Highlights of 2011

So the Earth is once again cruising towards that point on its orbit where we celebrate the new year. 2011 has been an interesting year for me, I've moved house twice, been an event promoter, have now a significant other, almost had a job, got through one of the toughest college years of my life, have an impending mobile gaming release and will be entering the new year with an interview for a job in the gaming industry. With all this activity, there has sadly been not as much time to play games. As I've mentioned in a previous blog post, my beloved gaming mainframe is now no longer in my possession. This year I finally moved out of home and my brute was blocked from going anywhere by my father. He co funded the machine and is a gamer himself so this was only fair. However, I did manage to devote some time to this most glorious of pass times, so here is a quick list of the best bits of my gaming year.

Dead Space 2

This remains one of my favourite games of this year. I loved the scifi setting, intense atmosphere and the hugely satisfyingly gruesome combat. No game has had my heart pounding as much as this one. Lights off with the headphones was an intense experience I could not drag myself away from. The greatly expanded universe and proper development of Isaac really stole the show for me. The Sprawl was a richly detailed environment, beautiful and at the same time tragic as it was very obvious this was once a place where people lived normal lives. The new enemies were awesome and similarly forlorn with packs of mutated children and babies bursting through the air vents. The plot while predictable tickled my space nerd lobe to the extent that I played through the full game in about a week. I loved the return to the Ishimura, locked down under quarantine. Revisiting areas from the previous game three years later was awesome. Areas where bodies or Necromorphs lay all cleaned and sterilised for study. While only a small section of the game, it was a nice touch. Overall I loved an excuse to return to the Dead Space universe. There is also quite a bit of lore out there on the internet for those so inclined. An excellent anime movie and several cool comics all add a huge amount of depth to the game, one thing I really enjoy is playing a game in a well thought out and detailed setting. The Wii version, Dead Space Extraction, was also really cool. While many loath rail shooters, myself being one of them, this was one exception to that experience. The graphics were excellent for the Wii and I was really impressed with the facial animations. If you haven't played any of the Dead Space games, you are really missing out on one of the best survival horror games out there. No excuse, go play!

Magma Surge

Well what can I say. This has taken up the majority of my time since June. My masters project has expanded out from something to submit at the end of the semester into a game to be released on the mobile app market. It has been a great learning experience. Financial gain was not the original purpose behind the project so I am not under pressure to recoup any expenditure, instead I can use the games launch as valuable experience in how one goes about getting something out there. Whatever happens with this game, I will get some comfort to know something I made has been played by thousands of people. Haters are gona hate, but as a result of this project and my masters course, I have now gained my first tentative footsteps into the gaming industry. Hussah!

Minecraft

Before the Java SDK decided to corrupt itself and every other Java based software on my computer, Minecraft was my faithful companion over the months as I moved house and was supposed to be studying. I love this game, nay toy. Since myself and a few friends began a multiplayer server in 2010, I have never had so much fun simply 'playing' like I did as child with a box of lego. Between myself and the other nerds we've had about 3 maps this year and made some interesting structures. Highlights include the huge railway built across half the map, all the materials hand mined and crafted, to the gigantic castle and highly detailed internal town. Now that the full version of the game has been released, I look forward to another year of mining and building. Praise be to Notch.

Terraria

This gem of a game was something I bought out of curiosity. Id heard of this indie game that was like a sidescrolling RPG version of Minecraft. I pondered this for a while and though 'Minecraft....Minecraft you say??'. Plus thanks to some nice Steam promotional offers the sale was confirmed. I was enthralled. The games simple but excellent graphics, funky music, incredible depth and huge replayability had me playing through until I resembled a mighty warrior, clad in molten armour forged from ores mined from Hell itself. Armed with magical bows, laser weaponry and a sword that would make Frostmourne weep. The games clever boss system and the size and scope of the world kept me coming back in the search of more loot. While it could have benefited from more monsters and bosses, Terraria has a winning formula that has earned it a place on this list. Please check this game out if you have not had a go. 

Assassins Creed

Truly epic experience. This was definitely one of the most amazing games Iv ever played. For a long time I believed this to be a historical tale, but was thrilled to discover it was in fact a sci fi story through and through! The incredibly rich setting, the powerful cast and the high quality of the cinematic direction resulted in a breathtaking experience. The insanely cool setting, awesome concept and extremely enjoyable combat made this game stand out as one of the best third person actions games I've ever experienced. The original was amazing, it caught my attention and engaged me with its excellent plot. As soon as I had completed it, I immediately went and bought the sequel. This game literally blew me away. Every issue I had with the first game had been expertly fixed and a host of new features forged this in the polished masterpiece it is today. The games story is compelling, full of intrigue and will leave you gagging for more. Brilliantly merging the sci fi and historical aspects together, this game can appeal to both fanbases. Altair and especially Ezio are believable and likeable characters that are very well developed. The games facial animations are some of the best Iv seen and the games cut scenes are like watching a well acted movie. The amount of research and effort that went into creating the world is inspiring. I really found myself fascinated with the period background. The game also gives a lot of accurate facts about the time while at the same time cleverly interweaving the games plot into actual historical events. I cannot recommend these games enough. 

Just Cause

Both Just Cause 1 and 2 deserve an honourable mention. I picked up Just Cause 2 on impulse and was excited to have a go as it looked like a decent way to waste an afternoon or twelve. So I went to install the beast and my computer said 'Halt, this game is only compatible with Windows 7'. Aghast, I searched online to see if there was a remedy cooked up some crazy hacker folk. Obviously this was a foolish search and so Just Cause 2 has been sitting in my gaming collection quietly mocking me. Now I understand I cant complain considering I'm using an operating system a decade old, but I still felt cheated as so many other modern games are still compatible. Anyway, so I resigned myself to the fact that it will have to wait until my new PC is assembled before ever getting to see what Iv missed. However the story doesn't quite end there. I was again browsing in my local GAME and saw the original Just Cause for a bargain price. So I said fuck it, at least I'll get to experience one version of the game. Several bargain euro later, I was sitting eagerly at my computer as the game installed, when I noticed the letters in the words had all been rearranged into some unknown gibberish, most likely Spanish. So I crudely navigated my way to set it to a more familiar pattern. Lo and behold there was no option. So now I had a Spanish version of Just Cause with no option to change the language. Needless to say that was the final nail in the coffin for this particular franchise. 

Whats Next?

So there's my somewhat limited highlights of 2011. Now I eagerly look forward to the new year and some awesome titles on the horizon. This year I have set myself the project of building a brand new and highly potent PC. There are some games that I will refuse to play on console, so my computer will be being built for the express purpose of a threeway with myself Skyrim and Mass Effect 3. Other awesome games are coming I know but for now I long to lose myself in RPG bliss. 

So there you have it, thanks for reading my blog over the last year, I hope my occasional insights have been entertaining over this most unpleasant periods of recession, political shenanigans and the usual chaos that is the state of affairs of human civilisation. Happy Christmas to you all and have a great new year.

Peace

Teknocrat

Stop! Thief!

Well it seems my reputation precedes me. So popular is my face and so enlightened my opinions that I have now become a commodity worth stealing. Through some aimless internet searching the other day, I was amused to discover that a Czech gaming website, Zing, has stolen the title image from this very page for use in the blog section of their website. Below you can see my likeness, gazing out serenely from my new vantage point within the Czech internet. And what a view she is too. From here I can see the exact centre of the internet, SOPA looming evil and menacingly like a thunderstorm about to drop some tornadoes on a small town, where Valve have hidden Morgan Freeman all this time and a interesting trail of footprints leading from my blog to this site..

I must say I am flattered, although the shameless nature of the theft and the fact they didnt even bother to change it in anyway suggests a level of arrogance, or else a stupid hope that I would simply never notice... The latter of which I guess is reasonable as my Czech is as about as good as my Klingon and Id have no reason to ever go browsing this website.. I duno, Im not too sure what the best course of action to be is with this one. Honestly I do not mind and in fact I kinda like it, however I believe some credit or recognition should be given for making their blog section so god damn handsome.

