FunEffect.com

Anna Anthropy continues her degradation into commercial work --which began with the tightly-crafted squealer When Pigs Fly -- and I couldn't be happier. With her latest release she moves away from the masochism she's infamous for and instead weaves a tale of a lone space traveler. It's, dare I say it, actually pretty charming. While the lack of bondage is suprising her knack for marvelous game design (which is apparent in her earlier games and level design lessons) is still intact. Selling out hasn't been this well-crafted or fun.

Anthropy has a fine sense for graphical composition; her pixel art has an elegantly clean style to it. The music by Amon26 (of Au Sable and All Our Friends are Dead fame) is also top notch -- I'm actually listening to it as I type. The game's minimalist story echoes Knytt by establishing that the protagonist has lost roughly two dozen gems and must regain them through exploration. Your sole verbs are walking and a low-gravity leap, which ends in a slight bounce if you fall long enough. The game's main mechanic is the dual polarity of red and green platforms; if you touch a red switch, for example, red blocks disappear and green blocks materialize. Like Terry accomplished with V^6, Anna wrung out every conceivable application of this mechanic and the game's three pitfalls of robot, laser, and electric pit. The level design is absolutely stellar. The difficulty is also fairly low-key, the platforming isn't by any means sadistic and save spots are frequent. Playing through Redder and exploring its landscape shows that you can create a mainstream-oriented experience without dumbing it down or diluting it.

Not much else needs to be said, except this: thank you ma'am, may I have another?

Today's collection of independent game links include a couple more IGF 2010 features and interviews, a big list of Gamma IV submissions, and G4's coverage of the recent Indie Game Challenge awards presentation ceremony. (image source)

gamebase: Gamma IV Games
"The Gamma IV competition has seen the creation of 154 new one-switch games. Here's a list that is as complete as I can make it today."

Tap-Repeatedly.com: IGF 2010
"In recent years independent gaming has exploded with each annual Independent Games Festival reporting more and more submissions. While there has been the usual mixed views on the finalists and omissions, there is no denying that the standard of work is improving year upon year."

GameInformer.com: Indie Week - Talking To The Top Contenders
"We take some time to chat with IGF 2010 finalists, discussing the pros and cons of being an indie developer and touching on their opinion of 'mainstream' games."

NeoGAF: The Best and Worst of Xbox Indie Box-Art
"Most Xbox Indie games are so unbelievably off putting, based entirely on their box art. You have to think, if these people can barely utilise Microsoft Paint, how can they be proficient in coding and game design? People say don't judge a book by its cover, but with over 700 indie games on the store it's hard to not avoid games entirely because the font is Comic Sans. With a drop shadow."

Clickteam: SWF File Exporter for Adobe Flash Player
"A MMF2 and TGF2 SWF File Exporter that allows you to create applications compatible with Adobe Flash Player is now available."

G4tv.com: Indie Game Challenge Awards (video)
Part one of the three-part DICE 2010's Indie Game Challenge awards presentation ceremony, hosted by G4's Adam Sessler. All three parts are available to watch at G4tv.com. Continue reading

[In the first in a series of interviews with 2010 Independent Games Festival Mobile finalists, sister site FingerGaming's Jon Glover talks to Powerhead Games CEO Jason Schreiber, whose DSiWare game Glow Artisan is a finalist in the Best Mobile Game category after having won the award for Best Mobile Game Design.]

Described as another "secretly rad" DSiWare game by GameSetWatch’s Eric Caoili, Glow Artisan could have remained just that, a footnote on Nintendo’s weekly "downloadables" PR sheet, seeing only a single, admittedly fantastic review in its first week of release.

However, a few months on and developer Powerhead Games’ debut original title has won the IGF’s Best Mobile Game Design award, being the only game on a traditional gaming handheld up for the grand prize in the catergory of Best Mobile Game.

FingerGaming had the chance talk with Powerhead Games boss Jason Schreiber about his company’s first non-licensed game, the development of such a unique and feature-rich puzzle game and the indie scene in general.

What is Powerhead Games’ background in game development?

We recently celebrated Powerhead Games’ tenth anniversary as an independent game developer. Our first game was for the original Nintendo Game Boy. We’ve pretty much been a Nintendo handheld developer ever since, working on many different types of "for hire" (other company’s IP) games. Glow Artisan is Powerhead’s first original IP and our first self-published game.

Can you tell us what development tools your team used to create Glow Artisan?

