My Ideas: 16-Bit Deserts and Nonsense

We'll make this one a quickee post, because the idea is a simple one. On the other hand, for this idea, you can actually PLAY it. This is all thanks to my old friend RPG Maker, specifically the Playstaion 1 version. There are others before and after this one, but my interest focused on this one for various reasons. One, I never became interested in the technical details of PC design. With the Playstation version, I can make my own game by just popping in the city.

Second, it was the first example of a memory-card saver that I could find. With the Dex Drive, I could store entire games to my PC and restore it when needed, saving me a fortune on these damn things and letting me play other people's games without losing my own data. Speaking of which, the third reason I used this version is the community. It wasn't huge, but there were sites like rpgpavilion (or something like that, it's been years.) Games were submitted for contests, put up for reviews, and chatted about in message boards. The community was teeny, approximating maybe a few hundred people at tops, but it's enough to get acknowledgment.

I'll get into my favorite game idea later, but my first game was a little simpler. The plot used most of the standard rules of RPGMaker: random encounters, three elemental types that counter each other in a roshambo/rock-paper-scissors scenario, gaining experience through enemy encounters, getting new equipment with every town.

The plot, though, was a bit weirder. In a game full of fantasy worlds of the traditional Dragon Warrior archetypes, I was already using the model of the later Final Fantasies. The story starts in Oasis (also the name of the game,) a school at the border of a massive desert. The desert is the result of a magical disaster, with the worst result being magical portals connecting the desert to other planes. Monsters would instantly appear and then be stranded when the portals vanish just as quickly. The hostile ones wreak havoc, and everyone else is in danger of these monsters or death by exposure or thirst. Oasis rescues these non-hostile arrivals and gives them a home. In exchange, many of them are trained at the school and become mercenaries. If I remember right, they didn't have to, but they were alone on a world they didn't understand with no other job prospects.

But the details of the school didn't matter for long. Soon, Fantax, the main character and a ninja who arrived at Oasis recently, is caught up in a job that changes...everything. I know. He learns that Solos, a lich with sun-control powers and who presumably created the desert, was once the partner of Fadune, the stereotypical wise old man who runs Oasis, were partners before finding a mystical orb of Macguffin-ness. It shattered, and since then the two parts of said orb and two control necklaces for it have been targeted, as they give control over not only the portals, but the land itself.

From there, things get complicated. The characters 1) learn that Solos used to be the good guy, and Fadune was the one who abused the orb, 2) learned that the orb itself was left on the planet by aliens for theoretically benevolent purposes, but now they're coming back to get the orb and conquer everyone because the people screwed it up so much, and 3) one half of the orb is actually embedded in seven people with various weather control magic, including Solos, Fadune, Fantax' chimera rival Geralk'im, and four of his own party members.

The game's mechanics were generic as all get out, but what I liked about the plot, besides it sheer outlandishness, is how things always change. In the best Final Fantasy games and other RPGs, the goal isn't just to go from point A to point B, collecting the X MacGuffins of power in the way. Between (and inside) dungeons, there should be betrayals, discoveries, and intrigue as the overarching plot became revealed. I also enjoyed the puzzles I could make in the last half or so of the game. The anti-gravity puzzle rooms remain a work of beauty and primitive coding I still like to brag about. Err, obviously.

There were a few other minor, fairly standard features. Based on a few primitive decisions, the main character will marry one of three female party members. The entire game's plot also splits based on the result of an early boss fight. It doesn't affect which dungeons, but it will affect some boss fights, random encounters, and even which of two party members will survive to the end of the game and which will die to give Fantax his/her power. Finally, there's a New Game+ mode which makes the above choice much easier to handle. Sadly, the game's nowhere near perfect. The random encounters in particular are more than a bit dated, but options are limited in this game.

As for why I stopped making these games, well, unfortunately the community seemed to dry up. It did so largely unpleasantly in the end, with an unfinished game winning for no good reason about three months after they were supposed to and after the community got so splintered that the creators of the website were insisting the game was dead. It was a sour end, but I still appreciate the game itself. I could even see making a semi-competent (if cheap) RPG out of the concept with the right tools and/or help. But it's the next idea that really holds an appeal so many years later. And we'll discuss that one soon enough.

My Life: Eh, again.

I have almost two weeks off starting this Tuesday, so I might be able to get into a routine that includes my ideas, at least, and possibly even rants and somewhat. We shall see. For now I'll focus on my life a bit.

