“The Oculus Rift has come a long way from a Kickstarter concept piece to billion dollar acquisition by Facebook.”

Oculus VR are not breaking new ground for the integration of VR technology and innovative motion controls into video games.  It has been attempt before in various different guises, from Nintendo’s Power Glove to Victormaxx’s ridiculously expensive Cybermaxx headset. Peripherals for video games have never really improved on the overall gaming experience, at least not enough to make gamers shell out cash on the high priced products. The Oculus Rift is really a refinement of the technology laid down by Jaron Lanier, Thomas G. Zimmerman and others alike. The wide field of view, HD display and head tracking the key selling points of the new device and may well be the final piece of the puzzle that was missing previously. The other issue that held back many devices prior to the current day equivalents was a simple matter of size. One of the first virtual reality head mounted displays was so heavy and cumbersome it had to be suspended from the ceiling, users nicknaming the device the “The Sword of Damocles”. Even Nintendo’s Virtual Boy seems bulky and unwieldy by today’s standards. There is no doubting that Oculus VR have put their work in trying to make their device slip seamlessly into the gaming experience and make the interactivity as intuitive as possible.

“Virtual Reality has come and gone in the past can the current trend maintain prolonged interest and more importantly sell in sustainable numbers.”

However it is not as if the company has a monopoly on the VR market as both Sony and Valve are looking to enter the arena with their own interpretations. At this year’s Games Developers Conference in San Francisco Sony came out swinging with their own version of a VR headset dubbed Project Morpheus. The Japanese tech giants have been working on VR prototype headsets for a number of years, integrating their own Move controllers into the system. Sony has the slight advantage of having a long history in the tech industry and all the experience that comes with it. However the Oculus team can boost about the veteran developers that have joined the company, with id Software founder John Carmack the chief technology officer at Oculus VR. Even Valve’s own VR specialist Michael Abrash has switched sides and joined the Oculus Rift team. It would seem that at any rate gamers will be spoilt for choice when these devices make it market, when that will be is still up in the air. Some hints point towards a late 2014 early 2015 launch for the Oculus Rift, but another important question arises in response to that is the devices proposed price point. Again no official pricing structure has been announced only guesstimates can be made at this time, the most recent Dev kit version of the device going for $350 (€254). $250(€180) to $300(€220) the price range been floated around by some market analysts. Oculus VR founder Palmer Luckey has stated that he may adopt a similar model used by the console manufactures, dropping the price and making up the money on licencing deals with game publishers. This is integral to the success of any of the current VR headsets in development, the support of the video game developers to integrate the technology into their games. At the end of the day if there isn’t an extensive catalogue of titles that will support VR then the Rift, Morpheus, Gameface or any of the other VR headsets will ultimately fail.

“The Oculus Team have had VR market all to themselves the last two years but now competition is heating up with others jumping on the VR bandwagon.”

The decision by “Notch” to pull his official support for Oculus Rift integration with Minecraft doesn’t help with publicity for the VR company. Not that ‘Minecrafters’ desperate to see their blocky creations up close and personal are out of luck, as there are mods that support Oculus Rift input. However an official release of a VR compatible version of Minecraft could have been a big boon for the Oculus Rift over it soon to be competitors. The Rift is definitely carving itself out as a PC peripheral as opposed to Sony’s VR which obviously will be supported by their PlayStation console. Sony already demonstrating their eye tracking technology working with the current PS4 release Infamous: Second Son. So just like the console wars that take place between Sony and Microsoft it is the exclusive titles that can often sway customers moreover than hardware specs. There is even now a host of tech companies that want to take VR even further, not happy with just tracking movement of the player’s vision they want get them on the move. Companies like Virtuix with their Omni motion tracking device want to have Oculus Rift users get of their seats and start moving. The demonstration of Valves new VR headset at Steam Dev Days also incorporated spatial awareness and the capturing of full body movement. This entire aside the current generation of VR is still in its infancy with projects still in development and release dates still TBA. It would seem that there is enough momentum behind the VR push this time that it is unlikely to be a flash in the pan. Whether or not it will be a revolution in video game interaction is still out to tender. A quick review of interactive peripherals of video games past doesn’t paint a great picture. Even the evolution of the video game controller has been fairly stagnant for the last decade, although Valve might have something to say about that. The coming years and eventual product launches will offer a clearer idea for the future of Virtual Reality.

By Colm O’Sullivan

The post The State of the Industry: Virtual Reality The Future or Fad? appeared first on Game Design Ireland.