So I think I'll send them a little message asking for a link to my blog be added to the site. They can keep my picture if they want, I may even offer to do a new one for them. We shall see, before any action can be taken I need to find the contact section of Zing, which could prove a little tricky. I'll need to recruit the help of some of my Czech friends with this one. Ill post up the exchange if its worth the attention. Watch this space :)

State of Play Indie Game Seminar!

I attended first State of Play indie game seminar last Friday in DIT Aungier St. The event saw a range of companies and small developers describe their journeys of success or not into the independent games industry.

Some of the companies who attended included Weeman Studios, BitSmith Games, SuperFunPlay, Open Emotion, Redwind Software and Digital Arrow. For a full list check out the State of Play link. There was also a demo section where some people got to showcase and demonstrate their games. I was very lucky to have had the chance to showcase Mamga Surge and it was a valuable experience. While the demo segment was a little shorter than I would have liked, several people were able to test out Magma Surge for the very first time. I was greatly boosted by the positive feedback and return with renewed vigour for getting the game completed.

The main seminar itself was also a very interesting and entertaining experience. The different presenters all had unique and inspiring stories of success and failure. There was a lot of valuable and important insights into the world of indie game development in Ireland today. Notable speakers included Paddy Murphy from Open Emotion, a truly inspiring story of how an obvious messer can achieve great things. Open Emotion is a great example of how through trial and error, they have managed to build a successful game company recently winning £250,000 contract with someone we shall call their 'Confident Benefactors'.

Owen Harris from Bitsmith Games was another interesting and ongoing tale of a very recently formed company going through the ropes. Bitsmith was formed by 3 members from my masters course who are working on a game called Ku. This is an action RPG for the iPad which is based on traditional Irish mythology.

Liam McGarry from WeeMan Studios provided and educational look into the inner workings of a company responsible for the highly anticipated Galactic Racer. Liam really demonstrated the importance of being a cheeky bastard and not to be afraid of chancing your arm.

One thing that the seminar really illustrated is what can be achieved with a limited budget. There is a huge amount of resources available to Irish game developers. One thing that can be said by our current government is their commitment to the development of this sector of the economy. The seminar finished with a panel discussion made up of an esteemed and notable people from the Irish games industry. This was a fun and informative look at the some of the people currently championing the gaming cause in Ireland today. One of the most memorable moments was the knowledge that Enda Kenny mentioned the fact that he had 'killed zombies in Dublin!'

Afterwards there was a shindig in the Solas Bar around the corner at which numerous pints were consumed over tales of conquering galaxies, starting companies and general banter.

Overall I really enjoyed the experience and look forward to taking part in similar events in the future!

Musings and Masters Project

Well its been a long while since Iv blogged about much, this mainly due to the fact that my Masters project is taking up so much of my time. So I haven't really been gaming too much to be honest. The usual Minecrafting continues as does some messing with some indie games but I haven't had the time to sit down and get lost in a digital world in quite a while. I'm halfway through Assassins Creed: Brotherhood, so I really want to get through that before I go and get Skyrim and Mass Effect 3. Of course Ill have to get AC Revelations when that badboy comes out too. I'll be needing a new PC soon also as my original gaming machine is now permanently moored in my parents home in Co Meath. Generally I'm excited with the new games set to come out over the next few months, once my masters is done in January, I'll finally have some time to go and get stuck back into my favourite pastime and then describe it all in detail for the amusement of the internet.

With regards my masters project, its starting to move along nicely. Its morphed from a single person project to 3 member team jobbie. There is now a coder and a sound guy, so between us we have been taking the game a lot further than it would it have been possible with just me. There is now a test version working on the iphone and soon to be one for the android. We now have a decent production pipeline and level production now a relatively fast process. So once the tweaking of the game play has been finished and the levels are being created, Iv a bit juicy report to get done. So itll be a busy Christmas and but 2012 will a good year of gaming and blogging.

So while this blog has been quiet, I have been writing in the dev blog for my game. There is also a website and Facebook page so please check 'em out!

