#oneaday Day 815: Pandora's Tower -- Some First Impressions

So, the third of the three "Operation Rainfall" titles is finally upon us here in the UK (well, technically tomorrow, but Amazon were good enough to ship it to me a day early), completing the Holy Trinity of Wii-based Japanese role-playing games that many are lauding as the real last hurrah of Nintendo's system. (I've actually lost count of how many times people have referred to Wii games as the system's "last hurrah" or similar, but with Wii U on the relatively near horizon, it might actually be true this time.)

Like its predecessors Xenoblade Chronicles by MonolithSoft and The Last Story by Mistwalker, Ganbarion's Pandora's Tower is far from what you'd call a conventional JRPG. In fact, of the three titles, Pandora's Tower is the least traditionally RPG-ish and will likely prove to be the most divisive due to its curious mix of game styles. That's not to say it's bad — far from it, in fact — but those coming in and expecting a traditional globetrotting adventure with a cast of loveable misfits will find themselves surprised by what they discover.

Pandora's Tower tells the story of a pair of young star-crossed lovers named Aeron and Elena. Aeron, the player character, doesn't say much besides the odd grunt and "yes" but is clearly devoted to Elena. Elena, meanwhile, has a bit of a problem; she's cursed. And, as curses go, this one's a doozy — she's slowly turning into a slobbering monster with icky skin and tentacles wriggling out of her shoulder. Discovering the nature of the curse at a harvest festival, Aeron and Elena flee into the wilderness accompanied by a strange old crone named Mavda who inexplicably carries a jar on her back containing an enormous skeletal man who occasionally babbles indecipherable gibberish. Madva reveals that there is one way to break the curse — for Elena to eat the flesh of twelve "masters" who reside in twelve towers that make up an imposing-looking fortress hovering over a terrifying-looking abyss known as The Scar.

As you have probably surmised, this is where the player comes in. Elena, being rather delicate and demure when she's not slobbering and betentacled, isn't exactly equipped to go monster hunting, so it's up to Aeron to take his improbably large sword, magic chain (provided by Mavda) and floppy hair (model's own) into the aforementioned towers to defeat the masters, rip out their "master flesh" and feed it to Elena (who was, at least until this whole mess started, a vegetarian for religious reasons) in order to save her from a hideous fate. Simple, right? All in a day's work for an almost-mute hero.

Gameplay evolves in several discrete sections, and it's the combination of these factors that makes Pandora's Tower such an original, distinctive experience. If you were to boil it down to video game math, then the following equation would probably cover most of what I've experienced so far:

(Castlevania: Lords of Shadow – Patrick Stewart) + Ico + Shadow of the Colossus * Zelda + dating sim = Pandora's Tower

There are two main components to gameplay: dungeoneering and downtime. During downtime, the player may, as Aeron, hang out with Elena in their makeshift hideout, ask her about the lore of the world, shower her with gifts, feed her various meaty treats and throw her untranslated texts so she can make herself useful. Aeron may also call up Mavda, who appears to perpetually live outside the back door of the hideout, and buy things from her, get her to craft and repair items, get her to upgrade equipment and offload excess meat. She'll also pay Aeron for any texts he's found — including newly-translated ones from Elena — which provides the player with a decent income stream if they take the time to explore and discover things. That completionist's nightmare — the "percentage completed" gauge — makes an appearance in the game's menu so those who want to make sure they get the full experience can see at a glance how close they are.

All this downtime activity isn't just for show — most of the Elena-related activity affects the couple's relationship, and providing certain gifts also causes her to spruce up the hideout with her own personal touches. The game's ending is supposedly determined by the relationship value between the two by the time the story comes to an end, so it's in players' interests to ensure that they keep their lady sweet.

Upon leaving the hideout and heading for one of the dungeons, however, gameplay takes a decidedly different turn. It becomes a combination of third-person combat and environmental puzzle solving. Aeron may attack beasties with his sword and unleash combos, but it's the chain that provides the most interesting gameplay possibilities. By aiming the chain with the Wii Remote's pointer (or the right analogue stick on the Classic Controller) and attaching it to enemies, environmental structures and all manner of other things, Aeron is able to cause all kinds of mischief. And there's plenty of scope for creative silliness, too — try attaching one end of the chain to one enemy's legs and the other to another enemy's face, for example.

Aeron's goal in each dungeon is, like a Zelda game, to unlock the boss chamber and then defeat said boss. Rather than relying on a huge inventory of items, however, the majority of the game's puzzle solving comes from creative use of the chain. Sometimes you'll be pulling levers with it, sometimes you'll be throwing chunks of ore into soft walls to use as hooks to grapple on to, sometimes you'll be tying sentient plants to pillars and chopping them to bits before they burrow into the ground. And you'll often be using the chain to rip out gobs of flesh and other crafting ingredients from fallen enemies, because Elena's curse isn't waiting for you.

No, indeed — a timer in the corner of the screen shows the progress of Elena's transformation. It can be reset by grabbing some tasty meat and taking it back to her, but this requires you to make your way back through the dungeon you've just battled your way through, then delve back into it once you've given her her treats. Fortunately, the dungeons are designed in such a way that progressing further in them allows you to set up various shortcuts, and knowing the layout of them a bit better also allows you to romp through them fairly quickly. Progress doesn't reset upon leaving the dungeon, so it's perfectly feasible to unlock the boss room, go back, feed Elena and then go kick some boss ass.

It becomes an exercise in time management — can you make it through the boss fight before Elena goes all tentacly? (Should she find herself going all tentacly, this does, as you may expect, have an adverse effect on the couple's relationship.) Or should you play it safe and head back with a bag full of meaty treats? This constant weighing up of pros and cons is further exacerbated by the fact that Aeron can only carry so much crap in his bag at once, necessitating a return to the hideout every so often to offload junk or craft it into useful items. This does, however, provide an opportunity for Aeron and Elena to spend some time together and improve their relationship, so it's not a wasted trip — though the traipsing back and forth may annoy some.

There's a lot to do, but the dungeons (at least the two I've completed so far) are well-designed and satisfying to figure out. A real sense of urgency is provided by the curse timer ticking away in the corner of the screen, and I can only imagine how the intensity of this will increase as the dungeons grow in complexity. The story is told in a less "in your face" manner than a lot of other games, with a strong focus on the relationship between Aeron and Elena, and a lot of environmental storytelling through discarded notes and architectural design. It's an intimate sort of game, by turns lonely and daunting in the dungeoneering segments and heartwarming when the couple is together. At its heart is the tale of a relationship between two people and the lengths people will go to for love — an experience that, so far at least, is altogether unlike any other Japanese role-playing game or action adventure that I've played in recent memory.

In short, it's a fitting dénouement to the "Operation Rainfall" trio of titles — and to the Wii's catalogue in general. It's actually pretty remarkable that three of the best "core" games of the generation are on a system that many people denounce as being "kiddy", "casual" or a waste of time — or dismiss outright for not being HD. Deprive yourself of these three games simply on the grounds that they don't look as good as, say, Mass Effect 3 and you're depriving yourself of three distinctive, bold and original titles that are the perfect antithesis to the "cookie-cutter" approach of triple-A development and publishing. I hope beyond hope that their small but loyal fanbases will be enough for these studios to be able to keep doing what they do.

Further thoughts on Pandora's Tower will follow when I've beaten it. In the meantime, if you're American, go pick up a copy of Xenoblade Chronicles before it becomes impossible to find, and be sure to support Xseed's release of The Last Story — and whoever picks up Pandora's Tower — when they show up later this year.

