Double Fine Amnesia Fortnight 2012

[Frenetic Pony]

I looked at the video for a bit and Hack'n'Slash actually seems really good. Maybe that's just because I'm a programmer.

Totally agree and I totally wasn't expecting too. Gah, how long has it been since I've used an actual game genie? But I'm not sure how much... crossover? there is.

And as for Space Base. I like the idea, I like some of the ideas presented. Should have had JP play The Sims 2 and FTL. This stuff is best when SHIT IS GOING WRONG ALL THE TIME. If there's a thousand, problems you have to solve or EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE then not only does it feel like, classic Sci-fi type, but it's also what management games are generally about. This needs starvation, vacuum leaks, fire, people falling asleep standing up, life support blowing up, asteroids smashing into your station, hostile ships coming in. Just, things friggen exploding and dying at least every once in a while.

Or... or it can be Minecraft or Rollercoaster Tycoon. These are less about things going wrong, but they still need something to manage, and that's a key. Management, you need to work for this, you need to spend time and effort and etc. to get to where you want to go, you need steps. Not just "an asteroid, and then you vaporize, and then you've got more stuff!"

People need to be assigned to building, and they need to like or dislike it, and they need to get paid, and power needs to be on, and etc. While a more relaxed, creative type isn't everything going wrong, a need to do "stuff" is a basic requirement. But unlike "panic everything is dying!" Stuff, this kind of thing can be more like Sim City. But that means things need to work together in interesting ways. How far away thing are needs to matter quite a bit. No engineers, trained engineers mind you, to get to the vacuum leak in time? Oh no, you're hallway is now vacuum!

And obviously, in terms of creativity aesthetic is also a big must. You need to be able to change lighting, and style, and whatever it is your game is about. If it's about "people" then you need to make them happy, or sad, or angry, or whatever. You need to be able to experiment with them. You have murderers? What drives them? Do you want them caught or not? If they don't get caught is everyone else more and more scared? That's awesome! Or maybe you want to drive someone to be a murder. Maybe they're low sociability and high in anger... hmm I wonder if I can starve him until he starts killing people?

I liked the "sucked out to space" thing. I liked the sense of humor. But it seems like it needs a compelling reason to keep going, or to go at all. I like the exploration, but there needs to be something ON derelicts or etc. that's really worth finding. There needs to be some goal, somewhere, for people to go after. Preferably a choice of goals, whether its self created "can I get everyone to go space mad and kill each other" and some sort of "high score" mechanism to reach towards. And obviously these goals need time and management and difficulty in getting to them.

[TychoCelchuuu]

That sounds like a lot of stuff to put into a game in two weeks.

[Frenetic Pony]

That sounds like a lot of stuff to put into a game in two weeks.

Oh it is! It certainly is, but the prototype just... doesn't seem like it has a goal to go towards. Goals are important, whether they're you're own or defined for you. That is really what I'm trying to get at. It needs a goal a player can work towards, and some sort of difficulty in achieving that.

[TychoCelchuuu]

But it looks like the prototype has done its job, though, because it has provided you (and presumably everyone else) with the knowledge you would need to go forward and make the actual game if you wanted to do so. It has proven that the systems work and stuff and that you just need to "add goal and stir," so to speak. So that would be a success, right?

[elmuerte]

I just realized something, and it made me sad.

After watching most of the daily reports (I have some backlog) I'm really excited for Spacebase and Autonomous. And I think they do have a good shot to become actual games. But here's the sad part,... it'll take a year or two before it will be out. This sadness will only become worse when the prototypes get released :/

Of all the games I think the hacking game has the least chance to become an actual game, especially in its current concept. Having the game crash due to your own actions as part of the game isn't going to be accepted. Despite how awesome the concept is (to me).

[vimes]

So, the prototypes are out and so is my wall of text .

Black Lake: the great surprise. I had two runs on the prototype and both were excellent on their own term. During the first one, I missed the 2nd clue and ended up wandering in the woods for a good 20 minutes, completely lost and anxiously trying to build a mental map of the place from the clues scattered around. I failed, felt lost and confused but that, in itself, was a great experience; even though it didn't build up to anything.

