First off, I have to mention that I have the best girlfriend in the world. She bought me an Atari 2600 for Valentines Day, of all holidays… which is the reason why I can even write this article. Anyway, I brought the Atari 2600 into the office today, and we had a bit of fun playing it. So I thought I would take this opportunity to show you what it’s all about.

History made short, the Atari 2600 was the first-ever widely successful home video game system. Not the first system, mind you, but the first real successful system to hit the market. The 2600 really brought video gaming home. In 1977, the system launched and sold thousands, and by the turn of the decade was selling millions.

The system was an amazing home system for the time, but compared to now it is rather lame. Here is some data I compiled.

The console I got is the “Darth Vader” console, or the all-black model. Unlike the consoles of today, it is forced to sit horizontal, but I can force it on it’s side like the other consoles if propped against some other object. The games are controlled by different sets of controllers, sort of like the Wii has going on now with the Nunchuk, Classic Controller, and Wiimote. However, most games used the joystick controller. The joystick has only one button. It also only has a 4-foot cable, which means you need to bring the console to you if you want to play without bending over. The joystick is hard to use compared to today’s controllers, as you really have to push it in the right direction in order to make it work.

I also got a set of the Paddles, another kind of controller that uses a different control mechanism. This controller is a lot more comfortable, because all you need to do is grab one of the controllers with one hand, and spin the knob left or right with the other. The hand holding the controller also has access to a small trigger button on the side. Think of it like an over-sized Wii Nunchuck.

Anyway, back to the machine… basically the controller does all the controlling, but the console does everything else. You know how you usually push the ‘Start’ to access the options for each game? Well, on the Atari 2600, any options or game starting begins with you pushing buttons on the system.

The on/off button is a large toggle switch. The toggle switch next to it allows you to choose whether your TV is Black and White or Color (yes, it is that old). If you have a color TV, you can watch as all the colors turn to shades of gray, and then back again. Next to the Color/BW toggle is the cartridge slot to where you put the game in. Interesting thing about it is that you put in the cartridge at something near a 45-60 degree angle, instead of horizontally or vertically.

On the right side of the console is the “Game Select” toggle. When you boot the system, most games will be frozen on the first level (if there are more than one level) or will play some sort of demo of the gameplay. The Game Select switch will allow you to choose what level to start on, or what difficulty you want to play on. In most games, it will not change much… just how fast enemies are or what is attacking you. Next to that switch is the Game Reset toggle. This toggle is pretty awesome. When you turn on the system, the game is paused. In order to start playing most games, you need to press the Game Reset button to start. On some of the newer games, pressing the joystick button will start the game, but in most cases, you’ll be reaching over to the console to hit the Game reset button.

Along the top of the console are 2 joystick ports for plugging in 2 players. There is also two slider switches that allow you to choose between “Expert Mode” and “Novice Mode”, in addition to your “Game Select” toggle. The power and video also go out the top. One thing I must note though, is that the power cord is about 15-20 feet long, as is the 10-12 foot video cable. This means I can move the console right in front of me on the couch while I play.

Now for the games. An interesting thing to note is how the games are physically put together. They come in large, sturdy black cartridges with a label on the front and bottom. The pin sets are actually hidden in the top of the cartridge, and small spring-loaded piece of plastic pushes down when the game is inserted into the system.

The gameplay itself is very, very small compared to today’s titles. While you may be expecting levels to feature different enemies and terrain, this is most likely not the case for a lot of Atari games. Many of these games rely on speed increasing, enemy number increasing and other small variables to decide difficulty. As for gameplay genres and titles, many of the Atari 2600 games feature very familiar IPs. The only different is that they are a bit different from the titles we know and love today. Let’s take Pac-Man for example:

I put Pac-Man into the machine, and turn it on. Unlike traditional Pac-Man of today, the dots are dotted lines, and the ghosts actually flicker a very translucent shade of their original colors. Those big green dots are equivelant to picking up a power pill today.

Another cool feature about the Atari 2600 games are that the artwork on the cartridges are awesome… so awesome in fact that I would probably purchase half these games again if I saw them in stores. For example, take the game “Combat” for example:

Bam! Look at those sweet, sweet tanks! I would love to be shooting airplanes with tanks, tanks with airplanes and so on. I took the game and put it into the machine.

AWESOME COMBAT! This game is actually a 2-player run-around-shooting-people game. Joystick button to fire, joystick to move :).

Now here is a favorite of everyone. Donkey Kong appeared on the Atari 2600, and this cartridge was made back in 1981. I love how Nintendo has yet to change their logo since they made this game. Also note how the label says “Sears Video Arcade”, which was a proprietary Atari system that the Sears company sold as their own model.

And here is the gameplay. Unlike the Donkey Kong we know and love, there is only two level types. The barrel level is the first level, and then the structure with the flameballs is the second. When you beat the flameballs level, you move on back to the first barrel level again.

The barrels look like pepperoni pizzas to me, lol. Anyway, I absolutely love how Donkey Kong and princess look in this title… it’s adorable.

Anyway, this is everything I know about the Atari 2600. It is a great system for a few minutes of gaming before work or bed, but I can only imagine when kids used to play these things for hours. The gaming system is a lot of fun, but I can imagine how most people today would absolutely hate to play it now that we have these 40 button controllers and 3d environments. It’s amazing that we now have personal computers that can produce Flash games, when just 30 years ago we were living off of 8 KB cartridges and 1.19 MHz processors. Now we have the capability to make awesome real-life physics and simulators that are accessible to everyone across the web. Of course, none of this would have been possible if we didn’t have a predecessor like the 2600!

Well that’s it, enjoy your newfound knowledge of the Atari 2600. Whew that was a long article.

After launching a couple action games in a row, I decided to take a fresh turn towards a new title.  I am currently working on a Role Playing Game!  While the game is in it’s first week of production and does not even have a name yet, I wanted to talk about a little bit of the production and story behind my project.

Coding an RPG is interesting, and unlike any other game development I have run into.  The core of the gameplay comes from number crunching and character development via several variables.  Many variables, in fact.  These different variables make up the entire character… the strength of a sword, the swiftness of an enemy, and so forth.  A good RPG somehow manages to micromanage every one of these variables, while steadily increasing or decreasing these variables over time to change difficulty.

Many of my games are smaller titles with just a few variables, in the realm of 50-100… the level, score, and so on.  But in this game, I am already nearing about 4,000 variables just for the core buying/selling engine.  And the managing of these values is really important, because if any of these values goes crazy, it can change the entire game!   So as I develop the game, I have to be careful to make sure all the numbers are in their right places, ready to go when the player needs them.

Taking place in the Middle Ages, the gameplay of this RPG is very open-ended.  Your life is not railroaded through different scenarios like some other RPG’s out there.  Instead you are free to travel where you want and handle your life as you want.  If you want to be a thief, then go right ahead and steal.  If you want to make tons of money and amass an army, then it is at your whim.  While the main part of the RPG is to journey and have monetary gain, how you do it is up to you.  You start with barely anything, and it’s your job to figure out what to do with your life.

I am very excited about this title, because I have never made an RPG before and it should be interesting.  I’ll make a few more updates as I make progress on this expansive game!

T-Rex picture above is completely irrelevant, but was fun to make.

Ira from OneMoreLevel.com wrote a great article about flash game development. Make sure to check it out when you get a chance.

 http://blog.onemorelevel.com/2008/02/17/how-to-make-a-successful-flash-game
-Daniel

SHIFT Editor 1.1I’m proud to announce the release of the full-featured Level Editor for SHIFT 2! With this editor you can generate codes and playable levels to be included in SHIFT 2. And thanks to the generosity of Armor’s Main Man Dan, you could earn big bucks for your work! - Details at the bottom.

Here are some basic instructions to get you started.

• Check out the sample levels - these will explain a lot to you just by looking at them.
• Once you have a sample level open, preview and play it, then return to the editor.
• In the editor you can build your level with the tools at the bottom of the screen, these include everything you need to make amazingly awesome SHIFT levels.
• To Rotate the level (to give yourself a better idea of how it will play while still in the editor, press the Right and Left Arrow Keys.
• To Rotate the item you are currently using (such as spikes) press the Up and Down Arrow Keys.
• You can link keys to doors and switches to ‘CheckSpace’ in the sidebar which appears on the right hand side.
• Give it a go! - you’ll learn more about it by trying than by reading my rambling attempt at instructions :p .

