Bandango
07-15-2009, 11:24 AM
http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/Back-againfrm.jpg
The Experimental Gameplay Project: An Unexperimental Shooter Roundup
The Experimental Gameplay Project (http://experimentalgameplay.com) was originally an exercise cooked up by four students as a way to conceptualize and prototype as many new games as possible, in as short a time as possible. According to their website, the rules were:
1. Each game must be made in less than seven days,
2. Each game must be made by exactly one person,
3. Each game must be based around a common theme i.e. “gravity”, “vegetation”, “swarms”, etc.
Though the initial project eventually folded, its lessons guided the young developer’s into their careers in the games industry. Kyle Gabbler co-created The World of Goo. Kyle Gray came up with Henry Hatsworth. Petri Purho was the man behind Crayon Physics. Allan Blomquist helped port World of Goo to the Wii and Shalin Shodhan has some pretty heady stuff on his blog. Together these five men recently revived the Experimental Gameplay Project and have just released their first crop of new games. This month’s theme was the ‘Unexperimental Shooter,’ but don’t let this misnomer fool you, these shooters are anything but.
So, as a purveyor of free and interesting video games, and as one who evaluates said media, I have taken it upon myself to pervert the friendly nature of this Gameplay Project. For the duration of this article, the project is now a contest, and the prize is my worthless praise. Five games were released; a countdown from worst to best only seems appropriate. Without further ado…
The Experimental Gameplay Showdown
5http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/eggWormTitle.jpg
By far the most experimental of the unexperimental shooters, this shooter has no shooting in it. Unfortunately, that’s because Kyle Gabler didn’t have time to finish it. Inspired by Karl Sim’s evolution simulations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0OHycypSG8), the bad guys in this game were supposed to live, die, and breed in opposition to you, presumably with the fittest enemies emerging the longer you played. That would have been awesome. But all that Kyle made was an evolution simulator of his own. There is no game here, just a ‘fish tank,’ as he calls it. I don’t blame him for not finishing; I would imagine that simulating evolution is fairly complicated on its own.
Download here-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/newgames/EggWormGenerator.zip
4 http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/ProtoShooter.jpg
Proto Shooter was the most conventional offering, so perhaps as an unexperimental shooter it succeeds. A scant few diversions set this shmup apart from any other. For one, the ship is controlled by the mouse instead of the keyboard, so the player must contend with a slight lag. The mouse pointer will reach its destination before the ship does. There’s also bullet time, which is nothing to write home about. It reminds me of playing hectic shooters on an emulator. When the screen would fill with bad guys and bullets, the frame rate would drop and the game would slow down, allowing me to dodge and attack at my leisure. Here, that slowdown is a tool at your disposal. All in all I was generally unimpressed, probably because I kept dieing.
Download here-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/newgames/ProtoShooter.exe
3 http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/post_it_header.jpg
Post I.T. Shooter is the dumb blonde of the group. It’s hot, but there’s not much to it. This elementary shooter would hardly be noteworthy if not for its unique visuals. Your ship moves like a broken tugboat. The enemies are brain dead. The first minute is no different from the tenth. This game beats out Proto Shooter for one reason only, graphical design. Watching video game characters move effortlessly across the real world medium of a wall of post-it notes is surprisingly satisfying, and the explosions of the downed enemies are oddly spectacular.
Download here-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/newgames/post_it.zip
2 http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/Frobot-Title.jpg
Frobot is a slick robotron clone cast in primary colors. Here’s the twist: instead of simply killing enemies, you convert them into friendly disco-ers. This dance floor shooter quickly becomes a game of strategy. Instead of blindly firing into oncoming groups of bad guys, I began seeking out my targets and angling my shots to minimize friendly casualties. The more disco partners you save, the more joyous the disco celebration at the end of the round. As you perform combos and convert evil squares into hip dancing cats, your frobot’s power level increases. Each level grants the frobot different abilities, such as added speed, splash damage, etc. Besides a few hiccups with hit detection, the game works just fine. It’s fun, stylish, and the conversion mechanic is a novel take on the genre.
Download here-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/newgames/Frobot.exe
1 http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/Bunny-Blaster1.jpg
A physics game, an anti-game, stress relief: Bunny Blaster makes me smile, and I don’t really understand why. When I first booted it up, I shot some Bunnies. They multiplied, and I said to myself, ‘This is stupid.’ And then I shot more bunnies, and more bunnies appeared. It railed against my gamer conditioning. I shot at a bad guy, but only increased their number by doing so. And then I shot more and the camera zoomed out. And then I took out my shotgun and shot more and more and more. Then there were pastel houses. And I shot more and more and more. Finally I took out the happy bombs and laid ten across the screen. Bunnies exploded in reverse up through the air in a bizarre floppy-eared climax that forced a big dumb smile on my face, one that grew as they cascaded slowly back down my screen. And then the game was over; I had reached the goal and created a thousand bunnies. I played it twenty times over and grinned every time. Two dumb thumbs up from me.
Download here-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/newgames/ShootTheBunnies.exe
So there you have it. Bunny Blaster wins. Shalin Shodhan is victorious. Be sure to keep your eye on this site in the future. New free games every month can’t be a bad thing.
The Experimental Gameplay Project is:
-cool.
