Sporadic Musings of a Game Designer

What WoW Looks Like When Your Video Card Is Dying...

2011-12-07T12:52:00.000-08:00

Before:

After:

Portal 2

2011-06-05T02:44:00.000-07:00

Game Name: Portal 2
Developer: Valve Corporation
Platform: PC via Steam

For my review of Portal 2, I'm actually just going to present a link to the Zero Punctuation review. I agree with Yahtzee's review of Portal 2 100%, and couldn't say it better myself, so here you go:

Zero Punctuation - Portal 2

One extra thing I will note is that just like Portal, a chunk of the implementation/design of Portal 2 was created by previous DigiPen students. The gel from Portal 2 came from a DigiPen game called Tag: The Power of Paint. Tag was actually quite a fun game for a student project, so check it out!

Tag: The Power of Paint download

Terraria

2011-05-25T01:11:00.000-07:00

Game Name: Terraria
Developer: Re-Logic
Platform: PC via Steam download
Cost: $10

If you thought Minecraft was good, you'll never stop playing Terraria. Seriously, this game is amazing! I have been playing it with two of my friends for the past three days pretty much nonstop. The game trailer does a really good job of showing all the things the game has to offer, so go watch it here:

Terraria Gameplay Trailer

One thing I really like about the game is the music. Typically a game like this has very repetitive music that gets annoying after a while, but i honestly never got annoyed with the music at all. From a design standpoint, I really like two things about the game: 1) The game starts you next to a guide that can help you if you need it and 2) the way that item combinations work. The game shows you everything you can make and shows you the mats that it takes, assuming you have them. One thing I would change about it is that I would always show all items that you have ever made, and just grey out the ones that you cannot make currently.

There are a few problems that I see with Terraria. First of all, the multiplayer part of the game wasn't working by default for myself and two other tech geeks, so we had to download a program called Hamachi to get it to work (Hamachi can be downloaded here)

Also, just like Minefraft, there really isn't a no clear goal. That being said, I was constantly driven by exploration, and I never really felt like the game got boring until I thought I had everything in it, which took MANY hours.

I also didn't like that there was no noise when your health is low. Sure, it's annoying, but it lets you know when you be careful, or when to chug a potion. I found that I died many times just because I wasn't constantly watching my health.

Finally, I wish that mana was actually useful. When you first get an item that uses mana, it may seem decent, but mana using items greatly decrease in value as time goes on.

One thing this game can probably do without is fall damage. It wasn't terrible or anything, but it just doesn't really make sense to me. That being said, there is an item you can get to negate it, but I think it should have just been gone to begin with.

Overall, I HIGHLY recommend buying Terraria. The cost to fun ratio is amazing! The game only costs $10!

Terraria Item Combinations

Magicka

2011-04-03T20:48:00.000-07:00

Game Name: Magicka
Publisher: Paradox Interactive
Developer: Arrowhead Game Studios
Platform: PC via Steam download

The Good:

This game is full of comedic references to other classic games. It had me laughing like crazy on the first cutscene, and it only got better from there. In Magicka, you cast spells by combining different elements to defeat onslaughts of enemies, and sometimes even your teammates, as friendly fire is always on. You may think of this as a bad thing, but after playing for about 15 minutes, the resurrection combination was almost instinctual after casting a few fireballs. Also, it's extremely easy to heal yourself, as well as allies, but beware, you can heal your enemies too.

One thing I really like about the gameplay of Magicka is all the mayhem. I was only playing with two other people, and it was already hard to fireball enemies without hitting my teammates. Here is a screenshot that looks like a typical battle in Magicka:

Another design choice that I love about Magicka is that there is no mana. You can cast spells constantly without having to stop the fun to wait for mana to regen. All in all I just found the game to be extremely fun and well designed.

The Bad:

One thing that I didn't like about Magicka at first is that the controls take a bit to learn. Spells consist of a combination of up to 5 of the 8 different elements, but more combinations can be made out of these combinations. For example, if you combine water and fire, you make steam, which can then be 1 of the 5 different elements even though it is made out of 2 elements itself.

The major problem that I have with Magicka is that it is quite buggy. One of my friends that was playing it was unable to see any text while playing the game. At one point in the game, I alt tabbed out and wasn't able to get back into the game for at least 1 minute, and it wasn't during a load screen. The game seemed to lag quite a bit when lots of spell effects were on the screen, and I can't even imagine if we had 4 of us. We also found that we couldn't play with two of us on the same network from their in game menu, though we were able to ply by right clicking on the other's Steam name and choosing Join Game.

Another thing I didn't like is that the best way to destroy enemies seemed to be constantly firing same spell. Beams seem to be underpowered, but if you constantly cast projectiles at enemies, they will die very quickly, though there is a high probability of you hitting a teammate, or even yourself.

All in all I would highly recommend this game. I haven't played all of it, but what I have played has been extremely entertaining, as long as you don't get too mad when your buddy blows your character to bits.

