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GDC 18: Hands On With Little Dragon Cafe

Posted on April 11, 2018 by Broken Joysticks

Written By: Victoria Rose

Last month at the Game Developers’ Conference, we at Broken Joysticks got the opportunity to play an in-development demo of Little Dragon Café, the new game headed up by Harvest Moon creator Yasuhiro Wada and his new studio, Toybox. The game borrows the relaxing Life Simulation gameplay of its creator’s previous works, but adds several modern twists to the formula to keep things fresh. 

One of the things that sets Life Simulator games apart from other contemporaries in the Simulation or RPG genres is the pacing and tension of the core gameplay loop. Instead of the complex resource management of the former or tense combat systems of the latter, Life Sims tend to gravitate towards a more meditative process of repetition of simple tasks to reach long-term goals. The player is given less to worry about on an immediate basis compared to a full-on Strategy game. Little Dragon Café looks to be leaning more towards this pure Simulation genre than its Harvest Moon predecessors by giving players many more factors to manage, but intends to keep the core mechanics of its Life Simulator roots. 

Swapping out the farming gameplay of Harvest Moon for finance, gathering, and cooking mechanics, Little Dragon Café puts the focus more on managing a business than gardening. Players are expected to keep kitchens stocked, dishes made and on hand, and employees in line to succeed. This leads to a more fluid gameplay loop wherein players will have to make more careful decisions about how they spend each in-game day. Going on expeditions for ingredients with your titular dragon buddy is obligatory, but managing inventory during them brings to mind contemporary game Slime Rancher more than other Harvest Moon games. Players must act quickly and conservatively to maximize output during expeditions, adding that aforementioned tension to the mix. 

Prototype Plush Dragon From The Games’ Special Edition

Of course, this is all in service of the café itself, where the business management aspects come into play. Players must cook all dishes served in the restaurant, look after customers, make sure employees are happy, and be the caretaker for your dragon. Cooking is done by a simple and short rhythm mini-game, and customer interaction is handled in a similar manner as NPC interaction in Harvest Moon. The greater amount of tasks to do in Little Dragon Café adds to the hectic nature, and pushes the game more towards a pure Simulation experience. 

Little Dragon Café has loads of potential and a striking, colored pencil shader aesthetic. Even in its early state, it is clear to see how this game can potentially find its niche between its two source genres while providing something truly different from its predecessors. This is one to keep an eye on. 

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GDC 2018: ID @ Xbox Showcase Report

Posted on March 26, 2018 by Rae Michelle Richards

Written By: Victoria Rose

Microsoft’s ID@Xbox team returned to GDC for another year and brought with them some of the most promising new games coming to their console. Last year, I bemoaned the lack of effort towards securing exclusive titles for the Xbox One, as evidenced by their indie showing at GDC. But now Microsoft appears to be on the road to recovery, starting to cherry-pick several PC darlings as console exclusives. Cuphead, Ooblets, and the Ori series were the big Microsoft-allied indies of past years, so let’s take a look and see what software they have brought to the table in 2018. Welcome to GDC – this is ID@Xbox.

Folks gather around various demo stations during GDC’s ID @ Xbox event.

Starting out, we have My Time at Portia, an ambitious game of many hats that recently launched on Steam Early Access and is now being scouted for an Xbox release. Portia features a stylized visual aesthetic inspired by European animation and some captivatingly peaceful environment design. The main problem with the game at this stage, however, seems to be the opposite of its many early access peers. Portia features such a large number of mechanics and gameplay systems, all fighting for the player’s attention, that I am honestly not sure what the focus of the game is meant to be. At some moments, it feels like a crafting game or Harvest Moon-style farming game, while the combat system’s depth and third-person 3D camera angle suggest a more action RPG approach. We will see how this one develops and if it can find its niche over time.

Next up, there is the PC MMORPG Black Desert Online making its way to Microsoft’s console. The push to get more computer MMOs on consoles has been a long one with mixed results, but it certainly illustrates that there is a market for it. Black Desert Online looks to continue this trend and provide a consistent experience across both PC and Xbox. The team in particular noted Xbox One X compatibility as a major factor in them bringing the game to the platform, as the extra power allowed them to manage the game’s systems at a more reasonable framerate. Overall, this port’s presence was not terribly exciting, but at least should allow existing BDO players more options on how they can play.

Virgo Versus the Zodiac was a welcome presence on the show floor – a turn-based JRPG about mythology with some rather pleasant surprises. The battle system is reminiscent of Paper Mario, with timed button press prompts comprising much of the engagement factor in a fight, as well as some delightful Socialist overtones in the story, with the protagonist Virgo looking to overthrow the corporate greed of her peers. Such themes are more apt now than ever, and VVtZ looks to deliver a one-two punch between that and its solid gameplay inspirations. This is one to watch out for.

Finally on our featured games list, we have Trailmakers, a vehicle-building game reminiscent of contemporaries such as Banjo-Kazooie: Nuts & Bolts and Beseiged. Trailmakers banks heavily on its aforementioned vehicle-creation system, hoping to make a tool that allows for radical experimentation within the game’s physics and world constraints. Sadly, while the tool’s open-ended construction system allows for a great deal of freedom, it does a poor job of teaching players the basics of making a functional vehicle. A booth representative acted as a tutorial without my request, while I just wanted to explore the game on my own terms. I have high hopes for Trailmakers, but it needs to implement better tutorial systems before it can meet them.

Microsoft’s GDC showing has certainly improved since last year, but they still have a long way to go before making the Xbox One be the go-to platform for independent developers. Courting them with hardware power doesn’t make much sense in the indie scene – a market full of games that lean more on aesthetic than technical overhead, but at least some developers seem to be finding uses for the Xbox One X’s muscle. Here’s hoping Microsoft can continue to make strides in areas of true significance to indies, such as licensing terms, hardware costs, and generous revenue splits.

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GDC17: Indies Rule the House at Microsoft’s ID@Xbox Event

Posted on March 12, 2017 by Broken Joysticks

Article Written By: Tori Dominowski

The Game Developers’ Conference lets independent game makers to show off their projects in a professional setting, while giving platform holders and publishers the chance to show off their lineup to budding talent. Amongst the sea of VR and game service companies, indies got their chance to shine at a few events at the show – in particular, Microsoft’s ID@Xbox showcase.

Held at a private loft in downtown San Francisco, the event gave us a look at upcoming indie games to grace Windows 10 and the Xbox One. Among these, some of the standouts included Ooblets, the adorable life sim/role-playing game developed by Glumberland, Church of Darkness, a top-down stealth game by Paranoid Productions that tasks the player with infiltrating a cult compound, and Etherborn, a dreamlike gravity-bending puzzle platformer by studio Altered Matter.

The developers behind Ooblets stated in our interview that they wished to make a game which combines the most compelling elements of Harvest Moon and Pokémon into a single experience, marrying the meditative slow-life farming of the former with the collection and companionship of the latter. The game is designed to evoke the same soft, safe, endearing, and  feminine aesthetic that both series pride themselves in, touting a visual aesthetic very much in line with modern cartoon style trends. Ooblets is setting out to be the alternative to both series that emphasizes the strengths of both that often get ignored.

Church of Darkness, by contrast, takes a much darker and more tense turn into the stealth genre. The player must infiltrate a religious cult’s South American compound in the 1970s and rescue their sibling who has left home to join them. The game uses a top-down perspective to allow the player as much visual information as possible without using standard stealth conventions such as a radar. The setting alone does a great job of establishing unfamiliarity and unease in the player, something well-suited to a stealth game. Plus, the wealth of ways with which the player can interact with the environment allow for some rather creative puzzle solutions, leaving the player feeling unrestricted in ways other stealth games do not.

