Saturday, March 28, 2020

Q&A With Frictional Writer Ian Thomas

On the last day of the cold January Will from Extra Credits sat down to stream SOMA, and for the first few hours of the game he was joined by his friend and Frictional employee Ian Thomas. Ian worked on scripting, coding, and level design for SOMA, and is now the Story Lead on one of Frictional's two upcoming projects. During the stream he answered some questions from the viewers, ranging from what type of pizza he thinks Simon had in his fridge, to ways of minimising dissonance between the player and the character in a narrative game.

In this blog we've compiled the best questions and answers into an easily readable form. So go get a beverage of your choice and dive into the everyday life at Frictional, narrative game design and tips on networking in the industry! Or, if you're not the reading type, you can also watch the whole video on Twitch.

Have some other questions? Hit us up on Twitter and we will try to answer the best we can!

(Picture commentary from your favourite community manager/editor of this blog, Kira.)



Q: Does the Frictional team scare each other at the office?

We didn't have an office until recently, and even now most people are still remote, so not really!

The thing about being behind the scenes in horror is that it's very difficult to scare yourself, and each other, because you know what's going on. We do play each others' levels every other week, and it's always brilliant to get a decent scare out of a coworker.

Otherwise we don't hide in the office cupboards or anything like that… regularly.


Q: Is it true that developers don't actually play their games?

No - we play our games thousands of times, and most developers do!

It does depend on where you sit in the development chain. If you work for a very big company and only do something like facial models, you might rarely play the game until it's close to completion. But in a team the size of Frictional everyone plays the game all the time. That's how we get our primary feedback and develop our levels before the game goes anywhere near alpha testers.


Q: How about after they're released?

Probably not that often. For me personally there are two reasons, which both have to do with time. Firstly, I'm probably already working on a new thing. Secondly, during the short downtime after a release I'm trying to catch up on games I had to put aside during development. But it depends: for example, when I worked on LEGO games I would later play them with friends, because they're so much fun to sit down and co-op play.

For a couple of years after the release you might be fed up with your game and not want to see it, but then you might come back to it fresh. With SOMA I sometimes tune into livestreams, especially if I'm feeling down. That's one of the kicks you get out of this stuff – knowing which parts of the game people are going to react to, and getting to watch those reactions! That's the best payoff.


Q: Did the existential dread of SOMA ever get to the team?

It's a little different for the dev team, as the horror is a slow burn of months and months, whereas for the players it comes in a short burst. The philosophical questions affected people in different ways, but I don't think we broke anyone. As far as I know we're all fine, but given that a lot of us work remotely, it could well be that one of us is deep in Northern Sweden inscribing magical circles in his front room and we just don't know...


Q: Why did SOMA get a Safe Mode?

SOMA was originally released with monsters that could kill you, and that put off some people that were attracted to the themes, the sci-fi and the philosophy, because they saw the game as too scary or too difficult. Thomas and Jens had discussed a possible safe mode early on, but weren't sure it would work. However, after the game came out, someone in the community released the Wuss Mod that removed the monsters, and that and the general interest in the themes of the game made us rethink. So now we've released the official Safe Mode, where the monsters still attack you, but only if you provoke them – and even then they won't kill you.

You can now avoid one of these three death screens!

The concept of death in games is a strange one. All it really means is that you go back to a checkpoint, or reload, and all the tension that's built up goes away. The fact is that game death is pretty dull. It becomes much more interesting when it's a part of a mechanic or of the story. We at Frictional have talked about it internally for a while, but it's something we've never really gotten a satisfactory answer to.

So, all in all, even if you turn on Safe Mode, it's not that much different from playing the game normally.


Q: What type of pizza does Simon have in his fridge?

Meat lovers', definitely.

Schrödinger's pizza! And a Mexicana. Unless they mixed it up at the factory. In which case it's also a Schrödinger's pizza.


Q: What was the funniest or hardest bug to fix in SOMA?

There were so many! You can find some of the stuff in the supersecret.rar file that comes with the installation.

I spent a lot of time fixing David Munshi. His animation really didn't behave and he kept leaping around the place. He was so problematic, especially in this sequence where he was supposed to sit down in a chair and type away at the keyboard. We had so much trouble with that - what if the player had moved the chair? We couldn't lock it in place, because we want the player to be able to mess with these things. We went around trying to come up with an answer for ages.

And then someone on the team went: "Standing desk!". Problem solved! It's silly little things like this which tie up your time.

For all you thirsty Munshi lovers out there. You know who you are.

Another similar element was the Omnitool. It was a fairly major design thing that we came up with to connect the game characters, and to gate scenarios. We were struggling trying to tie these things together, and then it was just one of those days when someone came up with one single idea that solved so many problems. It was a massive design triumph – even if we realised later that the name was a bit Mass Effect!


Q: Why does using items and elements in Frictional's games mimic real movements?

This is one of Thomas's core design principles: making actions like opening doors and turning cranks feel like physical actions. It binds you more closely into the game and the character, on an unconscious level. We've spent an awful lot of time thinking about ways to collapse the player and the character into one and make the player feel like a part of the world. It's a subtle way of feedback that you don't really think about, but it makes you feel like you're "there".

