Global Game Jam 2013: Pulselight Steampunk

A new year, a new Global Game Jam and a new game! Hindsight is fun, so let's do this post mortem thing again too. Once again our local game development club Stage came through with the arrangements, and we got ourselves a jam in a perfect location. I think this was our biggest jam so far, which was cool. There were also more jammers who were not university students, which I also found to be nice. It's nice not feeling like the only ancient mammoth when getting a decent amount of sleep during the jam.

1. Theme, concept, pitch and teaming

GGJ continues its (new) tradition of artsy themes. Last year was a picture, this year a sound. The sound was a human heartbeat. When browsing through the jam games this year, expect to see a lot of hearts and blood. The same happened last year with the Ouroboros; there was a snake in a whole lot of games. Any good theme can be interpreted in a wide variety of ways. Since I immediately knew that a lot of ideas will be focused around the "heart" part of heartbeat, I decided to put more emphasis on the "beat", or - as you might guess from the title - pulse. I have been playing quite a bit of Stepmania recently, so my mind immediately rushed to think about rhythm games. Quite soon I was once again on my way to a puzzle game design, where the player would need to perform actions while staying in a given rhythm somehow.

The idea quickly started to form around a pulsating light, in the middle of the screen. The player would have to do something with the pulses sent out by the light. But what? Well, how about guiding each pulse to one or more targets? At this point there was quite a lot of Pipemania in the design, so much that the name was indeed dropped during my pitch so people would have an easier time following what the f I was rambling on about this time. The challenge in the game would be to build the power grid fast enough to hit the targets. The challenge for me personally was to somehow present this idea to people so they could understand it. That was quite the challenge indeed because no whiteboard was available during pitching (we had one, but we were supposed to write our project working titles there).

The problem with pitching is often the inability to convey a mental image of the game being developed. Especially if it is a more abstract thing. It is easy enough to convey an image if the game is "platformer with this and that gimmick" (which covers what, 30% to 50% of all jam games?) Of course sometimes the designer doesn't really know yet what the game is. My tip for pitching your game idea in a jam is to tell what the player does in the game. That is the most important thing; without that knowledge it is impossible to see the game. Some people don't need to see the game to get into an idea of course. Indeed a lot of people will be happy to just hop aboard some cool thematic aspect or a general concept of the game. Then there are people like me who want to get an idea of the game's mechanics. I call us "mechanics first" designers. What the game is about bears little importance.

In my game this year, the player places pipe sections. That is the entire mechanic. The real challenge of course is in, well, the challenge. What makes the player want to place these pipes? Moreover, what makes the player want to place these pipes as fast as possible yet into sensible locations? These questions are very hard to answer without a prototype, and really, that is what game jams are all about. The good thing about this design is that it is relatively simple to implement and should therefore afford quite a bit of time for tuning the design. This did not turn out to be exactly the truth, mostly thanks to the niceties provided by javascript (aka. the language from hell when it's time to debug).

I did initially team up with guys who had another concept in mind (mostly: alien organism that does something) and we did a bit of brainstorming to combine the ideas. As usual though I ended up being grumpy designer and shot down a lot of initial ideas. I started the work by making a grid; whatever game we were about to build, there would be a grid so making one can't hurt. After completing my basic grid code, I went to sleep. Come morning I still didn't see much of a game around alien organism. There were also a couple of programmers in that project already, and I wasn't sure a third would be needed that much. Hence I just went back to my original idea and started working by myself. This is the fourth jam in a row where I have been a one man designing/programming team. I didn't even have an artist to start out with this time.

2. Game is hard

The title of this section is my new trademark. Looking back at my jam game catalog, I have a tendency to make games that are hard to get at first. This is something I need to work on because the initial impression usually matters a lot, and if players feel like they have no idea what is going on... well, it's not very optimal. I think the only game I have developed that has needed no explanation whatsoever was Umbrella Dream from last year's Vectorama game jam (and now I recall there is no post mortem on that one) because it was a platformer with a gimmick. Abstract puzzle games are always harder. Even if the player has some idea of what are the possible actions, the game also somehow needs to make its goal and its scoring principles known to the player. Building suitable indicators for these things is tricky. This year in particular my game was highly dependent on some animations to make it somewhat understandable (and it still isn't...).


Here is a screenshot of the game (release version, except there was a bug with scoring while taking this shot so I have 0 points, lol).

The coils around the edges are the targets, and the "heart" in the middle is the power generator. You can see a pulse traveling through the network as a white flash in the screenshot. The more lit the coils are, the more urgent it is to get power there. There is also one blackened coil in the bottom row; this one has been burnt. The "lightning" that strikes through the network from the core is aesthetically very pleasing. Overall I think the game looks very good (except the shading on some of the pipes seems to be on the wrong side). I do wonder if the game would be easier to understand if all coils were initially lit and would start to lose those glowing rings when they start to fail. This would possibly have a stronger mental image of the coil needing power from the generator.

The game's design had a lot of challenges. The rhythm idea flew out of the window almost immediately. The process of building the pipes is simply too slow to really afford really fast-paced gameplay. The initial idea was to allow the player to stack pipes to create intersections where the path would split. However this proved to be technically challenging the way I tried to implement it, so for quite a while I worked without stacking. Game was hard indeed! I allowed the player to rotate pieces to overcome the handicap. Back then the game also had delete pieces come up from the piece queue, and because stacking was not possible these pieces were really important. Granted, less so after rotation was introduced. Without rotation game was very hard indeed! With this composition the game kind of worked and I could see that it could be made fun but there were two issues.

First of all, the game was now very close to Pipemania and there was nothing really new about it. Another problem was that, given time, the grid would be full unless the ratio of delete pieces to normal pieces would be made 1:1. It was also kind of a frustrating experience to wait for delete tiles to come up when they were needed. At this point I was somewhat stuck. I had counted on the stacking mechanic as an important aspect of the game and I wasn't able to implement it. Well, I wasn't, until I did what should always be done when problems arise: I took a break. Immediately upon leaving the site I figured out a new algorithm to implement the path splitting. Sure enough, when I returned to my workstation, I had path splitting working in no time. This combined with rotation created another problem though: now game was too easy! An apparent problem with this design was that you could theoretically just create a network that hits every single border tile, effectively being capable of hitting all targets that appear.

