My Six Favorite Things a Game Can Have

What does “My six favorite things a game can have in it” mean?

It’s not so much “a good soundtrack, great character balance, and outstanding gameplay” but more like the things insignificant to the big picture of design, but the neat  things I personally love about gaming. So, let’s get cracking!

A game is better to me if it has…

...A gloriously bad cover

Now I have to preface something.  Covers like this:

  are not gloriously bad.

Covers like this however...

...are gloriously  bad, and I love each and every one of them. 

...The ability to press the attack button as fast as possibly can

I hate it when games only allow you to shoot a certain amount of bullets on screen. Sometimes this is done due to programming limitation, (Contra) or “balance,” (everything else) but when a game like Strider lets me mash the attack button to the point of where I can destroy a boss in 4 seconds, its the best feeling in the world.

..No mandatory in-game tutorials

My favorite thing about NES games is that they are the video game equivalent of being thrown into the wild with nothing but a knife and flint and steel to survive. I’m not joking about this. There’s just something fun about failing miserably the first time you play a game, and then perfecting the level the second time you play.

Anyway,  in game tutorials are kinda annoying, I’m not going to deny that some games need them, but at the same time, these kind of things take away the mystery and fun of figuring out how the controls work... and a lot of games handle them poorly.

More tutorials need to teach in the way that Super Mario Brothers teaches you how to play. By your own curiosity, you figure out everything you need to know in the timespan of about 20 seconds.

 ...Cool spaceships

This one is   the most personal to me. I don't really have anything else to add to this beside"I like spaceships" and "cool spaceships kick ass."

...FM Snyth or "Video Game Snyth"

As far as I know, I am one of the few people who prefer this kind of sound over SNES orchestral stuff or modern sounding games. I love this screechy-tinny sound.  I’m not talking so much 8-bit chiptunes, but more like Genesis/Saturn style music. The kind of music that sounds like this:

Or maybe this:

and one more for good measure.

There's no other kind of music besides chiptunes that I associate more with video games. And don't get me wrong, I adore chiptunes, especially when other people have been making awesome music with them, but this kind of Snyth is needs more love. (who knows, maybe we'll get people experimenting with FM snyth in the future.)

Either way, (as of now) this sound is unique to games, and I say we should embrace it.

...Twisted Video game logic

So what is twisted video game logic? It's when a game has inherit logic that is effortlessly weird without trying too hard. Where can you see it?

Its in Ninja Gaiden, a game where birds can kill a highly trained ninja.

Its in Castlevania. Where whipping a stone wall leads to roast chicken.

Its in Cave Story. A game that has a machine gun that can PROPEL YOURSELF UPWARD by shooting the ground.

It's in Metal Slug. When the announcer pronounces "rocket launcer" as "rocket lawnchair."

Whatever this is, "video game logic" and "twisted video game logic" don't do justice in defining it . This is truly unique to video games, and the thing I embrace most about game design. And this isn't anything new, there are so many masterpieces that run entirely off of "twisted video game logic."

Case in point? Gunstar Heroes

You see, Gunstar Heroes is a game about running around and shooting people, but it also lets you pick up enemies and throw them at each other, body slam anything, and has a level called DESTROY THEM ALL.

Seriously whatever this is, modern games need to have more of it. It's  not the kind of thing that developers think "what can we do to make this awesome" it's the kind of thing that is done because it's just what works. (side note:  now that I think about it, all of Treasure’s games are like this. They’re the savants of making video games, video games.)

Most of all video game logic makes games fun! I mean, gamers are still playing games to have fun right?

In conclusion:

There is one game that has all of this! A little wonder of a game called "Ikaruga."

To me, this game has everything:  a gloriously bad cover, (I adore that quote) no tutorial*, the ability to mash the fire button insanely fast,  incredibly cool spaceships, a soundtrack that is 100% pure video game snyth, and the whole thing functions off of video game logic to make it fun.

Ikaruga is the best game ever.

Thanks for reading.

*There is a tutorial, but its in the main menu, the tutorial is not integrated into the game.

So You Want to Read Some Comic Books.

Allow me to introduce myself; I'm Bonnie, otherwise known as wellsdog, and I write a blog.

You can find it HERE====> http://truthismyopic.blogspot.com/

 It's mostly humor, with some helpful guides for those who attend college to be successful in his or her new environment. I like to think I'm witty.

Since Kam was nice enough to let me write here, I figured I should, you know, actually writer here. So here you go, a post about getting started reading comics.


Comics: Where Do I Begin?

