Posts tagged with “microsoft”

Lost? Wondering what you missed? Read Yesterday’s Post!

September 2008 came and went, and we had a few prototypes for what would eventually become Slam Bolt Scrappers. Now it was time to roll the parts we liked together into a mega-prototype to see if we could actually make something more fun that everyone would enjoy.

The features we wanted to keep were: User generated content for making levels, an architecture theme, and fighting mixed in with the building. We also thought that the electricity and water elements from the tree prototype were interesting as well. The stuff that we wanted to fix was the lack of clear goals and lack of level structure. We spent October 2008 jamming in python, and here’s what we came up with.

Right off the bat you’ll notice a lot of differences. The game play was kind of similar to the T-Rex prototype, with a marauding bad guy (in this case a robot) that you could temporarily knock out so you could focus on building. The building was still centered around the idea of picking up I-beams from piles on the side of the screen, but we increased the complexity, allowing the player to build anywhere and asking them to also make sure that every part of the structure was both powered and watered. We also made the fighting more complex, giving the player a gun to shoot beams and a powerful close range punch attack that was stronger depending on how fast the user was moving. Finally there were two lose conditions; run out of money or have your whole building destroyed and you would fail the level.

Making the game 2 player was a very smart decision, as the game was suddenly much more fun when you had someone else playing the game in the room with you. It also gave rise to all sorts of interesting strategies, like “you fight! I’ll build!” Once we put multiplayer in it was clear that it was going to be a central feature for the game.

Perhaps one of the most interesting points of this game is the controls – you’ll notice the XBox buttons showing up on screen, as we initially envisioned the game as an XBLA title (we had a good contact at Microsoft in that department at the time). The trophies in the bottom right corner of the menu even led to unlockable achievements.

The level editor was a neat feature that people liked but ultimately we decided to cut it. Our Microsoft friend pointed out that we’d have problems with ratings once people started submitting levels that spelled out “Fuck” or had a giant penis in it, and we weren’t convinced that it was worth the hassle of adding a feature that could lead to mediocre level design. Ultimately this was the last iteration that featured the level editor as we dumped user generated content from our core feature set.

We still didn’t have an artist on board until the very end of October so much of the art in this prototype was borrowed. We found sprite sheets online for robots from TwinBee and Mega Man X and repurposed those as our player characters and computer controlled bad guys respectively (it was especially weird for me as I played Mega Man X a lot, this robot was much tougher ). To make the background feel like a city we altered the background from SimTower, and to give the game an epic feel we put in some Matrix music by Rob Dougan. The tiles for the building, beams, and pipes were all original art as our artist managed to get us new assets for those at the last second. We were getting close to the point of pitching though, so this would be the last prototype we would make with non-original art assets as we didn’t want to get into legal trouble.

The prototype was neat but our Microsoft contact confirmed our suspicions that it wasn’t strong enough to get a greenlight for XBLA. We therefore set out after this to make an even more polished prototype, and to fix up some of the things we didn’t like about the version we had.

Pros of Construction Robot Prototype:

• Multiplayer was a lot of fun. We decided it would be neat to try out 4 player mutliplayer next time.
• Game felt innovative and different
• Lighting up the building and punching out robots was satisfying, but could get frustrating quickly when it was too hard
• Achievements were cool, people liked them a lot

Cons of Construction Robot Prototype:

• User generated content too much of a headache, not compelling enough
• Building felt too simplistic
• Going back and forth to the edge of the screen got old quick
• Money mechanic was too complicated and confusing, and added almost nothing to the game
• It felt silly to not only have to build but also to have to water and power it, and people weren’t clear on why that was their goal. What was the point?

It’s pretty cool to see how this game is already much closer to Slam Bolt Scrappers than the first attempts. Tune in tomorrow for a run down of iteration 3!

GP 4 CP, an annual charity drive to raise money for our friends at Child’s Play, is taking place this Saturday at 7PM in the Microsoft NERD Center in Cambridge. Food will be eaten, raffles will be won, and games will be played! We’re bringing a copy of Slam Bolt Scrappers for people to check out, and we’re also contributing two copies of SBS to the auction. So, if you decide to join us, you’ll be helping out a good cause and have a chance to WIN A GAME THAT HASN’T EVEN COME OUT YET! SWEET!

Here’s the details:
Saturday, December 4th, 7:00 – 11:00 pm
Microsoft NERD Lounge
1 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02142
Info@gp4cp.org

http://www.gp4cp.org/

We hope to see you there!

Alec and I spent the last week in sunny, sunny LA at E3, the video game press hoedown. And we got some press! Specifically, there is a kick ass article on Joystiq by one Alexander Sliwinski reviewing our game, and there is another awesome piece onSBS at PlayStation LifeStyle, courtesy of Josh Fernandes. Rock on!

