Following on from Helana, here’s my take on the Rezzed exhibition we attended in Brighton. I’m going to describe the atmosphere of the event. The games I played and of course, the players!
Hopefuly you’ve seen Helana’s post on our trip to Rezzed. If not check, it out: http://thebuttonexperiment.com/Blog/?p=359
I’m writing this on the train from London to Leamington, I must say the view from this studio is beautiful…I only wish the Wifi was working 
There were a lot of good games at the show, here are just some of my favourites.
Hotline miami
This has to be my fav game from Rezzed. Hotline Miami is a top down hit man game.
The art style is garish, vulgar and really stands out. Like a mix between retro games and contemporary art. The artist that made the assets knows their stuff and is not afraid to do it. I doff my hat.
The gameplay its self is the kind i love, quick fire and rapid with quick respawns.
It is violent, brutal and addictive.
The sections in between missions are creepy yet the art style makes in interesting in a cool way.
After playing this game I’m sold on it, i’ll definitely be picking up a copy once its available.
It would be easy to compare Hotline Miami to GTA Vice City however I think that would be doing the game a dis-service, I dare say its more than that.
Some people have compared it to Dreamweb, a game from time ago published by empire, it certainly feels more like that game and thats a good thing.
I think its one of those games thats going to do very well through word of mouth. It was certainly the talk of the show.
Here’s a link to the site, dont let that trailer put you off!
Proteus
I had seen images from this game before the show, it was my first time playing it. Proteus is not really a game in the strictest sense, it has no rules, no objectives and no direct rewards.
Its a first person game in which you, the player, simply explore an island.
The art style is beautiful, its very retro in a cool way. The creators have embedded a sense of life into the experience by having elements of the island come to life. Day turns to night and turns back to day. The sun and moon rise and set. The wind picks up. Cloud form and disappear in a beautifully rendered way.
As I wondered the island I enjoyed the sense of loneliness and peace it creates.
It manages to keep your attention by bringing new elements to life, such as a hopping creature or a flapping bird, just before you think you’ve seen everything.
I was lucky enough to meet the creator Ed Key last night in London. I was told he was a charming chap, I wasn’t disappointed and ended up having a good chat with him. He pointed me towards a GDC talk by the guy that created QWOP which i must check out. It may give me a better understanding of the philosophy behind Proteus.
I must say, if i had developed this game I wouldn’t be able to resist adding a purpose, goals or rewards to the game. However I honestly respect Ed’s drive and direction and am looking forward to coming back to Proteus.
Diminishing Circles
Given my fascination with abstract art, this game had me. The player must facilitate the creation of a series of colours concentric circles as ta voiceover in the background creates a narrative to the experience. The art reminded me of the by Kenneth Noland who was an abstract artist. Colours fascinate me. Colours clearly fascinate the creator of this game, the execution in this game had love and attention paid to it. The circles were rendered with soft alpha’d edges, the colours complemented each other and movement was super smooth.
The game is played through the exploration with the mouse. It had me.
Guacamelee
Guacalmelee is a side on brawler/platformer with a twist in that you can cross over into a mirror image dimension.
The execution of the art was top notch, it has a vector art quaity with strong colour schemes, strong character design and very strong animation poses. The particle effects were also well executed which i know from experience is not easy to achieve.
Whilst the gameplay was solid it does feel like it could do with better execution, i can’t fault it however there are a lot of platform games out there. I think the execution needs to be excellent to stand out to players.
The Players
The whole purpose of our trip was to meet games players. We got to see first hand how players engaged with The Cat that Got the Milk, see how they played it, talk to them and learn from the whole experience. Hopefully this process will make us better games makers.
Boy did we learn a lot. We did play test our game before releasing. Our aim was always to give players 10-15 minutes of quality time. Time is precious in a world full of things to explore. By play testing the game before release we balanced the game so the majority of people would finish the game within 15 minutes. They could then move on lives, hopefully feeling slightly more enriched
Seeing people play the game it was clear we nailed it on accessibility and duration. It was also cool to see the majority of players completing the game to be rewarded with the endtro and a debrief on how well they did. It was great to see the diversity of players playing the game. We didn’t set out to appeal to a certain type of person, we set out to make a game that was fun, accessible and offered quality time.
However we did find a couple of bugs as we saw people play. Killing bugs will be critical in our next release – The Button Affair. We’re serious about giving players quality time, we simply can’t let bugs get in the way of that.
From watching, meeting and talking to players we learnt so much. Far more than i will write up here. We’ve got a lot of work to do in order to reach our goal of providing top quality entertainment for players to enjoy, sharing the message and engaging with players to create exciting new experiences. We want players to feel confident that when they see a game we make, they know they’re going to get some quality time.
It may be tough, but we’re up for it and having been to Rezzed 2012 we’re energised.
There lots more cool stuff happening right now in our world, check back with us soon for more updates on whats going down.
In a bit!
Special thanks goes to
I must say a special thanks to David Hayward (@nachimir) for curating The Cat that Got the Milk at Rezzed. We were glad to meet him at the show and shake his hand. He’s a very smart guy with a real passion for games. He’s also working on some cool real world stuff which he wants to share with the world soon, Follow him on twitter if you’re not already.
