Archives for September 2018

As production winds down on Arcade Spirits — we’re aiming to be content complete by December, to allow some time for testing and implementation before our Q1 2019 release window — I’m finding I have less stuff to talk about in the dev blog. Fortunately, we’ve got a strong community, and they had a good idea for this week’s entry: What are some of the key differences between our alternate timeline and the real world?

Now, keep in mind Arcade Spirits is a lighthearted game and not a history textbook. I know the Internet worships at the altar of CinemaSins and loves to pick apart every single logic gap as a “plot hole” but we’re going for a loose and fun interpretation of history. It definitely wouldn’t totally work out this way… but it’s fun to make believe, right? Right. So, what if…

The Atari 2600 Never Failed

Atari took their time to make a proper port of Pac-Man, and a really good E.T. game, and didn’t overproduce either of them. As a result there is no mass grave in New Mexico of unsold 2600 carts and the system continued to thrive. Without the power vacuum left by Atari’s death, Nintendo didn’t muscle in in 1985 to utterly dominate the home arcade scene — and Atari’s strength kept their arcade division going strong, maintaining the arcade scene in tandem with rising home consoles.

The three major players in the console scene in 20XX are now Atari, Sega, and Nintendo. In this timeline, the proposed Nintendo-Sony co-developed PlayStation never fell through, because the Philips CD-I didn’t get in the way of the project. Nintendo were the first to optical media, but Atari’s long-standing emphasis on backwards compatibility (you could play 2600 games on an Atari XL, for instance) means that they remain a force to be reckoned with.

The Mainstream Accepts Video Games

Since the crash never happened and Nintendo wasn’t forced to push the NES as a children’s toy complete with a toy robot, the momentum of adults and young adults playing games back in the 70s and 80s kept going. eSports rise sooner than expected, with organized tournaments like EVO launching early and staying strong.

While arcades never surpass more long-standing pursuits like going out to the movies or grabbing a pizza, they aren’t quite as looked down on as being only for nerds or children. It’s still a trivial pursuit, since they are games and games are silly, but generally they stabilize in the cultural consciousness.

The Inevitable Rise of Kiddie Casinos Still Happens, But Slower

Have you been in a Dave & Busters or Chuck E. Cheese lately? Basically they’re just gambling palaces with no traditional video games whatsoever. But this was a survival tactic, a way to keep their businesses afloat while traditional joystick gaming was migrating to home consoles for enthusiasts only. If arcades never died, these chain franchises wouldn’t have to rely quite as hard on prize games… but prize games would still be a major factor.

Everybody likes the rush of winning, and early ticket games like Skeeball(tm) (or ‘Alley Rollers’ to use the non-trademarked name) would prove the model can work. So while there wouldn’t be a mid-90s rampaging push towards abandoning ship on the arcade model, those who cared more about raw profit than tradition would definitely still migrate in that directions.

Oh, Also We Have Holograms And Sentient A.I. For Reasons

And here’s where I take a left turn into fantasyland, because Iris — your adorable virtual assistant — not only is amazingly sophisticated beyond any 2018 level smartphone tech, but I have a few cute pics in game of her literally sitting on the edge of your phone and extending away from the screen. It’s similar to the scanlines you see on the spotlights over Teo’s dance stage, or how Gavin’s tablet was originally going to have some hovering holograms.

This was something I debated removing to keep things realistic, but… instead, I just don’t comment on it. I let Iris stay adorable even if she’s implausible, because it’s cute and makes a nice visual and again, we are not a history textbook.

…although there IS a bit more going on behind why she’s so very, very intelligent. And I’d say more, but… spoilers.

I think that’ll do for missives from the year 20XX. I don’t want to spoil all the surprises. Hope you enjoy our alternate timeline when the game releases early next year!

We’ve been asked this quite often — “Will Arcade Spirits be coming out on Switch or PS4 PS VITA or XBox One or Ouya or Intellivision or the Fairchild Channel F?” Console gamers like their story-driven games too, and it’s perfectly understandable to want a port.

Let me say up front we are NOT ruling a console port out. But I figured this week, I’d let you peek behind the curtains and see why isn’t not as easy as checking the ‘Compile Switch Version’ box and hitting OK.

Arcade Spirits uses the open source Ren’Py engine, which is a wonderful Python-powered system that gets you up and running quickly when making a visual novel. It’s powerful and customizable and has many of the features we needed right out of the box. We didn’t have to code our own save game system, or our own history buffer, or any of the standard visual novel systems — it just does it for you without much fanfare.

Alas, one thing we hadn’t realized when deciding to use Ren’Py is that there are no console ports of the engine. It’s open source, yeah, but requires Python, OpenGL, and a host of other tidbits to be ported before it can even consider the possibility of starting to maybe work on another system.

