Games – Page 4 – ɔimoɈɒ

Really Tediously Stale (RTS)

Over at Lost Garden they have a really good article which I don’t want to lose in the labyrinthine bookmarks I maintain so I’m blogging it. We believed that RTS games were the future and that we were the inspired game developers who were going to popularize this hitherto ignored genre. Some historical perspective is … Continue reading “Really Tediously Stale (RTS)”

Over at Lost Garden they have a really good article which I don’t want to lose in the labyrinthine bookmarks I maintain so I’m blogging it.

We believed that RTS games were the future and that we were the inspired game developers who were going to popularize this hitherto ignored genre.

Some historical perspective is in order. Warcraft wouldn’t come out until late 1994. Command and Conquer wouldn’t arrive until 1995. What many PC gamers today consider to be one of the most burnt out genres was at that time new, fresh and completely unknown to most gamers. The term ‘RTS’ hadn’t even been invented as far as I know.

As I write this in 2005, I’m bemused by the path the RTS game genre has taken from stunning innovation to stagnant maturity.

I remember playing Warcraft on a Powerbook 1400c – actually on two Powerbook 1400c laptops – because I wanted to test the InfraRed Appletalk connection and these were the first laptops I had access to. This then introduced me to Myth, Warcraft II, Warcraft III, StarCraft, Diablo and the game which I am most impressed with, HomeWorld – which takes the 3D nature of modern games systems to the ultimate extreme. The basic game formula then was simple. Collect a lot of stuff (Resource Gathering), build a lot of stuff (Base Building) and then attack (Fighting). As the article notes, this has been the mainstay of RTS games since and, frankly, for the foreseeable future unless someone does something.

We’ve had some breakouts from this – most notably Myth (and you might suggest the Total War series) but for the most part the RTS genre is stagnant. That said, when you look at the iPhone market, there has been a massive resurgence in RTS games. What is FieldRunners if not a focus on the Base Building subsection of the genre? What is Plants vs Zombies if not a focus on Base Building and Resources Gathering. What are games like Farmville or We Rule! but a focus on Resource Gathering. Tower defence games which have proven to be suprisingly popular with touch based interfaces played to the strengths of the iPhone – a small screen where it is hard to move around due to the screen size. With larger screens much of this difficulty goes away.

The problem being that many RTS games devolve into being puzzles. Plants vs Zombies, while I love playing the game with it’s quirky graphics and funny audio, quickly becomes formulaic. You know which units to build first, you know which units give best protection while you develop your resource gatherers.

The strategy goes away – but then this is as much an issue with playing against a simple scripted sequence or a very basic computer AI. You learn the patterns as much as commanders learned that cavalry were better than infantry and so they equipped infantry with pikes and so on.

Most folk who play games like Fieldrunners or Plants versus Zombies or Farmville may not see themselves a playing a strategy game and if you tried to tempt them into Warcraft, they’d likely baulk and lose interest. I believe we’re about to hit a new renaissance in Strategy gaming. Where the dust will be blown off and there will be new ways to act and interact. There will be victors and there will be casualties in this.

Local Brand, Global Vision

I would describe myself as probably more curmudgeonly than most especially when it comes to things on the Internets. Arlene is often able to discern if “someone is wrong on the Internet” due to the posture I assume, the faces I pull and the fury of my key tapping. It’s one of those things, there’s … Continue reading “Local Brand, Global Vision”

I would describe myself as probably more curmudgeonly than most especially when it comes to things on the Internets. Arlene is often able to discern if “someone is wrong on the Internet” due to the posture I assume, the faces I pull and the fury of my key tapping. It’s one of those things, there’s an immediacy to making sure there are wrongs righted. Sometimes it is better to withdraw and do something else. And I promise I’ll try to do that next time.

So, How do you brand something locally without it appearing provincial?