Here’s the lowdown on getting paid for your designs.

Using the attached SHIFT editor, you design and build 4 quality levels and save the generated level codes in a text ( .txt) document using Notepad or your operating system of choice’s alternative.

Once you have 4 levels made and stored in this txt file, send them as an email over to me at tony@armorgames.com for me to look through along with your name, age and contact email if it’s not the same as the one you are using.

Here’s the interesting bit. If I decide to include one of the levels from your pack of 4 (or up to 4 of them if they rock :p) then you get paid $50 via Paypal.

You also get your name included in the credits of SHIFT2 as recognition that you contributed - Rock on!

There are some things to take into consideration however, if i suspect any foul play (copying level designs from others etc) then I reserve my right refuse to use and/or pay for it - so make sure you only use your own work. Payment will be sent via Paypal, so make sure you have access to an account if you’re included. These rules may be changed at any time to account for arising issues but I’ll do my best to be fair, so don’t worry.

Spread this around to as many people you know, I want tonnes of cool levels

Send it to 5 people - you will have a lucky day.

Send it to 10 people - your crush will ask you out.

Send it to 15 people - your fondest wishes will come true!

… not really on those last three points :p

I’ll keep this short, as Johns excellent post deserves some more time near the top of the blog, but this week in my spare time after working hours (Need I say I enjoy what I do?) I’ve been tinkering with he SHIFT2 Level editor. Level editors (both using and making them) are probably the best thing about anything in a video game for me, but how much do they mean to you people? Comment reply your opinions of level editors for games - Do you like them? Do you not bother with them? I want to hear your thoughts.

One of the questions I get the most is “how do I make a game?” Well, being a game developer is hard work. It requires several different areas of expertise to get into making Flash or any other sort of game. But just as a brief rundown, I wanted to show everyone what the process looks like for being a game developer and making Flash for everyone to enjoy.

Grab Some Tools

First, you need to make sure you have all of the following:
1) A computer - Your computer must be at least a mid-level machine, meaning it should be running faster than 1.2 GHZ. It also needs to have sufficient memory, a minimum of 1 GB RAM and 10 GB hard drive space. It doesn’t matter if you have a Mac or PC most of the time, at least for Flash development, as the software is cross-platform.

2) Algebra Skills - You need to be able to do simple algebra. It doesn’t take extremely hard math to start out in game development, and you will learn a lot on the way… but for now you just need to know at least Algebra. Any more math will get you much, much further though, especially if you know Trigonometry which is a major cornerstone.

3) A copy of Flash - Flash 9 is available through the Adobe website for a 30 day trial. After that, you are going to have to pay full price for it. Problem with full price is that it is $700.00 USD, which is quite a lot for someone who may not even decide to journey further into Flash! However, they also have student versions for much, much cheaper… only $250.00. Or, you can just pick up an older version of the software (Flash MX, Flash MX 2004, and Flash 8 are all fine choices, all from Macromedia) from sites like Amazon or Ebay where they’ll run under a $100 bucks… you won’t be losing too many features, and you can always upgrade when you decide to be in it for longer.

4) PATIENCE - Flash is not easy. Flash is really hard, and will have you angry at times. But if you stick with it (for almost a YEAR or more!), you’ll find your skills are growing. You are not going to make the best Flash game ever in 2 days. Or in 2 weeks, or even 2 months. You are going to have to devote hours upon hours learning the skills.

Flash using a coding language called Actionscript. Currently there are two versions of Actionscript out there, Actionscript 2 and Actionscript 3. Actionscript 2 is a bit easier to learn, but is not as capable as Actionscript 3… but if I had to recommend a language I would say start on AS3 if you can get a copy of Flash 9. Flash 9 is the only version of Flash right now that handles the AS3, so if you have anything else you’ll be stuck with AS2. It’s a pretty easy language to learn compared to some other ones like C, and using coding logic it’s pretty easy to learn the basics.

