I have decided to discuss common game play mechanics found throughout games. For the most part, I will be speaking in generalities. I will also be discussing commercial as well as Indie games. The purpose of this post is to discuss familiar gameplay mechanics that most games share and to perhaps avoid some of these cliche mistakes in the future.

This most may sound like a bit of a rant, but it stems from a series of recurring themes and gameplay devices that I have noticed in my years of gaming. These things apply to most not all games.

• Collecting Stuff
• Difficulty
• Points
• Boss Fights
• Save Points
• Unlocking Characters in fighting games
• Ninjas, Pirates, Robots, Zombies

Collecting Stuff
Why do all games insist on making you collect random amounts of arbitrary shit? Platform games are notorious for this. Sonic for example makes you collect 100 rings in exchange for one extra life. What is the significance of rings, and the number 100 for that matter? I mean, you really only need one coin at any given time to survive just about anything.

In terms of mainstream gaming, the only solutions game designers have come up with as challenges to these types of games are more stuff to collect (ugh), bigger levels (more getting lost), and tons of enemies (tiresome hack and slash).

Imagine a story where the protagonist had to collect 100 apples in order to save a princess. Were would he keep them all anyway?

Maybe the significance of collecting things is to provide the player with some sort extra objective to go along with transversing the various pitfalls, spikes, goombas and robotic fish throughout the levels. The problem with this approach is that most players ignore these objects and go right for the goal. The only places where I have seen this work is if X amount of gems are required to advance the particular level or open a door. Some games even offer some sort of 100% completion incentive. (Too bad most of the time you just end up unlocking sound test modes, or concept art.)

I have also played my fair share of MMORPG’s to know that I loathe collection quests. World of Warcraft is the first game that comes to mind.

Questgiver: “Please collect 10 wolf bloods for my soup!”

Orc: “Don’t you think you have enough wolf blood soup?”

Difficulty

Three is a significant number in literature and most games. Games generally offer you three lives, most bosses take three hits, and most worlds have three levels. There must be some physiological significance to why all developers insist on the three lives approach to gaming. Granted this is just a generalization but we as gamers have come to expect this significance in our games. Or maybe is it that designers just keep putting arbitrary things in games?

Most games require some sort of trial and error approach in order to get a feel for playing a certain level or learning enemy attack patterns. Perhaps this is why a designer would offer you a set amount of lives; to give you a chance to explore.

We as designers should step away from the lives system and install an alternate form of punishment for dying or losing. I am going to take a page from Within a Deep Forest, each level has check points scattered throughout them. You cannot save at these points, they just offer a temporary re-spawn place in case you die. If you restart the game, you must play the entire level over. There is no incentive to turn off the game and reload save points.

Another approach to the no lives system is to have two modes, one for casual gamers (infinite lives) and one for hardcore gamers (few lives).

Points
Points are usually insignificant in single player games. It was a way of determining who was better at the respective game. High score lists where kept locally on arcade machines and players would compete for the top spots. There was no real way of direct head to head competition. We are past the days of playing against a computer for a high-score (and sadly of arcades too).

(I recommend watching King of Kong, a brief history of that gaming era.) Supposed top gamers would fly from all over the country to play each other at arcades. There was no real organized way to determine who actually where the top players besides word of mouth. Players accused each other of cheating and using hacked machines, it was a mess.

Competition among gamers is better handled directly through online play. Games such as Starcraft and Counter-Strike have exploded the on-line gaming communities.

Boss Fights
Here is the recipe for a boss fight.

Ingredients
1 Oversized Enemy

Directions

Preheat level to 400. (Can sometimes be replaced by inserting a “heads-up save point”)

1. Attack and move in a predictable pattern.

2. Stay invincible until you do your special attack.

3. After attacking show your weakness. (Usually located on the top of your head, or on your stomach)

4. Repeat 2 more times.

Save Points
Once save points became invented, games have become impossible to lose. Games are becoming less and less like challenges and more like just something you experience because it has a bullet time gimmick or something. Save points are great for RPG’s. They are perfect right after those long un-skipable cut-scenes or right before a boss battle. However, save points can be exploited by offering these infinite trial and error opportunities. It is up to the discretion of the gamer whether he is cheating or not. Most of the times he/she wont care. It’s the responsibility of the designer to make sure save points are appropriately placed.

I like the Mega Man approach to saving. You are given passwords that let you start after any level you want. Each level acts as its own entity. While you cant save in the levels, you are still required to advance through them with a limited number of tries. Losing only means that you have to re-enter the password, not start the entire game over.

Unlocking Characters in Fighting Games
As a hardcore fan of fighting games, I try to avoid playing the AI as much as possible. As a matter of fact, If I’m playing alone I’m usually just practicing execution of moves in a training mode. Fighting games should not extend their replay value by making you repetitively beat the game with all the characters to unlock more. Everyone knows all you have to do is set the game to ultra easy and round timer to as low as it goes. Boring!

