Product Review : Retro-bit's Metal Storm NES Re-release

Reproductions of NES games are nothing new, people have been making them and selling them illegally for years.  Recently the retro gaming market has shown such strength and durability that legitimate companies have felt there was sufficient interest in making new copies of original games.  These games would come packaged as "Anniversary Editions" or "Collector's Editions" and come in packaging and with extras that would easily eclipse the original game's.  This of course requires contacting the rights holder and negotiating for permission to release more copies of their game.  Recently, the relatively uncommon but well-regarded NES game Metal Storm received a release from retro-bit and I had the chance for it to come into my possession, so let me use this blog entry to review the game and explain why I had the opportunity to briefly handle it.

I have often in conversation referred to retro-bit as one of the "Four Horsemen of the Retro-Gaming Apocalypse", one of four well-known companies (Hyperkin, atgames and Gamerz-Tek) that have consistently released garbage retro video game products over the years.  They are hardly alone among lousy retro gaming product makers, but they are the most prominent.  Hyperkin can put out a decent controller, so I guess it has graduated, just barely, from the "Horsemen".  Can retro-bit do the same with its release of Metal Storm?  Let's find out.

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You say "obsessed" as if it is a bad thing.

The Summoning: I Hope You Crush That Little Dude's Rock

Cool. The last level had like 20 challenges.

         

I had a good last session with The Summoning. The enemies became more challenging and the puzzles retained what I thought was already a satisfactory challenge. (Uber-fans of DarkSpyre probably think it's too easy.) My inventory problems were ameliorated by a Bag of Lightness. I got some more information about the main plot. Everything moved along in a reasonably fast clip. It's not a bad game. But at the same time, I feel like I've gotten its basic experience and I don't really need another 20 hours of it, but another 20 hours seems inevitable whether I "need" it or not.

    

When I left off last time, I was just entering the "Elemental Barrier" levels, of which there turned out to be three. The last one had three elemental barriers in the corridor leading out of the level, and my goal was to find three spheres, have Duncan "activate" them, and then throw them at the barriers so I could pass. By this point, all of the levels have multiple small areas interconnected by teleporters, so exploring them isn't as simple as just always following the right wall. Since you never know where a teleporter is going to take you, and if you'll be back, I've taken to fully exploring each section before moving on. It's also a good idea to toss an unwanted item through each teleporter just to make sure it doesn't have some effect in your current area. 

           

In the midst of battle against hellcats. Man, was it hard to find arrows on this floor.

       

On the first Elemental Barrier level, I met an NPC named Skulk who said he hired himself out as a mercenary and also sold rare and unique items, and I thought I might be able to hire him as a companion or buy some things from him, but despite the dialogue seeming to head in that direction, no such options came to light. Instead, Skulk told me about nine wizards who had tried to defeat Shadow Weaver at the behest of the Council, something I don't remember from the backstory. The wizards were all defeated, and eight of them had their heads impaled on sticks, their souls imprisoned within, and cast into the labyrinth. The ninth, Balthazar, was corrupted to work with Shadow Weaver. This was the first suggestion that I would have to find the eight wizards' skulls.

           

Levels are becoming groups of interconnected areas rather than cohesive structures.

          

Elemental Barrier One (which, confusingly, was the second of the three levels) offered combats against a bunch of ghouls. Ghouls can only be damaged by weapons of silver. Fortunately, there was a sword maker named Kern on the same level. He said he'd need a supply of silver and a holy emblem to make the sword, plus 5 gold pieces for his service. I was delighted at the prospect of finally getting rid of some of the gold I'd amassed, only to find that the level itself provides you with at least the 5 gold pieces you have to pay Kern. Anyway, the holy emblem was in the possession of Rhegad, an ex-priest who had become disillusioned with the world and decided to join Shadow Weaver's horde. Lacking martial ability, he wanted to trade the emblem for a Book of the Sword, a magic object that improves your skill with edged weapons. It's a good thing I met him before finding the book, because I would have used it for myself. I don't know if it's possible to kill him after he gives you the holy emblem and take the book back. I'm not evil that way.

        

A cinematic showed Kern forging the sword. Apparently, it will never break, but it sucks against regular foes.

