#oneaday Day 853: Friend Collecting

I didn’t understand it back in the MySpace days, and I still don’t understand it now.

Friend collecting. Why? Just… why?

I am, of course, referring to the phenomenon seen in the comments thread of this Facebook post here:

(with apologies to Kalam, who is nothing to do with this.)

“Who wants 2,000+ friend requests?” asks Ahmed Hamoui, only with poorer use of punctuation and a seeming inability to use the number keys on his keyboard.

To his question, I answer “Not me. Fuck off.”

Facebook is noisy enough at the best of times. Can you imagine how chaotic and useless it would be if you 1) got 2,000 friend requests and 2) accepted all of them? It would completely negate the core concept of Facebook (or what it used to be, at least) which is to be a “social tool” that helps you to connect with family and friends. The very nature of the way Facebook works pretty much encourages you to limit the friends you add to being people you actually know, otherwise there’s that horrid risk of people seeing photos they shouldn’t. Because despite the fact that everyone knows you shouldn’t post embarrassing photos online, everyone still does. (Not to mention the fact that you have no control over what other people post.)

This sort of thing happens on Twitter, too, with the whole “#TeamFollowBack” thing, whereby certain tweeters promise to follow back if you follow them. At heart, this sounds like a relatively admirable thing to do, promoting mutual, equal discussions and– oh wait, most of them are just collecting followers for no apparent reason then filling their entire timeline alternating between bragging about how many followers they have and bleating about how close to the next “milestone” they are. (Please RT.)

I trimmed my Twitter list massively a month or two back because it was just getting too much to deal with. I flip-flopped between two equally annoying problems: things moving too fast for me to be able to keep up with, and everyone posting the exact same thing at the exact same time either due to press embargoes or the death of a celebrity. So rather than complain about it, I cut the people who were irritating me or whom I hadn’t “spoken” to for a while, and now enjoy a much more pleasurable life online. Sure, my timeline still gets flooded every time a celebrity (usually one I’ve never heard of) dies, but at least I can keep up with the conversations for the most part.

Which makes me wonder why on Earth you would want to put yourself in a position on Facebook or Twitter where it is literally impossible to follow and engage with that many people. Surely at that point social media ceases being at all “social” and simply becomes white noise?

Or perhaps I’m just getting old. It seems to be mostly young kids (particularly Justin Bieber fans for some reason) engaging in this behaviour. Perhaps they have a much greater tolerance for being bombarded with crap than I do. Perhaps they’re numb to it. Perhaps they don’t really want to “socialise” at all online, simply grow a bigger e-peen than their friends and/or strangers they don’t know.

Whatever. I don’t really care. I have cultivated a relatively small but close-knit circle of friends online, much as in “real life”, and I’m happy with it that way. It’s nice to have occasional new people trickle into the mix through, say, this blog or Twitter or what have you, but I certainly don’t feel any need to bellow at the top of my lungs about how close I am to 1,500 Twitter followers, and I have no idea how many friends I have on Facebook — nor do I care.

If you’d like 2,000 friend requests on Facebook, simply “Like” this post then go fuck yourself.

#oneaday Day 852: Carmageddon Reincarnation

I absolutely loved the original Carmageddon. Like, way too much.

I remember discovering it. I was hanging out with my school bud Andrew, and we’d just grabbed the latest PC Zone with its demo disc. Said disc carried a demo of Carmageddon, and we fired it up out of curiosity, as a lot of the press we’d seen about the game (this was pre-Internet for the most part) had been overwhelmingly positive.

The demo in question carried a single level from Carmageddon, time limited to about five minutes in total, if I remember rightly. That may not sound like much, but a single level in Carmageddon was, in fact, a vast open-world environment in which the race circuit with checkpoints was a relatively minor and inconsequential detail. As such, pretty much every playthrough of the demo we had was totally different — though when we discovered that flinging the player car off the top of the tallest building on the map tended to do utterly hilarious things with the game’s damage model, our sessions turned to being races to said building and seeing how many times we could throw ourselves into oblivion before the car became undriveable.

But I’ll back up a moment for those who, for whatever reason, are unaware of Carmageddon.

Carmageddon was a series of PC games (later ported to consoles… badly) that were ostensibly racing games but were, in fact, automotive playgrounds that were absolute joys to tool around in. They were also some of the most unabashedly offensive games of all time, though the whole thing was suffused with such a ridiculous, over the top sense of humour that it was pretty much impossible to be upset by the splattering innards that made a regular appearance. You try not to giggle with glee when your car is pinging around a cramped city block like a pinball (complete with PINGPINGPINGPINGPING noises) and electrocuting passers-by with its “Pedestrian Electro-Bastard Ray”.

Victory in a Carmageddon level could be achieved in three ways. First, you could actually complete the race by going through all the checkpoints in the right order. This was often referred to as “the boring way”, though the later tracks were actually pretty challenging.

Second, you could wreck all of the other racers. This was rather challenging, especially early in the game when your car was a bit crap and couldn’t hope to stand up to the might of a huge bulldozer. But it was immensely satisfying when you pulled it off — particularly when you successfully recreated David and Goliath with an appropriately ill-matched pair of vehicles.

Thirdly, you could run over every pedestrian wandering around the map. This was no small feat, given that most maps had anywhere between 500 and 1,000 pedestrians shambling around, going about their business. The best thing about taking this approach is that it forced you to explore the map fully to figure out where they were all hiding. Most maps included a powerup that showed where they all were on the map.

It wasn’t just mindless carnage, though. You had to strategise somewhat, since there was a constantly-ticking timer putting paid to your best-laid plans. Doing damage to other racers, mowing down pedestrians and collecting certain powerups extended the timer well beyond its starting value, so an early priority when going for the more challenging victory conditions was getting the timer up to a level where you had a bit of breathing room.

It was, in short, a great game, and one of the earliest “sandbox” games that I can think of. I also have fond memories of the game due to the fact I spent a worthwhile and profitable summer playing it to death and writing a tips book which initially was provided free with an issue of PC Zone, and which was later thrown in for free with Virgin Megastores’ special edition version of the game (that came in an absolutely massive box) one Christmas.

Basically, I would love to play a new, up-to-date version with, say, online multiplayer and all manner of other goodies.

And what do you know? Original developer Stainless Games has acquired the rights to the Carmageddon name and is — hopefully, anyway — going to make a new entry in the series. This is possibly the most exciting gaming news I have heard for years. The prospect of a new Carmageddon game on modern hardware with online play is an immensely enticing one. The original games had multiplayer, sure, but they were released at a time where playing online was something reserved for those who knew what an IPX network was. In other words, they were best played at LAN parties or with workmates in the office. Living out in the sticks at the time, I had precisely zero opportunities to do this, so you can imagine my excitement at the idea of being able to crash, bash and splatter friends over my windscreen.

