Everyone was pressed for time at this point as the designers were given the order to begin tearing down their stations. I was fortunate enough to have gotten to play Light Wars for a few more rounds. Like Geometry Wars, it was an addicting score attack game. I also didn’t get any contact information for the designer behind it and unfortunately, I didn’t even catch his name.

I remember discussing with Kevin Meier, one of the game’s designers, the efforts he went through to have the balls react realistically when hitting walls. From what I could tell, his work was a success. The only thing I noticed was that sometimes, when my ball looked like it was in the hole, the game wouldn’t recognize this and I’d have to take an additional stroke or two so that was always a bummer. Still, I dug the succinct stages and the puzzle-like nature of the game and it held my interest for the entirety of the demo.

I loved the balloon baby!

Now try not to get confused here, but the next game my friend and I played was Shotgun Wizard. Previously we had played a game called Gun Mage so the fact that there were two games with drastically similar names was something of a comedy, like Dead Space and Killzone. Even the developers were joking around with each other. These were two dissimilar games however.

Controlling the eponymous shotgun wizard, players were confined to a side-scrolling room that was continually bombarded by skateboarders, babies on balloons, and bouncer-size men. The shotgun used had three types of magical ammunition that players could switch between on the fly. In fact, it was encouraged through the game’s scoring system. Getting kills by alternating ammunition increased the score multiplier. Not utilizing this tactic would result in lackluster scores.

Shotgun Wizard was a score attack game and my only gripe was with its controls. Movement was done with S and D or the arrow keys, looking was the result of moving the mouse left or right, jumping was W or the up arrow, ammunition switching was the E key, and shooting was done with a left mouse click. I never got the hang of moving left and right and also having to look left or right, so when it got hectic (and believe me, it did) I cratered quickly. Still, with enough practice, it was fun trying to outdo my best score.

A room in Pet Duck.

Having actually completed Gun Mage, my friend and I moved onto Pet Duck, another game that I was able to see through to the end. Pet Duck was a lighthearted top-down action game which saw the player searching through maze-like stages in search of their pet duck. The player character was equipped with a gun but I found it inefficient – I wound up playing the game doing my best to evade enemy fire and I found enjoyment through that.

There were about five stages and humorously, when the player found the duck in all but the final stage, it turned out to be a decoy. The text explaining this had me grinning each time. The most impressive aspect of the game was the soundtrack. It was an epic summer-blockbuster sort of theme that totally didn’t match the game. But, it was just one more contextual thing that made the game humorous. Pet Duck wound up winning the game showcase so congrats are in order for End to Begin Games.

The game doesn’t look like much, but it’s down right tough.

After a brief experience with Greywater, my friend and I moved onto the game that I sunk the most time into – Gun Mage. It was a side-scrolling action game inspired by the likes of Contra and Metal Slug. The graphics were simple, but the gameplay reeked of its influences. It seemed pretty basic until I died enough times that Cameron Fowler, one of Gun Mage’s designers, clued me in on a cheat of sorts. Pressing the page up button filled the magic meter, which allowed me to combine a magical effect with a weapon. With about a dozen combinations, I had a blast experimenting with them and seeing their outcomes.

Even though Gun Mage only had nine screens, I spent a good twenty minutes to get through them all. I think I might’ve been the only person to do so at the show. Managing the stock of hearts I had well meant seriously paying attention to the two enemy types. Blue enemies appeared to have knives, only doing damage on contact, and beige enemies who were equipped with guns. Staying alive meant jumping over the bullets of gun wielding enemies and finding a weapon/magic combination that suited me.

The demo is available to play via the Dropbox link and through its Facebook page. Don’t forget about the page up button!

Team Sweepy, hamming it up for the camera.

The next game my friend and I transitioned to was Greywater – an isometric role-playing game in the vein of Diablo. If Project Land Mineded was the most technologically proficient game I played, then Greywater had the strongest art direction and implementation. The steampunk influences were readily apparent at first glance and the art style was complimented by a 19^th century backdrop of a highly polluted city – hence the name, Greywater. It also seemed like there was a lot of story and character development already present in the playable demo, more than any other game I played at the show.

That said, I actually didn’t play much of the game as I didn’t gel with the control scheme. I might not be recalling correctly, but I believe movement and attacks were done via the keyboard while menu navigation was with the mouse. I would’ve preferred most everything but movement be done with the mouse. I also didn’t get a good sense of feedback when attacking enemies. I couldn’t tell if I was damaging them or missing completely. I wish I’d played more of Greywater in hindsight as Team Sweepy placed second in the game showcase and won the gallery show. Congrats to them!

If you wanna follow their progress, you can do so via their Tumblr or Twitter.

