Dev Take Tuesday - Cuphead's Clouds

I’m going to complain about Cuphead in the next couple paragraphs: a tiny complaint that, yes, is tied to the game’s oft-discussed difficulty. But first, let me gush about StudioMDHR’s popular indie hit. It’s impossible to talk about the game without bringing up its unique and captivating art style. The early twentieth-century cartoon look and jazzy instrumental tracks truly set the game apart. My dad never plays video games (apart from the occasional game of Mario Kart or Madden) but will sit down and watch my brother and me play just because of the game’s visuals. However, Cuphead isn’t simply about spectacle—the game utilizes tight controls and uniquely challenging boss fight after boss fight to create a great gameplay experience.

Cuphead is fun but extremely taxing. If I’m being honest, it’s my brother who keeps us afloat in the game’s two-player mode. In the vast majority of cases, this difficulty seems “earned” by the designers. You might die several times as you figure out a boss’s attack patterns, but once you learn the patterns you feel ready to vanquish your increasingly vexing foe. These boss attacks almost always have their own tell that clues players into which attack they must prepare for. One particularly elegant tell I noticed was during a convoluted carnival battle where a dangerous roller coaster could be seen distantly in the background before it arrived on the main screen.

Gif found in this Polygon article

Most of the time, my brother and I knew that our failures were our fault—we were clumsy with the controls or not focused enough to see the boss’s tells. But then we lost to the dragon. And lost again. And probably lost around forty times? I lost count. And with the dragon, the failures were much more frustrating. Unsurprisingly, Cuphead’s dragon flies, which means players need to jump from cloud to cloud throughout the battle. Unfortunately, these clouds briskly scroll across the screen in random formations. I’m sure the design decision here was intended to prevent stagnant play patterns, but I personally feel that the randomness of the attacks is enough. When an unlucky combination of attacks leaves you stranded without a cloud to jump too, fault is attributed to misfortune instead of personal mistakes.

Overall, Cuphead is an incredible experience that I highly recommend. As someone who gravitates more towards slow-paced strategy games, it’s rare that a twitchy game like Cuphead captures my long-term interest. A large percentage of that interest comes from the way the game thoughtfully handles difficulty, which makes the few missteps—like Cuphead’s clouds—really stick out. 

Indie Illuminator - Find Me

Find Me is a puzzle platformer that appears to take some inspiration from somber but soulful games like Limbo. The game’s narrative centers on a shadow trying to reunite with her human counterpart. Because of her shadowy nature, the player character must (of course) avoid light while navigating the game world, and, based off of interviews, the full game would feature more light-related game mechanics (such as reflections) as well.

Image found on the game's Kickstarter page

Another fascinating detail about Find Me? The game’s developers are a group of young girls in middle school and high school. They developed the game’s prototype during a summer camp program called Girls Make Games. An international program with support from well-known industry partners like Intel, Xbox, and Playstation, Girls Make Games attempts to bridge the gender gap in game development. Girls attend workshops and game jams, receiving support and encouragement to pursue any of the many possible careers in game development.

The girls hope to use their crowdfunding cash to get professional help with their art and music and for support to finish their game. Right now they’re awfully close to their Kickstarter goal, but they only have five days left to fund their project. If you’re interested in Find Me’s puzzle platformer mechanics or simply want to support a program like Girls Make Games, take a quick look at their Kickstarter page and their rewards for backers.

Indie Illuminator – Raji: An Ancient Epic

A unique theme can pull an entire game together when all game elements carefully work toward that theme. I think Bloodborne, Bastion, and Darkest Dungeon are all excellent examples of games that utilized an uncommon but cohesive theme to really stand out. While glancing through Kickstarter I found a current indie project titled Raji: An Ancient Epic, and I can see how the game’s chosen thematic background helps the game to stick out and the various game elements to stick together.

Concept art for Raji found on their Kickstarter page

Raji is an action adventure game inspired by Hindu and Indonesian mythology and set in medieval Rajasthan—India’s largest state. The architecture and art design in general looks amazing, and I believe a great amount of enjoyment from the game will simply come from exploring the environment. The game’s current trailer doesn’t show off too many enemy designs at the moment, but the acidic, frog-like Tezabsuras seem particularly unique and menacing. Although not listed as an RPG, it does seem like the game will feature some progression elements as you choose which gods to draw your power from.

Unlike many of the other Kickstarter projects I’ve illuminated on this blog, this relatively large indie dev team comes with a lot of experience from past jobs at AAA studios like E.A. and Rockstar Games. While they are currently short of their funding goal, they still have over a month to reach it. Take a look at their Kickstarter page if you think Raji: An Ancient Epic might be the type of game—and theme—you’re looking for!

Dev Take Tuesday – Stranger Things and MAXimizing Player Choice

Warning! I will be discussing some spoilers for the recently released second season of Stranger Things. If you didn’t binge watch the nine episodes like my wife and I did, you might want to postpone reading this blog post until you finish the whole season.

As mentioned in the warning above, we watched the entire new season of Stranger Things in more or less one sitting. Needless to say, my wife and I are fans. Despite how much we both loved the second season and its new characters, my wife raised a valid gripe about the addition of the skateboard-riding, arcade-record-breaking Max: what’s her role on the team? She has an obvious role in the season’s narrative, breaking up the group dynamics and creating competition between Dustin and Lucas. But it’s unclear until partway through the last episode—when she’s able to drive a car despite her age—how she can help the band of kids fight against the horrors of the Upside Down.

