Thanks for everyone who has enjoyed the blog over the past three years. I’m sure that the site has turned into something that just feeds Google images and other search engines, but if people find it useful then that’s what matters.

If you’re interested in what I am up to, there’s my personal website and my twitter.

Thanks again everyone!

It is ridiculous how good 2012 has been for video games already. There has been a really variety of awesome AAA titles and indie games. One games that really sticks out is Dustforce.

Dustforce is a 2D platformer focused around sweeping up the leaves in a level in the shortest amount of time possible. It’s very fast paced and looks gorgeous.

Made by Hitbox Team, the game has eye-popping visuals. I really love the style the developers went for in the game. I feel like it may have been a risk, but they definitely nailed it. The environments are varied in setting, so each new level is just as a exciting as the last.

The player controls a janitor with a broom, able to sweep and launch attacks at leaf enemies. There is the option to choose from four different characters. There is also the option to play local co-op. Unfortunately, I haven’t had the chance to play with anyone else so I can’t elaborate on it anymore than simply saying it is there. I do wish there was online co-op, but beggars can’t be choosers.

There is definitely a learning curve when playing the game. The first level is a quick tutorial that explains all of the controls and the mechanics. The first true level is a downhill slalom and is relatively short. Every level from there on out is much longer and more difficult. Each level has it’s own leaderboard, showing the top times from Steam users and friends. Completing levels grants the player a score based upon style, leaves cleaned, and time. This greatly adds to the replay value, increasing the incentive to replay levels. Speaking of replaying levels, there is also a really nifty replay viewer in the game. Being able to watch an S rank run is just awesome.

My favorite part of the game so far has been the music. It’s just an amazing mix of ambient, electronic, and 8-bit music. The artist is Lifefroemd, and you can find the whole soundtrack on Bandcamp for $3.99. It’s 15 great tracks. I listen to it while driving, relaxing, and working. It’s just great for so many different occasions.

My only knock on the game would be the controls. At times, I feel that I am fighting the games controls. With some mechanics being more complicated than others, like running up walls and upside on ceilings, I feel the gameplay should be smooth and fluid. It takes some getting used to, but I definitely think the controls could be improved.

Overall, I really have been enjoying Dustforce. It’s a fun game with impressive aesthetics and great music.

You can buy the game on Steam for Windows for $9.99 here: Dustforce on Steam

However, I decided to leave school because it’s what felt right in my heart. Before I came to Champlain College, I told my parents that I want to make games on my own and have complete creative freedom. I wanted to do something with a small amount of control and be able to contribute to all of the facets of game development. I told them that after I graduate I want work for a respectable studio for a few years to get my foot in the door. That way I would know people in the industry, see what it takes to make a game from start to finish, and be able to have the time to save up money to start my own studio. It was a plan that I really believed in for a while. I knew it was something that was possible, but that it would take some time to get to that point.

As the course of two years passed, my own personal belief of higher education, the Bachelor’s Degree, and what my plan was shifted. This shift was due to a couple of things, but mostly due to the experiences I had outside of the classroom. While working on games in my free time and working part time doing software development, I saw some major flaws in the education system. I thought I would just get by, tough it out, and get it over with.

For over a year now, I had openly discussed with a few people, who are close to me, about leaving school. It was once that shift of perspective happened, that I realized a college education isn’t necessary to be successful. For some reason, from a young age, it was instilled in me that you needed a college education to succeed. In middle school and high school, the focus was always on college. The focus was on SAT scores, college ranking, AP credits, and statistics about people with and without college degrees. I believed that I needed to go to college to make good money and that making a lot of money was what determined if a person is successful. It was what we were taught in school, I didn’t even see the other side of things.

What middle schools and high schools need to stress upon is being happy. They need to advocate young people finding out what they are passionate about. What’s important isn’t SAT scores or a students GPA; what’s important is that they are actively pursuing what they are passionate about, growing as a person, and learning how to enjoy their life. You can have perfect SAT scores, a perfect GPA, make six figures, and spend your life doing something you hate for 33% of it. Why in the world would anyone want to do that? Well, there are some reasons, like supporting a family and being able to live comfortably. However, as a young person, it’s important to see that what should drive a person down a career path is motivation and passion. If you’re unsure of what you’re motivated to do and what you’re passionaate about, then go out and try new things. Do not become a lawyer because you want to make a lot of money, become a lawyer because you want to help people and better understand the justice system.

