Tag Archives: creator
Slime-san: Creator releases now on Steam
Slime-san: Creator the level editor releases for Linux, Mac and Windows via Steam. Thanks to developer team Fabraz and Headup, just surprise launched the stand-alone level creator. Which we did not expect at all.
Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty creator discusses growth and game budgets
Oddworld: New ‘n’ Tasty creator #LorneLanning shares some insight on how #capitalism encourages constant, exponential growth and massive game budgets with a Game Industry. Alternatively, #developers should cater to niche audiences, making games for smaller, dedicated communities.
“As craftsmen, ” Lanning said,”our opportunity lies in finding the niches where we know our audience, we focus on it, we listen to it, we respect it, we treat it with some grace.”
Garry Newman applauds Mojang sale to Microsoft
Microsoft bought Mojang yesterday—you may have heard something about that. You may also have heard grumblings from some corners of the #community that Minecraft #creator Markus “Notch” Persson “sold out” by taking the money and abandoning his game—and, by extension, his millions of adoring fans—to the fickle whims of of a corporate villain. But Garry Newman, the man behind indie darlings Garry’s Mod and Rust, says he’d do exactly the same thing if he could, and you probably would too.
Newman pointed out in a blog post that went up shortly after the Mojang deal was was confirmed that everything changes for an indie developer once he starts hiring people to work for him, because you’re suddenly responsible for a lot more people than just yourself. Citing the case of Blitz Game Studios, which shut down in September 2013, laying off 175 employees, and then effectively re-launched in November under a new name, he wrote, “Those are the guys you don’t want to be.”
“I am sure more than the top guys at Mojang became very financially rich due to this deal and that’s something that should be admired—not seen as a bad thing,” he continued. “Long story short, I’d have done the same thing. The money is enough to very much take care of all the staff. The game is in relatively safe hands. Mojang’s legacy is as a huge success story instead of a one hit wonder. Everyone wins. Can you seriously say you’d have done it differently?”
Reblogged from: pcgamer
Mark of the Old Ones is physics platformer and dynamic inverse kinematic gameplay
Mark of the Old Ones is a 2.5 dimensional Metroidvania physics platformer inspired by Metroid, #Zelda and the works of #HPLovecraft, combined with dynamic inverse kinematic gameplay.
In Mark of the Old Ones, players explore Namaset, a cavernous metropolis underneath a mountain built for Kraal, “a great and eternal being.” Players take on the role of the powerful Mogal to traverse the “shunned and long banished civilization” and “unwind the mistakes of eons past.”
Developer Hit the Sticks didn’t want MotOO to be “just another rope game,” so it developed an inverse kinematics system to give the character “real” tendrils controlled by analog sticks. Players control the tendrils from their tips, allowing the in-game character to “push off the floor like a jellyfish” and manipulate objects.
“Mogal was never touched by an artist. An artist never gave Mogal a model or a rig. An artist never animated Mogal,” creator Jordan Brock wrote. “100 percent of Mogal’s animation is done in real-time, based off of the input that YOU give to the analogue sticks. That means that you aren’t limited to walking, running, ducking, jumping, shooting (the typical animations/actions a character would be able to perform in a typical game). With no pre-baked animations, and everything under your control in real-time…you can do basically anything you could do with a pair of arms in real life.”
Mechanics include Magnetism, upgradable Boost that gives players a sharp vertical thrust and Chronition that slows time and lets players see further, shining “a bright light on the darkness of Namaset.”
“In Mark of the Old Ones, when you master the controls, you have an incredible amount of control over your character, I mean, you are the Olympic gymnast ninja edition of eldritch abominations,” Brock told Polygon.
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wh1sWk6DVLM?wmode=transparent]
Mark of the Old Ones is in development for Windows PC, Mac and Linux. Releasing the game on Steam is being considered and the team is “poised to jump onto Valve’s Steam Box.” It also has aspirations of launching on PS4 but can not confirm anything. At this stage, “hundreds of puzzles and obstacles” are already created for the game that require more testing and artwork.
Hit the Sticks launched a $46,000 Kickstarter campaign to fund the game’s remaining development, which currently stands at more than $34,000 with three days to go. The current crowdfunding drive is the second attempt at raising funds for the project, which created a new opportunity for the team to revisit the game’s design and make adjustments.
“Getting the first Kickstarter out there in MotOO’s early stage of development was beneficial because we got a lot of feedback that helped us redesign and rework parts of the game,” Brock wrote. “The new designs are tighter, more fun, and reduce the scope of the game. For example, the original main character of the game was a man named Thomas. Thomas was replaced with Mogal.