If you, too, have fond memories of Carmageddon — or would just like an immensely fun, irreverent sandbox driving-and-chaos experience — get thee over to Kickstarter and back the new project. With 18 days to go, the project is already nearly three-quarters funded, and there are some pretty sweet rewards on offer for backers, depending on how much you pledge.

Stainless reckons the new game will be with us around February of next year. In the meantime, they’re apparently looking into what it would take to get the first two games (the third had nothing to do with them) released on services such as GOG.com and Steam.

#oneaday Day 851: Some iOS Games You Should Try

I know at least a few of my regular readers sport iOS devices, so I thought I’d take the opportunity to share a few titles I’ve downloaded and actually wanted to keep recently. Since my day job sees me downloading and reviewing a metric fuckton of iOS and Android games (all right… five) every week, I get exposed to a lot of great stuff… and a lot of crap, too, but we’ll leave that to one side for the moment.

Without further ado, then, here are a few iOS games that you may wish to check out if you have the chance.

Rebuild

Rebuild is a game about zombies. But wait! Don’t dismiss it just yet. While the whole “zombie” thing is incredibly played out now, a few games recently have provided a pleasingly different take on surviving the undead/infected hordes. One of these is Facebook game The Last Stand: Dead Zone, which is a surprisingly deep RTS/RPG that is worth taking a look at even if you typically hate Facebook games. But we won’t get into that now, as we’re talking about iOS games.

The other is Rebuild. As the name suggests, the game is about, well, rebuilding. Beginning with a custom character and a small cadre of survivors (all of whom can be renamed) it’s up to the player to recapture a town (which can also be renamed) from the groaning, brain-obsessed ones. This is achieved in a turn-based manner, with each turn representing a day.

Each day, you can assign survivors to locations that surround captured territory and give them a job to do according to where their skills lie. You might want them to scavenge for food on a farm, or search for survivors in an apartment building. Killing zombies clears the way for building specialists to capture territory, and once captured the survivors gain the benefit from whatever building the captured territory contained. Survivors can also be equipped with items (including dogs) in order to boost their stats and make them better at their jobs, and the zombies will occasionally attack the main hideout, meaning you’d better have left some people behind on defence duty.

Rebuild is a simple but deep turn-based strategy game that is in the remarkable position of being a zombie game that is actually both original and worth playing. It’s easy to understand but also easy to mess up, meaning it will take time to figure out and determine the perfect strategy. Each game is randomly generated and may take place on one of several different map sizes at several different difficulty levels, so there’s plenty of replay value here, too.

Grab it here.

Necronomicon

H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu mythos makes for great games, whether they’re of the board, card or video variety. Necronomicon is no exception.

Necronomicon is a solitaire card game that pits players against the deck. The game takes place on two rows of five spaces: the top five belong to the forces of darkness, while the bottom five belong to the ever-present “investigators” — humans from disparate walks of life who are thrown into conflict against the Old Ones.

The basic mechanic of Necronomicon is in battling these cards by placing them in adjacent spaces — forces of darkness at the top, plucky humans on the bottom. Each monster and investigator card has a Defense and a Sanity rating. If one card has both Defense and Sanity higher than the other, it defeats its opponent immediately, scoring points for the player if the investigator won, losing points if the monster won.

If one or both of the stats are tied, however, an element of luck comes into play. Both sides make an attack roll, with the highest roll defeating their opponent. These attack rolls may be modified by playing additional cards onto the investigators and monsters — these cards may also be placed on spaces before investigators or monsters show up, allowing you to set up battlegrounds that benefit the investigators and hamper the monsters. Thematically, these extra cards represent weapons, allies, magic spells, potions, curses and all manner of other goodness.

The game’s end is determined by an evil portal thing in the corner of the screen. If the monster row is full and the player draws a monster card, the portal takes damage. If it takes three points of damage, the game ends in a loss for the player. However, if the investigators row is full and the player draws another investigator, the portal heals a point of damage. If the portal is undamaged and gets healed, it is sealed and the player wins.

Necronomicon is quite difficult to describe and even the in-game instructions don’t do a terribly clear job of explaining how to play. But after a couple of games, it becomes quick and simple to play, and a great little solitaire card game that doesn’t take long to get through a session of.

Grab it here.

DOOORS/100 Floors

I’m lumping these together because although they’re developed by completely different people/teams, they’re almost identical in concept.

The two games are “room escape” games, an offshoot of the adventure game genre that has no plot and simply requires that the player find their way out of a series of rooms via increasingly-esoteric means. Both games make full use of the iPhone’s multitouch screen and accelerometer, and both give you absolutely no help whatsoever, which will ensure you get infuriated as you poke, prod and pinch at the screen, tilt the phone side to side and shake it just to see if anything happens.

While sometimes the solutions are irritatingly obtuse, successfully figuring out the correct way to achieve something is immensely satisfying.

To say much more about these games would be to spoil the infuriating puzzle-solving therein, so I shall leave it at that.

Grab DOOORS here, and 100 Floors here.

#oneaday Day 850: Diablolical

My friends and I wasted many, many hours on both Diablo and its sequel over the years. We picked up cheap copies of the original game when we were in our first year of university and quickly figured out how to take advantage of our free phone calls between rooms to network our computers and play multiplayer. Later, we found ourselves enjoying the sequel a great deal — though I must confess, despite enjoying it a great deal, I only ever beat it once.

Fast forward a large number of years and we come to Diablo III. Does it still have the magic of its predecessors?

Simple answer? Yes.

Oh, you want a little more than that? All right.

First up, let’s address the Big Issue that people have been ranting and raving about: the supposed “DRM” that requires a persistent Internet connection. If you spend any time actually playing Diablo III, you’ll likely come to the same surprising realisation that I have, and that is this:

Diablo III is an MMO.

It’s not an MMO in the same way that its stablemate World of Warcraft is — there’s no open world and you don’t randomly bump into other players wandering around — but it is a game designed to be played online, and it is a game where hundreds, thousands, millions of people all log in at the same time and are able to communicate and play with one another. There is a persistent chat interface allowing conversation with both friends and strangers even if you’re not in the same game session with them, a persistent friends list (albeit one that isn’t cross-region, annoyingly) and the ability to sneak a peek at your friends’ equipment, achievements and other data. There is an auction house, allowing you to make some money (currently only in-game currency — the controversial “real money auction house” is due to launch later in the month) from those awesome items that your current characters can’t use. Your characters are saved “in the cloud”, allowing you to log in on any computer and pick up where you left off.

