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using Manic Miner and Jet Set Willy game engines
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Message: 5607
Author: Alexandra
Date: 28/02/2006
Subject: Manifesto on recent topics
[If I were the type that pee'd standing, I'd almost definately be
pissing in the wind here, but in the meantime I think they should make
some kind of device for us sitters so we too can piss in the wind
unashamedly, without prejudice, and competently.]
1) Graphics
Some people have expressed dismay at not being good at art. While art
can be important, for me the most importantistic thing remains
atmosphere. You don't need good art skills for this, perhaps a sense
of space and proportion, a deal of intuition. Having a look at Herve's
recent screenshots they are no less atmospheric because he doesn't
measure up to, say, Igor or Erix1's artistic ability.
In fact making the graphics super-sharp could even compromise the
atmosphere. For me the most important things are (a) a sense of place
and (b) colour/texture.
2) Quirky features
It's all about what audience you are writing for. JSW: Role Reversal
has engine tricks to enhance gameplay but it has NO quirky features
that you need to exploit, apart from ONE which Andrew asked me to put
in and I agreed because it seemed fun and it's not essential to
progress. Plus, if someone collected all the items and had one more
which needed a simple ILB-dump to get to it, most people aren't going
to protest.
Also, I think it's important to consider context. If you are
describing a game/locale which is supposed to be completely real in
the game world, I'd advise against using most QF's. If the game
location is abstract, it matters less. If you need a realistic looking
location and still use quirky features you should probably dress your
QF's up as some kind of magic which ths player must learn. Call it the
magic of movement, tell your player that with correct positioning for
the ritual, you might be able to walk through solid objects or even
teleport yourself to an underground cavern from the surface (on an ILB
no less). The fact that the moves need to be done perfectly makes
these possibilities even more interesting, because there could be a
whole new way you can exit one screen that you may not find/encounter
until several days, even weeks. You can't beat QF's for making hidden
routes which add interest to the layout overall.
Next is an important one for me. QF's come into their own when applied
in combination. Just putting some standard ILB's or whatever in the
way of the player to make them "do a quirky feature" is not reason
enough for inclusion any more in my books. The point of QF's in my
mind now is to make puzzles for the more cerebral players, primarily.
Finally, where on the map you put a QF is extremely important. For
example, I would not use a quirky feature in a main route of the game
- if something requires expert knowledge but your overall game isn't
expert (so you have a mix of difficulty over the entire map), strongly
consider putting the expert sections (quirky features, time-frame
critical timing, insane puzzles) at the peninsulas, edges and
dead-ends of your overall layout (see "Kamikaze Cavern" and "Hopscotch
Traps" in JSW: RR).
Finally, I'm sure someone posted antidote pokes for the QF's or at
least some of them. I will be making a game with the QF's disabled,
mainly so I can use stand-on-able guardians without the players
falling through the corners :)
3) JSW64, UMM and the 'Garish Colours'
People have complained 'bout the colour 'clash' in UMM, but in a lot
of cases I think they may be referring to the choices of colours for
the blocks.
There was one problem I faced when making rooms with 16 block types -
only two blocks out of 16 can actually appear the same colour, so it's
very difficult to create a consistent colour scheme, or make, for
example, graphics for a sandstone block which is 3x2 blocks and is
yellow and black. I switched to an 8-block-per-room mode because I
felt with 16 blocks I had millions of different couloured pieces that
were hard to fit together. I think Igor did the best job he could with
that medium.
(As an antidote to this, you can use monochrome graphics as I intend
to in another future game. Once the entire screen is b/w you can then
use the cells to describe big, continuous objects of one colour)
Unless the JSW64 engine can be rejigged so that it doesn't use
attributes of a cell to determine it's type (which seems next to
impossible from what I know, without a big rewrite), this is a problem
that will never go away, but you can use guardians (if you have 32 of
them) to help add scenery and colour various blocks with spare
guardian slots.
Another thing to watch for are AIR cells which can do some really ugly
clash , especially if you've video-inverted the bit pattern. In some
cases this doesn't seem to look too bad, but at times it's an eyesore.
4) Shut up and do something useful.
Ok. I'll try and release JSW: Role Reversal. It seems people want a
game like this and it happens to be what I think is my finest
completed game so far. So expect this to be released sometime in early
3000.
;)
Sendy
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