Bret Airborne

Some time ago, Psychochild mentioned his friend, Dave Toulouse, and his crazy awesome indie game development ways.  He runs a blog over at Over00, where he writes about his efforts.  I’ve been following them both on Twitter, and a couple of days ago, they announced Toulouse’s latest project, Bret Airborne, which he has written about a few times on his blog that I totally have been neglecting.  I’m so bad at keeping up lately.

Anyway, I gotta say… I like it.  A lot.  Like, enough to play it and write this post about it instead of working on my steampunk poker stuff like I probably should be doing.

Y’see, I’m a fan of Puzzle Quest.  And Puzzle Kingdoms.  And Puzzle Quest: Galactrix.  And Gyromancer.  And I’m a huge fan of Puzzle Pirates.  Muckbeast’s Tower of Elements is similarly sweet.  I’m a gamer, have been for decades, but I never did pick up the attitude that “match 3″ or other simple puzzle games are unworthy of attention.  I like puzzle games, and though they may be “light” gaming fare most of the time, that’s not a bad thing.  I also happen to love RPGs, so splicing in some RPG DNA into puzzle games is a Good Idea in my eyes.

Bret Airborne is definitely a mutation of the Puzzle Quest school of design.  This is an expression of praise, at least as far as I’m concerned.  It uses some of  the standard match 3 game design elements, with swapping items, new pieces dropping in from above, that sort of thing.  It is basically PvP puzzling, like Puzzle Quest is, complete with special attacks (using energy from matches you’ve made) that you can use to make the experience a bit more strategic.  It’s pretty simple to understand, and the learning curve is kind.

It builds on the Puzzle Quest design in a few important ways (that I’ve seen, there may be others), though.  First, the playing field is split between the two players, though it’s still technically a shared space.  If you get matches of 4 at a time or more, you can push your zone of control of the shared space into the opponent’s territory (that bar in the middle scoots over, opening up a new column to control), messing up their plans or using their resources.  At first, I thought this was too constraining and potentially too swingy, but it actually plays very nicely.  I thought the scoot was persistent, silly me.  It actually resets at the beginning of each player’s turn.  It certainly penalizes bad luck and bad defensive play, but it just feels right, like my own play is more important than luck.  This is a Good Thing.

Second, and I can’t emphasize how much this made me happy, you’re not constrained to making moves that create matches.  You can make a move that sets things up for the future, though if you don’t make a match, the opponent gets a boost to their zone of control on their next turn.  I have always loved Bilging in Puzzle Pirates for exactly this, the ability to shuffle things around without the necessity of matching every time you make a move.  In that game, you do take a scoring penalty, but if you play smart, you can set up big combos that more than make up for the penalty.  This freedom is a beautiful thing, and it’s awesome to see it in Bret Airborne.  This also means the board will never reset itself if it gets into a locked position, which again facilitates planning over randomness.  This is a subtle thing, perhaps, but it’s something that makes the game a joy to play for me, rather than the frustration that the persnickity prototypical Bejeweled clones tend to offer.

It also has a few of what I call “quality of life” improvements.  One that made me smile was that matching two sets of three in an L or T shape doesn’t just register as two threes, it registers as five at a time matched, with the concurrent zone increase bonus.  Again, it’s a subtle thing, but it really helps me enjoy the game.  No longer do I have to choose to match a four in a row (to get the zone bonus and extra move) and leave a bit of clutter with that fifth piece as the odd man out.  If the gems are in the right formation, I can play with an eye to keeping the board cleaner, which enables further tricks down the road and still get the bonus for matching more than the baseline three.  Maybe this is “easy mode” to purists, but I love it.  The suite of tricks that you can learn to make combat more interesting are excellent, too.  There isn’t quite the array of abilities that Puzzle Quest has, but then, it doesn’t have the class system, either, so it’s nice and flexible.  One other, simple thing… it lets me click over to my second monitor without freaking out, crashing or nuking my computer.  No Alt-Tab necessary.  This is a little thing, but I love it.  It’s like Star Trek Online in that regard… and it’s something that WoW, in all its pomp, still fails at sometimes.  (Alt-Tabbing out of it crashes the game half the time for me.  It’s a jealous game.)  Bret Airborne runs in full screen mode nicely on one monitor while I do my thing on the other, like writing this post, and it doesn’t try to wreck my workflow.  It’s a genial game.  Again, simple quality of life improvement, and it’s a shame I have to mention it as an aberration, but I appreciate it.

