Retro II & 2001: The Game
Ok, I’ve had some stuff hanging round here I’ve been meaning to comment on - but due to various distractions not actually got round to covering them.
Luckily, there’s more blogs in the world than this one, so I can at least point you in the direction of Tim’s recent comments on Retro II by Cactus, a game which I’ve mean meaning to mention for a few weeks now. (And indeed, I made a post recently about one of Cactus other games Teds Wet Adventure meaning to lead into it, but ah well - Tim pretty much says everything I wanted to anyway, so go and have a gander).
Always a sucker for games that err on the surreal or bizarre side, for those who don’t venture over to the corner of the web that is Swith’s Blog then you’re probably blissfully unaware of what could possibly be the most noble project of the year. Not content with making 2001 a watchable film, Swith, with able assistance from a number of friends is in the process of putting together 2001:The GBA Game made up of a series of Ocean style mini-games based on scenes from the film. Its coming together fast and well and the monkey expressions alone worth keeping an eye out for.
And in completely unrelated news, Luke Haines new album “Off My Rocker At The Art School Bop” finally has a release date. More info over at his website. Luke Haines + Richard X production? Matron, don’t mind if I do 
Anyway, going to do some catching up tonight on other stuff I’ve not got round to mentioning, so until then - hold the front page!
I’d love to make a post right now…
…but I’m too busy playing Dotstream
Sorry!
LED Live
For a few brief minutes, somewhere in Seattle…
I love the internets
Whaddya mean haven’t I got anything better to do than to doodle these? 
Stripping Away The Barriers #3
By a simple process of elimination, we can create a number of play modes giving us options for “very easy” skill level settings. So, lets go back to our list of game elements and see what we can do away with:
You control a player that can move in 4 directions - up,down,left and right.
Right, well - that can go really - its not essential to a very easy skill level. You can tear strips off that bit by bit for varying modes. You could have one mode whereby you just move left to right, down to up, up to down, right to left - collecting objects, jumping obstacles. There’s no reason why you couldn’t run to the extreme and tailor it to a one switch interface.
The player can jump to negotiate hazards.
Yes, you guessed it - that can go. Just by stripping out that extra button you’re adding a layer of accessibility that wasn’t there before. Its one less button to worry about. Its one less hazard to negotiate. Its one less thing that could potentially cause frustration. It can be dispensed with.
The player must collect items in order to progress to the next stage.
Is there really any need to retain this in a very easy skill level? Of course there isn’t really. Theres absolutely no reason why you can’t fling this out of the window and simply make the task “get to the exit”.
The player must trigger switches in order to open doors.
Again, by removing the need to trigger something, you’re taking away another level of potential frustration for someone. Which is a good thing.
The player must avoid enemies.
Its a simple task indeed to create a level without any enemies. There’s nothing stopping you from making the entire basis of the easier skill level just collecting objects or negotiating your way through the maze - the enemies don’t need to be there.
The player must negotiate a maze of sorts to get around the screen.
You can just as easily strip the entire maze from the screen and reduce the game down to just collecting items if need be. There’s nothing to say that the easy skill level requires the maze to be there, after all.
The player has a set amount of lives in order to do this.
You could always take away the need for lives entirely, and no - I don’t necessarily mean add a health bar, I mean add an infinite lives mode - something where the player can roam and explore the game in its entirety without being punished too harshly.
So, from breaking the game elements down and then listing what can potentially be removed from the game for an easier skill level, you’ll find that for the majority of games - there’s nothing which can’t be removed or adjusted.
“But, but, then its not the same game” I hear you cry. And that brings me round to the point I’m trying to get across.
In order to begin to open up more games to being accessible, to a certain degree - you have to discard your idea of what constitutes a game. All of the changes and amendments I’ve listed in suggestion to the game above can be implemented with little change on the engine side of things, I’m not for a second suggesting that all of them have their place in every single game but bear in mind, please - that every one of these features you strip away in your game can and will make a difference as to wether somebody can play it.
Yes, as games players and designers - we expect things to be a certain way, after all we have over 30 years of gaming heritage thats made things this way. Tried, tested, sealed and delivered. We approach things a certain way during the games creation process because to a degree - we have preconceptions of how a game should play.
Move away from the idea that “these changes fundamentally break the game” as your normal skill level is not affected by these changes. Your vision of your game remains intact - but with a little effort and time spent on creating different modes you’re widening your market and the potential audience for the game.
Its so easy to do once you begin to break things down, and the more people that open up their games to more people - the more chance we have of stripping away the barriers and letting more people enjoy games…
…and thats what we all want, really, isn’t it?
Stripping Away The Barriers #2
If you take any game created in the past 20 or 30 years and analyse it then you can reduce the game to its raw elements with ease. After all, any game is a number of simple idea’s that all interlink to form the final “game”.
Quoting from Hitm4n again, here - referring to Kastle Kumquat, a remake of an old Amiga shareware game by the same author as the excellent Keith Goes Painting:
Its a top down, run around jumping over lava and collecting fruits game. walking on switches, opening doors and progressing. Very much like alien breed without the aliens.
This game has enemies in but they have set paths and speeds. The player must learn these paths and find their route past them, or time it right and run like hell. There are instances in the game where the player must jump in between 2 enemies that move at the players walk speed and follow them round a path, then jump out at the end to get a key.
Ok, so there’s our concept - now lets strip it down.
You control a player that can move in 4 directions - up,down,left and right.
The player can jump to negotiate hazards.
The player must collect items in order to progress to the next stage.
The player must trigger switches in order to open doors.
The player must avoid enemies.
The player must negotiate a maze of sorts to get around the screen.
The player has a set amount of lives in order to do this.
Now, in combination and with a little bit of design trickery on the level structure - thats really all there is to Kastle Kumquat. You can break any game down in a similar manner with barely a few minutes of thought.
I’m sure it doesn’t take a genius to see where I’m heading with this either 
Now, as I stated earlier - the game will be constructed with a fully able bodied player in mind - therefor, in combination, all these elements are good things in a well designed game. However, in considering making our game more accessible - we have to forget for a moment everything that we take for granted in designing and constructing a game. Whats easy for you or I is not necessarily easy for someone else. Its not about the difference between Ikaruga and Space Invaders - its in part about what you can physically achieve with a level of comfort. And this is where all the rules go out of the window.
What we’re considering here is a very literal reading of the term “skill level” where your normal game remains intact, but for an easier skill level we take a sideways approach and tear it all up.
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