The game over mechanic was designed to combat this issue (I did foresee this on Saturday morning already): hitting a "burnt" target overloaded the system and led to defeat. However, it was quite easy for the player to simply create a network that hit every tile that was not burnt and keep generating infinite points. Not good. The mechanic changed briefly when I failed to implement stacking: fail to hit a target in time, you lose. That was however kinda lame, and I liked the original game over mechanic much more, so I put it back into the game. I removed rotation to make it harder to create an all-encompassing network and in general harder to hit all targets in time which would burn out at least some tiles. There was another mechanic to combat the issue but it felt really artificial: occasionally, burned tiles would spawn to random locations. This meant that keeping a network connected to every border tile was risky.

The mechanic that is present in my GGJ deliverable does not have this limitation mechanism. The targets spawn pretty fast, but if the player is fast enough, they can create a network that is able to generate infinite points. This is a common problem with puzzle games at game jams. It is hard to find out the right balance in such a short time. Hamsters and Plague, my very first jam game had a similar issue: there was a dominant strategy that was not only clearly superior but also very opposed to the game's design philosophy. Took me a couple of weeks to figure out how to destroy that strategy with a solution that didn't feel completely artificial. By artificial I generally mean a mechanic that has been put into a game as a direct counter to some obvious dominant strategy but that doesn't really fit into the design's big picture. Tetraic had similar issues and I still haven't figured out a solid solution.

I already have some ideas I want to try out for this game. The fact that it runs in a browser makes it a little bit more appealing to continue the design because people might actually play it as opposed to both HaP and Tetraic that are originally XNA games and need to be installed (HaP is presently in Python, but the same problem applies, especially for Windows users). The first change that I did is not yet in the release, but it might make the game more interesting: since the entire system a rather archaic device, the copper pipes are likely to overheat and melt if exposed to use too much. In game mehcanic terms this means that whenever a pipe section is used, there is a chance the tile it is in will disappear. This would be a counter-balancing force to large networks because large networks = more maintenance (by replacing destroyed pieces). It would put pressure to the player to avoid shooting power all across the board "just in case" because wider coverage means wider destruction.

One possible problem would be that this solution might be too chaotic. This could be addressed with an animation for tiles that are being destroyed. Overall, a few more graphical effects would make the game clearer I think. I am still also kind of obsessed with the idea of making the rhythm of the pulse generator have more meaning in the game. Now it just shoots pulses at fixed intervals. It is of course great to throw around improvement ideas; implementing and testing them is the hard part. I still have 6 other jam projects in need of this, so although I have some interest, I am not holding my breath. That said, this might the most probable one to get an update because it is in the browser, and the code is surprisingly clean and modular for a jam game so it is actually quite easy to modify.

3. Working solo, the hindsight

For a lot of people game jams are about making games together. However - for I am grumpy designer - for me game jams are still first and foremost about honing my game design skills. Next time around I just might wear a "will work for design credit" tag. The biggest "pro" in working solo is that you can do whatever the f you want and can do in the given time. However looking at the creations of other teams it is quite clear that with more people a lot more can be done. Of course I scope my solo projects for my solo capabilities but it often leaves very little time for polishing anything. Jams are generally not about polishing, but it would be nice to produce something that is actually great to play from the get-go rather than after several design patches (which have a high chance of never coming out).

The fact that more people = more results might seem rather obvious but of course it is not strictly so. It really comes down to whether there is actually something for everyone to do or not. This project for instance really did not have much that another programmer could have done. Some UI widgets and the scoring system, but those took me about an hour to create. It has largely been the same with a lot of my previous solo projects; the core mechanic is simply not divisible into any sensible units that could be developed independently. The question is though: am I scoping my ideas into solo projects already in conception, or do I limit the idea after I don't have a team? Something to pay attention to I guess. Maybe in the next jam I will work with a bigger team. Another thing to work on is to pitch my ideas even better. I should probably make them seem more crazy. People like crazy stuff!

Conclusion

Another game jam is behind me. That makes eight! I wonder how many it takes to get the title "veteran jammer". Although I am not completely happy with the result this time, it shows a lot of promise and has a code framework that does not immediately repulse improvement ideas. I know from experience that if any improvements are to be made, I should make them in the coming one or two weeks. Otherwise the entire thing is likely to be just forgotten. We are likely to have yet another game jam later this spring; there's been talk about this one being a jam for polishing previous jam games. My problem of course is that I have 7 to choose from, and at least 3 or 4 of those are prime candidates for continued development. Which shall it be?

Oh and about the name: it's my homage to metal songs that have cool sounding yet nonsensible names (e.g. Blacklight Deliverance). The latter part comes from the game's art style, the first, obviously, from the initial design idea of a pulsating light.

I also finished Dragon's Dogma yesterday so the next piece will be on that. I have also been playing alarming amounts of Dota 2, and I figure I should analyze what the hell happened. Xenoblade Chronicles is sitting on my living room table waiting for its turn too...

Dishonored

Dishonored was a rare exception for me: a game I did not particularly intend to play until I read its review. Actually I did not even read the entire review in fear of spoilers. I simply looked at the score, some of the closing words and knew I would have to get this game. It was in fact my very first impulse purchase of a game on its release date for a very long time. I should not be so surprised of course; the game has a setting that is hugely inspired by Victorian England, and it has a superpowered assassin. The fact that it was a stealth game (which I am often quite suspicious towards) did have an astonishingly small impact on my decision. My liking of Human Revolution likely played a major role in setting my expectations right for Dishonored. The game was indeed very charming; not only was it artistically rather unique, it turned out to be excellent on the gameplay department too.

1. Easy does not equal bad

Let's get this immediately out of the way: Dishonored is by no means a hard game. This is largely evidenced by the simple fact that I - with my rather low patience for stealth in general - was able to complete almost every missions without raising a single alarm or killing anyone. This gets me to a point I have discussed previously: not all games need to be hard. Dishonored is more about creativity than execution. The tools the player has at his disposal are simply so damn powerful that he is more or less a god of stealth (or murder should he so choose!). It is exactly this effortless creativity that makes the game feel so open. I rarely felt I was being guided to use a certain path, or even that I was given a limited number of paths to choose from. I just felt like I was doing exactly what I wanted to do and how I wanted to do it. Although the game is very different from Assassin's Creed, in this one particular aspect they are very similar.

