Memento Mori was Green-Lighted!

As the title says, Academic Videogame Projects for Programmers have begun, and the game concept I presented was selected.

A team of designers (including me) will be defining gameplay mechanics and expanding the design while the programmers will begin to test the engine and code the game.


I'm thrilled to see what it turns out to be, not only because it was my idea, but also because it aims to communicate a very important message: to accept death of loved ones.


The game concept can be found here. And the trailer right here.

Talk about Serious Games

Hi there fellow gamers!

Today, I share with you a talk I gave on Serious Games, a topic I find very interesting.

This is video feed from GUEIM VIDEOGAME MEETING in Madrid, Spain.

Thank you for watching!

Symphonic Fantasies - Fantasy III: Chrono Trigger/Cross

Dear Gamers,

Exploring the web, looking for videogame musical arrangements, I stumbled upon 'Symphonic Fantasies', one of several Symphonic Game Concerts. Kingdom Hearts, Secret of Mana, Chrono Series and Final Fantasy Series. Result: I was completely blown away upon listening to each piece, especially the Chrono series one. 

I'm no expert music critic, but the feelings these pieces evoke are strong and unique. I especially like the moment when they combine 'People seized with Life' and 'To far away times'. Too beautiful to express with words. 

The pieces make you feel so much... going in a profound adventure, reminiscing your gaming experience, feeling the weight of a future that was never meant to be, and even the feelings the people that were erased from history. The story was way too complex, but if followed, it delivered a very, very deep meaning. 

Chrono Series really have some of the best pieces of music in gaming history.

Sample: 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RfPrbGV8dQ

Harvest Moon - Game Concept

Welcome back gamers.

In the Game Design Master I'm currently attending, we were given the task to create a Game Concept documento for an existing game. In an attempt to polish my game design skills, I have written the concept for the first Harvest Moon game. I am uploading it for your reading pleasure.


Harvest Moon - Game Concept Document

Game Profile
WORKING TITLE:    Ranch Story (Harvest Moon)
GENRE:                      Life Simulation / Business Simulation
PLATFORMS:             SNES
GAME MODES:         Single Player
AUDIENCE:                9+

Description
Ranch Story is a game where the player takes over a run-down farm in the country-side. His objective is to revitalize the farm and turn it into a successful business before the deadline falls. Labour consists of tending crops and taking care of animals according to the weather and season, while socializing with the local villagers and even attending festivals in the nearest city.

This game aims at being an entertaining and heart-warming life simulator, giving the player the chance to choose how he wants to live (although always leaning towards the good side).

Setting
The setting of the game is a small village in the country-side, where life is peaceful and villagers are good-natured. The keyword here is ‘interactive village’. Every character has his or her chores to do, places to visit and daily schedules, according to the season and weather.

The main character is given two years and a half (game-time) to get the farm working before his parents come to test his progress. In that time, apart from working in the farm, the player is encouraged to socialize with villagers and date some of the few bachelorettes in town. Through present-giving and daily talking, he can end up getting married with one of them, moving together and having children.

When the game ends, the player’s progress is tested and different scenes may trigger according to his achievements. Getting married, being a father, turning into a successful farmer and being loved by the villagers are some of them.

Core Mechanics
•    The game is a farmer responsible for a run-down farm. His objective is to revitalize it before time runs out, turning it into a successful business.

•    The player has many ways of earning money: he can buy and plant seeds, take care of animals or forage for wild fruits in the mountain.

•    Each year is divided into four seasons, and each season into thirty days, run by an internal clock where each day is about five minutes long. Time passes when the player is outside, while it freezes when the player is indoors.

•    Weather varies within each season. Each seed can only be planted in a particular season and has a different way of growing. While spring turnips can only be harvested once, summer tomatoes can be harvested many times. Every seed has to be watered in order to grow. There will be a total of five possible crops to grow.

•    The player will have a variety of tools so as to work in the farm. There will be a watering can, a hammer, a hoe, a sickle and an axe.

•    Animals require more care, as they have to be fed every day. The player may have cows and chickens. Cows give milk and chickens lay eggs every day. The player may incubate eggs in order to get more chickens and breed cows in order to get calves.

