Highest Hipster Status

So this post's title comes from a quote from the video linked below, from a teen who's shown and plays on the Nintendo Entertainment System - NES - for the first time.

One of many 'Teens React To....' series, I stumbled across this recently uploaded episode when taking a quick coffee (glass of water) break from level editing of SpaceBoy - more on that later.

The episode came as a real kick in the teeth, for me, a 26 year-old, having been born 3 years after the release of the NES, and being first introduced to a video game console in 1992 with the Sega Megadrive, I still managed to find, purchase and play older consoles and computers in my pre and post-teens.
Watching teens of ages between 14 and 19 react so confusingly to a console that, as factually stated within this episode, essentially led the charge in the rebirth of the video game industry after the crash of 1983 disturbed me.
I never had a Super 8 Camcorder but I know what they are. The way most of the teens in this video react is bizarre to me, maybe it's age, or just bad parenting, OR as 'guest star' Maisie Williams from Game of Thrones fame states,

"We're just spoilt these days. As soon as someone creates something that's like super super efficient people won't stand for anything less."

I think she speaks with reason and makes a valid point, having a Sega Megadrive hooked up to the only tv of the house in the early 90's was about as good as it got, now people have access to Megadrives, NES', SNES', GameBoys, and every other retro console emulated to their phone or tablet. Not that they'd know what consoles they were. Bastards.
I think we're all a little spoiled, having access to video games almost immediately with downloads and the ease of access to apps and online stores has created fickle people out of us. Play one game for a few minutes then done, onto the next one please, thanks. Fads. I hate fads. Not just in video games, but it seems that people of all ages play video games now, without realizing.
As Charlie Brooker suggested in his 2013 TV special, 'How Video Games Changed The World', Twitter, and social media networks are essentially video games. Posting on Facebook and observing likes and comments are themselves rewards, as close to earning money or points within a video game.

But to the point of the video.

As I watched this episode I noticed how cleverely structured it was, for the teens reactions caused fleeting reactions from myself. One minute angry, the next melancholy, and after that gracious. To the few that didn't understand nor care how the console functioned back in the 80's and 90's, there were also positive and enlightening responses, such as,
"It's a classic, like a classic vinyl record; this is like a classic vinyl video game", and "Today, if you had one, you'd be the coolest person out of your friends... you're gonna get like the highest hipster status ever".

And there we have it. 'Hipster'. A piece of my youth is now 'hipster', the console's come full circle somewhat and is now suggested to be 'cool' again, and something to have and brag about.
This greatly influences gaming today, at least within the 'casual market', as old video game design, blueprints and styles are as popular as ever, and are often created to replicate that old 'retro' and niche feel.

Some other highlights of the video for me were when each and every teen couldn't load the game cartridge for the first time. On the beautiful old CRT television, the screen flashed green, in the suggestion that an error had occurred, and even though the console's power was indeed on, something else was a miss.
The teens were then informed that kids of the cartridge generation - pre-CD era - used to blow the cartridge, removing any dust or wrongdoings the sweet and innocent game had collected throughout the time it wasn't being played.
A realization, again, the teens reacted to confusingly. Although 'blow the cartridge' was apparently unearthed as myth, the teens correctly diffuse as once they do the game works.

One commentator of the video, 'ElWaster', posted,

'I might feel old, but I feel a bit of joy knowing that I have experienced an extreme amount of fun at the beginning of an amazing form of media that these kids never will.'

Bare With These Basic Bits, Because Basically I'm Bloody Besotted By (space)Boy

Alright.

A few screenshots, very basic, of very basic action (and non-action) going on.

As stated above, these screenshots merely reflect a quick example of the colour-to-b&w of SpaceBoy, in and out of light, the effects of 180 degree gravity when jumping in these beams of light, and a general overview of a basic set of platforms, split up by a teleportation system (green orbs).

