Blogs - Erwaitin

First at all, Kingdom Rush Frontiers is a challenging, funny, and well balanced game so improving it is not an easy task. I'm assuming that you're asking about improvements, not adding content (if you like the game, longer campaign and more heroes can be an improvement).

- Objectifying: when player faces a map where he/she has been defeated, the player needs a way to get better. Why have I lost? Which ones were my errors? How can I avoid repeating them? One of the best ways of doing it is objectifying the player performance or what exactly happened during the round.

E.g. you lose on a map and a screen let you see how much damaged have you done, which type of enemies healed themselves, which ones went through your defenses... a game that has a great (but not perfect) system to do this is League of Legends. After a match ends, you can see some statistics that let you know accurately what happened.

Creating this kind of system let the players now about his/her performance and creates a simple way to improve.

- Perceived imbalance: one of the lateral problems that are related to the lack of objectifying is the perceived imbalance. Imagine this: you try the game for the first time, you have your first hero (Alric) and after some rounds you have some coins to spend. You read carefully every ability because you now that coins are really hard to get and you find this: "Sand Warriors III: summons three sand warriors with 140 life each" Is easy to think "Ehhh... 3 warriors? 140 hp each? My hero has 300 hp! That's the best ability ever!!!!"

Of course a game has to be balanced (KRF is well balanced) but it has to show it or the perceived imbalance is going to push the players to the get the ability/object as if that was the last thing that could they ever make in their lifes. Fighting the perceived imbalance is not an easy task but some of the main techniques, aside from objectifying, are informing the player about alternatives or rewarding the player for choosing different alternatives.

- Making spending money an attractive task: I love games and spending money on them is something I like, but for doing this I need to know what I'm buying. KRF has a problem here: the main way of spending money is buying heroes, but I don't know what exactly I'm buying. How can Ironhide Game Studios make this task more attractive? Showing me the heroes. A small video, some screenshots of the abilities... whatever it is that makes my hype grow!

- Minor improvements: some minor details can improve the game easily:

1. How exactly does the player win stars? (15 or more life points at the end means 3 stars, 10 or more life points at the end means 2 stars...)
2. Health bars with different colors for friendly units and enemy units, this way the player can see if he/she is winning or losing the battle easily.
3. Hero radius of action. Showing the limits of the heroes activation range can make it easier to place them.

Hope that was what you're searching for with your question.

Why am I closing the blog? Because Moddb has improved a lot its features and now almost every mod who deserves it got an space on the main page and this way this blog will lack of new and quality content. Anyway, this page isn't a good place to make a blog, and is harder to get information and connection to other bloggers.

Moreover, I'm making my own maps and I'm working hard so I'll be back soon with many other things. See u all!

After the exams I'm here again.

Since last time I posted you should have enjoyed Curse the egiptian themed mod for HL2 where you can see many fresh things like awesome graphics (specially textures), moving cloudy sky (anyone have ever seen it on Source?), great ambientation (nice use of color correction and lighting) and some tricky puzzles that let you change the path to get to the final. If its developer can get out new chapters fast and put harder enemies in the next chapters, you're in front of a masterpiece of modding.

Leviathan has been released too. I haven't played it yet but I'll do and you will have its review, let me know if you have played. Another nice looking mod is Half Life 2: Calamity, developed by just one boy (Spas12), great and coherent work fromo the new mapper of the awaited mod City 17: Episode 1.

More here in a few days!!!!!

Wazzup?

I got exams until july so I haven't got time to make new posts but I can tell you what's coming after the exams:

- Fistful of Frags in depth review.
- New kind of posts: what the reader wants. Any suggestion you make will be discussed here, we can talk about, whathever you want, whatever you need,...
- Special following of new Left 4 Dead user created content.
- And, of course, my favourite section: what's coming soon? that will keep its way.

Thank you for your patience!!

Hello everybody. First at all we should check out last month's updates from this thread, here it's:

Doom 3 mod Zombie Slayer has been fully released during the last days. Users rating is 9+ and if you liked Doom 3 graphic style and simple games like Dragon's Lair you should try it, if you got 1 GB of RAM that is the minimun amount needed to play this mod. You can download the soundtrack too.