[Edit: Apologies — I misread some recent news that made it look as if Xseed was bringing Pandora's Tower to the US later in the year. It seems the status of that title's US release is still somewhat up in the air — but we can hope!]

#oneaday Day 811: Some Handy Tips for Those of You who Wisely Picked Up Xenoblade Chronicles This Weekend

Bought a copy of Xenoblade Chronicles? Firstly, well done. Secondly, it's rather good, isn't it? Thirdly, you've probably noticed that it's a massive, sprawling, deep game with lots of things to think about.

Being a grizzled old veteran who has played the game to death already, I thought I'd share a few tips to help you along the way. I'll try and remain spoiler-free in the process, and I won't be giving plot walkthroughs or anything like that — just general tips. Bulleted tips, even. Here we go.

(Note: If you're not playing Xenoblade Chronicles, this will all mean nothing to you. I'll be back in the normal world tomorrow.)

Pick a good, complementary party, but don't be afraid to experiment. You can make most combos work — and in fact to max out Party Affinity you'll probably have to — but a safe option is to have a tank (Reyn or Riki), damage dealer (Shulk, Dunban or Melia) and healer (Sharla or, to a lesser extent, Melia). Note that you don't need to have Shulk in the party, but it's easier to deal with visions if he is.
Don't forget to level up your Arts. You gain AP with every successful combat and these can be used to power up each character's Arts — the special abilities that they are able to use in combat. Don't forget to drop into the menu regularly to spend these AP — which each character has their own individual bank of — on improving their abilities, because the game sure won't remind you. On that subject…
Pick Arts that complement each other. Depending on your party lineup, ensure that you have Arts picked that work well together. Don't worry about changing around Shulk's Arts, since he has a fixed arsenal. But depending on who else is there and what they're capable of, pick ones that work well together. A good combo is to ensure that between all three members, you have the ability to Break, Topple and Daze an opponent. By doing this to an enemy that isn't immune, you buy yourself a good few seconds of uninterrupted beatdown time, which is very helpful on baddies with high HP. Note that most — but not all — bosses and Unique Monsters tend to be immune to Break and Topple.
In Chain Attacks, colour is everything. The other thing you should consider when preparing your party's Arts is to make sure that you have appropriate colours covered to unleash a decent Chain. The colours typically correspond to what the Art does — red ones tend to deal direct damage, pink ones tend to inflict Break, green ones tend to Topple and blue ones tend to be restorative or supportive — so a good thing to do is to ensure your whole party has at least one red Art equipped in order to do a damaging Chain Attack. When you start the Chain, choose a red Art to kick off, then when it switches to the next character, choose one of their red Arts and so on. Bear in mind that according to both random chance and Party Affinity, you may have the opportunity to continue the chain after everyone has had one go, so it's worth having more than one of the same colour if you can spare the slots.
Skills aren't as complicated as they look. The tutorial for the Skill system makes it sound bewildering, but think of Skills as passive bonuses and you'll be fine. Picking a character trait to focus on provides a bonus to a particular stat, then all SP earned (also after combat) will be applied to that particular skill branch. When sufficient SP have been earned, that bonus or passive ability starts to take effect automatically. Note that each character starts with three Skill paths, but has the opportunity to unlock up to two more through quests.
Skill Links let characters use each others' Skills. This is the complicated bit. You've probably seen that killing bosses nets you Affinity Coins. These are used to let characters "borrow" each others' Skills, thereby enabling them to get passive abilities they wouldn't normally have access to. For example, if Reyn has learned the skill to equip heavy armour, another character who is normally limited to light armour can Skill Link with Reyn in order to also be able to equip heavy armour. The number of skills characters can borrow from each other is determined by the number of Affinity Coins you have and the Affinity between the characters attempting the Link. Speaking of which…
Build up Party Affinity as much as you can. Your characters fight better alongside each other if they actually like each other. They also say different things in battle or when they jump in to conversations. There are lots of ways to improve this. Firstly, put the characters you're trying to develop the relationship between in your active party. Make the character you want to see the most gains the leader, since when party members jump into conversations, it improves Affinity with this person. Hit as many Burst Affinity button prompts in battle as you can. Encourage characters who are suffering from low Tension in battle (they'll have a purple cloud behind their face in the interface — run up to them and press "b" to whisper some sweet nothings at them). Don't forget to go and do Heart to Hearts when you have sufficient Affinity between two characters — these provide massive Affinity boosts even if you balls them up. And don't forget that you can gift Collectibles to characters via the Inventory menu — the game forgets to mention how to do this. Select an item, choose a character to gift it to and you'll see the affinity gain (or loss) it generates. For hints on what might be good items to give different characters, check the Achievements menu or think about the characters' personalities.
When hunting, use the reload trick. Saving your game then immediately loading it causes the monsters in a zone to refresh, so if you've run out of mobs you need to bash over the head for a quest, save and reload to respawn them. If you're hunting a Unique Monster and there's no sign of it in the place where it's supposed to be, do the same thing for a chance of respawning it.
If looking for specific weather, use the clock. Advance time from day to night (or vice versa) until you get the weather conditions you're after. Note that "thunderstorm" is a different weather condition to "raining".
Talk to everyone with a name. Speaking to a named NPC adds them to your Affinity Chart and sometimes improves your Area Affinity. When your Area Affinity levels up (it doesn't tell you when this happens, so check the Affinity Chart regularly), new quests become available, and named NPCs also get new items to trade with you. It's possible for every single person on the entire Affinity Chart to be joined to at least one other person by the end of the game, so consider that a challenge if you're a completionist.
Collect collect collect! Collect every sparkly blue blob you see. Not only will it help you fill the Collectopaedia, there's usually a questgiver somewhere nearby who will pay you good money for them. Or you can always gift them to characters.
Trading is usually a quicker way to fill the Collectopaedia. If you're struggling to find a specific collectible item in the field — and some are considerably rarer than others — then try trading with named NPCs instead of talking to them. When trading, offer them goodies that are considerably higher in value than the thing you're looking to grab — double is usually a safe bet — and they'll often throw in an extra free gift, too. Note that NPCs' inventories expand as Area Affinity improves. Their tradable items always come from the zone in which they are found.
Don't forget about Gems! Equipping gems in slotted items can make the difference between triumphant victory and crushing defeat. Note that bonuses to stats have a cap — if the bonus turns green in the menu, equipping further gems won't have any effect. Pick gems that help strengthen a character's particular specialisms rather than compensate for weaknesses — e.g. apply Muscle Up gems to Reyn to increase his physical defense to make him a better tank, add Strength Up gems to Shulk to make him deal more damage. Remember that Unique items (the ones with "U" on their icon instead of "S") have preset gems that cannot be removed.
Explore everywhere. Discovering new Locations, Landmarks and Secret Areas is a good non-combat way to gain experience points, plus it has the positive side-effect of filling in your map and providing you with places to fast-travel to. You might also be surprised where questgivers are hiding.
Do every quest you can. It may be time-consuming, but questing builds up Area Affinity and provides you with some good rewards that often negate the need to go equipment shopping. The stock "Monster", "Collection", "Search", "Material" and "Challenge" quests you get in every zone also provide a good way to get to know an area. Be sure to talk to the questgiver for these questlines several times as you can normally pick them all up at once — and you don't have to return to them to complete them. Never sell quest items — they'll be marked in the menu — or items you've seen in visions. You can get them back, but it'll be a waste of time, particularly if they end up being rare items. For quests with multiple outcomes, there are no "bad" consequences, just differing rewards.
Backtrack! When the story advances, that's usually a good cue to wander around the areas you've already visited and see if any new quests have popped up — some appear based on story progress rather than Area Affinity. Fortunately, the skip travel feature makes this a painless process. If you're not sure who to talk to, try looking for people on the Affinity Chart who don't have any links yet. There are some quests you can miss — these are marked with a stopwatch in the quest log. There's generally a pretty obvious mini "point of no return" before these expire, however, so be sure you've cleaned up your quest log before you answer "yes" to any important-sounding questions.
Don't rush. Xenoblade Chronicles is a big-ass game and there's a lot to see and do. Playing as a moderate completionist, it took me 101 hours to beat on my first playthrough, and I could have easily spent a lot longer. While it may be tempting to rush forward into the next plot beat, bear in mind that the quests, exploration and incidental combat is all there to provide a painless means to ensure you're strong enough to tackle the challenges the story quests provide you with. You'll be around the level 80 mark by the time you're on the home straight if you're doing it right — you'll hit a wall and be forced to grind (or backtrack and do all the stuff you missed!) for a little while if you haven't. That said…
Don't feel you have to get everything. Beat the game and you can do a New Game+ with all your levels, equipment and Party Affinity intact, but quests, Area Affinity and everything else reset to normal. Now you can rampage through the world with impunity and concentrate on picking up as many quests and entries on the Affinity Chart as you can rather than running away from red monsters.

Above all, enjoy. This is one of the best RPGs of all time, and it's wonderful to see so many people on my Twitter feed are playing and loving this at the moment. Stick it out to the end — it's a long road, but it's very much worth it.

#oneaday Day 809: PAX Pact

Disclaimer: I'm aware that I wrote almost exactly the same post as you're about to read at this time last year, and for that I make absolutely no apologies.

It's PAX East time! Yay! I'm not there! Boooo.

I've not been to many conventions or big shows like that over the years, so I have very fond memories of those I have been able to attend. My decision to attend PAX East in 2010 was very much a spur of the moment thing — I'd decided I wanted to leave my primary school teaching job because I'd given it a chance and determined it wasn't for me, I was trying as hard as I could to pursue a career in the Writing Words About Games industry, and I was feeling a bit miserable and lonely. So, with a little financial help, I flew across the pond to Boston and went to my first big show in America.

It was an exciting time for a number of reasons. I'd just started working for Kombo.com which, while it didn't pay particularly well, provided me with a position where I could legitimately say I was a professional member of the games press. I knew that a large number of my buddies from communities such as Bitmob and The Squadron of Shame would be in attendance, so I'd have the opportunity to meet some people face to face. And I always love the opportunity to visit the States. I'd never been to Boston before, and while I was under no illusions that I'd be seeing much of the city while I was there, I was looking forward to being Somewhere New.

It was also terrifying. As a sufferer of social anixety at the best of times, the prospect of meeting people I'd only ever talked to on the Internet in the past was a scary one. What if we didn't get on? What if it was a massive disaster and it destroyed the carefully-cultivated relationships we'd built up with one another? What if I had nothing to say? What if I got lost and it was actually because they wanted to lose me? All these thoughts whirled around my head as I was on the plane, but I was very happy to discover that PAX was, in fact, a happy, inclusive and wonderful place for geeks of all descriptions to call home — whether they were someone who just liked video games or was also into collectible card games, role-playing games, board games, cosplay, the history of technology… anything like that.

That word — "home" — is an important one. Because it felt good to be there. It felt like a world which I wanted to belong to, surrounded by people that I wanted to be with. It was a world that accepted and embraced each other's differences and brought people from many different walks of life together in the name of common interests. Perhaps most importantly, it made friendships real. It's all very well chatting to people online on a regular basis, but once you've spent time with those people in person — seen them, heard them, hugged them, tickled their beards in a homoerotic manner where applicable — your friendship is on a different level. I haven't seen some of those people I met at PAX East 2010 in person since that weekend two years ago, but in many ways I feel closer, more connected to them than many of my — for want of a better word — "real" friends. Perhaps it's because they're also "Internet friends" that I speak to most days via Twitter, Facebook and G+.

Whatever the reason, knowing that lots of people I know are at PAX East right now and undoubtedly having a great time (and/or queueing for hours) makes me a bit sad — not that they're there, obviously, but that I'm not there with them.

I propose a pact, then, faraway friends: PAX East 2013. Be there. You have a year to prepare. Get cracking.

#oneaday Day 808: Xenoblade Chronicles is Out Tomorrow, and Here's Why You Should Play It

As a European, I was lucky enough to be able to play the Nintendo-published, MonolithSoft-developed Wii role-playing game Xenoblade Chronicles last year. It ended up being my favourite game of 2011, and many North American gamer friends were suitably jealous that I had been able to play it through while they hadn't. I didn't feel too guilty, though, because North America has its own branch of Atlus and doesn't have to depend on other publishers to bring titles like the Persona series over.

But I digress. Xenoblade Chronicles is out tomorrow — April 6 — in North America, and here is why you should play it if you're an American. Or even if you're not.

The Japanese role-playing game genre is often accused of stagnation and a lack of innovation. This is, in fact, not particularly true — even the much-maligned Final Fantasy XIII was trying things which other role-playing titles hadn't attempted before. Okay, they weren't always successful, but it was at least attempting to innovate.

The real issue is actually that for whatever reason, Japanese role-playing games (and, to a certain extent, Japanese-developed games in general) have lost the resonance they once had with the core gamer audience in the West. Players are quick to judge them as clichéd and derivative before moving on to whichever game starring men in armour with guns is the flavour of the week. Specific attempts by Japanese developers to create games that appeal to Westerners end up having limited niche appeal despite their quality (see: Platinum Games' Vanquish, which isn't an RPG but demonstrates the point effectively) or end up being laughable attempts to pander to the Japanese image of what a Westerner supposedly wants (see: The Last Remnant).

Xenoblade Chronicles is a remarkable game because it nails that balance between Western and Japanese sensibilities, making a game that combines the positive aspects of WRPGs (freedom, exploration, a degree of sort-of-non-linearity) with those of JRPGs (stronger storytelling, more memorable, well-defined cast members, a firm sense of being unafraid to continually up the ante). The result is quite brilliant, and a significant step forward for the genre in one possible direction it way wish to take in the future.

The game casts players in the role of Shulk. Initially, he seems like every other teenaged JRPG hero, but a number of aspects make him stand out. He doesn't whine. He's not moody or angsty. He's just a guy, but he has a personality. He has friends, too, who form your early party in the game, and these, too, don't fall into the trap of clichéd character archetypes. This pattern continues throughout the course of the whole game. Even the "small furry thing" character introduced later in the story isn't typically irritating — he's quirky and silly, sure, but his character is defined well, and he proves to be more than just a means through which to provide silly slapstick gags.

The diverse, likeable cast you find yourself travelling with over the course of Xenoblade Chronicles' lengthy adventure provides several highlights to the game experience. Firstly, and most simply, they're a good ensemble cast who help drive the story forward. That's not their only function, however. As you might expect from an RPG, they each have their own role to play (natch) in combat, and finding the best combinations of three characters to take into battle is a key part of the experience. This affects not only your battle effectiveness, but also one of many stats that the game tracks in the background — Affinity.

Affinity is, quite simply, how much characters like each other. Characters with high Affinity with one another fight better alongside each other, but as their relationship develops, they also have the opportunity to participate in numerous "Heart to Heart" events that are scattered around Xenoblade Chronicles' vast world. These short sequences provide the opportunity for two party members — not necessarily including protagonist Shulk — to spend a little alone time with one another and get to know each other a little better. These typically involve multiple-choice conversations, providing the "correct" answers to which will give a big boost to the pair's Affinity with one another. (Giving "incorrect" answers often provides very amusing exchanges and still gives a smaller Affinity boost, however, so you shouldn't feel like you have to reach for the walkthroughs immediately.)

Affinity doesn't just affect combat and unlock Heart to Hearts, however; there's a host of little touches in the game that it affects, most notably during and after combat. Rather than simply yelling individual stock "battle victory" phrases, characters will often have short conversations with one another. This banter between characters is a real highlight of the experience, and while you will have heard everything they have to say a good few times by the end of the game, they remain entertaining and endearing.

Speaking of combat, Xenoblade Chronicles' battle system is a refreshing change from the turn-based systems that Japanese role-playing titles usually adopt. You control a single character out of the three in your active party, and are able to freely move around during combat. You and your party lock on to a single enemy at a time and automatically attack it, though many battles involve multiple assailants. In order to gain the upper hand in battle, it becomes necessary to make use of the unique skills the character under your control has.

Most characters have more skills than it's possible to hold in the "quickbar" at the bottom of the screen, so it becomes possible to customize the way they play to your own personal style. Some skills manage aggro, some attack areas, some provide more damage or inflict status effects when unleashed from beside or behind an enemy. Some skills are dependent on other characters doing things like knocking the enemy down or stunning them, and the AI which controls the other two party members does an absolutely astounding job of keeping up with what you're doing and understanding the strategy you're going for. It's very rare that you will be cursing the game for causing you to fail — more often than not it's a result of you either adopting a poor strategy, or simply needing to go and do something else for a while until you're a little stronger. This doesn't mean you have to resort to grinding, either — inevitably there will be some quests you have missed that you can go back and do, and returning to earlier-visited locations often throws up even more things to do.

Another great thing about the combat is that you can elect to control any of the game's cast in battle, not just Shulk. Each character plays in a significantly different manner to all of the others, so if you find yourself getting bored of the same old skills over and over, simply switch to another character for a brand new experience. Fed up of tanking? Spend some time with Sharla, a ranged character with healing abilities. Or Melia, a magic-user who can summon elementals that either provide ongoing buffs or can be "unleashed" to deal direct damage. Or the aforementioned small furry creature, whose skill names are genuinely hilarious.

Perhaps the strangest but coolest innovation in the combat, however, is the fact that you're occasionally presented with "visions" of the immediate future, usually when a character is either about to die or be afflicted with a debilitating status effect. A countdown timer starts, and you're given the opportunity to either do something to take attention off the enemy's target or warn another party member. If you do the latter, you're able to pick one of the warned character's skills to unleash — usually either a healing or aggro-management skill — and hope for the best. If you do the former, you have until the countdown timer depletes to do something very special, or your party member will suffer their grisly fate. It's a neat system that isn't overused.

Outside of combat, there's plenty to do, too. Exploring each of the game's massive zones rewards you with experience points and uncovers part of the map as you discover each sub-area. There are collectible items scattered around each area at random, with rewards on offer for collecting whole sets. Those who find item-hunting frustrating, however, may instead complete these quests by trading with other non-player characters. There are rare monsters to take down, loot to find, secret locations to discover. Xenoblade Chronicles' world is more than just a pretty backdrop for combat — it's a rich, beautifully-rendered environment in which to spend time, and it looks gorgeous. This may be a Wii title, and it may have been even more lovely to see it in HD, but it doesn't detract from the fact that the hugely-varied vistas you find yourself running and fighting over throughout the course of the game look simply magnificent. There's a waterfall you'll come across partway through the game which is genuinely breathtaking to look at, for example — you'll know it when you see it.

If the game's combat, quests and exploration aren't enough for you, there's also a deep Achievement system to delve into. Since these Achievements aren't online-connected, they're simply there as challenges for you to undertake, and all provide you with experience point rewards. In essence, they're mini-quests (although some will take you the majority of the game to complete) and rarely feel as "gratuitous" as some examples seen on Xbox Live and PSN. Rather, they provide yet another means of getting an enormous amount of entertainment out of an already vast, sprawling title.

This isn't even getting started on the deep crafting system, which allows characters to team up to create enhancements for their weapons and armour, with the results of their collaborative efforts dependent on their Affinity and compatibility with one another. Or the fact that the game allows you to change the time and fast-travel at will, eliminating a lot of the inconvenience and backtracking endemic to the genre. Or the colony-building minigame. Or the fact the voice acting is all British rather than American, giving the game a unique aural aesthetic in a genre typically dominated by whiny teenagers and squeaky-voiced females. Or the fact that when you're all done, you can New Game+ it and do the whole thing again with your levels, Affinity and a suitably broad spread of awesome equipment intact — something I will be doing when North America gets its hands on the game tomorrow.

Xenoblade Chronicles is, in short, a magnificent evolution of the Japanese role-playing game genre. While it's easy to dismiss it as "an offline MMO" or "a Final Fantasy XII wannabe", the reality is something quite different. This is truly a game that is greater than the sum of its already-fantastic parts, and one which will have you bellowing "Now it's Reyn time!" at your friends for months to come.

(Grab yourself a copy soon, though, as this is the kind of game that will get pretty tough to find pretty quick.)

#oneaday Day 806: Shadow Hearts: Covenant: A Scoreless Review

Shadow Hearts: Covenant (aka Shadow Hearts II) is, quite simply, a must-play JRPG. Whether you're a devoted fan of the genre or a jaded veteran who decries its supposed lack of innovation in recent years, there is a ton of stuff for you to like in this epic PlayStation 2 title from Nautilus (née Sacnoth).

Let's rewind a moment before we get into specifics. Is it necessary to have played the original Shadow Hearts to appreciate its sequel? As you'll recall, I noted that the previous game hadn't aged hugely well, with its pixelated prerendered backdrops, wooden animations and low-budget voice acting bearing the brunt of the ageing process. It's still a solid game, but those who expect a bit more than a PS1 RPG that runs at 60 frames per second may find themselves suffering from culture shock for a little while — whether or not that culture shock is insurmountable depends entirely on the individual.

To answer the question, though, yes and no. That may be a copout answer, but it's true. Shadow Hearts: Covenant's story stands completely by itself as a self-contained tale, but it also follows on directly from the first game's narrative. There are a number of shoutouts throughout the course of the adventure which refer back to prior events, characters and locations, too, which will delight series veterans. In short, if you can't stomach the old-school sensibilities and aesthetic of the original, you can jump into Covenant without guilt, but those who are willing to play the two games one after the other will have an altogether deeper experience to appreciate.

What makes Covenant a more easily-palatable title than its predecessor, however? Many things, starting with the presentation. Rather than taking the old-school approach of polygonal characters on a prerendered backdrop, Covenant features fully 3D environments, albeit with preset camera angles a la Final Fantasy X. The characters have been infused with a great deal more detail, too, with hair and fur looking particularly good, and some excellent animations thanks to motion capture. Alongside this, the voice acting has been given a kick up the arse, with a full English dub, fully-voiced cutscenes for the more important story scenes and none of the original's corner-cutting. Were it not for the lack of widescreen support, this game wouldn't look out of place today being released alongside titles like Xenoblade Chronicles and The Last Story.

Like its predecessor, Shadow Hearts: Covenant revels in the fact it has an eccentric cast who rarely fall into standard JRPG tropes. While protagonist Yuri initially appears to be the moody "Squall" type, he quickly shows himself to be a deeply-nuanced character who undergoes some significant development over the course of the story. As he's joined by the other cast members, who include a puppeteer, an exotic dancer/fortuneteller/aromatherapist, a female German World War I officer (whose nationality and occupation quickly becomes completely irrelevant) and a fricking wolf among others, it becomes abundantly clear that we're not dealing with a conventional sort of JRPG setup here. To its credit, the game plays things admirably straight all the way through, which makes its more humorous scenes all the more effective — and proves that it's not afraid to make its characters suffer a little along the way in the name of drama. It doesn't descend into exaggerated melodrama at any point, and for the most part resists the temptation to get too wacky. Characters occasionally make a few "fourth wall"-breaking comments, though these are spread far enough apart to be effective and amusing rather than feeling like the game is going "LAUGH, DAMMIT!" A few characters are a little underdeveloped and underused over the course of the story (and one in particular is introduced much too late to give the player a chance to get to know them as well as the others) but this is a relatively minor niggle — those who are most important to the narrative are well-defined, deep, likeable cast members whom it's a pleasure to spend time with.

An RPG often lives or dies by its story, and thankfully Covenant provides a good one that I won't spoil here. But those who play for the joy of discovering things and building up an unstoppable fighting force won't be disappointed, either, for Covenant provides a brilliant combat system that puts many recent titles to shame. Based around the cool "Judgement Ring" system of the original game whereby successful actions are determined by timed button presses, and featuring multi-character combos, an array of wonderfully silly character-unique abilities and a flexible but simple magic system that allows for the detailed customisation of characters, Covenant is a satisfying game to play even during plot downtime. While each "dungeon" only contains maybe three or four different types of enemy tops (plus a boss, usually), combat is such a joy and the encounter rate is so finely tuned that it never becomes a chore. The fact that grinding seems relatively unnecessary if you take a little time to go and do some sidequests — which are worth doing, incidentally, as they feature some of the best scenes in the game — is also a pleasing development.

In short, the whole thing comes together to create a joyful whole that will keep you busy for about 40-60 hours depending on how much optional stuff you want to do. It's a good length — while it's approximately twice the length of its predecessor, it never feels like it's outstaying its welcome, with a wide variety of locations to explore, treasures to find and creatures to fight. Completionists who like to explore and find all the hidden secrets in a game will be amply rewarded, while those who simply want to charge ahead with the plot won't find themselves punished for wanting to progress.

As I said at the beginning, Shadow Hearts: Covenant is, quite simply, a must-play JRPG. Should you have the opportunity to pick up a copy, do so. I'm disappointed I didn't take the time to explore this series sooner, as it's shot to somewhere around the top of my list of favourite games of all time. I am, however, very glad that I took some time away from the mainstream, from current-generation consoles and from the shitstorm surrounding Mass Effect 3 to immerse myself in a true, underappreciated classic. You should try it, too.

#oneaday Day 802: On 'Entitlement', and How the Games Industry May Have Brought This on Themselves

Yet another op-ed discussing the controversy of Mass Effect 3's ending dropped today, this time from Gamesindustry.biz. In it, author Rob Fahey notes that "the advent of the Internet generation has done something deeply unpleasant and disturbing to the word 'fan'", going on to describe how the word has gone from meaning "I like this, it speaks to me on some level, I enjoy it, and I'm willing to spend money on it and advocate it" to "I like this, and thus it belongs to me, I own it, and I deserve a say in its future and its direction."

I don't argue with Fahey's key point here — that there are people out there who believe that they should have a say in the way their favourite franchises are run — but I do object to several things about this article. My main point of contention is that the tone of the piece is yet another example of the games press being unnecessarily confrontational towards members of the public, lumping everyone who disliked Mass Effect 3's ending together into one homogenous group. In reality, it's rather different — while it's true that there are people who have gone to the extremes of setting up petitions and complaining to official bodies over the ending, there are also people out there who dislike the ending because it's badly written, because it feels half-finished, because it feels like an excuse to tack on the obnoxious "Hey! Buy DLC!" dialog box after the ending, and many other valid reasons to say it is a bit poo. (I'm paraphrasing from discussions with several friends and podcasts I've listened to here, as I have not played the game and, as you likely know very well by now, will not be doing so.)

Fahey does, however, then touch on an important subject which I believe is what has led us to this whole mess in the first place over the course of the last few years.

"Game companies are excited, delighted, by the idea of having loyal fans," he writes. "Game companies have engaged with their fans, closely and directly. They nurture their communities. In BioWare's case, and God knows they're probably regretting this now, they openly talked about how important fan feedback is to them, about how Mass Effect was a series driven by its fans. It's become a creed, a mantra. The fans are important. We love our fans. We listen to our fans. Tell people that often enough and they start to believe you — and on the Internet, there are a whole lot of people who don't need much of a push to believe that they're important and must be listened to."

This is correct, but it is not the fault of the fans themselves. Rather, this situation has been exacerbated by the direct engagement with the audience that Fahey notes above. Fahey does concede that the industry has "forgotten that creativity isn't about the audience, first and foremost, it's about the creator" but seemingly shies away from what has actually caused this problem.

Two words: social media.

In BioWare's case, their seemingly exemplary social media strategy of direct, personal engagement with fans has actually turned out to be their downfall. Let's take a look at a bit of background to this.

For starters, a while back the company's own social media coordinator Erika Kristine took the bold step of providing an open link to her own personal Facebook profile. Fans were able to befriend her and talk to her directly — though, disappointingly, as an attractive female, many of the comments she ended up getting on her page and photos tended to be of the "ur so beautiful" creepy variety rather than people wanting to engage with her. Perhaps unsurprisingly, her personal Facebook presence appears to have vanished, to be replaced by a "fan page" which hasn't been updated since November of 2011. The damage was done, though — longtime fans knew that Erika, a human being, was in charge of BioWare's social media, and thus opened the gates for "negotiation".

Then there was the FemShep incident. What was previously a quirky subculture of the Mass Effect community — the cultish love for the female incarnation of Commander Shepard, voiced by Jennifer Hale — was adopted as a marketing tool by EA and BioWare. We started to get promises of FemShep trailers, FemShep art on the box, FemShep this, FemShep that. The whole thing came to a head with the odious "beauty pageant" public vote where subscribers to BioWare's Mass Effect page on Facebook were able to vote on which of a variety of computer-generated hotties — very few of which are actually possible to create using the in-game character creation tools — would become the "official face of FemShep". When the community objected to the fact that a "predictable" blonde, blue-eyed FemShep was winning the competition, the company opened another round of voting, this time providing a choice of hair colours for the same model FemShep. (We ended up with a redhead — a decision I applaud, but that's beside the point.)

These aren't isolated incidents, and they're not limited only to BioWare and EA. Most major game publishers these days have hopped on the social media audience engagement bandwagon and regularly post questions, invite feedback and hold votes for everything from which athlete should be on the front cover of this year's Madden game to what colour Serah's panties should be in the inevitable upskirt scene in Final Fantasy XIII-2. All right, I made that last one up, but given that Konami promoted NeverDead with an interactive picture where the game's heroine Arcadia stripped off more and more clothing as more people Liked the page, it's not beyond the realm of possibility. This revolting marketing ploy has thankfully disappeared now the game's page has moved to Timeline view.