Oh, and it’s Steampunk themed.  This also makes me smile.  The art is fairly simple, but it’s clean, readable and stylistic.  It won’t compete with Bioshock Infinite (since y’know, that’s important or something), and there are some things I’d do differently (I’m an artist, after all), but that’s just me nitpicking.  The play’s the thing, and Bret Airborne is simply a joy to play.  Maybe it’s a little “plain Jane” to look at, but it’s a beauty in action.

Go get the demo.  Play it.  Buy it.  It’s worth it.  I’ve been picky with what games I buy lately, mostly because I don’t have time to play, but this is one that I’m happy to have found.  I recommend it highly.

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Suit Up

OK, I’m committed to doing a Kickstarter for my steampunk/gearpunk poker deck now.  Many thanks to those of you who weighed in on it last time!

So… now what?  Lots of things, it seems, most of which I’m already busy digging into.  Mostly, plenty of research on what it takes to make this happen, mad schemes to make it cool and appealing, and finding ways to spread the word far and wide.  Thanks to those of you who have chimed in and spread the word a bit already!

A few questions, then:

Scrusi suggested plastic cards instead of paper cards.  The one plastic card manufacturer that has returned my email has a minimum order of 1500 decks (750 sets of two), at $8/deck.  That adds up fast, to big, scary numbers for a freshman Kickstarter.  I’ll be looking around for more numbers, but that’s a starting point at least.  Paper decks will be cheaper, I assume, but they need to be a fair bit cheaper than the price I’d get at a Print on Demand place like TheGameCrafter.com (about $10/deck) or else there’s not a hugely compelling reason to try to leverage the economy of scale and bulk discounts.  Sure, a Kickstarter will probably bring more potential customers just via publicity, but I’d really like to get a better deal for everyone as part of the bargain.

So… I’m still looking at pricing.  I’d really love to hear what you all think, specifically about what vendors might be optimal in the ol’ cost/quality spectrum.  Paper or plastic?  (I know, plastic cards will be more durable, but are they worth triple the cost or more?  How many players care enough about quality to pay that much more?)  What about brands?  Bicycle has a well-oiled pipeline for Kickstarted decks, and the ability to license their brand name (extra cost, maybe extra perceived value), and a 56-card standard deck that would allow for two cards to be super special Kickstarter rewards.  They also offer custom tuck boxes, which seem like a Good Idea.  That’s certainly not the only route, though, but there are a lot of vendors out there.

…and then there’s the art questions.  I’ve done 12 of the 14 portraits for the face cards, and they lend the suits themes, as well as highlighting important 19th century people.  I like the group I have… but it would be nice to open up the roster and let backers who want to be more involved get their portraits included.  I didn’t start this with Kickstarter in mind, so I didn’t leave room.  One thing I’ve considered strongly is to make the baseline historical figure deck available as a Print on Demand product, and point it out in the Kickstarter, but then open up all of the roster for people to buy into as a special limited edition of the deck.  What think you?

Secondly, and this is perhaps more esoteric… just as an artifact of my design, I’ve altered the layout of the suit pips on the number cards.  This is one example.

I chose to do this because of graphic design considerations (the large corner braces), and the desire to make the layout rotationally symmetrical on all cards.  (Pip orientation aside, of course.)  I like how it turned out, but it’s not traditional.  Does that matter to you?  Again, maybe this is where I offer the original elsewhere, and make the Limited Edition (gee, that term is starting to look official and all special-like) use the traditional form.

Offering the original as a paper Print on Demand deck opens up the option to make the Kickstarter a plastic deck project, too… but again, do enough players want plastic cards to make it worthwhile? Maybe this means two Kickstarters in the end, the first one in paper, the second one in plastic?  I’m really not sure on these things since they are largely based on predicting what people might want.  That’s why I’m asking now for as much feedback as I can get.  Will you please help me spread the word and get some opinions collected?

