Retro Remakes 2008 Competition
[I'm cross posting this from RR btw so apologies if this shows up twice in some folks readers]
Hello, just a quick post to let everyone know that come September we’ll be launching The Official 2008 Retro Remakes Competition. Yes, I know I said “never again” about 400 times but the truth is, I miss them when they’re not around. So I’m going to make a serious mental note that when the time comes at the end of this competition and I’m short on hair to say “ok, well that’s out the way till the next time…”
As usual, we won’t be revealing too much in the way of details until September 1st when the rules go live. This goes for time limits, prizes and the whole gubbins. It’s all top secret until then.
We’ve already got a nice prize pool building up with part of the top prize being something rather quite special indeed (we’ve got two of them actually, but that’s by the by), and we’re (well, Caff is) hard at work trying to make the prizes even better than last time.
If you’re a kind application developer, a generous shareware author, a magazine publisher, a games publisher, run an online store of some variety or you think you’ve got something you fancy throwing into the prize pot (or you know someone who just might) then please, drop Caff a line (tck BANANA tcksoft.co.uk - removing the fruit and replacing with an at sign, obviously). We get a ruck of press coverage during competition times with crazy traffic to match, you get a lovely spot on the sponsors page in every single game that comes out of the competition as well as a permanent spot on our competition pages with a click through to your site. More importantly, you get our eternal love, affection and thanks. Just think of the rapture that could bring all by itself.
Last time, the good folks round these parts managed to not only write an absolute ruck of fantastic games, but also came out with the most accessible game outside of academia. Who knows what sort of brilliant madness will emerge from this years? I don’t, but I’m sure as heck looking forward to finding out.
Zombies, Cows and a Sponge…
It seems bizarrely compulsory that when you mention adventure games you drift off into a lament about the loss of classic Lucasarts style adventures to the mainstream. Given that you can get this sort of meander anywhere, I’ve made a conscious decision to try and skilfully negotiate the issue wherever possible.
Not Dead
Anyone with the slightest bit of nouse will be aware that whilst the mainstream may avoid such things, peeking its head overground is a whopping community of folks that keep the adventurers dream alive. From Inform (which I briefly began tinkering with last year to a medium amount of success before getting bored), Wintermute (it’s not all Limbo Of The Lost from the Wintermute community) and AGS there’s never any shortage of adventuring to be done. But I’ll be honest, I’m lazy and rely on second hand opinions before checking an adventure game out normally. The time investment required is generally more than I have to give of recent times. I have no doubt that I’m missing out on some minor masterpieces along the line, but thems the ways of the world.
However, there’s days when you just need a damn good laugh and that’s something I fear most arcade games or major titles fail to manage. It’s not generally their reason to exist. Given I’ve hit the wall at the moment, (That point in the year where everything seems to require more effort than I have in me. I’m sure most creative folks get it from time to time and can sympathise with how frustrating it is when you hit it. Even pixelling a 32×32 sprite becomes a chore and nothing seems to be quite right.) I really desperately needed a good hard guffaw to lift my spirits.
Well, thank fuck for Mr Gibbage himself, Dan Marshall, who’s just launched his rather spanking looking new place over at Zombie Cow Studios and dropped two new games for the public to drag their scraggly eyes over. (And dropped the price of Gibbage to a whopping three of your Earth pounds). Ok, so only one of these games is actually funny unless you happen to have a bizarre sense of humour that finds block dropping games hilarious, but that’s not the point here. For the first time in a very long time, I laughed long and hard whilst playing a game. Repeatedly.
Put that where?
The game in question is Ben There, Dan That. I’ll confess that when I first heard about the game, I was worried it may have turned out as one of the most solopsistic concepts ever, a game by Dan and compadre Ben about well, you can work that out for yourself, no? I’m very glad to say that it didn’t turn out to be the case beyond the odd knowing nod near the start and BTDT is filled with accessible and piss funny jokes from the offset. The first puzzle alone makes it worth the entrance fee. (Which incidentally, is nowt).
Having left the game around the 3/4 mark yesterday to watch the MS E3 conference (nothing to do with being mildly stumped by one puzzle at all, oh no) I’d already had more than one persons fair share of enjoyment out of the game and I’m quite looking forward to finishing it all off today. I’m already missing my dimension jumping antics and share of snidey match 3 quips.
I can’t in all honesty claim that the puzzles are entirely logical, but there’s enough foreshadowing and sprinkling of clues around the place to ensure that you’re never left in the dark for too long. The spritely dialogue and interaction between the two heroes is enough to stave off any boredom or frustration regardless. There appears to be very little in the way of interactions or possible combinations that the authors haven’t accounted for, there’s a response to pretty much everything you try and do.
I’d say more, but I really don’t wish to spoil the game for you, dear readers, but I will say this much. If you fail to raise a smile at the encounter with the Vicar and subsequent comments about said encounter, you’re officially dead inside. That is all.
So I’ll just leave you with that link again for you to go and investigate the game yourself.
That E3 Thing Part One
And so as everyone and their wife will know, the Microsoft E3 conference was held yesterday and tonight (for us UK’ers) brings us the Sony and Nintendo double whammy.
Truth be told, I found it more than a little disappointing. I know that press conferences and E3 especially are likely to bring out hives upon even the least cynical of people, but every year I go into these things with the vain hope that perhaps something will appear that really feels like it’ll set the world on fire.
I know, I know, it’s an incredibly naive take on things but you can’t take a guys hope away from him can you?
Spectacular and desperate?
