And Yet It Moves

[Evil Avatar]

Browsing Penny-Arcade (http://penny-arcade.com) today I saw Tycho pimping up a new PC & Mac platformer, And Yet It Moves (http://www.playgreenhouse.com/game/BRKRL-000001-01/), where you can move the entire game world to help you solve the puzzles. Both the full game and the demo is available on PA's Greenhouse game service.

Click on the Headline for a Teaser Trailer.

[Evil Avatar]

DTXrkGFXi8g

[Demo_Boy]

concept is really cool, a bit too much reflex-requirement in the implementation, and the presentation leaves a lot to be desired.

[Sloth]

that looks really bad ass if you ask me

[net7runner]

Man, I thought portal was a mindfuck. Ow..ow.oowwww. But cool.

[TeeCakes]

Looks cool, but it's weird to expect a platformer to sell well on anything other than a console.

[JasonGrey]

Wicked. This might be my post-Braid thinking-game fix. But... yeah I wish it was on a console.

[OmegaVader]

Nice title. Take that, pope!

[JazGalaxy]

concept is really cool, a bit too much reflex-requirement in the implementation, and the presentation leaves a lot to be desired.

That's just a personal taste. like 90 percent of games in the 80's and 90's were reflex based. It's only recently that games ask absolutely nothing of the people who play them.

[Mr.Green]

That's just a personal taste. like 90 percent of games in the 80's and 90's were reflex based. It's only recently that games ask absolutely nothing of the people who play them.

That's just completely false. There are just a hell lot more games than there were in those years. There are still plenty of challenging games for the "hardcore" but with the growth of the industry they are now also making games for people with actual lives.

Anyway...

This one doesn't look all that twitchy. Cool name, clever gameplay. Ugly as sin though.

[Anenome]

This is a great game, try the demo. It's simple, intuitive, looks great with a great ripped-paper motif, and the puzzles have some depth. It has replayability with the ghost mode and time-attack modes. I'm 164th in the world on the first level now :P Reminiscent of an old 80's game caled, Zzyzx where you could flip gravity up and down, but this game takes that concept to a new level.

Truth is, I would've never, ever found and installed the demo if it hadn't been mentioned on PA.

[Anenome]

That's just a personal taste. like 90 percent of games in the 80's and 90's were reflex based. It's only recently that games ask absolutely nothing of the people who play them.

You may forget that those games back then often substituted difficulty for content. So the game was long 'cause you simply couldn't beat it without memorizing every aspect of the level as it came. That was fine when we were ~10 years old, but it's limiting, it turns off a large section of the potential players.

The best games will be simple to play but have depths so great so as to challenge the masters. Nintendo is perhaps the best as utilizing this concept. It's Pokeman's secret, it can be seen in Smash Brothers, etc. This game does a similar thing. Easy and fun to play, but if you wanna maximize your time on a level you'll be perfecting every corner, shaving seconds, complete twitch play.

[Namielus]

Tried it out, it isn't my thing, I'm not to big on plateforms (Loved braid for the puzzles). Try it out if your looking to see something different

[JazGalaxy]

You may forget that those games back then often substituted difficulty for content. So the game was long 'cause you simply couldn't beat it without memorizing every aspect of the level as it came. That was fine when we were ~10 years old, but it's limiting, it turns off a large section of the potential players.

The best games will be simple to play but have depths so great so as to challenge the masters. Nintendo is perhaps the best as utilizing this concept. It's Pokeman's secret, it can be seen in Smash Brothers, etc. This game does a similar thing. Easy and fun to play, but if you wanna maximize your time on a level you'll be perfecting every corner, shaving seconds, complete twitch play.


I completely disagree.

WHen I say 90% of games, I don't see how that's in ANY way innacurate, since every game from Pong, to Donkey Kong, to Mario Brothers, to Gauntlet, to Double Dragon, to Doom was reflex based.

ANd they weren't reflex based as a subsititute to "content" they were reflex based because that's what people enjoyed. THat was the fun. TO say that somehow everyone who likes anything from football to the price is right is just being duped by "difficulty as a subsistute for content" is ridiculous.