“As Mogal, the way you play the game (the core movement mechanics) remain exactly the same. The mythology and lore of the game remains exactly the same,” he added. “To accommodate this new character, the story was changed a bit, and the story is actually better now. Changing the character from Thomas to Mogal saved us months of work. Reducing scope means we have a shorter timeline, which saves money.”
Brock is confident that Hit the Sticks will achieve the current campaign’s goal but a back-up funding plan in the scenario the drive fails is not in place.
“Realistically, if we don’t make the goal, some of us will continue working on MotOO as much as we can in our spare time,” Brock wrote. “Some of us will have to take on other obligations to make ends meet. The game will take much longer to complete. The game will still get made…eventually, in some form or another, but it will definitely not be a proper offering to Kraal.”
'Depression Quest' Creator Zoe Quinn joins interesting indie 'Framed'
Loveshack Entertainment has bolstered the team building its highly praised and eagerly awaited #indie game Framed with the addition of Zoe (Depression Quest) Quinn as narrative designer.*
Although best-known for Depression Quest, a Twine game based around the narrative of a young person struggling to live a functional life while dealing with depression, Quinn has a prolific record of single-shot #games, including Crystal Crashers, a note-perfect parody of the in-app payment-driven matching game phenomenon, and the entirely unsafe for work quiz game Hitler or Lovecraft (trigger warnings for examples of racism, dubstep).
Framed, meanwhile, was one of the most interesting indie prospects previewed last year – an action-puzzler of sorts, based around a novel mechanic. The player moves “frames” of the narrative around, as if building a comic book or movie storyboard. Depending on the order of the frames, the hero either escapes his fate or succumbs. So, switching a panel in which his flight disturbs a bird with one in which a pursuer fires their pistol might change the outcome from a dead hero to a missed shot, as the shooter is now distracted by the fluttering of feathers.
The subject of considerable interest during previews last year, Framed has already collected accolades including an Excellence in Design win at China’s Indie Games Festival, and selections for the curated Indie sections at the Eurogamer Expo in Britain, PAX East in Boston and South by SouthWest in Austin, Texas.
Although impressed at the originality of the approach when I saw it at the Eurogamer Expo Indie Arcade, I was curious at the time as to how long the conceit would hold the player’s interest. Bringing Quinn, who is notable for an ability to inject emotion into simple gaming structures, in as narrative designer reads as a move towards a more involved narrative experience.
Contacted for comment, Joshua Boggs of Framed‘s creator Loveshack Entertainment said:
I sought out Zoe’s skills and expertise because we’re trying to do something very ambitious with the narrative treatment for FRAMED. It became fairly apparent early on in our discussions that Zoe really understood what we were trying to achieve, and that we had a great opportunity to do something completely new in the delivery of the narrative. I respect Zoe immensely, and we’re both super excited to work together to guide and flesh out the finer details of the narrative.
Although lead writers are often involved earlier in the process, especially when already in-house, there is certainly precedent for a narrative designer to be added to the team after the core mechanics and aesthetics of a game have already been set. Narrative design (and variations such as Rhianna Pratchett’s humorous self-description as “narrative paramedic“) often includes, but is not limited to, traditional scriptwriting (thatgamecompany’s Journey, for example, was a triumph of narrative design but had no meaningful script at all), and will generally include consultation the emotional and narrative elements of level and character design, graphics and pacing.
On a business level, strong narrative design, whether assigned to a dedicated staff member or not, can have a considerable impact on the success or failure of a game, particularly in the case of independent games where budgets for assets and mechanical enhancements may be limited.
Framed has no official release date, but is planned as an iOS launch initially, with PC, Mac and Linux versions to follow.
* Obviously, the headline would have worked better if Christine Love, creator of Analogue: A Hate Story, had been hired by LoveShack Entertainment etc.
Except then there would have been no “Quest” part.
OK, so if Christine Love had joined the team making Depression Quest. But why would that even happen? Depression Quest has already been made.
I suppose that one could build Depression Quest in Ren’Py, and make it a visual novel, in which case Christine Love would be an amazing hire. But would that actually make it better, or just different? And how about the Steam release? Is it cheating to get a Twine game approved for release on Steam through Greenlight, and then release an entirely revised version of that game built with a different tool? Not that this matters, obviously, because this is a hypothetical. Although it would be pretty cool, actually…
And just think how angry some people would be made by a visual novel of Depression Quest! There’d be another story in that! Sometimes, better worlds seem so tantalizingly close…
Reblogged from: forbes.com