There's an interesting difference between horror games and horror films in this sense. You would think that horror movies are scarier because you're dragged into the action that moves on rails and there's nothing you can do about it. But for me that kind of horror is actually less scary than the kind in games, where you have to be the person to push the stick forward.

We try to implement this feedback loop in other elements of the game too, like the sound design. When a character is scared it makes their heartbeat go up, which makes the player scared, which makes their heartbeat go up in turn, and so on.


Q: Why didn't SOMA reuse enemies?

It obviously would have been much cheaper to reuse the monsters. But in SOMA it was a clear design point, since each of the enemies in SOMA was trying to advance the plot, get across a particular point in the story, or raise a philosophical question. Thus, the enemies were appropriate to a particular space or a piece of plot and it didn't make sense to reuse them.


Q: Did SOMA start with a finished story, or did it change during development?

The story changed massively over the years. I came on to the game a couple of years into development, and at that time there were lots of fixed points and a general path, but still a lot changed around that.  As the game developed, things got cut, they got reorganized, locations changed purpose, and some things just didn't work out.

Building a narrative game is an ever-changing process. With something like a platformer you can build one level, test the mechanics, then build a hundred more similar levels iterating on and expanding those core mechanics. Whereas in a game like this you might build one level in isolation, but that means you don't know what the character is feeling based on what they've previously experienced.

You don't really know if the story is going to work until you put several chapters together. That's why it's also very difficult to test until most of it is in place. Then it might suddenly not work, so you have to change, drop and add things. There's quite a lot of reworking in narrative games, just to make sure you get the feel right and that the story makes sense. You've probably heard the term "kill your darlings" – and that's exactly what we had to do.

A lot of the things were taken out before they were anywhere near complete – they were works in progress that were never polished. Thus these elements are not really "cut content", just rough concepts.


Q: The term "cut content" comes from film, and building a game is closer to architecture or sculpting. Would there be a better name for it?

A pile of leftover bricks in the corner!


Q: How do you construct narrative horror?

Thomas is constantly writing about how the player isn't playing the actual game, but a mental model they have constructed in their head. A lot of our work goes into trying to create that model in their head and not to break it.

A central idea in our storytelling is that there's more going on than the player is seeing. As a writer you need to leave gaps and leave out pieces, and let the player make their own mind up about what connects it all together.

You'll meet a tall, dark stranger...

From a horror point of view there's danger in over-specifying. Firstly having too many details makes the story too difficult to maintain. And secondly it makes the game lose a lot of its mystery. The more you show things like your monsters, the less scary they become. A classic example of this is the difference between Alien and Aliens. In Alien you just see flashes of the creatures and it freaks you out. In Aliens you see more of them, and it becomes less about fear and more about shooting.
It's best to sketch things out and leave it up to the player's imagination to fill in the blanks – because the player's imagination is the best graphics card we have!

There are a lot of references that the superfans have been able to put together. But there are one or two questions that even we as a team don't necessarily know the answers to.


Q: How do you keep track of all the story elements?

During the production of SOMA there was an awful lot of timeline stuff going on. Here we have to thank our Mikael Hedberg, Mike, who was the main writer. He was the one to make sure that all of the pieces of content were held together and consistent across the game. A lot of the things got rewritten because major historical timelines changed too, but Mike kept it together.

During the development we had this weird narrative element we call the double apocalypse. At one point in writing most of the Earth was dead already because of a nuclear war, and then an asteroid hit and destroyed what was left. We went back and forth on that and it became clear that a double apocalypse would be way over the top and coincidental. So we edited the script to what it is now, but this has resulted in the internal term 'that sounds like a double apocalypse', which is when our scripts have become just a bit too unbelievable or coincidental.


Q: How do you convey backstories, lore, and world-building?

Obviously there are clichés like audio logs and walls of text, but there is a trend to do something different with them, or explaining the universe in a different way. But the fundamental problem is relaying a bunch of information to the player, and the further the world is from your everyday 21st century setting, the more you have to explain and the harder it is. So it's understandable that a lot of games do it in the obvious way. The best way I've seen exposition done is by working it into the environment and art, making it part of the world so that the player can discover it rather than shoving it into the player's face.


Q: How do you hook someone who disagrees with the character?

It's hard to get the character to say and feel the same things as what the player is feeling. If you do it wrong it breaks the connection between the player and the character, and makes it far less intense. Ideally, if the player is thinking something, you want the character to be able to echo it. We spend a lot of time taking lines out so the character doesn't say something out of place or contrary to what the player feels.

With philosophical questions there are fixed messages you can make and things you can say about the world, but that will put off a part of the audience. The big thing when setting moral questions or decisions is that you should ask the question instead of giving the answer. If you offer the players a grey area to explore, they might even change their minds about the issue at hand.

To murder or not to murder, that is the question.


Q: How do you write for people who are not scared of a particular monster or setting?

In my experience the trick is to pack as many different types of fear in the game as you can, and picking the phobias that will affect the most people. If there's only one type of horror, it's not going to catch a wide enough audience. Also, if you only put in, say, snakes, anyone who isn't afraid of snakes is going to find it dull.

