Fishing Cactus development blog » Game Design

Game Jam Belgium 2011

laurent.grumiaux — Tue, 12 Apr 2011 09:13:28 +0000

Another 48h GAME JAM in Belgium!

For all of you artists and programmers who missed the Global Game Jam in Antwerp end of January, we’ve got great news!!

C-MINE the new site in Genk with ambitions to promote the creative industry is offering their under-construction location in Genk for the next Belgian Jam!

When? Very soon! 6-7-8 th of MAY
The Game Jam starts at 17h00 on Friday and end on Sunday at 17h00.
This time we’ve even got some real prizes to win!

Win a UNITY3D iphone or android indy license!
Interested? Register here!

Stay tuned… More info coming soon!

Call for speakers…
Are you a game industry expert or do you think you have something interesting to say to the Belgian gaming community?
You might be the person we are looking for to motivate our participants at the start of the event on friday…contact them

Safety Measures, how to learn about Safety and Security in a Serious game

laurent.grumiaux — Mon, 28 Feb 2011 17:48:09 +0000

Hi There,

We have this crazy idea that learning about your safety and the of the ones who surround you on your place of work should be fun.

What we don’t like:

- 2 hour video on VHS from the 80′s with an awful voice telling you what to do when the building is on fire

- Super 8 hour boring traning were you have to listen to the same guy from 10 years ago with his powerpoint 98 slides

- Text Quizzes that test your safety skills and give your good grades because you studied well

What we Love

-Video Games

-Natural interfaces (Kinect, PS Move, sound recognition)…

-Serious games that use the latest technology to make your life safer

-Active experience in which you play with your friends, gain points, get better

-A game in which you are the center of the experience, a place where you can make mistake and see the result of them

That’s why we are working on Safety Measures, the most Unique Security and safety Serious game, letting you play with your colleagues to make your workplace safer whilst having fun doing it.

We are looking for industrial partners who want to join the adventure and be the first in the world to integrate the most innovative Safety Serious game to date.

Are you the one? Drop us an email: contact@fishingcactus.com

Shift Extended lands on EU & US PSN stores

Bruno Urbain — Thu, 20 Jan 2011 13:20:26 +0000

Shift Extended, a brand new version tailored for the minis and, of course, based on the successful Shift series, is now available on both EU and US PSN stores (available on both PSP and PS3 in the minis). It is available for 3.99$ / 3.99€.

It features unique set of levels (160 in total) as well as never seen game mechanics in the Shift series. If you don’t have an iPhone, are addicted to platform games and you have a PS3 or a PSP, this is a must buy!

Zallag, our publisher on this game did a great communication job and posted several trailers around the web. Here is the second one!

Fishing Cactus presents R.O.G.E.R, the first Medical Kinect Serious game

laurent.grumiaux — Thu, 07 Oct 2010 12:09:50 +0000

Together with the support of the Microsoft Innovation Center and a cluster of 4 therapists, we have created a prototype Serious game dedicated to patients who suffer from a lack of logic and organizational skills
(typically post-stroke patients, Alzheimer, hemi-negligent patients,…)

We have been getting a lot of press and attention about this project since we are pretty much the only studio in Belgium and maybe Europe who master the technology to build this game, the reason is that we have used Kinect Technology, a controller less movement recognition camera.

This allows our game to be piloted by any generation, and especially non digital natives who have never used a game controller or keyboard and mouse (very good indeed since most patients with those symptoms fall under this category).

The scenario for this prototype is simple, we have created a photo-realist environment running directly on the X360 composed of a bedroom, bathroom and a dressing. Each room has a certain amount of inventory spaces in which representations of objects are placed.

The therapists can task the patient to do his luggage for a specific destination (the mountains, the sea, a city-trip,…) and can observe how the patient reacts to the environment and the type of objects he gathers in his luggage. It helps the therapists to analyse and observe if patients are disorganized and see where they have lost their common sense and focus on those points in therapy. Of course we create several pertubating elements to make them lose focus (phone ringing, radio and so on).

The game is evolving and the 2 year goal from here is to have a very innovative and collaborative project.

