The first time you got into it - gaming that is

Feeling abit 'o nostalgia, and seeing how almost everyone in the office have been gamers for a long time, thought I'd pop an interesting question. Just edit this post to add your answers.

Q: Your first video or PC game... What was it about the game that attracted you to play it in the first place?

(Sic)shot - First video game was Shinobi. Watching its boss battles just blew me away. Probably why I love villains so much. First PC game was Eye of the Beholder 2. That one was because of it's presentation. Never imagined I'd get to play a D&D game with beautifully animated enemies that were right-in-your-face.

Her Highness - First video game was Super Mario. First PC game was Pizza Tycoon(?), I don't even know the name, it's this game where you set up pizza houses in different countries and you trade arms to get extra moolah. What can I say? I am not a hardcore gamer. I played these games at friends' place. The first PC game I owe is House of the Dead, and me being the screamer me, always screams when a zombie/monster appears out of nowhere. Heh.

Home entertainment services?

linkety

Yahoo has released a free software that basically turns PC into a DV recorder. sounds likes old tech news with Microsoft and their Win XP Media Center, Apple with their FrontRow. But we can actually see a progression of technology to the living room. I think it's only a matter of time when they combine Xbox and Media Center, Yahoo! Go with Yahoo! Games, and then, perhaps the line between a console and a computer will be blurred, (even now you can play flash games on xbox360).

Mobile Weapon Developer Diary #14

New Mobile Weapon Logos!!! The cog is supposed to be representative of 3 themes: Mechanical (looks like a gear), Mobile (a drive wheel in a tank tread) and Weapon (a cylinder with 3 firing chambers).

Vote for your favourite logo or tell us which parts of the different permutations you like!

Logo 1: Fonts remind me of a certain arcade game


Logo 2: Made the font colors consistant


Logo 3: Upgraded the textured feel of the cog. Thanks to Malc for this suggestion


Logo 4: This is using an original font create by me!


Logo 5: Changed the lighting angle and had a stroke/glow effect


Logo 6: Embossed the fonts for a 3D feel


Logo 7: Shifted the words a little


Logo 8: Tried making the cog the center piece

TYLER Teppan Menu, 29th April

The menu so far...

Teppanyaki -

• Chicken


• Sirlion Steak (for those who can eat beef)


• Squid


• Mixed Vegetables (Bean sprouts, carrots, green peppers, shitake)

Grill -

• Sambal Stingray
• Portabello Mushrooms
• "Bay Bugs"

Others -

• Assorted Sushi - Derek
• Carrie "whatever" Salad - Carrie

Desert -

• Rum and Chocolate Tiramisu

I may attempt to cook the Korean seafood pancake. Please feel free to contribute more items as necessary. :-P

Standardization. Tyler project"s"

We need to standardize!

Registered company name - TYLER PROJECTS PTE. LTD.
Name on Invoices and Contracts - TYLER PROJECTS PTE. LTD.
Corporate Account - TYLER PROJECTS PTE. LTD.
Name on namecards - TYLER PROJECT PTE. LTD.
Company Website - www.tylerprojects.com
Company Blog - tylerprojects.blogspot.com
Company Email - @tylerproject.com

I think we should standardize with the "s".

Mobile Weapon Codex #2

The world of Sios has a global ranking system for MAW (Mobile Armored Weapon) pilots. New players will begin with the basic rank of Class E, novice. New players also need to pick a type of MAW for their pilot to specialize in: Melee, Ranged or Magic.

Within each class band there are 5 ranks: Novice, Advanced, Specialist, Elite, Ace.

Pilots ranks are as follows:
Class E - Novice, Advanced, Specialist, Elite, Ace.
Class D - Novice, Advanced, Specialist, Elite, Ace.
Class C - Novice, Advanced, Specialist, Elite, Ace.
Class B - Novice, Advanced, Specialist, Elite, Ace.
Class A - Novice, Advanced, Specialist, Elite, Ace.
Class S - There's no ranks within for S class, if you are S class you are somewhat legendary and that's all.

Pilots get improved skills as they increase in rank and new special techniques (Crush Blow, Sniper shot, Focus).

Going up in rank also means they will have access to more powerful weapons and equipment and MAWs.

Criticism of Vista user interface

Paul Thurrott has been a long time supporter of Microsoft and its product, sometimes to a point of fanaticism. Anyway, he brought up quite a lot of valid points regarding Vista user interface.

In short, he brought up points about windows focusing, excessive dialog boxes and features-laden interface, resulting in complex, complicated interface (it's an art trying to implement features while keeping the interface clean and easy).

Feel free to take a look at his article if you are free
linkety

Mobile Weapon Codex #1

We've decided to apply for funding from MDA and they require us to submit our game "bible". I dislike using the term game "bible", so we're going to work on our game codex here instead.

