Satan Sam.co.uk

Just a quick pointer outer that the Indiegala IV is currently out and contains Lunnye, Wake and Really Big Sky!

www.indiegala.com

Caroline, the other half of Boss Baddie and my life, and I are heading out to E3 in June. It’s a long long flight from the north of England involving 2 stopovers on the way back, but it’ll be worth it.

It’s really quite mad. This time last year I was trying to get a job as a freakin TESTER!

In other news I’m now a lecturer on a game art+design course. Crazy times.

After reading an article about Really Big Sky http://kotaku.com/really-big-sky/ and my older “Boss Baddie” games http://blog.gaming.stackexchange.com/2012/04/art-and-the-indie-game/, highlights were drawn to some of my design choices. It got me thinking about how I go about things.

1. 1. Simple controls
2. 2. Hybrid gameplay
3. 3. Purposeful lack of explanation of gameplay events
4. 4. A background story that isn’t directly explained

1

I like to build games with simple foundations and controls. In Big Sky I removed as much as I could, boiling controls down to just two analogue sticks and a button to flip the drill. Wake is probably our most complex in terms of manoeuvrability, which really is as close to the original Tormishire as you’re going to get.

All my games are built to use controllers, since I make games in genres that use them better than keyboards+mice. And the great thing about controllers is how simple you can make them.

2

Once the player has grasped the controls, gameplay is slowly fed to the player;

• Lunnye the player is free to explore and do whatever they want, free of consequence. They can learn the world at their own pace.
• Wake has a totally different tone to Lunnye. There’s an urgency in the gameplay, but there is only one way to die – drowning. The player is free to roam around the ship with only a slight threat of being knocked out. Difficulty modes are also unlocked by completing the previous one, so the first mode any player will see is Easy, where water rises at a very slow pace.
• Really Big Sky has that tutorial. But tutorial sections are not cool, so we built notifications in, spent a lot of time crafting readability and created a scalable difficulty. Gameplay starts off basic and slowly introduces the different threats.

3

And then! Then you’re treated to something I value a lot – mystery!

In both Lunnye and Wake you have to make your way home, the clues are presented to the player and (such as in Wake) the solution is obvious.
In Really Big Sky there are just so many mad things. All of which were designed to shift gameplay at the drop of a hat or plan quick strategies. The events are random in appearance, scale and design. Most importantly they’re never fully explained… unless you go through the Library. But even that doesn’t offer much explanation.

Even the achievements are left without detailed explanation, offering only clues and references. And then there are the song unlocks which, seeing that they’re just bonus content, have no such clues. Have you noticed that the Options graphic on the main menu has circular notches cut out? That’s your mini notification of how many songs you have unlocked.

4

There is a story to Big Sky. I don’t think anybody knows about it, or cares about it. But there is one and it’s fully explained via the background. And remember the AI is exactly that – artificial.

Going back to my even earlier games, the story in New Satan Sam never explained the meteorites. Totally unrelated but TNSS was inspired by anime I watched as a kid including Dogtanian (art) and Battle of the Planets (story and setting, notably the moon invasion film).

A lot of this comes from my own tastes. I like surprises – I don’t watch film trailers, I don’t watch those “in next weeks episode” sections to TV shows, I rarely watch gameplay trailers or read up on new games. The unknown is cool, don’t you think? LOST is also one of my favourite things ever.

I like games, I make games, I enjoy buying games from shops. Locked away in my head are memories of buying Sonic 2 for the Mega Drive for £7 one fateful afternoon (a game I wanted for years, only ever playing it at friends houses). And on my 16th birthday when I was lucky as hell to find F-Zero X, which had previously been sold out for weeks. AND THE TIME back when I was very young and I nagged my dad to buy me Link’s Awakening for my Gameboy. AAAAAND THE TIME I somehow wanted Golf on my Gameboy and became addicted to it.

Shops are good. They’re colourful and part of the reason why I keep my game collection on show in my house. They encourage me to buy games I normally wouldn’t think of buying, just because it’s infront of me and the price is right. The box for Monster Hunter Freedom alone was the single driving force behind buying a PSP. It’s powerful stuff, man.

But in recent years I stopped buying from GAME. It wasn’t a conscious decision, just an inevitable outcome. And here’s why.

PRICES

I, like most young working people, have jobs and disposable income and I don’t mind funding my pass-time. What I do mind is paying up to double the price. Some recent examples of mine-

HMV- Rayman Origins PS3 £15
GAME- Rayman Origins PS3 £29
Bee- PS3 Controller £29
GAME- PS3 Controller £50 (!!!)

I’ve only recently been purchasing from GAME again because of their fire-sale, knocking prices down to a more reasonable level.

