Dungeoner: November 2009 Archives

The boobie factor

By volsung on November 30, 2009 10:52 AM

I wanted to write about this subject for a while already, and reading Kotaku today just encouraged me to do it. To put you into context, there was a two part article on Massively called "Boobs and you" [part1, part2] that was somehow Seraphina Brennan's response to some of the comments on one of the screenshots from Blade&Soul that you might have already seen. If not, I'm referring to this one:

If you hadn't read the article yet, you should. Basically discusses how most commenters just saw a big pair of watermelons, commented on them, either agreeing (heh) or saying the game is sexist and humiliating from women's perspective, but completely ignored the overmuscled man behind the manga hottie, considering him, at least, normal. The article also points out how if anybody comments on the guy, will only be with neutral or positive adjectives, such as "powerful", "strong", etc.

So, here am I now to talk about the boobie factor in videogames myself.

The videogames market has been historically male oriented, and while there's an obvious female market (growing) it hasn't been really exploited at all until the latest years. Can videogames be male oriented or female oriented? Of course they can. Each game has a particular niche of players to which it's oriented, although that doesn't mean players outside that niche can't find something attractive about the game.

However, studies confirm that female players are way less impacted to some of the design techniques games use to appeal the players in general. That is, a female player will complain less about a huge breasted entrails-in-the-handbag mile-long-legs female character than male players would complain about having to play a realistic looking woman. It also happens with male characters, although for some reason (as the article above points) nobody cares enough to make studies about that.

So, even if you're orienting your game to appeal to a female audience, you could as well add some extra stuff to reach a portion of the male players outside the main niche, and yet, you wouldn't hear many complaints.

Now, there are certain beauty canons affecting most of the western world, at least in that age range normally covered by videogames (13-50?). No matter if you are male or female, no matter if you agree or disagree with them, you're also under their influx. And for some weird reason, players prefer to look good, in general. Looking good means different things, but it's mostly defined by these canons mentioned before.

So, by giving the different characters desirable features, and letting players impersonate them, there's a psychological projection of those features on the player. If a character is awesome, players will feel awesome playing it. This goes further than just the appearance, of course, but when trying to appeal a male audience with a female character, appearance is, for obvious reasons, something important. Why? Because it is important as well in real life, in the world of first impressions, where people are quickly dismissed if they don't meet certain physical goals.

Should games enforce this superficial way to socialize? Well, the question should be, should games pretend it doesn't exist? Are games mean to be educative? Are they art? Are they just entertainment? Should we also ban beautiful people from movies? Or censor all the songs that talk about a physical-only attraction? Novels? TV shows that don't develop the characters enough to show us that it's in fact a matter of deep feelings where the looks make no difference?

I certainly think the problem has nothing to do with videogames at all. Most developers just follow the rest of society, as they are also part of it. Non-appealing characters won't work when at the same time the rest of the media supports it. Does anybody around think that Twilight is selling so much because of how good it's written or the originality of the story? Just watch the trailer for New Moon and tell me what you see. And hell, just look at the reaction.

Flat chesting dark elf sorceresses won't change much towards a better future.

Review - Rogue Warrior, a game I won't be playing tomorrow

By volsung on November 29, 2009 2:02 PM

Image via Wikipedia

I tried it, anyway. I didn't know much about this game, and even if just from the video and screenshots I could already know what it could bring, I gave it a try. The last one, probably.

I picked the Spanish version; that's already a mistake. The main character's voice actor is Antonio Esquivias, who happens to be the voice for Sideshow Bob in the Spanish version of the Simpsons. Each time Dick Marcinko spoke I could only think of a yellow man with palm-tree like hair. Still, I tried to advance.

The game looks "OK". It's as it tried to look awesome, but ended up having that plastic feeling on every single surface. Shadows just aren't where they should, and all the borders shine. The control is "meh", and even if they tried to come with something original, like allowing the player to cover a la Gears of War (being an FPS), the results aren't that nice. It feels a bit rough, especially on the transition FPS->3rd person, and viceversa. For some reason the right mouse button defaults to throwing grenades, which is probably the worst idea Rebellion could come with for that particular button. I mean, I don't want to launch grenades by mistake, because, well, they can kill me.

Dick cannot jump, and pressing the space bar will enter the aim mode. Wouldn't that have been better to have on the right mouse button? Apparently not.

Weapons not only look plastic, that's also the feedback they give. When you shoot, it feels like you're playing virtual airsoft. Sideshow Bob's virtual airsoft.

Enemies aren't particularly intelligent, at least on the medium difficulty level. They will cover in a way you can hit them anyway 85% of the time. You can also approach them from behind and autokill them pressing E. Some of the animations are rather crude, and as they depend on the environment, they bring the only proper entertainment I could find in the game: watching how Dick can kill enemies in rather creative ways, from defenestrations to throat-slicing.

There's supposed to be a story, but the beginning is already so dumb and pointless that it I really don't want to know more.

Just as a reminder, this game was developed by the same people behind the new Aliens vs Predator game. I just hope this was the result of some of their free time, and not a game they expected to be taken seriously.

Caching stuff

By volsung on November 29, 2009 12:37 AM

Just a short entry; I'm still working on the blog itself, as I said the other day. Among other things I wanted to change some stuff on the feed (for example, showing the comment count with a link to comment), but also work a bit on some other technical aspects of the blog, and maybe even a bit on the design as well.

MovableType uses a module system, where the blogger can cache some of the files so entries are published faster (as the result is basically an static HTML file), and, while this should basically improve the performance, it may also cause some strange behaviour, if done wrong. Just wanted to point that's quite possible to happen.

So, please, if you see that some page isn't updating correctly, even after refreshing your browser, just tell me. Wouldn't like to break everything just to publish one second faster.

2009 - The Year of the...

By volsung on November 28, 2009 11:27 PM

2009 is finally coming to an end, and while I think it has been quite a good year for videogames in general, it has been a particularly good one for one specific theme.

Would this be sword and wizardry? Maybe car races? Space simulators? Sports? GTA-clones?

The correct answer is... *drumroll*... Zombies!

Let's remember some of them in no particular order:

Burn, Zombie Burn!
Combat Arms
Dead Island
Plants vs. Zombies
Left 4 Dead 2
Resident Evil 5
Resident Evil: The DarkSide Chronicles
Shellshock 2: Blood Trails
Zombie Apocalypse
Zombie Wranglers
Wolfenstein
Prototype
Zombie Driver
Zombie Fortress
Killing Floor

And the list could go on, and on. Yes, I know Prototype didn't feature "zombies" but infected, same with Killing Floor, but still, they have all or most of the features.

For some reason, zombies seem to be cool once again. Maybe I should dust my bell-bottoms...

Can you name more games featuring mostly zombies that appeared this year?

Naumachia - Glorious Space Simulation

By volsung on November 28, 2009 1:58 PM

I wanted to write about this game for a while, Naumachia. I've always enjoyed good space battle simulators, because of those special feelings they inspire.Fighting in a "free" space, piloting an advanced weapon of destruction full of displays with information about the status of your ship, and maybe even a female robotic voice telling you how the main engines are damaged and you're probably going to die soon while you hear the screaming voices of the rest of your squad through the radio.

Freespace 2 and X-Wing Alliance will always be some of my favourite games ever, and I just don't let any newly released space sim go without testing it at least, but I still haven't found another game that had that awesome feeling... maybe until now. Naumachia.