I do have some other stuff planned, some spiffy extras to sweeten the Limited Edition, one of which I’ll tease a bit here:  I work in 3D modeling programs most of my work day, so I’m adept at 3D work.  I spent some time at home the last two evenings and whipped this up, and put it in my Shapeways shop.  (The home of the Gearpunk dice, which dye and paint up pretty well.)

Spade Token (Shapeways render)

It’s derived from the Spade suit pip.  It’s as big as it is (almost 4×3 inches) to make the gears functional.  I can make a smaller version, certainly, but the gears would fuse.  It’s a costly beast, even in plastic.  I’m going to try to hollow it out a bit to save on cost, but it’ll still be biggish to make those gears work.  I’m not sure the gears would ever work if it’s printed in metal, though, so maybe smaller is the way to go anyway to give plastic vs. metal options.  I like that large version, but it’s a bit unwieldy and, well, expensive.

Anyway, thanks for stopping by and reading, and I’d love to hear what you all think!

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Ninjas, Nuts and Keflings, Oh, My!

OK, so it’s not quite alliterative, or a proper tribute to Dorothy’s line, but it’ll do.

Just a few things of interest to note today.

One, some of my NinjaBee coworkers are out at PAX today, revealing our latest game, Nutjitsu!  I don’t have a lot to show for it just yet, but when we do the non-PAX announcement, I’ll be sure to point to it as well.  I didn’t get to work on this one, but it’s looking pretty good.

Two, one that I did work on, A World of Keflings, is now available for Windows 8, and we’ll have it out for the WiiU later this year!  It’s a little different, controlling the game via the touch screen of a tablet computer, but it’s still the great core game that I’ve had the privilege of working on for a few years now.

Three, there’s this gem from The Rampant Coyote (who worked at Wahoo before my time here, so hey, there’s the common thread), addressing the recent interview with Richard Garriott that has some game devs a bit… irked.  For good reason, as it happens.  He makes some good points, but man… the guy has an amazing ego.

Anywho, I had hoped to have my steampunk/gearpunk poker deck done by now, but tech issues and scheduling conflicts mean I still have 6 face cards to do.  It’s getting there, though, and it’s fun to see it come together.

Updated to add:

This is what the NinjaBee booth looks like out on the PAX floor.  Stop by if you’re in the neighborhood!

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Private Islands

Just a quick thought today.  The venerable Big Bear Butt and the inimitable Syl have articles up today that reminded me of one of my old wishes for World of Warcraft: Housing.

Big Bear Butt’s Putting the Pieces Together

Syl’s Off The Chest: Midlevel and Endgame Grinds No Thanks, I Rather Have A Castle!

And just for reference, my old collection of Allods Online screenshots.

Y’see, I’d love to see private Outland/Allod style floating islands as housing locations in WoW.  Wizard 101 does almost exactly this already, and for their trouble, they earned some money from me when I bought my Marleybone steampunk island home.  (That I currently can’t find any screenshots for, sadly.)  I’d love to have a little floating island home out off the coast of Nagrand, or maybe a Dalaran satellite.  Maybe I could have a little research hut out by Area 52 and a winter home tucked in the Grizzly Hills. Of course, these would all be phased, so they wouldn’t be a blight on the world, but that’s OK, I don’t necessarily want visitors anyway.

…it all reminds me a little of the system of outposts I tend to make in Minecraft, actually.  That’s a delightful game that I’ve spend a great deal of time in.  When I’m out exploring a Minecraft world, I build little waystations in interesting locations, and I link them with shortcuts via the Nether, since moving one “grid square” in the Nether is equivalent of 8 spaces in the normal world.  I have developed a good sense of how far to go before the Nether portals don’t just tether to existing portals, so I can leapfrog a series of Nether portals and overworld exploration to cover a lot of ground.  I wind up with the Arctic home, the Swamp home, Anvilania, the cliffside village, the Burrows, the tree farm, the diamond mine and so on… a whole system of locations that fit into the larger world, but that are uniquely mine.  (Get it?  Minecraft?  OK, my humor needs work.)

If I could have a set of private islands or shacks in the World of Warcraft, especially if they were linked via a portal system… I’d spend more time in the place.  It’s even another monetization vector.  Yes, it would cost something to develop, but I think it would be worth it.  I’d prefer the game to go subscriptionless, of course, and note that I’d spend money on said housing… y’know, while I’m dreaming.