We use 3D Studio, Photoshop MediaWiki, SVN, Lua, Bugzilla and Notepad. We also use a bunch of internal tools and technology which we take great pride in. For example, our Font Text Writer tool is not just a means to get text into the Nintendo DS, but it’s also an indication of our love of silly acronyms. The most important tool though, is the Glow Puzzle Maker, which is included in the game!

How long was the game in development?

The first prototype of Glow Artisan was built about two years ago. Several of the core features in the finished game were in place at week one: using one screen as a blueprint and the other as a canvas, drawing from the edges ("emitters"), and erasing/cutting lines.

That first prototype showed potential, but it was a far cry from where we wound up. Glow Artisan became a labor of love at Powerhead — nearly everyone here had a hand, at least some part, to move development forward. When the Nintendo DSi was announced, everything fell into place. We knew two of the DSi’s features, the camera and the shop, would be perfect for Glow Artisan.

How did the initial concept come about?

Two designers, Matt [LoPresti] and Ramiro [Corbetta], were discussing ideas as designers are wont to do. In a classic case of the game "Telephone", one misinterpreted the other’s design and came up with the idea of “emitters” (drawing from the edges). They enlisted Randy (programmer) and Mike (artist) to work on a prototype. (It was up and running in about a week.)

Like any good idea, it was inspirational. Soon additional people got involved, and the design shifted to a more "cabal" approach.

How did your "for hire" work on primarily licensed games prepare you for the development of Glow Artisan?

Working on games for young audiences enforces the basic tenet that players should always know what they can do. It sounds simple, but this kind of detail can be overlooked as developers struggle to hit a deadline, or debate level of polish vs. additional features.

During the development of Glow, we repeatedly noticed the mechanic wasn’t obvious to new players. We heard: "Why can’t I just draw anywhere with the stylus?" a lot. We knew if the game was not presented properly then first-time players would likely get frustrated.

Building a thorough tutorial solved a lot of problems: it made a good first impression, helped set the pace of the game, and made sure players knew how to play our game.

What would you say are the advantages and disadvantages of putting your game on DSiWare, versus "proven" services such as the App Store and Xbox Live Indies?

The simplest answer is: where else could we sell our downloadable Nintendo DSi game? Another advantage for DSiWare is the other services, especially the App Store, are just flooded with games. This makes it very hard to get attention for new IP.

We like to think Glow Artisan's quality would have demanded attention no matter what system it was initially released on, but releasing Glow Artisan as a DSiWare game helped it stand out just because there are only a few games released every week.

Of course, the flip side, is the App Store and Xbox shop experiences are much more mature — it’s so easy to go from a link on the web to a purchase for any App. To find Glow Artisan in the DSi Shop, you need to specifically search for it. Hopefully, that will change as the DSiWare shop evolves and adapts.

Glow Artisan has a strong sense of identity. Do you think an interesting, coherent aesthetic is a necessity on a service alongside the likes of the ArtStyle and Electroplankton series?

For us, anything that helps our game stand out is helpful. Marketers like to talk about a good "elevator pitch" or "five word" description for a game. ("You only have 30 seconds with an executive to sell your game… Go!")

Glow Artisan doesn’t have a great elevator pitch. Or at least we haven’t found it yet. We still have problems explaining the gameplay. ("So, here’s how to play. You need to redraw this puzzle, but you can only draw from the left and top sides of the screen. No, not that screen. And it’s got a lot of features and modes. And it uses the camera…")

That said, we learned even showing the game isn’t enough. We posted a carefully constructed trailer online, but the first comment said the it sucks because it doesn’t show off the game concept. (We took it as a compliment that the random YouTube user liked our game enough to support it by criticizing its only trailer.)

If you could reset and start fresh on development of Glow Artisan, what would you do differently?

Once we had the mechanic down, we spent a lot of time trying out different looks and modes. We also explored various story ideas, such as the totally original idea of adding color to a colorless corporate world (shakes fist at de Blob!). If we had known from the start we were self-publishing on DSiWare, we could saved time by only focusing on the essentials of game play, cool features, and presentation.

For the game itself, I’m going to paraphrase Matt and say we learned a lot in making tons of small (5×5) and large (10×12) puzzles. In retrospect we could have eased players into the larger levels a little better. Perhaps by adding a medium sized grid.

What do you think of the current state of the indie scene, particularly in relation to the mobile space?