Get Something to Help You

When you get all the above ingredients, you should get a book to learn basic Flash. It is near impossible to learn Flash just by “playing around with it,” and you’ll miss a lot if you do not know what it is capable of. These books below are also good to reference once you are experienced. Here are a good choices, available in most bookstores:

Adobe Flash CS3 Bible - This is the most comprehensive title, and is pretty cheap.

Adobe Flash CS3 for Dummies - This book is surprisingly easy to learn with. It’s a lot better then it appears to be, and breaks everything down. Plus it is less than 20 bucks!

A tried and true method way new developers just into the scene is to get the free 30 day trial to learn the software, using a book. After the 30 days are up, they make a decision as to whether Flash is for them or not. This way you do not buy software that you are going to shelve or resell in a few days.

Learn It

Learn the software. Play with it, poke it… do whatever you need to do to get results. The more you learn the software with the help of a book or another Flash developer, the easier it will get. Once you start getting into the rhythm of developing small applications, it will start to become much easier and a lot less frustration. However, I would NOT recommend setting into your first Flash file looking to make a game. Learning how the code works is a much better first step, and setting small goals for yourself definitely helps (for example, trying to make a block move across the stage).

If you can, get into a Community or University college class. Many schools now offer an entry-level Flash class. I was lucky enough to have one even at my high school, which helped a lot through the process!

Seek Help on the Web

The web has SO many tutorials, you can practically learn Flash just from online tutorials. And there is live help if you want it in help forums, like on Newgrounds, Kirupa, and Armor Games.

Once you start to get enough practice for about 6 months to a year, show your work to your friends and family… see what they think. Get some good critiques, and ask them what they think. Having outside critics will really help your work become great. Post your early work into a Flash forum, and ask how you can improve!

Save Everything

Flash is a journey as well as a process. If you save all your work and constantly back it up, you’ll see improvement. It’s really hard to see improvement at first, but you are getting better! You are going to hit many failures and triumphs, but Flash is a constant learning process. It’s not a matter of overnight success… there are several speed bumps along the way. And with that, there will be times you want to quit because you are not doing as well as you would have wanted to. Don’t give up! If you keep at it and want to be good, you’ll be improving your programming skills and your work even by messing up.
Play a Lot of Flash Games

Look at other Flash titles. Why are they popular? What do they do? What effects are created by the author? What do they do that you don’t? Learning from others is a fantastic way to develop your own skill. And not just Flash games; play a lot of console games! Learning gaming logic is truly a blessing for game development. How do lives work? How difficult is too difficult? When does a game jump out at you? When you start to discover these things, you’ll begin to put these concepts into your own work. Not so much to copy and paste other people’s work, but to just learn what concepts are available.

Polishing a Final Product

When you feel like you know enough Actionscript, try putting together a game! You’ll see how everything you learned goes into a final Flash project. And when that game is done and playable, congratulations! You have become a game developer!

Now that you know the very basic process of learning Flash, think about doing it! This is the method I used to get to the point I am at today, and hopefully you’ll want to jump into Flash, or at least try it for a while.

Just wanted to let everyone know we launched our new Store! You can now buy ‘Ball Revamped’ stress balls and various Stickers.

More items to come soon. If there is anything you would like to see in the store, make sure to post a comment and we’ll see what we can do. (Currently we only ship within the US. If you live outside the country and really want an item from our Store, Talk to either Me  or John and we’ll see what we can do)

Visit the Store

-Daniel

Yes, Armor Games is into online gaming, but real life has it’s gaming moments too. There are many board and tabletop games that I love. These games are well crafted, relying on a good amount of strategy and learning to get good at them. But there are just some board games I play that make me question how they got popular in the first place…especially now that I am older and realize how game mechanics work. As a game developer, I have gained a lot of experience in what works and fails in gameplay, and seeing some of these games makes me a little bit awestruck.  Here are my least and most favorite board games, ever.

To start, the worst of the worst!

