Carmack's last blog entry, waaaaay back in March, goes into further detail about why it's tough to optimize for mobile platforms:
Gamers generally have poor memories of playing over even the highest speed analog modems, but most of the problems are due to having far too many buffers and abstractions between the data producers/consumers and the actual wire interface. If you wrote eight bytes to the device and it went in the next damned frame (instead of the OS buffer, which feeds into a serial FIFO, which goes into another serial FIFO, which goes into a data compressor, which goes into an error corrector, and probably a few other things before getting into a wire frame), life would be quite good.
I'm interested in developing mobile games -- it seems like it's indie-developer friendly, as Palm OS was back in 2000. However, as Carmack suggests, developers are constrained by the architecture. Things like a 64k memory block limit (remember the days of 16-bit programming?) are a pain in the rump. Here's hoping for a good Mobile Python.
Most of the comments in this thread seem to support a view that The Sims simply Wasn't That Fun for a number of reasons. It certainly doesn't appeal to all, but I believe its many fans consider it to be among the greats. The Sims was one of the world's best-selling series because it has engrossed so many people.
But those people may not be the same ones that like to spend hours wandering down dark corridors with a make-believe gun.
They may not even be the same people that can appreciate the appeal of a game where you dress up as George Washington ordering people to discover...(fanfare!)...animal husbandry. Or a game where you can run people over for money. Or one where you follow an @ sign around the screen while it bumps up against a pile of lowercase a's.
Those posts that describe The Sims as, "a game where you mop up puddles," are missing what its fans enjoy about it, just as the above descriptions miss out on what we love about Doom, Civilization, Grand Theft Auto, and Nethack. (Though perhaps that is actually a good description of Nethack. Lemme grab a cold ! and think about it.) There's more to these games than a wry description of a banal activity.
Many critics tout The Sims as a Great Game because it brought many non-gamers into gaming without being so simple as to cater to the lowest common denominator. If Slashdotters don't connect with the game, I'd say that it's because our interests lie with other genres -- not because it's universally boring. The responses I see here are much the same as that of a non-gamer watching a Soulcalibur match and asking, "How can you even enjoy that? Hitting Y repeatedly is not fun!" The Sims may not hold the attention of a hardcore gamer for long, but is it beyond us to imagine why other people enjoyed it?
One way to break into games and earn a living is to build a small team and develop for a new market such as cell phones.
During the early '90s, shareware authors focused on creating games for the newly-popular desktop PCs. That's much tougher nowadays, due to direct competition from untold thousands of shareware developers and the larger studios. During the late '90s, Palm OS and Pocket PC popped up (another new market). At that time, it was possible to spend a week or two of development on a simple-but-enjoyable PDA puzzle game with a grossly disproportionate number of sales (with respect to development costs) during the first few months, and a decent long tail a year or two out.
These days, the buzz seems to be around casual/cell phone games, on the basis that a) it doesn't take [as] much to develop a cellphone game, and b) there are many millions of cellphone users. Java isn't my cup of tea(!), but J2ME offers individual developers and small teams a way to develop content for the myriad mobile platforms.
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www.dejobaan.com
We used to develop primarily for PDAs during the dot-com era, and judging from how enthusiastic PDA owners were about their gaming fix, I believe that mobile (cellphone) gaming will take up where the PDAs left off. The only question I have is, "when?"
Will it take that killer game to bring awareness to millions who already own phones more powerful than early personal computers?
Will it be a killer non-game application, like when soccer moms can browse the Web and message their kids wthout hvng 2 tlk lke ths lol, followed by a realization that, "hey, this thing can play games!"? Soccer moms like to play video games too -- it's that whole casual games nut that industry folk are currently trying to crack.
Or when there's more convergence between desktop/laptop/mobile systems? Laptops used to be poor substitutes for desktops, but they're pretty useful these days. Presumably tomorrow's pocket computers will be even cooler than today's.
I stopped developing for PDAs for the love of the larger games that could be written for desktop systems. Some smart folks will develop a decent games-accessible interface for mobile systems. So, what happens when we can start writing the big games for tiny systems?
__________________
www.dejobaan.com
I think that it became most clear to me that filmmakers "understood" video games during the scene introducing Mike Teevee in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If I caught it right, Mike was playing a modern 3D first-person shooter that looked like Doom 3; and he was playing this on something that looked like an Atari 2600.
And that, my friends, is called cannibalism. Wait -- I mean that that, my friends, seemed an intentional irony, suggesting that there were gamers in the crew. Who would slip such a reference in, but someone with a deep and possibly unhealthy appreciation of video games?
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www.dejobaan.com - Deep and possibly unhealthy appreciation of video games.