I personally know several people who are interested in comics (if you call them graphic novels, well 8[ ) but are rather intimidated on the 70+ years of history and back story behind the industry's  biggest characters. For damn sure, I was, when I started reading comics five years ago.

So, to help all those wayward souls out there who want to read but are overwhelmed, and unsure where to start, I have decided  to put together a little list of titles that are good gateways into the various genres and stories to be found in the world of comics.

Marvel:

1. Astonishing X-Men, by Joss Whedon and John Cassaday. This is a great starting title for anyone interested in the labyrinth that is the X-Men. It does require some previous knowledge of the characters, and the history of the title, but nothing that the recap page doesn't handle nicely. The original run, as with anything by Joss Whedon, is funny, bad ass, compelling, and heartbreaking all at once. Originally collected in four trade paperback collections, Marvel has since released an omnibus edition, along side collections of the continuing adventures of the title, now being written by Warren Ellis.

2. Essential Marvel Collections are collections of what has been deemed the essential stories from a characters' history (usually from  Silver Age  70s and Bronze Age 80s). These I would recommend for the new reader interested in getting a handle on the characters and experiencing some classic stories. There are several volumes per character, featuring characters like Spider-Man, the X-Men, Captain America, Thor, Iron Man, the Defenders, Luke Cage... honestly, they have Essential Marvel collections for like, every character or team, ever.

3. The Ultimate Universe is a darker and edgier, hip and progressive retelling of classic Marvel mythos, which allows for readers to experience the famous arcs and villains, but minus the 70 years of back log. This line can be read in addition or or instead of the Essential Marvel line, but be warned, the characters in the Ultimate Universe tend to me... different. Think less heroics, more fallible humanity. Sometimes it's not that pretty, but it has it good points. I recommend Ultimate Spider Man and Ultimate X-Men as good starting points. Also, it is more marketed towards teens, so go in expecting extra angst and double cheese.

4. Runaways, volumes 1-3 by by Brian K. Vaughan, Adrian Alphona and later, Joss Whedon and Michael Ryan. Kids who discover that their parents are evil crime lords, and bent on destroying the world, and rather predictably.... they runaway. This is an awesome criticism of a lot of traditional superhero tropes, but is a genuinely good story. However, it does go downhill after the original run, some debate around volume 4 or 5.

DC

1. 52, by Geoff Johns, Grant Morrison, Greg Rucka, Mark Waid and Keith Giffen. The original, not the recent reboot. I have no criticism to make, no warnings, just that this is possible the best superhero comic I have ever read/owned. Seriously, when Kameron recommends something, listen to him.

2. 52

3. 52

4. 52

5. Watchmen, by Alan Moore and David Gibbons. A true classic with one of the best film adaptations I have ever seem from a comic book.


Dark Horse

1. Hellboy, by Mike Mignola. Honestly, the first film is the second best comic adaptation I have ever seen. This is a refreshing take on the urban fantasy genre, with several spin-off books and some great characters that are enjoyable, dramatic and compelling.

Oni Press

Oni Press is a fun little publisher, with several titles that I quite like. My favorites are Scott Pilgrim, Stumptown and Sixth Gun. But they have tons more that look interesting, and come highly recommended by others. What I really love about these guys is that they have such a variety of products that you can glimpse the true depth and ability for story telling comics as a medium present just by browsing their website.

Well, go forth, disciples, and read some comics.

Two Letters and an Ampersand

                Playing Dungeons and Dragons is a lot like writing a term paper.  Both are worth doing right, and you can always tell when somebody is doing it wrong. What does doing it right entail? A metric ton of research, hours of weighing the options, and always being willing to shift your ideas and focus. You see, to make a dynamic D&D story, it requires solid writing habits. The kinds of habits enforced and modeled in a creative writing process. 
                Let me just say two things. Firstly, I am a huge geek. I’m pretty sure that was made apparent in the first paragraph of this narrative. Secondly, it is my belief that there is a lot more to Dungeons and Dragons than clicky-dice and fighting imaginary monsters. A Dungeons and Dragons game, if done right, can be one of the most insightful looks into both the process of creative writing, and the technicalities of game design.
                I’ve been playing the game since I was eleven years old.  I was always  a player, (think a character in a book.)  not a game master, (think the writer of a book)  The latter of the two is much more difficult to do right. While being a player is akin to being a (more active) audience in the story, being the game master forces you to create the world, the other characters, and most importantly, write the story.
                So when one of my closest friends approached me and said, “Kam, you should be a game master.” I was petrified. Then I thought to myself. “Let’s see, I don’t have the time in a week to plan a weekly story, I’ve never done anything of the sort, I don’t know where I’d begin, and I’m pretty sure I’d hate getting up in the morning.” So of course I said “Yes!”                  

