That Megadrive style game box is lovely. I've considered making my own, just for the shelf, both for Mania and Origins Plus. I'll probably do one for Superstars as well.
That said, other than that, nothing else about this set makes me want it. It looks quite basic/stock... If the artwork on the lithographs, cover of the book etc were original art, similar to the IDW cover variants, I'd be ALL over this. I'd probably pay twice the askign price. Instead, its the same handful of official press kit images printed on a million other things. Very nice images, but I don't see any specific value in yet another printing of them on random bits of cardboard.
Obviously, if there hadn't already been a nice physical edition, I'd be queing up for this at any price. But as it is, you can pick up the physical copy with reversable retro sleeve and a nice little artbook for Β£20-25 very easily. A bargain, I'd say.
With that in mind, I'm not sure what the appeal in this set is, unless the exclusive book contains new stuff we haven't seen before in the mirriad other books already released - but that example page showing the standard cover art and a screenshot doesn't give me much hope of that.
@Woderwick I didn't get a notification that you tagged me - perhaps because you used uppercase? Pure luck that I saw your message because came back out of interest to read the responses. Just letting you know incase you tag me in the future and I don't repond. Thank you for the kind words!
I've not gotten too much to add other than I too had not even considered that runtimes for Unity (and presumably Unreal, other 3rd party frameworks) would be baked into official console updates rather than included in each game's package... it makes sense I guess, but as you say there are a whole bunch of security concerns and also means Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft putting a whole lot of trust in those companies to co-sign and force installation of something they didn't make themselves.
As I said I've no personal experience of if that's the case, my only console development has been with projects compiled with GameMaker. But I can certainly see a world where this would happen, and I don't doubt what @HeadPirate says. Without getting conspiratorial, "Big Tech" companies tend to feel it's more profitable to ask for forgiveness than permission.
There are some really great titles here but this list highlights how comparitively few racing titles there are on Switch, especially the more fun/arcade style racers in general these days compared to the higher end sims so big-boy hardware can show off its graphics by proving how grown-up and serious it is.
Cruis'n Blast is a complete opposite to this and is one of my most played games on Switch. Its far from perfect but its SUCH a fun time. I can always go back to it and have a quick blast for 10 minutes. Its the perfect expansion on the arcade game.
It pains me that we have Sonic Team Racing and Burnout Paradise, which are good games, but no Racing Transformed and Burnout 3 Takedown which are in their own class, imo. The Virtua Racing and OutRun ports are stunning but make me want Daytona USA, Sega Rally and OutRun 2 / SP all the more. Ridge Racer collection seems a pipedream but we had games on the N64 and 3DS...
One thing to note that I always forget, is why the heck Nintendo didn't allow us to have analogue triggers on Switch or Wii U - especially crazy since we had them on GameCube and Wii Classic. Perhaps this is partially responsible for why we don't have more of these titles.
Glad to see Fast RMX on this list BTW, really nice launch lineup game that deserved to be physical from the start. Its great that Super Rare Games eventually stepped up to the plate yearsa later but I genuinely think had this been on shelves at the time of launch it would have sold a tonne more and be hailed a classic. (the previous Wii U title in the series, Fast Racing NEO was also amazing)
The second problem with the diamond configuration was more serious. Regardless of the labelling (which Nintendo had always done backwards despite it beign rejected by other companies) it was always accepted in most arcade systems and consoles pre-SNES that the button to the far right of the controller was the "main" button, as covered above. Games that got "jump" and "fire" the "wrong" way round in the 8 bit days were rightly criticised and everyone accepted that regardless of how they were labelled, the button on the right was "jump" and also "yes", and the button on the left was "shoot" and also "no / back". But by bringing in the diamond formation with the SNES, this caused a problem - the implication was that the lowest button in the diamond was the "main" button (rather than the furthest right), and all the others were secondary, floating around it. This works for simple platformers, top down shooters, or racing games, but worked less well as control schemes for games got more complicated. The problem was exhaserbated by Sega, NEC, SNK and arcade companies mostly choosing to stick with ABC, XYZ 6 button 2 tier layouts, meaning that games released for both Megadrive/Genesis and SNES had very different control schemes, with the far right button being predominant for the Sega (and NEC, SNK, some PC), but the lower middle button being predominant for Nintendo.
This meant that during the 16 bit era, game devs were faced with a choice of whether to do things "the new innovative 'simpler'" Nintendo way, or go with a more traditional, flexible, but less easy for newcomers to grasp "arcade" way. At the time, because of game tastes, and the practicalities of translating them into a tonne of languages, the more complicated console games such as RPGs and strategy titles tended to stay in Japan, with a select few reaching America because of English translations, and even fewer reaching Europe or the rest of the world because there were too many languages for too little financial return. This lead to games with complex control schemes for the SNES using the far right button as primary, and it becoming somewhat of an accepted standard in Japan, wheras more arcade based simple to control games that were released worldwide were more split in how the devs chose to design them.
When Sony created the original Playstation pad, for historically obvious reasons, it was essentially a SNES pad, but they had to innovate a little to distinguish it. Using letters was out of the question, so they chose symbols, which of course as pointed out in the video, were intended to represent things - yes, no, menu, map. The X on a Playstation pad is technically a "cross", not an "ex", and is meant to mean "no". however, if you go with the system Nintendo tried to standardise, where the lowest button is predominant, then the "select/yes" button is marked as "no". This is extremely confusing to anyone who didn't grow up predominantly playing Japanese only games, and therefore most western developers tend to ignore the layout used by Japanese RPGs.
The Dreamcast's A and B, and X and Y buttons were labelled that way because thats how they were on Megdrive 6 button, Saturn, and Sega Arcade cabinets. It made sense as this was the way it had always been, not just for Sega, but for the majority of traditional arcade cabinets and non-Nintendo systems. And of course, the Dreamcast was a joint venture with Microsoft, and in many ways was the promotype for the original Xbox which iterated on the hardware and design sensibilities of the Dreamcast, and indeed had many Sega exclusives in its early life. Xbox is Dreamcast 2 in many ways, and the pad design reflected that, and of course Xbox pads have basically stayed the same ever since.
So, in short (after this massive essay!) the Xbox pad is the traditional naming convention, which Nintendo have purposefully ignored since the NES days, for a valid reason, but never took off outside of their own consoles. But the 4 button diamond layout, which is a Nintendo innovation that DID take off, is what caused the split between which of the six (or eight) buttons on a pad should be considered primary. The confusion with where on a pad "X" is, lies partially with Nintendo trying to be different, and then Sony being forced to be different yet again after their business fallout with Nintendo. And the separate confusion as to which button is "Yes" ironically comes from Nintendo trying to simplify controls during the 16bit era, making them more accessible and sensible, but developers of ever more complicated and varied games rejecting that simplification, meaning a near 50/50 split as to what is considered the main button, and making things MORE complicated and inaccessible for newcomers.
Even more ironically, at the same time as inventing this over-simplified control system and trying to dictate there being one main action button for your right hand thumb, with smaller less significant ones around it (with the SNES, and then taken to extremes with the Gamecube controller), Nintendo simultaneously invented the shoulder buttons, which over time would go on to be used as the primary action button in many games, such as shooting in FPS titles, and accelerating in racing games, controlled with your index fingers, whilst your thumb of your right hand is relegated to the second analogue stick, something which Nintendo actively resisted with the N64, DS and 3DS, minimised with the Gamecube, and tried to eliminate with the Wii and the Joycons.
What this all boils down to nowadays is regardless of what system you play on, if you play a wide variety of games, you really need two controllers to get the best out of them. A modern dual analogue diamond layout controller for modern AAA games, and either an arcade stick or a 6 button ABC/XYZ layout pad for arcade style fighters, top down shooters, and certain retro platform/metroidvania style games that weren't designed for the SNES configuration.
The "why does the Xbox/PC/Sega/Even Pl;aystation pad label things differently than Nintendo" is something Alex already made a video for Nintendolife asking about. I wrote a full explanation in the comments which went down really well and I got nice comments from people saying it helped them understand something that had never been fully explained to them before. Even those its quite long, its worth a read if this has ever annoyed/confused you... Here's a copypasta:
This problem of labelling originated with two times that Nintendo went against the grain, although they did it for sensible reasons - but the fact others didn't follow suit and copy them has lead to confusion ever since. I can feel a massive long rant incoming but hopefully someone might find it interesting!
In the 80s and 90s, the majority of multi button arcade cabinets, PC / micro controlllers, and non-nintendo consoles either used a numberical or alphabetical system. two button systems were labelled 1 & 2, or A & B. When 3 buttons became standard, they were A B C or 1 2 3. Nintendo chose to go against the grain with the Famicom/NES/Gameboy and have B A instead of A B, because they reasoned that "A" should be the primary, most important button (for example making a platform character jump, or saying "yes" in a menu) and "B" should be the secondary function (for example, running or shooting, or saying "no"). This logic meant that on Megadrive/Genesis games, the primary button was "C" whereas on NES it was "A". Gamers mostly accepted this as it didn't matter how they were labelled really, it was understood that the button on the right hand side was the main button.
When arcade systems introduced 4 button layouts, in general, the 4th button was laid next to the other 3, so for systems like the NeoGeo, they were in a line, sometimes with a slight curve to follow the shape of someone's right hand (thumb at the lowest point). This is easy to do on arcade cabinets or sticks, but less easy to ergonomically do on a controller with smaller buttons and less space. This problem was short lived however because Capcom's Street Fighter 2 standardised most games from that point on using a six button layout instead, and those arcade cabinets went for 2 rows of 3 buttons, usually labelled as A B C for the bottom row, and X Y Z for the top - dutifully copied by the Sega 6 button pads and the Saturn after that. Its still the layout that most arcade sticks use to this day, though sometimes 2 rows of 4 to accomodate exact mapping of both 4 button and 6 button layouts, and allow remapping of modern shoulder button functions.
However, Nintendo decided to try and innovate again with their 4 and six button configurations, and standardised a 4 button diamond shape with the SNES, and bringing in shoulder buttons to bring that total to 6. They reasoned that most games would still only use 2 primary buttons, but secondary functions could go to the top two, and the shoulder buttons would work for special use cases such as air brakes, pinball bumpers, weapon switches and the like. It was a clever idea, but it caused two problems:
Firstly, arcade style games that were designed to use all 6 buttons equally became difficult to map out - the 6 button layout for Street Fighter 2 on the Megadrive makes sense, 3 punches, 3 kicks (though god help you if you only had a 3 button pad). The SNES one, though people got used to it, makes less sense for mapping the arcade original to. Two punches and two kicks with your right thumb, one kick with your right index finger, and one punch with your left hand, which in every other configuration would be reserved for player movement only, and is on the opposite side of the controller to the other five buttons. But Nintendo didn't care about that, they weren't trying to replicate arcade systems, they were trying to innovate and simplify controls in a way that made sense to them, and would be more accesible to new gamers. This is an approach they continue to this day, with switching up control systems to try and be accessible to as many gamers as possible, not just the hardcore. This is exemplified with the Gamecube, Wii, and Joycons. Arguably it partially worked, as the Playstation, Dreamcast and Xbox systems all took the diamond formation and shoulder buttons moving forward.
