Sunday 13 January, 2008

Gamelog #1 Session #2 for CMPS 20
Start Time: 2:00 pm
End Time: 3:00 pm
Assignment due 1/14/08

Note: Gah, I really dislike this system. I wrote no less than 10 more paragraphs on KA(NES) when this system deleted it all... Take my advice: SAVE EARLY AND OFTEN! Or it could happen to you, too...

Another note: It deleted my outline as well. This is after it deleted all those paragraphs. I am trying to keep my cool, but this is really frustrating.

GAMEPLAY

After reading some critical reviews and looking over my own enthusiastic review, I recognized that I agreed with many of the opinions of people who thought Kirby's Adventure was nothing special. The things drawing the most complaints were the overall difficulty, the music, and the minigames.

The overall difficulty depended largely on how well-prepared you were. Being well-prepared made the game easy, if not boring. For example, one boss jumps up and down, jumps over you, and spits little enemies at you. Although this boss could be defeated by swallowing little enemies and spitting them out at the boss until the boss dies, you could also have the laser ability, stand in the corner and avoid the boss, and shoot at the boss constantly until the boss dies. The second tactic, though ingenious, makes the game trivial; in a sense, this game rewards failure.

The music is basically the same melodies, harmonies, and instrumentation as it has been ever since this first game. Though many people say the best music is the kind you can recognize immediately, many people also say recognizing the same music is the best way to tire of it. Either way, you do hear an awful lot of the same songs in this game, over and over again. It is uncertain whether this is good or bad.

The minigames in Kirby's Adventure are a lot of fun. There are quick draw games, crane games, egg-eating games, and many others. However, you only get to play each instance of minigame once. This is because you play for extra lives. Although having unlimited lives could hurt gameplay, this point is rendered moot by the unlimited supply of game-continues with no penalty. Keeping this in mind, it may have been better to just allow minigames with unlimited play.

Although these are valid complaints, I still think Kirby's Adventure is a great game that can withstand the scrutiny.

DESIGN

There's a lot of innovation in this game. My favorites are the main game mechanic, the overworld navigation, and the windy levels. The overworld consists of doors leading to levels, minigames, and bosses. Instead of static paths and chirps of like Super Mario World, this earlier game has overworlds built like miniature levels. In other words, you can use any of the abilities you have in each level in the overworld map. The windy levels remind me of parts of certain parts of DKC2: Diddy's Kong Quest. In the windy levels, wind pushes Kirby around, creating a bit of a challenge when navigating. It takes some skill to use the wind to your advantage, but it is definitely possible.

The tone of this game is light, funny, and fluffy. The skit cutscenes had me laughing out loud; I like slapstick humor in games like this, and there's plenty of it in Kirby's Adventure. The cutscenes are also really cute and lend themselves to emphasizing the tone very well. There is also no blood-and-guts gore in this game, so it's approachable for people who have never played a game and are intimidated by the supposed violence.

A major weakness of this game is that there is no multiplayer option. As such, this game does not innately support socialization. The only socialization might come from a group of gamers who have all played the game and like its music, graphics, or some other feature of the game. Even so, there is little chance for socialization during gameplay.

Another weakness was the lagging during the game. The lagging had the potential to make the game frustrating because it was unpredictable when the lagging would start or stop. Although I recognize that this could be viewed as a shortcoming of the console, not the game, it does seriously hurt gameplay when it happens.

Playing this game has given me a few ideas for my own project. If at all possible, I would like to create a multiplayer game. I would also like to not have any lagging. Increasing the number of enemies on-screen and increasing their difficulty would have helped this issue. I would also like to have players develop their abilities as the game progresses, rather than having most of the abilities available for use immediately. This would reward players for playing more. Finally, a good way to satisfy gamers' desires to play minigames more for my own project could be to wager lives in minigames, so there's some risk involved.

That's it for this entry. Keep gaming!

Excellent game log. There wasn't much difference between your gameplay and design sections, but that's because your gameplay sections were considering design too (a good thing!).

- Ian Rickard, your TA

(the following is included on all my first-round gradings, and should not be taken as any commentary on your writing.)

If you're interested, I'm happy to provide additional nit-picks of your writing. However as this course is not considered writing intensive, lapses in spelling and grammer of the type I would critique will not have any affect on your grade and so you really needn't worry about them. If you're interested in this type of feedback, email me at inio@soe and I'll provide it privately.