And yes, I know WURM Online kind of scratches this itch, as does Minecraft.  I know LOTRO has housing, as does Wizard 101 and Puzzle Pirates.  I’m not hopeful that Blizzard will do this, and I’m not really looking for them to take over the world.  I just think this is an obvious design area that WoW could go in, and I’d have fun with it.  Just ruminating a bit on a Tuesday morning.

Ah, and many thanks to DÀCHÉNG for taking the idea and running with it over thisaway.  There really is a lot of fertile design space to mine in this housing concept.  Blizzard is missing a trick here, I think.  Maybe they don’t need to leverage the Minecraft/DeviantArt “artist” impulse to be successful, but I’m pretty sure the cost/benefit ratio is firmly tilted in the benefit direction.  Letting players modify their experience a bit and share their creativity is at least partially the heart of the whole “transmogrification” scheme, and that’s been a success.

I suppose I should have made it clearer, but yes, I am assuming that players would be able to invite friends to see their homes/islands/fortresses.  They wouldn’t just be private instances, forever sealed away.  They might be instances, but they would be places that other players could access in some way.

…as far as I’m concerned, that builds community while granting players ownership and letting them invest emotionally.  That sounds like a game design WIN to me.

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French Toast Fudge and Artistic Endeavor

Yesterday I was experimenting in the kitchen again, starting with a simple request for white fudge.  I made one batch, then decided I had enough materials for another one.  I figured I’d try a variant, a French vanilla fudge.

What happened was a glorious failure.  I wound up with something more like French Toast fudge than French vanilla.  It’s my favorite non-chocolate fudge… so far.  I’ll do more experiments later, though, no rest for the mad scientists around here.

The recipe, for anyone interested:

1 egg

1 tbsp vanilla

2 tsp cinnamon

1/8 tsp butterscotch flavoring

1/8 tsp toffee flavoring

1 1/2 sticks butter

6 oz. Evaporated milk

2 cups white sugar

1 cup brown sugar

4 large marshmallows

1 jar (7 oz.) of marshmallow cream

12 oz. of white chocolate (chips, chunks, whatever)

*****

Beat egg, vanilla, cinnamon, butterscotch flavoring and toffee flavoring until well mixed. Set aside.

Mix butter, evaporated milk, and the sugars, bring to boil over medium heat, stir frequently.

Stir in egg/spice/flavor mix, boil for 5 minutes, stir constantly. (Keep that egg from clumping and keep everything from burning.)

Add marshmallows, marshmallow cream, stir to smooth a bit, then add white chocolate. Stir until smooth, pour into 9x13ish pan, let cool.

(…next time, I’m going to add some syrup in the marshmallow phase. Just to see how that turns out.)

There’s room to fudge the measurements, a little more sugar, a little less marshmallow, less butter, whatever, and the butterscotch and toffee are really just a garnish.  They could be emphasized or ignored, depending on your tastes.  The key is making sure the egg mixes in nicely and doesn’t clump up.

…

So… what?  What does it matter that I made some weird fudge?

Well, I’m a creative type.  I like to make new things.  That’s why I make my own games, like Zomblobs! and Alpha Hex.  This weekend I was brainstorming a game for hexagonal or circular cards, because I played Spot It! with my kids, which sparked some ideas.  I wanted to see what I could come up with.  I also found that TheGameCrafter.com and ArtsCow.com make such cards as print-on-demand projects, so I want to leverage that to maybe make a game I can sell.  I love to make game systems and art and photographs, and then throw them to the wild and see what happens.  The act of creation is fulfilling on its own, but seeing others have fun with them, and maybe making some money as well, that’s icing on the cake.  (This is also why I have a Zazzle storefront and a Shapeways shop.  They won’t replace my day job, but I like to offer some of the oddball things that I’ve concocted over the years.)

This is also relevant when taking look at “artsy” games, like the PS3 gem Journey.  Y’see, it effectively bankrupted the company that made it, thatgamecompany.  It’s an “experience” game, all about the journey, if you can imagine.  It’s short, beautiful and atypical.  It won a handful of awards at DICE, well deserved.  Austin Wintory, the composer, won an award for the soundtrack, and it was the first game soundtrack that earned a Grammy nomination.  That’s srsbzns, or whatever the kids call it these days.  Journey is kind of a big deal, artistically.