@HeadPirate Thanks. I just saw you edited your post to add more points, so responding here. This is all a bit beyond the scope of this thread but I think all that you said is valid, for publicly traded companies. Open source is for sure a great solution, but not the only one. Smaller independently owned companies aren't legally obligated to always grow or turn a profit for their owners. This is why even when I've made projects that might eventually have a major company logo attached to them, I've always produced them entirely independently using private equity and then sold the finished product to the highest bidder. I have never accepted seed money of any kind from major corporations and every company I've ever owned/run has been private, so that I can retain full artistic control but also so that I can create the products in a way I personally consider ethical, fair, safe, responsible. Many of the problems most people have with "capitalism" are in how publicly traded corporations are run.
@HeadPirate Oh, interesting! I wasn't aware that these big game engines have their runtime updates added to official console updates, but that certainly makes sense. I'm interested in the legality of retroactively doing this, and if the original TOS that devs agreed to back in the day allowed for this eventual possibility. Being that it was originally an Apple co-sign, I imagine it might have done. Sadly.
"my short answer would be "bad" and "eat the rich"." π Fair.
@Woderwick You'd hope so. Sadly I see it happening time and again. Admittedly mostly with very large media companies who essentially can get away with whatever they want and if caught just pay fines that pale in comparission to the profit they just made.
@Woderwick Oh yeah absolutely agree about the poison pill strategy. This new "change" is essentially the same thing they suggested before but with the optics slightly better, and no gurantee they won't carpet pull in the future. Like you I was very skeptical that they knew there would be backlash and tried to counteract that by starting with an even worse sounding plan, so that they could scale it back to their original plan to make its seem like they were "listening" and "have done the right thing" when in fact its still a pretty bad thing and what they always planned on doing.
The fact they knew there would be backlash is backed up by pretty much every executive and high up in Unity sold a tonne of shares before the anouncement, very clear insider trading. My question is did they sell to get out, knowing it would be the begining of the end, or did they sell only to instantly rebuy when the price temporarily tanked, as a way to try and accumulate more shares and gain more corporate control over their stock? That second option would indicate they forsee the company lasting longer but also want control to be able to pull nasty shiz whenever they want in the future. This has happened to me several times with big media companies hostile taking over smaller companies or part owned subsidiaries. Disney is especially skilled at doing this and while its legal (as long as no insider trading takes place) as a little guy who only invests in companies that he finds ethical it always feels like you are having your democratic power taken away.
As for the console side of Unity games, yeah that's something I have no idea about - I was speaking PC only where separate runtimes in the background on top of your operating system are standard practice. I have the license to, but have not yet released a commercial project on Switch or other consoles, so we'll see what happens when I do, but for the files exported by GameMaker's compiler, I know for certain that they are self contained and don't/can't update themselves... but as the Switch's operating system is updated and patched, so is the compiler and you may be required to provide an updated version if there's compatibility or security issues. There's no telemetry other than whatever is done on Nintendo's side, tracked with their operating system independent of the package you submit.
@HeadPirate Hey thanks! Again, not to plug but the idea is that it will be free for anyone to use, if they are making free games & perhaps don't mind a splash screen. If they want to release a game commercially with it, or remove the splash screen, we'll work out a simple one time fee that would be affordable for individuals. I think this is a very fair way for it to get free word of mouth and spread between many bedroom coders and passionate indies, and perhaps make a reasonable income ffrom it without permanently leaching off the work of artists for the rest of their career.
You're completely right with the Windows vs Linux analogy, I think that's where the current issue with GoDot might be, in that its new and not established and there isn't dedicated professional training and support for it yet, so even though its powerful it may be difficult for beginners. I jumped onboard the GameMaker train at version 1.4, when it had already existed for many years so there was a huge amount of training and a large supportive comunity to help me when I needed it.
I've no affiliation with the Opera and I've gotta say it rankled me that they recently switched to subscription model for new people - but GameMaker is very reasonably priced and there's a free option for learners. I personally hate the name "GameMaker" as it sounds like a beginner tool and the drag and drop stuff is definitely not for me, but ignoring it and just using writing the language natively then compiling it, I've gotta say GML is probably the nicest and most fun high level language I've ever used, and much faster and more efficient than I assumed it would be. It reminds me of my early days using Basic for Commodore/Spectrum games and Amos on Amiga, but SO much faster and more flexible. Much more beginner friendly (and forgiving in its syntax) than "real" languages.
@HeadPirate Thanks, yeah I figured that's how it would be with Unity considering it is how it is with other engines I've looked into.
However, as I said, GameMaker specifically doesn't do this, and that's why I chose to start learning GML when I was looking into this stuff for making simple projects for fun during lockdowns a few years ago. Executable files compiled with it just run by themselves and don't need any separate runtime to be installed. The files it makes will never try and update themselves and don't access the internet or send any data. There is no DRM of any kind, nor stipulations as to who can do what with the file - it just runs.
It just works like code compilers used to when I started programing in the 80s and 90s - you type your code, compile it, and you have a self contained game that will run. And also as I said they don't ask for any royalties from games you sell. Pretty sure GoDot is exactly the same too, plus it has the benefit of being open source, so were I starting nowadays I probably would have chosen that.
So there's 2 widely used "engines" that actually work more like old fashioned languages and don't require runtimes or telemetry of any kind. Its hardly a necessity. The only disadvantage I can see to this method is if the old files may no longer work with new versions of Windows or whatever newer console you are exporting for... only then would you specifically need to compile a new executable with an updated version of the software & compiler.
@Woderwick Bare in mind that I've never used Unity to make a game so I may be wrong about this. But I think... though I'm not sure, that Unity requires a runtime installed in the background (rather than embedded in the code of each individual game) for games made with it to work, in a similar way to downloading the latest version of Direct X or whatever.
The runtime is periodically updated with new features but remains backwards compatible. Whenever you install a new game, it checks for the latest version and updates it if needed. So old games that were made with a previous runtime in mind will still use the latest version when running, if its ever been installed by a more modern game using it, or by an automatic update when installing an old game later on down the line.
It seems that moving forward the new runtimes now use some form of telemetry to send information to Unity about when games are installed, potentially even booted up - how long they were played for, what operating system and specs they were running on, potentially any data they think will be useful for them in developing or marketing their product, or maybe in the future selling as market research data. Even if there was no talk of a fee, simply that privacy and data sharing requirement would make me never want to use it for my own projects, and makes me think twice about playing any game using Unity... though I'm on a losing battle there as I'm sure Unreal and Direct X do similar stuff.
So that's "how" they could charge for new installs of games made in the past. However, I still think its a very sticky legal situation, as the developers of those games didnt' agree to the terms of teh new runtime when they made the games originally. If I were a dev who had previously used Unity I'd be gogin through the fine print of my old agreements with a fine toothed comb.
The reason I chose GML2 language and GameMaker Studio's compiler when making my projects is you literally buy the compiler, and then can do whatever the heck you want with it. They take no royalties from anything you make, nor do they keep any records of whats made with it, nor insist on any kind of splash screens or anything else. You just by the software, and use it to make what you want, and it makes an exe file with no drm or anything else embedded. At the time, it was the only major engine that did what I wanted and allowed this.
To me, an engine taking a cut of things made with it is like is like if Adobe took a cut of every YouTube video edited in Premiere, or every thumbnail edited in Photoshop. Its crazy and I don't know why it seems universally accepted with games prodgraming languages. It certainly never used to be this way - you just bought the software, and used it to create things. A far more ethical (though less prfitable) busienss model is to let people have the compiler for free/cheap to learn, then charge one off commercial licenses for if you want to sell what you make.
While I love GML and would happily recomend it, nowadays, the "smart money" is probably with GoDot. Its free and open source, supports both 2d and 3d, can run on pretty much every platform known to man, and there's a growing community passionately making things like tutorials, manuals, helping in forums etc.
@ChromaticDracula I think the current system of having it as a rule that publishers are made very aware of, but then letting the public point out the occasions those rules are blantanly broken, is actually a pretty good one. Because this way the publishers trying to pull this crud get very publicly called out, and it alerts Nintendo which publishers to pay specific attention to and to distrust.
They will have recieved countless emails and comments about this and will be very annoyed - I'm sure they will have strong words with the publisher. And if they weren't already aware, this will make Nintendo very clear on the fact that people are unhappy with the state the game was released in, and how its making their platform look bad. The publisher is now noted for closer scrutiny moving forward.
That's pretty darn significant, both considering that its a 3d Sonic game, which don't have the best industry reputation, and even more so as Japan is always lukewarm on Sonic compared to the rest of the world.
I feel a huge contribution towards the respect its gathered in the industry is the continuing effort to improve and expand upon its launch state, which lets face it was "pretty good for a 3d Sonic but janky and unfinished compared to AAA games"... but has and is evolving into something very special, with a director who is actually listening to both critical feedback and the input of fans and even trying fan created mods to tweak and improve the game beyond recognition.
While I'm usually outspoken about games releasing in an unfinished state and being rushed to market, Kishimoto and team deserve to be praised and rewarded, and given free reign to build on what they've learned for their next project moving forward. Considering its the best selling 3d Sonic game since Heroes 2 decades ago, I hope this will be the case.
I imagine this may confuse many people, as I was at first. How long has this specific award been a thing, and why didn't the Famicom win the very first year? Surely its the obvious choice that "contributed significantly to the growth of the Japanese games industry" (and even worldwide) more than anything in history?
Well, yes. Quite.
While these awards have been going on since the 80s, this specific prize has only been awarded since 2020. Here's the previous winners:
2020: Animal Crossing New Horizons (fair enough for 2020!)
2021: Kou Shibusawa (current CEO of Koei Tecmo)
2022: Hidetaka Miyazaki (president of FromSoftware)
So yeah... previously awarded to a game, two individuals, and now a console. This is a very random award with a very loose definition! lol I don't doubt the worldwide impact of FromSoftware, Koei Tecmo or Animal Crossing... but surely the Famicom eclipses all 3 combined in significance towards the industry as a whole?
