothly. Every now and then, it’s still required to press a key. Using a mouse and and that many different keys doesn’t really work. Especially since some of the key commands need to be UPPERCASE. WTF?! The final straw is that the game frequently gives hard modal prompts. So if you accidentally walk in to an already discovered trap, you MUST answer yes or no to proceed.

I lost patience even during the tutorial. But then I still had to figure out how to even close the game! I gave it a second try at some point. I just started an actual game. It worked much better. But soon the levels started to feel huge and tedious. I was done after the 3rd floor or so

Things I liked: Resource management! Killing dudes and cutting their corpses down for emergency rations. Then getting food poisoning. Then trying to cure food poisoning with random potions. Good deal of inventory tinkering with curses and scrolls.

Things I didn’t like: Clunky interface. Lots of unnecessary hurdles break the fluidity of interaction. Help functions too cumbersome to use. Huge, sprawling levels with somewhat uninspired patterns (parallel corridors – yuck!). Repetitive combat – until you suddenly die.

DoomRL

The old days that never existed.

DoomRL is what actually started this investigation. Apparently a so-called Coffebreak Roguelike based on the game Doom. Derek Yu recently contributed a graphic tileset to it. Rare instance of a Roguelike actually using sounds. Turned of the music immediately – broke the mood. But the SFX are great. I think many game designers underestimate the role of SFX in the creation of Juicyness/Effectance/Kinaesthetics.

I don’t know about the Coffebreak but this clearly worked for me. There are solid mouse controls and just a few key commands to speed things up. Everything looks and feels much more polished than Stone Soup. But of course, there is much less options than in Stone Soup.

Things I liked: Interface works. SFX help making it feel juicy. Levels have a good size even if they don’t have the best randomizer in the world. Multiple difficulty levels ensure a wide appeal. It’s a game to cuddle up with on the couch.

Things I didn’t like: Runs out of ideas fast. Combat is polished but begins to feel repetitive. Eventually you just clear floor by floor by shooting at things. Not much inventory tinkering. Not much resource management. But perhaps I just haven’t seen enough.

AliensRL

Compatible with the MU-TH-UR 6000 system.

The guy, who made DoomRL made also AliensRL. So it’s actually quite similar. This one doesn’t have the tileset or even mouse control. But it has SFX and still feels good. Proof that DoomRL doesnt work just due to Doom nostalgia. And that mouse control isn’t even necessary for polished controls.

Incursion

Inspiring environments. But otherwise, a rather short excursion for me.

After Stone Soup, I knew I wouldn’t get warm with Incursion. I just started it once to see how deep the rabbit hole goes. It goes deeeeeep. I left even before I even died for the first time.

BUT, there is one cool thing I really LOVED. The individual rooms have a lot of flavor. There is a Textadventure-esque description as you enter each room. And it’s not just arbitrary. It actually reflects the design of the room. If the description says that there are vines hanging from the ceiling, you can actually SEE the vines in their ASCII glory.

Things I liked: The richness of the environment. The above descriptions. The level generator seems to be really solid too! I read that the levels are even spatially consistent (stairs in a level above overlap with the stairs with the level below).

Things I didn’t like: Super cumbersome system. Together with the keyboard issues, it’s utterly unplayable for me.

Brogue

Bringing back the “Art” into “ASCII Art”.

I save the best for the end. Brogue caught me off-guard. It looks like yet another RL but it’s a Goldilocks solution for me.

It uses ASCII art but in a beautifully detailed way. Water surfaces glitter. There is tall grass that blocks off your view. You can trample over it. Some enemies give of puffs of poisonous gas that slowly expands in a room. There are even hints of lighting. The level generation is really nice. Just the first levels already have lakes, chasms, hanging bridges. It makes the world very interesting, completely transcending the ASCII technology.

Another interesting thing is that it’s very streamlined and polished. There is no character generation, not even a name. There are full, working mouse controls along side with simple keyboard commands. Both work well. There are meaningful description of items, but not too much noise. No arbitrary lists of numbers and stats. Just the things you need.

And finally, there are actually few, but meaningful enemies. It’s not just an endless hack and slash through hordes of palette-swapped variations controlled by the same, mindless AI. The enemies actually have character. It’s starts simple with rats and jackals. But soon, you encounter monkeys that steal items from you and then run away, the fore-mentioned exploding gas bags, wizard goblins that keep their distance while summoning magic swords and jelly creatures that multiply when you hit them. Sometimes, you can even rescue creatures that have been imprisoned and they become your buddies and fight along your side.

It’s a really nice game that creates a rich and complex world in a very approachable and streamlined kind of way. Very unlike what you see in most Roguelikes.