Commercially, however, it wasn’t all that and a bag of chips.  It eventually paid for itself “and then some”, but we’re not talking blockbuster Halo, Call of War numbers.  There’s a bigger discussion there about commercial viability, gamer tendencies and the intersection between art and commerce, and maybe I’ll dig into that more at some point (there are plenty of articles out there on it already), but at the moment, I just wanted to underscore the creative impulse.

Sometimes, creators just want to create.  Sometimes we want to share.  Whole communities are built on that philosophy.  I think it’s a healthy part of this human condition, and that’s why I keep coming back to this blog and what I do in my “off hours”.  I do make games for a living.  I also make them on my own because it’s great fun to do so.  I write about them and share them because, well… sharing somehow makes it more real, that I’ve contributed something to the world.  I kinda like this place, and I want to do my part to make it a little nicer.

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Grazing

Spring cleaning is traditionally done in the spring, for reasons unknown, but my family always tends to have a post-Christmas bout of cleaning as well.  We try to declutter a bit, maybe just to compensate for all the new clutter from the holidays.  I find myself doing this with gaming as well, going through my game library and either finishing games or uninstalling them and calling them “done”, mostly so I can get on with playing other games in the bits of time I get here and there to play.

…and there’s the crux of the matter; I almost never have blocks of time to play.  I get an hour here, fifteen minutes there… and that’s about it.  That’s part of why MMO subscriptions are a pathetic value for me; I simply don’t get 20+ hours a week to sink into any gaming, much less devote myself to a single game.  There are way too many good games out there to tie myself down like that.  (As my Steam library, GoG collection and Humble Bundle folders will attest.)  So, I have a large library of games, and way to little time to play them.

As a result, my gaming is more like grazing than gorging.  I nibble a little on something like Uncharted, then I go munch on Tactics Ogre, then savor a little bit of Guild Wars 2.  (By which I mean, I create my characters before the game inevitably crashes, then maybe move around the starting areas a little bit.)  The next week, I ruminate a little on Journey, then chew a little on LEGO Batman with the kids.  Once upon a time, I’d ride an exercise bike and play FFXII for a nice 45 minutes or so, but circumstances have made that indulgence obsolete.  (And I find that FFXII just doesn’t work well as a game I only play for 15 minutes in a sitting.)

So it’s no surprise that I play more Plants vs. Zombies, Symphony, Triple Town and Puzzle Pirates these days.  It’s all I can sneak into the schedule.  I still haven’t finished FFXII, and I have FFXIII, FFXIII-2, FFVII: Crisis Core, Blue Dragon, Infinite Undiscovery, Lost Odyssey, Batman Arkham City, LEGO Pirates of the Caribbean, LEGO Batman 2, LEGO Harry Potter and a host of other, smaller games that I really want to dig into… but just can’t right now.  They aren’t really grazing-friendly.  Heaven help me if I get the itch to play an MMO.  I still have WoW, STO, RIFT and GW2 installed, and I grudgingly uninstalled LOTRO.  I want to play all of them.  I probably never will.

…there’s something sad about that.

Still, I’m not complaining.  I have a lot of gaming options, and that’s a good spot to be in.  Since I work in the industry, it behooves me to play a variety of games, and be aware of what’s out there, rather than simply be a game fan and devote my gaming time to a single or few fandoms.  And then there’s the fact that my kids and I still love Minecraft (if I only had one game for the rest of my life, that one would do), and my oldest wants to learn the Pokemon card game… yeah, my plate is full to overflowing, but it’s all I can do to nibble at the edges.

Is it any wonder why I like the Tauren, perhaps?  Moooooo

Tishtoshtesh, Tauren Druid

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PSA: Tower of Elements

A little while back, Muckbeast of Frogdice, a fellow blogger who used to write an incisive game design-heavy blog (now sadly apparently lost to the 404 archives), asked me to take a look at his company’s latest indie Unity-based game offering, Tower of Elements.  It’s sort of an oddball little game, but I like it.  Partly because it’s a stew of disparate elements that seem to mesh well together.