@Beefcakeyamato @ChromaticDracula To be fair to Nintendo, hopefully I'm not breaking NDA to simply point out that in their guidelines for submitting trailers for them to use, or when using their Switch assets in your own, it clearly says that you must only use Switch footage and not that of PC or from other consoles so its representative of the experience - or if this isn't possible for whatever reason, have a text disclaimer on screen similar to the "not representative of gameplay" that you see during pre-rendered cutscenes.
I don't think you can expect Nintendo to check this is being followed for every video as the difference is often subtle but if a developer tries to sneak in some footage that makes their game look better than it is, and viewers point it out, it will be removed. I'm sure that's what's happened here. Even without this obvious Steam mixup, surely the quality diffrence between the Switch and PC version would mean its obvious? Its like a tacit acceptance that the Switch version looks bad.
There's a large Sea Life Aquarium near my apartment next to Disneyland Paris. In 2019 they did a similar event where for a couple of weeks everything was Sonic themed - with Sonic music, handouts and character standees everywhere. It made absolutely no thematic sense - Big the Cat was nowhere to be seen... and the paper handouts with challenges of finding things quickly before Robotnik could naturally encouraged kids to run around causing havoc.
Obviously as a Sonic fan who loves obscure merch it was awesome. I turned up wearing a sonic shirt and got given loads of stuff! But it was a real head scratcher as to how or why it happened - it was close-ish to the release of the movie but not at all themed around it, the art was all Adventure 2 style. But whatever the reason, for a couple of weeks you'd see tonnes of kids walking round Disneyland wearing masks of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy and even Shadow, so that was fun!
Of course, this similar themed even makes a whole lot more sense in the context of the game. I think my favourite part of New Horizons is the Mueseum, and as someone who'd never gotten into an Animal Crossing game before, Blathers and Celeste became two of my favourite characters. If I was at this event and I unexpectedly saw a Blathers standee I would absolutely be delighted and insist on taking a photo with him.
@rjejr The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle. And the hills the greenest green, in Seattle. Like a beautiful child, growing up, free an' wild, full of hopes an' full of fears, full of laughter, full of tears, full of dreams to last the years, in Seattle.
@epicgamner Probably best not to get political on this site, but I certainly agree that this is possibly a direction things are going, or at least an opinion that will become wider spread over time, so its a smart business move to not date kids content by including an element that may be problematic in the future.
@epicgamner Thanks! I'm just mostly going by what I've heard various people say about the character in official Sonic livestreams, plus my experience in the industry with people discouraging use of gun-like weapons, even toy ones. Its not censorship per-se, just trying to avoid potential unnecessary controversy in the future and ensure material remains evergreen.
After seeing the ShoShinKai preview for Mario 64 in '95, that game became my obsession, and the wait through multiple delays until it was eventually released in the UK in March 97 was agonising for me at the time. I've never anticipated a game so much. During that time I voraciously bought every single magazine that featured the game, and of course as it was released in Japan earlier, many of them had complete guildes to every level, every star, in theory there should have been no surprises for me.
And yet playing the game when I eventually got it, every moment felt fresh, every discovery new, everything exciting. I think "spoilers" for me are plot twists. Just showing things like levels, areas, mechanics don't really mean much to me because when you play the game, you experience them for the first time. Or perhaps my memory is terrible and after watching and reading things I instantly forget them π
By the way, I saw that ShoShinKai Mario 64 preview on Bad Influence, presented by Violet Berlin. I always recorded that show on VHS. I rewound and watched that section so many time the tape literally wore so thin it snapped. I've since had the privilidge of working with Violet and talking to her about how much it affected me, and I was delighted to hear that its one of the all time highlights of her life! The trip, not speaking to me about it π She was as mind blown by the game as I was π₯° )
@RupeeClock Yes I remember them (Katie and Jasmine, I think?) talking on a live about de-emphasising Fang's weapon and making him more a more rounded criminal / treasure hunter as a way to make his character less one note and more like someone who just can't resist sparkly things - like a magpie, rather than doing bad stuff because he is bad. this gives the opportunity for teamups and collaborations with Sonic, heel turns etc.
(and though they didn't say so, presumably also to get around growing social insecurities about having guns in childrens' media. This is a talking point thats been raised to me multiple times by studios and producers in the last few years even when making material for people in their teens & early 20s. Even fictional lightguns etc discouraged)
I think the plan is to have him similar to Knuckles' early story in the fact that he's tricked/bribed by Robotnik to do his bidding, but will eventually or sometimes team up with Sonic & friends.
Yup back in these days 2d Disney artists were encouraged to push their characters to have extreme proportions to make them read clearly - guideline was that you should be able to tell a character instantly from their silhouette. This looks wonderful and stylised in 2d animation when popping between key poses.
This is something Don Bluth was extremely insitant on back in the day when we were doign character design classes - doesn't matter how cool your characters costume or unique the face was, if the silhouette looked like a generic human, go back and add elements to change that. Change the proportions, more unique hair, add elements to the costume that change the outline etc. Its very good advice because good animation often moves so fast, and if your silhouette is strong you can act with poses so much better.
However, once computer animation started to gain popularity, this caused problems. 3D models of humans for CG animation (until recently when people started experiementing with different styles) tended to leaning towards a more generic and lifelike set of proportions which is why people often accuse them of looking the same or like stock assets. Its very difficult to make the more extreme examples of 2d characters look "right" in 3d as our brains are more fussy about noticing when a certain shape is weird or not anatomically possible... or many 2d characters are only ever really seen from certain angles and are impossible to accurately make in 3d in a way that doesn't feel off.
I'm sure we've all experienced this over the years with plushies or action figures based on our childhood cartoons that looked like weird bootlegs. This is why people loved the first 2 South Park RPGs but thought the trailer for the new 3D one looked "cheap". I was dreading the CG animated Peanuts movie but they very wisely chose to only ever show the characters from the same angles as in the 2d drawings.
Even with all that said though, this render of Jafar and Genie is posed and lit extremely poorly which ersults in them being an unclear read. Also the face/expression doesn't really say "Jasmine" to me. Also as pointed out its either very weird lighting/shadows or bad photoshoping because Jasmine and Genie look like they are levitating.
@PokemonDMG For sure. Triple Trouble was the first game Fang appeared in. Of course it also works nicely because of the 3 "bad guys" in this video but its definitely a very purposeful reference to the history of the character.
I absolutely love this, one of the best animations they've put out in this style so far. Evan, Tyson, Jasmin, Ian and everyone else including the Powerhouse team of course doing absolutely stellar work. I'm so happy that we still get these beautiful 2d animations as well as things like Prime and the movies.
I also love how they make these universal for their international fans by having them be without dialogue. New this time round (I think?) is they also added a audio description version for visually impared people. I really appreciate that.
@Eel I was aware that all the different recent variations of body type, ethnicity etc are all called "Barbie" nowadays, but wasn't aware that they'd taken lengths to include this into the story canon too. In older media her friends had specific names and backstories, which made sense, but I can see why that would make the "traditional" Barbie be seen as the most important one, which they obviously are trying to minimise.
Thats a pretty cool way to make it work though - interesting! Thank you for letting me know that. Having her friend also be "Barbie Roberts" but giving her a nickname for the animated stuff makes a lot of sense, and I like the idea that its a coincidence but that's how they became friends, its a neat way to get round it. In the movie (which clearly isn't intended to be canon with the animated kids movies and books) every single female character is called Barbie. Which is funny, and satirises the toy line well, but also completely impractical from a long term story telling perspective.
Am I taking this mobile game intended to sell kids toys too seriously? Yes. Yes I am. But its cool to me nonetheless. As others have said, if this game has all the pay to win / microtransaction stuff included in a single price, I'd consider buying this. It looks cute.
Wait... Barbie's best friend is also called Barbie, who is a woman of colour nickname'd "Brooklyn"... but has the same surname as Barbies' parents? Barbie lore has gotten so complex since my kids were young. π I'm here for it though. Glad Skipper is around, she always used to be the cool one in the media I'd read and watch with them back then. Looks like they made her a little younger & less alternative.
I love that the cats and dogs actually join in with the activities. That doggo riding on the unicorn rocking horse is having the time of his life! π
@rockodoodle Yeah. I'm mostly a PC + Switch player, and I usually buy indie and retro-style games, with the occasional big studio title. I must admit, I'll often (usually even?) buy the game digitally for PC, then hope for a physical version for Switch to go on the shelf. The Sonic games are perfect examples, I mostly play them on PC to get the best performance, and access to mods etc, but I love owning the physical Switch copies. I try to support any indie digital game I've enjoyed on Steam by buying the Switch copy when it eventually releases.
All the publishers I speak to about making physical copies of my games say the Switch physical collectors market is by far the biggest. By comparisson only a handful of people collect PS4/5 physical, and Xbox is almost entirely digital. So even though I'm pushing for a physical copy of my games for Xbox too, it will likely have to finance that myself and lose money or only break even on them. I'm fighting a losing battle there, it seems!
@Qwiff Thank you! Yes, I agree the PC market is almost entirely digital now, as are movies (my main business) but I still independently produce small run copies of DVDs and Blu-Rays of our movies, and I intend to do so for PC versions of our games as well - thankfully DVD/BR manufacturaing is cheap so its easy to do for the collector market. As mentioned in the other thread I'm considering doing a full "big box" edition like old PC DOS and Amiga games used to come in, with a full manual, map etc... but again this is a very niche collectors' market.
I think part of the reason I don't mind Steam as much is that its so ubiquitous and PCs are ever evolving and upgradable hardware, so its unlikely it will ever disappear as a shopfront. Competing smaller services are a different matter of course.
The problem with console eshops is that they innevitably get taken offline once the console is considered "dead". For example, if my Wii breaks or my 3DS gets lost with my luggage and I have to get a new one, I can't re-download any of my purchases. The problem becomes even worse with subscription models, streaming and cloud based services of course. Perhaps I'm paranoid but for every game that I buy digitally and legally pay for, I always seek out a pirated version also so I can have a permanent archive and know I'll always be able to play it in the future no matter what.
For my own PC games I'll never add any DRM, so people can back up the install files themselves and always have them no matter what happens to the shopfront. But then that's a luxury I can have as a very small indie developer selling bargain priced games to a niche market atht wants to support them. The people who pirate my games wouldn't ever have paid for them in the first place. I understand the pressures for the bigger publishers to slow down the availability of pirated copies, what with the huge upfront costs and emphasis on week one sales etc.
I've talked about this at length elsewhere on this site but I'll just quickly restate that this game on PC was an absolute ray of sunshine that was a significant factor in lifting me out of a very nasty period of depression. It feels impossible to play it and not laugh. I can only imagine what a great experience it will be as a local party game experience with friends/family. Highly recomended, its wonderful.
