Welcome to Fury Void

Greetings, soon-to-be galactic saviors!  I write here to introduce you to Fury Void, a student-project game of top-down, space shooting conquest.  Pitch time:

Fury Void is the game of salvation and fire.  This top-down shooter of planet blasting pits you, the survivor of a galactic meltdown far-far away, against the overpopulated denizens of the galaxy set to self-destruct the same way.  Destroy planets, suns, and civilizations to save this galaxy from a similarly dire fate!

Whew – Now a little back-story to the project.  Fury Void started last year as a hastily contrived pitch to become a game sponsored by the game’s projects course of my Game Design major.  The point I built the game off of was to have a title that could, that would, be completed in a year’s time of part-time work by game design students.  I have seen too many student projects fail due to scope/design considerations to want a game of mine to suffer the same fate.  Team Fury was created with this purpose in mind.

So that leads us to Fury Void.  Halfway through the development timeframe, all but 1 or 2 features have been added.  The game has hit alpha (check it out!), with bells-and-whistles being added daily.  The Facebook page is updated weekly.  In comparison, only one other team (Arcana– good stuff!) has made the same scale of progress, so  Team Fury – as I am biased to say – has been doing quite well.

Expect more info coming from Fury Void in the coming weeks and months as the life of this game comes to fruition.  Like and follow on Facebook for regular updates, including new pictures, videos, and alpha links.

In the comments, do let me know what you think of this, or if you have had experience with Fury Void already, I’d love to hear from you, too!  Take care, and happy holidays!

Commander of the War

War Commander

• + Being browser-based allows for access anywhere.
• + Millions of players keep an otherwise bleak landscape interesting.
• + The most dangerous foes are other humans.
• + Excellent point system for immediate player satisfaction. // link to Dave Mark
• - Being browser-based allows for access anywhere, any time.
• A fix: Um... as a player, have self-control?
• - Inconsiderate times for production and collection come during odd hours.
• A fix: Include a standard time during the day for collection or implement standard increments of time for the building/unit timers.
• - Ads are like bad dinner guests; always there, and have a hard time going away.
• A fix: Follow the free-to-play model, relying on micro-transactions for revenue.
• - Unbalanced roster of troop types; some are utterly worthless.
• A fix: Create a rock-paper-scissors style of unit balancing to better play to unit strengths.
• - Lack of any apparent in-game narrative to motivate the conflict.
• A fix: Put up some flavor-text or brainstormed reasoning for the 'war'; possibly open it up to the community to have input on developing a story.

I first heard about War Commander from the KIXEYE info booth at the Game Developers Conference Online in Austin, Texas.  The battles looked cool, so after the Conference, I checked the Facebook game out.  Dozens of hours later, this is what I think of the game.

War Commander is dangerous; being browser-based, I can play it anywhere.  Whether there is time to kill, or important work needs to get done, the game is always present.  The blessing is a game that requires only an internet connection; the curse lies in the self-control to prioritize.

It is a good thing that War Commander can be accessed nearly anywhere, since timing my resource collection had to happen at strangely odd times.  Production was like that too – when trying to keep the base building, setting an alarm would help greatly.  Once the morning comes, it’s time to get ready to catch the game back-up to speed.

Now, it’s a fallacy to say that the game is lonely.  +6 million registered players make this game a top-dog of Facebook games, and each one represents an in-game violent foe or temporary friends.  War Commander is very beginner friendly, with senior players acting almost as ‘bosses’.

Speaking of loneliness, I’m never ‘truly’ alone; ads are always companioning my play.  Whether it be a small icon on my home-base screen, the running sidebars on Facebook, or merely logging in, War Commander advertises both itself and others to a very high degree.

Despite it all, I keep coming back.  The resource point system the game uses is highly effective; the reasoning of which is mention in my Dave Mark blog post.

The resources garnered in game are usually quick to be spend on research, upgrades, and repairs.  The reason for this in-game struggle is utterly nonexistent.  I take that back – the conflict lies in there not being enough resources, enough space, to go around.  Sound familiar to the real world?

To be fair, War Commander doesn’t intuitively demonstrate that it is a good game for any excuse but one: it keeps players coming back.  Progression and gathering are what make this game addicting.  Give it a try; I know I will still be a ‘war commander’ anyway.

Under Promise

It has been a ridiculous school time these past two weeks.  That is no excuse for keeping up with Games of Taste.  To fix this, expect more updates this week.  There will be a spread of games that are played, but mainly, I am going to start posting on the progress the Fury Void game is making.

So, to wet your appetite, Fury Void has just entered the first of the first alpha stages.  To help Team Fury (4 of us designers/developers), please checkout the alpha v.11.  Play it, test it, enjoy it, and give feedback!  Hit-up furyvoidgame@gmail.com with any comments or suggestions; Team Fury loves feedback to make the game you want to play!

Take care, and look forward to posts hitting the web in no-time.

Welcome Back to Halo

Halo 4

• + Jaw-dropping visuals; can’t tell sometimes whether characters are cg or live-actors.
• + The flowing orchestra and epic rock scores do not disappoint.
• + Superb additions and revisions of the weapon roster.
• + Gameplay is fast and intense; battles are both grand and intimate.
• - The campaign’s too short.
• A fix: Use some of the content tucked-away in undisclosed Halo lore to extend the story (only if the team is confident).
• - Quick-time events; they can get in the way of game immersion.
• A fix: Allow the player to sit-back and relax during some of the climactic scenes.

Halo 4 is back!  It is under new management, has a slightly new look, but expounds on the game experience that has made the Halo franchise one-of-a-kind.