During my second play-through I followed the clues and damn, what a cool game: it only brushes on a few gameplay ideas but they were very well executed (ala Mark of the Ninja) and it's all wrapped in a great atmosphere of real tension and wonder. If only they could mesh the linear and the 'being lost' aspects, it would be a blast. There's only 2 small downsides. One is that some of the art (the FX, the texture, the main character), made it look a lot like Psychonauts... it's not bad, but I feel something more unique would serve the game even better. The other is that I'm not sure if a full-game could sustain the balance between gameplay ingredients that can provide depth and the genuine of the atmosphere that the Russian voice over and music bring.

Autonomous: there's a bunch of improvements to be done on the usability of the robot creator (consistency in what right click and E do would be nice) and readability of the automatons state, but this is one prototype that managed to create a very complex experience with very little elements. And it feels like the horizon of the game is huge. If the game remains that structureless though, I don't think I'll pour myself in it - I'm afraid of structureless game - but it's something I want to hear stories about. Sean Vanaman style.

Spacebase DF-9: This is an interesting one: I think it could have used a few more days to refocus the experience on the story aspect. As is, it feels like an ant farm: I can tell the ingredients to realize JP's vision are there, but the UI put so much emphasis on managing that there's very little space, time and incentive to focus on what's happening to your people. To that purpose, the info panel should probably be its own mouse-over thing and having a Flotilla-like up to date summary of event would be great. Detecting failure state would be nice too: I ended up with one male doctor and one male bartender, both lazy yet serving each other in a huge, cadaver ridden space station... I felt like I needed closure but none of them would die :/. There's also a few systems that remain a mystery to me - how do I get more matter? how can my population grow? why is my scientist ignoring the lab? - but that's OK! , it's a rad little toy that feels polished despite some clunkiness in the UI.I played one full hour of it without realizing it and that's a good sign. Also, the music is fantastic and the art worked surprisingly well.

Hack 'n Slash: This one is doing a split: on one hand, the reference and nostalgia made me cringe; but on the other, the prototype proved that hacking is a fun core mechanics and that puzzles shouldering it can be diverse and scale well in terms complexity. I'm not a fan of putting the save/restore paradigm as an in-universe concept; but the actual hacking of object properties is super gratifying. The bit that fell flat though is the art direction: Raz great style shows in the tree and rocks, but the base tiles and characters were really weak - the whole thing felt inconsistent and amateurish which is a shame. I also wonder if that kind of gameplay can host a story that is compelling and not exclusively self-referential. Also, the music is infuriatingly repetitive and distracting.

The White Birch: I was rooting for this one so hard but it came out as the only strong disappointment of the lot. It seemed to have been completely cannibalized by the animation direction: in contrast to the environment art and music, the animations are super showy and have a slapstick quality that lend the game into a half-assed tone that makes little sense to me. And since the animation drive most of the interaction, the game feels closer to Dragon's Lair than ICO, with hard arbitrary failure at many turns. It doesn't help that the controls, camera and animations systems are pretty clunky and that the overall experience is laden with bugs (savegames issues, inconsistency between visual and gameplay states of the puzzle, camera fuck up). Somehow, it feels like the project was derailed and forgot the atmosphere was important and not the gameplay bits.

It's sad because I'm sure that if they had focused on the sense of being in a place that makes you feel, like the project lead says, as if everything is at the brink of the girl's abilities then it would have been success.

[elmuerte]

So I've played all prototypes today.

Autonomous

Awesome experience, it took me a while to figure out how the head programming worked. I never messed around with the sliders, it didn't feel like it made a lot of difference in the prototype. Figuring out what all the different parts could do was nice. The controls to create/program the bots was quite clunky. The whole environment, sounds, special effects, etc. is awesome.

Spacebase DF9

First off all, the music is absolutely awesome. Building the base is fun, I've been messing with this game for hours, probably 50% of the time I spend playing AF games was spend on this game. A lot of the game logic is still unknown for me, there are probably a lot of bugs in the AI. But its fun to play none the less.