I’m the sort of gamer who loves genre and mechanic blends like Puzzle Quest.  I’ve indulged in mixing and matching game design elements before, like this article on a game I still wish would be made.  (I’d be happy to make it, but I’m kinda… not rich.  Not even close.)  So, this Tower of Elements thing, combining bits and bobs of match-3, tower defense and RPGish progression elements, is just the sort of weird mashup that makes me happy.

This video gives a good sense of the core gameplay:

I can’t say for sure that it’s a game that I’d play for dozens of hours like I did Puzzle Quest, but it is one that I’d at least like to spend a good chunk of time with.  There’s a ten level demo that’s worth investigating, if nothing else.  I know, I know, match-3 games aren’t exactly novel, but there’s some good design in making the matching spatially relevant as it’s the way you attack the hordes at the gates.  Spatially sensitive, time-sensitive match-3 is a nice riff on the genre, and there’s a whole system of upgrades, utility spells (to change the playing field and mess with enemies, always nice) and progression that is icing on the cake.

For the next week or so, they are also running a promotion to get some meals to people who need them through these guys, as part of buying the game.  It’s a nice side effect of picking up the game, methinketh.

Anyway, I wish I could give you a rundown of the full game, but my time is very constrained of late.  I’m poking my head up on this because I think it looks like a good game, and there’s that time-sensitive promotion involved.

Oh, and Muckbeast shared a 50% off code as well, so, y’know, that’s cool, too.

CFXR000QV

Tally ho!

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Symphony and Sidetracks

I like music.  I like games.  Intersections of the two make me happy.

A good chunk of my musical library is game music.  I’m a fan of AudioSurf, a slick little “sound rider” game that can be played as a relaxing cruise through my favorite music or a skill-testing scramble.  Lately, though, maybe because I’ve had a lack of vitamin BSU in my gaming diet (Blow Stuff Up), I’ve really been enjoying Symphony.

Symphony takes your music library (or the one they provide) and asks you to clean out corruption in it, imposed by a malevolent digital entity of some sort.  You fly a ship with four cannons (you wind up with a variety of weapons that you can slot in), reacting to the algorithms that the game uses to make bad guys based on your music.  It’s a delightfully flexible system, with no two songs really playing quite the same way (and each song plays differently for each difficulty level).  The story and character are just kinda… there.  Not bad, just not all that compelling.  I’m not convinced you really need a reason to play a game that’s this simple at its core; just go blow stuff up and have a blast doing it.

The TRON-flavored visuals are excellent, if a bit overwhelming before you get used to filtering the visual chaff.  It’s really satisfying to upgrade your guns a few times, maybe angling them or using a spread cannon or shotgun, and throwing up a huge swath of happy, glowing death, blasting a swarm of bad guys into note-shaped shrapnel.

Most importantly, though, blowing stuff up is glorious fun.  For me, the visuals and story can make or break a game, but only at the margins.  The gameplay is what really matters, and Symphony is simply fun to play.  Set your cannons to autofire (holding down the mouse button for constant fire is a good recipe for carpal tunnel, so autofire is the way to go), and you can just concentrate on flying.  Or maybe try out a Subwoofer weapon that only fires according to the music (where a subwoofer would be used, of course, nicely demonstrated in the game’s trailer).  Or how about a Crescendo weapon, a “charge and release” sort of weapon, or a Missile Rack that functions much the same way, offering devastating firepower in a narrow arc.  Perhaps it’s best to put in that Shotgun or Spread Cannon and just dominate the play field.  Maybe even use that Dual Cannon that fires behind you for those sneaky bad guys that push you out of the “bottom of the screen pocket” that lower difficulty levels allow.

Speaking of difficulty, it’s also a forgiving game.  It presumes that you want to actually play through your whole song, so while your ship may be destroyed, you just respawn after a few seconds.  Your ship can also be partially destroyed, and picking up the “Inspiration” that bad guys drop repairs your ship.  So you can wind up with just one cannon as your wings get clipped, but you can get back in the game after you destroy some bad guys and pick up their offerings.  Of course, your score suffers if you do completely crash, both with a straight score penalty and with missed opportunities to score while you’re regenerating, but there doesn’t seem  to be a penalty just for ship damage that subsequently gets repaired.