Fighters Uncaged Kinect trailer

Bruno Urbain — Wed, 06 Oct 2010 10:19:05 +0000

Some of you already figured out (check last posts if not) but Fishing Cactus has been quite involved in the development of Fighters Uncaged, a Ubisoft title developed by AMA Studios (Fishing Cactus closely collaborated with the AMA team).

Fighters Uncaged is planned as a launch title for Kinect next November so be prepared for an overwhelming number of posts on the blog as the release date is getting closer.

To talk a little bit about the project, Fighters Uncaged is a street brawling game, its roots deeply in the arcade combat game genre. It isn’t a Street Fighting knock-off as Fighters Uncaged is less Street Fighter and more of the Punch Out type of game. The action is viewed from an over-the-shoulder perspective and main character Simon can punch, kick, elbow, sweep kick, head butt, and a whole lot more. Of course everything is done without a pad thanks to Kinect.

The game features over 70 different moves to perform and has a tactical depth (getting in close or mid-range, far reaching moves…). You don’t have to be a martial art expert to play the game as the game emphasizes all your movements and will make your avatar always look very cool.

Stay tuned for more information about the first Kinect fighting game and watch out for its release next month!

Shift 2 level contest

Bruno Urbain — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 06:42:47 +0000

As some already guessed, Armor Games and Fishing Cactus are bringing Shift 2 to the iPhone, and we need your help. We are looking for users to create and submit levels for ‘Shift 2′ that we can feature in the game.

If we end up featuring your level in Shift 2 (iPhone) you’ll get your full name in the credits as well as a free copy of the game in the app store.

The rules for the contest are as follows:

1. E-mail your level codes to support@fishingcactus.com
2. Make sure you include your full name to be listed in the credits
3. Lastly, submit an e-mail address that is easiest to reach you so the game can be sent to the winners.

Armor Games & Fishing Cactus wishes all contestants the best of luck! To get started, click here. Follow us on Twitter to know in real-time what we think about the levels submitted!

Behind the Level Design of Shift 2

Samuel Languy — Wed, 25 Aug 2010 10:10:30 +0000

Yes, you heard me, that’s what I’m talking about. The Level Design process of Shift 2 levels.

Who knows? We might have something related in developement…

Let’s face it, designing batches of dozen and dozen levels while keeping our beloved player entertained can be tricky. So here are some tips and tricks we use in the making of the levels for our unique platformer (as a reminder created by Anthony Lavelle and Armor Games).

Evolution

While Shift 1 was featuring only 2 kind of level elements (doors and spikes) Shift 2 is featuring brand new elements which greatly improve the level design possibilities, hence, player experience. Let’s have a quick look at those.

Rotators:

This feature is a trigger represented by a 4 direction arrow placed on any simple black or white tile. If the player walks on it, the level rotates in that direction.

It is a very big change that introduces 2 new ways of seeing the level for a player. It also allows the design of much more aerial/platform-oriented levels, in which the player has to gracefully jump back and forth, avoiding deadly spikes while being rotated at each landing. Lot of fun in perspective !

Shift impermeable material:

This level element creates platforms which are not black or white, hence impossible to shift!

Impermeable material disolver:

This bonus goes with the previous, picking it up will transform a non-shiftable material that the designer has preset into a black or white shiftable square.

Customisable door:

We can now set 5 different lengths for the door. Yay! It means that it is possible to think of much cooler dynamic mazes using the doors to block or open path.

Design process

Let’s see what we got now… Design process, or how to use all the elements we talked about in order to create fun, challenging, and varied levels.

Find a base to start with:

It is nearly impossible to think of a Shift 2 level in one shot. Something will most probably go wrong and you’ll find yourself with a level impossible to finish, or really easy to exploit. As it is really difficult to plan out a level straight ahead, it is better off to start with a base. It can be some randomly placed platforms or a simple layout or a theme (such as the aerial level, for instance). Better not place any special elements such as door or rotators yet and keep them for the end.