The Experimental Gameplay Project-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/
The Experimental Gameplay Project: An Unexperimental Shooter Roundup
The Experimental Gameplay Project (http://experimentalgameplay.com) was originally an exercise cooked up by four students as a way to conceptualize and prototype as many new games as possible, in as short a time as possible. According to their website, the rules were:
1. Each game must be made in less than seven days,
2. Each game must be made by exactly one person,
3. Each game must be based around a common theme i.e. “gravity”, “vegetation”, “swarms”, etc.
Though the initial project eventually folded, its lessons guided the young developer’s into their careers in the games industry. Kyle Gabbler co-created The World of Goo. Kyle Gray came up with Henry Hatsworth. Petri Purho was the man behind Crayon Physics. Allan Blomquist helped port World of Goo to the Wii and Shalin Shodhan has some pretty heady stuff on his blog. Together these five men recently revived the Experimental Gameplay Project and have just released their first crop of new games. This month’s theme was the ‘Unexperimental Shooter,’ but don’t let this misnomer fool you, these shooters are anything but.
So, as a purveyor of free and interesting video games, and as one who evaluates said media, I have taken it upon myself to pervert the friendly nature of this Gameplay Project. For the duration of this article, the project is now a contest, and the prize is my worthless praise. Five games were released; a countdown from worst to best only seems appropriate. Without further ado…
The Experimental Gameplay Showdown
5http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/eggWormTitle.jpg
By far the most experimental of the unexperimental shooters, this shooter has no shooting in it. Unfortunately, that’s because Kyle Gabler didn’t have time to finish it. Inspired by Karl Sim’s evolution simulations (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F0OHycypSG8), the bad guys in this game were supposed to live, die, and breed in opposition to you, presumably with the fittest enemies emerging the longer you played. That would have been awesome. But all that Kyle made was an evolution simulator of his own. There is no game here, just a ‘fish tank,’ as he calls it. I don’t blame him for not finishing; I would imagine that simulating evolution is fairly complicated on its own.
Download here-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/newgames/EggWormGenerator.zip
4 http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/ProtoShooter.jpg
Proto Shooter was the most conventional offering, so perhaps as an unexperimental shooter it succeeds. A scant few diversions set this shmup apart from any other. For one, the ship is controlled by the mouse instead of the keyboard, so the player must contend with a slight lag. The mouse pointer will reach its destination before the ship does. There’s also bullet time, which is nothing to write home about. It reminds me of playing hectic shooters on an emulator. When the screen would fill with bad guys and bullets, the frame rate would drop and the game would slow down, allowing me to dodge and attack at my leisure. Here, that slowdown is a tool at your disposal. All in all I was generally unimpressed, probably because I kept dieing.
Download here-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/newgames/ProtoShooter.exe
3 http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/post_it_header.jpg
Post I.T. Shooter is the dumb blonde of the group. It’s hot, but there’s not much to it. This elementary shooter would hardly be noteworthy if not for its unique visuals. Your ship moves like a broken tugboat. The enemies are brain dead. The first minute is no different from the tenth. This game beats out Proto Shooter for one reason only, graphical design. Watching video game characters move effortlessly across the real world medium of a wall of post-it notes is surprisingly satisfying, and the explosions of the downed enemies are oddly spectacular.
Download here-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/newgames/post_it.zip
2 http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/Frobot-Title.jpg
Frobot is a slick robotron clone cast in primary colors. Here’s the twist: instead of simply killing enemies, you convert them into friendly disco-ers. This dance floor shooter quickly becomes a game of strategy. Instead of blindly firing into oncoming groups of bad guys, I began seeking out my targets and angling my shots to minimize friendly casualties. The more disco partners you save, the more joyous the disco celebration at the end of the round. As you perform combos and convert evil squares into hip dancing cats, your frobot’s power level increases. Each level grants the frobot different abilities, such as added speed, splash damage, etc. Besides a few hiccups with hit detection, the game works just fine. It’s fun, stylish, and the conversion mechanic is a novel take on the genre.
Download here-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/newgames/Frobot.exe
1 http://i729.photobucket.com/albums/ww294/GoldenSandlewood/Bunny-Blaster1.jpg
A physics game, an anti-game, stress relief: Bunny Blaster makes me smile, and I don’t really understand why. When I first booted it up, I shot some Bunnies. They multiplied, and I said to myself, ‘This is stupid.’ And then I shot more bunnies, and more bunnies appeared. It railed against my gamer conditioning. I shot at a bad guy, but only increased their number by doing so. And then I shot more and the camera zoomed out. And then I took out my shotgun and shot more and more and more. Then there were pastel houses. And I shot more and more and more. Finally I took out the happy bombs and laid ten across the screen. Bunnies exploded in reverse up through the air in a bizarre floppy-eared climax that forced a big dumb smile on my face, one that grew as they cascaded slowly back down my screen. And then the game was over; I had reached the goal and created a thousand bunnies. I played it twenty times over and grinned every time. Two dumb thumbs up from me.
Download here-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/newgames/ShootTheBunnies.exe
So there you have it. Bunny Blaster wins. Shalin Shodhan is victorious. Be sure to keep your eye on this site in the future. New free games every month can’t be a bad thing.
The Experimental Gameplay Project is:
-cool.
The Experimental Gameplay Project-
http://experimentalgameplay.com/