7-Player Bomberman on the Sega Saturn
on
Time-Tested Gaming
·
· Score: 1
Best party game, ever. Bombs and dinosaurs. Doesn't get much better than that.
They also ran the multiplayer game in some weird high-res mode that I've never seen used in another Saturn game, that actually allowed for a map large enough for 8 players (7 human, 1 computer).
Dogwaffle is awesome. If DPaint-like abilities is what you crave, oh you of pixel-animation ambitions, then also check out ProMotion, which is, well, pretty much exactly D-Paint.
Quest-based, exploration-based, rides and virtual experiences that build upon the familiar geography of popular MMO worlds, with cross-promotions that build the core audience on both sides of the fence.
I've been exploring this idea quite a bit. The basic notion is one of asymmetrical representation of the game world. Each client, be it cell phone, DS, PSP, web-browser, next gen console or PC has it's own unique view of and interface with the game world. Each plays to the strengths of the particular platform.
It's a huge investment, but a large company that really wants to build a cohesive brand *cough - Blizzard* could pull this off.
And in an even more heretical proposition, I also suggest that (MMOs being largely database apps) users be given an API to write their own clients, creating a MOD community for MMOs that largely surpasses what can be done today.
And why stop there? Next we move onto cohesive universes, where not only are the clients different, but people are playing different but linked games. To use the Blizzard example, you play in the Star Craft universe. Some players are playing the RTS (at a tactical level), issuing troop orders to people playing the BF2-style FPS. Meanwhile, in areas that they have established control, other players are building cities, while others are living and trading in them.
Some folks have never had a good design doc to work from, and can be excused for not appreciating them.
Others, in my opinion, are more interested in following their own pet features, and find building the game as designed too constricting.
May these folks someday run a studio full of employees just like themselves.
It's like building a bridge, where half the team is following the plan, bridging across to 10th street, and some others are of the opinion that 12th street would be a better terminus, and there's one guy who disagrees with the whole "suspension bridge" suggestion and is implementing his preferred "truss bridge" idea.
Now, if we could only convince the publishers and licensors to stop "reimagining" the bridge in the midst of construction...
It was called NASDEQ: Shadow of Doubt It did pretty well when it first came out, but it had some serious balance issues, and they nerfed a bunch of stuff.
Intuitive: I do not think this word means what you think it means...};^)
I have no doubt people can slog through and learn to use Blender, and that once one has memorized all the secret knowledge, one can be proficient with it.
But, make no mistake, learnability is not usability.
I was a big fan of open source software until I had to start using it. IMHO, a good user interface is worth paying for.
The thread last week about GimpShop (the photoshop menu hack for Gimp) was a good case in point. The thread on the developer's site was flooded with grateful responses from users for making the software more usable. It was also sprinkled with grumpy responses from other Gimp developers about how this was a waste of time, and the Gimp interface was perfectly logical and needed no tinkering.
If OSS is ever going to make it main stream, as much volunteer work is going to need to be donated by human interface design professionals as is currently donated by core engineers, and those groups are going to have to learn to play nice with each other.
I've had the opportunity to use the Fab Lab in Boston, and it has been a wonderful experience, but it has some drawbacks too.
The biggest source of dissapointment is that, due to litigation concerns, the Boston Fab doesn't have access to the same breadth of equipment as some of the labs abroad. That being said, there is a lot of interesting stuff to be done there. So no TIG welder for me (or the plasma cutter. Damn!)
The biggest challenge is ditching preconceptions of what can and can't be accomplished with the current technology, and learning to work with the available materials. Bring on the plexiglass, cardboard, wood and PCBs. And machining wax, for making molds.
I have a few pictures up from my first session (he cringed): Fab Lab Pics.
I should have some more pictures of finished projects up soon, and those I'll post on the Fab Lab site, SETC.
The Brits are a savvy lot. I think they could probably take the message for what it is (a call for defense against tyranny). They teach them about metaphor and such things over there.
Why, I hear they even have textbooks that teach evolution without a warning sticker. Imagine such sophistication!
Is that the press in this country has become so toothless, so infotainment [ahrg...I said Infotainment] focused, so utterly devoid of the principle of good journalism, so lax (as to be virtually absent) in their watchdog role, that one of the best TV new sources these days is a comedy show.