The awesome UT3 mod The Ball got a new playable chapter, Whispers in the Dark keep it development and is looking for a music creator and we got new screenshots. At last, the fresh Bug Company is getting its final phase, if you're interested on game development or just in this mod you should check their development blog.

If we continue with more mods that should be realeased soon we will find Leviathan, a UT3 third person shooter mod where 17 students are trying to make you shout while you fly to feed your Leviathan Mothership and it devours buildings and this kind of things :)

Do you love HL2? Do you look for new cotent everyday on Internet? Don't cry anyomre! During this month Half Life 2: Calamity will be released! Perhaps you will not get lots of new content, but what the hell, it seems that we will get more good HL2 maps!

From a little one to a huge one: WIP-Reykjavik-Iceland-GTS mod for Fallout 3 with awesome looking new weapons, scenaries, quests,... on 1th June we will see if this incredible game will have and incredible modification but it really seems to. And you will be companied by reptils!

Enough for now, next month I-ll bring you any updates on this mods and new ones! Enjoy!

Wazzup!

Here you got the last review about HL2 singleplayer horror mods, and it comes with Combine Destiny, a mod where you will be a Combine soldier trying to recapture Installation 34, a Combine facility taken by humans and zombies.

The story doesn´t matter at all, but the game guide you throw messages on the screen simulating that you got communication with your Combine mates. Anyway, the game seems to be made with no connection between maps, that could be a bad idea, but the great work made in other areas make it a great mod.

The best part of this mod is the level design. You got 4 or 5 hours plenty of battles, enemies and well constructed levels wehere you will see a lot of different atmospheres and situations. You got some simple puzzles and almost no new conten from what you´ve seen in HL2. Perhaps this is the worst part of this and nearly every horror mod for HL2: the lack of new content.

If you try to scare the player you cannot attack me with headcrabs I defeated them all on HL2!!! This kind of specific mods needs new enemies perhaps a new zombie mutation, perhaps new Combines,... and new ways to attack the player as scaping from a site that will explode or keeping a zone for a while(look at Dear Esther for this).

On the other hand, here you got good levels to keep fighting for hours so, if you liked HL2, you will enjoy this mod.

Rating: 8/10

+++ Level design. Long. You´re a Combine!

--- Lack of new content.

Dear Esther (Source EP1 engine) is one of the first places where videogames meet art. You only need to know spoken english (no subtitles) and one hour of free time.

Rating: 9/10 (When they put on subtitles they'll get 10/10)

+++ Story. Ambient. Graphics. Fresh idea. Great photography. Set-up job. Rythm.

--- Some technical issues. No subtitles.

If you only like shots and hardcore gaming, don't try this mod. You'll not get any shot here, there's no enemies, well that's questionable, no physicals enemies ;-) and perhaps we can't name this as a game, instead we must name it as its authors do: interactive story.

Once you're inside this mod, a great actor's voice will guide you while the awesome ambientation will surround you. Fog is where it should be, equal to lights (what about less ambient lighting and a bit more of moon-light?). The job made on the displacements is really good and serves for the same objective: create the ambient.

You'll find some technical problems: the mod lacks player clipping, a better way to guide the player, and some counter to let better flashlight effects, but it's playable (and enjoyable too) this way. There's no subtitles but you got three optiones here: learn english (slow but good for your job and life), wait until the team publish the new subtitled version (faster but still slow) or go here download the scrcipt and play the game with it at your side (scrooge but the fastest way).

If you like good stories you must play this mod. If you like fresh ideas and love Source engine you muts play this mod. If you have never thought that videogames could got awesome stories or that videogames are not art, play this mod. If you've never played a videogame, this is a good option to begin to.

HMS Defiance 2 is the second part (first one in story terms) of a little mod called HMS Defiance. In the mod I’m going (HMS2) to review you will found Source Orange Box technology during a story driven by some characters, notes and books.

