Thursday, March 25, 2010

Inverse graphic calculator

If you have a graphic calculator perhaps it turns out to be curious to you the web page Unturns Graphing Calculator, since it is capable of returning you the equations that you have to introduce to draw on the screen of the calculator the word that you want. Of course, it will be necessary to be doing very badly a little bit since the equations are quite long.

Route: Neatorama

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

The Portal gun in the real world

Another video that moves humorously elements videojueguiles to the real world. In this occasion the protagonist is the gun of the Portal.

Route: Dark Diamond

Saturday, March 20, 2010

The threat online

Since a pair of lines and a square happened to represent a table tennis match to give birth to PONG, it might be said that there were born the video games (although there is information of previous games, we will always consider the famous person PONG to be the maker of the commercial video games). I can explain little of PONG that you should not know: a two-dimensional game, in his beginning monochrome, for one or two players. Simpler impossible: no? So much that was not using microprocessor but circuits logic.

Then the sector specialized and soon we would meet games to color, sprites that would make us recognize figures on the screen, cartridges with aptitude to keep games, text that would allow us to put ourselves to the skin of the personage, graphs every day more spectacular, authentic sound-tracks … and the multiplayer online. The first in the PC, then in Dreamcast, PS2 and XBOX to end up by being something indispensable in any games system. To tell truth, the first games in network go back 1973 with the Empire, but they were not massively exploited until a few years ago.

The multiplayer in Internet has entered like an avalanche a lot of games of the current catalog of the seventh generation of games consoles, promising an experience of game impossible to obtain offline and like form of p rolongar the duration of the video games up to the infinite. But as the polygons finished with doing that some of us lack the pixels, the multiplayer online seems that it threatens to do the same with the local "piqués". Although, it seems that we will always have chance of staying to house of some companion and throwing a few games to the FIFA, unfortunately it seems that soon - in the rest of qualifications - to our companion we will have to do for the webcam. Some of them will think that this point of view is an exaggeration, but if we concentrate on a lot of games of careers (one of the excellent genres in the field of the multiplayer, considering his facility) we will see that the classic way of two or more players to divided screen has stopped existing.

The divided screen has lost bellows ironically in the epoch in which we enjoy of the best and bigger TV sets. Is this a phenomenon an answer to the demand of the players? Are we we, that we have forgotten the way to several offline and have provoked that the developers do not worry in creating games with the above mentioned characteristic? It seems that partly we are the users that we claim a good game service online, but to think is made a stranger that we have stopped playing in company at blow and for proper will. If, on having played with friends in person, we have a much more social experience and a proximity impossible to manage with some microphone! Then: Wherefore we are remaining without being able to compete face to face? Once again the Gentleman Money has the answer. At home we play with a console, a copy, a TV set and a control for every player who wants to take part. The payment of the game in line multiplies for the number of players who take part in the game. To begin a few careers between four can come to us to cost, as a whole, four times more online that offline, benefit that there will distribute the developers of games, of consoles, of TV sets and up to the Internet providers. I dress from this point of view, there is no reason to develop a classic multiplayer, leaving aside the games directed to least penetrated into Internet (parents, children). Although it is not possible to discard that up to a few years the whole family will be competing in the network.

Friday, March 19, 2010

Rotoscoping

Since Motion Capture of Virtua Fighter took the realism of authentic human movements in 3D to the video games, the fact of seeing a personage 2D animated by impeccable form already we should not surprise, and nevertheless, the sprites realized by means of the skill of the Rotoscoping still turn out to be impressive in spite of taking above the weight of two decades.

