Archive for June, 2006
Saturday, June 17th, 2006
I’m working on Determinance and Robin’s sitting next to me playing bonus emulated Snes games. He starts playing this:
Turns out that the very first bad-guy you encounter is this not-insignificant bounder:
- a dragon-thing that breathes fire and kills you with one hit… an unusual first enemy.
After you’ve killed him (by hitting his head four times) the game turns into a fairly regular Castlevania-genre title (albeit with a pretty cool Mode7 flying level select screen). Go having a boss fight as the first thing that happens in a game!
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Saturday, June 17th, 2006
In the same week, we’re treated to the following. First, Randy Smith – project lead on Thief 3 – has this to say:
The problems with Thief 3 were the same as the problems that plagued Deus Ex: Invisible War – it was the tech. The team scaled back the freeform design, incorporated loading zones, not to mention the unstable frame rate and other misc. issues derived from the technology.
The gameplay was relative solid by comparison.
Yes, there is no question that we had lots of challenges in the technical department. in particular what you are saying about levels is true – the underlying technology didn’t settle down enough for us to come to a firm understanding of the limits we were working with. Hence we had to take some guesses about what would make a good level, and then later realized that they wouldn’t fit in memory, at which point we had to modify the design, to no one’s happiness.
Second, Eurogamer remind us of their original Thief 3 review:
“The most ambitious stealth game ever made, while also perhaps the most accessible” was our lofty assessment of Ion Storm’s under appreciated effort. Using a far more fluid level design, the kind of freedom we yearn for in games was there in abundance in Deadly Shadows. “Pleasantly honed” we reckoned
I’ll tell you right now which side of this debate I’m on: I’m with Randy Smith. Thief 3 was absolutely a great Thief game in every respect apart from one: the size of the levels. Thief 1 and 2′s huge, sprawling, filled-with-redundant-space levels were a massive part of their greatness, and Thief 3 didn’t have them. Casual Thief-series players and observers (and I know that doesn’t include you, Heman) must not underestimate the significance of these levels for the atmosphere the first two games. And Thief is all about the atmosphere.
It’s great to have the designer come out and explain that it wasn’t Ion Storm’s intention to make the Thief franchaise more “streamlined”, simply that technology got the better of them. But can the PC gaming world ever really forgive the X-Box for it’s part in the fall of Thief and Deus Ex? I’m not sure.
And for the record, the part it played in Thief 3′s downfall is far greater than that of IW. We have someone else to blame for that…
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Thursday, June 15th, 2006
I think it would be fair to call the last ten days at Mode 7 Towers “difficult”. We have had to deal with a lot of truths about Determinance after our Reading University test; and only now do I think we have finally got to terms with everything that has happened, and everything that needs to happen.
When attempting to finish a game – with the unbelievable amount of work that entails – you have to “sign-off” certain areas. Otherwise all the things you need to do won’t fit in your head. We got to a stage with the Determinance gameplay where Paul and I could play the game, and it resembled what I initially designed. We knew there were many areas which were lacking, but we had deadlines looming and we made the decision to sign-off the gameplay. What followed was six weeks of intensive polishing, fixing, and tutorial-designing.
And then we showed the game to eighty people. And we realised two things. Firstly that Determinance was far too hard to play “right” (and far too easy to play completely wrong). Secondly that it was too pared-down; too un-changing; lacking variety and a change of pace during combat. We learnt many other things too, but those weren’t surprising to us. When it comes to these two things, though… we were, quite simply, wrong.
So now it’s time to fix it.
For the last ten days I’ve been working intensely on Determinance’s gameplay. No longer am I uncertain of where to focus my attention; no longer lost for which direction will benefit the game. Eighty people have shown me exactly what needs to happen to Determinance, and it’s happening right now. It’s already seven times better; but I’m not done yet. By the time this period is over the game will be what it should be; and it will be what it should be from the second you start playing.
Keeping it a fool-free zone… as best I can. Good night.
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Wednesday, June 14th, 2006
This is a games blog, and more specifically an Indie games development blog. Unfortunately, every so often I have to talk about my other great passion: the NFL. I’m aware that the majority of Americans reading this will be surprised. However, Football is basically a simultaneous turn-based game (ala Laser Squad Nemesis and – if you’re playing it properly – Chaos League); my absolute favourite genre for any kind of strategy. Expect to see an STB game from Mode 7 at some point in the future.