Manifesto Games might (or might not) be great in and of itself -- that's for Messrs. Costikyan and Wilson and the general game-buying public to decide. What I like about this is that we're seeing some smart guys pouring their sweat and money into "indie publishers" (such as Manifesto and Garage Games). And, so, it seems that some smart guys think that there's going to be a boom in the independent games market.
I would draw a parallel between these guys and PDA portals of the late '90s and early '00s, where sites like PalmGear and Handango handled marketing and sales, complementing the efforts of small developers. At that time, it was relatively easy for someone working out of his bedroom office to create enjoyable games of modest size and earn a living off of them. There were literally millions of PDA users hungry for entertainment software, and the portals led them directly to our games.
The desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux) games market of today is a much different, tougher beast -- there exist gaming sites such as IGN and GameSpot, which will cover smaller studios' products. But these are geared more towards larger titles (Doom 4 and Half Life 3), which often out-glamor what a small studio can develop. (Though I'll say that David Laprad always treated us indies well on Avault.) On the other hand, there are download sites such as Download.com and Tucows, which cater to the shareware market. However, there exist so many thousands of, well, mediocre titles on these services that individual games tend to become lost in a sea of others.
I take the founding of Manifesto to mean that we'll see a stronger spotlight on solid indie titles.
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www.dejobaan.com - Dejobaan Games
I wonder how long their company is going to last if people can just download the games and freely distribute them on, say, bittorrent...
People have been pirating (what are essentially) shareware games for decades, and yet we keep on truckin'. Besides, I hear many times on Slashdot that anyone who pirates games is only doing so to try 'em out, or otherwise wouldn't have purchased them anyway. So, surely we can't be losing much from piracy. Right? Right?;)
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www.dejobaan.com - Games that are sometimes pirated and keygenned, and y'know, it really makes me want to spit burning lava, but there's not much I can do about it.
I'm looking forward to the Xbox 360 for two reasons:
Xbox 360 Live Arcade Mushroom Toaster Strudel - In theory, Arcade will allow more small-fry developers to create content for livingroom audiences. The greatest barrier to profitable indie development on the console at the moment seems to be that the only viable way to sell console games is through a retailer, (which often requires the clout and money of a big publisher). Remove that barrier, and -- for what it's worth -- smaller studios have a shot. I believe some indie games have already gone this route for Xbox Live Arcade. And MS has already courted one small studio to create content for X360LA.
Windows 360 - The original Xbox was basically a stripped-down-Windows 2000 box running DirectX 8.1, making Windows desktop->Xbox console ports a relative snap. I've read that the 360 will function along the same lines, with XNA making that process even easier. This is great for small developers, because it means production for consoles will be within our reach.
It's currently pretty easy to develop code that compiles for both Windows and Pocket PC. I'd like to be greedy and ask for the same thing for the console.
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www.dejobaan.com - Games and other games.
Games have been moddable for some time, but the industry's recent adoption of general-purpose languages such as Python, Ruby, and Lua should make it easier for modders to pick up and play with a new game. Being a Python fan, I'd like to know more of the details about how they're implementing and exposing things. One interesting thing is that they're using Boost.Python. From the Civ IV Fanatics' website:
The game will be written entirely from scratch using flexible XML data files, as well as the Python scripting language. Boost.Python (this allows for seamless interoperability between C++ and the Python programming language) will be used as the interface layer between the C++ game code and Python. Python is used in the game for map generation, interface screens, game events, tools, tutorials, etc. If you want to see how this will affect customization of the game (or any other aspect relating to customization).. The new 3D engine will also allow for greater possibilities.
The open-source Vega Strike also uses Boost.Python.
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www.dejobaan.com - Making games one game at a time.
I've posted these before in a similar/. thread, but for me, there are easily four cases that fit the bill for Bowen's analysis:
#4 - The opening sequence to Alternate Reality (Atari 800 version only) by Gary Gilbertson and Phillip Price.
#3 - Deus Ex -- The death of Paul Denton. (The first time I played it through, he died. The second time I played it through, I saved him, and felt really good about myself until I found out that everyone else I knew saved him on the first try.)
#2 - RP-heavy text MUDs run by live GMs can pull at the heartstrings as no MMORPG has. (But, no doubt, they will get there.)
#1 - The death of Floyd in Planetfall:
"Looks dangerous in there," says Floyd. "I don't think you should go inside." He peers in again. "We'll need card there to fix computer. Hmmm... I know! Floyd will get card. Robots are tough. Nothing can hurt robots. You open the door, then Floyd will rush in. Then you close door. When Floyd knocks, open door again. Okay? Go!" Floyd's voice trembles slightly as he waits for you to open the door.
] OPEN THE DOOR
"The door opens and Floyd, pausing only for the briefest moment, plunges into the Bio Lab. Immediately, he is set upon by hideous, mutated monsters! More are heading straight toward the open door! Floyd shrieks and yells to you to close the door."
