Retro-Pixel Castles: Game Review

An interesting game I got on Steam awhile back ago and still find my self occasionally interested in. Despite the generic name the designer is making a game not quite like most games that I would consider it similar to.

It is fairly simple in some ways, you basically command a group of settlers to work and build a settlement while also worrying about food, resources and eventual attacks from monsters such as zombies and skeletons.

But unlike most settlement games this one allows you to use your godly powers to scoop up settlers and/or resources and take them to another part of a much larger map. I find this makes the game more immersive as each settler provides you with power and the fruits of his work as well as gaining levels and think skill types are being added to the game.

So I could take my people from map to map building new homes and having new children and defending from enemies until the monsters became overwhelming and then scoop up as many of people as I could and head out to new land with my higher level settlers doing better each time.

The only snag I really hit was that eventually my settlement got too big for my computer to handle and everything slowed way down. However the designer is still hard at work improving the games features and performance. I recently spoke with him over steam and it seams he has plans to remove some of the load off the CPU to the GPU by something something particle physics. That sounds nice.

But no really this is a fun game and the designer seams capable and personable. It's currently 10 dollars on steam, I don't remember if I got it on sale or not but I have played it for 16 hours and could easily see me putting in another 16.

Also there isn't really castles just fun to build walls around your various settlement buildns. It would be more aptly described as Non-Retro Pixel Rouge-Lite Settlement Sim. just sayin.


Graphics: Can't comment as they were changed in the update right after I took a break from playing.

Sound: Seemed fine to me enjoyable catchy music and no issues.

Gameplay: Great, this what I'll will be going back for someday.

Performances: I'd say 4/5 stars here I have heard of mostly only minor issues other the cpu heavy performance which the designer is aware of and working on. (Early Access and all)

Over All Score: 16 hours of fun for 10 bucks or less easily and will likely put in another 16 or more. So although it may not be the next CK2 or Terraria for me it has lots of potential and I think it could teach some other designers about innovation and game play.

Final Decision: Buy it. Hell if you got the money don't even wait for a sale just go ahead and support the developer and maybe ask him to start plans on one day making a sequel.

Link to it's website.

Patreon

I created an account on Patreon and best of all I already got my first patron.

This helps to support my creative works such as this plog, rpg posts, game design ect. And also to help me support BIG (Basic Income Guarantee). Since this is a gaming blog I probably won't talk alot about that here but I plan to do whatever I can to Support that.

So check out my profile here and if you like my work or want to help out then consider becoming a patron. Thanks :)

Review of Project D. An 11 year old plays retro games.

This post is another one I wrote for my school.

Do you think Dylan’s dislike for Contra was because of it being a challenging game or flawed design?

Was the difference in technical attributes (i.e. graphics, sound, controller) a significant detractor from Dylan’s fun experience with the games?



Dylan clearly showed through out the series that he could have fun despite older graphics and sounds. He not only enjoyed some of the games but showed an interest in playing them more and nearly beat at least one of them. He also plays games like halo either alone or with a friend but not online, so it is likely he would feel fine playing on an older system that doesn't not have the ability to go online or play DVDs.

However he did not like Contra at all and felt no desire to get better at the game. This shows a flaw in design, a lack of reward for effort. I had a similar experience playing the same game and grew up in the era that game came out.

In the article “6 Steps to Play with the Players Mind.” It speaks about not only giving player feed back and rewards but also lots of rewards. “You don’t punish faults, but reward every little effort with small rewards, but instant ones” (Attianesi, 2011).

In Contra there seams to instead be almost no reward at all. Killing enemies gets you nothing except the ability to go further. You are not even rewarded with additional story line only more levels to go through. The only feedback is when you die from getting hit once, thus the only way to know you are doing well is by not dying. Contra has a following of fans but it is not a game that encourages new players to care anything about it.





Citation

Attianesi, T. (2011, December 17). 6 steps to play with player's mind. Retrieved from http://www.scirra.com/tutorials/188/6-steps-to-play-with-players-mind/page-1

The Original Engineers and Innovators of Video Games

This is another post that was originally a school assignment.

Nolan Bushnell

The video game industry was made possible by engineers and innovators but was also brought about by skilled businessmen and a combination of marketing and peoples natural desire for entertainment. Ralph Baer the creator of the first computer games was one of these engineers. He led a team of five hundred people at Sanders Associates, a defense contractor. Nolan Bushnell was obsessed with innovation and making his business succeed. Each of them were pioneers in video game design despite their differences.

Nolan Bushnell learned the importance of innovation and capturing peoples attention early on. He always had a need for fun growing up. After losing tuition money in a poker game he worked at an amusement park called Lagoon and the key to his job was getting people to play. Although some of his first games were borrowed ideas he quickly decided that the only way to stay ahead of the curve was constant innovation. He was the co-founder of Atari and the first designer of the Arcade Game.

Ralph Baer was different then Nolan in that he was a no nonsense kind of guy. Strict and interested in engineering he needed others to help make his creations have entertainment value. While at Sanders he put two people on a project making games for use on a television. One of them was Bill Rusch who helped with the entertainment aspect of the project.

Although there were other pioneers in the game design field such as William A. Higinbotham who designed “designed Tennis for Two as entertainment for visitors' days at the Brookhaven National Laboratory power plant” (Time Trip) It was Baer who was successful in creating electronic games before any others and it was Nolan who turned them into a billion dollar industry.

TIME TRIP. (2009). Current Events, 109(4), 5.

