indiegames
February 16th, 2010, 20:40
http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2010/02/500x_starguard.jpg (http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/9/2010/02/starguard.jpg)Tired of stodgy corporate games made by The Man and his minions? We're playing the 31 best indie games for a change of pace —- and so we can judge them. Today, Star Guard!
In A Sentence
Little green man of maybe 12 countable pixels runs across the screen zapping games in a side-scrolling action game that would have made my Odyssey 2 a whole lot more fun back in the day.
State Of Completion
Star Guard is done. And you can download and play it (http://vacuumflowers.com/star_guard/star_guard.html). Preferably soon, because it is good.
Thoughts
I'm skeptical of games that look old-school, because they often play old-school. In other words, they make you die a lot. Not Star Guard. Here's a game that looks like it could have been rendered during the primitive years of game consoles but thankfully has some modern trappings. We're talking about Defender-quality blasting action but with frequent checkpointing, armies of soldiers sometimes fighting on your side, hordes of enemies. And one other element is here that has no age: smart, sometimes vicious, and always-clever level design.
Give me some good checkpointing and I can handle old-school jump-shoot-and-die gameplay. Wrap it in a sharp, primitive visual style and back it with on-the-wall story text that paradoxically and preemptively one-ups Splinter Cell Conviction's forthcoming use of the same, and you have a game deserving of its Independent Games Festival nomination for best design.
Answers We Demanded
Kotaku: What was the inspiration behind your game?*
Star Guard designer Loren Schmidt: My friend was vacationing on Venus, and there was this Wizard...*
Kotaku: How did you come up with the name to your game?*
Schmidt: It takes me forever to come up with names! I drew up lists of words that had the feeling I wanted, and started combining them at random. I originally wanted to call the game "Star Castle," but there's already a game called that. After a bit of deliberation, I decided on "Star Guard" instead.
Kotaku: What do you do for a living now? What do you hope to do?*
Schmidt: I've been a student until recently. I'm hoping to make a successful transition into making games full time. I've got a couple of new games in the works: a little game called Tin Can Knight, and a more involved project called Tiny Crawl. I'm excited about Tiny Crawl. It's a simplified RPG. I did an early prototype for the Assemblee competition at TIGSource, and I'm currently expanding on that. I'm doing a bunch of design right now- retooling the magic system and thinking about secrets and rare items. After that, I'm replacing all the pixel art with hand drawn assets. It's a fun project.*
Make sure to check out the rest of the Independent Games Festival finalists (http://kotaku.com/tag/theroadtotheigf/) as we head toward the March awards show.
http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?p=1 (http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?p=1) http://a.rfihub.com/eus.gif?eui=2226 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?d=yIl2AUoC8zA</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:yIl2AUoC8zA) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?d=H0mrP-F8Qgo</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:H0mrP-F8Qgo) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?i=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:D7DqB2pKExk</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:D7DqB2pKExk) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?i=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:V_sGLiPBpWU</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:V_sGLiPBpWU)
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More... (http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/~3/81hQ9IDfeDU/mile-marker-23-star-guard)
In A Sentence
Little green man of maybe 12 countable pixels runs across the screen zapping games in a side-scrolling action game that would have made my Odyssey 2 a whole lot more fun back in the day.
State Of Completion
Star Guard is done. And you can download and play it (http://vacuumflowers.com/star_guard/star_guard.html). Preferably soon, because it is good.
Thoughts
I'm skeptical of games that look old-school, because they often play old-school. In other words, they make you die a lot. Not Star Guard. Here's a game that looks like it could have been rendered during the primitive years of game consoles but thankfully has some modern trappings. We're talking about Defender-quality blasting action but with frequent checkpointing, armies of soldiers sometimes fighting on your side, hordes of enemies. And one other element is here that has no age: smart, sometimes vicious, and always-clever level design.
Give me some good checkpointing and I can handle old-school jump-shoot-and-die gameplay. Wrap it in a sharp, primitive visual style and back it with on-the-wall story text that paradoxically and preemptively one-ups Splinter Cell Conviction's forthcoming use of the same, and you have a game deserving of its Independent Games Festival nomination for best design.
Answers We Demanded
Kotaku: What was the inspiration behind your game?*
Star Guard designer Loren Schmidt: My friend was vacationing on Venus, and there was this Wizard...*
Kotaku: How did you come up with the name to your game?*
Schmidt: It takes me forever to come up with names! I drew up lists of words that had the feeling I wanted, and started combining them at random. I originally wanted to call the game "Star Castle," but there's already a game called that. After a bit of deliberation, I decided on "Star Guard" instead.
Kotaku: What do you do for a living now? What do you hope to do?*
Schmidt: I've been a student until recently. I'm hoping to make a successful transition into making games full time. I've got a couple of new games in the works: a little game called Tin Can Knight, and a more involved project called Tiny Crawl. I'm excited about Tiny Crawl. It's a simplified RPG. I did an early prototype for the Assemblee competition at TIGSource, and I'm currently expanding on that. I'm doing a bunch of design right now- retooling the magic system and thinking about secrets and rare items. After that, I'm replacing all the pixel art with hand drawn assets. It's a fun project.*
Make sure to check out the rest of the Independent Games Festival finalists (http://kotaku.com/tag/theroadtotheigf/) as we head toward the March awards show.
http://ads.pheedo.com/img.phdo?p=1 (http://ads.pheedo.com/click.phdo?p=1) http://a.rfihub.com/eus.gif?eui=2226 http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?d=yIl2AUoC8zA</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:yIl2AUoC8zA) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?d=H0mrP-F8Qgo</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:H0mrP-F8Qgo) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?i=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:D7DqB2pKExk</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:D7DqB2pKExk) http://feeds.feedburner.com/~ff/kotaku/full?i=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:V_sGLiPBpWU</img> (http://feeds.gawker.com/~ff/kotaku/full?a=81hQ9IDfeDU:BsagLJnCXcw:V_sGLiPBpWU)
http://feeds.feedburner.com/~r/kotaku/full/~4/81hQ9IDfeDU
More... (http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/kotaku/full/~3/81hQ9IDfeDU/mile-marker-23-star-guard)