]CLOSE THE DOOR
From within the lab you hear ferocious growlings, the sounds of a skirmish, and then a high-pitched metallic scream!
Time passes...
You hear, slightly muffled by the door, three fast knocks, followed by the distinctive sound of tearing metal.
] OPEN THE DOOR
Floyd stumbles out of the Bio Lab, clutching the mini-booth card. The mutations rush toward the open doorway!
] CLOSE THE DOOR
And not a moment too soon! You hear a pounding from the door as the monsters within vent their frustration at losing their prey.
Floyd staggers to the ground, dropping the mini card. He is badly torn apart, with loose wires and broken circuits everywhere. Oil flows from his lubrication system. He obviously has only moments to live.
You drop to your knees and cradle Floyd's head in your lap. Floyd looks up at his friend with half-open eyes. "Floyd did it... got card. Floyd a good friend, huh?" Quietly, you sing Floyd's favorite song, the Ballad of the Starcrossed Miner:
O, they ruled the solar system
Near ten thousand years before
In their single starcrossed scout ships
Mining ast'roids, spinning lore.
Then one true courageous miner
Spied a spaceship from the stars
Boarded he that alien liner
Out beyond the orb of Mars.
Yes, that ship was filled with danger
Mighty monsters barred his way
Yet he solved the alien myst'ries
Mining quite a lode that day.
O, they ruled the solar system
Near ten thousand years before
'Til one brave advent'rous spirit
Brought that mighty ship to shore.
As you finish the last verse, Floyd smiles with contentment, and then his eyes close as his head rolls to one side. You sit in silence for a moment, in memory of a brave friend who gave his life so that you might live."
I still get vaclempt after reading the last line. You gotta problem with that!?
As GoNINzo pointed out, it's nice to be able to make changes at runtime while creating a game. Being able to tweak behaviors without having to save_gamestate-> exit-> recompile-> restart-> reload_gamestate is a huge time-saver when you're fine-tuning. And anything that allows you to experiment easily will increase your ability to be creative. After all, many advancements come about accidentally through tinkering
Of course, it also coddles a bit of laziness on the design side, so if you're not careful, you end up designing ever-larger systems as you write them, rather than thinking them out beforehand. Not that I would ever fall into that trap. Repeatedly. Over and over again. Seriously, you'd think I'd learn.
www.dejobaan.com - Making games one game at a time.
Frankly, I don't know what the big deal is -- id Software no longer has the monopoly on the first-person shooter. We're an indie studio that's about to announce development on a sequel to our 2004 shooter, and I'm here to tell you that you don't need a big budget, or, well... any budget... to create a triple-A game. Check this out:
Shot #1 - This is screenshot from our prototype running in realtime. That's a shot taken at 80x60 (4-bit color), but it can go as high as 100x80 with 32 colors on higher-end machines.
Shot #2 - This demonstrates the engine's realtime shadowing. Every single pixel has its own shadow, which is something no other platform can say. Further, it's done without pixel or vertex shaders, making it compatible with older systems. (However, they must support the Photoshop "emboss" plugin.)
Shot #3 - In 1998, lens flare was all the rage. 2005 is the year of the bloom. Or maybe it's a glow effect? I can't remember which one it was -- I'll check with our marketing department and get back to you on that.
Shot #4 - You're thinking, "Hey, that's nice, but I bet you can't do all three effects at once." Well, we can, and we did.
All right, so I suppose it's tough for an indie studio to compete with Quake IV. But here's hoping that we can carve our a niche in the hearts of gamers everywhere. After all, you don't always need a cool million to write a game. Sometimes all you need is 96k.
Has Hollywood any originality left? Lately all they seem to release are rehashes of Japanese horror movies, video game movies or remakes of other movies & TV series.
Quick: name the last 5 original Hollywood movies you've seen.
If oversexualizing female characters has brought the industry more male gamers, the obvious solution to the problem of an underrepresented female gamer population is to oversexualize male characters.
Being an independent developer, we have an enormous amount of freedom in how we can portray our in-game characters. In our most recent action title, we made sure to portray male and female characters in a fairly realistic fasion. The result was that a major gaming magazine chided us for a female protagonist that wasn't busty enough. Apparently our undersexualized portrayal of women is a turn-off for males.
Similarly, we've noticed that for our puzzle games (where we portray no people), women make up roughly half of our customers. This drops way down for our action titles (where we do portray people). I must guess, then, that our undersexualized portrayal of men in these games has been a turn off for women. As such, starting with our next title, we will implement the Five Foot Phallus rule.
Let me explain.
The Five Foot Phallus - All major male characters will possess a phallus at least five feet in length.
Minor Characters may have phalli that are 3-4 feet long, which is closer to the human average, so nobody can complain about that.
Gameplay - It should be noted that such a member is soley for aesthetic presentation, and will not affect gameplay. Players will not be able to walk up to enemies and beat them to death with their enormous genitalia. This only goes along with the industry trend, since in most video games, you can't use a female character's ridiculous bosom to suffocate opponents.
Simulation - We're currently researching how we might most naturally present this, and are looking into licensing various engines for rigid-body physics.
I'm convinced that this move will bring the female demographic for our action games up in no time.
There are, nowadays, enormous piles of resources for those starting out in game development. Some suggestions as to where to start...
I agree with those who say that knowledge of OpenGL and/or DirectX is a must, (always know something about what goes on under the hood), but I'm also a big fan of short time-to-market once you actually start developing a concept. Here are some 2D engines that speed up development:
Torque2D - GarageGame's upcoming 2D tiling engine SDK. This looks promising, but is in its early-adopter release. Not yet ready for primetime, according to GarageGames.
Pygame - Python-based 2D engine. My feeling is that Python is a great language to start game development in.
Orbforms Designer - Why limit yourself to the PC? PDA games can give you a greater return on your time than Windows games do. (Per man-hour, our PDA titles bring us more revenue than our PC titles do.)
Game Editor - For those who want to go even higher-level than an SDK.
So you want to write a 3D game! Try one of these:
3D Gamestudio - The engine of choice for our latestgames. I love it, and hope they'll extend to the Xbox 360 platform when it comes out.
Torque - Maybe the single most popular 3D engine among indies and hobbyists. Focuses, in part, on cross-platform compatibility (Windows/Linux/Mac).
OGRE - An open-source package. Frequently updated. Some nice projects using the engine.
DarkBASIC - A popular package among new developers and independents.
Also check out what kind of games independents are making now:
Game Tunnel - Previews, articles, and reviews of indie games.
DIY Games - Covering the latest independent/shareware titles.
And ignore anyone who says that you should start off by developing something simple. It's good advice, but nobody ever listens to it.
--- Inago Rage - Create and fight in your own FPS arenas.
---
I think it's interesting that people abuse the systems; and that the systems possess the capacity to be abused. The article points to a now-defunct website created by someone who enjoyed torturing their simulated being in Creatures. An excerpt:
Her name is Slave. After I created her I started by hitting her constantly for about 5 minutes. Then I taught her all the words(using the SST) so it would be easier to make her scared of her surroundings. After she knew all the words, I placed her in a small area, surrounded by the FF Cob, with 5 Grendels. I left her there for about 20 minutes, beating her when she attempted to defend herself from the Grendels. After she was sufficiently traumatized, I put her back in the garden. In the Garden I forced her to Get, Look, Push and Pull everything around her, all the time, constantly beating her. I made her fear running so I wouldn't have to deal with that little problem(you fellow torturers out there know how annoying it is to chase them down once they get away). I also forced her to eat weeds, rewarding her when she did so. At the time I exported her, she's a quivering mass of fear. She might eat, if you're lucky, but she probably won't survive long enough for food to do any good.
To Wright, one of the most memorable albums told the story of a woman's abusive relationship and how she eventually got out of it. But a search on the Sims Exchange of the word "abuse" reveals that Sims albums have become a common therapeutic tool. All told, 63 albums deal with abuse issues.
Many of us have probably stomped anthills in our youth, (or worse?), and bullied/been bullied. Does this power dynamic fall along the same lines? The example from Creatures, above, surprises me. But I will admit to building a Sims household with a swimming pool and no ladder.
_______ Epidemic Groove - An indie-developed casual RTS/Action hybrid for Windows.
The poll lists a number of the blockbuster first-person shooters we all know and love...
America's Army
Battlefield 1942
Call of Duty
Doom 3
Far Cry
Half Life and Half Life 2
Unreal Tournament 2004
...but I think that the Independent Games Festival is missing out by not including independently-developed first-person shooters in the mix. I can think of three off the top of my head:
Cube, which allows players to create their own maps.
Nexuiz, under GPL, allowing everyone to download the source and modify it.
Inago Rage, own indie FPS, which allows players to create environments from within the game.
We recently released what I like to call a casual RTS/Action hybrid for Windows called Epidemic Groove. It's a single-player game written to be played over a lunch break, (with matches typically taking 10-20 minutes). In it, you alternate between Construction and Invasion phases. In the former, you have 60 seconds to build defensive walls, medical lasers, repair pylons, and electrified fences to create an impenetrable structure. In the latter, you have to use those defenses and your reflexes to fend off pathogenic attack. Here are some shots:
Making Software Piracy Irrelevant
on
Threshold for Piracy?
·
· Score: 2, Interesting
I've long thought that software developers will eventually make software piracy impossible, (or at least difficult or irrelevant), by relying more on online content.
