Fringe moves to Friday Nights!

     Fringe is finally moving out of their Thursday night spot, but as they say " out of the frying pan and into the fire." Fox has decided to test Fringe fan's loyalty by putting Fringe on the Friday night lineup, which is notorious for low ratings and the grim reaper of short lived masterpieces (Firefly, Terminator, Dollhouse, etc). Though many Fringe-heads are in an uproar about this, Fox is saying they are trying to bring ratings back into Fridays, which is the start of the weekend when everyone wants to go out around the prime time programming hours. Fox in response to the outcries made a trailer encouraging the support for our beloved show, but still it would be alot more promising to give the go ahead for another full season.
 
     Normally I wouldn't tend to take a big television station or corporation at their word without piles of signed documents, but I'm inclined to believe Fox about their folly of support for Fringe and keeping it on the air. Maybe they believe in the show so much that the station wants to use it to put new life into Friday nights, as their promo video states, re-animate Fridays. Though I believe this show would be the one to re-animate almost anything including the Saved by the Bell series, I wouldn't dare risk this show to make the numbers at Fox go up a couple of points. Fringe is the type of show that people will need to know what is going on in the story to fully enjoy the series. There are those bottle episodes that anyone can watch without knowing the series story arcs and enjoy (which are usually the episodes to rope newcomers into checking out the first couple seasons), but most of the show continues to progress the Fringe storyline that is still budding.

    If any of you enjoy the show or want to find out about it, check out old episodes on Hulu or Netflix. More importantly please check out the first episode of Fringe in the new year on January 21 at 9pm. Watch it live and let me know what you think, any interesting theories or questions. That way we can help Fringe on Friday nights and maybe figure out where the hell alternate Nina is, and is there a Green universe?

24 hours to die or make bank!

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/10389160/BowelsOut.zip

Play it, but there is a warning.

BIG WARNING


The Bowels evacuate the dance floor...

Movie madness

Movie Madness

               My goal is to take a movie I loved and make a video game with a plot, game mechanics and game type and flesh it out. Also I am the LAW!

Judge Dredd

     Judge Dredd was a movie I watched and loved many times, they have made video games about the movie, but I want to make a game surrounding the mythos of the Dredd universe. This game would be set during the time when the world first started creating Judges; The people that served to be the police, judge, jury, and executioner. You would be placed as one of the first deputized to that position; male or female with a character creation system. The world has fallen due to interplanetary disputes and much of the Earth has now learned the true meaning of blight. The natural wonders of the world have been destroyed by nuclear war and only parts of the world still remain though not in their natural state. You would play in third person with first person elements, your character traversing the Megacity that you chose at the beginning of the game. Each choice gives you a different story and background, as there are only a few cities left in the world, some are closer than others and so each play through of the game will contain different scenarios. You will go through cadet training, learning how to use the characters movement system, learn about hand to hand combat, gun training, using the Lawgiver experience system to gain experience and use that to upgrade your weapons, armor, and to learn new techniques to bring law to the lawless. After that your character will be sent to his or her first assignment to keep the city in line with the law. Using what you have learned during training and the experiences your character will go through to determine if you will be an instrument of the law, or become your own law.

Card game/ Scramble

Scramble(Card game)

Rules

Objective:  To have the most points at the end of the game.

1.      Players start by rolling to see who goes first, that person starts by randomly picking seven letters from the cup, and then the other players follow via the left of the first play. The last player rolls the die to see what category they play with:

·        Arts/Entertainment – 1

·        Places – 2

·        Sports – 3

·        People/Animals – 4

·        Video Games -  5

·        Wild category – 6

2.      The player starts by creating a word that corresponds to the current category in the center of the board, being given only one minute and thirty seconds to choose one of three actions.

3.      A player can form a word, pass their turn, or exchange their letters for new ones (one to all of the letters can be exchanged). Exchanging your letters counts as your turn for that round.

4.      Players will tally their points for the word they create and then randomly chose the amount of letters that they played after their turn is up so that they have seven letters total. Points are added for each letter used in the players word:

·        1pt          E, A, I , O, N , R, T, L, S, U

·        2pts        D, G

·        3pts        B, C, M, P

·        4pts       F, H, V, W, Y

·        5pts       K

·        8pts       J, X

·        10pts     Q, Z

·        Bonus roll for that many points will be given if word lands on bonus roll tile.

5.      Once all the letters have been played, the players will tally all of their scores and combine their total score, the player with the highest score wins.

Basic AI

Us vs. It

A look at Basic Artificial Intelligence

               Our game was only tweaked a little bit from the original robot’s design, but just a little bit of change is all you need to create a whole new experience. Lady Patagonia vs. Judy Dench was a robot that new how to use her weaknesses to her advantage. She was a robot with a special ability, her lazy eye always malfunctioned and she had been made fun of her whole manufactured life because the scientists could never seem to fix it, so they just left it and assumed she would never be able to destroy the tanks like the other robots did. But using her laser eye programming with her lazy eye instead of her good eye, she was able to wipe out more tanks than with her normal eye programming.

               I did learn that AI is about using the programming given to complete certain tasks. Programming that you can’t control directly, but indirectly by using other mechanics or players. Using AI correctly gives a feeling of personality to the game; like it knows what you are doing, or about to do, and when the AI gives you a run for your money in a game it challenges you to do better creating a more exciting and fun experience that you can’t do without AI.