•    The village consists of a couple of shops (where the player will get his tools and seeds), a bar (where characters will gather at night), a main square (where festivals will take place), a church and some houses.

•    Villagers have different schedules according to day and weather. While people stay indoors in rainy days, they may go to the mountain in sunny days or go to church on Sunday mornings. When getting married, some schedules may change!

•    Each season has a couple of festivals taking place in the village square. From a Flower Festival (where villagers will dance together) to an Egg Hunt (where finding the hidden eggs will earn you prices) to a Harvest Festival (where every villager throws a vegetable in a pot) to Starry Night Festival (where you’ll spend the night with your sweetheart in a special place).

•    The player can also upgrade his tools through sidequests and customize his house through expansion. A sprinkler can be bought in exchange of your watering can, a golden axe can be found if you complete a small event. If enough wood is gathered, your house may be expanded and customized.

•    If the player has successfully revived the farm, he may keep playing indefinitely. 

References
There are no similar games in the market. The most similar game would be a mix of Sim Farm and some Dating Simulator. Animal Crossing and FarmVille are similar games which came out long after this game, though with some different mechanics.

Risks
•    The game, being a niche genre, may rely upon good reviews and propaganda in order to sell well.

•    A balance has to be formed between working at the farm and socializing in the village, and taking over the farm has to be challenging yet not too hard. Failing to find this point may result in the game not being fun to play, or being too frustrating.

Indie Games Pack... part one!

Indie Gamer Sebastian reporting... today I'll talk about some indie games I've found. Indie games are independently developed, generally by a single person or small team and without financial support.

Indie games are perfect games to explore concepts. I love it when experimental games try exploring how narratives work in a videogame, or develop games with eccentric or particular artistic content, even minimal sometimes. What we're gonna see today is about some videogames I've found over http://indiegames.com, which try out different approaches to story-telling and evoke emotions from the player in different ways.

...BUT THAT WAS YESTERDAY
http://jayisgames.com/cgdc9/?gameID=11
This game is... simply beautiful. It's art is bright and clean, and the setting evokes nostalgia from the player (a snowy setting, a dog, memories).

Basically, what you do in the game is platform for a bit and move the story forward, trying to understand the main character's story. Platforming was somewhat connected to the story, but could have been more cohesive. However, what stands out from this game is how it handles the main character's personal story. Telling the story through a mix of interactive-activities and scenes, music follows the mood of the scenes carefully and help the player make this story their own. The most important characters in the game bear distinctive colors, which holds a meaning as well.

The game talks about the main character's best friend, ex-girlfriend and loyal dog, how he connects with them, and what he discovers from his interactions with them. The game makes the player think about encounters, life, how each day gives a chance to learn. The game is loaded with metaphors, as just the main events of the story are told and details are omitted (so as every person may identify with these events, I believe). Finally, the game gives a message of self-growth and advancing in life by resolving personal struggles... and this was even integrated into the gameplay. How? Read on.

Each of the main characters teaches the main character a 'move' he could not use before. To reach the end of the game, the main character has to use all of these moves... which he learned from his past friends. The game masterfully communicates the meaning outlined above and even integrates it into gameplay. Metaphoric, huh? Very curious and fun game, from which we can all learn something about. Games which help in solving personal struggles have always been quite interesting to me, and this game proves to be successful in giving a hopeful message. By learning from our experiences, we can move on in life.


LOOMING
http://www.newgrounds.com/portal/view/541333

Wow... I played this game for a couple of hours, I believe. To me, it was reminiscent of Myst, as the main player's main task is exploring an ancient deserted civilization.

The game has the player explore a place called 'Looming', which holds the remains of an ancient civilization. Throughout documents and artifacts, the player progressively learns more and more about the tribes which inhabited this place and their affairs and problems. There's a screen which holds how many artifacts you've found (discovery journal), and an indicator telling you how many 'special events' you got. Each time you exit Looming, a 'special event' is launched, which enables you to know more about these people and the main character, and progress is saved. The game's minimalistic approach to graphics and music attracted me, and the fact that the player was really small helped in building a huge world surrounding him. Huge worlds often turn me off, but the fact that there was a discovery journal motivated me to finish it, giving a reason to all the exploration (so as to complete the journal).