First at all, you must know that this is a little mod. You can play it fully for 1 or 2 hours, so don’t expect long stories or battles. I’m not going to tell you the story, but I can say that, at least, the mod got a story and it’s enough for it purposes. The best fail here is that the mod have no subtitles so if you don’t speak English or at least understand it listening you will lost a great part of this mod.

About the design, almost every aspect is correct: you got variety except if we talk about weaponry, you got different ambient and some tricks that try to make you jump and shout. The mod got a simple cycle that is easy to understand and some work on level design that makes the mod gain some points. About difficulty, the game is really harder on the first part and easier while you advance… curious.

The graphics are one of the main part of this mod. First, there’re some really nice textures, varied and can pass on information about the ambient, nice work there. On the other hand, the models are simply bad: crispy, extremely low-poly and without wit. Characters are not an exception here: humans characters (friends or enemies) simply got something metallic on the head, at least, confusing and in most cases somewhat ridiculous. Their textures are well worked. About lighting you will notice HDR lighting (too exaggerated in most cases) but it got personality and generally is correct.

If you got a free afternoon on a rainy Sunday you can play this mod. If you have played a lot of games and you’re bored you can play this mod, it takes only two hours long, and it’s correct.

Rating: 5/10

+++ Story. Textures. Variety (environment).
--- Models. Lack of variety (weaponry). Difficulty not balanced.

I'm going to tell you short reviews about many of the released and scariest mods for HL2. Ravenholm is the first one of them.

Released on September 2007, Ravenholm continues the story about the scariest city of HL2 where you found complex maps, a crazy character and new ways of killing zombies, mutants, and this kind of "people". It's supposed that Ravenholm recreates and continues what happens on the fear city of HL2 and it get it, but not fully, in return, it got many other interesting things.

When you begin playing Ravenholm the first thing that you will focus is the language. Characters speech on checz(English subtitled) and it's cool due to HL2 and this mod ambientation on East Europe. Furthermore, the mod got some nice in-game cinematics that will tell you the story.

One of the main errors about recreating the first Ravenholm city was the horizontally level design. One of the best things that you were able to enjoy in the HL2 Ravenholm was the complexity behind all levels, thins streets and high buildings were surrounding you so you had the impression of no-scape and danger could be in front, behind or above you. Ravenholm mod got wide and linear levels, you know were the danger will be before seeing it and, moreover, you can surround the enemies, this move the development team to do things like a no-corner-whitout-headcrab campaign.

In the other hand, Ravenholm mod got fantastic puzzles in many levels. Some of them are physics-based puzzles and a few are really complex (don't shoot the wood boxes!) so you get new challenges every time 'Loading...' sign appears.

About the artistic part, graphics are good (first Source engine, not EP2). Many of the textures have work behind them but again the wide and large levels bind the player to lose the attention, getting some really plane images. It would be awesome (and scarier) to have more music while you play.

If you liked Ravenholm you can try this mod. If you liked HL2 you should play this mod. If you preferred puzzles on HL2 instead of being attacked by zombies then you MUST play this mod. If you finally enjoy this mod, don't forget to play its sequel Eye of the Storm.<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml> </xml>

RATING: 7

+++ Puzzles. Cinematics. Story. Long.

--- Some level's design make them not-so scary ones. Music?

Hi all!

This post continues the last one about the mods coming soon here, at Moddb.com:

Off Limits - This Source mod will try to get fun from one of the hardest parts on videogames right now: player cooperation. Two teams will combat to get spawn points, more spawn points you get, more health will your Juggernaut have. Juggernauts are truly one of the distinct points of this mod, they will have up to 800 Hp and can definitely get the power to your team. Some other things like X-ray vision throw walls, force fields and a truly worked levels will introduce one of the heavy-weighted mods this year.

The Ball - Winner of the ModDB Best Singleplayer Mod of 2008 award, The Ball introduces a puzzle-based game with some action into the UT3 engine. Physics will have a large portion of the game develop, while you keep moving your ball from one room to another in the classical adventure like scenarios. Instead of reading, try it here.

Ok, thats all for now. Next month I will told you any news about this and other mods. Enjoy!