Okay so, I can't do this right now. I keep trying to sum up the motivation to write Shield High, but it's no good. Basically, I'm undergoing a lot of personal issues right now, mostly relating to my love life. Okay I'm lying, it's just my love life problems. Which makes writing about happy lesbians in love really hard. It's not just Shield High that's suffering, I'm basically in total shutdown mode right now. Anyway, until I get this all sorted out I'm not going to be doing any more Shield High work. I think securing my mental health is a little more important than lesbian romances.
Sorry guys
Pudding Earl.
Saturday 20 April 2013
Saturday 13 April 2013
Earl's Musings: Sequels and Gameplay
Once again, this is a requested topic, but I like the sound of it, so here goes. Sequels seem a pretty popular thing these days, especially if you work for EA, though I think those are more cash grabs than sequels. I don't think highly of EA in case you can't tell. Anyway, point is, when making a sequel you always have a tricky balance to strike, if the game is too similar to the old one, why would anyone want to buy it? But if you change too much, you're going to alienate the fans. This applies to more than just mechanics mind you, so I'm probably going to touch on that a bit too. Now, example time!
Halo and Halo 2 are, I think, examples of sequels done well. Halo was a good game. Halo 2 was a better game. It kept the same general gameplay, removed health (I think) and added dual wielding. All in all, good changes, it was a natural evolution of the game that re-worked elements that didn't work (a health system which arguably punished mistakes by making the next attempt harder) and added in new elements to improve the core game. Now, my memory goes a little hazy at this stage, but I'm fairly certain it also re-balanced certain parts of the game, so that the multiplayer was generally more fun. Plus, touching on the story for just a moment, it was a natural continuation of the story, it expanded the universe in a way that didn't feel forced, and gave you more of what you expected.
Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 are examples of how I think sequels shouldn't be done. Mass Effect was a very RPG-heavy game, the levelling system was huge, with lots of different things to spend your points on, the gear upgrades were detailed, and the plot was indicative of a huge, galaxy-wide disaster. It was a truly epic space opera. Mass Effect 2's levelling system was watered down, the gear selection was arguably improved, in that it was no longer super pointlessly fiddly, however it was replaced with a tedious resource gathering chore, and the plot was a much more personal exploration of a few squad members, most of whom you'd only just met. Now, don't get me wrong, Mass Effect 2 is a good game. However, it's a bad sequel. It removed the mechanics that didn't seem to work (the gear system and the levelling system) and replaced them with similar, but overall different systems. It didn't feel like an improvement, or a refinement, but rather an entirely new game with tie-overs.
Okay, I'm probably exaggerating a bit about the transition, but I think the point was still made well enough. For a direct sequel to work, keeping the core fundamentals of the gameplay in are essential. HOWEVER, this does bring me to another point, which I'll touch on briefly. I think it's entirely okay to have indirect sequels with completely different gameplay. Halo Wars is an example. It's not a good example mind you, but still. In fact, I think these types of sequels are lovely, and I want to see more of them.
Anyway, I probably did a terrible job of this, but whatever, my thoughts on what makes sequels good or bad.
Pudding Earl.
P.S. Release this week is questionable due to personal life stuff.
Halo and Halo 2 are, I think, examples of sequels done well. Halo was a good game. Halo 2 was a better game. It kept the same general gameplay, removed health (I think) and added dual wielding. All in all, good changes, it was a natural evolution of the game that re-worked elements that didn't work (a health system which arguably punished mistakes by making the next attempt harder) and added in new elements to improve the core game. Now, my memory goes a little hazy at this stage, but I'm fairly certain it also re-balanced certain parts of the game, so that the multiplayer was generally more fun. Plus, touching on the story for just a moment, it was a natural continuation of the story, it expanded the universe in a way that didn't feel forced, and gave you more of what you expected.