World of Warcraft

2011-03-20T00:55:00.000-07:00

Lately I have been playing a lot of WoW. If you haven't played it since Cataclysm has hit, I strongly suggest getting back into it. Essentially every zone in Azeroth (Excluding Northrend) had something change in it (Though admittedly, I expected that they were going to change a lot more than they did). At any rate, the new encounters in Cataclysm are actually surprisingly difficult, and I'm not just talking about the raid content. Many of the bosses in Heroic Grim Batol are quite challenging. A lot of the encounters are fun even after doing them a thousand times over. Others are downright silly, but in a fun way, such as Cookie, a murloc in a vat of stew that throws food at you in Heroic Deadmines. Here is a funny screenshot that I took when running Heroic Deadmines on an alt today:

Game Analysis: The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time

2011-01-20T03:15:00.000-08:00

Hello again! Well, seeing as this is my last semester at DigiPen, I have started applying for many video game developer jobs. As part of that, I get to write lots of stuff about video games, which is actually quite fun. My dream job right now is to work as a video game designer at Blizzard Entertainment. However, any job at Blizzard would be amazing, so I am applying for every position I qualify for. Seeing as I have some video game testing experience, I am applying for the testing internship there. As part of that, I had to write a video game analysis. I figured it would be cool to post that here. Here it is:

The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time is one of the greatest video games of all time. Ocarina of Time not only holds great feelings of nostalgia from previous games, but it also has amazing game play in its own right. From the first time the player lays eyes on Hyrule Castle to their first encounter with Ganondorf, Ocarina of time is teeming with characters and locations from previous games in the series. This gives the players a sense of nostalgia, a familiarity with the concepts being portrayed in the game. While previous Zelda games had only been in 2D, Ocarina of Time brought a whole new dimension to the Zelda series. Players got to enjoy the feeling of defeating their favorite Zelda enemies in 3D. The Nintendo 64 may be arcane to today’s standards, but when it first came out, Ocarina of Time had some pretty awesome graphics to back up the already amazing game play.

The best part of Ocarina of Time had to be the boss fights. With as many different items as were in the game, the developers could easily think up new and interesting mechanics, which gave the player a sense of accomplishment when they figured out how to use the different items to topple the boss. These mechanics were also used to create interesting dungeons, and were even use often in general game play. Admittedly, all the dungeons have the same recipe. This recipe is as follows: 1) Get a little ways into the dungeon. 2) Obtain some sort of new item, typically after a mini boss. 3) Find the boss key, typically obtained using the newfound item. 4) Defeat boss using the new item. Even though this recipe is used in most, if not all of the dungeons, the new mechanics that are created using the items, as well as figuring out locations that will eventually use an item that you have not yet obtained, was always a great deal of fun.

Another great part about Ocarina of Time is the many different characters that Zelda meets. From Zoras to Gorons, Link is constantly running into characters that Zelda players will never forget. Two good examples are Princess Ruto and Kaepora Gaebora, the helpful owl that helps Link on his path to defeating Ganondorf. I will never forget meeting Princess Ruto for the first time inside of the giant fish, Lord Jabu Jabu, or her telling Link that she would marry him after they both left the giant fish’s belly.

I, much like many gamers, will never forget the experience of playing The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time. From the amazingly fun boss mechanics to characters that make an impact on the player to the comedic attitude of many concepts in the game, Ocarina of Time is absolutely one of the best games of all time.

Winter Hiatus

2010-11-30T03:01:00.001-08:00

Due to preparation for finals being rough this semester and me going to Phoenix again for winter, I may not update much until January. Sorry!

Robot Unicorn Attack

2010-11-11T14:37:00.000-08:00

I want to share one of the most brilliant games I have ever played with you. The name is Robot Unicorn Attack. It can be found here: http://games.adultswim.com/robot-unicorn-attack-twitchy-online-game.html

Go ahead and play it, I'll wait.

So, how much time has passed? One hour? Two hours? This game is pure addiction. There's just something about that song and the vibrant colors mixed with explosions and the severed robot unicorn head that traps players like a siren so they can never leave. I've gotten as high as 64,000, what's your high score?

For Employers - My Links (Updated as Needed)

2010-11-05T17:01:00.000-07:00

Welcome employers, friends, and random people of the internet. I intend to use this page of my blog as a list of links to things that I have made, or have helped make, as well as links for employers. I will be updating it as I add new videos and web pages. If I do add something, chances are it will go near top of the list, probably just under LinkedIn.