Design Chemistry

Design Chemistry

               I believe that when working on projects like video games there does need to be some separation of teams when the number of people working on the game increase to a certain amount. With some games made by 4 or 5 people, that doesn’t ring true because with that small of a team it is easier to communicate ideas and bounce them back and forth with people to know if you want to move ahead with the aforementioned idea. When you have a group of 15 to 30 or more people, you can’t fit the topic of one idea into just one meeting, it would have to be several meetings where that one idea would spawn thirty or more and the time it would take to cancel out the ideas that won’t work or the ideas that are the same, etc. would take too long to be beneficial. In those instances having group or team leaders meet and exchange ideas and report on progress. With those leaders keeping a close information loop that would help the game as a whole because the more formed ideas would trickle down to the appropriate people who could relay back their ideas to their team leader who can take those ideas back to the team leader meetings. This system would keep ideas from creating traffic jams or from getting lost in the shuffle. Design chemistry always needs to be adaptive to the context.

Prototype

Prototyping

               Prototyping is the process of taking all your ideas about a game and deconstructing them until you are left with simple game mechanic pieces and simple ideas. Testing those pieces and focusing directly on that one gameplay mechanic to see if it works or if it is fun is what prototyping is about. This helps you to save time and money on ideas or mechanics that don’t work, and lets you showcase each aspect of the game you are trying to make. Prototyping is always necessary no matter how big or small your game is, it helps you concentrate on one area of your game until it is ready to be implemented into the game or other mechanics. Without prototyping, you might have a game that doesn’t work or isn’t fun to play because you didn’t prototype that part of the game.

Chapter four bookwork

Chapter 4 Book Work

Game Development Essentials

Gameplay Mechanics

The Whistler: Reborn in the ashes of the great cartoon war of long ago, he knows not why he lives now. Only his faith in the old ways of cartoonery let him know that he was brought back for a reason. He finds he had been dead for at least 500 hundred years and goes looking for his descendants, the only part of his family he can find is Eeen.  Eeen was a historian on the lost Cathode Ray cartoon era. He studies his descendant for several days to see how his own blood has fared through the years, and partly because he hasn’t figured out how to introduce himself. Eeen had managed to find many cartoons from the Whistlers era, some the Whistler recognizes, and some he could not remember. The Whistler was still adjusting to his life in the future, and some memories were hazy or not there at all. The Whistler was about to enter the building that Eeen was working from to introduced himself, but then a figure next to Eeen awoke dark memories from his past and breathing was all the Whistler could do to keep from passing out as the memories flooded back into him. One word slipped from his lips with a whistle that had not been heard for decades, “Telarana.”

Eeen: Eeen was born to a loving family that taught him many things when he was young; Right from wrong, love of all things, how to make macaroni self-portraits, all the basics that a 7 year old would need to know. His parents nurtured his natural ability to sketch anything he saw with astonishing ability and his parents once referred to him as a “natural whistler,” which is how he ended up with his nickname, Nugget. Though things took a turn on the eve of his 10^th birthday when he was staying over at a friend’s house, his parents had been attacked while dancing to old 1950’s records in the privacy of their own home. By the time the police got there, Nugget had seen everything. Blood everywhere and all their old records scratched and smashed violently around the house, the police had concluded it was a robbery gone wrong, but Nugget couldn’t believe that. All Nugget can think about when his parents are mentioned was the way their blood formed a spider web in the shag carpet of their house, it still gives him nightmares to this day. As Nugget gets his things ready for his foster home the very day of his parent’s funeral, he finds a present in his secret hiding spot under the floorboards of his room. He opens it to reveal an old 8mm film reel; Nugget assumes it was another old cartoon his parents had always shown him from the old days. He opens the case and reads the name of the film, “Whistle While you Work.”

Telarana: A man of many talents, who was once one of the CEOs of a corporation that threatened to take down the old art form of hand drawn cartoons in favor of their robot cartoon creations. Telarana had always competed with the Whistler back when they were just starting out in college, trying to one up him with everything and anything they did. The Whistler took it with a grain of salt, but the rage Telarana felt turned him, and he vowed to do anything to be the best so he could get his revenge. Later on in life when Telarana revealed the new cartoons they took over the media like a New York trend, they were the talk of the town, if only for a while. Soon after reports came in that kids who watched the new cartoons had been acting funny, playgrounds at school were becoming empty, kids were standing in the streets screaming out streams of binary code, losing memory, and fluxuations in the natural order of nature were being observed in correlation with the cartoons. People started revolting, and an underground group was waiting to gain clout with the masses to fight back the evil robot cartoon creations. The group was known as the Illuminati, their leader was a man in the old cartoon business who ruled the land with his art and films. Some say he could soothe the masses with just a whistle. A war began between the two mediums and it was known as the Great Cartoon War. Telarana did not just make cartoons, but images that could control wavelengths only found in children. Telarana knew it wasn’t time to release his secret weapon, but with the Illuminati rising up against them so quickly with so much support, it was the only thing he could do to smooth things over with the company president. As soon as Telarana used the TV transmitters to broadcast the final film, a haze crept through all the houses that were playing the film, slowly corrupting the children. Many couldn’t handle the film and died trying to channel Telarana’s power, but the ones that survived screamed binary till their ears bled. And at that moment when the Illuminati’s leaders had broken through the corporate funded building and clashed with the CEOs, the binary code that ripped through the skies summoned something, a beast, which was not from this world. Telarana woke up in rubble. The building and everyone around him were dust and dead bodies, and he was in the middle of it without a scratch. Before he could figure out what exactly had happened, an intense pain on his right hand had caused him to scream out in pain. He looked at the back of his hand and it revealed a glowing green spider, as he looked into the hypnotizing glow, he felt like he wasn’t alone. Someone else was there with him, and was taking over. 500 years later…

Accessability in Games

     I wanted to see how accessible a game that has been made for the newer consoles and is fairly new, so I picked Call of Duty Black Ops since I just bought it. The controls for these types of first person shooters can be complicated if you have never played one, especially one from a AAA title like the Call of Duty series. Almost every button has two different functions with buttons, analog sticks, and two types of triggers. They are definitely hard to master and learn, but the game yields a high reward when done. Though they are difficult to learn and master, the controls are very precise and smooth. With a company like Treyarch you can count on the controls being top notch.

