Plot holes

I'm very pressed for time today, so I'll have to keep this short and sweet.

Have you ever bee annoyed at a plothole in a movie? Have you ever thought to yourself (or shouted at the screen) Why are you doing that? Don't go in there! You idiot!

Well here's how it would be without stupid decisions:




Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=olEbwhWDYwM

Until next time, have a safe, sane week!

Gaming Manifesto, part 2 (sort of)

It's another week and it's time for me to talk more about game design. I began this last week, and I have since learned a lot more.

There is an amazing Youtube channel, Extra Credits, and if you are even a little bit interested in anything I said last week, or what I'm about to say now, please go watch some of their videos. They are really excellent.

So, why do we play games? The easy answer is: to have fun of course!

But there is more to it than that. Many have said that This War of Mine is in fact not a fun game, but that it is both compelling and thought provoking. These things can be fun in and of themselves, but it goes beyond that. This War of Mine makes you reflect on yourself and your morals. It explores consequences, good and bad. As such this is a good game, even though it's not exactly fun.

If we however stick with fun for now, the question becomes, what is fun? A very subjective question indeed, but there are a few things the great majority of gamers do agree on. The best selling games regardless of genre, have a few common denominators.

1. They are approachable.
2. They are challenging but fair.
3. They have both depth and complexity.

What does approachable really mean? A good example of an approachable game is World of Warcraft. No one needed to know the first thing about mmorpg's or indeed Azeroth to sit down and play. There was nothing that was too hard to do or understand in the beginning. They even sneaked tutorial elements into the starting area without you ever noticing. It's no coincidence that WoW had 12 million players at it's peak. It was good design.

An unapproachable game is Crusader Kings II. I've tried, oh how I gave tried. There are so many things you need to be aware of as soon as the game starts and failure here, can spell doom. A good example is the very first thing you have to do: pause the game. If you don't, the AI will steal all the best available brides in Europe, leaving you with the “dregs”. The game, to my knowledge, doesn't explain this. You simply have to know it.

So how is a game challenging and fair? Well, for one, it's always consistent. Enemies can be brutally difficult to beat, but should never exhibit new abilities they have never used before at convenient locations, just to dick you over. A jump can be terribly hard to manage, but it mustn't have an invisible wall because “you are not allowed to go there”. If you can get there, you are allowed to go there. The Dark Souls games are fine examples of tough but fair.

Another example of fairness, is consistent power use. I talked about this last week, but it bears repeating. Don't give the players abilities that suddenly don't work for no reason. That's wrong and unfair. Give a reason if you need to handicap the character. It also infuriates me when a scripted event overrides my skill. In Fallout 3, I had a character with maxed stealth skill. I could sneak up on anyone, and escape from anywhere, without being seen. Except towards the end where the Enclave manages to both detect me, and sneak up on me while they are wearing power armor, in order to kidnap me. Bull---shit!

Depth and complexity is a tough point. And since it requires both space and time, and I don't want to ramble on for too long, I'll save that for next time. Until then, have a fun week!

Gaming Manifesto

I just finished watching AngryJoe's review of Quantum Break, by Remedy.

I'm not going to talk about Quantum Break here, if you want to know more, got to AngryJoe's channel and watch it yourself. It's entertaining and funny, and well worth half an hour in my opinion. If you've been considering buying the game, you should definitely watch the review.

Anyway, it got me thinking, and I thought I'd talk a little bit about game design instead. Disclaimer: I am not a game designer, I am a gamer. Therefore this is completely from the viewpoint of a consumer not a producer.

The basic gameplay must be good

Whatever game you are making has to be worth playing at it's most basic core. Example: Grand Theft Auto is about cars, so driving them has to be fun. It doesn't matter how much extra fluff you put in the game, if the driving mechanic is garbage. Luckily GTA 5 is a great game and the cars are fun. If the basics are off, the game is off, no matter what.

There is no substitute for level design

Something that is sadly rare these days, good level design is crucial to most games. Sure, a football game doesn't need level design as it's a field, but most others do. Boring layouts and overuse of the same configurations kills the mood quickly. Levels should be interesting to explore, they should challenge us and make us think outside the box. Even back in the day when corridor shooters a la Doom 1 were the norm, the levels were varied and atmospheric. Do not rinse and repeat.

There is no substitute for quality

Here's a shocker: No matter how good the graphics are, they don't matter at all if the game is boring. Games aren't movies, they must be fun to play. Not that special effects can save bad films either, it's just that in games you drive the action, you do he work and if it's a chore, the game fails. The story has to be well written and the characters likeable/hateful as required. You wouldn't read a book if you care nothing for the characters, the same goes for games. Fancy graphics can't cover up these issues.

Powers and Abilities must be consistent

This is what prompted me to write this. In Quantum Break you can rewind time to go back to a point where a locked door is unlocked, so that you can walk through. Except when you can't for no reason whatsoever. If you give the players powers, assume they are going to use them. If that becomes problematic when designing levels, don't put the power in the game to begin with. Or put limitations on how the power works, like This power only works during the day for this reason. That way you can make sure that your level works. Also, when inventing cool abilities for your game, don't forget to put in why something doesn't work all of a sudden.

Example: Dishonored. You get lots of cool powers in this game. One, Windblast, can smash open doors, but not reinforced doors. This may seem like quibbling, but keep in mind you also can't blow down walls. This remains consistent throughout the game. I never felt like the game cheated in Dishonored, not even once.

Anyway, this was part 1 of my “gaming manifesto”. I'll probably do more next time, so until then, have a great week!

Oculus Rift

Today we're going to take another look at the emerging technology that is virtual reality.

I found two of Angry Joe's videos for you to look at. The first is an unboxing and setup/review of the Oculus Rift and the second is a game review for Dreadhalls, a horror game for the Oculus.

