I have been playing a couple of rounds of Pilotwings the last two days. It is a game I remember fondly from the times I was a kid. I never owned a SNES it but I played it a lot on department store test stations. This is the first time I’m attempting at making some serious progress in it. At some point it struck me that this game must be a launch title. And indeed, it looks like Pilotwings was released just a month after the launch of the SNES in Japan a was launch title in the U.S.

The game is basically a couple of flight-themed mini-games. They are very loosely connected by a points system. Even the selection screen where you chose the different mini-games is as bare-bones as it gets.

The selection screen: Timeless. As in “We didn’t have much time to put this thing together”.

The mini-games all depend heavily on the Mode 7 capabilities of the SNES. In fact, the heritage of the game as a pure SNES tech demo is blatantly obvious. Also, it’s interesting to consider the game’s theme: flight simulator. It’s almost as if Nintendo was aspiring to present the SNES as capable of running software not unlike the “serious”, heavy duty flight simulators at the PC of that time. Back in the days, the flight simulators were pretty much the pinnacle of computer graphics. They had 3D graphics even before there were accelerators. They were impossibly complex too. So a vast majority only bought them to marvel at the graphics. I remember just taking off and landing was almost impossible and required some hard-core research into the various instruments. On the other hand, once you managed this, the old simulators didn’t really offer any challenges. There was no feedback, no goals, no progress. Just flying.

So Pilotwings is a game designed to showcase the system’s graphic capabilities and establish the SNES as a high-performance graphics machine. But of course, Pilotwings is nothing like the old flight simulators. It’s short, quirky and quite entertaining. I mean, they even have a JETPACK for crying out loud. It’s quite challenging too. I presume that they had to make the game so difficult in order to get more play time out of it. There is not much there otherwise.

I’m enjoying the game a lot. I’m looking forward to the 3DS version. It will be a launch title once again.

Sometimes I get up in the morning and I turn on our coffee machine, still half-asleep. I sometimes find out that the machine starts flashing all sorts of red lamps indicating that I need to clean it and put it some water etc. And sometimes even that’s not enough. I push the button and the machine starts grinding the beans, the beans sometimes run out and the machine continues to grind air. All of a sudden, I need to drop everything and rush to the fridge, grab new beans and put them in the machine before the machines gives up on grinding. That’s how a simple cup of coffee sometimes turns into a hectic chore at the worst possible time of the day.

That’s how game development also sometimes is. You think you just implement a very simple function but while doing so you encounter one problem after another. And you spend the entire weekend just trying to catch up with all the problems that keep on appearing.

See, the subtitles were actually already implemented but sometimes they didn’t quite appear in-sync with the voice because the voice doesn’t always start at the beginning of a sound sample. So I decided to implement a function that would delay a subtitle so it appears in-sync with the voice.

But then I noticed that one of the bugs I thought I fixed the other day was still there. So I went bug hunting for a while.

Then I returned to implementing the subtitle delay. While doing so I noticed that some voice samples are really long and had some dramatic pauses in-between. So the subtitles still didn’t quite match the voice even with a delay. I started working on a system to split a subtitle into multiple parts and show each part at a different time.

While working on that I noticed that I was still using a very inefficient workaround to do subtitles for videos. You see, videos have their own sound built into them. So in oder to show subtitles during videos I play a “silent” mp3 when the video starts. I attach subtitles to that mp3. This was messing up my timing for multiple subtitles because the silent mp3’s had a length after all. I thought I remove this workaround while I’m at it. This caused all sorts of problems, one of them being that the subtitle splitting stopped working.

After fixing that, I continued implementing the subtitles. I noticed that some subtitles still didn’t show up in-sync with the voice. I realized it was because of a system I had in place that would ensure each subtitle was visible on the screen for a minimum amount of time. I had to create an exception there.

The subtitles started showing up properly so I finally finished the first two levels and my mood started to improve.

But then I realized that one video in the third level didn’t have any voice in it. I must have forgotten it. So I had to go back to After Effects and render it out with the voice.

In the After Effects project I realized that the timing of the video actually didn’t work at all with the voice so I had to re-edit that video.

Then I realized that after my Windows re-install all my After Effects rendering presets were gone. So I had to boot up my other system to re-create my old rendering presets.

With the video working again, I returned to the work on the subtitles. Already the next video didn’t show any subtitles at all.

Sadly, this bug showed up only intermittently so it was very difficult to replicate. After a very long investigation I concluded that this had something to do with the way this specific video was implemented. So I wrote an exception for this, which in turn caused all sorts of problems that needed to be taken care of.

Finally I could move on to the last level. Here again, the first video didn’t show any subtitles. This also had to do with the fact that it was triggered in a very different way than all the others. I used a combination of a hard-coded exception and a tricky workaround to make it work anyway.

