My Tribe by Grubby Games is an island simulator in which a tribe of people are stranded on an island and have to learn how to survive. This includes gathering food, building shelter, chopping down trees and harvesting rocks (um…) among other things. I’ve debated with myself whether or not to call it a blatant clone of Virtual Villagers, but there really is no getting around it – My Tribe is a blatant clone. But it’s also a very good game.

The graphics are adorable. The intro was very cute and I like the look in general – a slightly more painted look than the standard CG colored or pixel art look often present in casual games. The animation also receives some bonus points as it’s fluid and pleasant, and the game screen is full of life. Butterflies and stuff fluttering around everywhere. Very nice. At times it’s hard to differentiate between objects one can interact with and a colorful bird that’s just decoration, but that’s a small price to pay for a lively background. The audio is also quite pleasant, and I was impressed by the speech in the tutorials. Nice touch.

The gameplay quite simply is fun. There’s a lot to do, a lot to explore, and you always have the urge to solve the next mystery or see what the next technology level will bring. While My Tribe is a ripoff of Virtual Villagers, it does bring some new things such as random islands instead of just a static one. Also, the island is a bit bigger and more dynamic – chopping down trees cause them to disappear and you have the option to plant new ones as well. In general there are more ways to affect the environment than in Virtual Villagers.

After a while I started feeling that the island was limited, though. I think that there needs to be more stuff to do – a bigger set of things to interact with. I may not be the ideal person for these kinds of simulators but I feel that there ought to be more to do all the time. Sure, I need to let my little islanders work in order to improve their skills, but I’d like to have minigames to play at the same time. Something to occupy my restless mind with. The game is still fun, but I can’t concentrate on it since there’s often nothing to do. Which brings me to another aspect of the game…

The game is progressing even when it’s not running, so while you’re away your islanders are still chopping up wood and fishing and researching. This is a neat idea, but also a very frustrating one: you need to remember to play now and then in order to not wipe out your entire tribe. I left the game a couple of days and feared that white skeletons would greet me upon my return, but I was pleasantly surprised. They had managed to take care of themselves and had given me an excrement-load of science points to boot! Great! I assumed that the game wasn’t all that keen on that death thing, so I got cocky and left the game a couple of more days.

Disaster! Tombstones littered the island. My once proud tribe was reduced to its bare minimum. I did find two survivors though: Jeremy and Hannah were starving but mysteriously still alive. Also, a young girl was alive as well. I wonder if this is a contingency plan by the developers? “That lame dude left all his islanders to die! Well, we’d better make sure that he has enough to breed more people at least.” If so, it’s a brilliant idea. However, it doesn’t work in practice.

This is where the game enters a downward spiral. With so few people left it’s no fun to play the game, which means that you won’t be arsed to start up the game very often. Which of course means that the tribe won’t expand very quickly – or at all. In the end I had a tribe consisting of 54 year old Xavier, an aged woman and a young girl. It’s impossible to breed more people once they are too old, so these few are the remnants of a once proud budding civilization now destined for extinction.

By the way, when you click on an islander you can see his or her thoughts. I kept seeing “Xavier is very happy to live on the island” and “Xavier thinks this island has no equal.” No shit. Here’s a guy who’s lived a nice and cozy life alone with two women on a deserted island. You old goat, you.

Finally I have to mention that despite the game’s flaws it’s strangely addictive. My current tribe is doomed but I have the urge to start a new one – see if I can get things right this time. The game is still a bit limited, but fun nonetheless.

Graphics

Quite nice! Good animations and lovely painted look in the intro.

4/5

Sound

Nice music, and good sound effects. Extra credit for the voice acting even though the girl sounds smug. You biatch! Don’t smirk at me while you tell me how to play!

3/5

Gameplay

My Tribes is fun, there’s no getting around that. A bit lacking in variety and things to do on the island.

3/5

Addictiveness

I want to make my tribe great! I want to solve the mysteries! I want to explore lots of islands! I guess that means that the game is pretty addictive?

4/5

Technical notes

The game started up in fullscreen and did awful things to my two-screen setup. Everything was restored fine when I put it in windowed mode, though, so no harm done aside from messing up my desktop brightness. I like the loading screen – “sailing to your island” and a boat moving to the right to indicate the progress instead of a simple loading bar.

Edit: As was mentioned by Olivia in the comments below, the game can be set in slow mode if one intends to leave it for a while. The problem for me is that I never know in advance if I’ll be gone for a few days – I play games when I feel like it and have the time to spare, so it’s not always easy to predict these things.

