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Games of 2011: Glitch

I’ve spent a lot of time in 2011 playing games, but not a lot of time writing about them. Instead of my usual end-of-year game recommendations, I’d like to tell some stories or share some thoughts about the ones that meant the most to me this year. I’ll be posting one a day until Christmas. See all Games of 2011 posts.

Looking out from my house in Tonga Trips.

Since it was announced, Tiny Speck’s Glitch has gone from alpha, to beta, to released, and now back to beta. It is one more wrinkle in one of the oddest, strangest gaming worlds launched this year.

Glitch is, for all intents and purposes, an MMORPG. You start off by creating a small animated avatar, running through a few tutorial areas to learn the controls, and are soon thrust into the world with only a few quests to point you on your way.

Glitch’s greatest blessing and deepest curse is that the game leaves you to your own devices. Yes, you can certainly follow the skill tree, or harvest endless resources in the hopes of farming money. But without a real competitive edge to the game (save the occasional race or Game of Crowns), the populace generally wanders happily in search of whatever floats their boat on a particular day.

I mentioned this being a curse as well: I have seen plenty of Glitches whine loudly in chat that they don’t understand. That they don’t understand why they can’t hit other people. That they want to know what the point is. (The general inability of people to unlock the joys of the world on their own is part of the reason the game has been thrust back into beta.)

So should you be in that group of people who land in the world of Ur without an idea of where to go, here are eight suggestions for ways to find your bearings:

1. Ride the subway, get off at a stop you don’t recognize, and wander around. Ur’s subway runs through most (but not all) regions, and is the quickest way to traverse the map until you learn Teleportation skills later in the game. The subway will let you see the foreign lands and get a feeling for what is where. (Note that you’ll need to get your Card-Carrying Credentials first from the local Bureaucratic Hall.)

2. Participate in a Game of Crowns. Again, there’s not a huge competitive streak in Glitch, but there are a few places to show your stuff, and the Game of Crowns – essentially a game of tag on a special map – is your chance to claim victory over your fellow Glitches.

3. Visit the Ancestral Lands. In the far north are four desert zones – Baqala, Choru, Xalanga, and Zhambu – with a regular looking grid of roads. These are the Ancestral Lands, which will immediately hit you with a Nostalgia buff once you enter. For ten minutes, your goal should be to run as fast as you can along the roads, looking for the blue circular question mark signs that indicate a dust trap. Running over a dust trap will either give you more time, or an item of variable worth. You may eventually have to dodge Juju Bandits trying to steal your stuff. Still, this is a great way to quickly acquire riches.

Glitch Me.

4. Participate in fending off a Rook attack. As the story goes, Ur is a land formed by the imagination of eleven giants. But on the same plane as the Giants is The Rook, an evil crow-like thing that will attack not only your streets but also your game environment, tearing up the game window if it goes on too long. When the Rook attacks, typically someone will call out in Global Chat with a location. Head there quickly, and help focus your energy and power into driving the Rook out of the street.

5. Go peruse the auctions. While Glitch does have vendors on every street selling items, users wanting to sell things can dig into the auction area, which has practically every item in the game available through it. Sometimes you can find a steal on tools or food; sometimes you can marvel at the degree to which other players may mark up a simple herb.

6. Find a house you like, and buy it. Glitch also has a robust housing economy, and house buying allows you to set your roots down in an area as you see fit. Houses range in prices from 1,500 to 50,000 currants, affording different perks and capabilities depending on the level. Scrap together the money, find an area you love, and grab a home! Hopefully your neighbors will be friendly. (I live in Tonga Trips, in scenic Kajuu.)

7. Take a trip to Hell. As you scrape together the money for that house, you may start to run low on energy. While dying is generally discouraged, it’s worth heading to Glitch’s Hell area at least once. While most players will choose to escape quickly – one leaves by squishing the hell grapes on the ground, leading to the common memorial “Squish in Hell” or SiH – take a look around and you might find a strange area to explore in its own.