     So I logged onto multiplayer with two friends and played team deathmatch. I played with my feet since it was the next most capable part of my body to use a controller besides my hands/arms, this proved impossible to use all of the mechanics available, so I just stuck with trying to control the two analog sticks. Doing this at first proved difficult, but with practice in minutes I was moving and looking fine…if you consider only moving forward and trying to only look left or right. By clicking the analog stick I could knife someone, so I was able to fight at least. My friends Ian and Chad didn’t have much faith in my doing anything that round, but to their surprise I murdered two players in that round. That wasn’t much to anyone, but to my friends they knew I had taken on two people using both their hands and won using only my feet (just two big toes at that). The only thing I would add to the game would be being able to choose exactly what functions you want attached to the analog sticks. They have some you can switch around, but you cannot choose just any function you want for the analog sticks.

     This part of the trials I knew would be the hardest to complete, but I turned the monitor off as soon as the match started and was very put off. Playing the game without a monitor is very disorienting, because you are losing sight and sound all at once. I had my friend lead me to a corner where I could attempt to crouch and randomly fire into enemies. All I could do was try to think about what my controls did and input each move carefully to control my player, though I knew that wasn’t helping much as Ian called Chad over to where I was to laugh hysterically while I tried to quote “run into walls and shoot all the birds.” The only thing I can think of that would make this game more accessible to anyone without a monitor would be to have a control scheme that would move the character in direct rotations and snap movements when they pressed the appropriate buttons as well as a narrator on headphones or external speakers.

     Now I had imagined that playing with one arm would have been the easiest trial to complete, but I could have used a helping hand. Trying to move and look with one hand simultaneously was hard, there was no way I could use any other buttons besides the analog sticks and that was only possible because I have huge hands. I was having a hard time moving and looking at the same time until I learned to just run forward and look only when I saw an enemy. Somehow I managed to knife two opponents in the round that I played, though I died about 12 times and was the player with the lowest score. This game was not built for the handicapable, but again a control scheme with snap movements and rotations would help someone only using one arm play this game more accurately.

Chapter Three Bookwork

Chapter 3 Book Work

Game Development Essentials

Gameplay Mechanics

               Recently I have been playing Castlevania: Lords of Shadow, The perspective used in this game is a third person with a fixed camera. I like how this perspective was done, but many times during the game there would be parts of the scene I couldn’t view clearly, and there wasn’t anything I could do about it. If I could change the perspective and try to remedy that situation, it would definitely change how the game would be played. I would set the camera behind the player, almost an over the shoulder third person view so the camera wouldn’t be fixed and you could move to fit where you needed to look. This would bring the camera in closer and bring the enemies in closer to view, giving you a better look when you tore through them. The gameplay would also be more focused on the player/enemies instead of the vista, none of the players moves would have to be changed, but being able to look around would help the game out immensely.

Chalk - Free Play

The game Chalk was a very interesting find, though finding it wasn’t the challenging part. This game is definitely a challenge if you don’t play through the tutorial, getting past the first level even after playing the tutorial proved difficult but fun. The game is challenging and fun and still manages to be played using only the mouse; though the four keyboard input keys do help.

With only having so many game mechanics, this game does have a moderate replay value. I love that you are able to play through the levels taking things head on one at a time or trying to use as much chalk as possible in a line to do combos and essentially knock out almost everything on the screen, if you are skilled enough. The levels stay the same which keeps it from giving replay a different challenge each time.

Chalk is undoubtedly game play driven; the mechanics of the game drive the player to enjoy their experience. There isn’t any story at all besides what the player makes of it, a Parisian girl fighting off monsters and ships with chalk. That doesn’t sound like the kind of game I would want to play. But when you describe Chalk as a game that uses chalk as an “Omni tool”  to manipulate enemies and objects in the game to protect your character, it presents the game as a gameplay driven game which will target more people to play this game.

The game’s graphics and sound is bare bones compared to today’s console titles. Though only 2d, the graphics are very artistic and theme-like. You control a Parisian girl that has a magical piece of chalk that destroys and deflects and moves objects around. A very indie like feel to the game, everything looks like it was drawn in chalk and keeps the game looking child-like, even though the gameplay is nowhere near a child’s game. The games sound was great; I love the feel of old school 8 and 16-bit music. It keeps a fast pace which correlates with the pace of the game, and each power up sound brings me back to Mario and Mega Man.

The controls are great, It was extremely easy to learn and very accessible for anyone to play. The controls of drawing the chalk are so simple to learn but trying to master using the chalk is very challenging which makes for a lot of fun. You only have the mouse and four or five keys, if you want a challenge you can just use the mouse and two mouse buttons to move and draw. Using minimalist controls and a high challenge keeps players interested and focused in the game, trying to get better and up their game.

I loved the boss fights, they were innovative and fun. There are even mini boss type enemies during levels that you have to kill while avoiding blue box line breakers and ships. I could barely talk to my fiancé and play through the levels without dying.

I don’t know if I would change it necessarily, but the amount of time you can draw the chalk would be interesting if you could level up and draw longer or get an upgrade which lets you draw longer for a limited time. This would give you a chance to do bonus damage and clear the screen, helping you during difficult times. A simple addition with many possibilities.

