:: Brocolis Untitled ::

Fishing Cactus just moved into new offices. You can find some pictures on the official Blog.

Enjoy

Hi folks,It’s been really a while since I posted something on the blog and I must apologize for being so absent. However I’m sure all of you guess that this absence is somehow linked to my position at Fishing Cactus and you are right! Since nearly one year a lot of things happened: we hired 5 persons, released 7 iPhone games (including Shaun White Origins, Minim and Shift) and started several internal projects in order to show the world Fishing Cactus is capable of bringing some great games on the consoles. We truly hope we’ll be able to release at least one of them this year. And by the way, despite being silent for a few months, Blobbies Wars project is not dead at all. 7 projects in one year plus some internal IP in progress, this means I’ve not been idlying all this time and this explains a little bit why the blog is not updated as regularly as before.

However I must say that having to deal between business and design matters is not an easy job and is quite demanding in terms of time. However I still have some times to post here and there different posts on the web (not necessarily on this website though). The last article I wrote (in close collaboration with Andrea Distefano, one our new game designer at Fishing Cactus) talks about a quest regarding the development of a dedicated tool for game designers. You can find it on Fishing Cactus Blog or directly on Gamasutra.

We have great thing running at FC and I hope I’ll be able to talk about new projects and new articles very soon. I also take the opportunity of this post to let you know that Fishing Cactus is still looking for Artists and Programmers to join the team. So if you know someone really talented and looking for a job, just give him our website URL.

Fishing Cactus has launched a new website with the final brand design. Like some of you noticed I ended my mission at Neopica and I’m now 100% Fishing Cactus working as business and project manager, coffee maker, painter and last but not least game designer. I’m currently working on different projects switching regularly between them at various positions which is really interessting but also sometimes very stressful.

All I can say at the moment is that we have really huge things to announce and we keep a lot of things under our hats. I nearly forgot to mention that I worked on the port of Shift iPhone doing the PM, design and level design in direct collaboration with Anthony Lavelle, the creator of Shift.

The game will be released tonight following the release of Shift 4. It is definitely a new game and not just a straight port of the original game. We added nearly 30 new levels (the original game was made of 15 levels). If you never played this game you should definitely!

I just finished Warhammer 40K: Dawn of War II and I wanted to drop a line on the blog to say that this game kicks ass. Except that you cannot play Tyranids (the all time best and winner race) in the single player campaign, this game is really a good surprise.

Relic really had balls to remove nearly all aspects of resources management creating a game which resonate for me more like a tactics game than a RTS. It reminds me of the old tactic games we got from Bungie (Myth) and Warhammer: Shadow of the Corned Rat from Mindscape / SSI on PC in the 90’s and I was truly surprised (in the good way) to see that Relic took the same approach for this game.

On the bright side we have a very intuitive and nervous micro management system available for unique characters and squads sprinkled with RPG elements (experience, items), one of my favorite meal (“give me that Power Armor you Eldar bitch!”).  The RPGs elements introduced in the game are really basic, there is really nothing new but there are small strategic choices to do which add a lot to the whole (for example there is a level cap which prevents you from getting all the unit’s attributes, frustrating but only to make this more interesting).

Through combinations, items and weapons available are bringing interesting choices to the table. Should I choose the rocket launcher or the heavy bolters for Avitus?

The cover feature (being able to shoot behind walls or from a turret) is a nice addition to the Warhammer video game series because as far as I can remember it is the first game in the series which does that and it works quite well (until a certain point in the game, see below). Having different strategies to suppress enemies or to dislodge an enemy from a turret is another good gameplay mechanic (using the sniper, throwing a grenade, planting a bomb or brute force amongst many others).

On the bad side, the flanking feature is a bit awkward, the champion can rush (charge) in the melee without destroying its own squads while a rocket or a grenade will blow everything in range. It isn’t very consistent. While charging is very empowering for the player some buildings sometimes feel like they have been made with cardboards. After a few levels and if you play with the Dreadnought you will quickly notice that truly nothing can stop you. This makes the cover feature completely obsolete for most enemies and with it the game looses a lot of its tactical interest.

Also attacking from the back with a charge doesn’t seem to have an impact on the enemies’ morale. In the board game if you are currently running an upfront assault, charging the opponent from the back with another squad should make them flee very easily (morale related parameters). This simply doesn’t work here (however morale seems to be taken into account as Orks and Eldars are fleeing quite often under various circumstances).

Last stain on the picture? Missions. They are a bit repetitive using only three types of environment and nearly always the same “defeat the boss” / “hold the position” mission scenarios. This type of game is really made for different types of missions. such as “hold the fortress”, “escort this vehicle” or “rescue this squad”. From what I’ve seen the team had all the required tools to make such variations unfortunately such missions are really too rare. Also it is a bit of pity that “Tyranid invasion” factor, another underused element in the game,  hasn’t been pushed a little bit more to create a very systemic “tower defense” type of gameplay which would have given the game some additional replay ability in single player campaign.

