Tell me something I don't know.

Ico is an awesome game. It has a fantastic, immersive atmosphere. It has a simple, but well-told story. The gameplay makes sense. Aside from it's shortness (less than two hours on second playthrough here! Not speedrunning!) there is very little wrong with it. The only thing you really need to know before playing are the controls, which are easy enough to find in the options menu.

Which is good, because the manual is atrocious.

Sure, it tells you the controls. But it decided that it wasn't done talking, and went on to give you the story, characters, and every location in the game, in the order they are met. In a game which relies so heavily on story, with a sense of wonder and exploration (even if there isn't really any exploration), this is a bad move. I was lucky enough to get a copy without the manual. Knowing almost nothing about the game, I was awed by it. Upon later reading the manual online, I'm sure it would have had a lesser effect on me. Not much lesser, but I'll never know for sure.

I suspect what many people forget is that, like it or not, the manual is part of the game. As such, it should be designed just as carefully. Never mind the fact that few people will read it. Having a well-designed manual shows an attention to detail that gamers can respect.

Yes, I'm aware the manual for Sun on a Stick is a user-unfriendly text document, but my excuse is that it's five years old. My better manual design shows with The Underground. There isn't one. I decided to leave it to the player to decide what the goal is. Providing a manual would have compromised the game's design. Viewed in that light, it becomes rather obvious that a manual is a definite part of the game it is attached to. As such, it deserves to be considered in equal measure to other parts of the game.

He brings out this old game called Moonbase Commander and says "Let's Play!" and I'm like "What the?"

Recently, it was announced that Microsoft would drop dedicated support for multiplayer on the original XBox. This doesn't affect me in the slightest, but it does make me wonder how long a game which is designed for multiplayer can last.

I have a computer on which I can put old dos games. I love some of those games, such as Master of Orion 1, various Infocom games, the Commander Keen series, and I've been wanting to try Elite sometime. These games are really old, but with the right equipment or an emulator, you can still play them the way (or close to the way) they were meant to be played. When something like Call of Duty 4 becomes old and people stop playing it, it will be difficult to play the multiplayer component without making a special gathering for it. Similarly, someday there will be no one around who can play Street Fighter 2 (or whatever is the best version of SF2) to the same level as those crazy pros who know all the combos and the tips and tricks and so on.

And you can forget about MMOs.

Jason Rohrer made a game called Between. It required the participation of a random player on the internet. I tried the game, starting as any other player by waiting for a partner. This took over an hour of waiting at a black screen. Finally, the player arrives and we start. You can never meet the other player, but I could see the effects of what they did. It was pretty cool, and I attempted to work together with them to fulfil a goal. They, it seems, got bored really quickly by such an arty game, and after a while I realised that they had left, leaving me with a task impossible to finish alone. I'm sure it was a good game, but I guess I'll never know.

Right now, I'm making two multiplayer games. One offline and one online. I can't help but wonder how they'll hold up. I guess it would be a good idea to create some AI for them, as they are much more competitive than arty. It will be interesting, because I've never made complex, player-like AI before, and these games are both rather unlike the rest of the games in their genres (RTS and fighting). I suppose their closest game relatives are Defcon and Scissor Paper Rock.

I guess I don't play many multiplayer games, and I never play MMOs, so I wonder if my worries are founded. I just want people to play my games.

By the way, Moonbase Commander is awesome.

I didn't win. That means you do!

Well, it appears that I did not win a spot in GammaIV. But that means I can release the final version of the game! This makes me feel better, as I can now ignore it an go on to better things.

On the other hand, if you have any feedback, no matter how vague or small, I would be really pleased to hear from you, either by email, or by comment right here on this very page!

The Underground - Download
(Sorry, it's still Divshare. I'm still slowly investigating alternatives. You know, Google Code doesn't have an about page. That makes things difficult.)

I have not said anything about the game itself. That is intentional. ;)

One Hundred and Fifty Four!

So, GammaIV closed recently. 154 games were submitted. 154! And they plan on choosing 5 to 7 games to be presented. That won't be me, but you never really know. I will release a public version of The Underground after GDC.

In the meantime, I've been attempting to make a space combat game involving the limitations of light-speed on communication. Not sure if anything will come of it, but it'll probably be a first of it's kind.

Something early! And old.

I have an old game that I think is decent enough to share. And it means other people can play one of my games a little early! I had to touch it up a bit. My standards and understanding have both improved (or at least changed) since 2005 or whenever I made the game. The manual was awful, so I completely rewrote that.

The game is a bizzare game based around gravity and far removed control.

Here it is: Sun on a Stick.


Hmm... I think I need a new place to put my files. Downloading asks for a wait of a few seconds.

Hmmm... what next?

Well, I finished The Underground (the version for GammaIV anyway. I plan on releasing a slightly different version after the event). I actually did so a while ago now, but I didn't say anything because I wasn't going to let anyone play yet.

And no one reads the blog yet. I think I shouldn't advertise this blog till I actually get something for people to play.

I wonder what I should do next. I have a number of ideas, but a competition with guidelines seems to be a good way of getting me to settle on something. Until I find one, though, I will probably experiment till I find something I like. Or maybe I'll find a small group of enthusiastic testers in close proximity to help me test the multiplayer on my samurai game. Or maybe I'll make a nice graphic for the top of this blog. Make it more professional.

The Underground - GammaIV version finished. Full version to come.

Whew!

I was hoping this whole thing would be easy, but I spent half an hour trying to come up with a name for the blog. And what did I end up with? "Albey Amakiir's Game Development". Oh well.

Anyway.

I'm Albey. Hi. *Waves* I've been designing games for yonks, but I have yet to release anything. There's a good reason for this, in the form of some very good advice I once read. It was something like "In any creative endeavour, NEVER release your first completed piece. You may think it is wonderful, but you will regret it later." Well, that may be good advice, but it wasn't really the only reason. I was also (and maybe still am) petrified by the possibility of public recognition, good or bad.

But, maybe this will be good for me.

So. My current game development status is as follows:
The Underground - 99% complete.
Unnamed game involving samurai - prototype 1 sort-of complete.

The Underground will not be released until GammaIV is over, as it will be an entry. Actually this brings me to my first piece of game design advice. If you can't get something done, make a deadline. If you still can't do it, use someone else's deadline. For example, join a competition. It seems to be working for me.

And with that, here's to a long and fruitful career as a game designer! Yay!