Iteration:

It is common to almost every design process (be it game or level): Think about what you want to do, do it, test, redo, test, redo so on so forth until you have a satisfying result. The “redo” basically means to implement new elements if you have new ideas while testing, or fix the level (difficulties, impossibility to finish, exploits etc…). If you think you are done do not forget to have your levels tested by another person! At Fishing Cactus we have several designers and most of them will test your level at will. Of course once this step is done, the good thing to do is to playtest them with a completely unfamilliar tester (this is what we do when we externally playtest the game). By the way if you’d like to become a playtester for our games, stay updated we are currently setuping the playtest web form for you to register.

Design tips and tricks

Now here are just some hints on how to spice up a level. Some ideas to compose with, of course there is no special alchemy that works 100% of time.

Foresight:

When you design a level it is important to always foresee what will happen in the game. When you place a new element for any reason, always check if you do not block a previous step of your level. It can save you some time of test! For instance, a door once rotated can easily block a previous path you had setup.

Action repetition:

Get the player to perform the same action over and over for few seconds, like “jump+forward”. Doing so generally introduces a “robot” rhythm and the awareness of the player goes down, a good time to set a trap that will remind the player to stay alert! In a nice and not too frustrating manner of course . But what would be a puzzle/platform game without a whee bit of frustration?

Obvious path:

The obvious path is a way you can set the level to suggest a path to the player with subtlety. An open way with a useless bonus which is in fact a deadly trap is easier to go for the player than analyzing the possible paths if he would shift. Using rotators arrow can also be a nice trick, because of the directional aspect of the element, players are more tempted to follow the direction.

Surprises:

The surprise element is always good to have. In Shift 2 you can create such effects pretty easily as the player never knows what will change in a level when he picks up a key or a dissolver bonus. Example: you can push the player to a “leap of faith” where he has to take a chance jump right towards spikes, but there is a bonus to catch during the fall! It might save him, a door could turn and create a platform right above the spikes. Or not.

Confuse the player:

Using the dissolvers and keys you can literally transform the structure of the level. Now add the rotators and you will confuse the player so well that he will have the impression he is playing a new level.

Variations:

There are various other little ways of creating fun and various level. From real puzzle to pure platform, Shift 2 is really a nice game to develop level on! Do not forget to add some pure fun level (easy to do, but fun theme) to give the player some rest once in a while and you are good to go!

Contest?

You’ll get more information about this one soon enough

AiGameDev Conference 2010: EVE Online Characters

christophe.bernard — Mon, 19 Jul 2010 08:44:45 +0000

UPDATE: post is now under the right author name.

During the AiGameDev Conference 2010 at Paris Claudio Pedica, a researcher at CADIA Labs, Reykjavik University, currently collaborating with CCP Games presented us their new social interaction system in a talk titled Human Territoriality for EVE Online’s Socially Smart Characters.

This was a short preview on how the space stations are going to be populated in the next EVE online expansion.

The main focus of the research conducted by CCP is based on the lack of feedback in games when it comes to interactions. For example if you pass besides a game character, he doesn’t notice you or in worse cases, if you bump into him, the most common reaction is that he won’t even step aside and your character stops dumbly like when facing a wall! Fortunately, not all games react like this. In GTA when you hit someone or pass close to him he steps aside or even says something to you.

What the guys at CCP are trying to do is to recreate an interaction system based on how humans practically cope with interactions and how they react to other people’s physical presence.

In the demos shown we could see the character move close to a group of NPCs; when close enough, the group understands that this character wants to be part of their group so they take a step aside to form a bigger but still homogeneous group.

The “circle” itself is, in this system, the interaction unit; each character and group possesses one and each unit is designed for a particular type of interaction.

1) First there is the personal circle which defines the limit of the body area.

2) The external circle is used for the close social interactions like dialogs or people walking near (also true for groups).

3) An inner circle is also defined by the participants of the group: a circle defines its body and the external circle of it. In another example we saw one participant moving a few steps from his former position and the rest of the group following him to recreate the circle.

I actually don’t play EVE Online at all and I don’t really know what they are planning to do with the new space stations system but having this feature is über-cool and I think it would really improve the experience of the players (at least contributing to a more immersive experience).