Finally, the last standout was Etherborn, a game that prides itself on its eerie, misty, dreamlike visual aesthetic, as well as using it to support its gravity-twisting movement mechanics. In the game, the player can move up walls when approaching them with a ramp. Manipulating the gravitational standards of whatever polarity to which they are currently oriented is the key to the game’s puzzles. Falling down holes in the ceiling and establishing a sense of continuity to abstract spaces are necessary in the demo’s later levels, and make Etherborn out to be a gorgeous-looking standout of the puzzle platformer genre.

Microsoft’s Xbox One still has a lot to prove if it wants to keep up with the current indie clout of Sony’s Vita and PlayStation 4, but it is putting up a very compelling show of confidence with this show. Giving developers cheaper access to development tools, cross-platform certification through the Windows Store, cheaper certification fees, and big industry-facing events such as this one are a good sign that Microsoft still believes in the importance of independent development for its platforms.

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GDC 17: Hands-On With VR Sports & Front Defence

Posted on March 1, 2017 by Rae Michelle Richards

Vive Studios will introduce three brand new entertainment experiences for the HTC Vive this spring for owners of the headset. During the first day of the Games Developer Conference I got the chance to sit down with Joel Breton to discuss the three new products – VR Sports, a collection of room scale enabled mini games. Make VR, a tool that helps bridge the gap between Virtual Reality and the real world by bringing support for 3D printers into the virtual space. Finally, Vive Studios also announced Front Defense, a World War II inspired shooter that uses Valve’s room scale technology.

The ten-minute demo of VR Sports and Front Defense that I tried at GDC was my first experience with room scale. Previously I had played Elite Dangerous in VR at E3 2016, set up my own sitting VR experience with motion controllers and played a few demos that used the Xbox 360 controller but this was my first time being able to move freely in the real world while strapped to a VR headset.

VR Sports is exactly what the title implies– table tennis using both room scale and the HTC Vive motion controllers. I was able to use one of the Vive wants to position the ball in front of me and smash it with the paddle in my other hand. It took me some time to adjust to the Vive wands and I found myself smashing the ball just a little hard, sending it flying out of bounds. After a few attempts and some coaching from the helpful HTC staff I was finally besting my computer controlled opponent. While the VR Sports demo at GDC17 was limited against an AI opponent the final game will also support online multiplayer against friends who also have HTC vive setups.

The second, and last, demo that the Vive team had on display was the tutorial level for Front Defence. In this World War II inspired first person shooter players have to fight off waves of enemy soldiers after learning the ropes against stationary cardboard targets. Front Defense gives provides players with a number of different tools of destruction to defeat their enemies – a standard machine gun is wielded in the right hand and reloading is performed by gripping the ammo clip with the left controller and then grabbing a replacement clip from your belt and inserting it into the gun. Rocket launchers also make use of a similar reloading mechanic where I had to reach down and grab a new projectile from an armored case on the ground and then insert it into the back of the rocket launcher. All of these movements added to the immersion and realism that you just don’t get when playing with a standard controller. It did take me some time to adjust to the idea of moving around a virtual space when using the HTC Vive but this is not a limitation of the platform and more getting used to not having to control my movements with an unnatural input device.

I’d like to thank Joel and the Vive Studios team for letting me go hands-on with their upcoming games. For my fist taste of room scale, the GDC demos showed me how impressive premium VR could be with technology as immersive as room scale. Make sure to watch my interview with Joel Breton in the embedded player below:

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ARK: Survival of the Fittest Video Interview With Jesse Rapczak

Posted on March 25, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Studio Wildcard, the minds behind last year’s smash Steam hit ARK: Survival Evolved have taken the concepts from their first prehistoric title and fashioned what they call a M.O.S.A or Multiplayer Online Survival Arena. Ark Survival of the Fittest pits a number of different players in  Survival Evolves‘ world map and gives them a limited number of time to craft weapons, tame dinosaurs all in a bid to be the last one standing.