       

The silver came from a chalice that a warrior named Greyreign was carrying. He had been wounded, but his code prevented him from accepting magical help. Instead, he wanted me to find him a "healing mango," which sounds like magic to me, but whatever. There were a couple on the level, so I gave him one and got the chalice. Kern made me the sword, and I used to wipe out what seemed like dozens of undead. I was frankly a little annoyed that I couldn't break regular weapons on them.

          

Amidst the remains of ghouls.

         

Other new enemies on this level were "hellcats," which look like small cats. I think by now I was also getting attacked by harpies pretty regularly. Minotaurs joined the bestiary on Elemental Barrier Two.

     

It was somewhere on this level that I found a Bag of Lightness, which changed life enormously. The bag has 12 slots, and nothing you put in it weighs anything unless you're holding the bag. I was able to shuffle a bunch of stuff and finally get back below my weight threshold, but that didn't last forever, and by the end of this session, I was back to having to drop a chest at the beginning of the level, explore, and then return for it. 

            

The bag helped, but my new samurai armor made me overburdened again.

         

Elemental Barrier Two started with a combat against an NPC named Murc'met who said he was a great swordsman but died in like two hits. Later, I met one of his former companions, Toh, who talked smack about him. She also talked about making an effort to find the blade Warmonger, the demon-possessed sword created by King Borel and used by the character in DarkSpyre. She discussed a couple of rumors about where it might be held, including a hidden chamber before the elemental barriers or an underground cavern within the territory of the White Knight. I hope it wasn't in a secret area on the Elemental Barrier levels because I never found it.

 

Later, an old man named Nigel introduced the possibility of a multiverse: he said that when he died, he expected to move on to another plane, and he thinks there must be magical ways to move between planes. He cited the example of the Gods of War, Magic, and Intellect, who clearly came from some place external.

          

Punching through the elemental barrier.

           

I otherwise didn't write down much about the Elemental Barrier levels until I got to the end and flung the three spheres into the appropriate barriers. (This required me to take them back to Duncan, but each level had a way to shortcut it on the way back to the beginning.) My shots show a lot of the usual: keyed doors, levers, pressure plates that had to be weighed down (there were a lot of these on the last level in particular), doors that had to be opened with the "Kano" spell, and so forth.

     

Using a rolling ball to weigh down a pressure plate after stopping it with a "Magic Wall." Yawn.

        

As I got through the elemental barriers, I was once again visited by the apparition of Rowena, who confirmed that Shadow Weaver intended to use the Staff of Summoning (I had already learned as much from Dunstan on the Broken Seal levels). The Staff is apparently broken into two pieces, one of which Shadow Weaver already has, the other of which is in another world. To get there, I'll need to learn a special spell from the skulls of the eight wizards. I'm preparing for a twist ending in which this isn't really Rowena visiting me, but we'll see.

          

What do you want to bet that this "other world" coincidentally consists of dungeons with puzzles?

         

The area after the Elemental Barrier levels is called the Realms of the Five Knights. I've only explored one so far, but I'm assuming it ultimately consists of five levels, each ruled by a different colored knight. The first level was the Blue Knight's, and as I entered, I was greeted by one of his warriors, Makabre. He gave me the lay of the land. The other knights are White, Ebon, Green, and Crimson, and the five are constantly looking to undermine the others, sometimes forming alliances, sometimes breaking them. The Ebon Knight is the most powerful of the lot, the Green Knight the weakest. Each wears a medallion, and to get out of the area, I'll need to collect all five medallions and drop them in a hole in front of a great door. Man, I really hope Shadow Weaver has a secret entrance; otherwise, when he's in the mood for a taco, getting out of his own fortress must be seriously inconvenient.

         

You may come to regret that you offered this information so freely.

         

The Blue Knight's level made me complete three "challenges": the mind, the fighter, and the mage. The fighter challenge just had a bunch of enemies, and the mage had a puzzle involving the "Magic Wall" spell that was no harder than a regular puzzle. The "mind" one wasn't hard, but it was funny. The walls in this section were built like an equation, with holes between the operators: HOLE + HOLE = HOLE. There was a chest with three objects in it: a rock, a Jera potion, and an empty potion flask. To solve the puzzle, I had to swallow the potion and hurl one of the flasks at the wall, breaking it, and then drop the resulting objects in the holes so that the equation was ROCK + FLASK = BROKEN GLASS. Unfortunately, the creators made it so the holes would only accept the proper objects, so it was a bit too easy.

