Starlight

As his vision returned, nearly as blurred as his consciousness, he knew he was in bad shape. Blood soaked his leggings, just above the knee. Seeing this only returned the searing sensation of pain, causing his mind to suddenly waken as he grimaced harshly, inhaling harshly between clenched teeth.

"Finally awakened?" The voice was taunting, superior. He knew it belonged to his captor. He felt her soft hands grace his bare shoulder, gliding like the hand of a lover. That lasted only a moment, then she tightened her grip, digging her nails into his skin and rending just enough flesh to add to his pain.

Astrid Amascient, the Elven priestess of a darker deity, sauntered out away from her prey. She had him exactly where she wanted him, and they both knew it. Tharivol Ilphustacia hung his head in defeat, silently praying to Hinathra, the Elf Mother.

Astrid's grin faded as she recognized the defeat upon his face. It was much too soon for this. She meant to have fun.

"Oh how the mighty has fallen," she spoke plainly, but still her words dripped with melodrama. "Come now, paladin, you've not given up already have you?" He said nothing, just hung his head, giving himself his last rites. She rushed him then, grabbing him by the hair and pulling his eyes to meet hers.

"I did not keep you alive just to watch you die, Tharivol. You've been a thorn in my side for much too long for that." She slapped him then, bringing with her strike the cut of her ring. Blood flowed from his cheek to his mouth as his vision once again recovered. Still he did nothing.

She growled and drew her arm back for another vicious slap. He winced, preparing for the blow, but she softened then, that cruel grin of hers returning.

"You do still have some fight left in you, don't you?" She sat on his lap then, wrapping her arms around his neck. As battle hardened a cleric as she was, her skin showed none of that. Everything about her was soft and inviting, a devious deception of the dark heart in her chest. "We'll have some fun yet, won't we Tharivol?" Her puppy dog eyes were almost comical to him.

She pressed closer to him then, her chest-plate stabbing into him. She had removed his armor after rendering him unconscious, leaving him vulnerable and disarmed. She had only used enough magic to keep him from dying. She wanted to drag out his torture as long as possible. He tried not to bite his lip as her armor stabbed into him.

She let out a laugh then. She was enjoying this immensely. She had woken his will to fight her satisfaction.

"There we go." She lifted off of him, smiling madly. She crossed the torchlit dungeon of hers, reaching for her cutlass, the favored weapon of her deity. She drew it from the scabbard, hardly able to contain her excitement for the plot forming in her mind.

She reached then for Tharivol's weapon, a morning star. She tossed it in his direction, letting it bounce along the stone floor and roll to a stop ten feet away behind the paladin. She approached him again, clutching her blade in her left hand.

"I've got a lovely idea, my dear misguided fool." She circled him, again gliding her hands over his bare chest. He followed her with his eyes, which once again shone with courage and determination. Behind her, to his left, he caught a glimpse of his armor lying on a table.

"We're going to play a little game." She leaned over him from behind him, drawing her blade across where her fingers had been on his chest. "I'm going to give you one more chance. Just one. If you can kill me, then the stars have surely aligned in your favor." He heard her withdraw the dagger from the back of her belt. "Are you ready?"

She blew a kiss at him from his left while tightening her muscles, pulling back with both arms simultaneously. With her right, she cut the ropes that bound his hands, while her left brought her cutlass hilt clamoring against Tharivol's face. The force of the blow knocked him from the chair to the floor, where his injured knee hit hard. He let out a cry of pain and Astrid laughed maniacally.

"What's the matter paladin, Hinathra can't protect her poor little baby?" He tried to gather his wits as she circled and taunted him. The pain from his knee was bringing tears to his eyes, ruining his vision. Just as his head cleared enough to be aware of his opponent's position, she charged him, kicking him across the face.

His world churned. He was weakened, broken, and beaten. He lay there, crumpled on the floor between the chair he'd been tied to and the table his armor lay on. The taste of blood filled his mouth as the swirling room began to slow, settling his focus on the morning star that seemed a mile away. He tried to push off the ground, just to get anywhere.

She came again then, another swift kick, this time aimed for his stomach. The room darkened as his mind fled again toward unconsciousness. His breath hardly came at all. She was taunting him again, but his ears rang too loudly to understand. He tried to move from the crumpled ball he'd become, but his mind was no longer a part of his body. It was outside, screaming at his body to move, to go for the morning star, to just fight back, to do anything.

Finally a message got through from mind to body, and he once again tried to rise from the floor. He couldn't tell where he was anymore. The room was spinning too fast for him to judge anything. The ringing cleared from his ears, allowing him to hear the end of Astrid's taunt.

"...so much for the power of your light."

