voxel based plattformer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZF2qqDGesEU

Io - Indie 3d platformer, puzzles with voxel based digital clay

Well, while I really like the general idea it does not just look ugly, but also gameplaywize very boring...

one of the comments somewhere said they had a better demo vid somewhere.. i didnt really look for it. the tech if well applied could be fun, but like slin said, i think they focused too much on the tech and not enough on the actual gameplay. the graphics do kind of suck especially to someone who doesnt know whats going on behind the scenes..

i saw the other video and i have to say something about this. and you can quote me on that.
here we go:

i believe that we live in times where the only limitation to what we can create is our own imagination. as such, we are to create worse products than ever before, simply because we are not bound by rules of creation anymore.
once the boundaries of what is possible are broken down, the evolution of gaming comes to a halt and reverses backwards into the process of having the player create your game again, similar to what people used to have in the early days of text adventures.
designers and players need limitations to make a game work. this is the reason why you only have so many pieces in any given lego set. this is the reason why games work best when we care about the core gameplay mechanics, not about technical spectacle. great games like bioshock or dead space live by the atmosphere and the inability of the player to do what he wants. he is bound by the limitations of the game. now remove those boundaries and give him the ability to do anything he want. he could flood the entire city of rapture or plow through space with a snowplower. remove the thread of police from any given GTA game and instead make the player invincible with the ability to shape the game world the way he sees fit. the end result would be a boring mess of a digital sandbox.
the reason i post this is simple: a game should be something we can play. this tech demo shows us very clearly that the creators want to impress with their engine but tehy dont have the focus of an y game in mind. a game lives and breathes through the design. a good level designer tells the story of the gameworld through the level alone. and a world where you can change the level as you see fit is deemed to not have any personality but your own. and how can you, as a designer, create a compelling narrative if the player can change your level as he sees fit?
minecraft is a prime example. it is a giant set of legos within a virtual world, but it is all about the creation process. there is no real gameplay in there, at least not more than in any given set of legos.
if we as a medium want to evolve to something more, we have tor ealize that a game is meant to be played. that is the reason why all the marios in this world are so successfull. because tehy are GAMES. not tech demos. not playable movies. not legos and not a virtual sandbox. they work in the way they do because their primary goal is to entertain us while we play.
in the end i am sure some here will disagree with me while others may agree. and frankly, i dont care either way. all i know is that a game needs to be played, not watched or toyed with. voxels MAY be the future of gaming technology, but definetely not teh future of gameplay or game design. similar to the fact that good CGI dies not make a good movie...

Word!

Minecraft is not only about building and has indeed some gameplay. Actually it is quite simple but similar to games like Diablo. In Diablo you click, click, click (to destroy enemies) and then they drop loot, you collect it and click, click, click, collect loot, click, click.. later you use the loot for some crafting.
In Minecraft you click, click, click to destroy world blocks. You collect loot (resources) and you do some crafting after it. Besides that you have some enemies to defeat. Terraria works the same way.
A space simulator also works that way, you can kill enemies, collect loot and improve your ship later on. In games like X3 you can even build space stations, factories, new ships and much more.
The difference to minecraft is only, that the building process is reduced to a combination of simple blocks and thus comes with a higher degree of freedom. But the gameplay is existant and not much different than in other games.

Maybe funny for some minutes yet i already got bored half way through the video

I really like it, it's a very relaxed game and it has some potential. I think that the clay-gun should be modified a bit and I don't like the idea that you those boxes there where you actually create clay, but, okay. I like the graphics.

Man, you're right! Take, say, Tetris. You're just clicking buttons, right? Click, click, click. To make a line. The same game!
Or racing games! You just click buttons (some longer than others). Click, click. And then, you win the race, but it's still just hitting buttons.
Or strategy games. Or RPGs. Or any game ever conceived.

This point is often brought up, but I don't think there's much to it. What this does is deconstructing the INTERFACE. But that's not what games are about. Games are about decisions, and those are fundamentally different in Diablo or Minecraft, or Racing games, or whatever.

The general idea was actually the reason why I posted it.
'Technic' is the even more appropriate term. Everything else is sort of a childrens game, nothing that I would enjoy playing for a long time.

@Spike:
You are describing a certain sort of gaming, not games in general. Those who are playing minecraft are actually playing, they are not working.

This is even better:
http://www.youtube.com/user/bytegrove#p/u/0/zWQl_Fpr9Gk

You did not understand. There was a reason why I did not mention racing games, but Diablo. In Diablo just like in Minecraft you have to do some work (I called it click, click) to destroy something (you dont do that in racing games). While you do that you explore the environment (you do that to some degree in a racing game too). And then you collect loot (you dont do that in racing games). Later you do some crafting (creating new weapons, tools, armor, maybe even buildings). You dont do that in racing games.
Besides that I mentioned open space games that allow to build buildings, factories and more. The game mechanics are very similar no matter what goal you finally have.