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“Hi-Yo, Silver! Away! Minecraft has gone all equestrian with it’s latest update”

Although Minecraft might be the most popular of the new genre subset, that doesn’t stop players ingenuity and creativity from creating these new experience in games creation toolkits that were meant for an entirely different purpose. Case in point is Trials Evolution and its custom Track Builder, the game offers players the chance to build their own motorbike stunt course using various in game objects. The difference between this version of the editor and the one available in the previous Trials game is the addition of the Pro Editor which gives the players access to manipulate the visual programming language of the game in order to go beyond simple motorbike courses with their creations. This has led to the reimaging of many classic arcade games such as Marble Blast Ultra, Mario and of course Pac Man, not to mention a host of other custom game types like zombie horde mode and mini-golf. Although the creators of Trials Ref Lynx did intend for players to create their own custom maps when they built out the custom toolkit I doubt they could have imagined that the players would take up the challenge and produce maps that are almost standalone games in their own right. The company is set to release the next title in the series Trials Fusion for the Xbox One within the next year and with an advancement in the technology behind its editor who knows what new levels of game creation we will be able to experience.

“Sometimes it’s easy to forget that your playing a Motocross game”

The rise in popularity for custom game creation is the reason why Microsoft Studies are set to launch their own pseudo gaming engine onto the new Xbox with Project Spark. The game is a sandbox that lets the player craft environments and gameplay scenarios. It also has the added benefit of being able to do this using smart glass, Microsoft’s mobile and tablet console integration app. The game is very similar to Sony’s counterpart Little Big Planet where custom game creation is a large part of the gameplay. Little Big Planet has already offered up many fan favourites such as Zelda and Angry Birds. Since their invention in the late seventies parents have always bemoaned the ever increasing amount of time their children spend playing video games and have a habit of retelling nostalgic tales of playing on the streets in their youth using their imagination to have fun. Many see video games as an impassive pastime with no intellectual benefits but the game within a game genre would look to disprove these long held misconceptions. I would argue that children growing up playing these new sandbox games are using far more imagination and creativity then their predecessors, I’m still baffled when watching someone explain how they built an arithmetic logic unit using only Redstone arranged in a manner that allows for the calculation of basic maths problems in Minecraft.

“This looks very familiar, but I just can’t seem to put a finger on it something about some antagonised fowl”

There are many aspects of Minecraft success that has led the game and its creators to be pushed to the forefront of the industry, from its unique approach to game development to its embrace of the modding community and the host of careers made from making videos in the game such as the Yogscast Crew or Hat Films. It’s the non-restrictive sandbox gameplay mechanics that have made it all possible, it has been equated to virtual LEGO on many occasions but I think it is far more then that as LEGO has it various physical limitations. Minecraft has evolved beyond simply destroying or crafting blocks and has offered players a chance for their imagination to run wild, allowing minecrafters to create new games without having to learn a programming language or become an expert 3D artist. The team at Mojang are still hard at work making new content for future updates for what looks like a never ending development process, but even when and if they stop the community of creators will keep the new creations coming; forever giving players a reason to log back on.

By Colm O’Sullivan

The post Minecraft 1.6 Review appeared first on Game Design Ireland.

Minecraft is probably one of the most talked about games in the industry at the moment and its creator Markus Persson more affectionately known as “Notch” is hailed as a pioneer breaking new ground in the video game development scene. In a recent documentary that explored the success behind Mojang which is Notch’s company, many industry veterans such as Peter Molyneux and Tim Schaffer quoted Minecraft’s development process as being an inspiration for them to break away from the industry standards and attempt to emulate Notch. However both have opted to use Kickstarter to fund their projects and have not followed the same development path as Mojang did with Minecraft. It seems that many were praising Notch and his successful development process but few were looking to imitate that process until last week with the release of Don’t Starve an open world survival game that does bear a lot of similarities to Minecraft, most important of which was the development process.

In order to give some context to my argument a brief history of Mojang and Minecraft would help. Notch released the first version of Minecraft in May of 2009 with its initial title of “Cave Game”. These early indev versions of the game was more a test of Notch’s procedural generated landscape programming more than a game, however with interest in the game growing the development quickly picked up pace even with Notch still working another job at the time. When the game reached the Alpha stage of development and Notch increased the charge which had been introduced in the indev stage from €5.00 to €10.00, and with sales passing 200,000 units he had found his source of income and could leave his job at JAlbum.net and work full time on the game. To speed up development Notch used the money gained from the initial Minecraft sales to start his own company and hire his friend Jens “Jeb” Bergensten to help with programing. By the time the game reached open Beta in December of 2010 it had already garnered a lot of attention from the gaming community and reached a million sales by January 2011. It was that community that helped guide Notch with the development of the game, with updates being heavily influenced by the modding community that sprang up around the development of the game. Its sales were also driven by the huge number of content creators who used the game to film machinima series, how to guides and whole multitude of videos all using the Minecraft engine. It final release was celebrated with much fanfare at the first Minecon Event that took place in Las Vegas on the 18 November 2011. The game continues to be updated for free with ports of the game being released onto smartphones, consoles and even the raspberry pi computer. The current combined sales figures easily put the game over 20 million units sold, vindicating Notch and his development process.