I hate URLs from local companies and organisations that have ‘ni’ in the title (it’s not restricted to the Internet either, I hate it when they put (NI) in the name of the limited company too. And no, hate is not a strong word.

But sadly while we seem to be surviving without the need for IPv6 so far (years after my mentor predicted the end of the IPv4 internet), we are fumbling towards a more final end – the end of the dictionary. Internet companies have been using nonsense names for a decade or more now but I loathe the ‘ni’ thing more than I dislike the ‘r’ thing in Flickr, Tumblr and others or the ‘n+1’ thing, like in Rummble or Dribble. It points to a cataclysm of Babelian (should that be Babylonian?) proportions. And don’t get me started on the www.xxxapp.com style names. Entire domains for ‘apps’ seems wrong and it can be abused. For example:

http://apps.ie was registered last year as a domain for all Irish iPhone developers and designers to represent their work. Sadly one company has gone ahead and branded themselves as ‘appsie’ after the fact and registered a whole slew of …..apps.ie URLs. When I brought this up, I was pretty much told to sling my hook. Suffice to say that’s one company off my Christmas card list.

So how do you brand something that’s new? And doesn’t actively step on the toes of wider initiatives to improve things for everyone?

In many cases is means choosing a URL that is almost entirely unlike your company name. In other cases it means adding a prefix such as “visit” or “weare” or “designby” to your company name or being extremely creative with your domain name extensions – witness the growth in popularity of ‘.io’, ‘.us’ and ‘.tv’. And there’s hundreds more options.

But right now I’m left with attempting to brand a local collaboration network which has local remit but global vision. And hoping to reduce the chance that someone will waltz in and hijack the name for their own purposes and undermine the network.

Photos from Thursday’s INGAGE

INGAGE = Innovation in Gaming in Education Related posts: So, about that game company… Education and Technology The Gaming Market: time to break in? Integrated Education – Segregated Education

INGAGE = Innovation in Gaming in Education

What would Myth look like on a touch device?

I did a little cut and paste to see what UI elements would look like with a direct port should Bungie/Take2 decide to do something about Myth (and therefore render my efforts almost obsolete): So, have a look at the size of those targets – finger sized if you ask me? It’s unlikely to happen … Continue reading “What would Myth look like on a touch device?”

I did a little cut and paste to see what UI elements would look like with a direct port should Bungie/Take2 decide to do something about Myth (and therefore render my efforts almost obsolete):

So, have a look at the size of those targets – finger sized if you ask me?

It’s unlikely to happen so I’m going to keep working on this. Still seeking developers, artists and sound engineers who want to help build something?

Tax Breaks for UK Games Companies

From Pocket-Lint The chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling, has offered tax breaks to video games developers in an attempt to encourage the burgeoning industry in Britain. Darling said that the “creative industries, including the video games industry, make a valuable economic and cultural contribution to the UK”, and added that a tax credit system … Continue reading “Tax Breaks for UK Games Companies”

From Pocket-Lint

The chancellor of the exchequer, Alistair Darling, has offered tax breaks to video games developers in an attempt to encourage the burgeoning industry in Britain.

Darling said that the “creative industries, including the video games industry, make a valuable economic and cultural contribution to the UK”, and added that a tax credit system will be on offer, similar to the one offered to the British film industry. It’ll make it cheaper to build games in Britain.

While the amount of tax break has not been made apparent, it should help spur some games development companies into forming in the province.

The question being – tax is a problem for companies making money. How is Northern Ireland placed to take advantage of this tax break?