The style is highly untouched, overall, from the original level designs from my project last year - albeit altered compared to the first few concepts I ever created for the game proposal.
Tiles have been created, multiple 128 and 256 tiles that represent grass, rock, bushes. Speaking of which I've created a list of tiled assets needed for the entire project.

Details, coming, later.

Cliffhanger.

Slave-unky

I feel sick just thinking of the word.

Spelunky.

Never has a video game both encapsulated and infuriated in such equal measure as Spelunky.

From level 'Completed!' to 'Game Over' in an instant, Spelunky's game design is specific, dynamic, classic, modern, rewarding, punishing. The best, or worst in equal cases, of both worlds Spelunky's design provides, with consistently emotional, toe-curling platforming.
Yes, platforming.
It seems rare these days to suggest that an old-school genre such as the platformer or sidescroller can produce such tense, blisteringly difficult and belligerent feedback with it's design and mechanics, while still seducing enticing, rewarding and addictive gameplay.
60 hours I've played Spelunky so far.
60 whole hours of my time, patience, swearing and sweating dedicated to a game I have yet to fully complete once.
The design of Spelunky is random, in the sense that through the designer's blueprint, levels are created at random - albeit based on a programmed sense as to always create a path from start to finish, and to include enemies, hazards, jewels and items that are obtainable either by platforming or via two of the game's key items - the bomb and rope - of which a player will start the game with 4 of each, including hit points.

As the level's are random, it's seemingly initially difficult to create a structure and path in your mind based on experiences of dying at the hand of a wildly throwing yeti, a man-eating plant or a shotgun-wielding shop keeper.
In Spelunky everything is out to get you, and believe me - it will. Anything that is done wrong is you, the player's fault, as infuriating as it may at the moment be. Hell, I've just died after reaching this game's boss level, defeating it and then falling into a pit of lava trying to escape the level through the doorway to Hell - the game's final, hidden set of levels.
Hell subsequently also reveals the game's true boss, and the quests you must partake in to get here? Daunting. Ridiculous. Impossible. In order to reach Hell, the player must do a specific task within each area that then unlocks the ability to achieve the next task in the next area. From carrying a gold key to a large, padlocked chest, to dying on a specific level within an area, to be reborn within an impenetrable statue - providing a key item only obtained within this statue.
The concept behind all this - on the surface - seems somewhat basic, and thus achievable, and the latter is correct, I personally within the 60 hours of playing Spelunky have reached Hell twice, defeated the FINAL final boss, to then again fall into a pit of lava as the exit was open, waiting for that 'RB' command on the XBOX controller to be pressed to enter and finish the game.

The design around Spelunky is simple yet precise, and varied. I was initially overwhelmed by the amount of achievable ways I could explore and concur a level, and plotting ahead was itself a reward as often the game can be playing perfectly until - dead - before the final hurdle. It can happen so fast that reaction times cause a sudden rise in panic, almost like a traditional haunted house or 'jump scare' from a horror film/video game.
I dread to go into detail of the ways the player can die within Spelunky, as so far for me it's around 400, with 3-4 game finishes.
1 of every 100 I finish the game, statistically, and that's the basic game, not the fully rewarded Hell levels.
Within the design choices are the simplistic player controls - emulating video games from the 80's and 90's, your character can run, jump, sprint, crouch, grab, through and shoot. A concept that's then deeply explored throughout many of the items and pickups found within a level.
Vases are always present within Spelunky, housing either small to large chunks of gold, enemies or simply nothing.
This risk/reward system, even within something as small as a throw-able vase is present, and proves an analogy for the game as a whole. One minute an item can be a gift, and then within one foul swoop - becomes the curse. A shotgun for example, provides slight kickback - so strategically and over time this, and varies over objects and items will be mastered in how and where to use, '..is this going to fire me off into these spikes if i shoot the oncoming attack' scenarios are forever present. How and IF an enemy is killed is also sometimes a daunting task in itself, does the concept of killing this creature reward with an alternate path, a pickup, an obstacle for another..
All these thought processes and moves are always considered and implemented by the player, and when running past two and a half minutes on a playthrough, the player is greeted with a slow-down, almost haunted version of the level's theme music and an actual ghost, that appears from one side of the level that will slowly float straight towards you; killing when connecting. The sense, therefore, of urgent consistency and time spent collecting money, killing enemies, saving damsels and avoiding traps is perfectly placed within these small yet challenging and randomly generated worlds.

