Recent posts by FinalStrife7 on Kongregate

Topic: Game Design / Twitch: The Game Of Frustration ALPHA

Understandable. You’ve got something good here, and I give you kudos for getting that far at such an age. As I’m sure you already know, these kinds of things require a huge investment of time, but many of the best things in life do. Work on it when you can. Ten minutes a day for 30 days equals five hours of progress. :)

Topic: Game Design / Games made with the free version of Unity or Stencyl are accepted?

I don’t see why they wouldn’t be accepted. What version of program is pretty irrelevant, so long as the file format is correct. Since the file format isn’t different between the free and paid versions of such programs, I wouldn’t think there’d be a difference.

Topic: Game Design / Twitch: The Game Of Frustration ALPHA

It’s not a bad idea, but one can definitely tell it’s still in the concept phase. Ace_Blue hit all the biggies, such as there not really feeling like there’s a purpose or rhyme or reason.

The thing is, there are lots of very similar games of this type that you can and should draw from. Taking into account what you said in your reply to Ace_Blue, variable difficulty is never a bad thing. If it can start out easier and get progressively harder, like most Survival modes do, that would be a huge bonus. Also, I know this is asking for a lot coding-wise, but some variability in the level(s) will definitely need to be planned, if you haven’t already planned for that. That whole Ninja Rush (or whatever it’s called) game that was Badge of the Day not too long ago is a perfect example. The speed gradually increases with time and though there reaches a point where the level(s) start to seem the same, they’re still different every time because the constituent “scenes” in each level are lego-ed together.

Think of it kind of like a book. Each possible segment, measured shall we say in-game as a ten-second interval, equals one page. Each page can be diagrammed on graph paper. Obstacles here and here. And here. Some over here. And this is the path the player would ideally take.

Boom.

Next page. Obstacles here, here and here. A black space here. And a wall of obstacles here.

Boom.

Next page. And so on and so forth. THEN what youcan do is have the game continuously (and pseudo-randomly) keep selecting pages from the book (array?) and stitching them together one after the other. In this way, the game engine make the levels FOR you (the designer) and each time the player plays a new game/level, the segments are sufficiently randomized to (up to a point) always been new. Obviously, the more segments you coded, the more random it would appear.

This can also be adjusted to have a book/array for easy levels, medium levels, hard levels, and so on. Once the point total or time amount reaches a certain threshold, the array selection is promoted and the segments start getting created from the next array up the chain.

All that being said (it’s just an idea), I still wouldn’t really play it because of the death combination that (a) the button keys are (I think) poorly chosen, and (b) they can’t be changed. I found it very inconvenient to use the space bar and the A and D keys. I think a mouse-moved version of this would, for me personally at least, be much more fun. It would provide more exact movements, but this would in turn allow for much greater speeds of play.

These types of games rely on the user element of precision, and the simple on/off function of a keyboard key isn’t really suited to the missed-it-by-four-pixels type of play that this is. Keyboard functions work in other games (like the Ninja one) because their function is on/off. You’re either jumping or you’re not (which isn’t affected by the time the button is pressed—i.e. on/off) or you’re changing “lanes” in the level (you’re either in a lane or you’re not—on/off). There’s timing in those games, but there isn’t really too much of an element of precision outside of that because the work is done for the player by the engine. Your game does not enjoy that luxury. There’s certainly nothing wrong with precision being a fundamental part of your game, but precision games require (more) precise controls. I of course understand that that’s supposed to be part of the challenge, but there’s a very small window and I don’t think your game is there quite yet in that regard. :)

Topic: Game Design / Legality of tracing pictures

Originally posted by GameBuilder15:

So I guess as long as I could find photos that can be legally distributed I’m good. I’ve found most pictures on Wikipedia are licensed under a CC license.

Well… again, this makes me feel overtly dishonest, but the burden of proof is on anyone to prove that your pics are tracings, and no one’s got the time or energy to try and search the internet for every permutation that may or may not have been used as a base for any given picture of yours. Obviously using Ewan McGregor, CC or not, makes it much more likely someone will “wise up” to what you’re doing. There are plenty of much more obscure picture sets, though, for example any of the Fame-Girls sets. There are some NSFW ones, so be warned, but the overwhelming majority are pretty safe and neutral, especially for tracing.

Originally posted by Ace_Blue:

I had to google Greg Land, and I was amazed by the amount of flak the guy takes for his tracing, especially when most of the incriminated pictures would still be of horribly bad taste if he had not traced his source material. In a lot of his art the problem is more with the subject matter and the result than with the technique. Also, the main justification I can see for looking down on him for tracing pictures is that he’s a professional artist, you’re not. Trace away.