We got a chance to sit down and talk with Studio Wildcard co-founder Jesse Rapczak about the challenges of adapting the ARK world to this new game type, how tamable dinosaurs change the pace of the game in relation to other Battle Royale style games and just why did Studio Wildcard release Survival of the Fittest with no monetary model?

Check it out below:

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Hands On With Adventure Quest 3D & A Chat With Artix

Posted on March 24, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Adventure Quest is one of those intellectual properties that feels timeless, not in the fact that it has never advanced, but in the sense that it has always just kind of been around in one form or another since 2002. At GDC 2016 I got the chance to sit down with a member of the Artix development team working on the game, as well as play a pre-beta version of their new cross platform MMO, Adventure Quest 3D.

After a successful Kickstarter campaign which raised almost double their initial goal, totalling over $368 000 USD, Artix Entertainment is busy reimagining their classic Adventure Quest property for a new dimension – the 3rd dimension!  At its core AQ3D is a cross platform MMORPG that appears very reminiscent of early WoW – that means lots of bright vibrant outfits and tons of people casting any number of spells.

AQ1

Right now the game is still in a pre-beta state which means that there might be some kinks to work out before it is ready for the general public. The art team have been working over time to not only make a few fan favorites 3-dimensional, like the box goblins, but also create an entire line-up of new monsters and races unique to AQ3D. In the build I played 3 different classes were selectable, with the Warrior class being the one I chose but there will be many more classes available in the final build.

The instances in AQ3D are also scalable meaning if you want to spend 10 minutes on your way home from work killing mobs by yourself you can or you can party up with dozens of other players and take part in the hardcore mode raids. Players will also be able to summon their friends and if they are not at your level the game’s “sidekick system” will automatically scale their level up to match yours.

AQ2

Probably the best part of AQ3D aside from its fun real time combat and colorful art style is the fact that the game is cross-platform. You can run an instance on your phone and instantly switch to a laptop or desktop without anyone knowing. At launch it will support Windows, Mac, iOS and Android – I did ask about a Linux client and was told that the devs get a lot of requests! The game is being built on Unity, so presumably a Linux client can’t be out of the question if the demand is there.

When I sat down with one of the developers from Artix Entertainment I wasn’t expecting to be greeted with such enthusiasm. As you can clearly see in the embedded video below, the folks making this game clearly have a passion for AQ and its dedicated fan base.

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Independent Games Festival Awards Recap

Posted on March 23, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Last week while our staff were busy crossing the many halls of the Games Developer Conference 2016 the IGF (Independent Games Festival) were just as busy preparing to announce the winners for this year’s awards. The grand prize went to Seumas McNally’s narrative crime title Her Story won not only the Grand Prize but also the Best In Narrative award as well. Indie darling Undertale took mercy on it’s playerbase and won the Audience Award while minimalist transit simulator Mini Metro is heading home with the Excellence in Audio award.

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GDC: Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens Preview

Posted on March 23, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Last week at the Games Developer Conference I got the chance to check out a presentation & live demo for Traveler’s Tales upcoming Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens.  It seems fitting that with ten years spanning between first Lego Star Wars games on 6th generation consoles  & this latest title, and the Star Wars brand being under new management, that TT would try to fit some new mechanics into their latest game.  Not only did we learn the ambitious scope behind Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens but we also got a sneak peak at some of the cool new features  & authentic feel that Traveler’s Tales has planned for this entry in the franchise.