“Is Minecraft the most influential game of our time?”

This brings me to question the likes of Peter Molyneux and Tim Schaffer and there supposed revelation and influence gained by watching the rise of Mojang and Minecraft. As was demonstrated by Notch with his free to play model evolving into a low cost pricing structure as the game continued to be developed, is clearly replicable to anyone with a good idea for a game. If the game isn’t popular enough then the developer can simply stop and not waste any time or money and go back to the drawing board and reassess. The Kickstarter model however doesn’t allow for that, developers our given all the money up front before any of the consumers have seen the game and then they are forced to deliver the product even if they feel the game will not succeed or the development process isn’t working out as intended e.g. Haunts: The Manse Macabre. There are claims that the community will be involved in the process but it is hard to see how with either no playable demo or a closed off beta which can hamper the creation of user created content that clearly helped in the development of Minecraft, with most updates for the game simply given a reply to what the players wanted or had already modded into the game. I know in previous articles and comments online that I have made clear my opinion and scepticism about Kickstarter and crowd funding in general, but it purely comes from the influence of Notch and his development process. He has proved that anybody in the industry can start from nothing and build themselves up with support from the community once they have a good idea and the determination to follow through with it. The various industry veterans claim that the need x amount of money to reach certain development goals which from the evidence of Minecraft is untrue. These AAA development stalwarts are still clinging to the old ways with an individual(s) haven to give them start-up money before they will risk any development time on the game. They have forgotten where they started with the likes of Peter Molyneux publishing and distributing his first game “The Entrepreneur” by himself. It seems that it takes adventurous indie developers to break the industry norms and look to establish new ways of developing games.

“How much money do developers really need when Notch has achieved success on a shoe string budget.”

Now finally onto the game in question Don’t Starve made by Klei Entertainment who have also produced other indie titles such as Shank and Mark of the Ninja. Klei Entertainment decided to copy the development cycle that Notch pioneered and apply it to their own project. The development started late last year with the game been sold on the same low cost pricing structure, as with Minecraft the earlier in the beta that the player buys the game the cheaper it will be. They have also release constant updates during the development process, given themselves the ambitious target of releasing an update every other week which they have kept too so far and just like Minecraft they have also promised to continually update the game for free after its final retail release. The game itself contains very stylized art aesthetic and is based on the open world survival genre. It might draw some similarities to Minecraft and even raise a few criticisms of plagiarism but it is more that Minecraft has now set a precedent for a new genre of open world survival and Don’t Starve just happens to fit into that category. It feature an isometric view that really enhances its gothic inspired 2D graphics that almost gives it a pop-up storybook feel. The player is tasked with traveling around the map gathering food and resources in order to survive, all the time avoiding the many mobs the litter the landscape who would like nothing more than to tear you to shreds (hounds will cause you to turn tail and run whenever they spot you). The key aspect of this game is survival unlike Minecraft which focuses more on terraforming the world and creating amazing buildings and structures out of blocks (Voxel Box will make your Minecraft creations look like playschool art projects). Both games warn you not to venture off into the wilderness at night in fear of dangers you might encounter, however once you become accustomed to dodging a handful of skeletons and creepers you can freely explore Minecraft night-time landscape, whereas if you were to take one step into the invasive darkness that surrounds your must have campfire you will find yourself at the sharp end of a unseen monsters teeth and claws. Suffice it to say you spend most of the night huddled by your fire replenishing it with logs and fuel not daring to let it burn out, this is a game that is truly about survival that even has you battle with your own characters ever failing sanity (wearing a garland of flowers seems to level him out though). There is plenty of end game content to discover once you get used to the basic survival mechanics with plenty of object and tool crafting and exploring of mysterious relics that will keep you well entertained for hours on end.

“Very dapper, now I only have to worry about the constant starvation and the treat of multiple enemies but at least I have my top hat.”

Don’t Starve and Minecraft has shown that video game developers have the ability to publish their own games and don’t need to rely on venture capital from major publishers or crowd sourcing projects like Kickstarter. If gamers are offered a cheap or free version of a development stage game and it is well received then there is no need to worry about time and costs as the fans will fund the development process through their purchases of the game. It is how many of the big time publishers like Activision starting by self-published their own games which fund the company’s future growth. This model is even easier to achieve in the current video game climate with a host of free game engines available to work with and a multitude of online distribution outlets allowing anyone to create and publish a game for little cost once they have the drive and determination.

By Colm O’Sullivan

The post Don’t Starve Review appeared first on Game Design Ireland.