Boku (Microsofts LittleBigPlanet?)

[Cigol]

That's what all the websites are saying anyway, but they are surely referring to the social & creative elements rather than the game itself. Watching the video compilation (

) and taking it at face value I have to say I'm impressed. It has a lot of potential if the wide variety of gaming genres shown are anything to go by. Obviously, it depends on how easy it is to use the tools and how much freedom they give you, but it sounds promising no?

[miffy495]

Interesting. Sort of like they're taking LBP's concept and forcing it to make the jump to 3D. I'm certainly intrigued.

Man, being console agnostic is awesome. I love not feeling like I'm missing out and therefor pretend either one looks stupid. Sorry for the aside here, I'm just expressing my response to the comments on that youtube video.

[Noyb]

I'm confused by all the console war references in the articles. This looks more like a programming learning tool like Logo or Lego Mindstorms, or a more simplistic game-making tool like MMF or Game Maker than anything. What I've learned from the independent community is that amazing games can come from simple tools, as long as there is enough room for expression. I guess I'll have to wait to see just how open it is, although the "20 characters" line in the research page doesn't sound promising.

[Cigol]

Boku is also a PC title from reading the articles so it's a moot point anyway.

[baconian]

This looks great. It's hardly a rip-off of LBP either, things like this have always been appearing down through the generations, make your own game tools.

Boku looks more general-purpose and less stylized than LBP, and to me, that's more compelling, so I hope it lives up to its promise and isn't appropriated and ruined by some cunt producer who wants to take credit and turn it into a poo.

[toblix]

Or a bunch of suits.

[Wrestlevania]

Looks like a 3D version of Klick and Play from way back in the mid 90s. I don't like those weird uni-motorcycle avatars at all, but the pixellated landscapes are certainly charming. The overly-elaborate water shader also seems total overkill and in start contrast the pixellation of the landscape.

Does look fun though. Those demo clips suggest to me that Project Boku is about specifically creating arena games; you get a fixed space and then populate with whatever you like--race track, platforming, shooting, etc. This seems in subtle contrast to LBP's more Incredible Machine-like gameplay to me.

[toblix]

I remember getting Klik & Play (the floppy disk version), and being totally disappointed when I discovered there was no scrolling, only separate screens, and you could maintain little or no state across these screens. Too bad, because the concept was awesome. Especially the "learning" mode, when you made a breakout style game essentially by answering questions whenever something happened:

What happens when you move the mouse to the left -> The paddle moves with it

What happens when the ball hits the left side of the screen -> It bounces

... and so on. I think they made a sequel called The Game Factory or something, but by then I'd lost interest.

[Wrestlevania]

Clickteam were the people who originally developed Klick and Play. They now make Multimedia Fusion, which gets (very positively) cited quite frequently in Video game design prototyping circles I believe.

If Project Boku comes off as being a modern, 3D version of what Klick and Play was trying to achieve, it could be seriously good. Especially if Microsoft augment the game with regular feature updates and a decent community system. Could be massive, in fact...

[syntheticgerbil]

I remember trying to make at least 5 different games for Klik and Play when I was around ages 11-12. Mostly I just ended up doing a lot of animation and artwork for the game intros and then never working on it again, since I didn't understand how to actually make games. I lost all these files though. One was a zip I actually put on my old Xoom website but archive.org didn't save it.

I remember seeing two amazing adventure games (by those standards) called Rat and Rat 2 for Klik and Play that actually made use of keeping inventory throughout multiple screens and having actual puzzles. I was wanting to figure out how to do that, but after opening up the game's resources I saw it was super complicated for a 12 year old, and I really only had art and animation interest. Still do. I wish I could figure out what happened to the guy who made the Rat games or where to download them again.

[Noyb]

I remember getting Klik & Play (the floppy disk version), and being totally disappointed when I discovered there was no scrolling, only separate screens, and you could maintain little or no state across these screens.

Oh, God. Klik and Play brings back so much memories of making crappy Mario clones.

If I remember correctly it was sort of possible to do scrolling, except you had to do pretty much everything manually (i.e. make the engine from scratch, make each object an active object that moves relative to the player, and pray that the buggy collision doesn't mess up too badly). And you had 8 integers for saving state (two for each of 4 players, which you could use by placing a dummy immovable player object in the level), more if you could possibly do/simulate bit masking.

There's also a semi-thriving klik and play community called Glorious Trainwrecks, which tries to make as many hilariously awesomely terrible games in KNP as possible.

Clickteam were the people who originally developed Klick and Play. They now make Multimedia Fusion, which gets (very positively) cited quite frequently in Video game design prototyping circles I believe.

If Project Boku comes off as being a modern, 3D version of what Klick and Play was trying to achieve, it could be seriously good. Especially if Microsoft augment the game with regular feature updates and a decent community system. Could be massive, in fact...

Multimedia Fusion has some drawbacks. Mostly in portability, since it can only compile to Windows (although a multiplatform java compiler has been long in development), and it is lacking a good scripting language (most of the game code is done in this ridiculous grid where conditionals are the rows, objects are columns, and actions are placed where they intersect). But still it's simpler than trying to start an engine from scratch. Check out the video 50 MMF Games in 10 Minutes (including a really out of place clip from one of my games early on ) for an example of some of the quality games people have made.

I wish I could figure out what happened to the guy who made the Rat games or where to download them again.

Someone posted a link to the original (not sure if it's working) here.

[syntheticgerbil]

That's funny there's someone else out there who was equally impressed by rat. Thanks for finding that. Man, I feel like such a loser for missing this game. I love how the engine makes the music start over every time you enter a new screen. I'm going to add MikeM16 to my AOL instant messenger and see if he turns up and then I'm going to question him about what he's done with his life since then.

But the sequel was a major improvement. I hope that turns up as well!

[Noyb]

Okay, played through Rat 1. Charming, although most of the puzzles involving giving items to people didn't seem to be hinted at, especially the slurpee and disco ball.

Found Rat 2 as well: http://www.create-games.com/forum_post.asp?id=224384

And as long as I'm derailing the thread with nostalgia about KNP adventure games...

MI:2 - Or what Monkey Island 2 would be like if Lucasarts decided to rip off every single movie ever.

The Devil's Triangle - Another Monkey Island fangame by the same guy.

Stollesoft's Brother Island 1/2 & Beware of the Aliens - First one is a set of minigames, the other two are entertaining cheesy adventures.

That Night Before - amnesiac adventure by the developer of Fate of Monkey Island, a fangame taken down by Lucasart's lawyers