As you might know I participated in this Month’s Blogs of the Round Table (BORT) with my Solaris post. I also joined Corvus Elrod, Joe Tortuga and Troy Goodfellow in a podcast (BORTcast?) in which we discussed three of the entries. It is only 25 minutes and
I would also like to use this post to discuss this month’s BORT in more details:
Cliffski is currently working on a Sci-Fi Space Opera battle game and he recently asked about the economy and logic of epic space battles. He basically wanted to know what the logic is behind having small fighters and big capital ships because he tries to reproduce them in his game.
This is a dear topic for me. Some years ago, I was inspired by the Bad Astronomy website. It was a bit of a shock for me when I realized how pretty much every little detail about space Sci-Fi doesn’t hold up to scientific scrutiny. I knew Sci-Fi was unrealistic but it was amazing how TERRIBLY AND UTTERLY unrealistic it is. So I sat down, ate some heavy books and now I believe I have a rudimentary understanding of Astronomy now. It has become of a hobby for me. That’s why I sometimes torment you with my space geek stuff. Like I will today. If you want to know about the science and logic of epic Sci-Fi space battles, please continue…
I’m a subscriber to this blog called Costume GET!, which “discusses the finer points of videogame character costumes.”
The latest hint on Street Fighter IV’s alternate costumes is enticing, but at the same time, I’m afraid to look at them as it would take away much fun of getting a fresh look – or is it just me?
Can anybody tell me (maybe by watching the video) if the shown costumes are exhausive? And/or how the system works – I’m assuming that there’re only complete outfits, not a dress/ item system as seen on the other recent 3D fighters.
In general: having a FAQ to tell you what rewards await and, more importantly, what their sometimes invisible unlock conditions are, is one thing, but isn’t seeing them, especially the costumes which have no gameplay influence, spoiling the point of them? What do you think?
Btw, a small shameless plug: it was a pleasant surprise to discover Velvet Assassin on Costume GET! as I was commissioned by Replay Studios last year to work on the main character (the base/nude complete model plus the night dress and the full-leather outfit). Note that I only created the assets but not the renderings, and that I own nothing of those or any other part of the IP and production.
In case you haven’t noticed, I jumped on the Twitter bandwagon. My colleague Yu-Chung Chen joined me.
You can follow my twat under krystman
You can follow Yu-Chung’s twat under wanzai
We are working on seting up both our twitter streams as a badge in the sidebar. So far setting up two twitter badges only results in them getting confused with each other. Does anybody have a solution?
So far I like it! Already had some “AHA!”-Moments. I see myself getting used to it. It fills a void I wasn’t aware of yet. I just wish more people I know personally would use it. *sigh*
Exciting things coming up soon: A Braid Game Design Review and some updates on my progress with Illicinated. Oh yeah, and it seems like I might appear on a Podcast this Weekend. Stay tuned!
Space geekout time! I’ve got a cardboard Orrery for Christmas and I finished it recently. Here it is:
Although it looks awesome, I’m not entirely blown away by the result. If you are interested in some thoughts on information design, modelmaking and astronomy – read on:
It is now one month since I’ve bought my Xbox. I was quite surprised when I realized that. During just that one month, a lot of things happened. I bought, tried and even finished quite a lot of new games. Looking back, I’m generally happy with the purchase. The games have mostly a great quality and the on-line features are excellent.
But there is one problem that taints the whole Xbox experience. While I do enjoy the product, I have that uneasy feeling that Microsoft is constantly fucking me up the ass. Pretty much every tiny feature about the Xbox has to be explicitly purchased. I already whined about the 80€ wi-fi adapter – not only is it a feature I’d expect to be built-in, it is also insultingly expensive. Now I also had to pay for a battery and a cable to connect my controller to the console so it actually charges that battery – both things that are already supplied with the PS3. Then – of course – they come in these insanely frustrating packages which make me feel as if Microsoft wants to actively hurt me. As if they were giving me candies with nails in it.
But there is a new catch I’ve discovered. I found out that I have my Xbox for one month because my free one month Xbox Live Gold membership just ran out. So until now, I didn’t actually have a clear idea what the difference between the expensive “Xbox Live Gold” membership and the free “Xbox Live Silver” was. There was yet another feature list I couldn’t be bother to go through. I knew I would find out eventually and I did now: you basically can’t play games on-line with the “Silver” one. ALL multiplayer features of ALL games are switched off when you downgrade to “Silver”. Again, this is just like the wi-fi adapter: it is not only something I would expect to be free, upgrading to Gold is also insanely expensive. You pay somewhere between 5 and 7 euro per month! I pay less for my cell phone, for god’s sake! And I already paid over 200€ for the system, 80€ for the wi-fi and 60€ for the game!
