There are a number of gameplay patterns that I wish showed up in life more often. Because then all the time I've spent playing and thinking about games would be more useful. In this imagined world, my gaming prowess would make me King. People would come to me every day with problems to solve. Sometimes I would help them out of kindness, but mostly I would charge lots of money and get rich.
I like this certain style of execution. It goes in three steps:
1. Look at a situation carefully and learn everything you need to know about it, i.e. a guy you hate always goes to lunch at a certain restaurant and arrives each day at noon precisely.
2. Set some things up to take advantage of that situation, i.e. you put a banana peel on the ground in front of the restaurant door at 11:59am.
3. Wait and watch as events are affected by your earlier setup, i.e. the guy you hate slips on the banana peel and falls on his butt.
Does anything like this ever work in real life? No, not really. You can't be some mastermind that predicts all the chaotic events in the world such that a small amount of elegant preparation will ensure the outcome you want. In real life, you know little with certainty, so most of your behavior is an immediate reaction to the latest news. I.e. You've just been given a ticket by a police officer for leaving your banana peel on the ground, to which you react by getting angry and saying you will fight that ticket. Yeah, you'll get the best legal defense money can buy.
Not to say there aren't plans made that come through as expected. You can plant some seeds and find a tree ten years later, sure. But wouldn't it be cool to put something really complicated into motion, and then just watch it all come to pass exactly as you envisioned? Forget the slipping on the banana peel thing even. What I really want to happen is something more impressive like...
You give the banana to your neighbor who is a construction worker, he eats his lunch with the banana at the top of a skyscraper, drops the banana peel several stories to the ground at 11:59am in front of that restaurant, the guy you hate almost slips on the banana peel but instead picks it up and tries to throw it away, but the trashcan next to him is full, so he walks to a dumpster in a nearby alley and chucks the peel in there, which lands on a sleeping bum, who wakes up and is so disgusted by the banana peel that he stands up and vomits on the guy you hate.
And this is all exactly what you planned to happen, because you are just that brilliant. So obviously, nothing works like this in real life, but in computer games... well, that is a different story!
Snakes! ...to the Death
You know, if I wanted to brag, I could say that I made a MMOG in about a week. And I did sorta, with a little help from Schik, make an online game which hundreds of people can play simultaneously over the net. It's rough around the edges, but it works, and the idea behind it is unique. I wouldn't bother to tell you if I had just made a low-rent clone of
World of Warcraft, after all.
I'm inviting you to join in a multiplayer puzzle game about snakes. You get to control one of these snakes and guide it to safe spaces. The snake moves at the astonishingly slow speed of 5 feet every 2 hours, which gives you plenty of time to predict future events and plan your snake's movements.
This is a contest that will begin on Saturday, August 12th. I want you to enter it! Take a look at the particulars, and maybe encourage a friend to join in as well.
Contest Info
Is Hunger Emotional?
Jamie Cheng of Klei Entertainment asserts that hunger is indeed emotional in the title of his game, which is called "
Eets: Hunger. It's Emotional"
. Have you played
Eets, yet? The game is getting a lot of well-deserved attention. After I tried out
Eets and was suitably impressed, I cut a deal with Jamie for Caravel to carry the game on our site. The game is another example of this pattern I am talking about: Look at the situation, set things up to produce an outcome, and watch as events unfold. Here you are solving puzzles by placing elements like whales and pigs on the screen. The well-animated graphics remind me of Cartoon Network's
Samurai Jack, and there's a lot of lovable wackiness to it all.
I asked Jamie if he could do anything special for the DROD players, and he really came through! If you purchase a copy of *Eets* before September 1st, 2006, you can get a bonus collection of 12 extra *Eets* levels that has yet to be released anyplace else. In fact, Jamie put these levels together especially for DROD players. To pick up the dozen bonus levels from Jamie, just e-mail him at drodfans@eetsgame.com with your order#. Be sure to send him the e-mail before September 1st.
You can learn more about the game and download a generously long demo at the link below:
Game Info
Topic Picks for August
People will ask you if you've kept up on the Caravel Forum. And of course, it's painfully embarrassing to answer that you haven't. So at least read the Cliff's Notes to get the gist of it.
Beethro's Last Job
People wrote a bunch of stories about Beethro's final job before retirement. As I write this, they are all about to be released.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=11252
Who's Been Seeding the Joint?
A kitten with an carved apple helmet launches deep inquiries into the causes of dungeon seeding.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=10541
Kooley Got a New Brick
Have we reached that Star Trekian point in our community where any fictional loose end, no matter how trivial, demands resolution?
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=11467
Digital Art Journey
Many people pointed out my artistic mistakes and greatly improved the finished piece.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=11263
war11, Blue Rooms, Magic Show, School, Dimitris' Deadly Dungeon, KPVIID2 : Return to the spire
These are all the new holds (level collections) that have been released since the last newsletter. King Pilchard VIII has settled on a naming convention even more weirdly cumbersome than DROD's.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewboard.php?BoardID=11
Hold Battles
Pilchard seems to have come up with an interesting competition.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=10581
Google Me This
Look at a topdown image of anyplace in the world and figure out where it is. The Eiffel Tower is easy, but Mike Rimer's house is really hard.
http://forum.caravelgames.com/viewtopic.php?TopicID=11153
I was a bit short on time and neglected to pick a
Don't Ask and You Shall Receive winner this month. Next month, I'll pick out two!
-Erik
____________________________
The Godkiller - Chapter 1 available now on Steam. It's a DROD-like puzzle adventure game.
dev journals |
twitch stream |
youtube archive (NSFW)
[Last edited by mrimer at 05-18-2008 05:42 AM]
, you get arrested for leaving banana peels on the ground? Gee wizz, things must be tough over there 
.
.
