DualMondays: Why isn't Hideo Kojima making Snatcher 2?

Well, probably everyone by now knows, has heard of or has seen Hideo Kojima's name somewhere. But I'm gonna be a hispsterish kind of guy and admit that I loved him more when he was doing visual novels. Yeah, yeah, I do agree that Metal Gear Solid is a fantastic game, one of the most impactful to be precise. I love MGS as much as the next person, don't get me wrong, and I do appreciate how Mr.. Kojima grew up to be a developer whose name is now sung on shrines and temples. He deserves every single bit of his stardom and wealth, if not more.

But, I grew to love him by exploring the cyberpunk streets of Neo-Kobe in Snatcher, and I didn't care if it was a direct nod to Blade Runner, Terminator and The Invasion of Body Snatchers. I didn't mind at all and while it was obvious, it didn't feel like a rip-off. It felt as if there was an attempt to mix all the movies we all came to enjoy into one cohesive, playable whole. The same goes for Policenauts which was only released in Japan; frankly I didn't mind playing as the anime version of Mel Gibson's character from Lethal Weapon.

The best thing in these games, besides the obvious focus they had on setting and story, was the music. I fell in love with each song that was featured in either Snatcher or Policenauts. I can still hum the main theme to the latter. Du du - du du du. Du du - du du DU. The atmospheric setup of these games was successfully transferred to the next games of Hideo. Whilst in Snatcher, the technological and sinister-like themes were engulfing the player as he or she dug deeper looking for answers, the eerie, jazzy, nostalgic tunes were flowing together with the smoke coming out of the cigarette of Jonathan Ingram and Ed Brown - the protagonists of Policenauts.

I'm not sure why HK moved away from the visual novel style. Perhaps the sudden tech evolution allowed him to follow an older vision. Perhaps he felt imprisoned within the gameplay confines of heavy dialog and action mini-games. Regardless, a huge leap of faith was performed.

And that's how we got MGS. And as I began playing it, I still remember my reaction when the Konami logo appeared on my screen. I screamed, "Oh, Oh, that's the song from Policenauts!", wondering if the latter was going to ever be translated in English for me to enjoy. (That took a long while, but it finally happened)

Thing is the mastermind behind all these games converted me to a believer. I was anxious to play any of his games after I came across Snatcher. Even though they were not exactly shaped for everyone, I understood the vision and I felt mesmerized by it. So, without crying and complaining about the same stuff over and over, Hideo, I would love to see a true sequel to any of your older games.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• DualMondays: Fan Service
• The Guide to Classic Graphic Adventures
• An interview with Steve Ince
• Remembering Willy Beamish

DualMondays: Motivation

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things. It usually appears on Mondays -- only rarely on Wednesdays. And some times fortnightly.

My main concern about this topic is that I'll fail to stay on it. Like, miserable fail.

I've grown to realize something god-awful when it comes to game developers as a collective of human beings who enjoy making games as much, if not more, as playing them. All of them start with this super-fancy excitement frenzy. Which, is normal. You've decided you wanna make games, and it freaks the living shit out of you; especially as you're growing so very ambitious so very fast. So, you spam forums and retweet people you're jealous of.

You are running on pure energy, being all revved up, but have no actual idea how to make a game. You're most likely lacking all the necessary skills as it is. Coding, artwork, game design, sound design. And that's okay, don't be hard on yourself. Ask any game developer that's successful and she/he 'll say, "I was never that immature", and you'll know that she/he 's lying. They've definitely been there, they hid it by lurking or showing their attempts to a selective few, or maybe nobody knew who they were anyway back then.

This flow of excitement is completely natural, and your improbability of making a good game is also equally high. It's like wanting to play the guitar. Υou like the instrument, you dream of playing solos, and then you buy one, and completely suck at it. At first. But honing your skills with practice and research and proper techniques will yield results, both in guitar playing and game making.

So, why do we as game developers start with such motivation and then proceed to lose it? Well, mainly due to letting people get into our heads. We get an honest comment about how awful something we spent hours upon hours on, is, and we get discouraged. We lose motivation. We tell ourselves "I'm bad at this." and it is then decided that we shouldn't bother with it anymore. I couldn't disagree more. Hear this then: Nobody gets good at something unless they try, and try, and try and try, and then some more. You may not get it, you may abandon a project, but you sure as heck need to keep moving.

