Video Game Design Society game demonstrations event Saturday 10th February

I meant to post about this weeks ago, and what’s more I meant to post about it on The Video Game Design Society blog which I asked for posting privileges specially to do. But oh well, other things came up and I never got round to it. Now not only is it too late to post on the VGDSoc blog (really) but I also want to do a less formal post which is more appropriate for here than there.

On Saturday 10th February several members of the Video Game Design Society met up at Bob Merrison’s house in Kenilworth to “show off” various games. The idea was that we would each bring a game we thought was interesting or particularly well designed and demo it, commenting on what was going on. There was also an element of showing off skill or knowledge of the games.

We started out with Ricky breaking various bits of Goldeneye (1997), including showing the “paintbrush” glitch (where actually it’s not a paintbrush being wielded but Bond’s wrist and hand) as well as several examples of the game not being able to keep track of every item dispensed into the world, and graphical glitches. It was fascinating as there was a lot there that I had never seen before and I also got the chance to try to show the “dual wield” trick, though I couldn’t remember exactly how to do it and only ended up mixing weapons that are adjacent in cycle order.

The Goldeneye “paintbrush”

Next up Dunk showed some freeware titles including the excellent Madness Interactive (at which he has remarkable SKILLZ) and…er… I’m drawing a complete mental blank on what else. I do remember he was going to show Armadillo Run and something that was DOS only but other than Madness Interactive, I just can’t recall.

Yup, Madness Interactive is pretty PIMP

After that Ali showed a couple of Treasure titles, which he commented on excellently. Firstly, Dynamite Headdy (1994), a strange puppet show-themed platform/fighting/shooting game where you play a character whose interchangeable heads allow him to traverse levels and kill bad guys in a range of ways. One of the sections Ali showed was a bizarre Russian doll-like boss which starts as a giant baby’s head (keeping the “headdy” theme) then, as it is shot at, sheds layers becoming progressively older to the point of just being an old man (complete with Victor Meldrew reference – SERIOUSLY). This section is quite difficult and required some save stating to beat, though it probably wouldn’t have if Ali wasn’t trying so hard to play and comment simultaneously (always a feat). It’s the kind of crazy game we traditionally associate with Japanese Megadrive titles but takes it even further than most by presenting a loopy universe of its own instead of merely infusing the familiar with wackiness. The game was quite popular in the West, incidentally.

Ali’s second game was Ikaruga (2001). If you know me you’ll know I adore Ikaruga and at one point was able to 1-credit the game (and got into the world rankings, in fact). I’m trying to get back into it after a hiatus – I can just about get through a 1-credit run, but my chaining is all over the place. I’m getting ahead of myself though! Ikaruga is a 2D shoot ‘em up where every enemy (targets, ships, blocks, vehicles etc.) is coloured either black or white and fires energy of that colour. However, your ship can also be black or white. When white you absorb white energy and when black you absorb black energy. In this way you are able to protect yourself against enemy attacks and instead absorb the energy they fire at you (by switching your own colour appropriately). However, this is harder than it sounds because there will often be a dense mix of both black and white energy fired at you, requiring very skilful dodging. This is where the small hitbox comes in handy. That is, your ship is only actually vulnerable in the very centre – something which seems counter intuitive at first but is a standard feature of modern shmups and works surprisingly well. There is one other very important thing about Ikaruga: you get the most points by chaining enemies in groups of three of the same colour. So you end up planning these intricate routes through levels, killing enemies in just the right order to get a huge score (the points awarded for each 3-link increase exponentially).

The second level “boss”

Phew. The above paragraph was pretty much what was said at the event by Ali and me (I rudely couldn’t resist chipping in about the game). To really understand Ikaruga you have to see it in action though, and Ali and I both showed off our skills at the game, demonstrating not only the level of skill and planning required to score highly but also the sheer gorgeousness of the game graphics.

I heart Ikaruga!

Now the order gets a little bit hazy but I think it was me next, showing Bangai-O (1999), another Treasure game to go with the ones that Ali had just shown. I brought my Dreamcast (!) to show this game. Bangai-O is a puzzle shoot ‘em up. You blast your way through mazes in a ship that has two modes of fire: homing missiles (for open areas) and bouncing lasers (for interior sections). The main gimmick is in the bomb system where you launch more (missiles or lasers) depending on how “in danger” you are, which encourages the player to get right in with the enemies and the bullets/missiles/energy being shot at them, in order to launch a superbly powerful and satisfying bomb launch themselves. I demonstrated a couple of levels which show the variety in Bangai-O, one where I had to consider the best way to get through a wall of bad guys (it turns out the best thing to do is blast a little route through them, sneak through then launch bombs right in the middle of the dangerzone) and the other where I was in a more open space, fighting a flying mech similar to my own ship.

A bomb launch in Bangai-O

One of the great things about Bangai-O is the crazy translation, which was left unedited from the early draft the Japanese team did – the developers found it too hilarious not to include. Bangai-O is well worth checking out. The reason I brought it is that it’s included in The Greatest Video Games of All Time book that Nico Waller (the president of VGDSoc) received for Christmas and in which Bangai-O was the only game of which he had not heard.

After I had shown Bangai-O, Nico proceeded to show two of his favourite first person shooters: Far Cry and Half-Life 2 (both 2004). In Far Cry we saw how far one large island and some decent AI can go in making a fun experience without having to prescribe each little detail of unfolding gameplay. Half-Life 2, by contrast, is meticulously planned with sections that have specific, ingenious solutions which Nico delighted in demonstrating. Nico’s comments on Half-Life 2 went a long way to showing just why it’s one of the most important games of recent years, in terms of sheer technical impressiveness, script and detail of environment. It really made me want to find time to exhaustively go through the game and all the extra mission pack “chapters”.

This chipper chappy is from the lost coast extra content

Next it was me again with Magic Pengel: The Quest for Color. This is a Pokémon-like RPG game based loosely on rock-paper-scissor for the fighting sections. However, the main thing about the game is the awesome graphical style and the fact that you make your own characters. I really need to go into detail about this game more in a later post (and show off my creations) but I will say that we had a good laugh on the day creating a Ms Pacman-like monster that - due to a mistake on my part - walked SIDEWAYS. I’ll upload a video some time, it’s classic.

If you see this game anywhere then buy it. Seriously. Even if you need a US/Jap PS2 to play it. It’s WORTH IT

Magic Pengel is a very lovely-looking game with its artbook, Japanese, crayon drawing style. There was a rumour of a Nintendo DS version, which everyone agreed would be superb as the stylus could be used for drawing the creations (although Magic Pengel does have a powerful but simple 3D modelling system) and online matches via wi-fi would be possible. I hope this happens.

Not one of mine, but a good demonstration of what can be done.

The final game I saw was Killer 7, being shown by BRYAN GALE. This is a very, very odd game which some people think it is pretentious bollocks. They’re wrong, Killer 7 is a complex, psychological, Lynchian masterpiece. Now, I haven’t played it through fully (though intend to borrow it from GALE over Easter) but I can tell you that the game is about the seven personalities of a single insane person. Each of these have skills (most to do with killing deadly spirits that lurk in the on-rails environments) and their own distinct character traits. One magnum-wielding personality repeatedly says “you’re fucked” while you use him to blast enemies. There is too much weirdness in this game (even in the limited amount we saw) to go into detail, but it really is like nothing else. The graphics (enemies explode into pillars of blood when destroyed) and the heavily-open-to-interpretation plot, along with the familiar yet creepily uninhabited environments, create an alternative, nightmare-like reality that one feels really captures the disturbing form that a mental illness can take. Like I said, a masterpiece.

You’re fucked.

I had to leave early but I do know at least that Shadow of the Colossus was talked about after I went. It’s probably just as well I wasn’t around, as I played Shadow of the Colossus before everyone else in VGDSoc (I got it on import) and even wrote a feature about it for the Boar (or rather, for the Core – that issue had Shadow of the Colossus on the cover, to go with my article, which I was very pleased with) to coincide with the UK release, so I feel a certain amount of possessiveness, obsessiveness and general (unwarranted) AUTHORITY about the game.

This game is probably the best thing I’ve played in the past 3 or so years.

So what happened next? Well, I got a bus to Leamington, went to Kelsey’s to meet up with some other video game friends from Rllmuk forum, got completely trashed on beer and shots (this was fun) then crashed out at Leo Robson’s before coming in mid-morning on Sunday to lay up my Boar stuff, heavily hung over. After that, I came home, slept – fast forward a couple of weeks and here we are, writing this up. Oh happy times. AND THAT’S HOW FOR NOW.

James Miles : 01 Mar 2007 11:29 |  Tags: Bangai O Dynamite Headdy Far Cry Gaming Goldeneye Half Life 2 Ikaruga Killer 7 Madness Inc Magical Pengel Shadow Of The Colossus Video Game Design Society |  Comments (2) |  Trackbacks (1) |  Report a problem