It’s not impossible — anybody with enough know-how and skill could probably port it. But so far nobody has, so we’d be starting from square one on a task we are woefully unprepared for. There’s a reason I picked a scripting system for this game instead of coding it down to the metal in assembly, folks. I ain’t that amazing at coding.

(UPDATE: A new wrinkle in the works. For a Switch port, it’s not enough to port the engine — since it’s not based on Unity, essentially every individual visual novel would need to be one whole and cohesive project with a complete dev kit and development contract, and likely still need to involve Renpy’s development team. So it’s a much taller ask than I had anticipated in the first place. Not sure if this is the case for PS4 but it’s likely the same issue. Fortunately there is a UWP version of Renpy in the works, so XBox One is possible, but still a long ways off and may have other hurdles.)

So, what’s the alternative? Basically, moving the whole kit ‘n kaboodle over to another visual novel engine, one which already has console support. Notably any system designed for Unity would do the job. But porting a game, even one as “simple” as a visual novel, is difficult. How do I do the customized visual effects and UI, when I don’t know enough to customize Unity to my needs? What about future localization efforts? It’s a tough sell, especially when we’re releasing in Q1 2019.

That leaves us with three options. Figure out how to port Ren’Py (or hire someone to do it), figure out how to port the game to another engine (or hire someone to do it), or let it slide for now and maybe switch engines before starting a sequel.

I won’t say what option we’re taking because, well, we don’t know! Right now we’re focused on getting the Win/Mac/Linux version out the door in good shape, so you have a quality game from day one. But… if that game sells well enough, if it’s clear there’s a burning hunger for Arcade Spirits… who knows what may happen?

I like world building. Hey, who doesn’t? And frankly I’ve been wanting to do more world building for 20XX, the timeline in which Arcade Spirits takes place, where the video game crash of 1983 never happened. How are things different? How are things the same? Let’s find out.

Not sure if these are canon or not — we’ll know if we end up selling so well that a sequel becomes a good idea. So hey, if you want more… y’all know what to do. Spread the word!

THE (entirely fictional) 20XX TIMES

President Mitchell Embroiled In New Emulation Controversy – Tweets Focus on “No Hot Sauce Collusion”

New allegations have risen regarding President Billy Mitchell’s most recent high score submission to Twin Galaxies for Donkey Kong. Independent investigators have verified that his video evidence was created using MAME emulation, thus negating his score.

When pressed for a comment, President Mitchell instead focused on another scandal facing the White House, concerning illegal campaign contributions made by a hot sauce manufacturer from Georgia. Sources say that he was encouraged to divest his own hot sauce company prior to election as President in exchange for a sizable campaign contribution, filtered through numerous individuals.

Twin Galaxies has struck President Mitchell’s score from the record books pending a complete investigation. The White House has issued no comment, although press secretary Roy Shildt stated that President Mitchell remains adamant that any reports of falsified scores are “fake news” from “dishonest scoreboards.”

Nintendo to Announce the Nintendo PlayStation-U Pro, With Features Similar to Atari XLX

Sources close to Sony of Japan say that an announcement is just around the corner regarding a new release of the Nintendo PlayStation-U, dubbed the “PlayStation-U Pro,” which will have both advanced 3-D capabilities and better support for consumer-grade CRT televisions for full backwards compatibility with classic titles.

Critics have long lambasted Nintendo for having a distinct lack of backwards compatibility with still-hot retro titles and eSports standards, forcing players to re-purchase barely upgraded remasters of classic titles if they wanted to move forward to the next iteration of Nintendo hardware. Meanwhile, their primary competitors in Atari and Sega have maintained twenty-plus years of backwards compatibility, able to read and play any discs from earlier consoles through embedded hardware or emulation.

“Nintendo thinks they deserve the attention of gamers, just because they beat everyone to optical media back in the 90s,” an alleged source within Atari posted on Facewall today. “And don’t get me wrong, the Nintendo-Sony partnership really moved the whole industry forward. But they did so at the expense of supporting home ports of arcade classics. Atari believes in game preservation, and will always maintain full backwards compatibility.”

While many game developers have pushed for adoption of HDTV for higher resolutions and crisper images, a counterpush by gamers for CRT support in order to properly display older titles was embraced two generations ago by Atari and Sega, resulting in the multi-monitor setups common today.

Exidy Partners with Gottleib For New “Indiecading” Push

With the rising trend of bespoke arcade games crafted by independent video game developers, it was only a matter of time before one of the big names sat up and took notice. In this case, two mid-tier players in the arcade scene are teaming up to scoop up the rights to mass-distribute several indie titles, under the “Indiecading” name.”

