Geek Job Guru: Gained In Transition

Butterfly

I’d like to talk to you about “Loren, the Amazon Princess.”

You may think I’m talking about a Xena Ripoff, and admittedly Loren the character has a bit of a Lawless appearance if you get my drift. But Loren herself is not a TV character or a movie character, or the titular heroine of an Asylum film. She’s a character in the indie game that bears her name and title.

Now admittedly a game called “Loren, The Amazon Princess” isn’t a game whose title inspires confidence as it seems generic to say the least, and at worst like a bad film title (possibly of an adult nature). As I played the game all the way through, I would like to report that it is A) good, B) Most other titles would have actually been inappropriate as it is about her, and C) it’s a game worth analyzing for it’s repercussions to gaming – and thus possibly your career.

At first the game seems to be a slightly mismathed fusion of Visual Novel games and classic party-of-characters RPG. One has both dialogue choices and character-based battles with assorted creatures in a somewhat familiar fantasy world. So you have the romance and choose-your-own path plots of a game, the point-and-click iconic battles that we’re familiar with from various RPGs, and a visual novel look.

However in playing it, it began getting me thinking. As I got into it (and past some admittedly purple dialogue into the meat of the game), I realized that this game, by taking so many elements and combining them was not quite a Chimera, but something almost . . . transitory. A step to somewhere else.

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Game Roundup: 8/16/2013

Quite a bit of gaming news today.

Harassment a problem in the gaming industry.  Lots of interesting stories here that aren’t surprising, but one is not correct.  I’m curious how the indie movement will handle this as it at least spreads out the abuse as it were.

Microsoft killing Games for Windows.  In the wake of hiring one of the Steam Big Guys.  Yeah, pretty obvious they’re up to something new and steamlike, and I can’t say I’m exactly sure they’ll pull it off.  Microsoft’s been erratic lately.

Gaming sales down in hardware and software..  Not surprising with new consoles coming up and a bit of a dry spell.  I certainly don’t see anything to appeal to me after Castlestorm.

– Steven

 

 

Gaming’s Tower of Babel

A few weeks ago I discovered Rogue Legacy, a brilliant indie game that instantly became a time sink for me over vacation. I even reviewed it at NerdCaliber. No, I haven’t finished it – yet – but it is a fascinating study in getting a game “right” in a way where people “get” it. Also I want to finish it but I started a new job . . . and Cubeworld.

Rogue Legacy is a fusion of several elements:

  • Roguelike randomness (deriving from the early random-dungeon game Rogue).
  • Sidescrolling castle exploration of the “Metroidvania” type (reminiscent of some Metroid games and Castlevania: Symphony of the Night)
  • Brutal difficulty common to both of those games and popularized in the hardcore games Demons’ Souls and Dark Souls.
  • An aesthetic reminiscent of other hardcore games, Ghosts and Goblins and Ghouls and Ghosts.

Basically you go into a randomly generated castle, explore, die, and then a randomly generated set of ancestors are available for you to take on the journey again to get far enough to win – usually after a lot of descendants.

Now if you’re a gamer like me, you’re already responding to rods like “Roguelike” and “Metroidvania” and “Hardcore.” My choice of words – and Rogue Legacy’s ancestry – speak to powerful and popular concepts in gaming. In short, Rogue Legacy’s designers speak the language of people like me, and a language with years of history. They know what some of us want and how to do it and communicate it.

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