Time behind, the grafistas had to devise them so that his personages not only were well designed, but also they had an animation fluída. Every time the number of grafistas was major inside the same project in order to offer an aspect that was superior to that of the rest of throwings that existed on the market. In the world of the cartoon a skill existed, the rotoscoping, which was taking years being used in qualifications like Betty Boop, Snow White, or the very same Dragon's Lair, the last one already in video game, although in the fund it was only a mythical succession of fragments of cartoon that were happening from one to other on having pulsated (or not) the button in the just moment (or not so just …: ouch!). A man, Jordan Mechner, bet everything for this type of animation, creating an unforgettable game which name resounds every day with more force if it fits: Prince of Persia.

The title was possessing an exact difficulty, was providing many hours of entertainment, and his system of pitfalls, jumps, battles, jumps, mapping and more jumps was (and it continues it being) an authentic marvel, but what really did that they all were putting the eyes on the work of Mechner was his successful animation.

The skill was consisting of filming the stills with persons of meat and bone later to reproduce them as faithfully as possible by means of pixels drawing above. Normally a more or less advanced rotoscopio was used for it, although, on having applied it to the field of the video games, between presupposed shallows and that the final product was not a drawing but a sprite, we might say that the process was done rather to the beast, introducing the frames in a program of graphic design of those of the day before yesterday and tracing in pixels the figure, adapting it to the final size of the sprite treating that it was not occupying very much. So that we understand each other, it was an authentic Chinese work.


David, brother of Jordan Mechner
Prince of Persia – MS TWO

It is no wonder that other big creators were concentrating on this system to do his games. It is the case of Eric Chahi and his understudy Another World in 1991, science fiction game that although it changes into exposition (and naturally subject-matter) with regard to Prince of Persia, yes that there respects not only the rotoscoping even more refined thanks to his graphic symbol based in vectors, but also the displacement system for screens, and not scroll as it would have been the normal thing. The game is provided with the second part, Heart of the Alien (exclusive for Mega-CD), and with a remake done in HD by his 15th anniversary.

AnotherWorld

The official front of Another World was painted to the oil by the proper Chahi

Another World – Commodore Amiga

Heart of the Alien – SEGA Mega-CD

Another World High Resolution Collector's Edition – PC

Games that continued the same stela, with major or minor quality and success, there are many, but it would result from mortal sin (of that they put you up to a carpet to enter the hell the big door) not to mention one especially of between all of them: Flashback – The Quest for Identity of Paul Cuisset, in 1992.


Flashback – SEGA MegaDrive

His principal characteristics were his magnificent history and his spectacular graphic aspect, which left the too high strip of wood for later games with these esthetics, especially bearing in mind that the polygons and Motion Capture were beginning pushing towards the following technology only a few months later.

He would practise with pleasure the seppuku on me in full center of a crowded public square if I was daring to forget the famous demo (demo or die!!) that Spaceballs did for Friend 500, State of the Art, who would mark a clear difference with most of the previous ones and would inspire many of the later ones. In that epoch (December, 1992), a powerful graphic demonstration as this one turned out to be so impressive that it even finished on the screens of some discotheques.


State of the Art – Commodore Amiga

The rotoscoping kept on using to draw static personages of realistic court in games like Hotel Dusk – Room 215, but the animation system for action games plataformera would remain finally obsolete in favor of other systems and, especially, other genres.

Like that is that as they say when the kings die: "the rotoscoping has died; long life to the rotoscoping“.

Watch The Simpsons S21E14 Postcards from the Wedge now

Steambirds

Steambirds is a game in flash of strategy in which we will have to direct our planes against the units of the enemy across a system based on shifts. In every mission our effectiveness will be rewarded with stars, essential to be unblocking the successive levels. With the keys WASD we will be able to move the game map and with the mouse we will direct our tactics.

Route: Indie Games

Thursday, March 18, 2010

I compete: A pet for Pixfans

From the Pixfans opening it even does a pair of days, we were using a child dragoncito of the outstanding figure Bubble Booble with the colors changed to adorn the page. The truth is that we keep on liking like pet, but regrettably it belongs to Mr. Taito and it was already time for we to have the proper one. To settle this disadvantage we present the controversial PixGirl born of the pen of Terrato. But this decision has generated both critical prints and denials, as well as interesting proposals. One of them was the possibility of organizing a drawing / design contest so that the whole world who wanted could take part creating a pet for the page.