I'm not referring to online copy protection, but in actual value-added content. For example, it's not always meaningful to pirate the client of a MMORPG, since the meat is in the subscription content. Similarly, the developer of a first-person shooter might offer server-based content -- maps and tournaments -- that's not available on the client side.
1. Give us A.I. that will actually outsmart us now and then.
This is not really what we want; it's actually not always fun. What we actually want is AI that will a) surprise us, or b) do something that appears clever. In some of the better, faster-paced games, there a decent amount of intelligence on the part of the enemy -- (ever see how enemies in Half Life 2 will try multiple doors to get to you?) but we're so busy running and gunning, that we don't notice it.
2. Give us a genre of game we've never seen before.
I'll be -1 Redudant and point out, say, many of Will Wright's offerings, (PA notwithstanding). Hell, they even bring up Katamari later on in the article. I was somewhat agog at the article's next complaints:
Why isn't a there a spy game where we actually get to be a real spy rather than a hallway-roving kill machine?...Where's the game where we're a castaway on a deserted island and the object of the game is to find food and clean water...
Games such as Thief and, to a lesser extent, Splinter Cell, fulfill the former; and the underrated (but difficult-to-play) Robinson's Requiem and (again, to a lesser extent) Notrium are among the latter.
5. And on the opposite side of the nipple coin... Developers will be shocked one day when they notice that the world is full of women. It's true! More than half of your potential customer base are penisless.
Absolutely; I think companies will flock to that as the "next-big-thing" eventually. Here's my timetable for buzzwords:
2004 - Shadows and Lighting
2005 - Realistic Physics
2006 - Emergent Gameplay
2007 - Appeal to Women
10. And while we're at it... Let's rid games of all arbitrary barriers.
Again, I agree; and I wonder if, should we start building games differently, (e.g., if more elements are handled by simulated systems rather than scripted events), will we see more of this? I care less about this from the standpoint of immersion, and more from the standpoint of the ability to solve problems as I want to solve problems. This seems less a matter of horsepower and more a matter of game design. It's not slow CPUs preventing us from doing this. Is it?
________ Epidemic Groove - A combination of real-time-strategy and action on a cellular level.
"Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a model at E3?"
Have you ever wondered what it is like to watch Seung-Mina and Xianghua fight in a live action performance on stage? Sure you have! But wonder no more: Kali-Yuga will show you the way (mirror) in a short, but entertaining video clip.
_____ Play Epidemic Groove - A unique hybrid of real-time strategy and action created by an indie studio.
I'm guardedly excited. Both Microsoft and Nintendo have thrown down their respective gauntlets with respect to opening up avenues for smaller, independent (read: we're all very poor) development studios on these new systems. Nintendo's release includes:
Freedom of design: A dynamic development architecture equally accommodates both big-budget, high-profile game "masterpieces" as well as indie games conceived by individual developers equipped with only a big idea.
Microsoft's XNA also sounds promising. Though that FAQ has not been updated since the announcement of the Xbox 360, it seems that XNA will give us the ability to develop for it. Here's hoping that livingrooms across the country will have access to games hobbled together in the garage.
____ Try Epidemic Groove - A game of real-time-strategy and action for Windows PCs.
Slashdot Mirror
I'm interested in developing mobile games -- it seems like it's indie-developer friendly, as Palm OS was back in 2000. However, as Carmack suggests, developers are constrained by the architecture. Things like a 64k memory block limit (remember the days of 16-bit programming?) are a pain in the rump. Here's hoping for a good Mobile Python.
Most of the comments in this thread seem to support a view that The Sims simply Wasn't That Fun for a number of reasons. It certainly doesn't appeal to all, but I believe its many fans consider it to be among the greats. The Sims was one of the world's best-selling series because it has engrossed so many people.
But those people may not be the same ones that like to spend hours wandering down dark corridors with a make-believe gun.
They may not even be the same people that can appreciate the appeal of a game where you dress up as George Washington ordering people to discover...(fanfare!)...animal husbandry. Or a game where you can run people over for money. Or one where you follow an @ sign around the screen while it bumps up against a pile of lowercase a's.
Those posts that describe The Sims as, "a game where you mop up puddles," are missing what its fans enjoy about it, just as the above descriptions miss out on what we love about Doom, Civilization, Grand Theft Auto, and Nethack. (Though perhaps that is actually a good description of Nethack. Lemme grab a cold ! and think about it.) There's more to these games than a wry description of a banal activity.
Many critics tout The Sims as a Great Game because it brought many non-gamers into gaming without being so simple as to cater to the lowest common denominator. If Slashdotters don't connect with the game, I'd say that it's because our interests lie with other genres -- not because it's universally boring. The responses I see here are much the same as that of a non-gamer watching a Soulcalibur match and asking, "How can you even enjoy that? Hitting Y repeatedly is not fun!" The Sims may not hold the attention of a hardcore gamer for long, but is it beyond us to imagine why other people enjoyed it?
http://www.etoychest.org/images/stories/screens/ne ws/xbox_lounge_5.jpg
You'd think with all that cash, Microsoft would at least fix that hole in the ceiling.