All of the characters should be available right at the start. This lets players jump right into the game, especially if your playing with friends (most people) and someone forgot their memory card.

Ninjas, Pirates, Robots, Zombies
No.

Unless you work for Tecmo or Capcom you should not be placing Ninjas, Pirates, Robots or Zombies in your games. Freddy Vs. Jason was a bad Idea. Pirates Vs. Ninjas Dodgeball is another bad idea.

Unfortunately, too often games fall short due to what I expect is an opposing attitude:  the game doesn’t have to look good or work perfectly, after all it’s just an indie game. Lazy developers sometimes think their audience won’t be bothered by minor flaws because the game was free. But overlooking these things makes a huge difference to gamers like me. Many simple games could’ve been a lot better by (believe it or not) making them even simpler.

Audio

A distractive soundtrack is not preferable to no soundtrack at all. I quit a lot of flash games not because of their obnoxiously primitive visuals but because of a 5-second drum loop playing in the background over and over again. Don’t make the even worse mistake of making a game that looks like it was drawn in paint but has a high-fidelity MP3 playing in the background. Dealing with the cognitive dissonance is intensely abrasive. And if a developer isn’t actually spending time on the music, it’s best he offer a mute feature.

Visual Style

Some developers attempt to create visual styles that they can’t achieve. Polarity uses high-resolution sprites and backgrounds with 2.5D effects, but it just doesn’t come together right, and in consequence the game looks terrible. The shame is that it is terribly fun to play. Coming to terms with graphics limitations would’ve made this one more successful. Consider the visual style of Plasma Warrior. The designer seems to settle on something that he knows he can handle. The simple but effective black-and-neon liney look doesn’t jar the player and in fact adds to the game’s novelty.

Boundary Detection

If you’re going to put time into something, make it boundary detection. Playing a game with poor attention to boundary detection is insanely frustrating. Playing through the opening levels in Nifflas’s recommendation Seiklus, I watched my character fall when I thought I should land, and land when I thought I should fall. The player’s fingers and feelings draw a very solid mental map of a game’s surroundings, and poor boundary detection disturbs that mental map in a way that makes a game feel almost unplayable to me despite its noted merits. If you have to make the game more graphically simple to have effective boundary detection, by all means do it. In the end, the compromise will be well worth it.

Characters and Dialogue

Especially true in platformers, good characters keep a player interested for longer. I often find myself playing, thinking “Where did this guy come from? Why is he doing this?” In A Game With A Kitty from origamihero, the gameplay was solid enough that I got through a few levels. But the main character was detestable. You play as a cat, presumably one who has had too much catnip, who for some unexplained reason has to run through obstacle-laden levels with (for some other unexplained reason) monsters. Other characters? It seems like the other cats in the starting town were put there out of some feeling of obligation. Even worse is the dialogue. It’s as if origamihero was thinking, “Gee, I better put some other cats in this village. And gee, they better say stuff.”

Novelty

For advanced developers, it’s feasible to put a new face on a weathered concept by applying a unique visual style and dynamic game mechanics and so forth. If it’s simple it better be new, otherwise it’s not only simple but boring as well. And nobody wants to play a simple, boring game. Within A Deep Forest is a platformer, but with with challenging ball physics as the central element of the gameplay. WADF isn’t all that beautiful, especially compared to its successors, but its novelty in gameplay keeps the player interested long enough that he becomes immersed in the story and the quest of finding all the balls, and once hooked on that he’ll play it to the end. I also love when developers explore uncommon genres, and nobody does that better while bringing all of the other elements together than Robin Allen (the foon) with Hapland.

Level Design

Too many games have levels that are seemingly without purpose. A game like Deo Dorant feels so pointless, throwing the player in a dungeon and asking him to pick up a bunch of yellow crosses. Why? A more satisfying game demands a point, so that the gamer feels a sense of accomplishment as opposed to an aimless lost feeling. This sense of purpose in each level is perhaps more important than the level design itself, though, I don’t believe it asks much that developers put time into creating environments that are cohesive, clean, and interesting. You remember how much we loved Flywrench.

How do we get in on this action? We’ve got street cred. We were Chalktoid. Does one of us have to marry one of your daughters or something? Is there some initiation ritual? Will there be hazing? I’m not sure if I’m comfortable getting paddled in front of the other bloggers.

Or (and this brings me to my next point) do I link to all of your blogs so that you notice ours in the list of sites that link to you then, when you arrive, have quality content of our own worth discussing? Diabolical!

