There a few topics I've been wanting to post about for a while but I've been
putting them off because I wanted to change the software for this site to
organize them differently.
For example, Maya tips. I wanted to have a page about Maya tips (I do here) but on my current system, if I add a new tip to that page no headline appears
on the front page. There's no indication that anything was updated.
So, for a couple of years now I've wanted to add to my blog software that
ability but I've finally decided I'm not going to add it. Instead I'll just
post each tip separated and make a new category. That's the more obvious way to
do it.
So I finally finished Twilight Princess. I only actually play around 3 games a
year. Last November I played Gears of War and since then this is the first game
I've played. (looking at a demo does not count) I fully enjoyed it, I love the
Zelda series but, in the end I thought it was one of the weaker Zeldas. I'd
probably rank them
Ocarina Of Time (N64)
Wind Waker (GC)
Link to the Past (SNES)
Links Awakening (GB)
Majora's Mask (N64)
Twilight Princess (Wii/GC)
The Legend of Zelda (NES)
I didn't really get into any of the others like 4 Swords or The Minish Cap or
Oracle of Ages / Oracle of Seasons
At the time I did some analysis of the NPD sales data for games in the USA. The
results were interesting. First of all I removed sports. Pretty much
universally sports require a license. There are so few exceptions as to not be
worth mentioning. At the same time, if you are not making a sports game then
the fact that sports games require licenses (cars, teams, logos) has nothing to
do with a non−sports game so it's not useful to include those in the same
analysis IMO.
While I was working on Locoroco my last task was to create the Loco House and
Loco Editor mini−games. They are basically mini level editors.
Locoroco the game uses a signal system based system for the majority of its
setups. What that means is using very simple objects that send and or receive
signals the designers then connect them in creative ways to make the game. A
simple example is you might have a switch that has two output signals
"out_pressed" and "out_released". You might
also have a door that has two input signals "in_open" in
"in_close". If you connect switch.out_pressed to
door.in_open then pressing the switch will open the door.
Let's say the designers ask for a new type of door that after it has been
opened, closes after 5 seconds. Instead of actually making a new kind of door
or adding options to the existing door we just given them a timer object that
when it receives a signal sends another signal a settable amount of time later.
As you can see above, when the switch is pressed it will tell the door to open
but at the same time it will tell a 5 second timer to start. 5 seconds later
the timer will tell the door to close.
Using small objects like this most setups in the game were created. For each
feature a designer wants we figure out what kind of simple objects we could
give them to make that possible. In this way we get lots of flexibility. In the
original Tokyo Game Show version from September 2005 even the scales that tell
you "15 LocoRoco Required" were made this way. Using 5 objects of
only 3 types
Type 1: An object that places an animation when it receives a signal "in_start" and loops on another animation until it receives the signal "in_stop" and then plays a final animation.
One was set to play the sign that says "15 LocoRoco Required". The start animation has it appear, the loop animation has it floating, the final animation has it disappear.
Another was set to play an animation the lowers the scale. The start animation has it just sitting there. The next animation plays it moving down.
Yet another was set to play an animation that opens the door to the bonus area.
Type 2: An invisible area object the counts locoroco to a settable number. In this case 15. It sends 3 types of signals
no locoroco inside the area to some locoroco inside the area sends "out_some"
some locoroco inside the area to the required number or more sends "out_full"
some locoroco inside the area to no locoroco inside the area sends "out_empty"
Type 3: A object that plays a sound when it gets a signal.
Can you figure out how to connect them to get it work?
Anyway, originally I wanted to put the ability to use some of those features
into the Loco Editor for players to use. I actually put that feature into the
Loco Editor but I could tell the director had kind of forgotten about it. Even
though I had showed it to him working he was way too busy to give it any time
to fully plan out and after a couple of months of him never mentioning it again
I could tell he had forgotten about it.
Since I knew we were short on time I figured if I brought it up he'd tell
me flat out "there's no time so let's cut it". So, instead I
decided just not to ask. I also felt if I left it in as is the testers would
find it and again I'd be told "take it out" so I decided
"You know what? I'm going to hide it behind a code and just not say
anything".
So, in the shipping LocoRoco there is the ability to edit signals in your own
levels. Here's how you do it.
First, get yourself to the Loco Editor. From the Menu screen pick Mini Games
and then pick the last game
Once in go to the System Menu by pressing Square
To enter a code you have to hold L+R (the top buttons). The codes work like this
A = Triangle (because A looks like a triangle)
T = Triangle
O = Circle (because an O is a circle)
C = Circle
S = Square
X = X
L = Left on d-pad
R = Right on d-pad
U = Up on d-pad
D = Down on d-pad
While holding L+R enter the code RADCATLOCOROCO. If you enter it correctly you
should here a small sound. Exit the System Menu and go into the Parts Menu.