For those who don't know latin and/or ancient greek, Naumachia means naval warfare, and that's what this game is all about, except, of course, it's set in space. Featuring an up to 16 player online game mode, we'll be able to pilot from small vessels to huge capital ships, mixing direct action with real time strategy, depending on the ship we're using.

We'll also be able to command a squad of NPCs, so battles can get pretty big, even if they are capped.

Looking the videos, ships seem to have an interesting feedback, as in having inertia, and most of the data actually appears on the different screens in the control panels (good!). There are still a couple of discussions on whether the game should feature a 3rd person view of the smaller ships or not, but the latter option seems to be winning (great!).

On a side note, the game is planned to be free to download and play, but some features will require a full (cheap) licence. Filippo De Luca and Lorenzo Pasini, the two main developers behind the game, can already count with mine.

Edge - The making of IK+

By volsung on November 27, 2009 5:46 PM

"Now, to do something like the backflip - which hadn't been put in a game before - I tried all sorts of things. One was just drawing it, but I couldn't get the flow of it right. Then I went out and bought a video camera, and filmed myself jumping around. That didn't work, either. I looked at hundreds of cartoons, karate films, all kinds of movies, looking for these moves I wanted. One was the backflip - I wanted it to be a way of quickly escaping or moving from one point to another faster than walking. Now, to get this, I needed footage.

"One afternoon I happened to be watching Grease with my girlfriend. At the very end of it there's a fairground scene... and in the background, sideways on, there's a guy doing a backflip. I watched it over and over and over, and said: that's it! A real person, doing a proper backflip. It was perfect."

Equipped with an expensive video recorder with a suitably static pause function, Maclean performed minor surgery on his television, opening and adjusting it in order to vertically 'stretch' the figure to the size he required for IK+. "I then placed a piece of cellophane over the TV, froze the frame, then drew an outline around it with a pen," he reveals. "I'd advance it by around two frames then draw the next piece of animation. I did dozens. I then took the cellophane and put it over my computer screen, painstakingly recreating each image in pixels. That then formed the primitive 'motion capture' which gave me the speed of body movement through the air in realtime. That's how I did it."

The full story is just awesome. Read the article at Edge Online. Enjoyable, to say the least.

Weird days are coming

By volsung on November 27, 2009 10:42 AM

I'm changing some stuff in Movable Type (the blog CMS I'm using for Dungeoner), and it's quite possible that some sections will go completely FUBAR in the following days.

Shouldn't stay like that for too long, tho. If something is too screwed up, just refresh the page or come back after a couple of minutes. The RSS feed isn't going to be touched, so, you can still follow the page with that tool. Sorry for the inconveniences.

Civilizations rise and fall

By volsung on November 26, 2009 6:01 PM

So do games, and of course, MMOs. No matter how much I may dislike it, World of Warcraft is the current first world power in the online universe, although seems to be finally declining, slowly becoming a decadent empire. Still years until it's completely consigned to oblivion.

Kotaku just released an (incomplete) interesting list with those MMOs that appeared during the hegemony and couldn't keep up. You can find it here.

Griefing - Enforcing the Mediocrity

By volsung on November 26, 2009 4:47 PM

Griefers aren't welcome in multiplayer games. If the game mechanics aren't griefing-proof, then no matter how good the game is, there will always be a moron bothering other players just for the sake of it.

When we are talking about small groups of people, it's more a hassle than a real problem; let's say, in a Neverwinter Nights server, if there's a griefer around one of the Dungeon Masters (or admins, if you prefer) can just ban him, or punish him as needed. Same goes for multiplayer shooters. If a player constantly uses the Friendly Fire option to constantly disrupt the game, the rest of the players can normally either ask for an admin to boot the player, or /votekick him off the server.

But sometimes we have games that are managed at a much higher level, let's say, MMOs for example. If the game gives griefers lots of options to fuck the rest of the players, this will happen often, unless there are counter-measures, of course. But developing those without creating new griefing tools is kind of hard. In fact, it's so hard that most developers just forget about it and go the easy way: You can't steal other players' stuff, you can only kill player in these zones, there's always a safe spot, dying costs just some money, which in the end means just time... mediocrity.

10 years developers didn't grab their players' hands to help them cross the street. Players could consider themselves fortunate if there was a zebra crossing. I'm not saying that was the best of the possible scenarios, but, at least from my point of view, it was much better than what we're experiencing right now: every social interaction possible in these games is limited to the chat and trading, and with the auction houses, the last one became quite anecdotal.

Of course, nowadays, even the most humongous piece of crap that calls itself MMO will get more players than the majority of those games from 10 years ago. At least in the first months.

This may look like a digression, but it's the main point. Developing an environment where griefing has consequences requires a meaningful idem, and that's not something most people will enjoy. Convincing your investors to give you their money saying "my game won't be as successful as World of Warcraft, but even if we're only aiming for 1% of the users Blizzard's game has, it will be much more awesome for those who play it" is a bit... hard. There're options, of course. You can go indie, work for free, or rob a bank, but normally only the latest will end with you appearing in magazines.

Do you know about Mortal Online? Most gamers don't. Mortal Online is a MMO drinking directly water from the Ultima Online river and the MUDs from the early 90s. The world is dangerous: Full loot, free for all PvP. Dying suddenly has a meaning. You're losing more than your manhood (or... womanhood?) when you bite the dust. Maybe that armor you needed one month to craft will be lost forever, just to show an example.

But not only dying is "bad". Sometimes killing can be even worse, as you might be killing the wrong person (dunno, that huge guild leader that was AFK, for example) which may end with your character being unplayable as you get killed on sight by one third of the server population.

These kind of measures can only be found on games where players aren't completely directed by the game mechanics, and while it does make the games, often, harder to learn and to get into, gives a much more interesting experience in the end. Social interaction is in the end what players will remember. Even in theme-park games, such as WoW, players will remember "those problems they had with this or that player" or how they fought against a PvP raid, instead of "that combat against that boss that they repeat every Tuesday".

Removing every possibility for frustration also gets rid of most of the best experiences you'll be able to find in a videogame. So, please, stop promoting mediocrity as if it was something good.

NCSoft bans 16000 Aion accounts

By volsung on November 26, 2009 12:26 PM

And I haven't commented anything on it yet. The 16000 banhammered accounts were involved in botting or RMT (gold selling/buying). It's a shame, as I was in fact considering the option of buying a couple of millions (price has dropped a lot, now it's around $3 for 1 million Kinah). Why? Well, because the game is still boring.

I recently leveled up to 30, and even if teh grind hasn't been that horrible in terms of time, it has been at least tedious; Quests were boring and repetitive, and same could be said for the enemies, items or zones. I'm tired of desserts, goddammit! Thankfully I play with a group of friends, which means we could kill elite monsters, and farm Training Camp (rinse and repeat each 16 hours).

Just had the first peek at Fire Temple the other day: big uninspired empty rooms, except for the lots of sturdy enemy clones. If it wasn't for my group, I would have uninstalled the game long ago, and maybe burnt the hard drive with fire.

Lost Souls going gold

By volsung on November 26, 2009 11:45 AM

Great news for all the adventure-lovers out there! Darkling Room just announced that the third episode of the well-known Dark Fall series has gone gold, and the announcement comes with 6 new screenshots!

This horror-themed first person point-and-click adventure will be launched on December 11th 2009 in the UK (boxed) and some other European countries that use English boxed versions. It's also possible to buy it directly from the Iceberg Webshop, free shipping included if you pre-order the game now.