Also the aesthetically pleasing elements of Spelunky; the graphics, the music, the references and the secrets to be explored in this small games are itself a reward. The music replicates traditional 80's/90's platforming midi-esque beats and rhythms, catchy and memorable - capturing the level environment with each perfectly placed snare, whistle and key - suggesting to the player the kind of level and experience they're bound to have ahead of them. Essentially selling itself as an Indiana Jones-like experience, the gameplay borrows and highly incorporates traits of Steven Spielberg's classic franchise within a linear, yet varied 8-bit platforming game.

Spelunky was first introduced to me via Indie Game: The Movie, which mainly concentrated on the stories of designers on highly successful independent releases Braid, Fez and Super Meat Boy. Upon the release of additional hours of footage, I was provided with a few character concepts of the - then unheard of to me - Spelunky.

This image, right here, brought me to the page and video of Spelunky's release within Indie Game: The Movie Special Edition.







This is all for now, I better get back on it..

Level Designing and Story Telling, Yo.

So yeah.

May.

I've avoided writing up my progress because of, essentially, being too wrapped up in it to really study.
That was wrong, and without this I feel I've missed the essential summation of work every week or few days like I did previously all those months back.

Essentially creating a piece of work(s) and putting on this glorious blog of mine for discussion, reasoning and analysis as to what the work represents within the project and within my current mind frame. With the latter, I mean how other work's consistently influencing and re-molding my SpaceBoy project week after week, game after game.

But enough of that.

SpaceBoy's last outing on my blog was in February; an analysis of level design styles and methods, of which I'd have potentially adopted to fit the gameplay and pacing of what I wanted SpaceBoy to play out like.
Tile-based level design is great - a wonderful reflection and reference to old-school game design, of which has served almost perfect examples of platform games with it's mathematically 'correct' tilesets and sizes for old 80's and 90's video games.
This I worked on for a while, though I was struggling to convert a natural, modern looking environment with old-school block-specific design.
So I decided on the Limbo/Braid-style, of which rectangles within the game engine could be shaped, copied and pasted to create basic platforms, of which the player would perfectly assign to - as collisions are perfectly assigned from the moment of the shape's creation - as opposed to self assigning collisions through tile designs imported in through Photoshop.

Above is the video game Limbo, a work-in-progress selection of screenshots designed the game's level designer; Jakob Hansson.

With these screenshots Jakob writes;

Below are some work in progress screenshots of levels I created using our level editor.

I stopped at Limbo after the basic game play, level design and puzzles were created,

so most of the graphics layers were created afterwards.

And some artwork that closely resembles in-game screenshots;

With the art style visible, the designer then showed technical aspects to the level designing approach;

And with this; established level design for SpaceBoy is confirmed - natural looking environmental pieces created with multiple, alternately-sized rectangles is a much more sound method in creating SpaceBoy.
With the above, Jakob runs through and slightly discusses the intentions and use of colours, giving the user a grasp of the level flow and pacing through trigger and mechanic placements.
He suggests that the aesthetically pleasing elements; such as the designs of the artwork above suggest, like completed grass, rocks, trees - are added after all these basics are created;

And with this I have taken to the game engine - Construct 2 - to mock-up basic 'tests' of consist of platforming and mechanics needed for the final demo.
The creation of in-engine rectangles, and the copy and paste - there of - is essentially an easier and much quicker way of mocking up basic and soon-to-be fully realized level designs, that encapsulate the freedom of differently layered surroundings, as opposed to 32x32 grid-like tiles.

