Porter's World

Here are the Prince’s top picks of the month, these are the best of the best from January of 2010.

1.) Alice is Dead: Chapter 2 – The incredibly popular point and click adventure delivers its second chapter with even more sketchy fairy-tale goodness.

2.) Battalion: Vengeance – The Battalion series brings itself to a closing with this final chapter; fans of the series won’t be disappointed.

3.) Transcripted – Transcripted is one of the more unique games to come out as of late. It’s fantastic art style and suiting ambiance track create a fantastic atmosphere worth checking out on its own. That aside, it offers a fantastic mix of both puzzle and action elements, definitely a must play for anyone interested in either genre.

4.) Civilizations Wars – Civilizations Wars is a very charming tactical strategy game with a lot of new additions to an already working concept. Fans of Nano War will be pleased with it’s fantastic visuals and enhanced gameplay through the ability to use spells.

5.) Helicops – Helicops is an entertaining action game with very nice pseudo 3D visuals. Tons of upgrades, various enemy types, and fast paced gameplay make this a must play.

If you haven’t checked out all of the above games, I strongly suggest you head over and give them a play, they’re all of excellent quality. Be sure to check back frequently to the greatest source of quality games on the net.

Epic Shadow Office

“After over a year of working together, Andrew and myself are finally united. Andrew has just moved form Illinois to Vermont to officially get things going for Epic Shadow Entertainment. We’ve just finished setting up our first official office in the basement of my house, and will be moving up as we grow. We’ve been through a lot in the last year, had some ups and downs, even a false move at one point, but it’s finally here, and it’s awesome.”

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That’s the word on the street at least, which is pretty accurate seeing as Andrew is just a few feet from me right now. The move has definitely been a huge change in our lives, both in and out of our career related activities. Andrew has upgraded his living environment, I have a significantly better work area, we’ve both been setting goals for the near future that are sure to expand both of our lives in great ways, it’s been good. If you’d like to see some pictures and read a bit more about the move, check out the post over at Alt Tab, our development blog.

Audacity

Anyone who works with audio needs a good program. When it comes to game design, audio is incredibly important, and there is always a bit of editing that must be done. Many people are under the impression that they need to pay for expensive audio software, or even hire someone to do their audio work, this isn’t true. Audacity is a free audio program that will cover all the basic needs of a game develop, and with ease. I won’t cover the entire program, but I will go over the basics that a game developer doing sound work will want to know.

Adjusting Volume Levels

An annoying issue that many games suffer, is the lack of unbalanced volumes for sounds. Having headphones on and suddenly hearing an ear piercing sound effect is the last thing your players want, and believe me it happens. To keep your players pleased with the audio of your game, and to allow them to hear all of your sound effects properly, it’s important to balance the volume of your sounds. Doing so in Audacity is incredibly easy; simply open your audio file, highlight the entire sound (or specific parts if you feel like getting fancy for whatever reason), go to Effect, then Amplify. Here you can drag the bar left and right to alter the volume change. Remember that going negative will decrease the volume of your sounds. Test your sound after each adjustment to see if you have the desired volume. I suggest having your music done first, this way you can run the swf and listen to your sound over the music as well. You should also keep your computer volume at a constant volume as go through all your sounds adjusting their volume, this will ensure that in the end, you’ll have a library of sounds that will work well together, and stand out over your music just the right amount.