Gaming has trended out of it's "game" status to the point where it's no more a game than a speak and spell, but that doesn't mean that people like real games LESS, it just means that the market games have been directed too likes will buy content based more on cutscenes and superficial graphics like light bloom more than they will buy games based on entertainment value.

[JazGalaxy]

Sorry Anemone, that was more a reply to MR. Green than it was to your upost that I quoted when I responded.

[Anenome]

I completely disagree.

WHen I say 90% of games, I don't see how that's in ANY way innacurate, since every game from Pong, to Donkey Kong, to Mario Brothers, to Gauntlet, to Double Dragon, to Doom was reflex based.

ANd they weren't reflex based as a subsititute to "content" they were reflex based because that's what people enjoyed. THat was the fun. TO say that somehow everyone who likes anything from football to the price is right is just being duped by "difficulty as a subsistute for content" is ridiculous.

Gaming has trended out of it's "game" status to the point where it's no more a game than a speak and spell, but that doesn't mean that people like real games LESS, it just means that the market games have been directed too likes will buy content based more on cutscenes and superficial graphics like light bloom more than they will buy games based on entertainment value.

Well, now we're getting into questions of what a game even is, and why people enjoy them. If you could fully solve that question, you'd be able to make the best games in the world.

Yes, people enjoy a challenge. But, you're looking at it from a player's perspective and I'm looking at it from a developer's perspective. Let's take a game like EQ or WoW. The driving reason to make the content difficult is because if you make it too easy, the vast majority of players will burn through it before you can produce new content to replace it, resulting in dissatisfaction. Furthermore, a great challenge is more satisfying to beat.

When we talk about early games, a similar problem presents itself. If all the players can too easily beat your game, then in some way it's not worth beating. We are social animals, and it plays into that. A lot of the earliest games simply continued to ramp up the challenge because of the limitations of the hardware. Centipede, Donkey Kong, Pacman, each level got harder and harder and harder until became impossible. Scores were kept, and twitch gameplay was the thing.

But, later, the hardware got better and telling an actual story became possible. Previously games -had- to be reflex based. You could only move so many sprites on the screen, you couldn't do scene swapping to create the illusion of movement. The hardware just wasn't capable. Reflex-gaming existed because it was the only way to make a game back then. it wasn't until Super Mario Bros. created the moving background, the side-scroller, and revolutionized gaming that twitch gameplay took a back seat to adventure-games.

So, I think we're talking at cross purposes. My point is that the limitations of the hardware made the twitch genre one of the only viable genres of the day. Later, hardware bloomed and other genres have blossomed as well, including those which aren't centered on twitch gameplay.

And, you can't claim that twitch gameplay is the thing most people enjoy. It was enjoyed by some, and those people played them back then. But there's many more ways to enjoy a game, and the Wii, especially has born that out. Where's the twitch of bowling? That's about accuracy, as with many sports. Accuracy, not reflex. But again, that's a hardware issue. Early gaming had extremely limited control input. When you have a (4 button) joystick and a single firing button, twitch is just about the only kind of game you can have. When you have a rich interface which is much more like the real world, as with the Wii, or a mouse, you create games much more like those enjoyed in the real world.

A cursory look at gaming history can toss out many examples of games where twitch is not the thing. Take Pokeman, it's about collecting. Wii-sports I already mentioned, it's about accuracy. Super Mario Bros. 3, adventure. Legend of Zelda, adventure. What about Myst? That was story based. The Tomb Raider series was about exploration, platforming, puzzle-solving, to shoot you simply held the button down and it aimed for you, pretty simple really, but the magic was in the environments, the story, the situation and what's gonna happen next.

There's many ways to tease a mind, and we've made games out of almost all of them. Twitch is a young-man's games. You might even say it is likely to appeal to a much younger demographic. Nowadays, mature themes, stories, and resolutions are likely to appeal far more, now that the average age of a game player is far higher.

[ElfShotTheFood]

But... yeah I wish it was on a console.

Why is that?

[JazGalaxy]

Well, now we're getting into questions of what a game even is, and why people enjoy them. If you could fully solve that question, you'd be able to make the best games in the world.

Yes, people enjoy a challenge. But, you're looking at it from a player's perspective and I'm looking at it from a developer's perspective. Let's take a game like EQ or WoW. The driving reason to make the content difficult is because if you make it too easy, the vast majority of players will burn through it before you can produce new content to replace it, resulting in dissatisfaction. Furthermore, a great challenge is more satisfying to beat.

