Scrapland

[Chris]

Everybody dance!

[Erkki]

[Marek]

If I had to compare Scrapland to any game, it would be Beyond Good & Evil, the charming and undersold action-adventure game Ubisoft published last fall. Scrapland has the endearing characterization and animation, quality voice acting, vibrant colors, and sense of, well, adventure.

Please God, yes! Let Idle Thumbs have a new patron saint.

[Jaero]

To be sure, I agree with Jason Rubin about game designers needing to get more recognition, and that includes putting their names on the box. But I'd have FAR less of a complaint if they did not try to put American McGee's name on the freaking Start menu folder. I see his name several times just trying to navigate my way through the game, thanks. Worst case of cheap, blatant promotionism in a game I've seen yet. I feel like his name is being used to create an aura for unsuspecting consumers that the game is indeed designed by a game design god. I don't like that, as its unfair to consumers and mars the practice.

Hideo Kojima manages to do it quite a bit more tastefully.

Well said. What's interesting to me is that American McGee really isn't any Sid Meier. If I may paste a bit about Sid Meier from his company's website, and a nice little snipit from Gamasutra's Designer's Notebook column (by Ernest W. Adams) about Game Designers in regard to this topic:

The legendary Sid Meier, FIRAXIS Director of Creative Development, is known around the world as "The Father of Computer Gaming." In 1999, Sid was the second person ever inducted into the Academy of Interactive Arts and Science's Hall of Fame, and in 2002, he was honored with an induction into the Computer Museum of America's Hall of Fame. Sid and his games have been recognized with virtually every major award in the gaming industry.

Just a glance at his career reveals a series of "firsts." In 1982, Sid co-founded MicroProse Software and created one of the very first combat flight simulators, F-15 Strike Eagle, a title that sold well over one million units worldwide. He continued to create thought-provoking, innovative titles such as Silent Service, a submarine simulation and the breakthrough Pirates!, a unique blend of historical simulation, arcade action, strategy, and role-playing. By introducing strategy into flight simulation with F-19 Stealth Fighter, he created one of the most popular flight sims ever.

"Sid is arguably the most respected game designer in the world..."

- Next Generation

With addictive strategy games like Sid Meier's Railroad Tycoon and Civilization®, Sid ushered a new genre of "God Games" into computer gaming. Civilization, one of the best known series in the industry (with worldwide sales of over 5 million units), was recently honored as the number one best game of all-time by Computer Gaming World magazine. These hallmark games are still revered as the greatest computer games ever made, firmly planting computer gaming on the map forever.

There's No Such Thing As A Game Designer

OK, that's an overstatement. But with one or two extremely rare exceptions, there's no such thing as a full-time game designer. Trip Hawkins, the founder of Electronic Arts and 3DO, used to say that there would never be a job titled "game designer" as his company, because everyone on the project contributed to the design of a game, and it was unfair to give one person all the credit (or the most enjoyable work).

There's another, more practical reason for this. The initial design of a game normally takes from one to three months, depending on its size and complexity. During the rest of the production cycle there are always more design decisions to be made, but not enough to devote one person to it full time. Usually the game's designer starts doing other administrative or production work once development gets under way. A company can't afford to have a person on the payroll who does nothing but design all year round.

The rare exception is someone like Sid Meier, who's so famous as a designer that he gets his name on the front of the box. But Sid has been around a long time, his games are phenomenally successful, and he has more than paid his dues. Don't think you're going to get an entry-level position in the industry as a game designer. Unless you start your own company - and can afford to pay yourself to do nothing but design - it's just not going to happen.

American McGee is one of the chief architects of the astonishing and constantly evolving new frontier of interactive entertainment. American's most recent release, "American McGee's Alice", a dark, gothic version of the Lewis Carroll tales (Alice in Wonderland & Through the Looking Glass) was released by Electronic Arts in December ë00 and was the hottest selling PC game through the lucrative Christmas season.

American began his career in the interactive industry over a decade ago when he was hired by industry giant, id Software. American worked across a multitude of disciplines including design, programming, music management, sound design, and art. During the four years that American worked for id he helped to mold the 1st/3rd person shooter genre as it is known today. He made contributions to a variety of enormously popular titles including: "Doom," "Doom II," "Final Doom," "Ultimate Doom," "Quake", "Quake II,", and "Quake II Deathmatch Pack.", and more. American became known for designing some of the most innovative, intricate, and vividly detailed levels in the 1st person genre.

In 1998, McGee realized that it was time for a change, and by mutual agreement he left id. At that time, McGee was offered a position at Electronic Arts in its Maxis division, where the popular Sims ("Sim City") games are created. While at EA's Maxis division, McGee consulted on a variety of games including the Sims before he was wooed across the San Francisco Bay to the company's headquarters in Redwood City to develop "American McGee's Alice". While in Redwood Shores McGee served as Creative Director of the studio while consulted on a number of major PC and console titles. After completing the Alice project McGee took a short sabbatical before leaving Electronic Arts and the Bay Area.