Matt says that "some of the indie games I’ve played on DSiWare and Xbox Live Indie are some of the best experiences he’s had in recent years. Especially Solar on Xbox Live." And Ramiro says 2009 "had a lot of interesting games, like Closure, Star Guard, Every Day The Same Dream, Today I Die, and a bunch of other games that I’m probably forgetting.”

I don’t think I’m the first to make this observation, but look at where id, Epic and 3DRealms started. They were all “indie” shareware companies, working on self-published games in the 90’s. They all were responsible directly to their consumers and, as a result, produced high quality games and great franchises. The indie game developers of today could very well be the gaming powerhouses of the next decade.

Have you played and enjoyed any of the other IGF Mobile finalists?

We’re looking forward to more hands on time with all the games at GDC, but we’re all fans of Hook Champ and Drop7. (And we’re not just saying that because Drop7 was made in New York City.)

Apple has launched a new section on the front page of the iTunes App Store highlighting nominees and finalists in the third annual Independent Games Festival Mobile competition.

IGF Mobile, now in its third year, is a sister event to the Independent Games Festival that celebrates excellence in games for Apple's iPhone, other cellphone and smartphone operating systems (OS), Nintendo DS, Sony PlayStation Portable, and other handheld devices.

The Cupertino-based iPhone creator is prominently featuring the IGF Mobile titles at least partly because four of the five category winners in this year’s event were developed for the iPhone and iPod Touch platforms, including:

- Technical Achievement: Stair Dismount (Secret Exit)
- Audio Achievement: Lilt Line (Different Cloth)
- Achievement in Art: Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP (Superbrothers, Capy, Jim Guthrie — Unreleased)
- Best iPhone Game: Spider: The Secret of Bryce Manor (Tiger Style Games)

The Best Mobile Game Design award went to Powerhead Games’ Nintendo DSiWare title Glow Artisan, not currently available for Apple's hardware. Continue reading

Renown DJ Ferry Corsten and developer Virtual Fairground (Club Galactik) have partnered to create Pulse, a new rhythm game for iPhone and PC in which you can play and compose dance tracks. It will also feature seven new music tracks produced by Corsten exclusively for the music title.

In Pulse, players tap the screen (or keyboard) to the beat of the music to reach song samples, play notes to those samples, then integrate those samples into their song. Depending on how closely gamers follow the beat, they'll be able to access more elaborate samples and layer them with their track.

The iPhone version is expected to come out on March 27th, while the release date for Pulse's PC edition, which will include additional online cooperative and versus multiplayer modes, is still unannounced. Both versions will include a feature that allows players to post their scores to Twitter and Facebook.

"I was trying to combine my music and games for quite some time," says Ferry Corsten. "Then I met the guys from Virtual Fairground who showed me a demo of Pulse. With my experience and their game design skills we have been able to shape Pulse into both a great game and something that makes you feel like a DJ. I can't wait to see Pulse in the hands of players."

Hopefully, this will turn out better than that awful horror movie with the same name that came out several years ago. I can't believe I paid money to see that.

[‘Design Diversions’ is a biweekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column by Andrew Vanden Bossche. It looks at the unexpected moments when games take us behind the scenes, and the details of how game design engages us. This time--Capcom's Haunting Ground and the design of empathy.]

In order to explain why Capcom's Haunting Ground is an important game, I need to relate a discomforting story.

My college was surrounded by corn for miles and miles so when there was nothing else to do on a Friday night, we would wander around town. On one particular night, we went to the cemetery. It is eerily close to a golf course, which I imagine makes from some awkward moments when golfers hit balls in the wrong direction.

The way to the cemetery is surrounded by nice neighborhoods and Victorian homes and is only a few blocks away from the south end of campus. I wandered around in this area with my friends until I remembered I had to meet my girlfriend so they, who had been planning to stay, offered to walk me back.

"I think I'll be fine," I said.

"Oh yeah," my friend said, "I guess boys don't really have to worry about getting raped, do they?"

I didn't know what to think. She hadn't really meant for it to shock me. But it wasn’t something I had ever seriously worried about. The worst thing I could think of happening to me on the walk home was getting mugged and since I was broke that sounded more like an inconvenience. It shocked me that they had to be afraid, that walking around alone at night was a completely different experience.

I hadn't given any thought to the fact that I could walk out without that sort of fear, just for being me. I didn’t think it was fair that she had to be afraid. I also felt a little guilty that I didn’t know, and hadn’t thought of it.

