Deadmatch

Deathmatch: All the rage back during the glorious wars between Id and Epic Games, enjoyed more recently in games like Halo and Half Life 2 Death Match, but these free-for-alls are suddenly much less popular. Why? Did we just get bored of them? Did they stagnate? Although those are both probably true, I think there's a deeper reason. Let's compare good old fashioned Deathmatch with the Team Shooters of today!

WHO DE FUCK WAS DAT

Picture it. You've just revisited Quake Live, and you fancy a game. You join a server called "FFA FR". It's loading. Things are happening. "Waiting for Gamestate". Suddenly you're in, and playing. Armed with the basic chaingun, you've got the worst weapon in the game by a mile. Ahead of you is a rocket launcher. Beyond it, on a high ledge, is a guy with a shotgun. He shoots once. You open fire, keeping him firmly in your sights at all times. He fires again as your bullets patter against his thick armour. Your health is two-thirds depleted. He runs for some health - you must have him by now, surely, he should be seconds from death. Almost at the rocket launcher. He shoots and misses. Almost there! He reaches the health. Fuck! You grab the Rocket Launcher. Yes! You stop firing to switch weapons. Fuck! He shoots you. You die. FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU-

When you spawn again, seconds later, only two be mangled in the centre of a protracted brawl between two bunnyhopping plasma-gunners, you start to wonder why you're not just playing TF2, or even a nice bit of Harvest Moon. The third time you spawn, and get nuked by the BFG, the biggest gun in the game, it's a simple matter of hitting the escape key, clicking "leave this match", and heading over to FMyLife.com

Contrast with TF2, then: You start off in a spawn room, with all the health and ammo you could need, with zero chance of encountering an enemy until you peek out from your supply closet. Chaos and Order.

An "I" in "Meat Pie"

In a deathmatch with 20 people, 19 of you are going to lose. Some of you might be in the top 3, the top 5, or whatever, but almost everybody is losing to somebody. If it was a team game, 10 of you would win. Ten. Now, DM players may argue that this diminishes the role of the individual in a team. It does. Being the player with the highest score in QuakeLive is great. Being the player with the highest score in TF2... maybe you could only get a score like that because of that engie who covered your retreat, or the medic who healed you? If you were a spy, you'd never survive without something to distract your prey. But the same could be said of DM games like Quake Live. I don't know how many times I've filled someone with plasma, only for a stray rocket to claim the kill for someone else. Being number 1 on a DM server means a different thing to being top of a winning TF2 team: The former says, "I can point at people's heads, I can shoot rockets at people's feet, and I can bunnyhop like a motherfucker". The latter suggests you can do all that too, but you're also good at supporting other players.

A new player of QuakeLive can't last very long. At all. I've been playing QIII, the dignified pioneer from which QL's DNA was harvested, for years. I found QL to be very brutal! I tend to ragequit daily! If Lisa played it, she might resent being taught nothing, killed constantly, and taunted relentlessly by people whose interest it is to have you never get better. Maybe it'd spur her on to get better at the game, but it'd be more like her to play something more worth her time.

Nature, or Nurture?

So is this because QL is a deathmatch game, or because it was based on a game made ten years ago? Playing QL, the first thing that springs to mind is "why do I have to pick up all these weapons myself?" Imagine every class in TF2 had to actually find their class weapons? It'd be tedious, and bizarre. A bit like QL. If that changed, though, you'd still spawn dazed in the centre of a brawl. Why not let you cycle through spawn points before selecting one? With that change, QL becomes a game where a fully-armed opponent could spring out at any moment and surprise you; something that an experienced player could get around by memorising the spawn locations. This could be pretty fun, and a lot less daunting for the new player.

So then what? In QL's deathmatch mode, all maps are arenas. They need a few different areas, big jumps, teleports, some lava pits or water channels, secret powerups, that kind of thing. Know what they don't have? Anything else. You can think up new game modes for TF2 in your sleep. Imagine there were 20 flags and more than 1 person could grab one. Imagine a payload game where control points must be captured to raise gates and swivel bridges. Imagine an arena map with hacked rules, so that you can respawn as normal and you get a point for every 30 seconds you control the cap.