Things I liked: Smooth interface. Simple stats, little combat. Varied enemy behavior. Varied and dynamic environment. No SFX but still feels alive due to subtle visual and interactive details. Oh an one more thing: each level fits on a screen without scrolling. Somehow, that feels incredibly reassuring. It grounds the world and limits the size of each level.

Things I didn’t like: It’s a matter of taste but I would prefer a little more resource management and inventory tinkering. SFX would be nice too.

Fatherhood

An combat-free approach worth exploring further.

And finally something completely different. Fatherhood is a Roguelike without combat. You must stop a flood from advancing by moving rocks. At the same time, you need to take care of your 3 children. Haven’t played that much so I can’t comment yet. But from what I saw, the idea was intriguing enough.

Speaking of which: I’m still looking for some other Roguelikes that have dynamic environments. I’m especially looking for ones that focus on interaction with the environment and less on combat. Any suggestions?

Just a very short notice:
I’ve nearly finished my next small game for android phones and tablets.

Anybody care to try it out?
Comment here on this post or send me an email.

I will also announce next version(s) on twitter, so would be great if you follow me:
twitter.com/sirleto

Find some screenshots, trailer and details about the game here:
 ludocrazy.com

I haven’t been updating in some time. But things are about to improve. And there is a lot to talk about. One of them being The Last Story.

If you have been living behind the moon, The Last Story is an amazing Japanese action-RPG that was just recently released in Europe for the Nintendo Wii. It is one of the games that many fans demanded to be released in the west during Operation Rainfall. The reason being perhaps because the producer of The Last Story is none other than Hironobu Sakaguchi, the creator of the Final Fantasy series. He is not the only Final Fantasy superstar working on this title. The music was also made by none other than Nobuo Uematsu, the composer behind most of the iconic Final Fantasy tunes. Since Sakaguchi left Square Enix, the Final Fantasy series went downhill very fast. Here is a great Eurogamer article explaining the fascinating history of Sakaguchi’s departure. So for many, The Last Story is the hope for a spiritual successor to Final Fantasy, a reboot under a different flag. Does it fulfill this promise?

It’s hard to tell. The Last Story REALLY changes up the traditional JRPG formula a lot. There are some amazing inspirations from western games. This makes the game very innovative. But it’s just a very different game from a Final Fantasy. Here are some first impressions:

• Gears of War with Swords – The game features a cover mechanic very reminiscent of Gears of War. The crazy thing is that your characters fight primarily with swords so hiding behind cover doesn’t seem to make much sense at first. Yet, the cover mechanic doesn’t feel out of place. There are some nice sneaking sequences that make the mechanic feel more natural than in many shooters. And that’s just one of lots of new battle mechanics. You can freeze time to give commands to your team from an top-down perspective. When you sync your attacks with another teammate, you do some extra damage. There is a special power that draws the attention of enemies to you but slowly charges a special attack. Not everything is a success but it’s a massive influx of innovation. Innovation that JRPGs need urgently.

• JFPS – The game has some FPS elements. Your character can use a crossbow at any point. There are moments where you can get some cool strategic advantage using it. More importantly, the FPS mode is well-integrated into the story. Every now and then, a sound cue tells you when you can “discover” things using the FPS mode. You need to find some detail in the environment by looking at it – reminiscent of scanning in Metroid Prime. A compass helps you in case you have no idea where to look. It’s not a huge challenge. But it’s used frequently and helps rooting the FPS functions more deeply into the rest of the game.

• Assassin’s Creed Gaiden – There are some subtle clues from the Assassin’s Creed series. Early on, you find yourself in a city with a distinct Italian flair. You bump into other people pretty much likein Assassin’s Creed. And by the end, there is a sequence where you are being chased by guards. Generally, parts like this feel free-roam-ish. But make no mistake – the game is a very linear series of levels, quite unlike Final Fantasy. So far, I haven’t seen a map of the world or anything.

• Costume Quest – The game does look great. The character models even hold up to Xbox 360 and PS3 titles in some regard. But the thing that I was impressed by the most were the costumes. They are beautifully designed. They are simpler than the fashion overkill you see in the modern Final Fantasy nowadays. But they are still unique and have some stylish details. And then each character can wear equipment that actually integrates into their outfit. And then you can even change the color of each individual piece of clothing. That kind of attention to detail just blows my mind.

• Very British – All voice work is done by British actors, just like in Xenoblade Chronicles. Apart from a weird line every now and then, it works very well. I love how fresh and unique the game feels just due to the voice work. The different characters even have different accents. Marvelous!

