Jury @ Supinfogame
For the last 2 years, I’m invited at the game design and project management school in Valenciennes, Supinfogame. I’m invited to attend the end of the year jury where students who are graduating present their prototype to a board of game industry professionnals. To give a little bit of context, each of the student has to present a game idea in their first year. At the start of the 2nd year, 5 to 6 of the ideas are selected to be projects developed for a total of 9 months. You can see some of the old projects here.
Students are in groups and can ask for external help (artists, programmers). Not to mention that they have no fund to do so (looks like a real indie studio). When getting external help, they are often working with professionnals who have some spare time, amateurs or team up with other, more dedicated, schools.
As an ex-student from the Supinfogame (I graduated 8 years ago, oooh growing very old), I’m amazed to see the number of growing and known people attending this jury. This is partly due to the increasing quality of projects presented. This year I’ve been really amazed by the quality of productions. Some concepts were very innovative and some of them were really more than prototypes, near finalized products.
Students presented us 6 prototypes: “Le marionnettiste” (The Puppeteer), “When Gods Play”, “Contre-Jour”, “Blork”, “The Uncanny Fish Hunt” and finally “Big Bang”.
LE MARIONNETTISTE
“Le Marionnettiste” is a Nintendo Wii student prototype (currently running on PC using a Wiimote).
In “Le Marionnettiste”, you have the opportunity to embody a puppeteer soul, trapped in a puppet. The magic strings won’t let your soul go to heaven, so you have to find a way to take back your freedom. Using the Wiimote, you’ll have to mimicry a puppeteer to move your avatar, just like if the strings were directly bound to your Wiimote.
This concept provides a brand new way to play and to approach the platform/reflection games. Using the Wiimote, you will become the master of your puppet, your tool. But don’t forget the strings; they could get caught in the mechanisms. Be smart and make them your main strength. This new challenge is unique, a “two levels of reflection”, only in “Le Marionnettiste”.
This 9 months’ project has been realized by 6 students, using Unity engine.
My 2 cents: definitely great production values with loads of levels and interessting level designs (they know how to work with constraints). Overall a good gameplay system and a unique approach to controlling an avatar. However the approach has some drawbacks: the game becomes boring after 5 minutes as the player mostly manages the camera instead of actually playing (they split the camera movement from the avatar movement). However from what i’ve seen so far, this prototype is definitely the best from a production value standpoint.
You can download the game on the official website: http://www.wix.com/Le_Marionnettiste/Le_Marionnettiste
WHEN GODS PLAY
W.G.P. is a real time strategy game focusing on strategy by the terrain. You do not control unit, you only influence them by changing the terrain.
I’m sorry for this one, not a lot of screenshots to show as the website is actually down.
However here’s my feelings about it: obviously the most ambitious project of all. WGP mixes RTS, Terraforming and MMO. In fact it reminds me of the new Ubisoft project’s Dust. There is a market to take there for sure but obviously for a reason too. Actually the prototype showed just the early potential of the idea and it was not very clear why they chose to have so much features in the project instead of focusing on 1 or 2 and execute them well. For instance they had problems of path finding, effects, behaviors and general understanding of the game flow.
Overall I have a feeling that this project was just too big for the team (especially with no pro programmers) and I still think that with a simpler game (turn by turn for instance) they would have one of the most promising prototype of this year. At least they had the guts to dive into something very very challenging.
A cursed a little boy is sentenced to guide an imaginary shadow on the ground. He mustn’t expose it entirely to the light, otherwise he will die. Contre-Jour is a imaginative puzzle game taking advantage the light / dark contrast.
What do I think? Honestly one of the best game to play, 5 minutes to get the controls and you are in the game and have some serious fun. They implemented a neat dual stick control (very underused nowadays) and designed very interessting puzzles with moving elements and, of course, lights. From a graphic point of view it has a nice and refreshing art style.
My only concern is about the shadow itself, which is the core mechanic of the game as it acts as the lifebar of the player. Actually to lose the game, you have to put the shadow in full light. This means the tiniest part of shadow can always save your ass and sometimes it is very hard to notice them. It creates some very unintuitive feedback where you can or cannot go. It would have been better to chose for a more manichean choice and not stick in the middle like they did as it confuses the player more than it creates interessting gameplay.
In a nutshell, Big Bang is a universe creator “sandbox” game where you create planets and systems by combining atoms together (Based on the theory of Cords) (Micro level). At a macro level, you can influence your planets gravity. Your goal? Keep the system alive as long as possible (represented by the smoke).
My thoughts? Definitely an innovative prototype, great ideas, it almost looks like a Serious Game to me (CNRS). Despite its niche approach, Big Bang has a wide appeal and is in complete synch with contemplative experience you can find in Flower, Spore or the Sims. If I had time, I could have spent hours, hypnotically in front of my system. Definitely a great and fascinating experience.
The issues? A very difficult cord phase (where you shape atoms) which is almost not playable and ruins completely this specific part (despite a very good idea). The implementation of the puzzle system (where you combine atoms) is not very intuitive and lacks feedback. Finally, lack of objectives and tutorial also create a very frustrating first experience. However Big Bang is, in my point of view, definitely worth pursuing as it opened my eyes on a very interessting way of gaming with macro objects.
A gameplay video can be watched here: http://www.blork-thegame.com/images/test.wmv
Plunged into a crazy and quirky world, Blörk invites you to embody a Klörx, a tricky alien species, that enjoys kidnapping human sleepwalkers while they’re asleep. Take part in the most famous galactic championship, the Blörk, and become its greatest star! Every stage is a chance to cumulate more fans across the universe to access new levels.
In Blörk, you don’t control the sleepwalkers but the world they evolve in. Explore cosmic environments, urban universes and a lot more all along the trip to celebrity!
My POV? Interesting 2D auto-scrolling platformer with a tilt controls (and yes, it looks like Rolando because it’s a tilt platformer). It is the only project running on the target device (where all the other projects are on consoles but aren’t running on consoles) and features 19 levels. The game is 90% finished. However the game could be 100% with a better polished animations and better handling of collisions.
Also, an important thing, the game is free and can be downloaded on iTunes here.
The Uncanny Fish Hunt is a weird game, a mix between an adventure game (Machinarium meets Moby Dick) and action phases reminiscent of a casual game (Diner Dash). It has definitely a great look and a nice “French” touch (not pejorative).
Definitely The Uncanny Fish Hunt is one of my favorite project as it has a true soul! However when we take a closer look at the prototype we can see that the gameplay is not thhat good yet and must be improved in order to be both entertaining and keep the player interessted in the game for more than 20 minutes. In the current prototype, the gameplay on the fish boat is a collection of mini games which can be very repetitive after a few times and the boss fight are definitely to be polished.
Overall the quality of projects presented this year was way above what I saw over the last years at Supinfogame and behind my critics, I was quite impressed by all the prototypes, so as closing words, gratz to all students and I’m eager to see what students will create next year!
Sweet, nice to see what other schools are doing
Bien résumé tout ça