Deathmatch can be well designed, it can be instructive and elegant, and it can be fun. It's ultimately a one-trick pony, though. If you get tired of killing people for no reason, DM will exhaust you. If you like that, hell, you can do that in TF2. That's why we have 2fort.

[Continue reading]

Retrospective: Unleash the Kitties!

Thanks to Lisa for the picture, nabbed from her flickr account.

This new feature is based on a piece of advice Richard Cobbett gave me: he said that if you look back on what you were writing about a year ago, and it's awful, you're probably heading in the right direction. Of course, I wasn't really listening; instead, I'd glazed over at the prospect of a new, easy-to-produce feature for my blog.

About a year ago, Lisa and I were in the US of A, preparing to collect our stuff and our cats. Exactly one year and one day ago, I posted this article. I wrote it on the turnpike and then uploaded it when we got back to Mike and Karen's place, and it feels strange to read it. Go ahead and try; feel free to read any of the other articles in the series (you can click on "Cat Trip 2008" to see them all).

This isn't really an example of bad writing, although I do prefer my paragraphs longer these days, and without quite so many exclamation marks (the word "so" still plagues me). This is more an example to my future self. Look what I achieved! I mean, it's sometimes hard to keep your chin up when, at 23, you live with your parents. I was an adult, with good credit, a fancy job, promotion prospects, lovely shoes... it's taken me this long to get those things or their equivalents back. Moving back here to be with Mum and Dad, with such speed and efficiency, is another of my greatest achievements to date, but this stress-orgy of vet paperwork and screaming people in the East Coast Mother Fucking Heat is the story I've told the most. Guaranteed to break the ice at parties.

What I notice most about the whole range of posts is that I'm very much trying to be Tycho. Not in terms of verbosity, but by peppering real life with video games in a near-daily update. Hi, I just closed a horrifying chapter of my life with a pleasing thump, and Mass Effect is good too, movie at 11. It's interesting to note, and definitely something to think about, but not something that's appropriate for me to do right now.

So what were you guys doing a year ago?

[Continue reading]

Bring a Nade on a Camping Trip

In the vanilla settings for The Hidden, the rules for voice and text chatter are quite strict. You can't talk with the hidden, and if you die, you get cut off and can't speak to anyone but other dead guys. If an agent of Team IRIS is killed by The Hidden, there is no kill report. His team may hear the kill, but they probably won't. There isn't a great song and dance on that particular player's monitor, either – the second their health drops below zero, they're staring out of a surveillance camera.

The two chumps I killed in last Friday's Quest Log Updated are probably watching in impotent horror as I close in on their remaining buddies. I'm taking it slow, using the aura view to pick them up, and they're still clinging to one another in a very tight shape. I round a corner into the foyer, and bingo: they're in the elevator.

This is essentially a tiny room. It's pretty inspired of the developer to put a room like this on the map, because it encourages wrong thinking from Team IRIS. Aha! A tiny room! Perfect – with one entrance, we'll see the Hidden from a mile away.

There's something I didn't mention about the Hidden. He has grenades. On this server, you get one grenade. The grenades do light damage, actually, and mainly serve to deafen and concuss your foe. Now, technically, this means they won't hear your approach, but they're likely to guess anyway, seeing as you used your only grenade to deafen and blind them.

I line up the shot. I've never thrown a grenade in the Hidden before, I just remember getting hit with it a lot in the early days. It could be too high, and it'd do nothing but alert them. It could be perfect. I decide to throw it, and follow it pretty closely with my pounce, so I land right after the explosion. The danger is that I get lacerated by the panic firing, but a more relevant danger is that they recover their wits and I lose the element of surprise (and my only advantage).

(apart from being invisible)


It looks like bottled water, doesn't it? Don't drink it, though, it asplodes.

I throw it. It lands in there, doesn't bounce much. I pounce. They're crammed in there, but they're firing – I take damage. I use my instant killer, then slash another to death, then retreat, hopping up the main stair to lean over the glass railing and peer through the lush lobby flora. One remains.