      

This was a cute idea.

       

Enemies started getting a lot harder on this level with the introduction of samurai, and then eventually I had to kill the Blue Knight himself. Still, "harder" doesn't mean very hard. Even though the enemies might be capable of pounding away my hit points in a few hits, I can always cast "Freeze," then run away from combat. The spell lasts long enough to make and quaff a couple of healing potions, at which point I can re-engage and cast "Freeze" again if necessary. You can't even run out of spells because the spell preparation window (unlike the inventory window) freezes the action on the screen. To be a real threat, an enemy would have to be immune to magic or last long enough that you exhaust your spell points. That hasn't been a danger yet.

            

This line of samurai was tough, but the pressure plate allowed me to crush some of them in the door.

         

I started finding the wizards' skulls on this level, ultimately finding three: Erastus, Zana, and Sea Raven. Each taught me one symbol for the "Gateway" spell. I figure if I get six of the eight, I could figure out the rest on my own. I don't know if I need to keep the skulls after talking with them, but I have been.

          

It feels rude just to dump them on the floor.

         

The Blue Knight's level ended with a fiendish puzzle. Involving a large area of 20 small rooms, each with two or three doors connecting them to the other rooms. A large chamber nearby held 20 levers, each of which opened at least one door and some of which closed others. I had to test them all, carefully noting the effects (when I could even see them) on the opened and closed doors in the chambers. Each chamber had a will-o-wisp, which has a lightning missile attack. The whole area took a while, but it ultimately led me to the teleporter to the Blue Knight and then to the level's exit. The next area appears to be the White Knight's domain, and here I signed off.

           

My heart sank when I walked into this area.

            

Beyond that, there's not much to tell you except miscellaneous things:

    

• One puzzle gave me a room in the shape of a clock. There were 12 pressure plates that I clearly had to weigh down with rocks, and a skull told me that I wanted "eagle's position." Through trial and error (and reloading, because the wrong choice sent fireballs hurling at me), I figured out that the right positions were 12 and 7. What does this have to do with eagles?

       

Is there some in-game context by which this makes sense?

        

• Since I eventually had plenty of weapons, I tried to prioritize the ones for which I had low skill, starting with missile weapons. By this time, I was carrying two bows and had a quiver full of arrows, including a couple of barbed and poison arrows. While you can pick up arrows after combat, I find that I slowly lost about half of them just because they can be hard to see. But the thing I like is that you just have to run over them and hit "T" ("Take") to pick them up, and they go directly into the quiver. I wish Dungeon Master made it so easy.

• The game has an annoying copy protection system. When you start up, you have to consult a page in the manual, each of which has a string of five faces at the top of the page, which you replicate in the game window. Some of them are kind of hard to make out in the book. 

         

This discourages short sessions.

              

• Melee weapons and shields have broken plenty of times. Armor, greaves, helms, gauntlets, and bows have never broken. Do they?

• Some of the doors are tough to pick out from the surrounding walls.

          

Note the closed door to the southwest of my character.

        

• I'm carrying way too many extra Raido, Gebo, and Thurisaz runes, all of which teleport you to their respective floor sigils if the level you're on has them. So far, I haven't found very many floor sigils that aren't accessible through non-teleportation means.

           

This was a rare exception.

         

• Amulets use up their magic and disappear in less than five minutes. They may as well have not even included them.

• So far, every time the game has called for a miscellaneous item, it has offered that miscellaneous item somewhere on the same level. I assume, given all the warnings I've received, this must change at some point. If not, you're making me carry around a lot of extra junk for nothing.

• Character development slowed to a crawl this section. I ended the last one a "Cavalier" (8/12) and remain one hours later. My edged weapon skill went up to "Savant" (8/10), an increase of one, and my use of missile weapons went to "Skilled" (5/10). Healing magic increased by one category to "Sage" (8/10), but that's only because I used a Fehu rune (creates random objects), which in turn got me a Perth rune, which levels up a random spell skill. 

            

My current status.

      

As I acquire new spells, it's getting harder and harder to memorize them, and inconvenient to refer to screenshots of the hand motions. Now that I have all 12 hand positions, I've assigned a number to each one, and I have a notepad where I've written down every spell's numerical code. This works if I have plenty of time, but I needed something faster for the spells I might want to quickly memorize and cast in combat, so I unwittingly found myself adopting a mnemonic device for the most common spells, based on what the hand movements could represent. 