“Exidy has always pushed forward with innovative new gaming experiences,” explained CEO Paula Westenbach. “Together with Gottleib, we believe we can get a wider exposure for these great titles. No longer will you have to go to a smaller arcade to enjoy these amazing games – we’ll be in Deco’s Palace, DisneyQuest, and several other major chain arcades.”

Exidy-Gottleib are currently in negotiations for the rights to Magical Moon Cuties, the hottest independent title on the scene. If all goes well, we can expect to see this game in an arcade near you within the next fiscal quarter.

OpEd: MicroPlay To Unveil Revolutionary New Ultra-Responsive Arcade Joystick; Snake Oil or The Next Big Thing?

Here we go again, folks – another company claiming to have the next big thing in arcade hardware. MicroPlay, a recently formed mash-up of the decaying corpses of FunWare and Sinneslöschen, have announced their first commercial product, a new “psi-responsive” joystick.

According to Cooper Technologies, the parent company which bought out what was left of those two once-slightly-better-than-mediocre companies, this new joystick will “use bio-electric feedback to read the user’s intentions, providing unparalleled responsiveness in arcade gaming.” So basically it reads your mind. Through your hand. Meaning… why tap the joystick at all, if it’s just going to predict what you want to do based on your thoughts?

Yyyeah, I’m thinking this is yet another flop from Cooper Technologies. From my research, only ONE tech initiative of theirs has gotten past the investment stage – remember the Phantom Console, which ended up basically being a phantom? That was them. They also had a large market share in the technology behind the Nintendo 32x, that abysmal add-on. About the only thing they’ve ever done which went anywhere was “Iris,” a dime-a-dozen virtual assistant with extremely limited capabilities and a heavy-handed sponsorship by PizzaYums. But hey, she’s cute, and people like cute apps, so…

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – arcades are driven by highly short-lived gimmicks, but ultimately are ruled by classic titles that bring people back time and again. All sorts of gimmicks have come and gone, including force feedback, and virtual reality. (Although recent moves by the Oculus-Ouya partnership suggest they may be taking a run at that cheeseball 90s helmet-and-gloves idea again.) So I wouldn’t expect much of anything from these supposed telepathic joysticks.

Besides, with Fist of Discomfort expected to move on to optional USB controllers with its forthcoming iteration, who really needs built-in control innovation? Just bring your favorite input device to your local arcade, and have fun. Don’t trust in the snake oil salesmen.

Okay, now that I’ve embedded Don’t Stop Believin’ in your heads, let’s talk about streetlights. And lights in general.

The September Patreon beta update is a big one — literally big, as in inflating the game by 100 megs. But for good reason! I finally sat down and did a huge overhaul to nearly every single background in the game, to add lighting effects and other subtle animation cues. Little things that bring the otherwise static images to life.

Today, let’s go over three scenes, and how they’ll be different under the new animation. First, we’ll look at the Funplex.

The Funplex has three main effects going on. The first, and most commonly used across all the revamped backgrounds, are glowing elements glowing brighter than before, with the extra glow fading in and out softly. It’s almost impossible to see unless you’re looking for it, but adds some life to the scene. next, the prize game at the bottom left has a shifting color scheme, to reflect the lights inside the game changing colors. Finally, there’s a simple animation of the UFO Catcher crane lowering and raising.

Next let’s go to Flotsam Beach, home of the Obligatory Beach Episode Where Everybody Wears Sexy Swimsuits.

The streetlights (in the niiiiiiiight) pulse, in a bit more obvious a fashion as this is an old Mid-Atlantic beach town under disrepair. Similarly, some of the tube lights in the arcade will flicker, showing the double tube bulbs before turning back on full strength. I considered a cloud animation, since the clouds animate during the daytime scene, but figured the lighting was more important.

Finally, let’s look at a scene from later in the game, which I won’t spoil beyond showing you this vague image…

Lots of stuff going on here — glitched out game screens, pulsating neon lights, error codes, and more. It’s a flashier scene, to be sure.

“But wait!” you might say, as I’m pouring the gasoline and getting the match ready. “What if I don’t want to be distracted by fancy background effects? Also, put down the matches, please.”

Not a problem! Here’s our revamped Preferences screen.

Not only did we improve the ‘Style’ option to show you what each of our three UI styles looks like, but we added an option for the background animations. It defaults to Slow, which should provide ambiance without being distracting — but you can turn them Off completely, or even make them Faster if you want something flashy and fun! It’s up to you.

As we finish up the story and start polishing up the game, we’ll have more new features to show you — including a pretty big one which we’re not ready to talk about yet. Let’s just say there’s a reason I had to crop down the Preferences screen…