Most notably, there is the ability to immediately, instantly and seamlessly drop in and out of players’ games. Friends who are playing are shown on the main menu, and joining their game is a simple case of clicking their name. Joining a public game (or opening your own session up to the public) is just as straightforward. The only thing that would make it easier to play with friends would be Steamworks compatibility, but this is Blizzard; that ain’t going to happen.

Yes, you can play the game solo, but you can still chat to people while doing so. You can lock people out from auto-joining your game so you may only play solo if you want to, but you’re still soloing online like any other MMO. You have the option to invite people or open your session up at any time without having to come out of your game or make a character specifically to play online with.

In short, the “always-online” thing is actually a key part of the game’s design, and in execution really rather cool. While it may be frustrating to not be able to play “single player” offline, and the early server issues were a pain in the arse for a day (a single day, maybe two at a push — the game is running perfectly now) the fact that the game is, in fact, clearly an MMO makes it clear why this is the case. The entire game’s infrastructure is designed around playing online.

But let’s leave that aside for the moment, as it’s a concept you’ll either be on board with or you won’t. What about the actual game itself?

Diablo III has undergone some significant changes from its predecessors. Gone is Diablo I and II’s progression system, which allowed you to distribute stat points on every level up as you pleased, replaced with predefined stat increases. Gone is the “skill tree” system from Diablo II, which allowed you to “build” a character to your own specifications (or create a completely unworkable mess), replaced with a system where you unlock skills at predefined level boundaries and can only equip a limited number at once.

It takes some adjusting to, but Diablo III’s way of doing things is streamlined and efficient without taking away the element of player choice. Everyone always levelled up their stats the same way in Diablo and its sequel anyway, and despite the illusion of complete freedom of choice that the skill trees offered, it was all too easy to create an underpowered character that wasn’t particularly good at anything. What Diablo III lets you do is customise your character to work the way you want it to in any given situation, and then tweak it at any time. What you can’t do, however, is hot-swap skills while you’re in the middle of combat. You have to make some choices as to what skills you’re going to use before wading into the fray, and reevaluate your decisions after various demon hordes have stopped having their wicked way with you.

The presentation is good, though not stellar. The in-game visuals work well but seem to have surprisingly demanding system specifications for their quality. In-engine cutscenes are a bit crap and look like something out of a game made in the late ’90s. The special effects are great, however, with some wonderful physical modelling on bodies and objects around the game’s environments, and spell effects are appropriately ridiculous, particularly when you’re playing with several people all flinging pyrotechnics around the screen.

Sound design — always a strong point in Blizzard titles — is great, with some excellent voice actors and quality background music. Plus someone on the Diablo team has finally got wise to the fact that boss battles are infinitely more exciting with some boss music rather than the understated ambient rumbling of the previous games.

As with the rest of the series, it’s the gameplay where Diablo III shines. There’s a decent narrative running throughout the game, but the Diablo series has always been far more about killing thousands of monsters and stealing their stuff rather than paying much attention to the (surprisingly deep, if a bit po-faced) lore. And in that department it delivers in spades. Combat is straightforward, addictive and fun — particularly with friends. There is a huge variety of loot to collect, equip, sell, disenchant and craft. And a well-implemented achievement system actually makes you want to achievement whore because going after the challenges in question is so fun and satisfying.

I get the impression Diablo III is going to grow and change over time, too. We already know that a player-vs-player competitive element is coming, as is the real money auction house. But what then? Expansion packs? Content updates? New character classes? There are a ton of possibilities that Blizzard could incorporate into the game, and they could even use the patch process as a means of incorporating features which some are a little disappointed at the current lack of — things like voice chat. (Personally, I can take or leave voice chat — I suffer from telephobia when talking to people on the Internet almost as much as when I’m using the phone — but I accept that a lot of people expect it nowadays.)

In short, the future looks very bright for Blizzard’s latest title, and if the amount of support Diablo II got — even once World of Warcraft arrived on the scene — is anything to go by, then players can likely look forward to a game that will last them for years.

#oneaday Day 849: Jud’s Handy Guide to Video Game Terminology [UPDATED!]

This post is aimed at anyone who doesn’t know what all that crazy terminology we game geeks fling about actually means. Like any hobby, there’s a ton of specialist words, abbreviations and acronyms in there, and some are a little ambiguous, just to confuse matters.

So, then, here are some definitions, some of which you may know, some of which you may not.

2D — Usually used to refer to games in which the screen has no “depth”. Players can move up, down, left and right on screen, but not “in” and “out”. Also used to refer to visuals that are constructed using pixels (q.v.) rather than polygons (q.v.)

3D — Usually used to refer to games in which the player may move in a full three dimensions — up, down, left, right, in and out. Typically used to refer to games whose visuals are constructed using polygons. Nowadays also used to refer to games that use 3D technology to give visuals genuine, proper depth using either 3D glasses or glasses-free technology such as that seen on the Nintendo 3DS handheld (q.v.).

8-bit — Term usually used incorrectly to refer to pixel-art graphics designed to resemble those seen on older computers and consoles (q.v.), particularly from the “8-bit” era (NES, Master System, Commodore 64 etc.) Actually refers to either 256-colour graphics (“8-bit colour depth”) or a computer processor which can access 8 bits of data in a single instruction.

Achievement — An arbitrary objective set outside of the main structure of the game (in most cases) that rewards players with a virtual “award” saying they accomplished said arbitrary objective. Seen in Xbox 360, PC, mobile and social games. See also: Trophy (capital T), Achievement whore.

Achievement whore — A person who plays games specifically to get Achievements (or Trophies) rather than focusing on the game’s own inherent reward mechanisms.

Adventure game — A story-focused style of game in which the main barrier to progress is usually some form of puzzle integrated into the game world. These vary from “use x on y” object manipulation puzzles to more elaborate chains of events. Examples include the King’s Quest series, Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis and Time Gentlemen, Please! Hidden Object games (q.v.) are a modern offshoot of the adventure genre.

Brawler — A game in which between one and four players cooperate to battle enemies. Often takes place in “urban” environments, and is usually presented from a 2 dimensional side-on perspective. Examples include Double Dragon, Streets of Rage and The Simpsons Arcade.

Bullet hell — (also: danmaku) A subgenre of shmup (q.v.) that involves avoiding intricate patterns of enemy fire as much as it does spraying the screen with hot laser death. In bullet hell games, the player’s hitbox (q.v.) is usually very tiny, meaning they can navigate through incredibly tight-looking bullet formations. Examples include DoDonPachi Resurrection, Jamestown and Deathsmiles.