I have been lucky enough to know what I want to do for years. What I wanted to do shifted when I understood that I have the ability to make games now. I do not need to work at a studio for a few years to make games. I do not need a Bachelor’s Degree to make games. What I need to make games is time and passion. Not everyone can say that, some people need a Bachelor’s Degree to even be considered for a job (or a masters or doctorate degree). Some career paths require people to pass specific tests. Making creative, consumable media requires no formal education. Formal education can help make someone better in each respective trade, but it is not required. The power of the internet is that it’s so easy to share things. There is an audience out there who are thrilled to see what people have to share. I know that I am one of those people. I love seeing what local bands can produce, what indie games developers can make, and what amateur films people produce. It’s insanely inspirational and enjoyable.

The explosion of resources and information on the internet also made creating digital media much more accessible. Anyone can go online and find the tools they need to make games, for free. A person can go and download FlashDevelop and Flixel and have a playable game in a few hours. There’s tons of tutorials and documentation available for most technologies. This gives people the opportunity to learn on their own. They can experiment, try things out, and attempt to break tools. It’s through this process that people learn the most. It’s a trial and error system. Effective education in creative media is no longer the archaic structure of lectures and assignments. The most effective way, for me at least, is to go and try something on my own. If a professor lectures for ninety minutes on how buffering works, I may understand it at the end or I may not. If I sit down and dive into how buffering works, write the code, and see it happen, I will damn sure understand how buffering works.

I could no longer justify the cost of college when I felt it was an environment that was slowing me down. I believe an effective education environment needs to help teach people how to teach themselves, how to explore, how to open their minds, and how to do things on their own. I knew I wanted to make indie games, I knew what it took to make games, and I knew what steps I needed to take to get the point of where I felt confident in my ability to make games.

I took the steps forward in the year and a half in Burlington, VT. I started to work more on my projects outside of school, took on jobs that required me to learn an entirely new skill set, and continued to push myself. During the year and a half in Burlington, the most fun I had was working on my game projects outside of school. I specifically remember laying in bed after working on a project for ten hours straight and not being able to sleep. I simply rolled out of bed and went back to working on the game for another ten hours. It’s that feeling of excitement that makes me happy. When the snowball just keeps rolling and growing. All of the pieces fall together and nothing is more exciting in life for me. I didn’t have the time in the year and a half at Champlain to work more on games. I spent my time going to class, doing my homework, and working a lot of hours at a variety of jobs. It felt like everything in my life was keeping me from doing what made me happy.

It then hit me, last week, that what I need to do is start making games now. The reasoning behind this lies in the fact that college does not go away. If making indie games fails for me and I don’t have what it takes to support myself, then I will be able to go back to school and get that piece of paper if I need to. School will always be an option, but it is not the only option. I know that if I am willing to work hard, I will succeed. It is that simple.

Leaving Burlington meant leaving close friends, a job, a mentor, and higher-education behind. I am so happy for all of the great experiences I had in Burlington, VT. There are a lot of great things going on there, and I know I will be back at some point in my life. A week later, I don’t have any doubt in the decision I’ve made. I will miss you all, and thank you for the support everyone have given me.

Right now, the immediate future is looking great. I have a few projects in the pipeline that I will be able to announce soon. I also am in the process of starting my own business, Hokori Interactive LLC. The plan is to get my projects out the door and start on some other ideas I have. Once I am financially stable, I will be able to move to the west coast and continue to work on games there.

With all of that said, I leave you with Arnold’s six secrets to success:

This was reposted from my development website: here. You can subscribe there for more posts like this or just follow me on twitter for it all mashed together.

The addition of online co-op is awesome as well.

You can buy it on Steam: Trine 2 on Steam

What was originally a one-day, Black Friday only special has turned into a three day sale. The folks at gamemusicbundle.com have put up 10 indie soundtrack albums, from games like Minecraft, Super Meat Boy, A.R.E.S., and VVVVVV, at a pay-what-you-want price.

Definitely go and support some of the awesome artists from some of the most amazing indie games.

If you want to find out more, go to their website: http://www.gamemusicbundle.com
Or follow them on twitter: http://twitter.com/#!/GameMusicBundle

They are super responsive and very friendly, look at the tweet they sent me yesterday.

@brettchalupa thank YOU for your support, it means a great deal to us that people enjoy the music and furthermore, spread the word! Ty!—
Game Music Bundle!! (@GameMusicBundle) November 25, 2011

Going and supporting this bundle may help bring more bundles in the future, as it is currently under consideration. Indies are getting so much love right now, from the Humble Bundles, Indie Royale bundles, and now this.