We probably peaked in our first game. What's worse than spiders? (Not representative of the company's opinion.)


Q: What's the main thing you want to get across in games?

The key thing is that the players have something they will remember when they walk away from the game, or when they talk about it with other people. It's different for different games, and as a developer you decide on the effect and how you want to deliver it. In games like Left 4 Dead delivery might be more about the mechanical design. In other games it's a particular story moment or question.

In SOMA the goal was not to just scare the players as they're looking at the screen, it was about the horror that they would think about after they put the mouse or controller down and were laid in bed thinking about what they'd seen. It was about hitting deeper themes. Sure, we wrapped it in horror, but the real horror was, in a way, outside the game.


Q: What does SOMA stand for?

It has many interpretations, but I think the one Thomas and Mike were going for was the Greek word for body. The game is all about the physicality of the body and its interaction with what could be called the spirit, mind, or soul – the embodiment of you.

The funniest coincidence was when we went to GDC to show the game off to journalists before the official announcement. We hadn't realised there is a district in San Francisco called Soma, so we were sitting in a bar called Soma, in the Soma district, about to announce Soma!

As to why it's spelled in all caps – it happened to look better when David designed the logo!


Q: Does this broken glass look like a monster face on purpose?

I'm pretty sure it's not on purpose – it's just because humans are programmed to see faces all over the place, like socket plugs. It's called pareidolia. But it's something you can exploit - you can trick people into thinking they've seen a monster!

This window is out to get you!


Q: What is the best way to network with the industry people?

Go to industry events, and the bar hangouts afterwards!

It's critical, though, not to treat it as "networking". Let's just call it talking to people, in a room full of people who like the same stuff as you. It's not about throwing your business cards at each other, it's about talking to them and finding common interests. Then maybe a year or two down the line, if you got on, they might remember you and your special skills or interests and contact you. Me being on Will's stream started with us just chatting. And conversations I had in bars five years ago have turned into projects this year.

You have to be good at what you do, but like in most industries, it's really about the people you know. I'm a bit of an introvert myself, so I know it's scary. But once you realise that everybody in the room is probably as scared as you, and that you're all geeks who like the same stuff, it gets easier.
Another good way to make connections is attending game jams. If you haven't taken part in one, go find the nearest one! Go out, help your team, and if you're any good at what you do, people will be working with you soon.


Q: Can you give us some fun facts?

Sure!

- You can blame the "Massive Recoil" DVD in Simon's room on our artist, David. A lot of the things in Simon's apartment are actually real things David has.

- We try to be authentic with our games, but out Finnish sound guy Tapio Liukkonen takes it really far. We have sequences of him diving into a frozen lake with a computer keyboard to get authentic underwater keyboard noises. It's ridiculous.



- Explaining SOMA to the voice actors was challenging – especially to this 65-year-old British thespian, clearly a theatre guy. Watching Mike explain the story to him made me think that the whole situation was silly and the guy wasn't getting the story at all. And then he went into the studio and completely nailed the role.

- There's a lot of game development in Scandinavia, particularly in Sweden and Norway, because it's dark and cold all the time so people just stay indoors and make games. Just kidding… or am I?

Podcast Episode 28 - Lessons Learned And Campaign Happenings


A lot of games over the past couple of weeks, and some lessons learned as a DM! Come listen as I share about running boss battles, using random events in interesting ways and how a big reveal had me worried that I'd lost a player!


Anchor Episode link: https://anchor.fm/thedungeonmastershandbook/episodes/Episode-28---Lessons-Learned-and-Campaign-Happenings-easbbl

Leave me a voice message and let me know what you think or ask questions if you have them! (312) 625-8281‬ (US/Canada)

You can also leave a message on Anchor: anchor.fm/thedungeonmastershandbook/message 

Find episode posts and other D&D content on my blog: chgowiz-games.blogspot.com 

Intro music: Dragonaut by Bradley The Buyer (bit.ly/2ASpAlF)
Outro music: Dream by Wild Shores (bit.ly/2jbJehK)
Stinger music by TJ Drennon - Check out his Patreon page at https://www.patreon.com/TJD/!

EGLX, Last Day, Talk Day!

#SuzyCube #gamedev #indiedev #madewithunity #EGLX #EGLX2018 
Well, here we are, the last day of EGLX here in Toronto! If you're attending, I invite you to come check out my talk at 4pm in room 717A where I'll be sharing some of the lessons learned over the course of my three years working on Suzy Cube!

Monday, March 23, 2020

Game 117: The Legacy: Realm Of Terror (1993) – Introduction

By Voltgloss

In 1992, Infogrames released Alone in the Dark, which put the player in the role of an unsuspecting investigator who experiences the horrors of the mansion of an eccentric magnate, after said eccentric magnate committed suicide. The player tries to escape from the mansion, the unspeakable lurking fears that haunt it in the dark and from the raving madness that the secrets of the mansion could deliver. It is exciting, deadly and … why do I suddenly have this overwhelming sense of déjà vu?