Most importantly however, you need to stop being afraid of what other people will say about your creations. You need to anticipate all reactions and realize what reactions you really crave for. Then, you devise a plan on adjusting things to achieve/force these behaviors, from those who befall into the midst of your. From the peeps who play your games.The difference between you as a game designer now, and [insert name of game designer idol here], is only that she or he took risks by trying.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• DualMonday: Fan Service
• The making of Droidscape: Basilica
• Analog Investigations in Arkham 
• 250 Indie Games You Must Play - the book

DualMondays: Let me be your guide!

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things. It usually appears on Mondays -- only rarely on Wednesdays. And some times fortnightly.

Alright, first, let's get formalities out of the way.

Happy new year, fellas and gals!

I hope you had a good share of the holiday spirit and rest. Even if it wasn't full frontal partying but spending time with loved ones on a cozy and warm environment instead, everything counts in my book. Enough about holidays though. And to get the thing out of the way, I'm not gonna talk about New Year's resolutions, these are silly. If you're gonna do something, there's no need announcing it to everyone, unless you're looking for attention or confirmation. And these should never be the motive to accomplishing anything.

Alright, back on topic, which is none other than tutorials in videogames. So, what is their purpose? Why do they even exist as a term and comprise such a big role in the medium? Well, videogames have evolved a lot those past 40 years and with them so have their respective controls. These aren't the 80s anymore; we don't use the Atari 2600 control schemes anymore - just a stick and one button rarely cut it. We've instead been transported to an era of rather complex and multi-level control over our videogames. And that can be accounted mostly to the traversal to an extra dimension.

Nowadays we can move a character regardless of perspective (the position of the camera is irrelevant, dear viewer) to a space that isn't pseudo-3D because of limitations - emulated through mode7 algorithms or the like - but rather is actually presented in front of our very eyes as genuinely three-dimensional. Also, as games swell in complexity, the number of available actions the player can perform to impact his surroundings increased as well. To explicitly explain and help the player realize and understand the game mechanics, tutorials slowly started popping in videogames. But, while the tutorial --on a theoretical level-- fixed a major upcoming problem of the medium, it also created a couple of issues with its presence.

You see, on a practical level, initially at least, nobody bothers making use of the tutorial a part of their story and world. Instead it is stuck between some part of the story usually on the first stages, to make sure the player has been shown everything there is to know about the videogame in question.

While this is useful, it also breaks immersion, reminding us constantly throughout its duration that this is a videogame we're playing after all. In their majority tutorials are uninspired and as such, there are several tropes they're falling into, some of them becoming some sort of inside joke among gamers, who are anxiously smashing buttons, hoping to go through the tutorial faster to get to the actual game. FarCry 3's tutorial even goes a long way joking about this entire situation.

However, games such as Half Life, Little Big Planet, Portal, Black & White, Beyond Good & Evil, Metal Gear Solid 4, Castlevania: Symphony Of The Night and Fallout 3 sport wonderful tutorial sequences, that don't feel intrusive and instead feel natural and part of the entire game. They exist because they actually work as a concept based on the principles and the rules which govern the universe they happen to be a part of.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• DualMondays: Point And Click Jam - Aftermath
• Interview with Steve Ince
• DualNames on BETA testing
• Remembering Wille Beamish

DualMondays: Gone Soft

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things. It usually appears on Mondays -- only rarely on Wednesdays. And some times fortnightly.

It's one of the last days of this year and I have to say that bothering with a retrospective for this article did cross my mind a couple of times. But, instead, I'm gonna talk about game difficulty and how we've gone soft and have been treating the player as a little baby. Keep in mind, that I grew up in the middle of the SNES vs Genesis era and that may make me a little biased - a lot probably.

After watching a Teens React video about teens playing Megaman, I couldn't help myself but facepalm. The players were kind of expecting everything to be explained and pointed out to them, no matter how obvious, but mostly they were into this delusion that the game was going to allow them to make mistakes and not punish them for it. Even if this involved the task of comprehending a pattern of an enemy's projectile or movement, to devise a strategy against it. My main concern however, stood in the fact that given a controller of 4 buttons and a directional pad, the players didn't even bother to press all the buttons to see what they do.

As far as I'm concerned, Megaman sports one of the most common and widely celebrated setups for the NES Controller, and it is so, because it's highly connected to the logic of any player that has grabbed that kind of a controller in his lifetime. It really baffled me that some didn't know they could shoot. Still, the general consensus was that the game was unfair, though the players were complimenting themselves saying they did good for getting that far, when actually only one of them reached the boss of the stage. Something I did agree with the crowd, however is that I also find myself setting videogames' difficulty level to hard, and still being able to beat them.

