Posts Tagged video
Zak McKracken and the Alien Mindbenders Bits
Posted by The Management in games on May 1, 2009
Zak McKracken was Lucasarts’ second ever SCUMM title. It didn’t really have the same impact as the various Monkey Island or Indiana Jones games, but it contained loads of personality and a few interesting twists on adventure game mechanics.
It all started with a dream...
The good stuff:
- Zak McKracken, the game’s protagonist, dreams of winning the Pulitzer Prize but is stuck working for The National Inquisitor, a trashy tabloid. Despite Zak’s disgruntlement, his job is a very good excuse to have the player investigate suspicious phenomenona and travel to exotic locales.
The red, underlined "LOOK!" arrow-sign was actually a breath of fresh air in a genre notorious for pixel-hunting.
- The game came packaged with a print version of the National Inquisitor and featured headlines such as “Two-Headed Squirrel Attacks Two Campers At Once!” and “Scrambled Son Tries To Kill Parents With Eggs.” Incidentally, not everything in the newspaper is supposed to be fabricated — a concept that was a big part of Men in Black.
- The game’s story revolves around a devious alien plot to overthrow humanity. This is achieved by a group of aliens — disguised in Groucho-style masks — running a phone company that’s slowly eroding earth’s intelligence through dial tones.
The FM Towns version of the game.
- Being exposed to the aliens’ Mindbender machine results in game commands being sucked out from the user interface. This is a rather clever way of simulating Zak getting stupid. It also serves to gate the player and justify some rather perplexing behaviour.
- The National Inquisitor doesn’t have the biggest budget, so Zak must pay for his own flights. Aside from being another logical gating mechanic, it also serves to tease the player with impossibly expensive flights. It’s debatable whether such red herrings are actually a good thing, but they add the illusion of scale.
- A vital way of getting the funds to travel around the world is winning the lottery.
- International flights also double as copy-protection, requiring the player to enter “Visa Codes” (that are provided in the game’s manual) when travelling outside of the US.
Yes, that King.
- Zak can “mind-meld” with animals and control them, but this is often just an amusing distraction, e.g., making your goldfish smile or having a yak poop.
- The game is split into five main parts, each one involving getting a piece of “The Device.” It’s a very non-linear approach — especially for an adventure game — as it allows the player to explore and the world in almost any order he wishes.
- The game’s female characters were based on at-the-time significant others of the various individuals on the development team. One of these women was notorious for dyeing her hair, so her in-game equivalent appears with differently coloured hair every time she takes off her space helmet.
- Zak’s pet goldfish is named Sushi.
The Cattle Prod
Posted by The Management in design on April 28, 2009
I’ve previously talked about the Alamo standoff, a technique in which the player’s physical progress is halted, so I figured I’d take a quick look at the opposite end of the spectrum: forcing the player to move forward.
The iconic escape sequence from the intro of Super Metroid.
Now there are plenty of ways to encourage the player to physically make progress in a game (collectibles, for instance), but forcing him to do so is a bit different. One approach is to simply take the player on an automated ride where his input bears little to no effect on the actual traversal, e.g., autoscrolling stages in shmups, or wholly scripted camera movement in light-gun games. Another possibility, and the one I’ll be focusing on, is what I like to call the “cattle prod.” But first, a quick definition:
- An event in which the player fails to adequately advance through a challenge, often resulting in a restart at the last checkpoint/save spot or a “gave over” scenario.
Super Adventure Island's cattle prod is the very intuitive hunger mechanic that requires the player to constantly pick up fruits. Not only is this concept very easy to grasp, but it also fits in with the game's setting and is supported by the extremely horizontal level design.
Game death is a pretty nebulous concept, e.g., losing a race and having to repeat it doesn’t have to actually involve anyone or anything being killed. However, it is also the ultimate consequence of not properly following the directions dictated by the cattle prod(s).
With that in mind, we can now talk about what makes a cattle prod work. Namely, diminishing resources that can bring on game death.
Cattle prods are manifested in various ways, e.g., time limits, combo meters, autoscrolling walls, currencies, decaying health, unstoppable enemies, etc. The overall feeling they tend to bring on is that of tension (and the possible satisfaction of overcoming a challenge) although that intensity varies greatly from case to case.
From what I’ve noticed, there’s three main factors that play into the stress level of a cattle prod:
1). Player Knowledge.
The more information the player possesses, the better he will be equipped to judge the situation at hand. Traversing a familiar level while being accompanied by a minimap that displays various points of interest is a lot less intimidating than being given a time limit and thrown into a hostile and unknown area.
Although Crackdown's races were actually pretty easy, the rapid checkpoint approach definitely increased their intensity.
2). Player Power.
The stronger the player is, the lesser the impact of any possible cattle prods. For example, if an RTS match begins with the player at a fully outfitted base with a lot of units and resources to mine, he won’t be too worried (at least not immediately) about succeeding. However, remove the base, provide only a handful of starting units, severely diminish possible resources and create a massive opposing army, and the stress levels quickly increase.
3). Resource Availability/Lifespan.
The more sparse the resource and the quicker it runs out, the more intense the overall experience. If a checkpoint is fifteen minutes away in a rally-style racing game, the player tends to trust the designer to give him plenty of time to reach that goal. However, if a checkpoint can be seen just a block down the street but the player only has 10 seconds to reach it, the experience becomes much more rushed and hectic.
The dials on these 3 factors can be turned independently — something that’s particularly important when using multiple impetus mechanics at one time. In the end, though, they all represent a single concept:
- A mechanic based on diminishing resources that forces the player to advance in order to avoid game death.
Tee Hee, He’s Gay…or Something
Posted by The Management in miscellaneous on April 23, 2009
There are many examples — and satires — of the East’s penchant for gender bending in various forms of entertainment media. For instance, these two videogame characters are supposed to be male.
The ancient race of Magypsies in Mother 3.
A subset of this phenomenon seems to be Japan’s jovial fascination with homosexuality (at least when contrasted against pop-culture trends in the West). More specifically, it appears to be a general kind of giddy amusement brought on by extreme and often exagerrated imagary of gay men.
Now you should take that statement with a grain of salt. I am not Japanese, nor have I ever lived in or visited the country. This is just a loose perception stemming from internet sources, second and third hand opinions, and videogame exhibits such as these:
While some of the above games were quite niche, others, like “Freshly-Picked Tingle’s Rosy Rupeeland” (actual title), were published by family friendly companies and became mainstream hits. The response to these games wasn’t an outrage or a rallying call, or even apathy. Instead, it seemed like something else entirely: a collective giggle.
Now on the surface that doesn’t seem so bad. These ridiculously over-the-top portrayals can be amusing, but when they all follow the same pattern, they also risk becoming misrepresented as the status quo. And in this case, isn’t the majority of gay-related subject matter distilled into a cheery “Oh, you silly, adorable people!” pat on the head?
Considering Japan’s somewhat schizophrenic history with homosexuality, this strikes me as particularly odd. Anyone care to enlighten me on the root and cause(s) of this trend?
Headspin Storybook Bits
Posted by The Management in games on April 17, 2009
Headspin Storybook is a basic matching game, except that the images on the left side of the screen need to be mirrored on the right. It’s very simple and approachable, and wrapped up in an undeniably “neat” package.
If you ask me, pop-up picture books are too rarely an inspiration for videogames.
The bits:
- The storybook theme is instantly recognizable, and it’s the perfect setup for the left/right duality that serves as the base of the gameplay.
- The backgrounds and moving people have the same cutout look as the interactive parts, which is a bit confusing. I realize that the confusion is the intended result, but I don’t think it’s necessary. The level timers are already fairly short, and the extra visuals are distracting enough by themselves without mimicking the interactive objects.
- The positions/object lists and their flipped values are randomized. This provides decent replay value and prevents levels from being too easy the second time around.
- The sliding timer indicator and the flipping animations are true to the game’s theme and provide inexpensive but fitting effects.
The Trap Door Bits
Posted by The Management in games on February 15, 2009
The multi-purpose trap door.
The Trap Door is an old claymation TV series that also got a videogame treatment. It’s particularly noteworthy because it came at a time when videogame genres were not that well defined. This resulted in some unique mechanics transplanted directly from the show.
The highlights:
- The game contains only basic movement, and the ability to raise/pick-up or lower/drop-down various objects.
- There’s no inventory or in-game menus of any kind.
- The game is split into multiple missions, each one involving creating a different meal for “the thing upstairs.” Making these meals involves navigating a handful of screens that comprise the castle and utilizing the various bizarre items and monsters at hand.
- Only a single item can be carried at any one time, but items can also be flipped upside-down. This often results in other items falling out, which can themselves also serve as containers for other items, and so on.
- Raising/lowering a lever opens/closes the titular trap door. You have to open it to let certain monsters out, and quickly close it to keep others in. If something is standing on the door while you open it, it gets launched into the air.
Your overlord has the oddest cravings...
- Although the monsters that come out of the trap door directly relate to your current quest, they’re still randomized and give off a feeling of wonder — you never quite know what to expect next.
- Part of the HUD is a constantly growing meter that represents your overlord’s impatience. When it reaches the top in easy mode, the mission is switched (each mission requires making a different dish), but on the hardest difficulty you simply get the game over screen.
- Certain objects are too big to be picked up, but they can be pushed around the environment. Properly positioning them is part of numerous puzzles and goes hand-in-hand with the context-sensitive process of dropping items (they can be placed back on shelves, dropped into other items, thrown into the trap door, etc.).
- Jumping down the trap door kills you.
- Picking up the talking skull will cycle through a series of clues dealing with the current mission.
- Monsters can travel from screen to screen and even interact with one another, i.e., the ghosts — for some reason — will hunt down the worms that you use as ingredients.
Sending up a finished meal.
- One of the trap door creatures hops around and is used to squeeze juice from a vat full of eyeballs. Another one breathes fire and can be tricked into boiling a cauldron of slugs. Another one still will fly around and will need to be stunned by launching something at it using the trap door. Once hit, it will become stunned and will lay an egg onto a frying pan, a key component of one of the dishes.
- A drop-weight in one of the rooms can be used by manipulating a lever — this allows the player to crush objects and kill rampaging monsters.
- Once all the dishes are done, you have tidy up. This actually involves throwing every item in the game into the trap door and getting rid of all the creatures! Your skull buddy is not exempt from this either, screaming “wheee” as he gets catapulted into the air and “owww” on his way down.
- At the end of The Trap Door, you’re paid by having “the thing upstairs” lower (using the same dumbwaiter you used to send up food) a safe. To open the safe, you need to crush it with the drop-weight, adding a nice element of interaction to the game’s conclusion. Raising it all the way up, though, will destroy the safe and its contents!
About
Hi, my name’s Radek Koncewicz, and I'm the Creative Lead of Incubator Games, a small development studio I started with a few former coworkers.
I think a lot about videogames, and when I find the time, I post those thoughts here on this blog.