Terraria

Terraria is a very popular side scrolling indie game created by Re-Logic. Since its May 2011 release, Terraria has received lots of attention, outselling games like Portal 2 and the Witcher 2 on Steam for a few weeks. Terraria is based on a very similar premise to Minecraft. The game world is consists of different blocks, that can be destroyed or placed by the player. The surface of the world is covered by different biomes. Each biome is a region of the map representing different ecologies, ie forests, deserts, plains etc. Each one has its own set of enemies and some unique items that can be found. Below the surface, lies a gigantic subterranean world that has its own biomes that change the deeper the player goes. The underground is riddled with extensive cave networks that are full of monsters and treasure. The player can dig their way down or find natural routes. The material mined can be crafted into different tools and items and it is also possible to place blocks to build big interesting structures. Like Minecraft, this is a sandbox game and has no definitive plot or level structure. The aim is to simply build, explore and have fun slaying monsters!

While this may just sound like a side scrolling version of Minecraft, anyone familiar with Mojangs beast will instantly see the similarities, Terraria is an epic game in its own right. Again like Minecraft, the game is wickedly addictive, eating up large swathes of productive time. Overall I was very impressed with this game, here's why:

The first thing to strike you is the games presentation. Unlike other recent Indie side scrollers like Capsized or Braid, here the developers went with a retro look, using an art style that is reminiscent of the graphics produced by the old 8-Bit consoles. The gameworld is colourful and detailed. The biomes all look distinctive and the underground regions are equally interesting. Characters have a simple but cool anime style. There is a bewildering amount of weapons, armor and clothing the player can equip, all of which look great. Some items, mainly the higher tier stuff, have cool visual effects that really bring them to life. The game is very easy on the eye and is a joy to look at.

The music is excellent. Each different biome has its own theme song, as do the the underground regions. The catchy 8-bit music is well produced and easy on the ear. This is one of the rare games like this where you don't need to turn off the music for the first few months.. It fits in nicely with the graphical look and adds a lot to the experience. Equally, the games sound effects fit in well with the game, no real complaints here, although it would be nice to have more than just one grunting sound when the player is hit by an enemy. Like in Minecraft, getting cornered by a monster and getting hit repeatedly results in the player emitting the sort of grunting that would leave Ron Jeremy feeling deflated and inadequate. But its pretty forgettable in the grand scheme of things.

The game world can be either small, medium or large. However all sizes are huge. The biomes each have a variety of special resources and items that can be only found with them. The surface world is subject to a day night cycle. At night more powerful monsters spawn and attack the player. There are also certain events that occur at random. These can be things like an attack from a goblin army or the rising of a blood moon, which doubles the amount of monsters that spawn and allow them to open doors. These can be fun and add a little variety to the game. They can also be opportunities to collect some interesting special items. Unlike Minecraft, the game has realistic physics when it comes to liquids. It can be fun to drain lakes and pools and channel the liquids in interesting ways.

The gigantic game world. You can see the different layers and biomes

Apart from the usual forests and deserts etc are regions called the corruption. Theses are dark eerie places where powerful monsters lurk. Damaging thorns and weeds grow up from the ground as do poisonous mushrooms. The corruption biome is riddled with deep chasms that are lined with a hard bedrock called Ebonstone, which can only be mined with explosives and high level pickaxes. There are lots of items that can be found here, including special Shadow Orbs which can either drop very powerful weapons, summon bosses or else cause a meteor to land. Meteors are small regions of their own that appear on the landscape. The meteor can be mined and smelted into Meteor Bars which can be used to craft special items and weapons. There are unique monsters that will keep attacking you until all the meteor has been collected. The arrival of a meteor can be random or else caused when a player cracks open a shadow orb.

By far the largest region of the game is underground. This is split into 4 levels. Different monsters are unique to each layer and progressively better treasure and loot can be found the deeper you go. The dirt level exists immediately below the surface and is the thinnest layer in the game. Below this is the rocky dirt layer. This is much bigger and contains large caves and underground pools. The next and largest layer is the rock layer. This makes up the greatest chunk of the gameworld. This can take a long time to get through depending on the methods you are using to explore it. Its full of huge caverns and underground lakes. Lots of different monsters exist down here as well as some small biomes like caverns full of glowing mushrooms. Down at the deeper areas of this layer the player starts to encounter pools of lava.