5) Mouse Trap. It was really hard for me to put this game in my list because of all the nostalgia it invokes. This game revolves around building pieces of an elaborate Rube Goldberg machine, which will eventually leads to the players getting trapped in the mouse trap at the end of the game. But when it comes down to it, do you even remember how to play this game? Of course not! You only bought it so you could put together the really cool mouse trap! I bet every child who ever got their hands on this game put the giant mouse trap together and didn’t think twice about playing the game. And quite frankly, the game was a cheese-collecting game and it was not that much fun.

4) Perfection. This game only took off because it had some of the catchiest commercials ever made. Remember that era of the 90’s where all the commercials were just over-the-top, with neon shirts and  completely awesome theme songs? That’s right, this one had a fantastic commercial. However when it came down to it, the commercial was severely more fun than the game. Basically, there is a grid of holes of various shapes and your job was to find the pegs that match each of the holes before time is up. The timer was one of those really loud wretching plastic models that would count down. Once you reached the time limit, the entire board would pop up and dislodge all your fine work. So what does this leave me with? Angry, unaccomplished, and with a huge mess of pegs all over the place. And this game gets old once you beat it. I mean, its the same grid with the same pieces so you’ll eventually reach the point where difficulty will only go up if you cover your eyes or somehow tie your arms together.

3) Triominos. Triominos is just as boring as it sounds. There are triangle shaped dominos that you must piece together to earn points. It’s okay, until you realize that no one in the room can come up with any sort of strategy to this game… it’s basically a “wait and hope for matches” game. The triominos are hard to match up because two corresponding corners must have the same exact numbers on them, in the correct order. Each person’s turn takes about 2 minutes, meaning that the game lasts forever when you have to place all the pieces. No one knows how to play, so the game takes an additional 20 minutes to explain the rules. By the end of the game, no one really cares who won, and no one is going to brag about their wins because winning Triominos doesn’t feel like winning. It’s a lose-lose in all respects.

2) Candy Land. I really, really used to like Candy Land. The game is simple… pull random cards to advance to the next color, until you eventually reach the end of the board. But here is the killer… scattered across the board are special squares that you might be sent to if you draw the corresponding card. Really, your game could be over in 5 turns if you get the right cards in a row, because there is an “advance to right in front of the ending” card. There is also a card that takes you all the way to the beginning, which is just about the most evil thing you can do to your child. There is also this area called “Rainbow Road” (not Mario Kart in any form) at the beginning of the game that could instantly move a player about 1/3 of the way towards the end, and a really far distance in front of all the other players. So in the end, the game is really just a “keep drawing cards” game, with no real strategy beyond hoping to feel for the ice cream mountain card.

1) Chutes and Ladders. Oh how I loathe this game. The game is a playing board with a 100 squares with ladders and chutes strewn across the board. As the player spins the spinner (same as rolling a dice), the player advances that many squares. If they reach a ladder, they advance up a few numbers. If they reach a chute, they slide back down to the bottom of a chute. Sounds fun right? WRONG. The game is a true game of luck. No player gets any advantage, because frankly its a random number generator advancing a player around a haphazard playground of failure. It’s not a game, because the winner of the game is determined by whatever the spinner says. There is no way for a player to interact and say “I am going to do this”, because basically the only choice is “spin this spinner.” And like Candy Land’s instatravel card mechanic, there are ladders and chutes that move the player to the very end or beginning of the game making the entire experience really annoying. I greatly frown upon a game in which the player has no input to the outcome! There is also a skewed moral building in the game… the bottom of ladders have pictures of kids doing good things, and at the top is their outcomes. Same for the bottom of slides, which all feature children crying or getting hurt. I don’t know about you, but this is completely backwards for me. I loved to ride down slides as a kid. Riding down the slide was the fun part… it was climbing the steep metal ladder to get to the slide that was terrible. And sometimes there was that kid at the top of the slide who wouldn’t let anyone pass, so you were stuck on that ladder for 5 minutes (recess is only 15 minutes, what a waste of time).  Really this game does just about everything wrong and invokes way too many poor childhood moments.

Now that we know the worst, here are some of the best board games ever conceived by mankind.

5) Settlers of Catan. Most likely you have heard nothing or very little of this game, because it’s a pretty non-mainstream game. But with the recent Xbox360 version releasing, it is finally getting the recognition it deserves. It is quite a remarkable experience to play. The game is simple… try to earn points by building cities, towns, and collecting special cards. This is done by owning areas of land, then receiving resources to purchase buildings and cards from these lands. Different land areas are controlled by different dice values, and rolling a dice determines what resources are handed out each round. The gameplay is a lot of fun, because a lot of it relies on trading and one-upping other players. It is a very involved game, where everyone is playing every single round. A lot of games fail to be inclusive to all players, but in Catan everyone has a big part. And the game gets ruthless! It’s just too much fun.

4) Cranium. Cranium is another fantastic game, because it relies on creativity and knowledge. Like Trivial Pursuit, players advance around a board when they achieve certain tasks. Each spot on the board is one of four colors, indicating four categories of cards. Each card category has the player involved in sculpting clay, doodling with their eyes closed, or many other skills. The game is really crazy sometimes, and relies on players to let their inhibitions go just for a while :). Besides, it is hilarious trying to get people to sculpt a can opener out of clay.

3) Stratego. This game is nuts. There is so much strategy to the game that it you could spend hours trying to build the perfect army. The game is a 2-player capture the flag game, where each side builds a small army of hidden pieces to protect the flag. Players attack each other not knowing what pieces each player has, and a small battle occurs until someone finds a flag on either side. This game is just brilliant because the game actually has tactics, unlike many other games.

2) Risk. I don’t need to explain Risk, because everyone who has played it has most likely loved it, unless they got their butt kicked by a seasoned player. Risk is about world domination, and any game that relies on world domination wins in my book. There is nothing better than amassing a large army and just terrorizing all the neighboring countries.

1) Chess. You can’t beat chess. It’s one of those games that has no ceiling in difficulty, and you will always find a player better than you to beat. Chess is pure strategy, relying on outwitting your opponent and planning. The game can be as deep or shallow as you want it to be, and players choose what kind of player they are going to be. It does what any game should do… combining strategy, good gameplay, and solid rules that cannot be manipulated and twisted.

So those are my choices, agreement or disagreement?

Edit:  Monopoly should fit in here somewhere, but honestly, everyone hates me after I am done playing with them… they can’t stand the fact that I play ruthlessly.  Short a dollar?  Yeah, you better be paying me back with 500% interest per roll.

SHIFT was released last week by Tony and its gone on to receive some of the best reviews I’ve ever read. In addition, it earned the #1 spot on Newgrounds, which by all standards is the main authority on ‘Whats Hot’ in the flash Game and Animation scene.

Congratulations Tony on making an amazing game! For everyone who enjoyed playing it, keep your eyes posted for a sequel.

-Daniel

Every game teaches me something.  Whether it is learning the actual code or the development process, it is a significant battle to find a target audience.  What does a fifteen year old want?  What does a 30 year old want?  What does a girl want to play?  What makes it fun for them?  How can I program that?  Elements answered an important question for me as a developer, in regards to controlling the game.

Flash depends on an extremely simple control schema.

Working with titles in the past such as Luminara, I have found that using the arrow keys and the mouse is borderline too much for users.  For one, anyone playing from a laptop is limited to a trackpad, which is a terrible pointing mechanism.  Unless the game focuses on a turn-based system or a schema that does not rely on time-sensitive mechanics, the best option to penetrate the largest audience for action games is the keyboard.  If using a mouse though, gestures need to be simple and intuitive.  Elements uses complex mouse gestures to manipulate the playing surface, which causes some problems for users.  The idea of the click and drag is not as simple as it would seem.  The click, drag, and rotate is even more complex without instruction.

There is a prototype method for how players will actively search to find the controls of a game.  Given that Elements will only tell you to use the mouse, a player will ignore the keyboard and try to use the mouse. Usually this will start by wiggling the mouse to look for response.  If unresponsive to the game, they will usually combine some sort of clicking with wiggling.  In Elements, clicking and wiggling will result in triggering an action on the screen but will most likely lead to a larger confusion as the game depends on extremely accurate clicking and dragging.  A random click and wiggle will make the screen go crazy, since this mouse action will rotate the entire level (and screen).  The major reaction from the game will lead to a major reaction from the player, by which the player will try to replicate what they just did.  By this time, they will be infuriated because they have spent their precious game time trying to learn a mechanic.  But as they hone their ability, control becomes more intuitive.

But for a user to learn a new game control system is unintuitive and against general video game logic.  Video games are hard-pressed this day and age to teach something, unless their very nature is to expand gameplay mechanic. Relying on previous control schemes allows a player to engage in a game at maximum proficiency without having to learn a single mechanic.  And this is the very nature of Flash games at this point; to engage a player in a fast-loading, quick-jump-into-and-play atmosphere.  So when the click-drag-rotate function of Elements came around, people were upset that it required an “unintuitive” control system.  But in reality, how else would you rotate an entire level around a ball?  Using the arrow keys would be slow and tedious, and entering in an angle manually will revert users back to a Turtle Math sort of interface.  The mouse allows the user the motor-skills necessary to generate the correct angle in the quickest amount of time.

So what this has taught me is that users do not want to learn how to control something differently; they want to engage in a game without the hassle of relearning game mechanics.

I watched this on the Armor Games site very carefully.  The bulk of first commenters on the comments section told me the game “sucked”; it was unintuitive and hard to control.  Granted these first comments were made about 3 minutes after the game was launched, so it would have been near impossible for the controls to be learned and mastered in this amount of time.  It takes nearly 30 seconds to load the game, and another 15 seconds to get to an actual gameplay scenario once through menus and instructions.

Another 15 minutes later, I started getting the next wave of comments, which were much happier and dedicated users to the game.  They opened the game and were willing to master the controls, and get the full enjoyment out of the game.  They had generally positive feedback and actually could get to the “Elements” portion of the game.

So what does that leave the developer with?  Well, it leaves a very cookie-cutter game control mechanism.  To be safe, it would be best to either use just the mouse OR the keyboard.  And not just any keyboard… using the arrow keys or WASD is crucial (but not even WASD, because I have received complaints from international developers who have AZERTY keyboard configurations which do not have a WASD configuration).  And of course, not everyone has a mouse so a keyboard would be better.  And even then what are we left with?

A game that uses the arrow keys as a primary directional control scheme, which translates to no hurdles for players.

This is what has made games like Portal so easy to get into.  Portal relies on a control mechanism that is essentially the same as a First Person Shooter, even down to the gun which is still a gun that just shoots portals.  But at the same time, Portal changes up gameplay within the FPS design, without removing the FPS control schema.  That is to say, Portal shows that innovation is not limited to a simple control scheme.  Innovation can be achieved if the player can find gameplay control that is intuitive enough to get into the game easily.

The Wii console has also achieved this victory, but from another direction.  Wii has instead taken the control schemes of normal life motions to control the game.  It is intuitive to throw a ball by rotating the arm from the shoulder, and Wii can capture this motion and translate it into a game.  Essentially, its a simulation.

In opposition, it would seem that using a keyboard or a mouse is not a real-life motor skill simulation, so why would players engage it so easily?  In essence, it has really evolved slowly over the past 40 years.  The oldest systems (such as the Odyssey or the 2600) used a knob that twisted to move a player up and down the screen.  Knobs are generally used to increase or decrease a value, such as a thermostat or speed on a motor.  So when a knob was introduced, it translated to an increase or decrease in position.  Paddles soon evolved into joysticks, which generalized motion into moving a stick left to go left, right to go right, and so on.  Joysticks flattened into a directional pad, and by that time home computers were becoming prevalent, along with the games that appeared on them.  The arrow keys provided that simple directional pad necessary to operate the computer interface.

So here we are, 40 years later in a world where computer games now make more money than music sales.  The controls are essentially the same, and people are used to how they work.  Intuition in gaming is important, if not vital to the success of a game.  In a player’s mind, first comes control, second comes the game.  If the first doesn’t settle, then the second will not even have a chance to try.

Or maybe this post should not be called “What Elements has Taught Me as a Developer”, but maybe “What Elements has Taught Me About Players.”  Players just want to play the game, and get engaged.  It’s up to the developers to aid them through this process, by allowing the player a simple setup that reinforces what players already use to control other games.  Long story short: allow for minimum friction for control translation between developer and player.