Slow Times
Ich, it would seem time still isn’t on my side at the moment. Managing to cram a couple of hours a day into RR, about half an hour a night into development stuff and fiddling with another site so it’s pretty news free grimness around the ol’ Mersey Remakes parts right now.
To cut a long story short, I’ve got some blood tests on Friday where the only box not ticked on the form is for pregnancy stuff (I know I may be many things, but pregnant? Definitely not!) - so hopefully I’ll be able to get this sorted soon enough and crack back on as normal. Pretty bored of feeling under the weather, to be honest. I don’t do idle well.
Anyway, I’ve been amusing myself with a couple of things when time allows. Taking a short break from G-Force as I need to be in the right mindset to work on it, instead I’ve been toying with a little project called Mega Arcadian.
Way back in the midsts of the eighties, there was a game called Arcadia. There’s lots of remakes of Arcadia around, but I’ve always wanted to have a go myself (see also: Transversion), but I didn’t want to do a like for like remake. Ovine have already covered the Vic20 version perfectly, PeeJay and Dan of Dan’s Remakes have the Speccy corner taken. Time to put my own twist upon it, with a little idea from my compadre Mr Smila - I’ve been fuckmelding it with the Atari2600 game Megamania and a hefty dose of my own dark magicks.
You can see a video of it in action, as it currently stands here. It’s still a bit bare bones and rough around the edges, but I’m happy with how it’s coming together. It’s a pity there’s no GM for the Mac as of yet as I wouldn’t have to be sitting at the computer to tinker. Of course, it also remains to see just how well YYG will port it across and whether there’ll be cross compatibility. For some strange reason, I’m not entirely convinced there will be, but ever the hopeful.
As well as slowly tinkering with MA, I’ve been having a bit of fun. Prompted by Happy Monster/Rich posting an awful video review on the RR forums - we decided to see if we could possibly do worse. For my part in this charade, I adopted the most godawful of scouse accents, made some shit up and reviewed a couple of Speccy games badly. Every video I made is filled with blatant lies, untruths and incompetency. So no different to most video reviews! T’was fun though - and you can see all the results listed over on the RR mainsite.
And finally, I’ve heard rumours that there’s a split EP in the works that I may have contributed too… but I’m saying nowt about that until I’ve finished my third and final contribution to it.
Other than that, I’ve really got to get back to ever versatile and wonderous Gnome with some final answers to a Q&A (sorry mate!) and make sure Gary finishes off his top sekrit project (currently titled Pixxey) that rumour has it after receiving SFX for earlier this afternoon from an employee of a certain UK-centric game firm that may have made games that were brilliant(tm) in the Eighties, Gary found himself being mailed levels from members of their staff towards it. Don’t you people have coding to do?
Oh, and Rez is out on XBLA in the morning. 9am can’t come fast enough…
Earth Defence Force 2017 (360)
You know the problem with a lot of games, dear readers? They go out of their way to pretend they’re not actually games.
Whilst budgets soar into the stratosphere, sandbox worlds to play around in get bigger, plots get thicker and more complex and developers stroke their beards figuring out the best ways to utilise every single button on the controller, whilst they ponder whether the budget can stretch to getting Patrick Stewart in to narrate whilst the player cubs rats indiscriminately or whether they’ll have to get David Duchovney in again for 50p and a Crunchie Bar, with the emphasis firmly placed on creating artificial worlds to immerse yourself within it’s easy to forget the roots of gaming.
Now, I’m one for a fine story as much as the next man. Sometimes I want to lose myself in a game world, perhaps explore an underwater kingdom such as Rapture, perhaps put myself in the shoes of a silent scientist mishandling a crowbar. I know some of you readers even enjoy pretending to be a Level 28 Orc (bless your souls) but sometimes, y’know - I just want to have some fun. Like gaming used to be before we lost track of what’s really important.
If I were to write down the things you’ll see in EDF on paper, it sounds epic. A giant alien mothership hovers over a Japanese city, unleashing hordes of giant insects, robots taller than buildings, dropships hover over the skyline as masses of spacecraft swarm amongst the clouds devastating the surrounding cityscape, cyborg creatures stomp amongst tower blocks their metal feet rocking the Earth below. It all sounds oh so terribly exciting doesn’t it? Well, it is. Very much so.
There’s a catch, of course. Sandlot Games (the developers) evidently didn’t even have enough money or stray chocolate lying around amongst their production budget to even afford David Duchovney. Rather than wallow in low budget hell, they’ve played to their strengths and created one of the silliest, most hilarious and crucially fun gaming experiences one could ask for. And at a stupidly low price too. EDF 2017 is the epitomy of a b-game and it’s all the better for it.
