Kill Screen Magazine's Blog, page 29

Pavilion gets eye-tracking support to better support disabled players

Visiontrick Media has revealed that its “fourth-person” puzzle adventure Pavilion is getting eye-tracking controls. The studio teamed up with eye-tracking specialist company Tobii to develop a way for the game to be played solely with your gaze—no keyboard or mouse needed.

This is, obviously, a big help for people who have disabilities that make using a keyboard or mouse difficult. The only catch is that you will need a Tobii EyeX Eye-Tracker device in order to play Pavilion with your eyes. But the good news is that the device does work with a bunch of other games including The Division, Watch Dogs 2, Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, and Assassin’s Creed Syndicate (2015).

eye-tracking almost ties in with its themes better

As you might expect, Pavilion has been tweaked slightly in order to be played with eye-tracking, but not much. As Tobii demonstrates on its dedicated webpage, Pavilion‘s in-game camera tracks out when your gaze reaches the edge of the screen in order to show you the full picture so you can navigate its architectural mazes. The other tweak is that your gaze will trigger reactions from objects that you can interact with. From there, you stare at the object for a second or two and it will perform the action tied to it. Seems pretty simple.

If you’re not familiar with Pavilion, then the one thing I’d say is that having eye-tracking almost ties in with its themes better than using another control method. It’s a game about guiding a man through a labyrinth, but you don’t control him directly, instead you use bells and lights to encourage him along a certain path. It’s a game that places you as an invisible omnipresence that has limited interaction with the world—you stare down upon it like a god with telepathic powers. Controlling the game with your eyes should reinforce that distant position you uphold in the game.

One last thing: you’ll need to make sure you get the latest update for Pavilion on Steam, and once you have, you should be able to activate Eye-Tracker in the options menu.

You can find out more about Pavilion on its website. It’s available to purchase for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, and the NVIDIA Shield.

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Artist turns Grand Theft Auto V into a ghost city

Three years on and people are still finding new ways to look at Grand Theft Auto V (2013). This time its French digital artist Hugo Arcier who has reinterpreted the game’s world without a population. He calls it GHOST CITY—a video installation that was first shown at his exhibition “Fantômes numériques” at Lux Scène Nationale from April 29th to July 9th earlier this year.

“The focus is put on architectural and graphic elements. It is a meditative and captivating experience,” writes Arcier about GHOST CITY. “This virtual universe solicits both the present (the experience of the artwork) and the memory.”

everything in nature can be reduced to either an atom or a void

Arcier mentions that he was inspired by Titus Lucretius Carus’s philosophical poem De rerum natura (On the nature of things). Lucretius used the medium of poetry to explain the atomism to a Roman audience. It seems that Arcier is trying to do something similar, but using Grand Theft Auto V as a medium, which is perhaps more appropriate for a modern audience.

Significant in atomism is the idea that everything in nature can be reduced to either an atom or a void. This is something that Arcier’s reinterpretation of Grand Theft Auto V achieves visually: the game’s virtual landscapes are made textureless, all white shapes and shadow, while everything around it is a black void.

The point of seeing the world like this in terms of atomism is to free people of their fears, particularly of the supernatural and, in Lucretius’s time, the power of the Roman gods. The theory is that this leads to a state of tranquility and freedom from fear, and in Epicurean philosophy—from which atomism is derived—these two states are what lead to happiness in its highest form. Perhaps this is what Arcier wants us to see when we look upon GHOST CITY.

Arcier is hardly the first to present Grand Theft Auto V in a different light. Along with Kim Laughton’s haunting mod that turns the game into a black-and-white horizon, there is Rachel Rossin’s tribute to the game’s sunsets in “After GTA V,” Morten Rockford Ravn’s existentialist Grand Theft Auto V photography, and Brent Watanabe’s self-playing deer that was streamed 24/7 on Twitch.

Find out more about GHOST CITY on Arcier’s webpage.

h/t Creative Applications Network

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Try to understand how a 4D game works in Miegakure’s new video

4D grass? Seeing inside trees?! These are a couple of the features of Miegakure that its creator Marc Ten Bosch explains in his latest blog post. Features that I’m sure I still don’t fully understand despite writing about this game for a number of years now. Every time I think I’ve understood Miegakure and its 4D puzzles I realize that I probably don’t.

That’s not dirt being flung at Bosch and his game in any way. On the contrary, as he demonstrates in that new blog post, he’s actually become proficient at explaining the concepts that drive the game he’s making. Take for example how he describes the ability for players to see inside birch trees in Miegakure: “This is just like how for a 2D being a house only needs four walls but us 3D beings can see inside the house by just looking at it from the third dimension.”