My second observation is that bloggers rarely post wordy responses to the other articles to which they are linking. I guess that’s what the comment section is for, but I dunno, I like the whole hegemonic “I have a URL, hear me roar” approach to discussion. It reminds me of academic discourse. I call the comments “peer review.” I also call my townhouse “Oxford” and wear tweed jackets as I sit around.

Wandering musings aside, I have a few pieces to discuss at great length. Sharp observers will note that all but one of these articles was linked by Level Up within the past two days. This is what prompted my “ball of yarn” diatribe, you see, because I actually found them independently while snaking around the community. It’s a small ball after all.

Computer games to get cigarette-style health warnings

We’ve all made the same counter-points before, comparing video games to other media such as movies, music, and comic books. Gaming is the new boogie man, and this will pass. Considering my audience, I don’t think I need to waste the energy to run through the entire bit again.

However, this particular development bothers me. Consider this: do you doubt that cigarettes are bad for you? There’s no reason why you should. They teach us all about the dangers of smoking in grade school, there are laws regulating its consumption; hell, there’s even a warning on the box. I assume that most of you have never done any research to confirm these supposed dangers, but more or less everyone has confidence in the organizations that present them.

You can probably see where I’m going with this. You readers and I, fellow gamers, know that video games aren’t going to make you shoot up the school. My brain has not been turned to mush, I’m not going blind from sitting too close to the TV, and there is not a single hair on my palms… Or am I thinking of something else with that last one?

Anyway, imagine now that a child is raised in a world where he or she is warned about the evils of gaming in school, their sale is moderated by law, and the boxes themselves carry a health warning. There’s only really two possibilities here: the children believe it or they don’t. If they do, they’ve been tricked by the moral majority into avoiding a form of expression that their elders did not understand; if they don’t (likely due to a lifetime of exposure – something these politicians and advocates sadly missed), then they will lose confidence in the organizations that regulate such things. Why believe the warnings about tobacco when they know from experience that the gaming warnings are false?

Copy Protection and the Brave New World

This article is written mainly in regards to music, but it applies, as the author notes, to gaming as well.

Call me an idealist…

Let’s take a look at Pixel, the guy made Cave Story. Alone. The one who distributes it for free. Then we can look at AGTP, a group that made the effort to translate the Japanese gem into an English classic and deliver it to the world’s Anglophones… for free. Why bother? Clearly, all those involved have a true appreciation for the art form. They do it because they love to game, create, translate, or do whatever it is that each did as an individual to contribute. They had a vision and they wanted to share it. They wanted to share it, not sell it.

Now I appreciate that a lot of work goes into all of game development and some people would like to be compensated for this, but look at Pixel. He is a model gamer and a model artist. He put five years of work into creating Cave Story and he’s just giving it away. There are countless others like him.

I pay for games, yes, but I don’t pay to play them without first knowing what experience I’m going to get. There are demos, there are friends, there is (we’ve got to get here eventually) piracy, but one way or another, I am going to play a game before I pay for it. Then, if I’m convinced that it’s truly worth it, I will buy it. If I’m convinced it’s not another run-of-the-mill cash grab dreamt up by Joe-in-marketing and jammed through the pipeline in order to make the Christmas rush, I will buy it. If I am convinced that the game has, as the academics say, artistic merit, then I will buy it. Even if I’ve already played through it, I will purchase the game and keep the box with my collection, a symbol of approval and respect for that which it represents.

In response to this article, what I am paying for, essentially, is the privilege to display it as a part of my collection. A while ago, Tycho from Penny Arcade* asked why gamers would pay for a game they could get for free online. I say, that should be the only business model utilized. If any of my favorite indie games that I have played entirely through ever start to sell hard copies (and I wish they would), I will be there to buy them on launch day.

In fact, I’m going to make a mental note right now. Before I buy another retail game, I’m going to send a donation to whichever indie developer I want to thank at that particular moment; probably Nifflas, or Pixel if I can figure out how. I’ll ask them to send me something I can put on display in return… A copy of their game burned on a CD-R and signed or screen shot printed on glossy paper… Anything really, I just want a token.

For me, gaming is an art form and you should never have to pay to experience art. When I purchase any game, it’s not for the ones and zeros. I’m sending off my money as a small thank you to the developers for enriching my life in whatever way they have. If that clashes with some tight-ass businessman’s notions of intellectual property, well then so be it.

On that note, I’d actually love to hear retail developers’ official stance on piracy. If any disagree that it’s acceptable for me to play a game first and buy it only if it’s meritorious, then I will never pirate one of their games again. And I sure as hell won’t buy one either.

*At the time of publishing, penny-arcade.com was down, so no link… sorry. He was talking about Zoo Keeper and later retracted his statement. I promise.

Who’s “Hardcore” Anymore?

