First Person Films: Doom and Enter the Void

The "point of view" shot is ubiquitous in movies -- an actor glares at something off-frame, then the next shot is an eyeline match to the thing they're glaring at, mimicking their point of view -- but full, sustained sequences with substantial camera movement that doesn't break the rules of first person navigation? Pretty rare, I think. (Please leave a comment if you know of any other films.)

Doom (2005) is an obvious example, and probably the most immediately consumable: you see the gun at the bottom of the screen, bobbing and swaying with the movement of the camera, as it seems to glide up stairs and through metal corridors.



The problem with this (occasionally cool, I guess) scene from Doom is that it confines itself to the boring commonplace parts of the FPS game tropes (reloading a gun that many times?) and ignores what playing Doom 2 was actually like: strafing like mad, back-pedaling like a lunatic -- firing, always firing! -- in a linear, confined metal corridor instead of a non-linear open plan layout.

Or maybe the problem was that they were adapting the powerful sedative that was Doom 3? That's right, I said it.

Gaspar Noe's Enter the Void (2009) does it better, mostly because it does stuff with the first person view that we can't do very well in first person games. Here's the first 10 minutes, omitting the crazy nauseating opening credits:

New MapCore Compo: "The Cube"

Last time, we did a 20 brush compo. This time, it's THE CUBE; make a single player or multiplayer level, any game / mod / engine, as long as it's within a 1024 x 1024 x 1024 cube (or whatever engine equivalent.) That's it.

You have about a month. Get cracking!

Oh, and for reference, here's Duncan Blair's winning entry from the last cube compo we did. Ooooh shiny:

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

"I think the 'artgame' thing has pretty much run its course at this point."
-- Jason Rohrer, 27 December 2010

(bonus links: this epic 242+ page thread on TIGSource, or just read this comic by Cactus which sums it all up nicely... but now that it's dead, let's look upon its exquisite corpse -- what exactly was an 'artgame' anyway?)

Lucas Debes, v0.9 (pre-release beta released!)

REMINDER: You need 2 players for this game. One player clicks "Bailiff" to host the game, then the other player on the LAN clicks "Debes" to join the game.

Me and Eddie Cameron made another Unity game. There's gameplay in it. It's actually surprisingly fun, despite my best efforts to sabotage it.

The setup, kinda like Spy Party: there's an island with lots of NPCs. As Lucas Debes (17th century Danish priest) who's trying to escape the Faroe Islands in a rocketship, you have to blend in and pretend to be an NPC... or maybe you're the bailiff trying to kill him and/or sacrifice all the NPCs to Satan.

• A competitive asymmetrical multiplayer FPS for 2 players.
• Windows or OSX. 800x500 resolution minimum.
• Only LAN support for now, sorry.
• Two different but both amazing ending cutscenes.
• Limitless strategies and infinite levels of strategic yomi, the deepest & most strategic strategy game ever made with strategies

We're not particularly happy with the state of polish and everything, but it's long past that time in a project when you need fresh pairs of eyes to look at it and critique it. So here it is:

Download:  v0.9 PRE-RELEASE BETA
- Windows build (11 mb)
- Mac build (16 mb)
Unzip somewhere and play.
NOTE: only LAN support for now, sorry.

Credits:
Eddie Cameron: code + design, http://www.grapefruitgames.com
Robert Yang, art + design, http://www.radiator.debacle.us

Screenshots and "how to play" / strats / tips, after the jump...

Lucas Debes

Lucas Jacobsøn Debes (1623 in Stubbekøbing - 1675) was a Danish priest, topographer, rocket scientist and celebrated writer about the Faroe Islands. In 1673, he built the first rocket-powered aircraft in the world, with the purpose of escaping the local bailiff's clutches. When he finally reached Denmark (after mistakenly landing in Northern England), Debes was barely conscious and all of his limbs had suffered severe frostbite from the lack of frost shielding in the craft. He was then promptly wheeled into the Dutch Parliament, little more than a stump, and reported the bailiff's numerous abuses and saved the Faroese.

Comatose

"Comatose" is a single player HL2 mod by Aspik where you're bleeding uncontrollably, so you have to take all these pills (clotting agents?) as you try to escape a building in some sickly yellow apocalyptic city -- a great summation of my daily life in New York City.

 Warning! Mechanics spoilers / design analysis after the jump...

Not dead, just busy. I have a few posts in the works (manifesto for single player layout design, Dark Past pt. 3, documentation of my board game about open-pit mining) but I've actually been spending my time working on projects instead of blogging about them, which is an interesting shift in habit...

Kentucky Route Zero

Just wanted to remind people about the Kickstarter drive for Kentucky Route Zero, ending in less than 3 days. It has some very talented talent behind it. And, well, just watch the trailer and prepare to be amazed. (The $40 USD donation level looks the most "optimal" -- you get postcards, a poster, as well as the game. Oh, and good vibes / karma, I guess?)