I'm taking down the game I made almost-by-myself last spring, Angry Henry And The Escape From The Helicopter Lords: Part 17: The Re-Reckoning.
It was (obviously?) an absurdist and small project and one I didn't take very seriously in some ways... but there were some things I was trying to do well with it, and I managed to mess those up badly... mostly these are in the department of "finishing it properly." It shipped with several major bugs (and more have appeared thanks to iOS 8+), and I just don't have time to fix them. (It didn't help that the Flash-based toolset I was using became very unreliable towards the end of the project.) And while I was mostly trying to embrace an ugly "rough edges" aesthetic, there were some things (like the GUI and especially the difficulty curve), that were incredibly rushed and just felt awful.
The game got little attention and fewer purchases - I was expecting a couple of blogs to give it some coverage, but that barely materialized (simply due to all the flaws with the game). And of course, trying to get attention for one app among the millions in the App Store is like tossing a message in a bottle into an ocean made entirely of bottles. I had also planned for the game to use a unique business model, and ultimately had to abandon that... the end result is a game that few people tried and fewer people spent money on.
That's a quick postmortem (aka "a short list of the ways in which I failed with this project"). Luckily, I learned something very important from the project: how to fail (and even fail publicly) - something that I'm very bad at, and which has helped me grow personally and creatively. (I also learned a lot about action game design, specifically that it is much much harder than it looks.) I forced myself to try to make a game mostly on my own in just two months, and succeeded at finishing and shipping something... I'm still proud of that, but now it's time to un-ship it and admit that probably it shouldn't have ever shipped in that form.
I would just accept its flaws and leave the game up, but it's currently almost too buggy to play... for me, means I have to either fix it or take it down entirely... and I don't have time to fix it, so that leaves this.
I hope to find time to bring the game back someday, when I have time to revisit it and give it the time and attention it deserves. For now, un-launching it just feels like the right thing to do.
But rest assured, Angry Henry will return...
P.S.: The best part of the game may have always been Francisco Cerda's incredible soundtrack, which is still available, and which you should absolutely listen to if you like excellent chiptune (and choral!) high-octane music: Angry Henry: The OST.
Presenting "Gamers Are ___", a Twitter bot and sociological experiment.
One of more surreal elements of the #GameraGator fiasco was how angry some gamers became when public voices declared things like “gamers are dead” or “gamers are over.” I was fascinated by how strong the backlash was to these statements, with many gamers angrily declaring things like “I don’t like being called dead.”
(Maybe some of them were actually convinced that they were dead for a while, because their favorite game news website said they were? I can see how that would be confusing.)
I’ve been following the work of Darius Kazemi and fellow Austinite Katie Rose Pipkin, who create Twitter bots, and have been thinking of trying my hand at one for a while. Following Darius’ instructions made it a breeze, even for someone who’s never actually used Node.js before.
It will post every hour on the hour, so long as I remember to leave the script running. I look forward to what we’ll learn about gamers.
This post began as a reply to a comment on a Gamasutra article, but quickly grew beyond that. The original comment read, in part:
The fact is Sarkeesian could take the heat out of this fire very quickly if she would engage with legitimate criticism. The fact that she only directs attention to the minority of extreme stuff should tell us something. There are many respectful critics, myself being one of them. I have no idea what her background in gaming is, other than being offended by it. And yet she is now consulting?! She is a carpetbagger.
(Emphasis mine.)
This seems to touch on a common critique I hear of Anita and her work, which boils down to the statement: "She's not even a real gamer."
Before I go any further, I might as well make my own opinion about Anita and her work clear. I'll start with the negative:
I don't agree with all of it.
I think some of her examples of tropes feel taken out of context (though I also think that some of that is inevitable when you're pointing at broad trends: there are rarely "pure" examples of a trend... but that doesn't mean the trend isn't there, and worth examining).
I think her position and perspective is often a bit extreme - that she always takes the "most feminist" viewpoint possible. I grew up around a very different perspective (in fact one that was actively anti-feminist), and it's hard for me to relate to where she's coming from sometimes.
So, I don't agree with everything Anita says. Regardless of all this, I continue to watch all of her videos, and I think that others should too. Feminist criticism is a well-established school of critical theory, and even when I don't agree with it, I recognize its importance and I regarde its appearance in videogames as a healthy sign of our growth. I hoped it meant the emergence of more demographics and perspectives in games, and was a sign that gaming itself was finally beginning to change and become less hostile to females than it historically had been (though I've obviously been disappointed on that note recently).
Most of all, I've seen the danger of people who are only exposed to perspectives and ideas that they already hold. These people never really learn anything new, and never change. I don't want to be that kind of person.