Character action game — Any game in which the player controls a single, often visually distinctive character and battles their way through hordes of enemies and gigantic, physically improbable bosses. Has much in common with the brawler genre (q.v.). Examples include Devil May Cry, Bayonetta and God of War.

Computer — An electronic device onto which you can install software, connect peripherals, customise your experience and play games. The most common computers these days are Windows-based PCs and Apple’s Mac series, though you find the odd geek using Linux just to be different. Games that are specifically designed for computer alone tend to be referred to as “PC games” or “computer games”.

Console — An electronic entertainment device that is not a computer and is specifically designed for playing games (and, increasingly, consuming other digital media such as music and movies). Current-generation consoles include the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii. Games specifically designed for consoles tend to be referred to as “video games”.

Developer — Collective term for whoever actually creates the game. May be an individual person or a gigantic company.

Digital distribution — Term used to describe when you pay for something online and download it straight to your computer, console, mobile phone or other device without involving a physical product at any point in the process.

DLC — DownLoadable Content. Additional content which may be added to a game, usually for a fee. “Day-One DLC” is DLC which is available the same day the game is released. “On-Disc DLC” is DLC for which the actual content is stored on the game disc, with the only thing that gets downloaded being an “unlock code” to allow access to it. Neither are popular approaches, and often seen as a means of publishers trying to squeeze more money out of consumers. Good DLC does exist, however — good examples include the expansion packs for Borderlands and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, both of which added significant amounts of content to the game for reasonable prices. See also: Game of the Year Edition.

Driving game — A subdivision of the racing game (q.v.) genre that involves driving realistic vehicles. Examples include Gran Turismo, Forza Motorsport and Project Gotham Racing.

DRM — Digital Rights Management. An anti-piracy technology intended to ensure that customers are using legitimate copies of their entertainment. Often very intrusive and usually easily circumvented by pirates, leading many to claim that games sporting DRM are punishing legitimate consumers more than pirates. Developers, publishers and digital distribution (q.v.) outlets who release titles that are “DRM-free” are often very popular.

Fighting game — A competitive game genre that usually involves one-on-one combat between two characters attacking each other with a variety of unlikely and/or physically improbable “special moves” until one or the other’s life bar is depleted. Known for its fiercely competitive community, gorgeous female characters and high barrier of entry. Not to be confused with the brawler genre (q.v.). Examples include the Street Fighter series, Marvel vs. Capcom and Soul Calibur. Sorry, Soulcalibur.

First-person perspective — Any game which unfolds from the perspective of the main character(s) viewpoints.

fps (lower case) — Frames Per Second. The number of times the screen updates every second. Higher numbers make movement look smoother. Film typically runs about 24fps. Anything higher than 60fps can’t really be distinguished, so 60fps is often seen as the “gold standard” — anything consistently running at 60fps moves incredibly smoothly. A higher fps is often the result of either more powerful hardware or more efficient programming. PC gamers get rather obsessive about this figure, particularly when buying a new system.

FPS (upper case) — First-person shooter. A game where the player’s perspective is from inside the head of the main character(s) and their main means of interacting with the world is by shooting seven shades of crap out of it with a variety of weaponry.

Free-to-play — A game which is free to download and play, but which requires the player to pay real money in order to access certain items. (This is known as “microtransactions”.) This may be additional game content, visual customisation options for the player’s character or timesaving “boost” items. Free-to-play games are often either MMOs (q.v.) or social games (q.v.). Contrast: freeware.

Freeware — A game that is completely free and features no microtransactions.

Friend-gating — A technique used in social games (q.v.) to encourage players to invite their friends to play. Progress is halted until the player convinces a certain number of friends to start playing the game, or pays money to bypass the restriction. A form of viral marketing (q.v.).

GameFAQs — The website gamefaqs.com, which includes an enormous repository of guides to almost every game you can possibly imagine. Used by people who can’t be bothered to figure things out for themselves, or those who simply want more information about a game. The “FAQs” part of the name comes from Internet slang acronym “FAQ”, meaning “Frequently Asked Questions”.

Games industry — Collective term used to refer to specialist press (online or print) about games, game developers and game publishers.

Game of the Year Edition — (also GotY Edition) A rerelease of a game that includes all (or most) of its DLC (q.v.). Usually has different packaging to the original release. No-one is quite sure where the “Game of the Year” bit comes from, but it’s usually something that only happens for popular games with a lot of DLC.

Gen4 — A term coined by Electronic Arts on its 2012 earnings call to refer to the upcoming new generation of consoles (q.v.) including Nintendo’s Wii U system and new, unannounced offerings from Sony and Microsoft. An inaccurate term, since we are actually currently on the seventh generation of hardware, not the third.

Handheld — A portable console (q.v.) that plays games. Current examples include the Nintendo 3DS and Sony PlayStation Vita. Some people get snobby if you throw smartphones (q.v.) into this category.

HD — High Definition. Used to describe televisions that run at a resolution (q.v.) of either 1024×720 pixels (aka 720p) or 1920×1080 (aka 1080i/1080p, but we won’t get into that now). HD displays provide clearer, crisper images than their SD (q.v.) cousins. Also used incorrectly by almost everyone in the world, particularly iPad developers.

Hitbox — The area of a player which detects collisions with other objects, usually bullets. In bullet hell (q.v.) games, the hitbox is considerably smaller than the player’s ship/character, meaning it’s possible to navigate through seemingly-impossible hails of incoming enemy fire.

HOG — Hidden Object Game. Used to refer to an offshoot of the adventure game genre (q.v.) that is usually story-focused, and in which the main barrier to progress is being confronted with an unnaturally untidy room and a laundry list of things to find as quickly as possible. A popular genre of social game (q.v.). Examples include Hidden Chronicles, Gardens of Time and anything on Facebook with the words “Hidden”, “Mysteries” or “Adventures” in its title.

Indie — Short for “independent”, and the opposite of “triple-A” (q.v.). Usually used to describe small developers that make more niche games and often aren’t attached to a particular publisher. There is some disagreement over the exact definition of the term among the community. Is Minecraft, an independently-developed game that has been a runaway, multi-million seller, truly still “indie”?

MMO — Massively Multiplayer Online. Catch-all term to describe games that hundreds, thousands or even millions of players can play online at the same time. The most common variant is the MMORPG, an RPG (q.v.) in which it’s possible to meet other players wandering around the same world and team up with or compete against them. Examples include World of Warcraft, Star Trek Online and Rusty Hearts.

