And don't even get me started on your exploding frogs and flaming bats.
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Why Would You Even

by Sean on May 18, 2012 at 12:01 am
Posted In: Comics

So, Diablo 3 has been released. I have heard from Matt since then, but only while playing the game WITH him… so he may still be in trouble here.

Matt has chosen to play a Witchdoctor as his main class. On the whole it seems to be working out very well for him, and I have to say that the class looks a lot of fun when we’re playing alongside him.

But, in a game about beating up monsters… the Witchdoctor has some very unorthodox ways to do so. Apparently, hitting things with pointy objects does not appeal to him, and he chooses instead to deal death in more creative fashions. I’ll list a few them now.

1: Conjuring bats out of nowhere and flinging them at the enemy engulfed in flame.

2: Producing handfuls of frogs that hop toward enemies, and then explode violently.

3: Tossing large jars full of spiders at his enemies.

There are more attacks in his repertoire, but these are the ones I’ve seen the most of while playing with him. I’d be lying if I said that any of them really made sense to me, but the spider jars just creep me out.

I suppose what bothers me is that he’s not just conjuring these spiders from nothing… he has them in JARS. This seems to imply he’s collecting them… storing them… and then carrying the jars with him for this purpose.

Bottom line, I’m rather glad I didn’t go for witchdoctoring as a profession. I probably would have done very poorly with that section of it.

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DESCEND: Downward Paths

by Matt on May 8, 2012 at 12:25 pm
Posted In: Words

What's Down There? Birth of a dungeon crawler.

I’m gonna let you in on a cool project called DESCEND.

Trevor, one third of the wonderful band Natural Wood, one fourth of a perfect Left 4 Dead team, and a friend of mine, is making a game. That’s, like, a whole game. From whole cloth, or bits and bytes and code and pixels or something in this case, I guess.

Most people know that a game is usually made by one hundred and one million people. But occasionally, you’ll see titles made mostly or entirely by one person. Those stories are always captivating. It’s because making a game requires so many disciplines, with coding, art, ui and graphic design, management, etc. I’d make that list more complete but I’ve never tried making a game, and that’s certainly the only way to know what it takes.

Being as its creator is a fan of dungeon crawling and particularly of random worlds, DESCEND is a side-scrolling dungeon crawler. It’s going to have a lot of roguelike qualities, like the random maps, and Trevor’s focus, judging from a conversation we had this weekend, is detail.

He’s aiming for animations fitting each weapon type, as opposed to just windmilling at enemies with a halberd the same way as with a sword. He wants most or all weapons to allow for a couple types of attack, quick or charged for instance, giving combat a little more depth than the common template for dungeon crawlers.

Thus far, Trevor’s only planned foray into getting help from others with DESCEND is to test his online capabilities. He’s aiming to be an army of one, I think.

DESCEND Inventory Screen

It’s early days yet, but it’s pretty exciting to watch him go. Most recently, he’s been working on the basics of getting a server to send out a map to clients. But a few times he’s jumped ahead and posted updates like this and other peeks into the game. Right now, the fun part of this for all of us is that he’s blogging the experience, letting us see how it’s coming along and giving insight into what he’s learning to get this done. Did you miss the link? It’s right up top. Go click it!

Bookmark the page. It’s a pretty good read and there are upcoming opportunities to help test things.

- Matthew (RAP)

 

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