Weapon Types
There are 3 classes of weapons used by the conventional MAWs, magus MAWs wield magic in addition to any of the weapons listed here:


Melee Weapons
Fists - MAWs that use heavy mailed fists as their weapons get 2 attacks. Best suited for players who want to get a few good hits in quick before their opponents can even react.
Hammers - Hammers, Maces are heavy, cumbersome and slow your MAW down. But they hit with planet sized force! Capable of knocking back oponents.


Ranged Weapons
Cannon - Cannons the most common ranged weapons. They have long range, and pack a big punch, great for decimating the enemy from afar. They have a minimum range and cannot be used in close combat. Some mounted cannons also require you to face the direction that you want to fire at.
Gattling Cannon - Fast firing gattling cannons can make short work of an enemy MAW if they get in close.
Rockets - Rockets have the longest range and damage a small area on impact.
Mortar - Shell devastation over a large area with motar bombs!


Special Weapons
Special weapons can only be purchased by pilots aligned with specific factions or with a sufficently high pilot class.

Flamer (Magma Cannons) - Flame and Magma weapons overheat the enemy MAW's increasing the time they need to charge for their next turn.
Beam - Superior range and damage. Aiming the crystal powered beam weapons can only be done by skilled MAW pilots.
Beam Sabers - Ancient technology said to be able to condense pure energy into a blade.

Dim Sum vs. BBQ

So far the votes are as follows:

Leonard - BBQ
Malc - against Dim Sum, but not pro BBQ either
Derek - I know! Iknow! No Dim Sum... Indian food at civil service club!
Shirley - BBQ, any place as long as have space
Carrie - BBQ
Ronnie - lazy
Daizhong - Anything
Tianyang - Anything

Jocelyn - ???
Laura - ???

Mobile Weapon Developer's Diary #13

Lucky number 13, perhaps it is fated that this post will not sound so pleasant.

I was going to integrate the new team selection (a.k.a. Room Module) to with our main controller just now when I realised...



...that my module had to be intergrated inside frame 63 of the "skip_menu" module. The controller with the code to be intergrated had a single huge method also controling some other function. The scope of the method and variables were the entire module even though it was used in just one frame. And last but not least, the controller was invisible so we couldn't find it at first.

I was like "#^@!#^!@^#*$#@$*"!!!

The current state of our architecture isn't spagetti, it's ravioli. Open up a component and get a surprise! You never know what other components are hiding inside each other!

We've been putting this off for too long. Tomorrow it's time to clean house.

Abstraction, Abstraction, Abstraction - no more huge methods, methods do what they are supposed to do and nothing else (especially no more putting functional code in buttons!). Methods must have good descriptive names, same for modules. Key keyframes (the ones you want to be able to jump to) should be labelled.

We also want modules and methods to be black boxes. Something specific goes in, something specific comes out. Avoid accessing the variables or trying to control a module without going through it's interface! I know it can't be done in Flash but don't forget your programming lessons from Java.

I don't want to remove a module and suddenly 3 other modules don't work as a result. That's just not right.

And like I've said ad-Infinitum.... Comments!!!

Mobile games news

China's Mobile Game Market

"...Digital-Red Mobile Software is an up-and-coming member of China's fast-growing mobile game market. The five-year-old game developer already has several of its mobile games embedded in Nokia phones sold in China. Recently, Digital-Red was acquired by Shanda Interactive Entertainment, the largest PC-game company in China. As a result, Digital-Red is now able to reach millions of new potential customers. The company has developed more than 80 games for Symbian OS.

Digital-Red is now branching out in a number of directions. It has expanded its marketing beyond China, making licensing deals with 40 operators in 25 countries. It has also developed a multimedia engine, Dragon Bone, that allows PC games to be easily ported to mobile phones. The company has also been certified as a Nokia training center, and it offers training in topics such as Java™ technology and Symbian OS development. Most recently, Digital-Red has been working to port its mobile games to S60 3rd Edition..."

More here

Also:

Useful mobile game heuristics checking:
Here

Mobile Weapon Developer's Dairy #12 and a half

Hmmm, high time I posted something. (Sorry guys, always slipped my mind to use this). Ok, status report on MW. Both the handphone and PC versions are now in sync. This means that the phone version now has our Energy-ATB system, and can receive synchronise instructions for all the actions that can be performed in the PC version, including things like teleportation and combo attacks. New features done for the hand phone version include the following:

1) Workin ATB Energy Bar
2) Team selection
3) Win and Lose screens (Done button just logs out the player)
4) Gold and Xp calculation (No changes to DB yet though, will do that soon)
5) Bots onscreen can now receive all non combat instructions implemented on the PC version (However, Handphone players still cannot perform these actions yet)
6) Fight Intro Text (eg. Ready.. Fight!)
7) Bot death when HP = 0 and when disconnected

New features in the PC includes number 2, 3, 4, and 6, with the following additions and differences
- Gold and XP calculation changes the values in DB
- Done button on win/lose screens takes player back to the room instead of logging out
- Team selection now shows the player's avatar and bot

Aaand next, I shall try doing up the shop for the PC version. Any other change or additional ideas you might have, feel free to comment here.