Yesterdays Microsoft conference, to my eyes at least, felt more like an exercise in disruption rather than consolidation. Which whilst no doubt good from a marketing perspective, leaves little old me, the end user and casual observer of the market left wanting. There were surprisingly little in the way of surprises pulled out of the bag, and the ones that were launched with a tacky fanfare of faux sincerity and appreciation mean so little to me as to barely register on the meh scale.
Whilst the internet goes into meltdown over the already anticipated FFXIII coming to the 360 (such a predictable presentation which anyone with half a brain could have called the instant a Square Enix spokesman appeared at the close of the conference) I’m left sitting here, looking back over what was announced for all and sundry and considering what, if anything, of substance was dragged out.
There was a wave of worry spreading across the internet after someone announced on a rando news site somewhere that the Microsoft conference would be, and I quote here: “interesting, partly spectacular and a bit desperate”. Whilst the intertits got itself into a tangle over what that could actually mean (motion controllers, blu-ray add on, the usual candidates…) I’d manage to quietly forget the post was ever made. Until sitting there and watching the conference that is, where the quote came back to haunt me on frequent occasions.
You see, it wasn’t one “interesting, partly spectacular and a bit desperate” act the quote was obviously referring to but the entire conference and it’s not that wide of the mark. The first segment of the conference meandered along in a predictable manner as the big guns got rolled out. Fallout 3 seemed to be shown off a little early, the trailers providing far more entertainment than the game does right now. Fable 2 looked nice enough, Gears Of War 2 as predictable as you’d expect from a company that only knows how to make games with big guns - the only saving grace being that I could swear I actually spotted a bit of colour in this one. Resident Evil 5 looks like Resident Evil 4 only set in Africa and with slightly shinier graphics.
Pete’s Dog
Molyneux’s dog aside, the highlight of the first segment came from the rather neat co-op system employed in Fable II. The little glowing orbs that represent where people in your friends list are located in the game is one of those gobsmackingly simple innovations (from a user point of view, not a coders) that you wonder why it’s not been present in more games before now.
After we’d gone through the exclusive gameplay video’s for each of these games, things started to take what I could politely describe as “a turn for the weird”. We got some bizarrely fudged figures to remind you that a) videogames are bigger than God and b) the Xbox 360 will sell more units than the PS3 (quick, shuffle the Wii under the carpet chaps) and c) one billion dollars spent on XBLA. Which is a fair old amount of money being shuffled around.
My first reaction to c was this: “That’s enough money to fix the dashboard innit?”. Luckily, not 5 minutes later it appears that yes, yes, it is enough money to fix the dashboard. We’re getting coverflow with avatars as a new dash. Which is nice because I happen to like coverflow. The avatars not so much. From the brief glimpse we were given, it looks like the new dashboard is going to be infinitely easier to navigate and enable me to find games I’ve bought and find some games that are on sale not lost to their awful current system. I’m not sorry to bring this up again but the reasons for delisting titles just got ever so much smaller than before…
Naturally, rather than focus on the fact that the dashboard unveiling is something absolutely required to fix something that’s been broken for far too long, we get a shift onto the uses of the new avatar system. A “Home Lite” party system for sharing media, games and chat, a few bizarre quiz show games courtesy of a deal with Endemol (oh, how I can’t wait for these, they sound brilliant!*), Uno with avatars… yes, this is the point where the quote bounced around my head and refused to budge. By the time they were showing off Codemasters’ absolute abomination of “You’re In The Movies” both the part of me that likes “proper” games and the part of me that loves the increasing inclusiveness of the market for all types of gamers were crying like a baby who’s just been injected with a near lethal dose of smack.
Luckily, before they got round to inflicting some people making utter pillocks of themselves on stage, we were “treated” to a glimpse of the new Galaga game and Geometry Wars RE 2, both of which looked pretty darn fine. Worryingly though, these appeared to be the only focus on “arcade gaming” from the XBLA line up. Whether this is down to a conscious choice to play the disruption game and state MS intent on invading the casual space or is a sign that arcade gaming is at best a secondary concern for XBLA now, only time will tell. Judging by the recent XBLA output, I’m fearing the latter may be the case.
Bring out the horse
My eyes began to glaze over for the closing half of the conference. The news that Dylan is coming to Guitar Hero depresses me more than the Pistols ever did, having the downloaders friends Metallica inflict their dirge upon the world via a music game makes me sad and I laughed heartily when they announced that there was an exclusive track from Axl Roses remnants of G’n'R being released before the Duke Nukem Forever of albums that is “The Chinese Democracy”. The biggest crime, and one for which I will never forgive Microsoft was inflicting that horsey bint Duffy on me in the middle of a press conference.
If I were king, first up against the wall, don’t get me started, Bernard Butler should know better etc…
And so, as things were wrapped up, we were left with a slurring bloke from Square Enix who if I ever find myself suffering from insomnia again will gladly invite round for a chat to deliver the barely hidden megaton of a Final Fantasy game coming to the 360. One in the eye for Sony, but hardly any great shakes for the rest of the non JRPG playing universe (that’ll be me, me and probably just me then…)
With the footage of Final Fantasy FMV XIII complete, the quote still buzzing around my head, I was left wondering just one thing. Where was the “partly spectacular” element?
*Sarcasmotron stolen from Bill at The2Bears.
Links Round Up
Back once again with the renegade linkmaster, or something to that effect anyway. Once again, a little semi irregular meant to be regular look on stuff that’s taken my interest this past week or so. And, more usefully, finally pushing the “testing” post off the front page…
Busy,busy,busy
Cor lummy. Plenty doing at the moment and little time to do owt else. Caff is currently collecting sponsors for the 2008 RR competition, so I don’t have to worry about that side of things for a while. Got a few things in the works here at Bob Towers which are toddling along slowly but surely, so rather than witter too much here’s some pictures and stuff:
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