8. Get invited to a party (or throw your own). Toy Vendors will happily sell Party Kits, which allow you to create a temporary space full of strange fun. So keep your eyes out for people throwing parties, and ask for an invite – or buy one of your own, and invite everyone in Global to join you.

Glitch is free to play and browser-based. Subscriptions and microtransactions are available for those who want to get a leg up.

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Games of 2011: Terraria

I’ve spent a lot of time in 2011 playing games, but not a lot of time writing about them. Instead of my usual end-of-year game recommendations, I’d like to tell some stories or share some thoughts about the ones that meant the most to me this year. I’ll be posting one a day until Christmas. See all Games 2011 posts.

One of the great gaming stories over the last few years has been the rise of Mojang’s extraordinary world builder Minecraft. The game has exploded in popularity, bringing with it a form of creativity and community that most commercial titles would be proud to have.

Without question, Minecraft should be tried by everyone who has an interest in what gaming can do, as it’s a landmark experience. But Minecraft lovers should also experience Re-Logic’s Terraria, as it is a better game.

This may be controversial, so an explanation is in order. At first glance, both titles may appear similar:

  • Both take place in a randomly generated world with multiple zones or biomes.
  • Both allow the player to destroy blocks of terrain using crafted tools, and use those blocks to either rebuild structures or craft new objects. Elaborate structures can be built.
  • Both have day/night cycles, with friendly creatures inhabiting the world during the day and hostile enemies putting the player under siege after dark.
  • Both games can be played solo or with friends.

The differences become apparent as players begin to literally dig into the world. Minecraft has always featured a somewhat cryptic crafting system; placing materials into a 3×3 grid in the right pattern creates new objects. While this eventually becomes intuitive, there’s little chance you will figure this out solely from the game – I have to keep the Minecraft wiki Crafting page open in the background.

Terraria spares players this pain by showing a simple list of all objects that can be crafted based on your current inventory and nearby tools. (For the curious, the first NPC you meet can show you all recipes that involve a given item.)

After you get the hang of crafting in Minecraft and build your first pick, you’ll quickly realize that the tool has finite uses. And so you will generally explore Minecraft’s natural caves and underground rivers in the hopes of finding resources to rebuild your existing tools, or make them better if you can. This endless cycle of equipment management is not particularly fun, especially when you are forced to trudge back to your base after your last pickaxe breaks as you cannot press on.

Terraria’s designers opted to not include a wear-and-tear system for equipment, which allows you to focus on spelunking to find new items, rather than carrying a stack of shovels. Underground, you’ll still find resources for building better tools, but also a range of breakable pots, treasure chests, and strange areas to grow your inventory with.

When it comes to combat and fending off enemies, the games feel on different planes. Terraria offers players a huge array of weapons and tools, allowing different combat strategies and styles. Minecraft’s combat tends to come down to swinging a tool, firing a bow, or setting up an elaborate pre-meditated trap.

Which both games being under active development, features are starting to bleed both ways, but it’s apparent that Minecraft was thought of as a world builder first, while Terraria was thought of as a game first:

  • Terraria has featured NPCs that run stores, provide services, and inhabit your world since the first release; Minecraft recently added humanoid NPCs but they are currently passive.
  • Terraria launched with three boss monsters, and now features seven bosses and two mini-bosses. Minecraft recently added a first boss monster.
  • Terraria has allowed players to increase their life and magic capacities through exploration since the very beginning. Minecraft added an experience system a few updates ago, but leveling up currently gives the player no advantages.
  • Terraria’s environments vary the risks and the rewards as a player finds new ones. Minecraft’s biomes mostly just change the view and materials present.

I’m not pointing out these differences to imply Minecraft’s design decisions are flawed. They are not flawed, merely different. I purchased Minecraft while in alpha status in 2010, and I have happily followed the development and eagerly dug back in when the major updates come out. With two friends, we have constructed giant sand pyramids, obsidian monoliths, scale-model football fields, and elaborate castles hidden in the sides of mountains.

