September 2008

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Pier Solar: A Brilliant Indie-developed Console RPG

September 23, 2008 in Indie Games, Retro Gaming | 8 comments

Just when we were beginning to fear that Japanese-style console RPGs (JRPGs) were going to go the way of the dodo, Water Melon studio has opened up pre-orders for the best console RPG I’ve played since Chrono Trigger for the SNES: Pier Solar and the Great Architects.

I first got wind of this game in issue #49 of Retro Gamer mag which had an impressive two-page feature on it. The game began as a fan-based project by a handful of folks from Eidolon’s Inn message board (a Sega forum with a long history). The project has been in active development for around 4 years, with the assistance of a dedicated eleven member team that’s passionate about the Sega Genesis (Mega Drive).

So what’s so impressive about this game? First, the entire game has been developed for the Sega Genesis/CD using a fan-developed SDK – that means that the game is truly a console RPG! It is going to be released for the Genesis on cartridge and in CD-format for those with a Sega CD. (At this point I’m unclear if buyers will receive a ROM image of the game to play on their PC, however.) Second, the team released a working beta demo of the game to give us a taste of the final game. Third, this is one of the few JRPGs with a fantastic script/dialogue – it’s witty and charming, and has a way of pulling you right into the game. Finally, I’ve never seen a fan-developed project of this calibre. Even though the demo is a beta (with some bugs), you can see the love and sweat that went into making the game, and the final product looks like it will rival some of the ‘big indie’ commercial releases like Braid.

Normally I avoid raving about new games, but this one has me pretty excited. Is it just me, or is anyone else into the idea of breaking out their Genesis and popping in an old-school Chrono Trigger-esque RPG? If so, head on over to the official Pier Solar web site and download the ROM (playable in any Genesis/Mega Drive emulator). And let us know what you think of it!

Update (Sept. 30th): One of the Pier Solar developers replied officially that the final version of the game will *not* come with a ROM image:

Don´t worry, the game will be well [copy-] protected; that is absolutely possible on MD.
And about releasing a ROM….no, sorry. Just like Zebbe said it would spread and I doubt people would buy the game for a ROM image they can get for free. Also, there will be no emulator being able to play the game even if someone does manage to dump it. We really think that a Mega Drive/ Genesis is so cheap everywhere that it is no big issue getting one if you really want to play the game.

A Virtual Console release would be nice at some point, but the chances we are allowed to do that are rather slim I´m afraid.

Unfortunately that means that if you don’t have a Sega Genesis/Mega-Drive you won’t be playing the full version, nor is it likely to make an appearance on the Wii VC. Bummer. Guess that means I’ll be hauling my Sega CD/Genesis duo from the basement and hooking it up in a few months for some gaming goodness!

Psychology 201: Games That Changed Your Life

September 10, 2008 in Education, Game Research | 20 comments

Early next year I will have the opportunity to teach a course in Psychology that will be laden with game content, and I’d like my students to get a chance to play some games and talk about them. My goal in the course is to show that games, like books, movies, plays, and other creative art forms, can sometimes elucidate deep psychological changes in the player. By deep, I mean the kinds of significant non-transient insights we have when something really grabs us and shows us how to picture the world in a different way. My goal for the course is to show students that games play an active role in our psychological lives, even though we may not notice it. To achieve that, undergraduate students (minimum 2nd-year) will be playing what you consider to be psychologically transforming games, participating in lectures and discussions that interpret the psychological meaning these games have, and by the end of the course writing a paper that discusses their particular experience with a game.

With that in mind, I’d like to defer to the community’s expertise in identifying some of the games that had a deep influence for you, and perhaps why/how these games were so influential. I’m hoping that with a large enough list of games and ideas, I can start identifying themes that will make up the bulk of my psychology course. I’m hoping that some day the particular games and psychological themes that you contribute will become more commonplace in the academy, and subsequently more commonplace in our daily public lives.

In return for your gracious guidance, I’m committed to doing a couple of things. First, I’ll post all of my lecture materials and information publicly, so the entire community has the opportunity to remotely take their first ‘Psychology of Games’ course. With the University’s approval, perhaps I can even post recordings of my lectures in podcast form. Second, I’m committed to posting my experience with teaching the course and hopefully encouraging my students to contribute their opinions on the course, the instructor (me!), and their experiences in playing and reflecting upon the games they play.

So if you’ve had a game that has changed you in some way, no matter how seemingly insignificant or good or bad, I’d like to hear about it. Any genre/platform/experience is fair game – I’m not going to exclude any. I’m going to keep this post alive for as long as possible to give enough people a chance to contribute their experiences/stories.

THANK YOU!

- Chris

Ultima VII: The Black Gate & Serpent Isle, now working on the PSP Slim!

September 9, 2008 in Mainstream Games, Retro Gaming | No comments

This is one of those projects that I love to keep up with, because like many fan-based projects it’s kept running purely by the collective steam of its dedicated crew and fans. Last year “The Food Sucks” team managed to get the impressive Ultima VII: The Black Gate running on the older PSP ‘phat’ using the Exult game engine.

A week ago, the team announced that both The Black Gate and its sequel Serpent Isle are now both playable on the PSP Slim! According to the comments section of their page, load times have improved and the game runs solidly on the Slim. It looks like there will be a patch coming soon because Phat owners have been experiencing some random crashes with the new release, but that shouldn’t stop you from giving it a go. Given that Ultima VII: The Black Gate, and Ultima VII: Serpent Isle are renown high points of RPG history, I highly suggest giving it a go. If you don’t have a PSP, you can always head over to the Exult game engine page and download a package for one of many operating systems.

The Lost Art of Game Packaging, and the Digital-only Turning Point

September 2, 2008 in Artful Games, Game History, Mainstream Games, Retro Gaming | 13 comments

Michael’s post over at The Brainy Gamer looks at how digital download services have begun to carry serious momentum and surely can only pick up even more as Microsoft’s XBLA and Sony’s PSN release more content. Many folks over at the Brainy Gamer are just as excited as Michael with the prospect of ‘no more plastic’, but I found myself less excited about the prospect of a future without physical packaging.

Part of those feelings can be chalked up to old fashioned nostalgia – it’s hard to give up fond memories of gingerly tearing the plastic off of a brand new game as a kid, reveling in the pungent odor of freshly printed manuals and carefully unfurling cloth maps of lands a’far. Closely linked to that is another aspect of physical packaging that I think is really important, and we’ve forgotten it in our unquestioned haste to deliver games cheaper and faster. That is, we’ve lost our appreciation of the game packaging as a craft and an art unto itself that provides a tactile engagement with games we otherwise lack.

The chronology of game packaging that Ryan Scott and Scott Sharkey present in their article Shrink Wrapped: A history of PC game packaging trends, from awesome to awful, is a good taste of how packaging progressed from the early years to the present. Unfortunately, a chronology is just that – it doesn’t bring to the forefront why packaging matters might matter so much to us. In this article I do my best to highlight one game with interesting game packaging – feelies, artwork, manuals, etc – and try to show how (for some people) physical interaction with the packaging can transform the nature of the game.  I should note that some of the things I say later in the article could be construed as spoilers, so ye have been warned!

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