Category: News

[One of the most fascinating games of 2008 thus far is Grasshopper Manufacture’s critically acclaimed No More Heroes, and TimeGate Studios designer Steve Gaynor analyzes the unique title for Gamasutra in this enthusiastic opinion piece.]

At this moment I am experiencing the post-game rush. The one that comes immediately after you complete a really great game and you’re vibrating with excitement over it.

I just finished my playthrough of No More Heroes, and I’m feeling a serious love buzz for Grasshopper Manufacture: for the game itself, the ethic that brought it about, and everything it does that is unique and joyful and uninhibited.

Above all, No More Heroes is gleefully absurd and self-referential. It lampoons the standard pretenses of video games as well as its own audience. It revels in all the ridiculous elements of standard ‘bad-ass, gritty’ action games.

It refuses to take anything about itself seriously, while being fully aware of the culture and conventions it’s playing off of. It speaks to an audience familiar with action video games as well as the ephemera that surround them, and can take pleasure in all of No More Heroes‘ knowing jabs and perversions.

The Plot That Matters

No More Heroes throws the player into the role of Travis Touchdown, a broke, idiotic otaku living in a cheap motel room filled with his anime posters and poseable figurines. Uncharacteristically, Travis is a good-looking, well built dude who shares fashion sense with Tyler Durden.

One day, Travis wins a lightsaber “beam sword” off of eBay an “internet auction site” and somehow ends up killing the United Assassins Association’s (UAA) number 11 ranked member. A mysterious woman approaches him and suggests he climb the UAA ladder by eliminating each of the top ten ranked assassins one by one. So, the player leaves his anime pad to go on massive killing sprees with his lightsaber, driving to his assignments on his enormously tricked-out motor scooter and then suplexing and hacking up tons of goons like a cross between a Mexican luchador and the Star Wars Kid on meth.

The premise essentially takes a rabid anime nerd’s ultimate fantasy life and turns it into a video game, showing how completely ridiculous and laughable it is in the process. Beside the premise and the protagonist, the gameplay itself pushes every element of action games over the top into the absurd. The combat is outrageously gory to the point of being a cartoon, and the bosses are so contrived and implausible as to put Metal Gear Solid villains to shame.

The Attitude That Matters

As the game boots up, The Grasshopper Manufacture crest is emblazoned with the credo “Punk’s Not Dead,” and declares GhM a “Video Game Band. Just seeing that logo as a splash screen is incredibly heartening, and the implied ethic really does show through in the product. No More Heroes takes the standards of the genre and throws them back in its face. It’s loud, abrasive, concerned as much with image as substance, and completely exhilarating. Maybe it really is punk.

There’s been some writing lately about the schism between the hardcore reviewership and the casual game market. Some bloggers dismissively condescend toward players engaged with the lineage of games that require high investment in and dedication to the act of play.

The anti-hardcore “like being treated gently” while playing a video game — they “dont want to be knocked unconscious” by their entertainment; they “just want to relax in front of the television set, doing not much of anything.”

No More Heroes is not the game for them. No More Heroes grabs your collar and screams in your face. It revels in the sensory overload normally provided by a game like God of War or Devil May Cry and amps it up to an unprecedented, speaker-popping assault. It’s just what Grasshopper set out for it to be: it’s the Sex Pistols or The Stooges freaking out and pissing off your parents.

At its best, a good fight in No More Heroes is as unrelenting and destructive as a track off of Raw Power. And those leveling criticism are right, Pitchfork shouldn’t be reviewing Enya. People who just want to relax in front of the televison, doing not much of anything while they play a video game need not apply.

The Things To Love

There’s just too much to love about this game. I love that it’s a Japanese title that blatantly draws inspiration from Grand Theft Auto. I love that it has character customization, including over 100 different shirts to collect and try on. I love that the majority of these shirts seem to have been designed by Suda 51 himself (under the transparent pseudonym “Mask de Uh,” pointing to his ongoing infatuation with luchadors.) I love that it’s a hardcore, gamer-focused, direct character inhabitation game that relies on the lo-fi graphics and technology of the Wii. It’s pragmatic, and uses superfluous design sense to make up for technical shortcomings. It eschews HD. I love it for that.