As a gamer, I have this feeling that we're de-evolving skill-wise converting certain aspects in game genres towards a less interactive, more forgiving experience. While the introduction of cinematic elements in videogames is something I'm a huge fan of, both as a gamer and a designer, I feel like, in an attempt to grasp a bigger demographic, game design has ripped us of challenges to portray a weaker aspect, but not for the sake of story driven gameplay.

And that explains the success of titles created within smaller studios. Even if diametrically different, Hotline Miami, for instance, compared to Call Of Duty, is stylistic and more interactive, even if in comparison it's quite more unforgiving. But that's the addictive part in it. It beckons the player from the very beginning to think - hone his/her skills and strategies and upgrade them, in order to overcome the hurdles placed in front of him/her. It doesn't mess around; from the very beginning. It sports a sort of realism - a truth that this is not one of those games that will be beaten without effort. I correct my previous statement, it doesn't beckon, it demands that you become a better player. It gives you the possibility with its arsenal of tidbits to cut through its logic core. At the same time though, it disallows you to master it completely by ever-introducing new elements and forcing you to adapt to them again and again.

And that's proper game design in my book. This whole rant of mine isn't about the difficulty of a videogame - god forbid, a game doesn't have to be difficult to be entertaining. But it always has to remain challenging, like a wild horse. Otherwise what's the point, where's the pleasure?

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• DualWednesdays do actually happen...
• DualMondays: Boss Fights 101
• Something on Earthling Priorities
• Lawless Legends and 8-bit RPGing 

Dual(Mondays)Wednesdays: Beta-love

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things. It usually appears on Mondays -- only rarely on Wednesdays.

Well, I've pondered about this a whole lot. This is a bit of a weird topic, but let's have at it. Let's talk about everything regarding properly testing your videogame. It may not be rocket science, in fact, I've checked, it's not, however that doesn't mean it's a walk in the park either.

As a developer, going through the testing phase of your project, you must not hasten to its completion by reducing it into a simple bug squatting pit. It should be the first step to shaping up the community that will surround your videogame.

Clarifying that to your head is vital in order to help you alter the focus from bug-finding to feedback. And specifically asking for constructive and detailed feedback from the beta testing team is one of the ways to go, and as a developer, if you respect yourself, you should make it so. After all, the beta-phase should always be about showing people your game and re-shaping it by going through as much feedback as possible. The lack of such, is and should be devastating for the progress of the game.

While the alpha version is about constructing the game based on self-feedback and testing, beta is about a private smaller group/demographic determining your efforts and helping you reshape them (if you're willing to accept the views of said group), before releasing it to the public. From this wonderful experience, which personally, as a developer, I adore the most out of the entire game-making process, you must learn to accept every opinion and be as open-minded as possible.

Despite the fact that certain points being voiced will not be ones to keep, every other point that you cannot logically or game-wise argue against can be considered as valid and actions towards its suggestions can be taken. In simpler words, it's up to you to bother with and filter every single remark and comment about your creation. Don't be afraid or disheartened, but rather see everything as an opportunity to get better. The mistakes you've made so far have no impact on the end product, for this is the juncture to alter the result, kind of like having a time machine. Don't distance yourself from the testers, they're not a bunch of freeloaders, they're people who are willing to devote their time and energy to playtest your game and send you back a report containing various findings - wonderful things, that you've been accommodated to their presence, managing to ignore them in the same way you ignore the fact that you're breathing.

The testers don't bash your game when they speak of it, but rather, they judge it and criticize and hope, unlike reviewers, that you improve upon their findings. And exactly that, you should do.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• DualMondays on Fan Service
• DualMondays on Ispiration
• Here's how to contact the press
• Workers In Progress

DualMondays: Point And Click Jam - Aftermath

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things.

Well, normally this would have been another philosophical rambling about some topic, but today, I felt the need to bother you with the very recent and wonderfully successful Point and Click Jam. Of all the jams I watched closely or participated in this year, this one seemed to out-polish them all. There were absolutely no amateur entries here. It felt like a bunch of veterans were against each other, fighting for the first spot. This may be a correct first impression, however, upon closer inspection, that is not exactly the case. 

The majority of the contestants, hadn't even done an adventure game before (some I believe haven't even made a game!), so why does this not feel as amateur hour (pointing at the Pewdiepie VS Indie Jam)?

