Gwendolyn from Odin Sphere by Vanillaware

It amazes me how a single company can turn an entire genre on its head. Ever since the advent of the PlayStation, 3D gaming has been the goal for most development companies as the staple of AAA titles. In 2007, a small company called Vanillaware turned people’s heads by churning out two stunningly beautiful games in console 2D: Odin Sphere and Grim Grimoire.

What is most distinctive is that the games look and play like moving paintings.  Personally, I think that 2D gaming still retains largely unexplored.  With the rendering capabilities of modern graphics engines, there is still so much room for exploration (and re-exploration) of once long thought dead genres.

While so many developers are seeking “new and innovative” experiences in terms of gameplay, I think that there is still plenty of room to revisit older genres with new insights and new technology.

Odin Sphere revisits the classic 2D sidescrolling “beat-em-up” games.  Grim Grimoire tackles 2D real-time strategy.  Both of these genres have been long considered beaten to death and have given way to huge AAA 3D titles.  But with stunning artwork and solid gameplay, Vanillaware’s small team stakes its claim that there is nothing wrong with the “tried and true” games of the past when given new life.

Another thing to note for Indie Developers is that Odin Sphere was initially started as a 5-man project and maxed out at 14.  By major-company game development standards, this is a tiny team.  Yet, the results are nothing short of breathtaking.

I cannot wait for Vanillaware’s next release later this year: “Muramasa: The Demon Blade.”

Space ROX V 0.5

Of course, the point of any game is having some adversary to fight – be it enemy ships or floating space debris. Here I’ve taken the particle effect I created for the thrusters and blasters and applied them many-fold on a bunch of asteroids.

The animation for shooting the laser blasters has been modified to have multiple frames for the flash point, and the guns were syncronized.

The next objective is refining the control scheme and creating collisions.

Something of note – it seems that the up-arrow-key, the left-arrow-key in conjunction with the spacebar does not seem to work. Oddly enough, if you use the numeric keypad arrow keys (at least on my keyboard) the limitation goes away. To offset this, I also enabled the A, W, and D keys to do the same function as the arrow keys.

Redoing the control scheme is something that is on the list as well – perhaps using the mouse to shoot which will eliminate this arrow key issue.

Also, an inherent flaw in Actionscript 3.0 is a notable lack of a “Collection” class. Unfortunately the built-in “Array” and “Object” classes does not allow me to recast a stored object back to the original object type. I borrowed Michael James William’s Collection class to handle the multiple asteroids floating around.

Check it out!

Wolfire Games posts an interesting design challenge for depicting anthropomorphic female characters.  David Rosen wants to specifically restrain his design without using “hypersexualization” of the females in the game.

Many games show that characters are female by making them look like strippers. That is, giving them breast implants, tiny waists, heavy make-up, and skimpy clothing, as seen in Tomb Raider, Dead or Alive, Soul Calibur, and so on. This approach certainly sells games and gets banner ad clicks, but it really cheapens the whole experience. Not only is it demeaning to women, but it would also not mix well with animal characters.

It will be interesting to see the final product of David’s elite 5-person team.