Given the way developers and publishers interact with their fans, though, is it any wonder that some have started to feel like they have the right to exert some degree of "crowdsourced control" over their favourite franchises? If they can influence what FemShep looks like, why can't they influence the ending of Mass Effect 3?

In short, the industry has backed itself into this corner and no amount of complaining about how "entitled" the more vocal fans are is going to change that. These fans may well have a sense of entitlement, but that has come from somewhere — it hasn't just appeared from thin air. And no-one seems willing to acknowledge this fact, perhaps largely because it's much too late to do anything about now. Pandora's Box has been opened, Liked and Shared with eleventy bajillion people around the world, and it's going to be very difficult to close it again.

In order to fix this, developers and publishers need to take a step back from their audience, to stop engaging with them quite so directly and to stop soliciting feedback on every little irrelevant detail of, say, how many tassels there should be on the new Assassin's Creed dude's hoodie. If developers don't want a repeat of this whole Mass Effect 3 fiasco, then they need to stand back behind a barrier that carries a big sign reading "Look, chumps, we made this, and we hope you enjoy it. You're free to not enjoy it if you so please, but it is what it is — finished, complete, tied up with a pretty pink bow. If you enjoy it? Great. We'll keep making more if you keep buying them. If you don't like it? Don't buy it, then we'll know we need to do something else."

"This isn't a situation that'll change overnight," concludes Fahey's piece, "not least because immense inertia defines the role of 'fans' in our industry — but it's important for game creators to realise that things don't have to be this way. Engagement with fans doesn't have to mean letting the lunatics run the asylum, or even giving them the impression that they've been given the keys to the office."

His conclusion here is valid — this is exactly what game creators need to do. You can't crowdsource a big-budget game and expect it to come out coherently, so don't encourage people to think that's an option. However, the fact that some people have already come to that conclusion thanks to social media oversaturation doesn't make them "sociopaths", as Fahey calls them — it means that they have been brought to that conclusion via precedents set by the people they are complaining to. Similarly, those who simply dislike the ending on the grounds that it's just not very good — particularly when the rest of the series is used as a yardstick to measure it against — aren't being "entitled" or "sociopathic", they're just rather unfortunately finding their opinions lumped in with those who are taking more extreme arguments.

I hope the industry learns from this experience, but I have a suspicion it won't.

#oneaday Day 797: Enthusing Regarding Shadow Hearts: Covenant

Haven't written about what I've been playing for a little while, so here's an update.

I'm currently playing Shadow Hearts: Covenant, aka Shadow Hearts II. If you've been reading my previous entries, you'll know that this is the second entry in a PS2-based RPG series published by Midway (in Europe, anyway) and developed by Nautilus (nee Sacnoth). If you haven't been reading my previous entries… uhh… Shadow Hearts II is the second entry in a PS2-based RPG series published byMidway (in Europe, anyway) and developed by Nautilus (nee Sacnoth).

Jesting aside, Shadow Hearts II is a significant upgrade over its predecessor. Where the original Shadow Hearts could have easily been a PS1 game, with its prerendered backgrounds, polygonal characters and turn-based combat, Shadow Hearts II is not only a fine example of a PS2 game, but a game which still stands up remarkably well today regardless of platform. Replacing the original game's prerendered vistas with a 3D world full of dynamic (but still game- rather than player-controlled) camera angles is the most obvious difference, and it's striking what a change it provides. Shadow Hearts didn't look bad but it did suffer a little from characters standing around somewhat woodenly when having conversations. Shadow Hearts II, by comparison, takes a much more cinematic approach to its presentation and looks great as a result. It helps that the character models are fantastic and well-animated, too — this really is a great-looking PS2 title.

Going hand-in-hand with the cinematic presentation of the visuals is the move to the game being mostly voiced rather than almost entirely text-based. This has the sad side-effect of meaning it's no longer possible to rename your characters, but since the original Shadow Hearts featured a voiced ending sequence in which the default names of the characters were used even if you'd played for over 30 hours with a party sporting a completely different nomenclature… well, I can deal with that. The voice acting is mostly decent, but pays absolutely no attention whatsoever to the countries that the cast members are supposed to be from. Leading lady Karin, for example, is supposed to be German, but she sure doesn't sound it. It doesn't take long for the suspension of disbelief to kick in, however, as you immerse yourself in Shadow Hearts' surreal parallel reality in which World War I is happening at the same time as Bad Shit is going down with demons and monsters. Eventually the fact that everyone from a wide range of different nations all sounds American ceases to matter, and the fact it's set in the real world alongside real-life historical events and figures becomes almost incidental. It just becomes a cool JRPG story in which the place names sound very familiar.

I'm not going to talk too much about plot here as I'll save that for a post once I've finished the game, so instead I'll now dwell a little on some mechanical highlights from the game — specifically, the combat system.

Shadow Hearts featured a functional, fun combat system that didn't deviate hugely from the traditional turn-based "heroes line up one side, enemies line up the other, polite violence ensues" system used by many RPGs over the years. The main twist on the formula was the use of the Judgement Ring, which required carefully-timed button presses to ensure the success of actions. More powerful, complex moves required more button presses, while the use of the Ring also allowed the designers free reign to throw in a variety of unconventional status effects besides the usual Poison, Paralyse and the like. Some enemies might make your Ring very small, for example (stop sniggering at the back) while others might make it spin very fast. It was a pleasing extra layer of interactivity atop an otherwise fairly conventional battle system.

Shadow Hearts II keeps the good bits of the original — the Judgement Ring and the need to keep an eye on your party's emotional as well as physical state during combat — while completely shaking up the core battle mechanics. No longer do both sides stand still waiting to be smacked across the face. Instead, characters move around the battlefield to make use of their abilities, and various different types of attack allow the player a degree of control over the battlefield. If you see a bunch of enemies lining up for a concerted attack, for example, then you can perform some sort of explosive move that scatters them and prevents them from unleashing said attack.

This system is given a whole new layer of depth by the Combo mechanic. Characters (player or enemy) who are standing directly adjacent to one another are eligible to participate in a "Combo" attack. This still takes place in a turn-based manner, but allows characters to take their turns outside of the usual order determined by their agility statistic. Repeatedly wailing on a single enemy with several characters also gradually increases the damage inflicted, with more and more total hits contributing to a bigger and bigger damage bonus, particularly if you combine this with knocking the enemy up against a wall. It's immensely satisfying to pull off successfully, and adds a much greater degree of strategy to battles. Do you risk characters being knocked out in favour of unleashing a four-man combo? Or do you keep someone held back on healing duty while the others batter the enemies with magic and a giant frozen tuna? Karin's sanity is a bit low — can you risk her going Berserk after she's done her job in the combo?

Alongside the excellent combat comes a fine system of character development. Player characters may equip "Crests", which allow them to cast spells. Almost any character may equip any combination of Crests, so long as their total level doesn't exceed their "capacity" statistic. This allows you to set up characters as healers, buffers, offensive mages or any mix you please.

