The Artcade is over, and in a few days our games will be online for everyone to play.  To tide you over here’s a post lost in time from our final meeting, just before the Canzine Artcade.

We were meeting one last time, to show our games in in there near complete *cough cough* form, and give each other feedback before the big event.

Snow - a coffee shop somewhere on Queen Street West

Ben showed us a feature complete version of his game Snow which is based on his mini comic of the same name.   Snow is a traditional point and click adventure game, with an emphasis on character over puzzles.  The player can walk around exploring Queen Street West in Toronto and get in a series of conversations with people.  The goal of the game is to navigate those conversations and make the main character become more assertive in how she deals with people (she’s a bit of a push over). Many of the backgrounds were still using temporary art, but the game could be completed from start to finish and even had two different endings.

Before Canzine he planned to get all the final backgrounds finished, add more click-able objects for the player to look at and different dialogue if you talk to npcs a second time.

Night of the Cephalopods - work in progress opening screen

Next we looked at my game Night of the Cephelopods which could also be played from start to finish (with temporary art), but it was also missing a key feature from my original design: the fully voiced dynamic narration.   While running around shooting squidy things only two actions triggered over the top horror narration, and all these used poorly acted temporary narration I’d recorded myself.  I had done a recording session the day before with a real voice actor (Scott Moyle of Decoder Ring Theatre) and so I played  a section from my recording to demonstrate how much better the final version would sound (scientifically proving that everything is better when I don’t open my mouth).  The game was also way too easy and I had to purposefully die, throwing myself against the octopuses with abandon, to demonstrate the losing end because everyone else who played survived without effort.

Before Canzine, I planned to get as much of the final narration in as I could and polish the art.  I also wanted to reduce the number of hits it takes to die to see if that would make the game more difficult.

The Adventures of Plastico Bandera - now with marker art!

Jim showed us the newest version of The Adventures of Plastico Bandera which had gotten a major face lift since the last version.  All the art had been replaced by scanned marker drawings, giving it a charming kids drawing aesthetic.  Plastico Bandera also sported a new Che Guevara inspired look fitting of a revolutionary of his stature.   Since the last version Jim had added a second helper character. Joining El Jefe the garbage bag was Lil’ zip the ziplock bag who can be thrown at your seagull oppressors.   The seagulls had smarter projectile feces attacks, letting loose only when above Baggera, unfortunately this had lead to a bug where they would let loose huge streams, giving the impression that Plastico Bandera was being attacked by falling  “/” and “\” slashes rather then individual white drops.

Jim planned to fix the steam of feces bug and refine the game further in general before Canzine.

Bubl - random test level

Davin showed his game Bubl for the first time, while it wasn’t fully playable (it was very close!) it already had full working N style editor in flash making this the first Artcade game to support user generated content (I think?).   The game had changed in a few subtle ways from his original idea of mimicking the old  Waterful toys.  Instead of pushing a bubble around the level indirectly using water jets, Bubl plays more like a sort of platformer with floaty underwater physics where the player controls the bubble directly.  Several interesting obstacles fill the single screen levels: kelp slows the bubble, skulls damage the player (or would once implemented), and horizontal currents sweep the bubble sideways. Because the bubble is lighter then water the player must constantly push down to reach the lower parts of the level and reach the goal.

Davin planned on implementing the remaining objects and create a series of real levels (he demonstrated the game using a level with a random layout for testing) before the deadline.

The Landmarkers - around half way through the city's life

Jason then showed us the newest version of The Landmarkers.  While the game retained it’s simple linear gameplay of watching a city grow and change while picking which buildings to “landmark” and save from destruction Jason had added a bunch of new features to make the experience more engaging.  The game now starts with a peaceful town being ravaged by a giant fire.  Each building now displays facts when it first appears  such as it’s creator and the date it was built.  Best of all each transition between buildings includes a unique, often humorous, newspaper announcement. OK I lied, the best part is that by the end of the game there are flying cars in the background!

Jason planned on adding a challenge to the landmarking process where players would have to answer a question about the building they want to preserve such as what year it was built or who the architect was.

And so the final meeting of the Artsy Games Incubator 3rd round came to a close.  Only a few days left till the games are all online and everyone can experience joy and pain of playing the terrible creations we wrought.