When we talk about early games, a similar problem presents itself. If all the players can too easily beat your game, then in some way it's not worth beating. We are social animals, and it plays into that. A lot of the earliest games simply continued to ramp up the challenge because of the limitations of the hardware. Centipede, Donkey Kong, Pacman, each level got harder and harder and harder until became impossible. Scores were kept, and twitch gameplay was the thing.

But, later, the hardware got better and telling an actual story became possible. Previously games -had- to be reflex based. You could only move so many sprites on the screen, you couldn't do scene swapping to create the illusion of movement. The hardware just wasn't capable. Reflex-gaming existed because it was the only way to make a game back then. it wasn't until Super Mario Bros. created the moving background, the side-scroller, and revolutionized gaming that twitch gameplay took a back seat to adventure-games.

So, I think we're talking at cross purposes. My point is that the limitations of the hardware made the twitch genre one of the only viable genres of the day. Later, hardware bloomed and other genres have blossomed as well, including those which aren't centered on twitch gameplay.

And, you can't claim that twitch gameplay is the thing most people enjoy. It was enjoyed by some, and those people played them back then. But there's many more ways to enjoy a game, and the Wii, especially has born that out. Where's the twitch of bowling? That's about accuracy, as with many sports. Accuracy, not reflex. But again, that's a hardware issue. Early gaming had extremely limited control input. When you have a (4 button) joystick and a single firing button, twitch is just about the only kind of game you can have. When you have a rich interface which is much more like the real world, as with the Wii, or a mouse, you create games much more like those enjoyed in the real world.

A cursory look at gaming history can toss out many examples of games where twitch is not the thing. Take Pokeman, it's about collecting. Wii-sports I already mentioned, it's about accuracy. Super Mario Bros. 3, adventure. Legend of Zelda, adventure. What about Myst? That was story based. The Tomb Raider series was about exploration, platforming, puzzle-solving, to shoot you simply held the button down and it aimed for you, pretty simple really, but the magic was in the environments, the story, the situation and what's gonna happen next.

There's many ways to tease a mind, and we've made games out of almost all of them. Twitch is a young-man's games. You might even say it is likely to appeal to a much younger demographic. Nowadays, mature themes, stories, and resolutions are likely to appeal far more, now that the average age of a game player is far higher.

Well, I think the idea that hardware is now more capable to present alternatives to "twitch" based gameplay is not accurate. The jump from 2d game rendering to 3d game rendering set game design back to the stone age in many ways, but there were many many examples of adventure games and role playing games that told some of the best stories known to gaming that existed well before the playstation was even an idea in Sony's head. King's Quest, Zork, or any adventure game made during the 80's and 90's was the complete opposite of twitch gameplay. But those games existed alongside twitch games because "twitching" was what people LIKED to do. There are other reasons as well for their success, but it they certainly weren't the only types of games being made.

I think our definitions of "twitch" based gameplay are also different. I don't use the term, but I usually only see it used as a pejorative used to speak ill of games that require you to imput commands quickly via a joystick or joypad. I would then consider almost all the games you listed as twitch games.

As far as those being a young mans game, I've seen that said many times but I'm 27 and I'm BETTER at those old "twitch" based games than I was when I was 8 usually because my patience and my judgement is much better than it was then.

[Qoz]

Thats nothing.
;)
Check out the 360 rotation-puzzle-game I made!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FFvd9fX8c

[modeps]

Thats nothing.
;)
Check out the 360 rotation-puzzle-game I made!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FFvd9fX8c

You made that? If so, looks pretty awesome

[Anenome]

Thats nothing.
;)
Check out the 360 rotation-puzzle-game I made!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2FFvd9fX8c

Meh, AYIM is way better, man.

[Qoz]

The Roller game was made in 2 months by 4-5 people, so it's not as polished/complete as it could be. If we had the time we could have made something nice for XboxLive, but studies are taking alot of time.

Our current project - doing a Death Rally 3D clone with the Unreal Engine 3.
:)

[Froggy]

I'd be more likely to play it on console as well: None of my computers have 512 mb of ram.