Multiplayer — A game or mode you play with other people. Subdivided into local and online multiplayer, with the former being a game you play in the same room as other people (usually using multiple controllers) and the latter being a game you play via the Internet. Further subdivided into cooperative and competitive variants, which are hopefully self-explanatory.

Origin — A digital distribution (q.v.) platform run by Electronic Arts, notorious for not being very good yet still being forced upon PC and mobile gamers by EA.

Patch — A downloadable update to a game that adds features, fixes problems or sometimes both.

Pay to win — Pejorative term used in reference to free-to-play (q.v.) titles that include the option for players to pay real money for a significant in-game advantage.

Pixel — A tiny, single-coloured square that makes up the image you see on a monitor or TV.

Polygon — A closed, flat shape consisting of straight lines. Hundreds, thousands, millions of these may be connected together to construct three-dimensional models.

Premium currency — A virtual currency used in a game (usually a free-to-play (q.v.) title) that may not usually be earned through normal play, and usually requires the expenditure of real money to acquire. Used as a means of masking the true cost of microtransactions.

Publisher — The company who gets the game onto store shelves or digital distribution (q.v.) sites. The people who handle the money. Not necessarily the same company as the developer (q.v.).

Racing game — A genre of games that involves participating in vehicle races. Often used interchangeably with “driving game” (q.v.) but tends to refer to non-realistic games such as Mario Kart, or futuristic titles such as WipeOut and F-Zero.

Resolution — The number of pixels (q.v.) that make up the complete image on a screen, expressed as the number of pixels across by the number of pixels down, with the origin in the top left corner.

RPG — Role-Playing Game. A genre in which players control one or more characters who grow in strength over the course of the game. Variants include “action RPG”, in which players spend most of their time killing things, “open world RPG”, in which players have a large world to explore however they please, and “JRPG”, which is an RPG produced by or in the style of Far East-Asian developers. Often story-heavy. Examples include Xenoblade Chronicles, the Final Fantasy series and Diablo III.

RTS — Real-Time Strategy game. A genre of game in which players take on the role of an omniscient commander who commands their troops to (usually) wage war. The “real time” part comes from the fact that the game does not stop while the player makes their decisions — they must effectively prioritise and respond to situations in order to be successful. Examples include the Command & Conquer series and StarCraft.

SD — Standard Definition. A display technology for televisions in which the image is displayed at a resolution (q.v.) of (usually) 640×480 for NTSC-based televisions (seen in America and Japan) and 720×576 for PAL-based televisions (seen in Europe and Australia).

Share — A social networking term used to refer to making a post on a social network. In the case of games, this is usually some form of “brag” post boasting of a new high score. In actuality, it is usually a form of viral marketing (q.v.).

Shmup — Short for “shoot ’em up”, a term usually used to describe 2-dimensional games that involve shooting things. Most commonly used today to refer to the “bullet hell” genre (q.v.). FPS (q.v.) games are not shmups.

Single player — A game you play by yourself while you are not connected to the Internet.

Smartphone — A mobile phone (cellphone) which is more like a miniature computer. Usually has a touchscreen, the ability to connect to the Internet and the facility to install “apps” to extend its functionality, including games. Several types are available, including the iPhone series, Android phones, Windows Phones and BlackBerrys [sic]. The iPhone and Android ranges are the most popular and consequently have the most apps available.

Social game — A game designed to be played on a social network such as Facebook. Usually free-to-play (q.v.) and monetized through sales of premium currency (q.v.). Often accused of being “pay to win” (q.v.), using “friend gating” (q.v.) excessively or constantly bugging players to “share” (q.v.) everything.

Special move — A combination of button and directional presses that causes something awesome to happen, most commonly seen in fighting games (q.v.).

Steam — Arguably the most popular digital distribution (q.v.) store for PC and Mac games there is, run by Valve Corporation, developers of the popular Half-Life, Left 4 Dead and Portal series.

TBS — Turn-Based Strategy. A strategy game in which players can spend as long as they like thinking about the commands they would like to give their units under their control. Often compared to board games, and typically less combat-centric than RTS (q.v.) titles — though military conflict often plays a part. Examples include the Civilization series and Endless Space.

Third-person perspective — Any game where you can see the character that you are controlling. Most commonly used to specifically refer to games where the “camera” floats behind the character or is positioned just behind one of their shoulders.

Third-person shooter — A game that unfolds from a third-person perspective (q.v.) in which the player’s main means of interacting with the world is by shooting seven shades of crap out of it with a variety of weaponry. Examples include Gears of War and Binary Domain.

Triple-A — A big budget game, usually published by Electronic Arts, Ubisoft or Activision. Tends to have excellent graphics, famous voice actors and a marketing plan that will make you sick of it months before it’s even released. Just being published by one of these companies doesn’t necessarily make a game “triple-A” — rather, it is to do with the overall budget and marketing spend. Gaming’s equivalent of the “summer blockbuster”.

Trophy — The PlayStation 3’s equivalent of Achievements (q.v.). Trophies come in Bronze, Silver, Gold or Platinum variants to reflect their difficulty. Platinum Trophies are usually awarded simply for accomplishing all of the other Trophy requirements.

Viral marketing — A means of subtly promoting something by using people’s inherently social nature. In video games, this is usually achieved by allowing players to post things on their Facebook Timeline from within the game, thereby allowing the player to boast of their achievements and conveniently promote the game in the process.

At over 2,000 words, I think that’s enough for now. Feel free to post in the comments if I missed any “q.v.”s or if there are any things you still don’t know.

#oneaday Day 848: I Can’t Get Angry About Diablo III

I know I have a track record of Getting Angry About Shit, particularly when it comes to things like DLC, DRM and other three-letter acronyms. But I’m finding it rather difficult to get riled up over the issues surrounding Diablo III.

For the uninitiated, Diablo III is the latest game from World of Warcraft creators Blizzard, who are part of Activision. Activision used to be gaming’s resident Empire Of Evil, but that mantle has since passed to EA, and Activision are now simply Those Guys Who Killed Bizarre Creations, Pump Out Call Of Duty Every Year And Have Something To Do With Blizzard. But that’s beside the point.

The point is that Diablo III was always going to be a massive seller and an immensely popular title. It’s the long-anticipated third entry in a series with a long history, and one which a lot of players have been looking forward to for a long time.

It’s also one which a lot of people are getting extremely angry about, largely due to what they describe as its “always-on Internet DRM”. Said “DRM” has had difficulties today due to overloading, leaving many players unable to log in and play the game.