Hack 'n Slash

Quite a few game breaking bugs in this game. I got up to the point where I shouldn't have entered the princess's room, but I didn't at that time, and then I couldn't enter it anymore. So I had to replay it from the beginning, didn't feel like doing that. If the "hacking" that I did in the game is the final form of hacking, than I'm rather disappointed in the game. I did some hacking myself on the game files (was probably not supposed to do that).

White Birch

Played it for a bit, managed to get past the first "puzzle" despite its many bugs. When I failed at the second puzzle I was put back to the place before the first "puzzle". And that's where I gave up. This game really feels like a console game as the controls are almost impossible with mouse and keyboard.

Black Lake

It looks great, but that's about it. The part of the game I played was very boring and linear, no real exploring going on. And then I reached a point where I had to do something with music, but I couldn't figure out what. Nothing was happening, maybe a bug. Anyway, this game as me convinced the least.

So, from all the prototypes Autonomous is the most polished, and I spend most of my time messing around in Spacebase DF9. I would buy these games instantly, Hack 'n Slash probably not. White Birch, probably. Black Lake really needs to re-convince me.

Either way, it's absolutely amazing what all teams produced in just 2 weeks.

[TychoCelchuuu]

Autonomous

Pretty awesome! The robot building UI is frustrating, as any slightly complex UI is wont to be without much time to polish, but running around in TRON is fun and watching robots fight is fun. I love how going up on one of the observation platform things changes the music.

Spacebase DF9

I love the art and the music and it's fun to dick around. I won't really spend any more time with it because there's really no reason to play this instead of Dwarf Fortress or Startopia or Dungeon Keeper, but it shows massive promise and I'd totally be into it if it became an actual game.

Hack 'n Slash

Have not tried it yet.

White Birch

Couldn't figure out the bridge puzzle and I don't really enjoy platformers at all so that's it for me there. It's pretty to look at.

Black Lake

Wandering around playing my accordion is a lot of fun but after I got tired of the accordion I wasn't really sure why I'd want to bother finding the next clue (I lost the trail after the scent brought me to a river then disappeared). Mostly this makes me want to play a game where I get to play a busker with an accordion trying to earn money by playing the right songs for passersby or something.

[pabosher]

Whenever I try to download them on Steam it says they're not out yet. Anybody know why?

[ThunderPeel2001]

I haven't received ANY emails since my initial one that gave me access to vote :-/ Should I have been getting links to things?

[pabosher]

No, I don't believe you do. But if you go to the website and log in you'll get access to all the documentaries etc.

[Raethen]

ThunderPeel: Use the link from that first email and the Doc and the game downloads are on that page.

Speedy: The word from DF is that they are just waiting on Valve to flip the switch.

[Murdoc]

Watched the live stream and now only have had time to play Space Base....

Does anyone know how to make areas in the game, there's a certain logic I'm not getting and I remember either Chris or JP mentioned it during the stream, but I forgot... theres just something Im not getting in order to successfully make a new room. I also do love the music, not because Chris made it, because it's pretty rad.

Black Lake and White Birch both had strong pitches because they seemed to be art driven but the challenge in making them was adding an interesting game to it... Black Lake may have gotten close from the looks of it, but I'll need to try it out; they were pretty disappointing to watch mechanically and even given a 2 week deadline didn't seem to be doing anything interesting from an aesthetic point of view for me; I'm sure others liked it.

The two surprises were the concepts I didn't really dig, which was Hack and Slash and Autonomous; I really see how those could be cool games; though in regards to hack and slash, if they were to continue with it , I think they should completely kill the art and presentation of it and come up with something a little more interesting, but mechanically it was a totally different game then I was expecting and when the lead gave the controls over to someone who just wanted to futz with it, I can see the potential.

[Raethen]

To create new rooms in Space Base the area you are dragging out must overlap with your existing base.

After playing each prototype for a couple of hours each, I'm really impressed with all of them. I really enjoyed exploring the worlds of Autonomous and Black Lake and seeing both of those expand would be great. I especially loved the look of the end of Black Lake.

Space Base was everything I was hoping it would be. It works great to just chill, make a base, and listen to the awesome score.