And I have read similar thoughts from game journalists as well. I think last time someone mentioned a similar comparison in the "Spieleveteranen Podcast" as well. So maybe this idea is not as dumb as you think.

I'm aware that this argument comes up often, but I don't think that should be a reason not to critizise it

It's a cute argument, but my point still stands. You're saying that if you just look at things from an artificially high level, their mechanics are the same. I'm sure we can agree that both games are different: It's easy to distinguish Diablo from Minecraft, and that is true even if you were to remove the differences in graphic style. This is because while they may share similarities in its gameplay (and its trivial to find similarities between any two games, if you look at them at a high enough level - I think your earlier post was actually a very good way of showing that point), there is still a difference in the fundamental mechanics. Even though they may simulate the same act (acquiring new equipment by building it, for instance), their implementation differs. And at that level, many small details can add to a different experience.

An additional point can be made that it is unclear anyhow what characterizes games. It's often interpreted as being only about mechanics, and that a good game should be fun even if you were to remove all art, sound and what-have-you from it. But maybe reality is more difficult: art-style, sounds, music, and everything else comes together. Little things in tone make a radical difference in how games are perceived.
In a way, that's almost... beautiful. Many hours of work were put in art assets - and it DOES make a difference. Not just in an artificial factor that multiplies whatever "funness" the game mechanics provide. It's not just a one-dimensional thing, the "experience" works on many levels.
But if we accept that as true, then how can one say that a game is "the same as game XY" (and we all have seen comments on new game announcements that were mostly "this is just like [game name], ill stick to that one!"), if they share similarities in mechanics on some level, but differ on others?

I'm not saying there is no value in discussing game mechanics - there DEFINITELY is. But there is a danger in carrying it too far: It's easy to forget all the other things that come together to form an experience that can be so much more than the sum of its parts.
The first three Ace Attorney games are virtually the same from a game mechanics point of view. They added new features, but I don't think any fan of the first game bought the latter ones because of it. It has always been about the setting and it's story and it's characters. And most people think that the first game is better than the second, and the third game is the best of them. It can't be about it's game mechanics -- those don't differ much. It is about it's setting and story. So those things shape the experience and really can make a difference (In these games, I suppose it can be argued that the story is a major part of the gameplay ("gameplay" - another one of the poorly defined terms) - but where do you draw the line? At what point is story and setting, or any other thing that is not pure mechanics more than mere fluff?)



Pappenheimer, I'm very sorry for hijacking one of your threads. I feel like I do that all the time to you.

only half read this thread but might i through a little gas on the not-quite-flames-yet?

and i know its not ot, but what about games like heavy rain or the cinematic scenes in re4, what makes those games and not movies with a choice here or there (i guess the re4 thing is sort of timing but still..)

You mean the Quicktime events? In RE4, I found them to be unfair - they came out of nowhere, and I usually died the first time since I didn't realize that this was a cutscene that required input.

Heavy Rain, I haven't played, but from what I understand, it's similar (yet better in most key aspects) to the "predecessor in spirit" Fahrenheit/Indigo Prophecy, right?
This is actually a real interesting point you bring up. It boils down to the one question, that is: How do we define a game? And if this is done via game mechanics, the follow-up question must be: Is that still a fair assessment? Because as I've said above, I believe that so many things come together beyond the game mechanics, that this approach wouldn't do this complex medium justice.

Heavy Rain, as well as Fahrenheit, seem to be mostly about decisions. Disregarding the quick time events, that I can't say anything about since I haven't played the game, it seems to me that the game is content in providing you an experience. A story - putting you in an extraordinary situation, asking you how to deal with it. You're tasked with finding out how you react in situations, whom and how many people (and what kind of people!) you trust. In that sense, however, Heavy Rain and Fahrenheit are radically different - their stories are different, their setting is, their characters are. The fact that they feel so different, then, is supporting the idea that it is not about mere mechanics (those being mostly a dialogue-system and a way to move your character to certain points that, again, represent decisions), but that the entire experience is shaped by so much more.

Here's an observation I'll put out here. These kind of games - and maybe Minecraft as well, they seem to represent a different "state" of gaming.
Compare (and contrast?) to how you played games as a child. It was about make-believing, about putting you in situations. Creating things with LEGO was not necessarily fun because you enjoyed putting those bricks together, or even because you liked the end result. The process itself got it's meaning mostly from the vivid imagination that most of us seem to lose at a certain age.
Later on, as adults, we play different kind of games. We may still enjoy a board game with a setting (Check this out!), but the "classic" games, say poker, or most other card games, they are about their mechanics. Chess, too. They represent a struggle, sure, but the reason we play them is not to find out what heroes or leaders may have felt on the battlefield. We play them because we find the tactics, the psychology behind it intriguing.
This seems similar to the definition usually brought up about video games. At it's core sits the game mechanic, and that rules all.
But we've seen that it can be difficult to accuralty describe (and differentiate - just as important) games. We fail to see the appeal in Minecraft, if there doesn't seem to be a clear end goal in sight (see spikes post). However, thinking back to the earlier kind of play more common in how we used to approach games as children, things seem to be similar. Is, then, Minecraft just a tool to play games just like we used to? What we lost in "vividness" of imagination provided by Minecraft's sometimes crude graphics, being the spark that sets your imaginary world on fire?