My health is low. I'll die if he hits me, essentially. I use my aura view, and note something strange – instead of the usual black smudge indicating his location, he's bright red. Could this mean he's close to death, too? Did my grenade blow up right in his face? It must have. I've got a real chance of winning this, one versus six. Five of them can see everything, and say nothing – they're probably watching the survivor point his gun wildly, back right up against the back of the elevator, reload nervously. I'm watching a muted scuffling from within the elevator, from my high perch.

He's damaged. I'm damaged. I need to get in there, stab him, and avoid being shot. I need to do it; there's nothing I can employ to force him out, and he knows I've no grenades left, so every second I wait is just strengthening his resolve.

I pounce.

I hold right-mouse.

The knife draws back, the growl starts.

He starts firing.

I land.

He clips me.

I run at him.

The knife jabs forward.


"Hidden Wins."

[Continue reading]

Ubercharged: Four Hours of Airshot

Four Hours of Airshot, at Ubercharged.net

Look, I'm writing for ubercharged.net! Tentatively! So head on over and read all about my four-hour, one-map, no-opponents adventure!

[Continue reading]

New Hotness

I can't promise you hot-off-the-wordpresses coverage of gaming events or reviews of new games. These are things I can get paid for elsewhere. I can promise you entertaining Quest Logs, well-thought-out discussions, and some unapologetic self-pimpage. Hell, I'll throw in the odd hopelessly dated review.

I can also promise you a new update schedule: I'll be updating this every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This means that the real estate value of each post has just gone up, so I won't be doing any more of The Jazitorials. Instead, I'll be posting a discussion, review, or a quest log on each of the Sacred Penny Arcade Days, and I'll be peppering the rest of the week with any plugs or admin posts I feel are necessary. I'll generally avoid posting completely at the weekends, coz you people really don't seem to like clicking links on a weekend. Weirdos.

So, to send off the Jazitorial, I thought I'd include three little links.

Making sense of Silent Hill (Ultrabrilliant)

"[...] after reading hundreds of fan theories, forums and developer interviews over the years, it's all starting to make sense. Each game in the series revolves around psychological themes and everything your character witnesses, from bubble-headed nurses to ghostly apparitions, are all there for a very specific reason, conjured up by the evil-infested town."

Andy Kelly has a bash at explaining the unexplainable. This is a great article, but also a good excuse to link his new blog, wot he made by himself. Go!

Battlefield Heroes – Heil mein EAϋrher (GamingDaily.co.uk)

"I imagine Tom Cruise from Minority Report having my crime come up on a ball in the EA office, before a ball comes up with his name on it saying he’s going to grief somebody ingame. Then he goes on the run from the LOLbrigade and has to replace his EA account to get past the scanners in headquarters, whilst the head of EA covers up their crime of extorting the hell out of the Battlefield Heroes playerbase."

Fenning. What else can you say? The man knows his way around a painfully-stretched analogy. Oh, did I mention that he's famous now?

Puzzles and Timing (Indigo Static)

"Turns out that with the simple addition of timing we are screwing with the player’s head. Unless they are completely sure, they never know which of the possible approaches is the correct one, so they have to brute force it until they get the right answer. They can never discard any theory because maybe the game is just incredibly hard and the timing is so tight that only after trying 6000 times in a row they can get it right."

Diego and I have been chatting about this puzzles and timing issue over on his blog, Indigo Static, after he granted me the honour of my first ever block quote (found via my first ever track-back). It's a hot debate! Join in!

[Continue reading]

Bring a Knife to a Gun Fight

(but be invisible, obv)


Actually, the hands are weird, but it's okay. There's plenty of pouncy stabby.

Playing as the Hidden is a fairly discreet affair. You can talk with no-one, and nobody is usually on your team. Just after you kill the Hidden, there's this moment of farewell. You're going off to have fun times, darting about with a lethal knife and feeling like Captain Awesome – your team mates, who may have protected you, covered your back, limped away from the Hidden as you expertly took it down – these people are now your frightened prey. If you remember last weekend's tale of derring-do, you'll recall that it was my turn to play this crazed mash-up between L4D's Hunter and TF2's Spy.