This doesn't make characters interchangeable, however — far from it. Alongside the Crest Magic system is the Personal system, which features a unique mechanic for every character. Karin must collect Wagner scores to inexplicably teach her new swordplay moves. Friendly wolf Blanca (incidentally, one of the most subtly hilarious characters of any game I've ever played) powers up his special moves through defeating rival wolves from around the world in one-on-one combat. Vampiric wrestler Joachim learns new moves from his "Teacher", real-life wrestler The Great Gama. Not only that, though, but he occasionally suffers uncontrollable transformations into a golden bat, an invisible form or a superhero alter-ego according to his biorhythms. Highlight of this "Personal" system, however, though, has to be Gepetto the puppeteer, who fights using his slightly creepy kid-like doll Cornelia, who gets new dresses infused with new magical capabilities by taking cards with naked, muscle-bound male pinups on them to a rather effeminate French tailor who persistently follows the party around from location to location. No, I'm not making any of this up.

Herein lies the genius of Shadow Hearts II. It is filled with inspired lunacy, and every time you think you've got the hang of its peculiar mindset, it throws something newly bizarre into the mix. And the best thing about it is that it plays it all so straight, so deadpan. These strange systems are just how things work — no explanation required. In the case of Joachim's transformations, for example, the game doesn't even bother to mention that this might happen at some point, or even explain it when it does happen for the first time. Instead you're left gazing at your battle screen, bewildered as to why a party member has inexplicably turned into a bat without warning. Fortunately, there's an in-game help facility which does explain these quirky little features, but in a way it's more fun to discover things for yourself and only resort to the help if you find yourself really confused.

It's proving to be an utterly brilliant game so far, then. I've no idea how far I am off finishing it — I'm about 40 hours in and have been on the second disc of two for a little while, so I'm guessing there's not that much left — but I'm certainly going to continue to enjoy the ride while I can. And if you get the chance to, you absolutely should play this and its predecessor, too.

#oneaday Day 794: Brilliant Game Idea, No Technical Talent? No Problem!

I've mentioned a number of times on this 'ere blog that I don't really have the knack of programming. I can sort of do it if I have plenty of reference material to hand or if I'm following a tutorial, but it's the sort of thing that if I don't do it regularly, it just all falls out of my head and makes a mess on the carpet.

Despite not being able to program, however, that hasn't stopped me from wanting to make my own games at times, and I know at least a few of you reading might be interested in how to go about doing that for yourself. So I thought I'd gather a bit of information regarding game maker packages that I've used in the past (or at least heard of) in the hope that you might find something that tickles your fancy.

So without further ado, then, here goes.

Clickteam products: Games Factory, Multimedia Fusion

My first experience with making games that weren't written in Atari BASIC was with Clickteam's Klik and Play, an application for Windows that allowed you to create games without any knowledge of programming whatsoever. The program actually contained everything you might need to get creating straight away — it included basic art tools, a library of sound effects and music to use in your games as well as plenty of example sprites, background art and interface elements.

Klik and Play's strength was in its ease of use. Handling all aspects of how a game worked was very much like a logic puzzle, or a series of "If… Then…" statements. For example "If" the player presses the fire button, "Then" the spaceship they control should shoot a missile. "If" an enemy collides with the spaceship, "Then" a fart sound should be played and the player's lives should be reduced by one.

One great thing that Klik and Play did was provide several means to determine all the possible conditions you might want to test for in your game. You could create the statements manually if you knew in advance what was going to happen, or you could enter the "Step Through Editor", start your game running and every time something that hadn't happened before happened for the first time, Klik and Play would ask you what you wanted it to do. After a short while of using this tool, you started to think logically about all the possible things that might happen throughout the course of a single screen of the game you were making, and your efficiency would skyrocket. Of course, even when you know what you're doing this is still considerably slower than a C++ wizard coding their own routines, but for those of us who always put curly braces in the wrong place, it was a godsend.

The only downside to Klik and Play was that it was fairly limited in what it could do. There weren't many global variables to store information in, for example, making more complex games difficult to create. And file management for save games and the like was practically non-existent. You were pretty much limited to making simple arcade games — not that this was necessarily a bad thing.

Many of these issues were resolved by subsequent releases in the series. First came The Games Factory, which added more global variables, the ability to have a scrolling screen for levels that were bigger than a single screen in size, and more sophisticated event handling. This was then followed by Multimedia Fusion, which added even more high-end features designed for people who wanted to build full applications and screensavers rather than just games. Most recently, Clickteam have launched The Games Factory 2 and Multimedia Fusion 2 as two separate products (with Multimedia Fusion having a pro-level "Developer" version available) which are available from their official website. The latest versions feature the ability to export to Flash for publication on the Web, and iOS app format. Android and XNA (Xbox 360) support is reportedly on the way.

RPG Maker

I mentioned this yesterday, but it's worth putting in this list simply because of how full-featured it is. Having gone through a number of previous iterations on both PC and consoles, Enterbrain's role-playing game construction kit RPG Maker is now one of the most flexible but easy-to-use game making tools on the planet. It doesn't even have to be a role-playing game that you make with it — if you're looking to create a visual novel or top-down perspective adventure game, it's a great solution for that, too.

RPG Maker comes with a ton of preset graphics, sounds and music for you to use in your own games allowing you to get started straight away. All you need to do is draw the maps, write the story and test it out, all of which can be done via the program's simple interface. Meanwhile, more advanced users can easily add custom graphics, sounds, music, enemies, items, equipment and characters, and people who actually know a bit of coding can even rewrite the game engine using the program's "RGSS" scripting language to create brand new menu and battle systems. And don't worry if you don't have a clue how to do that yourself but find the built-in systems to be not so good — using community-developed scripts has long been an expected part of RPG Maker development. The community is lively, helpful, full of ideas and covers a broad range of talents — so if you have a great idea for a story but have no idea how to write original music or draw custom graphics, you can probably find someone to help you out.

RPG Maker's latest version is known as RPG Maker VX Ace and is the version to go for out of the three currently available on the official website.

Adventure Game Studio

Free tool Adventure Game Studio allows you to create point and click adventure games of the LucasArts or Sierra ilk. There's a little bit of a learning curve involved in getting started with this one, and it doesn't come with many sample resources to get started with, so you'll have to draw your own graphics (or recruit a friend who knows what they're doing).

Once you get the hang of it, though, you'll be able to create convincing point-and-click adventures featuring plenty of dialogue (fully voiced if you have friends willing to step in for voice acting duties) and object-based puzzles. Lest you worry about the quality of a free tool, Adventure Game Studio has been used to create a number of very well-received projects, including the popular Ben There, Dan That! games.

AGS is free, unlike the previous titles on this list. Get it here.

Ren'Py

Ren'Py is a visual novel engine designed for creating combinations of text, music, sound effects and visuals to tell a story. It's relatively simple to use to get a basic non-interactive story up and running, and a bit of experimentation will get you putting together multi-path adventures with plenty of choices in no time. Like AGS, though, it doesn't come with many sample resources, so you'd better get handy with a Wacom tablet and scribbling some art before you get started on putting your game together. That or, again, ask a friend.

Despite the inherent (and usually deliberate) limitations of the visual novel genre, Ren'Py is a surprisingly flexible tool. For some great examples of what's possible with it, check out Christine Love's three games Digital: A Love Story, Don't Take It Personally, Babe, It Just Ain't Your Story and Analogue: A Hate Story, all of which were created using Ren'Py (and all of which employ some fascinating storytelling techniques that are unique to the interactive medium).

Ren'Py is also free. Grab it here.