Not only do I find this tremendously interesting in itself, but the one point that really stood out in the Dreadhalls video, is the point Joe makes about the games graphics.

See, the graphics are “old-school” if I'm being polite. I could be rude and call them dated and clunky, but I am nothing if not polite. That's not the point either way. The point is what I have been saying for years, namely that graphics mean nothing if the game isn't good.

With the immersion the VR goggles creates, you'll forget about the graphics in no time, and your survival is all that becomes important. By today's standards, Skyrim's graphics are old, but that doesn't matter when I play it, since the game is so good.

For years now, people have complained that the AAA studios are churning out bland garbage. Not all the time, sure, but too often considering the price tags. Then the studios complain that the games aren't selling well enough, even though they turn out a healthy profit.

Of course, if you invest $250 million on a game and the players can't even begin to guess what you actually managed to spend the money on, you have a problem. Yes, the game looks awesome, but with barely any story, and dull repetitive gameplay, your game is not going to break any records, and then it does not matter how pretty the game is. No way, and never.

Case in point: The Order 1886. Amazingly beautiful graphics, boring dumb gameplay. I can't find any hard numbers on it's sales, but all sources report it was garbage, and a large portion of the gamers refused to even finish the game. That alone says something considering it's about six hours long.

So what does that have to do with the Oculus Rift? Well, this:

VR is the first new thing to happen to games in decades. And I'm not talking about minor things like “Ooh, we put a touch pad on the controller. Isn't it shiny and wonderful?”

Sure that's “new” but at the end of the day it's still just a controller. VR is for-real-new, and it will hopefully teach the developers and publishers to think outside the box and make them reevaluate what makes a good game, not just for VR but for all gaming.

That's it for me today, so until next time, have a cool week!

Backup video links:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=87IJU1AtcAw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IvvooIcET8k

The whole rotten saga

One Sunday evening, back in the early 90's, I flopped down on the couch for some creative channel surfing.

On BBC World, I found something with a castle, which peaked my interest. I like castles, you see. Then I saw Rowan Atkinson, who I recognized from Mr. Bean, but this wasn't that. Oh no, this was my first glimpse of Blackadder, and I've been hooked ever since.

I have long since lost count of how many times I have watched the four original seasons, but I still know most lines by heart, even though it's been more than twenty years now. I have seen the specials, Blackadder back and forth, The Blackadder Christmas special and the Cavalier Years. They're good, but not as good as the originals.

Last week, I stumbled on Blackadder – The Whole Rotten Saga, and thought to my self, Hello, a new special? Alas, no. It's not a new special but rather a 90 minute documentary about the show. Interviews with all the original actors, the writers and producers. If you ever watched Blackadder and thought it was funny, you should watch this, you really should.

So here you go, The whole rotten saga:

 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yi2bX2u5HpA

They lied to us

A couple of days ago I ran into a Youtube channel called Lindybeige.

The owner is a historical re-enactor, live role player, gamer etc. The thing I find most fascinating about his channel is the experiments he does with armor, weapons and amongst other things, torches.

As it turns out, media such as TV, movies and games have lied to us for years. Take torches as an example. A medieval torch was most likely made from pitch. If you set fire to pitch the first thing you're going to notice is the smoke, and there's going to be a lot of it. Outside that's not much of a problem, but if you're inside, or even worse, under ground, you're not going to have to worry about orcs, smoke inhalation is going to get you first.

He also demonstrates what drawing a sword sounds like (it's not a metallic schiing sound), how wearing a full helmet affects your vision and hearing and many other things.

So if you, like me, find stuff like that interesting, go check it out. The link is up above, and I'll ad a sample below.

I'm a bit rushed today, so you'll have to settle for this. If you do go to the channel, you'll be busy as well.

Until next time, have an interesting week!

More gaming news

Hello there, it's time for more Eccentric Spheres!

A couple of weeks ago, I wrote about Microsoft's plans for their Universal Windows Platform (UWP) and the plan to erase the walls between PC and Xbox gaming.

Well more information is available and it's not all that good. I did mention that games bought from the Windows Store are locked to borderless full-screen and that LSI is disabled, but it goes deeper than that.

The problem is that the .exe game files are essentially apps, and as such are locked down and can not be modified. In essence this means that games bought from Microsoft can't be modded! One of the biggest elements of the PC gaming scene is disabled. Microsoft please...

If this persists they have completely lost their minds. Another aspect is that games can't be recorded by traditional means, which means that Let's Players and streamers can't and (most likely) won't use these games. This in turn will kill any chances Microsoft has of becoming a major retailer of games. Why should anyone buy their games from them when other retailers don't have these limitations? You tell me, I can't figure it out.

Microsoft did say there would be 'growing pains' but this is worryingly dumb. Get your heads straight guys.

Interestingly, speaking of MS, they have suggested to Sony that it would be interesting and cool of Xbox players and Playstation players could play together, and Sony has agreed, at least in theory. These talks are very much in their infancy, so time will tell.

Finally, Creative Assembly, the team behind the beloved Total War series, have pushed back the release date for Total War Warhammer by a month. Considering how messed up Total War releases have usually been, this is a good thing.

Other interesting things about Total Warhammer are that the Vampire Counts have finally been released, and it looks fine so far, but many essential elements are still absent.

They have also revealed that the sieges will be different from previous Total War titles. Where you could previously attack all four sides of a city, you can only attack two in Warhammer. This is to aid the AI in using functional strategies, something that has been lacking in previous titles, I'm told.

Again time will tell if Total Warhammer will be a good game, and in that vein I have decided to adopt a wait and see strategy instead of getting the game upon release. I love the setting too much to take the risk of getting my heart broken.

That is that. Until we see each other next time, have a lovely week!