I give the game Chalk 7 out of 10 Taylor Lautners being eaten by a pack of wolves. I love the way the game brings you into it with a training level to teach you everything and then starts you off with a challenging level instead of a level with a ridiculously low challenge. Solving puzzles while defeating enemies with chalk definitely takes the violence out of video games, I have never had so much fun playing with chalk in my life.

Genre Vs Type

     Genre and type have been confused in the gaming community not unlike any other trends that get popular and evolve over time.  Video games when they first came out were so simple that a genre could infer both narrative and type, but as they have grown and evolved the definition of games needs to change with it. As with most changes there are those who are afraid of changes or for some other reason don’t want to change the way things have been. Some call it tradition and some say the afformentioned are just stagnant. I believe that like the law, some definitions should be changed over time, when the original definition is “unconstitutional” or when it causes confusion. To make it clear to anyone wondering, Genre is the narrative and setting of the game, while type is the gameplay and how the game is played. Though, if you start networking with anyone(James Cameron) who says differently just smile and nod.

GameMaker 8

Hey, spent a saturday class working on modding a clown game. Wanna play it? BAM

Dice Po-po-po-pokerFACE

Dice Poker Game

CUP-O-DICE

Objective:
- Be the first player to reach twenty points

Every player starts with the following:
- 5 six-sided dice
- 1 cup
- Pen and Paper
- 10 Points

Play as follows:
- All players roll two dice but keep them concealed from other players under the cup.
- All players roll two more dice keeping them visible to all.
- All players who decides to fold uncovers their dice and turns up their cup.
- All players roll their last die, but keeps them visible to all.
- All players reveal their dice.
- The player with the highest poker-style dice roll wins.
- All players who did not fold or win, subtract one point from their total.
- The winner adds a point tot his total for every player (other than himself) that did not fold.
- If all but one player fold, that player is awarded one point.
- The first player to reach 20 points wins.

Player Perspective

Palling ‘Round with God

Player Perspective

                My comrade Biggs is dead, the vodka is gone and I’m running through the field trying to resurrect my wounded fool of a friend. Now my other chum Wedge decides to move through the holy field, once a palace like field that encompassed all in the area with an aura that shined upon the towers and statues built to worship the relationship between Man and God are now almost rubble, and the shine that once was is replaced with a haze that creeps over the land.

As Wedge approaches his waypoint to report back to his teammates, he looks back to see his path became enshrined in a holy aura. With wide eyes and excitement Wedge sends word that the treasure was just stepped over and that it was time to rally and make a break for the treasure.  Thunder struck the sky and the winds howled, God was near and it was evident he wasn’t just observing. It was a sure bet that God was reigning in the troops to protect the treasure, but it would still be a heavy gamble to try and revive Biggs and make our team whole again. God had commanded and his army obeyed, the field is fresh with monsters and I hesitate to move toward the direction of the treasure without my wounded friend beside me. I shake my oracle ball and ask what I will see in my near future, but all lady luck tells me is that I’m not long for earth. I mutter something about manifest destiny to the useless prophet and toss the ball off the nearest cliff.

Surprised that the fates could piss me off even more, I run out to save my fallen comrade. BAM! An ugly Jabberwocky ambushes me and tries to take off my head with his giant claws but only manages to make contact with my shield and knock me into the broken marble floors of a worn away temple. My back is killing me but my pride is what was really wounded, I play dead and wait for the beast to close in, Jabberwockys are so easy to fool. As soon as he is in range I sweep low with my sword and take his front legs completely off and I scramble ahead trying not to get caught in the fall. Before I have the chance to finish him off, the Jabberwocky cries out an awful shriek that dizzies me. I try to run and continue on to Biggs but I don’t get far before the Jabberwocky reinforcement responded to the cries of his friend, who knows what other monsters heard the call.

 I turn and run up a flight of stairs that don’t lead to anywhere to try and get some high ground; the pain in my ass follows and leaves a trail of burnt dust in his rage for revenge. When the Jabberwocky sees me at the top of the stairs he charges like a bull toward me and I use whatever luck I had left to dodge and let his weight collapse the staircase.

 Biggs cusses at me when I approach him, something about taking my sweet time. I punch him in the mouth as I patch him up, don’t need him to talk just fight. By the time Biggs gained his strength Wedge had already been trolling the aura filled passageway always ready to find the treasure with no risk too great, meaning his comrade’s lives. Wedge continued to run through the field block after block scanning the area sans protocol, until he bit off more than he could chew and a monster big enough to wreck a train blindsided him and threw him into a hard marble wall. Great, even before Biggs’s painkillers kick in Wedge is already out of commission because he can’t follow protocol and check in, always a loose cannon.

Biggs runs ahead of me to cut off the monster’s descent upon Wedge and manages to cause the ground behind him to uproot like a damn earthquake. A light even stronger than the aura permeates the space around the earthquake and blinds everything in sight before Biggs could turn around to see what happened. Thank Bill Cosby! The treasure had been located and fully revealed and the strategy had changed, Biggs wasn’t trying to keep the horde from reaching Wedge, now he was playing king of the hill with the horde yelling at me to get to the treasure while he was still conscious.

We had to leave Wedge as a lost cause not because he would have done the same to us in a heartbeat, but that was protocol when the treasure was uprooted and in jeopardy. Our odds of getting to our fallen comrade and getting the treasure are lower than if we made a break for it with only two men standing, we all knew what had to be done. I understood why as I dominated through the passage to the treasure, The look on Biggs’s face holding back the horde was beyond despair, there were more monsters in all directions getting closer and he couldn’t hold them all off.

