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!

As you noticed, over the last few days my blogging ground to a halt due the preparations for Global Game Jam 2012. Now that the dust has settled, let me tell you of it. It was epic! It was the biggest Global Game Jam we organized so far. We had almost 60 participants. We can’t go much bigger then this.

Continue reading “Global Game Jam Cologne 2012 Round Up #1″

I recently released a new update of TRAUMA. The major update is improved image filtering. Something that some people commented on. TRAUMA runs at a pretty low resolution. I can’t really boost it without a lot of effort. But I was able to increase the quality of how the images are being scaled down.

Left: old and splotchy-twinkly. Right: new and smooth.

This was actually a very simple option I completely forgot about. Back when I was developing it, the game would drop to a very low framerate when using it. But modern computers are up to the task. The game now actually checks the framerate and seamlessly skips between the two filtering models. The difference is very subtle. But especially when moving the mouse cursor around, there should be much less “twinkeling” now.

How to get it

If you bought the game on Steam, just start Steam. The game should update automatically.

If you bought the game on my website, just re-download it and re-install it. You can login at the bottom of the TRAUMA website with your E-Mail address. The savegames are kept by Flash so you won’t lose them if you de-install. Alternatively, you can just use the update files below.

As for the other platforms, I’m getting in contact with them to upload the update everywhere. Meanwhile, here are two updates. Download it, unpack the file, overwrite your old version of that file with the new one:
Windows Update
Linux Update

As you see, there is no update for Mac yet. If you are using a Mac version and you haven’t bought it on my Website – hang in there. I will try to sort things out ASAP. You can try to harass me at info@traumagame.com to speed things up.

Otherwise, enjoy! Oh yeah, and let me know if it works.