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dislekcia
01-11-2008, 09:40 PM
Comp 20 Results

Text and language are ubiquitous in games. From the help screen all the way through to mission descriptions that lighten the load on resources ("Well, we can just have the random missions be text instead of animated sequences, that'd work!"), text is everywhere. Except in the rare cases when it's absent in really well-designed games... Then we don't even realise it's "missing".

So, given things like the cost of localising a title for a global release (aim big!) and typos lurking away inside the most polished AAA games (yes Fable 2, I'm looking at you "to"), how can we design games that don't contain any text at all? What are the hurdles we need to overcome? What can we do well and what can't we do at all? That's exactly the sort of question to pose to the Game.Dev community to get some great results ;)

REVIEWS:

Pharoah's Revenge (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=7092) - Aval4nche
There's a car, then a Death Bus! Then some stuff happens and I think a mummy gets angry at every stereotype on the internet, so you fry them with plasma. Then the mummy smiles. Yay!

Ok, so the story was a little confusing, but there WAS a story - after a fashion. The tutorial was a bit of a head-scratcher at times but the graphical representation of zapping a hippie with your red blob of death was rather obvious. You knew what to do, you just didn't always know why you were doing it. As an early foray into GM, the game is admirable (and a lot better than a differently coloured teddybear!) but I found that I was fighting the controls more often than not and I got rather frustrated with having to constantly restart from the beginning of a maze-like section every time I ran into a very narrow wall. Perhaps allowing the plasma to change colour on the spot would fix that issue, or even adding in gameplay elements like "special moves" or other reasons the plasma types were different.

Ancient History (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=6862) - Bonezmann
Setting a game in the mists of the ancient civilizations is an intriguing concept, it's a shame that Ancient History's minigames (because that's what they are, despite there only being two of them) suffer from the common "let's spam the fire key and see what happens" exploit... Mashing space bar (which is admirably conveyed by the visual instructions) basically kills any gameplay :(

The map screen is confusing - I wish I knew what the sun did, the "new" piece of paper was relatively obvious - and the additions to it after finishing the San level I assume are for features that didn't make it before the final deadline. I'd suggest giving players more to do in the San level (although as a simple tutorial it's good, the first run from the rhino was a good moment) and upping the speed of the "fired" blocks in the Egypt/Luxor level. In general though, it feels like the game could have explored its historical settings a little more: Given players cave-art puzzles to solve and used hieroglyphics in interesting ways, etc.

GemSquash (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=7275) - Edg3
GemSquash is a classic click-reduction game: The player has to point out groupings of like elements and the indicated groups disappear one by one until no more adjacent items form groups. Edg3 tries to take this mechanic and convey it without words... Relying on natural curiosity to get the player to click the first time is a good idea in this style of play-experience, as users will usually just click like crazy if they're not sure what to do. Hopefully they'll initiate a collapse and figure out the game concept from there. It does feel like there's some feedback missing though, the game relies too much on players being familiar with the click-reduction concept - a new player might be a little lost. Indicating the currently selectable gem via an animation is always a good idea, as would be indicating which gems are going to collapse should the current selection be clicked. By the looks of it, this proved a good learning experience for Edg3. Giving him more questions to ask next time he hits a task like this...

Stick Man Wars (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=6943) - Edg3
At start up this looks like an intriguing concept, unfortunately it's not fleshed out into more of a game, but the core controls are communicated well and suit the prototype's minimalist leanings. The keyboard-shaped images with highlights are a great way to tell a user what they need to press to make stuff do things - you just wish that there was more to do...

There are a few niggles regarding game systems: The terrain removal system seems to be an actual numerical subtraction on the curve instead of a radius-based area subtraction; And the projectiles the player fires behave rather strangely, presumably because they have a maximum speed that they can reach and this pulls down horizontal movement prematurely (for future reference, in ballistic motion horizontal and vertical forces are separate).