Whew… After that long, angry rant it’ll be nice to enter friendly territory.

In this piece, Leigh Alexander explores the meaninglessness and complexity of categorizing gamers. Her observations are keen and accurate, but although the particular monikers she discusses are as vague as she presents, I disagree with her assertion that, “it’s almost pointless to identify yourself with a label anymore.”

I suggest the opposite: that the growing diversity within the gaming market makes the generic identification “gamer” useless; that saying, “I play video games” isn’t saying much at all; and that, as such, we need to develop an understanding of what makes us unique within the community as well as a lexicon to describe it.

Just as in other media, this does not apply to people who do not self-identify as members of the gaming scene, so to speak, but consider music. What can you tell about someone who claims to be a fan of music? Not much, but what if they called themselves a punk? A mod, a hipster, a headbanger? Would they say, “I’m in a band,” or would, “I’m a musician” be preferred? Perhaps none of these terms is entirely descriptive, but they go a long way in describing a person’s tastes and lifestyle.

Similarly, such terms will develop, through self-identification, as the spectrum of gamers expands and its constituents seek community.

I’ve got a friend who is entirely obsessed with music. He listens to music, creates music, hangs out with other musicians, follows music news, and is active in the music scene. He’s an audiophile. I’m more or less the same way with gaming. I’d call myself a ludophile.

Aristotle’s Super Poetics Bros.

As a graduating English major, I’ve grappled with the idea of applying “established forms” to gaming for the last four years. I understand the author’s need to validate the medium, but this line is very telling: “The videogame is a new medium, and unlike theater, which has had centuries to develop, it lacks established forms.”

The sentence accurately implies that gaming will have to develop forms of its own and that the “established forms” do not apply. And after much thought, I’ve settled on this theory as to why: traditional modes of thought, analysis, and form within a storytelling context do not account for agency on the part of the consumer.

Watching a person play Super Mario Bros. is a fundamentally different experience from playing it one’s self. The story arc, as analyzed in this article, would be exactly the same; however, the mental, physical, and emotional (and spiritual?) reaction to any game would be drastically different between the player and observer. And ultimately, those reactions are what the implementation and analysis of form is all about.

There are other art forms that involve agency, certain types of non-western theater for example, but, to be honest, I don’t know a thing about them. Perhaps if we looked into how these are approached for analysis and deconstruction, we would gain a better understanding of gaming than through Poetics.

Thank you, Nifflas, for participating, and thank you, visitors, for reading.

“It actually took me around 7 years to realize I should keep my projects small.”

Nicklas Nygren was born in 1983 in Gävle, Sweden. Today he lives in Umeå, working with the intellectually handicapped at a newspaper. His game portfolio includes Knytt Stories and Within a Deep Forest.

You’ve done a wide range of work for your projects, including visual and audio art, besides the general design and engine creation. Is that a result of the difficulty of finding other people or are you just passionate about the entire gamut of game creation? Do you find it easier or more difficult to bring in outsider help as you become more well known?

It’s pretty easy to find help as long as you can convince people that you will actually finish your game. The thing is just that I like the graphics and music creation process so much that I want to do a lot of it myself. However, as you can see in the credits list of all my games, I’ve got tons of help as well.

About how much time do you spend working through the different aspects of game creation? How much time do you spend, for example, on level design as compared to the visual art?

The different aspects are very closely connected to me, when I do all those things in a rather random way. I often create graphics at the same time as designing the level by jumping back and fourth between Photoshop and the level editor. The same goes for music as well. By this reason, it’s quite hard for me to estimate how much time I spend for each thing, but I guess I spend more or less an equal amount of time on each thing.

Is there some overarching philosophy you follow when designing games? Something to guide you as you create?

For the moment, my games are all about expressing some kind of emotion and atmosphere, but I also try to make sure that anyone can play and enjoy the game by not making it too hard (that didn’t work for Within a Deep Forest though).

Were you surprised by the success of any of your games? Was your growth slow or was it somewhat of a shock when you found yourself a serious contender at the Independent Game Festival?

I started out with small games that even now remains very unknown (#Modarchive Story, Operator Status), so the games have become more popular with each new release, so it have been somewhat natural for me, but yeah, I’ve been surprised many times when I looked through my web statistics and noticed how much bandwidth my games eats.

I don’t know about the contender at IGF though, I haven’t been there and doesn’t really know so much about it.

What do you think of the community created content that you’ve seen come out of Knytt Stories so far?

It’s fantastic! There are many incredibly skillfully created levels with custom music, many that looks better than my own levels.

Is there any particular level that you favor? I’m sure any user of your editor would love to know that you were impressed by their work.

Trek by Terv at http://nifflas.ni2.se/forum/index.php?topic=1109.0 is really neat, and A Walk at Night by Quincent Cartographer at http://nifflas.ni2.se/forum/index.php?topic=1278.0 does have a fantastic atmosphere! I guess those two are my favorite levels, but there are many other fantastic ones as well!

Knytt Stories is presented as a level editor that comes with an example scenario, The Machine, but it has garnered a lot of attention and is marketed by Indie Gaming sites as a game in itself. When you developed it, which was your focus? Did you intend to release an editor with an example level or did you create The Machine first and decide to release the creator along side it?

I did actually intend to release the editor and made sure that the levels could be customized as much as possible through custom graphics and music, but the game is a lot about the levels that comes with it, as well as the ‘A Strange Dream’ expansion which is available at my website with three additional levels I have created.

Why do you choose to work through Fusion? Why choose that particular environment over, for example, Flash or Game Maker?

The main reason is that I don’t know how to use Flash, and I was never able to figure Game Maker out. I’ve experimented with MMF2 so long, and I’ve become a part of their community.

Oftentimes a player can tell what types of games a designer prefers, but the audio-visual style and general feel of gameplay in your collection is hard to compare closely to anything else. What are your influences? Is there a certain genre or developer that you favor?

I play more or less any games, but I prefer those which do have an unique feeling, where ambiance really matters. Fl0w is a great example, which is basically my inspiration for the An Underwater Adventure level in the official Knytt Stories expansion. I’m obviously influenced by other 2D platform games a lot, Seiklus for instance.

What do you think is the most difficult aspect of game creation?

I guess it’s judging the difficulty level the game.

The skill level demanded by Within a Deep Forest is much higher than that of anything in the Knytt series. When you were creating these games, were you aiming for a specific level of difficulty level or did they just sort of turn out the way they did?

Within a Deep Forest turned out the way it did, but in the other games I was aiming at not making them too hard.

What do you think is the single most important aspect of game design?

Definitely the atmosphere.

Would you be able to offer any tips for aspiring game designers?

The only one I can think of is that if you’re a small developer like me, don’t get started with projects that’s too large and can potentially take years to finish. During my time in the game development community, I’ve seen so much wasted effort and skill when people attempt to create games they doesn’t have a chance to finish. I started out that way too, it actually took me around 7 years to realize I should keep my projects small.

Riven, one of the main inspirations of this game, featured a world packed with life, history, and significant details.

Serendipity: An exploration platform game with mystery-puzzle gameplay.

In Serendipity, players explore a 2D world which opens up as puzzles are solved and mysteries uncovered. In terms of interface and control, it will function much like Knytt Stories (does this game come up in every one of my posts?), with the exclusion of enemies and death. I choose to take inspiration from this particular game for a number of reasons:

- The focus of Serendipity will be the environment instead of the player character. I haven’t completely decided on whether or not to include other characters at all. I would really like to because I feel that having memorable characters is second only to music in determining the longevity of a game, but it may detract from the mysterious atmosphere I intend to create.

- Players should be able to traverse the world quickly and intuitively.

- A tiny, featureless player character may allow players to project themselves into the game in the same way that a first-person perspective does in other titles, without having to break into 3D.

So much for interface and control; on to the gameplay.

I’ll make no secret of the fact that I intend to take heavy influence from Riven. In my opinion, the one-wide-world approach to that title’s puzzles trumped the discrete “ages” present in the other installments. Furthermore, many of the mysteries could best be unraveled with an understanding of the world of Riven. This led to an unconscious immersion into the game, which intensified the feelings of significance and urgency present throughout. Unfortunately, like the entire Myst series, Riven has zero replay value.

I’d like to describe this rare gameplay style, which is actually somewhat akin to the adventure genre, through comparison in order to clarify the mental framework in which I will be working. Imagine a game like Metroid, Knytt Stories, or Within a Deep Forest: there is a large world which is ostensibly open, but the player can not access most regions because of some obstacle. After completing a certain goal, the player receives an upgrade which allows them to overcome that obstacle. Beyond that, in the previously unexplored territory, the player can complete a second goal, receive a second upgrade, and overcome a second obstacle… Rinse and repeat until the ultimate goal is achieved.

In Serendipity, there is a similar set up, but the only obstacle is ignorance*. Instead of obtaining rockets, then shooting them to pass an obstruction, players will come to better understand the obstacle through exploring the world in which it arose and, by doing so, learn how overcome it.

I will present a simple example for clarity’s sake: imagine you have encountered a door sealed with a combination lock. Within the same room are scattered a few items indicative of, let’s say, the presence of a dog. In another building nearby, a household, you see similar indications of a dog’s presence as well as a diary chronicling the events leading up to and shortly following the birth of the author’s daughter. What is the combination? The little girl’s birthday. The player can now access the area previously blocked by the combination lock, wherein lie the secrets necessary to advance farther into game.

