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I have a tall stack of puzzle games for the Nintendo DS. I just added another to the stack today when picked up a copy of Gunpey DS, on impulse, during my visit to Fry’s Electronics today. I’ve only heard of this game because of an interview with Tetsuya Mizuguchi on Gamasutra. It’s another music-themed puzzle game from Q Entertainment (Lumines and Meteos). It was only $10 so I decided to give it a go.
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(See TraceManager (AS2) Update)
Finally I put some code up here:
“TraceManager.as”
“TraceManager Test.fla”
This is an AS file I put together for some big engine work. When your jamming together a lot of code and a big library of functions, it becomes difficult to keep track of what’s working and what’s breaking. For me, constantly turning traces on and off and having to figure out the meaning of traces that I wrote weeks (or even months) ago gets old fast.
Lately, my physics work has me running more functions than you can shake a stick at; functions within functions within functions, nesting like you wouldn’t believe. This leads to the most hideously complex tracing, almost nullifying the reason you trace data to begin with. So I put together this TraceManager to end such problems once and for all:
_________________________________________
Time(seconds): Depth: Function:
—————————————–
0________________+0____function1 (test1){
0________________+1________function2 (test1 1){
0________________+2____________function3 (test1 1 2){
0________________-2____________} function3—RESULT( test1 1 2 3 )
0________________-1________} function2—RESULT( test1 1 2 3 )
0________________-0____}function1—RESULT( test1 1 2 3 )
-This trace is from the example fla. It runs like so: function1 takes a string (“test1″) and adds a ” 1″ to it, then passes the result to function2; function2 adds a ” 2″ and passes the result to function3; function3 adds a ” 3″ to the string and returns it. Each function returns its own result to its parent function until all functions are complete.
My homey Ramiro Roman Jr. just released the second issue of his comic Skincube. Kinda creepy and kinda disturbing, but I find it very interesting with some excellent artwork.
Two twin brothers discover a skincube. Afterwards, one of them falls ill.
Check it out at http://ramiro.rydia.net/comics.html. If you like the work, be sure to purchase a copy. Support the grassroots, eh?
So some time ago I ordered me a copy of Raph Koster’s “Theory of Fun.” I read it, thought it was pretty good, and said to myself “You should review this book!” Maybe I will someday. . . . Guess I’m not much for detailed book reports.
These pros and cons I’ve put together may be of interest to those gamers gone readers, readers gone gamers or anyone inbetween.
So I took a look at Gameshot.org because of a few referrals they sent back here (they grabbed our LUV Tank game) and noticed this pleasant surprise on their front page…
At first I was attracted to the awesome art style. All pretty pixel work. The description said something about it being a platformer with a Yin Yang twist so I wanted to see if it went beyond a gimmick. I was impressed before I even finished the first stage.
I was reading a GameSetWatch post about an interview with the Panzer Dragoon creator and I thought to myself, “Shit, I still haven’t managed to play Panzer Dragoon Saga yet!” If you’re not familiar with the game, it was the last installment of the series on the Sega Saturn, a 4-disc epic RPG. It’s regarded as one of the greatest RPGs but the catch is that it was released in extremely limited quantities in North America. I’ve heard rumors of something like only 25,000 copies were created since it was the end of Saturn’s life-cycle. Copies run for about $120 to this day.
So I went to find out if it was emulated yet. I managed to find a torrent of not only Panzer Dragoon Saga but Radiant Silvergun as well. Regarded as one of the best shooters ever but never released stateside. The game was created by Treasure. I became a Treasure whore solely because of Guardian Heroes but I never imagined what could be so great about a shooter game. Copies of this game sell for up to $200. I finally understand what the hype was about. This is an amazing game.
I was looking over a recent post on Arthouse Games about Ebert’s old attack on games as art. . . . I couldn’t help but take the bait, so I commented. Then I figured it was worth putting up over here.
”
I hold it to be true that no definition of art can be accurate as long as it excludes anything tangible (or, arguably, intangible). There are judgments and criticisms of art, how well it is liked, its value or utility, but there is no logical reason to say that anything that exists is not art. Centuries of art have repeated that lesson.
Furthermore, to say that video games are in some way incapable of meeting the standards of ANY definition of art, is ridiculous. The best Ebert could come up with is suggesting that anything with interactivity dilutes the intent of the artist and is therefore not art, or is somehow “low art.” Is criticism not interactivity? Isn’t light reflecting off of a screen, sculpture or painting and into one’s eyes for their mind’s interpretation interactivity? Do we all share a single uniform experience from a given work or do we perceive it individually? The answers to these questions are obvious. All art involves interactivity in one sense or another. The intent of the artist is, therefore, to select a manner by which the audience will be controlled or manipulated to a given end.
No medium to date equals video games in expressive complexity and freedom. Not to mention, no medium inspires as much audience dedication and thus no medium can deliver as much raw experiential data to the willing member of a lay audience.
No one will ever spend over 100 hours reading a single book, watching a single film, viewing a single painting, or listening to a single song. Video games achieved that sort of attention not long after conception.
”
Mind you, I meant 100 solid hours. I suppose I should have made that clear. I’m surprised that professionals in games seem to concede that games are not as true to the artist’s intent because of player freedom. . . . That is completely and obviously false. . . .
Gateway II by Anders Gustafsson.
This is one of first Flash games I’ve truly enjoyed in such a long time. I discovered this adventure game on the Newgrounds frontpage and gave it a legitimate chance. It reminded me of Leo’s Great Day, one of the first amazingly well done Flash games I’d played, so I had optimistic expectations. From the title screen I could tell that it at least had great production quality.
I just checked out this impressive port of the Doom engine to Flash. It even loads up the original external .wad map files!
It might not be the first Flash port, but it’s definitely the first that resembles the original in speed and resolution. I could totally imagine playing some deathmatch in this thing. Can’t wait till something like that is available.
It’s also worth nothing that this was not created using Flash. It was developed on Linux using open-source/free Flex tools.
This reminds of back in 2001 or so when I saw a demo for a Quake 3 looking engine in Shockwave running incredibly fluidly. I recall it being a Q3 port of some sort because it was created by the same company that ported Q3 to Dreamcast, Raster Productions. I’m assuming it was some kind of port because they removed the demo after a short while, I believe because of legal matters.
This is one of the most awesome games I’ve ever seen. You shouldn’t be surprised that it’s so amazing, its contents consist of ladies slapping the crap out of eachother! Comedy and genius.
Here’s a YouTube video of the gameplay. Watch and be amazed as the drama unfolds.
You’ve got to play Rose&Camellia by Nigoro.
