Intensive Gaming Diary

The blog about videogames.

Category: Gaming Technology

Web Page as a Medium

Posted on by Viljami

I have spent so much time learning to write and also express different ideas on a web page. There has always been this certain appeal for me to websites. It probably all began when I started getting into HTML in 1999 or 2000. So, that’s ages ago. But that is where it this interest started for me.

I was far from a professional. At first I didn’t even study anything related. At the time I was still a student in elementary school. This was even before I went to high school. It started as an interest and a hobby for me. I didn’t think that I would become some sort of professional in this exact field. But that actually happened a bit later. But lets just say that I was sort of free to do whatever I wanted at this time and I also found many interesting subjects in this time in my life. That was also a time when I got deeper into gaming.

So, there has always been an interest for me in designing and programming websites at least at some level. I am still not a seasoned professional. I am still taking those steps toward understanding this form of art and also a very strong medium. Because I think that’s what a web page really is – a medium. There are so many things you can express in a website. It might be a single page application but I myself started with static HTML. I soon got to CSS also.

I started building websites with simple HTML tables. I liked creating different types of interfaces and menus and also logos and headers. That was fun. I liked modifying images and changing how they were colored and represented in a web page. Soon it came to my understanding that tables weren’t a good way, anymore, to design a website. So I learned some newer techniques. I got far. I still stumbled as I encountered something like PHP, MySQL or JavaScript. I understood how powerful they could be but I wasn’t ready to move on to actual programming. I think that would have been too much for me to cope with as I was learning everything on my own with no teachers or other students or even a decent theory book.

I did learn more later. Today, I can create a static website. I still don’t know how to use React deeply and thoroughly. There is still lot to learn. Websites are now fully responsive and can be used with different kinds of tablets and phones and maybe even some other mobile devices. I think the medium is still there. You can write a book on a website. You can play a movie on it. There are several ways to draw content to the screen using your favorite web browser. You can create a game for others to play. And all this is achieved with a certain limit and you don’t have to actually install any other software than just your web browser.

There are many types of browsers available. Microsoft still has its own browser and it is currently called Microsoft Edge. Google has its own web browser. It’s called Chrome. You have also, the descendant of Netscape, Mozilla Firefox, which is very popular. Then there are browsers like Opera and Brave. Web browsers do gather information about you, the user, in form of cookies.

There are countless possibilities in what way you can deploy this medium. The content has to be in a form of HTML and it’s functionality is defined in JavaScript, be it as a framework or vanilla. You can also tune the look and view of your page with CSS. Together these, sort of, languages form a web page. This form is very different from what you have when you write a story. Then you are only using a tool like Word. You have a very limited way to control the content. Then you have complex ways to express your content with a pen or even a brush with a paper. This means actually drawing something. Creating a website is more technical and also more simple way to express some ideas you might have.

Websites keep interesting me a lot even today. I like fiddling around with digital photography and writing stuff. I like also the technical stuff. The programming side is very interesting. I think I have now a grasp of what can be achieved with a web page. I just have to grab myself and start working. There is lots to do and I have lots to achieve, still.

Impact of Final Fantasy VII

Posted on by Viljami

There has been many Final Fantasy VII remakes, be it HD or some other, but the fact remains and that is that it was first released in 1997 for the first Sony PlayStation. My experiences with these types of games begun when it was the end of the 90s and I picked up this role-playing-game. Graphics were fascinating. There was also a lot to play. The game came packaged in three CDs.

It also took some time to complete this game. I remember playing it for well over a hundred hours. There was lots of discussion and dialogue in this game. In remember reading carefully every conversation and still failing to deeply understand the plot in overall. I am not going to go throught the plot som deeply here.

Characters of this game are very relatable. You can name the character as you want butI found it funnier to keep their names as they were. You have, of course, Cloud, that is the main character. There is also a romance between two of the characters. Sephiroth is the main bad guy in this game. Also, chocobos are introduced.

The gameplay works in a kind of a turn-based way. Combat works this way. You have to keep close eye to your health points of all your characters. For me it worked well to have a sort of a healer in the group and also one or two characters that could cast some effective spells that you could attack against your enemies. I found it effective to keep Cloud fighting with his sword and maybe learn a spell or two.

If you haven’t ever played Final Fantasy I have to tell you how it basically works. You get to towns and cities from a world map. When moving you are getting randomly into a fighting scene. You have to defeat your enemies that are also randomly selected. You get experience points that give you more health and mana and so on. This is very different than the way that action RPGs like Diablo function.

For many consumers in Europe this game was the introduction to games like Final Fantasy. The first Final Fantasy game was released for NES. Then there were several released games for SNES. But actually FF VII was the game that made a real break through in Europe. So, FF VI got also released for PS1. I wrote about FF VI a while ago. Its graphics don’t actually differ much from what is seen on SNES.

PS1 was the gaming console that made PS1 even more popular and also acceptable for adults also to play video games. As CD-ROM was beginning to be used there was a powerful way to represent longer and better looking games that appealed to older people. Video games weren’t kids stuff anymore. There were many other games also that made this break through possible. I am talking about games like Resident Evil, Metal Gear Solid and Gran Turismo and maybe also Colin McRae Rally. These games will remain in my memory bank for the rest of my life. And its cool that I can get to play them anytime I want.

What It Takes to Create Own Video Game?

Posted on by Viljami

What it actually takes to create your own video game? Does it take hard work or maybe talent? Well, that depends also on how high you set yor goal. It isn’t so hard to create a text adventure game. For me, the hardest parts are concerning programming and graphics. I have created some minor prototypes and an actual working text-based adventure game.

How did I make my game? I programmed it with Java. If you program some other type of game, like a simple platformer with some basic graphics, you are basically creating a never ending while-loop, inside your code, that will refresh the screen like maybe sixty times in a second. The code updates the screen all the time. It also records every rerlevant key presses and updates the objects that seem for the player to be moving on the actual screen.

This is the basis of a simple game. You can also create event or command based games. This is what I did with my small text adventure game. The game reads your command, like “look around”, and then gives you some new output in a form of text. And the whole text adventure game happens on a command prompt inside your own program or game or what ever you are running your code with.

So, what do you need to do when you actually create a new game. There’s lots of things to work on. You need a simple plot and some kind of a scenery. You need to know how the player of your game can interact with the software, or computer, when the player plays the game.

There are also more areas of knowledge that are needed. You have to come up with whole world of music and sound, graphics, controls and storyline. Making your own game is technically demanding. You have to know your computer and how it works. You know, a good painter doesn’t necessarily know how to make good-looking video game graphics. You might need a voice actor or maybe even three or four of them.

Making a video game is demanding. But it is very rewarding if you can actually make a game that people like to play. Some people might be more interested in finding out how did you come up with your game. That can concern programming, creating the music, writing the plot or dialogue of the game or some other area.

If you still want to make a game on your own, remember to not to set the aim too high. And this is propably a good advice especially when you are just starting out. Remember to try to collaborate with other people that have some of these skills I have mentioned in this blog post. If you feel like it, you can share your source code with other developers. There are also lots of information available online. There are materials and tips for you to use before you try to make everything by yourself.

There’s a saying in Finnish that goes “kukaan ei ole seppä syntyessään”. I am not going to try to translate that. But this means that you have to take your time to learn the craft. I hope you got some new ideas from this blog post. We were moving on some game desing principles here in this blog post. Maybe I will write something about actually playing some video games the next time. We will see that.