My recent non-public release of Wildhollow (v0.2) has received some very interesting feedback. First of all, many seem to enjoy the art and the writing. Yayness! That’s actually pretty damn cool – I’ve been freetting over whether or not I’m a moron for putting so much emphasis on dialogue in the game. My reasoning is sound: Spandex Force received praise for its humorous writing, so this time I’m concentrating on much more of that. But it is a bit of a gamble. The audio received some mixed comments, but the only thing I really have to change is the typewriter sound in the dialogues. I agree that it’s a tad anachronistic in a fantasy game…but on the other hand I’ve added heavy metal songs for the dramatic scenes as well. What can I say, I like contrasts!

Other than that there are three worrying tendencies in the feedback: the minigames suck (I’m fixing that), the animal management needs to be improved (I’m fixing that)…and I have a sneaky suspicion that some people feel that there’s not enough guidance in the quests.

I’m all for easy-to-play games that one can pick up instantly. But Wildhollow requires you to read a lot of dialogue and deduce what to do based on that. I’ve done my best to have “quest hints” for each stage of the quests and have characters repeat important bits of information if they’re relevant to a quest, but there still might be a lot of exploration required to solve some of the puzzles.

I’m still on the fence whether or not this is a good thing. My initial response is “It’s a good thing, dammit! It encourages immersion and makes the quests flow naturally rather than appear forced.” But yesterday I played Rise of the Argonauts and now I’m not so sure anymore…

I consider myself a casual gamer, and Rise of the Argonauts is a pretty casual action RPG. I click some buttons, and the dude runs around like a scorched ferret, cutting and clubbing people all over the place. I love it! Epic violence, beautifully performed, that requires almost no skill at all. I don’t have to spend hours to learn how to do weird combos – they simply appear out of nowhere!

But all is not well in ancient Greece… The game gives almost no indication as to what I need to do next. I can’t be arsed to read all the text in an action game – I’m playing the game to spear people on my enormous barbeque stick! But if I skip too much I end up with my hero standing around looking dumb, and me sitting there feeling even more dumb. “So… Uh… What? What do I have to do now? Do I have to talk to someone? Is there a list of active quests? I don’t know what to do!”

Now, Wildhollow and Rise of the Argonauts aren’t comparable at all. Not in the very least, and not only because RotA is a frigging multi-million production. My choice to rely on text in Wildhollow is a major part of the design – it’s an integral part of the game. RotA’s focus is on action, with text added on. In Wildhollow you can quickly click around to try out things or talk to people; in RotA you have to physically move your character between the scenic vistas to see if this was where you needed to go…and retrace your steps if not. But at its core, Wildhollow relies on the player to explore to proceed – just like RotA.

I’ve been toying with the idea of adding graphic indicators for whom to talk to next, but… That feels cheap. It breaks the immersion. And it just might make the puzzles too easy. Another approach might be to make conversations pop up more often – make some NPCs initiate conversations on their own. That’s probably a better approach, but I’m still not sure if that would work. What I want is to make a game that’s easy to play and follow, but still not ridiculously simple or lacking in immersion.

Any suggestions for good games I ought to play to get inspiration for how to solve my dilemma?

No one?

Not a single suggestion?

Man, you suck.

After a short vacation I find myself filled with energy and inspiration, so what better way to spend it than to improve Wildhollow, the strange adventure/management game I’m working on? The general game code is pretty solid by now, but I’ve had some really irritating issues regarding the GUI art.

1. My placeholder GUI art has been atrocious, which makes me unwilling to work on the GUI parts.
2. In order to improve the GUI art I need to find an artist for all the general design/icons/buttons details.
3. But in order to show artists what I need, I ought to have a working game with placeholder art that they can improve.
4. Which I’m of course not keen on doing since it looks like crap.

Now, this is a nice pickle! A pickle of the catch 22 flavour.

Sooo, what would a sensible person do? Find an artist that one can have an open dialogue with, in order to build the GUI alongside the GUI art?

Hell no. Why take the easy route when one can spend an unnecessary amount of time on making slightly-less-worse placeholder art in order to get inspired enough to work on the GUI! That said, I’ll just show some work in progress screenshots from the game:

Look! A title screen! With lots of sparkles that aren’t very visible here. And some weird buttons. I was going for a “semi-bark-looking” theme for the interface. Meh. I’ll dig up some wood textures and see what else I can come up with later.