In total, I’m quite surprised with the way the The Last Story turned out. It took me by surprise and it’s certainly a game I’d love to finish. I can recommend it to anybody, who likes JRPGs, but always wished for them to be less formulaic. The Operation Rainfall games just keep giving. I can’t wait for Pandora’s Tower.

This time on the Monster Hunter Podcast: A Love Bonk. On a very special Monster Hunter Podcast, the crew discusses the sensual side of human and wyverian…weaponry.

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Enjoy!

Time for the final Global Game Jam Cologne 2012 Round Up (part 1 here and part 2 here)! Let start up with Giant Robot Snake.

Giant Robot Snake – Don’t eat that frog, snake. Don’t do it.

It’s a very interesting game because it can be played by four people simultaneously on two controllers. Each player operates one analogue stick. The goal is to poke your giant robot snake with a stick to make it eat the green frogs that jump around. There are also red frogs you need to avoid. I had a blast playing it with 3 other people on stage during the presentation. Another reason why I’m impressed is that it was made by two guys, who met each other at Global Game Jam. They even spoke different languages. Cooperations like this blow my mind. And hey, you can check it out yourself. The team uploaded the multiple versions of the game on the GGJ website. It is very polished and fully playable!

One game that is also playable albeit not quite as polished is Alchemica

Alchemica – Got very far bit didn’t quite finish.

The team behind Alchemica consisted of some Global Game Jam veterans. They went for a risky, custom Java platform. They got the game done but lost too much time so they couldn’t polish it anymore. It’s a puzzle platformer with a mechanic where you need to use different “elements” to solve puzzles. Even though it’s not as polished as it could be, you can still play it here. The team didn’t look very happy about the outcome during the final presentation. But I think they got incredibly far with the concept and I’m sure the experience they gained will turn out to be very valuable.

Funny enough, another team tried a very similar approach and also got into trouble. Their game was called Claychemy.

Claychemy – Prevailed against all odds. A true GGJ success story.

Initially, the team had a main programmer and 3 designers/artists. But for some reason, the programmer left at some point and never returned. So the team was forced to learn Flash and Flixel to continue working on the game. Luckily, they totally succeeded! Again, it’s a platformer where you character can change the element he is made of. Certain elements are needed to overcome obstacles. Fire burns wood, stone breaks glass, air lowers gravity etc. Actually, you can just play the game here in your browser. A charming little game with an epic GGJ success story behind it.

One game that got some great laughs during the final presentation is The Tale of Archy.

The Tale of Archy – You had me at “Jetpack”.

It’s a game where you control a treasure-hunting alchemist on a jetpack. It’s a side-scrolling shooter with a Minecraftian aesthetic and with an interesting death mechanic. As far as I understand, when you die you become a ghost and you need to re-claim your soul. The game runs backwards when in ghost mode. In any case, the goal of the first level is to find the Frisbee of Anubis. The team, including some KISD students and Game Jam veterans, was apparetly inspired by some of the spontaneous frisbee sessions we held during the 48 hours to keep us fit. I won’t spoil you the ending, but it’s hilarious! The team uploaded the game files on the GGJ page, so try it out!

And finally, the game with the longest title: D.B.S. Don’t be square aka “The revenge of the psychedelic boring boxes” aka “vice versa”.

It was made by Peter Bickhofe and Markus Hettlich. Both Global Game Jam veterans, technical tutors as Cologne Game Lab and good friends. They weren’t happy with the way their two previous Game Jam project were too bloated. So this time, they went for something funny as well. It’s a game where you control a growing box. One it becomes so large it fills the screen, you start the game over with a new box growing within the old box. They were very creative with the visuals and the music. So the game turns very bizarre at some point. Just try it out yourself, you can play it here.

There was one last, super interesting game that looked like Limbo but used typography for level geometry. Sadly, the team hasn’t set up the project at Global Game Jam. If you read this, please upload the game! I thought it was really great!

And yeah there was one team that tried to use the TV crew at Global Game Jam for some ill-conceived anti-games rant. As you may have imagined, it was completely misplaced at an event like the Global Game Jam and fell completely flat. The analogy would be to have a bulimia awareness protest next to a girl scout cookie stand.

So that’s it for this year. It was the biggest Global Game Jam we ever had. We almost reached 60 participants. We can’t actually go much bigger than this. So of course we had a lot of games. But even more surprising was the actual quality. A lot of the games could be easily made into actual polished products. It’s very difficult to pick definitive favorites because almost every game had something unique and exciting to it. Either way, I’m really happy with our results. I would like to thank all the participants for sharing with us their relentlessness and creativity. And I would be honored having you with us next year!