GuyTrayHero (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=6869) - FuzzySpoon
Putting an entire game in a system tray icon is an interesting idea. It's right up there with the blokes who make games that take place entirely in favicons on the web... The problem with limited screen space like that is conveying gameplay and instructions: GTH has to pop up multiple windows just to tell you what to do - and the explanation suffers from only being graphical (Fuzzy! No hover animations for buttons? What happened to right-to-left instruction reading? Why does the instruction window POP UNDER the main window and then disappear without the user closing it? Interface 101, you're better than that ;)).

Gameplay-wise, GTH is strange. The game is about getting to the end of a linear level by moving right or left and switching gravity to up or down to get around/over/under obstacle lines. It sort of feels like a little more design would have given us a Sonic-style game in our taskbars, which would never be a bad thing. The extra taskbar window the game creates could be dealt with by using the game's background colour to denote time left (with flashing red meaning you're about to run out) that's a very confusing element, as you're not sure where your attention should be at first. The final level is a lot more fun than the initial one, I'd love to see structures like loops or jumps... All in all, an interesting experiment, but I'm not sure it's overly viable beyond "hey, cool" factor.

The Gateway (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=6879) - Gazza_N
Point and click adventure games historically only employ text to progress a story or provide details that the artists weren't able to convey visually. As far as the control scheme goes, you move your mouse around and click when the icon changes. Gazza has used this trope very well to create The Gateway: Navigating around the game's set of rooms isn't difficult (except for a few tricky areas where you don't turn as much as you thought you would, but that's not a big issue) and it's relatively obvious when the user can interact with something or not. Perhaps clickable items could have gotten a bit of a highlight or occasional glow effect, just to point them out to a confused user who didn't trigger an event for a while.

Short though it is, The Gateway feels haunting. You don't know why you're there as a player, you're not sure what's going on, you don't even know if anything IS going on, per se. It's a strange situation to be in: playing an adventure game with an overarching backstory (usually so prevalent in the genre) excised. The effect would be emphasised by graphical elements like shattered/broken picture frames, other old signs of violence or even some kind of indicator of prior habitation (by human or alien), you'd find player's minds would construct all sorts of interesting scenarios to fill the text void. Would make a great flash game.

Invasion (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=7309) - Hippie
While I like the minimalist style of this missile command clone, it doesn't qualify for the competition because it uses text... :(

* (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=6858) - Kensei
All you need to do is see the forum-icon-based shoutouts in * to see how seriously Kensei took the "text free" stipulation. This extends to a very simple control scheme and a surprisingly non-punitive mechanic that allows (and encourages) the player to try things to see what happens. This is exploratory gameplay in bite-sized chunks - you don't end up getting so involved in a chain of events that having to restart due to a bad choice is an inconvenience.

The game is a fetch and carry puzzle system, in the vein of flash games like Grow: You play a disembodied shiny rainbow man in search of the love of his life, obviously a princess (although perhaps Dorothy would be a better choice). Along the path to romance lie ineffable wizards that must be placated with items found lying around the map, at which point the wizards usually do something to our protagonist to allow you to progress further in the puzzle. Trying multiple things until you find the right combination is fun, although the puzzles could have been a little less linear, world 2 specifically (it presents you with too many possibilities and then turns into a railroad once you get started) perhaps if there were more funny outcomes for incorrect combinations. World 3 is a great puzzle though, more of that sort of creativity would be excellent!

=D (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=7324) - Nandrew
Every once in a while a lucky developer comes up with a play mechanic that transcends simplistic and heads unimpeded into the stratosphere of awesome. Annoyingly, Nandrew seems capable of doing this in a weekend inbetween exams... =D is one of those classic puzzle games that will keep re-appearing all over the place for years, now that it's actually been made. We'd direct Nandrew to the shenanigans of Tetris-creator Alexey Pajitnov if we were at all worried about his business acumen.

You've got a core mechanic that screams epic win, seemingly endless creativity driving the puzzles (which always leave you feeling smart when you solve them) and this heady brew is topped off with a typical Nandrew helping of sarcastic-chic graphics. And no text anywhere, a monkey could play this and have as great a time as a Nobel laureate for physics.

