Proteus - we're not in Croydon any more.

There is a Buddhist centre in Croydon. It surprises you when you find it because it's right on the High Street in amongst all the hustle and bustle, the strident adverts, the temples to commercialism and capitalism.  It has a small, peaceful garden where you can sit and rest and gather yourself before venturing out again into the pell-mell, the crush, the frustration.  Proteus is like that garden. It's a small oasis of calm and peace in the middle of the busy, overwhelming world that we live in. It's a soothing balm for your soul.  It's lovely.

Bit like Croydon

Proteus is an "explore em up" created by Ed Key and David Kanaga (I bet they hate it being called that) and it does away with most traditional game components.  There's no shooting and there are no enemies or treasure, and instead the player is left to explore a world rendered in blocky graphics and minimal sounds. Let's be honest, that doesn't sound like a great game, does it? But the wonderful thing about Proteus is that it is so much more than just a sum of its parts. It reminds me of Yeti Hunter in that respect; each component is pretty basic but when they are put together they create something quite magical.

When you start the game an eye opens on your screen, as if you have just woken up (or fallen asleep and started dreaming) and this sets the tone for the rest of your experience. The world that Proteus provides for you is very similar to our own - with trees, clouds, rain, the sun and the moon - but also quite different. There are secrets hidden away and there are things to see, hear and enjoy all around.  You can go wherever you like, and night will fall and seasons will pass.  The sun will rise and clouds will form overhead and you are free to explore its similar yet different landscape to your heart's content.  It reminds me of going for a walk in the Summer in the English countryside. That may sound like a strange thing to say, but the quality of the light in it and the sounds that you hear evoke exactly the same feelings. It brings back clear memories for me of being a child and walking through a local nature reserve in the sunshine.  It's a brilliantly peaceful experience and there's something quite wonderful about that.

Toowhit.  Toowhoo.

Tonight, for example, I spent about 5 minutes following an owl. It hooted when I got near and then flew off to another tree. I thought it might guide me somewhere but it didn't seem to and eventually I lost it in the forest.  Another time I followed some things which looked like rain drops but they were singing and flowing along the ground and then they formed a spinning circle round me and the screen faded, and I woke up somewhere else.  There were insects there, on the next island, which looked like Japanese characters, but I somehow knew they were dragonflies.  I followed a frog as it hopped away from me.  Later on I stumbled into some bees, who chased me from the flowers they were pollinating and I went careering down the hill, back to the sea, and, always around, there were standing stones, giant tree trunks, odd statues on hills and other things which demanded to be investigated.

This sceptr'd isle

The screenshots may look quite primitive and blocky but they don't do Proteus justice for two reasons.  Firstly they are not moving, which is important, and you also cannot hear the sound effects which accompany them.  David Kanaga does a wonderful, minimalist, job in creating the soundscape for this world and it deserves a special mention.  Audio effects are often linked to events on the screen and you create your own soundtrack as you move through the environment.  Sometimes these connections are obvious things, such as rain falling or crickets chirruping at night, but they can also signify when you are near certain scenery or which season it is.  They accompany the game extremely well and make it a much more immersive experience than it would be otherwise.  They are an integral part of the world and it really wouldn't work without them - they are what brings it all alive.  As I said above, the game is much more than just the sum of its parts and the sound is a major reason why this is the case.

 I recently wrote something about how playing Super Mario Galaxy with my 3 yr old son saved my immortal soul from the scourge of eternal hellfire.  He played a starring role in that story but it did raise some interesting questions for me about the role of video games in parenthood.  I felt a bit bad about using him to keep me sane whilst taming my inner demons, and so I have been looking for other ways to teach him how to use a mouse and become accustomed to computers than those which involve violence, or which demoralise him by being too difficult.  Proteus is perfect for this.  There's no way to die, there's nothing he can do wrong.  I give him the mouse, and give him the keyboard (he just presses "W") and then we can talk about where to go and what to see. "Let's go there and see what that is", "What are those statues doing?" "Daddy, it's raining!" "Look at the size of this hill!"

This is a game where the commands are "walk", "look around" and "sit down and take in the view" (and no, I've not made that last one up), so it is an absolutely perfect thing for a bit of adult child interaction.  It makes a welcome change from collecting things, hitting things and falling off platforms into black holes and while it's obviously not quite the same as actually taking a walk in the open air, it's as good as you're going to get in Britain in January. 

Proteus is still in beta stage so it's not quite finished yet and I have encountered a few instances when it won't load properly from the desktop shortcut, but you trust that this will all be sorted out by the time it is released.  You can visit the world by going to its website and buying access to the beta for about £5.  It is also going to be released on Steam on Jan 30th.  Why not give it a go and try out something truly unique?  I'd recommend it.


PS - Since writing this Proteus has been released.  An updated version is available on Steam for £6.99 (currently 10% off too.)  I still think you should give it a go.  ( & that bug has disappeared.)

Greenlight

You've probably heard of Steam.  It's Valve's digital content delivery system and it has taken over the PC gaming market, quickly becoming the largest gaming download "portal" in the world.  There are lots of reasons for this - the legendary Steam sales where they sell off everything for low, low prices, the perception of Valve themselves as "one of the good guys" and probably lots of other reasons which people in marketing would be happy to talk about for hours and hours.

But that isn't really important.  What's important is that Steam recently announced "Greenlight" - a new way for people to get their games into what is, essentially, a massively lucrative marketplace.  Developers could submit their creations and Steam users voted on which ones they thought were worthy of being put onto the main site.  Finally Indie developers had a way of hitting the big time - if they could get their games through the selection process.