LinkedIn
LinkedIn Profile (Including job history, recommendations, and resume): http://www.linkedin.com/profile/view?id=82474468&trk=tab_pro

Game AI
A* Pathfinding: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eR2KpC_i2fY

Junior Year Game
Autonomous Gold: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bCYjy3GdQV4
Autonomous Pre-Gold: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jv73JFFovpU

Sophomore Year Game
Barrel Bros: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k6BAReIUWy0

Children of Darkness - Pre-DigiPen Game Using RPG Maker XP (10+ hours of gameplay):
Intro Cutscene: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RRtqdBxMj-s
A Few Bosses: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJst3pi2krY
A Few Puzzles: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaWnCZqTeMI
Random Other Stuff: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXlrh90yAdI

Freshman year game:
The Legendary Sword Part 1: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ErYW-2HE3GE
The Legendary Sword Part 2: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R9mLwHSGDSc

CS300 (3D graphics programming):
Soft Shadow Mapping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6uZey4F6_UI
Reflection / Refraction: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4yvmUowz0c
Bump Mapping: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8I8V4Dt2KFk
Lighting: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JZKwd8N62eY
Shapes Using Vertex Arrays: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gVqBIqXrmm4

CS105 (Assembly programming - Obstacle avoidance):
Car 1 - Early testing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eNvGK21qwSM
Car 2 - Late Testing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_yIDrX_l_ig
Car 3 - Obstacle Course: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4gosJ1Ts8ic

Rock Band 3

2010-10-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

Well, it's finally out, so I can talk about it. The game that I spent to many hours, many of which were OT hours, testing this summer was Rock Band 3 for the Wii. I tested it for essentially the full duration of the project. Now, I know you're thinking that seems really awesome,but you have to think about testing the unfinished game, not playing the finished one. For example, before all 1000+ DLC songs and all the regular songs were in, we had to test about 5 songs over and over again for 40 hours a week.

That being said, this was by far the best job I have ever had. The company paid well, the facilities were amazing, and I actually enjoyed the game. Also, the people that worked there were nice and fun to talk to while testing the game. Thanks Foundation 9 Entertainment :)

Here's a site with the credits (Including me - ctrl + F for Kankiewicz):

http://www.rockband.com/credits

Here's the picture of me from the credits:

Bejeweled Blitz Fail

2010-10-12T22:49:00.000-07:00

I'm not big on Facebook games or anything, but I play the occasional game of Bejeweled Blitz (I have my testing buddies at Foundation 9 Entertainment over the summer to thank for getting me into it). Being a gamer and tester by nature, I was a little confused when I found a game that didn't have any matches. Here's a picture:

I know programming is never perfect, but I always thought that they had algorithms in place to make sure that a game always had at least one move that the player could make. Needless to say I was a little confused when the hint button didn't even work. I guess I'm just a little angry that they're ruining my high score with poor programming, haha.

Minecraft

2010-09-28T15:08:00.000-07:00

Game Name: Minecraft
Publisher: Markus Persson
Developer: Markus Persson
Platform: PC
Website: Minecraft Website

Minecraft is a sandbox game in which the player mines up tiles such as wood, dirt, stone, etc. and crafts items using these tiles. It is an extremely addictive game, especially if you have friends to play with. Minecraft is currently in its Alpha stage, meaning not everything is finished yet, but it is still extremely fun.

I will not point out most of the things that I see wrong with Minecraft seeing as it's still in Alpha. One point I would like to make is that while it is still in Alpha, the price is half what it will be once it finally releases, so if you think you may get it, you had better purchase it before the price doubles.

Rather than explaining more about the game, I would just like to show some things that you can do with the game based on what I have done as well as what other people have done.

Here are two pictures of my (Unfinished) Castle Oblivion, made almost completely out of obsidian and glass:

Here are some links to what other people have done (Some of which I believe to not be possible anymore, though I could be wrong):

Addiction Redefined!

Pac-Man

Nintendo Characters

Bigger than my castle :(

Solace - A DigiPen Game

2010-09-15T21:50:00.000-07:00

As some of you may know, I currently go to DigiPen. As such, I may be a little biased when looking at other DigiPen games and recommending them. However, I literally almost cried when I played this game (And trust me, if you know anything about me that's a feat). I'll be the first to admit that the gameplay itself is not anything truly spectacular, but the way that the emotion in this game shines through to the player is extraordinary. Play it and see for yourself. Solace can be downloaded here. The first download option didn't work for me, but the second one worked fine.

Quotes from some of the comments left on the game:

"This game is like pixelated cocaine...i can't stop playing it..."

Person 1: "I have to admit, this is the first "female oriented" game I actually kinda like. Must be the horse head decapitations at the end."
Person 2: "Are you kidding this is the manliest game OF ALL TIME"

Metoid: Other M Review

2010-09-03T10:55:00.000-07:00

Game Name: Metroid: Other M
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Team Ninja
Platform: Nintendo Wii

Ever since I first played Super Metroid back when I was about 6 years old, I have been a huge Metroid fan. I have played every single Metroid game out there except for Metroid Pinball, which doesn't really count as a Metroid game. With the exception of Metroid Prime 2: Corruption, I have thoroughly enjoyed every Metroid game (If a game has a dark world in it, there's a good chance that I'm not going to like it). It is for this reason that I was a little bit shocked when I was disappointed by Metroid: Other M.

I had been watching videos and previews of the game since they started showing up on the internet, and I was extremely excited when I got Other M. When I started playing the game though, I was disappointed by how dark the scenery was (Albeit absolutely gorgeous when you COULD in fact see it... It was as if the developers didn't want you to see just how good a job they did on the graphics).