What I liked the most was that the game kept me thinking the whole time, wondering about the people who lived in the area, about why the main character is actually there, about why they became extint, and about what exactly is Looming. It made me explore the whole place a lot of times in order to find all artifacts so as to discover 100% of the story. It was the perfect example of a gamer who moves forward so as to discover more about the game's world. Most important, the game's world is described by the notes and artifacts you find, apart from the actual world you see. I believe the idea of 'exploring so as to discover the past' is a pure implementation of archeology in gaming... and actually, it works! It's a great motivation for the player, and I will remember it when designing games. Keeping the player's mind active motivates the player to keep playing, reduces frustration and increases fun.

Conclusions
Very well, the games we've seen today give us a couple of ideas on how to tell a story in a game.

The first game presents the interesting idea of conveying a message through gameplay and interactive scenes with almost no text in the whole game. The game centers in one main character and his past relationships, giving little importance to the actual world which surrounds him. However, the story is told, and the idea that the main characters learns from his past experiences is integrated into gameplay.

The second game is a bit of the opposite from the first one. Minimalistic graphics and a lot of text, small focus on the main character and big focus on the game's world. It's interesting how fun a game turns out to be when there're things to be discovered. The sole existence of a "table of discoveries" made me search every corner of Looming so as to fill it out and learn all of the world's secrets. The game has the player filled with doubt and curiosity, wondering about what happened to the previous inhabitants and the civilization, having him search for objects and learn about them, as every artifact carries a story behind it. 


All in all, they're two experimental and interesting games I hope somebody likes (apart from me, that is).

DuckTales

Hello!

Re-playing some NES classics is an activity I enjoy doing every year. Since I know most games by heart, most of them last a weekend (or a day), but they are still very enjoyable. This time, the DuckTales franchise took its turn, particularly DuckTales 2, and boy was it fun. I'll review the game, pointing out best things so as to use them in some game of mine someday.

The games

The DuckTales games are based on Disney's cartoons from late 1980s and early 1990s. The games take Uncle Scrooge as a treasure hunter, exploring many places in the world (and the moon), interacting with his nephews and a couple of the show's characters. Despite being a game based on a franchise, there was a great deal of effort put into making them enjoyable and not just taking advantage of the well-known cartoon series.

The gameplay

These games' real genre is Treasure-Hunting. The game is a mix of side-scrolling action, treasure-finding, platform-jumping and boss-beating. The game features a couple of levels where the player will have to search for treasure and beat the final boss (who typically guards the important treasure), meeting characters and finding secret treasures (ocassionally solving mysteries) along the way. Besides, upon finishing each level, an 'item-shop' phase is entered, where the player can buy extra-lives, cakes to replenish hearts, continue-globes and some other items which show up.

The level-selection screen

In terms of presentation, each stage has a short description told by fellow pilot Launchpad, with the option of exploring each stage in any order, and being able to replay them if some treasure was missed. The player has the additional task of finding Giro, the show's inventor, who'll give Uncle Scrooge a power-up if found. The power-up, however, does not make the player more powerful, but it makes him more resourceful in their treasure-finding ability. Being able to break and hit rocks with cane-bounces and pull statues unravels new parts of levels, which almost always hold treasures, diamonds or lives. 

The fun thing is that treasures are everywhere in this game, as there're plenty of invisible walls, secret pathways, statues to push and pull, and even a riddle to be deciphered. In the second game, there's a sidequest which has Uncle Scrooge find 7 pieces of a map leading to a secret treasure. Finding the pieces is entirely optional, but if gathered, a secret stage is revealed and the ending of the game changes (albeit a little, but then again, NES endings were usually 3 screens with images and minimal text).

The graphics and the music

...it's Uncle Scrooge... in Egypt!

Graphics are nice and colorful for a NES game, and most of the shows' characters appear in the games as sprites, and even have some lines to say. The levels are well-designed, being easy to see and navigate, depicting Bermuda, The Lost Island of Mu, a pyramid in Egypt, Niagara falls and a castle in Scotland. There's plenty of variety in each level, as most of them take place inside and outside, with subtle pallette changes.

Surprisingly, the music is... really good! There's one track for the main menu, a track for level-select, a track for each level (6-7), a track for the boss-fights and a last one for the ending, not counting the 'I lost' and gameover tunes. The music proves to be enjoyable, for the nostalgia 8-bit trip and for the tunes themselves.