When Terraria was released, I begged those same two friends to join me. At first, there was little difference in our approach to the new game – our base complex was built elaborately, our “hellevators” dug quickly, and excursions taken to find the major areas. But soon we were beating down bosses, raiding treasure chests, sharing loot, and defending our base from goblin invasions and blood moons. And that’s a more lasting memory than painstakingly laying out blocks and digging out caverns.

My rule of thumb: if I want to build a new world, I launch Minecraft. But if I want to play in one, I fire up Terraria.

Terraria is available for the PC. Jealous Mac users should know the game runs flawlessly under VMWare Fusion.

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Games of 2011: Yakuza 4

I’ve spent a lot of time in 2011 playing games, but not a lot of time writing about them. Instead of my usual end-of-year game recommendations, I’d like to tell some stories or share some thoughts about the ones that meant the most to me this year. I’ll be posting one a day until Christmas. See all Games 2011 posts.

I broke out of an island prison for a crime I both did and did not commit, only to wash up ashore at the door of an orphanage run by a retired yakuza chairman.

I honed my fighting style on the roof of a building with a crazed military vet, who shot at me with a machine gun loaded with blanks.

I cared for two kittens that some homeless guys had found, which eventually lead me to find riches in a locker in an underground mall, left to take care of the cats after their caretaker passed away.

I played crane games to win prizes for my girlfriends, warbled karaoke, swung for the fences in batting cages, and played a *lot* of pachinko.

I loaned money to people in need, but rather than charge them interest, I made them demonstrate they were good people. And if they weren’t, I made them pay.

I helped magazine writers find the best restaurants, helped a ramen chef develop a new recipe, and helped an enthusastic foreigner enjoy the local social scene.

I served as a bodyguard, a bouncer, a hostess club promoter, a fill-in for a triple date, and a crime fighting sidekick.

I uncovered a massive web of deceit, brought down corrupt cops, cleared my name, and avenged the deaths of countless friends and family members.

There are plenty of great story driven games in the world, but I can’t think of many that can claim the depth of story, experience, and emotion that Yakuza 4 can.

The plot rotates between four characters – eccentric loan shark Shun Akiyama, gruff convict Taiga Saejima, dirty cop Masayoshi Tanimura, and long standing series hero Kazuma Kiryu. Their plot lines overlap and eventually converge in the final chapter, but for much of the game you’ll just be focused on their own particular domains and relationships across the sprawling city that is Kamurocho.

Let me not underplay the Yakuza world: after four main games and three spinoffs, the [character list](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Characters_of_the_Yakuza_series) is simply massive. The game world is so rich, the game offers players a “Reminisce Mode”, with ten-minute videos that encapsulate the previous games. Spending thirty minutes catching up isn’t necessary, but it certainly helps fill in the gaps.

The series is also notorious for the side activities, both in the form of side missions and just places of business you can frequent. After Yakuza 3 was released in the US with significant missing content, Yakuza 4 was released pretty much complete, and it contains an overwhelming assortment of things to do. The variety of side activities is so great, the main plot often faded into the background for me. Who cares that I can go confront the men who trashed my club? I’d rather help this woman who thinks I’m her fiancee.

Perhaps it comes without surprise that some of the joy of this game gave me came out of my desire to get back to Japan. The city of Kamurocho is somewhat accurately modeled on Shinjuku’s red light district, and feels authentic. The main streets feel busy and vibrant, while the back alleys and underground concourses can have tiny tucked away bars with a few people in them. It’s not without some gaming-induced liberties – there’s almost always someone trying to pick a fight with you – but it operates much you like would expect a real city to.

In that way, it felt like a real solution to my gripes about Saints Row: The Third yesterday. The Yakuza series comes across as unconcerned in appealing to the chaos and carnage crowd. (The breadth of the dialog might cause someone with ADD to give up before the game even starts.) Instead, it is a smart, neatly packaged, intoxicating world, ready to reward those who have the patience and discipline to help right the wrongs that occur there.

Yakuza 4 is available for the PS3.