@rockodoodle For cartridges, storage is a valid issue - for Blu-ray discs, not as much - a standard dual layer disc takes 50gb and BD-XL discs take up to 128gb. Although even for cartridges if they switched to a more standard flash based solution massive card sizes are available affordably.
The propensity for constant updates, day one patches, dlc etc is a lot more of an issue, I completely agree. But as a collector who likes to have things on the shelf, and especially as someone who likes to go back and play my favourite games 20+ years into the future - and has seen so many online servers and services/eshops etc disappear over the years, I still feel that the option to actually "own" things that I purchase and feel comfortable I'll still be able to play them in the future, is slowly slipping away from me.
I talked about this at length in another thread recently ( https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/09/tmnt-shredders-revenge-lands-a-new-physical-edition-with-dlc-included-this-november ) but as a dev myself I feel a strong desire to ensure there are physical copies of all my games available for the people that want them, yet I like to release free dlc content packs, fix any bugs, add accessibility features etc that people may request, so I feel there should eventually be a second "ultimate/complete" physical edition also, for people that want it. But navigating these waters to not feel like you are forcing fans to double dip (which would be the same problem if you were digital only and then eventually release the "ultimate/complete" physical) is a tricky balancing act and its impossible to get 100% right.
I'm aware I'm fighting a losing battle and the future is probably digital only... and maybe even subscription only. I hate that, but the market will decide. What bothers me is that by removing the disk drive in this generation and not even waiting til the next one, it feels like MS are forcing this issue early rather than letting the market ultimately decide. Choice is always a good thing.
I love these videos from Sakurai and I almost always feel I have something useful I can apply to my own work. My first Hazel game is designed especially to try and popularise retro-style 2d platforming with a new generation, whilst also appealing to hardcore longterm fans of the genre - thats a difficult thing to do with accessibility options, very scalable difficulties and assists, and a large amount of tutorials dotted around even teaching such basics as running and jumping, slowly building skills and nuances as they are needed rather than expecting new players to master everything at once - but these can of course all be skipped or disabled entirely for those who don't need them.
You have to remember that everyone will have their first experience playing a certain genre, and what seems obvious or intuitive to us can seem completely foreign to others, and kids these days are used to tapping at their ipads with their fingers, or using mouse and keyboard or dual sticks for 3d games... Much as Nintendo fans like to feel that everyone of every generation is familiar with 2d Mario thats simply not the case when you look how many kids play Roblox or Minecraft in comparison. The skillset doesn't even slightly transfer across.
My partner used to be a pretty succesful Twitch streamer playing games popular with Gen Z, highly accomplished especially for her Minecraft prowess. Lots of her fans requested that she play the Spyro remakes when they first came out. Even though she was a profesional gamer it became very evident that she'd barely ever touched a gamepad her whole life, and even very basics like analogue movement, holding a jump button to jump higher, moving the camera with the second stick all were skills that aren't automatic, and take time to get to grips with. Of course all kids go through this, but usually when we are too young to remember, and certainly not infront of an audience. It was very frustrating and embarassing for her initially but she stuck with it and seeing her progress til she actually got good enough to beat the game was a really cool thing to go through and watch.
Its possible (and hopeful?) that our 2d platformer may be the very first one that some kids try. Making it gently teach them but in a fun and engaging way, whilst also making it a well made challenge for veterans is the biggest challenge we've faced and one we spend a lot of time tinkering and testing.
I've seen several videos of Sakurai talking about this exact experience with the first Kirby game. Its inspiring and I think he did a great job. Whilst the GameBoy didn't allow such dynamic changes and variety of options for different skill levels, I feel the first Kirby is high quality in presentation and feels fun and satisfying enough that even seasoned veterans who might think its very easy will still at least find it fun and enjoy the experience, & find replay value.
Nothing in that leak surprised me, and they were quite open about how difficult / unlikely it would be to buy Nintendo, but that it was more a long time goal / aspirational wishlist. Not worth scaremongering over, Nintendo do not want to sell and have no reason to. They need to be careful about selling too many shares though, easy way to lose control/be influenced.
The thing that bothered me the most is that as early as the new hardware refresh of Series X & S (probably next year) they are insisting on going digital only and trying to push the narritive that customers will welcome this... not a surprising direction for MS but sooner than I would have hoped.
If they do eventually buy Nintendo, that will be in a future where they have pushed everyone to online digital only subscriptions and probably cloud based hardware after 2028. Yeesh.
@JohnnyMind Ah that's really cool. With my own kids, finding second hand VHS tapes from the 80s & early 90s was a treasure trove of being able to show them obscure things from my childhood! π
@room_909 You too, thank you! I'll check out BitSummit. I really want to visit Kyoto and check out the new Nintendo museum when it opens there next year, so going to the convention sounds like a good excuse!
@Yosti Sorry, I just realised I didn't answer your question about Macs. My engine is programmed in GML and can be compiled to Mac code (and Linux too) but as yet I have no Apple hardware to test it on. But as soon as I get a Mac, yes in theory I should be able to port it with next to no effort π
@CosmosJ Amiga music can be amazing, for sure! I'm genuinely looking forward to checking it out when I have time, and am annoyed at myself for not looking into it sooner. I thought I'd played every JP game, and I love old "big box" DOS and Amiga titles of that era.
Having watched the komparrisson video, I was slightly taken aback by how inkredible the PS5 version looks, but also thought the Switch version looked perfectly fine and had obviously been chosen to downgrade visuals in order to target 60fps, and I was fine with that. I was feeling quite positive towards the game.
However, the other things mentioned in this review seem pretty unforgivable. They should have delayed release until it was in a more stable and komplete state. Downgraded graphics is fine but assuming this review is accurate (which I don't doubt) I'll avoid until its patched and updated.
As others have said, sadly the trust is broken. Because they made these changes and then said they retroactively applied to games already made and released, there's nothing to say they won't break that trust again in the future - and could very easily damage, cost or even bankrupt a dev for a game they made years ago. I'm not sure that's even legal, but its frickin scary and if I had made a game with Unity I'd have instantly removed it from sale and started porting it to something else.
I was very annoyed by GameMaker when they switched to a subscription model rather than a permanent license for their development software but they were 100% clear that this only applied to new customers and all previous licenses purchased would be honoured in perpetuity. Also, they take precisely zero from your game sales / royalties - the subscription is only for the development software itself, once your game is finished, you can cancel your subscription. And at the same time as they brought in the subscription, they announced a free version.
Even considering the changes I wasn't happy with, GameMaker is an incredible deal compared to Unity & Unreal. GoDot is potentially even better, as its properly open source, so for new game devs I'd possibly recomend starting there... though personally I've been learning GML since 2020 and I love the language so I'll stick with it for now, I was very happy to pay for the license, its great.
@room_909 Thank you so much again for your kind response. Yes I have been to the Japan Expo in France, that's amazing that your friend travelled to exhibit there. I certainly hope to visit the Tokyo game show when one or more of my games are ready to exhibit.
Also, I don't know if you are a fan of Star Wars but its a brand I'm involved with in many ways, and Lucasfilm run an official convention called Celebration. It will be held in Tokyo in 2025 and I'll be exhibiting there for my Star Wars book and signing autographcs and taking pictures (I was a minor actor in Rogue One).
I'll make sure to follow you on your website and twitter and see the progress of your career. I hope we can meet one day! π All the very best of luck to you and your friends! ι εΌ΅γ£γ¦γγ γγγ! εΏζ΄γγ¦γγΎγ !
@CosmosJ Ever since seeing it in magazines in the 90s I always though the Amiga and DOS game was just a port of the SNES game - what with it being over head and having first person sections.
But your post just lead me to look up a video and its similar but very different - actually looks like I might enjoy it better! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7beI6ARhibo Very much appreciate your post correcting my nearly 30 year assumption! Gonna seek out a copy to try π
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Re: Sonic Origins Plus Is Getting A Numbered Physical Edition Through Pix'n Love
That Megadrive style game box is lovely. I've considered making my own, just for the shelf, both for Mania and Origins Plus. I'll probably do one for Superstars as well.
That said, other than that, nothing else about this set makes me want it. It looks quite basic/stock... If the artwork on the lithographs, cover of the book etc were original art, similar to the IDW cover variants, I'd be ALL over this. I'd probably pay twice the askign price. Instead, its the same handful of official press kit images printed on a million other things. Very nice images, but I don't see any specific value in yet another printing of them on random bits of cardboard.
Obviously, if there hadn't already been a nice physical edition, I'd be queing up for this at any price. But as it is, you can pick up the physical copy with reversable retro sleeve and a nice little artbook for Β£20-25 very easily. A bargain, I'd say.
With that in mind, I'm not sure what the appeal in this set is, unless the exclusive book contains new stuff we haven't seen before in the mirriad other books already released - but that example page showing the standard cover art and a screenshot doesn't give me much hope of that.
Re: Unity Reveals New Pricing Model For Runtime Fee Policy
@Woderwick I didn't get a notification that you tagged me - perhaps because you used uppercase? Pure luck that I saw your message because came back out of interest to read the responses. Just letting you know incase you tag me in the future and I don't repond. Thank you for the kind words!
I've not gotten too much to add other than I too had not even considered that runtimes for Unity (and presumably Unreal, other 3rd party frameworks) would be baked into official console updates rather than included in each game's package... it makes sense I guess, but as you say there are a whole bunch of security concerns and also means Nintendo/Sony/Microsoft putting a whole lot of trust in those companies to co-sign and force installation of something they didn't make themselves.
As I said I've no personal experience of if that's the case, my only console development has been with projects compiled with GameMaker. But I can certainly see a world where this would happen, and I don't doubt what @HeadPirate says. Without getting conspiratorial, "Big Tech" companies tend to feel it's more profitable to ask for forgiveness than permission.
Re: Best Nintendo Switch Racing Games
There are some really great titles here but this list highlights how comparitively few racing titles there are on Switch, especially the more fun/arcade style racers in general these days compared to the higher end sims so big-boy hardware can show off its graphics by proving how grown-up and serious it is.
Cruis'n Blast is a complete opposite to this and is one of my most played games on Switch. Its far from perfect but its SUCH a fun time. I can always go back to it and have a quick blast for 10 minutes. Its the perfect expansion on the arcade game.
It pains me that we have Sonic Team Racing and Burnout Paradise, which are good games, but no Racing Transformed and Burnout 3 Takedown which are in their own class, imo. The Virtua Racing and OutRun ports are stunning but make me want Daytona USA, Sega Rally and OutRun 2 / SP all the more. Ridge Racer collection seems a pipedream but we had games on the N64 and 3DS...