Scroll to the end and you should see these parts
You can place them like normal parts. To connect signals, go back to the Parts
Screen but this time press Select. You'll go back to editing the level but
this time you're editing signals.
To connect a signal click an out circle then move your pointer to an in circle
and click again (see below for the bad news). To disconnect a signal click
anywhere along the arrow. It will disconnect and attach itself to your pointer.
Connect it to something else or press X to delete it.
The parts are as follows:
Signal Part Table
#
Part
In
Out
Description
241
Switch
X
Sends an out signal the first time a locoroco hits it.
242
Short Fruit
X
X
Grows when it receives a signal, sends one when eaten
243
Tall Fruit
X
X
Grows when it receives a signal, sends one when eaten
244
Tall Invisible Fruit
X
X
Insivible fruit, Appears when it receives a signal, sends one when eaten
245
Short Invisible Fruit
X
X
Insivible fruit, Appears when it receives a signal, sends one when eaten
246
Two
X
X
Sends a signal after it receive 2 signals
247
Bug
X
Sends a signal when taken
248
Timer 1
X
X
After receiving a signal waits 1/6 of a second then sends a signal
249
Timer 2
X
X
After receiving a signal waits 1/2 of a second then sends a signal
250
Timer 3
X
X
After receiving a signal waits 1 second then sends a signal
251
CW Door
X
X
After receiving a signal turns 90 degrees clockwise then sends a signal
252
CCW Door
X
X
After receiving a signal turns 90 degrees counter clockwise then sends a signal
253
Shrinker
X
X
After receiving a signal turns shrinks then sends a signal
254
Grower
X
X
After receiving a signal turns grows then sends a signal
That's the good news now for some of the not so good news.
One problem was that because this was secret I couldn't get input from the entire team about what kinds of objects we should put into to it. What I had suggested originally when I told them how the signal editing worked was that they should make almost ALL the parts work with signals. Parts like the letters A-Z could send a signal when they are touched, parts like the wind could take a signal to turn them on or off, etc... Unfortunately they didn't do that so none of the 156 original parts have been connected to signals.
Another was that we were out of memory in the level editor. 156 parts available take a lot of memory. That meant there wasn't a lot of room for fancy parts nor was there room for icons. That's why there are only 14 parts I was able to add.
Yet another issue was trying not to get caught. The tools that build the data would print status messages about what they built so I had to fix them so they wouldn't print those messages for my secret parts lest someone see them and start asking questions.
And, finally I had to find a way to hide the codes so the testers wouldn't find them. They actually found a clue once. The code used to be entered on the Parts Screen if you held L+R. While the code was being entered the other buttons didn't work. They flagged that as a bug "buttons must work even with L+R pressed". For a moment I thought maybe I could just say "by design" but then I thought if I didn't fix that the lead programmer would fix it and in doing so he'd see the secret code part of the program. So, I moved the place you enter the codes somewhere else and hoped they wouldn't notice.
The biggest issue though is that none of it was ever tested and so there are
bugs.
Bug #1:
You only get 1 of part #254. Enter the code again to get another.
Bug #2: (Japanese, Korean, Chinese and European versions only)
You can get an arrow from any part and connect a signal to any part even of
that part is not suppose to support signals. (e.g., part #001) They
won't actually do anything.
Bug #3: (Japanese, Korean, Chinese and European versions only)
You can only connect 20 signals total. I suppose that wouldn't be a bug if
I didn't tell you about it but you should have been able to connect 500
like the USA version
Bug #4: (USA version only)
You can NOT pull out signals from parts 241 and 247. That's a BIG DEAL
because, you can't actually use any of the other parts unless they get a
signal and you can't get any parts to send signals to start it all off
except from parts 241 and 247. Fortunately there is a workaround. It's not
pretty but here it is.
unzip them and copy them to the correct place on your PSP memory stick. These
levels have a bunch of parts 241 and 247 already in them. Here's the deal.
You cannot NOT pull out new signals from those parts. What you can do is select
the signals already coming out of them and connect them to other parts.
So, here you have it.
While I'm at it here are a few more codes you can enter in the same way.
LOTSOLOCOROCOS
Adds 5 locorocos of each color to your Loco House.
ALLLOCOROCOS
gives you all the parts
ATTACLOCOROCOS
lets you use the 12 Special Loco Editor parts in Loco House (like the "toge")
SCALUDLOCOROCO
turns on scaling.