Also, I think that Anita is one of the bravest human beings working in any field related to games at the present time. (Suffice to say that I was the focus of an "online mob of gamers" for about a week in 2012. That mob was almost completely supportive of me; it was still the scariest week of my life. I cannot imagine dealing with what Anita is dealing with.)
Now, let's talk a bit about whether Anita is "a gamer."
"...I basically grew up surrounded by computers and started playing PC games at a pretty young age. I also spent a lot of time with the NES and the SNES but what I remember most is the Game Boy. At around ten years old I begged my parents to get me one..."
"...while I was growing up our house was full of computers and [my father] would always have a few machines loaded with games for me. When I was about 10, I remember I campaigned for months to convince my parents that the 'Game Boy' was not in fact just for boys. "
(I recall that Anita also spoke a bit about how she's played video games for her entire life in her recent appearance on the Idle Thumbs podcast: https://www.idlethumbs.net/idlethumbs/episodes/the-classic-alien-form)
Finally, let's remember: to create the commentary and the footage in her videos, it's clear that Anita has played more AAA console and PC games in the last 2 years than I've played in the last 5-6 years. This alone gives her much more "real gamer cred" than me... though strangely, no one has ever once questioned my "gamer cred"!
The meme that "Anita isn't a gamer" is one that's commonly quoted - people repeatedly claim there's a YouTube video in which she says she's not a gamer. (I've never actually even seen a link to this video. I also haven't searched for one because - spoilers - I don't think it matters.)
In fact, during some debates with "GGers" on Twitter a couple months ago, this "Anita admitted she's not a gamer!" claim was repeated to me so often that I believed it and even repeated it once (before I read the above quotes from Anita and realized she indeed had a long-standing gaming background). I'm a bit ashamed of this - so much so that I found and deleted my tweet repeating it - partly because it proves my own bias: Anita doesn't look like someone I would typically assume was a gamer, so I didn't question it when people insisted she had said she wasn't one. I fell prey to a classic propaganda technique, which is that if a claim is repeated enough times, people begin to assume it's true, even if there's no other basis to believe it, and even if it's been repeatedly refuted. (Again: people often don't question the truths that already line up with what they already believe, or want to believe.)
Of course the real question is not "Is Anita a true gamer?"
The real questions are: "Why on earth does it matter whether Anita is a gamer? And, what the hell does the label 'gamer' even mean?"
The answer to those questions is simple. Some people deeply root their self-validation in the identity that they build around their hobby (playing games) and/or their profession (game development). I know this, because I've often done both of those things. (I am, slowly, recognizing and changing this aspect of myself. After all: why limit your identity to just a hobby, or just a profession? In fact, why seek validation for yourself through anything - except simply being yourself?)
When a group of people have built their identity around the gaming hobby, and someone critiques the products that form the center of that hobby (the games themselves), that group of people gets defensive; one of their first instincts is to point and say "OUTSIDER! YOU ARE NOT ONE OF US!"
This tendency, in my mind, has led directly to the troubling trope of the "Fake Geek Girl." The result is a disgusting trend in geek culture, which boils down to females always having a burden to prove they're a "true geek", while males have no such burden.
(A favorite story of mine related to this kind of treatment: http://raejohnston.com/2013/04/15/no-i-wont-spoil-the-ending-of-bioshock-infinite-for-you/)
Neither Anita nor anyone else should have to prove their "gamer credentials" - because there is no such thing. Gaming is a hobby, based around consuming a set of commercial products... that's it. There's no license required to criticize those products, nor to give that criticism validity.
Gaming is all about challenge. Gaming is all about choices. To conclude this article, I'd like to ask my fellow gamers to humor me and play a little game I designed - and face any challenges they encounter in it - by going through the choices below.
Here's the first, easiest choice:
Choose not to listen to Anita's statements
Choose to listen to Anita's statements
If you chose #1:
That's okay. No one is forcing you to listen to her. (However, people who think what she's saying has importance will continue to recommend that people listen to her. This still doesn't mean you have to.)
You don't get to critique what she's saying. (Remember: she actually played the games she's criticizing. Speaking out against her, without hearing her out, is hypocritical.)
If you haven't listened to her but you think you dislike what she stands for, ask yourself: why? What is it you think she represents? Why exactly does she bother you? If you haven't actually heard what she's saying, what is it that you think she represents, and why? Think about this a lot. Try to put it into words.
Note that there is no chance of your learning anything new if you chose this path. (Again, that's okay. But it's worth noting.)
If you chose #2 (to listen to Anita's statements):
Great, you've probably been exposed to some new perspectives and ideas, which is never a bad thing. At worst, it was a waste of your time (but you're a gamer, and we both know we're okay with wasting some time here and there).
Now: did her statements make you angry?
If not, you can stop reading here. Thanks for reading!
So, her statements made you angry. I recommend that you do something about this. Here are three possible reactions.
