Interation Summary.

This is a summary of the artwork throughout my creative process. However, text explanations and reasoning and problem solving can be found further down this PDF/blog.

Concept Summary.

This is a summary of the concepts for my work. Further details, designs and text explanations can be found throughout this PDF/Blog.

Last minute game fixes & completion.

Fixed the scrolling issue in S2 -- the scene wouldn't pan with a camera follow actor behaviour and the seedling would just stop dead in the middle of the fall. Fixed this by creating a gradient background in photoshop, loading it into Stencyl and setting it to vertically scroll upwards at a speed of 90. This allowed the whole scene to pan without looping at the same rate the seed fell. I also created a separate seed actor duplicate and removed the 'die in pit' behaviour, which appears to have stopped the problem where the seed would stop midway due to scene boundary limits.

I also added a start and end screen. For the end screen, Stina provided the artwork and I followed her example to create a 'Thanks for playing' actor that looped the player back round to the start of the game. For the start screen, I created the text, interactive actor 'Start Game' and used Stina's atwork to create an opening screen. I achieved this by layering the two colours of background over each other and using a soft eraser at Stina's advice to blend the two.

Game update.

Changes:

Managed to fix the jumping behaviour when an actor walks off of a platform (not jumps off). I downloaded the 'Fall Jumping' behaviour from Stencylforge, but as one commentor advised there were a few blips. For one, holding down the jump button caused the actor to continue flying off into space. Additionally, the animation was not switching correctly from fall to jump when fall jumping. I examined the 'Air Jumping' set of behaviour and used information from that to fix the issues with Stencylforge's Fall Jumping.

Stina implemented basic scene transitions. These work, and I set them up to point them at each subsequent scene. Reloading the behaviours seems to have also solved problems with single frame animation blips.

v1.3

No DRM digital distribution sites:

http://www.gog.com/

http://www.abandonia.com/

http://www.humblebundle.com/

http://news.softpedia.com/news/DRM-Doesn-t-Stop-Piracy-Game-Content-Does-Good-Old-Games-Believes-237641.shtml

Origin account bans & Physical vs Digital.

Owning a game vs owning a license to play a game -- one that can be removed very suddenly. EA placed numerous forum account bans in 2011 that affected the games of the offending account.

EA Forum Ban.

Retracted.

Still a problem.

Mistaken ban + games blocked.

Documentation of ban ordeal. 

Digital distribution and content delivery software bring the question of owning a game vs paying for the ability to 'rent' a game to the forefront. Gaming lawyer Jas Purewal states;

"[....]he explains that the commonly taken position is that when we buy a boxed game, we own the DVD, but only have a license for the software on it. “A ‘licence’,” Purewal explains, “is essentially a limited personal right to use the software on certain terms and conditions – it doesn’t give you the right to e.g. sell/transfer/copy/reproduce the software.” [Walker, John. 2012]

However, the article goes on to note that with a physical DVD, we at least have some power over resale and ownership. However, in the digital distirbution market, there is no power over resale and at any time, the ability to play the games you've bought can be taken away.

In 2012, Valve changed their ToS to deny customers the right to a class-action lawsuit -- stating the only way to resolve a dispute is through an arbitration. Customers sent query in regards to what would happen if they did not wish to accept this new terms of service, and received the following response:

 
"Thank you for contacting Steam Support. We can permanently deactivate your account for you, remove any stored payment information and clear your Steam profile. Disabling your account will not result in a refund, as explained in the Steam Subscriber Agreement. The games in your account will not be accessible for future use. It is impossible to make your games available once your account has been deactivated and your information deleted or archived. Once we have permanently deactivated the account, we will not be able to reactivate the account upon a future request.

Please let me know if you would like to proceed." [Alderman, Justin. 2012]

Ubisoft DRM.

Do we own our Steam games?

Steam changes ToS, will remove games if customer doesn't accept.

Account disable.

Valve's ToS.

Valve sued in Germany.

 

Walker, John (2012). Thought: Do We Own Our Steam Games?. Available: http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2012/02/01/thought-do-we-own-our-steam-games/. Last accessed 06/02/13.

Alderman, Justin. (2012). 0 Valve: Accept New Steam Subscriber Agreement Or Disable Your Account. Available: http://wegotthiscovered.com/gaming/valve-accept-steam-subscriber-agreement-disable-account/. Last accessed 06/02/13.

Steam submission

Unfortunately Steam's FAQ has changed since the release of Greenlight, so I can't really find out what the specific processes were before its release. However, it seems as though one of the first steps would be to email Steamworks about publishing at steamworks@valvesoftware.com.

Link to Steam FAQ.

Steamworks Brochure.

Content delivery software appeals to indie developers due to low to no costs for updating, activation, bandwidth, etc.

These costs and advantages apply to games on steam post Greenlight.

Microsoft's Indie Game section of XBL requires an annual membership fee to submit games, according to their FAQ.

http://xbox.create.msdn.com/en-us/home/faq