Global Game Jam '12

The 4^th annual Global Game Jam event was held this weekend; after tens-of-thousands of contestants, hundreds of world-wide sites, dozens of countries, 24 hours, and 1 theme, it has concluded.

My contribution to this superb yearly event was served on team Pink Tutus as the enemy and spawn programmer.  And the game?  Perpetuam Memoriam ("Unbroken Memory" – not cliché, right?) is a game of mind horror of your own making.  Delve into the nightmarish space of trippy imagination in this too lucid dream.  Want to play v0.6, the submitted version of Perpetuam Memoriam to the Global Game Jam site?  Go here.

The game may seem clunky, but rest easy; know that Bryce Fosheim (the primary programmer - his blog) and I are going to pound-out enough code for Pertetuam Memoriam to reach v1.0.  Games of Taste will have posts keeping you, dear reader, updated on the evolution of the game.

Though GGJ doesn’t actively give awards to the hundreds of teams competing, Dakota State University’s site has had a tradition of attributing various recognitions and prizes to the local groups.  Here are the awards given out:

• Jammer’s Choice – Run, Adam, Run
• Most Likely to Smash Controller – Madness
• Best Audio – Perpetuam Memoriam; honorable mention – ShapeScape
• Best Visual Art – Run, Adam, Run
• Edgiest Game – Reset; honorable mention – Perpetuam Memoriam
• Best Narrative Design – Cooking Snakes; honorable mention – Guardian Legend
• Most Interesting/Innovative Mechanic – Blob the Builder; honorable mention – ShapeScape
• Best Overall Game – Run, Adam, Run; runners up – ShapeScape; Blob the Builder

All these games are superb, and I’ll be checking them out in short reviews soon.  Other than that, GGJ was a blast.  Go to the site to see if there’s a location near you for next year’s competition; if no location exists, strive to make one!  GGJ is an exciting time that no-one is excluded from, and that no-one should keep going without.

Hope to see your game online next year.  In the between time, keep reading Games of Taste for further updates, links to some fine GGJ games, and some tasty reviews.  Until next time, take care!

P.S.  It is biased, but here is the short review of Pertpetuam Memoriam v0.6.

• + 4-way gravity control and shifting mechanics.
• + Over 400 articles of finished assets.
• + Driven narrative, with a new premise on the demons of the mind.
• + Vast levels interconnected to optimize level flow.
• + Strong sound-design.
• - Single enemy AI.
• A fix: Code the other enemies in the game.
• - Un-implemented animations.
• A fix: Program the animations to loop appropriately.
• - Only v0.6!
• A fix: Finish v1.0!

To Dream of an Undead Nightmare

To create an entirely new campaign wrapped in the utility of a DLC is a daunting task, even for an astounding studio like Rockstar.  Creating a living, breathing world of monsters that delivers one of the best, if not the best, stories from an expansion is even more difficult, but Rockstar’s done it with the stand-alone zombie western Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare.

When first entering Undead Nightmare, I was dropped-off exactly at the midpoint of the original Red Dead Redemption game, enjoying the easy life set for me from the first game.  Though to know what happened before is helpful in grasping some of the relationships the characters have with each other, Rockstar delivers enough ambiguity to keep the relative histories vague for new players, while retaining the entertaining nostalgia veteran players have from the first game.  So armed with this inside knowledge, I begin.

Immediately, the game is filled with hair-raising action, as John Marston (the protagonist of RDRUM) battles his friends and family in his nightwear.  To uncover why his loved ones are attempting to maul him, he sets off to find associates from his past for a cure.  However, it is soon discovered that the undead are stampeding (ok, ‘shambling’) all over the western frontier.  This began a long and beautifully crafted campaign for my next 10 or so hours.

Initially, the world is quite unforgiving.  Hordes of undead soak ammo like sponges to water.  I found myself madly fleeing through the crowds to snag a bullet or 2 from foes finally laid to rest, all the while kiting a mob behind me.  Many times I got surrounded, eaten and beaten to a pulp in mere seconds of melee.  Even after more powerful and efficient guns are found late-game, with ammunition no longer a major crutch of play, it was easy to become stunned into bloody submission by being pulled off my horse, run-over by bullish zombies, and utterly engulfed in a throng of putrid, violent limbs.  Certain perks and steeds help Marston on his way, but no matter the unique brutality of some weapons exclusive to RDRUM, zombies don’t care if their buddies vaporize next to them, as long as the player ends as the main course.