Our hero is about to finish the first quest: find and bring back Barber Jack’s glasses that he dropped at Zachary’s place when he was trimming some animals. Oh yeah. A sweet $20 reward awaits…

Wildhollow Ranch is destroyed! Solve quests in order to collect cash; after rebuilding the ranch you can buy and breed animals. My goal is that the player should be able to solve some quests, do a first repair of the ranch, and crossbreed his first set of animals within one hour. Why one hour? Because that’s where the demo time limit will run out, and sneaky me thinks that this will be enough of a teaser to make people want to play more…

I’m the first person to admit that this is all very experimental. I have no idea if this concept will work, or if people will shun the game. Shun! Shuuuuunnnnnnnnnnnn…..

I’m sure you’re dying to know how people have reacted to the Spandex Force beta which was released recently. I sure am, at least! Or, I would be if I didn’t already know.

Overall, I must say that I’m pleased with the reception. I’ve received positive feedback, and people do seem to enjoy the game. Sales from the game’s webpage are up to what Sheeplings sold during six months; granted, I poured more into this second game, but it’s still going better than I thought. I wonder what will happen when I announce the proper release in a little while, along with a photo contest! (Intrigued? You should be. Stay tuned for more information!)

Other positive notes include that the game is mentioned on Gamershell, IGN, Gamespy and other news sites. Still no whisper about it on Gamespot, despite a press release I sent there, but maybe that will change after the real release. Other places have also picked up news about the game; for example Lesbian Gamers and Gay Gamer. Hmm… I wonder if it has something to do with the spandex?

As for feedback, most of what I’ve received comes from forums and e-mails. I won’t toot my own horn, but the concept seems to work very well, and the variation in the minigames works its magic for most people. But – as always – there’s just no pleasing everybody. Here is a list of user reviews, and Spandex Force has received both praise and scorn. And speaking of more scorn, here’s a scathing review from Rock, Paper, Shotgun. I was initially crushed until I started analysing the complaints and compared them to the positive feedback I’ve received. I’m first to admit that my game isn’t as “good” (subjective term of course) as Puzzle Quest; I don’t have the budget or the time for that amount of polish. But I’m not competing directly against Puzzle Quest either - I’m targeting another set of customers. Sure, there’s some overlap – myself for example! I like both casual games and hardcore RPGs. But while Puzzle Quest is aimed at the RPG crowd, my intention is to bring something exciting to the casual crowd instead.

I doubt that this is obvious, though, so I think I’ll have to be prepared for some bad reviews coming up comparing Spandex Force unfavourably to Puzzle Quest.

Back to more positive things, I received a request for a Linux version of the game, and I figured that it shouldn’t be much of a problem. True enough, I’ve done some initial testing and I think I can get it to run on Ubuntu at least. I’ll probably only support Ubuntu, and then have a “see if it works for you – good if it does” clause for other distributions. There’s no way I’m going to offer support for multiple distributions – Linux is simply too problematic. I don’t think I’ll actually gain much from having a Linux version either, but it’s a good learning experience at least. Incidentally, the person asking for a Linux version also mentioned that this game would fit well on Nintendo DS, and even supplied a hint about a publisher working with DS. I’ll see how the game is received after the release, but hey – who knows. Thinking about playing my own game on a DS almost makes me come. Not that you wanted to know that. And not that it’ll happen. But it sure would be nice…

Anyway, I’m feeling positive about the upcoming release. I’ve optimized the game a little, sorted out a Mac bug, received many suggestions for improvements, and the game is slowly coming together properly. The biggest thing left is to playtest the game thoroughly and balance it even more. I really hope people will be pleased about the game’s length – I anticipate that it’s well over 8 hours game play in it, and quite possibly more along the lines of dozens of hours. That may sound cool to you, but for me it sounds like damn hard work, playing through the whole game….again….and again.

The title is from my press release announcing that Spandex Force is officially in beta stage now. It’s been noted that this press release seems slightly confused. “Okay, the game is in beta and they [that is, I] would like to hear comments and suggestions what to do before the final release… But the game itself doesn’t mention much about being in beta state, and you can buy the game! What’s up with this?”

Well… I think the terminology has gotten a bit confused, and I’ve been forced to apply the beta label without much thought. First of all, I was only releasing test builds up to 0.4; people tested it and gave feedback. Not much more to that. But after 0.4 I decided to set up the order page, since a few people had expressed interest in purchasing the game. But lo and behold! It appears that when I accepted affiliates for Sheeplings I’d unthinkingly allowed some people to be affiliates for all my games – which meant that Spandex Force became available for them to sell as well!

One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was receiving traffic from a few sites; quite a few downloads in fact. That’s when I decided to release 0.5 – an in-between release that’s fully playable and corrects most issues - and decided to call it the official beta. I didn’t want people to believe that 0.4 or 0.5 was the final version of the game, so I decided to make a press release to state that there will come a newer version later. But of course, the game itself doesn’t care much about what label I’ve put on it – it just happily states its version number.

So I guess people who expected the game to be more opaque about being in “alpha,” “beta” or “final” are a tad confused.

Either way, the game is both in beta and for sale; I don’t see a conflict there. It’s playable and enjoyable to the end as it is, and those who buy the game now get the current full version as well as the final release once it’s done!

Game design is a strange beast. Yesterday I made build v0.4 of Spandex Force, my new puzzle/RPG/adventure game; it’s coming along very nicely, and with this release all main functionality is present. But after I’d finished the build I had a look at my notes from half a year ago, and early screenshots. The game is very much the same in spirit, but many design choices differ between my original drafts and the soon-to-be-finished product.

One important thing that differs is the scope. In the finished design, the player’s hero has just gotten a job as superhero of Vigilance Valley – a city troubled by minor crime and wacky super villains. In the original design I had planned a more involved process where the hero would start out as “city hero” and eventually graduate to “world hero.” This shift would be very visible: the city screen would feature minor villains and citizens in need, and the world globe would feature global threats and major super villains. This would have been interesting…but totally unnecessary. The game’s budget would’ve increased by a magnitude (well, maybe not; but it would have doubled at least) and the game would have taken months more to develop. I doubt that the benefits would have outweighed those consequences.

And speaking of scope, another thing that I was planning from the beginning was a more involved story inspired by Bildungromans. It would tell the story of how the hero grows from fledgling whippersnapper to responsible self-sacrificing hero. I had planned a structure where the first three episodes would be stand-alone, but then a subtle plot involving a villain trying to frame the hero would emerge. The hero would try to find out information through the following episodes, and eventually meet the ultimate villain in the next-to-last episode. Inspired by Watchmen, after our hero had beaten the villain he would explain to the hero that it’s too late anyway – the Evil Plan(TM) was already set into motion a long time ago. Our hero would race to stop the Evil Destructive Device(TM), only to discover that it’s too late to stop it. Panic! What to do! He would sacrifice himself to protect the city…and everything would go black.

…And had I had my own way, that would have been the end of the game. But, of course, I had to think of a happy ending. So I pondered a final episode after this, where the hero wakes up weak and sore, and supervillains whom he have already beaten have teamed up to take revenge on him in his weakened state. Almost like the fight-all-the-bosses-before-the-final-boss in the Mega Man games. It all would end in a heartwarming scene where the people of the city aid the hero and he defeats everyone. Yay!

But that’s not how things turned out. Instead, I chose a format where every episode is stand-alone, and there’s no on-going storyline in the game. “How dull,” you exclaim now, “that totally sucks!” From an artistic point of view: yes, this is the worse choice. But I think it will work better from a gaming point of view! The game focuses on easily accessible minigames, humour, and instant-get-in-the-game-ness. That approach conflicts with a deeper storyline; if nothing else, it becomes difficult to jump into the game if you’ve had a break for a few weeks. Instead I chose episodes that you can finish in about an hour (depending on the episode) and clearly defined sub-tasks within each episode. Each subtask only takes 15 minutes (or something like that), so you get constant updates on the episode’s plot.

Old concept showing the early city screen and some dialogue.

But there are other design issues on a lower level that differs between then and now. For one thing, at first I intended to make Spandex Force into a game that would have been much more of a Puzzle Quest clone. The current implementation has many strictly different puzzle mechanics: Catch ‘n Match, Slide ‘n Match, Shoot ‘n Match, Click ‘n Drag, mini-minigames…and last but not least, the two types of puzzle battles. But in my original notes I only planned on doing the puzzle battles – nothing else! I had thought of a system with slightly different game modes: standard, simultaneous, and so on, and the type of villain you fought against would decide which game mode it would be. Supervillains would have a very special mode; the villains would have the simultaneous mode; and the henchmen would have classic modes. But after some prototyping I quickly abandoned this game design. It wouldn’t have given enough variation, and the simultaneous mode was…too chaotic. Play Spandex Force and, when you come to a battle, imagine that you both perform your actions simultaneously instead of turn-based. Sure, it opens up to great things like stealing your opponent’s cascading matches…but it would be too action-oriented, and impossible to have a clear overview.