From what I’ve read, it seems people more disagree with his method than anything else. Less the fact that he traces and more that he does so poorly at it.

Wikipedia:

"Land’s limited supply of poses and use of the same models for multiple characters ‘results in terrible art and particularly terrible storytelling.’

Although the use of photographs as models is long established in comic book art, Land has been accused of going beyond the accepted bounds of photo use, lifting photos into his pages outright and using minimal Photoshopping to alter the picture and make the work appear to be an original drawing.²

He was also mocked by his limited use of facial expressions on the Thing."

Topic: Game Design / Legality of tracing pictures

Can’t say I haven’t wondered the same thing. I know the sentiment exists in a (subjectively) very gray area, but that would definitely be a time where “you only get in trouble if you get caught” would come into play.

I’ve always entertained the idea of making my own graphic novel, especially after reading the short sketchbook/storybook One Mandy Morning by Dean Yeagle.

Sample page: https://www.dropbox.com/s/x5nui95t1iwb8me/9.jpeg

(If you want the whole book, lemme know and I can dropbox the rest.)

The entire book is pretty short and has no dialogue or narration, but, the title character’s “enhancements” aside, Yeagle’s illustrations instantly made me think of similar stock photos of people. I started browsing around and, if one looks long enough, came across random professionally-shot sets of models, some sets containing literally hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of pictures of a single model in every possible sort of position, extension, pose, and form. And any form or pose you couldn’t find in a picture in its entirety, one could conceivably be stitched together by adding the arm from one picture to the body of another and the head of a third. With that as your toolset, pretty much anything’s possible, whether graphic novel, flash game, or whatever.

Obviously if we try hard enough we can more or less justify anything, but I prefer to think of it kind of like the music business, in that some of the greatest songs ever written were written by professional non-singing songwriters, and some of the greatest singers ever didn’t write the songs they’re known for. Would it be nice if everyone was at least somewhat talented in everything, or able to network(/pay) with others who can fill in the gaps? Of course, but the reality is that not everyone is able to. But what if those few measly hangups are preventing the person from producing what would amount to a true, uniquely one-of-a-kind work of art? Should the world go without such a gem simply because “tracing’s wrong”?

Obviously this is all arbitrary and I’m skewing the argument to the side I already agree with (and plenty of good arguments can be made for the other side as well), but it really does come down to how much you’re “borrowing” and to what extent you’re “caught”, as dishonest as talking about it makes me feel.

Many of the people who are aware of the fact that George Lucas “traced” Star Wars still consider him to be a genius.

I say be George Lucas. :B

Topic: Game Design / RPG level design

Originally posted by Redpheinex:

DDO is a free to play rpg game you start with the option to make 10 diffrent adventurers you can deleat and remake them lots of friendly player guilds quests crafting and more but its not focused for the open world like WOW but a still an amazing game and you can earn the other people and classes with out have to buy them over time .

Why did you necro this thread? The OP hasn’t even been on the site in over a year. :| Ignoring that your post doesn’t even answer the OP’s question, what exactly were you hoping to accomplish by posting?

Topic: Game Design / Free Runner [Game/Feedback]

I wish I could say I got as far as Ace_Blue. Instructions do seem wordier than necessary. Some of the grammar seems off, such as the shop saying that (this is how it technically reads) if I press A I get 175 coins. :| I know that’s not what you mean, but players should never have to decipher basic instructions (unless that’s part of the experience.)

Started a new game. First jump fine. Second jump, I could tell it was far so I waited til the very last second… and still couldn’t make the jump. Maybe one sprite length away. :| I got 0 coins. Yay.

Started ANOTHER new game. Coincidentally, the exact same building setup. Recognizing the possibility that the fault may have laid with me, I tried even harder to jump at the VERY last second… and came up short the same distance again. 0 coins. Yay again.

ANOTHER new game. This time different building arrangement and I managed to nab a gem after the first jump. Different (shorter) second jump, so I made that one clean. Third jump: not only distance-wise just as impossible as the killer jumps on attempts 1 and 2, but the goal platform was significantly higher than the starting platform, which (geometrically) makes it even more impossible to land on.

At least without Super Jump. Hmm. Well, okay. Let’s see how many coins that gem netted me.

5 coins. :| And I have to get up to 175 to get super jump just so I can get farther than 3 jumps into the game? Doing the math… Win>Run>Calc… I would have to, per my current rate of 5 coins per three games, have to play (the first ten seconds of) your game 105 times before I could buy the power-up and actually start to enjoy the game…?

I say all this not with the intent of demoralizing you, but rather to point out some very crucial elements of game design that your game seems to lack.