All the pictures into the mind/There's a flashing in my eyes
(Image still from here)

Yes, it's time for a horror double bill here on The Adventure Gamer. The year after Alone in the Dark saw, not only Infogrames's own Shadow of the Comet, but a competitor's entry placed even more solidly in the "haunted house" genre. Because in 1993, Microprose released The Legacy: Realm of Terror, which puts the player in the role of an unsuspecting inheritor who experiences the horrors of the mansion of an eccentric Massachusetts family, as said family's last surviving heir. The player tries to escape from the mansion, the unspeakable lurking fears that haunt it in the dark and from the raving madness that the secrets of the mansion could deliver. It promises to be exciting, deadly, and … why do I suddenly have this overwhelming sense of déjà vu?


We've just been in this place before

So the setup for Legacy is decidedly familiar. What about the gameplay? What we've got on our hands here, based on the manual and a bit of make-sure-everything-works tinkering, is an Adventure/RPG hybrid: a game where the player controls a single character exploring a "dungeon" (the mansion) in first-person perspective, with tile-based mapping and over fifteen different character statistics, all apparently with gameplay significance down the line. Something in the Elvira and Waxworks vein, then - but leaning even more heavily on the RPG side. Will the game stand on its own as an Adventure? Will it navigate the narrow straits of hybridization successfully, or will both halves combine to make less than a whole? We're about to find out.


Higher on the street

The Legacy: Realm of Terror (also called simply The Legacy outside the United States) was the last game developed by British adventure game developer Magnetic Scrolls, after their acquisition by MicroProse. Between 1985 and 1990, Magnetic Scrolls had previously developed six graphical parser-based text adventures (and one "mini-adventure" offered to those who joined the short-lived "Official Secrets" adventure gaming club): The Pawn, The Guild of Thieves, Jinxter, Corruption, Fish!, Myth, and Wonderland. We've not covered any Magnetic Scrolls games previously on this blog - perhaps some Missed Classics treatment is in order down the line? [Admin note: Well, a reviewer did start Wonderland as our sixth Missed Classic, but he vanished after barely scratching the game. A replay is definitely in order.]  For now though, I'm playing through their first and only foray into mouse-driven, RPG-hybrid adventuring, published in 1993 for PC (and released digitally on GOG in December 2019).


See your body into the moonlight

Loading the game treats us to a cinematic intro where someone (our protagonist? someone else?) drives up to the spooky Winthrop House, accompanied by lightning flashes and tense, fast-paced music. Between the glowers of gargoyles our perspective passes through the front door, into a foyer (that we'll see "for real" soon enough), up stairs and through a door - and promptly face-plants into the floor in a dimly lit hallway, blood filling our vision. An omen of things to come? The fate of the last visitor before us? We may never know! What we do know - as the game next tells us after showing a newspaper about the "Winthrop House heir" (us) being located - is that it's time to select (or create) our character.


The fiction is gonna run it again

Character selection/creation lets you pick one of eight different protagonists, each with different backgrounds, character model design, and statistics. You can also manually adjust statistics for any one of the eight characters to tailor their attributes to your liking. The manual also promises that skills can be improved as we progress through the game, although there doesn't appear to be any dedicated "experience" score or character "level"; rather, the game suggests that repeatedly using a particular skill can increase your proficiency at it, Quest for Glory-style. There are seven primary statistics, three of which have four secondary sub-skills, as detailed in the manual:

1. Knowledge - ability to "perform various operations requiring special training." Sub-skills:
  • Electronics - for opening "electronic locks" and dealing with other "electronic objects"
  • First Aid - for restoring health via first aid kits
  • Meditation - for restoring magic power via "Power Crystals"
  • Mechanics - for opening "mechanical locks" and dealing with other mechanical objects
2. Strength - prowess with hand-held weapons, and boosts Health. Sub-skills:
  • Brawling - bare-handed punching prowess
  • Club - prowess with club-type weapons
  • Force - for forcing open doors
  • Lift - for picking up heavy objects
3. Dexterity - a "value for basic agility." Sub-skills:
  • Blade - prowess with bladed weapons
  • Dodge - ability to avoid ranged weapon attacks
  • Firearms - prowess with firearms
  • Throw - ability to throw objects or weapons
4. Stamina - poison resistance and boosts Health

5. Willpower - prowess with magic and resistance to magical attacks

6. Health - our character's life meter; death at zero "hit points." Derived from Strength and Stamina.

7. Magic - or "magic points"; expended by casting spells.

And now, let's meet our eight potential protagonists. Whom shall we pick? That's up to you! I'll be accepting votes in the comments to this post as to your first, second, and third choice of protagonist; I'll then assign 5 points per first-choice pick, 3 points per second-choice pick, and 1 point per third-choice pick, and then using whichever character gets the most points. Ties will be broken by random roll. I'll accept votes up until 72 hours after this is posted. Here we go!


Brad Norris. Sophomore at NYU, ski team captain and Debating Society member.
Planning a "mondo party." Never claimed to have deep motivations.

Brad is the default choice if you're just clicking through as fast as possible, and perhaps by design he's one of the most well-rounded statistically, with equal Knowledge, Strength, and Dexterity scores. Most of his sub-skills have a few bonus points added (the gold line segments extending to the right of the blue, red, or purple line segments below each sub-skill's name).