It was pretty desolate when we went on Sunday morning as many of the participants were taking part in the eighteen hour hack-a-thon that began Saturday evening. From what we gathered from some of the designers, many others just didn’t show up Sunday – which isn’t surprising as there didn’t seem to be much publicity for the event. Besides my friend and I, there were only five or so other spectators. There were about fifteen designers present though and it seemed like everyone was enjoying each other’s company.

The first game I played was Project Land Mineded. It was a first-person shooter focusing on arena-based multiplayer. It was designed with the Unreal Development Kit and was undoubtedly the most technologically-proficient game present. The game was a fast-paced, twitchy sort of deathmatch game through and through but it had an interesting hook. The sole weapon was a rocket launcher and after firing a rocket, it ricocheted a time or two before losing momentum and becoming a stationary mine. Before too long, the arena was ridiculously littered with mines, meaning evading them was nigh-on impossible.

Project Land Mineded was designed by a Norman, OK high school student – Marty Rand. What’s perhaps most impressive about the game is that it was designed using nothing but free software such as GIMP and UDK. The game’s technological proweress made a little more sense when he elaborated that he’s been programming for a long time, specifically robotic programming. He said he’d like to continue on in the game design realm and I think he has a bright future. Project Land Mineded was a blast and I can imagine with a little tweaking, it could be a commercially available product.

Below is a video that Marty uploaded to YouTube and also, here are links to the game’s blog and Twitter.

The game far exceeded our expectations. This was only the second game of the season and they played the Phoenix Mercury in a high-scoring match, yet, they lost 89-87. They actually made a buzzer beater shot, but after review it was discounted.

Three things helped make our evening (besides the fine game). Firstly, the tickets she won weren’t general admission but tickets to a preferred lounge complete with padded seats, a bar, and a buffet, plus prime seating at half-court. Secondly, my friend and I caught free t-shirts! Every now and then their mascot would throw shirts into the crowd, and since the arena was only 1/4 to 1/3 full, we had a great chance of getting one. Too bad they’re XL and we’re not… Lastly, the crowd was awesome. As I just mentioned, it was a small crowd, but they were passionate. Their passion brought some out in me as I rooted for my home town team. We got on the jumbo-tron too and that was cool, haha.

The arcade games were in a separate room by the entrance and a smattering of people also entered after Breaking Dawn was over. I took a quick look around and from right to left I noticed Ferrari F355 Challenge, Ms. Pac-Man, Sunset Riders, The Fast and the Furious: Super Bikes, DDRMAX 2 Dance Dance Revolution 7thMix, Silent Scope, Terminator Salvation, Time Crisis II, Virtua Cop 3, The Fast and the Furious, as well as a few pinball tables, UFO machines, and of course, a change machine. The room was packed; Cinemark had a bunch of options.

I initially gravitated towards the Ferrari 355 Challenge machine because it had a cockpit and three TV screens providing a cool first-person view from the cockpit, but it was occupied. Second in line was Sunset Riders.

The three monitor cockpit version of Ferrari F355 Challenge. Image taken by Flickr user gggames.se.

I’ve heard positive things about Sunset Riders but have never played it. It’s a side-scrolling shoot ’em up set in the old west and as bounty hunters my girlfriend and I walked to the right and destroyed anyone who came between us and the wanted person at the end of the stage. The characters were really big and they were responsive, but jumping up to a higher level (balcony of a building) was hard to pull off. A few stampedes happened and we had to run on top of cattle to survive. The first one caught us off guard, but these were fun to survive. We could pick our character and depending on who we picked we used either a revolver or a shotgun; I preferred the shotgun because of the bullet spread.

Facing off against the first boss of Sunset Riders solo.

Next up was DDRMAX 2 Dance Dance Revolution 7th Mix. We played three songs on easy and had a blast, although we both agreed that next time we play DDR, we’ll play on a tougher difficulty. The songs were crazy, like a group of Japanese girls picked European dance songs and sped them up, I liked it. I found myself not only hitting the pads when I was required to but dancing along to the beat to keep up with the song. We tried to play Virtua Cop 3 next but it didn’t work. Unfortunately I found this out after I inserted money.

I liked the selection of games Cinemark Tulsa and IMAX had. There was a good selection of games to play (light gun games, racing games, DDR) and a few alternatives like the pinball machines. I’d like to return with a friend and play through Sunset Riders to say I’ve played through an arcade game, but that probably won’t happen for a while.

I did find time to watch some lucha libre Thursday and that was pretty awesome. This mexican restaurant (Elote) in Tulsa puts it on on the first and third Thursdays of each month. The crowd was fairly large, about a hundred people, and the fighting was obviously for show but so entertaining.

I will post stuff this week. My review of OutRun Online Arcade for sure. That’ll be up tomorrow morning. I’ve already scheduled it so it’ll be up for sure. Hopefully I’ll get to the demos I downloaded last week. I think I’ll start a new game tonight or tomorrow, but then again I might just sleep.