Because, there's no way to pull off certain genres with half-arsed efforts, which explains the duration of this game-making competition and any other adventure game competition. Think about it! Even OROW (abbreviation stands for One Room One Week), that is about making an adventure game in one room/screen, lasts a week. For it is quite known and obvious to all developers, that you could make a platform game in a matter of hours, but as a genre, adventure games are focused on the story and atmosphere, and it's rather hard to set up pacing, flow, story arc, character design, interface, puzzles within the span of a day, let alone in a less time than that.

It's a genre that begs for lots of hours of work, but also for quality. Arguably and regardless of the design of your game, polishing it is a vital element. For adventure games in particular, it works on every little part they consist of, making it something you simply have to do with. And here I am two paragraphs in and I'm already transforming back into Plato.

Anyhow - about the Point And Click Jam.

It was organized by the good people down at GameJolt, and the rules were quite simple (and a bit on the annoying side too). In 15 days you had to make an adventure game of the point and click kind, whereas the interface was left open for developers to either make one that had already been famous from games of the era or construct a brand new one. The resolution was forced to 320x200 so that you could get that "1991 feel" and you could work on your story before the jam begun (but just the story!). The ultra annoying bit for me, was the palette restriction. To make things more challenging and closer to the Lucas Arts / Sierra Era we all loved when we were growing up, the rules stated that you had to use a certain palette (a number of colors) to make your entry.

That was of course set to maintain a retro feel, along with the rule that also made clear that you're not allowed to make use of a technology further developed after 1992 or so (contemporary technologies in making the assets of your game had to be used). While this did help create quality entries in a weird masochistic way, I found it rather unappealing. The jam should have at least broadened the restrictions by allowing the use of transparency, if not alpha channels on sprites.

Regardless I consider the jam to be highly succesful, as, through it, wonderful games such as "A Fragment of Her", "Max Greene", "The Exciting Space Adventures of Greg And Linda", "Void And Meddler", "There Ain't No Sunshine", "A Cosmic Song" and others, spawned. I highly suggest checking all the entries, but the ones mentioned are worth an extra bit of attention. Wait, aren't adventure games dead? :P

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• DualMondays: Fan Service
• Eye^Game^Candy: Cruise for a Corpse
• The Watchful Indie Watch #5.12
• On indie gaming godhood

DualMondays: Fan Service

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things.

"Currently, I have to admit, I'm a bit swamped with work, cause we're planning a wonderful patch for Primordia", is what I wrote a week ago to save myself from writing last week's article. Though this means I just abused this webspace for personal promotion, I promise I'm not going to reference the game on this article again. It's not even what the article is about, it's only but a spark. But, returning back to it, why would anyone bother with something released over 2 years ago? Doesn't that make you wonder? What are the reasonings behind it? Well, the answer is not logical in itself. But let's take things from the top.

In anime and manga any material added or adjusted to please the audience intentionally is clarified as Fan Service. In the weird cultural differences between the Western world and the Japanese, fan service could even mean about having a long shot of a woman's body and/or generally gratuitous nudity. But it's not just about that. Prolonged scenes, extra violence, references to other shows are also deemed as fan service. But what is this term I've been throwing at your face actually about?

It is about servicing the fans, if you will, providing the audience with the premise that was initially hinted at or directly promised, or somewhere in the process deeply desired. For its about giving your fanbase, regardless of size, what they want, to put it bluntly. As it has been said before, it could be fixing an annoying issue, fixing a crash, it could be adding content, adjusting previously existing content, it could be virtually anything. 

What helps clarify it as such, is the fact that you've went out of your own way to provide a version of the product closer to the desires of the fans. A direct nod of appreciation, to show the bondage between you and the audience. Every remake of a game, every remastered version of it, despite being approved for profit reasons is also falling under the rule of servicing the fanbase.

A big example of that, are the Neon Genesis Evangelion (Shin - Seiki Evangerion) movies. Categorized as a fan service because they are created to satisfy the fans desire for a better (perhaps alternative is a better word) ending to the series. It's even stated on last addition to the saga, Evangelion 3.33, You Can (Not) Redo, that the movies have been partly if not entirely for the fan's satisfaction, as they will continue till the fourth movie gets released. The original television series first airing almost two decades ago (October, 1995), ended rather philosophically and abruptly. 

The finale itself, mostly abstract in its nature (containing concept drawings, unfinished sequences, real-life stills and voice-over dialogue), has being heavily criticized by critics and fans alike, who considered even the possibility that the ending was forced from budget cuts. Thus, the creators have embarked on a quest to satisfy the thirst of the fanbase (cult, would be more appropriate) for a proper closure.