Charlotte Kane. CEO of the charmingly-named Golgotha Holdings.
Planning to turn Winthrop House into a luxury hotel and conference center.

Charlotte is one of the four options who comes with a spell already learned. No idea why a CEO knows the secrets of the Crimson Mists of Myamoto, but apparently it's a spell to reduce physical damage taken. Statistically, she's got very low strength, mediocre dexterity, but high knowledge (and particularly good at patching herself up with first aid kits). Lower health than Brad, but higher willpower.


Charles Weiss. Stage magician and self-described astrologer and occultist.
Implicated in the Arlington "sacrifice" scandal. We don't talk about the Arlington "sacrifice" scandal.

Charles eschews protective magic for a good old-fashioned fireball spell, leveraging the arcane power of not one, not two, but three words ending in "-eth." Base statistics are generally low across the board (even his Knowledge score is just equal to Brad's, though he's specialized in Meditation where Brad isn't). Where Charles put his bonus points is into his fire magic; see the length of the gold line segment below the "Flames of Desolation" spell name.


Lucy Weston. Sophomore at UCLA. Orphan who worked her way through school.
Tennis and volleyball player. Thinks her inheritance is "totally rad" and "almost tubular." 

Possibly modeled on horror films' "final girl" trope, Lucy here is just as strong as Brad, has extremely high dexterity and health, and is apparently a crack shot (with the best skill in firearms out of all eight characters). As a tradeoff, her knowledge is at rock bottom.


Henry Jones. Head of the Department of American History at Penn State.
Authority on the Salem witch-trials. No word on whether he has a son named Junior.

What horror game is complete without a university professor character? Henry here brings impressive knowledge to the table, with mediocre dexterity (though he's spry enough to dodge and throw surprisingly well) and lots of points devoted to his "Sight of the Dark Walker" spell. I don't have any information on what spells do beyond the description you see here; I'm guessing this lets you see in the dark and, maybe, helps with discovering secrets. Of course, all those points need a tradeoff somewhere; Henry has the least strength and health of all eight characters.


Jane Olson. Investigative journalist with the New York Daily Post.
Looking to uncover the truth about the Winthrop family's enigmatic disappearance.

Jane is our second well-rounded choice. She has very similar stats to Brad, with equal knowledge, strength, and dexterity scores and with solid health and willpower. Jane's a bit better than Brad with at punching, dodging, forcing doors, and tinkering with electronics/mechanics; while Brad has the edge in first aid and throwing skill.


Robert "Boomer" Kowalski. USMC (retired). Purple Heart and Navy Cross holder.
Veteran of actions in Grenada, Panama, and the Gulf.

Someone has to have the most strength of the bunch, and that someone is Robert. He's best situated of the eight to beat down eldritch abominations with his bare fists, and is also ready to swing a mean blade or shoot a mean gun. Average dexterity and mediocre knowledge (though with combat training in the use of first aid kits). His weak point is very low willpower. What's that going to mean in gameplay? We'll see, but the manual suggests your protagonist can become terrified or go into shock at the horrors they'll face. If willpower determines resistance to such effects, our friend Robert here is well-equipped … to go mad.


Isobel Gowdie. Widow and distant Winthrop family relative.
There's always been one Gowdie resident in the area, dating back to the 17th century.

Isobel, like Charles, is a fire-slinging offensive spellcaster. Mediocre stats across the board in exchange for very high willpower and a pumped-up Flames of Desolation spell. Compared to Charles, she has less knowledge (though is a bit better at first aid) and less prowess with weapons; but she actually is better at magic (in both raw magic and in her Flames spell) and has more stamina and health.

So, there's our cast! Whom shall be our avatar for this spooky adventure? You all tell me. I look forward to your choice!

Note Regarding Spoilers and Companion Assist Points: There's a set of rules regarding spoilers and companion assist points. Please read it here before making any comments that could be considered a spoiler in any way. The short of it is that no CAPs will be given for hints or spoilers given in advance of me requiring one. As this is an introduction post, it's an opportunity for readers to bet 10 CAPs (only if they already have them) that I won't be able to solve a puzzle without putting in an official Request for Assistance: remember to use ROT13 for betting. If you get it right, you will be rewarded with 50 CAPs in return. It's also your chance to predict what the final rating will be for the game. Voters can predict whatever score they want, regardless of whether someone else has already chosen it. All correct (or nearest) votes will go into a draw.

Friday, March 20, 2020

The Inspirations Of Oceanhorn 2: Knights Of The Lost Realm - Part 1

The best thing about being a small team of developers is that we get to come to work and exchange opinions on what games we played lately, what retro titles our colleagues should check out, and what we could learn from the design of this or that game.


By popular demand, we decided to go over some of the games we think had some influence on our work for the Oceanhorn series, and in particular on its newest chapter, Knights of the Lost Realm.

   


Our first guest is Miko, Cornfox & Bros Game Artist. "I work very closely with Heikki (Cornfox's Creative Director) to create the visual style of the game. I focus mostly on environment art, but have worked on other things as well," says Miko, "We're trying to capture the feel of the original Oceanhorn, but the transition to the new Unreal Engine physic-based rendering opened up new possibilities for the series."  