First, the opening of a level is generally introductory in nature. It gets the ball rolling. You need to juice the wheels. Making it impossible for the player to get farther than ten seconds into your game is not a good thing. The challenge of a game is supposed to increase on a gradient over time. A perfect example (and in your genre too) is an iPhone app called Hill Climb Racing. I personally don’t like the game because it’s just senseless repetition with no over-arching REASON (something, unfortunately, that your game would suffer from as well if I could only go more than ten seconds without dying); however, it scales progress and unlockables and difficulties very well. I’m not going to tell you how you can implement this in your game, but I’m sure you’re a smart person who can problem solve this for yourself. Start out easier (with pithe coin rewards) and, as the game slowly gets harder, the rewards slowly get better. I’m not sure how exactly one incrementalizes things like that in programming, but I assure you that’s what’s necessary.

Variable jumping, even if only a little, is something that would immensely to the game. What I mean by this is that when I press space in your game, I jump the same height/distance every single time. There’s no middle ground. There are no little jumps. There are no massive jumps. It’s just timing. While there isn’t necessarily anything wrong with this method, it takes control out of the hands of the player and can be construed as a bad thing. That’s why most games feature varying intensities of abilities. Short hops. Full jumps. Massive jumps. It’s something that’s utilized quite well in other runners and it would behoove you to take a page from that book.

Ace_Blue’s also right about a larger plot device to hold everything together and give the player purpose, but that can come later. Dino Run has a meteorite. Another game on here has you out-running an alien energy wave. Give it a story of some sort so it doesn’t seem so much like a clone.

Lastly, you might want to consider giving small amounts of coins as a consolation prize, related to either distance travelled or time survived in a level. If the coins given are a third the number of seconds run in a level, then running for 45 seconds before dying would reward 15 coins. It’s trivial in the larger scheme of things, but ensures slow gradual progress to help mediate runs where no coins are collected, runs which, at least from my perspective, would be wasted.

“You’re telling me I managed for run a level for 140 seconds and didn’t get a single coin?!”

That’s bullshit. :B Add some more rewards man. :)

Topic: Game Design / Why videogame players never value their lives.

Originally posted by DannyDaNinja:

Originally posted by FakeKraid:

Has anyone considered the case of the Fire Emblem series? In that game, the player controls not a single avatar, but an entire team, most of them with developed personalities that at least somewhat encourage emotional investment…and death is permanent in that game. I mean, you can quit mid-battle and re-load your game, but if you finish and save that character stays dead forever. The team goes on, but that character doesn’t.

I don’t have the mental focus to think hard about it at the moment, but could this be applied to games of other genres? What if you had, say, an action-adventure game with iterative characters that the player can develop in various ways, encouraging attachment, that stay dead when he dies, without ending the game? Instead, the game’s plot and action would go on, but the player would have to choose a new character to continue the story. I have no idea whether it would work, but it’s a thought.

That idea works really well for party-based rpg/strategy games like XCOM :o
But I still can’t figure out how to make a player care for a single avatar like in shooters/platformers.

As long as there’s near-instantaneous respawning, one can pretty much guarantee players will not care about their avatars. Only in a game where staying alive is a more primary purpose of the game will that start to become true. If you think about it, referencing back to your lamenting the lack of tactics, the goal of modern-day fps’s is not to stay alive. Lives are numerous. They’re handed out like candy. Instead, the goal is to kill the baddies or get to location X. Yes, a secondary goal is to do it with as few deaths as possible (i.e. in the fastest time), but the life of the avatar isn’t of primary import.

Compare that with less run-of-the-mill games like Heart of Darkness or Oddworld. Not only is staying alive pretty much the one thing that should be in the forefront of your mind, but when the avatar DOES die it’s not in a tidy little burst of pixels. It’s kinda gruesome. And it works. As I said a couple months back, that instant reincarnation is what does it in.

As much as people might dislike the word, I think punishment might be the best way to go with what you hope to accomplish. It’s not enough for people to just restart from a previous checkpoint. The fault with that thinking is that while the death of the player may have set them back, they’re still seconds later right back in playing the game, which acts as a counterbalance to any punishment the player might have felt. The player doesn’t mind the loss of progress because continuity is maintained. Why does this matter? Because this just further illustrates the principle that they’re not playing the game to stay alive—they’re playing it to (in shooters) shoot things. As long as their gun is blazing, what does it matter that they just died?

Add an increased buffer period to the respawn and I think that’ll help. Pushing too far to the other end of the spectrum (just to illistrate the point) how much do you think players would value the lives of their avatars if, every time the avatar died, the player had to endure a 20-30 second cutscene? It’s quite literally a timeout. The player is being prevented from doing the one thing they want to do: play the game.

Obviously the timing would need to be tested. As with some platform games the measly three-second respawn time is too short, and with our hypothetical test game a respawn time of a minute would be too long, but there exists a happy median where two standard deviations of players on a bell curve would consider the cutscene long enough to REALLY incentivize them to die much less, but not so long that they consider the game to be wasting their time.

I personally believe that right there is the easiest way to add value to avatars.

Topic: Off-topic / Skateboarding VS Cheerleading (Comp)

Originally posted by oOTrentOo:

Originally posted by gamerguy75:

They are both for drug attics.

AT LEAST THEY’RE NOT LOSER BASEMENTS

:D

Topic: Off-topic / after watching this ted talk about a North Korean immagrant i started thinking....

There’s no way to know if China wishes to remove the North Korean government at this moment, but I don’t think its a stretch to say that, like most countries, there are conditionals. “We’ll play nice with so-and-so so long as…” or “we won’t nuke them unless they….” Within that context, anything’s possible. Considering how complex statecraft is, China’s government (which is undoubtedly made up of multiple opinions on a wide spectrum) probably simultaneously feels a number of ways that may seem contradictory. Either way, one of the hard and fast rules of statecraft—hell, life—is to get more out of them than they get out of you. China is definitely succeeding on this front.

With that out of the way, North Korea is screwed eventually no matter what. Not if, just when. As Mansmany mentioned, the propoganda there is so extreme that it would take decades and decades to reverse it, and only because all that’s really happening is we’re educating the kids and waiting for their parents to die. I saw a video not too long ago that purported to be a leaked propoganda tape from North Korea (seemed pretty legit) that (translation dubbed over) said and presumably showed how all Americans were sleeping on benches, and how is always snowed 24/7 in America, and everyone was cold and miserable, and how even though is snowed the government still sent around trucks to give away “ice soup” (yarly) to the poor homeless populace.

If this is a subject that truly interests you, you should check out the Lisa Ling documentary, if you haven’t already. It’s free on youtube and isn’t but 45 minutes long, but it shows how truly fucked up that situation is over there: watch?v=mxLBywKrTf4

Topic: Off-topic / What do you think about people who give their address out on the internet?

Originally posted by Taylorbee:

I definitely considered the first possibility, but the second one seems unlikely, considering who he is (and yes, I know him well).

I was not referring to the true paranoia you’re describing. Perhaps a better way to say it would be he’s overly-careful on the internet. And I know being careful is good, but it’s possible to be too careful.

In regards to this specific guy, then, it seems to me that the most reasonable explanation is that he doesn’t consider you a threat, assuming everything else is legitimate.

As for the logic of giving out one’s address, that depends on the relationship of the people involved. The reaching out thing could come back into play. Back when I was on deviantArt a lot, I gave my address out to people (and vice-versa) because I’d known them for years and seen pictures of their lives and read their stories. Though obviously [we] can never really know if another is dangerous or not, I’d perceived that threshold to be crosse[d] where I would have had them over for game night had they lived nearby. At that point, the internet being the medium of communication, and the lack of proximity, was simply circumstantial.

That being said, I received and sent a fair amount of gifts. Got a book from a Canadian friend. Cookies from a good friend who lives in Seattle. Various holiday cards and letters sent both ways.

If you’re confused about your friend giving you his address, it might simply point to the idea that you each view your relationship at different points of progression. Whereas your level of trust might be a more linear y=x line, gradually increasing over time, his might be a more parabolic curve, perhaps y=.25x². As the x-axis (time) increases, his trust may not at first grow as fast as yours (his reticence), but after a certain point is reached, his trust in you may begin to increase faster than your trust in him. You may have asked for his address as a joke because you might not have done the same in his shoes, but he may simply be at a different point on the graph from you.

Or something. Or, hell, maybe he’s nutso.

Topic: Off-topic / Brief History of Swag and Nazis

Originally posted by SpearDudezor:

Originally posted by FinalStrife7:

This is just a really bad fan-fic, right?

I mean, the actual original of the word isn’t this, and I’m not the only one who knows it, right?…

No, man, you are the only person in the world who knows the origins of Swag. Even the person who gave you the information no longer remembers it.

I’m okay with this.

Topic: Off-topic / Brief History of Swag and Nazis

Originally posted by spoofdebris:

Originally posted by FinalStrife7:

This is just a really bad fan-fic, right?

I mean, the actual original of the word isn’t this, and I’m not the only one who knows it, right?…

the actual original of the word
only one who knows it
right?

Mmk.

Originally posted by Peccancy:

Hitler was a hipster.

“Hipster” is a term co-opted for use as a meaningless pejorative in order to vaguely call someone else’s authenticity into question and, by extension, claim authenticity for yourself.
It serves no conversational function and imparts no information, save for indicating the opinions and preferences of the speaker.

Meanwhile, a market myth has sprung up around the term, as well as a cultural bogeyman consisting of elusive white 20-somethings who wear certain clothes (but no one will agree on what), listen to certain music (no one can agree on this either), and act a certain way (you’ve probably sensed the pattern on your own).
You can’t define what “that kind of behavior or fashion or lifestyle” actually is, nor will you ever be able to. That’s because you don’t use “hipster” to describe an actual group of people, but to describe a fictional stereotype that is an outlet for literally anything that annoys you.

The twist, of course, is that if it weren’t for your own insecurities, nothing that a “hipster” could do or wear would ever affect you emotionally. But you are insecure about your own authenticity – “Do I wear what I wear because I want to? Do I listen to my music because I truly like it? I’m certainly not like those filthy hipsters!” – so you project those feelings.

Suffice it to say, no one self-identifies as a hipster; the term is always applied to an Other, to separate the authentic Us from the inauthentic, “ironic” Them.

Co-opted might be too strong a word. The word’s creation is grounded in pejorative, being (at its creation) a synonym for beatnik and other counter-culture labels. It was then, as with many derogatory labels, adopted as a badge of honor, most popularly documented perhaps by Kerouac himself. While the meaning has been slightly altered and flipped since the 40’s, it’s always had authenticity at its focus.

I think you’ll also find that the market “myth” that has sprung up is pretty viable. It may be amorphous at times, but that doesn’t mean it’s not of substance. The very fact that people adopt parts of what is determined to be indicative of the hipster fashion without themselves adopting the “mythos” would seem to be the strongest indicator that it’s a purchasable fashion, much in the same way one can buy “thug” clothes without being a thug, or buy “prep” clothes without being a prep. You also make some pretty absolute statements about what “no one” can or cannot do, including self-identifying. Maybe it’s just a symptom of where I live, but I know plenty of people who self-identify to some degree as hipsters… so your claim in that regard is thoroughly voided. While I myself am not a hipster, I do empathize with many of the idealogies that popular commentators typically ascribe to “hipster.”

Has the word been bastardized by many people in the way you describe, specifically in regard to the whole “ironic” stereotype? Of course, but that doesn’t mean it’s not a legitimate word/style/ideology in its own right.

Topic: Off-topic / What do you think about people who give their address out on the internet?

There’s no way to know why he gave it.

As someone who has used Spokeo (and other services) before, there’s a distinct possibilitu the information and address are outdated. Publicly available information, while handy and interesting, is not always the most accurate. He may have given you an old address. [EDIT: And yes, I say this knowing that information on such sites can say it’s current when in fact it is not…]

Another possibility that (and this is pure speculation, though that doesn’t make it any less feasible) is that he’s lonely. If he gave his address out, that may be a way of both literally and metaphorically reaching out. If he’s truly medically paranoid, he’s also lonely. That’s part of what makes true paranoia so life-ruining: unable to trust anyone, paranoid people protect themselves by setting up walls against _every_one and suffer all the more for it.

Two of many possibilities.

Topic: Off-topic / Brief History of Swag and Nazis

This is just a really bad fan-fic, right?

I mean, the actual original of the word isn’t this, and I’m not the only one who knows it, right?…

Topic: Off-topic / What do you think about people who give their address out on the internet?

But looked up what? You don’t have to give any more identifiable information, but that doesn’t mean you can’t explain what you found.

For all we know, for example, you may have Google Mapped the address and found out the location exists, but that doesn’t necessarily mean he actually lives there…

Or, do you mean that you found a (random?) webpage with both his alleged name and address on it…?

Topic: Off-topic / i have no friends now

Originally posted by Maowee:

so I had this friend in my class and such and she was SO stupid and demeaning so I stopped talking to her[…]

so had this other friend n he was like just randomly stopped talkn to me I dunno why askd him what why had i dun somthing wrong and he was like, NO, so I was like ok. and he still stopped talking and now he is a cold ass mofo[…]

So you stopped talking to a friend without telling her why… you just stone-cold dropped her, and that’s okay…

But then a guy does the exact same thing to you: drops you without telling you why… And that’s not okay?

Do you not see the double standard?

You also dropped your friend because you think she’s “SO stupid and demeaning.” Have you considered the possibility that your male friend dropped you for thinking something similar about you? If he does say that, I’m not saying he’s correct (though you saying your friend’s “life sux now cause she doesn’t have me” doesn’t help your case—arrogant much?), however he may still have based his decision upon a similar belief.

As an aside, I’ve got news for you: most guys you encounter in life will want to sleep “wif” you. That’s just biology. That’s part of why some girls have gay guy friends. You’re just going to have to get past that as an inevitable part of life.

As for finding new friends…

I don’t know what you’re like in real life, but your post here sounds very selfish, arrogant, and mean-spirited. You disowned your friend because you say she’s demeaning, but you haven’t said a nice thing about either of the two people of whom you’re talking… or in other words, you’re needlessly demeaning them.

The first step to attracting friends is to be worth friending. I [edit: don’t] have faith these words will bear fruit, but try objectively examining why people would or would not want to be friends with you. It’s really not as complicated as some believe. The hangup is that most people aren’t honest. Rather than admit they have qualities that others may not like (and then try and fix those qualities), most people tell themselves they’re fine and it’s everyone ELSE who needs to change. And then they wonder why they don’t have any friends…

Topic: Game Design / Game genres - Is there anything new under the sun?

I’m not offended you didn’t read my post (I know it’s long) but I think it answered these points before they were asked…

Originally posted by Aesica:

Originally posted by dragon_of_celts:

Do you consider Canabalt not a clone merely because you can’t stop like in other platformers? Because control is restricted to one button? Extreme simplification of an idea doesn’t make it more than the idea it was derived from, does it? Some levels of the Super Mario franchise featured scrolling levels that you had to keep progressing forward in in order to make it through. Is Canabalt a clone of those?

The key difference is that, in SMB, you can stop moving even if the level continues scrolling. In Canabalt, you don’t get that luxury. You also (that I recall, anyway) don’t jump on things to kill them or punch blocks to make coins and powerups pop out. If you want to see a better example of a clone, look at Canabalt, then look at Robot Unicorn Attack. THAT is an example of a clone game.

Basically, a game can be considered a clone if it plays enough like another game to the point it reminds players of that game.

The trouble lies with the word “considered.” What you refer to is subjectivity. If every game reminds me of King’s Quest, does that mean they’re all (realisitically) clones? I think most people would say no.

My post also references the Crash Bandicoot levels which, unlike SMB, involve “jump[ing] on things to kill them or punch[ing] blocks to make coins [or what amount to coins] and powerups pop out.” Canabalt came out in 2009; Cash Bandicoot 2 came out in 1997. Is Canabalt a clone?

Again, as I said in my previous post, the issue boils down to how narrow or wide one’s field of view is. I can be asininely narrow and (legitimately) argue that Crash Bandicoot 3 is not a clone of Crash Bandicoot 2 because 3 has a motorcycle in it. (Big whoop.) I can also be overly wide in my field of view and claim (not inaccurately) that Pokemon is essentially a clone of Galaga. It’s certainly much more of a clone than Monopoly is. It’s simply a matter of where one chooses to draw the line when tallying up the number of similarities and differences. The same strictness you apply to SMB/Canabalt can be applied to Canabalt/RUA. Canabalt doesn’t have fairies or a unicorn or rainbows or pretty music or lives or double jumps or dashes (and so on and so on.) Objectively, each of those differences is just as valid as “you can stop moving,” no? Again, it’s just where one chooses to draw the line.

Topic: Game Design / Game genres - Is there anything new under the sun?

Or in other words, what I-love-you-lots is trying to say: semantics. :P

I think something that’s important to note is that there’s the need to qualify the difference between a genre and a sub-genre. The purpose is mentioning it is not to debate where the line is (since that’s pretty subjective) but simply to point out that no one really seems to know. Plenty of game design companies and books have attempted to qualify what makes a truly different genre, so to determine whether or not something is a new genre, a new subgenre, or a clone will depend on which criteria and rules one applies. Sort those out and you’ll have your answer. The larger problem is getting everyone to agree on them. One can always either widen or narrow one’s criteria to support their argument. A similar point can be made by asking how many genres of film there are. 1? 2? 7? 32? Or is each film in its own localized genre?

To answer what seems to be your primary point (“it is possible to create a game that isn’t a clone, but that will probably never happen by seeking inspiration from other games.”), I would have to disagree. New features and implementations and genres seem to come about because of inspiration. From wanting to do, as the Hollywood adage goes, “the same, but different.” I don’t know the story behind Canabalt, but running/avoidance games were not technically knew. To counter Elyzius, the first example that comes to mind for me is a handful of levels from the Crash Bandicoot series where Crash is being pursued. The movement is constant and forced in both games. The buttons necessary are pushed. The obstacles are the same: either don’t fall behind (e.g. Dino Run), don’t fall into holes (every endless runner ever,) and don’t touch enemies (only some games.) All it would take is for someone to say, “You know, those levels are by far my favorite, but it sucks they have to end, and that they’re the same everytime.” Boom! The right person with the right talent and eye makes an endless run game that’s procedurally generated. Is that all it takes to make a new genre? Makes the level endless and somewhat procedurally generated? There were no new game mechanics added, so if that’s the recipe for a new sub-genre then each of us should have three good ones by Saturday night. :P

In the “Clone?” Venn diagram of two games, which do you choose to place more importance on: their similarities or their differences? The case can be made either way, for instance, on whether or not Assassin’s Creed is a clone of Thief 3. Game creation is an evolutionary process and, as such, I feel inspiration will always play a part, clone or no.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Game design help

If I start “at the beginning as either a low ranked member or just before they are recruited,” how will I simultaneously “play as the current crime boss”?

