Writing N' Video Games

Jump Jet Rex is a platformer about collecting rings to unlock the end of a level.  That's it. SO while members of our team like Gabe play modern masterpieces like Nier: Automata, I'm playing Jump Jet Rex (because it is great).  You're the Rex, and you can both jump and jet in a straight line as well as straight up.  The mechanics not mentioned in the title include quickly descending.  Directions, I know.  The way this game starts you off is, I believe, precious.  You start on this screen with a giant button. WELL gee that button looks like the button of the controller I have plugged in.  So right there you learn how to jump.  That's cool.  Why aren't there more funny directions mixed with in-game objects in the industry? I don't know, but it's nice and I knocked it over immediately.  It did encourage me to explore and experiment very early on. I found a treasure. ANYWAY, you get in your cool ...

ULTIMATE Epic Battle Simulator is exactly what its title indicates, a simulator of epic battles.   Accurate ON the scale, “epic” is the upper boundary of what you can accomplish, so that shouldn’t discourage you from small scale encounters.  At some point, I watched 1000 Archers hold their position in the center of a city and fend off 1000 zombies funneling in from all sides.  Did it look cinematic and epic with a Triple-A showcase of animations?  Not at all and I would say that is the entire point.   Almost UEBS is a game the allows you to construct and observe battles across large maps filled with massive amounts of AI.  It’s developed by Brilliant Game Studios which is a “one-man show,” as their YouTube description states.  I find it enjoyable, so while I aim to talk about it accurately I am also not impartial. UEBS is simple.  From the start, after you interact with or close the Steam Workshop pop-up window, you are given your ...

106 hours later, I beat the last story monster of Monster Hunter: World (with slinger ammo.) FEATURING the most advanced and beautiful range of monsters to date, Monster Hunter: World is the fifth mainline game in the series and the first on the XO/PS4 generation.  It's huge.  And filled with large monsters, small monsters, pet-sized monsters, plants you'd be lucky to find during a hunt, bugs, and ore to collect for items, monster specific rewards, equipment (weapons, consumables, and charms), and an arena so that you can't run.  Then, there are high-rank versions of all that.  The general success of this Monster Hunter is taking all that stuff and making them useful to hunting and crafting, so hunting and crafting are interwoven through every scale of the game, be it your current task or the one you're preparing for. Full Ingot armor and a mud monster (Barroth) THERE are 32 large monsters in the New World, meaning the boss sized ones, (the ones we really c...

SLIME Rancher takes the survival exploration gameplay that dominates open world games and drops the survival. I caught my first glimpse of Slime Rancher near the beginning of its early access run and bought it a few months from its official release.  What is it?  It’s a whole lot of farming of wild blob-like creatures (slimes) and food while using a vacuum gun through a day and night cycle to earn money. The catch is that there is no pressure. Home on the ranch THE game starts by informing you that you, Beatrix LeBeau, have journeyed to the Far Far Range, 1,000 light-years from earth and quickly spawns you first person, vacpack (vacuum gun) in hand on your ranch. The gun is easy-to-learn: collect and release things.  You can collect slimes, slime droppings (extremely valuable rocks), food to feed your slimes, and eventually upgrade it to carry water.  You can also sprint and jump, the usual stuff in a first-person game. The machinery with green li...

Why hello, I didn't see you there. Please, step in. Don't worry, despite us never having met, my alien translator perfectly converts our conversation to English. What? Yours doesn't? You should see a doctor about that... Factions - Broader Strokes THE ANGARAN... and Jaal: As a written character, Jaal is fine enough, if you're willing to settle for that. He's the poster boy for his species and as such, is our window into their culture. Our experience with him will either help define his race or defy stereotypical expectations. Many characters in Mass Effect tend to fall outside the norm of their culture. They serve as exposition to their people's norms while also highlighting how and why differ. *My biggest gripe with Jaal has to do with the god-awful writing, scripting, and direction of his loyalty quest. It's not even a terrible premise, it's just executed with utter nonsense. A sub faction of the Angaran are hostile to any foreign aliens, w...

Gabe again, welcome back to me slicing and dicing Mass Effect Andromeda for the sake of narrative exploration. Shout out to my blog partner, Ben, who left me this lovely comment while proof reading this segment: "Gabe sucks jk" Stay beautiful, Ben. Characters: Fine Tuning (Cont.) *Cracks knuckles* Alright, let's start getting to work on the bread and butter of Mass Effect: our alien squad mates. OLD VETRA: Our smuggling Turian squad mate made a great impression on me when we first boarded the Tempest (our pathfinding space ship). I got the feeling she was someone who routinely circumvented regular routines from her demeanor and actions. Vetra's resume comprises a slew of contacts she somehow fostered in a new galaxy that enables to get her hands (talons?) on a variety of resources and tools that suit your needs. In practice, she doesn't actually get you anything specific. She just says she can. This breaks a cardinal rule of story-telling (show don...

You came back! I mean, ahem, of course you did. Welcome back to part two, everyone. Ch aracter Alterations - Fine Tuning RYDER: In principle, I admire what they aimed to do with Ryder as a new hero, in contrast to Shepard. I consider it a mi ld success that grew into a deafening misunderstanding of tone. It makes sense though. Shepard was already established as skilled and noteworthy by the time he was a Spectre. Why not take the opportunity to build someone's story from scratch in an endearing way with fumbling starts? It certainly breaks the mold except...  As the late Rodney Dangerfield would phrase it, Ryder gets no respect. As a replacement Pathfinder, Ryder has no experience and often flounders nonsensically as they figure out the plot. Excuse me, I misspoke. I meant to say, as SAM (his artificial intelligence) figures out the plot. Ryder flies by the seat of his/her pants, treating serious problems flippantly with little to no options to play it one hundred ...