These are some of the features the game will include:

â¢ A brand new (and final) Dark Fall horror adventure.
â¢ From the pen of Jonathan Boakes, author of The Lost Crown.
â¢ Explore a derelict train station & hotel, abandoned since World War 2.
â¢ A new game engine allows full exploration and movement.
â¢ Physically interact with the eerie setting, to really 'feel' the place.
â¢ Use light as your weapon and ally, to fight the darkness.
â¢ Use Detective skills to solve an urban mystery.
â¢ A hauntingly creepy stereo score that will chill and terrify.
â¢ Explore the memories of the dead, in their own 'nightmares'.
â¢ Discover the true identity, and power behind, the Dark Fall itself.

Definitely a good gift for these Christmas. The perfect game for a cold and rainy winter evening!

Source: JustAventure

Quake ported to...

By volsung on November 25, 2009 3:22 PM

...Flash!

If you had a childhood, then probably there's nothing I need to tell you about Quake. If you didn't, well, 1996 was a great year for videogames, mostly because of Quake. id software made the big jump to full 3D graphics on a first person shooter. And it was so amazing we're still getting Quake games more than 10 years afterward. Some people say Quake 2 was way better. I must say that it didn't have half of the ambiance and feeling the first one had.

This awesome programming time sink in flash was developed by Michael Rennie, and you can check it out right here. It even has the console!

Interesting read - Visually directing the player

By volsung on November 25, 2009 12:21 PM

Today I'd like to point you all to a nice article I found on A Hardy Developer's Journal (Igor Hardy's blog). It's actually the first submission by Joshua Nuernberger (La Croix Pan, Boryokudan Rue), and totally oriented towards Point-and-click adventure game developers. However, some of the hints and tricks may also be used in games where there is some sort of exploration, or puzzles.

It's worth a look. You can find it here.

Diablo 3 won't feature skill trees or stat points

By volsung on November 25, 2009 11:51 AM

As you can see on the Official Diablo Twitter channel. Apparently, Blizzard is considering a different approach on Diablo 3 to how the skill system will work, moving away from the classic skill trees we could see in Diablo and Diablo 2 (and later on its version for World of Warcraft).

Jay Wilson gave some more details on the interview he was made by DiabloFans. So, even if there's nothing decided yet, the game is being developed around the idea of a "skill pool / path" per class rather than a tree. Even if this isn't too enlightening, by reading the rest of the interview you can already expect a game where there's no possibility to fail when building your character. Why? Because Blizzard even removed the stat points.

Yes, you won't receive the infamous 5 points anymore. This time they will be fixed per class.

What can I say? Probably it will appeal to way more people than the previous system, but not to me, that's for sure. I guess the main end of producing a game is monetizing it as much as it's possible, isn't it? And that's something Blizzard knows how to do better than anyone else.

Moving the feed to FeedBurner

By volsung on November 24, 2009 11:52 AM

Just notifying everyone who's following Dungeoner by RSS/Atom, I've moved the feed to (now Google's) FeedBurner. The old feed should also be working, anyway.

The new URL for the feed is this one.

NeoAxis getting a web player too?

By volsung on November 24, 2009 11:17 AM

Apparently, the new release of NeoAxis Engine (0.83) is moving towards web integration, as many engines are doing these days. The web player will support all major browsers (including Chrome, Opera and Safari), and is free to use for non-commercial purposes.

It's somehow curious to see how games engines are slowly adapting to this trend. Right now there are not many projects using this technology, but nothing seems to be preventing a future where games would be in "the Cloud", only caching some files in our hard drive; well, nothing except the Internet connections, I guess.

The possibilities are endless, starting from how easy will it be to create cross-platform games. I can already see some publishers hosting some games directly in their servers. DRM-wise, the idea is awesome (not that awesome for the users, I guess) and with stuff like ChromeOS coming in too, maybe some companies will just consider what a couple of years ago sounded totally crazy.

Only time will tell how this ends.

Aion - New stuff

By volsung on November 24, 2009 9:55 AM

NCsoft just released the following trailer just called "AION Vision", showing off some of the upcoming features for the game:

Summarizing:

Swimming and underwater stuff. Yes, the Devi (Devas? Devae?) didn't know how to swim before, and just drowned in a very humiliating way.
New combat animations? Maybe it means more levels (with a proper boring grinding, of course).

When? Still no ETA. At this very moment, this looks like AoC's DirectX10 patch; when it came out people had already jumped off the drowning boat months before. Personally, I highly doubt it will make it through during 2010. It's a pity, because it does look good, although at this point is hard to believe that the core mechanics brought directly from the late 90s are going to change a lot. At least players will have something to do between grindfest and grindfest.

Another Mockup - Sidescrolling Dungeon Crawl

By volsung on November 22, 2009 4:47 PM

Just another project that has been stopped for a while; really planning to give it a chance some day.

The idea behind this game is a simple dungeon crawl (really simple) where our barbarian heroine has to face different enemies, traps and geological challenges to reach the treasures hidden underground. There's a bit of the original Prince of Persia in it, why denying it; however, this game should put a bit more emphasis on the action sequences and a bit less on jumping and platforming (although it would certainly contain some zones more puzzle/platforming oriented).

Construct was the platform chosen to develop the game because, although it's still on Beta, it's already offering a more than decent middleware to work with.

Anyway, as I said, at the moment it's more like an abstract idea than a serious project.

Design - Dungeon Crawling on Treasure Hunters

By volsung on November 21, 2009 6:10 PM

I've been working for a while with a friend of mine whose name I won't state here (yet) on a somehow small project that's slowly moving forward: "Treasure Hunters", a non-definitive name for a browser based dungeon crawler based on a series of novels yet to be published.

The development, as I said, is moving forward slowly, but constantly. This time I'm not directly involved in the coding part (thank goodness) but participate on the art direction and design aspects. The italics for art direction have a reason; we're using mostly open source content for the game, such as the RLTiles or some of the resources from TomeTik. However, having done a bit of pixel art in the past, and considering that we're using 32x32 tiles as base, I've also modified some of the images myself to adapt them to our needs.

For example, these are some of the armours currently in-game at 2x resolution:

Instead of going to the usual roguelike style where options are countless, we'll start with something rather basic and straightforward; exploring enormous procedurally generated dungeons alone, or with a group of friends, killing stuff, getting loot, and of course, dying a lot. Perma-death will still be present, though, as it helps in lots of fields, like, for example, inflation ;)

There's not much I can tell you at this point about the game; We have the character creation working with a development system that deservers it's own entry, and most of the basic inventory options implemented. Still no actual game, but already lots of ideas. In any case, it's a matter of weeks until we have the first playable Alpha.

Stay tuned for more!

Review - Runman: Race Around the World

By volsung on November 20, 2009 8:49 PM

Note: I've been trying to record some gameplay for hours, but couldn't get FRAPS to work with this game. Probably I'm doing something wrong.

We have something big here. I had never heard of this game before, until I started lurking TIGSource's forums, finding it on his creator's signature. So, what's it about?

In Runman we'll play as the homonym starfish-shaped hero in, as the title suggests, a race around the world. Now, think of the first Sonic the Hedgehog games; running through some more easy than hard to overcome platforms trying to reach the end of the level as fast as you can. Well, in Sonic there were also the rings, and enemies you could kill. Runman, however, is mostly on the running like a golden retriever on crack side.

The controls are really easy. We can move left or right, jump and "zoom". Zooming lets us get rid of some of the obstacles; breaking through stone walls or sending some of the enemies into the air. It also makes Runman jump against the walls to help him reach some of the higher platforms, or simply to get faster through some of the corridors he'll find. But we'll need to use this ability with caution, as some enemies will explode if zoomed, and sometimes the player can just lose the control of the character after a jump, for example, finding themselves going backward for a moment, spending precious seconds turning back again.

Runman will also find some special items during his race, such as the not-so-easy-to-control hand-glider that's sometimes needed to go through the level, and sometimes just opens new ways to cross some of the zones.

There are more than 35 levels (that's what the webpage state, does that mean 36?) in 6 different zones. On each of these main zones we'll have to run through ~6 different levels ending up with a boss. Bosses are always big monsters/robots/stuff that can kill Runman by just touching him, so, we'll need to be particularly fast, and we won't get a second chance when we make a mistake.

The graphics are very colourful, and look as if they were made with crayons. At first you may feel like you're playing just a low-budget title, which you are, but after a few minutes you'll start to notice those small things that make them perfect. Get through that checkpoint near the end of the level getting a good record and the mountains in the background will smile. Pure madness.

Some of the games I've reviewed so far might have been actually good, others might have deserved at least to be taken a look. This one is really brilliant and worth a try, even if my review didn't convince you. You can get it for free from the official website, although you better donate some pence to the authors, unless you prefer the dirty feeling of guilt, you pervert.

And, just because I don't seem to have the skills to record an actual game footage video myself (as I wanted and tried to), here's the official trailer.

Now, play it! You know you want to!

Dungeon, a mini-LD entry

By volsung on November 18, 2009 1:53 PM

Just to continue speaking about Ludum Dare, for those who thought it couldn't be more awesome, there are also mini-LD competitions. Right now they are hosting the #14, "Comedy and Tragedy" themed.

Among the games that are appearing, there's one that made it to the list quite quickly (the first, in fact) and basically just appealed to that dark place in my brain that forces me to play games with dungeons in them, write blogs called Dungeoner, and that probably is the cause of some of some of my mental disorders.

I'm talking about Dungeon (best name ever), a game made by Arthur 'Mr. Podunkian' Lee and Cactus Squid a pair of indie developers, made of pure bananas. The game is hard as hell, but funny as... as hell, too.

In this game we'll play as a stick-man that needs to solve a mystery. Who killed the king?

Almost impossible jumps, enemies moving fast, pointy traps reaching just up to your feet, a repetitive 8bit tune will keep you playing for hours while you discover the plot slowly (on that blue line you can see in the image above). And by "the plot" I mean "some random stuff", but, well, we never played Mario Bros. because of the story, did we?

If you want to check the game (and you do!), check its entry for the mini-LD #14 contest.

Edit: forgot to mention the obscure story behind the game. Maybe you already noticed it. If not, or if you just want to check... read through this thread at TIGSource...

Ludum Dare #16 date decided: 11th-13th December

By volsung on November 18, 2009 1:17 PM

As you can see, now published on Ludum Dare's main page, the next Ludum Dare competition will finally take place on the second weekend of December, from the 11th to the 13th.

Ludum Dare is one of the most awesome competitions around; contestants have only three days to develop an entire videogame of a certain theme, which in this case is still to be decided (you can already see the suggestions here). The themes are always somehow general and quite open, such as "caverns" or "pirates". The previous edition had 144 projects in.

The games must be open source, and all the content for them must be done during those 3 days. What does this mean? Graphics won't be what make the game better, but the actual mechanics. Most of the games are, of course, quite short, but still use amazing ideas that could be used afterwards.

And hell, anyway, most of the games presented contain pure 8bit fun at its best.

Left 4 Dead finally releasing on NES!

By volsung on November 17, 2009 11:15 AM

Valve finally saw the big market possibilities the NES players bring, and is porting one of their biggest best-sellers to the grey beast:

OK, now the serious 2009 news. What you've just seen is PixelForce's Left4Dead de-make, and, of course, it's for PC. It will be released as freeware during this next year, featuring the awesome gameplay you just saw (and only 16 colours!) through the 5 main campaigns of the original game, just, re-made.

I'd like to point you to some webpage where you could find more information, but apparently, Eric Ruth (the author of this piece of awesome) hasn't worked on that yet.

I can't wait to test it!

You can't beat the players

By volsung on November 16, 2009 3:40 PM

So, Modern Warfare II is basically sweeping all the sales charts, especially in the UK, even without dedicated servers... oh, wait! Yes, after only a couple of days since the game was released, we already have this:

Castlevania remake as Half Life mod

By volsung on November 16, 2009 2:06 PM

I'll start by saying that I love "metroidvania" style games; being some sort of dungeon crawling experiences, normally there are also action, platforming and character development components (initially only in the Metroid series, but since Symphony of the Night every Castlevania has that too) they often satisfy many of the aspects I enjoy the most in videogames.

So, when I saw the following video, I could not feel but nostalgia and pure admiration:

Half-Lifevania, it's called, and has been done by the same people who created Super Half-Life Bros, the same style of mod, but, at least in my honest opinion, much less awesome.

And now, the original NES version of the same footage:

AI War - First expansion getting close and looking good

By volsung on November 15, 2009 1:01 PM

Not so long ago I wrote a small review about AI War (by the way, Hello mom! I'm on TV!), the awesome indie space RTS. Today I found that the first expansion is already on the horizon, and hell, is it looking damn good.

As a summary of what we can expect from the new content pack, called "The Zenith Remnant" I'll just quote Arcen Games' official website:

* 80 to 100 new ships, including:

* At least 12 new ship classes with a variety of abilities.

* At least 6 massive "Golem" ships.

* At least 5 new "capturables" other than Golems.

* Several new ships for allowing players expanded ways to control fleets.

* At least 4 new map styles.

* At least 12 new AI Types.

* A new, neutral minor faction in the galaxy: the Zenith Aliens (NPCs).

* 30-40 minutes of new in-game music tracks.

* At least two universal new AI ship subsystems (like Astro Trains).

So, it's quite massive. There are already screenshots of some of the new ships, and they look superb! For example, here's the new "Raid engine":

Pretty impressive, huh? But the update doesn't consist only in "bigger and better looking ships". Most of them actually belong to brand new ship classes, with new mechanics that will certainly have a huge impact in the gameplay.

For example, the new Sentinel Frigates will have sniper-like weapons, but will lose effectiveness if there're more than two in the same planet. The Cloaker Starship will not only cloak itself, but also all the smaller ships around it, allowing new stealth combat tactics to be developed. And we also have the "Golem" class ships, that will inflict tons of damage and have a lot of hitpoints, but will hurt themselves each time they shoot and will also increase the AI progress bar dramatically (so, we'll have to use them with caution!).

Two of the new types of galaxy maps are already out, too, called "tree" and "spokes", with more than two billion (with nine zeroes) possible combinations each. Possibilities are endless.

There's a pre-release version of the expansion featuring lots of content already (kind of like a development version, Beta thing), which you can download from Arcen Games' website if you want to start testing the new stuff already and giving your feedback.

Fallout Online screenshots?

By volsung on November 14, 2009 9:51 PM

That's what Polygamia.pl states. Apparently the Polish website has got some of the screenshots from "Project V13", the codename for the MMO Interplay seems to be developing, based on the Fallout universe.

The images show the early stages of game development, but already have that special feeling.

If you want to see all of them, check this link.

Insane weekend

By volsung on November 14, 2009 2:52 PM

I wanted to post this for a couple of days, but kept forgetting. Not any more!

