Virtual Reality: The 4th Dimension of Gaming

Virtual Reality has been something every gamer has dreamed of, something on the levels of Sword Art Online where we lie in bed, stick a helmet on, and we're in a whole other world doing whatever we please. And I'm happy to see that something similar is close to coming along within my lifetime.

I told my dad about how far VR has come in recent years, he argues however that it's nothing new or special

"We've been going on about VR for decades" He says. "They always think it'll take off but it never does."

"He doesn't get it" I tell myself. "He just doesn't understand."

And in fairness, I don't think he does understand. The extend of his experience with VR is using one of those headsets to fit your phone in. He has never used PSVR or an HTC Vive with functional hand controls and 3D tracking.

I thought the same thing he did when the Oculus Rift came along. At the time all it did was track the users head movements, and it was more for visual experiences than for any real, immersive gameplay. I really didn't think it would be anything more than that. Then the HTC came along with the Vive. Full 3D tracking of the head and controllers for your hands, allowed for some amazing VR ideas to come to life. It was as if humans had transcended to the 4th dimension of games, a whole new world of possibilities had been opened up.

But only for the people that could afford it, alongside a very powerful computer that could run games at a constant, smooth 60fps in two monitors (Which, right now, does not include me). But hey, here comes Sony with their PSVR headset. A VR device for the masses, at a low low price of just £400 (ish). And now Oculus have made a comeback with their own version of the Vive, also complete with hand controllers.

For the first time, we have a VR version of the ever-lasting console wars.

And it's these competing companies that reassure me that VR is finally here to stay. It's at a level of quality that really does immerse you in the game, and I can't get enough of it. And at this age of the Indie Dev, so many incredibly creative games have been released for VR, the kind of games that I could never have come up with in a million years (apart from a Star Wars type of game, because that's what we REALLY all want). I can't wait to see what the future holds for VR, but what I really can't wait for, is the mad, amazing and downright weird games that developers will make.

MEGAFIGHT: A game for Corridor Digital

About a month ago, the cool guys at Corridor Digital released a stop motion video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaRQtwKo3hg

And for some reason, I got inspired to make this:

I tweeted it to Wren, one of the guys at Corridor, and I mentioned that I would've liked to have made a game out of it, but that would take a bloody long time.

But then I just decided to do it anyways.

For a day, I thought about what the game would actually be, what assets would need to be made like animations, sprites, the programming, the audio etc. And then I concluded that this would be doable within a week or so.

How I managed to get it done in 3 days, I'll never know.

The game was originally meant to be a 2 player fighter with a lot of running, jumping, shooting and a bit of punching. But the way Unreal Engine casts controls to the controller(s) meant that I had to make it single player.

See, you can cast the controls to either the keyboard, or a gamepad. But the problem is, you can't have 2 players using the same keyboard in Unreal. But you also can't have one on a keyboard and one on a controller. They BOTH have to be on controllers. And I only had one.

So I had to think about how to work around this. The obvious solution was to make it single player and have the other character as AI. But I can't program intelligent AI to save my life. The best AI I made was for a project at university, but that was just an AI that would look for the player, chase the player, and the go back to a patrol route. This AI would have to be able to chase the player, but also keep its distance so as not to get hit and only shoot at certain times. Just thinking about having to program all of that is stressing me out.

So I thought about the AI that was made for the university project, that was just on a predefined route around a level, why not do the same for this? But instead of running/jumping, he just teleports to each spot? It would add a bit of difficulty, seen as he wouldn't be running between spots, he would just appear there.

So after a lot of bugs and such, I got it made, but it's STILL full of bugs like how you can die from your own projectiles, the death animation may or may not appear, and if you hold down left and right at the same time, he'll just slide around.

I mean, c'mon I made it in 3 days what did you expect.

I'm actually a little proud of how quickly I managed to make a half-decent little game, and the fellas at Corridor really seemed to have fun with it.

(Here's their video)

And if you want to play Megafight for yourself, here is a link to it on Google Drive https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_hNWh5_6kf0YlNYOUhaZm0wckk/view?usp=sharing&authuser=2

Also, it's called Megafight because it's in the style (kinda) of Megaman.

Disregard everything I said about No Man's Sky

Tomorrow, I'm going to trade in No Man's Sky.

I thought I loved No Man's Sky. I think I was just lying to myself. I think I had just forgotten what I was promised

Watching videos from the initial announcement up to a month (ish) before release made me cry a bit on the inside. Literally everything about the promo videos is amazing and looks like a bloody good game. But instead we were given....well....you know.