Something happened then. Tharivol closed his eyes. The were of no use to him anyway. Darkness enveloped him, offering sleep again to his mind. The offer seemed so sweet, so unavoidable, but it wasn't an option. He let go, giving his mind the chance to run free of all the pain, all the spinning.

It bounded through the darkness, running as a free stallion. It ran. It ran and ran and ran through the never ending blackness that had come to greet him. It leaped then, soaring into the nothingness all around, leaving behind his body. It flew higher, skyward bound. A single star shone in all the darkness the sky held.

One star, shining dimly at first, then growing brighter. It outshone all stars there had ever been, then shone brighter than the moon, then became a sun. Still brighter it became, filling all darkness with light. At the center of this star was some object, so his mind approached closer. He could now see it was no object, but a creature. Closer still he could tell it was humanoid. As his mind came around to the front of this person, he realized it was himself. With that realization, his eyes flew open.

Astrid stood there, lording over him with her cruel grin. He no longer felt the pain of her previous blows. His mind was now clear and fully connected with his body. That grin faded from his enemy.

She tried again to kick his stomach, but he rolled away, toward the table with his armor. He scrambled to his feet then, reaching for the nearest plate of mithril. She struck forward with her deadly blade then, slicing toward the paladin.

He deflected the blow with his breastplate, raising it as a shield. He spun with the blow, reaching out with his improvised weapon. The force of the breastplate knocked the priestess backward, stealing her balance as she tumbled away. He charged at her, bashing her again with the armor plate, knocking her completely off her feet. As she hit the floor, her eyes widened in fear and pain.

A tear flowed down her cheek as she realized he'd won. His morning star had broken her fall and her spine, puncturing some internal organ. Her vision began to fade and the taste of blood invaded her mouth. He now stood over her, calm and victorious. She could almost swear she saw a star where his heart was, burning brightly as darkness filled the room.

Tharivol could not bear to watch her die. He knew that she too had an inner light, much like he had found inside himself. A star which could guide her from the darkness she had clung to so tightly. He called upon Hinathra to grant him the power to heal this lost soul.

The light gathered around his hands as he lay them on his enemy. What little life she had left was not to be spent awake, but his magic would give her one more chance. Her breathing slowed and came more easily as the light left from his hands, gathering around her wound. Still she slept, but she would live to wake again.

He gathered his gear and lifted his enemy over his shoulder.

"We're going to play a little game, Astrid. We're going to give you just one more chance. Just one more chance to find your inner star."

The Demon Maker

The shadows stretched long in the workshop room. Clean and cluttered, the wooden floor creaked as the maker shifted in his aged chair. The finish, once the deep color of mahogany, had long worn off from extended use, leaving only the faded oak to match the desk upon which he leaned. Covered in various precision tools, each with their own place, the desk, with its numerous drawers containing bits and pieces, offered a place for the maker to work. A lone lamp lit this workspace.

With great care, the maker lifted a thin paintbrush in one wrinkled hand while gripping a small figure in his other. His fingers moved slowly, carefully, methodically. The quiet scrape of paint on pewter was the only sound other than his breathing, as slow and careful as his fingers. Dark red blended with the black base coat of the figures wings, giving a subtle highlight to the tips of the bat-like protrusions. A pass by the claws hinted that this beast had just killed.

He sighed heavily as he set the figure down. It was finished.

He cleaned his brush and placed it back in its very specific resting place. He rubbed his tired eyes, pulling off his eye glasses and letting them hang from the cord around his neck. Clapping and rubbing his hands together, he was ready. He reached for the small cord hanging from his lamp, turning it off with a sound click.

The room was now dark, with only a small amount of moonlight reaching in through the high window above his desk. He sat perfectly straight, his hands on his knees, his breath still slow, careful, and methodical. His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness, bathing his workshop in the dark blue of the night.

It was then that it came. At first, a shadow crawled in through the window, two glowing red eyes darting from side to side, settling first on the maker, then the figure. The scraping of its claws filled the small room as it came down the wall, reaching outward toward the desk. With carefulness that seemed impossible for such a beast, it plucked the painted figure away.

His breath had been held since the shadow appeared. His eyes had remained locked on the figure through this dark ritual. Over and over again he had seen what was to happen, but he had to watch. Not because he wanted to, but because he was afraid not too.

The beast again looked from the figure to the maker. Its burning eyes peered into his, boring into his soul. Its eyes could drive a man mad, destroy him, or worse. For the maker, its eyes were, as impossible as it could be, thankful.