The genius of EDF lies in not what it doesn’t or can’t do - you could form a list a mile long of wonky “features” within the game, but if you’re the sort of person who dwells upon perfection within a game world, requires things to interact as though they would in the real world or to make even the remotest bit of logical sense - I suggest you stop reading now because EDF is obviously your worst nightmare. The AI would politely be called dumb, the physics laughable (no, really laughable - not in a metaphorical sense), the plot verging on non-existent, the camera cuts off at points in the game to focus on action elsewhere but leaves the player completely in control of everything but the camera, there are times when things slow to a crawl, the items left lying around by the alien swarms are 2d within a 3d world… yet, there isn’t a point in the game where you’ll want to stop playing because of them. If you really can’t cope with its quirks, I humbly suggest that you are, to all intents and purposes, dead inside.
EDF is fun with a capital FUCK YEAH. It’s the Spinal Tap of gaming, the sort of game where ten is just never enough, it always has to be one louder. Why bother having the player attacked by five enemies when you can throw one hundred at them? Explosions? EDF has them by the bucket full, so much so that at times it feels like being at the epicentre of a nuclear blast. Everything in EDF is big and incredibly silly.
Giant ants? Check. Giant bouncing spiders? Check. Big fuck off motherfucking big robots with big fuck off motherfucking big lasers? Check. Big motherfucking mothership with more lasers than you’ve ever seen before in your life? Check. Big fuck off mecha-Godzilla beast with a big fuck off tail? Check.
Weapons? EDF has around one hundred and eighty of the things! We got guns, big motherfucking guns, guns that spit acid, guns that roast the enemies to the core, shotguns, grenades, grenade launchers, rocket launchers, multiple rocket launchers,turrets, bombs, sniper rifles - you name it, we got it.
Tired of going on foot? How about a helicopter? Tank? Airbike with a machine gun? Mech suit with lots of motherfucking guns? Sir can take his pick.
You may think that perhaps the developers are compensating for something, given everything in the game is big - and you’d be right. They’re compensating for 30 years of gradually sucking the life and the fun out of gaming by bringing it back in spades. Big spades. Big motherfucking spades, at that.
Earth Defence Force 2017 is the bastard spawn of Robotron, Rampage, Serious Sam, Independence Day, Starship Troopers, Terminator and fuck knows what else and by the time you reach the Mothership to bring the son of a bitch down, you’ll have mown down thousands upon thousands of enemies in a sea of green goo and massive explosions. You’ll have smiled so hard your face will hurt, and then you’ll get down to business of trying to see through the masses of lasers to save the Earth from this alien menace the EDF have called “Ravagers”. And when you’re done, you’ll want to go back and do it all over again - because it doesn’t stop being fun.
EDF is a very silly game. It’s also glorious. More games should be like EDF.
To pay or to not pay?
With mega thanks to Dylan who surprised me by firing across a copy of the beta for Audiosurf for the beta weekend, I’ve just had an immensely fun time “riding” my music collection over the past couple of days in a more featured environment than the public beta that’s available. (Oh go me, I typed my email in a box on a website and got sent a file, I’m so special).
Now, whilst I’ve done plenty of private beta testing in the past, some for projects that haven’t seen the light of day and really should, some for games that have been a bit mup and some that have been spanktabulous, I’ve never really been part of anything that could be remotely classed as a public or open beta test before - so aside from the pleasure of getting to put Audiosurf through its paces, the whole experience of seeing how the general public react to such things was pretty new to me.
Now despite the fact that I shouldn’t be shocked, after all I’ve been on the internet long enough now that I should have a grasp on just about every facet of the human character there is, but there was a suprisingly vocal group of people posting on the forums that really, truly surprised me. I’d like to make it abundantly clear at this point, of course, that this is, as ever - a minority of people.
For those too lazy to click the link to the game and require me to fill in the blanks, Audiosurf is a rather darned nice racer-come-Klax hybrid that generates the tracks and collectibles according to the music that’s pumped into it. It’s also going to be shareware. Obviously, this is not a bad thing. Although reading through some of the comments from this vocal group of folks (I call them a group, they’re not really a group but a bunch of seperate idiots who just happen to post on the same forum) you wouldn’t actually believe that to be the case.
The general consensus from these group of fucknuckles is that in daring to even consider charging for the game, the developers are wrongheaded from the start.
Now, my stance on selling remakes is something I’ve made very clear in the past. I don’t believe it’s something that ethically should be done. It’s not your work from the off and you’re profiting from someone elses game design, someone elses hard work etc… and unless you’re going to chuck in a few quid to the original developers, then you’re a bit (a lot) wrong. Plus, of course, in keeping remakes free over at RR then we generally garner more good favour with the original authors. Not always, but as a rule.
On the other hand, selling your own work? Why should I have any problem with that? And that goes for both Indie and mainstream titles.
What truly boggles me though, is the reasoning, the justifications and the attitude that accompanies this groups spoutings. This can be broken down into four distinct trains of thought (some of which may overlap depending on just how much of a spanner the poster in question is).
1. You are an indie developer. You don’t deserve to be paid for your time. I’ll pay £40 to Valve, but not to you.
How do you come round to this way of thinking? I write games - I know how much sweat and blood it can take to get something polished and simple out the door. Most of my friends make games or have made games. Some do it for shits and giggles, some do it for money - I’m happy to say that all my friends also make games for the love of it no matter which camp they fall into. So maybe it’s because I have a vested interest in the scene and I know the work involved that it’d never occur to me. To tell the truth though, it wouldn’t occur to me prior to ever becoming involved in making and promoting games.