I love that, in a strangely affecting twist, the game takes moments to acknowledge the aftermath of violence much more directly than its contemporaries: the mangled corpse of each boss character that you kill remains on the scene as you walk around collecting your reward, forcing you to face the evidence after the act is done. It’s somewhat grotesque, and refreshingly so when death is otherwise so meaningless in the vast majority of action games.

I love that the game is legitimately challenging, and requires the player to pay great attention to the bosses’ behaviors and precisely time his inputs. And I love that when you do die to a boss, an extremely player-friendly retry option lets you immediately jump back in and give it another shot. I love that it’s not easy; I love that it expects more out of me.

I love how much actual gameplay lies outside the core mechanics in the form of side jobs and miniature distractions. You don’t just run, jump, fight and kill. You exterminate poisonous scorpions, defuse land mines, gather up trash off the street, collect coconuts, whitewash graffiti, mow lawns, and rescue stray cats. It appeals to me for the same reason that Raw Danger!‘s variety of non-standard interactions did: it’s something new, a range of experience I’m not used to receiving through a video game.

I love how “gamey” the final product is– it relies as much on the old-school pixelated tropes of the earliest arcade games as it does on the conventions of titles like GTA3. The UI is decidely 8-bit, with the UAA leaderboard being depicted as a Galaxian-alike arcade game high score board. There are segments of play that include side-scrolling, and even a mini shmup used for one of the lead-up levels. The game isn’t trying to be something it’s not– there are cutscenes, but the overall presentation isn’t anywhere near “cinematic.” That would be too serious, too pedestrian, too commercial. No More Heroes is not of a piece; it’s fragmented, eclectic, and in love with being a video game. Maybe that’s why I love it so damn much myself.

In the end, I often judge the worth of a game on how much it makes me laugh. I love how much I laughed while playing No More Heroes.

The Things To Question

There are disappointments, though. I wish the bike controls were more intuitive. I wish that all the buyables didn’t cost so much, so I didn’t have to grind side-missions to buy all the clothes and upgrades I wanted. I wish that the side-missions had that nice instant retry option like the main missions do.

I wish the game had tried to play with its structure more. I love how devoted the developers were to making the lead-up to each boss fight unique: you spend levels doing everything from fighting on a moving bus to driving down a highway to running through a maze to pulling donuts on your motor scooter in the middle of a baseball field.

But the overall flow of the game is cyclical and repetitive, down to the very end. Play through level, beat boss, grind for money in town, buy upgrades, then on to the next level. Repeat. A game like Portal shows how effective messing with player assumptions of game flow can be: how excellent was it to be lulled into the idea of playing through 19 chambers, only to have your expectations turned upside down at the game’s midpoint?

How excellent would it be for Travis to climb halfway up the UAA leader board, only for the game structure to change completely, introducing you to an entirely new view on the experience? No more of the same old routine, suddenly the course you thought you were on changes. But no, in No More Heroes you just keep stepping up one rung at a time til you hit the end you’d seen coming from the very start. It quickly becomes rote. An opportunity for subversion was missed.

I wish the f*cking manual included some credits for the developers. Yeah, I know, most gamers don’t even open the manual, much less read the credits. But don’t the men and women who toiled long and hard to give us this game deserve to have their name on it? Somewhere physical and permanent, not just in the scroll at the end of the game? Is that too much to ask? Is this standard with Japanese games brought over to the States?

I noticed that there are no Japanese credits in the Katamari Damacy manual either, though I remember there being credits in the Final Fantasy VII manual when I flipped through it long ago. It probably depends on the publisher. But it feels like an injustice to print an accompanying pamphlet and omit the names of the product’s creators. Maybe nobody else cares, but I do.

The Payoff

No More Heroes is brash, daring, absurd, hilarious, exhilarating, and absolutely one of a kind. It speaks directly to me. It makes me feel happy that such a difficult, impossible thing could make it to market. Congratulations to everyone at Grasshopper for pulling it off. You have my deep respect.

[This is an adapted version of an article which originally ran on Gaynor’s Fullbright weblog.]

