Game Creation Tools

Here are some popular game creation tools that I have heard mentioned recently:

• Construct Classic
• Construct 2
• Game Maker Studio
• FlashPunk
• Unity Engine

There are tons more.

As far as I know... Construct Classic is free and is for making 2D windows games. Construct 2 is the new one by the same people and is html 5 for cross-platform development. Game Maker Studio is either free or paid for depending on what features you want and how cross-platform you want your game to be. FlashPunk is for making flash games... which is kind of cross-platform but in a short-term way. And the Unity Engine is a free 3D engine that a lot of things seem to be saying they are using recently.

(I don't really know, I am just making notes from what I heard!)

Edit: one more: Monogame - it's an open source port of the XNA framework for true cross platform compatibility.

Indie Games for Good (IGG) Marathon

Main website: IGG Marathon

Some folks have been playing indie video games all weekend, raising money for the charity "Child's Play", who use video games to help treat sick children in hospitals. Donators nominate which games they want to see played.

The event also has some interviews and there are some game codes being raffled to donators, and plushies being auctioned.

I've been watching it, it's been cool. Particularly the interviews; Andrew Dice of Carpe Fulgur (who localised Recettear) was very good and knowledgeable about doujin games. There was also the creative force behind Bastion, the composer for Flower, Kyle Pulver who did Offspring Fling, and all sorts of things. Michael "Kayin Nasaki" O'Reilly who did "I Wanna Be The Guy" was also hanging round in chat, so that was fun. He gets an interview later, but I think it might be in the middle of the night for me.

The main message they have to people trying to get into indie game development seems to be "just do it". And, to a lesser extent, "release things sooner rather than later".

What I think have been games that were new to me and stand out:

• I Wanna Be The Guy: Gaiden : Download
• Hatoful Boyfriend : buy English version
• Chef Boyardee's Barkley, Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden
• Red Rogue
• McPixel
• Artemis

I Wanna Be The Guy: Gaiden is one of those games that kills you off at every step. It was very funny to watch them play, it's got that nice balance of repeatedly killing off the player in a cruel way that's hilarious, and is usually a reference to some other game like Super Mario or Bionic Commando or whatever. Kayin made it hard-mode only for this weekend, for this event. There was also someone who is #1 in some of the leaderboards for the game in chat, giving them tips.

Hatoful Boyfriend is described as a dating sim with pigeons. It's a visual novel, which I only came into seeing them play from part way through. They were reading out the parts, and it seemed like a school drama... then someone got killed and there was a disaster which caused them to be shut off from the rest of the world, and it turned into a pretty dark game. I decided to buy myself a copy of the game just to see what happens. It's only 420 yen for the download.

Chef Boyardee's Barkley, Shut Up & Jam: Gaiden - I didn't actually see this one being played, but the description made it sound worth a look. wiki entry

Red Rogue is something like an old ascii roguelike (e.g. Nethack) imagined as a 2D platformer. Seemed cool!

McPixel is really funny; it's like if warioware was a point-and click adventure. Each level is a 20 second attempt to diffuse a bomb, and clicking various things does different actions, and clicking them in a different order has even more effects. Whether you succeed or fail, it's usually funny.

Artemis is a game that I wouldn't want to actually play but seemed interesting. It's a labour of love from a really old uber-geek who they interviewed. When he was 18, he had the idea that he'd love to make a game that was like Star Trek, where a group of friends would make up the bridge of the Enterprise. That was back in the C64 days and the idea didn't go anywhere. So he went and worked in the games industry through the 1990s through to 2003 for high-profile games companies on mainly canned projects, eventually coming back to this idea. It was just good to see that kind of lifelong dedication. It's played with 7 people; 6 people playing on different PCs doing different jobs (e.g. engineer, weapons, scanners etc) and one person without a computer who sits in the middle, listening to what the others say and giving orders. I think it'd be good for people who like to play pen-and-paper RPGs and that sort of thing.