"Modern games are too easy" as an argument for why they (modern games) suck is something I'm rather tired of hearing. Difficulty simply is not the only possible way for games to create a powerful experience. Even player taxonomies clearly state that challenge is the primary reason for playing only for a certain part of the gaming audience. The actual problem that often gets attributed to lack of difficulty (which I also do, and often, when RPGs are concerned) is that the player is not provided with any incentive to use their wide variety of abilities. However difficulty is not the only way to create this incentive as is shown by games that depend more on player creativity. Games like Dishonored. Admittedly, the game's primary superpower, Blink, is so damn good that there was little use for the other powers. However the game's perceived degree of freedom is so immense, that it is absolutely possible for a roleplay oriented player to go through it in a very different manner.

Interestingly, if the game was more difficult, there is no guarantee that the degree of perceived freedom could be maintained. In a way difficulty always comes with a tradeoff: dominant strategies. In a way difficulty in itself controls player choice in a way that is harmful to a game's roleplaying appeal. If a game is hard enough, certain choices tend to be emphasized because they have higher utility in beating the game or can even be practically mandatory. Although we can argue that such games should be designed in such a way that are choices are equal, they rarely are. I will be the first to say that there is absolutely nothing wrong here in a more broader sense, but if a game wants to appeal to a roleplaying audience then it must be acknowledged that too much difficulty will be hurtful to it. You might argue that the most hardcore player will always find a way to do exactly as he likes. However, the roleplaying audience is not guaranteed to have the patience for training so much! (for the sake of clarity, by roleplaying I now mean playing a role, not the act of playing a computer RPGs)

All that being said, I think in general the stealth game genre benefits more from letting the player make it through in their own style. Increase of difficulty in these games more or less simply increases the number of retries it takes to get through a given segment and can end up being more about memorizing enemy routes than anything else. By providing the player with superpowers that let's them mess with the natural order of things, Dishonored makes stealth easier in a welcome fashion.

2. Speaking of controlling the player...

One thing that I do not like about a lot of stealth games is that although they advertise freedom of choice, the game has built-in values that ineherently make certain choices more encouraged than others. Often the player is encouraged to not kill anyone and stay out of sight. The more the game emphasizes this, the less there is perceived freedom. Dishonored is by far one of the least offenders. The game does not give any in-game rewards for being a sneaky pacifist. In fact it only does one thing (in-game) to encourage the player to find peaceful solutions: the game's ending is affected by how many people the player kills. Not being detected is just gravy and makes it easier to not kill anyone. So it indeed does feel more like I actually could be killing people off should I so choose.

Although Dishonored fares quite well, this is often messed up in similar games. A lot of games offer greater in-game rewards for being stealthy which is practically saying that the player should do so. This is typically explained by the fact that stealthiness indeed is harder to do in these games, and therefore should be rewarded better. There is nothing wrong with this approach, mind you. Rewarding harder accomplishments is mostly a sound design policy. However it should then be recognized that this endorses certain ways to play and therefore effectively reduces the amount of perceived freedom in the game. For instance, a lot of people have complained about higher rewards for non-lethal methods in Human Revolution (even though there is practically no difference between a lethal and a non-lethal takedown; you just push a different button!)

It would actually make Dishonored even easier if the player chooses to kill everyone instead of passing by them, largely because of one ability which makes corpses vanish into thin air (cool). Still the game's difficulty is not drastically affected by the choice of approach. Yet one nasty controlling scheme does exist in the game: achievement system. A certain playing style (killing no one, never being seen) nets you most of the achievements in the game on one playthrough. I cannot underline how distressingly common this is for achievement systems in general: they endorse a single playing style. This hints the player that there actually does exist a "correct" way to play the game. How hard it would be to include achievements for other playing styles?

Sure, not everyone cares about achievements. But for those who do, it is important to be aware of the fact that achievements do control playing styles. For this reason I usually do not look at the list of achievements before completing the game. Although they do not contain spoilers, I know that they will definitely affect my playing style.

3. First or third?

One interesting innovation for a first person stealth game in Human Revolution was its "cover camera". When the player entered cover, the camera backed up to show the player hiding in third person. I still think this is absolutely brilliant because it removes any sort of guessing from hiding. Dishonored on the other hand stays in the first person. The character does crouch appropriately and so on and can lean out of cover (which can sometimes feel rather hilarious; it's like the upper half of your body is sticking out by no one sees you). The game does a fair job of convincing me that I am actually hidden so I do not take issue with this. I still think the system seen in Human Revolution is better though. Dishonored does have better stealth controls though.

Another thing - especially on consoles - is the first person tunnel vision. Stealth games in partciular are hurt by the lack of peripheral vision in games. It is very hard to take a quick glimpse of your surroundings with game pad controls, and even with mouse this does feel a bit wonky. Third person might feel less "realistic" (because you see your own back) but it does provide a much better feeling of peripheral vision. In Human Revolution you often want to get in cover just so you can see better. Which is a bit weird again but hey, these are games we're talking about. Still it might be true that first person does create greater immersion. I'm still not convinced that it should be preferred over third person in stealth games because peripheral vision is absolutely vital for survival.

First person stealth is still mostly okay. First person melee combat is another issue though. Every game that features excellent melee combat uses a third person camera. The problem with first person is the lack of body awareness. Not being able to exactly see your character's body makes it much harder to get a good read of the combat situation. In real life fencing, precise position awareness is key to successful offense, defense and counter attacks. Certain third person games like Dark Souls simulate this quite well precisely because the player can see the exact position of their character. It is easy to see which attacks will connect and which do not. In first person this is strictly harder because the player cannot know for certain where the character's body is physically located. It often tends to make things more boring too.

Another thing that often lacks from first person games regarding sword attacks is movement. It is very rare to attack without simultaenous forward movement but in first person games the player avatar rarely moves when attacks are made. It can be argued again that the player can of course choose to do so but moving and hitting is an entirely different matter than an actual sword attack with forward movement built into it. It's a small detail and of little consequence in Dishonored because combat is generally avoided. For a game like this, Assassin's Creed should be a suitable role model for combat mechanics. Of course, it would involve switching to third person.