One way to break into games and earn a living is to build a small team and develop for a new market such as cell phones.
During the early '90s, shareware authors focused on creating games for the newly-popular desktop PCs. That's much tougher nowadays, due to direct competition from untold thousands of shareware developers and the larger studios. During the late '90s, Palm OS and Pocket PC popped up (another new market). At that time, it was possible to spend a week or two of development on a simple-but-enjoyable PDA puzzle game with a grossly disproportionate number of sales (with respect to development costs) during the first few months, and a decent long tail a year or two out.
These days, the buzz seems to be around casual/cell phone games, on the basis that a) it doesn't take [as] much to develop a cellphone game, and b) there are many millions of cellphone users. Java isn't my cup of tea(!), but J2ME offers individual developers and small teams a way to develop content for the myriad mobile platforms.
_________________________
www.dejobaan.com
I stopped developing for PDAs for the love of the larger games that could be written for desktop systems. Some smart folks will develop a decent games-accessible interface for mobile systems. So, what happens when we can start writing the big games for tiny systems?
__________________
www.dejobaan.com
I think that it became most clear to me that filmmakers "understood" video games during the scene introducing Mike Teevee in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. If I caught it right, Mike was playing a modern 3D first-person shooter that looked like Doom 3; and he was playing this on something that looked like an Atari 2600.
And that, my friends, is called cannibalism. Wait -- I mean that that, my friends, seemed an intentional irony, suggesting that there were gamers in the crew. Who would slip such a reference in, but someone with a deep and possibly unhealthy appreciation of video games?
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www.dejobaan.com - Deep and possibly unhealthy appreciation of video games.
Manifesto Games might (or might not) be great in and of itself -- that's for Messrs. Costikyan and Wilson and the general game-buying public to decide. What I like about this is that we're seeing some smart guys pouring their sweat and money into "indie publishers" (such as Manifesto and Garage Games). And, so, it seems that some smart guys think that there's going to be a boom in the independent games market.
I would draw a parallel between these guys and PDA portals of the late '90s and early '00s, where sites like PalmGear and Handango handled marketing and sales, complementing the efforts of small developers. At that time, it was relatively easy for someone working out of his bedroom office to create enjoyable games of modest size and earn a living off of them. There were literally millions of PDA users hungry for entertainment software, and the portals led them directly to our games.
The desktop (Windows, Mac, Linux) games market of today is a much different, tougher beast -- there exist gaming sites such as IGN and GameSpot, which will cover smaller studios' products. But these are geared more towards larger titles (Doom 4 and Half Life 3), which often out-glamor what a small studio can develop. (Though I'll say that David Laprad always treated us indies well on Avault.) On the other hand, there are download sites such as Download.com and Tucows, which cater to the shareware market. However, there exist so many thousands of, well, mediocre titles on these services that individual games tend to become lost in a sea of others.
I take the founding of Manifesto to mean that we'll see a stronger spotlight on solid indie titles.
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www.dejobaan.com - Dejobaan Games
I wonder how long their company is going to last if people can just download the games and freely distribute them on, say, bittorrent...
;)
People have been pirating (what are essentially) shareware games for decades, and yet we keep on truckin'. Besides, I hear many times on Slashdot that anyone who pirates games is only doing so to try 'em out, or otherwise wouldn't have purchased them anyway. So, surely we can't be losing much from piracy. Right? Right?
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www.dejobaan.com - Games that are sometimes pirated and keygenned, and y'know, it really makes me want to spit burning lava, but there's not much I can do about it.
It's currently pretty easy to develop code that compiles for both Windows and Pocket PC. I'd like to be greedy and ask for the same thing for the console.
_________________________
www.dejobaan.com - Games and other games.
The open-source Vega Strike also uses Boost.Python.
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www.dejobaan.com - Making games one game at a time.
#4 - The opening sequence to Alternate Reality (Atari 800 version only) by Gary Gilbertson and Phillip Price.
#3 - Deus Ex -- The death of Paul Denton. (The first time I played it through, he died. The second time I played it through, I saved him, and felt really good about myself until I found out that everyone else I knew saved him on the first try.)
#2 - RP-heavy text MUDs run by live GMs can pull at the heartstrings as no MMORPG has. (But, no doubt, they will get there.)
#1 - The death of Floyd in Planetfall:
I still get vaclempt after reading the last line. You gotta problem with that!?