    

Ultimately, I had labeled the 12 movements, in order:

   

1. "Point." It looks like someone saying "Point of Order!"
2. "Hope." Because I initially interpreted it as crossed fingers. I had to go with what works.
3. "One." That was the laziest one.
4. "Crush," because it looks like someone crushing a soda can.
5. "Commodore." It was the first thing I could think of that began with "C."
6. "Paper." From Rock, Paper, Scissors.
7. "Hook," because that's what he's doing with his finger.
8. "Swear," because it looks like someone taking an oath.
9. "Waiter," because it almost looks like someone carrying a tray.
10. "Rock," also from the game.
11. "Dude." I realize the sign is usually with the thumb, not the index finger, but you go with what you first think of.
12. "Little," as if the person is saying, "just a little bit."

      

Waiter! One little rock, dude.

           

After this, the trick is to string them together along with an image of the spell. "Flaming Arrow" becomes CRUSHING a ROCK, and you picture a flaming arrow doing that. "Kano" (which opens doors) is similarly CRUSHING HOPE, so I picture an enemy on the other side of the door desperately hoping that I won't get through. "Restore" is tougher: ONE POINT is that the DUDE is a WAITER. I don't know why, but for some reason I could hear Robert Downey Jr. saying that sentence, and he was in Restoration with Sam Neill, so it works. I'll probably remember that long after I've forgotten my own middle name.

     

Time so far: 21 hours

Riders Of The Pony Express - Map Board Thoughts

I originally tried to use a thematic prototype board for Riders of the Pony Express:

(I had drawn routes on this image)

But while iterating on the design, I quickly switched to a more schematic type of board:

A few iterations later, and that schematic turned into a bigger, more grid-like schematic:

I had originally wanted the routs to be asymmetric, so the board geography would be more interesting, but then I realized that that's what the hazard tiles are for! So I made the symmetric board shown above, with the "shortest" routes being the north-south and east-west ones, and the longest routes being the diagonal ones. The "cost" of the routes is supposed to represent the distance and danger of taking the route, and you pay it by advancing that number of spaces on the time track. At the end of the round, you collect a bonus based on your position on the time track - the farther you have gone, the less money (points) you receive as a bonus.

Hazard tiles will be placed in each of those red squares along the routes, which will add anywhere from +0 (tumbleweed) to +5 (mountain) to the route. These randomly placed hazards serve to make the board asymmetric, and to make certain towns easier to get to than others, or certain routes more expensive than others. This way, the board itself can be a simple grid, but the routes can be dynamic and interesting.

That's all well and good for testing a prototype, but when it comes to getting serious about the design, it would be great to figure out how to represent this schematic board in a more thematic way. In addition, the game is currently a bit fiddly to set up due to having to draw a bunch of hazard and items tiles, place them on the board, and then return some of them to the bag. One of my testers had the great idea of combining a few of the hazards onto single, bigger tiles, so that setup is easier, quicker, and less fiddly.

I wasn't sure how to do that at first, and I'd prefer to also make the board look less like a grid and more like an organic map. However, so far I've only managed to come up with this tessellation, which I think will work just like the schematic above, but with the hazards printed on them. Some of those hazard spaces could be empty, to be filled in later rounds as normal:

 This could work out OK, but I don't know if it attracts me as much as an organic-seeming geography. In any case, it could be a step in the right direction.

If the board were made up of tessellated tiles like this, then it might be good to keep the name of the towns fixed. To facilitate that, I was thinking that each tile could have a hole in it,  so the town would show through the holes. This could hep keep it both thematically more accurate, and also easier or players to remember which town is where!

So what do you think? Should I stick with this tessellated tile idea? Or find another way to improve the board for the game?

Games Course Alumni Shares His Top Tips On Art Projects.

A big 'Thank you' goes out to our Alumni, David Woodman, who has shared some of his top art tips on ArtStation for our students to learn from his many years of experience as a 3D artist and Art Director in Research and Development at TT-Games!

Top Tips.

You can also see examples of David's work n his ArtStation portfolio.

