Game developing status---week 3

Our game design document is almost finished. Since there are only 2 of us, team meeting is very simple. We are moving onto starting on the game engine.

[current status---start story outline]

Beatmania IIDX---week 3

Primary Gameplay Mode + Core mechanic

IIDX is a music simulation game that is both very simple and very hard at the same time. The game interface is mimicking DJ turntable and a set of keyboard. There will be notes dropping from top of the screen as music plays, and players must press the key when the notes reach the red line or they get a poor.
IIDX provide players several play modes for mean of challenge or sometimes assistance.
--Auto-key
--Random/Mirror
--Hidden/Sudden
--Hard/Easy
--Speed up/down
On top of these modes, players are able to choose to play songs in Normal/Hyper/Another, where difficulty can jump 2 folds.

Not much twist or manipulation in this game. But IIDX offers training exercise on both finger dexterity and mind reflex, which dynamic elements are placed.

Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism---week 3

Primary Gameplay Mode

In the game menu, right after the title screen, players are offered with 3 different starts alone with 5 other options---game start, extra start, and practice start. “Game start” is where players choose difficulties and go through the main storyline. “Extra start” is the after story of the main storyline and has to be unlocked by players clear normal difficulty without continue. “Practice start” allow players to practice in any level they have gone to so far. In any of these modes, players get to play as the avatar of either Hakurei Reimu or Kirisame Marisa. Through a simple controlling method, players must dodge bullets and live until the end of the storyline.

Core mechanic
Fundamentally, the game mechanic is the same as other shoot-em-up game around the market, simple and easy---dodge the bullet and destroy the enemies. What provided the challenge is the difficulty that is built within the upcoming screen of bullet. Players must be able to read the pattern of the attack, see though the gap and make precise movement.

Game developing status---week 2

In the lab, each of us presented our game idea. We were supposed to vote for the top 3 game ideas in the class and form teams for the games. But Me and Ken have decided to form our own team to make the game we had in mind even before the class start.

Current status: team formed

[writing game plan....]

Beatmania IIDX---week 2

This game is much different from Touhou series. The developer is Bemani, a child company of Konami. This is a music game, so the music composing plays a big part in this game. The game features a wide selection of genres and artists, both licensed and in-house. The musicians are mainly from Japan, but some of them could be from all over the world.

Other than licensed music tracks, which mainly from Toshiba EMI and Avex Trax, Konami employs a list of in-house artists to produce the music for its Bemani series. These artists often go by pseudonyms when credited with their songs. Some Bemani employees have broken off and become independent artists.

The art work is one of the major selling points in IIDX. In this game, songs include music videos when played, although only some songs contain dedicated videos. But it is those dedicated videos that attracted me. Goli, Maya, and VJ GYO are currently famously known Illustrator/Animator.

Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism---week 2

So who published this game? As in my previous blog, Zun did everything---programming, art work, character design, and level design, etc. So he, too, must have a way to sell this game.

In Japan, it is not unusual that people having anime related convention twice or 3 times a year. Through these conventions, individuals or groups all over Japan are able sell their art work, music, and games; Zun is one of those people. Remember, these individuals/groups rarely go through publisher; therefore their works were never commercialized.

So if those activities were only held in Japan, how do people not in Japan know their work/this particular game? Forums, youtube, or google are their ways publish not by themselves, but by us.

We, the player, for them are their play tester and publisher. Internet is the resource that is more powerful than TV. People would play the game, even trial version, and put the video onto youtube or forum for people to discuss or even debug.

Beatmania IIDX

What is this game?

This is a series of DJ simulation music game released by Konami. They released the 1st game back in 1999. I started to dig into this game around early 2002.

and yes, this is another "OMG, WTF" game when it comes to hard difficulty.
"IIDX 16 Empress" is the latest installment of the IIDX series. Even though the series have 16 games already, the main game mechanic never changed.

Mechanic and Dynamic:

The game is rather quite simple: Player starts with 20% of the gauge at the beginning of the song. As the music plays along, notes will come down from top of the screen. Player will press the corresponding keys on the controller when notes reach the red line. The more accurate the timing is, the faster the gauge charges up. Player must keep the gauge stay more than or equal to 80% in order to pass the song.

Sounds simple enough; but it's the number of the notes that makes the song hard.

Starting from "IIDX 12 Happy Sky", the game difficulty scale extended from maximum level 8 to 12.

Again, words are useless when it comes to describing a dynamic-heavy game. This is the video of a level 9 song:

"Votum Stellarum"

If I only use 1 song saying that every other level 9 songs are somehow similar, it would be kinda unfair for other song genre such as techno, drum&bass, or dance pop.

"Tizona d'El Cid"

I rate myself level 8 going to level 9. I may be really good for the people who never played this game. But IIDX and all other music game is all about challenge; and there is no guide or anything like that. Even if the challenging part is way too hard, people still get to enjoy the music.

Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism

What is this game?

This game is the 11th installment of Touhou shooting game series released by Zun.

What is Touhou?

Touhou is the Japanese pronunciation of Eastern or Oriental, but people usually refer this series as Touhou project or simply Touhou. In this series of blog, I will use Touhou 11 for an easier reference.

In Touhou 11, we start with 2 major characters---Hakurei Reimu and Kirisame Marisa to solve the problems of the Gensokyo (meaning "imaginary world") through the battle of "danmaku" (In Japanese, Dan means "Bullet", and Maku means "Veil". Two words together, and we have "Veils of Bullet").

Characters and Mechanics:

Once we choose which character to play with, we choose 1 out of 3 partner to go with our heorines. They each support you with different attack weapons and abilities. For example, one of Hakurei Reimu's partner, Yukari's support weapon is needles, which give us forward concentrated fire. Yukari's support ability allow players to shift positions instantly from 1 side of the wall to another.

The main goals for this game is just the same as the other shooting games: finish the game, don't die, and see the best ending.The game comes in 4 difficulties, Easy, Normal, Hard, and Lunatic. Once finishing Normal without continues, you can unlock the Extra Mode.

For each enemy you defeat will drop items for point and/or power up. They are the source of you fire power and your bomb. The bomb mechanic makes you temporary invincible and save your life. But different from other Touhou installment, same character with different support partner comes with different bomb effects.

Dynamics:

I like all the installment in Touhou series and other shooting game; they are super dynamic heavy. I think it's impossible to describe the difficulty with word on any shooting game. Video replay will tell people everything.

video

Now, the video is doing Lunatic. You may think "OMG WTF" just by looking at it. But deep inside the game, people can see patterns. Touhou is all about read the patterns and conquer that pattern. Same as other shoot-em-up, people will try to get point as much as they can. e.g. the video above.

Aesthetic:

What attracted me to Touhou series is not just heavy amount of bullet on the screen. Zun composed all the music, designed all the characters and programed all the game mechanics all by himself.

IAT 410 blog #000

Mex here, starting from this blog, I will be writing critiques on 2 of the games that I like for Iat 410.


My chosen games are

Touhou 11: Subterranean Animism
Beatmania IIDX