Different people prefer different games. Minecraft and Terraria and those all invite you to make your own story up as you go along - possibly even without you consciously doing this.

I think there are some misunderstandings about Minecraft floating about. Let's have a look at minecraft.net's About the Game:This is reflected in the updates lately (if you follow them) -- experience points, skill trees, achievements, and hardcore mode (when you die, there's no "load" or "respawn" -- the world gets deleted). "Creative mode" is like playing with LEGO, but "Survival mode" is where the game is at.

More on topic (or on the topic of this tangent lostclimate started) -- to me, "what makes a game" is interactivity. It's the defining feature. AAA titles often strive to be more and more "cinematic" -- more and more like movies. This is generally a bad direction to go in (but can be OH-so-good if you get it right like the Uncharted series tends to), but they're still games. You could have a movie with a "choose A or B" right near the end as the only interaction, but it'd still be a game (albeit an awful one -- no matter how good and satisfying the story is, people will deride its limited interactivity).

Regarding whether or not a game should or shouldn't have a defined ending (Minecraft as it is now, LEGO blocks, playing in a sand-pit, VS most other games), I don't think one is inherently more fun than the other. Having a goal will have the player finish satisfied, while having no goal will have the player finish tired of playing the game (or dragged away kicking and screaming by friends for an intervention), but the latter game often provides dozens of hours more fun than the former.

This is a fine way to distinguish between "game" and "not-game". But it's binary at it's very core. How do we differentiate? Is there a way to abstractly categorize games beyond genre? Genre as in "FPS", "RPG", etc. characterizes on certain traits of game mechanics (that interactivity), Genre as in "fantasy", "Sci-fi", etc. characterizes via setting. The latter is, almost surprisingly, less often used. Mostly as a way to further differentiate ("Sci-Fi FPS" vs "Fantasy RPG", perhaps).

Can we think of a way to characterize games beyond that binary input, so that we are able to actually differentiate between games? After all, we did originally wonder what differentiates Minecraft and Diablo (or if they do at all).
Is there even a need to do this? Is the combination between the Gameplay/Setting-genre already good enough?
But both Oblivion and Gothic are "Fantasy RPGs", yet, they're radically different.


Is this all maybe an endeavour doomed to fail? And why am I asking so many rhetoric questions?

The answer, in the next post, below! ...

I have mixed feelings about designations such as "FPS" and "RPG". What players would define as RPG is actually very counter-intuitive -- character customization, skill trees and skill progression, conversation options -- players are immersing themselves in the game, rather than playing a role (from this perspective Serious Sam is a role playing game and Mass Effect isn't). Actually that's completely irrelevant -- even if the name doesn't make sense (yes, its origins come from table-top role playing games, but seriously, that's such a small niche), I guess everyone has similar expectations.

On a more related note, "Fantasy RPG" can indeed vary so much, while "Sci Fi FPS" will usually tell you everything you need to know about the game. "Action Adventure" gets used a bit, but is ridiculously vague. I'd rather do without genres -- perhaps games would be less likely to copy genre staples and more likely to pick and choose elements that will work within the developer's abilities/vision.

But then when we don't have genre names we still create our own -- "GTA clone" is an older term these days. "CoD clone" is familiar. Remember "Halo clones"? Perhaps these were helpful in finger-pointing at those who copied a whole game (rather than copying elements from a variety of games, which is totally different and cool and awesome and leads to innovation), as long as the term isn't thrown around too liberally.

My definition of what makes a game a game may be binary, but I think that's good. In discussions as to whether or not games are art, my response is usually "Games are every medium that preceded them [music, art, drama, movies <which really contain all of the above>] plus interactivity."

I don't think I really stuck to one idea, but hopefully it still all makes sense

a game is something you play. end of story. and if you add cutscenes, a game is a game as long as the majority of the product is playing.

one could argue we have to define playing first but i think its pretty clear...

part of what jibb brought up the whole clone thing... but things people call gta clones are just freeroam shooters.... people seem to name entire genre's after the biggest one if there arnt many competitors, which makes no one want to put effort in a polished copy in fear of being called a copy

I don't disagree with your "games = interactivity"-sentiment. It works well. But while it is useful to distinguish games from other mediums, it doesn't classify games beyond, well, this very broad term. Both Oblivion and GTA are interactive, but they differ beyond that, and I'm trying to find ways to classify that difference.
As such, we need to find more detailed requirements for the different kind of games.
I agree that classification by genre is disappointing, as it does lead to fewer "genre crossovers". What can one do about it?
Maybe that marketing paragraph blurb on the back of the box of a game is a better description in that sense. I mean, at least if it were honest. But if games are only describable by writing a paragraph on them, we'll never be able to compare them.


