Virtual culture training for soldiers
Posted by Peter | Filed under Education, Games, Virtual Worlds
Thanks to a link from ACM TechNews, I’ve been reading that folks at the University of Texas have been doing some research into the use of virtual worlds for training soldiers (click for the article). The focus of the training is dealing with cultural situations. I’m not a particularly well-travelled person myself, but I can imagine that even the slightest differences in cultural interpretation of verbal and non-verbal cues can become major issues in a conflict scenario.
Review: “Crush the Castle”
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
It’s been a while since I reviewed some games, so here goes with another great one I found recently. “Crush the Castle” is yet another physics-oriented game (you know I love ‘em!). It seems to be a single programmer job (+ 1 artist), and the concept is absolutely great. Unfortunately, it is not an original concept… it is borrowed (with permission apparently) from “Castle Clout“. Nonetheless, I enjoyed it, so here’s my thoughts…
Splitter
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
“Splitter” is a fascinatingly original casual web-game. The objective is simply to get the little yellow dude to the level exit, but you cannot control him directly. Rather, you need to modify the level in various ways, causing it to dynamically respond, achieving your goal, or foiling your plans.
It’s hard to describe exactly how the gameplay works. Imagine it like other physics sandbox games like “Magic Pen“, but instead of creating stuff to achieve your goal, you are actually splitting it with a knife (hence the name) in very precise ways.
The graphics are simple but pleasant, and the audio is reasonable. The interface works nicely, with a wonderfully simple control scheme… just click and drag where you want to cut, and that’s it. The physics responds nicely in various ways, and makes for a very enjoyable playing experience. Limits on the number of cuts you can make in a given level provide a good challenge.
It’s too late at night for me to go into much further analysis… I suggest you just play this game for yourself… it’s well worth it! 
Chronotron
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
There have been a few of time-travel related games in recent years, but here’s a nice casual Flash game that uses the concept: it is a platformer called Chronotron. You play as white and red robot, with a damaged time machine (which looks suspiciously like Doctor Who’s Tardis!). In each level, the objective is to find a time circuit, and get back to your time machine. Easy… right?
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Totem Destroyer
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
This is a wonderfully addictive Flash game: Totem Destroyer. Like all good games, it’s simple to learn, but more difficult to master. The premise is that there is a tower of blocks, with an idol at the top. You have to destroy a certain number of blocks, bringing the idol down near ground level, without letting it actually touch the ground.
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Ragdoll Cannon: Remake
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
Ragdoll-simulation-based games seem pretty popular just now, and here’s a remake of a not-very-old game… “Ragdoll Cannon“. Simple but engaging concept: you have to get a ragdoll to touch a target, by blasting ragdolls out of a cannon. Parts of the environment move and respond to impacts with appropriate physics, and it can be good fun for a quick diversion.
The interface is very straightforward: you fire the cannon in a particular direction by clicking the mouse somewhere in the level, and the further away from the cannon you click, the more powerful the shot. The graphics are simple but nice, and the audio in general is pretty decent. Unfortunately, it’s a bit short, with only 25 levels. Great fun though, and definitely worth a try.
“Ball Drop One” — pinball without flippers
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
Pretty much any pinball game you play (whether on the computer or in real life) has the flippers at the bottom which you can use to save the ball from disaster, and guide it where you need it to go… but it wasn’t always the way. Many versions of the game (particularly older ones) involve simply dropping the ball and hoping for the best on the way down.
“Ball Drop One” is an excellent pinball-style casual game, but there are no flippers in this one. You simply drop the ball (with some control over its size), and then largely just watch it interact with different pin-type elements in the game, such as circles which shrink or disappear when you hit them. There are some interactions you can do, almost all of which are exploratory… you just try it and see what happens. There are helpful hints which appear at the bottom of the screen too.
The graphics in this game are fairly basic, but the sound effects are well chosen, and as a whole it plays nicely. You gain points by making lots of bounces and gaining other bonuses, and more points unlocks more levels, so there is a good incentive to keep playing. There is a level editor too, although I haven’t tried that out myself.
A large amount of the game is effectively luck (unless you are ridiculously good at predicting complex bounces), which may frustrate some folks. However, it’s a really nice, quirky little game, which is worth a try. It felt a little uncomfortable to play at first, as you really go in blind and learn as you go, which goes against the grain for me a little! However, I’ve found myself going back to it and enjoying it… so give it a go!
“99 Bricks” — cunning Tetris variant
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
The classic game “Tetris” has been cloned and re-cloned myriads of times, with very little change in the basic concept. However, here’s one that is truly a great twist on the original idea: the objective of “99 Bricks” is actually to build your tower of bricks as high as you can.
At first, it certainly looks like a basic Tetris game, with the same basic shaped blocks falling, and you can move and rotate them on the way down. However, after a few shapes, you quickly realise there’s some differences here — firstly, full rows don’t count for anything… you just keep building. And second… physics! As you build your tower higher and higher, it starts to get less and less stable, and it starts to sway. You need to be careful to fill in gaps, and not put pieces in dangerous positions, in case they fall and take part of your tower with them.
Oh yes, and the title comes from the fact that you only have 99 bricks with which to build your tower. Mustn’t forget that!
I can’t say I found it addictive as such, but I think the concept is great. Graphics are really good, the controls/response are slick, and the physics is well implemented. The music is not wonderful, but it’s not bad either. All things considered, it’s well worth a try.
Meet Gorrin…
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games
I’ve finally been and gone and done it… I’ve tried World of Warcraft. After a few hours, I have a level 8 Dwarf Hunter called Gorrin. I thought I was being at least a little original, but I’m seeing as many Dwarf Hunters as I am of everybody else put together. Doh!
It’s been an interesting experience so far. I have previously played a little Silkroad Online, so the basics were already somewhat familiar to me. I am struck by how clean and slick many of the graphics and animations are (a few questionable trees and things notwithstanding), although as I always suspected, everything just takes so long to do!
Enjoying it anyway, although I’m finding the balance of ranged/melee attacks quite hard to manage playing on my own (I really should be more social!). Best tactics I’ve found are to hit the bad guy hard and fast from a distance, and keep backing-off while firing more ranged attacks, preferably moving in the direction of an NPC guard who can bail you out if you’re in trouble!
Not sure how willing I’d be to pay £9 a month for the privilege of all this, being as I’m on a student budget again these days… but we’ll see. I’ve got more than a week to try it out for free (although I reckon I should keep my playing strictly to weekends, or else I’ll never get any work done!).
“Twinity” — my initial experience
Posted by Peter | Filed under Games, Software, Virtual Worlds
This evening, I decided to try out Twinity — a new virtual world which is in public beta at the moment. I’m still learning my way round, but it’s looking quite interesting so far… albeit running a tad slowly on my PC! Here’s a review of my first couple of hours playing with it, but be warned, this is pretty long!
Upon Arrival…
I started in a Welcome Area, which consisted of wide open spaces with information displays and tutorials around. Large texture-based signs load in from fuzzy blobs, but they are remarkably legible, giving all the basic pointers. As an introduction to the world, it definitely needs work though — I think I was only comfortable because I have been using virtual worlds for a while. Total newbies would likely get dazed and confused rather quickly.
Identity
When you first sign-up, you provide your first and last names, and it doesn’t seem to suggest anything other than real names (although I assume you could use anything quite happily). By default, your first name will appear above your avatar in-world, but you can make your last name visible too. I am not sure how wise it is to go by first-names only in a virtual world, given the scope for confusion, but things may change.
Graphics
I can’t say I’m impressed with the graphics in general at this stage, as the system requirements are fairly huge for (quite frankly) not a lot. It’s possible that the system automatically scaled-down the graphics level to suit my lower-end processor, but unlikely, and the only 2 graphics detail settings I’ve found are resolution, and anti-aliasing level.
Interface
The visual element of the user interface is fairly nice and clean, with that rounded-corner web-2.0-feel that everybody loves… or at least, that’s what designers tell us we’re supposed to love. The basic UI is fairly unobtrusive, primarily occupying a small panel at the bottom-middle, with some important buttons. (There’s also some important but small buttons at the top-right.) Everything appears in various windows, which can be moved and closed, but not resized or minimized. It looks like they’ve implemented a totally bespoke interface system, which is impressive, but was probably an unnecessary use of their development time (how many times can the wheel be re-invented?), and it’s not as responsive as I would like, but it certainly does the job admirably.
Regarding control scheme, I think it’s a little unintuitive, and it feels restrictive after being used to Second Life (although SL has unusually good controls) — you walk around with arrow keys or WASD, but your camera keeps a fixed angle/distance as you do that, even if you double-back on yourself. You rotate the camera around your avatar by clicking and holding the right-mouse button, and moving the mouse. You can zoom in/out using the scroll wheel, but I haven’t found a way to change the camera’s centre of focus though, so it seems that you actually have to walk right up to a sign in order to read it… although I could be wrong.
You can also run, by holding the shift key or toggling with Caps Lock, but I don’t think you can fly. Interacting with items occurs mostly by left-clicking on them, and right-clicking can bring up some other information/options. When you are near a seat, a nifty little ’seat’ 3d icon appears over it, which you click to sit down. It means you can’t just sit anywhere, but it’s more reliable where you can.
Appearance
Plenty of avatar customization is possible, and it seems you can even upload your own photographs to create your virtual face. Besides that, it’s the usual maniacally large number of slider controls in various categories, and a certain degree of control over your skin tone. It’s also possible to buy various attachments to wear, including different hair, hats, jackets, trousers, and so on. The selection is not huge yet, but I am sure it will increase as the virtual world matures. (I did notice the somewhat risky “Third Life” T-shirt, although chose not to wear it!)
One thing I will say is that it was unclear exactly whom I was buying the items from, as the menu of items just appeared as part of the process of altering my avatar. I was definitely using my starting supply of “Globals” (the in-world currency) to do it though, and I assume I was just buying them from ‘the game’, so the currency didn’t actually go anywhere… it just got deducted from my account. The great thing though is that you can preview items on your avatar before attaching them, although no customization of the items seems possible (e.g. colour changes).
Currency
Since we’re on the topic, the in-world currency (”Globals”) is intended to work as part of an actual economy, and you can buy more Globals through the website apparently. It seems that you can’t trade Globals back for real-world money, although I have seen job adverts around, suggesting that you can ‘earn’ money in the virtual world, as with MMORPGs. Quite what such jobs entail is a mystery to me, but I shall endeavour to find out.
Animation
The default animations look fairly nice… nothing to write home about, but fairly smooth. Clicking a button on the interface brings up the neat little animations window, which has one particularly nifty feature to check out: moods. You can pick from: Confident, Default, Depress, Drunken, and Relaxed. This will affect the basic way your avatar stands and walks, which is great, although I would like to see a broader range of moods, and/or the ability to explicitly change the animations used (maybe those will come in a later version).
You can also create a custom set of animation buttons (up to 10 viewable at a time) which you push to perform a certain animation/gesture on-demand. As with editing your own appearance, you populate these slots by purchasing stuff with your Globals. There’s already a fairly huge number available, with plenty of dance moves, of course! The animations certainly seem fairly detailed, with facial expressions included in many, which is very nice.
User-Content
There is differing information regarding user-content — some of the support information on the website says it’s not yet possible, and yet there is an interface for it in-world. The interface indicates “you must be a premium member to upload content”, and since I am on a student-budget, I am not even considering paying them anything just now! If/when user-content is enabled though, it seems to support at least avatar attachments and animations, and perhaps other stuff will come along too, such as separate objects. There does not appear to be any facility for in-world creation though, a la Second Life, so it looks like everything would need to be created off-line, potentially with proprietary tools.
Membership
Basic membership is free, and as mentioned above, you can pay to get more “Globals” to spend in-world. There is also a premium membership level, which seems to be free during the public beta period, but which will cost more money later on. What does premium membership get you? Aside from being able to upload custom content (if/when that is implemented), it lets you buy a virtual apartment, which you seem to pay for with real-world money. From what I have picked-up, you can customize your apartment to some degree, and even designate ‘flatmates’ who can customize it too. Eventually, I think people will be able to buy and sell virtual apartments from/to each other, creating an in-world real-estate market.
Communication
There’s not a whole lot of people with whom to communicate at the moment (I should have tried this out with a friend!). However, I’ve experimented with text-chat a little, and it seems to appear as chat bubbles over avatars’ heads. That’s an option I’ve tried in Second Life, but which I didn’t like, because it makes it very hard to follow a line of conversation unless you can negotiate your camera to view all the other avatars. It apparently supports voice-chat though, which is very important. No idea how reliable it is! There seems to be an asynchronous messaging system too.
Conclusion
It’s got a lot of promise, and it seems fairly well-made so far. From the point-of-view of education, I am not hopeful at all, since it looks like custom content creation will require a substantial outlay, and potentially expertise with offline tools (which are often very hard to learn, in my experience). Having said that, though, I have got used to the remarkable affordances of Second Life, so perhaps I am being pessimistic, and teachers could work with far less customization, with more ready-made education packs.
That aside, the text chat system being based on chat-bubbles, combined with the lack of camera freedom, would make discussions of more than a few avatars very difficult to do in text… but perhaps the aim is to encourage voice chat in Twinity anyway. The camera issues would also make it hard to present information to a group of people, or for multiple avatars to use a single resource, since they all need to be close to it ‘physically’ in order to see it.
Attempting a modicum of objectivity (since I have undoubtedly glossed-over many important differences between this and other such platforms), the tag-line of Twinity is “Powered by real life”. They seem to be aiming for a much more real-life-based experience, which means all the above issues of chat bubbles, camera freedom, and even lack of content creation tools, are entirely in-line with the philosophy. They want the virtual world to mimic the real-world in layout, too, with Berlin being their first virtual city. The aim seems to be a good deal of integration with other media forms too, as I have seen in the form of much “Quantum of Solace” advertising! (Consider: how often do you see advertisements for real-world stuff when you’re just out-and-about in Second Life?)
I am looking forward to seeing where Twinity goes. Nobody can predict these things, so I won’t even guess how popular it is likely to be, but it has plenty of potential. Granted, the transition will likely be uncomfortable at first for folks used to other platforms, as it seems to do things in very much its own way, but that is not necessarily a bad thing. A little originality and character in a sometimes-saturated market is well worth the plunge.