Shattered Apollo (XCOM Files)

PFC Tom Shaw, March 1st

They told us we were the first humans to kill a creature from outer space. They told us we were heroes. They told us we were the best humanity has to offer to fight off this invasion. I'm going to be honest with you here and tell you, I don't really think any of that is true. These guys knew the aliens were coming. They must have known for a while. The XCOM project had been dormant for years before they came and picked us up and told us we were chosen to protect humanity. It's possible no one had seen or fought an alien before us, but then how did they know what to expect? How did they know when to expect it? We certainly weren't heroes. Most of us were just dumb kids who knew how to shoot. Yeah, we were trained to kill each other, but not one among us had been trained to repel alien invaders with death rays. Hell, I don't even really know what plasma is and I've been covered in the stuff.

You're here to talk about that night, right? I relive that night a lot in my nightmares. It's difficult to talk about for a lot of reasons, but as the squad leader of the first human beings to engage and defeat an alien threat - well I'm getting used to being asked about it. Well, here goes.

We were flown from the Cheyenne Mountain complex to Vancouver late on the night of March 1st. Aliens had touched down at a shipping warehouse and were in the process of abducting any humans unfortunate enough to be out that late. None of this junk sounded real to me, by the way. Here I was leading this team and I wasn't even convinced we were going to be fighting what they said we'd be fighting. I'd never seen an alien or a UFO. This was the stuff of TV shows and silly documentaries on conspiracy theories. How could this crap be real? It felt like a dream flying out to Vancouver that night. It felt like a dream until our boots hit the ground.

The Landing Zone

We dropped down on the street outside the parking lot of the warehouse. The lot itself was fenced in with a stone wall creating a bit of a fortress for these aliens to hide in. We could hear some damn strange noises coming from beyond that wall. That's when most of us knew that this was really happening. You can be dropped into a foreign country where you don't speak a word of the local language, but you know those sounds coming from the other side of the wall are human voices speaking human words that you just don't understand. This was not like that. No, sir. I can't even begin to describe these sounds to you. They were like nothing I'd ever heard on Earth. This was really happening.

First Contact

Grace was the first to lay eyes on an alien - Private Grace Russell, my fellow American that night. As she took up a position against the wall and moved forward to the entrance of the lot, she spotted three little greys working on one of their abduction pods. I guess they store humans inside these things for transportation. The science team understood more about that than I ever did, but we just called them abduction pods. Anyway, these aliens saw Grace and took up defensive positions behind the pod and some nearby cars. My Brazilian brother, Julio "Burrito" Brito, took up a position across from Russell at the entrance to the lot.

The Great Kobayashi Grenade

I couldn't see a damn thing from where I was pressed up against the wall, but the next thing I know I'm hearing the bizarre sizzling sounds of these plasma pistols firing on my team. Russell and Brito open fire, but they're basically exchanging rounds with the aliens shooting their green ooze back at us. That's when Shinji Kobayashi - no one even knew this dude until that night. This guy really kept to himself at the base. He barely spoke a word of English to anyone. He was definitely a loner. So this guy, Kobayashi, decided to sneak up along the outside of the wall and toss a grenade over the top on to the aliens' positions. The crack of his anti-personnel grenade marked a stop to the plasma pistols sizzling shots, but Russell could see two were wounded, but none were killed. Burrito and I slipped into the parking lot in this short window of opportunity.

Man, the first time I saw a grey - hunkered down behind that abduction pod, staring down at the shrapnel out of its body - I just fired on the thing. I ended its life. That thing didn't even see me sweep in from around the corner. Yeah, as far as anyone can tell me, I'm the first guy on Earth to take one down. I barely even got a good look at the thing before putting a hail of bullets into its small grey body. There was a certain exhilaration among the team knowing that our simple ballistic weapons had defeated these technologically superior beings with futuristic, space rayguns. Sadly this small moment of victory was diminished by the sounds of heavy plasma fire coming from further down the street.