While placing objects, HOLD Select and use up / down on DPAD to scale objects. Not all objects scale and a few do visually but don't work (e.g. toge)
Note: this is one place were I probably disagreed with the director. The director pulled that feature because he didn't feel like explaining it to the user. He thought it would make the editor more confusing. Maybe he was right.
The next set of codes let you *cheat*. I guess technically so do some
of the ones above but I'd argue those ones let you have fun, the following
ones though, well, it's up to you if you want to use them. These ones are
entered from the World Map. You MUST select a level so you are on the
"Start? Yes / No" message.
Again, while HOLDING L+R the codes are
SLACRLOCOROCO
opens all stages
STARSLOCOROCO
gives you 10000 coins (so you can play the mini games)
ALLCOLORSLOCOROCO
gives you all the muimui
This will remove all muimui from all levels, since they will have all already been collected, but it will also open all the mini games, let you select all 6 colors of locoroco, and let you select all music in the Loco House and Loco Editor.
I suggest you use a different game save if you enter these codes.
Disclaimer: This page as absolutely NOTHING to do with Sony. I do NOT speak for
them or represent them in any way.
In my circle of friends there is this couple, David and Elly, that are among
the biggest game fans I know. To give you an idea, together they live in a 3
bedroom house. One room, the master bedroom is just that, their bedroom. Of the
other two bedrooms, one is Elly's game room, the other is David's game
room. Each of them have personal bookshelves of collections of games, nearly
every system that has ever come out, a large TV to play their games on and
their own PCs. On top of that they have 3 arcade cabinets and a projection TV
with more game systems connected to it in their living room.
So, sometime late in 2005 David announced he had asked Elly to marry him and
she said yes. The wedding was to be in April 2006. Our group has had a little
bit of a history of, um...., interesting birthday presents and so we got this idea that it would be really cool to surprise David and
Elly with their very own video game on their wedding day. Something that could
be presented at their wedding reception.
A group of about 11 of us met one day in December to discuss ideas for games.
Should we make a small adventure game? Should it be multi−player so they
could both play at the same time? Maybe it should just be a side scrolling
shooter or a simple platform game. Ultimately we decided on making a bunch of
simple mini games in the spirit of Wario Ware.
We brainstormed a bunch of simple game ideas including many raunchy ones that
we thought maybe we'd have to save for a special party without the
relatives although in the end we made just one version with relatively safe
themes.
We talked about which platform to make the game on. PSP was discussed but a PSP
game can't be shown to a crowd easily. My first thought was that it should
be a PC game because that's the easiest system to develop for. The problem
though with PCs is they are all different so making a game that runs on my home
PC doesn't mean that same game is going to run well on whatever PC we
manage to be able to bring to the reception.
Ultimately I made a simple cross platform library for PC and XBox. This allowed
me to create and test the game on the PC but it meant at the actual reception
all we would need was an XBox and since they are all the same we wouldn't
have to worry about performance or driver issues.
Hot Stack was the first person to deliver graphics to me. He gave me a set of
graphics for the game "Atkins Only". Each of the pieces of food and
the background as well as heads of David and Elly. I set out to get it to work
and it turned out to be quite a chore to figure out the positioning of all the
graphics. That is what prompted me to write the script I mentioned above.
Once that was working things started to go pretty fast. McWild started giving
me graphics very quickly and it generally took about 4 hours on my part to put
together each of the 13 games.
While I was working on that McWild was busy creating an opening and closing
video. He chose the theme of Donkey Kong seeing Elly as the Princess and David as
Mario and therefore wanting to stop the wedding. That prompted me to make the
title screen and progress screen to be Donkey Kong based. David and Elly would
alternate playing mini games. Each time they completed one their character
would move up the Donkey Kong level removing a peg until all the pegs were
removed and Donkey Kong would fall on his head letting them get married.
About 70% into creation we found out we would not be able to show the game at
the reception. We paniced having put so much work in already. Of course we
couldn't tell David and Elly what we were creating but we had tried to
arrange getting a projection TV setup at the reception and found out it was
basically impossible. Fortunately in Japanese culture it is common to have an
after party or nijikai (second party) after the reception which is generally
for friends v.s. the reception which is for family.
We talked to Elly's Uncle who was arranging the reception and visited the
place. It was prefect with a large room and a large projection TV on one wall
as well as connectors we could use to setup the XBox.
Even better, McWild, who is an amazing photographer and video editor was asked
directly by David and Elly to make something for the after party. This gave him
permission to go take a bunch of pictures and footage of them without them
knowing that we were going to use it for the game.