With God’s army on my back I haul ass to the treasure, but instead get introduced to a one-winged angel knocking me off the uprooted land. I wake up and it’s begun to storm and my reaction is to stop the dagger from being inserted into my face, I must have slept through the boring parts. Lady luck must have changed sides as I maneuver my leg to the angel’s side and use the leverage to kick him off of me. The rain picks up and we stand up and face each other, round two reminds me too much of Lethal Weapon so I shake it off and taunt my opponent by calling him a traitor(Satan). The angel laughs and lunges at me with his wing, the wind speed causing me to lose balance and gives the angel a chance to slice open my side. The blood stains the wet ground and the angel is laughing at me again but I’m laughing harder, at God. Lightning cracks and the one-winged beast falls to pieces, his head rolls toward me and gives me a confused look while I wipe the blood off of my sword.

 I hear Biggs cry out as I limp up the torn earth to the treasure, which makes me fight even harder to stay awake. I don’t know if it’s the blood loss or the treasure, but the closer I get makes everything surrounding the treasure fadeout of view. I approach the treasure and start to grab the orb that is hovering above the ground. When I hold the orb in my hand it glows and the glowing covers my body and heals my wounds, before I can reach for my victory cigar my body tingles and I am transported to the heavens. Looks like Heavens got a brand new God…now where do I hide this orb?

Chapter 2 Work

Chapter 2 Work

               When I think of different genres of games; I first think of sci-fi games, Star Ocean comes to mind. Star Ocean four was not only graphically driven, but the game mechanics were so polished and imbedded into the story and world of the game. They link together the story and gathering materials to make equipment and items seamlessly, there is no loss of interest when grinding and searching for material.

Next on my list is horror and survival type games and in my mind, Resident Evil rules paramount. They have always made their games with the context of the world in mind. Resident Evil is about the feeling of society breaking down and how the player and character reacts to the surroundings. The player always has to overcome some obstacles or zombie hoard to complete their goal, all the while keeping their sanity or pants dry while the world around them screams no hope. I always look forward to being sucked into Resident Evil’s world.

More recently I’ve been playing a game that’s a bit of a mash up of war and espionage with a dash of sci-fi called Singularity. This game is no doubt game play driven with the game revolving around a prototype weapon developed by a top-secret Russian scientist at a hidden island location. The weapon is found by the player and used to save the world from crazy power hungry Russians that want to use the weapon to control the fate of the world. You get to upgrade the weapon with experience packages found along the way as well as new mechanics that are added to the prototype weapon throughout the games storyline. Singularity uses the mechanics well and once you get the hang of the controls you will have handfuls of ways of dealing with the hordes of enemies you face.

All of these games though made through different means are extremely fun and rewarding in their own experiences when you take the time to play them. You can see how the game designs of each were emphasized and how it changes the feel and tone of the games. So many extraordinary games are made in each genre because of the plethora of methods to tackle each game that you make.

High Concept

HIGH CONCEPT: Document

     Palling ‘Round with God is a 4 player epic adventure of three heroes who are looking for the all-powerful, radiating orb of infinite shenanigan wisdom…which is covered up by gold coins and $20 bills in a steamer trunk hidden somewhere in the world.  The one lucky buck that gets to play God must defend the treasure at all costs.  Sadly, it’s all that’s left worth saving.  The housing market’s crap nowadays.  Television hasn’t been good since 1959.  And your son hates you.  He had the nerve to stay in bed all day on his birthday last year just to spite you and your festive holiday party plans.  Screw ‘em.  You’re the boss.  Your t-shirt says so.  You guide gloomy buffer angels, dirty devil demon crawlers, and a mega-giant of massive meanness to stop a trio of bumbling schmucks from getting your stash.  The three searchers are lost in a vague world.  Slowly proceeding over an empty landscape where untold riches (actually just about $8,020.17) or fierce tooth-to-toe battles await just around the corner.  Movements are direct and the mission is clear.  Steal God’s thunder fund.  

     Memory and luck will reward the patient, but be careful of your teammates in this quest.  They can choose to revive a fallen comrade as they lay bruised and confused on the path ahead or they can take an extra long step over the carnage, give a thumbs up sign, smile, and keep on looking for that confounded treasure box thing.  And always remember, far, far above - God’s watching it all.  Reveling in the squabbles and near misses with the loot.  One of the heroes walks mere centimeters away from the loot?  Should God have said anything?  Maybe.  Maybe not.  It’s up to God.  But remember, as the result of an old football injury, he can’t move the heavy treasure after initially putting it down.  It’s there forever.  And once it’s discovered - the great big gig’s up.  It’s been fun palling ‘round with you, God, but I’ve got to go!  (fade-up distant angry thunder, wait for electricity to go ou-------)

Free Play

Free Play

               I somehow stumbled upon a strange site and found myself looking at a list of the most popular online freeware games. With that in mind I scrolled through seeing a couple that looked promising, but when I saw this gem it reminded me how much fun I had with its original game, so I had to give it a try. Portal: The flash version takes what is great about the original and brings it to 2-d browser space for more fun in robot controlled human experimentation.

·        Was the game a challenge, fun, entertaining? Why?

This flash game really brought what was so much fun with portal to a 2d world. Portal: the flash game starts out slow, teaching you how to use the mechanics of the player to move around in the world. It isn’t for a few levels in that it starts to challenge you as it inconspicuously adds new elements to the world for you to get by. But by the time it starts getting difficult, you are hooked and you just have to figure out the brain busting puzzle of a level. It is so much fun to figure out how to propel your player across the level, and almost just as entertaining to watch your player get shot into a cruel death trying to figure out the level.