As GoNINzo pointed out, it's nice to be able to make changes at runtime while creating a game. Being able to tweak behaviors without having to save_gamestate-> exit-> recompile-> restart-> reload_gamestate is a huge time-saver when you're fine-tuning. And anything that allows you to experiment easily will increase your ability to be creative. After all, many advancements come about accidentally through tinkering
Of course, it also coddles a bit of laziness on the design side, so if you're not careful, you end up designing ever-larger systems as you write them, rather than thinking them out beforehand. Not that I would ever fall into that trap. Repeatedly. Over and over again. Seriously, you'd think I'd learn.
www.dejobaan.com - Making games one game at a time.
- Shot #1 - This is screenshot from our prototype running in realtime. That's a shot taken at 80x60 (4-bit color), but it can go as high as 100x80 with 32 colors on higher-end machines.
- Shot #2 - This demonstrates the engine's realtime shadowing. Every single pixel has its own shadow, which is something no other platform can say. Further, it's done without pixel or vertex shaders, making it compatible with older systems. (However, they must support the Photoshop "emboss" plugin.)
- Shot #3 - In 1998, lens flare was all the rage. 2005 is the year of the bloom. Or maybe it's a glow effect? I can't remember which one it was -- I'll check with our marketing department and get back to you on that.
- Shot #4 - You're thinking, "Hey, that's nice, but I bet you can't do all three effects at once." Well, we can, and we did.
All right, so I suppose it's tough for an indie studio to compete with Quake IV. But here's hoping that we can carve our a niche in the hearts of gamers everywhere. After all, you don't always need a cool million to write a game. Sometimes all you need is 96k.Has Hollywood any originality left? Lately all they seem to release are rehashes of Japanese horror movies, video game movies or remakes of other movies & TV series.
;) I suppose both industries dabble in a bit of sequelism, but I enjoyed most of the games in that list. How about a trailer for a movie that's based on a game that's a sequel to a game that's a sequel to a game?
Quick: name the last 5 original Hollywood movies you've seen.
1. Half Life 2
2. Doom 3
3. Battlefield 2
4. Soul Calibur 2
5. Halo 2
Oh. You said original movies.
Being an independent developer, we have an enormous amount of freedom in how we can portray our in-game characters. In our most recent action title, we made sure to portray male and female characters in a fairly realistic fasion. The result was that a major gaming magazine chided us for a female protagonist that wasn't busty enough. Apparently our undersexualized portrayal of women is a turn-off for males.
Similarly, we've noticed that for our puzzle games (where we portray no people), women make up roughly half of our customers. This drops way down for our action titles (where we do portray people). I must guess, then, that our undersexualized portrayal of men in these games has been a turn off for women. As such, starting with our next title, we will implement the Five Foot Phallus rule.
Let me explain.
- The Five Foot Phallus - All major male characters will possess a phallus at least five feet in length.
- Minor Characters may have phalli that are 3-4 feet long, which is closer to the human average, so nobody can complain about that.
- Gameplay - It should be noted that such a member is soley for aesthetic presentation, and will not affect gameplay. Players will not be able to walk up to enemies and beat them to death with their enormous genitalia. This only goes along with the industry trend, since in most video games, you can't use a female character's ridiculous bosom to suffocate opponents.
- Simulation - We're currently researching how we might most naturally present this, and are looking into licensing various engines for rigid-body physics.
I'm convinced that this move will bring the female demographic for our action games up in no time.What do you think?
32 comments, and not one reference to the Doom and Metroid movies at PA?
I agree with those who say that knowledge of OpenGL and/or DirectX is a must, (always know something about what goes on under the hood), but I'm also a big fan of short time-to-market once you actually start developing a concept. Here are some 2D engines that speed up development:
- Torque2D - GarageGame's upcoming 2D tiling engine SDK. This looks promising, but is in its early-adopter release. Not yet ready for primetime, according to GarageGames.
- Pygame - Python-based 2D engine. My feeling is that Python is a great language to start game development in.
- Orbforms Designer - Why limit yourself to the PC? PDA games can give you a greater return on your time than Windows games do. (Per man-hour, our PDA titles bring us more revenue than our PC titles do.)
- Game Editor - For those who want to go even higher-level than an SDK.
So you want to write a 3D game! Try one of these:- 3D Gamestudio - The engine of choice for our latest games. I love it, and hope they'll extend to the Xbox 360 platform when it comes out.
- Torque - Maybe the single most popular 3D engine among indies and hobbyists. Focuses, in part, on cross-platform compatibility (Windows/Linux/Mac).
- OGRE - An open-source package. Frequently updated. Some nice projects using the engine.
- DarkBASIC - A popular package among new developers and independents.
Also check out what kind of games independents are making now:- Game Tunnel - Previews, articles, and reviews of indie games.
- DIY Games - Covering the latest independent/shareware titles.
