I went on a streak of Kickstarter projects last year. I enjoyed helping to fund several small projects, and I received some rewards along the way. One of those rewards just arrived, and I’m super stoked about it.
I’ve been a fan of Larry Elmore’s artwork since the 90s, and this book is probably one of the best art collections I’ve ever seen. It’s not simply a collection of his work. Rather, it includes information about his upbringing, his time in the Military, and the early years of D&D Artwork.
I wrote about how Larry gave me some great advice on one of my pieces earlier this year. I’ve taken that advice to heart, and I’ve been very happy with the results. In fact, I followed up with the two characters in that previous piece to create the one you see up above.
There’s a funny story behind this piece: when I was at GenCon earlier this year, a father with three daughters came to the booth. They were interested in my “Her First Doll” image, and we got to talking about artwork in general. I told him that I was considering a second piece with the same father-daughter combination riding on the motorcycle that the father is building in that image.
When I suggested that it would have a sidecar for the girl, he cut me off. “No,” he said, “you should have her driving and him in the sidecar.” The light went off, and I set to work on the piece immediately after the show. If he comes to the booth next year, I plan to give him a free copy of the print.
I’m really happy that I was able to apply some of the knowledge I attained this summer, and I look forward to finding opportunities to apply it again in the future.
I grew up on fighting games. My interest in fighting games began with the general interest in karate that children of the 80s developed from watching The Karate Kid. It manifested in the form of the early point-sparring arcade games on the Commodore like Karate Champ, Way of the Exploding Fist, and International Karate. It evolved with some of the first games that had life bars, such as Yie Ar Kung Fu, Karateka, and Barbarians. I wasn’t much of a Street Fighter guy, but I loved Pit Fighter, Mortal Kombat, and Killer Instinct.
Thinking back on it, there’s one moment that will always stick out in my mind, though. Once, when I was in high school, I went to a movie rental store to pick up a game for the weekend. We mulled over a few games, and after I gave a few recommendations, my friend said to me, “look man, I don’t want to get any fighting games.” This seemed crazy to me. I thought, “Why would he not want to get a fighting game? Fighting games are awesome! He must not want to play them because he knows I will win.” and so on.
Today, I understand it.
Competitive games that give complete control to the players are fun only when the skill level of the players is matched. This is one of the reasons why I moved away from competitive chess years ago. I kept finding myself in a weird spot where I was much more skilled than the general populace, but not nearly as skilled as the more experienced players. So, outside of those rare instances where I was paired with an opponent that matched my skill level, I either crushed my opponents our was crushed myself. Neither of these scenarios was fun for me.
With most fighting games, as with chess, I’ve discovered that I am good enough to beat about 80% of the players that know how to play them. That’s not saying much; it’s similar to the way a high-level high school basketball player can probably beat 80% percent of the population in a pickup game of basketball. Unless I am throwing the game, I will likely win the vast majority of games against these players.
At the same time, most of the truly competitive players will generally crush me. This probably makes up about 15% of the overall players that play the game. Again, this is as applicable in chess as it is in Marvel vs. Capcom.
So what I’m left with is a small window of about 5% of the opponents that I can compete against. And finding local players that fall within that 5% is very difficult to do.
There’s a great video about this topic from the old Modcast. Check it out.
I think the most important point in that video was made by Jam. The gamers that grew up together playing through the old fighting games learned a skill set that takes time for any gamer to get. They were able to develop that skill set by playing against other players of similar skill, and through a steady progression were able to master the system. Gamers who play casually don’t develop those skills, so the game is unfun for them when they are playing against a skilled player.
I saw this very clearly when playing games with my own children. I never throw a game to my kids (more on that another time), but I also don’t want to play something where throwing the game even crosses my mind. I find that they and I both get a lot more enjoyment playing something that allows us to cooperate instead of compete.
So I was right when I thought that my friend didn’t want to play because he knew that I would win, but I was wrong to think of it in those terms. I should have thought “he doesn’t want to play because the experience will not be fun for him.” Over the years, I’ve learned that giving each player a fun experience is much more fun than finding a place where I can beat them.
A couple of years ago a saw an amazing video about a disabled gamer that uses his tongue and cheek to play Super Street Fighter 4 on a competitive level. Here is the video:
I haven’t followed competitive/professional gaming much, but I love that it is continuing to grow. I think it’s much healthier than a lot of the sports that are currently out there…
…, and it is relatively cheap and easy to broadcast.
So I watched Major League Gaming’s (MLG’s) DotA2 tournament from Columbus, Ohio over the weekend, and I found it fascinating. Having never played DotA, I didn’t know any of the moves, abilities, or characters, but I am familiar enough with the genre of the game to understand approximately what is going on.
I remember thinking during the competition that this must be how it feels when someone who knows nothing about American Football, rugby, or cricket watches the sport. They can tell by the announcers and the crowd when something exciting is happening, but they don’t quite follow everything that is going on. If the announcers are good, they might even get a hint of what actually transpired, and over time they might learn the game. In this instance, the announcers did an outstanding job of hyping up the event and getting the crowd involved.
There isn’t much else to say about it other than I will likely watch future events, and would love to see more games entered into this type of event. A small group of us is considering starting a Blood Bowl League on Steam this spring. If we do, I’ll post the results in the sidebar here.
I enjoy it when a game designer approaches a pre-existing genre from a new, flavorful perspective. For example, I think it would be neat if we could get rid of the zombies in a lot of these survival/horror games and instead put the players against mummies in Egypt.
So how did I react when I saw that Sang Froid was a tower defense game, set in the Great White North, where you must protect a house with an axe and a musket from waves of werewolves sent by the devil? My reaction could be summed up in one word: SOLD!
Sangfroid (pronounced san-frwa) is a french word for “the ability to stay calm in difficult or dangerous situations.” This game requires exactly that. Most games give you relatively fast recharge time or a clip for you gun rounds, so you can afford to miss shots occasionally. In Sang-Froid, you have to reload your musket after every shot. In many instances, you have to stall the wolves while you reload your musket, and you have to build that time into your gameplan and make every shot count. You have a lot to do and a short time to do it, but the key thing is that you keep calm and carry on.
As I though about the nature of the game’s title and mechanics, I was reminded of this scene from Glory:
I once heard this genre referred to as a “boots on the ground tower defense game,” and I think that’s an apt description. It reminds me a little bit of Brutal Legend; I even remember thinking during one mission “this does to tower defense what Brutal Legend attempted to do with RTS, but it does it right.” After reading other reviews, I have seen the game compared to Orcs Must Die and/or Sanctum. If they are anything like Sang Froid, I am excited about giving them a try.
While Sang Froid requires timing, I wouldn’t call it a twitch game. That said, it is one where you have to remain alert to the larger danger while keeping your attention on the specific task at hand. The stages were hard, but satisfying. whenever I finished one, I felt like Hannibal from the A-Team.
The overall flavor to the game is light, campy, with a good story and just the right amount of cheese. The game constantly changes graphical styles between game play, cut scenes, and dialog. If I wasn’t such a fan of Ralph Bakshi’s animation I would likely find this quite jarring. I wouldn’t be surprised if other people found this annoying.
The digital storytelling technique used in the game serves as a reminder that it is a low budget title, but I think that added to the overall charm of the game. The characters appearing and disappearing during dialog reminds me of the dialog from Guild Wars 2 or Aqua Teen Hunger Force. The folk-style soundtrack makes me think of what country music must have sounded like before country music existed; it keeps the player in the moment, but remained light enough to keep it from feeling like a horror game.
Sang Froid is an excellent tower defense game with a lot of charm and an interesting story. Give it a try.
I completed XCom: Enemy Unknown earlier this year, and I wanted to get a few thoughts down about it.
The first time I saw XCom was in 1996. I had just left my military basic training, and one of my fellow students was playing it on his PC. I was blown away at the time. The game took the strategic elements that I loved from the old D&D Gold Box games to the next level. It also added a terror element by making the enemy moves hidden. Years later I bought the original XCom on the PSOne, and later on the PC, and I played them into the ground.
It’s very easy for a designer to capitalize on nostalgia and simply make a new version of an old game with little more than asthetic changes. It’s much harder to critically look at the old game, extract the essence of the game in a way that replicates the experience for a new generation, but still make improvements to the gameplay.
Upon reflection, I now realize that there was one major problem with the original game: it allowed you to have a huge crew for your recovery missions. This seemed great, as you could send your team out in squads and canvas a large area at once. The problem was that a single turn took a long time to complete, and even longer if you wanted an optimal strategy. By mid-game, a single mission could take hours to complete.
In the new game, you start out with only four characters and, in time, you can upgrade to six. By reducing the number of players you could use as well as the overall scope of the missions, the designers were able to make the missions go much more quickly and efficiently. I frequently found myself saying “just one more mission” in a way that I would have never considered with the old game.
Generally, I am not a fan of “dumbing down” a game, especially if said dumbing down takes away from key functionality. On the other hand, I do appreciate when a game developer takes the lessons learned from games past and asks “where can we go from here? How can we make it better?” This is a narrow tightrope to walk because the slightest slip to one side (oversimplification) or the other (excessive complexity creep) can crush a new product.
With that in mind, I think the developers of the new XCom: Enemy Unknown have walked that tightrope beautifully. The new game has taken the original game and boiled it down to a much simpler, stronger product. All of the chaff is gone, and all of the best parts remain.