Fan service is a weird kind of love, nobody gets it, except the parties involved. Then again we could rule it down to explicit sexual content, but that's not what it's about. It's not logical, it's not even always good for business, it's the opposite of value-per-time-spent, but it's a wonderful thing we do, a silly anniversary to form a wonderful relationship.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• Ticket to Dixit: Tales of the Arkham Hill
• DualMondays on Cyberpunk
• DualMondays on Inspiration
• Game Books from Transylvania to Na Pali

DualMondays: Did you cry?

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things.

Talking about TV series with my brother yesterday, the conversation took an interesting turn: "Have you played The Walking Dead video-", he said, but was briefly interrupted by my nod. "This may sound weird to you, but I cried at the end", he exclaimed. This created a wonderful discussion over which videogames have made us feel sentimental in the past. Anyhow, as I started to wonder, I felt a nice warm feeling recalling the games I was connected to in such emotional way.

For a moment I got lost into a philosophical journey. In movies it's somewhat easier to cry and generally share or be overcome by certain sentiments/feelings, because the usual behavior we have while experiencing a story is to attempt to relate to it. But with games that's usually different, mostly because we have full (or at least the illusion of such) control over the protagonist's actions and the protagonist in most cases serves as a vessel of ourselves.

With the creation and the world-wide success of Elite, a significant change to videogames occurred. An alteration to the rule that a score must determine the skill of the player and the player's involvement to the game must resolve around his/her attempts to get the highest score possible. With Elite we were slowly introduced to something far greater. The probability that games could "just" have a decent storyline instead of a score. And as time passed and technology progressed, it happened. The early nineties were mostly dominated by Adventure Games and RPGs, both primarily focused on gripping story arcs and featuring elements such as branches, depth, setting, character development etc.

Even if the adventure game genre itself  lost part of its shine and glory, it helped immensely in paving the way for other genres to evolve; genres that were mostly focusing on excessive button mashing. Action / First Person Shooter franchises such as Max Payne, Metal Gear Solid, System Shock, Half Life, Resident Evil disengaged from the brainless stereotype of exaggerated, rapid frenzy and reckless gameplay to a more delicate, realistic approach. As storyline became an new element in game design, cinematic elements have also been introduced, gradually transforming videogames into a new form of art (even though that could be a stretch) - an art we can interact with our own ways within the limits that are presented to us (visible and not).

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• Enough with the Gaming Industry
• The Interactive Storytelling Sanitarium
• DualMondays: Boss Fights 101
• The Journey Down - an interview

DualMondays: FFVI

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things.

You know, someone is cringing at the comments going like " Do you mean Final Fantasy III?", so let's settle this for once, I will call this VI, cause it happened to be the 6th game of the series. I can't remember a single game I've played for the sole reason that it had great music and I actually wanted to hear more of it. I've been influenced musically, stylistically, game-design wise, but most certainly, entirely by this installment in the series.

Dissecting its nowadays considered cult introduction sequence, the very one accompanied by the most memorable tunes ever to grace a game, the attention to detail is miraculous. Slowly helping new and old players realize the setting, and applying strong and firm points of interest by playing around a typical cliche, we're slowly immersed into a world of conflicts. As technology battles magic, deeper connections are created, making it harder to pick a side. Both are justified in their unique ways, engulfing the incredibly complex cast of characters into choices and situations undesired. 

Final Fantasy's story alternates around the same perspectives - it's about the end of an era, as much as it is about the beginning of another one. I refuse to tell you anything about the story, dear reader, but I will tell you this: In this part of the saga called Final Fantasy, an important choice was made. A choice that every technological probability of the engine that would sport the game, would be used to its fullest potential. From the very first minutes, the proof is presented to us.

Heavily utilizing Mode 7 functions and tidbits for cinematic and general purposes, even though released almost 20 years ago, the graphical quality of the game still holds up to both sentimental but also historically innovative (for the time being) standard. In case you're wondering what on earth Mode 7 graphic effects are, they're basically various graphical tricks where a two-dimensional image is taken and skewed/distorted in such way that it gives the impression of a third dimension, without that dimension however ever actually existing; thus pseudo-3D. 