If you haven’t stumbled across this already in your internet travels, then you’re really missing out. The folks at Overlocked Remix are hosting a 25th Anniversary album for Zelda. A bunch of indie game composers remixed their favorite Zelda songs and when you put it together, you get this.

For anyone with any interest in the music from Zelda, then go download it now. I mean, it’s free.

If that isn’t enough to convince you, then here is the trailer:

Links:
http://zelda25.ocremix.org/
Download Link

Saya & Takashi

And I’ve never looked at fine art before.

What I mean is that Tenniscoats are really unique. I don’t know if most people would understand or enjoy their music because it is so different. I compare it to fine art because it’s a very similar thing in my mind. Fine art is something unique. Fine art has some quality that sets it apart from other art. Fine art has something that makes it special. I think that Tenniscoats are unique. I think Tenniscoats have a lot of qualities that set them apart from other bands. I think Tenniscoats have something that makes them special.

I want to explore those qualities and help share what I think is great music.

Tenniscoats is a band composed of two members, Saya and Takashi Ueno. They’ve been releasing music and touring for the better part of the past decade. They’ve even released a split album with The Pastels in 2009.

Both Saya and Takashi work very well together. All of their songs are interesting to listen to. Saya’s voice is really sweet, and Takashi’s guitar is soothing. There’s usually a mixed range of instruments as well in each song. The listener’s ears get treated to an array of new sounds from instruments they most likely aren’t familiar with.

I actually discovered Tenniscoats from LaBlogotheque. The song they recorded is my favorite from Tenniscoats to this day:

Love when the businessman walks by; I’m always curious to how people react to these mobile-mini-concerts being recorded.

I definitely associate the feeling of freedom with the music Tenniscoats creates. It’s knowing that people can do what they want, how they want, and enjoy themselves.

If your curious as to what instrument the vocalist, Saya, is playing, it’s the melodica.

I wanted to link to their website, but it appears to be down at the moment. If it is renewed and comes back up, I will be sure to post it!

Lastly, if you’re interested in purchasing their music, you can find their albums on Amazon’s MP3 store! I love the digital era, where I can buy and support artists who normally wouldn’t see record releases in the states.

Hope you enjoy it, it’s good stuff.

Today marks the 25th anniversary of the first Dragon Quest game! I just think it’s something worth noting for me personally. Dragon Quest is my favorite game series, and it’s actually what the title of this site is named after!

I’m currently still playing through IX; I’m about 50 hours in. It’s just hard for me to explain why I enjoy Dragon Quest so much, but it largely has to do with the amount of charm it contains. I think after 25 years, for every Dragon Quest game to have so much charm is extremely impressive. Each iteration of the game feels so familiar, but also tells its own story, keeping it different. There have been no drastic changes (some minor changes of course, like 3D in VIII and multiplayer in IX). I think the fact that Yuji Horii, Koichi Sugiyama, and Akira Toriyama have remained on staff for all nine of the main games has something to do with it.

I can remember playing the first game, titled Dragon Warrior, on the Gameboy Color when I was younger. I was a bit removed from the series as I grew older, but then in 2005 I remember buying Dragon Quest VIII because it had a Final Fantasy XII demo! It was one of those times when I was much younger, and I just kind of bought games to buy them, not really knowing why. Well since then I’ve been able to play Dragon Quest IV, Dragon Quest V, and Dragon Quest VI. Eventually I will get around to the ones I have missed.

Not much else other to say that that, but to go and play this wonderful series of games if possible! They’re steadily becoming more accessible to the U.S. With Dragon Quest IX, and the remakes of IV, V, and VI being published on the DS within the past five years. Check them out!

Here are some really great articles around the web for the 25th anniversary:

• GamePro Week of Dragon Quest
• Gamasutra Yuji Horii Interview
• 1UP Dragon Quest 25th Anniversary Feature

Game journalism, in my mind, seems like an awesome job. Imagine getting paid to write about something you love (probably some things you don’t love too!); nevertheless, it seems like a pretty sweet gig. If I had a shred of interest in writing that wasn’t more than what blogging is, I would definitely pursue it. However, I want to make games. I want to be the one journalists interview and write columns about. That’s a different post though! This post is about why I am simply getting tired of what game journalism has evolved into. Every year I distance myself further and further from it. My biggest beef the past few years has been game reviews. Not just game reviews in general, but ones that place a value on that game. Ratings, scores, etc.

I think reviewing any creative content from a person(s) and giving it some arbitrary value is wrong. It is unnecessary and only a hindrance to the industry and community.