So, in the last few weeks, well, things have stagnated. This is a bad thing, because I hate the status quo. So I took my cat to the vet one last time (I sincerely hope) and save for some pills I have to feed him, that crisis should be over. There are no signs of urinary tract infection, so at worst it my be an allergic reaction or a change of diet might be needed. After spending hundreds of dollars on emergencies and things I needed, I said "fuck saving" and bought an XBox 360. It wasn't the most frugal or sensible thing I ever did, but look where frugal got me this year? At least now I can worry about the future with Bioshock. Oh, expect that review some day, and the reviews for the pack-in Lego Indy and Kung Fu Panda much, much later.

Love life? Nonexistent. Attempts at meeting people online have failed miserably as of late, and I'm seeing a girl I realized like and/or liked next week, as a friend, due to the fact she has a boyfriend. Wee! So that's something to work on next year.

Which brings me to my main concern. Next year. I'm turning 30. I'll have nearly completely wasted my twenties on idle hopes and jobs that have done little to inspire me creatively. What do I do? Do I try school again? And that's assuming the economy and job market don't make this decision for me. It's a scary time to face one of those numerical hurdles we all hate to deal with.

My Life AND My Ideas: Yeah, about that "Once a Week" Thing.

On the plus side, I'm still posting more often than Websnark. But the main reason for the lack of updates was Nanowrimo, AKA National Novel Writing Month. Writing 58,000 words in 30 days does tend to cut into other types of writing. But it's been a rough month anyway. There were trips to Chicago, I actually got some semblance of a life on Tuesday nights at least, even if said life and semblance mostly involves bar trivia nights, and my work got, well, tricky. Notably, I lost a week doing inventory, and heaving boxes around while counting tens of thousands of little metal and/or plastic thingies does not inspire.

There have been other downsides. My cat has been, well not sick exactly, but something worse. It involves words like "anal glands," "sedation needed," "Urinary Tract Infection," and "$700." And he's still rubbing his butt on the carpet. I also had to figure out some new ideas for insurance; my current one was too expensive. On the plus side, I think I found one that'll save me quite a bit a year. So there's that.

As for the Nanowrimo, it went well enough. I experimented with a first person perspective by making this year's project a journal for one of the characters. So it's all her voice. On the other hand, this means that I could do almost none of the dialogue that I find is my strength. That's not too surprising; after all, as much as I like writing, I'd rather do something visual like television, movies, or video games. But that requires artistic skills, technological abilities, actors, artists, and/or a budget. Anyway, this Nano ended up having some trouble with voices with other characters besides the main one. I especially noticed that I have a trouble making love interests, especially male ones. On the other hand, a female love interest proved surprisingly easy. I could even make children's novels around one of them (if there was a market for children's books about a lesbian demon, albeit an adorable one.) Nonetheless, I think I'm going to try to set up dialogue for each character. I like the idea of using "auditions" for new characters, giving them a chance to reveal some back-story and their voice even without in-story dialogue. Crazy? Maybe, but what in my life isn't insane?

My Life: A big day.

Did I resolve to write something new every week? You bet!

Did I fail to do just that last week, at least? You bet!

So it goes. This has been a busier month than usual even. For one, it's National Novel Writing Month, which I'm sure I mentioned before. If not, here's the summary: write 50,000 words in 30 days. Fun! I also have to finish a Dungeons and Dragons adventure for my group by Saturday morning, and tonight I had to write the questions for my writer's group exercises. Oh, and I was a little busy last Tuesday. Just a tad.

In fact, in lieu of a fully detailed new entry, I'll explain what I did on that fateful day of Tuesday, November 4th. Warning: you know how I mentioned before that I'll try to keep my religious and political views out of this blog? That'll be less true this time around. It's not like my position is a controversial one, though, especially around here.

And now, my harrowing tale! I left for work about 5, letting me get to the train station in time for the 5:37 train to the city. I met a friend of mine from my church (Unitarian Universalist, for those who missed it,) young adults group. Her brother worked in the campaign, so she and her family got free tickets up close with the Man himself. Lucky jerks.

I never saw the train so packed. And EVERYONE was an Obama fan. There were pins, T-shirts, stickers, the whole lot. My friend's mother was getting calls from her friend, I think, with election results. We learned Kentucky and Vermont en route. For a second, she said she thought McCain quickly won Virginia, making us panic, but the friend got it wrong; it was Kentucky. On the other hand, she did learn that Obama won Pennsylvania just as we pulled into the station. The entire car cheered.