First, I'd like to speak a bit about Good Old Games, an awesome website that sells what its title suggests, games, mostly from the previous century, prepared to run in modern machines and Windows OS (using different emulation systems). Games never contain any DRM software, are cheap, sold in dollars (even if you buy them from EU), come with extra goodies (soundtracks, PDF manuals, comics, avatars...) and have good download speed.

Games cost from ~$5 to ~$10, and they have offers every week. Plus, they don't pick titles randomly, but mostly all those legendary games from the 90s some of us can't really think about videogames without taking them in consideration.

What can I say, it has become one of the shops I take a look at almost weekly. And this week is good. Really good. Why? Sanitarium.

Image via Wikipedia

Sanitarium is an awesome adventure, even considering its two major cons: controls and crash-to-desktop bugs. We'll incarnate a man who has lost his memory after a car accident that also disfigured his face.

Each chapter will guide us through a nightmare-ish short story, where reality and fantasy blend in a way it's hard to know if something is really happening or it's just a delirium of our insane avatar.

Cannot really say much about the story of the game, because of the possible spoilers, except that in general lines, is one of the most mature-oriented adventure games made during the 20th century. If you have't play it, you lost something -really- good.

Most critics at the time, however, bashed the game for the problems it had (it takes a while even to get used on how the main character moves, and the voice acting isn't the best one around), but time passed and the game became some sort of cult-title. Just because of its awesomeness. In fact, there was a project on developing a new multiplatform-engine just to be able to run the game in modern machines "natively", called Asylum Engine, sadly stopped now.

If you want to give it a chance I suggest you to save often especially because of the bugs, as you cannot actually die in-game. Which doesn't mean it's going to be easy at all!

Terrordrome - You probably dreamed about it

By volsung on November 13, 2009 1:04 PM

I was just randomly checking my RSS feeds today when I found something I wasn't really expecting at YOCREOQUENO, an awesome entry about I game I had no idea about, Terrordrome.

Terrordrome: Rise of the boogey men, is the answer to those questions we always made ourselves, and that somehow had driven our lives. Who's stronger, Freddy Krueger from A Nightmare on Elm Street or Pinhead from Hellraiser?

The game is being developed by a small Spanish Indie company called Huracan Project (or Hur4c4n Project). It started as a M.U.G.E.N. mod and later became something serious, using Fighter Maker 2D as middleware. What once was a horrible looking conversion is now a proper, good-looking fighting game. Just check the following video:

Isn't it awesome? If you want to know more, just check the official website. There's a demo available too, featuring 7 characters!

EDIT: Added a video showing a normal fight, with better quality:

Experience the Darkside with Resident Evil's new trailer

By volsung on November 13, 2009 10:37 AM

I haven't been much into game consoles for a while (my last non-portable machine was a PS2, although I had lots of consoles before), and if I had to choose one now, it wouldn't be the Wii, that's for sure.

Still, I can recognize something good when I see it. I don't know if the new Resident Evil game for the Wii will be the case, but I can tell you for sure that their new trailer will, at least, give lots to talk about.

You can only watch it on GameTrailers, and you'll soon know why.

Watch the video >>

So, you want to be an Adventure game designer?

By volsung on November 12, 2009 12:09 PM

Then you probably know who Al Lowe is, one of the greatest and surely the most pervy of the point-and-click adventure designers. Al was the man behind Leisure Suit Larry, at least while the titles were made of awesome and not of awkward (yes, I'm talking about you, Box Office Bust).

For those who haven't been on the Internet during the latest 10 years, this man has a personal website, known Al Lowe's Humor Site. Why? Because he likes to share jokes and funny stuff (which, btw, have been released as an iPhone app called CyberJoke 3000). The site is full of great stuff, you should check it out even if it's just for the laughs (I find his BOB section quite hilarious).

What I would like to point out for those who are more interested in the design side of everything, is that the original design documents for some of the adventures he directed can also be found on the website (plus Leisure Suit Larry's Casino). So, if you asked yourself at any point how a professional document is made, you're lucky. These ones are pure gold value.

Alganon owns the most awesome UI ever

By volsung on November 12, 2009 10:54 AM

It seems that somebody didn't have enough time to develop a full interface for their game, so tried to get some ideas from more successful titles...

Read the whole story @eldergoth.

Predators won't speak German

By volsung on November 12, 2009 10:10 AM

Everybody knows that Germans kill people because of the violence in videogames, and that's why they have these awesome censorship that prevents stuff like red blood appearing on screen, or any kind of excessively gory scenes. No problem showing these scenes on movies, tho.

Anyway, I'm not going to debate whether this censorship is positive, or even reasonable, as there have been already enough discussions on the interwebz about that. I'm just going to show you the result:

The new Aliens vs Predator game won't be published in Germany, at all. Does this mean that German players won't be able to play the game? Not at all, it just means that they'll import it from Austria and play the full, uncensored game, (although not localized into German) with all the gore elements (including the blood), the Aliens vs Predator universe has.

Yet, of course, this means that some people will just not buy the game at all, but considering the expenses Sega is saving by not re-working their game for the German market, I think the result will be quite favorable for them.

Anyway, get prepared for a killing spree in Germany, now that they'll be forced to be exposed to internal fluids they didn't know about.

Don't look back, Orpheus

By volsung on November 11, 2009 11:21 PM

Orpheo was an important figure in the Greek mythology, and in the Western culture as a whole, as he served as inspiration for poetry and music during most of the classical period, and as a consequence, impregnated some of the foundations of these arts as we know them today.

For those who don't know his legend, I'll get directly to the most memorable part of his life. Orpheus was a poet, music, and singer. And he was damn good, enought to be married to Eurydice (or Agriope), a nymph and daughter of Apollo. Due to some explicit circumstances I won't relate here, she had to flee from a satyr named Aristaeus (who also happened to be a son of Apollo), and unfortunately stepped on a venomous snake that didn't like it, biting her to death.

Orpheus went quite emo about this, and started playing songs so sad even nymphs and gods wept. To make him stop, they suggested him to go to the Underworld and just take Eurydice back. There are a couple of different versions, but the guy did travel to the Underworld. I like the version where he made Cerberus, the three-headed guardian of Hades (meaning the place, not the god), sleep by singing him a song. After that, he managed to get to Eurydice.

Now, the funny part, is that Orpheus was able to take her out of the Underworld, only if he didn't look back until they were in the more-appropriate-for-the-living "real" world. He almost managed to do it, but right at the gates, Orpheus just failed at holding his hormones and looked back. Eurydice vanished then, this time forever.

A sad story we can now change in "Don't look back", a short flash game cool as ice developed by Distractionware. We'll play the part of a modern version of Orpheus, armed with a gun, fighting our path to Eurydice and bailing out of hell afterwards. But remember, once you get to her... you shall not look back.

If you failed to find the link to the game inside the text, just click on the image above.

FPS mockup

By volsung on November 10, 2009 2:26 PM

Just a small FPS HUD design for a co-op terminator game (kinda like Space Hulk) I made some time ago. The scene itself was done by Alberto Bello Foglia, who I am not related to at all, but Google came with his images when I was searching for Spaceship interiors.

Click on the image for full size. The HUD design is far from finished, but shows the main stuff it should should; Our current status, our alien radar/sonar/detector and the status of our fellow comrades. No "current ammo", as that should appear directly on the weapon, if anywhere.

I like them hardcore.

Thriller 8bit tribute

By volsung on November 10, 2009 10:23 AM

Just what the title says:

Awesomesausage!