4. But what makes it good

So far I have been largely using Dishonored as a vehicle to get into more general topics. There is not much in the above paragraphs to explain why this game is worth more than a few game of the year awards. One definite key strength of the game is that it succeeds in hiding the fact that it is a game. For instance, most of the time I did not feel like I was playing levels that threw challenges at me - I was merely navigating an environment. Situations did not feel like pre-arranged puzzles with several solutions. Instead they felt honestly open. There are some sections where the illusion breaks, but these are surprisingly few and nowhere the magnitude of, say, Human Revolution boss fights. Instead of levels, the developers have created a world that feels like it could actually exist.

There is a certain continuous logic throughout the game regarding how guards, civilians and plague victims are placed in the levels. Patrol routes make sense (at least to the extent that they still loop without variation). Places are never heavily guarded just to throw an obstacle to the player's way. Instead if they are heavily guarded, there is always something that is important in respect to the game world, not the game. All this supports the perception of freedom in the game because most approaches to a specific place for example are actually feasible. The player is allowed to use their eyes to see possibilities instead of being forced to search for hidden routes or discussing with NPCs to reveal new approaches. Whenever I traversed a route to my target I felt it was truly my own route. This is a powerful feeling.

Speaking of powerful feelings... superpowers! The thing about mystic superpowers is that you don't need to explain how they work, and they can do anything without feeling out of place. Sounds like a cheap shortcut and it kind of is but it works. Dishonored does not have many powers, but they all serve a purpose (admittedly, some more than others). The signature ability, Blink, is a short range teleport that has quite limitless potential. Moving around the open environments using Blink is one huge reason why the game feels so open-ended. The simple mechanism of getting from point A to B without being in any of the intermediary points is quite amazing. It opens up so many unpredictable routes that it is almost ridiculously overpowered. However the act of using it is just so delightful that the imbalance between powers did not even bother me.

There are other powerful tools. Seeing through walls has been done quite well. It is not overpowered, but highly useful. I did use it quite a bit, although of course not as much as Blink.Of the remaining powers, I did not even level up all of them, and used the animal / human possession once or twice during the entire playthrough. If you are into stuff like that, you can find a lot of use for this ability though. The remaining abilities seemed too combat-oriented for my playing style so I found no use for them. I might consider playing the game or at least some missions in a more violent manner just to see how the other side of the game system works.

Conclusion

Dishonored plays most of its cards really well. It is a stealth game that is actually not at all frustrating to play yet manages to stay interesting throughout its duration. It bears no significant design flaws really. Overall it is a game I believe anyone considering a stealth game should play. Overall anyone even remotely interested in the genre, or even just the game's theme, should play it. There is so much quality design to be enjoyed. Of all the games I have played recently (sandboxes don't count!), Dishonored has the highest amount of perceived freedom of choice by far. This is achieved in an almost counter-intuitive way by giving the player so powerful tools that they can effectively break the game. Another strong aspect that supports this perception is the way the game stays true to its internal logic. The game world quite simply feels like a world instead of a series of levels.

Borderlands 2

One interesting and sharp contrast between the video games industry and the film industry is that game sequels often surpass the originals. In the movie industry sequels are often obvious cash grabs but in the games industry it is more common for a sequel to raise rather high expectations. The reason for this is relatively straightforward to see: the first game is a risky gamble with a certain budget. Within the confines of a budget and a production time it is not possible to gather the sheer amount of player feedback that is gotten after the game's release. Furthermore if the original sells, the sequel is guaranteed to have a solid budget. Additionally since the concept has been proven, the sequel only needs to enhance it. It almost seems like a lot of games need that second iteration to really shine. Sometimes the second iteration is called "enhanced edition" but in the current market situation, more often than not it is called a "2".

Such is the case with Borderlands, a conceptually very sound and mostly importantly fun game that nevertheless had a bunch of gaping flaws. Uninteresting plot, repetitive scenery/quests and rather colorless character abilities were the three primary complaints about the game. Being a long game, even though it had four different characters, its replay value was quite low. At least for us single player types. Thankfully the game got a load of attention and a sequel was guaranteed. It was indeed one of those games where you could instantly see how much better it can become. Not least because of the DLC quality: 3 out of 4 DLC adventures were significantly better written than the game itself!

1. Goodbye generic side quests

For me this improvement is perhaps the one with the most impact. In the first game, side quests were dull. Your run-of-the-mill MMO stuff: farm or kill things with a an entirely irrelevant text description of why exactly this should be done. Almost none of the side quests in Borderlands 2 are collected from bounty boards and even the ones that are still involve NPC communication throughout the quest. Moreover, side quest assignments range from mildly weird to absurd. This combined with the well-written humorous dialogue during the quests makes most of them just as memorable as the main quest itself - if not more so! On the first play through the game side quests are not done just to obtain rewards - you actually want to experience them in all their wackiness.

The importance of meaningful side quests is often overlooked by game developers. The rationale probably goes something like "people who do side quests do them anyway" which to some extent is likely to be true. Quality does trump quantity here. Advertising that your game contains a thousand quests is a clear signal that these quests are going to be generated and repetitive in nature, done only for the sole purpose of obtaining the reward. Granted, sometimes there is the element of challenge involved too but that seems to be the rare exception. At worst, such games are mere skinner boxes where the player is pressing the lever repeatedly in hope of a reward. I highly prefer the Borderlands 2 way where some quests are rather lenghty and they are fewer in number, but they all form an experience that can actually be called content without feeling cheap.

Of course it takes resources to write quality quests. Each quest in Borderlands 2 has most likely required some effort from an actual writer, and of course from the quest designer. They didn't come out of a spreadsheet. The tough truth about resources and effort in regard to side quests is that if you don't have what it takes to do good ones, how about not doing them at all? Why spend any effort at all into making some ridiculous attempts to make the game longer when you could spend all your limited resources on the core game? Each quest should provide something to the player: real gameplay and/or content. By real gameplay I mean gameplay that is unique to this quest, something that makes the player feel they are actually doing something meaningful or challenging.