Looking at some of the things that were said about what No Man's Sky would include and how many of things are actually in the game, you just can't help but hate Hello Games.

I admired them at first, a small studio trying so hard for so long to create an incredible sci-fi adventure game. And what the produced isn't even close to what they promised.

Again, looking at the promo videos and comparing them to the finished game, you can see what is missing, and the list is long.

When it comes to promos, footage shown 3 years before the release of a game is going to look different when compared to the finished product. Which is fair. Some things are added, some things are changed, and some things removed altogether. And that is fine, as long as you address some of the features that have been removed and perhaps compensate for it.

If you look at some of the footage from around a month before release, it looks identical to the footage from 2/3 years ago. But the finished game is COMPLETELY different. Are you trying to tell me that you changed/removed that much from a game in one month? Nonsense. That is borderline false advertising.

When a small team takes on a big challenge, if it isn't quite up to scratch, they try and make it look as good as possible with what they have, admit their errors and add stuff in updates.

Hello Games have not done that. I mean, they are patching bugs, but they haven't seemed to apologise for basically selling us an unfinished pile of trash, nothing even close to what was shown in recent promo videos.

Just bear in mind, this game was delayed by about 2 months. Imagine what it would have looked like 2 months before it was released.

Hello Games promised us the universe, instead we got a crayon picture of the universe draw by a drunk, 3 year old ape.

Sorry for ranting*



*I'm not sorry at all.

A shortish review of No Man's Sky

I've been playing No Man's Sky since it came out (August 10th in the EU) almost non-stop.
I dunno if that gives a good impression right off the bat but I'll into more detail anyway.

I like to describe No Man's Sky as Minecraft, but with an extra 4th dimension. In No Man's Sky, you explore a procedurally-generated universe with randomly created planets, creatures and plant life. You can harvest, mine and buy resources to create new technology so you can explore even more of the universe. It doesn't really have that much of a story, other than a main questline involving something called the Atlas, some kind of entity (idk).

A lot of people say that it isn't great for a number of reasons. It lacks depth, the NPCs are static, the graphics are meh, the planets are basically all the same, the mining is rather monotonous and the crafting is tedious. And let's not forget the many bugs and glitches, but lets be fair, every game on launch has a couple of bugs and glitches. And they'll most likely get patched up in some updates, along with some other content they may add in.

I personally enjoy the game. I want to know what is at the centre of the universe and what the deal with the Atlas entity is. I enjoy scouring a planet looking for a chance at getting some decent blueprints or resources. There are so many little goals to strive for.

Ok I managed to keep that rather short, so that's good.

I tried to make this review as impartial as possible. All I'm saying is, No Man's Sky has it's issues, but I enjoy it.

My love/hate relationship with creating games

When you have an idea for a game, no matter how simple it is, you always underestimate how much you actually need to do and how long it will take, especially when you're doing it alone. Every single thing in the game has to be made (more often that not) from scratch. And that alone is quite daunting and time consuming.

But when you have all the visual assets done, and it's time to actually start putting stuff together.

This is the exciting part, and also the most irritating. It's like trying to create a Lego model but one piece isn't quite right and you spend way too long trying to fix it/find another piece.

If everything I did went smoothly, I could make something in probably 3 days. But all of those tiny unexpected problems just jump out of nowhere, the one thing that seems to be the most simple turns into a total nightmare. And sometimes, it means you have to find a new solution to something, which comes with 100 more problems. It's like that joke you might have heard amongst programmers:

99 little bugs in the code.
99 little bugs in the code.
Take one down, patch it around,
127 little bug in the code...

It's sad how true it is. Some people think making games is like being God. When in fact, it's more like Tom Hanks in Castaway trying to make fire. Making games is all about those little victories. Finally figuring out a problem that seems so insignificant, yet if it wasn't fixed, the game just wouldn't work/run.

An object finally spawns in the right location instead of 2 inches to the left? Arms are thrown in the air in celebration.

A sprite animation with perfect timing and fluidity? Champagne for everyone.

It's almost character building, it shows persistence, resilience and patience. If you gave up after the first error that you had been tackling for an hour, you wouldn't get anywhere. And then at the end, when you look back on the hours and days and nights you spent on this silly little game that really isn't going to get you any money or recognition, you'll think to yourself, "what the hell was the point in all of that?". But sometimes it's not about the money or fame, but it's about all the knowledge and skills you developed along the way

That sounds so damn cheesy...

sorry...