Reaction #1: Harass Anita, threaten her, try to silence her. DO NOT DO THIS ONE UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES. It is ineffectual, self-defeating, sociopathic, and hypocritical. It's a gross, disgusting abuse of your freedom of speech, and you know it.
Reaction #2: Post some angry statements online. Initially, this will make you feel better. Then you will see people's replies to your statements. When someone agrees with you, you will feel good, and validated. When someone disagrees with you, you will feel invalidated, and be angry again, and probably post more angry statements. This will go on indefinitely. You will learn nothing. No one will learn anything from you. You will change nothing. I don't recommend this reaction, but if you do it, that's okay. (But maybe consider doing reaction #3 as well.)
Reaction #3: Ask yourself what, exactly, Anita said that made you angry. Explore the source of your anger. Why does something negative that someone said about some videogames have the power to make you feel such powerful emotions? Ask yourself: Do I want to remain a person who can be angered by statements one stranger made about some entertainment software products that were created by other strangers? Talk about this with friends (I find it's better to do this face-to-face). Explore your emotions and your reactions to statements of this type. Explore your relationships with the games themselves. Keep coming back to this question... what is it that made you angry? Explore your real emotions deep, deep down at your core, and speak them out loud: put them into words... say them out loud to yourself in the car, words that no one else will hear, because only then will you be completely honest about them. Again: be completely honest with yourself. I strongly recommend this reaction. It is the only reaction that is actually constructive. Do all this, and you are guaranteed to learn something (possibly a lot) about yourself. (Spoilers: they might not be things you will be proud of.)
If you completed reaction #3: Congrats, you've completed the real challenge - you've learned something about yourself! You can even try to change that aspect of yourself, if you want! What happens next is up to you!
A bride. A groom. And special guest: food poisoning.
I made this game over a month ago and it was just featured on RPS... I guess I should finally post about it here!
Lovesick was made for the this year's Fantastic Arcade game jam, "Barfcade"! I made it with Eduardo Ortiz (good friend and sound designer of Neverending Nightmares/Gorogoa/Apatheon) and his friend Sabrina Rodriguez, in just a few days' work!
It is a 2-player competitive 30-second long game! It's the world's messiest e-sport!
It didn't come up in the random rotation during FA's live Starcade event - sad, since I had looked forward to making an entire live audience gag simultaneously. Luckily the game has been getting some attention elsewhere - it was also featured prominently in Kill Screen's Barfcade coverage.
I could describe the game, but it's probably best you just play it.
I'm 95% sure Lovesick will be playable live at Austin's Game On event on the 23rd! You should go either way.
Video of a perfect run of AHatEftHL:XVII:tRR, including the dramatic final level.
I put a lot of effort into the GodCopter level. So if you've played the game but haven't beaten it, I encourage you to skip to 4 minutes just to see it, and the surprises it contains. (Due to a bug present on most devices, this final level as it appears here is MUCH easier than it should be... I'm in the process of fixing that.)
The YouTuber ("Religious Gamers") describes themselves by saying "I like to focus on videos that deal with bosses, hallucinations, bugs/glitches..." Which is just too appropriate.
Since we’ve been just a bit light on Finji-related announcements in the last 24 hours (err, make that last 6 hours), here’s another one: Overland also has an audio director!! Jocelyn Reyes joined our team last month, and has been hard at work developing the uncanny soundscape for our game. Overland is her first major game project, but you might recognize her from Morning Coffee or other Animal Phase projects. Her attention to detail and knack for finding the weird within the natural have already transformed this game, and we are so happy to be working with her! Keep an ear out for more from her in the coming months :)
I’ve been waiting a long time to post this!! Here we go: let’s all give a warm official welcome to Overland's art director and lead artist Heather Penn! You might know her amazing work from UCLA Game Lab or The Classroom Aquatic kickstarter or this recent post about tea spirits. It’s been a real honor to work with her so far, and she’s already had a huge positive impact on the project. You will be seeing and hearing a lot more about Heather and the visual design of Overland in the coming months!
Get Angry Henry And The Escape From The Helicopter Lords: Part 17: The Re-Reckoning on the App Store!
It's finally out! I made this game in about two months of work, and did basically everything on my own (except the fantastic soundtrack by Francisco Cerda, which you can listen to or purchase here... also Laura contributed some screams to the game!).
This game is the world's most realistic Helicopter Murder Simulator. It's an infinite-runner-and-infinite-shooter-and-sometimes-screamer.
I won't try to describe it any further, just go view the trailer, which will make everything perfectly clear.
Midnight on a Tuesday may not be the ideal time to tackle this but I can always take a nap with the kids tomorrow I guess. I really want to get these thoughts down while they’re still fresh.
This will be the first post of many (well a few anyways!) talking about the way we’re building our first team here at Finji. We have never done this before, and I’m hoping that documenting it will make me more analytical about what we’re doing and maybe help others too.
