Super Crate Box - Guns, Fire, Mayhem!

Another excellent arcade game landing in my lap demanding an overview; what's a writer to do? Super Cratebox is fast-paced arcade game made by Vlambeer, a Dutch game development studio, that will surprise you with its painstaking attention to detail.

The Premise

In Super Crate Box you control a dude/dudette (or alligator) that must collect the highest amount of crates possibles to win the... esteem and affection of his fellow dudes/dudettes (and alligators.) Each time you collect one of these boxes you will swap your current weapon with a new one; there are many weapons and each one has its strenghts and weaknesses. To oppose you, a constant stream of evil minions will pour down from the top of the screen: touch one of these and die, let any of these make it to the fiery bottom of the screen and get ready for him to come back angrier and faster than ever before.

That's pretty much it as far as gameplay goes. The premise is so simple that god just can't avoid being in the details on this one. Super Crate Box is an excellent case of simple rules creating complex interations. The game provides players with a simple model for decision making that allows for both split-second in-the-moment decisions and longer term (like 5 or 6 seconds longer) tactics.

Presentation and Controls

For all the gore and wanton destruction it contains, Super Crate Box is an overly cute game. You play as any of a number of unlockable characters (including an alligator, a chicken and more...) and carry out your crate-collecting mission while fighting wave after wave of what amounts to an army of green plushies. The graphic style is retro-inspired and gives you loads of pixelated bang for your buck (or lack thereof, since the game is free) while a good though minimalistic animation work keeps the whole package in that strange genocide-PG13 zone.

The music is one of the highlights of the game. The soundtrack is small (as is the game) but the beats and tunes from Phlogiston really sell the non-stop action. Each of the 3 level tracks is an explosive mix of high BPM goodness that adds to the feeling of urgency as you fight the never-ending battle of endurance. You could disable the music on the options menu but you'll be cheating yourself out of a big part of the Super Crate Box experience.

The Carrot and the Stick

Super Crate Box manages to craft a user-experience that offers both ruthless challenge and the solace of making steady progress at the same time.

Part of the allure of this little game comes from how the designers at Vlambeer managed to make (repeated) failure a fun part of the experience by detaching your progress as a player from the results of each one of your plays. The game keeps tracks of every crate you pick up regardless if that game ended with you doing poorly or beating your previous highscore. Every time you get to a certain crate milestone you'll unlock new characters or weapons that become immediately available (a delightful detail with weapons is that you are guaranteed to pick that weapon in the first crate you get after finishing a game where you've unlocked it.)

This trickle of rewards will take you from your early rage-inducing beginnings to a point where you will be able to simply enjoy the game because of its finely tuned challenge, rather than simply being overwhelmed by it. Of course as you do get better, you'll get better highscores which, in turn, unlock new stages and modes for each stage.

Tools of Destruction

The weapons you unlock play a double role: on the one hand they serve as a desirable reward to keep you going, new ways to obliterate your enemies and help you rack up more crates; on the other, they become a mechanism to regulate challenge and complexity based on your progress.

Let's be clear here. That new weapon you just unlocked? It just made the game harder on you. Sure, some of the unlockable weapons are indeed powerful when used properly: the minigun can clear entire groups of enemies (should you be able to compensate for the insane recoil), the mines provide remote defenses that can cover your back (provided you give them time to activate) and the revolver is probably the best weapon in the game. Still, because each time you grab a crate (and remember, that's the whole point of the game) you are given a random new weapon, you're constantly pulled out of your comfort zone and forced to adapt to a new tactical situation.

There is a calculated depth in the weapon variety that makes learning how to best use each of them worthwhile. Beyond twitch reflexes and second-to-second choices there is a measure of tactical challenge that comes from deciding what to kill and when to go for the next pick-up.

Designed for Addiction

It's pretty clear from your first play session that Super Crate Box has been carefully built to tickle that part of our brain that loves to level up characters in an MMO, collect all Pokemons or do cocaine. If there was ever an indie game that embodied the "one more try" mentality, I think this is it.

Every time you die you get a pop-up that informs you of your score, how close you were to beating your previous highscore and how many crates are left until the next juicy unlock. You have just made one singular mistake and sent back to zero but you will probably be playing again before you even notice this.

The costs of death are high but they are made to seem negligible. You are always one button press away from respawning (pistol loaded, enemies at the ready, music pumping loud, beats playing fast) and giving it another go. There is a feeling of continuity and flow to each of your plays that dissipates that obnoxious start-stop-start feeling that plagues a lot of arcade games of this ilk.