Here’s how the system works. To play Diablo III, you have to log in to Blizzard’s online service Battle.net. Once logged in, you can then play the game. You have to stay connected in order to play, even if you’re playing solo. The benefits of playing in this kind of “always on” environment include the fact you can always see when your Diablo-playing friends are online, that you can jump in and out of each other’s cooperative multiplayer games, and that you can make use of the game’s auction house facility to trade items.

Some people are getting very upset about this — particularly the fact that you can’t play single player offline. And while that may seem a bit silly, I can’t help but thinking a lot of people are looking at this from the wrong angle — the “gamers are getting screwed” angle. This is perhaps understandable, given the amount of time gamers spend getting screwed nowadays, but I really find it difficult to agree with the people getting riled about this.

Here’s the thing, though: Diablo has pretty much always been designed as an online game to play with either friends or random strangers online. The classes are designed in such a way that it’s both desirable and fun to group up with other people and tackle the game’s challenges cooperatively. You can play solo, sure, but the game has always been designed with online in mind. With this latest iteration, including the auction house and other mechanics, Diablo is now closer in execution to a massively-multiplayer online title than a single-player dungeon crawler like Torchlight. Sure, it doesn’t charge a subscription fee or feature a truly massively-multiplayer open world to explore, but the game has been designed specifically to be an online title. People don’t complain about World of Warcraft, Guild Wars or the like having to be always online — what, really, is different here?

I think the issue is that Blizzard hasn’t appropriately set people’s expectations for the game being an online-only title. We have no problem with games like the aforementioned requiring us to stay online in order to play, despite the fact you can play them solo. (In the case of Guild Wars, you can even team up with computer-controlled partner characters if you really can’t stomach playing with real people.) So what, really, is different about Diablo III? Is it simply that the previous games had a discrete “Single Player” option that didn’t require you to be online? (I haven’t finished installing the new game yet so at the time of writing don’t know if this is still the case.)

The other issue is that people believe Blizzard, being the company who runs the world’s biggest massively-multiplayer online game, World of Warcraft, should have anticipated demand and made sure their servers were up to the job of dealing with the thousands (millions?) of people who were likely to be wanting to log in at the same time. This I sort of agree with, though there is no genuinely reliable way of predicting quite how much demand there is going to be for any given title. Blizzard underestimated demand, and it’s caused problems — much like has happened with the launch of many other online-only games. That doesn’t make this a “disaster” or a “debacle” or anything like that; it makes it an occurrence that we’ve seen before. An occurrence we should have figured out a solution for by now, yes, but one we shouldn’t really be surprised about any more.

Within a matter of days, the whole issue will be completely forgotten about as everyone starts playing and enjoying the game, which kind of makes the whole RAGE!!! thing seem rather pointless, really.

But I guess you could say the same thing about any sort of “controversy” — including the Mass Effect 3 issues I wrote about a while back.

The fact is, though, this is an issue I find it very difficult to get riled up and upset about. So far as I’m concerned, Diablo III is an online game, almost an MMO, therefore I accept the fact that an unavoidable part of its existence is downtime, during which you cannot play. It’s not as if I’m short of other stuff to try when that happens — and getting angry really won’t solve anything. I accept that others’ views may differ on this subject if Twitter today is anything to go by, but that’s how I feel personally.

If you’re getting upset, go play something else. Or, in the words of my good friend Jeff, GO OUTSIDE.

#oneaday Day 847: You Must be This Skinny to Ride

I’ve been going back and forth in my mind as to whether or not I should write about this, but given subjects I’ve happily covered in the past on this blog I figured what the hell. In for a penny, in for a pound, or something. Hopefully writing about this will prove cathartic, as I’ve been feeling fairly shitty for a fair chunk of the day.

Today, as you’ll know if you have read recent posts, Andie and I went to Alton Towers. I was looking forward to this a great deal, as it’s been a long time since I’d been and I was very curious about the new rides — as well as going on some old favourites.

All was going well. We’d been on the Runaway Mine Train, the Rapids, the Flume and an awesomely fun rollercoaster called Air that suspends you in a “lying down” position as if you’re flying like Superman, and we were having a great time.

Then I tried to go on Ripsaw. I had a feeling there might be trouble when the seats felt a bit small. I wasn’t expecting it to be quite so mortifying, however.

To cut a long story short, I had to get off the ride because I was too fat. The attendant didn’t use those words, obviously (if he had, I would have probably yelled more than a few obscenities at him and/or punched him) but there it was. Apparently the (already very tight on most people) safety harness thingies couldn’t be lowered enough on to me, so I had to get off. They gave me a “Priority Pass” to get on something else immediately, but guess what? All of the rides it covered also had very similar issues. I tried one and didn’t dare get on any others after that, as I was so upset.

I don’t think I’ve ever felt so humiliated as when I was getting off Ripsaw and walking across the front of the ride area towards the exit. I didn’t hear anyone laughing at me, but it didn’t matter. I was mortified. I was The Guy Who Was Too Fat To Ride. I won’t lie, it upset me enough to make me cry. I have issues with my body shape as it is, and to have it “confirmed” by strangers was just the worst feeling.

I am totally insecure in my body shape. I’m not what you’d call “massive” by any means. But I have quite a “solid” upper body. I hate it. I feel revulsion when I look at myself in the mirror. I wish I could just be happy in who I was, but when a day out is spoiled by your own fatness, it’s hard not to take it personally, particularly when you’re already made to feel like a social pariah by the way the world is set up.

Every time I see statistics about the number of obese people in the country, I feel bad. Every time someone on Twitter makes some judgemental comment about obese people, I get upset. I gave up on Wii Fit in the end because I was getting so demoralised every time I did the Body Test and it made my Mii swell up like a balloon. I’ve even been insulted by complete strangers in the past because of my weight. The world is set up to make me feel like Being Fat Is Bad and that I should Do Something About It.

Here’s the thing, though: I am doing something about it. I am going to the gym regularly, doing at least an hour of cardio every time (plus some weights work) and burning anywhere between 600 and 800 calories in a session. I am watching what I eat, counting calories and trying to make sure I have a deficit of a decent size, but not so much I’m starving myself. And still I feel like a societal reject because the weight is hard to get off. I wasn’t expecting it to be easy, but I would have expected to have at least a little impact by now. Perhaps it has and I just haven’t realised or noticed. But it’s incredibly demoralising when you discover that despite your best efforts, you’re Too Fat To Do That Thing You Like.