At this point it was starting to get late and I realized that I was still missing an important feature – subtitles for the cut-scenes at the end of each level. They are rendered in a different way and you should be able to watch them also from the main menu. So this means I can’t use the same system I have been using so far. I decided to put this on my to-do list and call it a day.

It’s the first weekend of the final push, I started with the easiest task and I’m already behind my schedule. Naturally, I’m not happy about it. But that’s just how Game Development sometimes turns out. On the other hand, I managed to get a German translation done and I made at least some progress. I will attempt to get some work done during the week so I’m back on schedule next weekend.

I recently got Gran Turismo 5. I’m not quite finished with the 5 backlog games. I decided to order it anyway and not play it until I’m done playing off the backlog debt for it.

However, I did unpack it. I ordered the UK Collector’s Edition (not the prohibitive Signature Edition). It contains a small but thick book called Apex. I was completely blown away by it’s contents.

This little booklet was in my Collector’s Edition of Gran Turismo. I was expecting a collection of glossy car renderings. But I was in for a surprise…

Do you remember the good old times where PC military flight simulators came with a huge manual that not only explained the button layout but also described the history of the depicted conflict, fundamental aerodynamic principles, basic flight maneuvers and the technology behind all the planes you would later encounter in the game? Apex is EXACTLY that. It’s an old-school game manual. And it may be one of the best ones ever printed.

The first chapter deals briefly with the history of automobiles and features not only some beautiful images but also some well-written texts. The second chapter goes on teaching driving techniques. Now, I bought a Gran Turismo 4 game guide back in the day. Those guides always feature a rather half-assed, short chapter on driving fundamentals. This is different. Somebody REALLY put A LOT of effort into it. They use a lot of incredibly detailed information graphics and useful metaphors. They don’t just explain when to push what pedal, they make sure you develop a model of how cars behave on the road. The result is that this isn’t just useful in the game, the lessons can be also applied to real-life driving.

One page of many explaining in great detail various racing maneuvers. Note that there are even directions on how to use the pedals at each stage of the maneuver.

But that is just the beginning. After a nice overview of the different types of motorsport, there is yet another lengthy chapter on car technology. Again, it explains in great detail all the fundamentals of how cars work. It explains how an engine works, what kinds of engines there are, what the advantages of different solutions are, how turbos work, how suspension work, how a transmission works – you name it. Again, this isn’t just going trough a checklist. There are very detailed illustrations on each topic. The scope goes beyond what is necessary or even visible in the game. It’s actually better than what I’ve learned in physics classes about car technology.

Car technology explained down to the very last screw. Here, quite competent information graphics on what engine displacement is.

What follows is a short colorful feature on the development modern car technologies that may become important in the future such as electric cars and alternative fuels. Finally, yet another super-detailed chapter on car tuning. All the setting you can manipulate in GT5 are explained in the same detailed fashion the other topics were. Each individual setting is presented on an individual page. There are information graphics on each page. To drive the idea home, various setups are presented side-by-side and the advantages of each are compared to each other.

Yet another chapter focuses on car tuning and explains exactly what each individual setting does.

The book finishes up with some general articles on car tuning and performance upgrades. It also shows some nice car photos and the layout of the GT5 tracks.

Lately Ubisoft announced that they will move away from printed manuals. Many other publishers seem to follow a similar strategy. One of the reasons seems to be that they claim hardly anybody ever reads them. I think the problem is that most of them are simply poorly made. They are ugly and didn’t contain any interesting information anyway. No wonder players stopped reading them, they had no reasons to.

The Apex book finally shows how a proper manual can look if the developers put some effort into it. It’s an incredibly useful and quite gorgeous piece. Just browsing through it is such a pleasure. It goes even beyond being just a manual for a game. It can stand in it’s own as a book about cars. But it also successfully binds the content of the game to the real world. It provides real-life context for the things players encounter in the game. It also provides informations that players can easily apply to their everyday lives. As a result it enriches the game by making it more life-relevant.

Needless to say, I wished every game came with such a manual. And no, Ubisoft, I don’t think you can replace that with in-game tutorials.

I recently finished my playtrough of Plants vs. Zombies. When the game came out it was universally praised for being highly addictive. When I first tried it some time ago I was expecting a simple but perpetually engaging core gameplay with ton of polish and additional content around it – the familiar anatomy of addictive games. But Plants vs. Zombies didn’t really seem like this. Something was missing. Finishing it confirmed my initial hunch: It doesn’t really have any gameplay. There are elements in place that could make up gameplay but they it’s enough to ignite that magic spark. It’s a Brown Dwarf.

In a nutshell: A star is like planet Jupiter but so huge that it burns itself up. A Brown Dwarf is something in-between. Larger than a gas planet but not quite a star.

