Release Angry Birds for Pandora

[gadgetoid]

Not to forget, it has real physics, which maybe is not that easy to clone. ^^

They used Box2D. A free, open source, 2d object collision physics engine. Available here: http://box2d.org/


So all they brought to the table was art and polish... oh and frequent updates!

 

[sebt3]

You know what's depressing ?


The fact that the thread about a pirated game get more reply than any other games (aka all the legal ones) ported to pandora.....

 

[StreaK]

True. true.. but if somebody will be that kind to port [dont count on me..] Open Arena or similar games [nexuiz / sauerbraten] i bet that topic for it will be as big as angrybirds topic..

 

[Jourdy288]

You know what the Pandora needs? An RPG. At least, that's what I need


But I wanna see something on the scale of Final Fantasy, but with a good story and characters, maybe even with leanings towards more open-ended western RPGs. I'd like to see that happen.


If there's anybody willing... I can't program. I can't make art. I'm almost useless, but I can write, I can give the game personality, but I need somebody willing to have me work on a story and dialogue. If you'd like to see some of my work, look at my blog:


http://thestuffiread.blogspot.com


I say we make our own stuff, and make the best. Just my $0.02 USD.

 

[skeezix]

Not to forget, it has real physics, which maybe is not that easy to clone. ^^

They used Box2D. A free, open source, 2d object collision physics engine. Available here: http://box2d.org/


So all they brought to the table was art and polish... oh and frequent updates!

Well, actually, its Artillery Duel from about 1980 and on, imho; every single platform (including calculators) has had that game since the dawn of time. I had it on my Vic-20 double-ended cartridge, Chuck Norris on one end of the cart, and Artillery Duel on the other The PC had that shareware game that was insanely popular.. you know these games where you look at wind speed and fire a volley which hits your opponents sdide of the map, collapsing some of their mountain/buildings .. yeah, same as Angry Birds.


Angry Birds brought iOS level production values to it, and some additional physics in the strutes of the walls (which really is box2d; I actually saw a box2d demo that was essentially angry birds with wireframe years ago, since its all just plaine box2d primitives


But gotta tgive them credit.. most games are throwbacks of earlier; everythign in life, we build on the shoulders of giants. So thats okay.


They refined the hell out of it, good for them.


jeff

 

[fusion_power]

You know what's depressing ?


The fact that the thread about a pirated game get more reply than any other games (aka all the legal ones) ported to pandora.....

Its because of:

So all they brought to the table was art and polish... oh and frequent updates!

More of this in our Homebrew Pandora games and they will get the same attention. For example, I never download "quick and dirty" ports of games, I prefer "slow and clean" . ^^ You can boost the popularity even of simple games just by pimping its art and presentation. So we should try this more. I for example, try to improve some Art for B-ZaRs "WARS" online Game. It doesn't change the game at all, it just make it look a little bit nicer. I'm not a great artist, especialy not at Pixel Art but I did it anyways. If you don't like it, you even can do your own art, this is the great thing on Homebrew.

 

[Asmo]

If we want Angry Birds on the Pandora, it's logical just to clone it. Then we can add in more interesting stuff

Angry Bits.


Replace the birds with Retro consoles and computers. The little blue fragmenting birds - a cluster of Pandoras to fling at your target. The big fat exploding birds? Atari 800. If ever there was a home computer you didn't want thrown at you, it was an Atari 800. Each system accompanied by a distinctive sound from it's catalogue.


The targets could be composed of whatever system (& it's peripherals etc) was a mortal rival.


Mac vs PC. ST vs Amiga. Spectrum vs C64. VCS vs Intellivison. Then flip sides and rerun the battles.


I've already played this in my head.

 

[Prometheus]

I'm reminded of that story that Craig told once about how a Spectrum got thrown out of a window...

 

[WizardStan]

You know what's depressing ?


The fact that the thread about a pirated game get more reply than any other games (aka all the legal ones) ported to pandora.....

Controversy. Everyone wants to have their say.

 

[DaMummy]

You know what's depressing ?


The fact that the thread about a pirated game get more reply than any other games (aka all the legal ones) ported to pandora.....

and theres more talk in here about legalizing the game instead of playing it, plus its a really polished port, plays and looks really well

 

[foxblock]

RANT ON

You know what's depressing ?


The fact that the thread about a pirated game get more reply than any other games (aka all the legal ones) ported to pandora.....

I agree, you know what's also depressing... from a game-play and game-dev standpoint this is actually a pretty bad game.


Let me explain, all this game is is polish, it got fancy art, nice catchy music and sound and a wonderfully funny setting. It just works, they did this really well I have got to admit.


Now the gameplay on the other hand it rather bland, repetitive and down-right bad. It's not a Angry Birds specific problem, it's actually a problem of all game of this kind and most physic-based games in general.


The point is, this game is solely about trial and error. You aim a shot you make it and you watch what happens, if it's good you make the next one, if not you start over, repeat.


There is NO learning curve, there is NO real interaction with the game, it's all just random stuff as those physics (as physics in real life) are highly chaotic and unstable.


Aiming the same shot twice (apart from being nearly impossible) will almost always lead to different results - you just can plan properly and because of that there is almost no strategy involved (also as the order in which the birds are shot is fixed) and it all boils down to simple trial-and-error. This becomes most apparent on the hidden (second?) golden egg level in which you have got to destroy three pyramids made of pigs.


Jonathan Blow actually made a very interesting prototype of a game with the same problem - you can download it here and read about it here.


Now they made thousands of levels, they actually created different types of birds, which I have to admit are all different and actually useful, but this does not change the fact that you will play level 100 in the same way as you played level 2.


It's fun, yes, but there are WAY better and WAY more meaningful games out there. There are also WAY more games out there with the same idea in mind, a quick fun for short breaks.


In comparison to Jason Rohrer's games I just ported I like to think of a comparison between a Kafka novel and one book of the Twilight series (with Angry Birds being the latter of course). The latter is just polished "glitter", is a total rip-off (with fans calling the other the clone - it probably also happened with Angry Birds) and has NO deep meaning (in the Twilight case even misguiding sub-text), NO redeeming value, yet is hugely popular on NO real justifiable basis apart from being appealing because of outside appearance and clever marketing.


So why is there so much interest in this compared to other games? Just because it's "polished" and nice looking? (you don't need to answer this)


That, I find depressing.


RANT OFF


(Insert obligatory "I don't want to live on this planet any more" joke)

 

[WizardStan]

So why is there so much interest in this compared to other games?

Because it's commercial and closed source. You've got two hits of "this shouldn't be here" and "how the heck is this here?"


If someone had posted a PND of Half Life, the discussion would have carried on almost exactly the same way.

 

[Scntrblob]

It's fun for a while but in the end it comes down to trial and error, as foxblock said.


...and people cannot expect "polished" homebrew if they don't support developers, and if it's just a short "good work!" or "keep it up!". There have been several homebrew or other projects that got only very little attention. It's not motivating for devs to work on something that doesn't get appreciation. Pandoras software would be much better (not critizising what IS there, just saying) if every of thousands of customers would see it as natural to cheer for the projects he cares for.

 

[fusion_power]

It's fun, yes, but there are WAY better and WAY more meaningful games out there. There are also WAY more games out there with the same idea in mind, a quick fun for short breaks.

True. But which ones of them run on the Pandora and are that polished?


I'm actualy not a fan of these casual games and I really hate Moorhuhn & Co. but Angry Birds is fun and pretty challenging later in the game. Currently I'm stucked on a really tough Level. But it still is not boring. This makes a good game good, even if it's not a new gaming concept.


I see no problem to take Angry Birds as good example of how even simple games can look and feel. Please more of this for the Pandora (legaly of course).

 

[foxblock]

It's fun, yes, but there are WAY better and WAY more meaningful games out there. There are also WAY more games out there with the same idea in mind, a quick fun for short breaks.

True. But which ones of them run on the Pandora and are that polished?


I'm actualy not a fan of these casual games and I really hate Moorhuhn & Co. but Angry Birds is fun and pretty challenging later in the game. Currently I'm stucked on a really tough Level. But it still is not boring. This makes a good game good, even if it's not a new gaming concept.


I see no problem to take Angry Birds as good example of how even simple games can look and feel. Please more of this for the Pandora (legaly of course).

See, that is what I am talking about. What good is polish if the gameplay is crap, why put so much emphasis on the polish? I am not saying polish is not important, quite the opposite is true actually, it's the last step in game dev, but it cannot make a bad game good (only look good, but a turd with candy topping is still a turd), it can only make a good game better.


SuperGeometryDust as an example is an excellent game, it's also very polished though. Then there is LemmingsSDL, there is Frogatto, there is Battle for Wesnoth, there is BattleJewels, Shootet, etc. All games in the platformer competition (or LD48 while we are at it) have better gameplay than Angry Birds and most of them are far from being polished.


So I am sorry, for the reasons in this post and the reasons I gave in my last post, I have to disagree with your last statement.


I would rather have an unique game with a new game-play mechanic, but "unpolished" presentation, than a polished game with repetitive gameplay and no redeeming value.


Not many people think that way any more and I find that sad as it means places like the Apple App Store are flooded with "polished" but uninspired and plain bad games, yet real innovation and unique gems not "appealing enough" for the general public are overlooked.

 

[Caine]

You know what's depressing ?


The fact that the thread about a pirated game get more reply than any other games (aka all the legal ones) ported to pandora.....

My interest in this thread is mainly the aspect of the Pandora as a platform for commercial games and how the community deals with piracy. Angry Birds itself it of no interest to me at all. Always seemed to be a mediocre game to me.

 

[foxblock]

My interest in this thread is mainly the aspect of the Pandora as a platform for commercial games and how the community deals with piracy. Angry Birds itself it of no interest to me at all. Always seemed to be a mediocre game to me.

That statement I can side with.

 

[fusion_power]

SuperGeometryDust as an example is an excellent game, it's also very polished though. Then there is LemmingsSDL, there is Frogatto, there is Battle for Wesnoth, there is BattleJewels, Shootet, etc. All games in the platformer competition (or LD48 while we are at it) have better gameplay than Angry Birds and most of them are far from being polished.

Nobody says the opposite.


I find Frogatto and Wesnoth and the others very polished, at least in my definition. They have great visuals and gameplay. But I'm already happy if a game does not crash. And there are also many Commercial Games for Consoles, Handheld or PC, tha are pretty crappy but they look good and sell well. Even all these horrible games to popular movies often look nice, but we know how the reality looks when it comes to this theme. ^^

 

[SavageMind]

I looked at the Licensing for Angry Birds and it's very interesting.


Very funny this title is not open source and it is comprised of open source and they still insist on being draconian about it. :blink:


www.angrybirds.com/licensing.html

 

[gruso]

Er you might need to do some highlighting. Nobody reads those things.