I’m not really seeing what 1st person perspective would bring to the game. That sort of thing is usually done for a reason. Bear in mind that 1st person perspective will also mean people will expect higher texture resolutions.

GTA San Andreas (I haven’t played GTA IV) is 13.9 square miles and took a team of career developers three years to make. And not every building had a purpose or was interactable. The game you propose, having every building mean something, in New York City (468.5 sq miles) would take the same development team 101.12 years to make, not factoring in such things as the amount of alpha and beta testing that would be required, and the sheer size of most of the buildings in New York as compared to the size of, maybe, twelve interactable buildings in GTA.

Something that must also be understood about designing games is that limitations are not bad. Believe it or not (and your textbook should be saying it in there somewhere), completely open-ended is bad design. Players prefer some sort of paradigm or framework within which to work. One could go on, but I think the idea is pretty clear. Seriously, Amazon yourself some more game design books, or use your school’s e-library to view some.

Looking at the survey, what does it mean to be “mutually” interested? Is it asking me if I’m as interested in the game as it is in me? Seriously. This boggles my mind. If you responded to one thing, please let it be to help me understand that one.

Question two: there’s no such thing as an infinite storyline. What you’re referring to is an infinite series of mini-missions, but they won’t be filled with actual voiced dialogue or new characters. To that would require you to either (a) account for (and program) every possible outcome of every possible situation, or (b) make a game that is entirely procedurally generated, even with voiced dialogue, which has yet to be done.

Question three: Why are android and NDS options available? If enough people voted for NDS, would you try and develop the single largest game ever made for a handheld system?

I’m all for encouraging young indie developers, and I encourage you, but this premise says to me that you (all) haven’t ever tried to actually make a game. Otherwise, you’d know how seriously impossible and unreasonable it all is. I wish you the best in your future endeavors, whatever they may be.

Topic: Stencyl / Stencyl APIs

Are you referring to a specific API? The Kong API for Stencyl, perhaps?

It also depends on where you want to display the highscore/leaderboard. Generally there’s a server separate from kong where that information is stored. Are you wanting to make that the highscore in the Kong chat for your game?

Either way, the basic idea is that you set a behavior to increment a variable for each click of a mouse button. Then the API, at periodic times or given places (your choice), sends that variable to the server where it’s compared with others.

If you’re interested in this idea, you’re going to want to implement some anti-cheater measures. Nothing’s foolproof, but it will help to try and level the playing field a bit more. If so, “Whatpulse!” has some ideas you might want to consider integrating.

Topic: Serious Discussion / How flawed is the grading system in schools?

Originally posted by brandenzard:

Story time!
My English teacher had said, “Honestly, I hate grading. I wish I did not have to give grades at all but I have to according to the principal. Seriously, how do you grade someone’s intelligence?”

I think the premise is flawed. I will be the first to admit that education is seriously flawed, but any teacher who feels that the purpose of grades is to measure someone’s intelligence doesn’t understand their (simple) purpose as a teacher.

Intelligence is cumulative, and even cumulative “grades” are still, as someone mentioned earlier, isolated. Intelligence, by its nature, is not isolated. If I get a D in Russian I, that no more means I’m stupid—I got an A, btw—than not being able to beat Halo’s Campaign mode on Easy means one is bad at video games. To say such a thing is a gross generalization that misses the point of grading. Testing is localized. The reason grades are used is because the subjects that they’re used FOR generally require mental aspects that we more often than not assume to be markers for intelligence.

To the invisible parent who says his or her kid is smart in spite of the fact that the kid didn’t test well on the reading portion of the state’s elementary school aptitude test: your kid failed because he hasn’t developed the ability to read a paragraph of concrete words and view the smaller entities as a larger whole, formulate the abstract concept trying to be conveyed, and figure out which of the four available answer choices is most like that abstract concept. Is the ability to do that intelligence in and of itself? No, but the ability to comprehend and infer is a huge indicator thereof, and anyone who has to have every single thing spelled out for them is considered a simpelton. You may think your kid is smart, but the test shows him performing much more poorly than his peers on an ability most people consider integral to functioning in society.