Now, back to the topic at hand, besides the wonderful protagonist(s), there's Kefka, one of the most notorious videogame villains of all time. Terribly underrated and rather overshadowed by Sephiroth, I strongly believe the latter would a be at best a common lackey under Kefka's rule. The game's opera sequence/cinematic is also what is held most dear by its players, not only for the music but also for the unprecedented and unexpected depth and epicness it provides to the central plot as the story seamlessly peaked.

It's a terrible thing that the majority of the Final Fantasy fanbase was taken over by the luscious prerendered quality of the 3D graphics and the impactful death scene of Iris by Sephiroth, ever-forgetting this masterpiece. If it wasn't for the release of FFVII, this gem would be significantly more appreciated by the mainstream (because the press is doing its best to restore its value). But those who have had the fortune to spend hours upon hours on it, know it deep in their hearts and cherish it. And perhaps secretly wish for a proper remake or a sequel.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• DualMondays: Technobabylon and Cyberpunk
• Silent Hill: Genesis
• Quest in space with Space Quest 
• Game Machines 1972-2012

DualMondays: Technobabylon and Cyberpunk

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things.

You know, a little while ago, around the AGS forums, but not that exclusively, a wonderful game appeared: Technobabylon. In three episodes, its author tried to introduce a bleak universe and a fantastic inter-connectivity between characters. And then, as the series was gradually getting huge attention, James Dearden (the author/developer) halted production. Personally, I felt as if I would never see more of it. 

But what is the game actually about?

Technobabylon revolves around the premise that people choose to accept the false sense of achievement presented in multiplayer videogames over the actual control on their lives, hence slowly deteriorating physically and mentally; getting addicted in a way not wholly dissimilar to drug use. Such is the protagonist of the game, but as  problems pop up, it will be impossible for him to get a last dose of the virtual world. The second game of the series, creates one of the most wonderfully revealed ties between two games - seemingly so different in almost every aspect, that literally the remembrance of it, still takes my breath away.

I do hope, the great content will be kept, if not intact, at least with the same spirit, maintaining the consistency and surprise factor present in the freeware release of the three episodes so far. I fully accept the choice to enrich and re-introduce the saga. Even though, I do feel this should have been out faster, I am still overly excited over the forthcoming release of Technobabylon. Yet nothing could ever excite me more than Cyberpunk as a genre. I'm not sure, but it's the amplification of post-apocalyptic environments surrounded by garbage bags flying around ultra-bright neon lights that does it for me.

To me, the genre always meant exciting, new, even exhilarating horizons being broadened, applying both mentally and perspective-wise a mesmerizing effect on my personal being. That is when the cyberpunk medium transcends the focus on one aspect and instead triumphantly establishes domination in every way.

Portraying flawed characters and an ironic, seemingly idyllic view of the future, whether it's dominated by a certain political view or a technological discovery/revolution, there is a thin line separating breathtaking and thought-provocative from just lasers and neon lights. I strongly believe that taking any story and transforming it into a cyberpunk version of itself is the easier way, and the most common one. While it's nice to see a plot through different glasses, perhaps adjusting its parameters differently, I'm not a huge fan of that.

That is why creating a reality based on projections of combined factors, plowing through plot holes and physical rules to narrate a story that would only be done justice under those calculated, specific list of circumstances and variables, is where the genre shines. It should always be visible to us, that it's not about telling conventional stories within unconventional surroundings, but rather about mystifying the audience with the setting, engulfing the reader, in ways that he/she feels the primal instincts and fears in different unconventional ways, purging reality of all the veils, like tears in the rain.

And I have this weird feeling, Technobabylon could be one of cyberpunk's best.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• DualMondays: On Inspiration
• Creating the best Monkey Island games possible
• Remember the 2011 AGS Awards?
• An interview with Steve Ince (on all sorts of things)

DualMondays: The Indie Game God Dream

This message never stopped you from playing. 

Come on, whether you've already made or just thought about making a videogame, you've dreamt the dream. It's not a shame, I tell you. What are dreams for if not for evoking the seemingly improbable or unobtainable? It's not worth bothering with something that provides no challenge whatsoever. It has to tax you both physically and intellectually. But being an indiegame god, is a different thing.

It's not just about making a living out of videogames; countless game designers have done that. Neither is it about creating a product or a service worth being invested in. It all boils down to perceiving and producing what others have not before. Thus, by the end of your estimated time of production, you accomplish what separates the game designers from the game gods. You change the course of the entire videogame industry. Whether your concept is based upon a certain genre, bringing new, exciting, never before used/implemented elements or it single-handedly creates a new one. Regardless of which, you rise from obscurity to worldwide fame and glory (or a portion of it).

