In an effort to appear less secretive and more identifiable, we’ve recorded interviews with each of the members of The Rotting Cartridge, so that the public can put faces to the magic. The first interview focuses (by his request) on J, the founder of TRC and really the creative genius behind the whole thing:
Stay tuned for a final trailer and release date on our first game/port, Kale In Dinoland, coming in February.
We’re still working on Kale in Dinoland! There’s a part of me that doesn’t believe it will ever be complete but… that’s nonsense. Here’s a more recent screenshot of a later area in the game:
Kale’s sprite might still change at this point. Also if you noticed this game is a port of an old GameBoy game called “Kale in Dinoland”, but now that I’m looking at it I should explain that it does not perfectly emulate that experience because that would be boring. Nevertheless, I’ve tried to limit the design. Like some platformers of the day, Kale in Dinoland has doors that lead to single screen sub-levels containing a power-up or item.
Despite efforts to limit resources and pixel precision, there is undoubtedly a difference in screen real estate with the iPhone that heavily influences level design. For instance, a non-scrolling sub-level in the original is more square. In the iPhone version, I have from the top of the d-pad to the bottom of the health bar: in other words, super widescreen. So a lot of the levels focus on diagonal climbing (since looking for an enemy is the most optimal), almost none on downward progression, and the sub-levels reflect this extreme widescreen. I’ve had to cut some of the falling levels from the game.
The second difference, which I’ve tried to correct for the most part, is speed. In the screen above Kale is riding what I call a “Dog,” which can move horizontally pretty quickly. In GameBoy games, the character’s horizontal speed was capped much lower, so the limited level space could be maximized with enemies and obstacles. But I think the speed improvement will be welcomed by those that play it.
The last comparison is the save feature. Saving in the original Kale in Dinoland? Nonexistent. No save feature today? Almost nonexistent. So yes, Kale will have a save feature. But only as much as I believe GameBoy games would have saved — There are 6 areas in Kale in Dinoland, and after you finish one, your character returns to the world map and you are allowed to save. Meaning, manual saving. I’m still not sure (maybe it’ll be automatic?), but it will definitely only be after you beat an area.
In order to progress through Dinoland, you must beat an entire Area before you can save. Don’t worry, they aren’t that long. But they aren’t that short either. This also means individual levels aren’t selectable, because fitting multiple level select screens and a save feature for 50+ levels on top of a 6-area world map is not realistic to the GameBoy’s capacity.
At any rate, don’t take the ‘original GameBoy platformer’ out of proportion – it is heavily influenced by the original game, but I cannot deny that there are differences.
Here’s what the new (?) Nintendo console looks like:
And here’s the controller:
To me, it just seems like Nintendo stuffed everything they could possibly think of on that controller, and up-rezzed the Wii graphics to HD to bring the system up to date. I’m sort of surprised that Nintendo didn’t show any actual game footage demonstrating the usefulness of the Wii U, which makes me wonder: Does Nintendo even understand their new system yet?
This is part two of an x-part series summarizing the design of one of the greatest games of all time, SOTC. Part 1 can be found here.
Welcome back to Design Theatre! Today, we’ll take a look at how Shadow of the Colossus (SOTC) was designed in its first major sections of gameplay.
There are sixteen bosses in Shadow of the Colossus, each with a unique twist on the “stab its vitals” formula. The first boss, a giant wandering colossus with a club, is by far the easiest, only requiring the player to climb up its leg and stab its head to defeat it. However, at this early point in the game, the player doesn’t yet know they have to do this, and since the player has likely never faced something this large in a game before, they panic. The battle serves as a tutorial, teaching the player the fundamentals of how to defeat a colossus, without giving them all the answers. For example, it is hard to imagine that the latter bosses of the game require the player to utilize their environment in creative ways to defeat them, yet the goal – climb the colossus and stab it with your sword – remains the same. From this section we learn:
Today’s song of the day is by Emery, a band that I would imagine most of you don’t recognize, and personally, I think that’s a shame. After being told to give them a listen by a close friend, I’ve been a fan ever since. They just released a new album at the end of March 2011 titled We Do What We Want. Here we have another case of a band slightly changing its style with its new album. On first listening, I wasn’t thrilled. However, my second time through the tracks, I knew it had grown on me substantially. The band used to focus on vocal harmonies, but recently, they’ve started going a little bit harder and more screaming. While “I’m Not Here for Rage, I’m Here for Revenge” does showcase some screaming, I assure you it is not that much. Please do yourself a favor here: even if you hate screaming and everything about it, give this entire song a listen. After the first 30 seconds or so, the screaming cuts out almost entirely. After that, you get to enjoy the beautiful lyrics that Emery is known for. This song discusses a common subject, a love relationship. However, this is not your typical Taylor Swift romance. Go ahead and read the lyrics on the video while you listen (note, the intro is off a little, but fixes itself fast). The most obvious difference is this song is from the man’s point of view. You don’t usually hear about the man being upset about a broken relationship, but this song proves that it isn’t unheard of. All in all, I would say the last minute of the song is my absolute favorite, not just of the song, not just of the album, but of everything Emery has done with the exception of “Dear Death Part 1 and 2” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ch5HiK5vSTI). It’s slow paced and perfect in every way. If you like the song, definitely check out some more stuff by Emery, it’s well worth your time. It’s not a bad idea to listen to the rest of We Do What We Want, but you may be better off starting with I’m Only a Man, as well as, In Shallow Seas We Sail. Those are my favorites by Emery, and I think most of their fans agree that they are the superior albums. I can’t stress how underrated this band is. Go listen to some Emery, and tell your friends to do the same! After all, that’s how I learned about this talented group.
There’s plenty of great games that, for one reason or another, passed me by during the course of my existence. Shadow of the Colossus? One of those games. And now since SOTC comes up in almost every discussion on “video games as art” or as film or as an example of good design, I’m pressed to sit down and finally play it.
First of all, if you haven’t played it yet, WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR GET A COPY AND A PS2 AND PLAY IT ALREADY!! ^__^ No, seriously. You’re missing out. Now then..
Shadow of the Colossus starts with a very long cutscene that plays like a film, despite its graphical rust. We see a man on a horse climbing a precarious ledge, and then follow him to a huge bridge over a canyon. This opens up a few questions: Who is this man (boy?) on the horse, where is he going, and most importantly, where did he come from? As far as I’ve played, not all of these questions are answered, though we do learn where he is going. This leads to the first lesson of Design Theatre:
In case you’re designing a game with its own story and world, take a lesson from SOTC and open with questions, easing the player into their place in the world, while simultaneously immersing them in it. Half-life 1 and 2 do this: the player starts on a tram car, with someone talking, and while this dialogue alludes to events in the game world, it opens up many more questions than it answers. The original Halo also does this, with Captain Keyes and the AI Cortana exchanging dialogue without speaking to the player directly. In fact, even Braid does this, opening with the protagonist silhouetted against a burning city: why is it burning? Where am I? The answer to Braid’s question is answered at the end of the game, which nicely transitions back to the burning city after the epilogue, concluding the narrative and making the game seem complete.
Going back to SOTC, the opening cutscene then fades out perfectly into the title screen – it does not upset the mood of the game by fading to a black screen with a spinning logo, as was – and sadly still is – a cliche of console and pc games. Portal 2’s story was fantastic, but the proliferation of loading screens was downright ridiculous. When designing a game with loading screens, please don’t upset the carefully-crafted mood of the game each time a load screen pops up, or the bulk of the game’s content will be lost in the moments after the load screen as the player tries to recollect their composure. So I’m making this the second lesson of Design Theatre:
This is an oft-overlooked lesson. Say what you will about Apple, but if they ever made a game, be sure that minimal load screens would be a top priority. Why? Because Apple cares not just the product, but the presentation of the product, and treats both equally. For those who played the original Mass Effect, the infamous elevator scenes – where the player had to ride extremely slow elevators that masked level loads – are NOT what I mean when I say “hide” a load screen, since some players knew they were waiting for a level to load. SOTC hides its loading from the player extremely effectively, as there are little to no load screens during the course of the game. (You might have not noticed the game loaded anything at all!)
When our hero finally steps off his horse, we see him carry a girl (who looks his age) to what is presumably an altar, and sets her there. What is interesting about this scene is that you may not have noticed the girl at all until this moment, which serves to renew interest in the story after a quite lengthy opening sequence. It is implied through an anonymous talking mask that she is dead, and our hero has ventured into the land of the colossi, (that was apparently so dangerous a giant bridge was built over it) apparent immortals whose physical incarnations can only be killed by a mortal with an ancient sword, which our hero conveniently yields. Here, our questions start to be answered, but more questions are raised.
The scene is actually a cleverly-disguised tutorial section, which explains to the player the goal of the game (kill all 16 colossi to bring a dead girl back to life), foreshadows the shadow spirit’s role in the story, provides narrative incentive to play the game (“But read this, the price you pay may be heavy indeed.” What price? Death?), and tells the player that the sword is important to gameplay (“Raise thy sword by the light”). This leads to the third rule of design theatre, which is relevant to story-based games:
For example, the opening cutscene shows the player that they are alone with their horse, who enables them to travel long distances together – exactly what the horse is used for during the course of the game. The idols need to be destroyed — the colossi need to be destroyed. The sword allows our hero to hold some power — only the sword can kill the colossi.
Once the player moves on to the first area, we must leave Agro (the horse) behind, and climb our first wall. When I first got to this section my friend and I couldn’t figure out where to climb up, but once we discovered that the moss can be climbed, every other climbing area was relatively easy. What we didn’t know at this point was that the visual distinction of climbable surfaces (furry materials) shows the player how to defeat the first colossi, without telling them directly: climb up the fur on his feet. Notice that the designers could have shown us the first colossi and then told us during the course of battle that “fur can be climbed,” or even show us (by panning the camera or something), but instead make us show ourselves before the first battle even begins. This is our fourth lesson:
The ability to let the player show themselves how or why something is separates games from film and books. It seems natural that the progression of entertainment goes something like so:
The Rotting Cartridge 