'Mothership Zeta': Hey... the Earth IS round!
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Epic: I Don't Want to Set the World on Fire (Unofficial Fallout 3 Theme) [mp3]
I Don't Want To Set The World On Fire (Unofficial Fallout 3 Theme) by The Inkspots
Make your own Nuka Cola bottlecaps, Buffout and Med-X
Need that boost to help carry your weapons and currency to pay for them? Then this is for you!
Connecting the dots - Monopoly & Fallout
Today i was investigating Monopoly and it's visual history from the internet when i connected two things together.
Monopoly & Fallout game series
To be exact, Fallout's Vault-Boy Skill & Perk illustrations.
"I also came up with the idea/design for the “Vault Boy” and the “cards” (as I called them) showing him doing all the different things in humorous ways."
"The Vault Boy was supposed to evoke the feel of Monopoly cards, and the Pip Boy was based on the Bob’s Big Boy mascot."
It's a wonderful feeling to connect two things together, in a sense like i was reverse engineering this developers game. Especially as i was actually investigating about Monopoly for game development reasons myself.
Just look at this comparisons and compare Monopoly cards with Fallout games Vault Boy PERK/SKILLS illustrations (first two Monopoly & last two Fallout):
Fallout 3 and Lessons Learned
I hate the new game Fallout 3. I hate it because I love it too much. It is too addicting. Way too addicting. I've spent countless hours playing it since this past Saturday after launching the public beta of Headmagnet, my new web app that lets you memorize stuff quickly, and predicts when you forget things. (Well, I needed a good break after months of grueling workdays slaving away at code and dealing with web browser inconsistencies. Besides, I'm waiting to collect some user usage data from the beta test.)
Fallout 3 is a game set in post-apocalyptic Washington D.C. area after a nuclear war. You've lived in an underground vault all your life and am coming out to the surface for the first time.
Some really innovative features I've found about Fallout 3 so far, without giving any real spoilers:
- Character Creation: The character creation process is so original and unique, almost like real life. Your new character starts literally from the moment of birth as a newborn. The tutorial steps follow through at the ages of 1 where you learn how to walk, 10 and 16 where you set up your character's skills and abilities. By the time the real game starts, you're fully immersed as the character.
- Immersion and Artwork: The post-apocalyptic world they created is so immersive and real looking. The first steps out of the vault where the character has lived since birth, are breathtaking and staggering -- and in real time! Not a movie. Excellent artwork and design.
- V.A.T.S. system: The V.A.T.S. system for pausing combat, and choosing targets to attack is great for those who are not fast first-person shooter gamers like myself. It was a good way to integrate the mechanics of Fallout 1, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics, which were all top down games where things were much more dependent on the character's stats than the player's own reflexes and mouse skills.
- Open-endedness: just like in the Elder Scrolls series by the same company, Bethesda Softworks, you don't have to follow the main storyline, and can wander off on your own and just explore or do one of thousands of side quests. I haven't really even begun the main plot yet, but have managed to somehow spend two dozen or more hours playing the game.
Some things I wish could be improved about the game:
- Have more non-combat options. I'm getting tired of being harassed by countless raiders, mutants, radroaches, and mercenaries and then having the kill them in self defense. I guess it is realistic though.
- More keyboard shortcuts: Keyboard shortcuts for the Pip-boy interface, so you can jump directly to your inventory, stats, and data without having to go through a few clicks first and then waiting for the animations. I understand that they had to make the game for console gamers too, but why dumb things down? (I'm a biased PC gamer, who works on a Mac)
All said, here are some lessons learned, that I want to apply to my own software development:
- Don't deliver before you're ready. Take the extra time. Yes, yes, I've read Getting Real by 37signals and am inspired by it, and have applied it. (If you are a web developer or software engineer and haven't read it, then read it. I'll wait your you to read it and then come back...) I'm glad Fallout 3 took so long to make, and they didn't deliver it prematurely, like so many other game developers have done, with half-baked products that need several patches before it can be playable. Desktop software and web apps are different from each other though. With web apps, it is easy to deploy new features (or should be), but with desktop apps, this is a real chore. But web apps however, make sure the features are solid, even if there are not as many of them initially.
- Attention to detail: The level of detail in Fallout 3 really impressed me. It's scary how detailed it is, actually. From allowing you to be able to push a ball while taking your first steps as a 1 year old toddler in the game, or the way one of the towns in the game is constructed from the metal of airplanes scavenged from an airport - this level of detail is amazing. For web apps, sometimes it's the little details that make using it easier or harder.
- Make the user feel good: In the game, I've saved some towns from being raided. I've negotiated a trade agreement between a group of civilized cannibals and the town they were feeding on. I've helped write a survival guide. There a reward, whether it is in bottlecaps (the currency of the game), items, or karma points. With web apps, reward the user for doing things you want them to do, like coming back to the site. Find someway to make them feel good about using the site and coming back to it - whether it is by rewarding them with some stat on the page that they can show off to other users and friends, or just showing them new content for coming back.
- Addiction: create a need in the user to want to keep using it. With Fallout 3, I'm addicted because I just HAVE TO find out what happens next, or what happens if I explore someplace I heard about. What does the post-apocalypse White House look like? I've got to travel there and find out. For social web apps, one of the addictive qualities is - "If I don't check that site again, how will know what my friends are saying and what's happening in their lives?" (where calling, face-to-face, or email may not be convenient) or "My online friends are expecting me to use it and twitter/blog every so often. If I don't, then I won't be relevant or accepted." (peer pressure)
One last note on game addiction:
One good thing about non-online computer/console games is that the addiction to them is easily beatable with mere time. The more you give into the addiction, the faster you'll be free from the addiction when you beat the game or bore of it. However, the same is not as much the case with massively-multiplayer online games (MMO's) like World of Warcraft, or even old-fashioned text-based MUDs (which are still more fun than the newfangled 3D MMOs IMHO), where you may stay addicted until the online game is obsolete or a better one comes along to take its place.
