Tuesday, May 28, 2013

Tablet gaming...

I like the idea tablets for games, but I don't think I've found games as satisfying on other devices. Gameboy, Gamegear, the Nintendo DS, etc.

Most games designed for a tablet are generally "casual" i.e. normally no need to spend long periods of time either developing a character or learning mechanics. Even flashy graphics like real boxing can't keep the game from feeling a little empty, and quite repetitive. Then again, if I were developing a quality title, I don't think I'd want sell games for a buck or two.

The world has spoken - they want super cheap games. Most paid games are $2 and under, a handful of $3, and a sprinkle of $4. Few games cost more - and often they're on sale. There's this idea that games must be cheap, but the sad truth is you get what you pay for. Mostly lackluster games without story, staying power, and horrid levels of in-game application purchases (IAP). Often the lesser publishers will have advertisements and obtrusive notifications.

IAP may unfortunately end up being a business model in future PC games. It's already present to an extent, but I'll loathe the "androidification" of the PC gaming market.

Until then, I put my full support behind steam developers that don't push that crap, gog.com, and humblebundle.com.

I think old school adventure games would be awesome on a tablet. The games are already made, and just need to be ported. In some cases, engines have already been rewritten - like Bioware's Baldur's gate, and Lucas Arts games. These games would lend themselves very well to touchscreen interfaces. Frankly I'm surprised at the dearth of solid adventure games on android.

One danger of a studio redoing a game for android is that they have a penchant for DRMing the affair, souring the experience for legitimate players - I'm looking at you Square Enix. They knew thay had a good game people would pay for, and instead of doing things the right way, they half as the job, and have periodic checks requiring an online connection.
When companies do this, it's becomes easier (and sane) to justify emulating the SNES port. RPGs play rather well with the clumsy onscreen buttons, especially if set to wait for user input.

for a decent dose of adventure gaming, try ScummVM
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.scummvm.scummvm
Here's a list of games that work: http://www.scummvm.org/compatibility/
You can legitimately find several of these games. All it requires is copying of the game's datafiles for ScummVM's interpreter to read.

I'm longing for Grim Fandango personally :)

There's a couple decades of decent games at this point. Here's one reason why I'm looking forward to a decent Windows tablet - something with better battery life and thinner than my Fujitsu p1630. Hopefully with a keyboard that flips around back so I can play space quest without missing a beat.

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