Lastly, they mentioned a game I don't want to see but want to just say "wow, this exists". It's a visual novel called "Gakuen Handsome", where people have incredibly pointy chins. They are so pointy that one person actually gets stabbed to death by another one's chin. O_O

video archive

SignT's list of freeware games / demos featured

To The Moon - PC game

This evening, I read through a game called "To The Moon". It came out last year, available as a download purchase from the freebird games website. Several people I know online bought it and raved about it... but for some reason I didn't pick it up.

Months later, I heard Laura Shigihara perform the one song she wrote for the game on her youtube channel, and picked up the soundtrack through a bundle somewhere. It's a pretty cool soundtrack, the whole thing - not that one song.

I still held off buying the actual game though. The feeling "it'll turn up on Steam, or in a bundle..."; these cheap bundles are almost a curse as much as they are a blessing.

Then, one month ago, one of those people who had raved about the game at its release (a fellow named Jon) gifted me a copy on Steam. :) I had a brief look at it, but it seemed like "I'm not doing this justice right now, I will come back another time" - then I got distracted by something else.

Today, there's an indie bundle released that contains this game, it's the current Indie Royale Bundle - the "Fall Bundle". That was enough to spark my interest again, and I started up the game again.

Four or five hours later, I've finished it, and.... do you know what it's like when you've gone to the cinema and watched a film so powerful that you aren't sure what to do when it's over? That's what I was feeling.

"How do I walk home? Oh wait, I already am home. What do I do now?"

So, here I am blogging.

So, this game..... it looks very much like a retro JRPG in style. SNES era, or maybe Suikoden; that kind of style. Very detailed, very pretty. It's not a JRPG at all, though. It's all storytelling - clicking on objects and walking about, occasional simple puzzles to solve - only a little diversion from that near the end. No scoring, no splitting paths. Just a straightforward story, about journeying through the memories of a dying man and fulfilling his final wish.

Much of it is pretty heavy, some of it is pretty funny. At times, I.... became suddenly aware of my tear ducts. It worked out to be more special than I thought it would be.

If you have around £3 to spare in the next few days, I recommend you pick up a copy with the indie royale bundle - that's less than half the price of a cinema ticket and you're not roped into buying expensive snacks either!

2013 anime calendar time!

Which calendars are my brother and I looking at this year?

Smile Precure Calendar (1500 yen)

Symphogear Calendar (1600 yen)

Kantoku Calendar (1429 yen)

Tony Calendar (1429 yen)

Bodacious Space Pirates / Moretsu Uchuu Kaizoku (1600 yen)

Browse through what's available on CD Japan

I considered an All That's Ultraman calendar for next year, but after last years's "Yotsuba to" calendar featuring Yotsuba drawn into photos, I felt like having an anime calendar instead of a live action one.

It's also important to consider the number of pages listed for each calendar to get an idea of what you're getting; for example, there is a P To Love-Ru Darkness calendar listed, but it's a poster calendar as it has only one page - which might be fun, but doesn't sound good value for money.

Also, consider the weight of each calendar - for example, the Tony one is 950g so shipping is going to cost a lot more than the calendar!

Free Plants vs Zombies this Halloween

Free copies of Plants vs Zombies this Halloween, from the American Dental Association.

Stop Zombie Mouth

Playing this is better for your teeth than cadging sweets off of people, I suppose. :)

Virtue's Last Reward (3DS) coming to the UK

Earlier today, I put a preorder in for a 3DS game called Virtue's Last Reward, via Amazon.co.uk.

It was originally called "Kyokugen Dasshutsu ADV Zennin Shibou Desu", and is the sequel to "999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors"... which I haven't actually played yet. I was going to make myself wait until I'd read through another path in Ever 17 first...

Original Japanese trailer with English fansubs

It comes out on the 16th of November 2012, and is being published by Rising Star Games. I wish they had something to notify me when they announce these things; it was announced back in August and I didn't know until today. It also comes out on Vita (but I don't have one of those). It'll be Japanese voices and English subs, according to the sales blurb.