Old prototype of the puzzle battle game. Can you see which game I received inspiration from?

If things go well with the first game I just might implement a better simultaneous version in Spandex Force 2, though. And speaking of Spandex Force 2, here’s another thing I had to consider:

• If I made the game with a very large scope I would put all my eggs into one basket. If the game fails I will have lost a lot.
• However, if I choose restraint and lessen the scope, I can see how the game fares. If it does awfully and it’s because of the game design or the theme…then it’s not worth making a sequel. But if it does well I’ll gain a lot of feedback that I can use to implement an even better sequel.
• This sequel can then use many of the discarded options from the original design. For example, it can revolve around a global hero instead of a city-based one, and experiment with innovations to the minigames.
• Also, if the first game does well enough, I can implement something that I didn’t dare in the first game… Multiplayer! Puzzle battles online, where you can defeat other heroes and villains! I think this would be absolutely brilliant but I don’t have the resources to pull it off unless Spandex Force does reasonably well.

So, here’s to hoping that I can make Spandex Force 2 soon!

I actually released v0.3 of Spandex Force several days ago, but I didn’t want my blog to look like I’m working away like a mad banshee at this game; it was just a short while ago that I wrote an update, after all. Of course…I am working on the game like a mad banshee, but I wouldn’t admit it. Either way, a lot has happened since the last release:

• New map art! This is not the final version – it’s just a preview jpg I received. The final even-better city will appear in the shortly-arriving 0.4 release.
• Many more minigames! I realized that the game was lacking variety, so I followed sage advice I’d received from 0.2 playtesters, and added more minigames. A few of these are mini-minigames just to spice things up, but I also made new major-minigames such as getting a cat down from the tree, and stopping an attempted grand theft auto.
• More sparkles! I added particles and sound effects to many places – it’s actually getting to the point where I’m unsure if I can add anything else and still have the game playable at low-end machines. For once in my life I find that I have too new computers at my disposal.
• Lots of other bug fixes and tweaks and improvements. The problem with making rapid iterations like this is that I lose track of all that’s done. I could compose extensive release notes for each release…but that seems a bit overkill for “internal” releases like these.

Game Info
Spandex Force is a unique puzzle/adventure/RPG game that lets you create your own hero to clean up the crime-infested town of Vigilance Valley. Follow your hero’s quest to rid Vigilance Valley of vicious villains such as the Blizzard Wizard, the inept riddler Countess Conundrum, and the mysterious Professor Aphasia.

Screenshots
   

More screenshots and more info can be found at http://www.spandexforce.com.

Downloads
Download the Windows version here:
http://www.spandexforce.com/files/SpandexForceDemo.exe
Download the Mac version here:
http://www.spandexforce.com/files/SpandexForceDemo.dmg

That’s right, a Mac version is available now! You see, I’ve been pretty busy indeed. Please let me know if you find any problems with either release – and feel free to let me know if it’s working fine as well! Feedback is much appreciated.

People constantly ask me how things are going with Spandex Force (note: blatant lie), and I thought I’d write a small progress update. I may have been asocial during xmas, but at least I got some programming done:

• The total minigame count is up to ten. This feat is accomplished by reusing game types and applying them in a few different situations, as well as adding a few minor chance-based ”mini-minigames” for variation.
• More sparkles have been added. And many more sound effects. It’s way more polished now! Yayness!
• I’ve made the early game a bit quicker; i.e., you level up faster and accomplish the earliest tasks quicker.
• The tutorial system is much improved, with informative animations and popups when something interesting happens. I still don’t have a “no more tutorials” checkbutton; I try to keep the text to a minimum and you can banish the information with a simple click on the Rodent of Parc. (Rodent of Parc? See http://www.pottsland.com/mm6/eastereggs.shtml)
• Finally, but not least: I’m getting a new city background!

Just check it out… Isn’t this much better?

I adore this sketch of the new map, and I’ll be releasing v0.3 of Spandex Force as soon as I have integrated the coloured version and tweaked the difficulty a bit. …That is, playtested thoroughly up to four episodes or so. Thankfully I actually like playing the game myself; I was afraid that I’d be getting bored at the gameplay by now, but it’s still fun to save cats and capture villains and buy new capes. I hope that’s a good sign!