I wanna be the very best

Crono Maniac: Hey!

Crono Maniac: Ya got a minute?

Rhete: sure

Crono Maniac: Alright, lemme paint a picture for ya

Crono Maniac: Anna's at the Elite Four

Rhete: POKEMON IS DUMB

Crono Maniac: She's got a mid 50s Blastoise and a mid 50s Pidgeot

Rhete: hope you have ice moves for lance

Crono Maniac: She has a level 48 Pikachu

Crono Maniac: (No ice moves)

Rhete: GG

Crono Maniac: She has a level 45 Dragonair

Crono Maniac: She has a severely underleveled Growlithe and Marowak that she doesn't expect to get much use out of

Crono Maniac: So she starts fighting Lorelei

Crono Maniac: Her Dewgong

Crono Maniac: Her FIRST pokemon

Crono Maniac: Wipes out FOUR of Anna's pokemon

Rhete: haha

Crono Maniac: So she manages to beat the Dewgong

Crono Maniac: And with some diligent revive use, manages to beat Lorelei

Crono Maniac: But only just barely

Rhete: yeah that sounds right... I would get wiped by the second E4 member in Soul Silver

Crono Maniac: She burned through more than half of her support items to do so

Crono Maniac: So she gets to Bruno

Crono Maniac: After trying to turn around and finding out the door is locked

Rhete: haha

Crono Maniac: Bruno's not too tough

Crono Maniac: Blastoise and Dragonair both know surf, and deal with his rock types

Crono Maniac: Bird Jesus manages the fighting types

Crono Maniac: Still takes a number of hyper potions to make it through alive

Crono Maniac: So now her stock of items is even lower

Crono Maniac: She fights Agatha

Rhete: this doesn't sound like a good plan at all!

Crono Maniac: I'm asking her right now how she beat Agatha: "Errr, I dunno? I used Bite until the PP ran out, then I used Surf"

Crono Maniac: Agatha is obnoxious because she has a ton of status draining moves

Crono Maniac: So she JUST BARELY beats Agatha

Crono Maniac: This is her first run by the way

Rhete: oh trust me, I know these guys well from the hell that was twitch playing it XD

Crono Maniac: Okay good, so you know

Crono Maniac: So she gets to Lance.

Crono Maniac: She tries to use Pikachu on the Gyarados

Crono Maniac: It ALMOST one-shots it, then Gyrados one shots Pikachu

Crono Maniac: and Lance uses a full restore

Crono Maniac: So she's got two worthwhile Pokemon and an underleveled Dragonair

Crono Maniac: On LANCE

Crono Maniac: "How'd you beat Garados?"

Crono Maniac: "Pidgeot. Fly did a lot of damage."

Crono Maniac: Then he pulls out Areodactly

Crono Maniac: She surfs it to death in one shot

Crono Maniac: He pulls out Dragonair

Crono Maniac: He's out of Bite, so the only move Blastoise can use is Surf

Crono Maniac: Which Dragons are strong against

Crono Maniac: So she Rain Dances, then uses surf as much as possible

Crono Maniac: Barely manages to wipe out the two dragonairs

Crono Maniac: With Lance using a bunch of full restores all the while

Crono Maniac: So he pulls out his Level 60 Dragonite

Crono Maniac: Blastoise dies

Crono Maniac: After getting one surf in

Crono Maniac: Then Pidgeot comes in, uses its last fly, then Wing Attack

Crono Maniac: And Dragonite dies

Crono Maniac: Ya with me?

Rhete: yeah

Crono Maniac: Coo

Rhete: dragon is strong against dragon isn't it?

Crono Maniac: Yeah, but Dragonair didn't do much

Crono Maniac: Too low level

Rhete: oh

Rhete: was expecting him to be the hero

Crono Maniac: So now she's got 1 full health pidgeot, an almost dead Blastoise and an almost dead Pikachu (I think it got revived at some point)

Crono Maniac: She's about to fight Gary

Crono Maniac: I am completely confused

Crono Maniac: I had to grind for hours on Victory Road to reach this point

Crono Maniac: And here she is with an underleveled party managing it on the first run

Rhete: pokemon master!

Crono Maniac: She has 1 full restore, 1 revive, and 1 max revive

Crono Maniac: That’s it

Crono Maniac: It doesn't look like she has a chance

Crono Maniac: BUT WAIT

Crono Maniac: She has 17 Super Potions tucked away

Crono Maniac: So she revives Dragonair and uses the super potions to heal all of her guys

Rhete: oh man

Crono Maniac: Finds four rare candies

Rhete: ALL IN

Crono Maniac: Uses all of those

Rhete: haha

Rhete: holy crap

Crono Maniac: Finds a bunch of vitamins like carbos and iron

Crono Maniac: To raise EVs

Crono Maniac: Uses all of those

Crono Maniac: Items we've ignored the whole game

Crono Maniac: She uses an elixer and a max ether to get more PP for surf, fly, and bite

Crono Maniac: So she's got four guys at full health and PP for Gary

Crono Maniac: Pidgeot, Dragonair, Blastoise, and Pikachu

Crono Maniac: None over level 60

Crono Maniac: Two under level 50

Crono Maniac: She goes into Gary

Crono Maniac: He uses Pidgeot

Crono Maniac: Pidgeot ALMOST kills Pikachu with Aerial Ace

Crono Maniac: Aereal Ace deals about 45 damage (Pikachu has about 100 HP)

Crono Maniac: Pidgeot gets paralyzed

Crono Maniac: So Anna starts using Super Potions every time it lands an Aerial ace

Crono Maniac: Healing for 50 HP each time

Crono Maniac: Whenever the paralysis stops Pidgeot’s attack, she uses Thunder Bolt

Rhete: good lord

Crono Maniac: It takes three thunder bolts to beat Pidgeot, but he uses a bunch of full restores

Crono Maniac: So its this war of attrition between Pidgeot and Pikachu

Crono Maniac: Level 59 Pidgeot vs. Level 49 Pikachu

Crono Maniac: FINALLY Pikachu wins

Crono Maniac: That's one down

Crono Maniac: Five to go

Crono Maniac: Rhydon's next

Rhete: surfs up!

Crono Maniac: It tears Dragonair apart

Crono Maniac: Anna hoped Surf would be enough

Crono Maniac: He kills dragonair before it even gets a hit in

Crono Maniac: So she switches to Blastoise

Crono Maniac: Surfs up! Two down, four to go

Crono Maniac: Next up is Venusaur

Crono Maniac: It uses Sunny Day and Synthesis

Crono Maniac: a LOT

Crono Maniac: Anna swaps in Pidgeot

Crono Maniac: It uses Fly a bunch

Crono Maniac: but Venusaur keeps HEALING

Crono Maniac: And managing a few hits in in the mean time

Crono Maniac: Anna luckily dodges a few hits, and finally takes it out with Wing Attack

Crono Maniac: Three down, three to go

Crono Maniac: Pidgeot's alive, Pikachu's barely alive, and Blastoise is alive

Crono Maniac: So out comes Alakazam

Crono Maniac: UH OH

Crono Maniac: No psychic types

Crono Maniac: No ghost types

Crono Maniac: Nothing that can actually hurt a psychic pokemon

Crono Maniac: EXCEPT Blastoise's Bite, which is dark type (40 Atk power, which isn't much.)

Crono Maniac: So Blastoise uses Bite a BUNCH

Crono Maniac: But it's not enough, even after using the one Full Restore

Crono Maniac: Blastoise is almost dead

Crono Maniac: We've still got a max revive, and that's it.

Crono Maniac: Pidgeot comes out, barely manages to beat Alakazam

Crono Maniac: It's at about one third health

Crono Maniac: Next is Gyarados

Crono Maniac: She subs in Pikachu and mashes Thunderbolt

Crono Maniac: Gets most of its health down, then Gyarodos kills Pikachu

Crono Maniac: Pidgeot manages to get a lucky wing attack on the first move

Crono Maniac: Beats Gyardos

Crono Maniac: One

Crono Maniac: left

Crono Maniac: Arcanine

Crono Maniac: Ya with me? Here's where it gets really cool

Crono Maniac: So, here's where we're at

Rhete: last guy, arcanine!