[and as @jearle pointed out, he and I are both available to develop game ideas and settings. His website is http://nightfall.me and my games website is http://lategaming.com]

Apple is not competing fairly…

For the last three years, the tech world has been agog with mobile, mobile, mobile. Apple with the release of the iPhone kicked a hole in the market and then occupied that hole. While many pundits point to Nokia shipping more smartphones and the upstart Android gaining market share, these pundits ignore the rampant fragmentation in both the Nokia- and pre-Nokia Symbian operating system market and the growing fragmentation in the Android market. Nokia needs to kill off the notion they are doing well in this market – there’s no great success in being the master of a dying market of consumers who don’t buy anything. Symbian was economically inactive in apps beforehand and it’s just floundering now. They need to set better standards – look to their N900 handheld as the future. And Google needs to focus on Android fragmentation as a priority – we’ve seen this on Linux before but the differences in hardware, software versions and carrier ‘additions’ is creating a mess of a single unified idea.

Sadly though for both of these companies, Apple is not competing fairly. While Nokia and Google among others scramble to regain mindshare in the smartphone market, Apple has surreptitiously started to hack out a niche for themselves in the portable gaming market. The console gaming market is wholly owned by Microsoft, Sony and Nintendo but until recently the portable market was solely occupied by Nintendo and Sony. While Microsoft will be releasing a compelling product linked to their Windows Phone products, Apple has already carved a niche in the portable gaming market – see this report from Flurry.

You can see that Apple now commands more portable gaming market share than Sony (and anecdotal evidence suggests that games with other handhelds are just carrying their iPhones for the quick portable gaming fix).

And in two weeks, iPad will cause another bloodbath.

So, about that game company…

It’s been an exciting week. On Tuesday morning I met with Leo Galway, John Girvin, Conor McCluskey, Darin Smyth and Christian McGilloway regarding the formation of a local ‘games development cluster’. Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea and so now we’re looking for a good brand to help identify the cluster. This … Continue reading “So, about that game company…”

It’s been an exciting week.

On Tuesday morning I met with Leo Galway, John Girvin, Conor McCluskey, Darin Smyth and Christian McGilloway regarding the formation of a local ‘games development cluster’. Everyone seemed to think it was a good idea and so now we’re looking for a good brand to help identify the cluster.

This coming week (Thursday 25th March) I’ve organised an event with Belfast Metropolitan College called “INGAGE” which stands for “Innovation in Gaming in Education”. We’ve got an engaging calendar planned out for the day.

During the academic year 2009-2010, Belfast Metropolitan College, supported by Digital Circle and the Department of Employment and Learning, introduced a new extracurricular games development ‘club’ for students taking the games design courses at the college.

This event will serve to highlight the work undertaken by the students in the ‘l33t Creations’ club as well as highlight some work being done by other creatives in the games industry in Northern Ireland.

AGENDA

10.00 am	Arrival / Registration
10.30 am	BMC Welcome Trevor Smyth
10.40 am	Welcome & Overview of Project
	Darin Smyth / Christian McGilloway
11.00 am	Guest Speaker Greg Maguire
	Q & A
12.00 pm	Demos
	Lunch
1.00 pm	Guest Speakers
	Straandlooper
	Mark Cullen
	Brendan McGoran
2.00 pm	Closing remarks – Reid Lynas

Attendance is free and refreshments will be provided. Local companies wishing to network are welcome. But you have to RSVP!

And lastly, but not least, I’ve been working on the UI for the game I mentioned the other day.

I’ve spent this evening documenting the Touch Events which will need to be plugged into Unity3D. It’s my job to document the UI, then to write the story and do the research.

I’m still trying to think of a name for the games company (though I have some ideas) and I’m putting together a team of people who can actually manage to pull this together. I provide the ideas – it’s others who will provide the implementation in many ways.

Anyone want to help?

So, I want to start a games company…

While my iPhone is filled with three pages of games for my kids (and me, obviously), my Mac has only two games installed. Halo Myth II Both of these games were created by Bungie which was acquired by Microsoft and recently went independent again. But while Halo remains the darling of the media, Myth languishes … Continue reading “So, I want to start a games company…”

While my iPhone is filled with three pages of games for my kids (and me, obviously), my Mac has only two games installed.

