Sky Eagle vs. Ground Bear (The not MMO)

edited in Projects
Firstly sorry @BlackShipsFilltheSky for not making this an MMO :<

But when you said Sky Eagles vs. Ground Bears I was like that totally has to be a game! Even if it isn't an MMO.

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So ye I kind of have this new habit that every time I think I am bored and I should just check the forum I go and work on a game, because working on games makes me feel happy even if they are completely silly.

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Important note! this is local multiplayer game so you will need to find another human to play the game with. I know finding humans can be hard :(

Also Download link have fun :3
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Comments

  • Hi Karuji,

    Interesting concept but I feel like you may have made some bad decisions (no offense)...

    First of all it's pretty obvious that you couldn't do what you wanted to using GameMaker and you would have definitely been better off writing your own engine. I don't know if it was because you are lazy or because you suck at programming but for the next version you should definitely write your own engine. It would have made it way easier to do the networking part of your demo and you could write it crossplatform so that SEvGB players on Wii-U could play against those on Gameboy Advance.

    Then secondly your class/race design is just terrible. I don't see how it's fair that one race could have such a powerful mechanic as flying while another can't. The fart weapon is also woefully overpowered and it's obvious that your abilities started suffering from horrendous power-creep after you'd completed your first class. Extra credits did an amazing video on power creep in games where they compare the power creep long-running MMO's such as world of warcraft suffer from and ways to avoid it. Basically be more like LoL where each new hero doesn't power-creep the game so that players will still be happy to play with the original classes. You can see the video here:

    Then finally your monetisation and social features of the game are lacking. F2P as you have now is great but you need to monetise more aggresively. I counted at least 8 pauses in play and not once was I prompted to perform some sort of microtransaction. If players aren't asked to spend their money they'll think you don't value your game or their time and lose interest. Also after every round I was eagerly looking for the facebook share button so that my grandma can keep up with my powerleveling exploits but there was none. I thought you were on to something brilliant and that the game just did that for me automatically (obviously the way of the future) but my facebook feed remains tragically bearless.
    Thanked by 1Karuji
  • Evan says hes willing to invest everything in this project. Please send us a 18 page pitch, no less no more, we of course will need to sign an NDA. Are you happy with 2-5% share of profits? Actually nevermind I think we will just clone you and beat you to it!

    Also the bear looks like a giant poo. POO'S DON'T FART BLOOD KARUJI.

    Thanks for the laugh :) <3
    Thanked by 1Karuji
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    The game seems to have strong engagement at the nondiegetic level. The quality of social interaction is very high, particularly amongst players who wash their hands before playing, and thusly the presence experienced is top notch. I predict that you may cause a number of meat-world fatalities due to the deep play and awful parents neglecting their children (and blaming you) and some players, failing to realign their expectations, climbing on the backs of actual bears and being instantly mauled to death.

    Go team Sky Eagle MLGL33t Pro!


    @raithza You might say your Facebook feed remains tragically bear.

    Thanked by 1Karuji
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    @raithza and @bevis thank you for that I haven't laughed this hard since two months ago when <insert inside joke> happened.

    @bevis, ye the bear does look kinda weird. though personally I find the eagle more off putting, and my favourite art part is the bloody ground tiles (those took me like two hours to do). Though hopefully I'll do some better pixel art in the next time. Now all I need to do is piss Evan off again so he can give me my next million dollar dollar idea so if you want to clone it go ahead since I totally stole Evan's idea!

    ---

    As much as it is all shits n giggles I did put quite a bit of thought into some parts of the game. So I would love to hear how people actually played: did you try and nudge your opponent away from the keys or make the bear charge at a bad time so you could swoop in when he was vulnerable.

    Edit: BSFtS posted while I was writing my post.

    @BlackShipsFilltheSky glad you seemed to have enjoyed it. Though bear is is totally OP, so I am glad that you are cheering for Sky Eagle since their midcore players are totally lacking. And only the most skilled, and dickish, Sky Eagle players emerge victorious!
  • The Eagles/Bears really don't feel balanced. If you run out of fart and you choke on your own stench the Eagle gets a free point, Sky Eagle verses Ground Bear is a game of chicken, though it gets better when you layer finger wrestling on top as a house rule.

    The biggest thing for me though is that the game lacks a hook. I played SkyBear™ for about 5 minutes and then played Super Crate Box for an hour and a half. I didn't notice it was an hour and a half since it was all just visceral action, which is something I would expect given that the cast of the Sky Eagle vs Ground Bear vs Underwater Sharks is in SkyBear™

    There are a couple of things I wish I had/could do.

    Fart in four directions
    Fart the wall I am climbing
    Instantly grab a ladder instead of press T to grab
    See my Fart grenades
    Have a Fart jetpack
    Double Tap H to swoop with the Eagle
  • @BlackShipsFilltheSky the game is not actually supposed to be balanced I was trying to create a representation of how social interactions, especially online ones, tend to make me feel, and then try and make the player feel that. When someone at the JHB meet last night told me that they felt awkward playing the game I was rather happy: not because I made someone feel awkward, but because I conveyed a feeling using gameplay. So the weird quirks have some meaning to me as to why they are there.

    I have to admit I was rather tempted to go copy your post and alter it where applicable. But I kind of feel that I would be perpetuating the reason why I didn't bother to check the forums for about two weeks, and why the game went from a simple joke for me to something that was actually a kind of a personal expression. Maybe my next game will be in twine, although I have no words and I must design: so walls of text probably aren't a good fit.