My friend and I separated here so I could walk to the rally. I stopped at Wendy's en route, which was disappointing; the Mexican place I discovered last time I visited the city closed at 7. I originally thought that ALL of Grant Park was the ticket-only area, so I planned on stopping around Millenium Park instead. But that one was closed off completely, so confused, I followed the throng south.

And by now, it was a throng. There were at least thousands of people arriving at the same time, plus vendors of pins, T-shirts, and other souveneirs. There were even Tribune newspapers with the "Obama wins!" headline. I don't know if there were genuine, since I doubt the newspaper wanted a "Dewey Defeats Truman" on its hands should the unthinkable have happened. Of course, even before I left Wendy's, Obama was up 102-51, but still.

There were decorations and lights, of course. One building's lights spelled out "USA," another had "Vote 2008." The history museum had red, white, and blue lights shining from within. Amusingly, one of the "No dogs allowed" signs had pictures of McCain and Palin on it. Political satire!

Most entrances to Grant Park were closed, so we funneled in through the solitary open one, where the ticket holders were separated from us schmucks. This took longer, and we were virtually at a standstill for a good ten minutes, but we soon came out to Jackson, and at least initially, things were much more open. Giant TV screens projected CNN's latest results, which begs a question: why CNN? I know Fox News was unlikely, but what did make them decide on the network? And would it have killed them to switch one to Comedy Central at 9? Eh well, I taped it.

By the time I reached the screens, Obama was already at almost 200, and we were guessing this would be over when California and the rest of the West Coast could officially be counted. Even the news realized things were probably over when Ohio went to Obama, to the cheers of tens of thousands of people. Most people gathered in the street leading to the ticket area, but many of us, self included, opted to rest in the lawns of the park instead.

The first hour and a half were quiet besides the occasional minor, expected declaration. Mississippi and Texas went to McCain? Really? I made small talk with others nearby and eventually broke down and bought a shirt. And then it happened. First Virginia was declared for Obama, one minute from 10. So we were already cheering when the entire west coast went Obama. In sixty seconds, we had a new president.

The Man himself didn't get the chance to speak until almost 11, so in the meantime there was a lot of cheering, a lot of applause, and finally McCain's concession speech. We kept it mostly respectable; there were boos at his introduction and when he mentioned Palin, but otherwise it was quiet and we even applauded at times. At least he ended classy.

I thought the speech itself was an impressive one. It was the first one I didn't youtube. Save for the promise to buy his daughters a puppy, there were few jokes. And though he mentioned his grandmother, it didn't dominate his speech either. His focus, as always, was on the capacity for positive change and emphasis on having to work hard. It's hard to believe anyone calls this guy a socialist; he embraces the spirit of capitalism more than practically any politician I've seen.

And then it was over. Many stayed behind to celebrate, but I wanted to catch a train before it got too late. The exit was as packed as the entrance, but after leaving Grant Park, it got much easier. Of course, it helps when they cleared the streets! There's something surreal about walking up a busy Chicago street and seeing not one car. Things were overall peaceful; I didn't see anything resembling violence and barely even any inebriation.

And that's my story of the night. What was yours?

My Life: In Transit

My original plan to post more often remains, but I've been busy actually improving my life instead, or at least making an effort. For one thing, I finally have a roommate! We seem to get along okay, so hopefully we can be friends with time, but at the very least my first financial problems are over.

Secondly, I had a bit of a...project this week. I can't get into the details, but it could really energize me, life-wise, should it work out. At the very least, I learned new skills I should have learned years ago, and as a result I discovered that enjoyed some artistic designs far more than I expected. As a result, I'm far more confident things could change for me sooner rather than later.

No luck on the relationship front, but at least I got to hang out with friends more often. I even did one of those bar trivia nights today. We won four out of seven rounds, but our final score was just a bit off of the gift certificates. But it was an impressive first showing.

Of course, the next two weeks will be busy for two other reasons. First, next Tuesday is election day. Will I say who I'm voting for here? No. I will say that I'm extremely nervous, though. I don't trust these things until the polls are closed. Secondly, Nanowrimo starts up on Saturday. I'm actually still not sure I even will do this year's National Novel Writing Month, what with all the busy changes and projects. But damn it, I'm gonna at least try. I'll get more on that one in a future post, though by definition it exceeds the "100 page maximum" rule of details. But I'll do what I can to talk about it.

