Project 19 - Pong - Phase 1

Project 19 - Pong

I am implementing Pong. Yes, that Pong. I’m implementing it both for fun, but also because it’s going to be necessary for a project for work in the fairly new future.

I figured since I was implementing Pong, I might as well make a project out of it. As a bonus since my implementation is basically finished, I get a free finished project out of the deal.

I decided, as is my wont, to work in Processing.org. This is pretty much my go to platform whenever I need to prototype something or do a thing with quick interactions. I’m also educating myself about P5.js which is proving to be fun as well.

My original take was to work with vectors, which has exposed me to all of the linear algebra I didn’t learn or have forgotten. This will also be helpful for my Bubble Puzzler work (which apparently I haven't updated here, to my surprise). I then remember that my Phase 2 for this project is to have a working version of Pong on the Atari ST, and so I’d be better off handling things like coordinates and motion as simple variables. You can find the source in on GitHub.

// player positions on the screen
int p1Y;
int p2Y;
int p1X;
int p2X;

// paddle display information
int paddleW = 10;
int paddleH = 75;

// player scores
int p1Score = 0;
int p2Score = 0;

// ball position on the screen and motion
int ballX;
int ballY;
int ballMoveX;
int ballMoveY;

int ballSize = 10;

Within the program my code is fairly basic, I’m relying on processing’s control of the framerate, and basically assign the ball a speed between 2 and -2 on the y axis and 2 and -2 on the x axis. This feels like a fairly workable implementation of speed, although increasing it as the game goes on would be an option (I suspect an actually competitive game would go on for quite a while).

The ball bounces off the top wall and off the paddles. If the ball hits a paddle near the edge (about 1/8th of its total length) then it bounces in the y direction as well as the x.

void bouncePaddle(int paddleX, int paddleY) {
    // bounces the ball off the paddle 
   if (((ballX + ballSize >= paddleX) && (ballX <= paddleX + paddleW)) && 
              ((ballY + ballSize >= paddleY) && (ballY <= paddleY + paddleH))) 
        {
     ballMoveX *= -1;
     
     // reflects the ball back on the y axis if it hits near the edge of the paddle
     // mostly for fun, not sure it was in pong, but I enjoy it in most clones
     if ((ballY + ballSize < (paddleY + (paddleH / 8))) || 
         (ballY + ballSize > (paddleY + 7 * (paddleH / 8)))) {
       ballMoveY *= -1;
     }
     
   }
   
}

This produces enough interesting effects that I’m calling this phase of the project done.

That being said, in the short term, I suppose I need some more inputs because solitaire pong seems not-too much fun. Beyond that I think that’s probably it for the Processing.org implementation. My next priority is to prepare to produce the Atari ST version of the game. I would also like to produce a version of Breakout because that seems fun and possibly also add in a few interesting visual effects.

I should be done the AtariST version by early January because I need my students to start on their projects by then.

Project 16: Covert Action in Space: Update 2

I've been working on my Covert Action in Space project and reached the point where I wanted to be able to see a graph of the spaces I'm generating. Particularly, when I was working on my first system, it was difficult to get a feeling for how the spaces work (or if they worked). At first I had been thinking that I’d look and find a simple algorithm to draw a graph and then implement that in something simple like Processing. Fortunately, poor google-fu prevented me from finding a good algorithm and instead I found GraphViz.

I'm not sure I want to work here, but I'd look for their industrial secrets.

Despite that tweet, I managed to keep my wits about me and realize that I don’t need to create my own graphing system, I just want to see a graph of the space layout. So instead of spending time learning a graphing algorithm and dealing with all of the problems that’s likely to create, now I just need to output a simple text file and let the magic happen.

GraphViz is great. It’s capable of doing a lot of stuff of which I only need it to do a little bit. To output, I need to make a list of all room connections and put it in GraphViz’s dot format. Internally I’m keeping this information in a map so that each entry has all of the rooms that a room connects to. This produces duplicates in the list, but using the strict keyword GraphViz automatically ignores those.

The code to generate the dot file works out to be quite simple.

And the dot file for the graph up top. Again I'm not particularly stressing GraphViz.

As I said, this makes it really easy to look at how spaces are connected and how those spaces work. I’m really glad I was able to get this working without needing to spend too much time on it.

The next job from here is to start laying out an actual floor plan based on the given space. I have a rough plan, basically starting with a default shape for each room and then expanding them to fit together. I can probably come up with something more complex, but as with the space generation, I’d like to start simple.

Project 16: Covert Action in Space: Update 1

I spent quite a bit of time working on my first approach to procedurally generating spaces. I based a lot of what I did on [this paper] and ended up with a system that worked, but that ended up pretty complicated. It had a system for creating an arbitrary hierarchy of spaces, as well as an arbitrary rules engine, which provided systems for determining how rooms were connected to the outside and each other.

I had already finished that work when I first posted about the project and I thought I'd keep working with that system. I realized, though, that solution was overbuilt and over complicated. So I ended up spending a quick evening rewriting it. The arbitrary hierarchy was very difficult to maintain and creating rules that abstractly described space was frustrating, so I dropped all of that and went back to figure out what I needed to make a minimal viable product.

If my goal is to play with guard AI, then I need space for the guards to guard, furniture to play hide and seek in, graphics to see what's going on and some AI. Plus possibly an interface to play.

The new system was a little messy, but thanks to a timely beer with a friend who had just been reading Uncle Bob, I came out with a nice clean system. I now have:

• A model which describes how to make a space:
• Model rooms which include a room name and a probability that the room should be on the space. 
• A space that includes:
• A list of rooms and a map 
• A constructor that builds a space based on a given model 

The first question I had was would it still be interesting. And I think (at least for limited test situations) it is. Using a basic model of a Hall (with probability 1.0), Office (0.75), Storage Room (0.6), Lounge (0.5) and Bathroom (0.25), it has provided an interesting set of rooms and connections that, I think, could each provide an interesting encounter in a game.

At this point, I’m just producing the text outputs of the system, but I think the above sampling produces something “interesting”. My evaluation for “interesting” right now is: Can I imagine how an interaction between my spy and a bad guy would go down in that space. For the samples above I think I can, and I think with more models, I can expand the interest of the space.

My system has a known bug right now in that it isn’t guaranteed to produce a fully connected graph of rooms. I think that’s a quick thing that I should fix in the near future. Other than that my next step is to put together a quick graph viewer to show how the rooms connect. Once that’s finished then it’s on to expanding the graphs to physical space.

Project 16: Covert Action in Space

Sid Meyer has a rule, the Covert Action Rule. The Covert Action Rule basically says don’t make Covert Action.

So the next big thing I want to make is basically a recreation of Covert Action. Covert Action in Space.

In covert action you play a super spy (or super agent … or super counter-agent … or something). Each month you’re given a mission and some basic clues. Then you have to stop the bad guys from doing whatever they’re doing. If you succeed you get a clue about the current mastermind plotting the crimes. Once you’ve figured out who and where the mastermind is you can grab them and wrap up that crime spree. Then some other mastermind starts up again the next month.

Now, I’m trying to finish a PhD, so it’s a really stupid time to take up making a game, but that’s where the Covert Action Rule comes in. Basically the point behind the Covert Action Rule is that it’s hard for the player to remember what they’re doing when they have to keep switching between generally unrelated minigames, so make sure that your player always knows what they’re supposed to be doing (XCOM also falls into this territory).

My thought is that given limited time and attention, making a collection of interesting minigames, seems like a good idea. I can work on one minigame when I have time and I don’t have to worry too much about making the whole thing hang together. It should be good practice getting a game made without worrying too much about making the game good.

As for the “in Space” part. I have a sci-fi world sitting around in my head, with a few stories I’d been meaning to write (and a few I’ve managed to put up here). It seemed like a good way to modernize a game that had fallen into abandonware and give it an interesting spin. Rather than having to fight 1990s terrorist across Europe, you could fight space terrorist across the Terran Empire.

The original game had four main minigames; one where you infiltrate people’s offices, stealing their information and possibly arresting them, one where you drive through the city either trying to capture someone or avoiding your own capture, one where you have to swap chips out to trace a car or bug a landline, and one where you have to decrypt messages doing a simple substitution cypher.

I think there are a lot of fun things that could be done after to stretch the game and make it a little more playable than the original. Before that however I want build the original four minigames and get a skeleton basically. Of the four, I’d like to start with the infiltration minigame, and especially with a little bit of fun procedurally generating offices (possibly to do different things) and building up a guard AI.

Due to a mishearing, I accidentally created the mascot for this project. The Flurpin.

I’ve started a bit over the last few months and I have a rough system together that takes requirements for buildings and is able to generate a procedural room graph, that connects all the rooms, but doesn’t actually build a floor plan yet. My next short term goal is to finish creating the floorplans from the graphs. Given that I still have a PhD to finish and this is mostly a “watching TV with the laptop out” activity, I’m hoping to wrap up this the floor plan generation by October 15, 2017.

Blog: Thoughts on The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess

I had so much fun playing The Wind Waker, that I started playing The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess right afterwards. Unfortunately  I didn't find it to have quite the fun and the charm of it's predecessor. It's a good game, but I think it's a bit of a reactionary swing to try to make a game that was darker and "more like Ocarina".

From GameFAQs user Tropicon

As always with my thoughts on video games, there will be spoilers for The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess below. Also note that I played the Wii version, so I will be grumbling about motion controls.

Things I Liked

Sadly, while the game was fun, there were not a lot of things I really liked while playing Twilight Princess. I'm not sure how much of that is that I feel like it's a low point between Wind Waker and Skyward Sword (maybe it needed an alliterative title...).

Though it's a little silly, one of my favourite parts of the game was canoeing. It's not a mechanic that's used very much, once in the main story and after that only in a side quest, but it feels surprising intuitive and fun. I think I also like the idea of Link having to take more and different modes of transportation as he travels around the world.

The game was effective at conveying a sense of being lost in the Lost Woods. Simply taking away the map you've been relying on for the majority of the game and then connecting the areas in the woods using paths at different altitudes (you always have to go up or down) makes it much harder to track where you are. You're also kept distracted by a constant enemy that follows you rather than is tied to the rooms of the dungeon. I thought it was effective and a good idea.

The final boss fight of the game was good and was probably the strongest fight in the game. The phase where you fight Puppet!Zelda is a little cumbersome, but generally feels like you're being given a fair chance (although it's a lot slower than other Zelda games because of the motion controls).

The fight against Boar!Gannon is pretty good. I like using the bow to stun him, but I found that there were a couple of problems with the camera during this part of the fight. I also found that they might have changed up the fight mechanics a little too quickly since I usually figured out what was going on just as they changed to the next things.

The horseback fight was epic but was frustrating to play.  The one-on-one sword fight against Gannondorf was very good and felt like the best fight in the game. I felt like I was matched against an opponent as strong as I was and I felt like there was a genuine, uncheated challenge.

This Link, is ready for business - From GameFAQs user Sitchey

Things I Didn't Like

The motion controls were the thing I most consistently didn't like in Twilight Princess. Everything feels wrong and feels like it's the motion controls were bolted on (which they were, since this was supposed to be a Game Cube game). The "swing as button press" problem was prevalent throughout the early Wii era and generally makes the game feel like you might or might not have made the right motion at the right time.

Even the pointing controls are not that good. I found a lot of the time it was very difficult to actually point at the thing I wanted to point at. Sometimes it felt awesome and I was able to hit an enemy with the bow and arrow from a great distance, but often enough I just tried to aim while my reticule bounced around the screen. I may also have gotten used to being able to move and shoot while playing the HD remake of Wind Waker, so having to stop and aim also annoyed me.

I also found that the Z-targeting still doesn't work that well. The game and I seem to disagree on what was the most threatening things were and which one I should fight first. I think the game's reliance on swarms of enemies also caused this since you'd have to Z-target through a lot of little things to get to the one big one that you might want to fight.

I think the "special attacks" were also not as well implemented as they were in Wind Waker (or at least as they were in the HD remake). In the attack where you roll behind the enemy in Wind Waker you automatically stopped right behind the enemy, in Twilight Princess you often end up rolling most of the way around the side and out of the range where you can attack the enemy from behind. I think this was an effort to give the player more control, but it ends up making it harder to play the game.

Of course the smartest creature in the Zelda universe is part chicken. - From GameFAQs user BlueGunstarHero

The other place where a little assist from the game would have been nice is in jumping off edges. There were several times where I was trying to jump from one platform to another or to step out onto a rope and I was angled wrong and fell to my death. A little assist from the game would have been nice, even if the Wii (or I guess the GameCube) wasn't powerful enough to animate the little steps I loved in Ni No Kuni.

Aside from the control problems, Twilight Princess is really really padded out. The game took me around 50 hours to complete and I don't think that the game has enough real content to justify that time. Fighting is slow, especially when you're a wolf. They send in swarms of enemies. There are enemies that have to be killed using two different weapons. They put big chest full of tiny amounts of Rupies at the end of long dead ends in dungeons. Set pieces respawn when you leave and return to an area. They insist on tell you every time you start the game how much the different colours of Rupies are worth (bug or feature, you be the judge). Even the most basic part of a Zelda game is stretched out: you find five pieces of heart instead of four.

The padding got so bad during the Sky Temple that I just about quit playing the game. It took me three evenings to get through because the design required so much switching between items and so much mindless busy work going from one area to another. I also ended up going back though the temple to make sure that I didn't leave any pieces of heart behind only to discover that the hard to reach chests held Rupies that I couldn't use.

Zelda games, in general, have a problem with knowing when and how to end. You can usually defeat the last boss 15 hearts and 3/4s of the bottles. Is it worth it to get 100%? Sometimes that can be the fun, but I found especially with Twilight Princess it just never felt rewarding to try. Do I need 120 bombs? Probably not.

Things I Noticed

The biggest thing I noticed about Twilight Princess is that it really needs an HD remake. There are some places in the game where you're shown the beautiful vistas (especially in the desert and the mountains) but then everything else looks blurry and aliased. Similarly I think switching to full dual-stick control, like in Wind Waker, would make a lot of the play more pleasant. The palette of the game is also quite dull ("Call of Duty: Hyrule" brown) in a lot of places, and a little more vibrancy to the world would also improve the game.

It's just a little muddy, it's still good! - From GameFAQs user Casoonie

Another thing that an HD remake might help with is the animation. Link and Gannondorf are really well animated in the game play and the cutscenes at the end of the game, but Zelda isn't. Link and Gannondorf will have an interesting interaction and then Zelda will get a gasp of dull surprise. Simillarly in other parts of the game, Link looks great and moves fairly smoothly through the environment, but the NPCs look blocky and uncoordinated. If there ever is an HD remake I hope they brighten everyone up.

The game also has a problem with how power strong Link is. Basically Link is too strong for most of the enemies in the game. To compensate for this they add more enemies to the fights, which is either not challenging, or becomes unfairly challenging since one enemy's unbreakable block animation will protect another and there's nothing Link can do to fight back. This shows up particularly with the Darknuts where fighting two or three or five of them gets unfairly difficult. It also shows up in the horse combat sections, where the challenge comes from dealing with so many attackers that you can't see hot to defend yourself.  They were much better at handling combat difficulty in Skyward Sword.

I think it's interesting that this is the "darkest" Zelda. There's a lot more explicit death than in most of the other games (The Zora Queen actually tells you "I was executed"). I think a lot of this was to combat the feeling some people had to Wind Waker being too "kiddy". On the one hand I think it's interesting to see slightly more adult themes taken on in a Zelda game, but honestly I think it's the kind of things where you could split into two IPs, retaining lightness in Zelda and handling more complex or adult themes in a new IP. That being said, I don't think Nintendo is actually that interested in making games for grown-ups.

One part of the game that doesn't feel either for kids or for grown-ups, is the way gender and sexuality are handled in the game. I was particularly bothered by one scene in the game where Renaldo confides in Link that he's terrified of Temla because she flirts with him. If there were any other references to flirting or sexuality in the game, this could just a reaction by a religious man to a flirtatious woman, but it is pretty much the game's only reference to sexuality.

Beyond this, a lot of the female character's designs seem to be more for the sake of teenaged male interested than driven by character. The two instances that particularly bother me were the Great Fairy and Adult Midna. In the case of the Great Fairy, we're usually (in other games) expected to understand that her power and her magic and her strength of personality are so strong that Link is simply in awe of her. Here, the way she's portrayed feels significantly less powerful and I was left feeling that the whole depiction of her was very juvenile. In the same was Adult Midna is revealed with a pan up her body, which again feels juvenile when compared to her story and why she's able to transform from her imp form back into her "true" self. (Also interesting that no other Twili seem to have breasts, or any other distinctive body parts, for that mater).

I did think that the character of Zelda was handled very well here. Generally Nintendo is pretty good about having Zelda be at least a somewhat active participant in the world (since Ocarina of Time), but often at some point in the game she gets captured through some moment of weakness. Here, that still happens, but it's part of an active choice on her part. She gives up her powers to restore Midna's. That being said, Zelda could still be a much more active protagonist of the game, but at least her absence isn't strictly due to the need to find a maiden to rescue.

While we're looking for protagonists of the game, I'm left with a question: Why isn't Midna the protagonist of the game? You can probably actually categorize her as the protagonist since she's the one who drives the plot and makes all the important decisions. Link is just along for the ride.

Our Hero. - From GameFAQs user Tropicon

Consider the same game as presented, but shown from Midna's point of view. The Queen, cast out of her kingdom, struggling to save another kingdom, while gaining the power she needs to fight off the evil invaders. That just sounds like a more interesting game to me. I think that couples with the feeling that you could split this and have a new, more grown up IP.

Finally I've decided that Link needs a pet cat. This came to me while I was standing in Link's house early in the game (and I think for the last time). Link tends to be an outsider in the Zelda games and while I understand the appeal of the orphan on the hero's journey, I think the games could all be improved by giving him a reason to care about the world. 

Things I'd Include in a Game

The biggest thing I'd take from Twilight Princess in canoeing, or at least I'd like to take different modes of transportation that break up the game in interesting ways. Still I think the most fun I had playing Twilight Princess was falling down that river. Maybe I need to get out more.

Beyond that I like the amount of space you get in Twilight Princess. I like that going from one place to another is a significant journey. I'm not sure you need to implement it in quite the way they have. I occasionally felt frustrated when I was sent back and fourth across country and I think a lot of that had to do with the little fights they put in to "keep it interesting". I think you don't need quite as much physical space as they used nor as much "interest", but I do like having significant journeys in a game.

Final Thoughts

Twilight Princess is fun.  I think compared to some of the other Zelda games, it makes you work too hard to get at that fun. I also think it's a game where they tried to make something more mature and ended up splitting the direction of the game. For now, at least, it's the Zelda game I'd least like to go back and replay.

Project Update Post

As always I seem to get behind on projects, but in the last few months I've managed to start picking things up again. So I'm going to reorganize my deadlines again today and reorganize a few of the projects.

• Project 5 - SNES Coasters
• I have actually gotten as far as beading and fusing my new larger format test coaster. Now it needs a backing and then I'll give it a test for a little while to see if it develops the same cupping that the smaller ones. 
• I'm going to try to get the backing on in the next week and then I'll test it for a month or so.  I'm going to set the deadline to see if I make more / bigger ones on July 17, 2015.

• Project 12 - Chrono Trigger Sprites
• I've finally made some progress. Last night in fact I actually spent about 2 hours beading the beginning of a 1x1 Chrono sprite. This is giving me a chance to see what works and how the colours look (little problem there, but I'll give a longer update once I get everything done).

Coming together.

• Progress is happening so I hope to have the 1x1 sprite and update done by June 23, 2015.

• Project 13 - Bubble Puzzle
• I'll get back to it and I'm putting it on hold for the time being.

• Project 14 - Sketch Fiction
• I originally was calling this flash fiction, but based on the lack of ... plot in the stuff I've been writing I wasn't sure if flash fiction counted. I ran across an article on "sketch fiction" which I'm repurposing as a term for what I'm turning out.
• As you might have guess from the above, I have actually written a bit. I have one sketch done and ready to go an others "in the pipeline". I'm going to try to do six sketches in the next little while, rather than one a month like I'd originally posted. I'd like to try to have all six posted by August 1, 2015.

• New Projects
• I have two (and a half) new projects I've either started or would like to start. I'll put up proper posts for them soon. 

Blog: Thoughts on Secret of Mana

Last year I returned to one of my favourite games of all time, Secret of Mana. It was one of the first RPGs I played on the Super Nintendo and it's one of the games that has stuck with me the most since. I have played it at least half a dozen times and started it up more often than that. It's one of those games where I spent hours looking for all the secrets and all the ways to break and bend the game. My nostalgia goggles for this game are pretty strong, so I may be biased in my assessment, but I still think is one of the best games ever made.

Secret of Mana - GameFaqs user PeTeRL90

Secret of Mana is also a game that has influenced my creativity. The first time I thought about writing fan fiction it was for this game (it's long lost, no way to find it, don't ask). It's also the game that has influenced how I would like to make an action RPG in the future. While it doesn't do everything perfectly, it's a very well executed game and I think it has a lot to offer when thinking about creating video games.

As always with my thoughts on video games, please expect spoilers for all of Secret of Mana below.

Things I Liked

I love the style of Secret of Mana. The game's music is astoundingly good, and is used to great effect to reinforce the feelings the player should have as they play. Early in the game you start out, after being ejected from your village, walking through green hills, fighting killer rabites and mushrooms and getting thrown into passing goblins' stew pots and the music is light and sets a tone of setting out on an adventure. Later, you'll walk through caves and forests, visit terrifying ruins where cults are absorbing the souls of the villagers and temples where you find surprise allies.

Don't trust its cute looks. That rabite a killer! - GameFaqs user MagicianMayLee

Later in the game, when you're the only one who can save the world you have to fight though the heart of the enemy's castle. Then you have to find your inner reserves in the pure lands  the power you need to fight though the enemy's psychedelic flying fortress and then you have to fight the terrifying final boss.

Visually the game also supports these feelings. Sprites area always big and bright and you're never left wondering where you are or what you're supposed to fight. The game gets darker as it goes on and you leave the Ghibli hills heading to more intense areas, but it always looks like you have an adventure in store everywhere you go.

Beyond its style, Secret of Mana also shines when it comes to combat. It's incredibly satisfying to be able to step into an enemy who's charging at you and knock a bunch of big orange numbers out of them. The timer that has to recharge between hits is slow by modern standards, but I still like the flow of attack, wait, attack, wait. Using the charged attacks also feels good since you're able to channel tension into making a stronger attack knocking more numbers out and frequently simply slicing through your enemies like they weren't even there. Playing through this recent time I was probably quite over-leveled but I certainly enjoyed being able to take down all those enemies that gave me trouble as a child.

It's time to fight! - GameFaqs user Storm Shadow

One aspect of combat that I particularly like is the use of status ailments. You can be poisoned, confused, immobilized, frozen, or set on fire. They're all immediately identifiable and you are as able to inflict them on your enemies as they are on you. Poisoned, frozen and on fire form a trio, when poisoned you lose health, when frozen you can't act and when on fire you lose health and can't act. They form a basic set of conditions to make combat more interesting without leaving you confused about what's happening and why.

The confused status effect is interesting since it changes the inputs on your controller, so if you're careful and organized you can still cope, but you always end up out of control for a second or two as you re-adjust, when first confused and then again when you stop being confused. Immobilization also fun since you're immobilized by being tied to a balloon, but you can still attack.

The game is also very good about managing tension, particularly by using frequent boss fights. I like this because you always feel like the skills you're developing fighting the little enemies are paying off. You also have a reason to save your magic, knowing that there will be something big to fire it at soon. It also helps pull you through the game since there's always an interesting fight on the horizon.

Secret of Mana also uses (pioneered?) the ring menu. Rather than having to go out to a menu, it's nice to have items, powers and even system options just pop up around your character in game. The icons are easy to identify and other than having trouble remembering where the rings are in relation to each other (do I go up or down to get the items?) I find it to be really fast to get heal up and jump back into combat.

I also like the characters in the game, both the playable ones and the NPCs. They might not be as well developed as in a lot of later games (more on this in the Things I Noticed section), but there's a lot of charm to them all. I recognize that this is probably the aspect of the game that my nostalgia goggles distort the most, but I still find that I'm invested in them. I want to see the good guys survive and do well and I want to take down, or redeem the bad guys. Characterization has certainly been done better but the number of NPCs I still remember, years after playing the game feels very high compared to a lot of other games.

Secret of Mana is one of the first games I can remember with 3 player co-op. While I didn't get to do it too often, being able to play the game with friends was great and it certainly made a lot of things easier when you were able to work with a real person. It's a pretty common element of gameplay today, but back then it was another factor that made me love this game.

Other than the game, I also happened to own  the Prima Player's Guide (picked when it got discarded at the Library, after having borrowed it on and off for years). While I didn't need it to play through the game, I love the way it's written as a story of the characters journeying through the world (going on that adventure). It makes the technical information of how to get past problems in the game more fun. It has a bunch of concept art which also helped me get into the world. Best of all it had maps, stitched together out of the screens of the game which I absolutely loved, because it gives you a sense of the world. It was great being able to see where I had adventured all at once.

    

Things I Didn't Like

The largest problem with Secret of Mana is the balance of the magic powers. Because of the limited amount of MP you have, you tend to limit your use of magic power to bosses, but your magic only levels up when you use it. Beyond this, you're limited in how much you can level up your magic based on how many mana seeds you've visited in the story. This results a lot of the time in your magic not being as strong as you'd like.

You probably don't actually need very high magic levels, but it's difficult not to want them to be as high as possible. It's simply nicer to have the ability to beat enemies more easily, it's not really necessary, but it's nice to be able to take down the final bosses in fewer hits than if you need to hang around and fight them "properly". The magic also gets cooler animation the higher the level it has, at the fourth and eighth levels and then an extra boost when it's fully powered up. It's simply nice to have the cooler magic effects, even though there's no real use for them in the game.

I'm going to set that flower on fire. WITH A FIRE DRAGON! - GameFaqs user Tropicon

The result of this is that if you do level up your magic, you're usually not doing it at the pace of the story and end up standing in a place where you can cast spells as quickly as possible to gain XP and then recharge your MP to start again. This is not exactly the most fun way to power up, and it's a bit of a shame that it seems to be at least somewhat necessary.

Another problem the game has is that despite having a wide selection of weapons to choose from, there's no real reason to pick a weapon over any other. There are differences in reach and very slight differences in power. Having at least some factor where different weapons recharge more quickly would definitely make the game more interesting or at least give you more reasons to try something out. Also having different weapons interact differently with different enemies would be interesting. Don't punch the electric thing use your javelin, don't use a boomerang on that living tree, get your axe.

Armour is worse than the weapons since new armour only increases your defence. It's boring, generally expensive and never feels interesting, especially since your characters appearance never changes. It's also not implemented well, it's several trips into the menu to see what defence you have, then buy the item, then equip the item then sell the old item. The number of times I screwed up the process is surprisingly high causing me to buy more of an item then I needed then have to sell it back afterwards.

As with weapons it would have been nice to see some variety in armour. Being able to put on heavier armour to fight the big hulking boss, or light armour to move quicker, or magic armour to stop the magic guy you have to fight. Having types rather than just "stronger" would have made that part of the game more fun, though it's a limited problem in the game.

The last part of the game that I didn't like was the party AI. They're ... dumb. The number of times I got a party member hooked on the other side of the stairs is so high I can't even tell you. I'm glad that they don't solve it the way a lot of games do by having the characters disappear and then reappear beside you, but there are definitely points where I've had to very carefully wiggle my way around to get us all unhooked and moving again. It would be nice if the path finding was a little more advanced.

There are controls for the AI, they're just limited. - GameFaqs user MagicianMayLee

Beyond the path finding the AI's contribution to combat is also not quite what you'd like. The game does let you set whether they should be aggressive or defensive, but having an AI with a better understanding of what you need to fight and how to fit into the timing of the game would be nice. Still for the time on the SNES I guess this is about as good as we could expect in an action RPG.

Things I Noticed

I have mixed feelings on the story in Secret of Mana. On the one hand, it's enough to pull you through the game and give you enough reason to go and explore the world and see what there is to see. On the other hand, the story is not terribly original and in fact seems to be split into several relatively disjointed parts.

And an adventure begins. - GameFaqs user KeyBlade999

The first part of the story is the hero's journey, from finding a rusty old sword, to unleashing monsters onto the world, to getting banished from his village, to journeying around the world gaining power and friends until he's able to defeat the great evil. For the first half of this game there's a lot of story to keep you moving, but in the second half you're basically running back and forth because a bird told you to (and it turns out that you actually don't even have to talk to Sage Joch, you can just go do the temples with no story at all).

The other part of the story is the fight between the "good guy" countries and the evil empire. This is somewhat tied into the first story, but it's tangential to the things you're doing. You're helping fight the good fight, but only when you're in the right place at the right time.

Then there are the weird side stories, which aren't side quests, they're part of the main journey. Like that time when Santa Claus steals a Mana seed to make people believe in Christmas again. Or when the not-terribly effective Scorpion Army kidnaps one of the elemental sources of magic and uses it to heat a small town in the middle of the ice land.

That's not to say that the story isn't good. I like it. It's interesting. But it is disjointed. All of these pieces are pretty cool, but there's very little stitching them together other than the fact that you happen to be there and smacking the enemies is fun.

A large part of the reason for this is that the game was significantly cut down during it's creation and then the story was further trimmed due to translation constraints. While I'm having trouble finding actual documentation of what was cut, Secret of Mana was originally slated to be the first title for the SNES-CD add on. This would have allowed the game to be much larger and have significantly more space for graphics and music. The original game would also have had a more branching story line. Based on the Wikipedia article, the cuts seem to have generally caused the story to be a lot more restricted and not as dark as the developers had originally wanted. It also seems to have caused some of the technical problems the game has when there are too many things on screen all at once.

Additionally the game was translated into English in only 30 days by a very new translator. Beyond the problem of having only a limited amount of space to put text, due to the fixed width English font, there were also a lot of problems even getting a unified script for the translator to work on. This seems to have reduced the nuance and characterization even further than the change from the SNES-CD.

It's disappointing to lose so much of plot of the game and further to lose the nuance and characterization. It would have been interesting to see the much more complete story, and I would have been happy to get to spend more time in the world. It's also disappointing to realize the points where you don't get to see the real emotion from the characters in the game (for example I had never even realized that there was supposed to be a love triangle between the girl, Phanna and Dyluc).

You'll notice all the hair on your arms stand up - GameFaqs user noidentity

I will say that I don't mind having the game not be as dark as they may have been intending. That's not to say that there's anything wrong with a dark game, and because I haven't seen what they wanted to produces I can't speak to it. But I think there are not enough games that combine strong game mechanics and good storytelling with a lighter story. I think there's a space in the market for serious games that are no so dark as a lot of game makers would like to develop. It's a hard balance to maintain.

Things I'd Include in a Game

Of course the number one thing I'd love to include in a game is music like Secret of Mana has. Beautiful, carefully composed, well produced music would be nice, but more to the point, I want to have evocative music that supports the theme of the game, both of the game generally and of the areas, the characters and the actions. Certainly when I get the chance, I would love to bring in a great composer to work with.

If a cave man asks you if you want to travel by cannon, YOU SAY YES! - GameFaqs user VinnyVideo

I love the sense of adventure of Secret of Mana. I love the way the game gives you a feeling of a safe harbour and an unknown destination. You always have to be careful, but there's always something to see. There may be times when the things you see aren't even really related to the quest your on, but they're just something to pique your interest.

More technically, I like the way the status ailments work in Secret of Mana, and I like that they're equally applicable to you an your enemies (and useful both ways as well). I also like have clear understandable imagery that indicates how you're afflicted and possibly how long it's going to last.

Finally I like the way the skills work. I didn't put points into being good with the sword, I got good with the sword because I used it a lot. It's a pretty common concept in RPGs, but it's still the way I like to see talents improve through game play.

Final Thoughts

I think Secret of Mana is one of the best games on the Super Nintendo. Actually, I think Secret of Mana is one of the best games on any platform. There are a few things that mark it as old, combat is slow and the story is a touch thin, but I think these are easily over come and not playing this game is skipping over a classic.

Replaying this game I thought a lot about how important the balance between game play and story telling is. I was always happy when the game switched me from one to the other. "Oh good, I get to go kill more monsters." "Oh good, I get to see more of the story." I think Secret of Mana has a good balance and it kept me interested even though the story is linear and you can't change it as you play. I think from a game creation view, this is a good platform to begin on. As you add more story, more choice or more gameplay elements make sure that you keep the fun balanced.

Blog: Thoughts on Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker

I recently finished playing The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker HD. It's a fun game and the HD update really brings it to life (although my nostalgia tells me that this is how good the game has always looked). I did find however that it has some very frustrating game design choices and at the end of the day feels like the first attempt of the developers to keep the franchise from stagnating, without necessarily understanding what parts they're tinkering with.

As a quick note it's worth pointing out that I have played all of the console Zelda games, except for The Adventure of Link and the last half of Majora's Mask (thanks N64 memory expansion and awkward Wii controls). I've missed most of the hand held Zeldas, but have played Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks and A Link Between Worlds. As such some of my feelings on the series may be biased.

Please beware of spoilers for The Wind Waker.

Things I Liked

The Wind Waker does an amazing job of instilling a feeling of the joy of exploration and adventure. Especially when upgraded with the HD graphics, sailing into the world with the music and the waves swelling under you, you feel like you're going on the adventure of a life time. When you spot a tiny island on the horizon and then sail for minutes to get up to it and watch the details resolve into a new adventure is definitely exciting. Even just the act of walking out onto the dock on Windfall or Outset islands provides you with a feeling that great adventure is about to commence.

Watching over home.

The environments of the game are also really good (especially in the HD remake). From the ocean itself and all the different ways it can be in different weather and different times of day to each of the islands which have a wide variety of styles supported by some really great music.

In the HD edition of the game using the game pad to manage the inventory took a little time to get used to, but I came to really like it. Having all of your potential tools laid out in front of you is helpful and having the game pad represent the map was also a plus. I do wish that the game would allow for a little more flexibility on the tools front also possibly some tool tips (I took a break while playing and was apparently in the middle of a delivery quest and never again figure out what the thing in my inventory was nor who wanted it). It would also be nice to annotate the map in the same way that Phantom Hourglass and Spirit Tracks do.

The final thing that I really liked about this game is the end of the final boss fight. Ending the fight by stabbing Ganondorf through the head is an incredible feeling, although not one the game necessarily earns itself. I think that killing Ganondorf is more to do with Ocarina than it is with anything he does in this game Still being able to end the games on a definitive, we have truly defeated evil, note is really cathartic.

The final fight.

Oh an on a side note, the Wii U lets you take screen shots. It's a touch convoluted, but being able to take my own screens has made me very happy.

Things I Didn't Like

The number one thing I didn't like about the game was Z-targeting. In most of the other games in the series I've felt like Z-targeting has largely been intuitive. I'm targeting the things I want to attack and now it's easy to jump to the next thing or to switch out for other attacks. In The Wind Waker (and this may just be in the HD version, I don't remember the original controls that well) I seem to never be targeting the thing I'd like to target. In fact in several boss fights they seem to launch minions at you just to screw up your targeting, which suggests that the developers were aware of this problem as well. It makes the game incredibly frustrating at points and left me not wanting to play more on several occasions.

I also didn't like the dungeon / temple design in Wind Waker. I think the source of this is that the developers wanted to create a grander sense of scale, but this came at the cost of having fewer dungeons and a lot of unnecessary padding in the ones they did create.  They also tried to make the problems in the dungeons more dynamic, requiring you to use several tools together to get past obstacles. While the idea of putting on your iron shoes so you can push down a spring and then spring up to take flight with your leaf is cool, having to get all the items for that out of your inventory every single time you needed to go through a part of the dungeon is frustrating.

I've had it with these boots!

The game also has a weird hand holding pattern. Sometimes it's very aggressive, "hey look at these lights, now read a note about those lights, oh never mind we're just going to point out that you should hit these switches in order." Other times it's so subtle that you're note actually sure it's working. Having to use Phantom Ganondorf's sword as a compass is brilliant, but I didn't get it at all until I looked up a FAQ on the frustrating dungeon right after the lights.

I didn't like how static the world feels. As is usual with  Zelda games the story and world don't advance unless you come along and actually do something, but there seem to be lots of places where nothing ever changes. Maybe I missed it but there's a guy who arrives at Fire Roost Island and then just stands outside baffled by how to get in (despite the path you make). It would have given the game more life and more interest if you'd been able to see him work to become a mailman despite his hinderance of not having wings. Your grandmother changes a bit, but basically sits in her hut doing nothing for the whole game. Again a little bit of character arc for the NPCs would do wonders to make the world feel like you should care about it.

Even the ocean feels somewhat static, there aren't many other ships about on it and those that are tend to stay put attached to which ever island they're a part of the story. The static feeling of the game is also reinforced by the grid system in the map. There is one island in every square, every island has one thing you need to go find on it. It would have been nicer to be able go to some places where there were a lot of island and then others where there are very few. That way you get a little more excitement in exploration, especially if there are places that are dark and dangerous and places that are safer. At the moment "danger" seems to be spread very uniformly across the sea.

I also don't like that the game won't let me challenge Tingle to a duel. Take that your money grubber!

I happened to play some of Sunless Sea around the time I was finishing up The Wind Waker and definitely felt that the way that game handles the risk and reward of sailing is more rewarding than Wind Waker. There are aspects I don't think would fit, such after the islands that move after each rogue-like life, but definitely being able to arrive on "strange shores" would again increase the interest level of Wind Waker.

Things I Noticed

Finding treasure using treasure maps is fun and I like the game of going through the islands and trying to match the different coast lines to the map. It's also nice that you can be more or less challenged by the when you go looking for treasure depending on if you want to see the bright glowing spots or not. However actually picking the treasure up is rather frustrating since you have to get on exactly the right coordinate. Additionally the treasure feels a little lacklustre, other than pieces of heart you only get money and I ended up with thousands of Rupees that I didn't need to spend.

I think the game would have been improved with a fewer treasures to find but with a mini-game to be played when you're looking for them. Ideally this would give you more satisfaction and reward and you could ease the relatively frustrating part of trying to hit exactly the right point on a rolling sea.

Sailing home is always a pretty sight.

Things I'd Include in a Game

The biggest thing Wind Waker makes me want to include in a game is a dynamic world. The NPCs should have arcs and goals and generally be doing something. Everyone in Wind Waker (and honestly in lots of games, but especially Zelda games) is standing around. I'm not even sure they're supposed to want to to save the world even, since I don't know if anyone even knows he exists. Anyone on outset island is just wondering why you haven't rescued your sister yet.

I also want to make sure that  there's a feeling of adventure and exploration. This is a thing that Zelda games are usually very good at invoking, but the grid of islands system somewhat stifles. Being able to set off into the unknown and be rewarded, even if it's just with a view or a secret or a tiny piece of story, gives players a reason to keep playing the game and to keep exploring the world.

Setting out for adventure.

Final Thoughts

The Wind Waker feels like a fractured game. I feel as though they tried to stretch the world of Ocarina of Time into a bigger and more majestic environment, but stymied themselves by imposing rules that overly simplified exploration. I feel like they wanted to get away from the rescue the princess story line, but couldn't figure out how to have an epic quest without that motivator. I feel like the developers wanted to strike out into new story territory, but didn't feel like the could leave all the trappings of Ocarina of time behind them.  I feel like they wanted to introduce more dynamic combat, but didn't have the expertise yet to interactively allow the player to have control and all the cinematic drama at the same time. So while the game has some of the strongest style and some very good game play it never does it self the service of letting these things stand out.

I like The Wind Waker. It's a fun game to play and it has moments of absolute brilliance in game play and story telling. There are frustrating parts and the game is either longer than it should be or is missing a bunch of content, but it's still worth playing for those brilliant moments.

Yeah I always seem to wear ... hey! Wait!