Silence (http://forums.tidemedia.co.za/nag/showthread.php?t=6962) - Thaumaturge
When a game can't use text to convey complex nets of information, visuals must suffice. Most of the games which really worked well within the constraints of this competition were light on story, not so for Silence... Thaumaturge serves up a great-looking orthographic 3D game world (which could benefit from being rotated by the right mouse button in addition to the screen edges, FYI) and then proceeds to successfully add a spooky atmosphere the austere and deserted office block you find yourself in.

The popup action icons when you get close to an object you can interact with work well and I've always wanted more games to use the "Scry" alternate vision thing that worked so very well in Undying. Special mention must be made of the animations, it's not usual for a competition entry with only a month of production time to have details like that... If only there were more of this, I'd play it to see what was really going on. Colour me hooked.


RESULTS:

I think it's obvious that removing text is a double-edged sword: On the one hand it makes your final game much more playable; But on the other it makes getting goals and information across to the player just that little bit harder. Our winners struck that balance nicely:

First place: =D - Nandrew
Sometimes what Nandrew is capable of doesn't feel even the slightest bit fair. Stick a new coat of graphics on this and start selling it. Pronto!

Second place: * - Kensei
With some more attention to puzzle design and some amusing effects thrown in, this is a keeper.

Third place: Silence - Thaumaturge
Very tough decision. If this had just a little bit more play time (and if you can open the locked PC-door then I need to replay it, hopefully with the right sound DLL) it would have been second. It came down to a battle of endings :)

...

The results of this competition just go to show that with good design and a clear game mechanic you can completely eschew text in a game. This is great for two reasons: The integrated interfaces and greater amounts of feedback will never hurt your game; Plus with no text, suddenly your game is playable by a much wider audience than if it were only in one language!

Plus it's obvious that forcing everyone to really sit and think about the best way to get their gameplay goals, controls and rewards across to the player with the least possible confusion was a really good idea. We've obviously got a talented group of designers here and I hope they remember this Competition's lessons in their future games, they'll be even better for it.

-D

Cyberninja
01-11-2008, 10:03 PM
Congrats to all the winners. :)

Kensei is gonna xplode when she reads this. :P

Gazza_N
01-11-2008, 10:23 PM
Kensei is gonna xplode when she reads this. :P
It'll be visible from orbit. :P

Well done to the winners - fun games all! Not that first place was in any doubt... ;p

Well, if nothing else, this comp was a great lesson in making things clearer and more intuitive for the player. It's not easy... ^^;

Now bring on Comp 21 for great justice!

Kensei
01-11-2008, 11:00 PM
Congrats to all the winners. :)

Kensei is gonna xplode when she reads this. :P

BOOOOMMMMM!!!!!!!!!!

:D Just does not cover it!!

Thank you :) This is an incredible boost for me, d ;) Come to the meet and greet if we have it in December I will give you a big hug.

dINGLE
01-11-2008, 11:08 PM
Well done to all the winners!

Tr00jg
01-11-2008, 11:58 PM
Well done guys!

Aval4nche
02-11-2008, 07:25 AM
Congrats guys! Great comp. On to 21!!!

Bonezmann
02-11-2008, 08:30 AM
Congratulations to everyone who won! :D

I must admit that Ancient History was one of my most dissapointing games I ever made, I tried to do too much in too little time.

The Dash
02-11-2008, 02:04 PM
Invasion - Hippie
While I like the minimalist style of this missile command clone, it doesn't qualify for the competition because it uses text...

i rather like this one, do you think Hippie would mind if i built on it? i see he hasn't been on the forums in a while so i cant exactly ask him =/

dislekcia
02-11-2008, 02:37 PM
i rather like this one, do you think Hippie would mind if i built on it? i see he hasn't been on the forums in a while so i cant exactly ask him =/

That depends by what you mean by build on it: If you want to extend the game concept, that would be fine, seeing as it's based on missile command already; But if you wanted to decompile his code and work on that, you'd have to ask him.

edg3
02-11-2008, 07:25 PM
Congrats all :)

Squid
02-11-2008, 08:04 PM
Congrats everyone, and well deserved Nandrew!

BlackHawk
03-11-2008, 10:32 AM
Congrats to the winners!

Fengol
03-11-2008, 01:01 PM
and my congratulations too!

Nandrew
04-11-2008, 04:04 PM
Wheee! Thankee!

Oh, and I definitely want to keep on this core game idea to produce something awesome. I'm building a Flash prototype which has very similar ideas and goals (half as a "continuing development thing", and half as a means of getting into Flash).

I'd very much appreciate feedback when I send it out to see how the mechanics compare to the original game. ^_^

Thaumaturge
11-11-2008, 06:40 PM
Woohoo! My first placement! Thank you very much, and many congratulations Kensei and Nandrew - very well done to both of you. ^_^

I'm really glad that the atmosphere worked well, and thank you very much for your comments on the visuals and animations, dislekcia. ^_^

As to the locked door, did you mean the door at the far end of the hallway in which you arrive after leaving the elevator? If so, then indeed, it should be possible to open it, and one other besides. If that's the case then you may want to check that you have everything in order, and recall the way that you opened the first locked door...

Further hints, just in case (hopefully I recall the game correctly):
1: Order is important.
2: Viewing a vision out of sequence (or not of that sequence) should break the sequence.
3: There are three visions to be seen in order to unlock the door.
4: The last vision takes place in the hallway.
5: The first takes place in the nearby room.
6: The first is the vision at the lectern.
7: The last is the vision at the computer near the door.
8: The second is the vision at the blackboard.

As I recall, the only permanently-locked door is the one directly opposite to the first vision (which was a double door, I think); I'm pretty sure that all wooden doors open at some stage.

As to the sound DLLs, I think that one or both of these should do the trick:
DLL 1 (http://www.gamedev.za.net/filecloset/download.php?id=591)
DLL 2 (Courtesy of Kensei) (http://www.gamedev.za.net/filecloset/download.php?id=590)

Note: If you haven't seen at least one closing image (there are two), then you haven't finished the game yet. ;)


(which could benefit from being rotated by the right mouse button in addition to the screen edges, FYI)

This is perhaps an interesting lesson for me, given the different types of control preferred - I liked my original "mouse-to-the-edge-of-the-screen" system, while I seem to recall that Kensei requested keyboard control, and now right-mouse control is suggested as well. And that makes sense - camera control, where it is given to the player, is something that is probably particularly important to make comfortable for the player, since it seriously affects the player's ability to gain information about the gameworld...

By the way, my apologies that I'm not around much these days - I don't have a home 'net connection any more, and don't like to access the 'net overmuch during work hours, barring lunch (and yes, I imagine that I'm going to have more than a few people telling me that this is silly :P), leaving me with more limited 'net time than I might like. I might hopefully have more access in a few weeks' time, and I'm hoping to arrange for my own 'net connection (quite possibly through Neotel) in the new year.

dislekcia
12-11-2008, 03:15 PM
Hmm. I'll give the game another play through. I think the problem was that it was completely non-obvious that the visions had to be in a specific order... Maybe if you included real world objects that were manipulated by the visions? Like a key card that you can't pick up but the visions do and move around? That would make more sense. Basically you need to convey coherence and order in the visions, I kept triggering them all over the place because they each seemed to stand alone ;)

No worries about limited net access, you did just move after all! How goes the new job otherwise?

Thaumaturge
13-11-2008, 05:30 PM
You're right, of course - the game unfortunately doesn't teach the player enough, I'm afraid. In fact, I think that I recognised that problem before entering it, but probably didn't feel that I had much time left in which to rectify it; in fact, there were a few features cut as it was (the entity that should appear behind the player character every so often actually had a little bit of (fairly inobvious) gameplay attached to it, for example, and I seem to recall that I wanted to include more than one ghost). :/

As to the job, I'm really enjoying it, thank you! Things are going pretty well (lack of 'net access not withstanding), from my point of view. ^_^