joe randel's art dump

Hey!  Anyone out there remember the toys called Battle Beasts?  They where awesome and some of my favorites when I was growing up ^_^

They where these little animal figures (about 2 inches tall) with really wicked designed mech armour and a little weapon unique to the character.  The whole gimmick was this rub sticker on their chests that revealed one of three powers.  Wood, Fire or Water and it played out like a rock, paper, scissors thing.  Anyway, they where originally to be a part of, or a spin off of the Transformers universe in Japan but the marketing never went though here in North America.

I have all mine still in a box some where… I should dig them out again.  Man, I remember just sitting there looking at each figure for a long time studying the armour designs.  Such cool toys. ^_^  So once again, little Joe is drawn to some sort of anthro toy/show from his youth that ties in to the things he likes today.  Crazy @_@  Actually, when you look back, there where lots of anthro type toys or shows when we where young.  It helped build a whole fandom I guess.

I should do some Battle Beast fan art some time. ^_^

Okay, so yesterday I went on a grandpa type rant about game design and how it lacks compared to games of days gone by.  There where lots of comments in the yey and nay categories with regard to the post and rather then comment back to each one I thought I’d flip it over and view some games that I think have great game design.  Just to prove myself wrong, here’s a short list.

Crazy Taxi – This game is the ultimate in terms of great design and challenge.  Why?  Well, the game world is set up but never changes for the player.  The game itself never increases or decreases in difficulty during play.  It’s only the player that can make each play time different.  The more skilled they are the better and longer they will play.  It also boils down to the player vs the clock.  Time is the only enemy the player will ever face… other then maybe running low on people to pick up if they get really good.

Shadow of the Colossus – This game is brilliant in terms of design (both play and artistically).  The player knows the goal for each Colossus.  Destroy it.  That’s it, that’s all.  But they have to figure out how to get the job one once they get there.  Kill it and get rewarded with the next Colossi to take down.  The player never gains any skills other then what they have.  No items… nothing.  The game is about the hunt and thats it.  But the hunt is mixed with a puzzle.  Can’t figure out how to kill the Colossus?  To bad for you… the game gives no pitty.

Metal Warriors – This game goes way back to the SNES days.  It’s pretty damn hard platformer where you pilot a mech but there is no health bar for you to check.  You just have to gauge how much damage you’ve taken as you play and if you start to smoke, then get the hell out.  And good luck to ya once you are out since you’ll have to find a mech to continue forward.  The game is relentless and there is no spoon feeding at all.  Ever.  It start challenging and ends challenging.  It’s one of those games that you hold your head high for beating because it’s that damn hard.  Yes… I beat it ^_^

Boktai – Remember this GBA title, the one where you need the sun to play?  It’s from Hideo Kojima and you play a vampire hunter but depending on the sun you can be stronger or weaker.  The sun also serves as a way to solve puzzles in the game.  Some called this game too gimmicky but I loved it.  The puzzles are great and really make you think and the sun plays a great roll in how and when you play.  Thus making the player not in control of every aspect of the character they’re playing with which means they’ll have to consider when it’ll be most in the their favor to play.  I loved it!

I guess that can be it for now, their are others out there with great game design but it’s late so I’m going to bed.

Any other games that people think I’ve over looked, or maybe not played?

So I’m talking with my producer today regarding my favorite topic in game design: spoon feeding.  Let me explain.

In every studio I’ve worked in (and just watching the game industry mostly) I’m constantly seeing game design get dumbed down because studio’s are afraid that if games are too hard then players won’t like them.  It’s a constant trend of keeping games from being actually challenging by giving items and level ups to fake a sense of accomplishment for the player.  We’re not really seeing to often a game where the player really has to push to succeed.  What if the player can’t succeed?  Then that’s bad.  The player might go find something else to do.  So dumb it down and let the player do cool things so they thing they’re all bad ass.

I can’t stand it.

Remember back in the day where you would rent a game for your NES, Genesis, SNES or what have you and you where actually challenged by it?  You would have to rent it a second time to beat it probably because you wanted to beat it so badly.  And it wasn’t due to the fact the game had 80 kajillion hours of game play it was because it was designed to actually challenge the player?  Where are those games now?

Gamers of today aren’t being challenged by what they buy.  The games are more of an game experience… like a movie.  You’ll get to the end of the game eventually, just like a movie.  That’s what the makers want.  They don’t want to make you think to hard about the game you’re playing and to me is an insult of what they think of me.

I want challenge, I want to think about game play.  I don’t want to be spoon feed my games.

I only have so much pull on the titles I work on being a art guy but I always make sure that the design decisions will lean towards accomplishment and rewards for the player.  It’s a formula that works.  Make the player work for things.  Give them a sense of pride when they figure something out.

They paid for it after all.

Spring is here and you know what that means?  Allergies.  Do you have them?  I do.  I’m allergic to just about everything outside it would seem.  Spring time isn’t my worst time though.  It’s almost like a sample of what’s to come later.  Fall is when I’m the worst and I pray for death and wonder why my body hates me.  I hate allergies.

Before I moved I was going to go get allergy shots.  My wife has been at me to get them for… umm… about as long as I’ve known her I’d say.  But I’m lazy and stubborn and so I’ve been putting it off and suffering all the while.  But last year I decided I was being stupid and went to get these allergy shots.  But then I applied for a new job and moved so out the window went that idea.

Now I should get a new family doctor so I can get in line for allergy shots again.  I really should since I don’t know anyone that has seasonal worse then I do.  I suffer a lot and I’m easily the most disgusting person on the bus.  I even carry a whole box of kleenex with me when I go out.

You know what’s a crazy side effect of the sneeze attacks I get during allergy season?  I get feverishly hungry.  Crazy hungry!  I mean, after a sneeze attack I could sit and rip though vast quantities of food.  Very bazaar @_@

Man I hate allergies… is it winter yet?

Man… today I had such a killer headache.  Not one of the ones that you can just take a few  Tylenol for, one of the ones where it crazy hurts… like you brain is going to bust out of your skull in the most painful way possible.  Yeah.. one of those ones.  It sucked too.  I had to go out and buy some drugs for my brain in a bad way (which means it’s bad since I never take anything for my aches and pains… I just suffer), but when I got to the drug store I found that I could buy some Tylenol for sinus pain, flu, colds.  Tylenol for daytime or for night time.  Advil was no better ether.  Man, my head was going to explode all over Shoppers Drugmart if I didn’t get some regular freakn pain reliever!

I finally went to the cash and bought one of the travel sized Tylenol and left.  I can’t help but feel like these drug companies are missing the point by supplying us with every kind drug for any kind of aliment you can think of.  We just need a general pain drug.  Or at least I do.

My head is fine now but my headache lasted the rest of the work day and I spent it on the futon in the games room.  I’m not sure if that counts as a sick day or not since I was at work… I just wasn’t working ^_^