Before I get too far into what I would change about the game, I do enjoy that they tied a ton of story into this game. Samus recalls her past multiple times, and it fleshes out her semi-mysterious back story. I was also happy with the fact that Samus could recharge her health if she was low enough, as well as her missiles (Which is especially helpful as enemies no longer drop items like they did in every other game). The cool action sequences / finisher moves are pretty sweet too, especially when you pull off a couple of them in sequence.

I've got to admit, I'm glad that Team Ninja tried to do something different to the Metroid series, but I feel that they didn't pull it off in a smooth way. I mean, what's with those so-called "detective sections" where you're stationary and have to find one specific thing in the room, which is usually a tiny object? All those sections do is make players lose their suspension of disbelief because Samus sits there for so long (Or just makes them go to GameFAQs). Also, they could have done without those sections where the camera is behind Samus and you can't run, fire, etc. I don't really understand why these sections are even in the game.

I also hate the fact that the map doesn't compensate for the levels being 3D. Metroid Prime did a GREAT job with this by making the map 3D as well. Why couldn't this game do that?

Some other small things that bugged me about this game are the instant death quick time events and the reason that Samus "loses" her powers obtained in previous games. In this game she's "not authorized to use them." That's just silly... Samus is a bounty hunter! Who cares if her old CO is in charge. And plus, why do things like her grapple beam have to be authorized?!

EDIT: Here's a link to Yahtzee's Zero Punctuation review of Metroid: Other M. I noticed virtually everything he said while playing the game except for the fact that the bottle ship ties in with the whole mother theme.

Super Mario World Item Cheats / Wind Waker

2010-08-30T16:36:00.000-07:00

A fellow tester at my game testing job sent this video to me. While I enjoy Mario games, as well as what Mario has done for gaming, I do not think of myself as a huge Mario fan. However, I found the many different bugs / features with different items in this video pretty awesome. Being a tester, I wonder if any testers of Super Mario World found any of these and they just weren't fixed.

Also, for all you Wind Waker fans: Wind Waker song

Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty

2010-08-03T14:25:00.000-07:00

If you haven't heard of Starcraft... well... what are you doing here? o.O Anyway, recently, as you probably know, Blizzard released Starcraft 2: Wings of Liberty. My roommate and I were both betting on it being the best game of... well, basically ever thus far. It seems to be well on its way of doing just that. From the article (Found here):

"We're pleased to announce that within one day of being on sale, StarCraft® II sold more than 1 million copies worldwide, making it the bestselling PC game of 2010 in under 24 hours of availability. By the end of the 2nd day, it had sold a total of 1.5 million copies worldwide, setting the record for fastest-selling strategy game of all time. We want to thank everyone who turned out for the midnight launch events around the world, and everyone else who has already picked up or downloaded a copy of the game, for making StarCraft II the biggest PC game launch of the year."

Master Chief vs Samus

2010-07-30T14:06:00.000-07:00

Who knew this about master chief? (I don't want to spoil anything)

Master Chief vs Samus

Deadliest Warrior

2010-07-15T13:29:00.000-07:00

It's about time we answer the age old question: Who would REALLY win in a fight between a pirate and a ninja? I mean, we all know that the answer is a ninja, but now we can prove it in the new XBox Live game Deadliest Warrior. A more in-depth video can be found here.

Foundation 9 Entertainment - 3DS Development

2010-07-09T11:08:00.000-07:00

Foundation 9 Entertainment / Griptonite Games (The testing company I work for on a secret title) has a jump start on 3DS development! F9E Develops for 3DS

Robokill - A Smash TV-like Flash Game

2010-06-24T17:17:00.000-07:00

I was looking around the internet for some fun flash games to play the other day and I came across a game call Robokill. After playing only a small portion of this game, I immediately thought of the Super Nintendo game called Smash TV. In Robokill, you run around a series of rooms and defeat all of the enemies in your path to complete an objective for each mission. The game has a few fun customization options (Different weapons / utility items), random items that drop, and is actually quite challenging. The items that drop can have random effects on them (Such as freeze or pierce), which adds some more randomness to the game. The first few missions can be played for free here. However, if you want to play the rest of the game, you do have to pay for it :(

Level Up! - A Game and a Book!

2010-06-16T01:19:00.000-07:00

I originally read about the book "Level Up!" by Scott Rogers from his Blog, Mr Boss' Design Lair. While the book is not out yet, and thus I cannot speak about how good it actually is or not, I must say I am quite excited about this book (Which is surprising, because I cannot remember a time in all my life that I have been excited for ANY book to be coming out!). In short, the book is about how to be a game designer, and how to design games to make them enjoyable to the user. Sounds good, right? The link to preorder it can be found here. Preorder it if you are as excited for it as I am!