I’m really not sure what I can do beyond what I’m already doing — perhaps trying to up the intensity further on my workouts, and making sure I’m being as consistent and disciplined as possible. But my experience today made me feel like absolute shit about myself, through no-one’s fault in particular. Besides my own, I guess.

I’ve known people who were pretty large who successfully managed to lose a buttload of weight and completely change their body type. I feel jealous when I see those people, and I wonder if I’ll ever succeed. On days like today, it feels like it won’t ever happen.

I have calmed down a bit since earlier. Shit happens, and the rest of the day was fun. I am thirty-one years old, and Alton Towers probably wasn’t built with thirty-one year old men in mind. Perhaps I just need to let go of the past and do things that are more friendly to thirty-one year old men instead of stuff I was doing around half my lifetime ago. Going to the gym. Sitting in the jacuzzi at our hotel (so relaxing — just the thing after a stressful day). Hanging out with friends and playing board games. Playing Diablo III. Being at peace with oneself.

I’m not sure I’ll ever manage the last bit unless I successfully manage to shed a whole buttload of weight. I certainly intend to keep on trying, but you’ll forgive me if I have occasional lapses in hope for my long-term success.

Thank you for indulging me with this post. We’re off to the Alton Towers Water Park tomorrow, so hopefully that will be a much more fun day.

#oneaday Day 846: Holiday Time

We’ve gone away for a few days as a late birthday treat for me. Since I took Andie to Legoland for her birthday last year, she’s taking me to Alton Towers since I’d dropped a few hints that I’d like to go sometime.

I haven’t been to Alton Towers for a very long time. I think the last time I went, I was still at school. I’m not sure how much has changed since that time, but I’m excited to find out.

I used to hate rollercoasters. I have vague memories of going on rides like Big Thunder Mountain at Disney when I went there back in 1985. I found them terrifying, but give me a break; I was about five years old at the time.

I can’t remember exactly when I managed to make myself start liking them, but I have a feeling it was as a result of a school trip to Alton Towers. We enjoyed several of these trips during our school career, despite the fact that there were at least two theme parks that were considerably closer to us. Alton Towers was always the prime choice, however, and we’d normally find ourselves heading there for the impressive fireworks displays shortly before the park closed for the winter.

The Corkscrew — sadly no longer with us — was the first “big boy” rollercoaster I ever went on, I think. (Big Thunder Mountain aside, obviously.) By comparison to some of the other impressive rollercoasters we have today, this was a relatively tame affair that took you up high, raced you around a few corners and then twizzled you through the titular corkscrew before landing back at the station again. The whole thing was over relatively quickly, but in the process I discovered that I was actually enjoying myself.

I was bitten by the thrillseeker bug after that. Nemesis and Oblivion were our next targets — for the uninitiated, the former is a rollercoaster where the riders’ chairs hang from the track rather than being a more conventional “train cart” style one, while Oblivion, at one point, featured one of the biggest drops in either the world or the country. I forget, but it was fucking terrifying, partly because it takes you up high then suspends you over aforementioned (vertical) drop for a good few seconds, lurches you forwards slightly and then sends you plummeting to the earth.

I know next to nothing about what Alton Towers offers today, but I’m looking forward to finding out tomorrow. I’m also quite looking forward to seeing whether or not Andie will be brave enough to join me on some of these ridiculous rides!

It’s a strange thing to do, when you think about it, isn’t it? “I know what I’ll do… I’ll get in a rickety old mine cart and fling myself around corners and down hills at ridiculous velocities. Why, you ask? ‘S a laugh, innit?”

#oneaday Day 845: Endless SPAAAAAACE

As I believe has been well-documented on this very site a number of times, I am not very good at strategy games, be they of the board- or computer-based varieties. I have trouble prioritising what I want to do, and as soon as I do decide upon a course of action, some asshole other player comes along and beats the shit out of me before I have a chance to follow through on my master plan.

So it was with some trepidation that I decided I would give Endless Space a go. I’ve been playing a bit of Starbase Orion on iOS recently and, having recently won my first game (against one Easy-level opponent) I felt I wanted to investigate the space-based 4X genre a little further.

Aside: If you, like me, constantly forget what “4X” stands for, it means “explore, expand, exploit and exterminate” and is used to describe strategy games that involve a combination of building, expansion, collecting resources and military conflict. They’re typically (though not always) turn-based in execution due to the amount of micromanagement necessary to keep an empire running smoothly, and depending on the game, victory can generally be attained in several ways. Sid Meier’s popular Civilization series is one of the best-known examples.

With me? Good. Endless Space is an upcoming space-based 4X game from French indie developer Amplitude. You can preorder the game right now and jump into an impressively-complete alpha build and, in an interesting twist on the usual development cycle, participate in the decision-making process as the game gets closer to release. I shan’t go into detail on that side of things right now (though I may in the future as it’s a very cool idea to get the community involved in development) but I will talk a little about the game itself and how I’ve found it after a few hours of taking it for a spin earlier.

Endless Space, like many other games of its type, takes place in a randomly-generated galaxy. You’re given a starting colony and a meagre supply of ships to get yourself up and running, and from there it’s all about the empire-building. Scout out new systems, send colony ships to the richest-looking planets, then build, expand and conquer until you are the undisputed ruler of the Universe. Easy enough, right?

Unlike some similar titles, Endless Space’s map is based around specific routes between star systems. (In Starbase Orion, for example, ships can move between any systems that are in range via the most direct route.) Because of this, it’s much more straightforward to figure out how to defend yourself because attacks will only be coming from certain angles. Blockade your systems that are on the front line, then figure out a pathway through your opponent’s defences that will whittle them down piece by piece. In some ways it reminded me of the excellent board-game adaptation of Blizzard’s StarCraft, which is well worth a punt if you have a few hours (and a very big table) to spare.

The basic mechanics are similar to the classic Civilization titles. Each colony under the player’s control produces food, industry, science and “dust”, which is the currency used in the Endless Space universe. Food leads to population growth. Industry is used to build things — the more industry, the quicker things are built. Science is used to research new technologies. And dust is used for all sorts of purposes — hurrying production, upgrading ships and all manner of other things. Each colony in a star system adds to that system’s pool of food, industry, dust and science (referred to in-game as “FIDS”), and each system may then use said pools to upgrade its population, contribute to the empire’s overall research progress, build ships or build improvements to that specific system. It’s simple to understand in practice, particularly if you’ve played Civilization before.

An interesting twist on the usual formula comes in the form of “hero” units, who are generated every few turns and may be hired for a fee of dust up front, then paid a salary each turn. Heroes come in two main forms: system governors and admirals. The former provide various bonuses to FIDS and morale in the system they’re assigned to, while the latter may be used to take command of a fleet of ships and make them more powerful. As they do their jobs, they level up and may be customised with various abilities to specialise them or make them better generalists. They can be shuffled around the player’s empire at will, too.