Knights of the Lost Realm sports a world inspired by quite many late-90s RPG games: in contrast to what came before, often set in a medieval world of knights and castles, here we have both technology and industrial elements seamlessly integrated into a "classic" RPG setting. Breath of Fire 3, Grandia and Alundra (all from 1997) are good examples of this style, where coal, electricity, and gritty backdrops are mixed with classic RPG stuff.






"The world of Oceanhorn 2 is not completely industrialized, and in most areas it doesn't go as far as many of the environments do in FFVII, for example." continues Miko, "We are big fans of this classic though, and one can most likely see the influence Midgar had had on Arcadia's capital, the White City. Like Midgar, it has a circular design and you can see gigantic pipes rising over the walls of the city, but unlike Midgar it's not a dystopia. The White City is a beautiful and bright place, where the sun is always shining. In a way, we try to bring the scale of things to a level similar to what you see in FFVII: even if we use a different aesthetic approach, you feel like you could easily just walk on the pipes."



The more advanced technology in Oceanhorn 2 quite often have rounder and smoother shapes, much like some of the vehicles found in Akira Toriyama's work. The Yellow Bird, Trin's airship, is the perfect example of this rounder design. The most advanced Arcadian tech takes this up a notch, featuring an even sleeker and aggressive design, inspired by modern sports cars or jet planes.


"And then we have the Living Fortresses," says Miko, "compared to the original Oceanhorn, we had a bit more technical freedom with the art, so we tried to make them look even more sophisticated and dynamic. If the Living Fortress in the first title was our version of the Metal Gear Rex, the Living Fortresses in Oceanhorn 2 are an evolution on that, Cornfox's Metal Gear Rays."


If you want to know more about the games and styles that inspired us during the development of Knights of the Lost Realm, stay tuned for Part 2!

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Feeling Guilty About Gaming Deaths!!!?

I just finished Mass Effect 2 for PS3, I am years behind current games! But being years behind has the advantage of getting an awesome title like ME2 for only £2 in CeX.

I was wondering if anyone else out there couldn't help feeling a bit guilty about the fate of certain characters in this game....

If you don't know, in Mass Effect 2, depending on how you play the game and how much time you pump into the game characters will either live or die in the final chapter of the story and all at a pretty rapid succession!

For me, I felt bad when Mordin died, and again, of all things, when Garrus died, I even had a twinge of guilt at seeing Jack's mangled face.... am I disclosing here how little I put into the game, here...?

I think to be honest only Grunt, the black guy, Miranda and the DLC girl survived for me... this was surprising as I thought if you did the side quests for each character they basically would survive... this was not the case, I used Garrus all the time in pretty much every quest.... but still... he didn't make it.... any I felt a little guilty for it......

As for Grunt, I had no sympathy towards him, I had read a few minor spoiler hints and I was under the impression that you had to choose one character to kill off, to send on a suicide mission..... I had Grunt in mind for this because I figured he was the least human and most animal like..... and yet, Grunt survived!

I went down to CeX and saw Mass Effect 3 for £2, so have just bought it, I understand that characters that lived can get carried over, but those who died, they are gone forever.

There is something refreshing about this. In most games death is something that can be corrected with loading up an old save, or using a phoenix down or whatever.... but here, death is death and we have to live with the consequences of our failings to protect the characters in our team. That's something I really like because its true to life, and whilst we play games as a form of escape, I like games to have some moral teaching in them, or something to help make me a better person. Being reminded of my mortality and the mortality of my friends, and the permanence of death... they are all good things from a Catholic world view.

Remember Mordin, thou art bits, and unto bits thou hast returned.
Remember Fr Higgins you are dust and unto dust you shall return.

Movie Review: Avengers: Endgame (SPOILERS)

Probably the best thing about Endgame is that it's the (almost) last of the first generation of MCU movies (we still have a Spiderman movie, maybe a Black Widow movie, and I'm sure a whole 'other next-generation of MCU movies are in the works). Is it a good movie? No. Is it a good-MCU movie? It's fine, much in the same way that Harry Potter 8 was fine: it does what it is supposed to.

That it broke box office records is understandable since the last movie was a cliff-hanger. Less understandable is its rave reviews, unless the reviews are based on its "must see" quality. Because, even from a Marvel perspective, the movie just barely makes sense, is disjointed, has too many scenes that are just sketches, has too many underused characters, and has an ending that is somewhat anti-climactic. What it has going for it is some emotional impact (a bit), some humor (not all of it good), some flashbacks to previous MCU movies, some nice visuals, and a sense of an ending.

PLOT: Following the last movie where half of the universe is wiped out, the characters are upset. The survivors track down Thanos who has already destroyed the stones so that his work can't be undone, so all they can do is kill him. Five years later Ant-Man is accidentally rescued from the quantum realm but has experienced only 5 hours, which leads him to think that the Avengers can use the quantum realm to go back in time - and space (???) - to very specific times and places in order to steal the infinity stones from the past, undo what Thanos did, and return them to their timelines. Unfortunately, while in the past, future Nebula's presence and memories alert past Thanos to this plan and he travels into the present to destroy the universe and remake a new one that won't try this plan again.

