Shred Nebula for Xbox Live Arcade

Gamasutra reports that CrunchTime Games has released design documents for the newly published Xbox Live Arcade title, Shred Nebula. It’s a space adventure game played from an Asteroids-style perspective.

The two documents released are a pitch/design document and an overview of the first 60 seconds of gameplay, both written in 2006. I’ve taken a quick look at both of them and I admire how the gameplay is detailed. This is the level of depth I want to achieve for my design documents. This drives me to push myself further!

Here are some NPCs from the Sokay Donut game I’ve been working on for forever. These characters are designed by our character designer Ricky Enriquez. I spent a couple days converting the game to AS3 in late May. Since then I’ve been polishing some things and working on getting the NPCs in it. I’ve been concentrating a bit too much on the presentation of the game and have returned to focusing on the gameplay, since it’s still not fully there yet. Right now I’m working on finding the fun, but it’s looking great so far.

This is a background concept I sketched out for a new project we started, a game that Chris is programming. It’s a Western so it’s gonna be a lotta fun.

Beyond this stuff I’ve been reworking the blog — I added the little video jukebox in the top right corner. I’m revising some of the other Sokay sites, experimenting with new ideas. I’m working with David Rodriguez on a more elaborate Luvtank.com as well.

Read on to see what’s been inspring me lately…

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Grand Theft Auto IV is a game about living the American dream. You work hard to make money to get the things you want. You meet people and exchange favors for favors in pursuit of a better life for yourself and those you care for. Hard work will eventually payoff and you can fight your way to the top in this country. Eating your enemies along the way. The difference from the traditional interpretation of the American dream is that in GTA IV you’ve decided on a life of crime to make it all happen. Which is against the norm and deemed a bad thing in most cultures. I suppose it may be unfortunate that it makes such an unbelievably awesome experience.

This game is unbelievable to me not only because of the violence or deviancy — for if that were all there was to it then the series would’ve been long forgotten about. What’s unbelievable is the grand scale of it. And not only that but the level of polish that every element has. It’s really amazing! Earlier in the series there were a lot of obvious flaws to complain about, like the sucky control or the subpar graphics. It seems that having a solid foundation of gameplay, an incredibly talented team, great management, and a shitload of cash can result in a masterpiece like GTA IV. I almost didn’t think it was possible to have a big-budget game this good anymore after the disappointment of Halo 3 and the absolute tragedy that was Assassin’s Creed.

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I spent much of today beating 2 flash games. I like the sound of that: beating flash games. Not just playing them but beating them, because there is enough in the games to play that when you’re done you can actually say the games are beaten.

Dino Run: I found this beauty c/o the blog over at indiegames.com and I was very impressed with PixelJam‘s work. I’d label it under the Sonic the Hedgehog genre of games, one I’d like to play more of. It’s a full game with a lot to play with. The look and feel is nice, some of the physics are a tad weak, but they do the job and beat the norm. I love the tension, the atmosphere of fleeing. It would be excellent setting for a simple story because the nature of a chase is that it is linear. Not to say that stories must be linear, but game-stories tend to be (due to laziness). Unfortunately, the game is lacking in the story department, but it’s alright because it does well everywhere else. GO PLAY IT.

Warlords: I was linked to this piece from Ben Olding after playing Dino Run and was really surprised by such a simple design adds up to strategy on multiple levels. It’s not only about unit selection, but timing, and tactics as well. Again, the game has tons built into it: multiple races and unit types, unlockable races and unit types, leveling-up, a filled out campaign mode and the unit purchasing/upgrading system really gives players a place to craft a style of play. It’s all very simple, but the game is much more than the sum of its parts. PLAY THIS ONE TOO.

As a bonus, each of these games has a form of multiplayer. Dino Run is actual online play and Warlords allows 2 people to play on the same keyboard. Both options are pretty cool if you ask me.

Man, it’s nice to find good games.

-Christopher J. Rock

Contra_4_Coverart

You have to understand that I can rarely complete a conversation on games without bringing up the Contra series, and most importantly, Contra III: Alien Wars. I played the previous big Contra games when I was a kid and had fun with them, but when Contra III showed up, it exploded my brain. You have to understand this if you hope to imagine the excitement I felt when Contra 4 was announced for the Nintendo DS.

Needless to say, I’ve played the game and it’s great . . . but I have my complaints. Continue Reading…

Flash games all around but some stand out much more than others. Yesterday I discovered Kavalmaja by Tonypa, a pretty amazing game. He describes it as a “kind of adventure-puzzle game”. That’s pretty much what it is.


Kavalmaja by Tonypa

In the game you wander around a maze trying to figure out what everything does. It uses only the arrow keys and you don’t fight anything. The game uses abstract pixel art and offers no upfront explanation so you have to play around and interact with objects to progress in the game. The artwork is pretty clever and makes symbolic use colors. For example, a gray block is a door that can be opened by a switch or a key and a red object will hurt you. You’re wandering through the maze as you attempt to figure out what these objects do and when you think you’ve figured it all out, it throws in a new surprise for you.

What I found was that my view of what the game actually was changed constantly as I played, as I learned the new rules. That made me curious to find out what it was all about and if I could solve the puzzle!

It’s an simple and clean game. It auto-saves at every screen so you can pick it up and play it any anytime. I think I’m close to finishing it! The perfect game for a mid-core gamer. 😉

But that isn’t the only game to catch my eye recently…

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The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess continues to mesmerize me. I jumped into the game directly after finishing Super Mario Galaxy a couple weeks ago and I’m still loving every minute of it.

Zelda Twilight Princess Screen

What’s great about this game is that it’s full of surprises. Adventure. And as anyone that’s played Zelda would know, adventure is what Zelda is all about.

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I’ve had an exciting week sitting at my computer. Reading all the news and happenings from GDC. Hoping for some great info, some great discoveries to be rained down upon me like liquid inspiration.

XNA Community

The most important news story to me is that on Wednesday Microsoft finally announced that games created with XNA Game Studio will be able to be distributed to ALL Xbox Live members. They’ve developed a system similar to Newgrounds.com, allowing anybody to upload content, undergoing peer review to be approved. This seems like another great way to reach a game audience, beyond Flash. You can read the details of how they plan to “Democratize Game Distribution” here.

N+
N+ on Xbox 360

I don’t think it’s any coincidence that Wednesday marked the release of N+ on Xbox Live Marketplace, an upgrade to Metanet Software’s well-known ninja-simulator Flash game.

It seems that making the transition from free Flash game to a commercial product is becoming more reasonably obtainable/acceptable.

In other news… what have I been playing recently?

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Advance Guardian Heroes Box

I was excited when this game was announced. A sequel to one of my favorite games. Treasure LogoAnd Treasure never makes sequels. If you’re not familiar with the work of Treasure, I wrote some impressions on their title Radiant Silvergun a few weeks ago.

Unfortunately this wasn’t the kind of sequel I was expecting. This game retains many of the fundamental qualities that made the first one so great but it’s missing something. Soul. And that’s ironic because the ridiculous storyline in the game revolves around your character being possessed by the souls of the heroes from the first game.

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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.

(here’s a Flash demo of the Gunpey DS)

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