Thursday, October 31, 2013

Phenomina Movie Commentary


Happy Halloween everybody! I was going to write a review of Silent Hill: Revelations for the holiday, but that movie was so awful I decided I didn't want to devote any more energy to it.
So instead, Reset Tears and I watched Phenomina, the movie which the SNES Clock Tower game (which I love) was based off of. Here's a hint: It's nothing like the game.

Anyway, if you want to see our text commentary, check out his hilarious blog. Also if you read this blog you should be reading his blog, because his blog is funnier than mine. It also gets updated. :'(

Scare Spree


The Short

Pros
- Spooky, scary, ghosty fun
- It is, as advertised, a Spree of Scares
- Music and art are both great
- Large assortment of levels and characters to unlock and play
- Gameplay is simple to learn, tricky to master
- Getting high scores and finding all the unlocks can be addicting
- Only a buck on Android

Cons
- The engine, while admirably holding up, doesn't quite fit to the gameplay style
- Unlocks for new characters and levels can take a while. You may be stuck on the first level a while
- Touch controls take a while getting used to.
- No online leaderboards or sharing (again, an engine thing)

Thems a lotta spooks ready for scarin'. 

The Long

You know what's great? Halloween. You know what's also great? Scaring kids.
Legally, of course. Wait, where was I going with this?
Scare Spree is a recently released game on Android about (you guessed it), scaring kids on Halloween. Made on the OHRRPGCE game engine and later ported to the handheld, it combines arcade-style, points-grubbing action with the Halloweeny feel to create an addicting, if a bit rough-around-the-edges android experience.
So is it worth picking up this All Hallows Eve? For sure, but read on for exactly why.

It's not illegal if you are actually a monster. 

There isn't really a story here: scare kids. There's the story. It's the most important story ever told, because if kids deserve anything, it's having the Fear O' God put into 'em. That or a fear of a skeleton, pig, alien, witch, or guy dressed up like a bug-eyed Hamster. All those are playable characters, by the way. 

The goal of Scare Spree is a simple one: Scare as many kids as possible within the time limit, and rank up combos. Combos are essential to doing well, as that you'll get a measly and pathetic score if you don't bother to learn the combo system. 

The controls are simple: You can scare, sprint, or MEGA SCARE. MEGA SCARE can only be done after you've scared a bunch of kids in a row (again, combos) and filled up the meter, so your primary form of attack will be the standard scare fare. You can also hold down the attack button to attract kids around you, then scare them all at once for sick combos, which is pretty hilarious. The kids all scream bloody murder when they get frightened, which is a hoot.

I ain't afraid of no...tornadoes?

Unfortunately, a few minor issues arise after playing a few rounds. The first is easily overcome: the controls. While it works fine, this game was clearly designed with a keyboard or gamepad in mind, with the touch controls to move (it's limited to a grid) feel a bit clunky. These controls work for a slower game, like an RPG, but for an action based game it's a bit cumbersome. However, you'll adjust quickly to it's three button, one stick layout.

The other issue is the scaring itself, especially combos. When kids are "scared" they run off screaming but don't disappear. This often lead to me wondering which in a group of kids I'd scared and which I hadn't, with the only way to know counting the kids and the boost to my combo. While they do flail about and run faster, it can still be tricky (since they're still on-screen), and did confuse me a bit. Again, you get used to it, but the bar of entry is still a tad high. 

Who wouldn't be scared of that...thing?

Once you get it, however, the game becomes a hoot. While it does take a bit longer than it probably should to unlock more characters and stages (and the different characters are just cosmetic; they don't actually do anything different), figuring out the best way to chain combos to get high scores quickly becomes addicting. On top of that, the quirky graphics and absolutely killer soundtrack really sells the spooky scene. The title screen looks straight out of an NES-era game, and I love it. 

Keeping it simple. Ish. 

While the lack of any online leaderboards won't make Scare Spree the next Angry Birds, it's a fantastic Halloween romp that's also awesome any day of the year. Here's hoping the creator provides more updates and content (maybe more stages, or making the various characters actually different) over the next little bit to flesh the game out, and perhaps tighter controls or an easier beginning game will help newbies. But for those willing to invest the time (and $1), you're in for a spooky halloween treat.