At any rate, while googling for this book, I found a flash game called Level Up! (It can be found here. Go play it, before I accidentally spoil something :-D) In this game, your abilities level up as you use them. I had been thinking about making a game similar to this for quite some time, though I was planning on doing it to a space shooter game, where the weapons you use would level up as you use them, as would your ship's agility, defense, etc.

I thought this leveling up mechanic was cool, and very much enjoyed the start of the game. However, (Spoilers coming...), at the end of a day in the game (About 5-10 minutes of playing), all of the levels for your abilities reset to level 1 if you lose to a boss creature, who is near impossible to beat without abilities that can be purchased throughout the game with crystals (Collectibles). That being said, any abilities that you purchase throughout the game stay with you, as well as remaining crystals at the end of the day. Also, if you lose this fight, all of the crystals reappear throughout the level, allowing you to collect them many times.

All in all I would say this is a pretty fun game, however, my roommate had a very different experience while playing through the game, and had a different view on the game.

Super Mario Bros. Crossover

2010-05-27T19:01:00.001-07:00

A friend just sent me this link. I thought it would make for a pretty fun game:

Super Mario Crossover

I'm Back! - Free MMORPGs: Flyff, Rappelz, Runes of Magic

2010-05-21T10:28:00.000-07:00

Sheldor back online!

Sorry for such a long AFK time. I finished school, went on vacation, and got a second job as a video game tester at Foundation 9 Entertainment / Griptonite Games (Now I'm working 7 days a week).

Anyway, my friend, my roomate, and I have been looking for games that all three of us can play. We're all really into RPGs, so while we wait for Diablo III to come out (Which, unfortunately, will not be anytime soon), we decided to check out some free MMORPGs. Here's what we found, in order from worst to best:

Game name: Flyff
Publisher: Gala-Net/gPotato.com
Developer: Aeonsoft
Platform: PC

Flyff is a good MMORPG for people that don't play video games much, at least from what I could tell in the short time (Level 10ish) that I could tell. The monsters drop candy, the graphics are fluffy, and the gameplay seemed to be quite easy, although tedious. I only got 2 skills, and one of them actually did less damage, because it takes a long time to wind up, so auto attacking would do more damage. There's no pathfinding when you click to move, and if you get caught on a small object, it's annoying to get unstuck. All in all, I wouldn't suggest playing Flyff, as it seemed like it would just be a ton of grinding.

Game name: Rappelz
Publisher: gPotato.com
Developer: nFlavor
Platform: PC

My friends and I played Rappelz for a lot longer than Flyff, though we didn't get to end game or anything like that. Rappelz seemed to be a lot more hardcore than Flyff, aimed at your average gamer. From what we looked up, they have end game content, as well as decent PVP (There are three different factions). The skill system seemed to work well, and there is a cool combat pet system in which every class gets a pet. One problem that we saw with Rappelz is that there was one area (A ghost ship) that was ridiculously hard, even though there were three of us and it was a low level area. Also, as far as we can tell, only one class gets the ability to heal their pet, and when your pet dies, it doesn't come back with full health. This would require the other classes to either wait for their pet to heal, or just not use their pet. Once again, we didn't play this one all too much, but that's what we could figure out.

Game name: Runes of Magic
Publisher: Frogster Interactive, Frogster America
Developer: Runewaker Entertainment
Platform: PC

Runes of Magic is the game we are currently playing, and will probably be playing until Diablo III comes out. RoM is basically WoW, but a little bit less polished. The skill system is a little bit different, and there are no talent points (So as far as I can tell most characters will be the same come end game). Also, there's a dual class system which seems a little funny at first, but you get used to it. There are a few things that I think RoM actually does better than WoW. For example, a lot of quest items / enemies are highlighted on your mini map, you can put markers on your map for quests by right clicking tags in the quest log, and you can run toward certain quest tags by right clicking on them in your quest log as well. Other than that, the game is pretty much the exact same as WoW - quests, kill enemies, get professions, go through zones, etc. I haven't found out how PVP works in RoM yet, but I think it's just kill whoever you want starting at a certain level, which wouldn't be that great in my opinion. I HIGHLY suggest playing RoM, especially if you want to play WoW, but you don't want to / can't pay for WoW.

AFK - A Brief Hiatus

2010-04-15T02:01:00.000-07:00

Ah, the end of the semester, full of homework, final projects, and finals. As such, I will not be making new posts until summer (Approximately May first). Sorry!

Diablo II Game Update

2010-03-31T23:58:00.000-07:00

Ever since I applied for a game designer / programmer summer internship at Blizzard Entertainment in January I have been replaying my favorite game of all time, Diablo II. After playing on ladder for some time, I came to find out that the ladder was resetting soon due to an update. At the time, there were some rumors about Blizzard adding a respecialization system to Diablo II, a 10+ year old game! I figured that these rumors were just that, rumors, but it turns out they were true! Blizzard has added a respecialization system to Diablo II after 10+ years! I think it's just incredible that they're still adding functionality after 10 years! I mean, everyone that I knew felt that it needed some way to change skills later on in the game, instead of being stuck with the ones that you chose, and now they have finally added a way to do just that! I think that's just incredible. Thanks Blizzard!