Building PCs from scratch was cool when there were no PCs at Walmart. But today...much like building a horseless carriage, or a vacuum-tube radio.
This is the same way electric motors used to be cool. I remember when I was a wee lad that every handyman had a few electric motors lying about, one big one usually strapped to the workbench, with a bunch of belts to power a number of different devices. Motors were still fairly expensive and bulky, so they tended to dominate the workbench.
Then electric motors became completely ubiquitous, and they mostly vanished from sight, embedded into everyday devices, hair dryers, coffee grinders, RC Cars. What became interesting was not the motor itself, but all the cool and unexpected things you could do with it once it got cheap enough, and small enough.
So yeah, a DIYer could sit down today and build a motor (or a computer) completely from scratch, but it becomes an exercise in nostalgia, like hand-crafting a canoe, or building a replica of the Wright Brothers plane. Which is cool in it's own way, but somewhat eccentric.
So the moder-day DIYer, like the scientist in Cronenberg's "The Fly," we find ourselves in the role of sythesists, taking off-the-shelf parts to make interesting & unusual new gizmos, or taking an existing technology and bringing it into the realm of the handyman's workshop.
in the game market, because the PSP, with it's higher price-point, and moving parts is not really something you're going to want to buy for a kid. The PSP is a portable home-entertainment-center for the idle-rich geek, and that's where it will find it's audience.
Nitendo knows kids, and knows kids games. I expect the DS will clean up there.
Assuming your existing hardware is chilled to -400 farenheit, and equiped with a Maser.
That was in the non-skimmy part of the article. It's pretty misleading, actually. A more accurate headline would have been, researchers flip the spin of an electron in a hunk of silicon that, coincidentaly, was located in an off-the-self transitor, using lots of expensive and complicated equipment.
And the reason Nintendo has Pokemon is their relentless focus on the children's market.
If you're a parent, do you buy a PS*, and try to keep up on what's what game-wise? There's a lot of very adult oriented games to weed through to find titles appropriate for the kids.
Or buy a Nintendo whatever, where older titles are the exception, and all is well in the world of Mario.
The PSP is not a machine made for children, with an estimated street price of $299, and sensitive movable parts (the drive mechanism).
As usual, Nintendo, whatever else you say about the DS, has made a cheaper, virtually indestructible game device for kids with solid state, virtually indestructible game carts. We can all moan about carts, but parents love the sturdiness of the Nintendo line.
And according to the folks developing the hardware, the LCD element of the display will wear out before the touch screen does.
Smart money is on the DS for games, and the PSP as a mobile entertainment system for adults.
Honestly, it's only amongst monied geeks that these two platforms are going to compete for sales.
Steven Soderburgh and George Clooney's company Section 8 were looking at doing this awhile back. My friends at Rustmonkey did an awesome pitch trailer to try and get the gig.
You can check it out here: Scanner Pitch
I haven't seen Waking Life, so I can't comment on the rotoshop technique, but the Rustmonkey pitch was extremely cool.
Yes, the level is, to some extent, the interface, but more than that; it is an unfamiliar environment that require certain thing to be taught.
So, if you want the player to be aware of his choice of sneaky window vs. hallway of death, you introduce the player to the window concept earlier in the game, by giving them a situation where the window is the only choice.
This is what play testing is for. Find the problem, then fix the problem.
Slashdot Mirror
Best party game, ever. Bombs and dinosaurs. Doesn't get much better than that.
They also ran the multiplayer game in some weird high-res mode that I've never seen used in another Saturn game, that actually allowed for a map large enough for 8 players (7 human, 1 computer).
Dogwaffle is awesome. If DPaint-like abilities is what you crave, oh you of pixel-animation ambitions, then also check out ProMotion, which is, well, pretty much exactly D-Paint.
We use it extensively for GBA development.
This is not surprising. In many ways, MMOs are the spiritual offspring of the theme park.
What I think is even more interesting is moving in the other direction, theme parks based on popular MMO franchises.
Quest-based, exploration-based, rides and virtual experiences that build upon the familiar geography of popular MMO worlds, with cross-promotions that build the core audience on both sides of the fence.
Hey, you've been using the Design-A-Tron!