This, in reference to newer styles of level design, counters traditional and often primitive tile-based design. However, not to diss this tactic; as a lot of well established video game franchises - old and new - still implore these design ethics and as such produce some of the finest platforming games ever made.
For SpaceBoy - so far - this cannot be done, if I'm looking for a Rayman-like, modern platform-puzzle game based around organic environments and backdrops.

If anything, the tiling will come to fruition with the artistic layers over the basic rectangular platforms, such as the image above suggests - tiled grass can be copied, pasted, rotated; to fit/blend in with the solid ground; giving the illusion that the player is running atop a grassy path.

Animation-wise, SpaceBoy is in it's 'final' stages of design, were 'rough' and 'better than rough' (terrible alternate) served as blueprints and implemented ideas that showed how he would run, jump and generally interact when the user interacts with the controller/keyboard.
With black&white being a primary colour scheme, SpaceBoy and indeed most of - if not all - the environments will emplore this style, with potential occasional colour within some parts of the proposed release.

The story has developed somewhat, originally playing out as a 'get from A to B'-type iPad game involving puzzle solving speed around light and dark, the project then evolved into a traditional platform game, with it's black&white visuals - white outlines of characters, props, environments - becoming a staple and perfect style choice. The game was originally set around SpaceBoy, roaming from planet to planet, saving each by restoring light through specific landmarks. The light within these planets had been taken so abruptly that they all quickly evolved into mere outlines of their former selves, and thus only SpaceBoy remained colourful when in light.
Although most of this is still relevant, SpaceBoy now has somewhat of a sidekick, in the form of a large super computer named S.O.N. (Super Operating Network), who serves within a small identifiable ship that they both originally arrive in.
SpaceBoy is Master Chief-ed up (frozen) until thawed when landing on a mysterious planet. SpaceBoy then begins to realize - as you play through the desolate ship - that things are indeed odd, and slightly a miss. Learning the basic controls and mechanics as you play, SpaceBoy encounters and powers up S.O.N. who then reveals that the planet's riddled with 'glitches', and the ship has essentially been dragged down and ceased to operate, until SpaceBoy solves and demolishes these problems.
Glitches are essentially now the main antogonists of the game, and serve as boss-like encounters within glitched environments leading up to their reveal. These glitches have also demoted S.O.N. to a mere DOS-like interface, and with every glitch destroyed; so S.O.N. can upgrade and aid SpaceBoy further.
Darkness still plays a major part within the game, tarnishing SpaceBoy's body heat health - of which heals when in light - but it's now glitches that dwell within the darkness, and if within the wrong area for too long, SpaceBoy himself can get infected and appear to become glitched - THUS my previous posts from Feb and Jan - animations there of.

That's it for now. I like to close things off abru....

Level Design Moderation

Today I done found a beautiful article based around 2D level designs, alternate in scope, finesse and construction, but all profoundly relevant to my recent exploration of GOOD design, use of pacing, narrative, structure, humour, originality and personalized imitation.

For me, personalized imitation is the concept, design and working application of something, based on something already present. And with this I've been racking my brains, trying to establish a level design-based narrative, that would appease the concepts and designs of SpaceBoy throughout this and last year's work, and reflect on my best work aesthetically and technically.
I've considered modular asset-construction, as I did with LIMA, and indeed of which is practiced in a lot of video games; it saves memory usage and can be easily replicated (copied and pasted) throughout environments with alternate textures:

Tiles used with Sonic 2 for the Sega Megadrive. Blocks such as this can be replicated or alternately textured to fit with the level's surroundings.

I've, however, always considered SpaceBoy's level design to be quite organic, in it's shape, thus having a completely random style; unique to specific situations.

This representation of design, and it's process, shows the workings, rough and in-game layouts, but all based around large, odd/uniquely-shaped platforms.

