Hype: Star Stealing Prince

I don't actually think this game needs any more hype because it already won most of the yearly awards over at rpgmaker.net and it's already had a TV Tropes page made for it... but it is the RPG that I've been playing over the last few weeks so I thought I'd talk about it anyway. 

Obligatory title screen shot...

Star Stealing Prince is a JRPG that focuses on the titular Prince of a small kingdom perpetually covered by snow. It contains most of the systems and tropes that you'd expect from a traditional JRPG, with anything slightly different from the norm being thoroughly explained throughout the course of the early-game, and the detailed execution of these systems is something that has really impressed me as I've played through the early-game.

A good example is the in-depth characterisation that even the most minor NPCs are given. Each conversation you'll have with someone in the Prince's kingdom is a far-cry from the crude one-liners that littered most early JRPG outings (such as the early Final Fantasy games). It's rare to see a game try to inject so much life into the environment that its heroes find themselves in and, since it's something that I've always aimed to do in my own games, it's awesome to see other people trying this out as well. It's a simple idea, even if it is incredibly difficult to execute throughout the course of a game (it can be difficult coming up with things for irrelevant characters to say), but it adds so much to the game. Even more so in this game, where the obvious love the Prince has for his subjects (and vice-versa) goes a long way towards fleshing out not only the kingdom itself, but the personality of the main character as well. When seemingly meaningless interactions add so much to the development of the main characters, it's definitely a good thing.

The environments in this game really are pretty.

Anyway, I could go on and on about this game and I've only beaten a handful of the areas, and since I'll eventually be writing a review of this game (when I finally find the time to finish it, work and Starcraft 2 are taking up most of my time!) this will have to do for now. Trust me though, if you're into JRPG games, this game is definitely worth a shot!

SC2: Derelict Watcher Cannon Rushes

This is something that I originally posted over at TeamLiquid's website, but I'm going to post it here as well. It's a pretty basic guide (and it's for a very cheesy strategy; hate me all you like!), but what I really wanted to point out was the fact that these Cannon Rushes are possible so that other Protoss players can be better prepared against them.

If you do play SC2, you should definitely check out TeamLiquid's website, especially if you didn't know about it already!

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Pewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewpewewpewpewpew....

Introduction

I've seen TAiLS doing this on his stream against both Protoss and Terran players, and I'm sure that if Gaulzi still streams then he'll have been doing it as well. It's basically the same idea as as Cannon Rush on Daybreak: You slam some Pylons down behind their mineral line, you lock your Probe away, you slam down some Cannons, and you collect a free win if they don't respond fast enough...

Build Order

9 Pylon (Chrono Boost Probes Two Times Once Complete)

Rally Your 10th Probe To Scout Their Base

14 Forge

Build Pylons

Build Cannons

Images

All of these Cannons are fully walled in...

... and all of these Cannons are fully walled in. I know the bottom one looks like it isn't, but it is because Derelict Watcher has a really weird out-of-bounds area down there!

Conclusion

... it's a cannon rush, dude, what do you want from me?

Featured Game #6: Rework The Dead: Evil

Title: Rework The Dead: Evil

Developer: Beaker

Homepage: http://rpgmaker.net/games/2865/

Genre: Shoot'Em Up/Platformer

Program: Sphere

Since I'm back writing the blog, I might as well go back to featuring some games for you to cast your gazes over. There are a hell of a lot of brilliant games in the amateur development community, and a lot of them are easy to find using rpgmaker.net's easy-to-use search function (protip: games with more than 3 stars are generally worth playing), but this time around I'm going to be featuring a game that I've previously reviewed...

This splash-card should give away how gory this game is going to be...

The story behind this game is that our hero is trapped in a zombie-infested city that's about to be blown to bits by the military, and so our hero needs to descend their way down through a military base in order to reach a bunker that they'll be able to survive in (think Resident Evil, except that you need to reach a bunker instead of a helicopter). The only problem is that the military base is also infested with the undead, so traversing your way down to safety isn't going to be easy...

You're going to have to cause a lot of carnage in order to survive!

