@Play 74: The last time I swear

@Play 74

The second of the two posts about Mayflight is up on GameSetWatch.  I hope it hasn't seemed as obnoxiously self-promotional to you guys as it has to me.  Additionally, this one is more about implementation algorithms and my wanting to document them somewhere for possible later use than anything else.

I spent three and a half months working on the thing, to the exclusion of almost everything else, and I don't think it's really good enough for all the effort I put into it.  That is the great difficulty with the indie gaming sphere: you can work and work and work on something and still have it end up only so-so.

Next time, I absolutely swear, @Play will cover something else.  I'm gearing up to write about Dungeon Crawl's new alternate play mode, Dungeon Sprint, which is suitably infuriating.

@Play 73: Mayflight again

@Play #73, on my own randomly-generated game, Mayflight

Yeah, @Play is back, but it's about the game I've already introduced, which is relevant to roguelikes in both inspiration and implementation detail.  In this column I cover the inspiration part of it; in the next, I talk about how it was implemented, which may provide an algorithm or two of interest to roguelike developers.  After that we'll be back on the usual beat, so if you're annoyed with all this talk about platformers and such you don't have much longer to wait!

What I've Been Working On: Mayflight

My secret project, a procedural exploratory game for YoYoGames' summer competition, is ready to show the world.  It is called Mayflight.  It's kind of relevant here because I used some roguelike design principles in its making, especially in creating its huge game world and your character's ability set.  (I can't post it on Metafilter Projects yet because it's been too soon since my post of my most recent Gamasutra article.  I seem to be using Projects rather a lot lately....)

It's sort of like a Metroidvania in some ways.  It is a platformer, and you explore a big mappable space looking for powerups and fighting monsters.  However, it has no end.  The game world is randomly created every game, and has no edges.  Exploring out several areas, bring up the map and zooming out, then seeing the trail of blue rooms extending off-screen is kind of fascinating.

Also, the powerup/map dynamic isn't the Russian nesting doll setup of ever-increasing exploration spheres made available by finding new equipment.  Instead your character, Aurora the fairy, is weak in ability at the start, but becomes stronger generally in various areas by finding powerups.

Because there's no end to the world, and the powerups increase ability rather than grant new ones, the point of the game changes.  There is a time limit, and the idea is to go as far as you can during it.  Although it starts at only ten seconds, you can extend it continually by finding "sparks," which are scattered around with the ubiquity of Mario's coins.  The game is played for high score.  The two scores provided are raw distance from the starting location upon death, and a more traditional score that generally measures playing ability and accomplishment.

Playing it, it seems to have a nice balance to me.  The monsters are challenging without being overwhelming (at least not until you have had a chance to power up), the constant need to extend your lifespan means there is little downtime, and it's challenging while possible to survive for more than an hour with good play.  I was even able to squeeze a couple of covert pinball references into the game's interface.  I'm particularly proud of the background generator, which is able to produce a wide variety of interesting dynamically-generated looks for areas for relatively little processor time.  I post some of the more interesting screens here.

Anyway, now that Mayflight has seen a public release I can focus more on @Play.  The next column or two will probably discuss the game as an example of roguelile design principles applied to a very non-roguelike kind of game.  Then we'll probably get back to the usual beat.  In particular, Dungeon Crawl has seen a lot of development effort lately, having jumped another whole version number in the past two months!

More screens from Mayflight:

Game Design Essentials: 20 Non-Computer Games

I already posted this to MeFi Projects, but it's relevant here I suppose, especially since one of the reasons @Play hasn't had a column for a couple of months is because I was working on this:

Game Design Essentials: 20 Non-Computer Games

There are certainly many more board games, card games, roleplaying games and others that I could do sequel article, and have been lightly planning one.  Agricola and Acquire would probably be on the list because they're excellent and I have easy access to them, Dipomacy would be on the list because it's the most requested game in the comments to the first list, beyond that I'm still deciding.

Hopefully there'll be another @Play before DragonCon, maybe two.  Watch this space.

Where is @Play these days?

The column was wholly absent for the month of June, for which I am sorry. I've been hyper-engaged with a personal game development that I hope to be able to show the world soon. This isn't entirely separate from the column; while it's not a roguelike, it does involve random content generation and a couple of other design aspects of those games, although they aren't the ones that people usually think of.

I hope to get a new column to you guys soon, and I'll be sure to post about it here when the game is better prepared to meet the withering gaze of strangers....

@Play 72: Review of Chocobo's Dungeon for Wii

@Play #72: http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2010/05/column_play_chocobos_dungeon_f.php

This is one of the most scathing things I've ever written. I played through seven or eight dungeons of this game in preparation for this article, and read through a FAQ on GameFAQs besides. I did not complete the game, which would have taken many hours and eroded my sanity even further.

The paragraphs on moogles are, if I say so myself, some quality, heartfelt bile.

@Play 71: What randomization has to offer games

@Play #71

Hello blog. I can talk to you right?

I'm fairly unhappy with this column. A part of me considers some of it fairly nonsensical. I believe it all and stand by the idea, but to express what is a strongly-held belief like it were fact, I don't think that is what @Play should be.

I'm talking, specifically, about the games-as-art section, which seems to me like a version of one of my Metafilter comments. This is part of why it took over a month for this installment to go up. It was hard to write, and I even started over once, but after I had written so much of it it became something I had to go with just to finally be rid of it.

It's possible that people will accept it, maybe even like it, but I don't think I like it myself. I will say this however: it does I think explain why I can't bear to play many "modern" computer games. They are wed strongly to their storytelling, and more and more the kinds of stories they wish to tell make me nauseous.

Next time I should be able to field another review. Those are rather good topics at least. See you then.