American currently resides in Los Angeles, and prior to founding TMIEC was the creative director/founder of Carbon6, Inc. His current interactive projects include "American McGee's Oz" as well as several other unannounced titles. In his spare time he works as a music video/TV commercial director with Radical Media.

Now then, I don't know if a case can be made for American McGee tooting his own horn by putting his name on his recent works. The last snippit from his site lists most every title id Software has ever put out, but says he's "contributed" to them. Somehow that doesn't convince me that he's right up there with Sid Meier. Even Ernest Adams, a candidate I find much more worthy of the boast of putting one's name on a game, does not put his name on his titles.

But it's late again, and I suppose I've nothing better to do but pick on designers that I wouldn't measure up to in ten years, and only wish I could be...

[Kolzig]

Aaaaaaaand it's gone gold!

Woohooo!!!

[Jaero]

D'oh! Forgot my woot.

WOOT!

[Kolzig]

Has anyone bought Scrapland yet?

I'm going to order it from dvdboxoffice.com next monday, it's unbelievably cheap there! 29 euros!

[Kolzig]

Last Word

Scrapland turned out to be a wonderful extension of American McGee’s awesome vision, bringing a unique type of game to the market.

http://articles.filefront.com/Scrapland_Review/;222;2;;/article.html

[Lethal Larry]

The game's got many, many nearly-impossible challenges. I had to redo one race over 200 times, and that was on the easy skill level. The controls are sloppy, and so are the flight dynamics. It's often extremely aggrivating.

That aside, I think I like it. I don't think I'd play it again, though.... I wanted to, but after that 200-failure race, I'll never do that again, unless they fix it.

[Lethal Larry]

"Aaaaaaaand it's gone gold!"

....how can a game 'go gold' before it's even on the shelves???

[Chris]

"Aaaaaaaand it's gone gold!"

....how can a game 'go gold' before it's even on the shelves???

A game has to go gold before it's on the shelves. "Going gold" means that a game is finished and has been pressed onto its final gold master. They don't actually use gold masters in the games industry, but the expression stuck.

[MrHoatzin]

"Aaaaaaaand it's gone gold!"

....how can a game 'go gold' before it's even on the shelves???

You're joking, right? Gone gold means they made the gold master from which to mass-produce the disks...

EDIT: What Cremo said.

[vimes]

I've played the demo for a while now - yeah, I suck at games, it takes me ages to finish one and sometimes even demo seems endless to me- and I don't know what to think.

On one hand, the design is really awesome and most of the background ideas - the reborn and 'incarnation' systems- are great; however, in the demo, the game is incredibily slow as soon as you get inside and several chracters are involved and maniability is...akward : the mouse+keyboard comobo is fine during the 3rd-person sequences but it is a real pain in the ass for the chases or race aboard the ships.

How does it look like in hte final game ?

...and the french voice actors suck. Hard. All of them.

[Lethal Larry]

I thought 'gone gold' referred to something like in the record industry, where an album might go solver, gold, or platinum, based upon the amount of sales thus far....

How odd.

You guys use these things much???

[baconian]

I thought 'gone gold' referred to something like in the record industry, where an album might go solver, gold, or platinum, based upon the amount of sales thus far....

yeah, well you were WRONG!

[Lethal Larry]

Thanks. That's wonderfully informative.

[MrChlorophyll]

You guys use these things much???

Oh, you have no idea.

[Lethal Larry]

Stein's pretty obvious, and Mr. T, as wonderfully cool and hip as he is, is quite obvious, too..... but who's the jaundiced woman?

[Lethal Larry]

:ratched:

Just for effect, mind you.

[MrHoatzin]

That is Nurse Ratched.

Medication time, Randal.

[Lethal Larry]

Oh.

Now it allllll makes sense.

[Kolzig]

Is ign an european site?

Because Scrapland is featured in their innovative original IP games of 2005 article. And they say that Scrapland is coming out in february, and that's teh european release date.

In US the game came out last autumn...

[Lethal Larry]

It only came out here in canada within the last couple of weeks.

What surprises me is that for a game that's apparently been out for three months, there certainly isn't much of a gaming community about it yet.... in fact, the few forums I've found for the game are almost devoid of people who've played it.

I appear to be the first person to get to the nigh-impossible race near the end.

Yay.

[Kolzig]

I bought it from a canadian webshop about two months ago.

I just haven't had time to play it that much yet...

[Lethal Larry]

I got mine at London Drugs. The sticker price was $39.99, they only charged me $22.95 the first time I bought it. The second time it was $28.99.

Don't ask why I bought it twice. Suffice it to say that there was a small sledge hammer involved in the incident.