Final Words

It's pretty unnacceptable not to try Super Crate Box; it's an excellent freeware title that can give you from 5 minutes to 50 hours of entertainment (we suggest medical advice if you're approaching the latter.) Download your copy here and check out the free soundtrack from Phlogiston to enjoy his tunes without the high stress levels.

Magicka - Touch Typing Skills FTW!

Magicka is an action-adventure game made by Arrowhead Studios (here's the elevator pitch) that presents a fresh take on the experience of being one of the powerful wizards found in fantasy literature and cinema. Magicka is less about restrictions and more about possibilities, less about presenting an image of wizards as scholarly figures who have given youth (and sometimes more) for a glimpse at arcane secrets and more about the juvenile glee of wanton destruction and the cranberry sweet taste of absolute power.

Things That Worked

Of course, the game has some other things going on (besides appealing to my inner sociopath?) to have piqued my interests. In this article I'll be highlighting some of the things Arrowhead Games nailed in their latest romp through the Norse-inspired Midgård.

Swedish Humour

There's something about Swedish humor that never fails to amuse me. Magicka is constantly self-aware and engages in what could easily be described as a chronic case of breaking the fourth wall with a sledgehammer. Arrowhead crafts a reasonable and entertaining story with the tools of parody and inside jokes. On the one hand, Magicka risks loosing its players if they are not in the know (a risk it minimizes by presenting a world in which the ridiculous is par for the course); on the other, it offers a roller coaster ride of nostalgia induced cringes and laughs.

In the end, all I can say is that Magicka managed to hit all of its jokes with me and there wasn't a moment in the game where I wasn't either giggling or outright laughing (or fighting for my life, or cursing those Yetis... but that's another story, a sad one filled with tears and obscenities.)

A Worthwhile Challenge

My experience with Magicka was a strictly single-player affaire which proved to be a challenging one. Even though I ended up discovering some ridiculously good spell combinations very early in the game I still struggled through some of the more taxing sections, including some that made my death count easily go into the double digits. The game did manage to feel fair and the application of new spell strategies always seemed like a reasonable and effective way to solve each new challenge.

While it doesn't take much to die in Magicka, the cost of your failures isn't usually very high: checkpoints are sprinkled throughout the levels in a way that makes it easy to get back to where you were in a reasonable amount of time. I must confess, however, that some of these checkpoints were so devilishly placed that I actually found myself cursing at the screen (and wanting to QFQFASS the people at Arrowhead) in more than one occasion.

Interesting Mechanics

The gameplay mechanics in Magicka are involved to say the least. You have 8 elements at your disposal that can be mixed in 5-slot spells that create different results based on the order and quantity of the elements chosen. Once the spell is prepared it can be cast in 4 different ways: with your staff in a directed attack, as an area of effect sorcery, on yourself (useful for healing and protection) and on your weapon as an enchantment to be released later. Besides this repertoire of spells you also have magicks, special sorceries you find during your journey that let you do a variety of things such as hurling lightning bolts, slowing down time and even summoning Death to kill your enemies for you.

The complexity of these permutations and the frantic pace of combat will make you tap into your muscle memory. With 5 slots for combining elements into each spell and a shopping list of 20+ magicks at your disposal, you'll need to acquire a knack for finger tango in order to get that vital spell off at the drop of a hat. This is not an exaggeration: things can go from my life is wonderful to something made me explode in a second or two in the world of Magicka and you'll need to be at the top of your game to juggle the varied enemy compositions the game will throw at you on the later levels.

Your Own Style

Let's be clear here: you won't be using all the possible spell combinations in Magicka (you probably won't even be using all the magicks at your disposal.) Presuming a player could be on top of all of those combinations with the intensity and pacing of this game would be insane.

It is because of this variety of choices and the limitations of your memory that you become forced to develop your own personal style, your own wizard's toolkit. You will eventually become familiar with a cadre of spell combinations that are flexible enough to deal with most challenges and limited enough to fit in your head. Building and improving this toolkit of spells throughout the game (as the challenges get harder and you get better) is extremely fun and was one of the highlights of enjoying the mechanics of this title for me.