SQNCR: My first mobile game

As an indie developer with no money, limited resources and limited skills, its a risky decision to leave uni and go “y’know what? I’m gunna make me some vidya gaems and make a million pounds” 

I’m so glad that’s exactly what I did.

Uni wasn’t working out (because they had no idea how to run an indie dev games course) so I said “fuck it, I’m not gaining anything from this, I’m bailing.”

It says a lot about a course when you have to teach yourself most of the stuff.

Anyway,

I sat at my desk, drew up a LOT of ideas and realised that they were all too complex for a single person to make. So I decided to make something as simple as possible, but still something people would want to play. I decided to make a mobile game. This game would have the most basic mechanic but still be addicting, similar to Flappy Bird. 

This game was going to be my Flappy Bird

Except without all the death threats.

Eventually I came up with SQNCR (pronounced as “sequencer”). There are 4 coloured buttons (or “sequences”) that have to be pressed in a certain order. Once this is done, the player gets a point. Press the wrong button, the game ends. What makes this difficult? Well mostly because it’s timed. The player has 30 seconds to complete as many of the sequences as possible, so they have to be quick. 

when playing, I found myself fucking up so many times it wasn’t even funny. Which is almost exactly what I wanted, I wanted to feel frustrated and compelled to keep playing to get a better score.

So I spent WAAAYY too long making this game, at least 2 months or something stupid. 

I played the final version and found that it was lacking something. I realised that theoretically, there is a maximum score you can get that is more or less impossible to surpass. And then I realised that I had missed an important element that is present in a lot of mobile games nowadays. They’re mostly endless runner types. They don’t really have an end. The game is more like a test of endurance.

So right now I’m in the process of changing the timer, so that instead of just counting down from 30, the player is given 5 seconds to complete a sequence, then the game becomes more of a marathon than a 100m sprint. 

If you want to play what I have now (which is basically a beta version) then go ahead, but remember:

IT’S REALLY SHITE

Have fun

My thoughts on why Flappy Bird was such a success

Flappy Bird is by far one of the most notorious and well known mobiles games of the last few years, and induced addiction and some unnecessary amounts of rage, with some players even sending the developer death threats and eventually forcing him to take it off the market. A bit of a bittersweet situation in my eyes; a game so successful that you have to take it down. Quite a shame.

But Flappy Bird is also one of the most basic and boring looking games I think I've ever encountered. And half of that is what made it so successful.

For those who have never had the pleasure of playing, Flappy Bird is a 2D side scrolling game where you control a small yellow bird and guide him/her through the games in some pipes that are just there for no real reason (Don't worry about the plot, there isn't one). The bird falls to the ground unless the player taps the screen, where the bird will flay upwards briefly, before plummeting to the ground again. With this insanely easy control scheme, the player must avoid hitting the edge of the pipes, or they will fail and the game will end. One point is earned every time the player successfully passes through a gap.

Again, this game sounds boring and way too easy, so what made it so popular?

Flappy Bird is surprisingly difficult. It has a combination of tight gaps, a small amount of space to adjust the height for each gap, and pixel perfect collision boxes. Your average person would pick it up for the first time and probably barely make it past the first pair of pipes (It took me at least 5 tries to get a single point). When they ultimately fail, they think to themselves "Wait, this game is the simplest thing ever, how come I can't even get ONE point?!".

This kind of thinking would generally get two different kinds of responses. The first one being "Man, FUCK this game!" and then the player would do the sensible thing and uninstall the game. The other response would be more of "Man, FUCK this game! I can beat this game! IT'S SO EASY!" and then the player would keep playing until they get a better score.

The simple premise of the game combined with a surprising difficulty level is almost the games' way of giving the player the middle finger. The player feels compelled to get a better score than a measly 3. I finally decided to give up on it after a few days when I got a score of 78 (however I was tempted to aim for 100 but I remembered I had long list of things I should be doing instead).

Flappy Bird isn't the only game that gets a similar response from a player. Games like Crossy Road, Stack and Cube Jump all have a very basic premise and a basic gameplay mechanic, but are still pretty hard and, not surprisingly, popular.

With this kinda of game design in mind, I decided to create my own mobile-based game, SQNCR, which I talk about in more depth here.

This formula is certainly not a bad one, despite the anger it induces into some of the less mentally stable of mobile gamers. Flappy Bird was a hit after all, and the other games mentioned are doing pretty well too (Despite Crossy Road basically just being a modern rehash of Frogger). I'd be excited to see what other kinds of easy-but-actually-really-hard games we can expect to see in the future that have a little more depth that what Flappy Bird has, which wouldn't be that hard come to think of it...