Tuesday 15 June 2010

Hyperabuse Monolith

A second game on the S.C.U.M. theme. This is a game about harassing people in the street. Again, the visuals are where I want them to be, but the gameplay isn't quite. It's more like a "proper game" though, has a score and everything!
(my best is 16130, but higher should certainly be possible.)

Hyperabuse Monolith



If videogames were rock music (a much better metaphor than movies), then this a fairly dull quiet track 2/3 of the way through the album (I'm not selling it very well, am I?).
I quite like that idea; an album of games.

edit (24/06/10): new version, incorporating some suggestions and fixing a bug; also, scoring is now different by an order of magnitude, so scores mentioned previously will sound absurd.

edit (26/06/10): new version, mostly the same as the previous, just improving depth-buffery problems but not fixing them completely because I'm lazy.

Thursday 10 June 2010

Warstorm

Several of my friends have started playing a game called Warstorm on facebook, and I've been getting lots of messages about them giving each other hunters and mages. I decided to try the game today. My impressions have not been very positive.

It's a CCG about fantasy armies battling each other. The battles themselves seem to be completely non-interactive. Your cards are drawn in random order, and after being in your hand for a number of time steps (the 'cost' of the card) they enter play. No decisions are made during battle. So basically, the entire game is about deckbuilding. This is (like Dominion) a game designed to attract ex-Magic players who get nostalgic about deckbuilding, regardless of depth. But it's combined with the money-sink of actual CCGs (you can get new cards by investing time, but the cards that cost real money on are strictly better) and the social addiction of Farmville. A charming mix. Plus the UI is laggy and the game has more fun than the player. I don't recommend it.

(It's a pity, because the mechanic of having a card's cost be the number of turns it takes to enter play after drawing it is quite elegant.. unfortunately what it elegantly achieves is nil interaction!)

Sunday 6 June 2010

Babeltron 2010

Another game. Really it's basically just an elaborate word-processor though.

Babeltron 2010

I'm not completely satisfied with the mechanics, but I think there's something there. I am quite satisfied with the visual aesthetic.











This was made as part of the Games Collective's pageant on the theme of the S.C.U.M. Manifesto. I don't think it's a very good use of the theme, maybe I'll do something else as well.