The round restarts, my vision is bright, and I'm holding a knife. The first thing I do is panic. After all, I can't take anyone down at range, and there are six of them pointing assault rifles and shotguns at each other as I dawdle. Six! I use my most important tool – the pounce, default middle mouse – to leap across the levels and find a cozy spot to plan my attack. Planning; this is key to success as The Hidden. They don't have a plan, because they don't know where you are. They're ready to react to the slightest twitch. You need to have the plan. And I do.

This map has a raised area with high vaulted ceilings, full of servers (of course). There are other areas, like a huge reception and a crowded canteen, but I'd noticed a tendency for this group to camp up there and just wait for some action. Some people will complain if Team IRIS are camping, but I say, let them. I have ways.


Games that let you do cool shit from monster films should get a medal.

So I make my way, using quick pounces with a shallow arc, to this raised warren of servers and gorgeous marble floors. There is glass separating me from a shotgun. He doesn't see me, but shoots the glass anyway. As he turns, I use the knife's secondary fire, the "pig sticker" (ewwwww). It's a slow-firing instant kill which is great for breaking up a group of campers quickly, but as you deliver the lethal lunge, your character lets out a creepy, reverberant growl.

It announces my presence to the group, and they cluster around as I leap onto a high marble beam. They pan around pathetically, looking left, looking right, while I size them up from my lofty perch. Some even let off shots. They're panicked. Then, to my immediate glee, three of them break off, leaving two behind. I wait for the away team – moving with a worrying cohesion – to distance themselves. They can go hunt me elsewhere.

Just like the Spy and the Hunter, the Hidden must balance patience with controlled aggression and timely retreat. I descend behind the two stragglers, slash each of them once with the knife's primary attack – three of these hits will kill someone outright - then I pounce directly up. They pan wildly, left and right, up and down, trying to spot me. I drop down again, and slash furiously. I stay crouched, because it lends more distance to your pounce, but it also confuses the hell out of Team IRIS. I land a hit on one, two on the other, killing him. He turns out to be The Biggest BaSS. I grab his body. The Hidden can slash bodies with his knife to gain health, somehow, but I don't need any right now. Instead, I want to give the illusion of movement. I throw the body past the surviving squad member and pounced past him, round a corner, then up. He is fooled, thinking I've darted past him and into the network of corridors, to recover. Like a good soldier, he gives chase. Then I drop down behind him.

His death is swift. I use my aura view - a second sight that can be activated in such a moment of calm - to find the three others, and they appear to be clustered in a blob in some distant area behind me. Hmm. Just what are they up to?


That inverted Union Jack is pretty weird looking, too.

[Continue reading]

Mini LD 10: After School

I know, I know, I'm so great at drawing rooms and people.

Last Ludum Dare, I tried a little bit of live coverage before I collapsed in a tired heap. Turns out, a couple of the ones I thought were great actually did best of all, like Tombed and Mind Wall. Obviously, I'm an oracular genius, but we know this already, DON'T WE BRIAN, 23 Crescent Avenue Lane, Bristol?



This time, with Mini Ludum Dare 10, a couple factors sort of aligned. Firstly, increpare did the theme. I met him in Minecraft once, and I play all of his games, so that was factor number 1.

Number 2: The theme was Domestic Violence. This is pretty close to my heart, and I have a lot to say about abuse and bullying in general, but domestic abuse in particular.

Thirdly, my "what the fuck" light was on. I decided to make a game.

Actually making the fucker is a different story, which I'll attempt to put up on my other blog while wearing my dev hat later on. While the writer hat is on, though, let me just link to the Ludum Dare entry, the game itself as hosted on yoyogames.com, and the yoyogames page. That last link is the one to try, ugly firefox plug-in and all, if you can't get the game to work on XP. No idea why, but the stuff won't highlight in XP sometimes.

I've actually wanted to make a game for fucking ever, and now that I have, I can easily imagine popping out a few more. Still, I think this one was successful because so much of it is writing, and I do enjoy writing more. I have some ideas for my next game, but again, keep an eye on the other blog for that sort of news. I will, of course, post here if and when I finish making something else.

[Continue reading]