It currently goes for a buck on the Google Store, so check it out. Four out of five stars. 

Let there be spooks. 

Sunday, October 27, 2013

New releases from the Worldforge project.

Yesterday saw the release of a new version of the client-side software "Ember" for the Worldforge project (an open-source MMO framework).


The focus of this version was to improve the world-editing features, and if not yet included, the GoSC 2013 improvements (for example an updated terrain renderer) should arrive in Ember soon too.

Speaking of the GoSC 2013: Another project benefiting from it under the umbrella of Worldforge was Ryzom Core, the open-sourced MMORPG engine behind the (older) commercial Ryzom MMORPG.

It seems like their OpenGL3.0 renderer is making good progress (see some videos here), and they seem to have finally decided to tackle the lack of proper Blender tools by hiring someone to do it (see paid job advertisement on Blender Artists). As it is an open-source project this seems to have been initiated by one of the developers only, so maybe we can get some people to pledge some extra funds to add to the bounty he is offering?

Tuesday, October 22, 2013

Quick reminder: Free The Monsters open game art crowd-funding

We talked about it before here, but now there is only about 2 days left and even though all funds go to the team regardless of if the goal is reached, they are still a long way off what then would need to create a nice set of openly licensed fantasy monsters.

So please head over to their indiegogo fund-raiser page: "Free the Monsters" and donate.

Friday, October 18, 2013

DevCorner: jMonkeyEngine SDK 3.0 (stealth) release

The maybe most user friendly and complete FOSS game engine jMonkey Engine 3, has recently released the final version 3.0 of their very nice SDK.

Here is a list of the full changes:
Engine
- LWJGL base now works on MacOSX 10.7+ incl. Applets
- Hardware Skinning
- Shader Nodes
- Better Character (beta)
New LOD Generator!
TangentBinormalGenerator was refactored
- Better physics debug view
SDK
- Now bundles a compatible version of the JDK
- Now bundles a version of Blender for conversion and more
- Shader Node Editor (!)
- Code completion for assets
- Texture Atlas creation and packed texture handling
- External editor mesh updates for j3o files
- Seamless 3DS and Collada import through blender
- Improvements to model import tool, allows to locate and import textures
- Attach custom AppStates to the SDK editor scene
- New help and error log system, look for the monkey in the bottom right!
- Improved Font Importer
- Improved support for using other IDEs for code
- Improved obfuscation support for protecting your applications code

Besides general advanced of this Java based game engine, some changes of the list of new features are especially interesting! I think that for example their graphical editor of GLSL shaders is something that could benefit even projects not using jMonkey3 itself, and it is definitely something that was lacking as a FOSS game-dev tool (the half-heartily implementation for something like this in Blender has yet to reach the level of real usability).

Check out the link above to learn more about this shader node editor!

Saturday, October 12, 2013

Frogatto & Friends looking to be "greenlit" on Steam

We have mentioned in the past a few times that it is a common misconception that FOSS games need to be also "freeware", and in fact the opposite can be quite beneficial to the overall development of a game or the engine it is build on.

The 2D jump & run  Frogatto & Friends has been for sale on mobile platforms for a while now, and its really high quality game-play and graphics are definitely a notch above most other open-source games:



All of it is possible through the use of their awesome open-source engine Anura.

Now they are looking to sell their game also on desktop computers through the very popular Steam digital distribution platform. You can vote for inclusion here.

As far as I am aware this is the first open-source game that actually aims to be sold through this channel, but recently another one, Warsow, was actually approved for inclusion as a freeware title.

As a launch of their "greenlight" campaign, the creators of Frogatto & Friends have started a Q&A session on reddit, where you can learn more about them and their awesome game(s).

Unrelated to that: please also check out our own "sub-reddit" about open-source gaming :)

Tuesday, October 8, 2013

Breaking news: The Dark Mod 2.0 stand alone version out now!

I guess quite a few people were waiting for this to finally happen :)

Have a look at the release announcement here and the full change-log here.

They also did a nice introduction video a few months ago:



Haven't got the chance to try it myself yet, but this is high on my list of open-source games to play!