What I love most about this game are the graphics. The best thing about them (aside from how awesomely beautiful they all are) is that everything is incredibly clear and precise, which is important in a platformer as you don't want to confuse the player by being overly elaborate. I think that, given how gory this game is, it is good that the developer managed to keep things simple whilst also allowing you to (literally) paint the town red. It would've been so easy for the gore, the grotesque nature of the enemies, or the over-the-top nature of the weaponry to get in the way of gameplay-important graphics, but this doesn't happen at all. It makes for a really impressive show!

Speaking about the gore, I also found it awesome how the game manipulates gore to add greater depth to the gameplay. Most enemies in this game will respond to location specific hits by limping, crawling, or changing their method of attack, which means shooting out an enemy's legs or taking off their arms can be really, really useful. Obviously, headshots will generally kill enemies in the fastest manner possible, but it can sometimes help to send an enemy to the ground whilst you deal with more dangerous enemies, or so you can take advantage of their disabilities to save ammo on your more powerful weapons. 

Overall, the platforming in this game is really solid, with a difficulty level high enough to challenge even the most hardened platform veteran without even becoming overly frustrating; the graphics and the music are both excellent; and the amount of blood and guts you can spill will make any Evil Dead fan happy. Really recommended! 

Devblog: Getting Out Of Riot Grrrl's Development Hell

Sore Losers: Riot Grrrl is a game that I've been working on for a very long time. Originally intended as a short project into which I could dump ideas that didn't fit the JRPG formula I used in Sore Losers, it soon sprawled into a much larger project than I had intended. Unfortunately, real life eventually managed to get in the way and I wasn't able, nor willing, to work on the game for over a year. That's obviously a long time, and so getting back into the flow of things has been very difficult... but there's nothing I can do about that other than to work hard. I've promised myself, and the friends who've helped me out, that this game is eventually going to get finished and so finishing it is what I'm going to do. 

So, where am I up to? I returned to the game to find that three out of the planned five levels were complete (which had been the situation for longer than my hiatus had lasted), and that I was in the middle of bug testing those levels. This meant that I spent the first couple of months or so bug testing, fixing bugs, and then bug testing over again. Fortunately, I didn't find as many bugs as I'd found when I was making the original Sore Losers, so I'm obviously getting better at this game development thing!

Admittedly, bug testing can sometimes be a very annoying process because it usually ends up feeling like you're taking away from the game rather than adding to it, but in this case it was actually a very therapeutic process. This is as it as it allowed me to familiarise myself with how many of the game's most important systems worked and how they were linked into one another, which in turn made it much on me when I eventually started creating new levels and content.

After finishing the bug testing, it was time to get on with making the fourth level, and that's actually going well so far. Several stages are already complete, and I have a well developed plan for how the rest of the level is going to pan out. All I really need to do is turn my plans into both code (which is actually the easy part because of the clever, modular system I've set-up for generating new levels) and sprites (which is by far the more difficult part because I'm so slow when it comes to drawing out all the level backgrounds, monsters and characters I need). 

Overall, it's good to be making progress, so I'll leave you with some screenshots and continue my work! 

The final level takes place in a government building, throughout which stand many militaristic statues such as this one (I'm still not sold on the shading; probably needs a touch up).

Given that government in this game are a very paranoid group of people, there are lots of secret passages and security measures to deal with in this particular level!

Blog: I'm Back!

Clearly, I haven't been updating this blog a lot, and that's because I haven't really been following the amateur development scene as much as I'd like to. This is for a variety of reasons, such as submitting my PhD thesis, studying for the subsequent viva, job hunting/relocating/working, slowly starting to work on my own game again, and starting to play Starcraft 2 with a more competitive eye than I'd done previously...

... but I'm back now!

Although I'm going to try to continue posting about the amateur development scene (I might not be reviewing that much, but I will be spotlighting and hyping as many exciting projects as I can!), I'm also going to start posting a wider variety of blogs about my life, my work, and my Starcraft 2 experiences. Maybe I'll succeed in keeping this up to date, maybe I won't, but it's worth giving it another try.

:)