A low grade on a cumulative test such as one of those is considered largely indicative of intelligence because the questions of the test rely on commonly applied intelligence factors. The purpose of the test is to measure those. Tests are also designed to measure the application of concepts. The person who memorizes “25 × 25 = 625” is not intelligent. They’re simply knowledgable. The intelligent person is the one who knows how to find out the answer, i.e. do multiplication. Any schmoe can sit in a speech or government or sociology class and attend every class and take every note, but the purpose of the class isn’t to take the best notes. The purpose of the class is to learn the concepts taught and be able to apply them in different situations. In this way, the purpose of the non-cumulative test/grade is to be an objective indicator of how well the student has learned the material, and in this regard they’re generally pretty successful.

Complex mollecular biology is not easy.
Advanced calculus is not easy.
Learning a language that is fundamentally different in practically every way from your birth language is not easy.

I think these classes highlight what I see as the other flaw in your argument, which is that you separate hard work and intelligence. People don’t magically become doctors just because they’re smart. They become doctors because they dedicate years to studying single subjects. They hone their abilities to think both abstractly and discriminately. They memorize a wealth of complex information. And if they don’t understand something, they have to problem solve out the ass. I could go on and on, but you get the idea. All those kids say they feel the pressure to get good grades but then can’t be bothered to put in the effort to meet those expectations? I would label them unintelligent. Their long-term planning skills suck. They’re not rationalizing. They sure as hell don’t sound self-aware. Popular media is rife with characters who fail for lack of effort and succeed for abundance thereof, yet none of them have seen feet to absorb those abstract concepts and apply them to their own lives. Those kids aren’t not intelligent because they don’t know the material. They’re not intelligent because they’re not trying, and any piss-poor grades they receive as a result of that lack would be accurate, in my opinion.

I wonder what they’d think if we applied their logic to the real world:

“I do work here but I don’t really have a motivation for actually doing work at my job.”

“Jobs, nowadays do not promote on intelligence but emphasize hard work.” [the horror!]

“I have seen the brightest coworkers in my years of working here, and get fired because they do not do the work or show up. Really, to survive a job is basically just to do the work.”

For shame. Someone should really reform that whole hiring and firing thing.

I was going to do the “I hate how my friends from my other schools have like straight A’s or honor roll and I take the same classes as them but I barely pass.” one as well, but (forgive me for saying so) it’s just such an asinine thing to say. If someone in your class actually said that and doesn’t realize the error in their logic, they are not intelligent. The problem does not lie with the system. It lies with them.

Topic: Serious Discussion / About the Conservation of Energy...

Originally posted by Camoraz:

But could you put that into a loop of some kind? Use another machine to convert some of the heat dumped from the previous machine into energy, so on and so forth?

You don’t mention the law of diminishing returns, though I’m not sure whether or not this is because you’re focused more on making this hypothetical machine just more efficient and not 100% efficient.

vikaTae and fractalman have the right idea. What you seem seeking is the capture of all the produced energy of a closed system, which is impossible. Energy is not created or destroyed, however it’s more than welcome to dissipate. In that way, per the sensors vikaTae mentioned, it’s inevitable that some of the heat/energy produced will dissipate before it ever reaches a sensor, no matter how close they are. Some of the energy absorbed by the atoms of the medium is also not passed on. As it stands (so far as I know), it’s not possible to prevent this completely.

That being said, the crux of the issue seems to be your desire to bypass entropy. The catch: while it is possible for a closed system to create order, it does so only when there’s a greater increase in disorder elsewhere in the system… :/ I have no way of personally knowing whether or not it’s possible to create a system as you describe with al but perfect energy (re)capture, but, if so, when all the numbers have been crunched you’ll still be in the red.

Topic: Serious Discussion / Request for college/university students to help in Psychology Study

I fit all the criteria and was into trying the thing just to use up time, but not too far into the survey it asks “What genres of video games do you play?” but then proceeds to provide only radio buttons… so I’m asked to choose multiple genres but can only select one?

I know it seems petty to focus on that, but either someone didn’t proof the copy or someone doesn’t know how to proof HTML. Either way, it just strikes as me sloppy. Again, I know that seems petty and not worth focusing on, but things like that annoy me to no end. If someone else isn’t going to make the effort to do it right, do they really expect me to?

Topic: Game Design / Submitting a game via Kongregate

The Developer FAQ is pretty explicit in what file types are accepted. If you haven’t read it (which would be a very depressing fact), it would probably be wise to do so.

If you have read it and you’re asking for an exception of some kind, you might want to try explaining why they should make an exception, assuming it’s even possible for them to do so. Otherwise, your entire argument is simply, “can I, please?” :/