Overall the mix of all ingredients creates a very nervous game where most missions can be finished in less than 7 minutes. In more traditional RTS we could call this a rush strategy. But here the game promotes this way of mass fighting and rewards it at the end of the mission. I guess this is something the designers wanted players to do. I actually enjoyed the approach which corresponds more to my type of strategy game (I played a lot of Warcraft III in multiplayer where game sessions were not lasting much longer than that).

Last words? This game is good but I want more!

Hello folks, it has been a while since I blogged on this website. This is because I’m really, really, really busy with multiple projects.

Equilibrio is out both on Wiiware and iPhone and taking into consideration the time we took to create the title is getting some nice reviews.

I had also time to copy the article I wrote for Gamasutra and their expert blog section. This article has been written in collaboration with Benjamin Dumaz (former game designer at 10tacle Belgium and now game designer at Ubisoft Montpellier). The article talks about how game designers can use various tools and methods to gather, analyze and filter ideas they get from the development teams and how they can strengthen the commitment of their team in the project.

I got my hands on Bonsaï Barber, a wacky Wiiware title. It is a really nice and fun game and I warmly recommend it if you want to try something completely alien and fresh.

A friend of mine sent me this morning the link to this video (a short film). The title is self explanatory: World Builder.

It is simply full of creativity and very scary too. This video will echo for any level designer out there.

Don’t want to comment too much so you enjoy the movie as much as I did.

It’s been a long time since I posted something on the blog. In a nutshell here are the news:- Blobbies Wars has been picked as one of the 9th games to watch for on the XBLA. We are on the same list as Introversion, Denki (I love the idea behind Quarrel), Telltale or Tuna Snax (was already a fan of Platypus)… WOW how exciting… and scary.

- Blobbies Wars considered as the Future of XBLA, Wow!

- Interview of me & Fishing Cactus talking about Blobbies Wars (in French)

- A more personal interview made by Ebe on her blog where she interviews game developers with a series of questions you have to pick from. Very interessting and gave me another perspective on my own career.

I’m still working at Neopica on an announced Wii/DS title as Lead Designer. I’m also working for Fishing Cactus preparing the release of Equilibrio. Nintendo approval for the Wiiware version takes longer than expected… The good news is that Fishing Cactus are working on a bunch contract games, more information soon.

I’m still working on two articles targeted for the game industry, one talking about communication processes and the other one talks about how to design games taking into consideration manufacturers’ lotchecks which is always a pain in the ass phase in the game creation process.

Co-jointly developed by Fishing Cactus and DK-Games, Equilibrio will hit both Nintendo WiiWare service and Apple Store in Q1 2009.

Equilibrio is my first mid-scaled project developed with the team of Fishing Cactus. Fishing Cactus had the task to create the iPhone version of the game as well as designing the levels and some of the game mechanics for both versions. So I did most of the levels (mix of Maya and Illustrator), a bit of work on the game mechanics and more over, all the project management and PR around the iPhone project. I’m quite used to project management and to be honest the programmers we have in the team are autonomous and very competent. On the other ise, the PR was pretty much new for me because I had to handle the contracts, contact with the Press as well as publishing deals. Interessting! The game has been developed on both platforms in less than 3 months and will be sold on on the two services less than 5$.

To talk a little bit about Equilibrio, the game features an easy and accessible gameplay, pick and play philosophy targeted for both hardcore and casual gamers (I assure you that the last levels of the conquest mode are still really hard). Thanks to its short levels the game asks low time investment from the player, you can play in the train or in the subway. One level often lasts from 2 to 10 minutes depending on your skill and mastery of the different balls. It is something that we wanted to push in the game as the iPhone is a handheld console. To increase replayability, the game features 4 play modes, cross profile high score tables and trophies which are unlocked under certain circumstances (like the one you can find on XBLA and PSN titles).

You can find more information about the game on the official website (http://www.equilibrio-game.com). Enjoy & Happy New Year!

As some of you already know, a few months ago, Fishing Cactus passed from the simple dream to a real game company. We even have our first title in its final stage (Equilibrio iPhone). Be sure I’ll speak about it in the next weeks. I’m writing also every two weeks a column on FingerGaming talking about the development of Equilibrio. So if you want to know more about the project you can still go here.

Julien and I started another blog relating the events of our game studio. So to make it more official, we proudly announce the opening of the Fishing Cactuses’ dev blog. Fishing Cactus is a relatively new company and we think it is good to share our early adventures with you. Talking about things such as our first projects, strong assets, where do we go with this company, how did we fund the company? We also plan to post topics ranging from game design to programming tricks and, of course, our company life.

Hope you’ll enjoy.

 

Hello folks,

Ryan Wiancko from IndustryBroadcast asked me if I was interested in sharing the articles I made for this websites (and others) available as audio files (podcasts) for the whole gaming industry.

As I’m spending at least 2 hours per day in my car, I found the idea of listening to other designers’ articles quite an interesting idea and agreed to spread my word too

All audio files are free of charge and are available in an MP3 file format.

You can find my articles at the following address: http://industrybroadcast.com/tag/bruno-urbaincom/

Other designers that I like very much are also featured. Designers such as Jamie Fristrom and Daniel Cook.

Also here’s the link for the full website: http://industrybroadcast.com/

Good luck with this Ryan