Borderlands 2 mostly provides meaning through dialogue content and that is fine. The actions that are taken during side quests are more or less the same stuff that the player keeps doing throughout the game: shoot and loot. That is what we came here for anyway. Another approach that I wholeheartedly approve is the opposite: no dialogue content, just challenge. Post-game dungeons and bosses fall under this category. The connecting factor is that both of these approaches provide meaning to the player. In the Borderlands 2 approach the meaning to the player is to enjoy the more or less insane ramblings of the eccentric NPC cast of the game. Although we may look at this additional story content as a reward for completing the side quest,  I would argue that it is more meaningful to the player to do the side quest because it grants the quest giver more personality.

I care a whole lot about NPC personality. Whether they are believable or not is of no particular consequence as long as it is entertaining to listen to their banter. Because I care, it is also more meaningful for me to complete an assignment for a character. Although them liking me for it is just a piece of code inside the game's logic, the effect persists. Even research shows that humans project a personality on products even when one is not desgined into it, so it is no wonder that products that do have built-in personality can affect emotions. Since the interpersonal context has been made meaningful, there is more motivation to complete the given quest. I could go on about the personality of video game characters for another blog post or two, but we've gotten quite sidetracked already. The conclusion of this rambling is that the side quests in Borderlands 2 are successful because they are written in a way that enhances the quest giver's personality.

2. Dem skill trees

A big issue in the first Borderlands was the inability of skill choices to affect gameplay. Most skills were merely simple buffs that gave a bonus percentage to something - usually damage with one weapon type or another.While this does have some consequence (primarly, which weapons to use) it doesn't really create different styles to play. The fact that skill tree choices do not have a huge effect on gameplay might be seen as positive in more action-oriented genres, but Borderlands has strong RPG roots. And in an RPG, the way you build your character is supposed to have a large impact on how you play the game. It is about creating a character that suits your own play style. If it is not possible to emphasize play style through skill selection, the character is bound to lack identity.

This is actually of particular consequence in more action-oriented games like Borderlands because player skill is a significant factor in choosing a play style. A player who is a great sniper is likely to be more successful with a skill build that emphasizes high, single shot, long range damage even if strictly mathematically a short range assault build would be better. Because the choice of optimal play style is affected by game-independent factors (player ability), there is less inclination towards the infamous cookie-cutter builds that are plaguing a lot of MMOs. Since there is an opportunity to create interesting skill choices even without a completely balanced skill tree, the developers of Borderlands should have felt obligated to do so. It is not a surprise then than one of the most anticipated changes promised for Borderlands 2 was an improved skill system.

On the surface the skill system looks alarmingly similar to its predecessor. Each character has one active special ability and three specialized skill trees which modify stats and the special ability. Again a lot of these skills are numerical increases to some aspect or another. Skill trees are divided into levels, and taking a total of 5 assignments in a tree opens up the next level. There are definitely more skills to choose from though. While there are no additional active skills, there are a whole lot of conditional skills, some of which stack. The important difference is that a lot of skills now do clearly affect play style and that they combo with each other. Another interesting aspect is that since the game is so action-heavy, skills often work differently in use than what they look like on paper. This would be horrible without respecs, so fortunately the game offers an inexpensive way to do so. Now it is actually interesting to experiment with different builds.

Dividing each character's skills into three specific trees is a good solution in at least one sense: for players who do not want to bother with experimenting, it is easy to see which tree to build for a certain play style. At the same time, a more adventurous gamer may find that their build can be improved by taking skills from two separate trees or even all of them. The only limitation is that such a diverse skill build cannot involve any skills very deep in the trees. This might be good for reducing the possibility of overpowered comboes, although during my playthroughs with two different characters I didn't really come up with any. Regardless, one tree is likely to by any build's primary tree which defines the core play style. There are basically 3 hard play styles for each character, creating a total of 12 options (15 with the DLC character). Most importantly, builds now really feel different to play.

3. Apply polish - lots of

The improvements are not huge but together they make for a much stronger game. However it doesn't stop there. Borderlands 2 also has its share of smaller improvements, most of which are tied to giving the game more distinguished character. One of the best ideas is to give different equipment manufacturers their own identity and manufacturer ability. This guarantees that weapons in the game behave in a wider variety of ways than they would with just randomly generated stats. It is different from unique special abilities because after trying one weapon from a manufacturer the player can project how different guns from that manufacturer would be like.Ultimately it is still the hard numbers that define which weapons to use but in case of somewhat equal stats, weapon manufacturer can be a large factor in decision-making.

Another thing I liked is that there is now a lot more variation for what special abilities shields can have. The decision of which shield to choose now has more factors then its sheer stopping power. Many shields have offensive qualities which can be used to counterbalance their weaker protection. The addition of more variation also extends to enemies. On a less game mechanical note, environments are also way more varied. No more endless wasteland; we have snow fields, grass, industrial complexes and towns. Finally, the game has been finished with a lot of care paid to the details. Everything is consistent with the game's slightly disturbed character. This shows in more or less everything, loading screen tips included. Simply put, the entire package is very charming.

The game also has increased challenge built into it in the form of a new game+ and a "raid boss" which I have yet to defeat. The first DLC brought another similar challenge. I'm looking forward to killing them all at some point. Another strong point is the improved co-op play that has been made quite effortless and better supports players who are at different stages of the game.

Conclusions

Borderlands 2 is a prime example of a second iteration that really brings an already functional concept to blossom. It addresses all the flaws of its predecessor in an agreeable manner. It also goes beyond, with more effort put into writing in particular. While predictable, the main plot is enjoyable to follow and, as noted, the side quests have been superbly written. All the strengths of the original have been retained and really the only thing I missed was Lilith's phasewalk ability. Another "problem" with the game is that getting to know all characters does take a lot of time. I have yet to manage this feat but I got a strong feeling that I am not yet done with this game.

Vanquish

Another game that I played while waiting for Borderlands 2. Vanquish is on speed or something. The amount of stuff that's happening on the battlefield combined with the speed at which it is happening is pretty breahttaking. At its core it's just another third person shooter, but oh boy have they done things right. Some things that should be forgotten from the start include things like plot and characters both of which are ridiculous. That aside, it is really easy to see where the game gets its praise.