    Also if you are going to say that you went and played something else at least use something like Fingle or B.U.T.T.O.N ;) But if you actually played it for five minute I would actually be impressed since that would be something like 8 to 10 rounds which is way more than anyone else has played to my knowledge, and way more than really intended the game to be played.
  • This is the problem with abstract art; if you're outside the clique you won't get it. I played this only having read the first post and boy were the controls annoying! Reading the rest of the thread was confusing!

    That said my friend and I were left wanting more options like power dive, jump & maul, and indicator bars to show when an ability was available.
  • @aodendaal if you found the controls annoying then, to me, you experienced the game as I wanted you to. As much as there is a bunch of reasons to me why things act like they do: the basis of a negative experience by interfacing with the game is what I hoped I would achieve on the base level.

    With the bear you can tell that the charge is ready again by when he is no longer green. I debated a jump and maul for the bear a number of time. But I didn't do it because: I only wanted two buttons per character, the 1D movement of the bear ties into one of those artsy meanings of the game, and the bear is already far more powerful than the eagle.
  • I think that it's very difficult to successfully make a game that is intentionally crap vs just having happened to make a game that's crap. Yes, those that know you might see the step-down in quality and understand how you're essentially "acting the fool" with it, but everyone else is left in the dark.

    Perhaps a post explaining the context of this game might help it make more sense? I mean, I sorta vaguely remember some sort of conversation about Sky Eagles and Ground Bears, but the only thing I remember about it is that it was a sarcastic conversation.

    Basically, I feel like you have to be able to motivate WHY it's a statement game and defend the point you're making. Otherwise you need to spend a lot more time on the game itself until you can have it reveal a meaning/point like the way Hotline Miami does, that's crazy hard to pull off because you need the game to be good/fun enough for people to keep playing long enough to uncover the meaning themselves.
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    @dislekcia I'm not trying to make a game that is intentionally crap. What I wanted to do was make a game where I created a social situation in which the player felt awkward/frustrated, which I was when I started making the game. So I wanted to not really do a 'mechanics as metaphor' (although they are). I wanted the player to have a feeling.

    I know it is rather unlikely that I will be able to get the player to feel them what I want them to since most players are going to play with their friends, and not really mind the physical contact, and there is likely to be some progression of house rules that will dictate whether finger nudging and such is allowed.

    To me there is a deeper meaning ye, but honestly I'm not sure if I even want people to know what that is, so I don't really mind if people don't play it for that long to examine the meaning of the mechanics. If a social situation emerges from the game then I am happy with that. It doesn't have to be the social situation I want since I know that a game is simply a canvas on which the players paint their story.

    But I'm happy with the game even if it is kinda crappy because it is done, and I had fun making it. And that's kinda why I like the game: I just had fun making it. And I know at least one person felt how I wanted them to by playing it. So to me it is a success, and the game I needed to tinker with in the last two weeks.
  • edited
    Karuji said:
    It doesn't have to be the social situation I want since I know that a game is simply a canvas on which the players paint their story.
    But yet you made a game that people found awkward (in a way they didn't like) and then you claimed it was a success because you were trying to make a game they would feel awkward in. If you truly embrace the concept of "a game is simply a canvas on which the players paint their story" then why would you do that or say that?

    If a work of art only exists in the minds of players, which is the main point of post-structuralism, then the creator's intent is irrelevant in the evaluation of the work, unless the creator manages to convey that intent through the content of work, or arrange for the presentation of the work to convey that intent.

    Fingle manages to convey that intent. Players know that the awkward social situation it produces is a part of the game, it's intuitive and, just in case, it's all over the trailer: And so players become conspirators in the awkwardness, instead of being victims as in SkyBear.

    You going, "Yes but it is a success" is a lot like what Warren Spector keeps trying to do with Epic Mickey, trying to change the finish line so that he doesn't have to admit his game design was mediocre. ( http://www.gamesindustry.biz/articles/2013-05-13-defining-success-why-metacritic-should-be-irrelevant ) (although he does have some great points despite his butthurt motivation).

    We all want people to see our work the way we see our work. Even Warren Spector. But that just isn't the way the world works. Personally I find that to be one of the hardest and most valuable lessons a creator can learn.
  • @BlackShipsFilltheSky it's because I don't hold any singular point of view as being purely correct. I don't really hold post-structuralism or auteur intent any any higher regard to one and other. I know that most people are going to play the game and have their interpretation of it and never give a damn about mine, and I'm ok with that: I've been ok with that for a long time. But I can also hope that people people experience the game with that. If people experience that game, and enjoy it or feel the work as I intended it to be created I am cool with both of those.

    To me your metaphor of a shifting finish-line is irrelevant: for me there was never actually a finish line. I simply created something that I wanted to create: yes there was intent and form to it, and I hoped that some of the people who played it would experience the game in a certain way, but when one of my friends told me that they they though it would make an excellent drinking game I was just as happy, if not more, than when I made someone feel socially awkward.

    Like I think that the people who play SkyBear are "victims" is totally cool. It's not something that I thought about or intended but if you feel that is a valid description of the experience then I am rather psyched about that because that is the game, or it's experience, emerging in a way that I didn't expect and I am happy about that.

    I get what you and dis are saying that I shouldn't have to explain that ye you are feeling awkward because that is how I designed the game, and that should come through the game itself. But for a game that I initially proto-typed in 20 minutes and just had fun making: I'm ok with it being missed. For me that catharsis was in making the game itself: I was feeling crappy so I made a game, and now I am happy. And even if it is shitty I shared it with my friends because hey why wouldn't I do that?

    And ye, probably half my posts disregards just about everything else that I have been stating, or maybe it is just utterly balls and confusing. But I've learnt stuff from this shitty game, and really weird thread that probably makes no stuff, and I am rather happy about that so many thanks to everyone!
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