And ignore anyone who says that you should start off by developing something simple. It's good advice, but nobody ever listens to it.---
Inago Rage - Create and fight in your own FPS arenas.
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Also worth noting is some of the feedback this fellow received, including various death threats. The most well-known cases of abusive behavior towards simulated lifeforms probably occur in The Sims. From a Wired article on same:
Many of us have probably stomped anthills in our youth, (or worse?), and bullied/been bullied. Does this power dynamic fall along the same lines? The example from Creatures, above, surprises me. But I will admit to building a Sims household with a swimming pool and no ladder.
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Epidemic Groove - An indie-developed casual RTS/Action hybrid for Windows.
- Cube, which allows players to create their own maps.
- Nexuiz, under GPL, allowing everyone to download the source and modify it.
- Inago Rage, own indie FPS, which allows players to create environments from within the game.
I've been pestering people to go and write in their votes for these independent titles . Write in one -- or better, why not write in all three?We recently released what I like to call a casual RTS/Action hybrid for Windows called Epidemic Groove. It's a single-player game written to be played over a lunch break, (with matches typically taking 10-20 minutes). In it, you alternate between Construction and Invasion phases. In the former, you have 60 seconds to build defensive walls, medical lasers, repair pylons, and electrified fences to create an impenetrable structure. In the latter, you have to use those defenses and your reflexes to fend off pathogenic attack. Here are some shots:
GIF animation of Construction Phase
Shot of infected red blood cell attacking
It's an indie title, but it's been well-received by those who have played/reviewed it. Give it a try!
You can find three remixes of the theme from M.U.L.E. here.
You are my new personal hero.
If only Dani Bunten Berry were alive now.
I've long thought that software developers will eventually make software piracy impossible, (or at least difficult or irrelevant), by relying more on online content.
I'm not referring to online copy protection, but in actual value-added content. For example, it's not always meaningful to pirate the client of a MMORPG, since the meat is in the subscription content. Similarly, the developer of a first-person shooter might offer server-based content -- maps and tournaments -- that's not available on the client side.
Most folks who copy media seem to do so casually; might this provide them an incentive to pick up a full copy, making the argument about end-user piracy moot?
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Epidemic Groove - A casual RTS/Action hybrid for Windows
1. Give us A.I. that will actually outsmart us now and then.
...Where's the game where we're a castaway on a deserted island and the object of the game is to find food and clean water...
This is not really what we want; it's actually not always fun. What we actually want is AI that will a) surprise us, or b) do something that appears clever. In some of the better, faster-paced games, there a decent amount of intelligence on the part of the enemy -- (ever see how enemies in Half Life 2 will try multiple doors to get to you?) but we're so busy running and gunning, that we don't notice it.
2. Give us a genre of game we've never seen before.
I'll be -1 Redudant and point out, say, many of Will Wright's offerings, (PA notwithstanding). Hell, they even bring up Katamari later on in the article. I was somewhat agog at the article's next complaints:
Why isn't a there a spy game where we actually get to be a real spy rather than a hallway-roving kill machine?
Games such as Thief and, to a lesser extent, Splinter Cell, fulfill the former; and the underrated (but difficult-to-play) Robinson's Requiem and (again, to a lesser extent) Notrium are among the latter.
5. And on the opposite side of the nipple coin... Developers will be shocked one day when they notice that the world is full of women. It's true! More than half of your potential customer base are penisless.
Absolutely; I think companies will flock to that as the "next-big-thing" eventually. Here's my timetable for buzzwords:
2004 - Shadows and Lighting
2005 - Realistic Physics
2006 - Emergent Gameplay
2007 - Appeal to Women
10. And while we're at it... Let's rid games of all arbitrary barriers.
Again, I agree; and I wonder if, should we start building games differently, (e.g., if more elements are handled by simulated systems rather than scripted events), will we see more of this? I care less about this from the standpoint of immersion, and more from the standpoint of the ability to solve problems as I want to solve problems. This seems less a matter of horsepower and more a matter of game design. It's not slow CPUs preventing us from doing this. Is it?
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Epidemic Groove - A combination of real-time-strategy and action on a cellular level.
"Have you ever wondered what it is like to be a model at E3?"
Have you ever wondered what it is like to watch Seung-Mina and Xianghua fight in a live action performance on stage? Sure you have! But wonder no more: Kali-Yuga will show you the way (mirror) in a short, but entertaining video clip.
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Play Epidemic Groove - A unique hybrid of real-time strategy and action created by an indie studio.
Microsoft's XNA also sounds promising. Though that FAQ has not been updated since the announcement of the Xbox 360, it seems that XNA will give us the ability to develop for it. Here's hoping that livingrooms across the country will have access to games hobbled together in the garage.
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Try Epidemic Groove - A game of real-time-strategy and action for Windows PCs.