To explain what a Brown Dwarf is, here is a short astronomy tangent. A star starts out as a vast cloud of gas. The cloud slowly condenses due to it’s own gravity into a dense sphere. As it gets tighter and tighter, the temperature and pressure at it’s core rises. This continues until the conditions inside the ball of gas reach the point where thermonuclear fusion of hydrogen occurs – the same thing happening at the detonation of a hydrogen bomb. But because the ball of gas is at least 70 times the mass of Jupiter at this point, it doesn’t explode like a bomb. The gravity keeps everything together. The ball of gas continues a steady thermonuclear burn. It becomes a star.

A Brown Dwarf is a failed star. It the result when the initial cloud of gas was too small to create the conditions to ignite that thermonuclear fire at the core. Instead of burning up like a star, a Brown Dwarf will basically just sit there and glow dimly. In fact, the planet Jupiter could be understood as a tiny Brown Dwarf. It’s a huge ball of gas after all. But in order for Jupiter to become a star, it would have been around 70 times more massive.

Back to Plants vs. Zombies. It’s just like that. I played the game and as more and more plants were introduced I waited for that moment where the elements would click into place and create equilibrium of forces to play around with. But that moment never comes. The new plants just keep on coming. New zombies also keep on coming. You use the plants to kill the zombies. That’s it. There is no catch. There are sometimes zombies that need to be killed with a specific plant. You can just do that and there is nothing that stops you from doing that. Sure, there are some mild strategic decisions such as which plants to chose or in which order you build the stuff. But in the end, I was able to easily solve level after level using the same build over and over again. The only thing that made my try different approaches was curiosity, boredom and decency.

Of course the game has lots of other qualities. The zombies and plants are creative, super-cute and beautifully animated. The writing is hilarious. I always looked forward to check new items in the almanach, not because I wanted to know what they do but because their descriptions were so funny. The mechanic of collecting sun works perfectly for touch devices.

Yet, I can’t help feeling that beneath it all, there is not enough at the core. In other strategy games players are rewarded for recognizing patterns. You need to find ways to maximize you resources so you can gain an advantage. In tower defense games you are successful if you put your towers at the spots where monsters will spend a long time – at corners for example. In certain tower defense games you need to place your towers in such a way that monsters will be required to take an especially long route, allowing you to fire at them for a longer period of time. Quite often, there is a balance to strike. In Starcraft, you need to decide how much of your resources you put into building up your infrastructure and how much you spend into amassing an army. Build too much units and you will end up with a technologically inferior army. Build too much buildings and you will have nothing to fight with.

Plants vs. Zombies has none of that. It just has interactions that are reminiscent of those other games. You build stuff that shoots at stuff. But there are hardly any interesting decisions to make. It’s just a ton of eyecandy and polish.

Or maybe I’m just an old, jaded gamer. Maybe Plants vs. Zombies is deep and engaging for people, who never even heard about games like X-Com. Or maybe even worse – perhaps I just haven’t recognized the game’s genius. Help me out here. Am I the only one?

You might remember my exorbitant games backlog and the rules I set myself to reduce it. Time to check if it worked. In some ways it did, it some ways it didn’t.

Since I started this project, I was able to complete only a very underwhelming number of games. I finished 5. They are:

1. Windosill

2. Tales of Monkey Island: Launch of the Screaming Narwhal (yes I’m aware it’s not a full game. It counts anyway)

3. Transformers: War for Cybertron

4. Starcraft II (of course I will continue playing multi-player but I’ve seen everything single-player has to offer)

5. Spider (didn’t unlock all secrets and achievements on this one. I don’t think I will)

In return I got Diner Dash for the iPhone. Considering I started in July it will take around a decade to finish my backlog at this speed. Not really the boost I hoped for. On the other hand, I did not buy any new games so the project was successful in this regard at least.

But this could be the reason for the slow start – I simply had no motivation to reduce my backlog yet. I was quite fine playing the games I had (StarCraft 2 and Monster Hunter Tri). Things might change soon. Gran Turismo 5 and Monster Hunter 3rd will be released soon. Also, I’m interested in trying Kinect. I need to finish the next 5 games fast. My current hitlist is:

1. Diner Dash I’ve got a save on the last restaurant so this could be quick.

2. Another World I have an ancient password which should be pretty close to the end.

3. Pilotwings I have some passwords. But I heard that it’s short anyway.

4. Plants vs. Zombies Again, I have a savegame somewhere in the early fog levels. Shouldn’t take long.

5. Scribblenauts That should take the longest. I kinda want to beat it anyway because the sequel is out already.

Considering Gran Turismo 5 will be released the day after tomorrow, I somehow doubt I will make it in time.