REACTIONS: Let's put a pin onto the obvious time-travel paradox problems, and even the rest of the insane problems for one minute and take the movie as is. This movie takes a little time to show us Hawkeye's family, Iron Man's daughter, and a few other character-relationship moments, which is a little more than we get in most MCU movies and which was nice. There was at least some attempt to deal with the failure and loss of the last movie, although, other than an argument from Iron Man and a sense of purpose from Captain America, these attempts were laughably badly done. Thor's gut belly and indifference was supposed to be funny, but other than the quick visual punch it really wasn't. On the one hand it was nice to see an overweight superhero. On the other, too many jokes were made about him being out of shape.

Now we have to take the pin out, because this movie's basic plot, premise, and how it deals with what happened is just insane:

  • If you wipe out half of all "living creatures", what about the animals and vegetation?
  • If you wipe our half of all living creatures, far FAR more than half of the remainder are going to die, and pretty soon. Half of all airplane pilots of mid-flight airplanes and half of the air-traffic controllers are gone. That's thousands of crashed flights. Half of all drivers of cars and trucks are gone but their cars are still speeding. That stops EVERY car and truck on the road, killing millions of people and instantly blocking every major and minor thoroughfare. Who's left to un-jam the roads? Half of all surgeons are gone mid-operation and nurses mid-care. Half of all single-parents with dependents that can't get help. Half of the people that care for remote villages.
  • How about every religion? How many of them could deal with half of their flock, including their pope or chief or most of their cardinals, dying? No riots? No looting? No new cults or major overthrows? How are the governments still working? How are buildings? How is food and medicine getting delivered, let alone produced and harvested and supplied?
  • How about financial markets and the collapse of industry? How about the collapse of all national security? How about rogue nations and terrorism? How about ...
  • Let's talk about what it would mean then to reintroduce half of the population again five years after the world has moved on without them. Where are they reintroduced into the world, including the ones that were mid-flight or mid-driving? Up in the air, at their destination, or at home? Who owns what? Who is married to whom? Who is producing food for them and where do they live?
  • The point is that this kind of disaster is a mcguffin, something that you can't think about even in the most shallow terms because it doesn't make any sense, but the MCU just throws it in and expects you not to think about it.
And that's not even considering the loony ways that time-travel is dealt with, screwing around with multiple timelines with no concept of how to resolve any of the changes. But that consideration is, at least, par for the course for bad sci-fi movies. Also, how does time travel = infinite space travel?

As far as characters go:
  • Iron Man is well acted and has a good show. It was nice to see his callback to the end of the first movie
  • Captain America has definitely grown as a character and had a good show.
  • Black Widow / Hawkeye: yes, it was a better choice for her to die, since he has a real family, but the movie doesn't make you feel that that was more than a plot consideration. Her death was more tragic than Iron Man's, but she is only given a few words of remorse while he is given a whole ending funeral and condolence scene. Which just goes to show that the MCU still doesn't consider the women to be as important as the men.
  • Captain Marvel has barely 15 minutes of screen-time after her big movie. It's entirely unclear how she rescues Iron Man at the beginning. The nice shot of all of the remaining women characters was nice, but it shouldn't be: there are tons of shots of all men characters that we simply take for granted, but the MCU makes us wait for a big, dramatic shot of women characters. I will be more excited when there are so many scenes and shots of women superheroes that we don't notice them anymore.  Which just goes to show that the MCU still doesn't consider the women to be as important as the men.
  • Thanos' powers are never explained. Why would the God of Thunder and several of his weapons have no effect on him, why is he able to break Captain America's unbreakable shield, and why can't even Captain Marvel put a dent in him? Plot, is the only reason. The MCU dug themselves into a hole when they gave superheroes so much strength and then could not think  of a way to create tension without simply ignoring all of that strength. Tension with an overly strong superhero is supposed to come from moral complexity, deception, and self-actualization, not from Something Even Stronger.
  • Hulk: They keep finding new ways to present him to keep him fresh, which is nice. But he's still pretty boring as a character.
  • Ant-Man: I kind of forgot where he was, once the time travelling started. Oh wait, I think I saw him flying around with the Wasp here and there. Whatever.
  • Nebula and Gemora had a lot to do, and they were the stars. Too bad they were pretty boring in their previous movies.
  • Pepper: Gwenyth stole the scenes she was in just by being a better actor and presence than anyone else.
  • Black Panther, Spider-man, Doctor Strange, etc all showed up just to be there, but served no other purpose.
As a movie qua movie, the movie exists only to complete what happened in the last movie. It contained no real moral dilemmas, no real character tension, no real insights, no real inspiration or sacrifice (Black Widow's sacrifice was antiseptic and Iron Man's was accidental), and nothing really interesting story-wise other than its utter mangling and refusal to deal with the more interesting ramifications of story that was supposedly occurring around them.

Was it entertaining? If you ignore all of the parts than made my brain hurt, then it was entertaining. I wanted to see how it ended, which is about all one could have hoped for and no more. Infinity War was more entertaining and more satisfying (not that it was good, per se, but it was a better MCU movie). This was just okay.

