LOVE
polycounter lvl 11
http://www.quelsolaar.com/love/index.html
It appears Love is released now, I thought there was a thread about it somewhere here but searching didn't bring anything up. It seems like a really interesting concept, although the 10 a month is keeping me back from trying it at the moment. I've never paid monthly for a game before, I don't know if I'd spend enough time at it in a month to justify the price. It would be interesting to see if anyone else has tried it out though.
The tools he's making also seem interesting, although I tried the modeler out and it was extremely unintuitive and hard to use, but the philosophy of spending more time on tools to save time and headaches later in the production is something I'd like to see being picked up.
It appears Love is released now, I thought there was a thread about it somewhere here but searching didn't bring anything up. It seems like a really interesting concept, although the 10 a month is keeping me back from trying it at the moment. I've never paid monthly for a game before, I don't know if I'd spend enough time at it in a month to justify the price. It would be interesting to see if anyone else has tried it out though.
The tools he's making also seem interesting, although I tried the modeler out and it was extremely unintuitive and hard to use, but the philosophy of spending more time on tools to save time and headaches later in the production is something I'd like to see being picked up.
Replies
In short, the game is unfinished and he still wanted it out the door as an mmo, when there's very few players playing it.
The game is somewhat like minecraft, except minecraft has the upper hand of being playable, having an understandable interface/visual and having a one time fee.
Simon, did I ever have you on msn or something like that btw?, I can lend you the love friend account if it still works, but I think I have to be online on the same time.
Nah, its more like Minecraft watched through a vaseline smeared lense, with less defined gameplay.
basicly you play coop with a bunch of other polygonal things and run around finding tokens that you can place in the home base, and some of them are tools, like landscaping tools, and then you go and attack AI bases, and that's the larger scope of it.
it's a good idea but gameplaywise its in an alpha stage, and visually it needs a usability-overhaul.
It does feel a bit lame to rip on the game for not being super intuitive though, given how unique of a game it is. Most of my favorite games were difficult at first, but after a couple of weeks I started to get the hang of them and loved them. Dwarf Fortress is a good analogy for this game... the sheer complexity of it scares a lot of people away, but almost every person I know who's taken the time to figure it out has placed it in their top three games of all time.
You don't have to try it... but don't assume it's a bad game because you're not willing to figure it out.
Kind of dissapointing to hear tho, I love the visuals
edit: rooster said it best
and really, it's lame to critique bad game design?
Love seems very unintuitive even if you understand fps/mmo games. But quite creative and cool.
I used to think this and I`m beginning to feel like game design is splitting into two separate threads.
Theres the games people can sit back, mash on thier controller for 10-20 hours and beat the game. This is a very passive experience, much like watching a movie.
Then there's games, for games sake- with complicated controls and systems. Often times there's a learning curve, much like chess.
I think these are the two ends of the spectrum with all shades of grey in between. Just because a game isn't easy to understand doesn't mean the game design is bad. It just means your brain has become veal after playing too many passive games, that thinking no longer is something you want to equate to a game playing experience.
I've been elbow deep in UI recently so I'm pretty familiar with usability and I'm pretty sure I could make a Love clone that you could actually figure out how to play, I just can't program for shit.
I suppose a counter argument is that were evolving as a culture, and learning what the term "fun" means. While its a subjective word, the money being made on passive video game playing experiences probably far out weighs the money being made on rubbix cubes and chess boards.
...All you damn kids need to get the fuck off my lawn.
personally for me i love how alien Everything is in love, practically nothing is familiar. also you dont even get to choose your own name. i believe this is because he is trying to create something entirely unique with his game and it makes me sad that more people dont go down this road. so i would really argue that the weird interface is a design choice, otoh once you learn the interface its quite logical, minimal and efficient.
is the interface confusing? yes ofcourse, is the gameplay confusing ? you could debate this. Is it powerful ? YES, you can really do a lot with the game and the updates he makes to it only give you more options. all these options end up with an emergent world that will constantly surprise you if you take the time to try to understand it. also like he himself says, shaping an emergent world like the one he has created takes time and testing. this is the main reason i stopped playing simply because once i figured the world out, all i wanted was even more possibilities and now i am quitely lurking his twitter to see what how his project develops.
I personally prefer games where i discover things on my own, or that require me to think in new ways or to see things from a fundamnetally different angle then i am used to. unfortunately i feel as if 80-90 percent of the rest of the world simply want the-same-old-shit.
Seems like that is a strength and downfall. While I love to experiment in games also, when I have an MMO which is usually already daunting in the first place (although Love does seem different compared to most) it is kind of a big turn off. Interface is something that should seem intuitive while the gameplay being experimental (at least to me. We are going through a software change at work and although our workflow is the same ((slightly improved)) its going to take awhile to use this butt ugly and horrible designed interface). I do like how other MMOs and any game really do give you a kind of setup area to mess around and experiment with before it starts affecting your character you develop or the world (not just to Love but any game). At least the illusion of said change.
paper craft map maker ??
**edit : warning, image is very large**
http://www.quelsolaar.com/love_map.png
love it, or hate it i suppose
But the problem is, he is releasing this as a product, an mmo product, with a monthly fee, essentially making this a competitor to the mmo market, while still going on with the "oh but this is a different kind of game, it is supposed to be difficult",
for example, removing the fullscreen filters would take a minute to do for him, or anyone, but he is not going to do that, because of some notion that different and artsy will make the game better, when it actually hinders what is great in love.
something like windwaker would actually be a style that love could use, and it would make it a hundred times easier to play, more accessable, without sacricing anything of the gameplay:
There's just no room for "it's supposed to be like this, you dont like it, leave" in a commercial product.
I'm afraid Eskil will get lost in the praise he has gotten from love looking good in still pictures, and turn into some kind of new Derek Smart
the thing about chess is it is extremely intuitive and easy to learn the rules. This moves like that, this moves like that, now try to take the king. Learning how to play is simple with very few barriers to new players, it's the interactions between pieces which creates the enormous depth. I strongly believe that complexity doesn't equal depth, and it's depth that we should be caring about with an eye to *reduce complexity as much as possible. Chess is simple and deep.
Dwarf fortress is more like Shogi.. i don't know what on earth is going on..
ps, to give a game parallel, look at braid or portal. Theres some fecking complex stuff going on when you get into it, mind melting stuff. But did anyone feel like they were dumped into it without being carefully taught the skills they needed in the order they needed as they played? I know I felt that each challenge and gameplay element was added at such a pace that felt challenging but never overwhelming. The developers made some bold new stuff but never once dumped you into the middle of it with no explanation