A typical sitatuation in Vanquish involves a lot of soldiers on both sides of the battle. The player is usually not alone so friendlies can draw some enemy fire. This is good, because it doesn't take a whole lot of damage to get killed in Vanquish (I played on hard, my new default for any game). It's this deadliness combined with the vast amount of projectiles flying all around the battlefield that separates the game from most third person shooters. One too bold move is all that is needed to get killed. Although staying in cover and carefully shooting from there is basically a sound strategy, your allies will start quickly falling if you take your sweet time. Quick elimination of enemies is the name of the game, and Sam has just the right tools for that. He is armed with an unfortunately named combat suit (ARS) and a weapon system that is mostly a lame explanation for how he can carry exactly three guns at once.

In particular there are two special abilities that empower the player. One is a massive speedboost that allows Sam to quickly travel across the battlefield in a sliding position. He is not immune to damage, but enemies have a really hard time hitting him. This ability allows the player to hit'n'run, flank or even rear enemies effectively and also to reach enemy positions quickly. Using this ability is the key to both eliminating enemies quickly and avoiding their fire. The other skill is just a simple bullet time, which is activated by making a dodge roll. This ability is often necessary to survive encounters with multiple enemies and also to shoot down enemy missiles. Some bosses in particular like to shoot out hundreds of missiles (literally). Both abilities drain the suit's battery and overheating is a serious thing because it makes the player very vulnerable. If cover is not immediately found, death is almost certain.

As far as special abilities go, the ones in Vanquish are fairly limited. The same goes for weapons that are mostly standard stuff with a couple of more exotic exceptions. They are however all that is needed to create one of the best shooter experiences ever. This is largely because the encounter design in Vanquish is top notch. The battlefield is always a living thing and each encounter is clearly distinct. There's next to no filler in this game. In this sense it is quite a lot like Zone of the Enders: The Second Runner that featured excellent mission variation throughout the game. Both games also have their share of tough boss battles. Just when you think one boss was particulary nasty, soon enough you are facing two of the same bastard at once. The environment also has a heavy impact on how battles turn out. There's a lot of variation in every aspect that define the game's encounters.

The enjoyment of playing Vanquish doesn't quantify into single elements. It is simply a really carefully designed whole. It underlines two things: difficulty is good for your game and games should go on only as long as they can. Once Vanquish runs out of real content it just ends. No prolonging, no repetition, just a tight package of high-adrenaline missions with lots of variation. I am looking forward to finishing this game again in the future and, unlike most games, I think I actually will because it is not just that long a game. Furthermore with games like this it is often the second playthrough that is actually more fun because that is when some degree of mastery starts to show.

Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine

I actually didn't intend to play this game at all. However I had already finished Darksiders 2 and Borderlands 2 was more or less around the corner. Not enough time to play any of the games I had particularly planned to (Dragon's Dogma for instance) but enough time for some quick playthroughs and I just happened to find this one for next to nothing in a supermarket. I used to be a Warhammer 40k player so the subject matter did have some meaning to me. In a nutshell, that is what keeps Space Marine going really. The game captures the feeling of the ultra-dark 41st millennium. The protagonist and his two pals feel are very much in canon to the grim lore; getting to massacre orks with familiar tools of destruction like bolters, chain swords and even freaking lascannons and thunder hammers has a certain oomph that generic no-name shooters would lack.

The scene towards the end of the game where reinforcements finally arrive and storm a chaos-infested bridge together with the player almost brought a tear to my eye. It also made me wonder why there wasn't more of this in the game. Most of the time the player hangs with just his two pals (who seem to be immortal) and they explore all sorts of industrial complexes like in any bread-and-butter shooter. Most of the best scenes in the game are ones where imperial guardsmen are involved because it immediately feels more like war. That's kind of what you would expect from a WH40k game: war. There's a plot in the game that kind of justifies the level design. As far as plots go, I guess it is fitting and does give the designers a solid excuse to get the player to shoot chaos marines, cultists and infantry instead of orks for the later part of the game. Oh, and also witness orks and chaos shooting at each other which is also cool.

Still I feel like less plot - more battlefield would have been a better solution for this game. Nevertheless, the bodycount reaches hilarious numbers - I really wished there would have been a kill counter in this game. In many scenes the green stream of orks is almost neverending. Most importantly, they die with satisfying amounts of violence and gore. Melee finishers especially are ridiculously brutal. The Emperor's justice is ruthless. The way theme is handled is the biggest strength of this game. It also means that people who don't give a rat's ass about Warhammer won't get much out of this game. Without the theme Space Marine is just a pretty average action shooter/slasher with huge waves of enemies.

The game's control scheme was a bit weird to my taste. Normally shooter/slashers have a separate aiming mode; outside it, the character faces the way he is moving. Space Marine does this a bit weirdly because the aiming mode is always on and the character is facing at whatever he is targeting. Until you press a melee attack, at which point he slashes at whatever direction the movement stick is pointing. This is really confusing at first. Then again, melee in this game is more or less button smashing, so the controls don't create much frustration. I still have to wonder whether they should have done the usual thing and separate melee and shooting modes from each other.

The game doesn't have any silly things like crouching. Who needs cover when you have a power armor? Health regen is Borderlands-y; armor regenerates but health is only recovered by delivering the Emperor's justice via killing blows. The coolest single gadget in this game was the jump pack. It sounds pretty boring but they've really buffed it up. It doesn't just allow quick vertical movement but also enables powerful dive attacks that are guaranteed to crush anything on the immediate landing spot and push others way back. Most importantly, targeting these dives is easy. It's a great change of pace whenever it gets used in the game (two or three times total I think), and when combined with the almighty thunder hammer the jump pack becomes even deadlier.

While Space Marine offers even less new things than Darksiders 2, it's yet another reminder that subject matter matters. The grim and dark future of the 41st millennium is for many people the ultimate setting for hilarious bodycounts and senseless violence.

