GMTK Newsletter - December 2016 (Patreon)

Well yes, I wanted to finish up all my Game Maker's Toolkit stuff for 2016 before Christmas so I could give myself a proper break to relax, play some video games, reset my brain, and be ready to get working in 2017. 

The final video for the year is basically done but I will release it next week. Though, Patrons will get it sooner as always. And $3 backers can expect Game Maker's Playlist tomorrow, if all goes to plan.

Oh, and before I forget - you can see a cool GMTK shoutout on Extra Credits, here ! 

Post-Script

5 Game Design Innovations from 2016 

I knew that I wanted to bring back the video I did last year , where I highlighted 5 bits of good game design from 2015. But I felt like the title was a bit vague and wishy washy. I wanted it to be clear what would be inside. 

So I eventually ended up with "innovations". The idea being that games deserve special credit for coming up with fresh and original ideas - even if they're not completely perfect.

This did mean I needed to chuck out a couple half-written ideas that fit the original title of "bits of good game design". Here's the first draft for a thing on Recore's extraction mechanic.

Reviewers dunked on ReCore for being buggy and broken. But, if you ask me, that game was practically flawless. 

Flawless. Floorless. Ah forget it. (There was an amazing visual joke here of a bug where Joule fell through the floor into an infinite void. It pains me to lose it). 

Okay, so the game's rough around the edges but dig a bit deeper and you'll find a game filled with clever ideas and fun mechanics. From colour-changing enemies to spider-bots that run on sky-high rollercoaster rails. 

My favourite part of the game, though, is the extraction mechanic. This is when an enemy or a boss monster is weakened and you plunge your hookshot thingy into their tummy.

Then, the game turns into a manic tug of war, or something ripped straight out of SEGA Bass Fishing. You have to pay attention - only pulling on the analogue stick when the rope is white, and letting loose when the cord goes red.

It's more involving than Doom's instant glory kill, and much more engaging than those button-prompt cutscenes you'd find in a game like God of War.

There's a lot of tactical depth. You're vulnerable while you're extracting, for example, so you have to unleash this attack wisely. You want to be a good distance from the enemy, and make sure other foes are either dead, or busy fighting your robot companion.

You also get a different reward for using extraction. Killing an enemy normally gives you scrap, while extraction gives you a core. 

You do get instant extractions, too, but they're rare and so should be used judiciously. You don't want to waste one on a weak enemy but you can use it to quickly erase one tough enemy from the battlefield. And the split-second pause when you wipe out that enemy is ultra satisfying. 

ReCore packs a lot into this one mechanic... and that's where I ran out of words. 

There was also a thing on Furi, and how it has a tug-of-war style health system for its multi-phase boss fights, and the ability to win back health by timing your parries well. 

The main takeaway is, I think, that I want to do some shorter episodes on smaller stuff next year.

Sometimes I think "this is a cool bit of game design but it wouldn't sustain a full episode" when, in reality, I can make the videos as long or as short as I like. Though, I will need to consider Patreon stuff - feels weird to charge the same for a 4 and 10 minute video. 

Video 2

Almost done!

Sneak Peeks

Okay. So, we used to have escort missions in games, right? And they sucked. Everyone hated them. But developers didn't want to let go entirely because they worked well narratively. Especially for the power fantasy storyline of, like, every game ever.

The solution was to make your AI companion invincible. See: The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite.

Which is smart, but also kinda shitty. We see Joel and Ellie's relationship in the cutscenes but we rarely get to explore their dynamic in the gameplay because Joel literally doesn't need to protect Ellie. She can't be seen or hurt by enemies. Same goes for Elizabeth. 

Anyway, The Last Guardian does some really interesting stuff in this space and I reckon I'll do something on that. My question to you is - can you think of a game that explores companionship, or a bond, or parental protection, etc... through the mechanics of the game. 

An example to get your brains whirring is the indie game Passage by Jason Rohrer. When you get married in the game, your character is now wider (as you move both the man and the woman), and you can no longer reach certain areas. A nice, mechanical metaphor for how the commitment of marriage blocks off certain things in your life. 

Any and all ideas welcome. I seem to remember Enslaved doing something clever with Trip and Monkey. I'll replay that one. 

Mark's Month

So this was my last month working at Pocket Gamer. 

Working at Pocket Gamer has been interesting. It was never my goal to write about mobile games - I just wanted to be a games journalist and this was the best I could get at the time! - but it was actually a fascinating industry to cover. 

When I started in 2010, the App Store was about two years old and there was a wealth of innovation. Game creators, especially on the indie side, started to explore new ways to use the unique pleasures of the smartphone. The multi-touch screen, location data, the camera, the microphone, the accelerometer all lead to incredible games not possible elsewhere. 

But devs were also experimenting with how to sell their games, and the focus was increasingly put on "free to play" - a business model I have never been a huge fan of. I think free to play negatively impacts game design , shattering the balance, pacing, and fairness of a game. It's a model where devs introduce "pain points", so they can charge you to overcome them. Blurgh. 

So imagine trying to run a website where you didn't care for the most successful and profitable things that the website was supposed to cover. It wasn't an easy job! I'm enormously proud of what we did, though - I think we struck a good balance between covering the populist games and the more niche, independent stuff. 

But, ultimately, being an editor wasn't really my thing. I never enjoyed the busywork and chores of running a thing, I struggled with staffing stuff, and I preferred to just write articles rather than do big-picture editor-y things. Don't get me wrong, I was good at my job - traffic went up, the site was strong, we did amazing work - but I didn't love it. 

Anyway. I'm pleased with my legacy. I'll be interested to see where the site goes. And I wonder if it will ever get that much-needed redesign. A new website was in the works for the whole six years I worked there. 

I'm pleased I was still there for Super Mario Run, though. Here's my review of the game .

It is a game where the designers thought carefully about how to translate the bouncy thrills of Mario to a platform without buttons or a d-pad and came up with something special: a deceptively simple game that serves as a full-bodied celebration of Mario's genre-defining jump.

And here's a fun Photoshop thing  about what the game would look like if it were truly free to play.

It was dissapointing, to say the least, to see that the mobile games industry is so tarnished by free to play that many players met a game with a free demo and a sensible price tag with such opposition. It didn't give me much hope for the future...

Also this month, I did my first proper consultancy gig for this firm I'm freelancing at! I had a couple jobs with them earlier in the year but they fell through for boring reasons. This time I finally got to play a game and write a report. 

It's an interesting process! The main difference from writing a normal review / script is that the game is very early and so you have to make best guesses about how things will turn out and what the developer intends to do in certain places. Which makes it kinda tricky. 

Obviously, I can't say anything specific about the game or the process. All under strict NDA. Speaking of which, this job has made me privy to info on games that, like, you don't even know about. They haven't been announced. It's absolutely bonkers - I shouldn't be trusted with these secrets. I want to blurt them all out! Argh!

Best I move on. But this is getting kinda long so here are some one sentence, thoughts on stuff I've been playing.

• The Last Guardian is busted and clumsy but ultimately a beautiful story about companionship.
• 2 hours in and Mafia 3 is just bad.
• Kirby Planet Robobot is filled with crazy one-off ideas but I wish it wasn't so simple.
• Stardew Valley got its hooks in me for a good few days but I could see how long it would take me to get where I wanted and I had to bail.
• Batman Arkham VR is a really great showcase for the headset.
• Ittle Dew 2 is like playing a Zelda speedrun and I'm not sure I'm into that.

Have a Merry Christmas, or whatever holiday you celebrate, and have a have a happy new year!