Final Words

Magicka is a ride filled with chuckles through a world of awesome arcane power and unbound silliness. The game offers a healthy challenge, non-stop action and rewards you for being creative and improving your magic wielding skill set. In what might very well be a jumping into the bandwagon move (but is nonetheless excellent), it also offers up to 4 player co-op throughout the campaign as well as special missions and a new team deathmatch mode added through DLC. At the time of this writing most of the more annoying bugs have been squashed and the game retails for a mere 10USD. So I guess the question is: why are you not downloading the demo right now?

Minecraft - An Over-the-Counter Drug

Minecraft has become a big hit, a sort of poster child for the possibility of indie developers doing what they love hitting the jackpot. Thanks to the gift of a friend, I've had the chance to play it since its early stages (not that I actually have, mind you); regardless, I've found myself playing the game quite a bit as of late. The following article is my attempt to dissect this addictive beast and find the successful design elements that lurk inside.

Playing On The Sandbox

It is important to note that Minecraft is more of a toy/sandbox than a game, which is not a derogatory distinction but one that speaks volumes about its design. While the game provides a set of interactions and inter-actors (elements and its relationships) and includes a sort of general opposition in the form of monsters, it depends on the players to create their own goals and win conditions in order to provide a focused experience. This ends up being one of its stronger points, since it achieves its design agenda much better than the competition and offers a wide array of possible goals for players to create and work towards.

The Good Stuff

So... If Minecraft can be considered a sandbox as described above, which of its features make it such a compelling experience? In the following paragraphs I'll propose the ones that best come to mind.

• Has Several Levels of Intensity: Minecraft's gameplay offers several levels of intensity that can be regulated in real-time by the player. This regulation happens by the selection of goals the player strives to achieve and by the in-game difficulty slider which controls the existance and effects of the opposition. The result of these two simple dials is that the game can provide both a casual and a more involved gaming experience.
• Has Several Levels of Complexity: while Minecraft doesn't aid the player's learning experience, it does provide several levels of complexity that can be accessed at any point in time. From the most basic to the highly complex, examples include the act of simply placing blocks, dealing with liquid physics, setting up a renewable economy, mine carts and redstone circuits. This variety lets gamers find a momentary niche (of interactions they are comfortable with, of goals that seem within their grasp) to test and improve their skill-set before trying on more complicated mechanics.
• Rewards the Application of Skill: it's no mystery that we are almost obsessively drawn to areas in which we can get better at; that alone is one of the reasons why games are popular, regardless of the negative image games and play (in general) still has for our society. Minecraft visibly rewards the acquisition and application of skill by allowing us to optimize processes (for better or faster gains) or access new goals as we get more skilled.
• Taps Into Our Need for Creative Work: most of the gameplay in Minecraft revolves around thinking about something awesome and finding the way to make that happen. I feel this is one of the most interesting aspects of Minecraft as it provides an abstract metaphor for one of the most meaningful activities we can be engaged in. Both the process and results of this kind of gameplay is much more meaningful and attractive because it would not exist without our unique input.
• Supports Making Aesthetic Statements: Minecraft not only allows you to virtually build something you've imagined but also gives you a decent set of tools to make the look and feel of it truly yours. This ability to create what you want and how you want it increases player buy-in and is, I believe, one of the prime reasons why this game has been so hard to put down for some people.

Final Thoughts

On the one hand I think that Minecraft offers an outlet for creative expression seldom found on other games right now; in that regard, it is a worthwhile game to try out, specially if you play it with some friends (here's for a less buggy multiplayer in the near future!) On the other hand, when we combine the high price of admission and a value per hour that just doesn't compare to other things offered in the market right now, I'm leery of recommending you to actually spend a lot of time with this title (and you will need a lot of time to get anything meaningful done.) Regardless, we are talking about a beta version of an already very playable (and enjoyable) game; I only the wish the best for the Minecraft folks and its customers.

Setting Mechanics in Play: Looking at inFamous

On Influencing the Environment I talked about influencing and modifying the environment on open world games and how it can increase player buy-in to this virtual worlds and thus better the experience these types of games want to provide. In this article, we'll take a brief look at inFamous (an open world game for PS3) and see some of these mechanics in play.

Looking at inFamous

inFamous is an interesting study case as its a game that includes several ways to handle environment mechanics. While I believe the implementation of these mechanics ended up being quite limited it serves as an excellent example because of how clear the interactions are defined.

The city in inFamous is divided in districts, the access to each of those marking a milestone in the progress of the single player campaign. Each district is divided in areas and each of these areas has 3 different states:

• Blacked Out: The area has no electrical power and enemies are much more powerful. Enemy trucks with mounted turret are deployed and large number of enemies patroll the streets and set up barricades. Cole can't drain electricity from electrical objects (even when charging them himself -not applied to regular metal objects charged by Cole-)
• Under Assault: The area has electrical power which allows Cole to use his abilities without limitation and recharge his powers. Enemies are found in clusters at the street level and stationary atop of buildings.
• Safe: The area has electrical power which allows Cole to use his abilities without limitation and recharge his powers. Enemies appear only rarely and do so in minimal numbers.

Dealing with the Blacked Out areas in inFamous is always tied to advancing the storyline and the player will have the power on the city completely restored by the time he has his final confrontation with the main villain. Turning Under Assault areas into Safe areas, on the contrary, is solely the realm of the various optional missions available for the player.

Each of these 3 states has both fictional and mechanical consequences for the player and getting as many areas to Safe as possible is attractive because of these multiple consequences. It should also be noted that the biggest payoff (turning Blacked Out areas into Under Assault areas) is tied up to the mandatory challenges while the useful, but not vital, reduction in crime is reserved for the optional objectives.

Final Thoughts

The result of this dynamic is a kind of momentum in the liberation of a district that manages to bridge the fiction and mechanics very well. As you restore the electricity and start making areas safer you obtain new powers and are able to navigate the city far more easily which in turn allows you to hunt for shards (a collectible that rewards the player with a bigger energy pool) and dead drops (a collectible that rewards the player with plot exposition.) By the same token starting on a new, completely blacked out, district usually instills a certain dread... a feeling that comes in the company of bigger and badder (as in MJ's bad, not worse bad) enemies and new traps awaiting the player.

Influencing the Environment

In the following piece I'll propose that the ability of a player to influence the environment through gameplay can be used to create more investment on the setting of an open-world game. While I feel that this result can be extended to other type of games in other genres, it is these kind of games that can better capitalize on this as well as the ones that need to achieve this sort of investment the most. 

Why This Works

A big part of the charm of open world games is that the environment and characters exists outside of the immediate gameplay needs of the directed portions of the game (i.e. missions.) In other words, the world and characters exist somewhat independently of the players and their gameplay goals, creating a stage for those goals that can be accessed at any time. This creates a separation between the story/campaign elements of the game (the directed parts) and the exploration/sandbox part of the game (the non directed parts.) Players can thus control the pacing of the game as they see fit by switching between mandatory and optional missions as well as by exploring and engaging the world directly through the possible interactions defined by the game.

Due to the emphasis on independent setting, for an open world game to interest the player fully it must get them to invest in this world (be interested in it enough that they seek to interact with it.) Giving the player the ability to modify/influence the environment is a prime way to do this because it gets them to apply their own creative agenda to the immediate context where the game happens (to a point where that action itself can become the game.) Letting the players attach a personal goal to a state of the environment and giving them the chance to pursue that goal through gameplay elements makes that environment more meaningful to them and increases their buy-in.

Interaction That Works

I believe that to maximize the effects of these mechanics we must design the results of these interactions to go beyond mere aesthetics and produce changes in the gameplay. Furthermore, the ability to modify the setting should be either clear in its procedures or include feedback mechanisms and enough wiggle room so that the player can learn from doing and reverse the result of his previous actions. We not only look to create the illusion of an environment that reacts to our actions but one over which we can act in pursue of our goals (which demands available information and a high degree of consistency.)

I see three main ways to implement these mechanics:

• They can be incorporated into the main gameplay. In this case, a series of objectives is provided by the game and the moving parts of the environment as well as their interactions with the player are defined to be functional to these objectives.
• They can be introduced as a sandbox element. The goal of this design is for the player to create personal goals related to the sandbox elements of the game. This requires a thorough definition of the moving parts of the environment (as well as their possible interactions) and a way for the player to access this information.
• They can be used as a resource players can tap into as a means to solve challenges. This comes as a sort of combination between the two previous cases, in which there are interactions that are independent of specific gameplay sections but that are also used in those sections as an optional (this is important) leverage.

I believe both the second and third options are the ones that provide a higher gain on world buy-in since they tap into the player's creativity and make him invest more into the experience of play. While these elements have already been explored by several games, we've still not seen a game with dynamic agents that pursue their goals and react to our environment interactions (perhaps even with interactions of their own.) Every game can benefit from enjoying higher levels of player buy-in (to its world) though perhaps not all games can pay the prices to generate this investment. I believe open world games can make these economics work should intelligent design decisions be made to put mechanics like these in play.