Rocket League provided more details for the Rocket Pass today, a limited-time progression system available to players starting September 5 and running through November 26.

This doesn’t come as much of a surprise, as Psyonix mentioned last month that it would be retooling Rocket League’s progression system through the introduction of the limited-time passes.

The new business model is likely a response to the Battle Pass popularized by games like Fortnite and PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds, but it’s always interesting to see how different devs approach earning revenue.

As detailed on Rocket League’s website, tier progression begins by playing matches online to earn free rewards, with an option to purchase the premium pass for extra rewards and cosmetic upgrades for every tier.

While there isn’t any mention of how much the premium pass will cost, it’s worth noting that players will get more rewards if they choose to pay for it.

After Rocket Pass ends, players will be able to keep their free and premium rewards they’ve earned. When the next Rocket Pass begins, all players start back at tier 1.

To learn more about Rocket Pass and how the tiered progression works, click here.  

The following blog post, unless otherwise noted, was written by a member of Gamasutra’s community.
The thoughts and opinions expressed are those of the writer and not Gamasutra or its parent company.

---

AI Development: The Strings we Pull

Hello everyone, this is Liam McDonald. I’m one of the Developers at Failbetter Games. I’m taking a brief moment to share some of the exciting combat redesign work I’ve been doing with Paul Arendt. We’ve been looking over all the enemies (Agents) in Sunless Skies to update them with some of the new features that are being introduced in the latest build. We’ve just completed the fleshiest part of that work. So cast your eyes downward for a look at how exactly we go about bringing horror to your screens.

Terminology for this article:

Player – The player, that’s you!
Agent – Any monster/enemy/NPC.

Actor – An umbrella term: the Player is an Actor, an Agent is also an Actor.

I’m also going to nod quickly in the direction of a crucial bit of underlying tech, the Node Graph. The Node Graph specifies the points in a scene where an actor can move – areas without terrain, basically. The logic which controls how Agents move around our world begins with the selection of a Node; we determine what Node to select by weighting all of the Nodes near the Agent. I’m going to look at how we manipulate the rules behind the Node weighting in order to achieve our design goals.

Below is a screenshot of our Combat Scene where we do a lot of our testing – you can see the Node Graph in all its glory.

 

The full design of any Agent is lot to unpack, but I’m going to cover these main topics: Area Denial, Tells, Wrath, Passions, Provocations and Tactics.

I am not going to discuss Movement. We have a wide range of parameters available to control Agent Movement and it is an important part of the look and feel of an Agent. However it is too complicated to get into in this blog. Ultimately, the goal behind our manipulation of the Movement Parameters is to produce an agent that can perform the manoeuvers we’ve assigned it and that has fluid movement appropriate to their nature. For this blog, Movement can be considered a tool that helps improve the quality of the other areas I’ll be discussing.

The screenshot below which contains the Movement Parameters.

 

The Strings of Design

This is a concept that helps convey how a designer works to achieve their vision. The ‘Strings of Design’ can be individually adjusted by a designer to pull a design into shape. Each string is an individual piece of tech work or a game feature. I’ve already mentioned some of these strings above: Movement Parameters, Passions, Tactics. But we can also use some more common strings, such as Agent Health, Weapon Damage and Wrath (aggro). So, let’s go through these Sunless Skies strings to see how they’re used to improve combat in game!

 

Tells

When an Agent is about to attack, we wanted there to be signalling, so that a player has time to react. We refer to that signalling as a ‘Tell’. During the combat redesign we added a large number of Tells to the Agents’ attacks. We’ll be adding even more in the future. Here are just a few:

Area of Denial

We don’t want combat to feel static – it should be fluid,encouraging constant assessment of your position, taking into account your opponents’ movement and behaviour. To create this need for the player to move, we’ve created areas of denial – areas in which it would be undesirable for a player to remain. These are created through a combination of the Agent’s ability to reposition itself relative to the player and the agent’s choice of attacks.

Here is a first draft of the Scorn Fluke’s attack. When the player is in close proximity, it has the ability to fire a projectile that will explode causing blast damage. We’ve created an Area of Denial ring.