I've been exploring this idea quite a bit. The basic notion is one of asymmetrical representation of the game world. Each client, be it cell phone, DS, PSP, web-browser, next gen console or PC has it's own unique view of and interface with the game world. Each plays to the strengths of the particular platform.
It's a huge investment, but a large company that really wants to build a cohesive brand *cough - Blizzard* could pull this off.
AR Across Platforms
And in an even more heretical proposition, I also suggest that (MMOs being largely database apps) users be given an API to write their own clients, creating a MOD community for MMOs that largely surpasses what can be done today.
Open.World
And why stop there? Next we move onto cohesive universes, where not only are the clients different, but people are playing different but linked games. To use the Blizzard example, you play in the Star Craft universe. Some players are playing the RTS (at a tactical level), issuing troop orders to people playing the BF2-style FPS. Meanwhile, in areas that they have established control, other players are building cities, while others are living and trading in them.
Towards a Better World
Anybody want to play?
Thought not. A room full of geeky guys with a token actress-presenter. Usually gets shown...sheesh, on the slowest of news days, for about 15 seconds.
The Oscars work because people like seeing sexy, glamorous people cavorting about in expensive clothes.
Until the game community starts being sexy, glamorous people cavorting about in expensive clothes, we may have to put the Game Oscars on hold.
Unless it's EXTREME! All the kids love EXTREME!
Preach it, brother!
Some folks have never had a good design doc to work from, and can be excused for not appreciating them.
Others, in my opinion, are more interested in following their own pet features, and find building the game as designed too constricting.
May these folks someday run a studio full of employees just like themselves.
It's like building a bridge, where half the team is following the plan, bridging across to 10th street, and some others are of the opinion that 12th street would be a better terminus, and there's one guy who disagrees with the whole "suspension bridge" suggestion and is implementing his preferred "truss bridge" idea.
Now, if we could only convince the publishers and licensors to stop "reimagining" the bridge in the midst of construction...
It was called NASDEQ: Shadow of Doubt
It did pretty well when it first came out, but it had some serious balance issues, and they nerfed a bunch of stuff.
Intuitive: I do not think this word means what you think it means...};^)
I have no doubt people can slog through and learn to use Blender, and that once one has memorized all the secret knowledge, one can be proficient with it.
But, make no mistake, learnability is not usability.
I was a big fan of open source software until I had to start using it. IMHO, a good user interface is worth paying for.
The thread last week about GimpShop (the photoshop menu hack for Gimp) was a good case in point. The thread on the developer's site was flooded with grateful responses from users for making the software more usable. It was also sprinkled with grumpy responses from other Gimp developers about how this was a waste of time, and the Gimp interface was perfectly logical and needed no tinkering.
If OSS is ever going to make it main stream, as much volunteer work is going to need to be donated by human interface design professionals as is currently donated by core engineers, and those groups are going to have to learn to play nice with each other.
But hey, that just my opinion.
I've had the opportunity to use the Fab Lab in Boston, and it has been a wonderful experience, but it has some drawbacks too.
The biggest source of dissapointment is that, due to litigation concerns, the Boston Fab doesn't have access to the same breadth of equipment as some of the labs abroad. That being said, there is a lot of interesting stuff to be done there. So no TIG welder for me (or the plasma cutter. Damn!)
The biggest challenge is ditching preconceptions of what can and can't be accomplished with the current technology, and learning to work with the available materials. Bring on the plexiglass, cardboard, wood and PCBs. And machining wax, for making molds.
I have a few pictures up from my first session (he cringed): Fab Lab Pics.
I should have some more pictures of finished projects up soon, and those I'll post on the Fab Lab site, SETC.
I can neither confirm or deny that the xbox+xbmc is a sweet, sweet media center.
The Brits are a savvy lot. I think they could probably take the message for what it is (a call for defense against tyranny). They teach them about metaphor and such things over there.
Why, I hear they even have textbooks that teach evolution without a warning sticker. Imagine such sophistication!
Oh dang. There goes the Karma.
Everything you wanted to know about Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder plot:
http://www.bonefire.org/guy
This year is the 400th aniversary of the Gunpowder Plot, so it would be a nice tie in for a movie...you know, for the international audience.
I just finished "The System of the World" this morning, and I'm filled with saddness that there is no more left to read.