It then turned to the figuring, scowling and calling forth a hideous incantation. The sound could only be described as obsidian and fire. Its eyes glowed with an unholy darkness, tendrils of which slowly swirled outward, reaching for the figure. As they touched, they burst forth, latching on and encompassing their prey. Darkness exploded from the figure.

His eyes never closed. The maker had watched, horrified of the ritual's final step, but more afraid not to look on. As the ritual closed, the figure took to life, growing in the darkness to seven feet of nightmarish hell.

It let out an awful growl, freezing the maker's blood. Its eyes, a blue like that of the coldest ice in the farthest reaches of the north, turned to its creator. A flicker of recognition glimmered in those eyes, as all the previous hell-things had done. With that, this new shadow in the night escaped out the window, followed by the original.

This older one turned back, as it had done when it first came to life. Its eyes burned threateningly upon its creator. This one had been born from no dark ritual performed in front of the maker, but something more insidious. It had come to life on its own.

As the beast flew into the night, and the blue light of the moon returned to the workshop, the maker clicked on his small lamp. He returned his glasses to his face and opened the first of many drawers. He pulled a suitable torso from the collection and placed it on the desk.

He would make more.

He had to make more.

Only then could light shine in contrast to the dark.

Important Things (Abridged)

This last week, I was invited to give a talk at DigiPen to their summer workshop students.  Because I was out of town for half the week, I'm just going to leave a link to my slides from the talk.  Enjoy!

(Note:  Not sure why this didn't post properly on time...)

Retro Retrospective: Super Battleship

A long time ago in a suburb far, far away, I was a young boy playing a SNES game based on a board game.  That game recently received the Hollywood treatment, thus slaughtering and gutting the IP, ripping out its heart and replacing it with...

Of course, in order to squeeze every penny out of consumers, a video game was released alongside the movie.  All this attention to Battleship got me all nostalgic of my days as a young lad, enjoying the legitimately good games based on existing IP.  To cure my nostalgia, I tracked down a copy of Super Battleship.

Now of course, this game features the board game as a play mode, but that's secondary gameplay.  What could possibly be better than electronic Battleship (not be confused with the version of the board game featuring sound effects and flashing lights, of course)?  How about a full campaign of turn-based naval strategy?

Here's the basics of the game:
1. Turns are passed between the human player and the AI controlled enemy player, during which the active player commands their entire fleet.
2. On a ship's turn, it can move or fire a weapon (more on this later).
3.  When a ship takes damage to its systems (radar, sonar, bow guns, rudder, etc.), the player can order the crew to repair one system per turn.
4.  Each mission has an objective and a time limit.

That doesn't seem like much, but there are several features that really make this game shine.

Movement
Movement in this game is true to nautical maneuvers.  A ship that is rushing across the waters at 32 knots per hour cannot suddenly turn around or come to a stop.  Odds are it won't even be able to turn at such high speeds.  In order to turn, the ship must slow down first, though some highly maneuverable ships can make a high speed turn with a wide radius.  Turning a ship around or bringing it to a stop takes a few turns.

This movement system adds authenticity to the experience.  Its a simple mechanic that could have been easily overlooked, but its inclusion adds depth.  A player must take care to keep his or her ships from colliding due to some oversight, providing increased tension and strategy into the most basic of mechanics.  Also to be avoided are landmasses - if a ship hits land, it will be grounded there.

Firing
When the player moves in close enough to fire on an enemy, there's a percent chance that the main guns will hit.  If luck is on the player's side, the ships will engage in active combat, changing the game screen from the overhead map into a minigame based on the fired weapon.

Main Guns and Torpedoes
The player is brought to the combat screen with the selected weapon and must aim at the enemy ship carefully while being fired upon.  Successful fire may damage the enemy ship and take one of their systems offline (such as guns, ceasing their fire, or engines, stopping their movement across the screen).  Main guns fire quickly, but damage to the player's guns will cause long pauses between each shot (or shut down the guns altogether).  Torpedoes speed along the surface of the water, dealing a fair amount of damage if aimed correctly.  Unlike the main guns, the player may fire several torpedoes in quick succession, but must wait for all torpedoes to hit or miss before firing another shot or adjusting the aim.

Missiles
Missiles are long range, instant kill strikes that require a fair amount of skill to score a hit with.  Upon firing a missile, the screen changes to a chase camera following the fast-flying payload toward the enemy ship.   However, the missile veers left or right at all times, and it's up to the player to keep it on course.  There is no HUD, no targeting cursor, no direction to the target painted in 16-bit glory.  The player must estimate how straight the missile is flying, correct it, and guide it in once the spot the ship.  All in all, the only lasts a few seconds, but they are truly exhilarating ones.