It can be seen in action here:

Wrath

Wrath is a simple numerical value. It measures how Wrathful an agent is towards another Actor in the game. Agents are capable of gaining Wrath toward any other Actor – the player or other Agents. We do prevent Agents of the same type attacking each other. When an Agent exceeds the Wrath threshold with regards to an Actor, that Actor becomes the Agent’s opponent. Here is the Wrath Indicator in action:

Passions

When an Agent has no opponent, their movement will be dictated by a Passion, selected from their list of Passions. When an Agent is spawned, the Node they were spawned on is stored as their ‘Home Node’. We have designed two sets of Passions: the first allows an Agent to Wander a certain distance around their home area – if they exceed this distance, they return to the Home Node. The second set of Passions move the Agent towards the player – if this exceeds a set distance, they return to their Home Node before trying to move towards the player again. Below shows the Wander passion in effect:

Provocations

Provocations are the sets of rules which can add or subtract Wrath from an Agent. There are many ways we can implement a provocation. For instance, we can have Agents that gain Wrath rapidly when the player is in close proximity. Or we can have Agents who only gain Wrath if the player’s headlight is on them.

Another powerful aspect of Provocations is the ability to have them check against certain Player states or belongings. Chorister Bees may usually be quite peaceful, but if you happen to be carrying their Nectar…

Tactics

Once an Agent has an opponent, they will stop using Passions for their movement and start using Tactics. Provocations will still add or subtract Wrath when the right conditions are met. So, if you are able to flee from the Agent, Wrath will go down until you are no longer their opponent. But while the Agent has an opponent, its movement will rely on the Tactics.

We score all Tactics using their Base Weight and a Multiplier. This Weighting dictates how likely a Tactic is to be selected. We use the Multipliers to increase the likelihood of a specific Tactic being chosen. If we wanted to create a Tactic that allows the firing of the Agent’s Primary Weapon – perhaps a shotgun – when the Agent is close to the player, we’d add a large Multiplier to the Primary Weapon when the distance to the player is small.

Next up is Node Weighting, which governs where the Agent is trying to go when they are executing a Tactic. The Agent needs to select a Node from our Node Graph, so we have to score the Nodes so that the Agent can decide which they should pick. In the screenshot of the Close Range Flank Tactic, above, we’re saying that Nodes which are at a particular angle from the opponent (in this case behind the opponent) are weighted at, let’s say, 8. We also weight Nodes within 300-100 units from the opponent at 6. So if a Node is both behind the opponent and between 100-300 from them, it’ll benefit from the weighting of both conditions and therefore will be the most likely to be selected. The result of these weightings helps us to achieve the flanking behaviour that this Tactic is named after.

Finally, we have some optional parameters. We can, for example, have a completion condition. Maybe I want a Tactic to finish when the Agent gets within 400 units from the opponent, so that it can transition to a Ramming attack. We can also add a Timeout. Perhaps a Tactic is hard to achieve when the player is always moving. In this case, we want the Agent to try to achieve it for x seconds, then to move on to another Tactic.

Player Facing will force the Agent to constantly try to face the Player while executing its Tactic. Finally, we have check boxes which turn on Aura Abilities and Weapon Fire. These mean that it is possible for those to execute while the Agent is performing this Close Range Flank Tactic.

Chaining Tactics allows us to layer the complexity of the design. We may want to have a Tactic where an Agent starts by using ‘Approach Player’, then, after completing this, it goes straight into ‘Ram Player’. After the Ram completes, we may want it to then ‘Create Distance From Player’. The design might dictate that the Agent is only able to Ram when it follows that particular chain of Tactics. Other times it makes more sense to have many Tactics available and let the Agent select between them to create a more unpredictable flow to the fight. Which approach is best depends largely on the behaviour we’re trying to achieve and the movement abilities of the specific Agent.

Passions, Provocations and Tactics play the largest role in the AI behaviour of an Agent. Here’s an example of a completed set, using the Douser Engine:

 

Those are just some of the strings we pull to determine an Agent’s behaviour. But how do we decide what behaviour to choose for an Agent? It starts with our Agent’s Personality – we have wealth of information from Sunless Skies’ narrative. If we need more information, we can speak directly to the writers to get a better sense of the Agent we’re designing. Then we boil this information down to touch stones that we can work with. Here’s the Scrive Spinster:

Personality: grieving, bitter, lonely, wants to be left alone – unless the player has works from the Scrives’ library, because they frantically want those back.