It’s bad enough that they came up with that cut-throat system, they even don’t have the courtesy to honestly communicate that. Fist, they use misleading names: there is nothing “Silver” about the Xbox Live Silver. Silver is basically NOTHING. They point out things like that you can buy Arcade games, but since you have to PAY Microsoft Points for that, it is no privilege. And don’t you just love how in the Wikipedia Article “Multiplayer Gaming” appears on the 6th place of the feature list? Since there is something called Xbox Live Silver, you don’t expect to have that kind of a feature missing at all. So even when you read “online-play”, you misinterpret it as something more advanced because you already take the basic multiplayer for granted. It’s like you are buying a new car and considering adding some extras and the list goes like “golden curb feelers“, “extra size cup holder” and oh, “an engine” – you don’t think that the basic car is missing an engine, you think the engine listed is more powerful or economic or something. If they were honest, there would be no Silver bullshit and the gold one would be actually called “Xbox Live Multiplayer” to make sure there is no confusion.
Well, I’m done venting. I got myself another 3 month card but I haven’t used it yet. At this point, I’m weary of doing so because as soon as the card is activated, I would feel compelled to play on-line just so I get my money’s worth. Even though I do enjoy the Product, I don’t feel any love coming from Microsoft and I do wonder if it wouldn’t have been less frustrating to grab a PS3 instead. I guess it’s too late to change now.
I released a new game! Well sort of. Well actually an old game but re-made from scratch. It’s basically a better version of our disturbingly sucessfull game Excit. You might remember that I blogged about the hours I’ve invested in that project or how it made me re-consider the value of animations.
So now it is finally on-line. We did it for the German newspaper Handelsblatt and they insisted calling it “Handelsblatt Office-Pause”. You can play it here:
http://www.handelsblatt.com/homepage/office-pause/
In other, very related news, I just posted something I’ve been holding back for this special moment: the Excit Post-Mortem. I wanted to share with you some of my experience I gained during that project. It accumulated quite the history. Plus, I posted some cool behind-the-scenes developments steps for the visual design. Check it out on my other Blog:
http://gamedesignreviews.blogspot.com/2009/01/excit-post-mortem.html
Recently Corvus from Man Bytes Blog gave an intriguing task for his newest Round Table: take a book and imagine how a game would look like if that book was based on the game. That’s a mind twister and quite the challenge.
I immediately thought of my favorite and Sci-Fi writer: Stanislaw Lem. I think Lem was one of the brightest minds of our times. Basically, he used the Sci-Fi genre to construct scenarios for analyzing some mind-boggling philosophical paradoxes. The way he was able to bridge the gap between Science and Humanities should be an example for … well everybody. Especially in today’s times, there seem to be a growing separation between the scientific community with their skeptical and analytic way of work and the humanities with an interpretive, relativistic approach. Lem is an excellent example that those two aren’t exclusive and can (and should) be combined to create a better understanding of our world…
I’m finally continuing work on my game Illucinated! As you might remember the last post about it was on the 4th of Septemer, but it’s not that I didn’t do anything since then. I finished another level and fixed a lot of technical problems. However, at some point my progress was hampered by a stressful move to a different flat. This caused me missing the IGF deadline completly. I picked up the pace because I was nominated for the Kölner Design Preis but even though I got some great feedback from the Judges, I failed to win anything there. To add insult to injury, the guys organizing the exhibition of the nominations weren’t competent enough to get a PC for me so I could at least exhibit my work. So as you can imagine, my motivation was at a low. I did two money projects and some work for the Cologe Game Lab to get a fresh start. Right now I seem to be unemployed but have enough money to pay bills for the next two months. During the two months I will push the game to completion.
I’m in the working on the last level now. This is actually how I construct levels in Illucinated. I take a bunch of photos and arrange them in a 3D software to 3D collages. It’s basically like Panography but in 3D. Takes a lot of time, especially if a certain feature has to line up in various photos.
In this picture you can see that already aligned and grouped a bunch of photos in the upper left corner while there are still some more waiting in the lower right.
This holiday season went well for me. As you might have seen, I was able to finish some long-overdue Articles on Secret Files: Tunguska and The Moment of Silence. I also got hooked on GTA4 and was able to finish it recently. I even wrote an article on it and I will publish it soon. I got some work done for Cologne Game Lab and I am at the beginning of my remaining work for Illucinated.
Also, I made pierogi. They were a lot of work but very tasty.
So 2009 is off to a good start. How did your holidays go?