Having people walking from one spot to another or joining conversations or even reacting to the players’ presence will surely make us feel more in a real living world. When you think that some games only feature static NPCs, this talk gets even more impressing!

Human Territoriality for EVE Online’s Socially Smart Characters by Claudio Pedica can be downloaded from the AiGameDev website.

Virtual Characters AI at Paris AiGameDev Conference

Andrea Di Stefano — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 13:10:52 +0000

Last week, part of our team had the chance to attend the AI game dev conference in Paris. This world renowned conference is mostly the result of AiGameDev.com Alex and Petra Champandard’s hard work. Big thanks to them then! Everyone on the team that attended the conference will discuss the conference talks in the coming week or so, but let me tell that these covered a very large breadth of topics ranging from high level inspirational design panels to down to the nuts and bolts of making AI characters behave smarter and more interestingly.

Hey, that's us!

On my part, I’ll spend this post writing about the conference keynote that I found to be both interesting and inspirational; this talk by Bruce Blumberg was titled “Intimate Conversations with Interactive Animated Characters”.

Bruce Blumberg’s is the director of the Synthetic Characters Group at MIT Media Laboratory in Cambridge and is in charge of the Synthetic Animal Team at Blue Fang Studios, developers of World of Zoo (from here on, WoZ) on the Wii and PC. More importantly, Blumberg’s been working on virtual pet’s AI for several years now and he is considered one of the world’s leading experts in the field! Also, he showcased an abstract virtual dog made of simple geometric shapes, and I swear that thing behaved like a real dog! Amazing!

Mr.Blumberg’s talk focused on detailing his work on virtual pet’s AI throughout the years on WoZ and on what it means to create a relationship between the player and a virtual pet. What distinguishes a good pet game from a bad one? How is it that for some virtual pets we end up caring about and other we just leave them dying (when we’re not killing them ourselves)?

The presentation showed how iterative his work has been, from über-computer simulations to expo installations and videogames. At one moment, a video showed an audience reacting to a “alpha wolf”, a wolf puppy simulation: the reactions were astonishing, people wooow-ed and aaahhh-ed almost like during an interaction with an actual pet!

So, what are the secret ingredients Mr.Blumberg mentioned?

The need to create a “conversation” between the player and the pet, the two need to understand each other, interpret each other’s behaviors and attitudes.

The player needs to feel that HE is the center of attention, that the virtual pet is dependent on him to survive/learn/evolve! A clear example: when a dog comes to you holding a stick and asking you to throw it, basically the dog is asking “I need you to play my game, otherwise I’ll be bored” (close enough anyway). Thus, thanks to its owner, the dog is happy and the owner is gratified.

Obviously, the pet’s behavior needs to be coherent and pertinent; but more precisely, to put it in Mr.Blumberg’s words, it needs to exhibit attention, engagement, and sentience. Basically, you don’t want a pet that doesn’t acknowledge the player’s role, ignores the player altogether or even acts bored to the player’s input!

I’ll be honest, I had very little time to play World of Zoo but from what I experienced, and despite the game being targeted at a young audience (gameplay is fairly simple), the animal’s behavior were incredibly funny to watch and at no moment I had the impressions to be in front of a “mere” AI. Also, kudos to the wonderful art design (very Wind Waker-y)! All-in-all, it all felt very…natural!

Finally, let me add that Bruce Blumberg is an incredibly talented speaker (like all the other American speakers at the conference, that’s an odd pattern!) who managed to entertain and impress throughout his talk! I hope I’ll have the chance to attend another one of his lectures.

That’s it! Here’s hoping for a chance to work on something involving virtual pets one day, as I believe that they can make for very compelling games or at least, turn any game-world into a far more exciting place to be!

Roll Out Featured on Pocketgamer.co.uk

laurent.grumiaux — Thu, 27 May 2010 06:31:31 +0000

We are pleased to annouce that Roll Out

( One of our latest games developed with Artik Entertainment)

has been featured on the Mobile gaming specialists website Pocket Gamer.

To see the Article visit:

http://www.pocketgamer.co.uk/r/iPhone/Roll+Out/news.asp?c=20957