In terms of raw numbers, this might be the most ambitious Lego Star Wars title ever, if not one of the largest. The final game will sport 18 levels taking place during major plot points in The Force Awakens as well as explaining some of the plot elements in-between Return of the Jedi and The Force Awakens that we didn’t get to see on the big screen. There will be over 200 collectible characters for players to find, collect and use to replay any of the 18 levels. In order to access these levels, players will have to make use of 5 different hub worlds – Jakku, Takodana, StarKiller Base, D’Qar and the Millennium Falcon. Flight levels play a larger role in Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens than in previous entries, flight in the last Lego title felt very 2-dimensional,  players now have full 360-degree movement thanks to a new tool – the ability to flip your ship in the opposite direction at the press of a button. In all honesty, the entire flip maneuver reminded me of the free-roam sections of Star Fox 64, and that’s not a bad thing – I love that game!

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Our demo opened with an authentic Star Wars scroll, accurate right down to the font and aspect ratio! As Finn / Poe’s Tie Fighter comes crashing into the ground we watch it explode into a thousand little Lego bits that scatter all around the desert.  Rey appears over the cliff, near the wreckage and hilariously pulls offer her mask – which is one solid Lego helmet piece. The player is then thrust into the action as Rey skates her way down the sandy slopes, collecting small Lego bits as she goes.  After the surfing introduction, the player is thrust right into combat, fighting waves of enemies until they defeat the designated leader NPC.  It is at this point we are introduced to multi-builds, one of the new features in the game.

Here is how WB Games describes multi-builds:

Multi-Builds – The enhanced Multi-Builds system allows players to choose from multiple building options to solve a puzzle and advance the game in different ways. For the first time, the same pile of Lego bricks can be used in multiple ways, with the player building and re-building different objects for different purposes.

LSWTFA_MarchPreview_1_1458664963

A dev from TT who was walking us through the demonstration noted that this particular encounter can end in one of two ways, depending on the multi-build selected by the player. Each multi-build had its own cut-scene and comedic dialogue to accompany it, rewarding the player for experimenting with different options.  Combat has improved greatly from previous Lego titles – A yellow gauge now fills up on screen and allows players to pull off cool finishing moves once it is full. Also new to the combat system is the combat multiplier. In terms of playstyle Rey was a very agile character who is able to use her staff to access previously inaccessible vertical sections of the map, while BB-8 rolls around and is able to partake in a hacking mini-game while Rey explores the map for hidden items.

LSWTFA_MarchPreview_3_1458664964

The second half of the demonstration focused on Rey’s escape in the Millennium Falcon from a group of Tie-Fighters. This section played very similar to an on rails space combat game, not unlike the aforementioned Star Fox. Players control the ship as it moves along an X/Y axis, oncoming Ties exploded into small bits as Rey blasted them apart. Rey is able to maneuver the Falcon to almost every available end of the level thanks to the one button flip mechanics mentioned earlier. Devs did mention that if you are playing these ship sections in 2 player co-op mode one player will control the Falcon’s movements while the other controls the mounted gun turrets.

Our demo ended with Lego Kylo Ren reciting his “I feel the call to the light” monologue from the film, only this time the monologue ends with the revelation that Ren has what appears to be a child’s room aboard the StarKiller Base.

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Lego Star Wars: The Force Awakens will be available on June 28th for PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, PlayStation Vita, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Wii U, Nintendo 3DS and Steam.

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Did Alistair McNally reveal BioWares new title at GDC?

Posted on March 22, 2016 by Fionna Schweit

We have known for a while that BioWare maker of beloved Mass Effect, Dragon Age, and yes Knights of the Old Republic,  are working on a new IP. However, what we didnt know was that Alistair McNally  BioWares’s senior director of creative development have revealed that project at GDC. However, he did it in such a  clandestine that all of the media outlets (including our own) who were at GDC missed it.  Take look at that tweet for full confirmation, but basically he said that he was walking around in a new T-shirt that had the IP on it.

Since Alistair has only about 5000 followers, even this tweet went mostly unnoticed. IGN dug it up this morning and now a large chunk of the internet is searching for images of Alistair at the convention, to try and analyze the shirt he is wearing.

So what do you hope the new IP is? Tell us on Facebook, or Twitter!