Though, as the developer suggests, the trials and tribulations of such design incur slow frame-rate and heavy use of memory, of which had to be constantly and consistently tampered with to fix.

'After getting the graphics and adding them to levels, we found that the game ran at about 1FPS. Which was a slight issue. This brought us to the stage of optimizing, refactoring, and rebuilding all of the levels to work with graphics. In the end all of the level graphics are pre-cached as tiles of bitmaps (starting as vector to save download), as the level might be up to 20,000 x 20,000 pixel in some cases.'

The Scarygirl Project

Thus, with construction of modular-based level design began - based around a mockup background grid showing 512x512 each in an 4096x2048 file - I discovered that even a rough design wasn't enough.
So I resorted back to paper.
Not with design, but with words.
I quickly devised a rough 'Level Design Method' of individual design styles to see and discuss which one would be most beneficial for SpaceBoy, yet also incorporating the essential additional charming and medial elements.

My write-up:

ZELDA STYLE
- Open areas, small sections throughout, surrounding puzzle-based cave areas.
- New areas unlocked when power ups/items are found; thus can access the previously inaccessible through rock-smashing, or wall climbing.

RETRO SONIC/MARIO STYLE
- Level to level; each level is unique, the same narratives/design aesthetic within one zone/world until the next is unlocked - level selection (specifically Mario) accessible throughout, for repeated plays.

METROID STYLE
- Like Zelda, but entire game plays like the player is in the Zelda-esque cave.
- Sections unlocked also through power ups, but the entire world plays out as one big level/maze.

LIMBO STYLE
- Puzzle-based areas are connected together with atmospheric, aesthetic areas - areas which serve the purpose of running through perfectly placed environmental pieces and scenery, opening up the next puzzle.
- Game plays out as one large level; surrounded by and discovery-based narrative and wonder.

SUPER MEAT BOY STYLE
- Quick arcade/pick-up-and-play design; often displays the player's start and goal of a level within one screen, as opposed to the traditional scrolling of the camera.

SWORD & SWORCERY STYLE
- RPG platforming, where environments are the narrative, and are explored and unlocked through interaction.

CURRENT INDIE GAME STYLE
With that title I'm not stating all independent games follow this process, it's a mere title that I've used - as I've used with the other ones - to easier understand the principles of each, or as a rough guideline.
- Style, charm and use of design techniques over technical level design; aesthetics over gameplay.

I discussed the latter 'style' with some friends and determined that by that I meant it not as a negative, but as an alternate current style used to show of unique and wonderful design styles, over basic level design. With this, however, I noticed that playing games like this actually quenched my thirst for exceptional level design with it's artistic approach. Instead of 'style over substance', the style almost in fact BECOMES the substance, at least from a sharing of experience point of view.



And with these fresh in my head I began randomly creating alternate non-essential scenarios - comedic and/or charming elements, if you will, to heighten the sense of uniqueness and creativity, instead just another platformer.
Scenarios of which, that include interactive characters - one of which I sketched originally as a super computer, based around the old-style PC's, that would act as a sort of mission-briefing, but also engage in talks with the character, as though it had itself formed an almost human personality - I was thinking HAL 9000 from 2001: A Space Odyssey and of course GLaDOS from the Portal series; of which, the character's portrayal is that of mystery, it's seemingly helpful and curiously clumsy - giving the player an uncertainty of if it's on your side, or has alternate agendas.

Although this is only a small asset, ideas are then spawned from them, and thus designs evolve and the entire game's narrative and plot-development become something more than just mysterious or generic.













Almost forgot.



The Guide To Implementing 2D Platformers



(The website based around the introduction of this post. Still reading.)

Frankenstein's Monster

IT'S ALIVE!

I'm wanting to incorporate a multitude of classic references, such as Pong above, within SpaceBoy's idle animations.

Idle Animation Mock-ups

Some generic idle animations.

Cheers.