My Ideas: The Distrubing Freudian Elements Not Included

All it took was one vision.

Earlier this year, I played Persona 3, which managed to inspire me creatively more than any game this year, at least until Megaman 9. Like Symphony of the Night and Final Fantasy Tactics in the generation before it, I made two conclusions after playing it. One, it was a seminal, exceptional game among the most fascinating I've ever played. Two, I could do better. I could, at the very least, try. Persona 3 combined two of the most addicting game genres; the self-improvement, dating game and the semi-random dungeon crawl. By alternating the two and making the success in one essential to improvement in the other, it increases the desire for the one you miss. The game's time limit loomed over continuously. You had a month of game-time to prepare for each inevitable boss and less than a year of game-time to not only beat the game, but maximize the relationships with as many people as possible.

But the game always defied both your assumptions about how much time you have and suspension of disbelief. In most of the game, you could improve relations both when people call you, asking you to hang out on weekends, but for months on end, near the end of the game, this option vanishes. Other times, you get even less of a warning; your month-long plan could be ruined when your dorm-mates force you into summer school, for example. Meanwhile, while your friends are perfectly free to call you whenever the game allows it, you can never call them. As for the relationships themselves, they were too primitive at best and frustrating at worst. The game encourages you to "max out" as many relationships as possible, except five of those relationships are with women you date, meaning you have to basically cheat your way through multiple girlfriends at a time to actually succeed, which is made even sleazier when three of them are dorm-mates and members of your party.

Apocryphal Junction was an attempt to create my own, semi-Westernized interpretation of the same concept. The first thing that had to go was the Persona series' use of mythological creatures, from demons to gods, as allies. I'm already hitting too close to home for my comfort; I couldn't steal that as well. I started working with other themed monsters while still maintaining my original plan to make monster relations the same as human ones. "Date a succubus" was part of the original concept, after all. I eventually decided on the four elementals (earth, fire, water, and air) and combined with a completely different origin than mythology. Instead, psychology ruled the world of this game, and creatures were a combination of one or more of the above elements and the four conflicting identifications of the Myers-Briggs test, which I had recently tried out myself at the time.

The game took place in a typical small town in America with the secret that parts of it (and all of the high school) actually inhabited the alternate plane of reality called Apocryphal Junction, an amalgam of many other planes absorbed into a much larger community. The Earth is being considered as a candidate towards joining this united society, which the characters and many other factions have to decide about. There is no guarantee that it's a good thing. As for the high school, its rooms are actually no physically connected. Instead, they are scattered across the other dimension, so leaving school from various rooms will get you to different locations in the Junction. This serves as one of the ways that having better relations will improve your abilities, as it gives you access to other rooms in the school after hours. Similar, having friends and/or lovers from the Junction with appropriate powers will let them help you travel faster; a friend with wings will let you fly over obstacles, for example.

The original concept was good, but it didn't pop. That didn't happen until I had a dream about a much older, harsher school located on a land mass separated from the area by chasms. From what I remember, the dream's school was built like an ancient building, with thick stone walls and noisy pipes everywhere. It even had an indoor pool that looked like something out of an ancient castle or mad scientist's lair. I won't even discuss the bathrooms.

The strange thing is that the school/castle was full of anachronisms. It had strange mechanical bridges it always was struggling to use and connect to the world, but it also had an anime club! It even had a strange underground tunnel to a modern mall. Now this was a mystery that needed solving. Why was this school separated from the real world and yet connected to Anachronism Junction? What did its administrators know and want from its students?

The game Anachronism Junction will use a real-time system. Instead of using a complex schedule, you watch minutes and hours pass as soon as school ends, and you can only accomplish as much as you can get to in time. This returns to the use of school power and alliances to move faster, and the dangerous terrain in both worlds makes the travel much more dangerous.

At the very least, that's all I got so far. A game this ambitious requires something a little more, but the sense is there. At the very least, I'd much rather explore this one than Cataclysm by now. But as always, suggestions are welcome. Oh, and I also have made a decision. Barring disaster or a much busier new job (I'll talk about that later,) I'll at least restart this thing on a weekly basis, even if the posts get more personal.

Reviews: Yaaay! Super Fighting Robot!

