How unique are Mutant Storm and Space Tripper?

#1 O, our games are VERY rare!! ;0)

But, there are a few other small devs doing some interesting stuff:-
www.puppygames.net
www.digital-eel.com

there are a few others, but i dont have the addresses to hand.
Ill post them up, once I find them.

#2 Thanks, I've been checking them out. They all have interesting twists and deviate from the norm, a lot of fun - something that makes these independent games great. I still prefer the PomPom games because they appeal to my play style - fast paced, addictive, intense, yet not mindless. I hope you guys are successful with Mutant Storm so we can see future titles from you.

I signed up for the score submissions of Mutant Storm - did you get that e-mail? I use hotmail so I just double check because some people block hotmail's domain due to all the spams.

Thanks. =)

#3 Ok dude.
All done, with the username and password you asked for in the e-mail.

Good luck beating those top scores!! ... they are truly evil!!

#4 Awesome thanks. Yah some of those top scores look insane, but now that I have this Logitech Rumble Pad (wireless) I have a fighting chance. =)

#5 My friend was saying he used to play this game:

http://www.bykeyword.com/pages/detail11/download-11045.html

He said it was similar from the videos of Mutant Storm that I showed him - in presentation. Every played that game?

#6 As far as MS goes nothing comes close for me (not for want of trying) although I have enjoyed Alien Flux from puppygames mentioned above.

#7 This is some cool reading, kind of the history of how MS came to be (well, I'm assuming because Llamatron was listed as one of the inspirations and it sure seems a lot of the greatness of MS is in that older game).

http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/MINTER.HTM

"What's your philosophy of game design?

Gameplay Uber Alles. And if you can make it psychedelic too, great!

My idea of fun is not so much creating a realistic world with the computer, so much as creating a surrealistic one. Rather than use the machine to emulate reality, use the machine to go to places that no-one ever imagined before. I think that's the real potential of the new generation of ultra-powerful machines, at least as far as my future designs are concerned. I have things in my head that you could create with the power of, say, five PlayStations, that'd have to be made illegal, they'd be so trippy."

http://www.ataritimes.com/computers/reviews/rev_llamatron.html

The interview really shows what good game design is all about.

Mr. Minter was a gaming genius.

Looks like he's working on a new game:

http://www.lionhead.com/unity/

http://www.cube-europe.com/news.php?nid=5108

http://www.cube-europe.com/news.php?nid=3515

#8 Yep. There alot of obvious inspiration taken from Minters games.
Im in Minters corner regards game design. Simulating reality is the easy option as far as im concerned.
Simulated bullets. Simulated cars. Simulated skull frgments, bouncing realistically off the simulated tarmac.... it all sucks.

Not sure how something looks? ... go and take a photo.
Not sure how something sounds?... go sample it.
Not sure how my Pc would bounce realistically down the stairs? ... go throw it!!

What about the stuff you cant photo? ... cant sample? ... cant record?

Computers give us the chance to play God, and what do we do with it?
We copy everything!

Bah!... now im all vex! ... im gonna play some Burnout to help me calm down! ;)

#9 "Eugene Jarvis is one of a handful of names that come up again and again as the inspiration for dozens of other game programmers. He created 1980's landmark "Defender," the first horizontally scrolling game; and the most frantic game of all-time, a classic that works as well in 1997 as it did in 1982: "Robotron: 2084." In the late 80s he spearheaded Williams Electronics return to video games as the designer of "NARC," and a member of the development team for "Smash TV," the official sequel to "Robotron." More recently, he created "Cruis'n USA" and the sequel, "Cruis'n World."

The ten original titles he has worked on have generated over a billion dollars in sales."

"Do you see retrogaming as just a fad or do you think it will in some way have an effect on the types of games being written?

For me the retrogaming movement is more than just nostalgia of misty eyed Gen X'ers. It's a reaction to the current graphical overkill, the simulation obsessed gaming environment of the late 90s. In our quest for absolute graphical realism, we have forgotten the basics of gaming. Look at "Virtua Fighter 3" vs. "Virtua Fighter 2." Unless you are a proctologist, you can't find a dimes' worth of difference in the gameplay. It is clear that the design team focused on the beautiful water effects, facial expressions, awesome backdrops, and 400 polygon, fully rendered loin-cloth animations. Have we as game designers become mere interior decorators, spending months on the reflection mapping of candlelight, or loin-cloth motion capture? Have we forgotten the essence of gaming which is to present the player with novel and original challenges? Once you've seen the interior decoration, there's no need to come back. You need a game in there."

http://www.dadgum.com/halcyon/BOOK/JARVIS.HTM

#10 Here's a cool interview with the creator of Tempest - easily one of my favorite games. I guess he likes to keep his identity a secret for whatever reason.

http://208.17.150.196/arcade/

I think I'm having some sort of early mid-life gaming crisis. I wish things were like they were in the 80's (gaming wise). =)

#11 If you like the ol' Atari Jaguar and Lynx, by brother is still developing for them: www.songbird-productions.com. :-)

Not 'xactly on-topic, but still 80's-early 90's love!

-EricF

#12 Has PomPom considered making a release source form of the Mutant Storm engine, sort of like what GarageGames does for Torque? A sort of way to support the independent start-up game designer, yet avoid the mainstream same'ism.

It would be one way to make further profit, and to push out this genre more. I have a friend who is very creative and has a really good artistic, model, and game creation talent (he also lives in the UK) - he always making maps, mods, even his own little online games. After I showed him your games, and told him about this sort of retro-comeback he's expressed a lot of interest in making online style arcade games - he's been working on 2D UDP based chat games lately; he has a really good understanding of netcode (i.e. understands how bandwidth, coordinates, and programming go with games). I could imagine a person like him doing some very creative things with an engine like yours - and other talented people out there - particularly game modders (the people who make mods for games).

Please let me know if my ideas get annoying.

#13 We have no real interest in releasing our engine. Way to much hassle. The time it would take to prep the code, and write up documentation, as well as support .... in that time we could have made another game!

At the end of the day, we just wanna make games. Tools and engines can be fun too ... just not what we set out to do.

... and no, nothing annoying ... yet! ;)
Nice to have somebody on our new forum, with plenty to say, to be honest.
Thanks.

#14 Guys, if you like shootemups, the genre is still alive, unfortunately its predominantly alive in japan right now, with games like Ikaruga.

I'm not a big fan of this genre much anymore, mainly because I'm an old fart who's brain wont process that much info :)

I used to really love those things!

Try some of the jap releases out on mame.

Phil.

#15 Hrm, I've been looking at other games, and trying out similar ones all over the place, but there is always something missing here or there. As the title of the thread asks, and I guess I found out, Mutant Storm and Space Tripper are unique - not just for genre but just in the way the player has so much control - the ability to go anywhere on the screen in Mutant Storm and the ability to flip back and forth in Space Tripper, it multiplies the player's ability and really enhances gameplay (the way the game can have enemies and objects approach), plus your overall design and graphics can't be compared by others. What ID Software is to FPS, you guys are to arcade. =)

#16 Thanks :)

#17 Phil, Im pretty much in the same boat as you. I love the games we write, but I aint that good at them anymore!
I still get alot of pleasure watching some of these hardcore nuts take our games to pieces.

As for Ikaruga ... that didnt really do it for me. I wont say anymore than that, as im likely to get assasinated if I do!

#18 Eugene also made Tempest, iirc, turkey. It was born of a dream in which he was dropping rocks onto the heads of game publishers that were trying to crawl out of a hole and eat him... or something like that.

Also, you might enjoy rRootage. It has 4 game modes, based on popular twists on typical scroller shooters (like, bullet grazing, bullet polarity, bullet reversing etc.), and it gave us all quite a bit of pleasure back on the old forums.

http://www.asahi-net.or.jp/~cs8k-cyu/windows/rr_e.html

..But I think we all came back to the same place, in the end ;).

#19 Since you're considering additional games modes.

Game Mode Idea "Evolution"

This would fit the biological somewhat organic look of the game.

The energy of all the spawn creatures is hierachal based on a power grid of processing. All of the power is controlled by a main 'boss creature' who is met when after all the spawn creatures are destroyed.

So you have:

1. Main boss that manages and provides energy to all the creatures.

2. The spawn creatures that create the different types of enemies.

So each of the entities, seen in Mutant Storm - the spiders, and the tadpole like creatures, are all being spawned out by these powerful spawn creatures.

If you destroy a spawn creature, the processing power gets rediverted to the other spawn creatures and their spawned entities not only get more powerful but get special powers due to the increased processing focus of the main boss. If you lose at a level, you still keep going on, but you pay the price of having that spawn creature become more powerful in the future.

Example, let's say you destroy the spawn creature that creates tadpole looking things. The processing energy (from the main boss) gets diverted to other spawn creatures like the spider one. The spiders not only get more accurate in their style but they "evolve" (due to the increased energy and processing power to them) and are able to create or shoot out webs that trap you, this will keep happening if you lose to that spawn creature. So if say the person kept losing to the spider spawn creature and yet beat about 5 other ones, the spider spawn creature's entities will have 5 times the power and evolved traits.

The game cycles. The player faces spawn entities in a sort of preset cycle. Again, if you lose you keep going on to the next level (shape/arena), and risk that spawn creature being more powerful, the next time you see him, as you defeat other spawn creatures and eventually return to battle it out with ones you lost against (because they will be more powerful).

The reward for destroying a spawn entity means you also evolve in ability - you will gain an extra life, an extra smart bomb, or more power ups will start to appear, depending on the entity killed.

The fact that if you don't beat a spawn entity, and continue not to beat them, means you will never win by meeting the main boss creature, however, the learning curve will be good because you will learn to fight other types of entities, since you will simply be cycling through the different spawned entities (a person could do it for practice by intentionally losing and trying out the different levels). When you defeat a spawn creature, the game gets harder due to the evolution of other entities, yet you get rewarded with bonuses so it all balances out.

In this mode, the game is linear and non-linear. You face the same arenas, however everything changes based on how well you've done - as it is, the game evolves based on your actions - success and losses.

=)

#20 Good ideas Turkey, but a bit more than we were thinking about working on when we say 'new game modes'.
Your suggestions would require another huge playtesting run and level design work, which we simply dont have time for at the moment.

Our biggest issues were with the experienced players who wanted more of a quick fix, rather than a marathon session! The good players often played for over 2 hours!

We do have a couple of ideas. I dont want to go into it too much yet, as we're not to sure what we'll be doing over the next few months.