EA announces layoffs and spends $300 million on a Facebook game developer

By volsung on November 10, 2009 9:55 AM

Image representing Electronic Arts as depicted...

Image via CrunchBase

EA just bought Playfish, one of the biggest Facebook game developers, but there're at least 4 divisions of the company from Redwood City that won't be celebrating it: Tiburon, Redwood Shores (now renamed to Visceral Studios), Black Box (EA Canada), and Mythic Entertainment. Near to 1500 people have been or will be laid off as a result of the latest movements.

EA announced losses for Q2 this year in their earnings report, and not a bag of pence, but $391 million (which is even worse than the $310 million they lost the previous year). Their sales also dropped around $106 million during this same period. The company restructuring is supposed to save them ~$100 million per year, even if it's going to cost them now about the same.

This is particularly bad news for Mythic and Warhammer Online fans. 80 people will leave the company by the end of the restructuring, meaning 40% of the company and 90% of the content developers, thus, putting the game into "maintenance mode". No new content, just bugfixing, and not much. I guess we won't see the Dark Age of Camelot revamp anytime soon, either.

EDIT: The information about Mythic's layoffs seems to be quite inaccurate, originated from Katherine Pitta's Twitter. According to this, and I quote literally, "Kotaku, I'm not an ex staffer .... well I guess I kinda am if a volunteer TL counts as a staffer. :P" and "I just know people who worked at/used to work at Mythicabout 15 hours ago from web".

So, until there's an official statement from Mythic (if there is), these numbers are just hypothetical and not verified. This also means "Warhammer Online's maintenance mode" is just an idea for now, and, considering the latest patches and updates the game has had, not something to give too much credibility to, either.

EDIT (again): MMORPG's Garrett's post about Mythic's layoffs.

Bild Spiele accuses Ubisoft

By volsung on November 9, 2009 1:50 PM

The German videogame magazine Computer Bild Spiele has accused Ubisoft of blackmail. According to the magazine, Ubisoft told them that they would only send an evaluation copy if they could get at least an "A" score (sehr gut). You can check the web preview of the next issue here (in German of course).

This is the interesting part:

"Viel hat sich geÃ¤ndert, eines ist gleich geblieben: Wir testen hart, aber fair. UnabhÃ¤ngige Testurteile opfern wir nicht auf dem Altar der AktualitÃ¤t. Das gilt auch fÃ¼r âAssassin's Creed 2". Der Hersteller verlangte die Notengarantie âsehr gut", sonst gibt es vorab kein Testmuster. Deshalb kommt der Test erst in der nÃ¤chsten Ausgabe - gerne mit âsehr gut", aber nur, wenn es das Spiel verdient."

This basically means that they are not doing it unless it's the actual score they think the game deserves.

It's a shame that Ubisoft is resorting to this methods, considering that the game, at least until now, has been getting some very good previews. A clear example of marketing gone totally wrong.

Freebies - The Marionette

By volsung on November 9, 2009 12:09 PM

Because some people need more than dungeon crawling to live, I'm bringing you another 100% awesomesauce made free game. This time, it's an adventure: The Marionette, by Team Effigy.

Quote:

"You play as Martin, a struggling sculptor. One evening he finds in his mail a strange white envelope, unmarked except for the number "1011" written in the top right corner. Inside is a photograph of a room with ropes hanging from the ceiling. He has barely registered that fact when he is struck unconscious, and later wakes to find himself in completely unfamiliar surroundings, with only a house nearby to offer any hope of help..."

The game was created using Adventure Game Studio and features a first person camera (though static) with some great art and quite a complex plot that plays some sensitive themes.

You can get the game from Team Effigy's webpage. Being a ~90MB download, free, and awesome, you probably should, if you like adventures.

Note: The game also features a couple of bugs that can basically freeze the action, so, save often.

Freebies - In a Dungeon

By volsung on November 9, 2009 11:26 AM

Maybe you weren't aware, but this blog is called Dungeoner because of my not-so-secret love for dungeon crawling games. So, when I see a game that contains a tiled stone ground, traps and closed rooms, I need to play it, and if it's good enough, recommend it.

That's why I started this blog, more or less; so people would stop telling me to shut up because they didn't care. Also, to use it as a pick up line. "Hey babe, do you want to check my blog?".

It never worked.

So, I was reading through my feeds this morning and came to find this sweet, small, short, free game: "In a Dungeon" (at the moment it's on the top of the page, but it may go down in the future). In this adventure, we'll guide our avatar through 21 rooms getting the crystals we need to open the exit from a dungeon filled with traps that will test our skill with the keyboard. The controls are a bit slippery, so, it won't be an easy journey.

"In a Dungeon" was developed by Alexitrón, using GameMaker as an entry for Game Jolt's Minimal Competition.

You can play it directly from your browser here, or download it from here.

Let the game begin!

SavyGamer.co.uk, spend your pence wisely

By volsung on November 9, 2009 11:11 AM

Maybe some of you still don't know about this website, SavyGamer, as I just found it a couple of days ago. To explain it briefly, on that page we'll get a list of many (if not all) the bargains, bundle packs and special offers, when it comes to videogames.

The website is focused on British players (thus the use of pounds), but many of the offers are available to normal people too.

Because every penny counts!

Dungeoner@Twitter

By volsung on November 9, 2009 1:53 AM

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, Dungeoner is now also followable on Twitter. I culdn't manage to avoid the captivating chant of the microblogging siren. Considered many options, but just by looking at the numbers, it seems that Twitter should be the place to start. Plus, I'm Facebookphobic.

If you're one of those using the social site with the blue bird, you'll be able to follow Dungeoner on http://twitter.com/dungeoner. Of course, if you want to contact me through that, you're more than welcome*.

*But please, don't try to sell me more Herbal Viagra pills. KKTHXBBQ.

New blog on the blogroll

By volsung on November 8, 2009 7:42 PM

Image via Wikipedia

Yes, that "interesting reads" on the right column is a poorly disguised blogroll. I just changed it a bit to add a brand new blog joining the Internet cockfight, Drowned Dreams.

If you have some free time (which you do, otherwise you won't be reading this), you should take a look, I promise you won't regret it.

WoW paid Pets more expensive than monthly Subscription

By volsung on November 7, 2009 8:16 PM

Blizzard just found the perfect mixture for revenew; while monthly subscriptions provide a solid basis for game income, micropayments don't have the problem of being limited to a certain amount each month, so powerusers can spend as much as they want, and companies make sure players will want to spend it. See Perfect World for a great example of macro-payments.

Blizzard decided to go with both. Clever, huh?

Now it's possible to buy vanity pets directly for real money, pets you cannot obtain by just playing the game. Of course, those pets do nothing by themselves, apart for the bragging, but they are needed for certain achievements. That's enough for many players, anyway.

It wouldn't be so bad if the pets were cheap, but it's not the case: $10 for the US version; the UK version is the funniest scenario, though, and the pets are sold for £9 (about $15). Being more expensive than the US counterpart is nothing unusual, but the monthly subscription fee is just £8.99. So, in this particular case, any pet is worth more than one month of gameplay.

Isn't it fantastic?

Modern Warfare II - Keep it failing

By volsung on November 6, 2009 12:14 PM

Infinity Ward has been doing great lately with Modern Warfare II. This blog is quite new, and it already has 3 entries about the game. It would have been nice if at least one of them was positive.