Ill keep it short this time though. I’ll just say that what T.O. did in Dallas Sunday puts him in a special place in my heart, the only other resident of which is Mark Ecko.
(NBA Playoffs 2006, Game 2 in Dallas)
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Tuesday, June 13th, 2006
Ian’s prototyping a feature involving having someone who is blocking getting their sword-arm pushed back by a particularly good strike; I am moonlighting by writing for Computer Music. It’s all very exciting. Ian says, “Oh dear.”
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Monday, June 12th, 2006
Our resident IRC ball-breaker Archa has created a Determinance animation! Click on the image for the full thing.
Awesome work!
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Monday, June 12th, 2006
Taking a bit of a tangent for a second into my other area of expertise, I thought I’d hit up Greg over at Music4Games.net, who not only was one of the very first people in the outside world to support Determinance by helping me to promote the soundtrack, giving me the material for my first Computer Music article and opening that particular gate, but is also going from strength to strength in his own right. Oh yeah, and he once got me an interview with Nile Rodgers from Chic, who is actually famous, so we send him a big parcel of Mode 7 love. His site is also good, just to cap it all off.
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Sunday, June 11th, 2006
After a bit of a dry period, today has constituted a kind of blog assault. We’ve been put into a talky mood by all the discussion we’ve got into with our Reading correspondents, and that can only be a good thing.
Behind all this, though, has been a very successful day for the Gameplay Tweaks department. Feedback has gone into my head through my ears, and improvements have come out into the keyboard through my fingers. Determinance is a better game this evening than it was this morning, and that’s quite scary.
As my esteemed colleague notes below, meeting with Mr Gillen was a fantastic success. Getting drunk with a prominent games journalist is something you dream about as a fifteen year old and, though that wears off a bit when you hit sixteen, it was a pretty exciting thing to do. Kieron sumarises both Thief 1 and Thief 2 in a six-word phrase; the descriptions mirroring each other. Those twelve words, I’m afraid, are too beautiful to print here.
Finally; what with last-minute changes to Determinance, an Edge article on the very late-in-the-day transformation of GTA1, and the recent forum post by the Stalker developers on “what’s changed since you last saw a preview in fall 05″; it would seem potent to remind the crowd that nothing goes as you expect it in games development.
Keeping it a (relatively) fool free zone… good night people.
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Sunday, June 11th, 2006
During the week, we managed to catch up in Bristol with Mr Gillen and his girlfriend, and it’s fair to say that a Good Time Was Had By All Those Present.
We managed to discuss a.) a Freudian reading of Thief b.) the trials and tribulations of The Cassandra Project c.) the localisation of Chaos League and d.) lots of very very obscure things, so I would call that meeting of minds a resounding success.
We also managed to watch some astonishing Bristolian music, featuring a woman with closely-cropped hair who belted out nightmarishly angular avant-blues, and a group of chaps making a thunderous racket by any means necessary. Never before has a band been so comprehensively heckled by two people shouting out the name of the waveform which they had chosen to over-use.
I also managed to buy two brown shoelaces for 79p while taking out money from a cash machine – this is an achievement of note.
Anyway, I can heartily recommend the Bristol (and indeed Bath) scene to anyone wishing to flee from the horrors of Oxford or London during this hectic and somewhat over-cooked season: we hope to return soon.
Yet to take up the Pub Challenge are Introversion Software, a group of people to whom it has already been officially issued. We await their response.
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Sunday, June 11th, 2006
Yeah, that’s a participle and not a proper noun in the subject right there and your job is to deal with how I just surprised you with grammar.
My suggestion for the object of this verb is Edge’s piece on the development of Grand Theft Auto (yes, GTA1 – you know, before those games became dreadful) this month for some examples of how insane reconciling your “cool idea” with an actual coherent structure can be. We are having fun with this right now, so maybe we’re allowed to feel affinity. Then again, maybe our game is not original, substandard and duplicitous in nature, so perhaps we should merely leap straight into a chasm instead.
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