Wow, the 21st century isn’t exactly all hovercars and fembots, now is it? A thousand people dead here, fifty thousand people dead there, hurricanes, insane fuel costs, everyone trying to scare you into thinking the human race is about to be wiped out by chickens (has anyone else noticed how the media is using the same fear effects as pre-Y2K…which of course, turned out to be a whole lot of nothing, too).

Ah, but we’re gamers, and thankfully we can escape from the violent real world, into an escapist world full of umm, violence. Hmm, sorta strange when you think about it. Makes me wonder about my buddy Jeff, who is right now over in Iraq. I remember playing Halo 2 co-op with him and he was telling me that he saw that they have consoles over in Iraq and was wondering if he was going to be able to get his Xbox over. Now that he’s been over there for a few months I have to wonder if he still feels like playing first person shooters?

That’s a thought. How surreal would it be to come back from war and go to some LAN event and see a bunch of DoOdZ playing Counterstrike, or Day of Defeat, or Battlefield 2? Or to read some article about the perfect CQB tactics, written by some pasty game site editor whose anime DVD collection outnumbers the number of dates he had (“More dice than dates” is a classic shirt by the way, Jim, and so yes, I am rip—paying homage to it)in his life?

Obviously I can’t answer that, and I guess I won’t know until he returns from his tour next year. I’d be curious though if anyone reading this and is in the same situation (just returned, or perhaps still in combat duty) could remark on it. Do military first person shooters provide you with any entertainment post-combat, or do you see them as totally silly now?

Speaking of military first person shooters I was looking at some screenies of the upcoming Ghost Recon 2 game and you know what folks? I’m really getting sick and tired of the direction most mainstream games are taking. Here’s a few things about mainstream gaming that are really making my blood boil…

1. Games look like they’re a Penthouse photo spread from 1979.

What the heck is up with all the soft-focus and haze in games now? Why is it that as games try to look more and more realistic, they keep trying to make them look totally bogus? I don’t know about you, but when I’m walking down the street and everything is hazy I know that either (a) it’s time to clean my glasses or (b) eating strange mushrooms really isn’t a good idea. Stop with the freaking soft focus!!

2. Everything shines. Even non-reflective surfaces.

In one of the screenshots there is a tire with sunlight glaring off of it. I’m sorry, but I have never in my life seen a tire act like a mirror before. But today’s games call for lots and lots of specular (I think that’s the term…if not, ya know what I mean) graphics. Everything, and I mean everything, has got to reflect in a modern game. Why? Because you can? What other freaking reason is there? Just like #1, this is a stupid, stupid, graphical effect that needs to go the way of lens flares. Remember when it seemed like every single game featured enough lens flaring to make you think the sun was going supernova in each game? Heck, I think even Miles Corkmeyer’s Championship Bingo had lens flare.

3. Graphics over gameplay.

Not that this is anything new, this is just something that constantly irks me. Take the latest Age of Empires game, for example. I knew something was up when every single preview talked about the graphics, and nothing about the gameplay, save the fact there would be some sort of home city. Did you know that they even had a guy in charge of doing nothing but the water effects (which in screenshots looks like…wait for it…looks like it SHINES. What the heck type of ocean do the folks at Ensemble visit that looks like a mirror?), which to me says it all. Judging from the reviews the gameplay is pretty much the same as before, with a few tweaks. Hey guys, how about trying to make the gameplay innovative instead of worrying about the rag doll physics of little guys getting blown up?

Tell me something folks, how many units do you think a mainstream game could push if it was sold in a plain brown box, with only a summary of its gameplay on the back?

But you know what, every day indie games pretty much do just that…they sell based on ideas, on innovation, on dreams realized. Sure, there are probably one (or a hundred) too many Arkanoid games out there in indie-land, and we’ll probably never get an indie FPS, but overall when you want to play a game that’s not a clone of a clone of a clone, you’ll find it with your friendly local indie developer.

Of course that’s not to say mainstream gaming isn’t fun. It’s just that at some point we’re going to reach a point where people realize the emperor has no clothes; someday games are going to all look pretty much the same (like really reflective as peered through a vaseline-smudged lens), and people are finally going to ask, “But what about the gameplay?”

GAMEplay. That’s what it’s all about, right?

-Scott

Current spins: Sacred Reich – Ignorance, Kate Bush – Hounds of Love, The Sins Of Thy Beloved – Lake of Sorrow

November 8th, A Feast For Crows finally arrives!!!!!!!!!

Since this is the first post in shrapnel game’s blog I think I should introduce myself. My name is Xavier Rubio, and I’m the developer behind Galley Battles: from Salamis to Actium. If you check the homepage of the game (www.galleybattles.com) you could see that I started a developer’s journal some time before signing up with Shrapnel’s, so this post is a continuation of that blog.
My intention was to write a monthly story in which I will pretend to tell at which point is the development, new features added to the game and my future calendar about Galley Battles. Of course, if some people is interested on discuss some topics of the game mechanics, or just talk about history, I can write a post about these concepts. Some comments made by me will be quite technical, and I will be glad if these ones are helpful for developers interested on the creation of a game (in fact this was the original intention of the Galley Battle’s blog).

Finally I’m not a native English speaker, I’m from the city of Barcelona, in Catalonia (Spain) so unfortunately I’ll make some mistakes for sure (sorry!).

Talking about the development there are lots of news since last update on the other journal: most important is that I’ve changed my job and I’m working part time, so the time I’m able to spend on Galley Battles is quite higher.
Development with these conditions is being faster and better, I think.
I was able to deploy a more complete development suite on my computer, using cppunit (a great utility to test the code of the game and avoid possible bugs), subversion (a tool to maintain different versions and changes of files), mantis (a bug tracker), and a TODO manager (all of them are free software).
I wanted to install these development tools before, but I didn’t have time…I think that they will be useful, specially in future phases like beta testing.

Returning to Galley Battles, I’ve finished the scenario selection menu. Ruben has done (as always!) a wonderful job with the artwork (screen shots next week!). The game is capable of loading every scenario created (included the ones designed by players), and the battles will be selected in a ‘Mare Nostrum’ map. Ships of every side are shown, and the player will be able to see its parameters (speed, sailor quality, etc).

The other working point was the replay mechanism of the game. This phase is the one where the orders given by the players are executed, and they can see the result, zooming where necessary, moving backward and forward, etc (the commonly called ‘WE-GO’ system).

By now I’m working on this last point, and Ruben is finishing the 2d views of every ship involved in the game (more than 20 different types, including triremes, ships with Corvus, transports, etc.). I’m quite confident that, by the end of the year, the game will be quite playable…in fact the main topics not implemented by now are the PBEM/Save system, and the AI.
Moreover, some other tweaks, like the addition of fire power to ships still have to be implemented.

I’ve left the AI by now because I plan to spend quite a long time on it, in order to create a challenging computer opponent.

I expect to create some demo scenarios like the one from the September update, in order to show how the game will be played, so any suggestions will be quite welcomed!