One thing to note that I always forget, is why the heck Nintendo didn't allow us to have analogue triggers on Switch or Wii U - especially crazy since we had them on GameCube and Wii Classic. Perhaps this is partially responsible for why we don't have more of these titles.
Glad to see Fast RMX on this list BTW, really nice launch lineup game that deserved to be physical from the start. Its great that Super Rare Games eventually stepped up to the plate yearsa later but I genuinely think had this been on shelves at the time of launch it would have sold a tonne more and be hailed a classic. (the previous Wii U title in the series, Fast Racing NEO was also amazing)
Re: Mailbox: Missing Zelda Ports, Nerd Rage, 16-Bit Blowback - Nintendo Life Letters
The second problem with the diamond configuration was more serious. Regardless of the labelling (which Nintendo had always done backwards despite it beign rejected by other companies) it was always accepted in most arcade systems and consoles pre-SNES that the button to the far right of the controller was the "main" button, as covered above. Games that got "jump" and "fire" the "wrong" way round in the 8 bit days were rightly criticised and everyone accepted that regardless of how they were labelled, the button on the right was "jump" and also "yes", and the button on the left was "shoot" and also "no / back". But by bringing in the diamond formation with the SNES, this caused a problem - the implication was that the lowest button in the diamond was the "main" button (rather than the furthest right), and all the others were secondary, floating around it. This works for simple platformers, top down shooters, or racing games, but worked less well as control schemes for games got more complicated. The problem was exhaserbated by Sega, NEC, SNK and arcade companies mostly choosing to stick with ABC, XYZ 6 button 2 tier layouts, meaning that games released for both Megadrive/Genesis and SNES had very different control schemes, with the far right button being predominant for the Sega (and NEC, SNK, some PC), but the lower middle button being predominant for Nintendo.
This meant that during the 16 bit era, game devs were faced with a choice of whether to do things "the new innovative 'simpler'" Nintendo way, or go with a more traditional, flexible, but less easy for newcomers to grasp "arcade" way. At the time, because of game tastes, and the practicalities of translating them into a tonne of languages, the more complicated console games such as RPGs and strategy titles tended to stay in Japan, with a select few reaching America because of English translations, and even fewer reaching Europe or the rest of the world because there were too many languages for too little financial return. This lead to games with complex control schemes for the SNES using the far right button as primary, and it becoming somewhat of an accepted standard in Japan, wheras more arcade based simple to control games that were released worldwide were more split in how the devs chose to design them.
When Sony created the original Playstation pad, for historically obvious reasons, it was essentially a SNES pad, but they had to innovate a little to distinguish it. Using letters was out of the question, so they chose symbols, which of course as pointed out in the video, were intended to represent things - yes, no, menu, map. The X on a Playstation pad is technically a "cross", not an "ex", and is meant to mean "no". however, if you go with the system Nintendo tried to standardise, where the lowest button is predominant, then the "select/yes" button is marked as "no". This is extremely confusing to anyone who didn't grow up predominantly playing Japanese only games, and therefore most western developers tend to ignore the layout used by Japanese RPGs.
The Dreamcast's A and B, and X and Y buttons were labelled that way because thats how they were on Megdrive 6 button, Saturn, and Sega Arcade cabinets. It made sense as this was the way it had always been, not just for Sega, but for the majority of traditional arcade cabinets and non-Nintendo systems. And of course, the Dreamcast was a joint venture with Microsoft, and in many ways was the promotype for the original Xbox which iterated on the hardware and design sensibilities of the Dreamcast, and indeed had many Sega exclusives in its early life. Xbox is Dreamcast 2 in many ways, and the pad design reflected that, and of course Xbox pads have basically stayed the same ever since.
So, in short (after this massive essay!) the Xbox pad is the traditional naming convention, which Nintendo have purposefully ignored since the NES days, for a valid reason, but never took off outside of their own consoles. But the 4 button diamond layout, which is a Nintendo innovation that DID take off, is what caused the split between which of the six (or eight) buttons on a pad should be considered primary. The confusion with where on a pad "X" is, lies partially with Nintendo trying to be different, and then Sony being forced to be different yet again after their business fallout with Nintendo. And the separate confusion as to which button is "Yes" ironically comes from Nintendo trying to simplify controls during the 16bit era, making them more accessible and sensible, but developers of ever more complicated and varied games rejecting that simplification, meaning a near 50/50 split as to what is considered the main button, and making things MORE complicated and inaccessible for newcomers.
Even more ironically, at the same time as inventing this over-simplified control system and trying to dictate there being one main action button for your right hand thumb, with smaller less significant ones around it (with the SNES, and then taken to extremes with the Gamecube controller), Nintendo simultaneously invented the shoulder buttons, which over time would go on to be used as the primary action button in many games, such as shooting in FPS titles, and accelerating in racing games, controlled with your index fingers, whilst your thumb of your right hand is relegated to the second analogue stick, something which Nintendo actively resisted with the N64, DS and 3DS, minimised with the Gamecube, and tried to eliminate with the Wii and the Joycons.
What this all boils down to nowadays is regardless of what system you play on, if you play a wide variety of games, you really need two controllers to get the best out of them. A modern dual analogue diamond layout controller for modern AAA games, and either an arcade stick or a 6 button ABC/XYZ layout pad for arcade style fighters, top down shooters, and certain retro platform/metroidvania style games that weren't designed for the SNES configuration.
Re: Mailbox: Missing Zelda Ports, Nerd Rage, 16-Bit Blowback - Nintendo Life Letters
The "why does the Xbox/PC/Sega/Even Pl;aystation pad label things differently than Nintendo" is something Alex already made a video for Nintendolife asking about. I wrote a full explanation in the comments which went down really well and I got nice comments from people saying it helped them understand something that had never been fully explained to them before. Even those its quite long, its worth a read if this has ever annoyed/confused you... Here's a copypasta:
This problem of labelling originated with two times that Nintendo went against the grain, although they did it for sensible reasons - but the fact others didn't follow suit and copy them has lead to confusion ever since. I can feel a massive long rant incoming but hopefully someone might find it interesting!
In the 80s and 90s, the majority of multi button arcade cabinets, PC / micro controlllers, and non-nintendo consoles either used a numberical or alphabetical system. two button systems were labelled 1 & 2, or A & B. When 3 buttons became standard, they were A B C or 1 2 3. Nintendo chose to go against the grain with the Famicom/NES/Gameboy and have B A instead of A B, because they reasoned that "A" should be the primary, most important button (for example making a platform character jump, or saying "yes" in a menu) and "B" should be the secondary function (for example, running or shooting, or saying "no"). This logic meant that on Megadrive/Genesis games, the primary button was "C" whereas on NES it was "A". Gamers mostly accepted this as it didn't matter how they were labelled really, it was understood that the button on the right hand side was the main button.
When arcade systems introduced 4 button layouts, in general, the 4th button was laid next to the other 3, so for systems like the NeoGeo, they were in a line, sometimes with a slight curve to follow the shape of someone's right hand (thumb at the lowest point). This is easy to do on arcade cabinets or sticks, but less easy to ergonomically do on a controller with smaller buttons and less space. This problem was short lived however because Capcom's Street Fighter 2 standardised most games from that point on using a six button layout instead, and those arcade cabinets went for 2 rows of 3 buttons, usually labelled as A B C for the bottom row, and X Y Z for the top - dutifully copied by the Sega 6 button pads and the Saturn after that. Its still the layout that most arcade sticks use to this day, though sometimes 2 rows of 4 to accomodate exact mapping of both 4 button and 6 button layouts, and allow remapping of modern shoulder button functions.
However, Nintendo decided to try and innovate again with their 4 and six button configurations, and standardised a 4 button diamond shape with the SNES, and bringing in shoulder buttons to bring that total to 6. They reasoned that most games would still only use 2 primary buttons, but secondary functions could go to the top two, and the shoulder buttons would work for special use cases such as air brakes, pinball bumpers, weapon switches and the like. It was a clever idea, but it caused two problems:
Firstly, arcade style games that were designed to use all 6 buttons equally became difficult to map out - the 6 button layout for Street Fighter 2 on the Megadrive makes sense, 3 punches, 3 kicks (though god help you if you only had a 3 button pad). The SNES one, though people got used to it, makes less sense for mapping the arcade original to. Two punches and two kicks with your right thumb, one kick with your right index finger, and one punch with your left hand, which in every other configuration would be reserved for player movement only, and is on the opposite side of the controller to the other five buttons. But Nintendo didn't care about that, they weren't trying to replicate arcade systems, they were trying to innovate and simplify controls in a way that made sense to them, and would be more accesible to new gamers. This is an approach they continue to this day, with switching up control systems to try and be accessible to as many gamers as possible, not just the hardcore. This is exemplified with the Gamecube, Wii, and Joycons. Arguably it partially worked, as the Playstation, Dreamcast and Xbox systems all took the diamond formation and shoulder buttons moving forward.
Re: Unity Reveals New Pricing Model For Runtime Fee Policy
@HeadPirate Haha thank you! π
Re: Unity Reveals New Pricing Model For Runtime Fee Policy
@HeadPirate Thanks. I just saw you edited your post to add more points, so responding here. This is all a bit beyond the scope of this thread but I think all that you said is valid, for publicly traded companies. Open source is for sure a great solution, but not the only one. Smaller independently owned companies aren't legally obligated to always grow or turn a profit for their owners. This is why even when I've made projects that might eventually have a major company logo attached to them, I've always produced them entirely independently using private equity and then sold the finished product to the highest bidder. I have never accepted seed money of any kind from major corporations and every company I've ever owned/run has been private, so that I can retain full artistic control but also so that I can create the products in a way I personally consider ethical, fair, safe, responsible. Many of the problems most people have with "capitalism" are in how publicly traded corporations are run.
Re: Unity Reveals New Pricing Model For Runtime Fee Policy
@HeadPirate Oh, interesting! I wasn't aware that these big game engines have their runtime updates added to official console updates, but that certainly makes sense. I'm interested in the legality of retroactively doing this, and if the original TOS that devs agreed to back in the day allowed for this eventual possibility. Being that it was originally an Apple co-sign, I imagine it might have done. Sadly.
"my short answer would be "bad" and "eat the rich"." π Fair.
Re: Unity Reveals New Pricing Model For Runtime Fee Policy
@Woderwick You'd hope so. Sadly I see it happening time and again. Admittedly mostly with very large media companies who essentially can get away with whatever they want and if caught just pay fines that pale in comparission to the profit they just made.