On the day of the wedding, David and Elly assumed we were going to show a video
and since the game started with a video they had no idea it would end on the
title screen of their very own custom game. McWild also had 2 wireless
controllers which made it perfect for them to be able to stand in front of the
big screen and play. According to sources, Elly didn't cry at her wedding
but she did cry when she saw the game. Apparently she was overwhelmed that we
had put so much effort into it.
Here then is a short version of some of the game being played at the after
party.
To be honest we were a little worried. Games are not everyone's thing and
we wondering if some of the other friends or family would be bored but to our
amazement and delight, everyone was super into it. They cheered on Elly and
David as they played and generally couldn't stop talking about it even
after it was over. 大成功!
As for the individual games, some games were meant for David to play, others
for Elly and a few for both.<h3>Atkins Only: (both)
This is a kind of like the opposite of Root Beer Tapper. Food comes out the doors on the right and slides down the counters to the
left. David or Elly must eat all the Atkins food and avoid the non Atkins food.
Both David and Elly were on the Atkins diet for a while.
Balance: (David only)
In real life David has 3 Xboxes (Elly has 2) so we though a game with him in
Akihabara balancing 3 Xboxes was kind of funny. Basically the game nudges the
boxes a little so you have to get past them on the opposite side of the way
they are leaning to get them to lean the other way. It's not that intuitive
and required quite a bit of balancing.
Bring It In / Make it Fit: (David only)
As I mentioned, David and Elly have 3 generic arcade cabinets in their living
room. The original idea for this game was that the door would stay still and
David, pulling in an arcade cabinet, would scale up from the back and he'd
have to make it into the door with almost the same controls as the Balance
game. I tried that first and it was incredibly boring.
The next try was instead to have David and the machine be a fixed size and have
him have to bring the machine in through receding doors. This gave it a much
more dynamic feel and made it much better.
Distract Elly: (David Only)
As I mentioned, Elly's a gamer and if fact she is arguably more of a gamer
than David so we came up with a simple game where it's David's job to
distract Elly from playing a game and get her to notice him.
The actual mechanics of the game are simple. David just has to press the A or B
buttons as fast as he can and get the meter up to the goal before his time runs
out. In the meantime we see him on the screen jumping around in front of Elly
in a Hard Gay suit trying to distract her.
Some highlights: if he gets the meter 80% of the way to the top Elly will
lookup from her game playing and the alert guard sound from MGS plays. If David
fails to get the meter up in time then Elly's says "つまらない。。。"
which means booooring...
One interesting thing is the game basically works by each time the button is
pressed a certain amount is added to the meter were as each frame of the game a
certain amount is subtracted. Both of those values are constant meaning
it's no harder to play at the beginning than the end but the rise in
tension of the music as well as the time running out make it seem like it's
really getting harder each moment it continues.
No Kusoge: (Both)
Kusoge is best translated as "Shitty Game". The basic idea was that 3
games appear. Two games are Kosuge, one game is a gem. The player has just a
moment to grab the good game or else some other game otaku gets his paws on it
and it's gone.
Unfortunately this was a hard game to understand. If you give the player too
much time it's way too easy. At the same time if you give them too little
time it's not enough for them to figure out which game is good. On top of
that, without knowing how to play the game before they start it is nearly
impossible to figure out as you only have about 1.5 seconds to choose.
Pick the Straight Guy: (Both)
This was a joke game. The faces of several members of our group were shown
composited over a gay bar scene from South Park and David or Elly, who's
ever turn it was had to try to pick the straight guy. Of course it turns out in
the end none of them are straight and
"P−O−W−N−D" is printed over the screen. As an
added bonus the music for this game is the theme song from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy
Pour the Sour: (Both)
This one also just barely worked. The idea was that you need to fill the glass
by moving it under the drink dispenser and filling it neither too full nor too
empty. It basically only worked because the first time either David or Elly
played they didn't know what to do. The second time they generally got it
right
You had to press to the right to put the glass under the tap nearly immediately
in order to have enough time to fill it but pull it out about 1/2 a second
before the time ran out in order not to over fill it.
Protect the Sausage: (David Only)
We have BBQ parties often and in this game David uses a spatula to fend off
people trying to grab the sausages. It gets faster and faster as the timer runs
down and if there are no sausages left by the end he loses.
The biggest problem with this game was with with spatula's irregular shape
as well as the irregular shapes of the friends' images it is hard to tell
what a hit is. We compensated by making the hit areas large and it seemed to be
playable.
Put the Ring On: (Both together)
This is the last game, after they have defeated Donkey Kong. All they have to
do is line up the two hands, they each control one, so that when the timer runs
out the hands will automatically go together and the ring will be on.