I still haven't beat Hack n Slash, I got stuck on the deteriorating note puzzle, and I think I may have gone the wrong direction after the library. Playing around with all of the different settings on the enemies was great, especially when solving the second room with all of the octoroks. There is so much potential there.

White Birch was the only pitch of the 5 that I didn't vote for, but I ended up enjoying what was there quite a bit. The quality of animation astounded me, and in the full game, I hope it would be a focus. 3d platforming is probably one of the hardest thing to prototype in two weeks and have it feel right, so having it be heavily guided was a great choice to get across what they are shooting for.

By far the best thing to come out of this whole thing is the live stream and documentaries. Watching the streams everyday was extremely inspiring, and being able to see people actually modeling, animating, and laying out level was great and I learned quite a bit.

[Forbin]

Black Lake looked visually stunning for a game made in that amount of time, but the gameplay seemed lacking. I think it's a fair question to ask "how can we make this a full game" and the answer right now seems to be "we'll make it short". I really liked the idea of making it more Alice in Wonderland and having areas of the forest have their own stories branching out. I think it needs a classic game mechanic, I just don't know what that is. Maybe stealthyness or push-block puzzles, hopefully not combat. It just needs to be something more than running around an environment.

Autonomous delivered for me, but I feel like there's something missing with the goals. Mining isn't that interesting or understandable, and it seems very easy to get knocked off that path. Multiplayer was a good idea, you could definitely work in some LOMA mechanics. And while I liked the first person perspective, I kinda feel like the player's participation in the environment isn't 100% necessary. It might be more interesting to get an overview, and focus more on building bots from an isometric viewpoint. Also I don't get the minecraft vibe they're going for, the world is random but it feels like the environment is too prefabricated for that discovery aspect to kick. I guess it just loses open world characteristics by being in a maze.

[brkl]

I tried a couple of them and it reminded me why I don't play unfinished games. DF can figure out which ones they make and I'll play them when they're done.

I got chills from Chris's Spacebase music. One tune especially reminds me of the end credits of The Thing. I kind of zoned out and kept listening to it, although possibly because it was almost midnight and I had slept only four hours the previous night.

[elmuerte]

Chris's music for Spacebase is perfect, it can really blend into the background but still be present as music like this should.

[Forbin]

I've played a bit of spacebase, and I think it just needs more systems and gates to make it a full game. I haven't played a lot of games like dwarf fortress, but I find it's not that fun to sit and wait for the AI to do things I want them to do. I can't enjoy the idle banter and internal monologue of the NPCs when I have to jack it up to 8x to make progress. It's got a ton of potential, but it's one of those things that just requires a ton of components that a vertical slice or a prototype that isn't heavily scripted are hard to accomplish. I think it's amazing for 2 weeks, good job.

[Murdoc]

Yeah I figured out the room thing and played it for awhile. A great start and really accessible for a 2 week demo. I totally would play the full game of this, just right now, obviously, there isn't enough there to make it a full thing.

Sadly, I had a murderer on board that took the life of Bagel Garek, our only scientist. I never discovered how it was, and with the lack of law enforcement and corpse clean up, his death grin carcass served as a cold reminderer that we could all go at any second.

The killer took a second life... Chris Garek, which I can assume was a relation to Bagel. Someone on Space Base One did not like the Gareks. I built large corridors into space hoping to find something when all construction out there stopped, morale was so low (I'll assume they were too far from the facilities to know what to do) they froze in a corner and just complained about being hungry.

Anyway, the potential is there and I'm sure Jp and Chris know what they want out of it, so here's hoping they get to make it someday.

After playing I just left it on and had the music in the background, which says a lot, since I could have just fired up the soundtrack in a music player, hehehe.

[brkl]

I dunno, the soundtrack is in some weird format.

[Murdoc]

It's in mp3 and flac....

[brkl]

Okay. Where is it?

[Murdoc]

Check the link sent to you originally and it's up there for download.

[gregbrown]

You can download it in friendly format on the Humble Bundle page where you downloaded the games.

In Spacebase's case it's necessary due to the dynamic layering of the music, but the other games may include the data in mp3 format in the games themselves.

[pabosher]

Listening to the Spacebase music. Huh, that really is sweet isn't it?