Replayability

What's great in a game is the amount of secrets it can hold. This game has many, most of them being optional to discover. The idea to throw in entirely optional game-content proves to be worthwhile, as there's great satisfaction upon discovering the secrets and finishing the game with the "real" ending, even if it's almost the same. 

Conclusions/Points of interest

Firstly, the concept of a treasure-hunting / platform game is swell. Secrets in games have always existed (take Mario Bros' Warp Zone for instance), but DuckTales games performs very well in these. Secret passages in walls, climbing the edges of the screen so as to reveal hidden areas, and an optional sidequest involving getting parts of a map. This last element was even somewhat 'new' to platformers, though already experimented in RPGs such as Final Fantasy's.

Secondly, the dispersed characters from the show who sporadically appear give the player the illusion that the whole family is exploring each place. Playing the game felt very comfortable this way, as characters appeared every few screens... they helped making the game more interesting, less boring, it felt refreshing. This aspect took full advantage of the franchise. 

All in all... a very enjoyable game, which makes us think why did franchise games rock in the 90's and suck nowadays, and gives us a couple of ideas to use in a game.

Why do we play Harvest Moon?

Welcome back guys.

Today, I'm feeling Harvest Moon. I've been playing Harvest Moon: Wonderful Life for a while and question myself what keeps me going. 

The Game

Come here dear cows, time for your hugging session!

I'm a Harvest Moon fan since their first game (Harvest Moon SNES), and have played most of these games since then. In most of them, your objective is simple: to take a rundown farm and turn it into a successful business. You have many ways of doing so, but it usually involves buying some animals and taking care of them, planting some crops and harvesting fruits and vegetables, taking part in some part-time jobs at the village, foraging berries on the forest, fishing in the local lake / rivers. 

Apart from the farming-simulation part, most of these games are full-fledged social simulators as well, as you can usually woo a number of eligible bachelorettes (or bachelors depending on your sex and game), get married and have kids. So as to balance farm life with socializing with villagers, some festivals and birthdays are thrown into the formula, which are usually fun and help to break the daily monotone chores.

The Reasons

So how come this mix of daily chores and virtual life get to shake away gamers' lives? Many reasons come to mind: because it's so addicting, because you get to escape your daily monotonous life and live in an interactive fun village, because you get to feel fulfilled because of your actions and hard work. 

Tending the fields with my fellow apprentices.

Firstly, the game is so fun to play because it's very rewarding. You get to feel the satisfaction of working hard planting crops and taking care of animals when you harvest the produce. When you sell the goods you produced and harvested, you get to manage and adopt even more ways of earning profits, by buying more animals, upgrading tools, extending your farm and more. You can even train apprentices (harvest sprites) so as to work for you, buy mayonnaise and cheese makers so as to elaborate more complex produce, or automatize your farming processes (buying an automatic milking room for instance) -- it's an economy class for small businesses taken to practice! And one you start, it's quite difficult to stop, as it just gets better and better.

Relax... it's just dancing... or is it?

Secondly, the idea of living in a green, interactive fun village is like a dream. Personally, most of the time, I play games so as to escape a bit from reality. This game allows me to do so, as I'm taken away to a forgotten rural village with interesting characters to know and friendships to make -- in short, to lead a different life. Flirting with local ladies, getting married, having children... does virtual social interaction get better than that? However, the interaction in this game is driven in a vastly different way than The Sims. While dialogues in the Sims are fictional, they are real in Harvest Moon. Villagers will greet you and talk to you about the weather. Your bride will actually get pregnant and spend some time complaining about it. However, regarding health-management issues, Harvest Moon is much more carefree than The Sims, as in most of them, there's no health or energy bar as opposed to the complex system used in The Sims. Both games use varying levels of abstraction regarding these topics.

Caught a big one, eh?

Thirdly, and most important, is the idea that "hard work will be rewarded". The game is the living proof that if you work hard, life will reward you sooner or later. Being having a happy family that loves you, creating a big profitable establishment or saving a village from being demolished, you always get your "thanks" and feel fulfilled. And that is the central message of this game experience.