Re: Unity Reveals New Pricing Model For Runtime Fee Policy
@Woderwick Oh yeah absolutely agree about the poison pill strategy. This new "change" is essentially the same thing they suggested before but with the optics slightly better, and no gurantee they won't carpet pull in the future. Like you I was very skeptical that they knew there would be backlash and tried to counteract that by starting with an even worse sounding plan, so that they could scale it back to their original plan to make its seem like they were "listening" and "have done the right thing" when in fact its still a pretty bad thing and what they always planned on doing.
The fact they knew there would be backlash is backed up by pretty much every executive and high up in Unity sold a tonne of shares before the anouncement, very clear insider trading. My question is did they sell to get out, knowing it would be the begining of the end, or did they sell only to instantly rebuy when the price temporarily tanked, as a way to try and accumulate more shares and gain more corporate control over their stock? That second option would indicate they forsee the company lasting longer but also want control to be able to pull nasty shiz whenever they want in the future. This has happened to me several times with big media companies hostile taking over smaller companies or part owned subsidiaries. Disney is especially skilled at doing this and while its legal (as long as no insider trading takes place) as a little guy who only invests in companies that he finds ethical it always feels like you are having your democratic power taken away.
As for the console side of Unity games, yeah that's something I have no idea about - I was speaking PC only where separate runtimes in the background on top of your operating system are standard practice. I have the license to, but have not yet released a commercial project on Switch or other consoles, so we'll see what happens when I do, but for the files exported by GameMaker's compiler, I know for certain that they are self contained and don't/can't update themselves... but as the Switch's operating system is updated and patched, so is the compiler and you may be required to provide an updated version if there's compatibility or security issues. There's no telemetry other than whatever is done on Nintendo's side, tracked with their operating system independent of the package you submit.
Re: Unity Reveals New Pricing Model For Runtime Fee Policy
@HeadPirate Hey thanks! Again, not to plug but the idea is that it will be free for anyone to use, if they are making free games & perhaps don't mind a splash screen. If they want to release a game commercially with it, or remove the splash screen, we'll work out a simple one time fee that would be affordable for individuals. I think this is a very fair way for it to get free word of mouth and spread between many bedroom coders and passionate indies, and perhaps make a reasonable income ffrom it without permanently leaching off the work of artists for the rest of their career.
You're completely right with the Windows vs Linux analogy, I think that's where the current issue with GoDot might be, in that its new and not established and there isn't dedicated professional training and support for it yet, so even though its powerful it may be difficult for beginners. I jumped onboard the GameMaker train at version 1.4, when it had already existed for many years so there was a huge amount of training and a large supportive comunity to help me when I needed it.
I've no affiliation with the Opera and I've gotta say it rankled me that they recently switched to subscription model for new people - but GameMaker is very reasonably priced and there's a free option for learners. I personally hate the name "GameMaker" as it sounds like a beginner tool and the drag and drop stuff is definitely not for me, but ignoring it and just using writing the language natively then compiling it, I've gotta say GML is probably the nicest and most fun high level language I've ever used, and much faster and more efficient than I assumed it would be. It reminds me of my early days using Basic for Commodore/Spectrum games and Amos on Amiga, but SO much faster and more flexible. Much more beginner friendly (and forgiving in its syntax) than "real" languages.
Re: Unity Reveals New Pricing Model For Runtime Fee Policy
@HeadPirate Thanks, yeah I figured that's how it would be with Unity considering it is how it is with other engines I've looked into.
However, as I said, GameMaker specifically doesn't do this, and that's why I chose to start learning GML when I was looking into this stuff for making simple projects for fun during lockdowns a few years ago. Executable files compiled with it just run by themselves and don't need any separate runtime to be installed. The files it makes will never try and update themselves and don't access the internet or send any data. There is no DRM of any kind, nor stipulations as to who can do what with the file - it just runs.
It just works like code compilers used to when I started programing in the 80s and 90s - you type your code, compile it, and you have a self contained game that will run. And also as I said they don't ask for any royalties from games you sell. Pretty sure GoDot is exactly the same too, plus it has the benefit of being open source, so were I starting nowadays I probably would have chosen that.
So there's 2 widely used "engines" that actually work more like old fashioned languages and don't require runtimes or telemetry of any kind. Its hardly a necessity. The only disadvantage I can see to this method is if the old files may no longer work with new versions of Windows or whatever newer console you are exporting for... only then would you specifically need to compile a new executable with an updated version of the software & compiler.
Also, not to plug (it's not even available to the public yet, just used for a few projects from various movie industry people I work with) but my own custom engine (Hazelnut CafΓ©) is exactly the same. I feel its the most ethical way to do this kind of thing - as I said for me to charge every time someone uses it to make a game would be akin to Adobe charging everytime someone makes a video with Premiere. I appreciate its become somewhat of an accepted norm but it doesn't have to be that way and its a perfectly valid business plan to simply make fantastic tools artists want to use, and let them buy that tool from you... then leave them to make art.
Re: Soapbox: FOMO Nearly Ruined Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom For Me
@Purgatorium Yes I undertand it can be quite frightening.
Re: Unity Reveals New Pricing Model For Runtime Fee Policy
@Woderwick Bare in mind that I've never used Unity to make a game so I may be wrong about this. But I think... though I'm not sure, that Unity requires a runtime installed in the background (rather than embedded in the code of each individual game) for games made with it to work, in a similar way to downloading the latest version of Direct X or whatever.
The runtime is periodically updated with new features but remains backwards compatible. Whenever you install a new game, it checks for the latest version and updates it if needed. So old games that were made with a previous runtime in mind will still use the latest version when running, if its ever been installed by a more modern game using it, or by an automatic update when installing an old game later on down the line.
It seems that moving forward the new runtimes now use some form of telemetry to send information to Unity about when games are installed, potentially even booted up - how long they were played for, what operating system and specs they were running on, potentially any data they think will be useful for them in developing or marketing their product, or maybe in the future selling as market research data. Even if there was no talk of a fee, simply that privacy and data sharing requirement would make me never want to use it for my own projects, and makes me think twice about playing any game using Unity... though I'm on a losing battle there as I'm sure Unreal and Direct X do similar stuff.
So that's "how" they could charge for new installs of games made in the past. However, I still think its a very sticky legal situation, as the developers of those games didnt' agree to the terms of teh new runtime when they made the games originally. If I were a dev who had previously used Unity I'd be gogin through the fine print of my old agreements with a fine toothed comb.
The reason I chose GML2 language and GameMaker Studio's compiler when making my projects is you literally buy the compiler, and then can do whatever the heck you want with it. They take no royalties from anything you make, nor do they keep any records of whats made with it, nor insist on any kind of splash screens or anything else. You just by the software, and use it to make what you want, and it makes an exe file with no drm or anything else embedded. At the time, it was the only major engine that did what I wanted and allowed this.
To me, an engine taking a cut of things made with it is like is like if Adobe took a cut of every YouTube video edited in Premiere, or every thumbnail edited in Photoshop. Its crazy and I don't know why it seems universally accepted with games prodgraming languages. It certainly never used to be this way - you just bought the software, and used it to create things. A far more ethical (though less prfitable) busienss model is to let people have the compiler for free/cheap to learn, then charge one off commercial licenses for if you want to sell what you make.
While I love GML and would happily recomend it, nowadays, the "smart money" is probably with GoDot. Its free and open source, supports both 2d and 3d, can run on pretty much every platform known to man, and there's a growing community passionately making things like tutorials, manuals, helping in forums etc.
Re: Soapbox: FOMO Nearly Ruined Zelda: Tears Of The Kingdom For Me
Many people don't know what FOMO is and are upset that other people might know something they don't. π
Re: Random: Nintendo And Seattle Aquarium Join Forces For An Animal Crossing Event
@rjejr Ha! You're right π
Re: Random: Nintendo Pulls Mortal Kombat 1 Switch Trailer Featuring Steam Pop-Up
@ChromaticDracula I think the current system of having it as a rule that publishers are made very aware of, but then letting the public point out the occasions those rules are blantanly broken, is actually a pretty good one. Because this way the publishers trying to pull this crud get very publicly called out, and it alerts Nintendo which publishers to pay specific attention to and to distrust.
They will have recieved countless emails and comments about this and will be very annoyed - I'm sure they will have strong words with the publisher. And if they weren't already aware, this will make Nintendo very clear on the fact that people are unhappy with the state the game was released in, and how its making their platform look bad. The publisher is now noted for closer scrutiny moving forward.
Re: The Famicom Just Won An Award At The Tokyo Game Awards 2023
Sonic Frontiers - Award for Excellence
That's pretty darn significant, both considering that its a 3d Sonic game, which don't have the best industry reputation, and even more so as Japan is always lukewarm on Sonic compared to the rest of the world.
I feel a huge contribution towards the respect its gathered in the industry is the continuing effort to improve and expand upon its launch state, which lets face it was "pretty good for a 3d Sonic but janky and unfinished compared to AAA games"... but has and is evolving into something very special, with a director who is actually listening to both critical feedback and the input of fans and even trying fan created mods to tweak and improve the game beyond recognition.
While I'm usually outspoken about games releasing in an unfinished state and being rushed to market, Kishimoto and team deserve to be praised and rewarded, and given free reign to build on what they've learned for their next project moving forward. Considering its the best selling 3d Sonic game since Heroes 2 decades ago, I hope this will be the case.
Re: The Famicom Just Won An Award At The Tokyo Game Awards 2023
I imagine this may confuse many people, as I was at first. How long has this specific award been a thing, and why didn't the Famicom win the very first year? Surely its the obvious choice that "contributed significantly to the growth of the Japanese games industry" (and even worldwide) more than anything in history?
Well, yes. Quite.
While these awards have been going on since the 80s, this specific prize has only been awarded since 2020. Here's the previous winners:
2020: Animal Crossing New Horizons (fair enough for 2020!)
2021: Kou Shibusawa (current CEO of Koei Tecmo)
2022: Hidetaka Miyazaki (president of FromSoftware)
So yeah... previously awarded to a game, two individuals, and now a console. This is a very random award with a very loose definition! lol I don't doubt the worldwide impact of FromSoftware, Koei Tecmo or Animal Crossing... but surely the Famicom eclipses all 3 combined in significance towards the industry as a whole?
Re: Random: Nintendo Pulls Mortal Kombat 1 Switch Trailer Featuring Steam Pop-Up
@Beefcakeyamato @ChromaticDracula To be fair to Nintendo, hopefully I'm not breaking NDA to simply point out that in their guidelines for submitting trailers for them to use, or when using their Switch assets in your own, it clearly says that you must only use Switch footage and not that of PC or from other consoles so its representative of the experience - or if this isn't possible for whatever reason, have a text disclaimer on screen similar to the "not representative of gameplay" that you see during pre-rendered cutscenes.
