Matthew Rasmussen's journal of journals on various topics of interest, published here, there or somewhere since 1999.

Retired Addiction

Current Addiction: The Kleptones' "Uptime/Downtime" double disc

Loaded with diamonds: "Untired," "Hammer," Correspondence," "Welcome Back," "Hella Touch," "Care," "Brightness and Contrast," "This Song Smells." Swap the playlists to Downtime/Uptime.

01.30.2011 23:00

>Run Fight Magic

>HP: 0

Not Another Game Idea

File Under: /games

Dumped, like the browser-based kart game, so that I may free up some synapses.

The Idea:

A browser-based sidescroller
Based on an inversion of Christina Rosetti's "The Prince's Progress"
With high realism movement, ala Flashback: The Quest for Identity
Built in SVG and JavaScript
With zooming in-engine cutscenes

The Unusual Bit:

The game can be ended at the end of each level
Via branching dialogue
With a woman one encounters there
Triggering a cutscene showing the future
The endings are better the earlier one stops playing

Because no one will stop playing
There is no woman at the end of the last level

The Story:

Rosetti's poem follows a prince's voyage to meet his unknown beloved

He dallies too much with wrong turns and mystical women
When he gets to the castle, the princess has died

I wrote (but never finished editing) a response
This game is based on my version

The prince meets a series of mystical women
He could have (should have?) stayed with any one of them
He doesn't
He journeys on to meet his perfect beloved
He finds the castle at the edge of the world
Inside, no one opposes him
No one's ever lived there

The Art:

Animated vector graphics
Multiple foregrounds and backgrounds
Not quite a sidescroller

Camera usually stationary
Re-centers when the character reaches predetermined spots
Foreground and background layers adjust

Foregrounds and backgrounds less detailed than midground
Expressive style
24 frame per second character animation
Realistic motion
Zoomed in in-engine cutscene

The Gameplay:

A mix of platforming and combat
Level passwords
No HUD, health bars, or data overlays of any kind
Character can't do anything a reasonably fit person can't do

Can only fall so far
No twenty foot vertical jumps
No changing direction in midair
Must leap, grasp and climb to reach higher ledges

"Step based" movement

No creeping one pixel at a time ever necessary
One walking step the minimum distance a movement can take
Running, leaping, climbing, swimming, etc. all in increments

Character Mechanics:

No lives or continues
Health recharges

No "medkits"
Short recovery period

Character movement indicates health

Extremely low health makes character weave back and forth
Requires micro-correcting
With left and right keys
To keep character from falling down

Falling Down:

Not "death" as such
"If you want to teach players not to do something,

you don't need to smack them.
You need to give them zero feedback."

Tile the player falls on stretches past edges of screen left and right

Player must get up (weaving initially) and walk across flat ground
Uninteresting expanse takes time to cross

Long enough to dissuade
Not long enough to ruin game

Poem displayed in BG
Expanse ends at portion of the game world just as it was

Level resumes without break

No real death, lives or continues -- just the expanse to pass

Levels:

The Ravine

Mostly platforming
Lush green riverside
Moon maiden at end

The Desert

Black rocks
Ground crawling with scorpions
Character weakens as level goes on

Heavy use of weaving mechanic

Alchemist at end

The Valley

Rivers
Final long swim

Lose your armor, all but knife and gloves

The Ariel Sisters at end

The Edge of the World

(Movement noticeably sprightlier without gear)
Mountain slope
Crags
Endless field of white flowers

Clouds

Castle, overgrown by enormous tree

Phantoms "attack" inside
Vanish before they reach you

Empty room at top

Plaster tubs, drop cloths, uninstalled windows
Overgrown with white flowers from window box
No one's ever lived there

The Moon Maiden

Milkmaid
Starry cloak
(Midevil milkmaids rarely got smallpox)
(Exposure to milder cowpox virus vaccinated them)
(Origin of the "clear/white faced milkmaid" literary meme)
Best ending

In-engine zoomed in cutscene of player with family
Carefree young children
Spreading the starry cloak on a hilltop at night
Watching the stars wheel overhead together

Older woman, works a forge, strength and wisdom
Second best ending

Zooms in for cutscene as a couple
Lonely in the desert
Always working forge

The Ariel Sisters

Three nymphlike sisters
Rescue you from river in the valley
Flighty, impossible to pin down
Other two give you more attention the more you focus on one

One you focus on colder toward you
Always out of reach

A lot of trouble for a neutral ending

The Princess

Doesn't exist
Cutscene shows only the unfinished state of the chamber
No ending
Level just leaves you to wander until you quit the game

Engine would have to be built from scratch
Lots of art assets
Lots of animation
Small potential of SVG drawing speed problems

SVG a low priority in modern browsers

Animation toolchain would have to be built from scratch

No SVG drawing program does animation yet
If one adds support, it will likely save as SMIL

(Synchronized Multimedia Integration Language)
Despite being a standard, no browser supports SMIL

Would have to use JavaScript for animation instead
Animation would either have to use substitution

(One unique SVG image every frame, 24 frames/second)

Or morphing

(SVG objects changed by JavaScript every frame)
Even more complicated to develop toolchain for
Morphing better, would allow some smoothing between actions
Would allow some physics as well (cloaks, particle, etc.)

No clear business plan beyond banner ads on the homepage

Banner ads in-game would kill the mood
Would also slow down the browser, in the real world

Is it possible to sell access to a browser-based game?
Game that subverts common mechanics of genre to ask questions

Would be compared to Braid
Would lose the comparison

01.26.2011 23:00

>Run Fight Magic

>HP: 0

Grammy Rasmussen

File Under: /film

My grandmother passed away on January 14. I brought a microphone and sat down with her back in 2002, then shot some 16mm film on Friendship Long Island and edited a short. Here is that film: