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Prince of Persia IV: PoP+Okami+SOTC?
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Well in that last scan he certainly looks bored.
I'm not so sure about how well the art style translates in-game. The prince and the baddies look fine but the enviroments look really bland except for that outdoors shot of the prince leaping.
From the looks of it, the one in the bottom left that's just the Prince is concept art, the action stuff looks like it's in-game.
Can't wait to see it in motion.
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The first page is just a render/art piece, and the 5th page is concept art, but the rest are in-game screens.
The original PoP is still my favorite though. That game was rad, first game I had for my old apple after Lunar Lander!
It goes like this.
You've completed the level, you unlock the light well, the level becomes pretty and you move onto the next level.
light well= arbitrary level ending device after you kill the boss.
I've been pleasantly surprised by the platforming/shimmying in Uncharted, and it doesn't need to use a rewind time element in order to be non-frustrating. For those who haven't played, the platforming elements usually fix the camera angle and give you some pointers for where you have to go. But it's not a giant arrow -- sometimes you're not really sure, so you jump towards a platform only to realize that it's too far away, falling to your death down a giant waterfall.
You then restart basically at that platform, or the one a few jumps back.
So if there's a section that involves 4 "large platforms" and some cliffs to shimmy around, some small, crumbling islands to hop over to, and a bad guy to kill, it separates the checkpoints into each of those large platforms. So you don't have to redo large chunks over again -- you usually only lose like 30 seconds.
Now, the game isn't as acrobatic or puzzley as PoP, so a similar system would probably have larger "gaps" between sections, but it was very refreshing to die and only go back a tiny bit, and not to some arbitrary 'save point' in the middle of the level. And honestly, I would be surprised if they did a "save point" system like was more common last-gen, simply due to the fact that, at least on the PS3, most games cache and regularly save on their own, forgoing any sort of "save point" system.
But yes, while I liked the rewind time system, and it's a neat visual effect, it did in many cases boil down to "whoops, I don't want to replay that whole section, rewind please!" and then just doing it right the next time.
Then what the bloody hell was wrong with it?
I think it boils down to flow. The rewind time facility doesn't break your flow, it just allows it to fork a little. But it goes further - it encourages you to play fast and fluid. To not stop and carefully line up the next jump. It makes you want to link all your moves together in a beautiful route through the level.
I think there is a genre waiting to be created that focus's on flow through levels rather than progress through levels. Some hi-score game with rewind time.
It would be glorious.
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Honestly, if you haven't played Two Thrones, but really like Sands of Time, you should really give it a chance.
That being said; I'm extremely excited about this game. The PoP is one of my favourite series of all time, I'm glad to see that they decided to continue with the IP rather than move on after the end of the last trilogy. I'll definitely be buying this.
That is a good point, that I hadn't thought of. If the game encourages you to start moving at the beginning of a puzzle and not stop until the end, the rewind functionality is great -- because you can attack a puzzle without knowing about how it works beforehand.
Arguably, it does affect level design, though. If you have the rewind functionality, setting up traps to kill the player and "unfair jumps/tricks" to catch them off guard are easy to throw in, without worrying about frustrating the player. They can just rewind past the spring trap or out of the pit and avoid it. Without rewinding, though, the penalties should be less harsh -- you catch more ledges, you roll when you hit flat ground, or perhaps you open up different branches.
Now that I'm writing this, it seems like the "fewer penalties and more branching routes" is what they're going for in the game, from that brief write-up. If a level isn't linear, figuring out "the way" through a jumping puzzle isn't as big of a deal -- rather, moving through the level and your ability to move and recognize elements in the environment affects how you navigate through the world.
This is conjecture, but it would make sense to me if you liked the fluid and acrobatic jumping puzzles of SoT, you'd take more "upper" routes in this game, figuring out how to achieve a goal without having to hit the ground. Rooftops & chimneys and so on could make this work. If you were more methodical, you end up going "to earth" more and figuring out where you have to go, and you encounter more combat since you're on the ground and going more slowly.
I could see it working pretty well. It's the kind of non-linear style I prefer (which is why I made it up, most likely), and since they state they're not doing an open world but rather more "branching" levels, I'm optimistic.
AJ2 soundtrack: NAME YOUR PRICE ON BANDCAMP! Album: BANDCAMP! iTunes Spotify Amazon UK
Echoed; I was going to say the exact same thing earlier but was sidetracked. I avoided WW based solely on the harsh waves of backlash, but I grabbed Two Thrones on a whim some time after its release and it was one of those games that kind of brought me back into gaming after I weathered a fairly long period of not being interested by anything new. I still found the battle mechanics and combos far too complex to be worthwhile, but the whole stealth-kill system meant that you could bypass a majority of the fighting with clever platforming and timing. Plus, it brought Yuri Lowenthal back and he spends most of the game talking about how irritating the Dark Prince is, so the game is worth fishing out of a bargain bin for this part alone.
Lave, I know we end up agreeing on pretty much everything
If this new game has platforming on par with SOT and TTT, but they either drastically reduce the amount of combat, or, I dunno, make it fun, this game is a day one purchase.
Sure, the main character design is nothing special, but its not offensive, so I can live with it.
I like the style I'm seeing in these scans. It looks sorta like an Arabian inspired FFT or Vagrant Story, art-wise. I hope that the style can convey the weight and kinetics the other PoP games and Assassin's Creed have.
Anyone know what the deal is with his left glove/gauntlet? Is that what gives him his Arabian ninja abilities?
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Meh.
Edit: Awwww the prince isn't going to be scaling 20 story tall monsters? Dammit. That would have been even cooler.
Edit2: If you say something is "Similar to SotC" I think "You climb giant monsters and stab their weakpoints to kill them". I don't think "Oh! It has HDR!"
Though I have to say, if those are in-game screens, I'm incredibly impressed. Very interesting art style.
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Except the art direction is also similar to SOTC.
Is the gameplay going to be 1/2 awesome platforming and 1/2 shitty broken combat system? If so, I might have to pass. Since they can't seem to get the combat right, I kindof wish they'd just remove it all together.
Is that something the developers themselves said or did the journo just make it up? Because there's no way in hell Ubisoft are going to let the Assassin's Creed franchise gather dust, it's probably the most successful game they've ever had. Ubisoft Montreal is a pretty damn big studio, just because they're developing SC5 and PoP doesn't mean they're not working on other games.
Anyway, sounds nice and I'm glad they're trying to differentiate it from AC. Now, please implement a good fighting system...
Chance: There's no need for a SotC 2, the game ends perfectly as it is. The ever-rumoured SotC HD should be enough until they release ICO 3.
I have a feeling it's a mistranslation from the original article. They probably said that the new PoP won't be another Assassin's Creed in terms of gameplay, not that they won't actually make a sequel to it.
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The next to last paragraph reminds me of the classic Mega Man approach: Choose stages in whatever order you want, play beginning to end, but playing certain stages/getting certain weapons earlier makes other stages easier. The notes about combat also intrigue me, since fewer enemies means hopefully battles won't be as prevalent and the bulk of the game will be platforming goodness. My favorite enemies in Prince of Persia are spikes, pits and ledges.
And the Assassin's Creed quote makes more sense in this manner: I take it to mean "Our bosses knew that this Prince of Persia wasn't going to be 'Assassin's Creed 2', but they were also taken aback at how far from the formula we were straying. We still got the okay, though."
Although, it is pretty obvious.
My HS art collection
Season's greetings, Satan!
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I'm sad to see the Rewind Time thing go though. It made platforming ALOT less frustrating and it really encouraged that feeling of beautiful, acrobatic flow that made the games so awesome.
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For example, if I reach a room and see what appears to be an impossible jump, I'll go ahead and try it because I know if it turns out to actually be impossible, I can just rewind time. Without that ability, I'd probably waste a lot of time searching the area to ensure that attempting this jump was the only way to go.
Granted, with this game apparently being more open and with multiple paths and what not, that may not be an issue.
Exactly. Time Rewind let you be reckless, which is what made the game fun. It put you in the right mood.
Cause honestly running along a wall thousands of feet above the ground, and then leaping to a pole and swinging yourself over to a far away ledge IS pretty reckless.
cant say im too happy with the art direction, but most cel shaded games i didnt like at first have always grown on me after awhile.
Again, I say:
"Influences" is always a loaded word, but hell fucking yes!
Psht. In my day, Shinobi didn't do no wall-running. He threw shuriken. He threw shuriken and sometimes kicked people.
And we liked it.
Finish the sentence, win a prize*!
*no prize
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I award you your no prize, but congratulate you for playing.
AJ2 soundtrack: NAME YOUR PRICE ON BANDCAMP! Album: BANDCAMP! iTunes Spotify Amazon UK