Underground Jungles are very tricky

The deepest region is the Hell layer. Down here the most powerful monsters exist as do some of the best treasures. The most powerful weapons in the game need to be made from Hellstone, which is very difficult to mine. Frequent attacks by monsters rapidly drain your health and the rocks themselves can sometimes damage you. Hell is full of artificial structures known as Hellhouses. These are full of items and hellforges, required to make the high level weapons and armour.

There is a plethora of different items and weapons. There are several suits of armour, a countless variety of clothing as well as special equipable items that grant the player special abilities. The different weapons are fun, ranging from swords, axes and bows to guns and even laser weaponry. The different materials required to craft the items need to be mined. There is a correlation between the power of a weapon and the availability of the ores required to craft them. Only after the player has broken into the Hell layer can they expect to find the juicy stuff.

Despite not having a defined goal, there is lots to do in Terraria. The gameworld is so vast you would never likely see most of it. There different biomes and layers all have their own challenges and rewards. When the player is not digging or slaying monsters, they can build large palaces and fortresses to their vanity. The game also has several NPC characters that come to your town once you have built a house for them. Certain conditions need to be met before some of them arrive but after a while you have a number of them hanging out at your base. They can sell you interesting items and bestow abilities on the player.

All of these fancy items and armour despite looking cool, does have a purpose however. The game has currently several different bosses that the player can fight. Some can spawn randomly or they can be summoned using special items at 'Demon Altars' which can be found in corrupted areas. The bosses so far in the game are the Eye of Cthulu, a huge disembodied demonic eyeball and The Eater of Worlds, an enormous demonic worm. Another boss, the Skeletron, guards the entrance to each maps dungeon. There is one dungeon per map, they can be enormous and is where some of the best items can be found, so defeating him does become a goal. The bosses drop lots of rare items and loot when they die. Certain NPCs will only appear when you kill some of the bosses, so once you feel powerful enough, its definately worth trying to defeat them.

Curse you Skeletron!

Terraria supports cooperative multiplayer, like Minecraft, where groups of players can join together to play. Players can host or join games created by other people. This allows players to get other people to join them on their own maps to attempt to defeat bosses or explore dangerous locations. Banding together to fight the games bosses is great fun. Sometimes its the only way to defeat the tougher ones. Items can be shared and anything the player carries is brought over from their own map to the map they go to. Equally anything they find can be brought back to their personal maps. This allows for some trading and opportunistic looting whilst in another players map.

There are some small irritations of course. Whilst running around during the day, constantly having to fight the same low level monsters no matter how powerful you are can become a bit tiresome. The night time monsters are tougher and more numerous, but don't pose much of threat once you've got some decent kit, just becoming an irritation after a while.

It can also be a bit tricky to move the players spawn point to new locations. The idea is you need to build a enclosed room, then place a bed in it and set the bed to your spawn point. This will not work unless you have satisfied a specific set of conditions before the bed can be used. Its often unclear as to why it wont work sometimes, even though you have done everything required. The ginormous size of the world can mean long and tedious treks back to where you were killed, so if you can't relocate the spawn point closer, this can get quite annoying. Some areas are very hard so exploring caves can take a while if you get killed repeatedly. Overall though these are minor points.

So Terraria is an interesting, addictive and hugely fun game that belies its simple retro look. It rewards exploration and encourages the player to keep looking for that even better piece of kit. There large number of items, weapons, armour and clothing means you can customise your character nearly endlessly. The great graphics and audio make the game sensually appealing and the sandbox nature of the game gives it a large degree of replayability. Multiplayer also adds a lot to the game. I would thoroughly recommend Terraria to anyone and at less than €10 on Steam there really is no excuse not join the party!

