New SpyParty Gameplay Mode
I’ve decided the best way to go really mass market with SpyParty is to support a mashup of Big Head Mode and the hip retro vector graphics style of Tron and Geometry Wars…
GDC 2010: Developers Playtest SpyParty
As I mentioned before, I playtested the hell out of SpyParty at GDC this year. I tried to take pictures of everybody playing, while simultaneously taking copious notes, as one should while people are playing your game. Since I’m doing the depth first design methodology, the game required a fair bit of explaining to get people up and running, but after that, everybody got into the rhythm.
First up, my old friends Mike Mika and Chris Charla. I had added a bunch of features in on the runup to GDC, including adding console controller support to the Sniper so it could be played without needing room for a mouse, and I needed to make sure I didn’t break anything before setting it up at a big party on Tuesday night, so I had Mike and Chris over to the hotel room to pretest.
Mike and Chris have known each other forever, and so they know each other’s game play styles pretty well. Mike used this knowledge to his advantage when he decided to just stand around talking, while loudly flicking the camera joystick (which doesn’t move the Spy) in time with another AI moving. Chris took the bait and shot the civilian. Hard core metagaming! I really need to figure out how to get this level of in-the-same-room metagaming going across the net.
Mike Mika (otherocean.com)
Chris Charla (f9e.com)
After this, Mike tweeted:
Just played ten rounds of Spy Party at GDC! This is te best game I’ve played in a LONG time. Hecker is pulling it off. 5:55 PM Mar 9th
While Chris tweeted:
Just play tested Chris Hecker’s SpyParty! Even better the second time. Finally wasted @mikejmika. 5:53 PM Mar 9th
Yay! Okay, so I didn’t bust anything, now it’s off to the party…
28 Comments Rescued, Bonus Anecdote
So, the wp-recaptcha plugin I use for spam protection in wordpress freaked out when I upgraded the blog to wordpress 2.9.2 the other day, and started marking all the incoming comments as spam automatically, which was very helpful, especially right before all the press coverage for SpyParty this week.1 I could not figure out why there was enough traffic to melt my server, but nobody was leaving comments. Well, here’s the explanation:
http://www.blaenkdenum.com/2010/03/recaptcha-marking-all-comments-as-spam/
Sigh.
Anyway, it should be fixed now, and I rescued 28 comments from the spam folder, and I’ll go through them and reply to the questions over the next few days.
ObSpyParty:2 To rescue this post from utter mundanity, I offer you this little story about playtesting at the Stupid Fun Club a few weeks ago…
SpyParty @ GDC 2010, Prelude
I am still barely functional after a long GDC, but I playtested the heck out of SpyParty at the show, and I took a bunch of pictures of everybody playing, so I’ll be posting those soon. In the meantime, here’s a teaser:
Jonathan Mak plays while Daniel Benmergui and Petri Purho observe.
PS. WordPress is totally fired for not allowing links in image captions without horrible hacks. Here are their websites: Jon, Daniel, Petri
The Littlest Playtester
Jonathan Blow has finally started up the development blog for The Witness, his new game post-Braid, and he’s currently talking about the rendering technology and aesthetic he’s working towards. Jonathan and I often do “Indie Game Work Days” together (which we steadfastly refuse to call “coworking days”), where I’ll work on SpyParty and he’ll work on The Witness, and once my daughter Clementine was along for the ride and ended up “playtesting” The Witness for a bit. She has playtested in-development software before—mostly the Spore Creature Creator—but this was her first time using a full 3D mouse-look interface. She picked it up pretty quickly and had a great time moving around the island. Now that he’s revealed some prototype screenshots, I can post these pictures I’ve been sitting on.