An awesome set of books. I'm ready for the next three, 1845-1900.
Shaftoes in the old west. I can dream, can't I?
Is that the press in this country has become so toothless, so infotainment [ahrg...I said Infotainment] focused, so utterly devoid of the principle of good journalism, so lax (as to be virtually absent) in their watchdog role, that one of the best TV new sources these days is a comedy show.
That's frightening.
3DRealms has announced that Duke Nukem: Forever is going to be a launch title...for the Phantom.
(Man...wouldn't that be sweet)
Building PCs from scratch was cool when there were no PCs at Walmart. But today...much like building a horseless carriage, or a vacuum-tube radio.
This is the same way electric motors used to be cool. I remember when I was a wee lad that every handyman had a few electric motors lying about, one big one usually strapped to the workbench, with a bunch of belts to power a number of different devices. Motors were still fairly expensive and bulky, so they tended to dominate the workbench.
Then electric motors became completely ubiquitous, and they mostly vanished from sight, embedded into everyday devices, hair dryers, coffee grinders, RC Cars. What became interesting was not the motor itself, but all the cool and unexpected things you could do with it once it got cheap enough, and small enough.
So yeah, a DIYer could sit down today and build a motor (or a computer) completely from scratch, but it becomes an exercise in nostalgia, like hand-crafting a canoe, or building a replica of the Wright Brothers plane. Which is cool in it's own way, but somewhat eccentric.
So the moder-day DIYer, like the scientist in Cronenberg's "The Fly," we find ourselves in the role of sythesists, taking off-the-shelf parts to make interesting & unusual new gizmos, or taking an existing technology and bringing it into the realm of the handyman's workshop.
in the game market, because the PSP, with it's higher price-point, and moving parts is not really something you're going to want to buy for a kid. The PSP is a portable home-entertainment-center for the idle-rich geek, and that's where it will find it's audience.
Nitendo knows kids, and knows kids games. I expect the DS will clean up there.
Disclaimer: I work for a DS developer...};^)
Assuming your existing hardware is chilled to -400 farenheit, and equiped with a Maser.
That was in the non-skimmy part of the article. It's pretty misleading, actually. A more accurate headline would have been, researchers flip the spin of an electron in a hunk of silicon that, coincidentaly, was located in an off-the-self transitor, using lots of expensive and complicated equipment.
It's a good first step, though.
A click on the support link will take you to a Picasa FAQ, and within, you will find a page that lists a large number of keyboard shortcuts.
Enjoy, in moderation.
And the reason Nintendo has Pokemon is their relentless focus on the children's market.
If you're a parent, do you buy a PS*, and try to keep up on what's what game-wise? There's a lot of very adult oriented games to weed through to find titles appropriate for the kids.
Or buy a Nintendo whatever, where older titles are the exception, and all is well in the world of Mario.
Putting a cell-phone in a GBA is not the sort of thing that Nintendo, with their focus on the young market, is likely to do anytime soon.
The PSP, perhaps, because it's targeted at an older market segment, and is very much a convergence device, a mobil home-enterainment system.
The PSP is not a machine made for children, with an estimated street price of $299, and sensitive movable parts (the drive mechanism).
As usual, Nintendo, whatever else you say about the DS, has made a cheaper, virtually indestructible game device for kids with solid state, virtually indestructible game carts. We can all moan about carts, but parents love the sturdiness of the Nintendo line.
And according to the folks developing the hardware, the LCD element of the display will wear out before the touch screen does.
Smart money is on the DS for games, and the PSP as a mobile entertainment system for adults.
Honestly, it's only amongst monied geeks that these two platforms are going to compete for sales.
Steven Soderburgh and George Clooney's company Section 8 were looking at doing this awhile back. My friends at Rustmonkey did an awesome pitch trailer to try and get the gig.
You can check it out here: Scanner Pitch I haven't seen Waking Life, so I can't comment on the rotoshop technique, but the Rustmonkey pitch was extremely cool.
Yes, the level is, to some extent, the interface, but more than that; it is an unfamiliar environment that require certain thing to be taught.
So, if you want the player to be aware of his choice of sneaky window vs. hallway of death, you introduce the player to the window concept earlier in the game, by giving them a situation where the window is the only choice.
This is what play testing is for. Find the problem, then fix the problem.