 Galloping through New Austin, I was exposed to many branching theories as to why the world was in chaos.  The uniqueness of the ‘why’ Armageddon’s happening really speaks to Rockstar’s insight into the disorganization that may occur in society, and lends to a believable backdrop of the stereotypical zombie apocalypse scenarios modern culture holds.  Included are some tragically comedic breaks in the pressure of the plague, but those may be Undead Nightmare’s weakest points.  Some of the ‘humor’ is over-done in a way that almost caused me to feel bored, or made it apparent that the situation was beyond ridiculous.  There are points in the game where John Marston could easily save those he knows from undead consumption, but chooses not too; instead, neither ending their suffering before they die, or ending their damnation as undead.  This was not a flavor I am used to from Red Dead Redemption, thus is the only real deviation from the norm that partially subtracts from the game’s experience.

Overall, this one-disk, stand-alone game was truly a blast to play.  Having barreled through 100% completion, I feel that the West has been won, despite the hocus-pocus dealings of its inhabitants.  I can’t say that there is a plethora of stuff to do after completing the main story, but the things to do won’t make you feel worse toward the game in any way.  And heck, it is always fun to expunge zombies with explosive cannons!  So, especially concerning that this holiday season is coming up, I suggest nabbing this good game for no more than $15, even if the parent game, Red Dead Redemption, hasn’t been played (though, if it hasn’t, GO OUT AND PLAY IT NOW!!!).

But, before I go, here is something new I am going to try after all posts from now on: my ‘critique!’  Let me know how if this works, and take care.

• + Use of zombies plays to cultural stereotypes, instead of trying to hide the fact of how cliché it is.
• + A model of how to construct an apocalypse in history usually reserved for modern times.
• + Varied, one-of-a-kind weapons with quite pleasing effects of destruction.
• + Nostalgic enough for familiar players; ambiguous enough for new players.
• - Not much to do after the story is completed.
• A fix: Include an exclusive end-game monster or series of clean-up quests to keep the player engaged.
• - Overused, sometimes misplaced, humor situations that seem unrelated to the fiction of the world.
• A fix: Lend some of the classic RDR investment by the player into the cut scenes, so as to keep the gamer concerned, even if not providing as much tension.

Extracting Fear from Extraction

I was being railed down a corridor, see, just minding the business of finding every little ammo/health/secret item in the level that was smoothly flowing by, when a freaking necromorph popped-out of a vent to suck my face!  After a few hard shakes of the controller, the beast was beaten off, but was immediately joined by a frikken legion of zombies.  This fearful encounter is one of many frights in Dead Space: Extraction, including the emotion from your allies.

Dead Space Extraction is a prequel to 2008's Dead Space, taking place in the day before Isaac Clarke (protagonist of the series) arrives.  It follows – literally follows; it’s a rail-shooter – a detective leading a rag-tag group of survivors through the hellish confines of a planet-side colony and the halls of the Ishimura.  Frequenting common locations from the Dead Space lore (and some very new locales), anyone who’s played DS will swoon with nostalgia.

There are a few return characters as well gracing the game as the new persons you play as.  I have a beef, though, with these well-meant but poorly executed actors.  The first is, namely, that any person can easily see that these characters are just actors not paid enough.  During the most intense of exchanges, lines are delivered flatly, without conviction or urgency (something that a zombie outbreak would surely entail).   This is especially seen when one of the characters loses an arm, but is A-OK, running through the ship, single-handedly destroying zombies before getting to safety. The 3D models look worried/amused/confused/scared, but emotion is left behind in the sound booth.

Along with the places and persons of Dead Space, the reeking terror is back as well, despite the slow dialogue.  Necromorphs are killing everything, and Extraction places the player into positions that send familiar chills down the spine of the gamer.  This dreadful feeling has been long-missed since my last Dead Space 2 play-through.  With the usual jack-in-the-box thrills, the unending onslaughts of the dead, and tight-corner caution, this freak-fest will get the adrenaline pumping. These scares are only magnified by the harshness of controls (the game is meant to be played with a motion control device).  Scares here are great and of distinct Dead Space flavor, but this is only because the best characters (the necros) deliver the creepy atmosphere for play.

Overall, Dead Space: Extraction is a good game to play for those looking for an easily delivered thrill.  Without much character to the characters, don’t expect a solid narration when running through the ship to go along with scary encounters.  Don’t let the plastic personalities keep a horror lover from playing this game, though, but if a title like Dead Space, Dead Space 2, or similar title is available to play instead, a gamer’s priorities may need to be set.

In other news, Red Dead Redemption: Undead Nightmare is being played.  That title is already a blast to play, so it’s easily guessed how the review will be.  Until said review, take care!

7 Matt Weise - Philosophy in Games

Demon's Souls, Horror, and Holistic Design

Answers and their Points to a Set of Questions

·         Setting - very low fancy

o   Monte Python-esc portrayal of the Dark Ages

o   Only humans and monsters - very obvious

o   Very Gothic and authentically Gothic in a historical way

o   Premise put into modern day setting could not convince it was not horror

o   Silent Hill happening to an entire country

o   Describe and define what the haunting is

·         Integrated design - Demon's Souls does it best

o   Are rules different from fiction to the game? - NO!

