#rawview

[carlytwinkleazella]

The #sky too #mesmerize to walk by without shooting lol #raw #rawview #rawpicture #afterrain #airport #carpark #noedit #iphone6 #shot #quickshot

[rawketlawncher]

RawView: 8:Capsule

Alternate Title: Perception and Thinking Inside(?) the Box

I don’t usually come across games that surprise me more than they actually should. When I was about to play 8:Capsule, I was expecting some arcade action with puzzles and when I did finish the game, I really had action(a very little bit of it) and puzzles so no surprises there. What I found surprising, however, was that 8:Capsule managed to help my brain figure out what to do via visual/audial clues without giving clear objectives; you know, in a in-yo-face fashion. This is more about in-game objectives as other information such as controls are written in the Readme file, accompanied with an interesting introduction. This way, 8:Capsule gives you the fundamentals(curiosity/motivation to play and what buttons to press) and leaves the rest to your perception. What has science done?

8:Capsule can be summarised as a little puzzle game dressed in pixels. This littleness is about its resolution, number of bytes it consists of and play time. Among those things, the only one that quite upset me was its shortness, to be honest. 8:Capsule offers some nice brain exercise and when you think you are ready for what’s next, all excited, it ends; in the most obscure way possible. Although I deal with independent games, most of which are quite experimental, I have to say I can’t quite stand obscurity done just for the sake of obscurity. However, I will make an exception for 8:Capsule and dare to claim that the ending indeed suits the overall experience.

Ignoring the 320x240 resolution, the graphics are pretty well made. They are not annoyingly glowy or have meaningless post-processing effects on them. 8:Capsule is constructed in Construct -Sometimes I run out of puns, please bear with me.- and you can easily switch to fullscreen by pressing F4 but sadly, say goodbye to the aspect ratio(for non-4:3 monitors) and embrace the interpolation -blur, that is-. 8:Capsule’s audio department will please your ears with retro inspired, but quite modern-electronic sounding tunes.

As I have said, my brain liked 8:Capsule. It made me realize what was missing from the contemporary independent gaming: making the player feel smart/a sense of accomplishment. Certainly there is a good amount of independent games which require player skill and provide lots of enjoyment. However, the number of independent games which dance on the line between being interactive and noninteractive is growing and I have to say, there are not many good examples of this kind of games. Especially the most popular games of this type are unfortunately -and I’m trying to be optimistic- glorified “walking simulators”. 8: Capsule is none of that. It can be defined as a prototype to show you that thinking inside the box is sometimes smarter and more satisfying, rather than “deep” and “meaningful” gameplay that ultimately feels artificial.

My faith in independent gaming is restored every time I play games like 8:Capsule. There are many people out there making/willing to make originally conceptualized and cleverly designed games and that’s what makes independent gaming attractive. I hope these games are not overshadowed by shallow and pseudo-intellectual work. 8:Capsule is not the only Anthony Domenico game and wait, there’s more! Erm, I mean he also makes music and here is the link to Anthony Domenico homepage.

[rawketlawncher]

RawView: Cluster Buster, A Game From Ludum Dare 28

Alternate Title: The Saturday Night Arcade Fever Award Winner

Welcome to another edition of “there was a game jam and no blog is complete without a post on one of the entries.” Ludum Dare 28 has ended with 2064 total games. As usual I skimmed through the pages quite swiftly and tried to find some entries that were relevant to my interests(a visual depiction of interest). As happy as I was, with hopes to post a compilation of games that looked interesting to me, I again ended up with a single game, Cluster Buster(CB). CB is one of the 48 Hour Compo Entries with an old-school arcade look. The game has that “OG arcade game” feeling but the difficulty needs to be toned down to let the players enjoy it. Yes, I made up an award for that and it’s called: Saturday Night Arcade Fever Award, as CB’s brutal gameplay might give you a fever. Are you a bad enough dude to tackle this challenge?

CB is explained as: “...a version of an old game called Daleks or Robots. In this version the goal is to take out all enemies with the limited weapons - up to 9 laser blasts and ONE bomb.” which goes quite well with the theme: “You only get one.”. Considering the possible relations of a theme like this with game design, it’s actually natural that many entries had this type of interpretation; such as one upgrade, one life, one chance...etc. CB’s application of this specific theme may not be the brightest one, but it’s a 48 hours compo entry which means you need to complete a game in a quite limited time period and have to go solo. Thus, the theme application is not mind blowing but on the other hand very fitting to the general idea of the game.

