Sideway New York

Sideway New York is a PSN platformer that is now also available via Steam for the PC. In the game you play a young kid who gets sucked into the graffiti art on the buildings around you. The game is a 2D platformer on 3D objects (houses, walls etc) and the graphical style reminds me a lot of the awesome real life counterparts:

COMBO a collaborative animation by Blu and David Ellis (2 times loop) from blu on Vimeo.

Sideway New York

Dweller - coffebreak game vs big game?

In a recent comment to a Dweller post a request was made to make Dweller into something more than a coffebreak roguelike. The commenter asked for a deity system (you can see some of my thought regarding that here), a big overworld with several locations to explore, more monsters and the ability to eat corpses. Some thoughts on this and other things that could be added to Dweller:

Coffebreak vs big game
Dweller is primarily a game intended to be played in short bursts, while waiting for the bus, in-between meetings or any other time when you have a couple of minutes to spare. The game must be easy to pick-up and leave, and as such it can't be too complex and take too long to play. There are several features in other RPGs and roguelikes that would contradict the goal of Dweller being easy to pick up and play for a few minutes. A big overworld, a deity system and a class and skill system are examples of such features.

Deity system
As I mentioned in my other blog post a deity system should be a well thought through thing to add, preferably from the start, and not something tacked on to the game just because other games has it. With the risk of disappointing some players I will most likely never add a deity system in Dweller. Sure, there's a reference to a God that aids you when you go down to a never before visited level, but that was just a way to obfuscate a game design decision to reward a player for exploring further. I might expand upon this and let the player heal as he explores previously non visited parts of a level (as is done in Desktop Dungeons).

A big overworld
This is a tempting one, but it will not happen. What may happen is that the overworld/forest level will include more things than the healer and the merchant. I'm thinking entrances to different dungeons and more NPCs. There could be a noob/tutorial dungeon for new players and low level players to get to know the game. There could be themed dungeons spanning several levels, like The Caves, The Sewers, The Necropolis and The Dungeons of the Goblin King. This would replace the random theme you get each time you descend to a new level. It would also force me into making the cave and sewer theme a lot more appealing than it is today, with more variation and monsters specific to the level theme.

Improved magic system
Yes, this will happen. Playing a wizard is boring and needs a lot more variation. More spells and above all interesting spells that force the player to make tactical decisions.

Perks and character advancement
Yes, this will happen, and it is described a bit more here.

Quests
Yes, this will happen to some extent. I'd like to add a few quests to give the player a bunch of goals on his way towards the Goblin King.

Roguelike Radio - Roguelike features in other games

A new episode of Roguelike Radio was released yesterday. This time Andrew Doull, John Harris, Darren Grey, Ido Yehieli and Keith Burgun (author of 100 Rogues) discuss the use of what is typically perceived as the corner-stones of roguelike gamedesign in other types of games. Some people refer, quite fittingly, to these games with roguelike elements as roguelike-likes.

Roguelike Radio - The Binding of Isaac

The guys over at roguelike radio are churning out new episodes like there's no tomorrow. Last week they dedicated episode #11 to a review of and interview with the developer of The Binding of Isaac. I bought the game myself as a part of the Humble Voxatron Bundle and while it is a real-time game it has many similarities to a roguelike and it was a well chosen topic for a Roguelike Radio episode. The game has received some critique for being a bit gory and disturbing as the player takes on the role of a small boy who escapes down the basement in an attempt to gt away from his mother who is about to sacrifice her son to show her devotion to God. Once Isaac is down in the basement the true nightmare begins with a lot of nasty nightmarish creatures doing their best to kill him.

Netpack

It seems like there aren't many classic games and genres that have been spared from being roguelikeified. This time it's the Namco classic Pacman who meets Rogue. In Netpack you move your little @ around a pacman style maze picking up pellets and power-ups while dodging ghosts.

FEIST

FEIST is an acclaimed (IGF Finalist, Unity Awards winner) 2D platformer made using Unity. It has the same silhouetted style of graphics as titles such as Super Goblin War Machine and Insanely Twisted Shadow Planet but it stands out even more visually than other similar titles. The game is scheduled for summer 2012 and despite being at least 6 or 7 months away from a release it looks really polished and fun. The physics, enemies and the little furry hero look really beautiful. Can't wait to give it a try!

Feist Trailer 5 from Adrian Stutz on Vimeo.

Red Rogue

What if you took a roguelike and turned it into a sidescrolling platformer/explorer with randomly generated levels? Well, you'd get Red Rogue and a pretty nice game. Red Rogue definitely has some potential, but it is still a bit rough around the edges.