Lian Hearn, or should I say Ms. Rubinstein (if either of those are her real name) is just so indescribably, wonderfully, unbelievably evil. I've always suspected that she was using a pseudonym but I never realised that she wrote those spooky Space Demons books as well. It gives me a whole different perspective on all of the books and of course even more of that uncomfortable admiration for someone that I love to hate.
Current music: Kukl - Fuglar
Tuesday, 25 May 2004
Saturday, 15 May 2004
Sunshine Jelly
If you any significant interest in video-games then you very likely have already heard of the Nintendo DS, even if you don't yet know about the 5 or so titles that were recently unveiled. Even though the touch-screen and wireless link-up features have been exploited to a reasonable degree with these games, it surprised me that there has so far been no real innovation in the use of two screens: they all seem to use one screen for the actual game and the other for nothing more than maps or fancy animations. All this seemed very un-Nintendo like, but then I realised it: they're keeping the real surprise up their sleeves, ready to reveal near the end of E3. I call it Alternate Universe.
I had a whole back-story and visual style planned to go with this idea but there's no point in going on with that if it has already been thought of, which I'm sure it has. Instead, I'm just going to try explaining the system before the game itself is announced. The basic principle is that you control two characters at the same time, in way which is sometimes similar to the puzzle game Denki Blocks. When you press up, both characters move forwards. When you press right, both characters move right. Obviously, one of these characters is on the top screen and the other on the lower screen. The other innovation, and the one which really takes advantage of the two screens, is that the two playable characters are in alternate versions of the same universe and the game revolves around the similarities and differences and between the two worlds. For example, there could be walls that exist in one universe but not in the other and this would allow only one of the characters to explore a certain area while the other was stuck behind a wall. In another area there could be a suspended walkway which is slightly different in each universe, so the player would have to check both of the screens and carefully plan their route to avoid one of the characters falling off the edge. So far this sounds like a simple action or puzzle game, but the beauty of the system is that it could be adapted to almost any genre. Most probably it will be used with the Legend of Zelda series, as many of it's games have used the idea of travelling between alternate versions of a world, and you could even fight monsters as Link in one of the worlds and cast spells as Zelda in the other. Alternatley, the system could also be used in a DS version of the Mario & Luigi RPG. I originally envisioned it as a graphical adventure game where the differences were more to do with people and objects than with physical obstacles like walls and pits.
As a little bonus, here's a picture I made as a result of fiddling around with Expression 3:
Current music: Rasputina - Gingerbread Coffin
Yes, I finally got this album and it's very good as well. It's also strange that you keep finding other music that you want, even when you already have an overload of it.
I had a whole back-story and visual style planned to go with this idea but there's no point in going on with that if it has already been thought of, which I'm sure it has. Instead, I'm just going to try explaining the system before the game itself is announced. The basic principle is that you control two characters at the same time, in way which is sometimes similar to the puzzle game Denki Blocks. When you press up, both characters move forwards. When you press right, both characters move right. Obviously, one of these characters is on the top screen and the other on the lower screen. The other innovation, and the one which really takes advantage of the two screens, is that the two playable characters are in alternate versions of the same universe and the game revolves around the similarities and differences and between the two worlds. For example, there could be walls that exist in one universe but not in the other and this would allow only one of the characters to explore a certain area while the other was stuck behind a wall. In another area there could be a suspended walkway which is slightly different in each universe, so the player would have to check both of the screens and carefully plan their route to avoid one of the characters falling off the edge. So far this sounds like a simple action or puzzle game, but the beauty of the system is that it could be adapted to almost any genre. Most probably it will be used with the Legend of Zelda series, as many of it's games have used the idea of travelling between alternate versions of a world, and you could even fight monsters as Link in one of the worlds and cast spells as Zelda in the other. Alternatley, the system could also be used in a DS version of the Mario & Luigi RPG. I originally envisioned it as a graphical adventure game where the differences were more to do with people and objects than with physical obstacles like walls and pits.
As a little bonus, here's a picture I made as a result of fiddling around with Expression 3:
Current music: Rasputina - Gingerbread Coffin
Yes, I finally got this album and it's very good as well. It's also strange that you keep finding other music that you want, even when you already have an overload of it.
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