I don't think you can expect Nintendo to check this is being followed for every video as the difference is often subtle but if a developer tries to sneak in some footage that makes their game look better than it is, and viewers point it out, it will be removed. I'm sure that's what's happened here. Even without this obvious Steam mixup, surely the quality diffrence between the Switch and PC version would mean its obvious? Its like a tacit acceptance that the Switch version looks bad.
Re: Random: Nintendo And Seattle Aquarium Join Forces For An Animal Crossing Event
There's a large Sea Life Aquarium near my apartment next to Disneyland Paris. In 2019 they did a similar event where for a couple of weeks everything was Sonic themed - with Sonic music, handouts and character standees everywhere. It made absolutely no thematic sense - Big the Cat was nowhere to be seen... and the paper handouts with challenges of finding things quickly before Robotnik could naturally encouraged kids to run around causing havoc.
Obviously as a Sonic fan who loves obscure merch it was awesome. I turned up wearing a sonic shirt and got given loads of stuff! But it was a real head scratcher as to how or why it happened - it was close-ish to the release of the movie but not at all themed around it, the art was all Adventure 2 style. But whatever the reason, for a couple of weeks you'd see tonnes of kids walking round Disneyland wearing masks of Sonic, Tails, Knuckles, Amy and even Shadow, so that was fun!
Of course, this similar themed even makes a whole lot more sense in the context of the game. I think my favourite part of New Horizons is the Mueseum, and as someone who'd never gotten into an Animal Crossing game before, Blathers and Celeste became two of my favourite characters. If I was at this event and I unexpectedly saw a Blathers standee I would absolutely be delighted and insist on taking a photo with him.
Re: Random: Nintendo And Seattle Aquarium Join Forces For An Animal Crossing Event
@rjejr The bluest skies you've ever seen are in Seattle. And the hills the greenest green, in Seattle. Like a beautiful child, growing up, free an' wild, full of hopes an' full of fears, full of laughter, full of tears, full of dreams to last the years, in Seattle.
Never been there. π
Re: Soapbox: Can You Really 'Spoil' A Mario Game?
@AmplifyMJ Thank you! π
Re: Sonic Superstars Animation Features Fang The Hunter And Newcomer Trip
@epicgamner Probably best not to get political on this site, but I certainly agree that this is possibly a direction things are going, or at least an opinion that will become wider spread over time, so its a smart business move to not date kids content by including an element that may be problematic in the future.
Re: Sonic Superstars Animation Features Fang The Hunter And Newcomer Trip
@epicgamner Thanks! I'm just mostly going by what I've heard various people say about the character in official Sonic livestreams, plus my experience in the industry with people discouraging use of gun-like weapons, even toy ones. Its not censorship per-se, just trying to avoid potential unnecessary controversy in the future and ensure material remains evergreen.
Re: Soapbox: Can You Really 'Spoil' A Mario Game?
After seeing the ShoShinKai preview for Mario 64 in '95, that game became my obsession, and the wait through multiple delays until it was eventually released in the UK in March 97 was agonising for me at the time. I've never anticipated a game so much. During that time I voraciously bought every single magazine that featured the game, and of course as it was released in Japan earlier, many of them had complete guildes to every level, every star, in theory there should have been no surprises for me.
And yet playing the game when I eventually got it, every moment felt fresh, every discovery new, everything exciting. I think "spoilers" for me are plot twists. Just showing things like levels, areas, mechanics don't really mean much to me because when you play the game, you experience them for the first time. Or perhaps my memory is terrible and after watching and reading things I instantly forget them π
By the way, I saw that ShoShinKai Mario 64 preview on Bad Influence, presented by Violet Berlin. I always recorded that show on VHS. I rewound and watched that section so many time the tape literally wore so thin it snapped. I've since had the privilidge of working with Violet and talking to her about how much it affected me, and I was delighted to hear that its one of the all time highlights of her life! The trip, not speaking to me about it π She was as mind blown by the game as I was π₯° )
Re: Sonic Superstars Animation Features Fang The Hunter And Newcomer Trip
@RupeeClock Yes I remember them (Katie and Jasmine, I think?) talking on a live about de-emphasising Fang's weapon and making him more a more rounded criminal / treasure hunter as a way to make his character less one note and more like someone who just can't resist sparkly things - like a magpie, rather than doing bad stuff because he is bad. this gives the opportunity for teamups and collaborations with Sonic, heel turns etc.
(and though they didn't say so, presumably also to get around growing social insecurities about having guns in childrens' media. This is a talking point thats been raised to me multiple times by studios and producers in the last few years even when making material for people in their teens & early 20s. Even fictional lightguns etc discouraged)
I think the plan is to have him similar to Knuckles' early story in the fact that he's tricked/bribed by Robotnik to do his bidding, but will eventually or sometimes team up with Sonic & friends.
Re: Disney Speedstorm's Aladdin-Inspired Season Moves Off The Start Line Next Week
Yup back in these days 2d Disney artists were encouraged to push their characters to have extreme proportions to make them read clearly - guideline was that you should be able to tell a character instantly from their silhouette. This looks wonderful and stylised in 2d animation when popping between key poses.
This is something Don Bluth was extremely insitant on back in the day when we were doign character design classes - doesn't matter how cool your characters costume or unique the face was, if the silhouette looked like a generic human, go back and add elements to change that. Change the proportions, more unique hair, add elements to the costume that change the outline etc. Its very good advice because good animation often moves so fast, and if your silhouette is strong you can act with poses so much better.
However, once computer animation started to gain popularity, this caused problems. 3D models of humans for CG animation (until recently when people started experiementing with different styles) tended to leaning towards a more generic and lifelike set of proportions which is why people often accuse them of looking the same or like stock assets. Its very difficult to make the more extreme examples of 2d characters look "right" in 3d as our brains are more fussy about noticing when a certain shape is weird or not anatomically possible... or many 2d characters are only ever really seen from certain angles and are impossible to accurately make in 3d in a way that doesn't feel off.
I'm sure we've all experienced this over the years with plushies or action figures based on our childhood cartoons that looked like weird bootlegs. This is why people loved the first 2 South Park RPGs but thought the trailer for the new 3D one looked "cheap". I was dreading the CG animated Peanuts movie but they very wisely chose to only ever show the characters from the same angles as in the 2d drawings.
Even with all that said though, this render of Jafar and Genie is posed and lit extremely poorly which ersults in them being an unclear read. Also the face/expression doesn't really say "Jasmine" to me. Also as pointed out its either very weird lighting/shadows or bad photoshoping because Jasmine and Genie look like they are levitating.
Re: Sonic Superstars Animation Features Fang The Hunter And Newcomer Trip
@PokemonDMG For sure. Triple Trouble was the first game Fang appeared in. Of course it also works nicely because of the 3 "bad guys" in this video but its definitely a very purposeful reference to the history of the character.
Re: Sonic Superstars Animation Features Fang The Hunter And Newcomer Trip
@RupeeClock That new hire they made to oversee everything to make previous material fit into the fixed canon moving forward is doing his job well!
Re: Sonic Superstars Animation Features Fang The Hunter And Newcomer Trip
@Dr_Corndog If Sega keep sniping around they'll get the knack of it and weasel their way out of the situation.
Re: Review: Trombone Champ - A Hilarious Party Game That Blows A Big Raspberry At Perfection
@sheilamiavalencia Thank you π I'm sure you'll have fun with it.
Re: Sonic Superstars Animation Features Fang The Hunter And Newcomer Trip
I absolutely love this, one of the best animations they've put out in this style so far. Evan, Tyson, Jasmin, Ian and everyone else including the Powerhouse team of course doing absolutely stellar work. I'm so happy that we still get these beautiful 2d animations as well as things like Prime and the movies.
I also love how they make these universal for their international fans by having them be without dialogue. New this time round (I think?) is they also added a audio description version for visually impared people. I really appreciate that.
Re: Barbie Returns In 'Dreamhouse Adventures', Launching Next Month
@Eel I was aware that all the different recent variations of body type, ethnicity etc are all called "Barbie" nowadays, but wasn't aware that they'd taken lengths to include this into the story canon too. In older media her friends had specific names and backstories, which made sense, but I can see why that would make the "traditional" Barbie be seen as the most important one, which they obviously are trying to minimise.
Thats a pretty cool way to make it work though - interesting! Thank you for letting me know that. Having her friend also be "Barbie Roberts" but giving her a nickname for the animated stuff makes a lot of sense, and I like the idea that its a coincidence but that's how they became friends, its a neat way to get round it. In the movie (which clearly isn't intended to be canon with the animated kids movies and books) every single female character is called Barbie. Which is funny, and satirises the toy line well, but also completely impractical from a long term story telling perspective.
Am I taking this mobile game intended to sell kids toys too seriously? Yes. Yes I am. But its cool to me nonetheless. As others have said, if this game has all the pay to win / microtransaction stuff included in a single price, I'd consider buying this. It looks cute.
Re: Barbie Returns In 'Dreamhouse Adventures', Launching Next Month
Wait... Barbie's best friend is also called Barbie, who is a woman of colour nickname'd "Brooklyn"... but has the same surname as Barbies' parents? Barbie lore has gotten so complex since my kids were young. π I'm here for it though. Glad Skipper is around, she always used to be the cool one in the media I'd read and watch with them back then. Looks like they made her a little younger & less alternative.
Re: Barbie Returns In 'Dreamhouse Adventures', Launching Next Month
I love that the cats and dogs actually join in with the activities. That doggo riding on the unicorn rocking horse is having the time of his life! π
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo, "THE Prime Asset" In Xbox's Content Quest? It's Only Natural
@rockodoodle Yeah. I'm mostly a PC + Switch player, and I usually buy indie and retro-style games, with the occasional big studio title. I must admit, I'll often (usually even?) buy the game digitally for PC, then hope for a physical version for Switch to go on the shelf. The Sonic games are perfect examples, I mostly play them on PC to get the best performance, and access to mods etc, but I love owning the physical Switch copies. I try to support any indie digital game I've enjoyed on Steam by buying the Switch copy when it eventually releases.
All the publishers I speak to about making physical copies of my games say the Switch physical collectors market is by far the biggest. By comparisson only a handful of people collect PS4/5 physical, and Xbox is almost entirely digital. So even though I'm pushing for a physical copy of my games for Xbox too, it will likely have to finance that myself and lose money or only break even on them. I'm fighting a losing battle there, it seems!