It wouldn’t be a dog though… For the record… It would be a fantasy animal indigenous to the world of Serendipity. I didn’t want to confuse my simple example with that detail, but now that you have the general idea… Ok, moving on.

I have mentioned before (this is three times now) that Knytt Stories, for me, is actually reminiscent of Riven. It’s strange how these two, alongside Metroid form this web of similarities that reveal the basic underlying experience that motivates us to advance into the unknown. It’s this underlying experience that I seek to re-imagine in a way that I strive as original and captivating as the titles I have listed here. Call it homage, or variation on a theme, or whatever, I’m not completely sure myself, but essentially my goal for this project is to revisit an experience which, due to the mystery involved, can not simply be reset.

© Justin Dopiriak 2008

* Yeah, I italicized it. Deal.

So… this is not that feature. Instead, this is my repetitive list of must-play indie games, designed to liberate my aforementioned list of lesser known games from the influence of these giants.

The premise of this list is as follows: anyone who wants to be able to hold a knowledgeable conversation must be familiar with these games. That’s not so demanding a task as I make it seem, of course. You probably won’t be able to step away from them.

The order in which these games are listed is arbitrary.

1. Cave Story (aka Doukutsu)

Developer: Pixel (Get the English version here)

What it is: A side scrolling platformer vaguely reminiscent of a variety of NES era games.

What makes it great: It’s difficult to pinpoint what makes this game as good as it is – everything is just done so well. The compelling characters and plot, charming visual style, well executed weapon system, and lengthy chip-tunes soundtrack are all supported by a level of polish that one rarely finds even in retail games. It would be an understatement to call this one of the best indie games of all time because it’s quite simply one of best in any context.

If you haven’t played this yet, you simply must.

Also see: Ikachan – A lesser known game created by pixel featuring a squid. … … It’s got a great song in it.

2. Flywrench

Developer: Messhof

What it is: A challenging arcade style game with unique gameplay that defies classification.

What makes it great: Most games today increase difficulty in an artificial and frustrating way: add time limits, throw more enemies on the screen, give them more health and better aim, etc. When this is done, the result is rarely a satisfying challenge. A few other games, Flywrench for example, create an experience which can not be altered through a simple change in variables. Each level is an individually crafted obstacle course designed to test the player’s ability to control his flywrench.

The gameplay is more simply learned through play than words, so I won’t bog you down with specifics, but the basics are this: you control the “flywrench” which has three states of being. Each state, marked by color, reacts to the environment in different ways. By default you are white, which can pass through white barriers, pressing up will switch to red, which slows horizontal movement, but can pass through red barriers, and pressing down will switch to green, which can pass through green barriers with the added bonus of being able to bounce (albeit chaotically) off of the normally destructive yellow superstructure. Switching rapidly between the red and white states will cause the flywrench to fly; otherwise, gravity acts quickly.

You must be quick to react – this game does not forgive hesitation.

Also see: Punishment: the Punishing – another Messhof game. Not quite as unique as Flywrench, but still a compelling challenge.

3. Knytt Stories

Developer: Nifflas

What it is: A platform game level editor based around the Knytt universe, packaged with the example level, The Machine

What makes it great: The Machine isn’t about the characters, plot, or even the gameplay. Instead, the experience, reminiscent (as I have mentioned before) of the best of the Myst series (that would be Riven), is about exploration and atmosphere. The ambient music and stylistic visuals subtly demand your attention as you… wander around collecting upgrades in order to save the world, or whatever. Like I said, it’s not about the plot.

Now this doesn’t come across as a glowing review, I realize this, but I assure you that Nifflas is probably the collective favorite developer of ours here at Thank You For Playing. Precious few games embrace such a delicate gameplay experience as you can find in The Machine and even fewer do it so well. Furthermore, Nifflas is a damn good level designer. I know I’ve said that before too, but it bears repeating. Unfortunately, this means that the community developed levels are missing one of the environment’s greatest assets, but honestly, this description is more about The Machine than Knytt Stories at large anyway.

Consistent with the theme of exploration, there’s more to this game than meets the eye. I don’t want to give away too much, but if you enjoy the main effort, take the time to search for the goofy secret ending.

Also see: The official and community developed levels created in the editor.

4. Within a Deep Forest

Developer: Nifflas

What it is: An upgrade and explore style platform game featuring unique bouncing-ball controls.

What makes it great: Note that Nifflas is the only developer featured twice in this short list of must-play games.