Darksiders 2

Oh wow. I have been too busy to even keep this blog. Somehow I haven't been too busy to play games though! I guess there's a slight preference hidden there somewhere. Anyway. Now I have some time to catch up on what I've played. I'm going to go in chronological order because it's easy. The first one on the list is therefore Darksiders 2. It's going to be followed by Space Marine, Vanquish and Borderlands 2. I have also been playing Stepmania because I have no time for my normal exercise-related hobbies.

Anyway. Darksiders 2. This is one of the games that I've actually been waiting for this year. Largely because the first game was amazing in many aspects but felt like it could use a sequel. Many games these days do. In the movie industry sequels are often crap, but in the games industry it seems more like the sequel is often the better game because in a sense the game has gone through one hell of an iteration already with one launched title. The third title in a series might be a mistep again, largely because when there are no huge flaws to fix, new things have to be added into the mix. It's either that or be accused of "beating on a dead horse". You just can't win there. It would probably be an interesting study to look at how many series consist of exactly two titles. Might be interesting to also involve the sales figures of second versus third iteration.

1. Originality, schmoriginality

Let's just get this out of the way immediately. Not a single ounce in the gameplay of Darksiders 2 is original. The game steals from a variety of sources: God of War, Prince of Persia, Diablo/Borderlands and of course Zelda. Most likely a bunch of other titles to boot. Does it matter? No, it does not. It is somewhat of a dick move though - taking good concepts from the wealth of past game design while giving next to nothing back. The one thing that has been done exceptionally well is the combination of so many influences. The core is definitely Zelda. The guys at Vigil clearly have decided that Zelda just isn't manly enough for them, so they replaced green elves with grunting wisecracking horsemen of the freaking apocalypse and made combat bloody as hell. It is a nice take on the Zelda gameplay, something for us grim'n'dark types to enjoy with our adventure.

2. Fighting matters

Actually yeah, I think combat is the single biggest differentiator between Zelda-like titles I like and ones that I  don't. One problem in the first Darksiders was that War was more or less a tank, and tanks are not really interesting to play in solo hack'n'slash. Death on the other hand is a master of agile DPS (you know, like agile programming but with more violence!) There is no guard button in Darksiders 2; the only way to avoid damage is to evade or interrupt attacks. The game also acknowledges the importance of hit stun resistance. Some enemies are more resistant to hit stun which makes them a lot harder to interrupt. Death's combos also have varying hit stun. This forces different strategies against different enemies. Hit stun is one of the most important aspect of hack'n'slash games. The lack of proper hit stun mechanics is what often leads to button smashing.

Games where defence relies on evasion can become evade fests instead but Darksiders 2 also avoids this by limiting the number of subsequent evades that can be performed to three. The last evade has a lengthty recovery which often leads to taking hits and hit stun (also known as quick death). I am not sure whether I liked this mechanic or not, because sometimes the enemies just attack in patterns that are really difficult to get out of with just two evades. On the other hand, this forces the player to seek strategies that avoid getting into such situations in the first place. So the jury is still out on this one. Most important thing is though that combat in Darksiders 2 actually demands some skill, especially against multiple opponents. Single opponents, no matter how strong, were mostly quite easy because of Death's superior mobility.

Here's a theory. It involves the guard button. Thing is, Darksiders 2 has the most enjoyable fast-paced hack'n'slash since Devil May Cry 3. The difference between these titles and titles like God of War and Dante's Inferno? Guard button. The guard button is a kind of fail-safe; it removes the need to telegraph attacks and in general make all attack situations perceivable. It's a get-out-of-jail-free card that allows creating fights where the player has no way of seeing what the f is going on because whenever things get like that, they can just hit the guard button and wait for a clearer situation. But that's bull. Holding a button is not a whole lot of fun. Getting a cue when attacks are coming and avoiding them with carefully timed evades is fun. More so, because often you might even need to learn which way to evade in order to get a good counter-strike opening.

So um yeah, the problem is not exactly the guard button itself. Still, guarding as a mechanic is horribly static unless some dynamics are added into it. See Dark/Demon's Souls to see a guard that works for the game.

Conclusion

I guess there is not really that much more to say about Darksiders 2 what with it being a sum of mostly other games. The hardest difficulty setting was quite enjoyable to play and many fight scenes in the game took several attempts so can't complain about lack of challenge either. What the game really lacked was interesting boss fights - most of them were too easy because of Death's ability to easily evade anything thrown at his way by a single opponent. The ultimate challenge in the game was also a bit lame: fight 100 rounds of arena battles without dying. Having to start the entire process over after reaching 98 or so was really really annoying. These things are hardly ever acceptable but even less so if the first half of the challenge is more or less trivial but still takes a great deal of time.

All in all, I guess, combat aside, the core message of Darksiders 2 is that theme matters. If it had been a cute game with pixies or silent elves in green tunics I probably would not have enjoyed as much. Furthermore there is always something to do in the game and every dungeon is different. My favorite ability was soul splitter which allowed Death to become a statue and spawn two clones of himself. The best puzzles in the game revolved around this ability. I dunno if this is stolen from another game or not; if not, good job Vigil. Adding looting and simple character development in Borderlands fashion was also a smart move. Hunting better equipment is always much more fun than trying to locate some small upgrades like extra health. As long as you don't mind lack of originality, you could do a lot worse than to pick up Darksiders 2.

Devil Survivor

Devil Survivor is another Shin Megami Tensei spinoff by Atlus. The game was never released in Europe and is a Nintendo DS game, so it took quite a while for me to actually muster up enough interest to play it. I have an irrational distrust towards any Nintendo system games, deal with it. Now that I've finished the game I'm pretty damn glad I did, and I'm going to order the sequel right away. Devil Survivor is a tactical RPG with all the power of Shin Megami Tensei packed into it. It doesn't even contain anything particularly unique or new, but the overall design is just brilliant. The recipe for success here is in fact really simple: it's a very faithful adaptation of SMT into a tactical RPG.

1. SMT lite?

Battles in the game run in a very typical isometric battlefield where units move and fight each other. The terrain is oversimplified: there are no modifiers from terrain, there's just obstacles and open ground. Fighting takes place in the streets of Tokyo so the lack of actual terrain does make sense. It's clearly not a game of map positions. Instead it's a game of unit composition. Each unit in the game is made up of one to three characters, most of which are demons. The player controls up to four humans who each can have two demon allies to form a unit with, whereas most opponents will be teams of demons only. It's worth bearing in mind that these are SMT demons which makes them inherently more multidimensional than your typical standard tactical RPG units. I'll go into the demons in the next section.