Combat, too, takes an intriguingly unconventional approach. Rather than going outright real-time such as in Sins of a Solar Empire, or almost completely hands-off as in Starbase Orion, Endless Space’s combat takes a curious “cinematic” approach. A combat encounter unfolds over a set period of real time which is divided into several phases. There are a few seconds at the beginning of combat while both fleets approach each other, then the battle progresses between long, medium and short-range phases. The player may play a “card” on each of these three phases which provides numerous special effects. Cards have categories, too, and certain categories cancel out the other player’s abilities. This gives an element of uncertainty to the combat, though the “combat preview” window, which estimates the player’s chances of victory prior to the combat unfolding, is a pleasing addition, as are the Battlestar Galactica-style cinematic combat sequences (complete with ethnic instruments) and ability to completely skip the combat scene altogether if it looks like being a complete whitewash.

I haven’t played a game through to completion yet, but I’ve been enjoying what I’ve tried so far. I don’t feel overwhelmed with things to worry about and I don’t feel I’m being “left behind” by the computer players. (I may feel differently if I get stomped on by one of them — my closest neighbour declared war on me just because I forcibly removed one of his scout ships from my border system with a fleet of destroyers.) The “hero” mechanic adds a cool sense of progression and the way the game is presented is simple, clear and easy to understand while remaining aesthetically impressive, with smoothly-animated, attractive UI elements, excellent background music and atmospheric sound effects.

If this is an alpha version, I very much look forward to seeing how the game evolves over the coming months. If you have the slightest interest in the turn-based strategy genre, I’d strongly suggest you give it a shot — and thanks to my good buddy Alex for the recommendation.

Check out the game here and preorder on Steam to get access to the alpha build.

#oneaday Day 844: Hope was Kept Alive

So, it was a somewhat tense finish, but the impressive-looking Republique from Camouflaj (a developer that includes, among others, one of the creative minds behind Halo and Metal Gear Solid) is fully funded. The outcome was by no means looking certain, but a last-minute push saw the team sail past their $500,000 goal to over $550,000 with, at the time of writing, 14 minutes to go.

Why the hesitation, though, when projects like Wasteland 2 and Double Fine Adventure breezed through the crowdfunding process?

Part of the issue centres around the very thing that Republique is trying to do: bring a “triple-A” gaming experience to the iOS platform. Not in the form of a crippled console port with awful touchscreen controls, not in the form of a spinoff game with awful touchscreen controls, but a brand new game specifically designed for smartphones.

When Republique’s Kickstarter launched, the plan appeared to be to release the title only on iOS. (This angered the Android fans, but that’s a whole other issue.) It sounded like the thing people have been clamouring for for all this time — “bring us proper games on iOS,” they bellowed. “We’re sick of this 69p physics puzzle crap!” — but when it came to time for people to actually speak with their wallets, no-one wanted to cast the first dollar.

Whether this was people suddenly deciding that actually, they didn’t really want to play a triple-A iOS game after all, or simply waiting to see if that guy over there was going to chip in some money before they did, we’ll never know. But it certainly got off to a slow start despite considerable enthusiasm from its backers, its producers and the press — not to mention the fact that backing something on Kickstarter is essentially risk-free. If the project doesn’t meet its target, you don’t pay. Simple as that. You’d think that would make people a bit more willing to show a bit of faith in it.

After a little while, Camouflaj announced that the game would be coming to PC and Mac as well. They assure us that the desktop versions won’t just be straight ports of the iOS version and vice-versa, but naturally this made backers wonder if it’s taking away from the original point of the project. (I say it’s a good thing, since it means more people will be able to play the game, even if it somewhat dilutes the original message.)

Still the project struggled, however. The team brought in PR pro Billy Berghammer to help muster up some further enthusiasm for the title. Backers, developers and press alike continued to promote the project — in some cases drawing the ire of the community, such as when Garnett Lee mentioned it on the Weekend Confirmed podcast. But still it was looking questionable as to whether or not this promising-looking game would ever get made. (I had a sneaking suspicion that after all the community and press attention it would have got made anyway even if the Kickstarter had failed, but I guess we’ll never know now.)

As that big countdown on the Kickstarter page ticked inexorably down, people were worried. Would this promising project make it? Or would it forever be stillborn, The Game That Never Was?

The final hours came, and those jazzed about the game went into overdrive, bombarding social media with exhortations for those who thought the game looked interesting to back it, to show that they were hungry for this type of experience. As time counted down, it looked like something wonderful was happening. The phoenix was rising from the ashes, and that “amount pledged” counter was growing, faster and faster. By the time there were just a few hours left, the team was within $100,000 of its goal. As the deadline got closer and closer, the number crept higher and higher. Existing backers tweaked their pledges upwards to help push it over the edge until eventually, finally, with the hammer falling, the project lurched across the finishing line — and kept going.

It called to mind the way popular eBay auctions typically end up going. Actually, the way pretty much any eBay auction tends to end up going, in my experience. Nothing, nothing, nothing for days, a flurry of activity towards the end then a few “snipers” pushing it yet higher at the last minute. On eBay, this behaviour is at least understandable because bid-sniping is a proven (if immensely irritating) tactic for securing the thing you want. On Kickstarter, there’s no good reason for it to happen, short of people who had been intending to back the project for some time and hadn’t got around to it suddenly going “OH SHI~” and racing to their computers brandishing their credit cards.

Perhaps one explanation is that some prospective backers — let’s call them “floating backers” — have their eyes on several Kickstarters at once, and as they count down towards redemption or oblivion, they pick whichever one looks the most promising and/or likely to be successful, then jump on board with that one. Why? For the swag, of course. Ain’t no point putting up your money if you don’t get no cool shit for it, eh? And you wouldn’t want to inadvertently find yourself paying for ten projects that all got successfully funded, would you? So naturally you wait until the eleventh hour, pick the one with the coolest swag and then back the shit out of it before time expires. That way you get to come out of it looking like the hero — “I helped Republique over the finish line!” — and back a project you genuinely like the sound of in the process.

This is all conjecture, of course. Short of polling the entire community of over 11,000 backers for Republique, it’s impossible to know exactly why things unfolded the way they did. I find myself happy for the team that the game has been successfully funded, and I’m looking forward to playing it — but I find myself skeptical as to whether or not this game is, in fact, going to herald a revolution in “triple-A” iOS titles.

I guess we’ll have to wait and see!