At the start of the game through the final scenes, I was down-right distracted at how good the game looked.  This isn’t a bad thing – such an amazing look is a winning demonstration to what games are capable of (on 7 year old technology no less!).  Epic vistas are well served by Halo 4’s rendering, making the game one of the best looking titles of our time.

Know what goes well with a pleasant view?  Good sound.  The orchestral rock plays well, changing with however the in-game situation evolves.  Classic Halo pieces are there alongside moving new scores.

Speaking of sound, weapon blasts rock the speakers with empowering ‘booms’ and ‘zips’.  The entire arsenal of Halo 4 brings new favorites and familiar classics back to equip the player.  An entire new category of Promethean (a race in the game) weapons is added to redefine, but keep balanced, the in-game experience.

Using Halo 4’s gear is a must; action hit me fast and brutally.  Some of the best combat scenarios call this game home.  Though, at times, the game dragged me out of the action for quick-time events – the things that seem to populate most FPS games these days.  Are quick-time events a plague or a necessity?  I’ll let you be the judge.

Despite the excellence of engagement, it all goes by too quickly; combat comes and goes, the story is told, and the adventure had in only a handful of hours.  Even on the hardest difficulty, Halo 4 flies by.  The game is packed with content, but that is a lot to take-in for such a short time.

All-in-all, Halo 4 is not just a solid FPS, but a pinnacle of great gaming.  It proudly inherits the mantle of the Halo universe, delivering a well-played experience.  Take care to give Halo 4 a try; save humanity with the Master Chief one more time.

 

Multiplayer Learning with Banjo Tooie

Banjo Tooie Multiplayer

• + Unique library of weapons to use.
• + Distinct character features to fit multiple play styles.
• - Unintuitive effects from weapons.
• A fix: Define all the effects of an attack in the first pull of the trigger.
• - Useless melee ability.
• A fix: Decrease cool-down times in attacking while increasing the effective range of the attack.
• - Clumsy controls in aiming and movement.
• A fix: Keep sensitivity of aiming at a moderate scale, while only keeping movement on one control (not both the directional pad and analog stick); don’t use inversed controls by default.
• - Level design is absent - like a cake missing something sweet.
• A fix: Make levels have high and low areas, while also placing weapons in locations that naturally draw players together.

This past weekend was another Olympic LAN party.  A few games were played, but I felt Banjo Tooie’s multiplayer needed special mention.  As you can see by the list above, it was… unimpressive.

The game provides a unique library of weapons to use.  Mines, bombs, rockets, and machinegun rounds are all in the form of eggs shot out of a bird.  Special, right?  It is, but all for the wrong reasons.  Mines explode when placed anywhere near another mine, machineguns do zilch, and the difference between higher-damage rounds can’t be told just looking at them.

Speaking of weapons, the melee would be better if it didn’t exist.  When the melee button is hit, the in-game character goes into a dreadfully long animation to do essentially nothing.  That time makes the player a sitting-duck, readying them for cheap-shots in multiplayer matches.  Attacking hand-to-hand is a death wish.

There is a fun set of familiar Banjo game characters.  Each one is either fast, average, or slow in movement.  However, the controls make every character feel like they are either antique tanks or sliding on a greased floor.  Turning to aim at an opponent is nigh futile; the prevailing strategy is to shoot like a madman in the general direction of foes.  Maybe then a hit will be landed, but it won’t make up for very touchy controls.

Finally, multiplayer levels lack a lot of what modern games take for granted.  Modern games have elevation levels, ‘safe’ and ‘prospect’ places, and flow to direct players into confrontation.  Banjo Tooie misses these things by a mile.  To summarize, encounters are random, and players can easily get lost in the cramped depths of the multiplayer arena.

In essence, Banjo Tooie is a game to learn from.  Being a spearhead of 3D gaming, there are both good things, and terrible things, in the game’s multiplayer design.  Good differences are present in character traits and weapons, but poor weapon instruction, excruciating controls, and no level design leave the game lacking.  May we all learn from Banjo Tooie’s multiplayer to help make better games in the future!

Check Mate

Chess

• + A balanced system for any player.
• + Highly developed.
• + Refined to the point that most games can only dream of.
• - Some foreknowledge needed for play.
• A fix: Encourage popular culture to enjoy and play more Chess games; having Wikipedia handy also helps.
• - Massive skill differences between the population of players.
• A fix: Warn players to know who they may be playing a game with.

Chess, ‘the game of kings’.  For many hundreds of years, this board game has been developed, refined, enjoyed, and agonized over by countless numbers of players.  Recently, I’ve picked-up the physical pieces and played a few games; a spoiler Is that I really enjoy this gameplay experience.

Chess, for one, is a game that one must know how to play; there is no ‘jump right in’ solution.  This is a rare thing, though; one of the most well-known games out there is Chess.  However, this familiarity widens a gap of skill that is – shall we humbly say – immense between a ‘casual’ player and a master.  A simple request for a game can quickly become a one-sided trounce, as player A utterly destroys player B.

Though such an event can occur, it is skill that is at work, not an unbalancing of the game; the rules are clear, they are concisely the same for all players, and they are simple.  This game is a supreme example as to why ‘perfection is simplicity’; the basic mechanics governing the game and its units lead to more strategy than any current video game.  Heck, the number of outcomes of any game will crash even the most powerful computer when the machine thinks about it!

There’s not much new to say about Chess; it’s been played since before you or I were born, hundreds of years before even the creation of many countries.  It’s not just survived that time, but flourished, and I, for one, have a marvelous time when I play a match.  Though not for the most casual player, Chess is definitely a game of ‘kingly’ value.  Check that, mate.