Cleaning Up A Music Loop

First off, and most importantly, you need quality music to work with. If you’re looking for sources, check out my article on music for games. If you’re taking the free approach, and using music such as that which can be found in the Newgrounds Audio Portal, you’ll likely need to do some editing to the tracks before they’re ready to use. If you download a song from the net, even a loop, you’ll still generally have some work to do, depending on the source. Once you’ve selected a music loop, go ahead and open it up in Audacity. You’ll see no issues at first glance, in fact, testing the loop will sound as if it will loop perfectly; in reality, it will be alright, but nowhere near perfect. If you click on the magnifying glass tool, found on the top left in Audacity, you can zoom in on the sound waves to get a closer look. Take a look at the very beginning and end of your audio, you’ll find that there’s a straight line of absolute silence; even if this is 1/5 of a second, it’s going to show (You may have to zoom in multiple times to see this). Zoom in as much as needed and remove the silence as best as possible be selecting it with the mouse, and pressing delete. Do this to the end of the loop as well, removing any silence found at the end of the track. Now for the testing phase. Highlight the entire track, then press Ctrl + C to copy it. Now click on the two arrows pointing to the right in your playback toolbar, this will take your current selection tool to the end of your track. Paste the entire track by pressing Ctrl+V. You should now have a file with your loop copied twice, the copy starting immediately at the end of the original loop. If you successfully removed the silence at the beginning and end of your loop, you should be able to play the sound file and hear absolutely no hiccups in the middle where the repeat is taking place. If the loop still doesn’t sound right, and you’re certain you removed all the silence and copied the track correctly, it’s safe to say that the “loop” you downloaded wasn’t the greatest loop after all. If all went well, press Ctrl + Z until the copy of the loop is removed (this was only needed to test that it does indeed loop). You now have an excellent loop and are good to go, be sure to save the file as a .WAV as well as .mp3, having both is always a great idea. If you’re using flash, you’ll want to use the .WAV file, this will ensure a perfect loop after flash compresses your file to an mp3. If you’re using something else, such as FlashDevelop and Flex to compile, you’ll be forced to use a .mp3 file since .WAV’s aren’t supported. There is a work around for this, however that’s a bit complicated and will be a different post for a different day. All in all, if you’re using flash, use the .WAV file and you should be good to go.

Creating A Loop From A Non-Looping, Full Length Track

If you’re not finding an existing loop with the feel you’re looking for, worry not. Many non looping songs will have portions of the song that can be taken out and turned into a loop, doing this is actually a common task for me, and I find it rather effective. This is where the true power of an audio editing program comes in, you can get some quality loops in a short time, without spending a cent. Take a look at the song Cobalt Blue Sphere, notice how long the song is, and the fact that it isn’t a loop. Now take a look at one of our past games, Gravibounce, created by Andrew and myself of Epic Shadow Entertainment. Go back to Cobalt Blue Sphere on Newgrounds, and listen to the song from 3:58 – 4:25. As you’ll see, this is the portion of the song that you hear in Gravibounce; it was cut out using audacity. Another example of me doing this is in my first solely developed game, Dominus Void. The song “Lost”, by Ryan Stevens, or Reasoner as he’s often referred to as, was edited by myself to be a title screen loop, it came out rather well. With a good ear, some patience, and a free program like audacity, you too can create great loops such as this. This is far more complicated then simply removing the silence before an already created loop, but it gives you a track that nobody else has ever used, and one of great quality. The trick is to listen to the song closely, and use your ear to find a portion of the song that can loop into itself. When you’ve located the proper position, roughly cut out everything before and after the portion of the song you’ll be using. Be sure to give yourself some extra wave length, this is a good idea seeing as you can remove whatever you want, but you can’t add to the file once you’ve removed too much. Zooming in during the editing process will also give you much more accuracy over what you delete, and you can often see where the new measures starts due to the visual increases in wave length. Use your ear and closely narrow the intro down to the first beat of a measure, this is usually pretty easy to determine in a song, unless it’s something with a tremendous amount of percussion. Once you’ve got the intro down, edit the end of the file so that it ends at the end of a measure, this is usually after 4 major beats as most music is in 4/4 time. Be sure to slice only a little off at a time, then use the testing method as mentioned earlier. Count the beats as the loop plays, if it hiccups before the 4th beat plays, you’ve cut too much off, if it plays a little bit passed the 4th beat, you’ve still got a little more cutting to do. This is an advanced technique, and takes some practice, but it can produce some pretty awesome loops, ones that only your game will have at that. As a rule of thumb, always ask the artist if you can edit their work to create a loop, and always give them credit for their original piece.

Cutting Down A Sound Effect’s File Size

Audio is by far the biggest contributor to flash game file size. Although there are a number of compression options to reduce file sizes for audio, there are also a number of techniques that can be done before the files are even imported into your game’s library. One of the most simple, and effective, is to cut the length of your sound effects. If you open up many of your sound effects in audacity, you’ll notice that the sound waves die out, and trickle for some time, often times doubling the wave length of a sound. Although there is indeed sound going on here, you often times can’t hear it, especially over music. To greatly reduce the file size of effects, simply cut off these trickling endings bit by bit. Each time you cut, listen to the sound to ensure that quality isn’t lost, if it isn’t, cut some more. You’ll be surprised at how much of a sound wave can be cut off before any audible changes occur. Using this method on your entire library of sound effects will greatly reduce your file size, making for quicker load times, and in the end, happier players.

Correcting Audio Files

Ever had an mp3 file that flash just wouldn’t accept? The reason for this is most likely that your mp3 file has a bit rate that flash doesn’t support. You can check the bit rate by right clicking on your sound file, going to properties, then to summary. If the bit rate is not one that is shown on chart below, you’ll likely encounter problems. The good news is, you can simply import your audio file into Audacity, then export it as an mp3 again; this will change the bit rate to 112 kbps, the default bit rate for mp3’s in Audacity.

Bit Rate Chart, Source: Articulate Blog

Conclusion

That’s a lot of power for a free audio program, respect to the authors for such an awesome program. Aside from the above, you can do plenty of other complex variations to your audio files. Some of these include pitch changes, tempo changes, adding echo, adding reverberation, bass amplification, and more. Audacity may not be a full fledged audio program, but it definitely has what’s needed to take care of your basic audio editing needs, and that should be enough for any flash game developer.

The Boss

Being your own boss is pretty sweet. As a full time web developer, and flash game developer, I’ve come to enjoy far more time in my room and outside, rather than making pizza on the make line at Domino’s. As great as being self employed is, I perhaps jumped into the self employed role a bit too early, and I’m facing the consequences of that now. I do however plan to push through hard times and succeed, but I’m here to share the pros and cons of being your own boss, and what you can do to ensure a smother ride if you happen to choose this wonderful route.

Everyone wants to be there own boss; nobody likes taking orders from others, especially when your input on matters isn’t really appreciated, or even listened to. Aside from the horrible wages and lack of free time I experienced working a “normal” job, I also got sick of taking orders from someone above me, especially when that someone wasn’t exactly as intelligent or deserving of that position in comparison to myself. This is one of many things that finally drove me to the decision of quitting my job and becoming self employed. Sounds awesome right? For the most part, yes, but there are a few negative aspects to it that I’ll go over now.

I admittedly jumped into being self employed a little too soon, I can cope with it now, but at a price I would have avoided had I known what I know now. I definitely should have gotten more experience under my belt before making this my actual day to day job, especially without having too much funds saved up. Stability of income is an incredibly important thing, if you’re not entirely prepared to be out on your own and self employed, you’ll find yourself facing unstable income from time to time. This can all be easily avoided if you save up enough funds to support possible issues, so I definitely advise anyone considering becoming self employed to do so. I also encourage you to be well prepared for what it is you’re doing. If you’re a programmer, make sure you know your stuff, learning is much harder when you have to worry about paying the rent and where that money will come from.

The next issue, and biggest issue for myself and others from what I’ve heard, is motivation. It’s really hard to put in the proper amount of hours, as well as actually stay focused, when sitting in front of a computer. I’m not addicted to any social networking sites, nor do I play any MMO’s, yet I still find myself wasting far too much time in front of the computer; this generally consists of doing things such as browsing the net, reading interesting articles, looking at computer parts on Newegg, and so on, it’s just one thing after another. When I finally do get settled down, and into a mental state that is ready for work, a friend will call me up and invite me to some gathering that all my friends are going to, something I have a hard time passing up when there isn’t someone there to tell me no. It’s not that I don’t have self control (believe me, I’ve passed many events in the last few months), it’s just not as easy to pass up a good time when nobody is stopping you but yourself. If you think that this could be a possible issue for yourself, check out my other article titled Motivation Boost. In addition, I strongly advise you to change your desktop background to a little motivation, it’s effects are rather impressive.

Lastly, there’s the wonderful world of taxes. This really shouldn’t be an issue, at least once you’ve learned what’s required of you as someone who is self employed, but unfortunately for me, I’m one of those people who has been delaying the research and will have to deal with it when the time comes. Some sponsors require you to fill out a W2, while others don’t. Regardless, I don’t exactly know what to do when it comes to my taxes and being self employed, and this could prove to be an issue in a few years. It really isn’t a huge issue since I have records of all my game sponsorships, but it’s still something you have to be aware of when becoming self employed.

Cons aside, there are definitely perks to being your own boss. I can sleep in as late as I want, whenever I want. I’ll repeat that for those who are in shock, yes, I can sleep in as late as I want. There is no greater perk to being your own boss than that. I don’t have to rush out of bed, take a shower, catch a bus, then fly down to a place I don’t want to be. Instead, I can wake up slowly, grab some food, hop online for awhile, then let the course of my day roll out as I please. We all remember the dreaded sound of an alarm clock waking us up for school or work, rarely do I hear that sound anymore, and when I do, it’s not I who has to wake up with the feeling that smashing something against the wall is a great idea.

As far as free time goes, there is a lot more free time to be had, and it really won’t hurt you if you use a bit of self control and plan out your work schedule. On that note, I highly suggest you plan out actual hours for yourself, don’t feel that you have to work those exact hours, but giving yourself a rough outline will help you maintain a balance of free time and actual work accomplished. I suggest using the program Klok, it’s an excellent program to keep track of the hours you work, and those you don’t.You’ll also find that having more free time makes you a happier person, which in turn makes your actual production hours more valuable because you’re in a better mindset. The amount of work achieved when happy and working on something passionate is significantly larger than work you have to do, and really don’t give a damn about.

Lastly, and most importantly, there is a certain sense of accomplishment one gets from working for him or herself. My biggest complaint with a “normal” job is that I constantly felt like I was wasting my life, like I was literally a slave to society and the system that it rests within. Making pizza is fine, but it’s not something I want to do, it’s not something I can feel proud of. People shouldn’t have to sit behind counters and take orders for nearly 25% of their life (168 hours in a week, full time employment is 40 hours, often times more). If I’m going to be working that long, it’s going to be towards something I’m passionate about, something that I enjoy, regardless of how tiresome it can be at times. That being said, I would rather work 40 hours a week as a game designer and just barely be able to pay my rent, then work 20 hours at a gas station making more, it’s just that much more fulfilling.

All in all, being your own boss is excellent. You’ll live a happier lifestyle, feel more accomplished, and eventually make more money than any retail job will ever pay you. It takes a lot more work than those jobs do, and often times it’s much harder work, but you’ll gain valuable knowledge along the way, and actually enjoy yourself. The few cons I mentioned aren’t really cons, but more things you should be aware of before becoming self employed. If you enter carefully, and well prepared, you’ll find yourself a much happier and successful individual.

Here are this week’s useful links posted by me, for you, check them out,

1.) Macropayments: Steve, over at 8bit rocket, expresses his opinion on the idea of a macropayments.
2.) Unity3D Game Portals: Unity3D is slowly on the rise, follow it closely, it could impact flash games greatly.
3.) Why You Should Use Flex And Flash Together: Title says it all, check it out.
4.) 3 Minute Lesson: Lain gives us some quick pointers on some key factors you need to keep in mind when making games.
5.) Destroy All Cars: Squiz is working on a new game in which you can drive fast and smash things, I’m sold.

Check back with the Prince often, because I love you.

Classic Games

Games have evolved a lot over the years, so much in fact that some developers have begun to forget to focus on the basics in game design. Classic games have been around since the days people camped outside bars to play Pacman, yet despite their age, they still remain popular today. Modern games are often frowned upon for taking too much time making things shiny, and not enough time making things fun. I’m in no way against modern gaming, but it’s my honest opinion that very few developers do things right these days.

Now you may be thinking I’m just nostalgic for oldschool games, especially with me releasing games such as Tower of Greed and praising Super Mario World all the time, I can assure you this isn’t the case. I am nostalgic for classic games, I won’t deny that, but I take that into consideration when observing games and my thoughts still stand true. Every modern game in existence today builds itself upon ideas that have already been done. New games may expand upon these foundations, but the foundations are always the same. There are certain fundamentals within games that please us over and over again, from game to game, they’re just disguised differently each time. Puzzle games make us think, then give us gratification upon completion, that’s what makes them good, always has, always will be. Action games keep us entertained because we can move quickly, explore, use cool abilities, kill things, experience a challenge, never have a dull moment, the list goes on.  Contra on the NES may not be Ninja Gaiden 2 on the Xbox 360, but the same elements exist, and without them the game would fail. What made Mario so great? You explored (went to new worlds and found secrets), collected coins, avoided tricky situations (were presented challenge), and had a definite ending that was to give you gratification upon completion. Mario hasn’t changed since it’s first game, Super Mario Galaxies may have tons of shiny new features, but those core elements all exist, and the game designers are definitely taking those into consideration when designing the game.

Let’s take a look at a new game that really utilizes what I’m getting at. Grid 16 is an amazing flash game, built almost entirely on a collection of classic mechanics. It adds the neat twist of switching between 16 games as you go, but if you were tossed even 100 crappy games, would you care that it was switching between them? Grid 16 is successful in part by it’s creative switching mechanic, but mostly due to the fact that it presents a bunch of proven games to you all at once. Everyone loves pong, even if for just a few seconds, it’s great fun. Platforming has been around forever, still stands strong to this day. Dodging has been a core element of games such as Pacman and Space Invaders. As you can see, Grid 16 basically is the classics, nearly all of them tossed into one game.

Okay, so all games are built upon the same core foundations, what does this mean? In short, study your classic games, they are a limitless source of knowledge pertaining to what makes all games great. Combining your knowledge of what makes the classics so great, while keeping the importance of originality in mind, is exactly what makes a successful game. If you’re looking for a bit of something to get you into the classic games, I suggest watching the movie “The King of Kong“, it was recently suggested to me and I loved it; it’ll definitely open up your eyes to how the gaming world used to be, and perhaps give you ideas of where you can take things in the near future.

Here are the Prince’s top picks of the month, these are the best of the best from September of 2009.

1.) Momentum Missile Mayhem 4 – Momentum Missile Mayhem 4 is a fast paced, action packed physics game like no other. I rarely sit down and play an entire flash game these days, this one really drew me in and presented an excellent level of challenge. Tons of levels, a great skill tree system, and a variety in enemies, make this an excellent game that should definitely be played by all.

2.) Madness Accelerant – Madness Accelerant offers an action filled adventure like no other flash game. Beautiful graphics and intense boss moments give an experience that really isn’t found anywhere else in flash games. Any fan of the Madness series will be truly entertained by this masterpiece of a quick action filled adventure.

3.) Mushroom Madness – Defense games have always been among player’s favorites. Mushroom Madness offers an impressive mix of charming graphics, balanced gameplay, and action oriented defense mechanics. Various weapons and upgrades make this medium sized game pass by without a dull moment, give it a play.

4.) SkyFyre – SkyFyre offers some of the internet’s most intense side scrolling shooter action. Four classes, a shop, and a level up system, all allow you to customize and play the game in a number of unique styles. Take the above combination and mix in some retro graphics, and you have one hell of a gaming experience.

5.) Back To The Cubeture – Cuboy has been a successful animation on the net for some time now. Cuboy has now entered the gaming atmosphere, and in what better way then through a time traveling adventure? Highly entertaining voice acting and a crazy story make this one of the best point and click adventure games to exist on the net today.

If you haven’t checked out all of the above games, I strongly suggest you head over and give them a play, they’re all of excellent quality. Be sure to check back frequently to the greatest source of quality games on the net.

Ninja Gaiden Intro

I’ve been doing a lot of thinking lately about the differences in design pertaining to flash games versus console games. This brought a new thought to my mind that I’m rather surprised hasn’t hit me until now; why don’t more flash games have cut scenes? Movie intros to games help set a mood, entertain the player before they even start playing, and give the player a feel for what’s to come. For a minimal amount of work, a significant increase in value can be added. I’ve spoken of the importance of plot, and it’s simple intros like these that can achieve the desired story telling effect.

Cut scenes have been in games since the NES, even earlier if you count the character intros and instruction demos arcade classics such as Pac Man had to offer. The NES had what I would say is the closest style of cut scene that a flash game should offer. Games such as Ninja Gaiden 1 had very simple cut scenes, but they really added to the game. They weren’t complex, the animations were minimal, but they got a point across and they looked pretty good too. Other NES titles that had incredibly short, minimal animation intros include, but are not limited to, Little Nemo: The Dream Master, Ninja Turtles, Blaster Master, Night Shade, and so on. All of these games were excellent, and those quick intros and mid game cute scenes really added to the game, whether the player noticed it or not.

So why haven’t developers been adding cut scenes? First and foremost, I think the biggest reason is that it just hasn’t been a custom in flash games yet. People aren’t leaving them out on purpose, they’re simply not thinking to add them at all. When is the last time you developed a game and planned out mini cut scenes for a game that wasn’t an RPG? I’m sure a select few of you can give an example where you did, but I’m guessing that most would say you haven’t ever, I know I haven’t. Another reason to leave them out of the plan is that they do require a bit of work, nothing significant, but nothing that isn’t going to add a few hours to the production time; for what it’s worth though, those extra hours will go a long way. The last reason I can think of to leave them out, is due to a players patience. Most players click through instructions because they just want to get in and play, cut scenes would delay how quick players could jump into the action. A solution to this however is to make a button that allows the player to skip the cut scene if they so choose, simple, yet effective solution.

There you have it, yet another way to increase the value of your flash games. It’s not rocket science, but I’m sure we can all name a few games that left out cut scenes that shouldn’t have. I remind you that this in fact a generalization, there have been games that follow my above thoughts in every possible way, Hero’s Arms being a perfect example of such a game. If you’re looking to add a bit of value to your games and haven’t been adding cut scenes, you know what to do, get on it.

Momentum Missile Mayhem 4

It’s not often I find a flash game that really draws me in, Momentum Missile Mayhem 4 is one of those rare exceptions. There has never been an action oriented defense game that has successfully drawn me in like this game. Everything shines with high production value, the music, the graphics, the interface, and most importantly, the gameplay. I’m constantly ranting about how flash games are ridiculously watered down in difficulty, this game pleases me even there, offering enough challenge to have stolen a few hours of my life, hours that I’m not about to ask to get back. I know a lot of players as well as developers hate hearing about high production value, but this is one of the cases where high production value really deserves to be pointed out. The amount of polish put into this game is intense, and I’m certain it paid off in the sponsorship deal.

The gameplay in Momentum Missile Mayhem 4 is awesome, very awesome. The physics are spot on, the enemies interesting, and variety of things to do immense. The RPG factors within the skill tree system alone are enough to hook most players, the intense heated battles finish it off for the rest. There are a number of special skills to help you on the battlefield, some unlocked from beating bonus missions in the campaign mode, others you start with. Your primary projectiles can be upgraded to shoot faster, deal more damage, and contain more mass, which sends enemies flying further and faster which feels quite rewarding. By applying points to the gravity launcher upgrade, you can also unlock 4 other types of projectiles, all with unique properties and uses, and of course, their own level. Some of the more intense attacks have cool down timers, but that’s all just part of the amazing balancing this game has to offer. Aside from the starting and four additional types of projectiles you can get via leveling up the gravity launcher upgrade, you can unlock a sixth type by clearing a bonus mission which is unlocked roughly half way through the game, and believe me, you don’t want to miss this one. In addition to the six different projectiles you can choose from, you can level up your max shield and shield recharge rate, max energy and energy recharge rate, as well as nine other useful skills to help you dominate the battlefield. Despite the insane ability to upgrade and customize your attack strategy, you’ll find yourself using good old fashioned skill more than anything to stay alive in this game. This game is hard, not so hard it’s unfair, but hard enough to give you a few hours of gameplay if you want to finish the entire campaign, not to mention the sandbox and Armageddon mode. Aside from a few minor issues that make the difficulty unfair, rather than hard, the gameplay is presented perfectly.

The graphics in Momentum Missile Mayhem 4 are definitely top notch. The explosions look excellent, the textures on background terrain superb, and the various effects during special attacks are flawless. The enemy designs are each unique, and well thought out as well. They all vary in size, shape, and color, where as many games recycle designs and just swap up color and size. The most unappreciated aspect related to the graphics and design is probably the user interface, which is amazing. There is a lot of information in this game, lots of upgrade menus, lots of instructions, it’s just loaded. This game organizes all of that information and presents it in a way that isn’t overwhelming, which I applaud seeing as there’s so much to do and learn. All around there isn’t a single graphical flaw in this game, it’s well presented, well polished, and it looks excellent.

I’ve explained time and time again about the importance of game music, I’m proud to say that this game follows absolutely everything I have to say on the matter. The title screen music is relaxing, much like the calm before a battle. The level selection menu is more pumped, it hints that things are about to heat up, it’s time to prepare. Lastly, the gameplay music, a mild rock tune with a lot of energy, perfectly fitting the mood of the action packed battles. The sound effects are excellent, and none are missing. There’s sounds for menu hover, menu select, firing, blowing up, specials, explosions, and so on, they’re all there. All the sounds are incredibly fitting, none are too high pitched and hurt with headphones, and all are crystal clear. This game is a fine example of how audio can add to the value of a game by being exceptionally fitting.

All in all I’m very pleased with this game. I rarely find a flash game that I hold on par with games outside of the industry, but this one definitely goes onto my list of great games in general. I really don’t have anything negative to say about this game, there are a few minor unfair situations that can occur that are out of the players control, but it happens, and when compared to the amount of superb balance this game offers, I really can’t complain. If you’re looking for some great action, or some more hands on strategic defense, Momentum Missile Mayhem 4 is definitely the game for you.

Scribblenauts

It’s not every day that I see a console game that could become a flash game, and even rarer that I find one that is almost screaming to be turned into one. Scribblenauts for the Nintendo DS is one of those rare gems, and it’s just blessed the world with it’s presence today. Scribblenauts is not only an amazing game, but it’s the first game I’ve actually looked forward to and felt was truly original since Portal came out with the Orange Box. If you’re unfamiliar with Portal, log into your steam account now and check it out, you can also try Portal: The Flash Version which is basically the same concept, but in 2D.

First off, let’s take a look at what makes Scribblenauts such an amazing game. The point of the game is to solve various puzzles, or reach the goal, to receive the magical that is a starite. The way you solve these puzzles is where Scribblenauts really shines. You can move around using the DS’s stylus, look around using the D-Pad or ABXY buttons, and last but not least, click on the note pad and write in anything that comes to mind. What does writing in anything that comes to mind do for you exactly? It brings it to life, plops it into the world in front of you, and begs you to interact with it in whichever way possible. You can write so many things it’s unbelievable, the database of items is absolutely massive. I’ve only played the game a very short while since it just came out, but already I’ve ridden a whale, had that whale defeat an angry lion, and used a rocket to blow holes in the ground to navigate to new areas. When I say you can write anything, I mean it. Admittedly (and this is nearly impossible to avoid) you can stump the system and come up with something it doesn’t have, but you nearly have to try to do so which is quite impressive; on top of that, it gives you options that are close to whatever you typed that wasn’t found, so you really can’t complain. After you create various objects, you can ride them, throw them, shoot them, combine them, and so on. If this doesn’t sound at all amusing to you, you’re anhedonic, and I’m sorry for your loss.

So you may thinking that the above is quite impressive, well, it is. So how does this relate to the flash industry? How can such an impressive game be moved to a platform such as flash? Easily is how. The entire game, although amazing, is basically a giant database of words, tons of simple art and animation, basic platforming, and a fine dose of Box2D or your favorite physics engine. The art has it’s own style, but is certainly something that could be seen in a flash game. It’s colorful, simplistic, and almost looks as if someone drew it with a tablet. The biggest draw back I see is that the game is 32MB, which would be a massive flash game, but I’m sure a lot of the file size are files that pertain directly towards communication with the DS and stuff of that nature. If not, the database of items could be loaded externally to reduce the file size to something acceptable. Regardless of the solution picked, it’s definitely doable. The game would undeniably be a huge project, but it’s one that could definitely shine as one of the greatest flash games to this day. The game really is perfect for the flash platform, and I’m almost surprised the company didn’t launch a mini game flash version to build up some extra hype for the DS release. It’s creative, it’s the most intuitive game since Portal, and it’s amazingly casual and laid back, which is perfect for the flash industry.

The most impressive aspect of the game is that game developers have once again created something incredibly original. After thousands of clones of great games, another company has stepped forward, used some creativity, taken a risk, and is now reaping the rewards for their work on an original concept. The most inspiring thought I get from the above isthis, yes they developed the game for the DS, but it could just as easily been you or I developing this game for the DS. Creative ideas that have yet to be thought of are still out there; leave the tower defense games and physics clones for someone else, and embrace the importance of originality.

Interested in picking up Scribblenauts? Buy it here –