Minecraft Multiplayer Server Builds

Having been too busy to dedicate much time to serious gaming, so I thought I would talk a bit about some of the interesting construction projects going on our Minecraft server. Iv had a serious addiction to Minecraft since I began playing and I usually jump on for a while everyday. Of the original group, only 4 of us , myself, Baz, Wavioli and Al have been building anything so here is a little overview of what we have at the moment. We decided on being honest in this server so no inventory hacks have been used.

Overview
The main things on the map are our personal fortresses and a large castle that was built as a little project. There is also a sizable rail network that links the fortresses and spreads out across the landscape. Below is a map with the locations of the buildings with the extent of the rail network marked out. Being a total geek I didn't hesitate to work out its rough length which totals just over 1.3 km. It seems longer when your on it but bear in mind we mined out all the metal required for this by hand. There are also huge underground quarries and mines below each of our bases, some of which have even linked up with each other. These were hacked out over the last few months to supply our insatiable demand for building materials

Railway network
This took a long time and lots of metal to make. It was built between a few of us and connects all of the houses/fortresses. It also goes off to a very rich mine that was found by a prospecting Wavioli. Each station can launch you at the push of a button and thanks to the inclusion of booster rails, it provides a quick and scenic way to get around.

 

The elevated skyrail

Interchange at Baz's fortress

Bob's House
With this map I didn't really build a big intricate house. I concentrated on digging a huge mineshaft and right to the bedrock so I could get as much metal as possible to build the railway. I have a portal to the nether in my bedroom and thats about it. Using some of the stone I mined, I built a large sky garden with my train station above it. Other than that I haven't been too busy here.

The skygarden

A view of my gaf from the skyrail. No idea who built the target and for what purpose..

My train station

Looking down

Looking up

Wavioli's House
Master Miner Wavioli put some effort into making a nice house. He also laid much of the track for the railway and built the foundations for the castle. His house is the location where the sky rail descends to ground level. Another nice but unsightly addition is his door bell that chimes when you enter. Now that I think about it isn't a door bell at all, just a chime that goes off when the door opens... Well what ever it is its a nice touch.

Als House
Als house was slow to get off the ground and for a long time was a featureless cobblestone box full of monsters. Now its got a train station, sun deck and some half finished rooms inside.

Arriving at Als via rail

Al's sun lounge

Baz's House
This time Baz refrained on building a huge fortress protected by an array of fiendish traps. Instead he built a pretty sky garden and a monolithic Mob farm. This is a big dark space that spawns monsters, then uses some clever trickery using Minecraft's water physics to force them down against some suspended lava, killing the Mob, then moving the items dropped to a collection point. Deep below his towers there was also a dark place where Baz bent the rules of honor and natural law. After binding some malignant minecraft glitch demons to some pistons, they proceeded to churn out an infinite array of precious metals and diamonds. However Notch soon made such sorcery impossible and they have since gone silent. Praise be to Notch.

A view down inside one of the towers, normally its pitch black, spawning lots of monsters.

The killing room, here mobs are incinerated and their remains flushed away for the taking

Item collection point, seems like a rather large amount of effort to go to get some arrows and bones..

EDIT: Since making writing this blog, Baz has increased the awesomeness of his fortress considerably. There are also several suspicious looking redstone circuits lurking around up there that I'm afraid to go near for fear of setting off something nasty..

 

Castle
The castle has been lots of fun to make. It began when Wavioli flattened out a whole island and built a high wall around it. We then began to fill out the internal courtyard with lots of different buildings. And by 'we' I meant I filled out the courtyard. First thing up was a big cobblestone factory using the new pistons to create a machine that spews out as much cobblestone as we need, saving on the need to mine it all out manually.

  

Some of the buildings so far:

Cobblestone Factory

 

Library

Keep

Church

 

Prison

 

Bar

There is also a backroom for some special entertainment

Hot tub

Several shops and houses

 

 

So thats it so far. We've all been pretty busy over the last while so progress on the castle and our various fortresses has been slow overall. But I think it all looks pretty cool so far and I cant wait for the 1.8 update to be released so the next map can be begun!