Little did I know what I was getting myself into, and how much I would learn from it. After convincing my brother and a few friends, we made a gaming group, meeting every Saturday 10 AM sharp. 
                To put it generously, things were “rocky” at the start. No wait, “rocky” isn’t nearly a mean enough word to describe how terrible my writing was.  The plot was barely coherent, mostly being made up on the spot. The side characters were as bland as a popsicle stick, and the villain was nothing more than an evil sorcerer on top of a giant tower with a pet dragon. It was not my best work. 
       I eventually saw that. Instead of wallowing in self-despair like I usually do, I asked my group “What’s wrong with my game?”  To my surprise, it wasn’t the rules I had made up, but rather, the actual writing itself.
       “We need less linearity!  Let us have choice!” exclaimed the group’s wizard.
        “More fighting! All we do is talk to people!” said the warrior.
        “We need a good villain. Our villain is too cliché.” stated the thief.
     The players (readers) saw all the flaws holding my game (story) back, and were critiquing me. They were never mean about it, but instead, kept encouraging me to make the story stronger. The best advice they gave me was to try creating the story in a different way.
                Cut to spring break. All of my friends were traveling except for me. We couldn’t meet up that week. So what did I do? I bought three spiral notebooks, brewed a pot of coffee and started

 writing. Everything that came into my head was to be written in the first spiral notebook. This was my first draft notebook, I wasn’t worried about the structure or relevance, as long as it was writing, and exploring story. The second notebook was for organizing all the good ideas that came out of the first book. The third notebook… was just another spiral notebook. I thought I needed one for English.
                Eventually, this became a ritual. Each day I got up extra early to plan out my thoughts. I was only accompanied with the cold silence of morning, the scutter of my pencil, and the warmth of coffee. If “Zen” is a real thing, then I think I found it.
                Nonetheless, using this method to write my stories taught me two things. First: coffee is the greatest smell in the entire world. Nothing will change that.  Second: The only way to achieve successful storytelling results is to go through the processes of writing. Eventually, I even started taking that first notebook everywhere I went, writing down every possible idea that came to mind.
                While going through my notebooks, one idea in particular stood out. “A crazed king with a motivation that made him reasonable. “ I transcribed my drafts and put some of my process here:
Someone should make Kefka from Final Fantasy VI with reasonable motives.
What if the group had two opposing sides without a clear idea of who was good and bad?
This can’t be just about talking, conflicts need to get emotional enough to have the players want to cause a change and fight for it.
Wait, what if I made one of the people they trusted betray them?
What would happen if the players had to take a side between the good king with a bad idea, or the bad wizard with a

good idea?
You know how the players are heroes? What if they couldn’t save someone?
What if the players couldn’t save someone they had emotional connection to?
That has to be my conflict.
                After spring break, we all got together again. This time, we had a fresh start brimming with new ideas. When we first started playing way back when, the story was weak, and the players were bored. When we met up after spring break, the opposite happened. My friends loved the new changes and story. There was a constant conflict that kept everyone interested, and everyone wanted to contribute to the story. All my hard work of going through the process was paying off and teaching me at the same time. Sessions flew by. Eventually we were playing two to three hours past when we were supposed to be done. It was a fantastic experience that became everyone’s story. Nobody could wait for next week’s chapter.
                However, all stories have a beginning, middle, and end. Mine eventually had to end. Somehow, fate conspired to make the last part of the story work, because it ended the day after we graduated high school. The last session was incredibly cathartic, feeling like the true conclusion to both our high school adventures, and our fantasy adventures.   
                By the end of it all I learned three things.  The first thing was that I could design games. I didn’t use the D&D rulebooks, in my opinion; they constrict too much, and make aspects of the game too complicated. Or as stated by Richard Garfield “no one except the most hardened of players actually read rules,” (86) Which is exactly what happened to me. I didn’t want the rules toslow down storytelling. Because I put that much focus into that aspect, the group loved my rules.                     
       Second, I learned that I am in fact, creative. Before I only put myself down, and had doubt that I could write anything fun or entertaining for people. All I needed to make something fun, was a push in the right direction.  As a plus, my audience let me know what worked and what didn’t. I think I can safely say that making this D&D story gave me the confidence to continue writing.                       

         Third, I learned that I could write. I may not be the next Steven King or J.K. Rowling, but give me time, and I could churn out a great story.  I learned good writing comes from creatively experimenting, listening to feedback, and knowing your audience.  Or in another way to look at it, I learned that writing was simply daring and drafting. Or as I like to say, D&D.