What about visual novels? Those often face claims that they are not a game, but they are surely interactive. Not anymore than "choose your own adventure"-books, perhaps, but it is an interaction. But then, at some level, any other game is also "just" a series of decisions. Only there, many, many small ones amount to something, but are individually not important, whereas in the visual novel-thing, few decisions have great impact and change a lot*.

How to distill games down to a few, common elements that manage to describe a game somewhat well in just a few words?
I mean, I'd have trouble accurately describing GTA in one sentence, even.

We should have a thread in which we describe games in one sentence.
"Mario Kart: You race or battle each other in karts and use an assortment of different weapons designed to destroy any bit of friendship and sympathy between you".

I suppose exactly that difficulty is why we end up saying "GTA clone" instead. But weren't there a lot of GTA clones? I'd say enough that it slowly used those "open world/sandbox"-terms. Which, however, aren't particulary descriptive.
lostclimate, can you elaborate on this? I'm not following game sales much these days -- but isn't it still the case that commercially succesful games are followed by lots of clones (or at least very similar games)? GTA had it, and even things like Minecraft have.


* I am aware that I previously argued that such a broad generalization is useless, and I stand by that. My point was back then, and still is (even though it may not come across here, as I'm just interested in pointing out a difference) that the KIND of decisions have an impact -- and the context given by everything else (that having a much larger role than most people give it credit for).



Are you not interested in discussion?
Or don't you see the value in having clear, defined terms - this thread should have made clear already what problems arise as long as you don't have those.
Plus: Well, what is playing?
And don't just quote the first paragraph from wikipedia, I can read that myself. The thing is, there are so many different ways of "playing" that it's hard to describe. A child pretending to be a superhero is playing, sure. Is an actor on a movieset playing? Probably. Even if he's not enjoying it, you know, if he's just doing it for the money, and hates his part and everything about it with a passion? The ACT may be the same, but the INTENTION is different. Can "play" be defined with just one but not the other? Must it be defined that way?

Sure, playing is pretty clear, but what's "the majority"? Cutscenes can have a set time, but only the most limited games are set in the same way. For one player the majority of the game might be gameplay, but for a faster player the majority of the game might be cutscenes. And if the majority of it is cutscenes rather than playing, but it still has playing, what is it?

Back to the tangent:
I'd say "choose your own adventure" books are games, but obviously not video games. Choose-your-own-adventure eBooks would qualify as video games.

I feel that genres as they are have some value, but only because of what some of them actually are. They can be buzzwords for mechanics. We need a jargon/vernacular that describes established mechanics, and if it's a defining feature of a game we use it in its description. Jargon can be confusing, but genres are already jargon.

For example: FPS works fantastically as a genre because it's a simple joining of two mechanics: First-Person + Shooter. You might have a First-Person Explorer, or First-Person Driving Simulator, or Third-Person Shooter (although third-person needs better terms, because Third-Person could be interpreted as behind the player, over-head, shoulder-cam, smart-cam... these are all third-person). It's a connection of simple mechanics. A lot of driving games let the player choose the camera style, in which case it would no longer be a defining mechanic, and camera style wouldn't be mentioned.

MMO works similarly -- they used to be "MMORPGs", but these days the MMO prefix describes a mechanic of the game which can be appended onto others.

RPG is a genre, but not a mechanic, and it's pretty rubbish. It's a broad term that really refers to any game that demonstrates at least 5 of 17 different mechanics (intentional hyperbole -- I haven't actually counted out the staples of RPGs, but I'm sure you'll agree that there are enough that two RPGs could share none of the same mechanics and still be considered RPGs).

We should instead have well-recognised terms we can string together to describe the defining mechanics of a game. For example, you might describe a particular RPG as a conversational, indirect-combat (selecting actions to be performed rather than directly performing those actions; this would be as opposed to turn-based-combat [inherently indirect, making "indirect-combat" inherently real-time] and direct combat), smart-cam (Mario-style camera that follows loosely but is rarely directly controlled), grinding (earn experience through certain activities) fantasy game (actual style genres like fantasy and sci-fi still have their use).

Players who like RPGs only if they're allowed some twitch-action will know to avoid that game because of its indirect combat (probably a bad example -- it might make sense to stick just to turn-based and real-time as descriptors of action).

i love discussion. i just dont see a point in the current state of this discussion.
Jibb for example asked what if a faster player has less game?
well the answer is obvious, the majority of a game is to be measured by the fastest possible gameplay lenght.

if you really want to dfine by genre, simply define by movie genres. stop calling GTA a sandbox game. call it an action game instead. it may be hard to differentiate at first but once you get the knack of it its quite simple actually. because then you have already define what the player does in the game. a horror game? well he bloody well tries to survive the lurking horrors. action game? well things go down hot! mystery? puzzle solving ehre i come! adventure? well lets experience something you dont see everyday! and so forth.

basically: a game is to be played and the genre defines the playstile. you dont play an action game for a few puzzles it may have. action can go down with fists, gunfights or lightsabers for all i care. it still is action. add ONE secondary genre and be good with it. like action fighting or action shooting or battle action whatever. example:

skyward sword, fantasy adventure, 100+ hours of gameplay (and roughly 30+ hours of videos)

diablo 3: mystery fantasy, god knows how many hours of gameplay, a few cutscenes

heavy rain: mystery, more of an interactive movie

starcraft 2: scifi war strategy (war strategy is the secondary genre in that case) endless hours of gameplay a few dozen minutes of cutscenes

and so on. this is how I categorize games and how I explain genres to customers or people i meet who have no idea about gaming.
i figured thata term like survival horror is kidna redundand. as is teh term action adventure or point and click RPG. i mean, who in this world except a few of us knows what a "3rd person tactical squad based online shooter" is? in the end, it still is an action game...

