Do you dream about blocks falling down from the sky all day when you were young? How about that old school game boy game that you loved to play? Well worry no more, play Tetris Friends on the web anytime, anywhere.
It’s not a secret that the design for Starcraft 2 is not perfect. As an average gamer, we can quickly find a few things that we don’t like. For example, the Hellion is such a crappy unit compared to the firebat and the vultures. What happened to the mine planting good fun? What happened to those firebat+medic drops? You can still do it, but your air ship is now the healer… oh right, as if the opponent’s base can survive such a devastating air+land assualt?
Art Direction
It’s one thing about 2D, and another about 3D. The art just didn’t follow through with the original direction. The space cowboy feel with starcraft 1 with the super rural, dry, and scarceness was missing in this version. I felt as though I was in a much more cartoonish land…wait…kinda feels like I was playing WoW, except with top down view! Wait wait… that is WC3!!! ZOMG!
So they basically added more animations, better 3d character portraits, and some fancy true 3d elevations. Same old hat to me. The graphical engine is left to be desired compared with Crysis engine. Well I guess they didn’t care, as long as it looks well on a crappy computer, which is where the money is at.
Game Design
Originally, when I heard that the designer is from C&C, I refrained from commenting on the direction on how it would affect Starcraft. Now I am kind of disappointed. The designer really did put in a ton of elements from C&C world. Wtf is wrong with the Zerg’s spying unit? Isn’t that from C&C? And the complete lack of air units in Zerg is just hugely disappointing as well. In total, you can only have about 3 strategies with Zerg’s air attacks. A ground spawning carrier for zerg? oh great, now you are just running out of ideas. cough…carrier is there already for the spawning thing…oh yeah, because you can’t attack air, it’s no point to put in the ‘buy more interceptor’ option, so the player plays faster this way… no thank you, i want my crabs back…
UI
I think this is actually the best improvement so far. They took in a lot of lessons from WC3 and made the shortcuts much more friendly to use. Some keys still require getting used to, but overall, a very good job. There wasn’t a moment of figuring out where a command was, because everything was so familiar to me already. I can only speak for myself for this end. New users who haven’t played SC might find it a bit daunting still. It is still a short-cut intensive game, and playing with mouse-only on a RTS is just asking for noob calls.
I’ll write more about this subject later, as I experience the game a bit more.
It’s time to get some festive work done!
Other than going out in the morning to take some lightweight running, I plan to design a game on my own. Perhaps I would get to the coding after the design, but I plan to focus on the design documents for now.
I would need to figure out the art side though. I certainly don’t want do draw anything myself, so likely this application will use existing game arts or game sprites from the web. We’ll see.
I really only have less than a week for this project, but it will be ongoing and I’ve got all the time in the world. So I am in no worry, I don’t want to rush it anyways.
This post is meant to create discussions and side notes for myself, as a free form writing experiment.
The premise is that for any sort of projects, the project heads need to realize not everyone in the company fills in the same vision of the project. How do you, as the leader/designer keep their visions and mutually understood among everyone?
Is this a big problem? I sure think it is. Is it worth repeating? It sure is.
What are some methods out there that allows us to create a harmonious company vision you ask?
I think it starts from the heart of the heads. It begins from the root of communication and the goal of the company.
Without these kind of strong bound agreements, there are no projects. They are just work. They are just a mere mean of earning their daily income while hoping to do something better.
I for one had felt that, and I am sure everyone else had also. But now as I read and grow up more, I realize that what you have IS the best. You have the power to make it better. If it is not, YOU are the one to be blamed.
This takes up the responsibility out of everyone else, and really start to bring up the core issues to your own table. You begin to see not only people problems, but problems within our mere human conditions.
I would like to think that everything begins with good habits, for both socially and individually.