Depth Charges
When the player encounters a submarine or decides to clear out a group of mines, depth charges come into play.  The depth charge screen consists of a profile view of the player's ship passing over the dangers lurking below (the speed of this ship is based on the speed of this ship's last move on the top-down map).  The player can set the desired depth to detonate the charge and launches the charge with the press of a button.  If the charge explodes within range of its target, the enemy is destroyed.

All three of these combat mingames keep the game fresh, alive, and exciting, especially due to the enemy's turn - the enemy may also engage a ship within range of its main guns, launching the player into the combat screen.  This forces the player to remain aware and alert at all times, especially during the enemy turn.  Also, each weapon has its own ammo count.  Once empty, that weapon cannot be used.

Sensors/Fog of War
During a ship's turn, only nearby ships are visible on the map.  However, the player's limited vision is aided by radar and sonar, which share a small display in the bottom right of the screen that serves as something akin to a minimap.  Distant ships are visible as green blips when the radar is active, while mines and submarines can only be seen as green blips when the sonar is active.  The player can only view one sensor at a time, but it shows blips on both the main view and this little minimap.

Early missions require little use of these sensors, but as the player progresses, these sensors become increasingly important.  One mission in particular takes place at night, cutting the player's vision almost completely, forcing the player to rely on their radar.  If the player doesn't watch the sonar, a ship may haphazardly hit an underwater mine or come under surprise attack by submarine.  Late missions take place over larger areas, requiring radar to view ships at the extent of a battle cruiser's range.

This feature really distinguishes Super Battleship due to it's ominous effects.  There is no background music during a mission, only the blips of other ships and the rhythmic pings of the sonar (when in use).  If the player is not wary of his own ships, he could fire upon himself.  That alone is enough to make the player hesitate to fire.  Only having one sensor active at a time allows submarines and mines to slip by undetected, bringing a victory tumbling down to a crushing defeat.  All in all, the sensors add tension to a genre often lacking it.

The Minor Details
There's a plethora of minor details in this game that really make it shine.  The time limit is a set number of turns to complete the mission, which prevents a player from "turtling."  The time limit, while generous in most missions, keeps the player focused on their objective.  Each turn also has its own (generous) timer that keeps the player involved.  Taking too long on a turn can cause the remainder of your fleet not to act.  The player is able to stop the timer by pausing, but can do nothing but view the current screen.

When the player gets too close to a shore battery controlled by the enemy, their ship comes under fire.  A hit deals a set amount of damage.  Destroying any building in a city is enough to capture it, turning it to a friendly harbor, offering the player the benefits of these shore batteries, as well as the ability to dock in the harbor.  When a ship is in harbor, its weapons are restocked, allowing it to get back out into the fight.

The entire concept of ship damage adds an extra layer of strategy in combat.  Does the player choose to take out the enemy guns first?  Maybe they shoot out the engines first to make the guns easier to hit?  This strategy is two-fold however:  When the player's ship is damages, what should get repaired first?  Fixing the guns allows the ship to defend itself, but without the fire control system, there's very little chance of landing a hit when going on the offensive.  What if the sonar is out in mine-infested waters?  How about the rudder?  Each repair takes a full turn (the player's ship still gets to act, but the repair orders must be made in order to fix a damaged system), and which repair is done can be the decisive moment in the mission.

Another little detail that really sells the authenticity of Super Battleship is the map.  When the player presses the button to view the world map, text appears for a few moments before transitioning to the map screen, "Communicating with satellite..."

The Bad Side
While I thoroughly enjoy Super Battleship, I must fault it for its control scheme.  It has the slight excuse that it was a very early SNES game (thus, it came before certain standards arose), the buttons seem to be almost randomly assigned.  The A Button and B Button both act as accept, moving cancel functionality to the Select Button.  The X Button toggles your sensor, the Y Button cycles through weapons, and the R Button brings up the world map.  While on the base menu for controlling a ship, pressing the Select Button switches to a secondary menu, offering the player a forfeit option, as well as the ability to view their entire fleet (a very useful menu screen, as it allows the player to issue repair commands to each ship all at once, ensuring that no ship sits idly by, remaining damaged unnecessarily).  All in all, the controls are just screwy.

In Conclusion
All together, Super Battleship is a fine little gem from the early days of the SNES.  It suffers from terrible controls, the complete lack of a tutorial (the standard of the time), and a mean difficulty right off the bat, but these flaws are easily overlooked once you get a feel for the game.  It's a solid tactical game with a solidly nautical experience.  In a word, it's authentic, so if you still have a SNES kicking around and wouldn't mind picking up a naval turn-based strategy, I'd strongly recommend grabbing a copy of Super Battleship.  It'll take a bit to crack its shell, but there's quite the prize inside.