You all brought a lot of points and made an interesting discussion. Error tried to explain why Diablo is so much different than Minecraft as an example. But the original point was that Spike told, Minecraft has no gameplay and I just told you, that it has a gameplay mechanic, similar to Diablo, no matter why you like one of these games more or not, how art style, music or content differs. The point is: it has a gameplay, that comes just with a higher degree of freedom.

Because of that it is a game and not a movie, not an image, not a music and no magazine.

No, the original point was "Indie 3d platformer, puzzles with voxel based digital clay". The discussion has evolved since then. There's no reason to go back to Spike's first post in this thread, especially when you yourself feel that that's already solved, because it has evolved since then as well (although there's nothing wrong with going back to Spike's first point if you feel there's more to say about it).

@Spike: vague descriptors are great, too. Action, mystery (I think most would call this "puzzle"), horror and so on are fine and dandy. In fact they are helpfully vague, in that they describe the feel of the game without putting it into a well-defined box -- specific expectations aren't created; staples aren't necessarily included by developers through a feeling of obligation to the "genre".

On the other hand a gamer will often ask, "Yeah, but what kind of game is it?" And the answer might be something like FPS, RTS (two well-defined descriptors), or roguelike or RPG (two terrible descriptors for two different reasons -- one because it's effectively the same "GTA clone" thing as before, but now it's "Rogue clone", and the other because it connects too many mechanics that aren't related to each other, confining the developer as the label comes with so many expectations).

The very reason certain genres are so clear-cut is that they are connections of well-known descriptors (first-person, shooter, real-time, strategy, turn-based, massively-multiplayer-online...).

Rock Paper Shotgun tends to avoid using the RPG genre name for the same reason, referring to some games as "swords-and-conversations" and others as "guns-and-conversations".
Sure, except the more important question was: if it's no longer a game because there isn't enough playing, but playing still exists in it, then what is it?

Why, it's an interactive movie of course!

lol.

If I play a (typically) 6 hour game, 2 hours of which are cutscenes (I know it's ridiculous, but bear with me), it's obviously a game. Then on the second playthrough I have a number of things to my advantage: I've discovered shortcuts, I've mastered the gameplay, I know the most efficient way through every conversation and which choices result in me being able to skip entire missions and boss-fights, and I beat the game in 1 hour 59 minutes. By Spike's definition it's not a game (these things could theoretically be done by a lucky player on their first playthrough), and you think it's an interactive movie?

Here's the thing: definitions which are "obvious" (what's a game, what's playing, so on) are often only "obvious" from a limited point of view and the context of your own experiences, which will differ greatly with other players. What Spike considers "obvious" ways to draw a line differ from mine, and there's no less reason to accept the binary "is there interaction" as a good line. I'd argue that there's more reason.

no, a speedrun does NOT count. its not how long a speedrunner plays a game but how long the general gameplay is. for example, i can beat super mario bros in under twenty minutes. now if there WOULD be cutscenes for like 30 minutes, it woudl still be a game because there is content in that game that can ake you up to ten hours to do all of it. and thats the point.
heavy rain does not get longer and deeper if you take your time playing it. maybe by a few minutes but not by a long shot. neither does metal gear. resident evil however, you can play one area for hours, finding little secrets and secret locations...

Wait what? Are you saying the "obvious" answer is incorrect?

I also get the idea you haven't played Heavy Rain, and never got really into any Metal Gear games (edit: although I can't speak for the original Metal Gear on the NES if that's what you mean).

That's an odd definition of "obvious". Actually, it's a stretch of the meaning of "obvious".

I don't think there's a particular answer that'd be "obvious". Your answer, in fact, I'd consider - to be frank - a very poor way of doing this.
Average gameplay length, maybe (as in: take N people of varying degrees of "gaming experience", and let them finish the game, then add the time it took them and divide by N). The "fastest possible gameplay length" seems to be a particulary unusual choice. After all, this includes taking advantage of bugs, and as Jibb said, possibly of knowledge from further playthroughs. But I think Jibb's example illustrates the problem with your definition very well.

With this:



I assume you mean something like "length of an average playthrough that does not go through sidequests and such, and who plays a bit quicker than average" (which of course is far from a definition, but okay). But...