Feeling satisfied with this article and with my own farm, I'll be leaving Harvest Moon on my closet until needs for a rural escape arise. Until then, I believe I'll be trying out Pokemon Black or replaying Beyond Good and Evil.

Why do we play Grandia?

Hi there.

For a long time I've been meaning to write about things we like in games but do not realize. These things may be ideas, emotions conveyed to the player, exciting pieces of gameplay - anything at all, as long as the player feels like playing the game more and more. 'Enjoying a game and not knowing why' happens more often than not, as not everybody tries analyzing the game's approach as to how it keeps the player entertained - they simply play the game. From here on, in this series of articles, I will be attempting to analyze games separately and discuss their most original/entertaining points. 

Introduction
Playing Grandia for the 3rd-4th time has made me realize what I like the most about this game.

Grandia is a role-playing game with a very particular battle engine, charming characters, a light-hearted story and a huge sense of adventure. The combination of all these things works quite well and keeps the player going, though I have found a couple of interesting individual ideas which definitely add to the mix (and somehow stand out). What I found particularly interesting about this game is how magic and moves work, how the game motivates you to play and battle in order to learn new moves and combinations - to train as you play, to grind a little bit- and to explore, to discover new weapons and armor, and artifacts which enable you to learn magic.

How it works

In Grandia, each character can manage a number of different weapons (maces, swords, axes, whips and knives) and may be taught different elements (fire, earth, water, wind). Not all characters can handle every weapon nor learn every element or spell; in fact, every character's move list is radically different. Besides, you can only teach a character an element whenever you find a rare Mana Egg. Apart from the basic elements, combinations exist. Should you teach a character water and wind, then blizzard attacks become available. Fire and Wind mean Thunder, Water and Earth form Forest and Fire and Earth are explosion. It's fun to discover the game's magic system on the fly, and change your strategies as you keep playing.

Exploring and Item-finding

The world of Grandia is huge, and mainly unexplored at the time the story takes place. The party is constantly traveling to new places and completing what may seem as impossible feats. The setting and plot really inspire a sense of adventure, unique amongst other games, and being the characters so small and the world so huge really gets you into the game. The fact that there're scattered Mana Eggs, Secret Weapons, Armor and Stat-Increasing seeds everywhere motivates the player to explore every nook and cranny from every dungeon - and being huge as they are, this just fits in too well. The developers have successfully tied the story's main theme to its gameplay, and it shows.

Learning Moves & Magic

Apart from exploration, there's a huge emphasis in moves and magic learning. Everything has levels - each weapon has a level, each magic element has one. In a way, it's very rewarding for the player to watch his/her characters grow in every direction, and being able to direct their growth. Also, every move in the game has learning conditions. For instance, in order to learn a move called 'Zap Whip', the character Feena has to level up her whip up to Lvl 24, and Fire and Wind up to Lvl 15. These enables you to actually see (almost) all the moves you can learn, and train while you battle. After all, what's more rewarding for a player than having his character learn new moves? 

AI Patterns

Complimenting this, there's a big array of possible AI patterns you can set the characters to use. Amongst them are 'Safety' (heal often, using mainly water), 'Meanie' (inflict poison, sleep and stat-reducing spells), 'Power Up'(increase stats), 'Each own', 'Wild', between others. Depending on each character's move set, setting the pattern 'Power Up' may mean "train earth and wind till you drop", so it's quite fun to play with the patterns and train your characters. 

What's the game missing then?

What I find this game is missing are some training options based on elements and weapons. Most of the time, I found myself training 'in order to level up my mace so as to learn a new super-move', or 'leveling up wind in order to learn a devastating thunder attack', so I believe element-based patterns would only be natural. 

Another weakness I've found is the game's difficulty. I've fought every enemy I've found so far, without heavy grinding, yet I seem to be too powerful for the enemies on my zone. The game does lose its touch a bit when you find yourself every battle is a breeze.

Summary

To sum up, we've discussed 3 things of importance here: having the player train through battles in order to learn new moves and magic, making use of the different patters of attack available, and having him explore the whole world, enthralled by a sense of adventure and hidden relics everywhere. Not to mention, Grandia's battle system is surely quite different from any other game you've played, and does keep things interesting.

This has been all for today, I hope I put these ideas into good use someday.

Passage of Time in Games - Vol 3 - Games in Realtime

Hi folks.

Today, I'll be brain-storming my experiences on games that play in real-time - meaning time on the game flows as in real life. This does not refer to Massively Multi-player Online Games, as I'm not much of an online gamer (yet). Time flowing in real-time is a very interesting idea: the concept hooked me on my first real-time game (Virtual Villagers), so I began doing some research to find out this style of gaming was more spread out than I thought.

Virtual Villagers and Real-time gaming

Real-time gaming basically means that time flows as in real life. Not necessarily on a day-by-day basis, but it means there may be no means of advancing in-game time. In some games, this molds the player to play in regular intervals more than in long shots. Some of my Final Fantasy sessions have lasted maybe 6 hours or more, but I have never played Virtual Villagers for more than 1 hour. Why is this? Because time plays an integral role on the development of the game. In virtual villagers, you are in charge of a group of people, whom you must guide to build a small village. There's distinction between male, female and kids, and each may be born with different strengths and interests. The game motivates you to assign a duty to each villager, so that there's a scientist, a builder, forager, etc.

What's the deal? These tasks take time. Each villager grows up. They gradually begin to explore more parts of the island, understand what's on it, and stuff happens. The sea got polluted once, and the villagers had to turn to planting and foraging instead of relying on fishing. Another time, I noticed there were no kids on the village, and I had to start matching adults so that they 'had' babies. Each play-through involves checking new stuff (kids, scientific advances, natural disasters), assigning some duties to villagers, and checking out the status of the island.

There are, of course, some much-needed time-related options. The passage of in-game time can be configured (paused, slow, normal, fast), which enables you to play at your own pace. Going on a trip? Set the speed to pause. Wanna play all weekend? Set it to fast. There're no dying Tamagotchis here. Farmville falls in this kind of games, too, as the time you need for your veggies to grow paces your game sessions.

Pokemon and Morning/Day/Night differences

The Pokemon series have been quite famous from their start, but they have integrated a day/night cycle since their gold/silver/crystal generation. 

The facts: Pokemon change according to what time of day it is. This gives the game a great deal of randomness, if not replayability.

Firstly, it's nice to see each place change, if only visually. Unfortunately, most people act the same no matter the day or time and have the same routines, but then again, it's old-school gaming. Secondly, apart from time-of-day-specific pokemon, there are a lot of day-specific events on these games. Bug-contests are carried out on Saturdays, strange pokemon gather in a cave on Mondays, this kind of events are great, and compliment on the day-flowing system greatly. Berries also take their time to grow, so there's always something to look forward when turning the game on. And on the other hand, never will you find you can't continue playing the game because of the time, as shops are open 24-7, and there're no story-advancing time-specific events.

Animal Crossing

This game is a one-of-a-kind. Though I haven't yet played it, the mechanism to map every single calendar day to a in-game day is wondrous. This, of course, comes with its cons. If you want to be there on New Years' Eve, you gotta play the game on New Years' eve. Want to spend Thanksgivings with your Animal friends? Gotta play the day through. Of course, playing won't demand all day, but it's still interesting to watch gamers' reactions to this mechanism.


Let's sum up. Some games are played in real-time or quasi-real-time. This means, time flows as it flows on the real world, meaning you can't advance time in the game whenever you want. Games like Virtual Villagers have explored relating the in-game clock to the real-world one, letting you configure how fast time passes in-game. You are motivated to play the game in small sessions, as the most important stuff generally happens when you're not looking. Farmville plays similar to this, having you wait till your crops are fully grown in order to harvest them and plant some more. Pokemon series make use of real-time day/night cycles in order to give the game variety and color, apart from defining a day-of-week system, where day-specific events happen and motivate you to play the game on different days "just to see what happens". Animal Crossing maps real-world events to in-game festivals, having the player play through them, being quite interesting to see how the game unfolds.

I hope I can use these ideas in my own game someday, but for now, I'll be taking note of them and learning from upcoming games.

EDIT: Sorry to have forgotten, but the Laura Bow Point and Click Adventure Game Series is also time-based, though time flows according to the game's clock. Different events happen at different times, so I had fun exploring each location at each time.