But they wanted to appear at least once more in Dungeoner (that's what I like to think), so, they decided that their infamous match-making system should also use one particular digital retailer's tools, in this case Steam. Guess what did the other digital retailers said about this?

Exactly! Today, Kotaku announced how Direct2Drive, Impulse and Gamersgate basically showed their middle finger to Infinity Ward for using Steamworks in their game. Thus, to put it clear, they're not selling Modern Warfare II. Definitely the game isn't going to storm the PC market as some people might have thought.

I'm looking forward to the horrible design and/or marketing ideas Modern Warfare will bring tomorrow.

Downfall - Sick, hardcore stuff

By volsung on November 6, 2009 10:35 AM

I was reading through some articles at Just Adventure and found an interesting Top 10 about Horror-themed adventure games. While I knew most of the titles, I found, placed the third, a game which I never had heard about, Downfall, by Harvester Games.

The game seems to be a classic point-and-click adventure with some very special graphics, hand-drawn style, but of course, the weird way, as if the artist was a total psycho. Considering that the author, Remigiusz Michalski, wrote the script while working as a nighttime care assistant at a mental health institution, it might as well be the case.

The story is as hardcore as an axe shower. If you ever have the guts to play this game, be prepared to see some of the most gruesome scenes ever portrayed in a videogame. Gore, nudity, nudity PLUS gore, violence, and a disturbing, wicked storyline that will be the source for the nightmares you'll have the rest of your life.

If you think you can deal with it, check the video below. I must warn you, however, that it does contain ingame footage, so don't watch it right after lunch.

If you're a weirdo and want to know more about this game, check the Harvester Indie Games website, but don't tell them I sent you. You may also purchase the game there for only $9.99.

Winter Ludum Dare incoming!

By volsung on November 5, 2009 5:41 PM

Ludum Dare is one of the most awesome initiatives on the Internet. For those who don't know, it's some kind of competition where contestants must submit videogames made around certain theme in one weekend. Yes, the whole development process must be reduced to three days, so, game mechanics and "fun" are way more important than "graphics", as there's not enough time to create tons of high quality 3d assets.

The themes are always something very "open"; for example, the previous one was "caves", which allowed all kind of games, from dungeon crawling to puzzles with stones. 144 projects were submitted, and many of them actually rocked (pun intended...?).

So, the staff from Ludum Dare is preparing a new competition for this December. The date is not set in stone yet, but they are aiming for the 13th to the 16th. You can check the details in this post.

Epic launches Unreal Development Kit for Free

By volsung on November 5, 2009 3:22 PM

Image via Wikipedia

Epic Games has just released a development kit based on Unreal Engine 3 called "Unreal Development Kit", totally free for education and non-commercial projects. Isn't it awesome?

Unreal Engine 3 is one of the best engines around, if not the best one, and has been used in lots of games apart from Unreal Tournament 3, such as Gears of War, Batman - Arkham Asylum, or Leisure Suit Larry Box Office Bust (I know it's horrible, but that's not because of the game engine), just to name a few.

Modern Warfare II - 9vs9 capped gameplay on PC

By volsung on November 5, 2009 1:49 PM

Modern Warfare II is already a bit infamous in this blog ([1] and [2]), but at Infinity Ward they seem to be making great efforts to fail. Now, they've announced that the PC version will only allow up to 9vs9 multiplayer games, mostly because of how the server stuff works. Remember, it won't have dedicated servers.

At Dice, the developer team for the Battlefield series, now about to release Bad Company 2, people must be rubbing their hands together each time there's an announcement regarding Modern Warfare II, as their playerbase, at least on PC, is slowly moving towards what seems to be a greene fields. The proof is in eating the pudding:

Review - Spelunky, by Derek Yu

By volsung on November 5, 2009 10:51 AM

Image via Wikipedia

Maybe there's somebody out there that still doesn't know Derek Yu. Let's put it simple, this guy rocks and has balls of steel. He's the man behind Aquaria, and one of the greatest pixel artists around, and published one of the most linked tutorials on this subject. When I knew Spelunky, his latest work, was released, I could barely hold my sudden need to download it and play, as, this time, the game is free. And man, what a sweet, sweet experience.

We're facing one of the hardest adventure-ish platformers ever created. Featuring a random cave generator, this retro-style piece of fine art will put us under the skin of a treasure hunter and damsels in distress rescuer in an obviously Rogue influenced adventure.

Dying is easy, there're no savepoints, and there's no way you can learn which are the dangers found in the different levels, as they will change everytime you play. Some old-school frustration for old-school gamers you can download directly from its website (Xbox Live Arcade version soon to come) or from the downloads section on this blog.

IGF 2010 incoming!

By volsung on November 4, 2009 3:01 PM

The Independent Games Festival at San Francisco will be taking part from the 9th to the 13th of October. 306 games have been presented so far (and, as far as I know, the registrations have been closed already). If you have time and want to check some of the most amazing titles you'll be able to find in the indie market this next year, take a look at the list. Some of them have already been published this year, and apart from commercial games, you can find some great freeware sweetness.

I've been diving through it for a while, and found some really nice looking titles; I'm just showing a couple of them.

Cephalopods Co-op Cottage Defense

www.spookysquid.com
A totally retro looking co-op game with some really interesting mechanics, where players need to take turns in several actions to survive the hordes of killer octopi.

ASCIIp0rtal

cymonsgames.com
What can I say? It's Portal, in ASCII. Pure madness.

Aztaka

www.aztaka.com
A very nice looking, already released, side-scrolling RPG based on the South American mythology.

Mon&bot

IMWILL Games
An awesome looking physics based platformer.

Seriously, just take a look at the list, it's made of 100% pure win.

GameStop goes digital provider

By volsung on November 4, 2009 2:52 PM

Just read in Gamasutra that GameStop, one of the biggest game retailers around, has decided to stop providing the contents digitally, a la Steam/Impulse/Direct2Drive. It seems that the information age is finally coming and the amount of people who just buys their games as digital downloads forgetting about boxes and often lame manuals (which also come in pdf files, anyway), is just getting higher and higher.

Great news, I guess, especially for those who don't like Steam and weren't born in the US (I hate you, Direct2Drive).

Indie freebie pick of the day

By volsung on November 4, 2009 12:33 PM

Just added "Home" to the downloads section. Can't say much about this game developed by Increpare Games without spoiling it; I'll just state that it's quite surprising, and emotive.

Only a couple of minutes of gameplay, but it's a less than 1MB download, anyway.

Gratuitous Space Battles - Game released, demo available

By volsung on November 4, 2009 11:30 AM

I'm so much looking forward to this game, released today. Hope I can try it soon!

Brought to you by Positech Games, this strategy game just forgets about building bases, gathering resources and preparing huge defensive walls and goes directly to the interesting part; epic space battles full of laser beams and huge starships. I'll probably be posting a review soon ;)

Worth taking a look, trust me. If you want to know more, consider visiting the official webpage. You can also download the demo version already!

Testosterone and competitive gameplay

By volsung on November 4, 2009 10:40 AM

Just found an interesting read in Lost Garden about how different forms of competitive play may affect the different types of players.

"Beating strangers is a guaranteed source of entertainment. If you want a highly reliable, inexpensive means of making your game fun, toss some strangers together in a game of skill (it barely matters what sort). To boost the emotion even further, place the winners on a high status pedestal. Voila, instant fun, at least for the winners."

Read the full article in Lost Garden.