Now, anybody who knows anything about the human condition can probably guess what happened next.  Overload.  A sea of dross in which anything worthwhile was lost.  Obviously this wasn't Steam's intention, but it was pretty predictable.

So, Steam have tried to clean things up.   Each developer is now asked to pay $100 (about £60) as a one-off fee, with all proceeds going to the Child's Play charity.  That's a one-off fee and it allows people to submit and edit all their current and future games once they have paid it.  Steam say this will cut out the timewasters.

And this has caused uproar.

Accusations of class divides, references to "the money middle-class people have" and lots of people saying that they flat out cannot afford to pay the fee and that this means that the game that they have put hundreds of hours into is worthless.

There is certainly an element of truth to this.  University fees make university education less likely for children from poor backgrounds, they perpetuate the gap between rich and poor and make that harder to overcome.  This is similar isn't it?  This means that rich people can still access something which has the potential to make them even better off, whilst the truly poor are excluded.  No matter if the fee is £60 or £9000, the principle is the same.

And Valve could have achieved their aim through different methods.  A lower fee (although this would fall foul of the same principle), an admissions panel (but who watches the watchmen, and this goes against the whole point of Greenlight), an easier way of viewing submissions (now implemented) or a cut off where the game is removed if it receives an overwhelmingly negative reaction.

However, not being able to afford to register with Steam does not mean that all is lost.  Greenlight is less than a week old.  Indie developers were able to sell their games before it came along.  None of those options are now closed.  Everything else is still the same.  If I was developing an Indie game that I had faith in, that I loved and that I had sacrificed a lot of time and effort to develop then I would try to sell enough copies of my game (typically less than ten) in order to afford the submission fee to something which has the potential to expose my work to about 40 million people.

People make the point that it's a gamble.  That you're not paying to get on to Steam itself, but to have the chance to be voted on to Steam.  OK.  But you're also paying for the chance to have anything you make in the future also get on to Steam.  What's marketing if it isn't a gamble?  How do you expect to sell something if people don't even know about it?  And how do you get that word out there without spending some money?  (The answer is that I'll promote it on here if you contact me, but I don't have an audience of 40 million.  Do it anyway.  Can't hurt.)

Ultimately Steam gives small developers the chance to make it big.  To sell enough and make enough money not to have to worry about $100 fees again.  The cost vs. reward equation seems pretty clear here.  Maybe it's time that people stopped wishing things were the way they want them to be and faced up to the way they are?

Realm of the Mad God

Realm of the Mad God is a bit of a mongrel.  Not because it has really sad eyes and will destroy your furniture, but because it is a mixture of many other different types of games.

At its heart it is a fantasy MMO - like World of Warcraft, or Everquest.  There are hundreds of players all existing within the same world at the same time.  You can chat to each other, you can help each other, you can trade items or just shout nonsense at the sky - it’s up to you.  There are portals leading to different parts of the eponymous realm and you can form parties and run off together slaughtering monsters, and generally having a fun time.  It’s all very free form, you can join or leave groups whenever you like or you can lock onto another player and teleport to their location if you lose them.  Co-operative play is certainly encouraged.  It can be difficult to co-ordinate, and players are always coming and going, but there is definitely safety and power in numbers.  Working together means that you can support each other - healers can heal and fighters can hit things in traditional and time-honoured RPG fashion.  Every character on-screen also receives experience points for everything killed by the group so it really doesn’t make sense to go off on your own.  This, combined with a complete inability to damage other players, fosters a very community-minded spirit - for example people will often give you better equipment for nothing and without even being asked. It’s nice.

To start you create a character from one of 13 different, unlockable, classes and progress through twenty levels - getting stronger as you go.  Your character has different attributes which affect movement speed, shot speed, damage given and received etc.  Also, as you progress you earn fame which carries over after your death and enables you to access more challenging areas of the game or buy items.  Predictably, you can also acquire better weapons, armour and equipment on your travels, or back at base.  So far, so standard.

Say hello to your little friends

However, where ROTMG differs from the norm is that it isn’t a lavish 3D immersion-fest,  it’s a 2D scrolling shoot-em-up - with graphics that were state of the art in about 1992.  It is a lot like Smash TV, if you’re old enough to remember that.  You move your character with the keys, but can also shoot in any direction with your mouse.  You can even press a button which makes your character shoot constantly without you having to do anything.  That should tell you something about the type of game it is.  Things can get quite frenetic.    

Not only this but the game incorporates some rogue-like elements in the way it treats death.  In this game, death is final.  You can only use one character at a time and when they die, that’s it.  No save points, no going back to the last checkpoint, nothing.  You are dead and that’s that.  Time to start a new character.  Some people will find this difficult to deal with and if you’re one of those people then this game might not be for you.  In much the same way that farmers don’t name their pigs, it’s best not to get too attached to your little alter egos.  They probably won’t be about for long.  You can quite easily find yourself up against an over-powered enemy and death can come quickly.

So it’s a shoot-em-up MMO, with rogue-like elements.  The question is, does it all work?  Well, yes, it does is the short answer.  I’m not sure that it will take over your life, or that you will commit hundreds of hours to it - but if you want something for a quick blast then this fills that role perfectly.  The action is solid and your character becomes noticeably more powerful the further you progress.  Add in the unlockable classes (which have real differences), and the co-operative play and you’ve got the basics for a good game.  It can feel frustrating to have to start afresh every time you die but the fame system at least provides some continuing progress.  ROTMG is a curious mixture of genres but it works well and is worth a look.