·        Does the game have replay value?

Though not all of the 40 levels of Portal: the flash game makes you want to play them again(some levels are just to train the player), most of the levels especially further in on the game make you want to go back just to see if there was another way to complete the level. If you go back to a level and complete it, the game almost compels you to play the next level and so forth. I love games that have that effect on me, even though my fiancé doesn’t. Not to mention at the end of the game you can pull up the console and edit the game as you see fit.

·        Is this game story driven or game play driven?

This game is definitively game play driven. The mechanics and layout of the levels bring you directly to the next puzzle with no story, though this is based off of a famous IP of the same name so the backstory is hinted at in the beginning text of the game. This is a puzzle game and uses the game mechanics to increase the skill and fun of the game exponentially over time. Adding elements of companion cubes, turrets, energy balls and death spikes to the mix kept it challenging.

·        How is the game's presentation? (Graphics, Sound)

The game’s presentation is what you would expect from a flash game. The graphics and levels are very clean and they keep the colors the same as the original. The graphics aren’t extremely fleshed out, but for this type of game they don’t need to rely on graphic driven gameplay. I do love the character the player gets to use, the animation and clothes they give the character makes me feel like I am an inmate which drives home the escapist nature of the game. The sound does its job, sound effects are there that substantiate what is going on in the world but the music seems a bit generic. I ended up muting the music to play some of my own.

·        How are the Controls? Describe the Game's Feel

The controls are very simple using the basic d-pad movements to move around the field, with two buttons defined to each distinct portal. The feel of using the portal takes a level or two to get used to and remember from the original game, but once you program your twitch muscles to those portal keys, this game almost lets your player fly through the level if they know what they are doing. That’s why I love playing this kind of puzzle game, you really feel like you are controlling the level with portals. But I guess that’s thinking with portals.

·        Any other special features you enjoyed?

I love that they let you use the console to tinker with the game. I believe most games should have this available to use to change the game to their own version. This increases the replay value of the game, mods of the game come out and you get to spend time trying out new versions, which you tell your friends about and in turn they make their own versions which can perpetuate the cycle of mods.

·        If you could change one mechanic, what would it be and how would it affect game play?

If I could change one mechanic, I would make the player be able to slide in the game. This would open up new ways to use the original mechanics of the portal system; I feel it would add a more challenging layer to the game to be able to slide while using portals.

·        On a scale of 1-10 how would you rate the game? Why?

I would give this game an 8 out of 10 Batman BooYahs. I love the feel of the game; it reminds me of the original Portal while introducing it to the flash community. The game play is driven by great mechanics that are simple and polished, being able to do tricks with the portals and getting through impossible looking levels is fun and boosts self-esteem. This game is great to pick up and play for a couple of levels or sit down and spend time trying to beat all 40 levels, even after that you can make your own levels if you know what you’re doing.

Hey! Wanna Pal around with God? (SGD112 Project)

Here is a video of the Blog Force Four pitching our game idea, with 2 hours and a shoddy camera. I hope you enjoy and are extremely offended.

Palling 'Round with God.wmv

Gameplay and Controls

Gameplay and Control

            When I think about a game that I played that has excellent control and gameplay, Super Smash Brothers Melee comes to mind. The way they bring so many different characters spanning several games and still manage to keep the control of each character feel genuine helps the game sustain long term playability.  The controls of SSBM let even the most casual gamer pick up the game and easily start moving and fighting with ease, but also let more dedicated gamers take all of the gameplay mechanics and hone those skills to play the game at a much more competitive level. Even so much as to find a break in the gameplay that let players execute a powerful gameplay mechanic.

            This game was so revolutionary because it let you pit characters of different games against each other, to see which game was better. This was amazing because all of them were the best, depending on what character you chose. You had a whole different feel for the environment of the game. Bowser moved slow and almost shook the ground after a high jump. You could feel his weight being moved around like a force with momentum, and you didn’t want to be in his way.  With Fox McCloud you move fast, jump fast, and hit fast. When you play as Fox you want to make sure you can move everywhere on the battlefield, and when you pick up the controller you are able to get that responsiveness. Once you play with every character and learn how they feel in the context of the game, you can pick how you want to play based on the feel of the game. When you want to move fast you will choose between Fox and Captain Falcon, or if you want speed with a lightweight feel you can choose Zelda or Peach. There are so many different choices for your fighting style and it makes this game so much fun with an extremely high replay ability level.

            With every movement the player could see how the character acted towards the context of the game. Running, jumping, and landing on the ground or being knocked into the wall is very visceral, which made it even more satisfying to do to the other players.  The game’s title was based on one of the gameplay mechanics that let you use the punch and analogue controller to hit at different strengths. You could just punch and administer a regular amount of damage, which reduces overtime if you don’t switch up your tactics, or you could almost literally smash the analogue stick in any direction with the punch button and do a charged attack which had the power to launch the opponent across the field. This mechanic didn’t have to be used to play the game, but that mechanic made the gameplay feel polished. Although there wasn’t a mechanic to let the player dash, if you utilized several mechanics in a certain fashion you could break the physics to help the player to dash. This emerging mechanic let hardcore players break the game to play the game at a more advanced level of gameplay. Being able to perform the dash took time to learn for just one specific character and wasn’t easy, so it really beefed up the learning curve for more advanced moves that used the dash. Even though this mechanic was not supposed to be in the game, it made the gameplay and controls much more exciting and satisfying to learn and master.