Kobayashi Comes Under Fire

Private Kobayashi's bold maneuver had left him alone and exposed. He was pinned against the wall farther up the road and barely holding back four greys who were trying to gain a strategic position behind our squad. Knowing this, Burrito rushed across the parking lot toward the warehouse hoping to end our conflict inside the compound swiftly. The aliens were wounded and distracted by the loss of one of their own. They didn't even see him get in close and mow down a second alien hiding behind a car in shock. Grace had only reported three aliens in the lot, so I felt confident that Private Brito and I could pincer the last one on our own. I sent Russell, Rojas and Marin to backup Kobayashi on the street. You know, I think about this moment often and wonder if splitting up the squad had been a mistake. That might have been where things went truly wrong for me and Marin, but if I hadn't sent them, then Kobayashi would probably have died in the streets of Vancouver that night.

Burrito Gets the Drop on This Alien

As Julio and I pushed forward in the parking lot searching for that final alien, Russell, Rojas and Marin made their way up the street toward Private Kobayashi. We heard Marin nscream out in pain from our position and it still sends chills down my spine. Julio and I thought she was dead. As far as we understood, no one had ever been hit by these death-rays so we expected the worst. Rojas came over the radio, though, saying she'd been hit but she was still alive. She even managed to take one of the aliens down before falling back behind a car to rest. Adriana Marin was tough.

As far as I understand, while the aliens were distracted by Private Marin, Kobayashi was able to take up a new position across the street - rushing away from the wall where he had been pinned down. From there he was able to take down an alien firing on Marin and Rojas with ease. Although Marin was hurt, it sounded to us like the firefight on the street was turning in our favor. We could hear the aliens shrieking their horrible sounds and scattering back to defensive positions further down the lot. Private Brito and I obviously wanted to pin the aliens down, but before we could rejoin Kobayashi we had to take care of our immediate enemy. We found the final alien of the initial squad hiding behind a yellow car. I took some shots that missed, which to this day still haunt me. That damn yellow car is one of the last things I remember that night. After that, things go dark.

Just Before Things Go Dark

The alien that Julio and I were tracking was leading us into an ambush. Julio told me later while I was in the med-bay that three aliens popped out of the warehouse itself right on top of my position. One of them fired several shots into my left side, nearly covering me in that burning green plasma. I went down hard and Julio thought I was dead right then and there. I don't have any memory of this, you know? The last thing I can remember is missing that damn bastard who led me into the trap. I guess after I fell, Brito rushed up taking shots on my attacker and killing it. He said I was bleeding out right there in the lot. He reported over the radio that if they couldn't get me on the skyranger soon, and rush me to medical attention I was a goner.

Kobayashi Coming in Hot

Now, from what I understand, once Burrito reported I'd been shot down, Kobayashi took charge of the team on his side of the wall. To this day, I never heard the guy speak, but if you hear Grace tell it, without Kobayashi's leadership I wouldn't be here today. She makes it sound like Shinji single-handedly killed the rest of the aliens in some kind of maddened rage, which makes Julio laugh every time we bring it up. All he would tell me is that Shinji led his sub-squad around the northern end of the wall and closed in behind the ambush in a pincer attack with Brito. Together, their counter-ambush wiped out the rest of the greys on site and we were able to be extracted soon afterward.

That's really all their is to tell. The six of us took out ten greys. Marin was wounded, and I was rendered unconscious. Technically, I was leading the mission and I got the first kill so some people think I'm a hero. Personally, I know it could have gone better. I'm still kicking myself for walking into that trap like a goddamn puppet on a string. It was my leadership that got Marin hurt, too. Kobayashi was the real hero that night as far as I'm concerned and I don't think I'm alone in that regard.

• From an interview with Tom Shaw, US Special Forces, Leader on Operation Shattered Apollo

---

XCOM Report - March 1, 2015 - "Shattered Apollo" 

PFC Tom Shaw (USA) - Squad Leader

• Confirmed Kills: 1 (Sectoid)
• Condition:  Gravely Wounded
• Earned Promotion 

PFC Grace Russell (USA) 

• Confirmed Kills: 1 (Sectoid)
• Earned Promotion 

PFC Roman Rojas (Guatemala)

• Confirmed Kill: 2 (Sectoid)
• Earned Promotion 

PFC Adriana Marin (Moldova)

• Confirmed Kill: 1 (Sectoid)
• Condition:  Minor Wounds
• Earned Promotion 

PFC Shinji Kobayashi (Japan)

• Confirmed Kill: 3 (Sectoid)
• Earned Promotion 

PFC Julio Brito (Brazil)

• Confirmed Kill: 2 (Sectoid)
• Earned Promotion