I’ve mentioned before that I’m working on a visual novel maker in my spare time. At first the purpose was only to practice my programming skills and try to implement what I’ve learned while working at Ksatria. Lately I’ve been wondering what my competition really looks like. I know there are other engines out there and I became curious of how they work compared to my Novelty and other engines.
From what I can tell there are no other visual editors for making visual novels. Granted, VNs are extremely simplistic in terms of programming. All you need is a simple 2D graphics engine and some sort of scripting language to set it all in motion. Had I taken the same route with Novelty I would’ve been done by now. In fact all VN engines are essentially script language runtimes.
My main issue with this approach is that it doesn’t take non-programmers into account. Visual novels are really popular in the japanese sub culture. It’s a genre as big as any other video game genre. In the west there isn’t really a big market for them so most authors are most likely hobbyists. For something as simple as a VN a lot of these engines sure make it hard for beginners to get something up and running.
It’s really hard to get any hard facts on any of these engines because most of them are japanese developed. Here’s what I found.
You might not know it, but I have a history with this old gentleman. This video was part of the instructional tutorial for Klik & Play. I still remember when I was around 10 (11? I forget) years old reading about Klik & play in Highscore magazine (before it turned into an adult mag) and since I was really into making text-games at the time in QBasic I was sure I had to get it.
It was about 500kr (~$70) so I first asked one of my close friends if he was interested in sharing the cost with me, but he wasn’t. And he said even if we got it that I would probably hog the disc (smart guy).
Ever since I got my first Phoenix Wright game I’ve been a fan. It’s an amazingly well-written adventure game that puts you in the role of Phoenix Wright, attorney of law. It’s actually more like a detective story game. With each murder case you need to figure out what happened, who did it and so forth. Once you know who did it you still need to convince the court using your collection of evidence and your wits. The characteristic prosecutors will do anything in their power to keep that from happening.
Because I got my DS relatively late I had to start with the second game and I finished the third game over christmas. The first game has been notoriously hard to find. When I was still living in Singapore I scoured every game store I could find for it but only ended up ranting about how they suck for not selling old/used games.
Last month I finally found a website that had it so I ordered it as fast as I could. Three weeks later I got a notice saying they were unable to find a copy for me. Doh! I searched the internet and found a website that sold used games and they apparently had a copy in stock. I ordered it and sure enough, three days later a parcel drops into my mailbox. I open in to discover they sent me the third game instead of the first (which is funny because Trials and Tribulations isn’t out in EU yet). Double-doh!
I contact their customer’s service and low and behold, it was a simple packaging error. They told me that they had sent me the correct game along with stamps so I could send back the one I wrongfully recieved. I got it two days ago and finally my collection is complete ^^
There’s even a new “Phoenix”-sequel coming out this month! Apollo Justice! Despite the equally ridicilous title, I can’t wait!
I saw this video posted on joystiq.com today. It’s the kind that makes every gamer grind their teeth. But these kind of reports are not uncommon for Fox, so obviously it should be taken with a large amount of salt. The channel is well-known to thrive in fear-mongering and poor journalism. Let’s look at this video as another case study.
We have, two “experts” (I put experts in quotes since Fox have been known to hand-pick and ‘educate’ their experts in the past). They both give their arguments. Both the phychology expert and the moderator admits that they’ve never even played the game. Then half-way through the report the relatively balanced argument is shoved aside for a panel of four conservatives of whom all share the same biased opinion. Neither of the four panel members seem to have played the game or in any case have any basis for what they’re saying and in the end I couldn’t help but to laugh out loud when they show their pity for the ‘unfortunate’ parents who have to look after their children.
[Update]
Jeff Brown of Electronic Arts, the (enormous) publisher responsible for Mass Effect responded to this debacle of a report, saying it was ‘insulting to the men and women who spent years creating [Mass Effect]’.
Martha MacCallum herself brushes off the complaint. This story is most likely already behind her and she’s moving on to warn about the next parental fright.
[Update #2]
At first I thought this story would go away, to be forgotten and passed on as another good example of poor journalism. But evidentally I wasn’t the only one to take offense. Earlier in this post I pointed out above that Fox had a tendency to educate their “experts”. This case seemed no different and it turns out it wasn’t. To regurgitate what’s in the article; Cooper Lawrence (the woman psychologist seen in the report) said this an interview to the New York Times: “I really regret saying that, and now that I’ve seen the game and seen the sex scenes it’s kind of a joke.” She goes on to say: “Before the show I had asked somebody about what they had heard, and they had said it’s like pornography. But it’s not like pornography. I’ve seen episodes of ‘Lost’ that are more sexually explicit.”
The thing that I find really unnerving about all this is not that a perfectly good game is being wrongfully treated by a mainstream outlet, or that it was such an obvious lie. It’s that it was a lie in the first place. It’s not uncommon for less serious news outlets to “spice up” their reports, but to invent news for the sake of ratings? That’s wrong in more ways than one.
I came across this website some time ago, or rather I stumbled upon a series of really clever and inspiring talks on youtube. I could hand out quite a number of superlatives on this website and it’s origins, but instead I will just recommend you take a look yourself.
To make myself brief, TED is an annual conference in California where smart and talented people gather and talk about smart things and a large number of them are available free on their website.
After the break are some of my favourite talks, to name but a few.
Thanks goes to Kvist for reminding me to update this blog. Admittedly, doing “nothing” might be a bit misleading since I’ve actually been up and about quite a bit.
I had about three posts I wanted to write during the holidays but I guess my lazyness got the best of me. So here’s a summary of what I’ve been up to since december.
Another triple-A title bites the dust. The non-interactive sex you can perform with the ladies in Mass effect was a bridge too far for the Singaporean government when it became clear that the player can be a lady too.
I’ve noticed a trend in video game character design: Faceless guy in futuristic armor and helmet.
As games move more and more into realism, game developers find themselves having to answer the question: How do you put the player in a realistic environment but give him supernatural powers?
The easiest, no-brainer answer is to give them a power suit and set the game in the near-future. It’s important to distinguish the future from the near-future. The future means the game plays out in outer space and the human race are either at the bring of extinsion or they’re the commanders of the galaxy waging an interplanetary war. The near-future means the near-almost-now, but not-really. In essense the real world, but with addition of cool inexplicable technologies. Like power suits.