Here’s a quick video that I found online that goes over some of the basics.  I kind wish I could make a video, but that’s way down the priority list.

There are some fun “progression/collection” mechanics that unlock the variety of weapons and let you upgrade them, and player-selected difficulty levels which unlock as you play through your library.  This incentivizes playing through different songs, as there is the occasional rare variant of a weapon that packs more punch.  I do wish there were more weapons that did different things, and more that interacted with the music itself, but the dozen or so weapons in the game do provide a good mix of attack options without becoming overwhelming, and simplicity in game design isn’t really a bad thing.

…there’s room for a sequel, that’s all I’m saying.

In the meantime, though, Symphony is a sweet game that even stole some time I might have been playing Torchlight 2, the other game I was really happy to pick up in the Black Friday sales.  I got Symphony at GoG.com’s “five for $10″ sale, along with the Blackwell Bundle, Botanicula, Resonance and Unmechanical.  …as if my game backlog wasn’t full already.  Still, for $20 I picked up 9 games that I’m really looking forward to playing.  I’ve dabbled with all of them except for the Blackwell games, and so far, I’m happy with them all… though Symphony is the one I keep coming back to.  Yes, yes, Torchlight 2 is a gem, packed with vitamin KSALI (Kill Stuff And Loot It), but it’s more involved.  With my rather constrained game play time of late, the quick play of Symphony really fits the bill.  I’d love to just settle into some marathon sessions of Torchlight 2 or Guild Wars 2, or even Tactics Ogre for the PSP that I got for my birthday, but my schedule is… squirrely.

At least there’s plenty of good gaming in the wings, when I can get to it.

…

Oh, and just because I wanted to get these out there while I’m thinking about them, I ran into some pretty crazy photographs lately.  Some very cool stuff can be done with very high speed photography and water, as Tim Tadder illustrates with these shots:

Water Wigs

Fish Heads

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Motivation

Rowan has a great article up that digs a bit into the difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivations for play.  Penny Arcade fortuitously has a similar article from a game developer (for the game Don’t Starve, a curious game that I’m looking forward to playing).

I come down firmly on the intrinsic side.  I love Minecraft because it lets me just go do stuff (especially in Creative mode where I can fly and have access to everything).  I love Burnout Paradise because I can just go drive around and see what the city holds.  I love SSX 3 because you can start at the top of the mountain and just snowboard down to the base, purely exploring the terrain.  I love flying in World of Warcraft.  I love just moving around in game spaces.

I want to do things that I do because I enjoy doing them, not because there’s a reward for doing them.  Living and doing things you love are rewards in themselves.

Carpe Diem, as it were.  Live, don’t just survive.  Play.

It’s good for you.

…though I can admit this is fun.  Metagaming the achievements, whee!

 Achievement Unlocked

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Closed Fist, Open Hand

From the sound of it (thanks, Fool’s Age, Rowan x 2, Syp and Syl, I can’t recommend your articles enough), the social scene in Guild Wars 2 is exactly what I’m looking for when it comes to MMO sociality:  a light touch, encouraging cooperation instead of demanding it.

The way of the Open Hand of friendship, instead of the Closed Fist of the designer.  It’s a Zen kinda thing, man.

It’s… less Big Brother, more… Crazy Uncle Eddie with golems and firecrackers.

I’m just wired that way.  Tell me I must do something social, like find a tank and a healer to run a dungeon, and I’ll fight it and try to solo it.  Tell me that there are baddies that need whumping over thataway, give me tools to help anyone I happen to stumble into, and I’ll stop to give a hand up to a fallen friendly or do whatever tricks I can to offer assistance in killing said baddies.

Tell me I can be social, and I probably will.  Tell me I have to be, and I probably won’t.

Guild Wars 2 apparently also has a big exploration factor, and that’s kind of what I do in these MMO things.  Yes, I’m looking forward to playing GW2.  I’m selling some of my older games to fund it (and make my blasted computer work), and one of those WoW time cards, but that’s OK, new vistas await.  One can’t dwell in the past forever.

Unless one is a nasty, grumpy ghost of Ascalon, I guess.

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