While I did talk a lot about how my racing game didn't get picked for FIEA, I've yet to talk about the games that have. Here are the ten games that I must pick from. None of them I'm truly enthusiastic about but whatever. I must pick my poison.
1. 1st Edition: A Megaman-style sidescroller in which you create your own superhero(es) and pick up powers to use. It's supposed to be a colorful game, plus I'm good friends with the guy who pitched it so this'll be my likely game. Superheroes are okay in my book so this pick gets major kudos from me.
2. Apocalypse Valley: A Facebook isometric strategy game. You're supposed to defend villagers from volanoes, earthquakes, tidal waves, whatever. Nonetheless it will be a colorful game. I don't know. I hate Facebook but considering the rest of the awful games to choose from, I must take this one seriously.
3. Battle Fortress Tortoise: You play as a bunch of tribal gnomes/elves who ride on gigantic tortoises with cannons on them. The evil hyenas are trying to kill the tortoises so you must fight back at them. Either that or you fight against opposing elves & tortoises. Don't really know about the gameplay but the guy who pitched this is also a good friend who rated my racing game 1st on his list. So I feel better about this game already.
4. Corporate Defense: It's the future and corporations fight amongst each other for government contracts. This involves sending robots out to destroy other robots. In the process, robots destroy the city by mistake (like Godzilla). You use voice commands to indirectly control them. This game was pitched by an art student who was supposedly too scared to speak so he convinced the teacher to do so instead. And guess what--he's also planning to have others present for him in the Top 10 pitches. I have no interest in this game--it's a suck-up arty-farty game the whole way. G**-DAMN ROBOTS!!!
5. Junction: A puzzle/action adventure game with plenty of objects colored red, yellow, or blue (Wonder Bread!). You put on red/yellow/blue glasses to render any one of those three colors "invisible." So put on red glasses to make way to the red machine gun BUT you can't walk on a red bridge. Okay, I guess. Feels Portal-ish but otherwise, not a very involved game.
6. Pantheon: A Kinect 300/Lord of the Rings style war game. You move armies with your hands and then slash at other players during battle. Features infantry, calvary, artillery, and giant trolls/monsters. Just think about it--dark gritty colors AND Kinect = a resounding NO.
7. Penned: An "educational" action/adventure game. You play as a librarian (a hot babe librarian, mins the hot part) who has to fight evil forces, or something. You go into books like Lord of the Rings or Gulliver's Travels. At many points in the game, you are asked to fill in a sentence with one of three vocabulary words. Depending on what word you pick, the action changes. EDIT: For instance, you'll be given a few adjectives to describe an enemy and depending on your selection, the boss changes in scope (strong, weak, absurd). All the vocabulary is taken from an ACT Prep Book. You gotta be kidding me. GAMES ARE FUN. QUIZZES ARE NOT FUN. PUT THEM TOGETHER AND IT SUCKS. The ridiculous artwork this game got lots of artists' votes, that's for sure.
8. Plushy Knight: You play as a stuffed animal who partners up with a girl. The protagonist fights while the girl heals/casts spells. You both go around fighting evil monsters under the bed. The "customize your own character" aspect is what appealed to many artists. I give this a resounding "meh". Plus the pitch was half-assed in every sense of the word. Plus the presenter is one of these big, macho dudes you met in high school thus he kind of gets on my nerves (we are still "friends" though).
9. Shades of Gray: Zelda-style dungeon crawler. The catch is that shadows come into play. For instance, if your sword's shadow clips the monster's shadow, you "kill" the monster. You can throw the lantern down to change where the shadows go. The idea sounds okay but it reeks of fantasy/medieval/Nintendo/Square nerd-gasms. I pass.
10. Sky Men: It's the gritty future (*shoots self*) and there's an evil scientist out to kill everyone. Or something. So you play as these Iron Man-type good guys who fly in the air and fight robots. Psssh. The presentation for this game absolutely sucked too. Guy didn't talk at all--just played a short video with some awkward subtitles.
NO MORE SWORDS!!! NO MORE ROBOTS!!! OH MY GOD!!! WHY MAKE WAR WHEN YOU CAN JUST DRIVE???
So that's it. Which games do I pick? 1st Edition and Battle Fortress Tortoise are my Top 2 picks, then Apocalypse Valley, then MAYBE Junction, then a steep drop where everything else remains. Odds are super-good that at least one of my favorites make the Top 5 and that I'll get to work with them.
NOTE: It's worth saying that slight adjustments can be made to each of these games for the Top 10 presentations. It's up to the presenters to make their game more marketable, I guess. So take these descriptions with a grain of salt.
My guesses on which ones make the Top 5: 1st Edition, Battle Fortress Tortoise, Pantheon, Plushy Knight, Shades of Gray.
I'll let you know what goes on later...they're not picking games until December, you remember?
Hmm...
ReplyDelete1) That can be an interesting one. The create/pick your own superhero and powers sounds simple and has potential.
2) Strategy's never really been my cup of tea, but I can't deny that they have their audience. Facebook addiction + game addiction = could be "successful" but at the expense of other things. I have a love/hate thing with the apocalypse. Love it when it's futuristic apocalypse (things inspired by Akira like Last Resort, Sonic CD), hate it when you simply take things from today, destroy them, and call it the FUTURE.
3) Pfft, you're biased ;). Just kidding. Gameplay wise might not sound cutting-edge revolutionary OMG brand spanking new, but the idea wins style points for me. Cute turtles with cannons and explosions, I have to admit I'm a sucker for that kind of contrast... with the exception of Lollipop Chainsaw, that just makes me want to go fishing with explosives.
4) Corporations. Wow. Can't say it's a winning theme, and doesn't sound like it took long to think of. Robots like Godzilla? Wonder what that was inspired by. That can be a major win or lose if you can grab the intended audience, which doesn't seem wide. Voice command sounds good on paper but in execution sounds risky.
5) The idea sounds interesting but, based on the description, not as thought out as it might need to be, if not a bit vague. Needs a bit more substance.
6) Wouldn't be surprised if this one won people over, as much as I'd hate to say it. Give people more of what they're familiar with. I can see how this would win people who want more interactivity in their dungeon-sword-medieval fantasy games, but how many of these do we really need?
7) Instantly reminded of I.M. Meen, a never-ending exhilarating experience that will have your heart racing :p. I remember the Encyclopedia Britannica CD that came with our Windows 95 computer had a game in it, going room by room of your choice answering questions to reach the stairs for the next floor. Usually history, and it was actually pretty addictive. In this case, I may be into art, but it's gotta be fun, too. Unless the art is THAT GOOD that it's worth the quizzes to see what's next; the reward so to say. But not easy to pull off, and not always worth it, and it's here that many have tried and failed.
8) I can't remember what it's called, but I'm reminded of an XBLA game released a while back where you're in a colorful fantasy world, and you have your main character, you also have some hulking golem at your command to crush enemies. Looked pretty and colorful but didn't grab me for some reason. Sounds similar to that. As for the pitch, sounds like more style over substance.
9) Yeah, from the sound of it, players would probably notice the Zelda/FF similarities enough to overlook the gameplay itself. If your game reminds players of something else, whether it's looks, style or gameplay, good luck surviving that.
10) This could actually be pretty fun if this was a deliberately over-the-top cheesy superhero arcade style game intended to totally lampoon itself.
Come to think of it no one's really done robots here at all. I'm guessing everyone over there is all about the Transformers craze or something? Something tells me it's not Gundam or Virtual-On.