Halo
Myth II

Both of these games were created by Bungie which was acquired by Microsoft and recently went independent again. But while Halo remains the darling of the media, Myth languishes in relative obscurity.

The Myth games are categorized as real time tactics, representing a departure from established real time strategy titles such as Warcraft and Command & Conquer; resource retrieval and unit construction were entirely removed to focus on squad- and soldier-level tactics. Some have argued that this has given the game a far greater sense of realism than its contemporaries. Reviewers have cited the series’ (at the time) revolutionary use of 3D environments, its use of weather effects, and its realistic physics engines as reasons for this. To many, Myth set the standard for the type of strategy that the Total War series of games made popular.

Myth provided exactly the level of game that I was seeking. I was dissatisfied with typical Real Time Strategy games which necessitated the collection and hoarding of resources and the building of strategically important buildings and units. This meant that playing WarCraft or StarCraft involved an hour of clicking around a window and then a combat that usually lasted about five minutes. It meant exercising the mantra that if you thought you had enough units to attack, then you likely needed to double your forces and then attack. It meant gambling by taking hidden ground, navigating the environment and sending workers off into the darkness to harvest with the hope that they wouldn’t get slaughtered.

In contrast, Myth offered the possibility of quick games. The playing field could be small or large, the story just as complex but there was no interminable resource collection, just the need to complete missions, fight battles. The multiplayer games could often be finished in ten minutes or less. The sides were evenly matched, it was up to the player to take advantage of the unit strengths and the advantages of terrain to win the game. You developed a keen eye for ‘flammable’ terrain for your archers to send their single flaming arrow into the midst of an enemy. You could hide undead units unseen in the depths of rivers and lakes. Floating units were not blocked by most terrain and could flee across terrain impassable to other ground-based units. You would use fast units to snipe, heavy units to hide behind. It was a tactical dream. The single player game, in addition, was intensely story focussed with excellent narrative, evocative images and a fabulous musical score. This was typical of most of Bungie’s productions. They had some of the best talent in the industry and that talent went on to create groundbreaking games in terms of gameplay and story. I still have the Halo theme on my laptop because it’s so evocative (You can read about it here. You can download it here.)

So, I am decided. The type of game I want to create will bring back my memories of Myth II. It will have an intensely inviting touch-based interface. It will be evocative of Google Maps on iPhone mixed with Google Earth on Mac (pan, zoom, rotate). It will have rich graphics (it will look amazing on a 9.7″ iPad screen), richer sound (audio experiences on devices with small screens are much more important). It will have a great story, great voice actors, great art. It will be the game I want to play on the devices I want to use. It will have a compelling single-player story and it will have local- and internet-based multiplayer games.

So I know what it will be. I need to figure out how to work back from that and find the path forward to it.

PvZ

What can I say. It’s an amazingly fun game. It sold $1 million in 9 days. Nearly 500 5-star reviews on the UK iTunes store. Nearly 5000 5-star ratings on the US iTunes store. Get it at the App Store. The gameplay is simple. It’s a relatively mundane tower-defence formula. But what I like is … Continue reading “PvZ”

What can I say. It’s an amazingly fun game. It sold $1 million in 9 days.
Nearly 500 5-star reviews on the UK iTunes store. Nearly 5000 5-star ratings on the US iTunes store.

Get it at the App Store.

The gameplay is simple. It’s a relatively mundane tower-defence formula. But what I like is not just the quirky graphics or the fun subject matter. It’s simply the massive variations on plants, zombies or even arenas. You’re on the front yard, or the back yard with the pool, on the roof, there’s daytime, nighttime and fog – the whole idea is to mix it up.

Compromise: pull and background

I have a deep-seated desire for multi-tasking on the iPhone (and now the iPad). I understand their reasons for not including it and I understand the tradeoffs of performance, stability and user experience. I don’t want to be bothered using an app to micromanage device resources – that smacks too much of using Mac OS … Continue reading “Compromise: pull and background”

And that’s the world you live in with Android and Windows Mobile multitasking. The resources on a mobile device are sufficiently limited that you are forced to manage your apps to maintain the best performance. That’s obviously something that Apple wished to avoid.

In my entirely unscientific survey (which consists of standing about with other geeks and moaning about how we wish there was some multitasking on iPhone), I have come to consider the compromises.

Ahhhh, Push It!
Salt-N-Pepa pre-empted the Apple faithful with the refrain “Push it” when anyone considered multitasking to be necessary. This was meant to be the first compromise – notifications could be pushed from the ‘cloud’ (the new word for ‘server on the internet’) to specific installed apps on the iPhone which gave a semblance of being able to interact with more than one application at a time. You could set notifications based on receiving messages on Twitter, a server being down or anything that can be reported (for example, a GPS with sender sending a Push notification that your car alarm has activated). But – push is one way and limited in scope so rather than just demanding multi-tasking, wouldn’t it be better to consider other compromises?

Pull
If we can push to an iPhone, what about the server setting up a pull mechanism? Essentially it’s a push designed to ‘get’ data rather than just ‘set’ data. That would mean you could have a service running in the cloud which pings your phone for a location update or a state change in a document and updates the server copy. You could obviously set the frequency, you set the amount and quality of data to be pulled and Apple can provide a simple interface. Heck – build it into MobileMe or demand a MobileMe subscription for it – I have MobileMe anyway and they use part of this already for the “Find my iPhone” feature. So – why not extend this and open a Pull API for iPhone and iPad?

Pull puts intelligence in the cloud. It makes you want to run server-based applications which will hold your calendar, pull in your location, intelligently warn you when you’re going to be late. Pull makes a difference by putting apps in the cloud.

Background
The more I think about it, the more I realise that I don’t need true multitasking on a phone or a tablet. iPhone (and by extension iPad) are fast enough that there’s no significant delay in launching apps at all. But I do want some apps to be ‘backgrounded’ when certain events occur rather than quitting. I might want to run Spotify on my iPhone (I currently don’t use it) while browsing the web. At the moment I can’t do this – but if Spotify could be identified as a Backgrounded app so that when I hit the Home button, it goes into the background rather than quitting (a little like the Voice Memos app) and only quits properly when something would directly conflict (like an incoming phone call) or when I tell it to quit by holding down a button sequence (the system in place to quit a running app is hold down the Sleep button and then hold down the Home button). There has to be a simple way to do it and, frankly, it’s a pain that Apple can do it with iPod, Phone calls and Voice Memo and third party developers can’t.

Even just having one backgrounded app would be great – especially when you’re in the middle of something like a multiplayer game – the ability to send a ‘pause’ to the other player because you’ve got a phone call rather than just kicking you out of the game! Backgrounding apps should be a toggle you enable in Settings. Apps that I would background right now would be relatively few but I would consider:

iSSH – for keeping alive the connections I’ve made to servers while I check something on the web (thanks to MartyMc for the inspiration on that.) Losing the SSH connection can be a pain. This will become more important on larger screen devices like iPad.
‘TrafficMob’ – an as-yet unwritten app which just runs in the background on your phone, uses your GPS and records your position every 30 seconds. It then uploads this data to a server which plots the points on a map, crowdsources the lot of them and shows you when and where the traffic snarl ups are.
Skype – this is obvious. Skype is powerful for me because I talk to people all around the world. I can’t currently just leave it running on my iPhone because then I can’t do anything else and it’s annoying when a call comes in on cellular while I’m in Skype as it takes precedence. This needs a real backgrounding option.

And if something does come in, some notification or call or anything – give me the choice to continue what I’m doing rather than divert my attention.

I’m sure that the talented software engineers and designers at Apple have gone through dozens of permutations trying to find the right one. I just hope that something like this makes it into iPhone OS 4. They’ve already got the UI down, it’s now the engineering challenge of making it work.