Mass Effect and Mass Effect 2 are examples of how I think sequels shouldn't be done. Mass Effect was a very RPG-heavy game, the levelling system was huge, with lots of different things to spend your points on, the gear upgrades were detailed, and the plot was indicative of a huge, galaxy-wide disaster. It was a truly epic space opera. Mass Effect 2's levelling system was watered down, the gear selection was arguably improved, in that it was no longer super pointlessly fiddly, however it was replaced with a tedious resource gathering chore, and the plot was a much more personal exploration of a few squad members, most of whom you'd only just met. Now, don't get me wrong, Mass Effect 2 is a good game. However, it's a bad sequel. It removed the mechanics that didn't seem to work (the gear system and the levelling system) and replaced them with similar, but overall different systems. It didn't feel like an improvement, or a refinement, but rather an entirely new game with tie-overs.
Okay, I'm probably exaggerating a bit about the transition, but I think the point was still made well enough. For a direct sequel to work, keeping the core fundamentals of the gameplay in are essential. HOWEVER, this does bring me to another point, which I'll touch on briefly. I think it's entirely okay to have indirect sequels with completely different gameplay. Halo Wars is an example. It's not a good example mind you, but still. In fact, I think these types of sequels are lovely, and I want to see more of them.
Anyway, I probably did a terrible job of this, but whatever, my thoughts on what makes sequels good or bad.
Pudding Earl.
P.S. Release this week is questionable due to personal life stuff.
Wednesday 10 April 2013
The easiest fight to lose ever: Shield High 0.53 is released.
Sorry it's a day late, I got invited out and I was all like "I'm sure I'll be home in time to work on Shield High." I was wrong. So yeah, here's the release a day late. But it's got all the good stuff!
As in, you can fight with Sophine, Jen's friend who's helping you out with the Lucy-Alison predicament. The fight isn't the finish product, the math is a bit off right now, I need to go re-balance it, but that'll be done for next week, in which I'm going to try and tie up the plot properly, and actually tie it in with the Mistresses. Should be good.
Anyway! Download link: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?md94tj8krz8zz23
Hope you all enjoy, let me know how I fucked up.
Pudding Earl.
As in, you can fight with Sophine, Jen's friend who's helping you out with the Lucy-Alison predicament. The fight isn't the finish product, the math is a bit off right now, I need to go re-balance it, but that'll be done for next week, in which I'm going to try and tie up the plot properly, and actually tie it in with the Mistresses. Should be good.
Anyway! Download link: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?md94tj8krz8zz23
Hope you all enjoy, let me know how I fucked up.
Pudding Earl.
Saturday 6 April 2013
Earl's Musings: Games and being Social
So, this week I've gone out to a friends place to play games way too much. Like, I shouldn't have done it because I had work to do. But I did it anyway. And it's gotten me thinking about gaming with friends, and since I throw the word "social" around when I think about it, I'm also musing over the concept of social gaming in a way. So now let's talk about all this good stuff while I wait for ideas and motivation to do this new Shield High fight, and continue to neglect Tellulah.
I remember a couple years back social gaming seemed to be this kind of big deal. I enjoyed facebook games, and so did many of my friends, and we'd all send each other things and stuff. And then I developed something vaguely resembling taste and went to play actual games. But this notion of social gaming never really left me, and it seems to have not left the industry either. While the original presentation of them seems to be dying somewhat, with only a small niche still spending lots of money on them to keep them afloat, the idea is still around. The new Sim City for instance appears to have social gaming elements. I don't actually know, I refuse to give EA money on principle. You should too. But if you don't let me know if I'm right about that.
So, social games as we know them seem to be single player games, that are meant to be played by large groups of people who all help each other out by clicking buttons that are basically free, but give the other person some thing that they want. And when I game socially, I tend to play arcade-y, co-op games with my friends, like custom maps on Warcraft 3 or Starcraft 2. Neither of which are social games. Which you might think is silly, as social games should be THE games to play socially, right? Evidently not, that genres fully covered. Yet the idea of social games remains. So...what can we do with them?