Crono Maniac: Arcanine

Rhete: just say dragonair won it with surf

Rhete: :P

Crono Maniac: xD

Crono Maniac: All that's left is a max revive

Crono Maniac: Blastoise is almost dead

Crono Maniac: Pidgeot is almost dead

Crono Maniac: No one else is alive

Crono Maniac: One surf won't one shot a level 60 Arcanine, and it has Extremespeed

Crono Maniac: She switches in Blastoise

Crono Maniac: It dies in one hit before getting a surf off

Crono Maniac: Pidgeot comes in

Crono Maniac: Pidgeot uses the max revive on Blastoise

Crono Maniac: Pidgeot dies

Crono Maniac: So now it's Blastoise versus Arcanine

Crono Maniac: No more items

Crono Maniac: Every single other Pokemon is dead

Crono Maniac: Might want to start playing this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DqXlSwBIHFc

Crono Maniac: Blastoise hits him with surf

Crono Maniac: Arcanine hits him with Extremespeed

Crono Maniac: Gary uses a full restore

Crono Maniac: Blastoise hits him with surf

Crono Maniac: Arcanine uses Extremespeed

Crono Maniac: Blastoise is almost dead

Crono Maniac: Blastoise uses surf

Crono Maniac: Arcanine faints

Crono Maniac: Congratulations! You are the new Pokemon League Champion!

Rhete: oooh

Rhete: haha

Rhete: man

Crono Maniac: I know!

Crono Maniac: I was completely blown away

Rhete: just don't think about how long it would take to do it had she lost

Rhete: and then had no items

Crono Maniac: YUP

Crono Maniac: Blastoise's health was at 13 at the very end

Crono Maniac: We saved before using the last bit of items before Gary

Crono Maniac: But we still would have lost about 80% of our stock

Crono Maniac: But she fucking did it!

Crono Maniac: I put down the game for six months when I got to the Elite Four xD They're fuckin' tough!

Crono Maniac: She beats them on her first go with an underleveled party

Rhete: haha

Crono Maniac: (AND she never lost a single battle in the whole game)

Crono Maniac: She says she doesn't feel like she steamrolled it either.

Rhete: that is insane

Crono Maniac: There were a number of points where she -almost- lost and didn't

Crono Maniac: It was probably the most dramatic and exciting experience you could possibly have in a Pokemon game xD

Crono Maniac: At least in single player

Crono Maniac: It took over an hour to fight all of them because she was being so meticulous and strategic

Crono Maniac: Oh wow it’s four in the morning xD

Crono Maniac: Time for bed

Rhete: night

Crono Maniac: G’night!

Designing Drama - Fugitive Postmortem

Hey! I wrote a piece about wordless storytelling in my game Fugitive. It's hosted on ZEAL, a really awesome games criticism website I think all of you should read.

You can read my piece here.

I also recommend going to the ZEAL archive and reading the rest of the articles. Other worthwhile activities include donating to the ZEAL Patreon and following MammonMachine on Twitter. Enjoy!

Top 10 Games of 2013

Every year I do a Top 10 List for SocksMakePeopleSexy.net. I'm pretty sure most critics swear off lists after a certain point as a vapid and shallow form of writing, but unfortunately I have yet to reach that level of enlightenment. I love lists, and I was pretty much looking forward to writing this one for the entirety of 2013. I sunk a lot of time into it, so hopefully you'll enjoy the selections and what I have to say about each of them.

10. Super Xalaxer

There were a number of arcade-style action games I considered for the number ten spot on this list. Race the Sun is an endless obstacle avoidance game with sharp controls and incredible style. Ridiculous Fishing blends several different styles of gameplay into a seamless, cohesive package. They're both wonderful video games, and I've sunk hours in each of them.

But in the end I went with Super Xalaxer. It has a simple premise: You have two ships, one controlled with the mouse, one with the keyboard. Waves of enemies descend from the top of the screen. If you let enough of them slip by in a short enough span of time, you die and begin the stage over again. (You have infinite continues.) Later on, a couple of other enemy types are introduced, most notably one that takes more shots to kill and fires aimed shots at your ships. Sometimes your ships are split onto two different halves of the screen, sometimes they're both free to roam the whole play area.

What put it on the list is that it's bar-none the most satisfying challenge I experienced in a game this year. What makes it work is its sense of progression. In the beginning, surviving is fairly easy. For a good while it's possible to hold back the enemies just by moving both of your ships back and forth across the screen. But as it progresses, the pace ramps up, and a very small number of new ideas are introduced and developed on. By the half-way point, it starts to get difficult. The climax, in which the player fights off a wave of enemies with one ship and a boss with the other, is downright exhilarating. And if you're up for it, there's a hard mode, and it's even more thrilling.

Another cool thing: because the game is so focused on twitch reflexes and extended endurance tests, it can't be defeated through memorization. It's the polar opposite approach to games like R-Type, which are more focused on variety and texture. Not that there's anything wrong with a memorization-oriented approach (it's how my own games work after all), but it's still a really cool quirk of Super Xalaxer's design.