Lucas, Dustin, Mike, and Max in Stranger Things Season 2 (screencap from show found here)

Personally, my concerns were mollified during that car-driving scene. Max was the “zoomer,” as she describes it in an earlier episode. But I think it was a valid question all the way up to that point. When Max was added to the team of demigorgon-defeating kids, viewers expected her to contribute to the team once the supernatural baddies returned. This expectation reminded me of a similar gripe I’ve heard from gamers about leveling in RPGs. When a character gains enough experience to level up in an RPG, the player can often choose a new ability for that character. Usually there is a pool of available abilities to choose from, each offering tantalizing new opportunities for that character to become more powerful and useful.

Various ability choices in the RPG Kingdoms of Amalur (screencap found here)

However, it’s not always clear in the moment which abilities will be useful. Maybe one of the new skills offered to the player says that you get better at hacking robot enemies. Seems cool, right? But if it turns out that not many robot enemies exist in the game, the player might end up with an ability that never ends up fulfilling the expectations he or she had for it. And that’s (obviously) disappointing. Some gamers, worried that they’ll end up making one of these disappointing choices, eschew personal choice entirely for internet guides whenever their character levels up.

I understand the connection might be a bit tenuous here, but my point is that both TV show viewers and RPG gamers have expectations when a new element is introduced to the equation. If a show writer adds a new character to a group of kids known for battling monstrous baddies, viewers will expect the new character to be useful to the group in some way. Likewise, if a game designer provides a new ability for a character, gamers will expect that ability to be useful—just like the other abilities the character already has. Offering a sub-par choice might open up roleplaying decisions for specific types of players, but if the drawbacks of that choice aren’t clear, many players will end up disappointed. Offering carefully balanced abilities every time a player levels up is a tricky task, but a worthwhile one for maximizing player choice and contentment.

Indie Illuminator - Summoners Fate

Usually, I have at least a couple projects I’d like to illuminate on any given Thursday. But today was unusual—I struggled to find any games or streamers to cover. So I hopped on Kickstarter’s games section and started to scroll. I was immediately intrigued by a video game called Summoners Fate that combines tactical combat and CCG (collectible card game) mechanics. To my surprise, I noticed the game’s developers also live in Salt Lake. Guess I picked the right Kickstarter to cover!

Gif found on the Summoners Fate Kickstarter page

Summoners Fate’s unique top-down perspective makes the game feel even more like the physical board and card games it emulates. Like our game Alkanaur, Summoners Fate incorporates both a strategic layer and a tactical layer in its gameplay. In the strategic layer players choose dungeons and manage resources, whereas the tactical layer focuses on snappy turn-based combat. One nice touch I appreciated as a game designer was the simple choice to make the game characters look up when it is their turn to move and attack. Additionally, the gameplay seems to be designed to allow for quick bursts of gameplay (useful for mobile) or in longer sessions.

The game’s developers, D20 Studios, plan to release Summoners Fate in 2018 on iOS, Android, PC and Mac. If you’re interested in the game, they are currently running a small Kickstarter project that is nearly 100% funded as I write this post. You can also catch a Q&A stream with the husband and wife development team tomorrow (November 3^rd) on Kickstarter if you want to know more about the game or the developers.

Indie Illuminator - Scarizard

Once again, I’d like to use this week’s Indie Illuminator post to highlight a wonderful Twitch streamer with a growing viewer count: Scarizard! If you play League of Legends, the name might sound familiar. Scarizard worked for several years with Riot Games and played a big role in communicating with players. He provided plenty of puns in the game’s frequent patch notes, while also participating in design and Q&A streams that gave players deeper insight into Riot’s gameplay decisions.

Image from Scarizard's Twitch page.

This past year, Scarizard left Riot to pursue some personal projects. One of those projects is “the Backlog.” Many gamers start to pile up a backlog of games, hoarding games because they’re on sale or sound interesting. Scarizard put together a list of 50 wildly distinct games that he was unable to play because of work and other constraints. And now he’s been playing those 50 games over the course of 2017 and streaming his progress through the backlog.

Some streamers tend to stick to one or two games, but other streamers—often called variety streamers—play a variety of games for their audience. If you’re looking for a talented variety streamer with a great sense of humor, a strong rapport with his chat audience, and a marvelous beard, Scarizard is definitely your man. He streams most days from around 12-9 PT if you want to check out his stream.

Dev Take Tuesday - Desolation Trail

What’s in a name? Sorry Romeo, but I’m going to have to disagree with you here. My wife and I went on a small outing this weekend to a nearby canyon and stumbled upon a trailhead marker titled “Desolation Trail.” The name certainly caught our attention. I doubt we would have picked that trail from a list of less intimidating names, but since we had some time we took a few minutes to explore the desolation ourselves.

Photo taken by Ryan Malavolta for UtahOutside.com

We met another couple descending from the trail. They explained how they’d avoided the trail for years because of negative things they’d heard about the trail: it was arduous, it was treacherous, it was ugly. About what you’d expect from a trail titled “desolation.” But, after finally checking it out for themselves, they discovered that it wasn’t any of those things. Intrigued, my wife and I followed the trail up. All we saw was sunshine and trees, and we discussed revisiting the trail on a future outing.

As developers, we might overlook how much naming we do. We often do a lot of “proper noun” naming of places and people, but on top of that we frequently need to name enemies, abilities, and game mechanics. It might be easy to simply use the first names that come to mind. (What’s in a name? A fireball by any other name would roast thy feet.) However, if the connotations and implications of a name contradict its purpose, your players might be confused or—like the hiking couple in the story above—avoid the “desolation” all together. As we decide on final names for all of our character abilities in Alkanaur, I’ll definitely have that trailhead marker on my mind.

Oh, and I’ll probably name an ability “desolation.” As long as the name fits.