Game Design Challenge Site

2010-03-26T02:19:00.001-07:00

My roommate came across this website when he learned that I wanted to be a game designer. I thought it was a really cool concept. They post a game design theme, and people submit game designs. They then select the best few game designs, and post the winners. While I haven't submitted any game designs yet, I look forward to possibly having some time in the summer to more thoroughly investigate this site.

If I'm not mistaken, the link above links to this week's current design challenge. The link to the site that contains these challenges can be found here. Just click on the current game design challenge (It's currently the first major link).

Gears of War Review

2010-03-09T15:36:00.000-08:00

Game Name: Gears of War
Publisher: Microsoft
Developer: Epic Games
Platform: PC / XBox 360

What I liked about it:

A few weeks ago, my roommate and I played through the first Gears of War, and I must say, it was a night full of fun! While I was testing at Microsoft a few summers ago, a friend of mine was testing Gears of War 2. At the time, I had no clue that Gears of War was so much fun!

Gears of War has a very interesting and fluid cover system. The Gears of War team used context sensitive input to make the space bar perform different actions depending on what's going on around you. Usually this is done poorly, so when you mean to perform one action, another action happens instead. In Gears of War however, I would say it did what I wanted about 95% of the time.

Another thing that I thought this game did that I haven't seen too much of, yet I really liked, was universal ammo crates. This probably isn't quite what you think though. When you pick up one box of ammo, it gives you ammo for each of your weapons, but each weapon uses separate ammo. For example, one box of ammo might give +150 machine gun ammo, +20 pistol ammo, and +4 sniper ammo.

I very much enjoyed the bigger enemies in the game as well, even though most of them were taken down using a super gun called the Hammer of Dawn, which essentially called a huge satellite to attack your target. Some of these bigger enemies are boomers, berserkers, seeders, and brumaks.

I absolutely loved the quirky remarks made by the characters, both in the cutscenes and the ambient dialogue. If you ever make a game, try and add stuff like that to further immerse the player.

Finally, I felt that the difficulty curve of the game was done very well. The game was hard at some points, but not too hard. The final boss is actually pretty difficult until you get the rhythm down, which is perfect for a final boss. In fact, I haven't seen a more fun final boss battle than this in a long time.

What could use some improvement:

Overall, the game had a great look and feel to it. That being said, individual portions of the level looked very similar, so I kept getting turned around, especially with the motion blur while running. Which reminds me, when you run, there's a little bit of a blur effect. Over the course of the game, this made my eyes hurt quite a bit. The game could have done without that, even though it was a cool effect.

The game was a little buggy. I got stuck on walls about three times, and had one out of environment experience (Which was actually pretty cool, because I had a good view of a cool looking city from where I was). Lucky for me, when your teammate gets to a checkpoint, you get teleported there.

I wish that the story was explained a little bit more. There is a short cutscene if you stay idle at the main screen, but it doesn't really explain that much. Once you start the game, it seems to assume that you know what a seeder is, or why you're fighting against the Locust Horde.

All in all, I highly recommend playing through Gears of War, especially if you have a friend that can save you when the game glitches out.

Real Banner!

2010-03-04T23:16:00.001-08:00

I finally got around to making a banner for this blog, and I have to say, I like the outcome. I wanted to do something like This with the banner, but I couldn't figure out how to overlap images in photoshop and have the background color be invisible. My computer artist roommate couldn't help me much either (Though he did help with the one that I made, so thank you).

Cool (And Funny) Design Video

2010-02-24T13:14:00.000-08:00

If you are even remotely interested in game design, or are curious about what the future (IRL - In Real Life) holds, check this out!

I couldn't find a perfect video of it, but here are two
sources:

Full video in one spot. Audio was not synced with video yesterday (But apparently it is today):

http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/DICE-2010-Design-Outside-the-Box-Presentation

Video split into parts, but audio and video seemed fine (Make sure to watch parts 2 and 3 as well):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pMLtwJGA4Wc&feature=PlayList&p=C9EFB869F00F334B&index=0&playnext=1

League of Legends Review

2010-02-23T01:54:00.000-08:00

Game Name: League of Legends
Publisher: THQ
Developer: Riot Games
Platform: PC
Cost: FREE!!!
Website: http://www.leagueoflegends.com/

Ever played the Warcraft 3 mod DotA (Defense of the Ancients)? Who hasn't? Well if you liked DotA even a minuscule amount, you should definitely think of giving League of Legends a try.

So what's League of Legends like? Picture this: Take all the good parts of DotA, improve upon them, and throw all the bad parts away. That's League of Legends in a nutshell. Essentially it's the same thing as DotA, with different heroes and abilities, but better made.

I played DotA back when it was a little bitty baby (When the frozen throne meant a toilet in Alaska), and I absolutely loved it! However, once they started making DotA for Warcraft III's expansion, The Frozen Throne, I lost interest in it. They packed the game with too many heroes and way too many item combinations.

League of Legends has a good number of heroes and came up with a great way to take care of complicated combinations. Essentially what they did is make a tree out of the items that you need to make the bigger items, with the biggest item at the root, or top of the tree. They made the interface simple, and that really helps in a fast paced game like League of Legends. Plus, it has a cool acronym, LoL.

Dragon Age: Origins Review (Spoilers?)

2010-02-14T01:43:00.000-08:00

Game Name: Dragon Age: Origins
Publisher: Electronic Arts (EA)
Developer: BioWare
Platform: PC

What I liked about it:

-To be honest, when I first thought about playing this game, I really didn't think I would like the "choose your own dialogue" / story-based type of game. Once I got going however, I found it to be quite enjoyable.

-Some of the quirky character dialogue (Both while walking around and during the one on one talks) was quite enjoyable. There was one point where Morigan said something to Sten that sounded like she was into him, and he responded with something like "First you need more armor, and some weapons. I like to snuggle sometimes, so you'll need an iron bar to pry me away. Make sure to heat it up nice and hot, or I might just ignore it." It was hilarious! I especially love Zevran!

-I LOVE the 300-esc slow motion "cutscenes" when a big monster dies and one of your party members kills them in a cool way.

-My favorite part of this game was that at the end, your whole entire party (Not just 4 members) fights all at once. I thought this was such a cool idea, and it really made that battle epic.

What could use some improvement:

-Even though I said that I liked the dialogue, I found myself skipping it towards the end just to beat the game. I guess the game droned on a little bit too long for my liking.

-Throughout the game, I felt that there really wasn't enough equipment upgrading. I found myself always checking to see if new armor was better, only to find that the only thing the new stuff was good for was making a few sovereign. Players like to upgrade, it gives them a sense of accomplishment. If you "reward" them with equipment that's worse than the stuff they're already wearing, it's not much of a reward now is it? It would be like rewarding a child that already has a cookie with a stalk of broccoli.

-In my opinion, this game needs quite a bit more epic boss battles. I was only impressed by two battles - The dragon before the Urn of Sacred Ashes, and the final boss battle. Even the Broodmother was pretty weak. Why couldn't there have been anything epic like this in the game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-iFrHRaH0Os

-Why in the world would they make spells do friendly fire damage? That is just ridiculous! I understand that this game gets its roots from D & D, but when the only good spells are AoE spells, it's not fun to have to move your party out of them before you cast.

-The ending is pretty anticlimactic. I mean, sure, as I said, the final boss battle is pretty epic, but after that, the game pretty much just ends. The Darkspawn are defeated, shouldn't everyone rejoice and party or something?

-This one is for "choose your own dialogue" games in general. I hate it when the game gives you a choice of good and evil, but in the end, you're forced to do good. What I mean is, while you're given a choice, you are inevitably trying to save the world anyway, making you a good person.

-Um... can I get multiple bars for my skills please? Come on devs, it's not that hard! Add a few variables and voila! With as many spells as the game has, how could they not think of this?!

-Finally, I know this was meant to be a story-based single player game, but it would have been pretty awesome if there was a multiplayer.

Employers - My Links (Updated as Needed) (Link Moved)

2010-02-05T16:10:00.000-08:00

This page has been move to: http://sporadicdesign.blogspot.com/2010/11/for-employers.html

LoZ: Spirit Tracks Final Boss - The Bad, the Good, and the Ugly Part 3 (SPOILERS!)

2010-02-03T13:25:00.000-08:00

Phase 5 - Finish Him!: The final part to this boss battle is what I actually thought the battle would be like. This part is more like the LoZ: OoT final Ganon fight. Zelda is on the sidelines while Link fights (Or rather distracts) the Ganon-like boss. You control both Link and Zelda, but the only thing Zelda can do is shoot an arrow of light, which you're supposed to do when the boss is facing away from her. This fight, while not original at all, was actually quite fun, and, as I mentioned, was what I was expecting out of this last boss fight.

All in all, the last boss fight could have certainly be cut down to just the train (Phase 1) and Ganon-like (Phase 5) fights. Sure, it was a great way to show off Nintendo's mechanics, but does that really make a good boss fight? Sorry, but no. Fun factor is far more important than showing off mechanics. Sometimes, less can be more.

So what could Nintendo have done to make this boss fight better? For starters, as I already said, they could have shortened it to the two best parts of the boss fight (Phases 1 and 5). Instead of this, if they wanted to keep the parts in that they did have, they could have simply switched the D-Pad and stylus functionality. The D-Pad could have been used for movement, as it always has been, and for the stylus, they could have added a small icon on the bottom screen that functioned as the shortcuts to different menus (What the D-Pad functionality is currently). They would also have to make a button (Or stylus icon) to charge up or use a spin attack for the fireball fight as well. Sure, it's not new, but it's more fun, which is what's important. Doing this would have made movement and attacking different buttons, and would have solved some of the problems that I mentioned with the fights. They could have even made the movement and attack style toggleable. Furthermore, I believe that the song part (Phase 4) should have been taken out altogether.