What makes exploring areas in Resident evil different from exploring areas in Heavy Rain?
I think you just want games you like to have a better rating
"The fastest way possible", only not... in Super Mario? What?



Plus, I'm not even sure I agree with the original definition. Here's another question about "interactivity". Take a game that's mostly about dialogs. If I'm reading (or listening, whatever), is that interactive or not? After all, I'm actively acquiring information that I need and that will affect my next decision. The same can be said of some cutscenes. So those scenes clearly ADD to the experience in a "mechanical way", if you will.
So, in the dialog-scene - do we add the time I'm "just" listening to the "interactivity"-total? If not, all that's left is the split second of hitting the button, and maybe a bit of time for thinking what decision to make.



Frank:



Yes! That's very true. I agree!



No.
I mean, yeah, they both have a gameplay mechanic. They're similar in the sense that both have a gameplay mechanic.
I don't think their mechanics are similar, though. But I've written about that before, so I won't bother to do it again. Maybe we just disagree on that, then. No hard feelings, I hope?




Wow, thanks. That's really an accurate description that tells me all I need to know.
Tekken? Action! Tomb Raider? Action! Friggin' Mass Effect? Action!
Everything is action under that criteria.

I realize you made those intentionally vague, but that doesn't help much. I think we need to be a bit clearer than THAT in our classification.

error explains me better than i am able to. thanx man^^

no, i havent played metal gear because i hate, hate, HATE stealth and everything that comes with it (even in zelda games. damn you wind waker and phantom hourglass) but everytime i see somebody play MGS4 all i see are cutscenes

my point is, we can nitpick about gameplay lenght and one minute less gameplay than movies and such but i am pretty sure most of you actually know what i mean and just love to nitpick...

Year, but MGS4 is unlike the other MGS parts...haven´t played it btw.-only Twin Snakes(GC) and Sons of Liberty(PS2). Most cutscenes there had a moderate length, much like RE4 would I say.

Call it nit-picking if you want. You contradicted yourself, and I pointed that out, but I'm glad you didn't take it harshly (and I'd be surprised if you did, given how well-known your attitudes are on this forum ).

If you don't care to discuss it, then fine (edit: you have done so far as you defend your position and acknowledge Error014's clarification, and that makes sense to me, but other points appear to be ignored). I just thought lostclimate brought up an interesting discussion topic when he said "what makes those games and not movies with a choice here or there".

There's other stuff in this thread we can talk about, like:Why'd you have to go and bring voxels into this? Technology and design go hand-in-hand. Voxels are a powerful technology that are more than just the "future", they're the present, and they change the way game designers are limited. Sure, limitations are great for games -- necessary, for games to be fun beyond their own novelty -- but limitations aren't good for designers. The designers should be designing the limits.

i bring voxels into this because this threa was about voxels, no?

thing is, ma argument still stands. with CGI, filmmakers can do EVERYTHING nowadays. does that make a better movie? who here thinks that the star wars prequels are better than the original movies? and even if you do, do you argue that this is soley because the CGI is better?

i know i sound contradictionary, that is because i tend to always forget that you dont know whats in my head and i am godawefull in explaining my thought process.

i just say that just because we have the technology to do everything we want in gamedesign doesnt make our games better. it just helps us realize the ideas we have. so if you have a good idea and you need this technology for this idea, fine with me, go ahead. but just using ito for the sake of using it will not help anyone. it will just make people think less of the technology. because in the end, the consumer does not care HOW this game was made. he wants a good game. the consumer couldnt care less about the latest technology if the game sucks. why do you think there are STILL sprite based games out there? (and let that be known, i am thankfull for that)

I can accept that And when I disagree I'll try harder to stick to the points I disagree on rather than apparent contradictions. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference, especially when one of the contradictions regards something I have a strong opinion about, and I'm sure you can understand that.

I think perhaps it's important to distinguish between "better" and "good". It might well be that Primer, for example (a movie with no CGI), is the best movie ever and no movie can ever be better. That's great. But there's only so much we can do without CGI, and CGI lets us do more. Because there are still good movies to be made without CGI, some films are still strictly live-action. And because people get excited about CGI, some films are techdemos for CGI. But there are also excellent films out there that wouldn't be possible without CGI, and I'm grateful for this, even if for some hypothetical reason they're never better than live-action movies can be.

I think you'll agree that that's a good analogy, with sprite-based games being our live action movies -- there are still good sprite based games to be made, even though there are less restrictive technologies available. Games are often tech-demos of new technologies more than they are well-designed games. But there are excellent games that wouldn't be possible without 3D, and there will (I'm sure) be excellent games that wouldn't be possible without voxels (or a similar volumetric representation of things).

So yes, voxels are at risk of being abused (and are already being abused, as far as we can see in this video) for their novelty. But they also let designers who can look past the novelty of new techniques re-think what limitations they have as game designers, and what limitations a player should have.

Just look at the game "From Dust" and you will see that games using voxels/volumes are present day. In this game you can sculpt your terrain to let water flow, to build a water barrier or to deal with lava.