It bothers me that Metacritic exists. It bothers me that Metacritic may influence sales and stocks (e.g. here). I don’t think that someone should go to Metacritic to find out opinions of a game. Looking at an averaged number surrounded by a selective color to portray positive, average, or negative is not okay. The reason why Metacritic even exists and has some influence is because different magazines and online sites have their own grading scale. It is easy to blame Metacritic, but the problem lies with the reviews in the first place.

Famitsu, a Japanese gaming magazine

Reviews, in my opinion, should inform the reader(s) about personal opinion, facts (there are definitely some universal don’t in game development that get done), and some reflection from a different standpoint. I know, as a gamer myself, that my opinion on a game changes throughout the time I am playing it, but well after. It is just something that is inevitable. People’s feeling can affect a game review, as can other people’s opinions. What people write and say about a game should be what they think, not what others think.

On that same note, gamers should not formulate their opinion based on a review. I think it is okay so reference a review, saying that so-and-so thought this game was pretty good. I don’t think it is okay to take so-and-so’s opinion and make it your own, unless you actually played the game and of course agreed with so-and-so.

I understand why reviews exist, and it is important they exist. So many games come out weekly that it is hard to judge a game by just the cover. It often times impossible to warrant whether it is worth the money. How can the worth of a video game be measured though? A number from a review can’t tell that. I paid $60.00 for Vanquish. I feel that it was worth $60.00. I got around 16 hours of genuine fun from it. I talked to a friend about Vanquish, and he felt that it wasn’t worth $60.00 because it was only a single-player game. That is his opinion, and that is what he measures the worth of a game on.

You cannot measure the worth of a game based on a 4/5 from [insert-one-of-dozens-gaming-sites]. Each editor, each columnist, each journalist, each reader all have their own way of determining what a game is worth. It is important to distinguish your view of reviews, as a reader, before letting it have a major impact on your gaming purchases. You, the player, know what you like most. Often, reviewers state what they like and don’t like about games in general at some point within the review. What you, the reader, don’t know is what a 76% on Metacritic means. Also, who determines the scale each publication or site uses? That still blows my mind. What executive is is like, “Hmm, do we use numbers or letters? Fuck it, let’s use stars!”

How do sites and magazines determine that scale? Most of them make no sense. There are no standards. Some use a one to five scale, with only whole numbers. Others use one to five with whole numbers and halves. Some use one to ten. Some use one to ten with halves. Some use one to 100. Others use decimals. Some spice it up with letter grades! Kind of like middle school. It just makes no sense. What is the difference between a game rated 4/5 and another 85/100? No one knows because if they are different games, lets say of a different genre, studio, or platform, how can they be compared? If similarities and differences exist, that’s a great way to give readers an idea of the game. However, comparing two scores of a game is not the way to do that.

As for negative game reviews, I don’t think it is acceptable to bash something that people have spent months of their life working on. It’s something that any creator would (or should?) take pride in. Slapping some number on it isn’t respectful.

The solution is to eliminate scores in game reviews. It’s the simple. The game journalism space would be a better place. It would also help eliminate some of the corruption of publishers paying off sites to give them a good score. That’s not what it’s about. If no scores existed, then there wouldn’t be that corruption. The critique of a game would be enough. Instead of a score, use a bullet list of pros and cons. Instead of a score, take advantage of the written word and summarize the entire review in a few sentences. End it at that. The too long, didn’t read crowd will be happy. The length, in-depth people who care about what the author says will be happy.

Also, for the sites that will always have scores, it’s okay to make amends. It’s okay to change opinions and view points. That’s the beauty of the internet, almost anything and everything can be changed in a matter of minutes. There could also be a return reflect of the game, just to see how it sits. I know this won’t change in the big names; I know it is a business. The writers are assigned the games to review, plow through the ones they need to, and move on with their lives. A much more constructive and open-minded gaming community would exist if numerical scales to grade games on didn’t.

I am excited to announce that I am launching http://brettchalupa.com!

It will serve as my professional (if you can call it that) portfolio. It will also serve as a development and tutorial blog, focusing around the coding, art, and animation that goes in to game development. I think it will be a great opportunity for me to share what I love doing, but also to learn from doing it.

Another really awesome thing about the site is that it’s a self-hosted WordPress site. This way I can mess around with everything. The theme, some plug-ins, etc. I like the freedom and possibilities, so we will have to see what happens.

While http://brettchalupa.com will focus on game development and programming, this site will still remain my personal blog. Game reviews, music, photography, and whatever else will be shared on here.

It’s definitely an exciting time, especially with some really awesome projects in the works.