I can’t wrap my head around why paying faceless corporation x is more deserving than indie developer y. I’ve seen it argued that the indie developer may not have the production budget a mainstream company would have, so therefor they should just give the game away. Obviously, even five seconds of stopping and thinking about this makes it more of a logical fallacy than the recently touted around the internet ‘Undertow points scam’*
2. I would pay $x for this but no more.
Ok, I actually find this one quite offensive. Not so much because it’s someone setting a financial limit they could afford to pay, but that its used as some sort of leverage against a game maker.
Let me make this abundantly clear if you’re one of the folks who has come out with this before now. It is not your decision. As the creator of works, I reserve the right to set what I see as fit compensation for my time. It is absolutely 100% my choice on the price I charge. It is my decision. Equally, it is your decision to vote with your wallet if you think that my decision is wrong.
Currently, I give all my games away for free. I’ve even wrote games for other people for free and refused hard cold cash in the past. But if I were to choose to offer a game that I had created (see previous remake caveat above) for a price, then you do not have a say in this. The choice you have is simple - you either buy or you don’t buy. The only way it becomes a bartering system is if I choose to offer the work on a bartering system (the Saul Williams/NIN/Radiohead ethic, if you will).
You see, I have two distinct things that go through my mind after playing a demo of an Indie game. I either wish to buy it or I don’t. Very often, I’ll click through with little regard for the price at the end (unless it’s something insane, but that’s thankfully incredibly rare in the Indie scene) because I *want* that game. I’ve already made my mind up. What I don’t sit there and think is “well, that game will last me 2 hours, so 2 hours of my time compared to 40 gazillion hours on commercial title number 12 means that game is worth approximately, oooh, 75p” because that’s a horrid mindset. Sure, I’ve gurned at the price of a few titles before now, but that’s been primarily down to being skint and ill able to afford them. In which case, well, I wait until I can. (Alright, there was one distinct occasion where I went to buy a game, didn’t have enough money in my Paypal account and then forgot about it for two years, but that’s by the by. I bought it in the end ;))
What I don’t do is go find the forum the developer is on and tell him his game is worth seventy five pence to me, because that’s fucking insulting. And if you truly think it’s not worth it - vote with your wallet, not your mouth.
3. I can get completely incomparable game x for free, your game should be free too.
To which I have the simple answer - fucking go and get game x then. If you don’t need the work someone has created because you think there’s something similar and better for free, welcome to the wonderful world of consumerism. Go and get the free one and be content. If it’s that special, you won’t miss developers game y whilst you’re having fun with incomparable game x will you?
4. Give it to me for free, or I’ll take it anyway.
I bet you’ve all seen this one before anyway, but it doesn’t get any less special as time goes on. You know, the anonymous little cockknocker hiding behind his internet connection who, when told “no, this game isn’t free” turns right back and says “Hah, well I’ll just use a keygen and get it for free anyway!”.
Right, smart tactic there. Obviously every dev who has ever heard this argument instantly turns round, their pants full of shit at the prospect of losing a sale to someone who isn’t going to pay for the game and rummages through their hard drive to give a free copy to this person right away. I mean, god forbid you’d use a keygen. Anything but the keygen. Won’t somebody think of the children?
Now, I don’t even want to head into the piracy argument here, it’s boring and I couldn’t give a shit, truth be told. No, what really annoys me about this is the attitude that a) dick for brains stating this as some sort of threat believes that he has all the cards in his hands and any developer when faced with such a terrifying proposition will instantly crumble and b) the idea that they can somehow bend and manipulate the world through threats to get what is their alleged divine right to own.
You just know that it’s some scrawny little shit who wouldn’t say boo to a goose on the other end of the keyboard, if someone even dared them to run off with a penny sweet from a shop they’d fill their pants faster than the time it takes for them to call someone a fag in Halo 3. And they’re probably aged about six and a half. Mentally, that is.
It’s already been established that you’re not going to buy the game, you want it given to you. That’s not going to happen, so why even bother wasting your time typing such gutrot onto the internet unless you seriously think it is a threat? Here’s the news, there’s only one person who comes out of that sort of argument looking like a nobber 
Rebellion just aint what it was in my day, I’ll tell you.
Anyway, enough of the ranting I guess. I’ll end by saying that Audiosurf is fucking brilliant and despite having an internal wrestling match within my brain between it and Clean Asia, riding my tunes won out on the public vote. Sorry Cactus, I still love you.
Oh, and when MFOR is ready for beta testing - the general public can fuck right off.
*What you do is you buy Undertow now for 800 points, then when Microsoft put it out for free this week, you ring up tech support and get the 800 points back. The result of this is that you get Undertow for free and have 800 points to spend on a game of your choice. Quite possibly the worst scam ever if you even stop and think about it for a millisecond.
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