In terms of gameplay objectives, Within a Deep Forest is similar to The Machine, which follows the Metroid style exploration for the sake of upgrades for the sake of exploration model; however, this is about as far as the similarities go. This game, which predates Knytt Stories, is far more challenging to complete (and in a good way too – see the Flywrench entry) and much less atmospheric. That’s not to say that the WaDF world lacks the charm of the Knytt series, just that the stylistic visuals take a backseat to the gameplay here. Missing too is the ambient music, but the relatively upbeat soundtrack suits the experience better anyway.

The back story in WaDF is also a little more robust, but not to all that much effect. The introduction and conclusion slide shows are dandy, but there’s not much going on other than that.

There’s something to be said about the aforementioned bouncing-ball controls, but there’s little else to say that will make sense out of context. Completing certain areas leads to the availability of the new ball materials, which bounce and react to the environment differently. Accessing and working through the final zone, “Dr, Cliche’s Underwater Lab” requires the knowledge of and proper application of all the materials collected throughout.

Like in The Machine, there are a few secrets to be unlocked. In this case, however, they open up a few mini-games rather than a secret ending.

Also see: Lyle in the Cube Sector and Seiklus – both listed by Nifflas as general influences.

5. Crayon Physics

Developer: Kloonigames

What it is: A physics based game wherein you can actually draw objects into the environment.

What makes it great: I have a bit of a confession. I don’t like much of anything that comes out of Kloonigames. The gameplay tends to be tired and the audio-visual style is uninspired. Crayon Physics is clearly the exception.

While the capabilities of this demo pale in comparison to the so far unreleased Crayon Physics Deluxe, it serves as a proof of concept that should convince anyone to watch this project through its conclusion.

The goal is simple: move the ball and collect the stars. The remarkable aspect is the manner in which you do so. Players interface with the game by drawing objects on the screen and watch as they affect the environment. In the playable version, this means more or less building bridges, but the preview of Deluxe shows how much more is possible.

Also see: PhysicDraw – a similar draw-to-life physics engine with a less compelling sandbox premise and no ambient music.

6. The Underside

Developer: Arthur Lee

What it is: Another side scrolling platform game, fairly similar to Cave Story.

What makes it great: To be honest, this game is very similar in gameplay to Cave Story. So much so, in fact, that Arthur Lee himself refers to it as the “cave story rip off.” Quite frankly, though, Cave Story doesn’t have the most original gameplay itself and the problem with this sort of behavior is the normally sub-par quality associated with the derivative work. Luckily, there is nothing sub-par about The Underside.

The audio-visual style is (how to put this honestly without compromising my masculinity…) cute as hell (that will do) and the light and humorous tone of the game’s dialogue compliments this well. These features are what really separates the game from the masses. Did I mention that it’s cute as hell? Just look at the screen shot!

Unfortunately, The Underside is only 2-5% complete, according to the developer, so there’s only about half an hour of gameplay involved. Here’s to hoping he sees the project through to the end.

Also see: Merry Gear Solid – the award winning 2D Christmas version of Metal Gear Solid. Santa? SANTAAAAAAA!!!!

Pillow Fortress: A single player fort building simulation with an isometric perspective and simple point-and-click interface.

Goal: To optimize the construction of a fortress based on the available materials within each room.

Challenges: Resources and space are limited and gravity will tend to collapse the constructions.

The premise of Pillow Fortress is that the unnamed playable character’s parents are spending the night out and her older sister is baby-sitting. To celebrate, she’s going to pass down the ancient art of pillow fortress construction. The tutorial for the game would be her first lessons.

In Pillow Fortress, players are presented with two gameplay options: free play and challenge. Free play is self explanatory. In challenge mode, each level is presented with a certain goal. A few examples could be:

• Build a fort that can hold three people sitting
• Build a fort that can hold two people laying down
• Build a fort that can support two heavy pillows
• Build a tunnel from an existing fort to the kitchen
• Remove and replace dad’s favorite chair without knocking down the fort

Each of these levels takes place within a different room of the house. Different rooms have different dimensions as well as various door sizes. Open rooms would leave extra space outside of the their bounds which would allow for rearrangement, but not construction. More challenging levels would have smaller doors through which only little and compressible items can be moved out for rearrangement. This adds a puzzle element to the simulation.

The actual gameplay would involve rearranging the items that exist within the room in order to construct the fort. Players can use items such as:

• Pillows
• Couches
• Chairs
• Tables
• Blankets
• Cushions

Each of these items could vary in size, weight, and comfort. These properties could also perhaps be modified during construction. For example, blankets could be folded to increase comfort or unfolded to decrease weight density.

This logo that Eric drew up demonstrates the visual style:

The point and click interface of this game makes it a great candidate for code-phobic middle-ware such as Multimedia Fusion or Game Maker. We’re still poking Clearacross around, but it’s likely that we’ll give this one a shot.

This post is mostly a discussion of theory. Editors and Procedurally generated content can be very difficult to make. Especially when under the limitation of some game engines and creators.