Now, this is the part where I stray from fact and wander into wild speculation, but this is just my little take on how social gaming should be done. I think the next big idea behind social gaming should be something that demands people to socialize, and work as a society. Right now social gaming is about doing your own thing, which doesn't effect anyone else, but then being able to send free aid to others, and ask the same thing back. What if we change that idea? What if the game was about playing members of a tribe. The same general gameplay could remain, instead of harvesting crops or something, you go out on hunts, or go out gathering, but with other players, all of you working to survive, or do war with neighboring tribes. Add to this the idea that you need 3 people to go on hunts, or maybe more, and an open chat system within your tribe, and you'd have a very social, but quick and easy to play game.
And now I think I've spent too long writing about silly ideas of mine, feedback is appreciated as with all musing I'll be doing.
Pudding Earl.
I remember a couple years back social gaming seemed to be this kind of big deal. I enjoyed facebook games, and so did many of my friends, and we'd all send each other things and stuff. And then I developed something vaguely resembling taste and went to play actual games. But this notion of social gaming never really left me, and it seems to have not left the industry either. While the original presentation of them seems to be dying somewhat, with only a small niche still spending lots of money on them to keep them afloat, the idea is still around. The new Sim City for instance appears to have social gaming elements. I don't actually know, I refuse to give EA money on principle. You should too. But if you don't let me know if I'm right about that.
So, social games as we know them seem to be single player games, that are meant to be played by large groups of people who all help each other out by clicking buttons that are basically free, but give the other person some thing that they want. And when I game socially, I tend to play arcade-y, co-op games with my friends, like custom maps on Warcraft 3 or Starcraft 2. Neither of which are social games. Which you might think is silly, as social games should be THE games to play socially, right? Evidently not, that genres fully covered. Yet the idea of social games remains. So...what can we do with them?
Now, this is the part where I stray from fact and wander into wild speculation, but this is just my little take on how social gaming should be done. I think the next big idea behind social gaming should be something that demands people to socialize, and work as a society. Right now social gaming is about doing your own thing, which doesn't effect anyone else, but then being able to send free aid to others, and ask the same thing back. What if we change that idea? What if the game was about playing members of a tribe. The same general gameplay could remain, instead of harvesting crops or something, you go out on hunts, or go out gathering, but with other players, all of you working to survive, or do war with neighboring tribes. Add to this the idea that you need 3 people to go on hunts, or maybe more, and an open chat system within your tribe, and you'd have a very social, but quick and easy to play game.
And now I think I've spent too long writing about silly ideas of mine, feedback is appreciated as with all musing I'll be doing.
Pudding Earl.
Tuesday 2 April 2013
Shield High 0.522 released.
Okay. I'm gonna be totally honest here. I did not do as much as I'd hoped this week. In my defense, I've had a cold for part of it and no voice for pretty much all of it. Which isn't to say absence of voice interferes with making it. It just makes you pretty damn depressed when you can't open your mouth and hear your own voice. Well...it makes you depressed if you're a narcissist. Which I am.
But anyway, there's still a bit of blackmail content in there, not *quite* the finished line, but getting there. The core aspects of it will be finished next week. In the mean time I'm working on the logic behind a new group fight system for the Tellulah fight (spoilers). It's really, really hard to do in RAGS, so it'll be a couple weeks coming as I'm doing it bit by bit. On the plus side, when I transfer, this system will be nearly perfect, and I can easily copy it over to the new engine, which is more than I can say for the rest of the fight systems.
Download link: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?l0tjnq74ohal1ws
Be warned, this will likely break stuff for now. Tell me where.
Enjoy
Pudding Earl
But anyway, there's still a bit of blackmail content in there, not *quite* the finished line, but getting there. The core aspects of it will be finished next week. In the mean time I'm working on the logic behind a new group fight system for the Tellulah fight (spoilers). It's really, really hard to do in RAGS, so it'll be a couple weeks coming as I'm doing it bit by bit. On the plus side, when I transfer, this system will be nearly perfect, and I can easily copy it over to the new engine, which is more than I can say for the rest of the fight systems.
Download link: http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?l0tjnq74ohal1ws
Be warned, this will likely break stuff for now. Tell me where.
Enjoy
Pudding Earl
Monday 1 April 2013
Earl's Musings: Making Sex Games
Okay so, lordmou requested this topic, so here we go, a few thoughts and ideas about making sex games. I should note before I start, I was also asked about the market for them, but honestly, I have no clue about the market. Shield High is a game made to my interests (with the exception of donated content), that just so happens to be enjoyed by a lot of other people. Perhaps in the future I'll look into the market more if I aim to make something else, and will be able to muse about it then.
So, making sex games. I had a huge section here starting off about Shield High, then I realized it was all useless. Making sex games boils down to a very, simple concept, which seems to be missed by a lot of people. The goal of a sex game is to both be a game, and be sexy, at the same time. Something a lot of games don't fully grasp. I'll use a very obvious example. Tacky strip poker games. I'm sure at least some of you have played them. They're awful. Why? Because they don't combine the gameplay and the sex. First, you play poker. If you win enough poker, you're rewarded with a woman stripping. Great. You could do that with a poker simulator and any porn site in the world. Which is where the sex game has to differentiate itself. A sex game cannot be replaced by a normal game with some porn thrown in, it has to invoke something more than that. To use a rather vain example, Shield High aims not just to give sex, but a sense of achievement, a sense of power and earning the sex. Or making the sex a form of punishment, if not for you the player than for the character. The idea is to spice the experience with your own personal success or failure. That, I think, is the biggest challenge in making a sex game.
Well, that went on a bit longer than I expected, but hopefully you get what I've been trying to say. The question now turns to how do you make gameplay and sex co-exist? A common, and generally terrible, answer I've encountered is to replace combat with sex. The idea being to make your opponent cum before you do, using kissing, groping, and outright fucking in place of "attacks" and excitement in place of "health". The problem with this is it turns the sex into a numbers game. How can I best fuck my opponent so I can continue the game? Lets down the whole aspect of sex, in my opinion, and turns the game into a dull grind. Really, any game that requires levels, or any other form of grinding isn't a good sex game, mechanically speaking. To use an example that might cop me a little hate, Corruption of Champions is a game I've played, and forgotten was supposed to be about sex. Sure, the sex was there, but I didn't care, I wanted to level up, buy some new gear and keep killing shit. Don't get me wrong, Corruption of Champions is a great game, but it's mechanics do not tie into it's intent very well.
Now that I've covered a system that doesn't work, I'd like to touch on some that do. To make a good system in a sex game you need to go for one of two options, though both might work. Abstract mechanics or emotive mechanics. For instance, Shield High uses abstract mechanics in it's fights. Yes, everything is based off an RNG, but you're not aiming to inflict damage, you don't have a number to push down to zero. Instead the goal is to strip your opponent, using spanking and tickling to weaken their defenses. It's not the best system, but I believe it does the job of presenting sex and conflict entwined, without turning it into a numbers-focused combat game. Abstract mechanics can be anything like this, any method of resolving conflict, or playing the game that does not focus around visible numbers, or have an immediate point of comparison. For instance, I wouldn't say using an FPS segment would be an abstract mechanic, even though it isn't numbers based, it still draws on skills, and demands that the player not focus on the sex, the greatest sin of a sex game.
And now for emotive mechanics. Emotive mechanics are sometimes abstract, sometimes normal, however they serve a simple purpose. Make the player feel something as they do it. In a sex game, that's usually either a panic, or a feeling of power. To use an example from a game I love, Princess of the Ring does a good job of being emotive with only two simple tricks. It's a basic fighting game, in which two girls attempt to make each other cum. When you're being hit with a sex attack, to escape you have to mash buttons. It's a crude mechanic, but watching as your characters gets closer to cumming, while you're desperately hitting the keyboard trying to escape certainly drives home a sense of panic. The second mechanic is even more simple. Whoever was attacking in the last grapple has a very small opening in which they can attack before the other. It means that if you're in the lead, you have a sense of power, as you continue to dominate your opponent, and when losing, a feeling of helplessness, as you can never take the initiative. It's really simple stuff, but it strikes home.
