Tag: GameDesign

Feel the sunshine living in the city!

Parkouring ravens? Dogs stuck in walls? What’s not to love!

Developing games is a huge - and some would rightly say insane - undertaking. Even small games can end up being a surprising amount of work, and the end result tends to not reflect the actual project scope during development. The fact that games get finished at all is something of a miracle, to be honest. There are just so many things to consider, so many elements that have to be worked on, so many thingamabobs that have to be kajiggered in order to get a game working right.

Let’s play a little game. Which of these following statements have you caught yourself saying when dying in an action game? A Oh come on! That bullet was nowhere near me! This sucks! B Oh come on! My attack phased right through him! This sucks! C Oh come on! That bullet should have killed me! This sucks! I’m willing to bet that you’ve never said C. And the reason for that is obvious: We play games to have fun, and losing isn’t fun.

The long-awaited Sonic Mania Plus recently came out and I can easily remember the last time I had as much fun with a game—it was with the original Sonic Mania. Since I’ve beaten that game more than once I jumped straight into Encore mode on this one, anxious to try out the two new characters that were added in the update: Mighty the Armadillo and Ray the Squirrel. The gamer in me relished the entire trip through Angel Island zone, a sort of prologue stage of Encore Mode.