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Monday, March 16, 2020

MUPPET TREASURE ISLAND


If you're anything like me, Christmas isn't Christmas without the Muppets. They've disappeared from public life of late, thanks to an ill-conceived Office-inspired television show that killed any goodwill the modern cinematic outings may have earned. In the mid-90s, however, Jim Henson's loveable creations could do no wrong, and that included the 1996 re-telling of the Robert Lewis Stevenson's quintessential pirate tale. And 'cos we're the Collection Chamber, Muppet Treasure Island (1996, Activision) inevitably saw a computer game tie-in!

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Sunday, March 15, 2020

Eye On Kickstarter #80


Welcome to my Eye on Kickstarter series!  This series will highlight Kickstarter campaigns I am following that have recently launched (or I've recently discovered) because they have caught my interest.  Usually they'll catch my interest because they look like great games that I have either backed or would like to back (unfortunately budget doesn't allow me to back everything I'd like to).  But occasionally the campaigns caught my attention for other reasons.  Twice a month, on the 2nd and 4th Fridays, I'll make a new post in this series, highlighting the campaigns that have caught my attention since the last post.  In each post I'll highlight one campaign that has really grabbed my attention, followed by other campaigns I've backed or am interested in.  I'll also include links to any related reviews or interviews I've done.  Comments are welcome, as are suggestions for new campaigns to check out!

You can also see my full Kickstarter Profile to see what I've backed or my old Eye on Kickstarter page that was too unwieldy to maintain.  Also, check out the 2019 Kickstarter Boardgame Projects geeklist over on Board Game Geek for a list of all the tabletop games of the year.
So, without further ado, here are the projects I'm currently watching as of the fourth Friday of January, 2020:

Live Campaigns from Past Eyes:
APEX: Theropod Deck-Building Game by Outland Entertainment


HIGHLIGHTED CAMPAIGN
School of Sorcery
by Dr. Finn's Games - 2 DAYS LEFT!
  • Steve Finn has a reputation for designing amazing filler games, and, having played a number of them, I have to say the reputation is well deserved. His games are always fast, light, engaging, and interesting. School of Sorcery is his latest Kickstarter for an update to an older game of his (2015's Institute for Magical Arts) with new artwork and refined mechanics. Go ahead and grab this, I'm sure you won't be disappointed! And hurry, this was a 2 week campaign, so there's only a few hours left!


Collect magical items and build friendships to increase your influence at the School of Sorcery. This quick-paced strategic game for 2 players is a newly revised and updated version of Dr Finn's popular Institute for Magical Arts, successfully Kickstarted in 2015.

During the game, players compete to win magical items and characters at different locations. Each round has 5 Phases:
PHASE I: Collect Crystals - Collect 5 crystals
PHASE II: Cast Crystals - Using your dice roll, send crystals to desired locations
PHASE III: Use Portal - Using the portal, secretly send crystals to a new location
PHASE IV: Activate Powers - Activate the powers of your permanent cards
PHASE V: Evaluate Locations - Award sorcery cards at the locations

Features:
Simultaneous Decision-Making: Little downtime
Dice Mitigation: Multiple options for every dice roll
Unique Card Powers: Increases replayability
Fantastic Art and Colorful Graphics: nice to look at
Quality Components: shiny gems, punchboard player boards and locations, wooden tokens, high quality cardstock





Pacific Rails
by Vesuvius Media
  • Pacific Rails is a train game with a theme that I really find interesting. It's about the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad, which I also coincidentally made a game about (see The Overland Route), though it's just a small 2-player, 18-card game. Pacific Rails looks like a fun, historical tile game and I'd love to give it a try someday.


Return to Dark Tower
by Restoration Games
  • Restoration Games has been breathing new life into classic games from decades ago. Last year's hit for them was a reboot of Fireball Island and now they're back with a completely reworked and modernized version of the classic Dark Tower. In this new iteration they've improved the gameplay, updated the art and graphics, blended the physical gameplay with an innovative app, and engineered an amazing tower that actually works in conjunction with the app via bluetooth. I just wish it wasn't so darn expensive! Still probably cheaper than getting your hands on a good copy of the original though...


Jurassic Parts
by 25th Century Games
  • I love puzzle and area control games and Jurassic Parts looks like a great one. Not because of the dinosaur theme, which is great, but because of the interesting area control puzzle aspect of it. As you use chisels to section off pieces of map you'll get rewarded based on how much you helped with sectioning off the map. The more you help the more fossils you'll get, so there's a really interesting area control battle along with a puzzle as you try to figure out how to best section out the play area so you can build the most complete skeletons.


Migration Mars
by Enhance Games
  • I've mentioned before that I'm a sucker for a great space themed game, especially with roots in actual science. Migration Mars is about the race to build a sustainable human colony on Mars and it looks incredible. From the amazing buildings to the clean graphics, this is a game I'd love to get to the table.


Citadel Deck Block
by Quiver Time
  • Back in 2016 I reviewed the Quiver Gaming Case and thought it was outstanding. I still use it to this day to store and carry my Star Realms, Epic, and some other card games. Now the team is back with a deck box that is just as, or maybe even more incredible. The quality on Quiver Time's products is amazing and the engineering that has gone into the Citadel has resulted in an ingenious product. If you're looking for a high quality deck box, here's your answer!