Movement ideas: these are teasers who will attempt to keep the player at medium distance, so that they are at the mercy of their high damage, ranged attack. Movement should feel floaty and ethereal.

We can quickly translate that into behaviour that we know we can effect with our design strings. Here’s what that personality might be broken down into:

Passions: Should roam, quietly and alone.
Nodes: The Scrive doesn’t want to go face to face. It will also favour keeping distance between it and the player.

Provocation: If provoked it will attack. If it senses that you are carrying works from their library, it will attack.

Tactic: Because it doesn’t want to face the player, if the player forces that situation, the Scrive should become aggressive and attack more frantically.

This is step one of the design. We lay out the core pillars that should be present in order to translate the narrative ideas into the Agent’s behaviour. When we’re happy with that base, we keep layering, keep pulling the design strings to add complexity to the design until we reach a point where we know that the initial ideas are strongly present in both the movement and attacks.

 

Here’s a look at how that face to face retaliation panned out:

Hopefully this has been a useful insight into part of our design process. I also hope that you’re itching to jump into Sunless Skies and experience all this new combat work. We look forward to hearing your feedback :).

Follow Liam on twitter @wgoodspeed, and follow development @failbettergames. Sunless Skies is available on Steam and GOG.

The Gamasutra Job Board is the most diverse, active and established board of its kind for the video game industry!

Here is just one of the many, many positions being advertised right now.

Location: Irvine, California

Atlus U.S.A., Inc. is currently seeking an energetic and organized Submissions Specialist to manage first party submissions for all titles. In addition, this position manages the relationship with various ratings boards, and submits for game ratings during the production phase.

• Manages and initiates first party submissions on every title and platform while maintaining good relations with first party (Sony Microsoft, Nintendo).
• Identify issues found before, during, and after submission and communicate to all involved parties: Project Leads/Producers, first party, and QA management.
• Works with Project Leads/Producers to ensure that each title is on schedule for submission.
• Understands the lead times required for first party and ratings boards, and how various factors in production could affect submission schedules.
• Informs Leads and QA management if there is a conflict with the schedule or if a potential delay is a possibility.
• Stay up to date on submission processes for all First Party partners.
• Manage a submission schedule for all titles and be prepared for situations that require immediate attention.
• Manage a ratings submission tracker that informs Marketing of game ratings.
• Work with various parties to ensure that all titles are on schedule and are in sync across regions.
• Be involved with first party waivers before and after submission.

Qualifications & Requirements

• Basic use of Microsoft Office. Understanding of system platforms.
• 3 to 5 years of experience managing first party submissions and working in a game production environment

Interested? Apply now.

Whether you’re just starting out, looking for something new, or just seeing what’s out there, the Gamasutra Job Board is the place where game developers move ahead in their careers.

Gamasutra’s Job Board is the most diverse, most active, and most established board of its kind in the video game industry, serving companies of all sizes, from indie to triple-A.

Looking for a new job? Get started here. Are you a recruiter looking for talent? Post jobs here.

A trio of tattoos that featured Nazi symbols or imagery have been removed from the prison-set survival game Scum, a discovery and removal that both fall within days of the game’s Early Access launch.

As reported by Polygon, both developer Gamepires and publisher Devolver Digital have shared an apology, with the latter noting that it plans to review the game for other inappropriate imagery.

While some games like Destiny 2 and Batman: The Telltale Series have had to patch out offensive or inappropriate images due to unintentional use in the past, the images found in Scum were included intentionally to, according to a statement from publisher Devolver Digital to Polygon, “assist in portraying a realistic element of prison culture and the horrid elements within it.”

“This content has been patched out as of this morning, and Devolver Digital are currently conducting a full review of all assets and content in the game with Gamepires,” said a representative from Devolver. “We strongly condemn any and all use of hateful symbology in our games and agree it should have never been in the game regardless of creative intent or realism. Devolver Digital apologizes unreservedly.”