 

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GDC 2016: Sherlock Holmes: The Devils Daughter Preview

Posted on March 20, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Sherlock Holmes: The Devils Daughter is an action-adventure game that transports players once again back to Victorian London on PlayStation 4, Xbox One and Windows PC. This latest iteration improves upon previous entries in the franchise by bringing features and gameplay elements from previous games like Sherlock Holmes: Crimes and Punishment. I got the chance to check out the title at a demo booth at this year’s Games Developer Conference, here are my impressions.Read More

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GDC Preview: Manus VR

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Renee Gittins

This week at GDC, I was able to test several virtual reality peripherals that I was excited about. One of those was Manus VR’s glove set, gloved-based controls intended for virtual reality use.

Manus_productphoto

The gloves themselves are lightweight with a battery-pack on the back of the hand. It works by taking advantage of the Vive controllers tracking and using custom flex sensor within the glove. The sensors have two bend areas per finger, allowing for tracking of precise finger movements. Unlike other hand-tracking solutions, such as the Leap, there is no constraint on where your hand movement can be sensed.

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Clickteam Fusion 3 Hopes To Revolution Indie Game Development [World Premiere]

Posted on March 19, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Games have been my passion since I was very young and along with this passion came the spark of creativity – hoping that someday I would be able to develop my own video games. A piece of software from then little-known French software creation firm Clickteam called The Games Factory helped me explore the core concepts of game design. 16 years later, Clickteam is still around and their most current piece of engine technology, Clickteam Fusion 2.5 powers some of the most popular indie titles such as Five Nights at Freddy’s and The Escapists.

The next generation of Clickteam developers who grew up using Yves Lamouruex & Francis Poulain’s original engine technology are now taking the helm and preparing to user in their most ambitious development tool to date – Clickteam Fusion 3. While this product is still in a very early state -and isn’t expected to release for some time – Chris Carlson & Anders Riggelsen were more than happy to give BrokenJoysticks the world premire look at their next generation engine in the making.Read More

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GDC Vive Review: Universe Sandbox ² VR

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Renee Gittins

Valve took over a large section of the Game Developers Conference to show off the Vive and virtual reality games coming soon for the device.

Universe Sandbox ²’s VR mode was one of the stars of the demos. Universe Sandbox ², by Giant Army, has previously impressed me with its gorgeous space simulations, but seeing and interacting with them in virtual reality brought the experience to a completely new level. Planets zipped by my head, I threw suns and moons out into the nether and the rings of Saturn swirled beautiful around me after I displaced the planet.

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GDC 2016: Interview With Nicole Stark From Disparity Games

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Ninja Pizza Girl

An entire family make up the development team over at Disparity Games and I got the chance to sit down with Nicole Stark from the team to chat about her family’s company, representation in indie games and learn a little bit about their first title Ninja Pizza Girl.

Nicole was the recipient of a GDC Scholarship through #IneedDiverseGames and we also had time to chat about what it’s like to travel all the way from Australia to attend GDC for the first time.

Their first game, Ninja Pizza Girl, is already available on Steam. Here’s the official description:

Ninja Pizza Girl is a serious game about self-esteem, bullying and resilience – and pizza delivering ninjas! Its deeply-woven story follows Gemma, a sixteen-year-old girl working as a pizza delivery ninja for her father’s independent Pizzeria.

Check out the video interview in the embedded player below and look out for more coverage from GDC 2016 later today.

[youtube id=”uQZMq7jW-sw”]

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GDC: Everything From The Future of Xbox Development On Windows Panel

Posted on March 17, 2016 by Rae Michelle Richards

Microsoft held a one hour brief for developers interested in their software development platform for the Xbox One console this morning at GDC. This talk was delivered by the head of the ATG (Advanced Technology Group) and not only served as a recap of some of the major advancements on both the Xbox One platform & Windows 10 Platform but also reconfirmed Microsoft’s vision of a unified development environment with a streamlined pipeline for the delivery of digital games.Read More

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