Jorge, founder of the Spanish group of deviantArt Spain is Different, has contacted me and it is ready to begin a cable and also it is going to give an account premium of 1 year in deviantArt to the creator of the logo or winning drawing.


Norms of the contest

  • The term to present the creation will finish on March 31 (I hope that this way it could have him time for any that one that wants to take part).
  • The creation must be own. There is not allowed the use of drawings or images created for third
  • A participant can present all the creations that he considers to be opportune.
  • The pets will have to do a wink or reference to the dinosaur of Bubble Booble as homage.
  • The election of the winner will determine the administration of Pixfans. In case we doubt or do not come to a consensus perhaps we will realize some voting.
  • The author transfers the rights of his work to Pixfans.com. We have a license Creative Commons and we will always use the work under this license.
How to take part?

Since very easy, simply it will be necessary to order the creation to one of the following emails:

These emails belong to Jorge and to Victor respectively, managers of the group Spain is Different. They are who will be in charge of being raising the creations to the gallery of images that they have arranged for the achievement of the contest.

Does this suppose the "premature" PixGirl death?

No. It is possible that PixGirl does not go out chosen like official pet, nevertheless many like this personage so we will keep on using his image when we consider it to be opportune.

I make use also of this article to congratulate Squarkyng and Shadowbug on the images that have connected in the comments of the presentation of PixGirl and that I reproduce next. Thank you!

Author: Squarkyng

Author: Squarkyng

Author: Shadowbug

Author: Shadowbug

Author: Shadowbug

The modern video games and the difficulty

Many things have changed since I started with this of the video games two more decades behind. Pixels of the size of warble flies have opened ways to movie graphs, games that it was necessary to spend of a pull have given place to the kingdom of the checkpoints and kept every three minutes, what earlier there were vulgar tunes compete today with the best sound-tracks, of playing screen divided with a friend we have happened to fight in network with hundreds of players, of seeing our games in TV as wide as long to do it on flat screens, or use managers who instead of three buttons have more than fingers our hands … many things have changed, and perhaps also let's be able to refer that what earlier there were almost always arduous tests, in which our reflexes and skill were taken to his limit if we wanted to go forward, today there are very often ways of roses, in which little more we have to do than to look at what it spends touching the buttons for that they ask us.

I do not say that this problem is inherent in all the current games, not much less, and there are numerous the examples that rub the impossible thing, especially in the most difficult game ways, but I believe that there is no doubt that the tendencies have changed, and with it we have lost some sensations that were resulting from the most intense thing and that, in his measured joust, were making the games better.

And the fact is that I am getting tired of coming at the end of a game without having lost not even only one life, or rather, without having had the sensation of having had a challenge to the height. The adrenaline of moments as this chief of unusual difficulty whom we have almost defeated, but that if it touches us once again sends us again at the beginning of the phase … makes us vibrate, does that our heart beats more quickly, that we get up of the couch to concentrate to the maximum or that we seize the control with more force. And these sensations do that ancient games they come especially to my head, of the epoch of the 8 and 16 bits, and when I feel them in a current game, I usually give the impression of which it is something special, which was already taking a time without feeling, when earlier it was almost the bread of every day.

I do not want with it to affirm that the today games are worse for having with this enough typical assiduity, not much less, in fact any of my favorite games like Okami or Zelda: The Wind Waker I ended them without losing only one life, without it preventing from looking like to me real masterpieces, but in my opinion both had gone out much benefited of a major level of difficulty, which might have made even more frenetic some of the big moments that both offer.

Super Mario Galaxy is different very good example. It is a question of an excellent game, of a real marvel, but I long for those sensations of Mario of the NES, in whom our reflexes were finishing exhausted of having to work with so many intensity. It is true that some of the secondary searches yes that they are difficult, but to see the end of the adventure is a walk, and this is one of few defects that it would put to the game in question.