This is why Haunting Ground is, despite its problems, something unique. It is not just a narrative about the fear of assault, something that can be and has been accomplished in literature or film (and also more adeptly). Haunting Ground is the experience of fear itself and its strength is that can place anyone in the role of Fiona.

The gameplay itself is its primary artistic element, and from the way it defines Fiona's strength and movement to the way it handles injury and death, it forces the player into the role of the victim and to experience her fear. It is a flawed game that is like few others in the way it allows the strong or privileged a glimpse of what it is like to be without. In Haunting Ground, the player doesn't watch a victim; the player is the victim.

3.1 Person Perspective

Haunting Ground is unusual as a third person game for how much it relies on visual cues that are based in the first person. Exhaustion and injury change both the way Fiona moves and the visual style of the game. Initially the camera presents a clear picture, but as the stalkers wear her down the camera transitions will become blurred and a sepia tone settles in. At the height of fear, when Fiona breaks into a run, the camera shifts to a stark monochrome.

Of course, Fiona doesn't literally go colorblind when she's scared. The style shifts are there to convey the disorienting, disturbing and surreal fear she feels to the player. The visual shifts are solely used as an empathetic tool. Rather than convey the same information that Fiona is experiencing, it conveys the same emotion. This state prevent the player from calmly watching Fiona while she's being chased, so the chases are tense instead of voyeuristic.

The monochrome that soaks the screen during this state is especially powerful because while it lasts, movement is the only thing that is visually distinct. All the details of the environment fade in visual importance, while the movements of Fiona and her pursuer stand out. As a player, you can clearly see from her desperate movement this isn't the time to fuss around with a puzzle. The monochrome impairs the player's ability to interact with the environment, not Fiona's, which is necessary for the player to share her experience.

Out Of Control

The controls in Haunting Ground's design take a multi-layered approach to emotion. The first layer is conveying Fiona's emotion to the player. These cues are represented by Fiona's movements, like her shortness of breath or her wild gait when fleeing. From this information the player can tell what Fiona is feeling. The second layer consists of emotional cues that are meant to inspire the same emotions in the player. The first layer shows Fiona being frightened, the second is directly frightening to the player.

In the case of movement, this second layer comes in the way Fiona responds differently to the controls. When she panics she's faster, but she also slips and falls and responds to input almost as if she was on ice. This gameplay element is extremely disorienting as the player's control is jeopardized. Fiona responds differently under stress but always consistently. The intensity of the speed and the slippery controls increases the likelihood that the player will make a mistake. So when Fiona falls, it's because the player has panicked.

Watching Ground

Haunting Ground has voyeuristic themes, and part of the problem with it is that it sometimes includes the player as voyeur. However, during the chases it does quite the opposite, which is why the visual devices like the monochrome are so important. The more she's attacked, the further the game shuts down the player's ability to see her. It literally won't let the player observe her like a voyeur.

During the cutscenes which often show off her chest or impossibly short skirt, there's almost always another observer watching her through peepholes or stroking her hair while she sleeps. Fiona's outfit is clearly ill-suited for the situation, but it's her attackers who make her wear it in the first place. So as much as the game shows her off, it can feel really uncomfortable for the player knowing what kind of other people are watching at the same time.

Visions of Death

A certain study showed that players feel a sense of release and relief upon dying in a game, the rationale being that death provides a relief from the tension of gameplay. Haunting Ground has no in game penalty for death, other than restarting, so the sounds alone are more than enough for players to understand exactly what the consequence of failure is, without voyeuristic connotation of watching her die. We don't see her death in part because the implication is that it is the viewer's death as well. Players don't have the luxury of externalizing their death on a virtual body.

Haunting Ground is very explicit about what's at stake: to make Fiona's fear believable, and to identify her fear with ours. The shifting of screen and camera does nothing for Fiona's perception. It's purely for the viewer, to experience fear as if it was hers. This is a powerful technique that allows for a sort of first person immersion in a third person game.

[Andrew Vanden Bossche is a freelance writer and student. He has a blog called Mammon Machine, where you can PRESS "X" TO NOT DIE, and can be reached at AndrewVandenB@gmail.com]

PopCap has announced the availability of Plants vs Zombies on the iPhone/iPod Touch. Gamers are now able to enjoy the unique game on the go or wherever life takes them. The design has stayed the same as the PC and Mac versions, but the game has been adapted for the mobile devices. There is even [...] Continue reading