This was also the last game made and so it was a little too easy. All they had
to do was either press both controllers all the way to the top or all the way
to the bottom. A possibly slightly better solution would have been to offset
the ranges of both sides so they would have had to try just a little harder.
It's the only game they didn't fail once to see the failure display.
Spank Cormac's Age: (David Only)
While looking for images to use in the game McWild found two pictures of David
spanking Cormacaroni. He thought we had to put those in so this was a simple
game where every press of the button spanks once and the age count goes up.
What makes the game difficult is of course one, if you don't know the
correct age but more than that in order to actually get it to his age by the
time the timer runs out, 35 at the time, you have to press pretty dang fast but
you also have to be careful not to go over.
Squash The Roach: (Elly Only)
We often gather at a certain bar in Japan and Elly used to participate. That
is, until one day when she saw a roach in the bar. She's never came back
because she hates roaches so much and that was 3 years ago so we decided we had
to make a roach squishing game.
You use the controller to move a crosshair then press the button to make a foot
come down. What makes this game particularly hard is it takes moment for the
foot to come down during which time the roach will have moved.
T-Bag: (Elly Only)
Elly is an expert Halo player and in Halo one of the things you do when you
kill someone is stand over them and press the duck button to T−Bag them.
This game plays the same as the Distract Elly game above. You just have to
press the buttons as fast as you can to get the meter up while in the
background you see one Halo player t−bagging the other faster and faster
while he yells out some smack talk.
Whac-A-Taru: (Elly Only)
Elly is or was addicted to Final Fantasy XI so we made this simple game where
you press the D−Pad in the direction you want to whack. Miss one and
it's game over.
In the end I think I only spent about 80 hours total making this over the
course of about 3 months. I believe McWild also spent about 80 hours making
graphics and the video.
Some things that helped make this easier
We made a base file that had layers to show the "title safe area"
(the area that is guaranteed not to be cut off by they edges of the TV. It also
had the timer bar so the person making the graphics could see that things were
not going to be covered up by it.
Of course we borrowed lots of music, graphics and sound effects. We're not
sure what the law is there. The game was basically only shown at a wedding
except for the excerpts above on Youtube. We hope the respective copyright
owners will not be upset with us.
That also means we can't make it available for others to play but
that's okay since most of the games feature inside jokes that only people
in our group would get.
A big issue was that we needed each game to be hard enough that they failed
once and easy enough that they made it through on the second try. The reason is
each and every game had a special win and lose sequence usually with some kind
of joke or embarrassing picture involved so we wanted them to see the fail
screens as well as the win screens but we didn't want them to fail a bunch
of times as it would get boring quickly for those watching.
In one case, the Squash the Roach game, I even went so far as to make the game
too hard to start and then much easier the second time through just to try to
force the issue. I actually found the game kind of fun on its initial harder
setting but even then I could only win it about 1 out of 4 times and we knew
Elly, with no chance to practice would end up taking longer.
In the end it was a great experience. I setup an FTP site so we everyone could
upload their assets and download the latest version of the game. The PC version
made it possible to work fast. I used a controller adaptor to let me use
console controllers on the PC. That way it was easy to test and debug the all
the 2 player stuff as well as the loading screens and other issues that needed
to be ironed out. Modern systems have made it incredibly easy to throw together
something like this without having to worry about optimizing code or memory
issues like we had to in the past.
I was checking out the results from Assembly 2006 and I noticed they now have an game competition as in who created the best
game. The #1 game this year was Frets On Fire and it's pretty awesome.
Anyway, Kudos is a pretty creepy game. actually and at least in my current
point in life it really made me think about my own life. Something I don't
think any other game has ever done.
Did you know there is an outlet for indie games on consoles. Did you know it's
NOT XBLA, it's Sony Playstation and has been since 1995.
I guess I missed this story. I remember hearing about the "Yarouze" in the PS1
days but either I didn't read the reports in detail or else they were reported
wrong in the western press. What I remember hearing was you could get a special
PS1 for game development but otherwise there was no point. But, it turns out it
was not just for hobbists, it was to find new games for Sony to publish.
Not quite but I was going through some old files and found this animation.
Back in collage days, my friend John Alvarado (now lead enginner at Inxile) and I were going to try to make our own game. I think it was called Monkey
Busters. In it you played a clown. Two players could play at once. Your job was
to round up the monkeys and put them back in their cage. You'd do this by going
to a monkey and grabbing his arm and pulling him to the cage. You could throw
out bananas which the monkeys would stop to eat to slow them down.