Sierra Kilo

I got Hellgate: London for my brother. It looked right up his alley. Fast-paced, interesting style, and free online play. The Roguelike-Diablo-esque random dungeon generator is an excellent mechanic for a game, especially a multiplayer one.

I also cashed in my Mythos Beta invite. Mythos was created by the Hellgate: London developers as a testbed for the network code. It aims to be a free online game, in the same vein as Dungeon Runners, methinks. It is very much the next incarnation of Diablo. While I was never a huge fan of the series, it is very good at quick action and short play sessions. The series lacked depth, but has some very nice mechanics nonetheless, including the Horadric cube combo items.

I broke down and got Rock Band. It is very much a party game and having people over for an evening on the weekend after the kiddo is asleep is fairly easy. Despite hearing the same songs over and over, it is very fun. I love the drums. As a drummer, myself, I picked it up easily and I am able to rock out. The one feature that I was hoping they would incorporate for the drums, they actually did: the fill-in! I love riffing in those sections. Now if you could only import songs from your music collection instead of playing some of the licensed tracks. Who is “OK Go”? There should be more Metallica and classic 70’s jams.

Now the challenge will be finding time to play these games. There are several projects I’d like to explore, work projects to handle, events with the kiddo, and time with the wife and other family. I’m hoping that 2008 will be the year that I organize my time enough to do it all. I think I will start out by sacrificing some TV time and maybe 30 minutes of sleep. Both contribute to my laziness, right?

The Tetris idea that I had the other day has been eating on me. I’ve got two similar ideas rolling around. The first idea I had was very similar to the Three Hundred mechanic, where blocks fall and a little man works his way through them in a side-view, Lode Runner platformer-esque style. That could definitely be interesting and fun.

The latest incarnation, however, is probably easier to pull off. Basically, it would be a simple Tetris clone with a twist. One player controls the Tetris game, playing it much like the classic, fitting blocks together, trying to complete a row. One player controls a hero character in a top-down view. The block shapes are the same (L, J, T, I, S, square, etc.) but the texture/color on the blocks would be different. The textures/colors represent different floor tiles that the second player can walk on. These tiles include benign stone tiles, dangerous spike tiles, slick ice tiles, searing fire tiles, and slow mud tiles. The goal of the second player is to navigate the tiles, collect treasure, and try to stay alive by walking on safe tiles. The goal of the first player is to help the hero by placing blocks to create a safe path. The rules of Tetris still exist: create a row to make more space and don’t let the “tower” get too high (or the path too long, as the case may be).

I’ve got a good name for it, too: Dragon Drop. For that to work, there would need to be a fantasy element and probably some kind of dragon. Maybe it could be a Donkey Kong-esque “versus” game where the hero is trying to make it to the top to slay the dragon while the block controller (the dragon) is trying to stop him by throwing fire his way. Somebody make this game and let me know how it works out. Do it with XNA for the XBox 360 or make it for Windows Mobile (Bluetooth multiplayer, anybody?).

Pac-Txt

Pac-Man meets Zork.

Yesterday’s game mechanic from “Three Hundred” was very interesting. I love the idea of taking a casual game like Tetris and placing the core mechanic into another genre (Strategy, in this case). Puzzle Quest did this fairly successfully and I think Tetris could do this, too.

Removing the randomness of the falling blocks might work for his example, but I think adding a Lode Runner-esque mechanic to the random-block Tetris mechanic would be very fun, too. Take a look at these: Cube World Digital Stick People. Picture each block as a new piece to the “level” that your hero must escape from. Each new block could be an empty block with an exit or a dead-end that may also include a baddie or a trap of some kind. The goal is to get your hero to a “next level” block without trapping him or getting him caught by baddies.

This could be very fun as a two-player co-op: one player moves the hero, one player places the blocks trying to help the player find the exit. It would also be very fun as a two-player versus: one player moves the hero, one player selects from a list of 3 random blocks and places it in the hero’s path trying to stop him. This would be a very exciting XBox Live Arcade game…maybe I’ll lose some sleep for the next month or two and try to do this for the Dream-Build-Play 2008 challenge.

This is a test first from Jott.com using my voice. listen

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…It should actually read “This is a test post from Jott.com using my voice.” So it’s not perfect, but it’s very cool nonetheless. I would love to get my hands on the speech-to-text engine. I have a project I’d love to incorporate it into.

The Neverending Story: Your character is actually a person who read the book and travels to Fantasia.

The Dark Tower: If you’ve read the books, you’ll know how it’s possible to travel to this setting. Gunslingers? Yes, please.

The Chronicles of Riddick: I love this setting. It could use a bunch more fleshing out and a MMORPG is the perfect place. You hear me, Tigon?

Stargate: In the works, but I foresee failure. SG:Atlantis is not as strong as early-mid SG1 was, and will have a hard time carrying the game.

Firefly: In the works, but I foresee failure in the mass market. It’ll be a good niche game, though. A lot will depend on the design. Not sure if the license can carry it alone (see SWG…although I believe the failure there was due to redesigns, not the initial design).

After a flurry of posts, there are no more in the Drafts folder. I wrapped up the thought I had and put it out there for your consumption. Some could use a little more time in the oven, but hopefully they’re at least thought-provoking. I have a longer “MMO Ideas #6″ article that I will try to put the finishing touches on soon, but don’t hold your breath. Those articles are the ones I like to flesh out, so it may take some time. If you like the ideas, take them and run with it. Give me credit somewhere (I’d love to be personified as an NPC). If you’d like to team up on some indie development, let me know. I could probably whittle out some time if I had a small team motivating me. Please leave comments. I’m going to try to make at least 2 posts per week, so we’ll see how it goes.

(This one has been in my Drafts for a while. I really want to flesh it out more and actually implement it some day. Anyone want to team up?)

I briefly mentioned a single-player RPG for Windows Mobile that I wanted to make. The core idea is that it would allow the player to have a satisfying game experience in a 5-minute play session. You may not get much done, but you wouldn’t just be wasting time. It would be a game designed for playing off-and-on, here-and-there. My inspirations include: Tamigotchi, Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, the Legend of Zelda series (specifically A Link to the Past and The Minish Cap), and Oblivion. It will simply be a living sandbox world with a few “theme parks.”

The player will start each play session where he left off after his last session. He will be able to wander around the world exploring, attacking creatures, collecting items, and embarking on quests. Picture Animal Crossing-style drudgery with Zelda-style combat. Or, picture Zelda’s Link having to work to pay the rent. Sound boring? Maybe, but the focus would be on short bursts of activity. Every time you play, you’ll have something to do. You’ll never get wrapped up in an epic 10-hour quest, or spend all day collecting worthless widgets (unless you want to).

(…still cleaning out the Drafts folder…)

While walking the dog the other day, I had an interesting idea for a game. Take the open-world/sandbox freedom, mission system, and car-hopping from Grand Theft Auto, add elements of an RPG, set it in a Sci-Fi environment, and add a bit of “space trucker” gameplay.

Basically, players are just regular people trying to make a living. Some do it honestly, some do it illegally, and others do it however they can. Early on, players take on small jobs, increase their skills, gather contacts, and build their reputation. As they earn more money, they build homes, set up shops, buy a bigger “space truck”.

(…more from the Drafts folder…)

More games, especially social and casual multiplayer games, should incorporate webcams. Many new laptops have them built-in. XBox 360 and PlayStation3 have them available. Audio chat is now standard in most multiplayer games, but sometimes it’s nice to put a voice with a face. I could see a social 3D world where the characters’ faces are just TV screens displaying the player’s live webcam video. Max Headroom Online!