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo, "THE Prime Asset" In Xbox's Content Quest? It's Only Natural
@Qwiff Thank you! Yes, I agree the PC market is almost entirely digital now, as are movies (my main business) but I still independently produce small run copies of DVDs and Blu-Rays of our movies, and I intend to do so for PC versions of our games as well - thankfully DVD/BR manufacturaing is cheap so its easy to do for the collector market. As mentioned in the other thread I'm considering doing a full "big box" edition like old PC DOS and Amiga games used to come in, with a full manual, map etc... but again this is a very niche collectors' market.
I think part of the reason I don't mind Steam as much is that its so ubiquitous and PCs are ever evolving and upgradable hardware, so its unlikely it will ever disappear as a shopfront. Competing smaller services are a different matter of course.
The problem with console eshops is that they innevitably get taken offline once the console is considered "dead". For example, if my Wii breaks or my 3DS gets lost with my luggage and I have to get a new one, I can't re-download any of my purchases. The problem becomes even worse with subscription models, streaming and cloud based services of course. Perhaps I'm paranoid but for every game that I buy digitally and legally pay for, I always seek out a pirated version also so I can have a permanent archive and know I'll always be able to play it in the future no matter what.
For my own PC games I'll never add any DRM, so people can back up the install files themselves and always have them no matter what happens to the shopfront. But then that's a luxury I can have as a very small indie developer selling bargain priced games to a niche market atht wants to support them. The people who pirate my games wouldn't ever have paid for them in the first place. I understand the pressures for the bigger publishers to slow down the availability of pirated copies, what with the huge upfront costs and emphasis on week one sales etc.
Re: Review: Trombone Champ - A Hilarious Party Game That Blows A Big Raspberry At Perfection
I've talked about this at length elsewhere on this site but I'll just quickly restate that this game on PC was an absolute ray of sunshine that was a significant factor in lifting me out of a very nasty period of depression. It feels impossible to play it and not laugh. I can only imagine what a great experience it will be as a local party game experience with friends/family. Highly recomended, its wonderful.
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo, "THE Prime Asset" In Xbox's Content Quest? It's Only Natural
@rockodoodle For cartridges, storage is a valid issue - for Blu-ray discs, not as much - a standard dual layer disc takes 50gb and BD-XL discs take up to 128gb. Although even for cartridges if they switched to a more standard flash based solution massive card sizes are available affordably.
The propensity for constant updates, day one patches, dlc etc is a lot more of an issue, I completely agree. But as a collector who likes to have things on the shelf, and especially as someone who likes to go back and play my favourite games 20+ years into the future - and has seen so many online servers and services/eshops etc disappear over the years, I still feel that the option to actually "own" things that I purchase and feel comfortable I'll still be able to play them in the future, is slowly slipping away from me.
I talked about this at length in another thread recently ( https://www.nintendolife.com/news/2023/09/tmnt-shredders-revenge-lands-a-new-physical-edition-with-dlc-included-this-november ) but as a dev myself I feel a strong desire to ensure there are physical copies of all my games available for the people that want them, yet I like to release free dlc content packs, fix any bugs, add accessibility features etc that people may request, so I feel there should eventually be a second "ultimate/complete" physical edition also, for people that want it. But navigating these waters to not feel like you are forcing fans to double dip (which would be the same problem if you were digital only and then eventually release the "ultimate/complete" physical) is a tricky balancing act and its impossible to get 100% right.
I'm aware I'm fighting a losing battle and the future is probably digital only... and maybe even subscription only. I hate that, but the market will decide. What bothers me is that by removing the disk drive in this generation and not even waiting til the next one, it feels like MS are forcing this issue early rather than letting the market ultimately decide. Choice is always a good thing.
Re: Random: Kirby's Dream Land Is All About Being "Kind To Beginners", Says Sakurai
I love these videos from Sakurai and I almost always feel I have something useful I can apply to my own work. My first Hazel game is designed especially to try and popularise retro-style 2d platforming with a new generation, whilst also appealing to hardcore longterm fans of the genre - thats a difficult thing to do with accessibility options, very scalable difficulties and assists, and a large amount of tutorials dotted around even teaching such basics as running and jumping, slowly building skills and nuances as they are needed rather than expecting new players to master everything at once - but these can of course all be skipped or disabled entirely for those who don't need them.
You have to remember that everyone will have their first experience playing a certain genre, and what seems obvious or intuitive to us can seem completely foreign to others, and kids these days are used to tapping at their ipads with their fingers, or using mouse and keyboard or dual sticks for 3d games... Much as Nintendo fans like to feel that everyone of every generation is familiar with 2d Mario thats simply not the case when you look how many kids play Roblox or Minecraft in comparison. The skillset doesn't even slightly transfer across.
My partner used to be a pretty succesful Twitch streamer playing games popular with Gen Z, highly accomplished especially for her Minecraft prowess. Lots of her fans requested that she play the Spyro remakes when they first came out. Even though she was a profesional gamer it became very evident that she'd barely ever touched a gamepad her whole life, and even very basics like analogue movement, holding a jump button to jump higher, moving the camera with the second stick all were skills that aren't automatic, and take time to get to grips with. Of course all kids go through this, but usually when we are too young to remember, and certainly not infront of an audience. It was very frustrating and embarassing for her initially but she stuck with it and seeing her progress til she actually got good enough to beat the game was a really cool thing to go through and watch.
Its possible (and hopeful?) that our 2d platformer may be the very first one that some kids try. Making it gently teach them but in a fun and engaging way, whilst also making it a well made challenge for veterans is the biggest challenge we've faced and one we spend a lot of time tinkering and testing.
I've seen several videos of Sakurai talking about this exact experience with the first Kirby game. Its inspiring and I think he did a great job. Whilst the GameBoy didn't allow such dynamic changes and variety of options for different skill levels, I feel the first Kirby is high quality in presentation and feels fun and satisfying enough that even seasoned veterans who might think its very easy will still at least find it fun and enjoy the experience, & find replay value.
Re: Soapbox: Nintendo, "THE Prime Asset" In Xbox's Content Quest? It's Only Natural
Nothing in that leak surprised me, and they were quite open about how difficult / unlikely it would be to buy Nintendo, but that it was more a long time goal / aspirational wishlist. Not worth scaremongering over, Nintendo do not want to sell and have no reason to. They need to be careful about selling too many shares though, easy way to lose control/be influenced.
The thing that bothered me the most is that as early as the new hardware refresh of Series X & S (probably next year) they are insisting on going digital only and trying to push the narritive that customers will welcome this... not a surprising direction for MS but sooner than I would have hoped.
If they do eventually buy Nintendo, that will be in a future where they have pushed everyone to online digital only subscriptions and probably cloud based hardware after 2028. Yeesh.
Re: Mini Review: The Many Pieces Of Mr. Coo - Short, Obtuse, But Spectacularly Presented
@JohnnyMind Ah that's really cool. With my own kids, finding second hand VHS tapes from the 80s & early 90s was a treasure trove of being able to show them obscure things from my childhood! π
Re: Mini Review: Raindrop Sprinters - A Compellingly Pure (And Brutal) Arcade Throwback
@room_909 You too, thank you! I'll check out BitSummit. I really want to visit Kyoto and check out the new Nintendo museum when it opens there next year, so going to the convention sounds like a good excuse!
Re: Best Game Gear Sonic Games, Ranked By You
@Yosti Sorry, I just realised I didn't answer your question about Macs. My engine is programmed in GML and can be compiled to Mac code (and Linux too) but as yet I have no Apple hardware to test it on. But as soon as I get a Mac, yes in theory I should be able to port it with next to no effort π
Re: Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection Adds Two Sega Genesis Titles
@CosmosJ Amiga music can be amazing, for sure! I'm genuinely looking forward to checking it out when I have time, and am annoyed at myself for not looking into it sooner. I thought I'd played every JP game, and I love old "big box" DOS and Amiga titles of that era.
Re: Review: Mortal Kombat 1 - A Superb Fighter, But Severely Kompromised On Switch
Having watched the komparrisson video, I was slightly taken aback by how inkredible the PS5 version looks, but also thought the Switch version looked perfectly fine and had obviously been chosen to downgrade visuals in order to target 60fps, and I was fine with that. I was feeling quite positive towards the game.
However, the other things mentioned in this review seem pretty unforgivable. They should have delayed release until it was in a more stable and komplete state. Downgraded graphics is fine but assuming this review is accurate (which I don't doubt) I'll avoid until its patched and updated.
Re: Unity Apologies For Its 'Runtime Fee' Policy, Promises To Make 'Changes'
As others have said, sadly the trust is broken. Because they made these changes and then said they retroactively applied to games already made and released, there's nothing to say they won't break that trust again in the future - and could very easily damage, cost or even bankrupt a dev for a game they made years ago. I'm not sure that's even legal, but its frickin scary and if I had made a game with Unity I'd have instantly removed it from sale and started porting it to something else.
I was very annoyed by GameMaker when they switched to a subscription model rather than a permanent license for their development software but they were 100% clear that this only applied to new customers and all previous licenses purchased would be honoured in perpetuity. Also, they take precisely zero from your game sales / royalties - the subscription is only for the development software itself, once your game is finished, you can cancel your subscription. And at the same time as they brought in the subscription, they announced a free version.
Even considering the changes I wasn't happy with, GameMaker is an incredible deal compared to Unity & Unreal. GoDot is potentially even better, as its properly open source, so for new game devs I'd possibly recomend starting there... though personally I've been learning GML since 2020 and I love the language so I'll stick with it for now, I was very happy to pay for the license, its great.
Re: Mini Review: Raindrop Sprinters - A Compellingly Pure (And Brutal) Arcade Throwback
@room_909 Thank you so much again for your kind response. Yes I have been to the Japan Expo in France, that's amazing that your friend travelled to exhibit there. I certainly hope to visit the Tokyo game show when one or more of my games are ready to exhibit.
Also, I don't know if you are a fan of Star Wars but its a brand I'm involved with in many ways, and Lucasfilm run an official convention called Celebration. It will be held in Tokyo in 2025 and I'll be exhibiting there for my Star Wars book and signing autographcs and taking pictures (I was a minor actor in Rogue One).
I'll make sure to follow you on your website and twitter and see the progress of your career. I hope we can meet one day! π All the very best of luck to you and your friends! ι εΌ΅γ£γ¦γγ γγγ! εΏζ΄γγ¦γγΎγ !
Re: Jurassic Park: Classic Games Collection Adds Two Sega Genesis Titles
@CosmosJ Ever since seeing it in magazines in the 90s I always though the Amiga and DOS game was just a port of the SNES game - what with it being over head and having first person sections.
But your post just lead me to look up a video and its similar but very different - actually looks like I might enjoy it better! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7beI6ARhibo Very much appreciate your post correcting my nearly 30 year assumption! Gonna seek out a copy to try π