In a year filled with tremendous advances in puzzle games, strategy games, and games that don't fit into neatly defined categories, Super Xalaxer is a triumph of pure arcade action. It's a game I can see myself running through many more times in the future.

9. The Stanley Parable

The Stanley Parable is a sort of interactive essay on the relationship between the game designer and the player. It uses comedy to illustrate the absurd lengths designers will often go to to keep players on the One True Path, often ruining the story they're trying to tell in the first place. (Note: this is also the year of Call of Duty: Ghosts, a game that kills any player that dares to linger looking at scenery for more than a dozen seconds.) Interactive storytelling should be a dialogue between the player and the inner workings of the game. Instead, designers are ruining that potential in pursuit of more "cinematic" storytelling.

In The Stanley Parable, what would normally be a failure state that sends you back to a checkpoint is instead an equally valid path through the story. This is a much more interesting use of the capabilities of interactive storytelling, and tons of other games have used failure states to fascinating narrative ends. Imagine if you screwed up rescuing Lucca's mom in Chrono Trigger and it just booted you back to a checkpoint a minute earlier. Imagine how different Demon's Souls and Dark Souls would be if they treated death like a conventional video game. This is the sort of storytelling that The Stanley Parable celebrates − through example no less. I've made two games, Fugitive and Into the Vortex, that do unconventional things with failure states, and I can definitely say that The Stanley Parable influenced the way I think about storytelling in video games.

And it really is just hilarious. The writing is razor-sharp; it's the only game I've ever seen that manages to include a genuinely funny (and thematically appropriate!) Portal reference. The fact that it actually has something to say on top of that is icing on the cake. It's a shame that everyone seems to think talking about the game will somehow ruin it (it's not a game that can really be spoiled), because there's a lot of fascinating material in here that deserves to be talked about.


You can read the rest over here at SMPS. Check out the other lists too while you're at it!

Into the Vortex

New game! I made it for Ludum Dare 28, though I ended up finishing five days late. The theme was "you only get one." The whole game is basically just an extended boss fight, and it takes less then five minutes to play through if you don't die. It is designed to take several attempts though, and if it's too hard or too easy you can adjust your starting health in the options menu. The music is Bach's Little Fugue in G Minor.

Download "Into the Vortex" here.

Mother 3 and Abstraction

The most important scene in Mother 3 takes place around a fireplace. The scene is set up so that you can see all of the characters at once; the viewing angle is distant and constant. It feels like a stage play, but unlike in a play the characters aren't even real people − they're tiny, pixelated representations of real people. Imagine how different this scene would feel in a movie, where the camera could zoom in and around real life actors showing emotions on their real life faces. It'd be so much bigger, so much more immediate.

In Mother 3, there's an unbreachable distance between you and the characters. You can't make out their facial features, you can't hear what they're thinking, and some of them don't even speak. The characters who do speak say weird, eccentric things, and this is more evident around the fireplace then it is anywhere else. ("The good news is that I found you a new T-Rex fang that you can use as a weapon in battle. The bad news is...")

This wasn't an accident. Art is about storytelling and communication, and more than any other medium, games communicate through abstraction. No series understands that better than Mother.

The scene around the fireplace is filled with abstractions. Like the many, many other beautiful, perfect moments in Mother 3, this scene resonates with people because abstractions work in a powerful, indirect way. Boss battles, experience points, pixel art, chiptunes, silent protagonists; these pieces of artifice lull you into an emotional sense of security. They present to you a world that feels unreal.

But then scenes like the one around the fireplace come around, and you suddenly realize that all of these abstractions represent very real, human truths. Everything is recontextualized, and the moments that just seemed cute and funny before become intensely meaningful. Then the scene passes, the artifice builds itself back up, and you regain your sense of security, only for it to come crashing down yet again. Eventually the credits finally finish rolling and the revitalized logo fades in, and you realize that every single moment in the whole game was part of one person's tremendous, moving, singular vision of the human experience.

It's not a complete picture. It's not even meant to be. It's just one person's attempt to communicate some sort of raw, personal truth that they could feel inside them. And being able to share that truth with someone else − that's transcendence. It's the very purpose of art.

Fugitive

So! I finally finished the game I've been working on for the past five months. I'm extremely proud of how it's turned out. You can download it for free right here. Give it a look!

The soundtrack was all from the Newgrounds audio portal, so if you're interested in listening to more of their tunes you can find their channels here:
Monk1
Ajiman
Theeketel
Xerferic