            Super Smash Brothers Melee is a game with a complex learning curve. You can pick it up and play easily making it fun for everyone, but that curve gets steep trying to master all the characters or moves. This plus polished environments and characters equal long term replay ability and fun.  SSBM is a great example of a game that demonstrates why gameplay and controls are important in a game.

Introduction to the Game Design Document

    I read an article explaining why design documents for games are important. Even before reading the article I knew that regardless of whether they were required for the games you create, that they were necessary for me to create a working game. They help keep my thoughts in order, especially when I first start my ideas for a new game. I will think of a setting and story, and while I am fleshing that out my brain starts churning out ideas for game play mechanics. There I am already scattered, creating so many ideas and models that I will forget important details if I don't write that down. That is my main reason to keep a game design document for every game I create. It can be a tedious process, but without the document, I could lose my ideas that make that game a blockbuster.

     Creating a game design document with a team of people is even more reason to make sure it is fleshed out as well as possible. I really like the analogy used in the article, you don't read a phone book, you use it or refer to it when you need certain information. This lets the team continue to work using the documents for reference and keeping the number of conferences, phone calls, and emails to a minimum, which in turn increases performance and efficiency I believe. Only going to another team member or head designer when you can't refer to the design documents alone will save a lot of stress on everyone working on the game. There is rarely a time when you wont need to create a design document for your game, and even then you will only benefit from taking the time to create one.

Star Ocean Gameplay Mechanics (Chapter 1 Work)

Question 1 : Choose a game franchise and trace the evolution of gameplay mechanics from the first to the current game in the series. How have the mechanics evolved over time?


     One series that really gripped me was the Star Ocean game series, their use of game mechanics to draw the player into the characters and the worlds they interacted with made me a great fan of the series. It was interesting to see how certain gameplay mechanics that have been implemented since the series beginning grew and had new mechanics built upon the older ones, while some were discarded for newer mechanics.

     The Star Ocean series is a set of role playing games that had a Star Trek familiarity to it. Each of the games was based upon world exploration, immersing the player into different environments and times in some cases. Though character development never lagged, as each Star Ocean game had private actions and character affinities that played roles in not only the story of the game but also in combat and in some cases determined which characters you could recruit. The battles in each game developed in leaps throughout each new installment, many gameplay mechanics were introduced from 2d to 3d.

     The first game in the series started with private actions. Private actions start when your player is near a town on the world map, you are then prompted to press the action button to enter the town in private action mode, or if you don’t press the action button designated, you enter the town normally without private actions in play. This means that the main character that the player Is controlling goes into town alone, leaving the other members of your party to roam the town freely, so you can interact with them for special scenes that move the storyline along, create side quests, introduce new recruits, and affect the affinity or bond of the player’s character and teammates. Affinity towards your party members affects the way the story can progress and even cause the game to have different endings. In battle if a party member dies that has accumulated enough positive affinity, the player’s character goes into a rage that increases several stats temporarily.

     Another great element to the series was the skill system or item creation, which let your party learn various skills like writing, cooking, composition, etc. to help develop character stats, new abilities, and items. These skills could be used only by earning skill points which were gained after battle, each skill needing different skill points to be upgraded and therefore used more efficiently or successfully. Each time a skill was used, there was an element of chance where the skill could fail, resulting in loss of an item. In Till the end of Time(Star Ocean 3) the player had to go to specific areas/workshops where only there they could use their item creation skills, as opposed to earlier games where items where created in the menu selection screen. Also in Star Ocean 3 the player is able to recruit non-playable characters to increase their success rates and also create more powerful items. They even added a mechanic where you could patent your inventions and publish them, then at random times during the game, you would receive royalties for your patents. It really rewarded the player for spending time perfecting their creation skills. In Star Ocean 4 the game let players search the world map for materials related to item creation by harvesting and mining certain areas of each world you visit. Harvesting and mining for materials are also character specific, the mining can only be done when a certain cyborg character is recruited into your party. And even then, the character must upgrade his mining skill by using his skill points. This helps to increase the number and potency of the items mined.

     The battle system has gone through lots of overhauls each series. The first game started out with battles happening randomly on the world map or in dungeon areas, which lead the player to a 2d battle interface, eventually through the series battles weren’t random and players would have a choice to encounter enemies on the field. The player fought in real time with enemies, only controlling the lead character while the rest of the party was controlled by AI. You could switch your character to play whichever you liked, which gave the player a real variety in gameplay. Later on they created a game engine that used a 3d battle field with 2d character sprites, letting the player confront the enemies from any angle, not just front or back. When the Star Ocean series went 3d in Star Ocean 3, added mechanics of a fury gauge, bonus gauge, and battle trophies made players use more innovative strategies in order to get more rewards including experience, skill points, sound clips and soundtracks that were unlocked after earning certain battle trophies.

     Battle trophies were awards for winning a battle under certain conditions. Some were winning a battle by using only special abilities, or by beating a boss under a time limit. These battle trophies let the hardcore player really dig into the game by trying to get battle trophies that were very hard to get without leveling the character up to a certain point, or using a certain string of abilities or characters. In Star Ocean 4 they had character specific battle trophies, which meant that each party member had trophies that you could only earn by using that specific character in battle. It made getting trophies harder and more time consuming, but there were more rewards to getting trophies than just soundtracks. If the player got a certain percentage of one characters trophies that might increase the level cap of that character, or increased the amount of special abilities that could be used during battle by that character.

     Late in the series they created a versus battle arena, so that the player could battle their character against a computer controlled unit or have a friend battle them. Though the series had always had a coliseum area where they could battle their party against enemies in rounds for prizes and awards, this let the player have multiplayer battles.