Boom! Unfortunately I couldn't get past this level... yet. *suspense*

Speaking of these ideas and concepts, what I have figured out is that the game pushes you to think about your every move. You have very limited ammo and one bomb per level so you can’t get trigger-happy. You also have to get used to the movement mechanics. The only seemingly-reasonable tip I can give you is to think of left & right keys as a wheel’s turning(right=clockwise/ left=anticlockwise) rather than directional keys. After you get used to that, you will be able to advance to the next level -yay!-. I have to say things get quite impossible after the second level. My experience with the third level felt like I was heavily outnumbered and couldn’t manage to line up the enemies so that I could eliminate them efficiently. It’s quite neat that you can use the extra ammo power-ups as bombs though.

In its current state, CB is more like a proof(or maybe disproof?) of a concept. Fortunately, this punishing difficulty can be lowered by simple changes like lowering the number of enemies in starter levels or introducing another win condition like reaching a specific place on a level. The visuals are pretty outstanding(read this in Mortal Kombat voice) for the intended purpose and are one of the reasons why the game got a Saturday Night Arcade Fever Award but the audio needs some help. Considering CB's making you feel helpless at times, the emotion-emitting guitar solo used in the game is surprisingly well suited but chiptune music seems like a better weapon of choice for this mission.

CB is a game with great potential and deserves to be mentioned. However, its gameplay might put many people off. If you have the required bugging skills, you may try your luck on twitter and ask if Niklas “Arne” Jansson would do a post-jam work on the game. If you scrolled down this post for some links, here is the CB competition entry page and here is the homepage of Niklas “Arne” Jansson, with truckloads of his beautiful artwork.

[rawketlawncher]

RawView: Grimgala, Game Jolt Contest 10 Oddball Pick

Alternate Title: Blood Trails and Birthday Cakes

Welcome to RawView, where deep analysis is optional. Now that the Game Jolt Contest 10 had ended, our non-existing staff decided to put together a “these are the games that we liked” post. However, due to yours truly Square Tetromino being the only one in charge of things at the Rawket Lawncher HQ, I decided to choose among the downloadable entries to help me narrow down my alternatives and Grimgala emerged victorious as the oddball of the pack. It is small in size yet offers a complete package for you to blast through randomly generated levels with a temporary&permanent upgrade(s) system. Oh, and you can also summon a big, dark demon-like thing who happens to hate everything around him, including you.

Those illuminated&tempting circular areas grant you spells, but take one of your hearts away. No pain, no gain brotha...

What actually kept me playing Grimgala was the atmosphere to be honest. Although no music is present, the game has a smart&simple environment which blends light, darkness and some digital noise. I have to say; when moving, shooting and flickering lights come together; the result is not very friendly with your eyes so be careful while playing. You start off with a slowish pace but after you gather some upgrades, you will be moving faster and shooting faster. Considering this being the contest version, the amount of content can be regarded as sufficient and the game does not have an unfinished feeling to it.

Grimgala is indeed the oddball of the competition as the game does not look like it was designed around the theme “party” but rather modified to fit in. It is explained as “A surreal, hardcore-mode shooter/roguelike about a gangbanger on his way to a retirement party in a post-mortem dimension, featuring random generation and loots.” and this is actually what the game is all about. I might disagree with the “hardcore-mode” part if the intention was to describe the difficulty as the game has a tendency to become unnecessarily easy towards the end but if we are talking about blood, yes you can lure those surreal souls to an area and paint the floor red with them. Although Charlie Cargo, the developer, accepts that the game is loosely tied to the party theme, I think Grimgala’s elegant visual execution can make up for any kind of plot deficiency.

420 summon those demons and watch them do their thing.

Let’s not forget to talk about the actual gameplay mechanics. Grimgala plays like a twin stick shooter but you have 8 directions to move/shoot, controlled by WASD(direction of movement) and arrow keys(direction of your surreal pixel bullets). The shooting mechanic is not perfect but this might be seen as a form of challenge. There are some spells that you can cast with the spacebar, varying from providing armor, replenishing your health to summoning other entities. You also have access to bullet upgrades like piercing or spreading ones. These bullet upgrades are temporary but other upgrades like movement or reloading speed bonuses are permanent.

Overall, Grimgala is an original project which needs some additional content and a boost on difficulty to be an epic adventure, and keep your blood pumping throughout the whole journey. The current state is a nice demonstration of things which can come out of the surreal floors of Grimgala, and will leave a sweet taste -of blood- on your hands -or mouth-.