Perhaps the times have changed, and what has happened in knowing like “chance public” is now the principal sustenance of the industry, and as search is said to us easier experiences, already well to have everything masticadito and that it is necessary only to swallow it … and those of the old school we feel sometimes as if we had lost something. We can be playing half a gas, eating some cochair in the middle of the game, speaking with the one whom we have nearby … because it is not necessary to have scarcely concentration, and to little that we have anything of idea of what we do the result it is going to be, more or less, the same one.

Yes, we can strain for adding more points, doing the best bent ones or obtaining this certain trophy that needs a workmanship without equal … but it is not the same motivation of having to overcome any challenge to be able to go forward, of fighting for our virtual life, of surviving before an almost impossible situation. Also it is possible to be said to me that for that the difficulty levels are … it is true, but by half. For the margin of a tare derived from the pride that prevents me from choosing the "easy" way in any video game, I like to decide in favor my first game of the "normal" way, and then if I already love the game I will decide for repeating at a major difficulty level. But the fact is that the level of "normal" difficulty of some today games would be between the "easy one" or “very easily” of most of the ancient games, and if we get stuck it will be more for getting lost in an enormous mapping or for not solving a certain puzzle, instead of doing it for not being it sufficiently skillful.

Do you remember the typical chief who was changing skill, and who was making us lose almost always some life whenever it was showing us his new movement?, we were learning of our errors, were playing without scarcely blinking, and when finally we were managing to break it were feeling a big satisfaction. The games in which more I have felt something like that lately are especially games in 2D, and with a classic touch, although also some current works have transmitted similar sensations to me.

I am not also a supporter of passing of the streak. I am remembering for example Super Ghouls'n Ghosts, a game that extracted me of pivot hole in due time because, if it was already not coming in spite of the fact that to have to be three hours to the maximum to come to close to the end, still superficially you finish the penultimate level and they send you back at first. That should already be punished like crime, so, obviously, the suitable thing is that the things are in his measured joust. But that nobody says to me that challenges cannot be obtained motivantes without need to upset the player. And if the casuals come, since how in Bayonetta, with a macroeasy way that practically is played only.

Another topic is that of the checkpoints and the others. I love Half Life 2, for example, but it seems pathetic to me that you could do two accurate shots, keep, avoid an enemy, keep, go out and die, load, die again, load, to kill the third one, to keep, to kill two more, to keep, that the following one kills you, to load, and this way during the whole adventure. Reducing the difficulty, but having to survive more time before being able to keep, it becomes possible to have the much more close player, who values more his life, because knowing that if you die you are going to appear in the same place in which you were two seconds earlier, it seems impossible to obtain real tension to me.

Finally, this is not a criticism of any game in particular, one of these apocalyptic opinions that so little I do not even like of that the video games go away to the carajo. Nothing of that, there is alone the shape of a reflection that arises in my mind when I feel satisfied for having overcome certain challenges that have the just difficulty, or disappointed on having come at the end of a game that has not demanded anything of effort from me. This is not common to all the current games, since the exceptions are great; and neither I want games of those who do after one throws himself of the hair for his difficulty … simply I believe that about some cases it is convenient to remember certain things that were enjoyed the games of earlier, and that with the suitable dose can make a today game better.

I do not want impossible challenges, do not want labyrinths of which it could not go out, moments in which to touch fifteen followed buttons or puzzles that lead to my neurons to asking for a salary increase … only I ask the video games to make me vibrate, to feel the tension on having been on the point of losing a virtual life, or my heart to beat torn open on having overcome a real challenge, of those that make you lift the handle and feel proud. To feel as if it was touching buttons in a movie I already do not take a control, and the big adventures, the big achievements, they were those that were obtained overcoming big adversities …