I have been playing quite a bit of Warstorm on Facebook today. The game itself plays like a typical Magic Card game, but with a small twist that it is asynchronous. Players are allowed to create different card decks by using Silvers and Gold(real $). However, the game doesn’t allow users to control the actual battles. So it is sort of like programming, you set out your code, and watch it run. Although it is limiting in nature, the millions of combination with the cards can easily keep you playing. The graphics also contributes a lot with its highly detailed Fantasy setting.
Other than that, I have been playing LoL as well. This game is like a game of basketball. 5 players are required to work together against 5 other players. The catch for this game is the Items system, you earn gold while you play, and you buy more powerful items to boost up your character. Main types include Attack, Ability Power, and Attack Rate. I think these three are the main criteria to determine if your characters will stand out in the heat of battle.
It is 2:09Am right now and I am still writing this… I’ve spent quite a lot of time in playing FB games today, so I figured I should write down my thoughts.
Here are a few key elements that I found in FB games: (Treasure Madness, Ponzi Inc, MouseHunt, and WarStorm)
I originally thought that FB games would be much more social and highly interactive between friends. But what I fail to realize is that the people behind these games still wears the old hats. Big companies are mostly not here to be innovative or artistic. They are all here to grab as much people as they can… and make some quick money. How will Farmville do in a year from now is beyond me. But I am sure that the growth is beginning to slow down. In 2 or 3 months ago, it was at an astronomical number with 60M MAU. Currently, it is sitting at 73,035,058 MAU. So the growth had definitely slowed down. Now compare to the craziness back then, they had jump from 30-60 within a few weeks. One can conclude that users are about to saturate, growth is going to be slow, but there are still more room.
So where are we going now? Will Flash and Web tech be good enough to deliver high quality games that true game developers love? Or will it be a fade where quality is only as deep as the player’s willingness to pay?
The mind wonders… as I go to sleep.
This is a very interesting topic over at GameRes2009. A Chinese game design website.
I think as developers create games, often times we thrive the technology aspect and ignores what is behind something that is truly original and thoughtful. The very basic value of an entertainment is to provide a relationship with its users. If we can’t even generate a connection with the users, how can we expect others to realize our own? Game design is a two way street, and honoring one’s culture is a great way of building that first connection.
Looking at now a day’s business models of media companies. It seems and always have been sponsors, commercials, or a way to market a product outside of its original media’s intent. The intermittent interval where you can stick some extra information to the users, voluntarily or involuntarily, allows the sponsors to sell their products and in return pays back to the media companies.
Look at online casual games, all of them are currently runned by advertisements and ad banners. Even my blog, is run by Google Ads. Is this the only way out?
Product placements in movies were also introduced awhile ago. I have seen it more often in Hong Kong movies though than the U.S. Slowly, even BattleField Heroes, or the dreaded Hellgate game was promised to have in-game advertisements.
Now, look at the music industry. Have you heard of Pandora.com yet? I am running it on my Firefox browser as I am writing this!
Anyways, as an inspiring game developer, I find this very discerning. The products may begin to be shaped by the sponsors’ requests instead of the developers’ choice. Game contents can be altered as long as the genre of the game play is kept. Think McDonalds Fighter, Apple Doom, Google WoW, and the list would go on.
Here is my first “Good Idea?” post. The purpose is simple, to discuss a certain idea I have and evaluate it if it’s a good idea.
Da Problem:
Microtransaction for MMOs are new to the West. People spend money and they want the money to be well spent. How should the Item Shop be presented to the users, in a way, you are satisfied with your purchases?
Da Idea:
In a virtual world, set up the “Real Cash” shops separately away from the in game shops. We have players hanging around in the Auction all day long trying to do their little business in WoW. Why can’t we set up similar system with real money?
Da Setup:
There are numerous possibilities with this kind of thinking. To be customer oriented, we can draw valuable lessons from real world retailers. Here is the list of things we could try:
Alright, I have to admit, I am not very amazed by their efforts. But it is their first game so I guess they had to stay true and old…
You can see the game demo below:
Or… you can watch this instead for a better understanding of the game: