The Flipside of Gaming
This is a double review of Underground Blossom and the Many Pieces of Mr. Coo, Blossom was played with a retail key, Mr.Coo was played with a press key.
0:00 Intro
00:15 Underground Blossom
2:12 The Many Pieces of Mr.Coo
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Grey is what the subject line says: a FPS, running at an acceptable framerate, on a Commodore 64, without a Raspberry Pi or other hardware to help it out. Here is its thread on Lemon64. Have a look (24 minutes):
How is it possible? Well, it’s not running 60fps for one. Updating the whole screen in one frame on a C64 is hugely challenging, but fortunately FPSes can look satisfactory running at slower framerates. It’s not Quake-level graphics, or even Doom, it’s more like Wolfenstein 3D in ability, and it’s confirmed that it uses that style of raycasting. And on top of all of that, it doesn’t use hi-res resolution, which would be really slow on an unmodified C64. It seems to use character tiles to fake a kind of low-res display. But when you’re trying to get a game running on a 1 MHz machine with 64K of RAM, tricks and shortcuts are not only necessary, but rather laudable. What a hack!
This is a work-in-progress, with a demo of the game available in a recent Pateron-available issue of Zzap 64. No source code is available yet. Let’s hope for continued development!
For this perceptive podcast, I sat down with Camila Gormaz and Pablo Videla from This I Dreamt to talk about Long Gone Days. We spoke about how the project began, what it was like creating a game in a modern setting and trying to balance the story with the JRPG-inspired combat.
This I Dreamt:
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Serenity Forge:
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Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
A double review of Cocoon and Worldless. Cocoon was played with a retail key and Worldless with a press key.
0:00 Intro
00:17 Cocoon
3:55 Worldless
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
The final part of my favorite next fest demos from June 2024. All games shown are demos played from the event.
0:00 Intro
00:25 Kemono Heroes
2:07 OverRider
3:59 Sealed Bite Extended
5:52 Vampire Therapist
7:39 Selfloss
9:13 Grapple Dog: Cosmic Canines
10:45 Before I Go
12:32 Cat Quest 3
14:09 Sworn
15:47 Red Entropy
17:14 Abya: Paintball
19:21 The Rise
20:38 Monowave
22:16 Rubato
23:59 What the Car
25:40 Feed the Deep
27:29 Witchroid Vania
29:04 Scarmonde
31:02 The Alters
33:22 NeonGarten
35:17 Freeride
36:54 Creatures of Ava
39:11 Legends of Astravia
40:49 Ark of Charon
43:32 Republic of Pirates
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Usually it’s Josh Bycer who does these reviews of new games, but for a change I’m doing one this time! And in text no less! It’s World of Goo 2, which is available for purchase now on the Epic Store, Switch and the makers’ own website.
The people from Tomorrow Corporation got in touch out of the blue, because then-Gamasutra helped spread the word about the original game long ago. Now-Game-Developer currently has a temporary hold on freelance Q&A work, but Kyle Gray was gracious enough to give me a press key anyway, and I figured a review here would be the least I could do. It’s true, it was a free key, but on the other hand I’ve always been a big fan of the original World of Goo. I’ve finished it at least twice, on PC and on Wii.
Does this make me biased? What does biased even mean? The principals of 2DBOY and Tomorrow Corporation have always been shining stars of indie gaming, and I’ve played nearly everything they’ve made since, including the DS title Henry Hatsworth and the Puzzling Adventure, directed by Kyle Gray. Was there a chance that this could have been a negative review? Not really, but then, if it was going to be negative, I probably wouldn’t be writing it. All I can do is assure you: we’re not in this for press keys.
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There are games that feel like they’ve been with us always, and so it seems for the original World of Goo. It was published in 2008, but I’m so used to games being older than I expect that I half expected it to date from 2006, or earlier.
2DBOY’s World of Goo came out at the beginning of the indie gaming revolution, and one was of the biggest success stories of that heady time. It was one of the first non-Nintendo downloadable titles for the Wii, where it was a huge hit and helped to establish that console, and Nintendo’s consoles generally, as a hospitable, profitable home for small independently-made games.
In the 16 years since, the game industry has changed drastically, although really it always has been. Indie titles have proliferated, to the degree that it has become difficult for a game to make itself seen amidst a flood of competitors. Some of the principals of 2DBOY split off into another company, Tomorrow Corporation, which produced the quasi-spinoff Little Inferno, a couple of brilliant visual programming games, Human Resource Machine and 7 Billion Humans, and they published the comedy-adventure game The Captain. Except for The Captain, all of these Tomorrow-made titles, and World of Goo too, share a distinctive and unique visual style and soundscape, which are kind of like if Tim Burton and Danny Elfman decided to make video games.
But World of Goo was the game that started it all. It’s a clever physics game where players build constructions out of “Goo Balls” in order to erect towers, bridge gaps, and generally bring the remaining balls on the level to an exit pipe. Drag one goo ball near another to make a bond between them, which behaves like a thin, stiff spring. By joining them together, balls and bonds, you can make all kinds of physics constructions. More species of goo balls are introduced in later levels: goo balloons, reusable goo, goo that can bond to three other goo balls at once, goo that can only bond singly, goo that sticks to walls and more.
The aim of most levels is to reach that pipe somewhere in the level. If you can get a goo construction close enough to it, it activates, drawing goo balls into it. To win a level, you have to collect a minimum number of balls; getting more means getting a better score. Usually goo balls that have been used to build things can’t then be sucked down the pipe, so the more goo you use to reach it, the less you can save and the lower your score. Each level has an optional “OCD,” or “Obsessive Completion Distinction” target, that is reached is marked on the hub screen by a flag. Some levels it’s earned by saving a target number of goo balls, some by using under a certain number of moves (goo connections), and with some it’s just a time limit. All of this applies to its sequel, World of Goo 2, as well, just with more kinds of goo and with more puzzle elements. The OCD goals now have one of each type for each level, which are tracked separately.
World of Goo’s gameplay is not completely original. A variety of small games and web toys featuring physics systems of WoG’s type have existed at least as far back as the year 2000, going back to Soda’s defunct, yet fondly remembered Java toy Soda Constructor. World of Goo itself began life as a freeware toy called Tower of Goo, that emerged from its creators’ work at Carnegie University and the Expermental Gameplay Project. (Warning: link is ancient, although still works.)
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World of Goo went far beyond those earlier versions of the idea, and World of Goo 2 goes beyond even that. The games stay fresh through by constantly introducing new wrinkles on the concept, and new kinds of goo balls with different properties, and it’s always a joy to get a new element to play with. The first game had 48 levels, and WoG2 has 61, but they go by in a flash, and the game never overstays its welcome. If anything they feel much too short, like there are gameplay possibilities left unexplored. I guess it’s true that you should always leave them wanting more.
World of Goo had a bizarre story involving the creation and machinations of an ominous company, called World of Goo Corporation, that may have been inspired by 2DBOY’s founders’ experiences working for Electronic Arts. It’s really less of a story as a collection of short stories, told in five chapters, with the highlight being a bizarre and self-referential Chapter 4 where the game’s concepts are flipped upside down.
World of Goo 2 also has a bizarre story that’s like a collection of short stories, about World of Goo Corporation’s ominous successor, World of Goo Organization. It all culminates in Chapter 4, where the game’s concepts aren’t so much flipped upside down but entirely stretched out of shape. I don’t want to spoil it, but Chapter 4 is amazing.
So yes, World of Goo 2 largely follows the same lines as the predecessor. It’s not just in story. It follows up on some of those possibilities hinted at during World of Goo, but it also adds many more new concepts, so by the end, which I reached in an obsessed 9 1/2 hours of play, I felt like there were at least as many gameplay loose ends as at the end of the first World of Goo.
All the old species of goo ball return, but now there’s new friends to learn about. There’s now liquids! And jelly creatures that you can split apart and grind up in satisfying ways! Goo conduits and launchers, and shooters and engines, and even more beyond that. The physics engine has received a substantial upgrade. Goo balls now leave damp blotches on the terrain they rest upon. The Time Bug undo feature can go back a bit further. You can drag the view around with the mouse, zoom in and out with the mouse wheel, and the goo balls are a bit better about getting out of your way when you’re trying to click on something important.
The only way that it’s really deficient, I’d say, is that it lacks the open-ended “Tower of Goo” mode of the original, where players could use their collected goo balls from the other levels in a high score challenge. Maybe in an update? World of Goo 2 has enough ideas in it that they could, if they chose, make a World of Goo 3. But what then? Could they keep riding this train for 100,000 years? Maybe not, but if they can keep up this level of ingenuity, then easily for another sequel.
World of Goo 2 has an engaging art style, so here, have some of the many hundreds of screenshots I took. There aren’t any big spoilers in them, but they do illustrate some of the later goos and gimmicks.
I had an amazing amount of fun with World of Goo 2. I binged it and finished it in 9 1/2 hours. You might finish it a bit faster, since I took something of the scenic route, but I also still remember many tricks from the first game, which I had completely OCD’d on Wii, and didn’t get stuck anywhere. It gets started a bit faster than World of Goo did. If you haven’t played it, you might want to go through it first. Luckily World of Goo has never gone out of print, and is available for nearly all desktop and mobile platforms, in addition to Nintendo consoles. You can’t get the Wii or Wii-U versions any more, but it can be obtained readily for the Switch.
It’s true, I’m on Tomorrow Corporation’s side. They’re good people and deserve to do well, but I’d be obsessing over World of Goo 2 even if I’d never heard of them before. It’s a real jewel, and I’m sure you’ll enjoy it.
If you found this review useful, please pass it around. And let us know; maybe I’ll do more text reviews in the future.
For this double indie game review, it’s a double deckbuilder with Beneath Oresa and Cobalt Core both played with press keys provided.
0:00 Intro
00:15 Beneath Oresa
5:36 Cobalt Core
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
This is part 3 of my favorite demos of upcoming games from Steam Next Fest June 2024 edition, all games shown are demos played from the event.
0:00 Intro
00:25 Node Farmer
2:59 Stardust Demon
4:51 Faye Falling
6:40 Patti Hattu: Cosmic Revolt
8:03 Guncho
10:00 TDS – Tower Defense Strategy
11:34 Chimera Custom XG
13:01 Tormenture
15:24 Green Again
18:35 Forgotlings
20:24 Dungeons & Degenerate Gamblers
21:55 Rune Coliseum
24:12 Slash Quest
25:53 Seafrog
28:04 Time Circuit
29:44 Lost Castle 2
31:33 Lethal Honor: Order of the Apocalypse
32:56 Iron Diamond
34:37 Soul Drifter
36:40 Exographer
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
Here’s the first part of my coverage of Steam Next Fest June 2024 looking at upcoming and updated demos of games.
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
This is a double review of the games Jusant and Thirsty Suitors played with a press key and retail key respectively.
0:00 Intro
00:22 Jusant
3:27 Thirsty Suitors
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
A few weeks back I mentioned Dungeon, a Commodore 64 CRPG system created by David Caruso II and published in 1990 on the disk magazine Loadstar. We’ve made it available through emulation on itch.io for $5. It’s here, and it’s awesome. It’s not just a way to play CRPG adventures but to make them yourself, and it even contains a random dungeon creation feature.
I make it available with some trepidation. Dungeon has a few significant bugs. For example, it supports two disk drives throughout, but if you use its Dungeon Maker then you need to set it for single drive mode, or else you’ll encounter a Disk Error just at the worst possible time: when saving your project. Its randomized “Lost Worlds” often create dungeons that strand your character in impossible situations, and while there is a way out of them, it involves loading the Guild menu 15 times.
But I’ve played a lot of these random dungeons, and I think overall David Caruso II made a clever little game system, and I think his ideas are worth building upon. That’s why I’m working on a remake/update of Dungeon, that I’m calling Dungeon DX.
I’m making it in Python using the Pygame library. I’ve tried making a game with Pygame before and had some problems with it (I may bring myself to talk about that experience someday), but using it now I’m pleased to see Pygame 2 has become a lot more performant, and that’s even before trying to compile it into a faster form. I’ve built for Dungeon DX a kind of bespoke terminal emulator, but one with support for loads of cool graphics effects. I’ve made dungeon art and monster images for it using the website Fontstruct, which gives the images a low-tech, but distinctive look.
I’ve been working very hard on it, to the extent that I can feel myself getting my hopes up that a substantial number of people may actually play and enjoy it. Most of the times in the past that I’ve done that I’ve had those hopes get crushed, but hey, maybe the nth+1 time’s the charm?
Besides not having all of its bugs, why do I think this project is worth working on? These are the things I find appealing about the original Dungeon, the reasons that I played so much of it myself, things that I don’t generally see in CRPGs these days:
Because these are the aspects of Dungeon that I like, they’re the elements that I’m focusing on in making Dungeon DX. My plans aren’t to make it quite as hard, but to still emphasize that these people are not demigods, not yet. A character’s career may be the story of the creation of a demigod, like how Conan, through countless trials, eventually became king of a great nation. It’s kind of a lie that people who rise to greatness frequently do so because of their own efforts, but it’s a pleasing lie, and it makes for a fun saga if you don’t take it too seriously.
My other plans for Dungeon DX, which may change, for while progress has been rapid (because Python is awesome), I’m still iterating over lots of things:
This is a preview of the demo build of Sunset Devils which is finishing up a Kickstarter campaign at the time of this posting.
Owner of Game Wisdom with more than a decade of experience writing and talking about game design and the industry. I’m also the author of the “Game Design Deep Dive” series and “20 Essential Games to Study”