     I only smattered the surface of gameplay mechanics in the Star Ocean series, but just these examples show how the series evolved their gameplay over each game. Sometimes changing the mechanics completely, like having random encounters to being able to see the enemies you encounter. Some mechanics in the series were not replaced, but had gameplay mechanics built onto them, adding replay ability and an edge in some cases while still keeping the mechanics that are a staple in the series like the item creation and private actions. Some changes were a great improvement upon the series, and some changes weren’t necessarily good or bad, with each different set of gameplay mechanics gives a unique experience.

(Blog Game Review)Chrono Trigger Prophet's Guile: Review of a ROM Hack

Chrono Trigger: Prophet’s Guile


An SNES Rom hack

     When many gamers are asked what was their favorite game was in the 16 bit era, or for any system for that matter, their minds delve back into Chrono Trigger. Chrono Trigger was one of the most revolutionary games of that time period produced by the heavy hitters Square (now Square Enix). CT Introduced multiple endings in a role playing game that was polished with a unique battle system, side quests, story driven characters, and time travel! It was a game that would draw you in and have you playing it over and over to get each ending and every item. It is no wonder that people just can’t get enough of this game, whether it is the battle system, characters and story, or the nostalgic feel of the classics of that game system era. So I was sent back in time myself when I found that someone had decided to take us back to Chrono Trigger by taking the game code and creating a side story that encompasses one of CT’s biggest characters, Magus.

     A Rom chip is an image, which is a copy of the video game that you put in your console system to play. This can be hacked or manipulated by anyone with the right equipment to change the graphics, music and sound, script, pretty much anything about the game. The hacker in this case are a group called Kajar Laboratories, who have made multiple hacks of CT to date, but none so extensive as to take the original game and create a sort of side story game that takes a look at what happened to Magus when he was thrust into a black hole that took him back to 12000 B.C.

     This was a great concept, almost like a fan fiction story except in the original gaming format. I’m sure everyone that played the original Chrono Trigger wondered exactly how Magus had snuck back into his time and was able to become such a political asset to Queen Zeal. This is set chronologically in the CT timeline, as they focus on this game’s main character Magus, you get snippets of what is going on with Chrono and the gang as the game goes on. Now this game is only two to three hours long, which leaves you wanting more of this non cannon universe because it is brimming with new story, characters, areas, bosses and battles.

     This game brilliantly gives light to Magus and the time period before Chrono arrived in Zeal. The game starts off with Magus being defeated by Chrono after trying to summon Lavos, where the interruption sends Magus back to 12000 B.C. This starts his plan to stop Lavos from being summoned in the kingdom of Zeal in the first place. Prophet’s Guile goes on to introduce old and new characters relating to Magus’s past, all with some polished graphics and wit. New areas are brought in as Magus has to earn clout to impress the Queen and infiltrate the kingdom. One great addition was the ability to visit cerulean lake which was just scenery in the CT Zeal, where you visit to not only have a fun battle with some Mu henchmen, but you are treated to music from Final Fantasy 6.

     You also visit old favorites like Mt. Woe where Magus must take one of the wise men to imprison. Or the Ocean palace where they cleverly were still in the process of building and setting traps that CT fans will remember learning to painfully avoid, or the empty chests that will soon fill the ocean palace so that Chrono and company can acquire. I love how the development team really added that feeling of nostalgia with these old favorites and blended it with new things that were obvious happened but you never really thought of.

     Though these weren’t the original script writers of the Chrono Trigger game, they couldn’t have written a better script to slip into the CT universe. Being able to go back to every area and see how that era, how Zeal was before the arrival of Chrono and crew made me a very giddy fan boy. New scenes with old characters including Schala and Prophet Magus as well as incidences with some of the wise men and Magus, flashbacks with Magus and Ozzie, Flea, and Slash gave us more insight into how Magus managed to have an edge in almost any time he was in. Even seeing how Magus acted around his younger self at the time was enthralling.

     I’m sure there is controversy as to whether this hack is considered a companion to Chrono Trigger or considered a game at all, but as art across all mediums is what your perspective on it is, I consider this hack to be a great supplementary game to Chrono Trigger. Prophet’s Guile was not meant to be a stand-alone game, but played in addition to the original Chrono Trigger. That does not mean that a hack cannot stand on its own, as there are many already out there that play amazingly without prior knowledge of the original game.

     I hope that this game inspires others to be as creative as Kajar Laboratories and to give us their perspective on a game that they love. Because even though I have played Chrono Trigger over 15 times, this gem of a game made me want to go back and visit that masterpiece yet again after finishing Prophet’s Guile.

GamePug gives this game 4 Patrick Stewarts out of 5!

15 minutes to create a boardgame = School Daze

School Daze Rules




1. Roll to see who goes first. Highest goes first.

2. What you roll is the number you move.

3. If you land on a dot - get card and follow instructions.

4. If you go to detention - you need to roll the same # twice to get out.

5. Win by finishing school.

6. If you get detention - move to the detention square.



items Needed to Play



Dice, 5 "Reward" cards, 4 "Go to Detention" cards, coins, stick of gum, fake lobster claw

Our first review, Duke Nukem Forever!

     Welcome to the GamePug domain! The place to be if you want info on gaming, tv, and pugs! Maggot and I plan to let you know about all the game and game development news to keep you updated on the gaming trends. Also when time permits, GamePug will let you know about cool movies or TV shows that are out or that you might have missed. And if you are looking for the first review of Duke Nukem Forever, Well look no further because we have that review...it will be posted TBD.