Kudos to you ppl at Tyler, ^_^
Derek

ElderScrolls IV: Oblivion Review

SicShot picked up the PC version of ElderScrolls IV: Oblivion last Friday and I did a little marathon in the office just before the exams to bring you guys this review.

In the 20th hour, of my gameplay I have to say I was disappointed.

"Levelled" System
Being a Morrowind player, I had spent 50% of my time training up my theiving skills just to raid the imperial palace vault for some cool weapons and armor. I go in and what do I find? JUNK! mugs bowls, Junk!!! and then the palace guard spots me and kills me. Oblivion uses a levelled system, loot and monsters are levelled along with you. If you're low level, you get crap.

Gone are the days where you sneaked into the vault at the start of the game, stole the glass armor and ran like mad. Fair enough a leveled system might make for "fairer" and more challenging gameplay. All the same I feel cheated that the glass armor worked so hard to steal from the fighter's guild was a ceremonial set with a defense rating of 1!

Overly Simplified System and less variety
In Morrowind, you had the choice of chitinous armor, leather armor, boiled leather armor and a whole variety of relatively similar armors; and that was just light armor. In Oblivion, the developers have decided to simplify things, instead of 4 categories of armor (light med, heavy, unarmored), we now only have light and heavy. I dropped my iron armor the moment I found some chainmail because it was lighter only to discover at the boss fight that it counts as light armor for which I do not have a proficiency in. I know that chainmail isn't as heavy as plate mail but if you've ever held chainmail you'll know it sure as heck isn't light!

I'm just using this as an example, overall there seem to be a whole lot of features that have been simplified for console gameplay instead of PC gameplay. Some spells are missing (Mark, Recall) too.

Fewer towns and Quests
The developers claimed that you wouldn't notice. Well I think it's pretty darn noticeable!

Firstly, fewer factions to join. I spent a good 3 hours raiding barracks trying to join the Legion because I wanted some cool legion armor, only to discover much later that... GASP! There is no more Legion faction! Despite the fact that you are in Cyrodill, home of the Imperial Legion! the imperial cult and the temple have also disappeared. There should be some new factions but I have come across those yet so it might be that I'm jumping to conclusions. BUT I STILL THINK THERE SHOULD BE A LEGION FACTION.

How many towns were there in Morrowind? Tel Mora, Tel Arun, Sada Moraith, Balmora, Vivec, Ald Ruhn, Ebonhart, Caldera, Syeda Neen, Dragon Fel, etc... countless basically. How many towns are there in Oblivion? 9 one for each of the 9 divines I suppose, and they are all on your map from the begining. Wow, that's a great incentive to explore the land. There are some small farms and forts around but far from what I'd call a town or village. Even if the area in oblivion is the same as Morrowind. It certainly feels much much smaller.

The achitecture in Morrowind was much more exotic as well (floating Cantons of Vivec, Mushroon towers of Tel Mora, Giant crab Shell City of Ald Ruhn, etc). Granted it may be that Cryodillic architecture is more like the European architecture we have in the real world. But the problem is, it's too much like the real world. It's more like medival Europe and not the center of Tamriel!

Conclusion
For all that I've said, you might have noticed that I keep comparing Oblivion with Morrowind. Simply because, there's no other game that even comes close, if you're going to critque an elderscrolls game you can only compare it too another elderscrolls game.

Oblivion is simply breath taking in terms of game graphics. Instead of just a sky box and ambient lighting, the sun actually moves across the sky as time passes and clouds drift following the direction of the wind.

The new combat system also adds strategy to the way you fight as compared to the otherwise dull button mashing system of Morrowind.

Other that that, it's basically Morrowind with some tweaks here and there but the same winning formula. I'm going to upgrade my home PC in June, and play this game VERY VERY slowly and savour every moment until my eyes bleed from playing it too long.

Some interesting game statistics

Estimate of the size of the underground market for selling virtual items and money from EverQuest and other online games:
US$200m-800m

Gigabytes of EverQuest data downloaded since 1999:
9 million gigabytes

Video game hardware and software market by 2009:
$30billion

Online gaming market by 2009:
$10billion

Sony's online games servers:
1500 servers

Kilometers of wire and cable connecting EQ servers in San Diego:
30 km

Source: Sony Corp., IDC, DFC Intelligence. Note: All figures are estimates.

Note2: Taken from here
Read for full article.

China online gaming news

Read here

Something for game publishers to take note of, and to adhere to:

"...Under the new system, your online character becomes less and less effective. After three hours, the number of in-game "experience points" for, say, killing an opponent are reduced by half.
After five hours you do not get any at all. It is called the fatigue system... "

"...From June it will test an authentication system. Players will be able to use only one gaming account, which will be tied to their real-world identity cards and matched against a government database..."

Chocopets developers' diary #3

New shop launched:


"The Sanctuary"
Allows buying of backgrounds using points.

Chocopets developers' diary #2

New website launched:




http://www.chocopets.com