It also starts off "Everybody dies… …can you escape the inescapable?" so, thematically consistent and ever optimistic, yeah. :)

Gamasutra feature: memorial

Nice memorial article for Ryu Umemoto here:

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/178187/memorial_composer_ryu_umemoto.php

He was the composer for the old C's Ware games - Desire, Eve Burst Error, Yu-No, and later worked at Cave on shoot-em-up soundtracks, including composing the music to Akai Katana, which I bought recently but haven't played yet.

He died last year at the age of 37, from a bout of sudden illness.

Demon's Score (iOS app)

I got Demon's Score on iOS (my boyfriend carelessly left his iPad in my house, you see....), mostly because:

http://www.joystiq.com/2012/09/12/square-enixs-demons-score-features-all-star-composers/

AMAZING composer lineup.

Includes: Naoshi Mizuta (Final Fantasy XI), Yoko Shimomura (Mario & Luigi games, Kingdom Hearts), Kohei Tanaka (Sakura Wars, One Piece, Gunbuster), Keiichi Okabe (Tekken, Nier), and 2 members of Zuntata (Taito game composers).

You can hear some clips of it here:
http://www.square-enix.co.jp/smart/demons/en/#!/character1

Official Promo video

And...

1. It's got really annoying voice acting, oh my, that's so annoying. Is that teddy bear supposed to be a Gilbert Gottfried impersonation or something?
2. The story is "so bad it's funny", it's a hoot. Nothing astounding, very stupid. XD
3. I don't like the heavy rock tracks much.... which unfortunately is the opening music and tutorial level... there's some nice violiny tracks after that... then some funk... it's quite a mix. Listen to the samples on the official site. I really wish there wasn't so much of this heavy rock though, it's pretty uninteresting.
4. The gameplay suffers from the same problem that Ouendan has. There's a bunch of stuff going on as you play - a story is taking place.... but you are too busy prodding a screen and putting your hands in the way to pay attention.
5. On the bits where you need to rapidly tap the screen as much as possible, the obvious thing to do is take advantage of the iPad's multi-touch capabilities and use 4 fingers at once. Unfortunately, if you do that and slide, it takes you out of the app... which makes you restart the level. Grr! That's what you get for trying to be smart
6. And this is a big one.... it's a game you pay for, it's £4.99 which is kind of a lot for an app. That's not the problem. The problem is the unlockables - when you defeat a demon you are supposed to be able to sign a pact with it in order to use that demon. Each has its own defense and experience stat. However, after each level beyond the first one, when you go to sign that pact it pops up something to say it'll cost you £1.99 to unlock that. This adds up to a lot of money and seems really unfair considering you just laid down some money for the game.

Other than that, it's a pretty fun game, though nothing outstanding. It's fun and quite ridiculous. Could do with more morale boosting from a team of male cheerleaders though. No way am I going to buy any of those extras; even if they seemed worth it, I would feel bad supporting this kind of payment scheme.

Indie game bundles

Three indie game bundles going on at the moment:

Humble Bundle

I recommend this one particularly for Torchlight and for the Shatter soundtrack.

Indie Royale

This contains an exclusive localisation of a doujin game called Bunny Must Die! which is a 2D platformer, among other fine games.

Bundle In A Box

This contains Space Giraffe, which I reviewed a few years ago. It's a great little shoot-em-up, very different. Totally immersive because it requires you to use senses you migth have forgotten even existed.

They are all pay-what-you-want, some allow you to donate to charity.

angela no Music Wonder Dai Circus 5th - Fafner in the Azure Marugoto Zenkyoku Live!! Blu-ray

I treated myself to a Japanese Blu-ray in exchange for a huge sum of money. It's a recording of a live concert by the group angela who are known for their songs for anime such as Uchuu no Stellvia, Soukyuu no Fafner, Jinki: Extend, Heroic Age, Shikabane Fighter, and Asura Cryin'.