But I remember very old games like Magic Carpet that already allowed to transform terrains.

The CryEngine editor as well as the C4 engine editor both use voxels during the editing of terrain although they convert these data into mapped polygons for the final game.

Volumes are also the base for static lighting of dynamic objects in Unity or Vision 3d.

And yes, I agree with Spike about the nitpicking of Jibb. I did not talk about the original point of this thread but about the original point I was discussing with Spike. I entered the discussing at that time and ignored the voxel part completely.

Your post was dismissive of most of the other conversation that had gone on since your earlier posts and dismissive of perfectly valid responses to your posts on the grounds that they weren't "the original point". If you want to be involved in the discussion and try to bring it in another direction, great. But be prepared for people to say "no, we were talking about something here and while your reasoning appears objective at a glance (going back to the original topic when a thread is derailed is common and respectful to the original poster), it's not your intention."

Was I really nit-picking? I'd say not in your case. I could've ignored you and continued my discussion with others here. I could've humoured you like a child and pretended you had good reason to going back to that point. I chose the third option: call you up on it so we can all understand each other in this discussion.

edit: Removed this text because of misunderstandings. Dont feel upset!

please lets keep astrology and biology out of this thread XD

änyway, i think we finally find a comon edge here. i say it again, i am not against new technology, i just dont think that it makes everything better. i highly doubt that super mario 64 would be any better with voxel technology. that doesnt mean that voxels dont have a right to exist. they do. its good we have them. we just dont need to use them for all games, as we already agreed upon

i would like to see a game that has really great gameplay and NEEDS the voxels. i have yet to see something like that.

oh and by the way, because frank brought up minecraft, you know whats similar to minecraft but with REAL gameplay? Terraria. its minecraft 2D with more gameplay aspects beyond "here, have some virtual legos". pretty cool stuff actually. it is a nice blend of 3d objects and 2D objects and i could see how something like that could actually grow with voxel based technology. that and worms maybe...

Yes, I agree. I also see not much room for voxels to create interesting gameplay, especially not in games dealing with Astrology. But in games dealing with Biology it could be possible.

But anyway, there are many technical applications for voxels as I already mentioned above.

well i think voxels right now are still in the novelty stage, i think 4-5 years from now they are going to be viable realtime for much more than just clay, but more like atoms (almost like a pointcloud) for everyday games to create a redfaction like technology, for every game.

spike, your point regarding CGI is interesting. It is a common procedure to overcome "writer's block", or any other hindrance in creativity, to artificially restrain oneself. If you set a setting, that's a constraint (you can't just add magic into any sci-fi story). Gameplaywise, if you want the game to be playable entirely with the mouse, that's a huge constraint. And of course, any technology comes with it's own sets of constraints. Voxels are no different in that sense.

I think even with the greatest CGI, you'd still be able to make good movies. Just like the old Star Wars episodes wouldn't (necessarily) be suddenly worse if you were to improve their CGI, right? I mean, there might be some charm to it, but that is, probably, more a subjective thing, related to taste and perhaps nostalgia, than any objective reasoning.
The more possibilities we have, however, the more important does it become to CHOSE our own restrictions.


~ ~ ~ ~

The rest of this will be all about Frank's earlier post. This is a long one. You've been warned.




EDIT: No longer relevant.


And you know what actually sounds like teacher-behaviour? How about this?



Listen, Frank. I hate to do this, but let's take this snippet here:



And let us really take that to heart. I'm an asshole, I'm an idiot, and the last thing I probably should do is to get all high-and-mighty here. But hey, you started it, so you should stand the heat, no?

There once was a user named Phemox. I'm sure you remember him. Do you know why I remember him? Because your arguments with him got so out-of-hand that I once posted quite the text asking you to please stop.

I stand by what I said back then, which was mostly: You seem to be very knowledgable, and you're definitely very talented. You often have good ideas and you come across as helpful and nice. You make so many posts of value, and that's amazing. Have I ever really thanked you for that? I probably haven't, but you deserve it. Thank you for all this. And I really mean it. The community has gotten quiet these days. I can only applaud every single effort to do something about it.

However, for some reason, and I really cannot for the life of me pinpoint it to any one thing, you sometimes seem to get really worked up on things posted here. Which is sad, because no matter what a user posts, it's words on the internet.
And here, it's not even hurtful ones. Or even really mean ones. Back with Phemox, fine, I guess he sometimes replied "lol" to serious arguments, which I agree can easily come across as offensive. I'm pretty sure he doesn't meant it that way, but I can't blame you there. I'd feel offended, too.
But this time?

Has it been this?



