The First Game I Beat

While surfing Kotaku yesterday, I came across this interesting article. "What Was The First Game You Beat?" So, that got me thinking, what was the first game I beat? And then it dawned upon me - I had no idea! I kept thinking back and back and back. First, I thought back to my computer gaming days. First, I thought of Command and Conquer: Red Alert, which I quickly dismissed in favour of Warcraft 2. (I never finished Red Alert, but I did finish Warcraft 2.)

And then, I remembered - that there were games I played before that! EA Kids material and Wing Commander 2! I did complete Wing Commander 2, but there was a game a completed before that - Eagle Eye Mysteries! Oh, the wonders of old games.

I thought back even further - to my Micro Genius IQ1000 and Game Boy. I never truly beat any game on either of those consoles - Pokemon Yellow didn't come out until long after my first computer games were beaten. The only game I came close to beating on my Micro Genius was probably an arcade port of TMNT. I now have the XBLA trial version, and it's barely recognisable to me.

But there were games that I played that came on 5.25" diskettes. So, I can safely say that the first game I played and beat was some version of Math Maze. I'm not even sure if that's the name anymore. I know that it involved doing math, and going through a maze. And somehow, if you met a dragon and failed to answer the math question, it would be game over - and it'd play some version of Greensleeves to commemorate your death.

And that's the first game I beat. Math Maze. I think. If you could count that as a game.

The last game I beat? Well you all know that if you read the right sidebar - Mass Effect.

Why The Stress on Player Skill?

As a gamer, I find it rewarding when player skill and decisions make or break a battle. There is a feeling of achievement when it is an improvement in your own skill that leads to victory in a battle, not just the fact that your character is now of a higher level, or that your character is now equipped with more skills. I feel it is more rewarding that your own technique, methods and tactics have improved against a given enemy. However, it is also interesting and fun to be able try different things - using your own control. Turn-based is fun if the tactical element is great, but otherwise it gets boring and dry quickly - especially if your skill repetoire (like at the beginning of your game) is too limited, or if it is too varied, you have too many useless skills.

Having a smaller set of skills repeatable, but that both grow in power and vary in tactical value as time passes as well as more interesting movement styles and enemies. It's always interesting when a skilful player takes less time to grind than that of a new player, but knowing that the new player will catch up eventually in skill as well - and follow suit.

Having a system like this also introduces a new element. Because enemies will have to behave similar to players and behave in predictable patterns (unlike in an RPG), this opens up a new avenue, since enemy AI can have more flexibility and can create more of an interest in the enemy, compared to just knowing it's HP. This also means that I can have annoying enemies that die in one hit, but are difficulty to hit without a gun, for example, or enemies that are easy to hit, but difficult to take down.

Then of course, we have enemies that are unblockable, or attacks that not avoidable (but blockable or possible to resist against) in addition to more traditional buffs and debuffs that affect speed, damage, the ability to cast spells, and so on. All this test player skills considerably, and it wouldn't be an overstatement to say that a new player with a powerful character will be greatly mismatched and depending on how different the loadout is on the character - it is even possible that the new player will be unable to use the character at all!

(Of course, if it actually reached that stage, I'd say the game probably needs reworking on the ease of control.)

Mass Effect Completed

I've finished Mass Effect. Can't say I'm satisfied, but the fact that I completed the game is more than testament to how good it is. It's riddled with bugs, especially those involving collision detection (I think a nice physics engine, perhaps Havok, could help with that) - hopefully that's fixed by Mass Effect 2. I can't say I'm a fan yet, since I have no intention of collecting the trilogy or preordering the remaining planned two games. (By the way, why do so many of the biotic spells feel like Force powers? Hm....)

Mass Effect Playthrough

I've started playing Mass Effect lately, I think I'm about halfway on the storyline, not counting side quests. I can roughly see where the storyline is going, and it's not particularly brilliant, but it's still OK. The FPS controls could've been tighter, but it's sufficient. It's not an excellent game, but it's definitely above average.

Thinking about Something as Simple as a Game

This is obviously a scheduled post, since at this point in time I would've just arrived in Melbourne and should now be sleeping soundly on my bed. I'm obviously still very caught up in my idea to make a game. The last few posts I made talked about this Fantasy of War game, and I thought it's time to explain what I'm blabbering about. In truth, Fantasy of War is a codename for a storyline - obviously. Essentially, it's a really long storyline. I've probably explained this when I was talking about the story that I happened to also call Fantasy of War.

Being someone who wanted to make games, essentially, the Fantasy of War was my name for a series of games that went in a different direction from the Sword Fantasy games I have been planning and working on. To put it simply, I realised that I should have been pursuing the Fantasy of War codename games first, simply because they are simpler, easier to work with (to make an enjoyable game out of) and should have been my goal to begin with - and I wouldn't be stuck with this all talk, no action that developing an RPG like Sword Fantasy is making me do.

So how many types of game projects have I been fantasizing about? Plenty. All of them are in three main categories - named Sword Fantasy, Fantasy of War and (I shall decline to reveal the name for now). Fantasy of War is by far the largest category - and the category under which I have the most games under, and the most diverse set among the 3.

So which one is this supposed to be in this category? As of far, this is supposed to be chronologically the first in the story - while there are story parts in 'future' games that flashback to before this, in terms of present time, this is the first. It is greatly different from the rest. Fantasy of War is unique to me in the sense that I built the storyline first, then build the game idea around it.

Why haven't I built a puzzle game yet, considering my love for those kind of games? Because if I built a desktop one, I'd never play it. My experience with handhelds is very little, the DS has no support for homebrew, and the other two portable devices I own - the PSP and PocketPC, I have no idea how to program for yet. While I do love programming games (and although I've never released anything), I find little point in working on something I won't play myself (how else would I find bugs - not enough people visit my site or read my blog to realise that I'm actually doing anything anyway, especially since I haven't actually released anything to the public).

That's not saying what I'm going to build I'll play much, chances are I'll work it up to a fully playable version that's pretty rough around the edges - hopefully I'll get somewhere. As with all things, I can't work it up immediately to where I want it to go, still being inexperienced, but I'll start small and try to get the battle system working by the end of this year. :P