I have to admit, I didn't take to the lead singer - atsuko - straight away. Her distinct vocals must have overwhelmed me. They are.... somewhat piercing. But, after time.... I realised, she's really good and is especially great at nailing songs for live performances. Such a natural it appears almost effortless.

A few of their earlier albums are available in America, if you want to pick up Sora No Koe, I/O or PRYTHM, I recommend you go to rightstuf because they sell them for only $5 US dollars each.

So, I bought myself a Blu-ray direct from Japan, priced at 6000 yen (but somewhat reduced because I had a stack of loyaly points to spend... but then it was caught in customs and I had to pay another £17-something on top of that). So, uh, yeah. It's, um, cheaper than actually going to Japan....

It's called "angela no Music Wonder Dai Circus 5th - Fafner in the Azure Marugoto Zenkyoku Live!!" - Yes yes, that is one looooong title!

Here's the front:

Here's the back

And here's some of what's inside

The packaging isn't very impressive, I suppose. The blue thing with the cartoon of angela and a lion is actually a booklet full of info and interviews (if you can read Japanese), and photos. I don't know if it's clear enough on my photo but the back lists 14 songs... followed by two encores containing another 10 songs! (Full tracklisting is available here on the Starchild website)

It's a Soukyuu no Fafner concert, certainly. But it's also a circus. So there are many, many songs from Fafner and its offshoots, intersperced with clips from this tragic sci-fi anime, and clowns and acrobats run on and bounce around, and so on. They also perform some songs as their alter ego band "Domestic Love Band", doing raucously arranged versions of their songs with gusto that's kind of punk, kind of rock, almost like Tokyo Ska Paradise in places... really different and really good in an unexpected and fun way.

I'm actually only part way through watching this (it's 3 hours long!), but from what I've seen so far it's been really great! If you want a look, I think I spotted a few clips from this concert up on youtube. Otherwise, you can buy yourself a copy from CD Japan here: angela no Music Wonder Dai Circus 5th - Fafner in the Azure Marugoto Zenkyoku Live!! - [Limited Release] [Blu-ray]

Ni no Kuni : Wrath of the White Witch - Wizard's Edition - PS3

Well, Ni no Kuni is coming out in the UK.

It's a video game that's a co-production between Level 5 (who make the Professor Layton games among other things), and Studio Ghibli (who make critically acclaimed boring films about heroic young girls befriending strange things).

I'm not that interested in it myself, but it's supposed to have had some good reviews and my boyfriend has asked for the super special edition for his birthday present. Even though his birthday is in November and the game doesn't come out until mid January. Ah well, that's his choice.

It's up for preorder on Amazon UK for £69.99: Ni No Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch - Wizard's Edition (PS3)

And comes with the game, an uncute cuddly toy, some exclusive DLC codes, and a 300 page hardcover book. Very pretty.

Rose Of Versailles is licenced by Rightstuf / Nozomi Entertainment!

Rose Of Versailles is one of my all-time favourite anime series, I've been hoping someone would license it for an official English subtitled release for years.

Rightstuf / Nozomi Entertainment have just announced that they've got the license - it'll be streamed via viki.com this winter, and be out on DVD sometime next year.

The moment I hear of a DVD release, I'm going to preorder it!

They are also taking questions from the general public to ask Riyoko Ikeda - the original author of the manga - until 1st Nov.

Official Site

Never7 -the end of infinity- english translation patch is out!

If you happen to be a fan of the visual novel Ever 17, you may be interested to know that an english language translation patch of another game in the series - Never7 - has been made. ^_^

There are details as to how to obtain the patch, buy a copy of the game (it's under 1000 yen), and apply the path here:

http://tlwiki.org/index.php?title=Never_7

Adventure Bar Story - initial thoughts

This morning, I bought myself Adventure Bar Story on Android, after trying out the free "Lite" version the day before. This game has been out on iOS for ages, apparently, but is new to Android and as such is on cheap special offer at the moment. :)

It's a cheap and cheerful JRPG; sort of Recettear / Atelier type game. Graphically quasi-16-bit style, reminding me of things like Ragnarok Online.

You run a "bar" (though I'd say it seems more like a restaurant). You buy / collect ingredients, discover recipes, set restaurant prices and stock levels, fight old-school turn-based RPG style. You only level up by eating food, not for killing things (though it seems like you do learn combat skills from battle). So you have to decide what your priorities are, because eating most of your shop's stock is probably not the most profitable way to run a business!

It's got some flaws - sometimes the text seems to skip quickly, the interface is a little annoying - as though they added a virtual d-pad as an afterthought then made it the default control system.

So for example, you're holding your device with thumbs on the screen in d-pad position and it changes to menu options that need you to select via touchscreen, with a "cancel" button placed right under your left thumb where the d-pad was a second ago. Oops, cancelled it, start over. No big deal but it gets annoying.

Seems well worth the £0.81p it's priced at on the Android Marketplace, all the same. :)

Lots of water

It's been raining lots and lots today. This is what the river by my house looked like when I came home earlier. The water has risen several feet in just one day!

It's not raining right now, in fact, the sun has come out. The sky is still quite dark, though.

I went to the shop across the road to stock up on essentials in case it rains overnight (toilet roll, canned food, water). It's funny; I was up in the north-east last week where there was a big flood and people were stranded and the power went out. When we went to the shops, there were no potatoes, not much choice of bread, I think people had gone out to stock up and prepare for worse.

Here, on the other hand, the shelves are full and a lot of things have been heavily reduced. I think it's a case of "it's raining - I can't be bothered to go to the shops!"

Just by the river here, some police vans have turned up along with many onlookers and a helicopter overheard. I hope no-one's fallen in. :(

A tasty recipe (Mr Men cookies)

9oz /250g Butter
7oz / 200g Caster sugar
9oz / 250g Cornflour
12oz / 350g Plain flour
2 eggs
4 drops vanilla essence
4 - 5 tablespoons milk

Method

Cream butter and sugar, gradually mix in sifted flour, cornflour, eggs and vanilla essence.
Mix and add milk gradually until a firm dough is obtained .
Roll the dough to the correct thickness, using the dough gauge
Flour the moulds and then cut out the cookies by pressing firmly into the rolled dough
If painting the cookies before baking mix the food colour with an equal part of egg yolk
If painting after baking, brush the uncooked cookies with 1 part egg / 1 part water glaze
Place the cookies on a baking tray
Bake in a preheated oven for 12 - 15 minutes at 220°C / 425°F / gas mark 7

Chocolate Marble Cake recipe

225g (8oz) English butter
225g (8oz) caster sugar
3 (size 3) eggs
350g (12oz) self raising flour
Pinch salt
225ml (7floz) milk
25g (1oz) cocoa

Method

1 Cream together the butter and sugar
2 Add the eggs one at a time, beating well
3 Fold in the flour and salt, and the milk
4 Divide the mixture into two bowls, add the cocoa to one and mix well
5 Spoon mixtures alternately into a prepared 20cm (8 inch) cake tin to get the "marbled" effect
6 Bake - 160°c (325°F) mark 3 for 1 1/2 hour, until well risen. Cool and turn onto a cake rack.

Fez is really really great

Fez is a really really great game. I bought it last Friday on Xbox Live Arcade for 800 Microsoft points.

It's a 2D platformer set in a cube shaped universe.

So you run and jump in a 2D landscape, rotate the landscape through 90 degrees left or right to change the perspective, and see new platforms to jump on, doors to go through and explore, etc.

It's a completely peaceful world, well, almost, apart from the distortion and the universe ripping apart.

There's no killing to do, no monsters after you, no penalty for falling off the bottom of the world and dying.