SECOND HAND AS NEW

Buying a new game from GAME is buying a second hand game. The manufacturers seal is already gone, there is no guarantee that you’re getting the game as intended. Twice in the past I bought a “new” game from their shop, and twice I had my Nintendo Stars reward already taken.

SALES ASSISTANTS

I wear glasses, have stubble and long scraggly hair. I mostly wear nerdy t-shirts, jeans and almost always carry an orange laptop bag with me. I don’t need an assistant to ask me if I found what I was looking for. My appearance should give away the fact that I know what I’m looking for. I knew before I decided to visit your shop. I knew before the game was released whether or not I wanted it.

You’re only doing your job, yes, I totally agree. But tell the higher ups that we’re not morons.

Also please know your beans. I once asked an assistant when they’d be getting the new Kirby game (and by new I meant Kirby’s Superstar for DS). They hadn’t heard of it, had no idea what it is or who Kirby was. This forced me to import it and it was released in the UK a month later.

AND the assistant who called it “Meat-roid”… .

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Some other things that bug me- why does each shopping complex have 2 GAME stores and a Gamestation? In Manchester after the Arndale was reopened in 2007ish, they built a second GAME shop a minutes walk from another, which was also a minutes walk from a Gamestation (owned by GAME). In Hanley the two GAME shops sit a floor apart with one ontop of the other. Both stock the same titles, the same swath of second hand games.

If I was running the show

My employees would have to be into games. Just like how Apple employees have to be into Apple. They have to enjoy gaming, offer their personal opinions to customers. That would help make connections to customers, which would certainly help with netting a sale or two.

One morning a week; a tournament. A buddy runs an independent game shop in New Jersey that holds multiplayer tournaments or single player challenge tournaments on Saturday morning. The shop is full during these events and he makes a killing. Add a vending machine and Bob is your uncle. I’d attend, in the excitement and atmosphere I’d be more inclined to buy games.

Stock retro games and consoles. Gamestation used to do this and I spent a small fortune there during my student years. I would buy Gameboy and NES games given the chance.

Empty boxes on shelves, once purchased buyer gets a sealed game. Empty box goes back on shelf. Rocket science it is not. You wouldn’t even need that – those like me could just go up to the checkout and ask for the game they want! Wouldn’t that be a fluid sale experience?

Ok that’s it. You’ve had your lot.
Oh and I shop in HMV and Bee.com (great for buying consoles) these days. I browse GAME and Gamestation for reasons I don’t know. Mostly buy from play.com, Amazon, Shopto (best guys around. Always had free next day delivery on my orders).

I tend to keep my industry-related thoughts to myself but I see us heading down a dark road.

There’s a new system being tested at the moment. Seen in titles like Dead Rising Zero, Dissidia 012 and Mortal Kombat. Well let’s start at the very beginning;

Remember in those glory days when you had pocket money, or were in the past so you didn’t spend a lot of money on yourself? Those days where you played game demos and trials to make a decision whether or not you wanted to purchase a game. Or in the case of Nintendo; just bit the bullet. Well obviously that was losing money for super-rich publishers so now we’re being gradually introduced into a new system. Paying for demos.

Now they usually give you a little something extra for your money, typically a small unlock or something that won’t disrupt the game for smart customers.

Most embarrassingly of all; 2 days before the release of Dissidia Duodecim 012 for the PSP, a series that sells okay but basically isn’t Pokemon or Monster Hunter. Square decided to sell a demo and to release it moments before the game itself is launched. I don’t know if Square met up with Sony’s genius marketers or whut because this sounds like a way to make people not test a game and decide not to buy it. Which is an odd move considering the niche nature of Dissidia and even of the PSP itself*.

Square. They’re um, getting a bit silly.

And limiting demos for special subscribers! I’m talking of course about PSN+. The idea was that the Playstation didn’t need a service like Xbox Live but wanted a service like Xbox Live. So rather than charge people to play online (f^%$^kin Microsoft), they created artificial reasons such as getting demos in advance. So now developers of the new Mortal Kombat don’t want me, as a non-gullible consumer, to try out their game out and make a judgement on if I want to buy it.

SO if I was the GOD OF A NEW WORLD I would;

• Demos. Not for all games. But free, spread as far as the eye can see for maximum penetration.
• Day One DLC abolished. You could have put this on the disc. You didn’t. You deserve nothing.
• DRM tied to secure accounts, not computers. Steam has the right idea. EA does not.
• Under no circumstances must that account ever be limited, if someone cheats in an online game ban them from online play in that game only. Steam hasn’t got the right idea.
• Online play always free. No matter what. Dedicated servers all round.

Oh I’m going back to work.

*I wuv my PSP.