Other stuff I haven't tried

There's a wealth of other free and paid game making software out there, most of which I haven't tried. Here's a few you may want to take a look at.

Game Maker from YoYoGames is well-regarded as a flexible tool which can be used to make a wide variety of different games for the Web, standalone release or mobile release.

Stencyl is a tool designed to make it easy to create Flash, iOS and Android games without the need for coding.

GameSalad is a Mac-only product similar to Stencyl, designed for making iOS, Web and standalone games without needing to know coding.

The Game Creators carry a range of products for aspiring developers of various experience levels, ranging from those who have an idea of how to work with BASIC to those who simply want to draw a map for a first-person shooter and run around in it.

If you've come across any more, feel free to share in the comments for the benefit of anyone else who may be interested.

#oneaday Day 793: It Takes More Than Seven Days to Build a World

I'm making a game. This is not the first time I have said these words, nor will it be the last time, but I have a good feeling about this one. A vision. Only one past amateur development project I worked on (known as Pie-Eater's Destiny) was ever completed (twice if you count the subsequent "Gold Edition" remake) and a third (The Adventures of Dave Thunder) was going extremely well but then unfortunately lost when an old computer died without warning. (Note to self: BACK THE FUCK UP) This one, though, feels like an idea that has legs, and I'm looking forward to bringing it to life, to mix metaphors for a moment.

No, you won't be getting any details on what this project is just yet save for the fact that I'm using it as a means of trying out the latest version of Enterbrain's excellent RPG Maker software, RPG Maker VX Ace. I've used several iterations of this package over the years and each has its own quirks and foibles. Previous version RPG Maker VX turned out to be a bit of a misstep which seemingly stripped out features rather than adding them, but from my limited experience so far, VX Ace seems to be an excellent piece of software with plenty of flexibility.

One of my favourite parts of creating a game — or indeed any story, since I typically have aspirations to create narrative-focused games, even if I never finish them — is creating the world and the characters who populate it. When building a map in RPG Maker, I'll find myself visualising its context in the world — in the case of a village or town, I'll think to myself "right, this person lives here, this person runs this shop, follow this path and you'll get to…" and so on. In the case of a dungeon I'll resist the temptation to use the random map generator and instead design a dungeon which makes some degree of contextual sense, even if it may descend into bizarreness at times. (The lava flow in the opening "wine cellar" dungeon at the beginning of The Adventures of Dave Thunder was a particular highlight, which our hero lampshaded quite nicely at the time he came across it for the first time, as I recall.)

I've always been this way with level construction. The earliest instance I can remember was Wolfenstein 3D, whose map editor gave me many, many hours of enjoyment and, thanks to CompuServe, even netted me $200 when ten of my levels were included in the official Apogee "Super Upgrades" expansion pack for the game. When building my selection of maze-like levels for id's Nazi-bashing shooter, I enjoyed thinking of the "real" context for these rooms and tunnels. As such, I ended up with some memorable "setpiece" confrontations (or as close as you could get to a "setpiece" in Wolf3D's limited engine, anyway) — the one that sticks in my mind most is the one where you've crept through some moss-filled corridors in search of a Nazi secret base and open a door only to discover that a briefing is apparently in progress. One of the "officer" enemies was standing at the front of the room next to a "map" texture, and the rest of the room was full of the standard trooper soldiers all facing him. (I wasn't a monster for game balancing; I provided the player with a chaingun and plenty of ammo before sending them in to mow down this little gathering. Hey, I was a teenager. Subtlety wasn't in my vocabulary.)

The point is, I found myself thinking carefully about every block I put down, every object on the map. Everything had a purpose, a place, a story behind it. I enjoyed visualising that world in my mind and then bringing it to life on my computer screen. It was inordinately satisfying to be able to hoon around a world of my own creation and think this came from my BRAIN. I feel the same way every time I create a new map in RPG Maker, every time I make a track in TrackMania, every time I build something in Minecraft. And if I had any clue whatsoever how 3D level editors worked (I've tried and failed numerous times) I have no doubt I'd feel the same way there too.

As you may have gathered, today has been about world-building. I've only created a tiny, tiny piece of what will eventually become this game's world, but already it's bringing those old feelings back. Hopefully they'll provide the motivation to take me through to actually finishing a game project for once.

#oneaday Day 792: When Play Feels Like Work, It's Time to Stop Playing

Asynchronous games are a great idea. At the time of writing, everyone is jizzing all over Draw Something (and quietly hoping that Zynga doesn't acquire the developer in order to monetize the game out of the arse even more than it is already) — the latest in a long line of successful mobile asynchronous games that include Hero Academy, the With Friends series and, on a smaller scale, various board and card game adaptations.

Now, in theory, the fact that you can play a turn-based game with someone on the other side of the world at a pace which suits both of your busy lifestyles is a great one. And sure enough, it most certainly is a great thing. Games which previously proved impractical to organise when players span various different timezones are suddenly accessible to all and sundry, and your mobile device becomes a portal to a wide variety of social, multiplayer experiences that you can share with your friends.

Trouble is, everyone wants to get in on this action, meaning that whatever flavour of the month asynchronous hit there is will promptly bombard you with notifications and game requests as absolutely everyone on your Facebook friends list suddenly wants to play. And God help you if you post your username for such a game on Twitter.

Now, having a bunch of people to play against should be a great thing, particularly in a game that occasionally offers such a fascinating glimpse into people's minds as Draw Something does. But, you know, it all gets a bit too much sometimes. When you have twenty people taking their turns in Draw Something, twenty more begging you to play Words With Friends, twenty more wanting you to play Hero Academy, it's easy to find yourself overwhelmed with notifications and game requests, and find yourself spending hours at a time just catching up with games — and meanwhile your opponents are also taking their turns, meaning sometimes it's almost impossible to catch up. You can always exercise self-control, of course, and only accept the number of games you know you can handle — even going so far as to uninstall the games you know you don't want to play, perhaps — but there's always that element of peer pressure going on.

I can't help feeling that developers of these games could do a bit to help out here. The simple addition of a "privacy" button that automatically blocks all new game requests but allows current games to continue would be a good one, for example, or perhaps a hard (and reasonable — perhaps user-customizable) limit on how many games can be running concurrently. At the moment, I often find myself letting games expire accidentally due to the fact that a bajillion notifications come in at once, I have no time to deal with them at the time, and they form a backlog which would require a considerable number of minutes to clear. It's at that point that play starts to feel like work, and that's a situation you shouldn't find yourself in.

When something becomes an effort to play and there's no discernible payoff for doing so, that's when you have to question why you're playing in the first place. The thing with all these asynchronous games is that victory is a very hollow experience — win or lose, after a brief "You Win!"/"You Lose!" message, the first thing most players will do is immediately hit the "Rematch" button. Most don't even do any particularly detailed stat-tracking, meaning you can't even gloat over your winning streak against your friend. Some, like Draw Something, don't even make it clear whether or not you're supposed to be competing against or cooperating with your friend, and then patronise you with primary school-esque "Good Try!"s when you get one wrong. (Notable exceptions: the adaptations of card and board games such as Carcassonne and Ascension do a good job of both stat-tracking and providing a good victory screen for winners to gloat over and losers to quickly skip past.)

These games have their markets, though. They let people connect with one another in new ways, and they open up the medium of gaming — specifically, multiplayer gaming — to massive new audiences. That's a great thing for the industry as a whole, but there's only so many "It's your turn!" notifications I can take before I go completely mental.