This is the first (and from what I can tell the only) instance of something that could perhaps be interpreted as offensive from Jibb. It's very different from saying "WELL DUH YOUR ATTITUDE SUCKS SO SHUT UP". Which of course no one did.
It's also a very clever piece of writing. Is it offensive? No, not really. He's saying "I could have humoured you like a child". As in: You acted like a child? No, that's not what those words mean.
Yes, I know it feels like he said it. I'd feel the same way. I guess it's a language issue.
But he hasn't said it! He implied it, maybe, but he hasn't outright said it. Clever boy. And in some ways, I guess it could be interpreted as a sign of respect as well. After all, he didn't chose that way - since he's treating you like an adult.
Still... this has clearly been written cleverly, and if I were to guess, I'd say that this point shows some frustrations on Jibb's part. You can see he's angry since he has been misunderstood YET AGAIN (which I can relate to, guys, we haven't been talking about the "game or not a game" thing for like three pages). So, with all this, let's take a look at your reply. What did you chose to reply with?

EDIT: Removed on request.

But seriously, what is it that makes you think he's out to get you? And it's not just this thread, you know. You guys have a bit of a history. Has he been a saint? No, he most definitly hasn't. Have you been? Nope. And in my judgement, which I hope you take as a somewhat objective second opinion, I'd say that you're usually the one to attack first. And I'm sure you often don't even mean it. That's what gets to me. You don't intend for these things to come across the way they do, and it breaks my heart to say it, but they DO come across as condescending, and as you're talking them down, and as if you clearly think you're better than them.

I can't imagine you are such a person. I'd bet on the fact that you aren't. Then, why do you sometimes post like that?

... You don't need to answer to that. I should, probably, not click the "submit"-button on this, but I am going to do it, because I feel this should be said. Basically, I'm hoping that you are mature enough to understand how this is meant, to not take offense, and to - hopefully - better yourself.

Hahah. And me, of all people, to say this... I should probably shut up more often. Well, at least, everyone can agree on that, right?

Again, please don't take this the wrong way. I appreciate all you do for the community, I really do. I think it's great you're here, and we both have had discussions before that I found to be valuable, and insightful. It'd be a shame to lose that. But it would certainly not be a shame if you, I dunno, just take a deep breath each time before you post. Because what you posted about Jibb and that astrology-thing was not cool, and it only reflects poorly on you.

I stand ready

Error, for the sake of peace I will not comment on all the things you wrote. The problem is just that we are all very similar, Julz, you, me and maybe even Phemox. We like to analyze things, we talk about it (often with way too much text around simple facts) and we imply things and sometimes we are a bit more direct and honest. I dont see much of a difference and it would be an endless discussing when I start quoting you.

But really, I dont want to harm or insult you or anybody else. So I will not take your wall of text as something bad and will just leave it that way. And I am sure that you are also aware that you wrote all this in the internet

But keeping this in mind I would even suggest to just delete all these off-topic comments. As Julz wrote already, we dismissed the topic and hey, the discussion evolved

I already started and removed the post that caused the misunderstanding. The rest is up to you.

About the voxel stuff... Voxels are just a way to store volumetric data which can be completely deformable environments, characters and whatever as well as medical scans of for example a human brain. That is it, nothing more nor less. Now there are differnet ways to display voxel data, the oldest one would probably be some scan line raytracing, which works well with software based renderers and exist since the beginning of 3d computer graphics. Something like that was also quite popular for landscapes in computer games between maybe 1995 and 2002 or something like that. As such a technique gets really expensive and memory hungry at a high quality for a high resolution, polygon based rendering, which just needs information about objects surfaces turned out to do the better job, especially with graphics hardware optimized for it. Then for some years voxels seemed to be forgotten in computer graphics until Crytec came up with a voxel based aproach to edit their terrains, which allows the user to actually work with the much more user friendly voxel data, whichs surface is then converted into polygon data using some algorythm like marching cubes and rendered using the todays extremely optimized rendering pipeline for polygons.

Most probably the 3D worms games used some kind of voxels to internally store the worlds, one could probably also talk about voxels in the context of minecraft and the really nice game from dust does also use voxels to define the environments. All these games then use a polygon based aproach to display them, as that is the easiest and most effective to feed todays hardware with.

What I want to say with this is, that voxels are no new magic or whatever like what some people still consider shaders to be, but just some streight forward way to store volumetric data, which can be usefull in many cases, like if you for example have an area with lava, an area of rocks above it, some rocks on top of that and then maybe water as the last layer. If you now want the player to be able to dig his way through all these layers, you need this information about the volume, which doesn´t really work with just some polygon surface.

One question:
What did the old geomodengine from the first RedFaction use? Was this voxels? When I remember correctly it has destroyable terrain (limited). But it was the first game I noticed that used this technique so extensivly.
I want to know, because I tried to create a voxel engine myself, and if such an old game can do that I want to know how they did it with such low computing power.

Wikipedia as well as the developer provide some information on that. All that is done in red Faction, is what gamestudios CSG substract in WED does. It is completely polygon based without voxels and then polygons are added and destroyed at runtime.

Some nice voxel examples are Outcast (which seems to render the terrains in software, asuming that there are no caves or something like that and stores that data as heightmap, which is for some reason usually refered to as voxel based terrain, everything else seems to use polygons and is rendered with hardware support):


and Delta Force 2 (which seems to be mostly software based rendering using some kind of voxels for everything):