The Six Best Trends of Modern Gaming

Okay, first post! Let's start it off with an optimistic look on gaming's future!

6. The boom in enthusiast press
This one's more personal to me, but I have to say, I love game writing. I love reading it, I love writing about games, I devour anything I can get my hands out.

In all honesty, I've never gotten more joy out of the internet than reading articles on Actionbutton, socksmakepeoplesexy, insert credit, Gamespite, and Hardcore Gaming 101. These kind of things open my eyes to tons of new games, design ideas, game history, etc; all while managing to keep me entertained. This kind of writing is of the utmost quality, and I hope modern game designers see how amazing they are as resources.

Yes there are plenty of bad game writers (probably myself included) but man, if modern game designers listened to these good writers, instead of them or the Metacritic score, I think gaming as a whole could be even better.

5. Fair Difficulty
The days of stuff like stage 6-1 in Ninja Gaiden are over. The kind of crap you could get away with in games during the 8 and 16-bit days are pretty much over. And yes, while it's true that we get games that go a little too far with stuff like auto-checkpoints and auto saving, I think games these days are a lot more fair at telling the player how to play the game and what to do right. When this is done right we get games like God Hand. A game that does a great job telling the player what they are doing right and wrong,while having fair checkpoint placement.

Because of this, we're getting games that manage to make the player master the mechanics and concepts of the game, but not have to play the same levels over and over again.
Honestly, I only see this for the better. Games can still be challenging like the old days, but without the padding or bullshit behind them

I believe that fair difficulty only makes games better, and with the way games are going, I think we've got a bright future ahead of us.

4. Classic Gaming is now hip.
I love that the general collective conscious of gaming is to respect classic and modern games. Each year I go to Portland Retro Game Expo, it gets bigger and the age groups are widening and widening.

And because people are respecting the past, we're seeing modern games be influenced by smart game design of every era of gaming. We're seeing revivals of shmups, new age platformers, 2D beat-em up, tons of great stuff. Games like Ikaruga have the best parts of old school games, but also manage to be modern and fair.

And hey, when all the hipsters realize that they don't like classic games, and they were only playing them to be cool, they'll give all their stuff to me. I am a genius.

3. The Fighting Game Renaissance
As of 2009 we have these fighting games:
Street Fighter IV and all it's counterparts
The Blazblue franchise.
Tekken 6 and Tag 2
Virtua Fighter 5: Final Showdown
Melty Blood: Actress Again and the rest of the MB games.
Vanguard Princess
King of Fighters XIII
Marvel vs Capcom 3/ Ultimate Marvel vs Capcom 3
Soulcalibur V
Chaos Code
Skullgirls
Phantom Breaker
Aquaplazza
Demon's Bride
3^rd Strike Online
Mortal Kombat 9
Marvel vs Capcom 2 Online
Street Fighter II: Turbo: HD Remix
Arcana Heart 3
and Kevin Bacon

In other words: It's a damn good time to like fighting games.

2. Accessibility
This isn't so much casual gaming, (although I do and don't like that, but for different reasons) but rather making new games easier to get into than before. These days, modern games manage to do a great job making themselves simple enough to approach, but keep people hooked by their depth.

This is especially apparent in modern fighting games, where designers are purposely approachable. Doing stuff like inculding in-game tutorials that teach you how to actually play the game.

Sometimes designers go too far with this, making games pretty much interactive instruction manuals, but there are so many games that can actually say they are “easy to learn, hard to master.”

And I see that as a very, very, good thing.

1. The Indie Revolution
Indie games are starting to become an active threat to the AAA game industry. Not just because there's plenty of high quality games coming out, many of which are effortlessly creative, contain good writing and are fun. But more because they're more influential than people think.

Examples?

We've seen games like Bastion tell stories better than almost any game prior.
We've seen the rise of maso-core platformers like Super Meat Boy and VVVVVV
We've seen Cave Story raise the standard of what it means to be freeware game.
We've seen Skullgirls, the fighting game that might give Capcom and Namco a run for their money.
We've seen Minecraft, a game that's still in beta, and go from being a fun game that people played, to having it's own convention,
We've seen League of Legends bring the MOBA mainstream, becoming so popular that here's a $5,000,000 prize pool at next year's Dreamhack.

There is so much right with the Indie Revolution, and I don't see it ending any time soon. If anyone's moving gaming in the right direction, it's these guy and gals.

Thanks for reading.

Hello World!

Hey everyone, welcome to Blog To Win! We'll have more content up starting Monday, but until then, kick back, and have a good Sunday!

-Kam