Just exploring, discovering, sometimes encountering strange monuments and levers for you to work out.

It's all about the feeling. It's a game that captures you by luring you in with sheer curiosity at every point. It rewards you by giving you a world far richer than you thought you'd see, and more curious things to explore.

It's all presented in a retro-style; 16-bit-esque to go with the 2D world.

There are a few different areas of landscape, each with their own style. You witness dawn and dusk every few minutes, and it's all very pretty. There's an atmospheric chiptune soundtrack as well, which I quite like despite being by "Disasterpiece" who made a few albums I got with bundles of games - and none of those I particularly enjoyed.

As you adventure, it populates a map so you know what you've found so far, and what's left to find. It's an enormous map, and it kind of reminds me of the huge and horrendously complicated maps that would take up pages and pages in old magazines back in the 1980s and early 1990s.

Earlier today, I saw some patterns on a stone and a larger stone lit up in tetrominoes depending on which buttons I pressed on the joypad. And I thought to myself "I need to replicate that pattern in these movements, don't I?" followed by "I wonder if I have any graph paper".

Which, oddly enough, was a good feeling. So I came here and wrote this blog post instead. :)

EDIT: I think I should mention... sometimes this game is downright creepy!

Android VNDS Interpreter is really good

Remember the VNDS Visual Novel Reader for Nintendo DS? It was super. It still is, and now there's an Android version too.

It seems a bit no-strings at first, not much in the way of instructions from within the app itself, but it turns out when you get it going, it works really well!

Useful Links:

• The VNDS site, this is the main site for the DS version - it has some free novels there.
• Discussion boards, to see what's being developed at the moment.
• Weeaboo.nl is the main site for the person who developed the Android VNDS Interpreter app. There are loads of resources here, special Android high-res packs for tablets, and convertors for games you already own. I guess they can't just give away retail games, so there we are - convertors.

At the moment I'm running the convertor for Ever 17. It's taking a while so I'm blogging in the meantime. :)

The process is... install the retail game on PC (which I happen to have right here, all 4 discs...), run the convertor application - which is really friendly and detailed and lets you select whatever screen size and colour depth you think is best for your device, and it not only includes a separate tool to convert the voice data into .wav files but it pops up a dialog box to tell you how to use that tool as well!

There are over 14000 of these little wav files btw, so it's taking ages. I think it's actually converting the .wav files into .ogg files. Ho hum, I think I'll come back when it's done.

One Piece Unlimited Cruise 3DS - watch out!

One Piece Unlimited Cruise first came out on Wii here in Europe a few years ago. A two-part action RPG game, based on the manga / anime series One Piece.

It is the only Wii game I have seen to have its price skyrocket to double its original price like that - copies trading for up to around £80 per part. When the first part came out, it was around £30 and climbed, then the price of the 2nd one was reasonable in preorder... but quickly grew to the same high price levels as the first part. Then the first part got a bit of a reprint, but it only lowered the price for a short while. I managed to snag both parts at a reasonable price, actually buying the 2nd part first!

And then, a few years passed and the 3DS came out. Soon after, I heard of a remake of One Piece Unlimited Cruise for 3DS. When it came out in Japan, it contained parts 1 and 2 redone in 3D and a bonus Marineford mode. Then it was announced that it would be coming to Europe!

Then a limited edition was announced, coming with a funny little Portagas D. Ace figure. For around that same £30 - £35 price mark that most new full-size games are.

So lots of people preordered.

And when it came out.... oh, I noticed a lot of disappointed and angry people reviewing the game on Amazon!

You see, the 3DS European version is completely missing part 2. And it doesn't mention this omission anywhere on the box or anything. People found out by playing it and it finishing all of a sudden, advertising a part 2 which isn't present in the game.

So if anyone is reading this, wondering about buying One Piece Unlimited Cruise on 3DS, well, know what you're getting - it might only be half the game you were expecting!