As everyone who reads this thing knows (all none of you,) much of my last few weeks/months have, by and large, SUCKED. I am still panicking about my missing roommates, I lost money in a scam (and I just learned that the police have more or less given up on pursuing any potential crime, so I guess it's time to find a good lawyer for the civil lawsuit,) I'm depressed about being always single, and so on. But as much as my life sucked, the world occasionally does something that nonetheless makes me happy. For example, two weeks ago, Capcom released Megaman 9.

Megaman 9 is a sequel of one of the most sequelized series of the last 20 years. There were six games for the original NES, one (and a half) for the Super Nintendo, and one for the Playstation. And that's just the original series! There were eight games in the X spin-off series, two and a half for the Legends series (ironically, the only 3D series,) and four spin-offs that produced another 20 or so games. Also, there were two arcade-based fighting games and even a soccer game.

But despite all the sequels, most people think that of all the 30 or so games, the entire series peaked at around games...2 or 3. Oh, there are individual popular games, but many of the later series and the later games of the original series are considered to be formulaic at best, lazy at worst. New characters and options were though to be prioritized over balanced game play. So as the series stagnated and Capcom worried that the series' profitability was failing, they tried something new; they tried something old.

Megaman 9 was intended to go back to the roots, when the series was at its most celebrated. The graphics are intentionally as simplistic as the original Megaman 2, there are no elaborate cut scenes or tons of secrets to explore, and even Megaman staples like the abilities to slide and charge your attacks were removed. Instead of releasing the game in stores, it was downloadable for every of the current three systems. And the game's only $10, about a fifth of what the original Nintendo games cost, but since it cost about 1% of what a modern, triple AAA game with state-of-the-art graphics costs, it's probably a good deal for them.

But enough about the business side, what about my stance of the game. After all, one of my first posts was about me and my deep love of the series, which more than any series inspired me to be a game designer. So I was wary, despite of course getting the game on day one.

And I LOVE it. After playing it for weeks now, I beat the game three times and am working through the game's achievements (which we'll get to later.) Now, as a huge Megaman fan, I loved many of the later games, even the ones often derided by others. But playing this one helped me realize just how polished some of the peak games were. It also is easily the hardest game in the series, at least since the original, but it's fair enough to earn it. Case in point, some of my first experiences with levels was one of utter horror-spikes everywhere, enemies that dropped you into pits if you get hit once, and the horror that is the spinning platforms of Tornadoman. But after playing through it a few times, I feel like an expert. The game teaches you, and you will learn. Even the boss fights are perfect. Without the right weapon (this game, like nearly every Megaman game, has a series of weapons you earn from defeating bosses and a cycle of weaknesses, so each of the eight main bosses has a weakness to another bosses' weapon,) a boss fight is always hard enough that it's nearly impossible to beat it flawlessly, but it can fairly be defeated with some luck and enough skill.

This game captured my love of the series all over again. Every level felt like a gift, every challenge an inspiration. This is a game I will play again repeatedly and study. This is a game that, if you understand it well enough, will make you a better designer.

And the game is not all about nostalgia and pure game design. There are some concessions to new features. In time, you can download new characters and features, and while there are complaints that you have to pay for something as minimal as harder difficulties, the basic concept is welcome. The other addition are achievements for tasks as simple as beating the game once to complex one likes beating it under a certain amount of time, killing all types of enemies, defeating bosses using only your default weapon, or even beating the game without ever dying or taking damage!

Oh, there are some complaints. While the graphics are deliberately primitive, the music doesn't even live up to the standards of the old games. They're fine technically, but none are as catchy as the classics like Airman, Flashman, and the first Dr. Wily's Castle music from Megaman 2, which was so good lyrics were added to it and turned it into a Japan-wide phenomenon, complete with full orchestras or rock concerts (just search okkusenman on youtube. Trust me.) Second, there are some later additions tot he series that I did like. The slide and charged weapon are largely unnecessary here, but they still feel iconic to me. I even wish Bass, Megaman's rival who wasn't introduced until Megaman 7, showed up. If nothing else, I love his music, which brings us back to the first point.

The only other issue is, well, incredibly stupid. In Megaman 2, which is the game this is most modeled after, when you select a level, there is a brief introduction showing that level's boss around a starscape. If you press a certain button, there is an easter egg where the stars turn into little birds. In Megaman 9, you get the boss intro and the starscape, but no easter egg! Why? Why disappoint my fingers every time it instinctively makes birds?

So if we’re still doing this thing, I’d definitely give the game an A+. If you like action games, platformers in general, anything from the NES era, and especially anything Megaman-related, this is a must buy.