But you already know about our game if you’re here, and this year had a heavy focus on new gaming hardware, so let’s talk about the stars of the show: the PlayStation Move, the Microsoft Kinect, and the Nintendo 3DS (by the way, how hilarious are the models pretending to use the systems in those links?). I’ve seen a lot of articles and comments around the interwebs claiming that Nintendo “won” the show (if such a thing is possible) with their 3DS, and that the Move and Kinect had a weaker showing. I personally don’t agree with this assessment, as I think that the unveiling of new hardware by Sony and Microsoft shows a shift in their marketing strategies.

Both the Kinect and Move are designed to compete with Nintendo, but in different ways. The XBox is currently a system for “hardcore” gamers, guys who have grown up playing games and still want to spend lots of time with new titles. This reputation may have caused it to do well with men but the system trails with women, especially behind the popular Wii. MS has recently been trying to broaden the scope of who the system appeals to with the addition of Netflix and Facebook to the system, and the Kinect will go even further in this direction. The games coming out on the Kinect aren’t designed for hardcore gamers, they’re designed for their girlfriends, wives, or non-gaming friends. These people think Halo and GTA4 look stupid but might be willing to give a dancing or fitness game a shot. And bridging the gap between gamer and non-gamer can be incredibly important in a home where there are such disparate views on gaming. So think of the Kinect as a “gateway controller” for older non-gamers living with hardcore gamers.

The Move, on the other hand, is designed to capture the hearts and minds of kids. It is a shiny, easily approachable controller for the PS3, complete with a beautiful colored light ball on top. Of the games I saw demoed at E3 a majority were aimed at small children and had child actors playing the games in the trailers. I think that Sony has a long term strategy in mind with the Move wherein they hook small children with the controller now and get them to be PlayStation gamers for life. Look at Nintendo – they have an insanely loyal customer base of fanatics who remembered and loved playing the NES and SNES as children. Sony wants to duplicate that loyalty with the next generation of gamers, and the Move is a salvo designed to hook these children. And with the cheap price point of the controller they just might be able to do it.

I curious how much of an impact the 3DS will ultimately have. There are a lot of DSes out there, and though the 3DS has some cool new features I wonder how quick fans will be to trade in their older version for a new one. Then again people regularly upgrade their iPods, and it doesn’t pay to bet against Nintendo so I’m going to guess that it will turn out to be a hit.

Ultimately I’m incredibly excited about all of these systems and can’t wait to play with them all. It’s going to be a good year for gamers, old and new alike.

Conventional wisdom is that the XBox Live Indie Games channel (XBLIG) is generally a grab bag of crap. The games there tend to be lower quality, have worse production value, have short gameplay experiences with little or no replay value, and frequently either lack in originality or are so far off the deep end in terms of creativity that they aren’t even fun. Don’t get me wrong – it’s great that Microsoft made a channel where anyone can create and post games (though I’m annoyed at them co-opting the phrase “indie games” for their own use), and I think that it can be a terrific learning experience for new developers to have to opportunity to commercially release a game to the masses through the channel. But the unfortunate upshot is that most users tend to regard XBLIG as home to garbage.

But there are good games there, if you know where to look! Recently we’ve been playing Ninja Bros at the office. It’s a short and fun puzzle platformer in which you control 2 to 4 ninja brothers in their never ending quest to push buttons, open doors, and then exit the level. The game is quite tricky though, as all the brothers move in unison whenever the left joystick is moved, and all have separate jump buttons. From this simple premise the game developers have crafted some incredibly fun levels that really explore the mechanic, and completing each level is quite rewarding. Add in some simple yet polished and appealing pixel art and you’ve got a real winner of a game.

Ninja Bros cost $1 (only!) and is a real steal. I strongly recommend picking it up and seeing what one of the best games on XBLIG looks like. You’ll have a great time playing!

If you’re in Boston, making video games, and/or are even remotely interested in the business side of game dev I’d definitely recommend checking out the MIT BiG conference happening this coming Friday at the Microsoft NERD center next to MIT. It’s going to be a day long deal with all sorts of interesting panels on non-traditional marketing strategies, the changing face of social games, and “the next big thing”. Of course, the panel I’m most interested in is how to build and launch a gaming start up, mostly because I’m on it. It should be a lot of fun, I know that some of the guys here in the office are already starting a pool on what kind of stupid stuff I’m going to say.

Oh, and did I mention that we’ll be showing off Slam Bolt Scrappers at the conference? It’s true! We’ll have an awesome 4 player build for people to play, so if you didn’t get a chance to try the game out at PAX East be sure to swing by the conference and give our game a shot! Priority will be given to cosplaying conference goers, especially ones dressed up as Ghostbusters or giant chickens.