So there you have it, my first review ever, which covered the final boss fight of The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks! I hope you found it informative. Next time I’ll try to review a game as a whole, and as such, I won’t have to explain so much.

LoZ: Spirit Tracks Final Boss - The Bad, the Good, and the Ugly Part 2 (SPOILERS!)

2010-02-02T13:56:00.000-08:00

Following my previous post, here are two more phases of this fight. There will be one more part to this review (It's a long fight), so hang in there:

Phase 3 - You Tryin' to get Invited to my Next Barbecue?: In this phase, the main boss appears - essentially a blue version of the real form of Ganon from LoZ: Ocarina of Time, but without the two large swords. He stands north of you and fires balls of fire in a pattern down at Zelda, who is charging something or other at the bottom of the screen. If Zelda gets hit, the boss starts his pattern over again. The problem with this fight is similar to Phase 2 - movement and attack are the same "buttons." As such, when you have to perform two spin attacks in a row to stop two shots of four boulders (When one spin attack is hard enough to time perfectly to hit all four of them), this fight gets pretty hard, only due to the controls. Now I have to be honest, you pretty much cannot lose this fight, because Zelda has no health, the fireballs drop hearts, and the boss never moves towards you, but it got so repetitive that I nearly gave up. The only hard wave to stop is when he does two sets of four fireballs, but that one is pretty much impossible due to the controls.

Phase 4 - Guitar Hero Hyrule Tour: Throughout the game, you have to play these Locomo Songs to get past certain parts. Most of them have a practice option that will help you get the beat of what you're supposed to play. In this section of the final boss battle, you have to play a song (Pretty lame, right?) to charge up Zelda's power (Or something like that). However, this section has no practice or anything like that, leaving you to pretty much guess how your part is supposed to go. Furthermore, the "blow into the mic" mechanic is quite broken, often not recording when you want it to, or recording even though you're done blowing. As such, this part was a pain. So, while it's super easy for a percussionist like me to get the beat down, and a gamer like me to know what I'm supposed to do, actually doing what the game wants isn't so easy.

The final phase of this long fight will come later.

LoZ: Spirit Tracks Final Boss - The Bad, the Good, and the Ugly Part 1 (SPOILERS!)

2010-02-01T23:02:00.001-08:00

My first of many (Hopefully) game reviews will come in parts, because I feel that it is too big to swallow in one post. Here we go:

Game Name: The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
Publisher: Nintendo
Developer: Nintendo
Platform: Nintendo DS

I would usually start off a review with what I loved about the game, and then go on to what I would change (Kind of a "Get them to like you first, then tell them what you really thought" type of approach), but seeing as I'm just doing the final boss battle instead of the whole game, I feel it will flow better if I do it in chronological order, especially seeing as I will be doing it in parts.

Phase 1 - The 'Cole Train' Always Runs on Time!: The first phase of the last boss fight takes place with you in your train, and the enemy train driving next to you (Or on top of you, if you're not so good). The objective is to defeat the different compartments of the enemy train, which just involves firing at the train when a weak point is exposed. This fight was actually pretty good. They could have done far more boring things with it, so good job Nintendo!

Phase 2 - IMMA CHARGIN' MAH LAZER!: In this fight, you and Zelda (In her phantom armor suit) are fighting atop the enemy train. One major enemy is floating slightly north of you and sends small enemies that path towards Zelda. If they reach her (Because you didn't attack them), she gets stunned, and he takes over her suit with strings (Like a marionette) and starts attacking you with the suit. When he's doing this, you have to attack the strings (By getting around Zelda, or with the boomerang) to release his hold on Zelda. There is another enemy way north of you that fires a laser beam at you if you go too far north of the aforementioned baddie. The goal of the fight is to use Zelda as a shield and get to the very top (Baddie #2). Sounds easy, right? Wrong, but for only one reason: Moving Zelda, controlling the boomerang, Link's movement, and attacking all use the same "button" - the stylus.

Here's how most of the fight went for me: I see a small enemy heading towards Zelda. They start out decently close, and don't more particularly slow. There are also multiple enemies sent out within a small period of time. Naturally, I try to attack said enemy, but I either move Zelda, miss the enemy because I attacked in the wrong direction, accidentally move towards the enemy and get hit instead, or anything EXCEPT what I want it to do. This makes Zelda get taken over by baddie #1. Before I knew I could use the boomerang to break this hold, I kept juking Zelda (Trying to hit the marionette cords with my sword), only to be shot by the laser beams, and hit by the possessed Zelda. Double punishment isn't cool Nintendo. Anyway, that part was frustrating, but what happens next? Find out next time!

You Always Remember Your First

2010-01-31T22:48:00.000-08:00

Well, here's my first real blog ever. Please note that I do not plan on updating this much at all; it is solely to post my random thoughts on games in general, game design, game programming, school stuff, and jobs in the game industry. That being said, I'm happy to have you along on my first blogging journey.