Logic and Sets in video games.

     I wrote this for an assignment and decided I would post this on my blog. I might start doing it more frequently. It was a discussion post where I need to write about the following;

• Choose a particular computer program (a mobline app works as well) or game which math plays an important role and provide an analysis. Give a description of which type of mathematics is used, and why it is important component of the software or game. 
• Identify and explain the use of either Logic or Sets applied in your area of interest (games or mobile apps). Some examples are provided below if you are unable to think of any examples. (Make sure you review this week's lesson before attemting this part of the discussion) 

     In The Legend of Zelda: Link to the Past if you die but have caught a fairy in a bottle and had it on you at the time of death, then the fairy will resurrect you. So it is likely the logic works something like this; If your health equals zero and you have a fairy in a bottle then you stay alive but heal up, or else you die.

     A way I might write that in a scripting language is { if (health < 1 & fairy > 0) then health += 50; (if health < 1 & fairy <1) then end game; }. In Finite Math the logic would look something like this; ¬h ^ f meaning if health is not true and fairy is true. To test if both are false I think this could work ¬(h ^ f).

     As for sets it is likely that Equipment is a set of which Weapons is a subset and Swords is a subset of 

Weapons. So if I wanted to make a database and then look for all Weapons that are NOT swords, such as 

bows and boomerangs then in Finite Math it would look like this; 1x = W - S meaning list every step of x 

where x is the W set minus anything in the S set. I’m not quite sure if in this context Equipment would count 

as a universal set. I think everything from Equipment to Monsters would be different sets in the Universal 

game set.

     The reason these are important aspects of the game is because without this logic programmed into the game simply wouldn't function. I think every interactive game there is requires variables and if statements. It is possible to program a game without database logic or sets but really that is bad programming and limits the functionality of the game. Also people will naturally sort things into sets in their head so any tools that help you play the game will organize things into sets. People use this logic just as much as machines do but on a more intuitive level.

     Many games also use databases or sets to allow the addition of new items or enemies and such into the game. This helps the programming team as well as modders. For example a weapon might use an array defining it’s graphic, power, cost, size ect. as well as be contained within a Class or Type called Weapon which really is just a set.

     A note on grammar, I intentional capitalized any word I was speaking of as a set such as Equipment. Although a piece of equipment is not a title I treated the word Equipment as a title of a set if I capitalized it. It was not a typo.

Tekpersona website is complete, and my current status.

Last Time I blogged it was about J.C.Kendall's website Tekpersona. At the time some of the links were not yet set up as the site was under re-development. Now the site is finished with more articles (in the articles and docs section) coming soon.

In case you didn't read my last post Tekpersona is a company with many years experience in social media and web presence advertising.

As for me, I haven't been blogging much lately as first I was distracted playing minecraft and running a multiplayer server. It was alot of fun but alas has died down and now there is little activity on the server, maybe we just need some new players. I then spent awhile trying League of Legends. Which I enjoyed more then I thought I would considering how much I don't like pvp typically and that is what League of Legends is all about.

However its one of those supposedly free to play games that I just can't stand. Basically it's free but if you want more then just whatever champions are currently free to play, that costs money (although some can be unlocked just by playing alot) All the skins cost money anything you can buy in game can also be bought with money.

I just can't play a game that constantly wants my money.

Also I am going to be moving soon, we have a house in mind and are likely to get it, and also got on housing which is going to be a pain dealing with all the paper work, but could pay about 30 % of my rent or something. It's a nice house though, in a sub urban area very middle class which is way more then I am use to.

So I haven't been working on any of my game design projects at all. I'm not even sure how I intend to move forward on them. I might just start from scratch using game maker. I found an old copy of game maker 7 on my computer so maybe I wont have to deal with yoyo games bull crap this time. Yay, lol.

Keep Your Eye on BRW Games!

With the Release of Darker Paths 1 and all three Adventures Dark and Deep books available for playtesting, I can't help but be excited to see what else Joseph will make.

 The second most anticipated book, for me, for any RPG is Joseph's Adventures Great and Glorious.,The first being Adventurer Conquer King by Autarch. Mostly for the different tiers/types of play. Colonies, domains, war, generations. I think it will likely be compatible in some degree with ADD as well.

Keep an eye on BRW Games this month though, there could be another product release before you know it.

Games and what they are simulating

I think that one of the major factors of the various editions of D&D and what they mean too me are largely effected by what they seam too simulate. I would say that the older the edition the closer it was too simulating playing soldiers in some way. You played a man-at-arms who raided a dungeon.

Lots of flavor was put towards things like taxes and wasting money so that you would need to raid someone too get more money. Which also gave you xp or power. Then each edition after that it went from this low fantasy feel closer and closer too a high fantasy feel.

By 3.5 there seams too be indications that high level people are rather abundant and whole economies could be based off of wishes. This seams too be in contrast too some of its world simulation tools I have used when playing 3.5 Such as rolling up cities and being able too make money in town using profession and crafting.

4th edition of course went into a totally different direction.

All of these are called RPG's but too me each one hasn't entirely emphasized Role playing at all. The rules reflect mostly combat but then say you can role-play. I also feel that skill systems like in 3.5, rune quest and even rifts can take away from roleplaying as you have a mechanical way too deal with the character.

I can't wait too play The Secret Fire and see if it really makes me feel like its a role playing game and not a simulation of battle or fantasy magic.

((Note: I have used all editions and successfully role played, but I have also played all editions on a completely hack and slash level))