We are past the days where designers are forced to provide players with large amounts of content which add replay value to their games. As a matter of fact, by providing players with procedurally generated content or editing tools for their respective games, players theoretically have the ability to create an almost infinite amount of content. Being limited by only your imagination and ambition, players are now able to create very imaginative and challenging levels which the original designers of the game may have never thought of.

Since most indie teams are small and have limited resources these level editors provide a great way to add life to their games. Small communities in which fans share and trade content are growing at a rapid rate. Indie games on the PC are unique in regards to the fact that the games and additional content is easily distributed, talked about (forums) and patched. Some games are even open source like Knytt Stories (we love Nifflas here) and NetHack which spawned a large amount of mods, remakes and levels.

Mods are on a slightly different level than added content such as levels. My definition of mods involve actually editing the game source code or project files to change or evolve the game. I won’t be discussing mods today but I will address the issue later.

User Created Content

Games that offer easy to use tools to create content not only provide enjoyment for players, but help developers as well. There are many great indie titles today that offer editing tools.

Jay is Games has a good list of games with level editors here. However, I have to add my two personal favorites Elasto Mania and Jumper 2. Other examples that come to mind (some non-indie) include Neverwinter Nights, Warcraft III, N game and TrackMania. Even the new Smash Brothers has a level editor in which you can trade levels on-line. Best of all… its on a console!

A good tip for indie developers would be to create their own editors in which to create their content and share their tools with others. This system works best with games that are tile based such as some platform games and puzzle games.

Procedurally Generated Content

Procedurally generated content is the next stage in game development. While a computer using an algorithm to generate levels will never replace a human in terms of creativity, it provides designers with a way to generate an infinite amount of decent content for their game in a controlled way.

While there were others before it, Diablo was one of the first major releases that contained procedurally generated levels. The game would play out differently for every player thus creating a fresh experience every time.

NetHack and Dwarf Fortress are other great examples of indie projects that are entirely procedurally generated. These games are usually referred to as rougelikes, I’m sure most of you have heard of NetHack, a game which was released in 1987 and has a large cult following today thanks to it’s infinite replay ability.

Procedurally generated content could include Levels, Characters, NPC’s, items and even dialog. Procedurally generated games could even go as far as creating entire games from scratch– we are not at this stage yet (at least not with a ton of code) but it is theoretically possible. Imagine a game that can create games.

Now, I’m definitely not telling everyone that adding level editors to their games is the best way to go. Perhaps many designers have a certain vision or degree of linearity that they want in their game or even that your development environment does not offer an easy way to create a level editor. Either way, the choice is completely up to the designer.

It’s because of this brilliance that I’m confused about the inclusion of a level editor in the release. The effort is, of course, appreciated, but I’m quite apprehensive. With no abilities available in the editor that do not already appear in the pack-in adventure, The Machine, there is little to do besides alter the audio-visual style and craft a new Knytt world; however, the custom worlds (even the official ones) come across as remixes of the original adventure more than anything else.

My concern, I feel, was justified when I began a search for community made levels. I found a few that had gone quite far in altering the style to decent effect, but even those were simply too close in gameplay to enjoy as a new experience.

Unfortunately, I can’t say I recommend utilizing this tool for anything other than passing time as the results probably won’t be that fantastic. Even the official expansions, a few collections of adventures created by those closest to the original game, demonstrate the limits of the editor. The only aspects of the game that can be altered, the audio-visual style and the world geometry, are the aspects of game design that Nifflas himself is best at creating. If, for example, some sort of generator were available for new abilities, clever and novel things could be done with the somewhat generic gameplay, but instead we are left with something that only allows us to re-ice an already beautiful cake.

Here’s a quick one…
I have always been a fan of procedurally generated content; Diablo, Nethack, Dwarf Fortress. This idea is simple: to construct a procedurally generated puzzle game which constantly evolves and challenges the player.The puzzles will be simple, generated by predetermined algorithms. Some of the puzzles could be as simple as figuring out the next number in a sequence, to analyzing patterns in shapes. The objective would be to navigate through the maze of puzzles as quickly as possible. Each sequential level will include more puzzles, timers, harder puzzles and more variety.

Graphics:
I am thinking that by having this game text only would add more of a hardcore puzzle feel to it. Graphics would perhaps detract from the game play. Navigating menus through text and typing answers manually would give it sort of a “hacker feel.” Perhaps the story could include something of that connotation.

If you haven’t noticed this game is semi-inspired by Professor Layton and would be playing in a similar way.

Here are some examples of sequence puzzles that I had in mind.

http://www.puzz.com/lloydkingpuzzles.html
http://www.research.att.com/~njas/sequences/Spuzzle.html
http://brainden.com/number-puzzles.htm