You transform a hobby/passion into work.

It isn't simply saying "I make money from selling videogames", it's knowing you craft hours worth of excitement and innovation (even if it's scarce or minor) for people that have trusted/invested in you. And the stories of failure may indeed be present, perhaps far more present than I want to admit (this is an article to hype you, reader), but there's no game designer that set up his/her own indie game company, that started knowing how big his/her initial dreams would get. If that wasn't true, people like Dan Marshall, Agustin Cordes, Dave Gilbert, wouldn't exist. They would still be living in their parents' house/basement, or living their daily routines as they were, before they took the boldest step.

The step to attempt to give it all up to conquer even the smallest possibility of gaining enough of their yearly income, to live, play and create videogames. And how do you start doing that? Is there a specific trick to it, you ask? I'm afraid not. All you need is an idea and a way and perseverance. Bluntly put in the simplest of words, you have to try without fear of failing, dear reader.

Related @ Gnome's Lair:

• DualMondays: Inspiration
• DualMondays: Boss Fights 101
• Making of Droidscape: Basilica
• ZX Spectrum creativity

DualMondays: Inspiration

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things.

Or the lack thereof. Everyone's been there. And we've all found our ways to force inspiration, even though such a thing is basically impossible. But we have found our "muses" -- techniques, people, things, trinkets etc -- to help us get there. My personal favorite is the movie "They Shoot Horses, Don't They?" For some reason that remains unknown, I've always found the title infinitely more interesting than the movie itself.

When I first came across it, I'd surrounded the initial possibilities of the plot in my head with a veil of mystery and intrigue, creating my own version of what I could make out of the title. Thus, unaware of the actual story arc, I  gradually started realizing the endless scenarios I could create in my head under this specific title. The bleakness and the ironic grin that goes with facing the inevitability of life's events are what I like about the very expression; the one concerning the euthanasia of horses.

An innocent question to end one's innocence. Don't we sometimes have to learn to let go?

Not just people, but also creative projects, as they sometimes go astray and it's hard to pursue the goals we set out to achieve through them. Even if inspiration is the main drive, the result has to be judged and justified under different parameters. Personally, it saddens me to see a project I really wanted to see, wither away. But in the same time, I am well aware that those behind it, have their reasons. They've matured and gained experience from this whole experience.

The goal of reaching release stage is irrelevant when you've achieved and gained other things. Vital elements to be used in the future, in dreams that may come to exist. And that's how game designers evolve: by throwing down the pit of darkness, at the loneliest corners of their harddrives, what they consider as dead-weight. Whether it's easy to do so, or super-hard, no matter how much you've been clung to something, it won't fix the issues that revolve around it. And moving onto different things is the hardest thing to do.

Personally I've abandoned a good dozen of half-started games. Yeah, I admit it. But so have you. Think about it - we all have. Whether we put work or we just thought about them for a day or two - or an hour. In the spirit of the old Sierra adventure games, we learn through countless hours of trial and error, Until we see the much desired exit/solution to the puzzle. And then we consider the entire process as a wonderful journey.

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DualMondays: A strong background

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things.

I've always come to the conclusion that sometimes a story can be told in a far superior way through its setting/environment. The releases that we've come to consider as polished, have accepted this. Designers tend to painstakingly focus on the minor details, but it's no minor thing when everything breathes and expresses in its own unique ways. Adding purposefulness and reasoning behind each thing, character, behavior and action, should in fact be treated as a necessity. Enhancing each part that the game is placed in, in every possible way, is something that requires quite a bit of craftsmanship (from the perspective of the game designer); firstly because it's usually a terrible amount of work and secondly due to the chances of it being utterly ignored and/or missed by the majority of the players.

Loom offers an immense depth to a magical world, even if it's pixelly.

And I'm not talking exclusively about the little nods to a cultural piece of art/history. But, rather, speaking of the amount of seemingly uninteresting yet occasionally oh so relevant pieces of backstories that enrich the main plot arc, provided you're willing to spend your time exploring properly, seeking them out. It could be a library full of book titles someone spent his time writing, so that you could enjoy each entry. So that each part of the library felt worth bothering with looking for more.

As well as a game designer, but mostly as a gamer, I've come to enjoy the background elements, whatever they may be, that were rather "silent". A typical TV Soap Opera, endlessly repeating tropes and cliches, a hand-drawn picture by a child, an abandoned shelter, a message on the telephone that didn't get the chance to be heard, a murder scene in a hotel room always posing the same questions. The list literally goes forever.