Trauma, by Krystian Majewski

By volsung on November 4, 2009 9:16 AM

I like weird games, and "Trauma" surely looks like some really wicked stuff I could enjoy. In this point and click adventure we will play a young woman who has been in a car accident and is now recovering in the hospital, while having dreams about her past life.

Apart from the kind of different graphics to what the genre is used to, the gameplay will also be "special", requiring the use of mouse gestures (like those ones from Opera).

The game will be released near the end of this year. Probably a great game suggestion for a cold, rainy, winter night.

A new Deus Ex?

By volsung on November 3, 2009 4:16 PM

Warren Spector is the mastermind behind Deus Ex, recognized by many as one of the greatest titles of the 20th Century, for a reason (mainly because it was a damn good game). Invisible War, the sequel, didn't have that much acceptance ratio, as people had tendency to compare it with it's predecessor. I still liked it, and I remember it as some graphical prodigy for its age.

Well, time went on, a movie was announced (currently "under development"), and our friend Spector lost his rights to Eidos (which were the ones publishing Deus Ex before). Square would be the one developing Deus Ex 3, and, I can tell you already it's going to be lame, even compared to the second one (and it will be the prequel of the first). So, Spector went to try some luck with Disney (I'm not kidding) and it seems that, after working in Epic Mickey (I still can't believe that) he's now ready to work in the spiritual successor for one of the greatest Cyberpunk series ever made.

You can read the full (and short) interview where he speaks about all this stuff in Gamasutra. I'm already waiting for the new title... and I hope it has nothing to do with the Duck Tales game Spector was also involved in!

Infinity Ward fails again

By volsung on November 3, 2009 3:55 PM

The guys behind Modern Warfare 2 seems to be having some bad luck these past weeks [1], [2]. Now, they have been forced to remove one of their viral marketing campaigns because of some (over?)reaction from some sectors of the gaming community. Apparently, using "F.A.G.S." (Fight Against Grenade Spam) to refer to those complaining about grenadespammers isn't now an idea as good as it looked when writing the script.

Of course, in the days of political correction, that's not acceptable, especially considering it comes from the official source. Or that's what these players are complaining about.

Personally, I think it's more like an "in-character" joke, considering the genre of the game, just follows some of the "rules" in the rest of the media based on modern wars; calling somebody a "fag" obviously can be considered homophobic, as it's used to "assign" certain culturally adopted clichés to the "insulted" person, while often it has nothing to do with actual homosexual acts.

Overreaction? Maybe. Bad timing for Infinity Ward? Hell, yes!

Shattered Horizon - A new FPS paradigm?

By volsung on November 3, 2009 11:04 AM

Video Games | Shattered Horizon | Escalation Gameplay HD

XBox 360 | Playstation 3 | Nintendo Wii

This video, brought to you by GameTrailers, shows some actual game footage of a game I'm currently looking forward to play, Shattered Horizon, the new creation from Futuremark (developers of the infamous 3dMark benchmarks).

This DX10-only first person shooter is set on Space, in a way no other game on it's genre has really dived into; trying to achieve some real physics simulation on a 0 gravity environment.

I hope I'll be able to bring you a short review soon! Until then, enjoy the video!

Domain name change

By volsung on November 2, 2009 9:14 PM

So... no more "vLog", but something a tad easier to remember, and a bit less confusing (as it might have sounded like as if the blog was about videos, something I didn't consider when I created it).

You might need to update your RSS feeds, if there's anybody actually following the blog (I mean, apart from myself :P).

The blog header and favicon will be changed soon to show the new name, which, by the way, is "Dungeoner!", only because of my not so secret love for roguelikes.

Review - Torchlight

By volsung on November 1, 2009 7:06 PM

I must begin this review explaining that I bought Torchlight by mistake. I purchased it almost as soon as it was made available for preorder in Steam, and then totally forgot about it for a couple of weeks. When the game was about to come out, I was discussing with a friend of mine whether the game was going to be our next exciting cooperative online experience, when he pointed out that the game had no multiplayer, at all. That's correct, it's not that the game doesn't have a system similar to Battle.net with remotely stored characters, but it even lacks the most basic LAN features. I decided not to buy the game at that point. Luckily for me, I already had, and it was a somewhat pleasant surprise to find it waiting to be installed in my games list.

"OK", I said, "let's give it a look, I must come out with a reason to explain why I bought it". What did I find? Exactly what I expected (and the developers, Runic Studios, promised). A Diablo clone. And hell, are they good cloning. They even have Matt Uelman, the same composer for the Diablo series! If you play the game with your eyes closed, you won't be able to tell the difference at some points.

The game features a random content generator, something very Diablo-ish (roguelike, in fact), which can bring us infinite fun. In fact, one of the most awesome features that Torchlight has and the original Diablo didn't, is the "new" random maps you can open inside the game, kind like instances in an MMO. You buy a scroll that opens a door to a randomly generated zone with it's bosses and loot, and it's virtually destroyed as soon as you leave it. Unlimited (maybe a bit repetitive at some point) adventures!

Another difference, is the pet. Players are able to chose between a dog and a cat (yeh...) which will act as a guardian and second inventory (they can carry as much stuff as we do). Unlike diablo, all the stuff will occupy the same space in our inventory, this is, one little square, no matter if it's a pair of nail clippers or a full plate armour. I disapprove that.

Another "difference" is that you can fish. Yes. In the dungeons. And you can feed your pet with those fishes, transforming him into all sort of different beasts. I'm being serious! You can feed your cat with a spider-fish, and it will become a spider, spitting venom and getting better resistance against poison. An interesting idea, although, why denying it, weird.

I think the best way to show you the game, is to actually show you the game. This video contains some low level footage I recorded myself; a random dungeon, level 10-20. Probably more 10 than 20. Beware, I was playing a completely normal game, so, at some points, I may just stop and stare frowning at the attributes of some weapon that just dropped.

If the game had -any- multiplayer, it would have been awesome. But without the brag part, it has nothing to do, I'm afraid, to compete with even Diablo II. It's a pity, as the developers have a couple of with articles at Gamasutra, and the game definitely knows where it wants to go.

Microsoft bans modded Xbox consoles massively, again

By volsung on November 1, 2009 3:58 PM

The Redmond Giant has just delivered another blow to all those players who thought modding their consoles was a great idea. Nothing new under the sky; players were aware that it was something illegal to do, and, let's face it, most of those game consoles were just modded to be able to play downloaded ISO files instead of paying for the actual games. I'm not going to talk about the reasons that could have brought some users to think this was the way to go (such as the price of the games, their quality or whatever) as there's probably lot of people who could argue about that a lot better than me. However, I'd like to point something about what Microsoft has officially stated:

"We have taken action against a small percentage of consoles that have been modified to play pirated game discs [...] In line with our commitment to combat piracy and support safer and more secure gameplay for the more than 20 million members of our Xbox LIVE community, we are suspending these modded consoles from Xbox LIVE."

I mean, WTF? "Safer and more secure gameplay"? I can understand the part about fighting piracy, but what kind of improvement does this action bring to the rest of the community, if anything?

"All consumers should know that piracy is illegal and that modifying their Xbox 360 console to play pirated discs violates the Xbox LIVE terms of use, will void their warranty and result in a ban from Xbox LIVE [...] The health of the video game business depends on customers paying for the genuine products and services they receive from manufacturers, retailers, and the third parties that support them."

Those words, do, however, make sense. The most enjoyable part, as always, the reaction from the community (especially that part which was banned). If you have time, I strongly suggest you to read through some comments on the original news at IGN. Seriously.

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