It’s been ages since I’ve done a personal blog. Winter’s just been kind of dull for me, but I’ll try to write a few things.
I’ve been watching a lot of classic movies lately. Spelunky and La-Mulana reminded me that I still hadn’t seen Indiana Jones, so I decided it would be a good idea to see where culture comes from. So far I’ve seen:
• Indiana Jones 1,2 and 3
• Terminator 1 and 2
• All of the Rocky Films
• Rambo 1 and 2
My favorite of the bunch has to be the earlier Rocky films, but I also loved Terminator 2. I expected Indiana Jones to be more about exploring temples and ancient cultures, and less about cheesy action scenes with Nazis. So I was a bit disappointed there.
I’m interested to hear from you guys about what other old films I should watch. I’ve really not seen very many.
I’m still playing a lot of games on Steam. I’ll do another batch of reviews soon.
I watched Indie Game: The Movie again. It made me feel like I’ve sold out a bit, in the sense that I’ve started making games based on what the players want, rather than what I want. If it was up to me, I’d make the EBF games more like the RPGs I played when I was a kid. With no bestiary, cheap enemies, really hard to find secrets, no easy mode, and stuff like that. But instead I’ve tried to make EBF4 as accessible as possible, and as a result, I think it feels a lot less personal.
Interestingly, most of the game developers that were featured in Indie Game had made very hard games, and that didn’t seem to hurt their popularity at all. Super Meat Boy, Braid, and Fez were all very difficult, either in their action or in their cryptic puzzles.
Edmund McMillen made an interesting point in one interview about Binding of Isaac. He said he didn’t like displaying numbers in his games, or explaining the mechanics in detail, leaving the player to learn and memorize everything by themselves. I would kind of like to do a bit more of that in EBF (for example, by not explicitly mentioning the special effects of equips or skills), but I wonder how well that would go down with players.
Anyway, I don’t plan on changing the way I make games, since this approach has worked well for me so far. And I’ve not totally sold out; I still do a lot of things that many casual players don’t like. (like making unobtainable ultimate weapons, the cut-out art style, some super hard puzzles, and troll bosses like the glitch)
Oh well.
Now that the Kongregate release of EBF4 is out of the way, I’m going to be getting ready for the Steam release. It shouldn’t take too long, as I’ve already solved most of the hardest problems. All I have to do is get rid of Kongregate’s branding, change the loading screen, add support for multiple resolutions, stick in Steam’s API, make some more Steam store graphics, and package the game nicely. Hopefully that won’t take too long, but tricky problems have a way of popping up.
The developer of Intrusion 2 was awesome enough to help me out with a few things, so you should go buy his game!
And one last thing; I’ve got a girlfriend now!
She’s fun to hang out with, and we’ve got a lot in common, so that’s nice.
And I don’t have to play Outlast by myself anymore! Hurray!
Heh, when I saw the glitch boss I just went WTF :scared: IMPOSSIBLE and ran.
About half a day later I realised that I just needed non-elemental attacks and felt a complete idiot.
So bosses like that are awesome, and I think you should try more off the wall stuff like that.
Also, if you fell the games are too easy, remove the %resistance info and have it as in EBF3. That should be an option IMO.
I wasn’t aware that playing Outlast by yourself was even possible… O.o
Really, someone please explain how Billy manages to track me down every few rooms. :scared:
But anyways, congrats on the girlfriend :yay: hope all goes well!
On the subject of your games, I rather like the way they have turned out, but I honestly would like them no matter how they were made. In any future projects, I think you ought to make the game that you think it should be. Natalie is more than enough fanservice for all of your games, you don’t need to give any more! I’m so pumped for the release of EBF4 on Steam, so if I can manage not to spend my money before it comes out i’m buying a copy for myself, my girl, and my two best friends.
Also, if you ever need another game idea, a touhou/bullet hell game mixed with RPG and rouguelike elements would be a total huge sell for me.
Cheers! :smirk:
Josh
-Classic films: The princess Bride, that is all….what you want me to expound!? Ok, It’s funny, endlessly quotable (“Anybody want a peanut!?” “I do not think that word means what you think it means”, “Is this a kissing book?”,”MAHWWWAGE! MAHWWAGE! IS WAHT BRINGSS US TOGETTHA TODHAY!” “Ahh true love, there is nothing more noble BUT THAT IS NOT WHAT HE SAID! He said ‘To blaaavveee’ which means to bluff!” Ok I’ll stop now there’s quite a few more I could have pulled out), has some of my favorite characters (Inigo Montoya….”you killed my father”…. ), “Fencing, fighting torture,revenge, giants, monsters, chases, escapes, true love…”, and well I guess that last quote sums it up! Seriously though, I haven’t seen anything quite like it since.
-Stats and Mechanics: Well my take on it is use what tool you think is nessecary for the job. What are you trying to do with your game? kind of a nebulous opinion I know but I can’t read your mind.
“Selling out”: Well like you said, it’s working out so far.
Though perhaps for a bit of perspective, I don’t think I’m anywhere near your target market.
I grew up playing games like Mechwarrior and Age of Empires alongside Mario and Star Fox. The game I’m looking forward to the most right now is an insanely ambitious Space sim called “Star Citizen” (by the way 38 million USD CROWDFUNDED, we are desperate folk, considering the last two great space combat sims came out in 1999 [Freespace 2] and 2003 [Freelancer], and was pronounced dead shortly thereafter by the powers that be in the publishing houses).
Other than the pokemon craze that EVERY 90’s kid went through, I never was into anime, (although I find the subculture fascinating, and for the record I don’t hate the stuff, just not my thing, plus my girlfriend is a full-blown otaku and she’ll kill me!). I’m not up and up with internet culture (though I’m better than I was say…two years ago).
Honestly I wasn’t introduced to JRPG’s until my sister got Final fantasy 12 on a whim (if we don’t count pokemon, which by the way, I think you have probably my favorite elemental counter system), and at first I wasn’t a fan, and to be honest to this day EBF is probably the only one of these style of RPG’s I’ve even beaten (mainly because I don’t really own any, however I do enjoy the earlier Final fantasies, up to Nine, and Chrono trigger). It’s something I can enjoy, although I’m not what you would call an avid fan of the genre.
I say this so you get the full impact of these next words. EBF 4 was my personal GOTY of last year. No I’m not kidding. It’s the only game that I bought this year where I’ve even bothered to try and 100% it (I didn’t get to the glitch boss and there are a handful of achievements I’m missing). Believe me, you are doing something right if you can get me of all people to enjoy your games that much.
and just to tip ya, I’ll see if I can sneak the steam version into my budget! (Already tipped HFX!)
Anyway sorry for that epicly long wall of text
You have a good ship and crew, Keep Flying :shades:
Thanks!
Oh, that second part of your entry where you talk about selling out a little sounds rather…. depressing, I don’t know.
OK, first a little technical question:
– as steam version won’t require a loading screen featured in web version, how you will solve the idol smashing minigame and medal for it? Is this what you mean by “change the loading screen”, that you will rework that a little.
And as about this second part. My first though about this is that numbers in games are kinda dependand on “genre”, a random generating, rather quick dungeon crawler like mentioned “The Binding of Issac” is not required so show player’s stats as they have temporal feel and simplified 7 bars system works great for them, we will die/finish rather quickly so we don’t need to know every 0,01 point of stats. But genres like strategy games and RPGs are a bit different. In RPG we manage our character from the beginning till the final boss of the game and even beyond, and stats are permament and they increase every level as we progress, player likes to have full control and knowledge about the potential of his character and his growth, it also very helps in for example chosing different specializations for the same “class” (like for example normal strenght fighter and dexternity fighter in D&D), it also helps to compare some “simillar classes” such as for example even Lance and Anna.
To encourage you. In my opinion the current stat system in EBF4 in basicaly like Pokemon, and I :love2: Pokemon, we can’t see exacly how much “base stats” each character has but we see who it better at what by comparing them to each other or just by comparing their other own stats, and stat items are basicaly :bacon: = Protein. You will sure understand it much better than I wrote here as from what I saw – you sure like Pokemon yourself.
For me, I love this games not because of challenge/secrets etc. but for the fact that this rather good and enjoyable gameplay is put into such beatifull and perfect edition. This game trully is the definition of “grotesque” as it puts up two totally different things together and makes them even better. The EPICNESS and HUMOR – the humorous graphic style perfectly mixed with epic graphic style and a F*C***G MUSIC THAT PIERCED THE HEAVENS!!!
Thanks!
I’m replacing the loading screen with a language menu, so the idol minigame will still be there.
Well, Matt keep in good faith. :shades:
It has worked out so far. :hurray:
-Nice work with the GF. :love2:
Congrats on getting a girlfriend! :yay:
I suggest adding an option so players can choose if they want the weapon to mention its effects and element or if the player wants to hide them so they can find out for themselves.
And I also have a complaint that I don’t really feel that the stats of each character are really affecting the character’s attacks properly like ham, doughnuts, gummy bears and lollipops. Maybe it is just me but I feel there is no point using them.
I don’t think making games people are more likely to play is selling out so much as just being practical.
Also, don’t watch Indiana Jones 4. Ever.
Good for you! Really looking foward to the Steam release of EBF4! :yay: I re-played EBF4 on Kongregate, all the changes look awesome! Hope Steam puts a fair price on the game. :smirk:
Hurray for not having to play outlast by yourself! :smirk:
Also, really looking forward to the Steam release. I’m gonna buy like 10 Million copies. :hurray: