Orchid XP v8 escreveu:
> Seriously. Cryostasis was hopeless.

interesting.  Some people were telling it was pretty good.  What about 
the plot? (I think they were praising it mainly)...

-- 
a game sig: http://tinyurl.com/d3rxz9

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On 5/3/2011 12:49, Orchid XP v8 wrote:
> games sharing a certain design idea,

OK. I wasn't sure what the design idea you were talking about was, other 
than "we have architecture, and some semblance of a story."

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> On 03/05/2011 05:00 PM, Warp wrote:
> > Invisible<voi### [at] devnull>  wrote:
> >> The other group comprises everything else. I call these "alpha games".
> >
> >    The rest of the world calls them casual games.

> I thought "casual games" just refers to all those pointless 
> browser-based Flash games that keep bored office workers amused in their 
> lunch breaks. (?)

  What kind of games do you think PopCap makes?

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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>> Seriously. Cryostasis was hopeless.
>
> interesting. Some people were telling it was pretty good. What about the
> plot? (I think they were praising it mainly)...

It had potential... but it failed to deliver.

For a start, the game is very slow and rather buggy, which is never 
good. (I was running it with an nVidia GeForce 260 GPU and an admittedly 
outdated dual-core CPU, but others have reported poor performance.)

The story looks interesting, but it doesn't really make sense. It looks 
like you're learning more about the fate of the ship as the game goes 
on, and by the end all will be explained... but it isn't. Things start 
out sane enough, but by the end any pretense of realism is long gone and 
you're just having impossible paranormal events thrown at you at random, 
for no defined reason. And then suddenly the game just ends.

The concept of heat and cold is interesting. You walk into a dark, 
silent, ice-laden room. You flick a switch, and it gradually turns into 
a loud, hot, steamy, brightly-lit space. Which *could* have been quite 
effective, if it wasn't done so poorly. When one wall melts completely, 
and the wall right next to it is still perfectly frozen, it kinda spoils 
the effect. And the "melting" is just some trivial texture effects that 
don't look especially convincing.

This is focusing on the *good* aspects of the game. The bad aspects 
include... everything else. Combat is awful. The whole game is set 
onboard a ship, so all the levels look nearly identical; no exploration 
value there then! What does that leave? The interesting story that 
gradually stops making sense and then suddenly ends? Yay, great game.

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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>>>     The rest of the world calls them casual games.
>
>> I thought "casual games" just refers to all those pointless
>> browser-based Flash games that keep bored office workers amused in their
>> lunch breaks. (?)
>
>    What kind of games do you think PopCap makes?

I bought a game from them. It wasn't especially *good*, but I'm not sure 
if it's what you'd call "casual".

-- 
http://blog.orphi.me.uk/
http://www.zazzle.com/MathematicalOrchid*

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Orchid XP v8 <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
> >>>     The rest of the world calls them casual games.
> >
> >> I thought "casual games" just refers to all those pointless
> >> browser-based Flash games that keep bored office workers amused in their
> >> lunch breaks. (?)
> >
> >    What kind of games do you think PopCap makes?

> I bought a game from them. It wasn't especially *good*, but I'm not sure 
> if it's what you'd call "casual".

  PopCap is one of the biggest names in casual gaming.

-- 
                                                          - Warp

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On 03/05/2011 22:44, Warp wrote:

>    PopCap is one of the biggest names in casual gaming.

Well, I won't argue with that.

They also made... oh no, wait, that's Capcom...

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Warp <war### [at] tagpovrayorg> wrote:
> Invisible <voi### [at] devnull> wrote:
>
>   Try to find a tetris game for the iPhone or the Android. I won't hold
> my breath.
>
>                                                           - Warp

No need to hold your breath. There is already an iPhone Tetris app. I dont have
an iPhone but my daugther showed me over Easter

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>>> The other group comprises everything else. I call these "alpha games".
>>
>> The rest of the world calls them casual games.
>
> And the first batch is AAA games.

I'm still not sure I'm happy with this classification. It seems to be 
based more on how much budget a game has, rather than how you actually 
play it.

For example, there's a bunch of recent games using motion control and 
related technologies which clearly follow the "you control an 
essentially human character in an essentially real world setting", and 
yet is clearly aimed at Mr & Mrs Average Human, so it's probably 
considered casual.

Perhaps a more accurate classification would be "first person and third 
person games" and "everything else".

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On 5/4/2011 8:03, Invisible wrote:
> I'm still not sure I'm happy with this classification. It seems to be based
> more on how much budget a game has, rather than how you actually play it.

You haven't really explained what you think the difference is between (say) 
psychonauts and Crysis.

> Perhaps a more accurate classification would be "first person and third
> person games" and "everything else".

Except psychonauts, portal, and "stealth games" are all first or third 
person, but you listed them as "everything else".

I think you need to clarify what you think the distinction is if you want 
names for the things.

-- 
Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   "Coding without comments is like
    driving without turn signals."

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