Gamepires further elaborated on the tattoo’s inclusion in the game, saying that “our intention was to create an atmosphere of the worst of the worst criminals in Scum, and to portray the horrible type of people who would find themselves in a ‘fight to the death’ situation for a futuristic reality show where the worst criminals are pitted against one another.”

“Since our initial response on our forums we’ve discussed this as a team and with our publisher and agree wholeheartedly that this content was unnecessary, should not have been included, and have removed it,” continues the developer’s statement. “We apologize for this misstep and promise to our fans that we will take more caution in our approach moving forward.”

Newsbrief: Square Enix’s flagship Final Fantasy MMORPG Final Fantasy XIV now boasts over 14 million registered accounts since the game’s rocky 2010 launch (and more successful 2013 relaunch).

While 14 million is a notable milestone in its own right, it is worth noting that registered accounts is quite a different metric than active players and that accounts that take advantage of the game’s reworked free trial option are likely included in this count as well.

Still, that’s a 4 million boost in registered accounts from the 10 million milestone Final Fantasy XIV hit at about this point last year.

Jacob Mitich, a survivor of the shooting that left three people dead and several injured at a Madden NFL tournament in Jacksonville, Florida last week has filed a lawsuit against EA, the Jacksonville Landing Mall, event venue Chicago Pizza, the GLHF esports bar, and others, accusing all parties of negligence. 

In court documents gathered by The Hollywood Reporter, the suit alleges that the event host, organizers, and other involved parties failed to provide Mitich and other attendees with a “safe and secure environment.”

“The Landing has become a hub of dangerous, violent and too often, deadly activity,” reads the lawsuit. “There have been numerous serious incidents within the last several years at The Landing and little has been done to curb the violence.”

Along with EA and the venue itself, the various companies managing the property are named in the lawsuit as well. Mitich, who himself was shot twice during the attack last week is seeking an undisclosed sum in damages from a total of eight parties named in the lawsuit.

“As a direct and proximate result of the negligence of Defendant EA, the Plaintiff, Jacob Mitich, suffered bodily injury in and about his body and extremities, resulting in pain and suffering…loss of earnings, loss of the ability to earn money and/or a diminished earning capacity,” reads the lawsuit.

“[Mitich] trusted the event host and organizers, and believed that he was walking into a safe space. That trust was shattered when shots rang out in an over-crowded, since-shut-down, non-permitted space,” said attorney James Young in a statement. “Combined with an alleged abject failure to provide adequate security, the result was tragic. We are bringing this lawsuit to hold those responsible accountable, and to ensure that gamers like Jake are able to get together to pursue their passion without having to fear for their lives.”

Since the shooting, EA has canceled remaining Madden NFL qualifying events pending a “comprehensive review” of its safety protocols and donated $1 million to a recently established Jacksonville Tribute fund set up to help those victims of the shooting.

While more and more games are finding ways to embrace cross-platform progression and multiplayer, Sony has been notably resistant to fully opening up the PlayStation 4 to any sort of cross-play. 

At the IFA technology show in Berlin this week, Sony CEO Kenichiro Yoshida spoke briefly about why the company has so far, in the face of games like Fortnite, Rocket League, and Minecraft, allowed cross-platform features with only certain, non-console devices.

“On cross-platform, our way of thinking is always that PlayStation is the best place to play,” said Yoshida, in a quote captured by The Independent. “Fortnite, I believe, partnered with PlayStation 4 is the best experience for users, that’s our belief.”

Yoshida notes that Sony has allowed some games to go cross-platform, but only with PC or mobile. PlayStation 4 games notably don’t offer cross-platform play or progression with other consoles like the Xbox One or Switch, and, in the case of Fortnite, block PS4-tied game accounts from being used on other consoles altogether. 

“But actually, we already opened some games as cross-platform with PC and some others,” said Yoshida. “So we decide based on what is the best user experience. That is our way of thinking for cross-platform.”

Yoshida’s own firm stance lightly contrasts statements made by Sony Interactive Entertainment CEO Shawn Layden just a few months back, however. During a conversation with Eurogamer, Layden said that Sony was listening to feedback from players and was “looking at a lot of the possibilities” to address those complaints.