And I just realized how long this got. So uh, I'm gonna stop now, before I write like, a whole fucking thesis. Want more? Let me know, I'll write a part 2 or something. I probably missed a lot. In fact, I think I only talked about mechanics and there's a lot more to it. Mechanics are just like, the big stuff,
Pudding Earl
P.S. More requests please~
So, making sex games. I had a huge section here starting off about Shield High, then I realized it was all useless. Making sex games boils down to a very, simple concept, which seems to be missed by a lot of people. The goal of a sex game is to both be a game, and be sexy, at the same time. Something a lot of games don't fully grasp. I'll use a very obvious example. Tacky strip poker games. I'm sure at least some of you have played them. They're awful. Why? Because they don't combine the gameplay and the sex. First, you play poker. If you win enough poker, you're rewarded with a woman stripping. Great. You could do that with a poker simulator and any porn site in the world. Which is where the sex game has to differentiate itself. A sex game cannot be replaced by a normal game with some porn thrown in, it has to invoke something more than that. To use a rather vain example, Shield High aims not just to give sex, but a sense of achievement, a sense of power and earning the sex. Or making the sex a form of punishment, if not for you the player than for the character. The idea is to spice the experience with your own personal success or failure. That, I think, is the biggest challenge in making a sex game.
Well, that went on a bit longer than I expected, but hopefully you get what I've been trying to say. The question now turns to how do you make gameplay and sex co-exist? A common, and generally terrible, answer I've encountered is to replace combat with sex. The idea being to make your opponent cum before you do, using kissing, groping, and outright fucking in place of "attacks" and excitement in place of "health". The problem with this is it turns the sex into a numbers game. How can I best fuck my opponent so I can continue the game? Lets down the whole aspect of sex, in my opinion, and turns the game into a dull grind. Really, any game that requires levels, or any other form of grinding isn't a good sex game, mechanically speaking. To use an example that might cop me a little hate, Corruption of Champions is a game I've played, and forgotten was supposed to be about sex. Sure, the sex was there, but I didn't care, I wanted to level up, buy some new gear and keep killing shit. Don't get me wrong, Corruption of Champions is a great game, but it's mechanics do not tie into it's intent very well.
Now that I've covered a system that doesn't work, I'd like to touch on some that do. To make a good system in a sex game you need to go for one of two options, though both might work. Abstract mechanics or emotive mechanics. For instance, Shield High uses abstract mechanics in it's fights. Yes, everything is based off an RNG, but you're not aiming to inflict damage, you don't have a number to push down to zero. Instead the goal is to strip your opponent, using spanking and tickling to weaken their defenses. It's not the best system, but I believe it does the job of presenting sex and conflict entwined, without turning it into a numbers-focused combat game. Abstract mechanics can be anything like this, any method of resolving conflict, or playing the game that does not focus around visible numbers, or have an immediate point of comparison. For instance, I wouldn't say using an FPS segment would be an abstract mechanic, even though it isn't numbers based, it still draws on skills, and demands that the player not focus on the sex, the greatest sin of a sex game.
And now for emotive mechanics. Emotive mechanics are sometimes abstract, sometimes normal, however they serve a simple purpose. Make the player feel something as they do it. In a sex game, that's usually either a panic, or a feeling of power. To use an example from a game I love, Princess of the Ring does a good job of being emotive with only two simple tricks. It's a basic fighting game, in which two girls attempt to make each other cum. When you're being hit with a sex attack, to escape you have to mash buttons. It's a crude mechanic, but watching as your characters gets closer to cumming, while you're desperately hitting the keyboard trying to escape certainly drives home a sense of panic. The second mechanic is even more simple. Whoever was attacking in the last grapple has a very small opening in which they can attack before the other. It means that if you're in the lead, you have a sense of power, as you continue to dominate your opponent, and when losing, a feeling of helplessness, as you can never take the initiative. It's really simple stuff, but it strikes home.
And I just realized how long this got. So uh, I'm gonna stop now, before I write like, a whole fucking thesis. Want more? Let me know, I'll write a part 2 or something. I probably missed a lot. In fact, I think I only talked about mechanics and there's a lot more to it. Mechanics are just like, the big stuff,
Pudding Earl
P.S. More requests please~
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