During a unit's activation, every member of that unit is allowed one action. In addition, the unit can move and initiate a battle. The way the game relies heavily on correct unit compositions, the leader of each unit can use his or her action to summon a new demon, provided another one uses their ability to withdraw first, or has died in combat earlier. Other possible actions mostly involve healing and certain tactical level abilities possessed by demons. Moving and attacking both affect a unit's turn order. If they do only one of those things (or neither) their next turn will come up sooner so it is not always desirable to fully utilize a turn. The reason the game is so big on unit composition is the combat system, which is basically SMT lite. I think a similar approach was taken in Bahamut Lagoon.

Each battle is a small game in itself with its own screen as the combatant's fight a full round of SMT style combat. There is nothing astonishing about SMT combat: it's just a turn-based system. The player sets a command for each of their combatants, and actions are then carried out in a slightly varied order based on agility. Some predicting ability is needed to figure out a good approximation of the order actions are carried out in. One UI slight makes this a little more annoying than it needed to be: there's no way to view agility scores of combatants while in the combat screen even though it is possible to do so on the main battle screen. Otherwise it works like a charm, mostly because it relies on a tried-and-true mechanical core of turn-based combat.

The SMT twist comes from extra turns that can be scored but also stolen from other combatants. The conditions are quite familiar for people who have played Lucifer's Call, Persona 3/4 or Digital Devil Saga: hitting a weakness or scoring a critical hit guarantees a bonus turn and often steals one from the opponent. Likewise hitting someone's immunity can give the defender a bonus turn. These bonus turns are taken in another round of combat that is fought immediately after the normal round. Only characters who scored a bonus turn participate in this round. This system is simple yet clever because it puts a lot more emphasis on weaknesses and immunities. It's not just more damage, it's also another turn in which to do even more damage.

This is especially aggravating with AoE spells: if there is even a single target that is weak to the spell, then the caster gets another go which can be used to cast the spell again. In this case the attack does more damage to everyone just because one of them was weak against it. See why team composition is important?

2. Demons all around

The reason team composition forms a big part of the game is the way that the game handles demons. Best demons are always obtained through fusion because they inherit abilities from their parents. Devil Survivor has streamlined the inheritance process quite a bit. Instead of 8 general slots where abilities are inherited randomly, demons have 3 active slots and 3 passive slots, and the player can freely choose which abilities to inherit into each slot. The only limitation is that the demon's natural skills cannot be replaced. Inherited skills can greatly enhance a demon's power by giving it a larger range of attacks and even covering its weaknesses with rarer abilities that provide immunity. The entire process of demon raising is about passing along the most important skills and obtaining new skills from demons on the way.

However just mindlessly passing good skills along won't do, because the other half of good demon raising is to pay mind to their natural attributes, their weaknesses and resistances and immunities. If a physically strong demon inherits powerful spells, it often doesn't utilize them very well. Devil Survivor includes another, even more important aspect into this equation: racial abilities. It's a long standing tradition in SMT that demons are categorized into different races which are used to form the rules of fusion. However, in Devil Survivor each race has an important tactical ability that cannot be changed. The fusion process therefore has another goal: not only is it important to match skills to to demon attributes, you often want to have demons from a specific race because of their ability.

The cleverness of the demon fusion system is well-proven by its ubiquity in the series and its spinoffs. As far as character development schemes go, it is special because of the huge amount of variables that go into the system, and the complex dynamics that dictate fusion results. Note that Devil Survivor has actually simplified the process quite a bit, particularly inheritance. It also includes a nifty search system that makes it easier to figure out how to create a demon of a given race. These are necessary amends because the number of demons that are needed in battles is eight at minimum and often more to adapt party compositions to different situations. They have done a marvelous job with this simplification: the system feels as intriguing as more complex systems from other SMT titles.

The reason this all works so well is that while they have made inheritance simpler (free choice instead of random selection with complex rules)  they have at the same time limited its power by putting more emphasis on the demons' natural abilities. This is especially achieved by introducing racial abilities which are tactically more important than any combat abilities. There's also an interesting balancing mechanism: not all racial abilities are equal usefulness, but often demons who have the better racial abilities are either harder to make, especially of desirable components, or generally weaker.

3. Structuring for pacing

If there ever has been one glaring flaw in SMT titles, its pacing. Modern titles have it better: Persona 4 and Devil Summoner 2 have really good pacing. The problem is that the games often have really intriguing plots but they become hard to follow and go into because between every event that moves the plot forward there's hours of running around in dungeons. As a tactical RPG, Devil Survivor is already naturally structured better. Even if the game only contained battle events with some dialogue before and after, it would still have a lot more going on because each battle takes maybe an hour at most. It's not just that though. The game is structured by time limits. The player can often choose from multiple places to visit, and each visit is either a dialogue that deepens one plot line in the game, or a battle.

The nice thing is that this system incorporates choices quite naturally. Each event is only available for a limited time - sometimes even just one single hour in the course of the game - and each event takes the game clock forward 30 minutes. There is never enough time to go to all events so the player has to make choices. These choices mostly affect how other characters end up in the game. A lot of them can die as a consequence of the player's choices. Overall the structure makes the game go smoothly and have meaningful decisions all the way through. Selecting events is a simple matter of choosing where to spend time from a menu so it's also time efficient on the UI side.

Conclusion

I was swept away by Devil Survivor. It should have been predictable, I mean, I love SMT, and I love tactical RPGs. Still I was surprised how smoothly these concepts came together in the game. It's full of elegant design choices. I might actually go as far as to say that it's the best tactical RPG I've encountered so far. This is largely due to the complexity of the system when it comes to units. Raising and selecting demons is a delicate business. Moreover, they've had the guts to make the game hard enough to actually encourage the player to explore their possibilities and pour some serious thought into character development. The icing on the cake is an intriguing plot with a lot of characters that are meaningfully incorporated into the story. That, and the fact that the plot really feels like it's moving forward constantly.