But the strength of these small points is unique. They're not something random and pointless, like a movie scene that is only there to fill the required time set by the movie studio. In their own peculiar way, they prove that the story elements, of which they are part of, exist. Unlikely, they're not a work of fiction to comfort the needs of the storyteller, but on the contrary the conditions and the setting, make the story arc to exist out of logical order. You know, handing out more reasons to the characters than "because!" and instead combining the surrounding parameters and the basic drives of each protagonist (or antagonist) to a valid interaction with the world, simply put in the fewest of words, depth.

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DualMondays: Boss Fights 101

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things.

I know the lot of you really like cool retro arcade games that sport huge, monstrous, ridiculous bosses throughout their span. But thing is almost every kind of game is taking advantage of this feature. And why wouldn't they? Boss fights in their core are overhyped, outrageous gameplay segments that decide your worth and mastery of the game. They get you tense, they make you feel good about yourself, they make you lose your cool and mind over them, as you waste countless hours of button smashing and thinking around the box in the process of overcoming the improbable odds and coming out victorious.

Sometimes, it hurts.

But what does a boss fight consist of? What are the main elements it requires to be classified as such? Usually boss fights take a set of moves previously used by the player as part of the gameplay and make you use them in a different way. For example, in Portal you are taught the incineration mechanism used in the final boss fight by doing so in the earlier game with the Love companion. Additionally, placing the portals to make a turret shoot missiles at itself is also introduced earlier in the game. That's the way the game designer is teaching you the elements/attacks that you will require to execute under different conditions and parameters to accompish your goal(s).

But what about genres that are less action-packed? Can boss fights be equally effective across genres? The answer is simple. If done right, yes. Take the sequel to Monkey Island. Le Chuck's Revenge was published back in 1991 and happens to be a shining example. Initially helping the player construct a basic voodoo doll by categorizing the basic four items it requires into four big differentiated themes, will prove immensely helpful when the player is required to repeat the process towards the game's finale. To me, even if Guybrush is almost immune to Le Chuck's attacks, the mental stress and tension that is built during the introductory scene, helps making this boss battle one of the most memorable and stressing I've ever encountered.

 Does it get more soul-tearing than this?

And said tension and story-driven pace is what dictates all boss fights. It's about facing the last obstacle standing in your way in order to advance the story. It's not just solely to prove your mastery of the game's mechanics; these fights drain you both physically and emotionally. It's the confrontation of two diametrically different, yet so alike, paths. 

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DualMondays: Press Start To Begin

DualMondays is a more or less weekly column by Jim Spanos (a.k.a. Dualnames) on game design, adventures and all sorts of highly intriguing things.

In Greece we have a saying: "The beginning is the half of everything." I'm not sure this is in fact a proper translation, so please do excuse me in advance, if that's the case. Thing is, it sounds so much more impactful in my native language.  This ancient saying by Pythagoras is something I've always kept in mind when I started work on a project. Whatever that may be, it applies for everything, videogame production included.

For some reason lack of composure and motivation - common difficulties that every developer has faced - were always magically transformed  into challenges. Challenges that I *had* to overcome. And I knew, thanks to this particular piece of wisdom, that if I could get by the initial hurdles, the best was yet to come. Even when I was designing the boring parts of a game or a program, I knew that all that was needed, was to actually begin work, and then I'd see it through.

Recently, Mark Yohalem, member of Wormwood Studios and writer of Primordia (which I personally coded *cough* self promotion *cough*) wrote a blog post releasing information about Cloudscape. Cloudscape is a now abandoned project and Yohalem wrote a very interesting piece regarding the reasons behind said decision from his point of view. So, with that in mind, I came to solidify my thinking about abandonded projects throughout. It's not about there being enough talent on your team (regardless of team member number), but about whether someone/the team actually creates a portion of the product.

To begin

The baby steps of any project shouldn't be exclusively about brainstorming over a wonderful idea. Even though it does help to keep everyone excited and hyped, brainstorming alone doesn't contribute any actual work towards the main goal - which is to deliver a finished product to the market. Endlessly coming up with new, exciting ideas is a common loop in which even the most talented teams have found themselves.

Gradually the initial emotions get toned down and then everything is about creating the silliest, most dysfunctional alpha version of your dream, regardless of its countless faults. It stands to show to everyone in and out of the team, that this is doable. It's a proof of concept, it's a motivational wheel, it's to put it bluntly - the half of everything.

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