§  e.g. Phoenix down on Aeris?

·         Shot to pieces in real life; hide and regenerate health in game

o   Coherent rules

o   Metaphysics and spiritual function is consistent in story and gameplay

o   How much power do you need?  How much are you going to take? - Corruption question

o   YOU ARE A BAD PERSON FOR BEEFING UP TO DESTROY OTHER PLAYERS

o   hitting someone with your weapon will make them very mad - > just like real life; will not hold your hand

o   the game makes you think of what a power fantasy is

§  horror is a disempowering fantasy

o   Super heroes are American

§  be stronger in an unfair fight

o   It's hard because a gamer must use common sense, not gamer sense

§  we expect a game to make us feel powerful, not us to make us feel powerful

·         Demon's Souls fiction is intermeshed into the game -> change fiction, change game

o   Humanity - "Souls are what makes humans human.  This also makes you human.  What's the difference?"

§  Dark Souls is full of philosophical questions

§  requires interpretation of the gameplay

o   The purpose of a game system is to destroy itself (game world destroying itself)

o   There is a massive collection of negative space

·         Rationalization of being a killer

o   Am I good for protecting my alliances?  Am I bad for killing innocents threatening my alliances?

o   Pay to have sins removed -> ticked NPCs love you again

5 Chris Totten - How to Zombie

Necroludology: Discovering How to Make Zombies Scary Again

Zombies are a symptom of lazy game creation?

Too cliche?

Game Zombies Fail At:

·         first enemy fought in a horror game

o   They are horror components, thus do not guarantee a horror game

o   They are "Goombas" of games - easy cannon fodder

·         Power fantasies

o   masculine stress reliever to the point of silliness

Principles of a Zombie

·         Zombie as:

o   a personal antagonist

o   a natural disaster

o   a definer of space

o   a time limit

o   an effect on mental health

History of Zombies

·         Voodoo Zombies

o   Sorcerer will curse person to die, then take buried body as a slave without a soul

·         The word "Zombie"

o   Walking corpse creature - see “revenants” below

o   Spirit of a dead person

o   Ghosts and walking corpses

·         Ancient times

o   Goddess Ishtar threatens to have the dead consume the living

o   Revelations has the dead rise and terrify the living

·         Revenants

o   Common N. European legends

o   Corpse reanimated by spirits or by body's own will

o   Come back often for revenge or terror on the living

·         Draugr

o   Found in Scandinavian sagas

o   Guard barrows, often their own graves, filled with treasure

o   Can kill people and turn them into draugrs

o   Much like the modern zombie infection

·         Ghul or Ghoul

o   Middle Eastern legend

o   Sucks blood

o   Shape shifts into who they most recently ate

·         Jiang shi

o   Sleeps in coffins

o   Drains life force

o   Hops after victims

o   Greatly resembles vampires

Evolution

·         Frankenstein - science created revenant

·         Herber West-Reanimator - hoard of animalistic zombies

·         I Am Legend - viral outbreak of blood-sucking vampires

·         Night of the Living Dead - establishing walking corpses that eat humans to create more zombies

Personal Antagonist

·         e.g. The Walking Dead

o   Loved ones are what change

o   A progressive turning of a main character

·         e.g. The Keeper's Diary

o   Findable journals

o   Audience fills in the blanks

All problems are too big.  It is easy to imagine a zombie in the street, not a financial meltdown.

Watching a person turn without ever seeing them as the evil they become.

Natural Disaster

·         Dispel myths about zombie apocalypse

o   Don't be a hero - protagonists are not more powerful than zombies

o   Zombies aren't evil - no room for negotiation or rational thought; the Freudian ID

·         "A Weather System"

o   Zombie herds move as a system (The Walking Dead; World War Z)

Definers of Space

·         The shrinking fortress

o   zombies boarder a space

o   invasion reduces the space

o   Defining where the hero can go

o   *narrow space

§  confined, unable to move, choke points

o   **intimate space

§  can reach where things are by inherent abilities

o   prospect space

§  wide open space of exposer, lack of cover

·         * Farmhouses are stocked and homely.  But vulnerable with zombies outside.

·         ** Malls are wide with all stores open.  Invasion turns familiar shops into a perversion of spaces.

Let them become alternative architecture.

Let them herd the player into where you wish them to go.

Time Limit

§  Time is drama

§  Moaning will cause a domino moaning effect, with each zombie going toward the last moan

o   closer and closer the distance shrinks the longer the effect continues

§  Sound as a definer of how much time before being overwhelmed

Mental Health

§  Abjection

o   something that is normally appropriate, but is now perverse

o   a dead body moving around

o   a once living body not moving and cold

o   a loved one zombified to eat you alive

§  Reaction to Apocalypse

o   uselessness

o   crazy

o   imitation of zombie

o   despair

               

Conclusion

Understand the parts of being a zombie for the best zombie possible!