“in a 4D game the ground is 3D”

While you may be able to wrap your head around that, you might find that you need to take a walk around the block or sip furiously at hot tea to fully grasp his writing about spherinders, “which are one way to generalize the concept of a cylinder to four dimensions,” Bosch writes. This is the main feature he explains in his blog post, particularly the idea of spherinder columns, and how they will appear as either spheres, ellipsoids, or cylinder as they are sliced by the 3D plane as you move through 4D space. (It’s a concept that is also explained with images in this imgur gallery that Bosch draws from.)

Bosch has also made a video that you can watch below that demonstrates how spherinders appear in their different forms inside the game.

You’ll also notice in that video that we’re told 3D spheres can appear as concentric 2D circles in the ground. I didn’t get it either until I read Bosch’s explanation on how this is possible: “In a 3D game the ground is 2D, and so in a 4D game the ground is 3D. That means that if you are standing on the ground there are six possible directions you may go: forward/backward, left/right, and ana/kata. However, in the game, because you are only seeing a 3D slice of the 4D world, you only see a 2D slice of the 3D ground at any given time (only two pairs of directions out of three).”

Making any sense? I wouldn’t worry too much if it doesn’t. Playing the game itself should hopefully make these ideas much clearer but, oh yes, Miegakure still isn’t out yet. Maybe next year? Until then, you can read our interview with Bosch about the mathematical beauty of his game—it may help with your understanding of it a little.

Read Bosch’s full blog post here. Look out for more updates on Miegakure on its website.

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Close, an upcoming exploration game about finding out your purpose

Tobias Zarges wants to experiment with the videogame form and its capacity to be art. This comes natural to him as a student of fine art, design, and music at Kunsthochschule Kassel in Germany.

To this end, he’s working with programmer Moritz Eberl on Close, an upcoming game about exploration and existentialism. It starts you off as a character wrapped up warm in a pink coat and hat, sat on a log in a snow-covered expanse. Press a button and the character will stand up and from there you can wander off in any direction to a dreamy, downbeat electronic tune. At no point does the game pause your journey to explain what it wants you to do—that would actually be counter-intuitive for Zarges.

the question of your purpose in this world

“Instead of offering players an obvious conflict-solution-achievement-scenario, I’m offering a space to reflect and interpret different themes and motives,” Zarges told me. “I want players to explore the game on their own to find out what it is about and what their role is in it. It’s a different kind of quest. It’s not about solving a quest, but about playing the game and finding out what the quest is.”

This hands-off approach could prove risky given that we, as players, are used to being told what to do and how to do it. The absence of these instructions is significant as it should help you to arrive at the question of your purpose in this world. The idea is for you to find that out by interacting with the other characters that inhabit Close‘s world.

On my small playthrough of the early version of Close I came across a number of them: a deer with pink fur that leapt away from me, a penguin-like creature (I think) that skated across a frozen lake, and a man in a brown coat sat in a dejected pose on a bench. There are more to find, I know that, but even these first few characters seemed to have somewhere or something to show me.

It’s possible to interact with these AI-controlled characters, and for them to interact with you, too. The idea in Close is to see which are receptive to your playful invitations, and vice versa. It’s a game about telling a story through play, as Zarges explained: “I wanted to focus on what is unique to games, how games can create a unique experience, rather than using written or spoken word to tell a story.” Play is the language you use to interact with its world and through which its themes should unfold.

Close is currently in early production. The early version is playable on PC but Zarges is aiming to get it on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in 2017. Find out more on its website.

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Go on a procedurally generated walk with a dog

It’s quiet. The air is gentle and warm as it brushes past your neck and causes you to close your eyes. A barking in the distance causes you to step away from admiring the lake—the soft, rhythmic motion of the waves was lulling you in a trance as it splashed against the shoreline. An impatient whining beckons you to turn around, and you oblige.

Sitting obediently is a good boy, with black-and-white fur and pointed ears. Your heart swells. He’s doing such a good job sitting there. As you walk toward him, the dog springs up and begins to walk ahead of you, pausing every so often to make sure you’re still there. And so the two of you continue walking across the smooth terrain, admiring the weather and each other’s company.

///

The world of Mudeford is procedurally generated, mixing together elements of blue and green to contrast water and land. To mold these landscapes the creator took inspiration from Mudeford, England, where they grew up going on peaceful walks with their dog. Hence it seemed natural to take the inspiration further and turn it into a dog walking simulator (which I’m 100 percent doggone excited for).

the good boy of Mudeford

The result is a first-person game about walking your dog that was created during #procjam and, as such, is currently in its early prototype stage. The creator has expressed desire to continue the project in the future, hoping to turn the endeavor into a way of researching and designing 3D spaces. “A lot of procedural world generation looks at the same functional notions like distance or reachability,” they said. “I want to look at other stuff, like lighting, visibility, or where someone’s eye is drawn.”

While I can’t take my own dog for long walks anymore due her old age, it was nice to walk around for a few minutes with the good boy of Mudeford, and wonder where he wanted to lead me.

To play Mudeford and read more about it click here.

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Even the Ocean wants you to find balance in life, out next week

One of the hardest things to achieve in life is balance, yet it is utterly essential. A balanced diet, a balanced economy, a balanced environment—these are all things that we, as a species, know that we should strive towards. It’s what Even the Ocean is all about—a narrative platformer that will be coming out on November 16th—taking the idea of balance to every layer of its design.

At the heart of Even the Ocean is the concept of Light and Dark energies as found throughout its world and systems. Aliph, a power plant technician and the game’s protagonist, must balance these two energies whenever possible. The traditional health bar is replaced with a bar that shows how much Light and Dark energy Aliph has in her body. She can take on more of either energy by running through fields of energy and plants made of energy. But if she fills the bar up totally with either one of the energies then she will die.

this energy system affects the logic and culture of Even the Ocean‘s world

Keeping the energy balance at 50:50 is desirable, then. However, there are advantages to absorbing more of each energy. Light energy is associated with verticality while Dark energy aligns with horizontality. And so if Aliph takes on more Light energy she can jump higher, while an increase in Dark energy will let her jump further. You’ll need to keep this in mind when making your way through the game’s dangerous power plants in order to restore equilibrium.

Perhaps even more intriguing, though, is how this energy system affects the logic and culture of Even the Ocean‘s world. It makes sense that the tallest city, Whitforge City, and its celestial spire runs on Light energy. Given that it relies on the power plants that Aliph restores to keep running, the city and its Light energy also come to represent industrialism and science. It’s telling that, in the city, the most elite citizens live near the top—the mayor and his top scientist specifically. What they fear is the city succumbing to dark energy as that would mean it would be flattened. Obviously, that would be a tragedy, but in metaphorical terms, the city being made horizontal might also mean the hierarchy of its people is demolished, and perhaps the wealth is better distributed.

This is the kind of larger themes that Even the Ocean seems to be veering towards with its narrative in the 30 minutes I’ve played so far. It also touches on environmentalism: the power plants seem to be getting sabotaged, and there is evidence that Dark energy has something to do with it. You’ll be able to find out for yourself how far it goes into these topics yourself on November 16th. And the good news is that Even the Ocean lets you customize its experience, meaning you can choose to avoid the more challenging platforming sections altogether and just experience the story, and vice versa if you wish.

Even the Ocean comes out for PC on November 16th. Find out more about it on its website.

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Calling all explorers: Firewatch now has a free-roam mode

If you could shout “Heyooooo” into Firewatch‘s virtual rendition of the Wyoming wilderness then you would now be able to travel to everywhere the call echoed. That’s on account of an update that has rolled out for all the versions of the game—PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One—that introduces a free-roam mode.

hike around its trails unhindered

After completing the game once, you should find the mode available to select in the special features section of the main menu. Once inside, you can walk and climb around its entire ecosystem with a dynamic 24-hour time cycle to experience too. That makes it the ideal mode for any budding photographers too, then, making use of the in-game disposable camera to snap any groves of lodgepole pines, able to wait around the same scene as the sun makes its journey across the sky, turning from noon to night with all the rich blues and oranges that come with it.

Perhaps you’re one of the people who didn’t find the turtle in Firewatch. Well, you now have an endless amount of time to hike around its trails unhindered to find it. But if you want a quick fix right now I’ve got you sorted (isn’t it adorbs?).

Oh, and if you didn’t know, the Steam version of Firewatch lets you get physical prints of any photos you take from inside the game. You need only to snap a picture with the disposable camera, and then, upon completing the game, there’s an option to head to a web store and order the prints for $15 (TechnoBuffalo has more on that).

If you want to read more on how the world of Firewatch was put together then check out our interview with artist Jane Ng.

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Arabic visual novel aims to celebrate the language’s beauty

Based in the small town of Qatif, Saudi Arabia—”on the shores of the Arabian Gulf”—Light Studio is a team of five women who are currently making their first videogame. Leading the team as director, writer, and programmer is Fatimah Aldubaisi. The rest of the team all works on the game’s art and animations, comprising character designers Hameedah Hamadah and Zainab Aljishi, and background artists Lalyla Aldubaisi and Zainab Abu Abdullah.

Their game is called Wojdan (Arabic for the soul or inner strength) and it’s pitched as an “Arabic visual novel” on account of its text and dialogue all being in Arabic—an English and French version is also possible. “We hope that by doing this, we can celebrate our language and its beauty that is often overlooked in videogames,” the team told me. “We also hope that this choice will attract an audience that is usually not interested in videogames.”

“we also want people to understand our culture from our point of view”

I asked Light Studio how they felt Arabic has been treated in videogames up until now, to which they replied that it’s “overlooked” and “unusual” for videogames to include it at all, “even among Arabs themselves.” In their experience, if you scroll the list of supported languages in a game, Arabic won’t show up most of the time. “The only game that comes to my mind that adopted the Arabic language is Tomb Raider (the 2013 version) and I personally think that is a disappointment,” Aldubaisi said. “If done right, companies will really benefit from adding Arabic to their games especially games that are aimed at children.”

But it’s not just the lack of their native language that Light Studio sees as disappointing in videogames, as their culture at large suffers the same poor representation—”either it is missing or is represented in a wrongful stereotypical cringe-worthy way.” This is something else that Light Studio is hoping to do better with Wojdan.

The game follows an 11-year-old boy called Jawad who is suffering from an illness for which he is seeking a cure. That serves as the game’s driving force as Jawad, his father, and his sister all set out from their small village to hopefully find a doctor in the city that can save his life. The whole game, including its characters, plot, and setting, is inspired by the people and environment that surrounds the members of Light Studio.

“It is a story set in this modern age that follows an Arabic Muslim family in an Arabic Muslim society,” they said. “The women in the game wear Hijab when they are out and about, the men might wear Thobe (traditional Arab clothing), and there might be a glimpse of a mosque in the backgrounds.” However, to that last detail, Light Studio added that they don’t intend to make the game heavy with religious themes as they want it to be accessible and relatable to as many people as possible, no matter what they believe in.

“But we also want people to understand our culture from our point of view instead of the stereotypical picture of us that is depicted in the media,” Aldubaisi said. At the moment, Wojdan is up on Indiegogo where the team is looking to raise funds to make the full game. You can secure yourself a copy of the final game for just $5.

You can support Wojdan on Indiegogo and visit Light Studio’s website for more info.

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Practice for the impending apocalypse with The Wild Eight

If 2016 has been an utter trash heap for you, as it has for so many, you may have fantasized at times about striking out to build a new life away from all this terrible bullshit. It can be hard to care about games when the real world is falling apart at the seams. But if you’re looking to get away, an upcoming game is on the horizon that may help ready you for that long awaited escape. The Wild Eight, due out this fall for PC, PS4, and Xbox One, is a Northern survival game set in a procedurally generated winter wasteland.

we’ll see how long you last

The team behind The Wild Eight, Eight Points, is based in Yakutia, Sakha Republic, the coldest place in the Northern hemisphere. Temperatures in the winter are regularly below—31 degrees fahrenheit. So you better believe that they know what they’re saying when they made the two main mechanics for survival food and body temperature. Games may not be able to adequately prepare your body for the shock of temperatures so cold, but you may learn a thing or two about managing your food supplies; a skill that will be invaluable when you finally get up the courage to say goodbye to this dumpster fire we call civilization.

To illustrate what The Wild Eight is all about and to show off how cold it really looks, Eight Points recently released the first footage of the game in action. Watch it below.

You may be tempted to head into the snowy white void on your own, but The Wild Eight is built primarily as a cooperative experience. The value of cooperation in a survival situation is quickly evident when looking at the number of tasks that need to be done. You’ll find it’s pretty hard to defend your food supply, gather food, keep a fire going, keep enough wood for the fire handy, and repair damaged tools all in the same day. Even singular tasks can be much easier with a team working together.

In the game, as in life, the people you may find yourself within the wild may be friends you took with you, or random people you happen to find. The Wild Eight sets out to be as unforgiving as a winter night in Yakutia. Without food you will starve. Without fire you will freeze. Without someone to watch your back, you may be mauled to death by a wild boar. So we’ll see how long you last.

You can learn more about The Wild Eight here.

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Dating sims don’t get much more awkward than One Night Stand

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One Night Stand (Windows, Mac, Linux)
BY KINMOKU

What did you do last night? This is the big question that visual novel One Night Standopens up with. And for your first couple playthroughs you’ll probably pursue the answer to it. You know that you slept with the girl you woke up next to, that you abandoned your friend Gary after the first drink, and that you have a terrible hangover. The rest you have to uncover by investigating the debris around the bedroom: a used condom, a flyer, your clothes. You’ll also enter conversation with the girl, awkward as you’d expect given that you can’t even remember her name, trying to find out who she is and how you met. But after a while you should find that you don’t care for the answer to the initial mystery. Instead, you are drawn to finding out more about her past, her interests, seeing if this night of debauchery has a happy ending. It does, but you’ll probably need to get kicked out a couple of times for saying the wrong thing first.

Perfect for: Teens, single people, romantics

Playtime: 2 hours

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