So I'm making a smartphone game called Angry Henry And The Escape From The Helicopter Lords: Part 17: The Re-Reckoning. (Find out more at http://angryhenryandtheescapefromthehelicopterlordspart17.com!) Angry Henry's scream plays a major role in this game... but I haven't actually put in any scream sound effects yet!
I've been streaming development of the game (stream happens here at 11am CST each morning, archives are here); today one of the regulars in gave me a great idea, which was to let people submit their own scream sound effects! This is a great way to engage the community while simultaneously letting me be lazy - perfect!
So submit your screams! If I like your screams, I'll use it in the game, and also a free copy of the game! (Sadly I can't pay you anything, this is just a fun lark.)
Here are the details:
I need at least 3-4 variants, I don't want it to be the exact same sound effect every time (that gets annoying).
Each sample needs to be close to 0.55 seconds in length... that's about half a second.
If I get a lot of good submissions, I may use ones from various peoples!
This game is meant to feel "retro" (though I using that term), so I want the streams to sound like samples on 8-bit or 16-bit hardware. Silly-sounding stuff like Ganon's Laugh or Altered Beast's voice samples. You can either add these effects yourself, or just submit a scream and I'll process it.
Both WAV and MP3 are acceptable.
Including exactly one Wilhelm-esque scream is acceptable.
Email your screams to [email protected]. (If you must attach them, that's okay, but I'd rather you use Dropbox or some other way to send me a link to download the file.)
I'm not always into roguelikes, and it took several attempts for 868-HACK to get under my skin, but when it did, it stuck. (It's a good thing it did, since it had gotten under Adam's skin too, and we're now making a game together that takes a lot of influence from it.)
I'm a gameplay programmer by trade, so I think a lot about "edge cases"... ways to put a program into a rare and unexpected state, a state that maybe the game wasn't coded to handle.
For instance, early on in playing 868, I noticed:
The .DEBUG() prog destroys enemies who are inside walls
The .STEP() prog lets me step inside walls
So what happens if you use .DEBUG() after you .STEP()ed inside a wall? The next time I got both of those progs, I tried it... and it killed me.
I was thrilled! The .DEBUG() prog works consistently, and arbitrarily, the way a real program would: it just kills every creature that's overlapping something else, and is indifferent to whether or not that creature is the player. That was the moment I came to really respect the game.
But there was another edge case that started bugging me.
What if I .STEP()'ed to a position where I was surrounded by walls, and couldn't afford to .STEP() back out? I would be stuck... right? Would the game handle this? 868's creator Michael Brough is known for making games that you can "break" in interesting ways (my favorite is still Corrypt)... was there a chance he didn't anticipate this edge case and I could truly break his game by getting stuck with no way to proceed?
I sat down one evening and played the game just attempting to create this scenario. It seemed like the game almost never generated a map where this was possible. After at least 20 minutes of trying, I gave up.
But when you stop looking for something, sometimes that's when it pops up. This morning, I loaded up the game, stared at this map deciding what to do next, and realized it had a solid mass of tiles, and I also had .STEP():
(Yes, I immediately started taking screenshots, sensing the potential importance of this experiment.)
So, I .STEP()ed into a wall, leaving me with 5 energy:
...And then I .STEP()ed once more, leaving myself with just 2 energy (not enough to .STEP() back out) and surrounded by walls on all 4 sides:
...And, yes, I was stuck. I couldn't move in any direction. The only thing I would be able to do at this point was siphon.
Some thoughts went through my head at this point. "I think I actually broke a Michael Brough game! I'm stuck and just have to quit my run!" I was excited but vaguely disappointed. Brough's games usually break in more elegant ways.
Then I did a siphon, which of course spawned 14 creatures....... and then...
...The screen started flickering, the colors started shifting. A warp effect went across the screen. Yellow turned to red.
And the game ended, and I got this:
DEADLOCK?!?!
It was the most brilliant way for the game to handle that situation... it's a game about hacking and I'm just a hacker that painted themselves into a corner. (Deadlocking, by the way, is the real programming term for a similar situation.)
And of course the game had to wait for me to do a siphon before it considered me deadlocked... because there were several ways that siphoning could have gotten me out of that situation (giving me a .EXCH() so that I could produce enough energy points to .STEP() again, for instance). The game correctly waited until it was a 100% certainty that I was stuck.
The best thing is that after some googling, I can't find anyone else talking about this. (References to "deadlock code" appear twice in the game's patch notes, but it seems like no one knows what that referred to?)
I would like to apologize to Michael for thinking that he might not have put in a brilliant and elegant way of handling this edge case... and thank Michael for making me feel like I was the first person to discover this feature/bug/experience (even though I probably wasn't).
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