Now, I explained the concept in detailed in a presentation. The costs and sales estimates are completely off because I haven’t a clue about the Flash/web finances. But to summarize LineWorld is Flash game that’s mean to be traded around like YouTube-clips or Flicker images. Free to view and free to create ONE, but if you wanted more you’d have to pay for the game.
WHAT is Line World?
A doodle based physics game with Youtube-like sharing of finished drawings (called Sketchlets).
WHY?
User-created content games and websites are hot. i.e Myspace, Second Life, YouTube, Flickr
Casual and social games are also hot.
Few games combine these genres.
And there seems to be a demand for quick + accessible games that have a social sharing element to them.
WHO will play Line World?
Anybody with a web browser.
Both genders.
Between the ages 8 to 50.
Sketchlets are always free to view – insuring viral marketing like YouTube and Flickr.
A game like Line Rider proved that players WANT to share their results with others.
WHO will pay for Line World?
Both casual and hardcore players between 18-40 (a one time fee).
Casual players will play as a fun diversion.
Hardcore players will create the most elaborate sketchlets.
This dichotomy is also present in sites like Flickr (family photos vs. professional photos).
HOW will it work?
On the web nobody pays for anything!
YouTube is free, Myspace is free, Newgrounds is free, Flickr + Second Life are mostly free, etc.
All these social networking and game sites are free!
Nobody wants to pay for content, but…
HOW will it work? (part 2)
People are willing to pay for a membership to a site that provides tangible benefits.
Ability to share more than one sketchlet.
Access to shared drawing library.
Ability to edit other player’s sketchlets.
Ability to create sketchlets that can be hosted outside of Line World.
Follows the Flickr + Second Life revenue model.
Plenty of non-paying members, but just enough paying members to support the business.
This type of game is NOT original. i.e game widgets where you can embedded them into MySpace and Facebook are popping up everywhere. But Line World is something I wanted to see happen - a sketchable physics world! It would a joy to play! Line Rider x 10…
Calamity game is similar to what I envisioned (and was released about 4 weeks after my presentation) - but more game oriented.
The results of Line World (in the Stuntman lives! mode) would be like this:
This was one of my three game concept pitches at Vortex. It was probably the worst one, but also the most practical. Unfortunately, I knew somebody would implement it and it has been - Calamity Game.
Overview:
Doodling has never been more fun – especially when the drawings come alive on the web with real physics and behaviors.
Description:
The massive success of Line Rider demonstrated how a simple drawing game mixed with physics can be enjoyable by gamers and non gamers alike, but imagine a shared world where everything was drawn and “came alive.” The gameplay mechanic of using drawn lines as physics objects is widely accepted and liked, but what is unique about Line World is that all these drawn objects can be played with online. Think Lego with fun physics.
Similar games include Kirby’s Canvas Curse(DS), Line Rider (Flash and soon DS), Chalk (freeware), Armadillo Run(IGF finalist), Bridge Builder(PC), Tower of Goo – which all involve drawing lines that create physically reactive surfaces. All these games are fairly successful or potentially successful in the case of well loved Tower of Goo.
Unlike passive building worlds like Second Life and The Sims, Line World allows players to build and play games with their drawings. Games like Rube’s machine where you build the most complicated device to screw a light bulb in, Sledding (like Line Rider) where you draw the craziest looping track and still have the player survive, Stuntman where you sketch out the most death-defying stunts in the world. The possibilities are endless, but each mini?game is simple and fun. The results will be shared freely with the open public, but only paying members are allowed to create new sketches and vote on their favourites.
Target demographic: 8-50 year olds – both genders.
Platforms: Online – Flash.
Revenue model: Digital download – one time purchase. Sharing of sketchlets/drawings is free.
Competitors: Line Rider (DS), Mygamebuilder.com, World of Goo, Bridge Builder, Armadillo Run.
Because of the widespread availability of Flash and a simple requirement of a mouse to play, Line World will reach a large world-wide audience and extend beyond language barriers. The development cost will be lower than developing a traditional game, but extra care will be taken to differentiate the art style and build a web community around the game. We think Line World appeals to wide audience and can be sold and developed affordably with today’s technology.
I’ve played over half of the Xbox Live Arcade games and found many dull and uninteresting… I especially despised all the retro games except for Track & Field and Smash TV… so when I booted up PacMan Championship Edition I thought this was going to be the worst of the lot. There was already a PacMan on XBLA and it wasn’t very good.
WRONG!
This is a fantastic game and the man reason for it be so enjoyable is that the game provides constant new challenges and slight variation. The core game mechanic has been refined slightly. You are still a 3D Pac-Man being chased by ghosts, but the game is no longer about chomping up all pellets and repeating (a horribly outdated type of gameplay). Now you play for 5 or 10 minutes trying to get the highest score but now the pellets and power-ups shift around the world. It feels more like Smash TV and Geometry Wars than Pac-Man. The designers carefully constructed the appearance of all pellets and powers-up to provide a constant barrage of challenges. At no time does the game feel repetitive. The game designer planned it out as did the Smash TV designer and as did the Geometry Wars designer. It’s not “all random.”
I first heard of Peggle in a casual game podcast. The speaker was from PopCap and he casually mentioned Peggle and two or three voices in the audience screamed out “Yeah!” and I thought WTF? Dude, it’s casual game … well I had to try it even if did look unappealing and I must say I agree with an Onion review of this game:
“When your ball approaches the level-clearing peg, the view zooms in tight on the action. Time slows and a timpani drum roll slaps a 50-point accent mark over the tension. As orb and target collide, the rapturous hosannas of Beethoven’s “Ode To Joy” explode out of the speakers. Few games make winning feel this good.”
And couple more reviews I found on Metacritic:
EuroGamer
“An ode to joy is exactly what Peggle is. It’s a constant series of rewards, slapping you on the back and tickling you affectionately under the chin for what you achieve by design and accident alike - the purest of celebrations of what videogames are all about.”
AtomicGamer
“Peggle is probably the biggest surprise game of the year for me so far. Normally, I avoid PopCap stuff because it is so simple and makes me want more 15 minutes in. Peggle, however is different – while it is simple and seems to not offer much on the surface, there’s a whole other game buried deep within for the hardcore gamer.”
I hope to see this game continue to do well and win buckets of awards because the game business needs more titles that make the player WANT to play games… I nominate it for casual game of the year.
“Analysis: I laughed out loud my first time playing, and I couldn’t stop playing until I had all 55 levels completed in Adventure mode. It’s just that much fun!”
01. Brain Age 2: More Training in Minutes a Day—Nintendo
02. Brain Age—Nintendo
03. New Super Mario Bros.—Nintendo
04. Pokemon Diamond—Nintendo
05. Rune Factory: A Fantasy Harvest Moon—Nintendo
06. Mario Kart—Nintendo
07. Big Brain Academy—Nintendo 08. Disney’s High School Musical: Making the Cut—Disney
09. Pokemon Pearl—Nintendo
10. The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass—Nintendo
A list completely dominated by Nintendo… My friend help out on High School Musical DS (which has sold millions of copies). Licensed games do very well on that platform due to the demographic, but not much else.
One big costs that hit me by surprise is corporate liability insurance (provides for liability arising from fire, product, advertising, and personal liability, and for medical payments). The median cost is about $1 per $100 of coverage.
So for $1,000,000 of liability coverage that is $10,000/year. A million in coverage is not that unusual and Telefilm and OMDC ask for up to $2 million in some cases. That’s a huge chunk of any developer’s budget.
According to an interview in Edge magazine, he says this:
“I’ve lobbed substantial game collections for both the [Spectrum] and Amstrad on there (talking about DS and emulators) and enjoyed going through both in idle DS-wielding moments. It’s only gone to prove what I’ve found to be true in most aspects of retrogaming, from arcade through the various consoles and the home micros, C64 included: most of those old games were rubbish. Take off the rose-tinted specs, fire up MAME or your favourite emulator, and a trawl around and you’ll see it’s true. Probably 95 per cent are rubbish.”
I got a good chuckle from that… the games I used to love: Vic 20 games, Colecovision, etc. were brutal and repetitive by today’s standards.
“Many designers, especially on the home computer platforms, seemed to rely on steep learning curves, and the idea of you performing perfectly-timed tasks on one screen before allowing profess to the next.”
I believe this was the case for older console games on the Atari / Coleco / Intellivision. Then he explains why this was the case…
“I guess such methodology arose from designers having little memory to put a lot of screens in, and wanting to keep the player from progressing too quickly, knowing that a player would rather grit his teeth and try again than spend another 7 pounds for a new game and wait another 20 minutes for it to load. It was only with the arrival of game consoles, and competition from experienced designers who made games that were playable, that game programmers realised that they had to make games that were fun to play rather than the gaming equivalent of slamming your own nuts in a drawer repeatedly to get a high score.”
Catan is a great board game. Catan for Xbox Live Arcade is just as fantastic. It plays very well and has few faults.
It should be trivial to create a good PC version of it, right?
Wrong. Different developers lead to entirely different results.
The Catan PC game for Yahoo/Downloadable is utterly horrible. The menus interfere with the gameplay and information is bombarding you constantly (see overloaded UI) and you have no idea what you should be paying attention to. It’s fun factor is next to zero.
Also trading cards is slow and simultaneously too fast. UI feedback is poor too. When you propose a trade, the computer players don’t reject you like they do in Catan for XBLA they just merely wait there until you decide to stop your selfish begging - as if they know. You are also forced to watch computer players think… wait… and trade cards. Kill me now please… with a dull spoon.
Execution is key. An inexperienced team can ruin a great idea. Catan for the PC should have been play-tested and refined more. It’s amazing how two games with the exact same gameplay can illicit completely different responses from the same player.
XBLA: Excitement and thrill of beating the AI players! The idea of AI opponents with a bit of emotion (but no personality) is a great idea.
Yahoo/Downloadable: Confusion: Whose turn? Why am I watching cards being traded? I turned up the speed to max! Frustration: Why can’t I buy that settlement? Oh crap I can see I don’t have a wool card - that tiny, tiny, tiny 0 is unreadable…. UNINSTALL!
