Prince of Pesia Game Feel

 The first Prince of Pesia is a game of my early gaming days, Dad brought this huge ass " Laptop? " it was some "Portable" Heavy AF computer and I remember 2 games with it Prince of Persia and Wizard Chess, a very cool Chess game where the piece actually had characters and cool animations as they kill each other or die. 

Back to Prince of Persia, I remembered that separation between the exploration and the combat, completely different way of controlling the character and the pacing was different, Dad did the exploration and I would do the fighting with specific enemies, he gave me the " weak ones ". 


Today I go over some footage as got interested in the SNES Cover of Katsuya Terada and having the "Shadow Prince" 

I was surprised to see the Under ground dungeon with the feeling of heat and the Skeletons, that was totally new to me. 

I kept on watching and got to a Combat Segment and realized how much feel the game had regarding the combat, but hi! SNES right! they already got things down. 

I went back to the Apple II version and my Jaw Dropped, they actually had the game feel down to the simplest form! 

you Space the Prince accordingly, you attack ( the swing has a sound ) you are at a certain distance, you get the sword clash Clinking of metal, and there is the impact and very short hit stop? but then I saw the Prince getting his and the spark was red and the SCREEN FLASHED RED!!! WHAT?! 

a Clear distinct indication that " HI! you are in danger! back up! " even with the limited resources, they got it down! I know I know at the time this was next gen! but come on man! this was solid design! 

I played Sands of Time, Warrior Within and Twin Thrones when I was in Highschool and only recently Played the 2008 Prince of Persia which I ADORE!. 

what was interesting looking at the classic they actually had the same feel! of the classic! MODERANIZED!

you got a clear separation between exploration and Combat, combat wise ( you zone, you defend, wait for an opening and you attack! with very clear indications for each action ) that is exactly how the classic was! 

I do not remember anyone saying anything about that, most reviews talked about how it was celshaded and not the Emo prince, and it lost that feel of action, and kind of a "Downgrade" at least in some of the review I came across, I was young and impressionable and I hated the hand holding of death was VERY forgiving which I disliked but now as I am more into design, I started to understand why such choices was taken. 

but I do not remember a single review mentioning " going back to the classic " feel

Like if we look at it Comparing the 2008 to the Original 

1-You move around to explore 
2-You stop for Combat
3-Combat is : 
    A-Zone and space your self accordingly
    B-get close enough 

    C-Defend
    D-Counter the enemy and make an opening
    E- Enemy Defeated, back to Exploration

Of course the 2008 has all the bills and whistle of animation and sound design so I am not going to compare that but talking more of the fundamental game design, no new weapons, no upgrade tree, no nothing, just a straight forward game that tells a story, which was how the Original was Handled. 

, the one I remember that stayed honest to the original was Prince of Persia 3D for the Dreamcast, Charming but horrible controls lol 

 

Badass cover art

but it was super honest to the original with the health as bottles, separation in exploration and Combat and the pacing of the combat, it was just in the wrong time because 3D games was still trying to figure things out. 

Prince of Persia 2008 Figured that out! it hit that balance of Classic and Level of Polish that made the combat feel super fluid, having the cinematic feel that it felt like it was a story book that you would read for bed time, which is you know " Arabian Nights " 

With that point of view, go back to playing PoP 2008 and tell me what you think! ?

Stay Autonomous

 Why Physical media is important? why local hardware is important, everything needs to be in hand to be function if the services goes down is important? why institutional knowledge needs to be maintained and fundamentals needs to be held close?

what if you lose everything tomorrow, power, connectivity, services, just gone on a whim without you knowing, what will you do?

I know this scenario is a " come on! why would that happen? "

but you have to think a little ahead, think how screwed you will be if that happens.

You wouldn't been needing a fire extinguisher in your house then, you should not wear your seat belt, you do not need cash on hand cause the ATM will ALWAYS be there ha?

Just think a little bit ahead, do not allow your autonomy to be taken away from you.

This is why the whole AI shinanigans is not good for your businesses, if you relay too much and after 5, 10 years down the line, knowledge shift and dependencies happen and reliance, then poof! servers are down for days, some crap will happen, cables shot, some bullshit, or services run out of funds and shuts down, or geo political issues limit your access, whatever it is, while your experts has no fundamental nor developed the mental fortitude to manage the work manually, what is your contingencies? what is your plan? what will you do?

back in highschool we were taught that at some point there was Punchcards acted as programs, never understood why we were taught that history until recent years learning 3D texturing, Masking and normal direction with 0 to 1 value, such a basic concept that to this day is still the fundamental that even helped me explain to students that idea easily.

not saying learn how to program a punchcard, but learn the concepts, keep them in mind, we need documentation and education of those concepts for developers and professionals to know what to look for, what to reference, we all as humans know " rubbing two sticks to make fire via friction " that is it, at least! have that!  

This is why you need to maintain knowledge, understanding the infostructure of the work you do, software, game engine, whatever it is. 

we have seen over the years how institutional knowledge is constantly lost with advancement of technology that we push for stronger hardware for no reason whatsoever. 


we have seen corporate pull the rug on users many many times. 

do you have a backup plan? 


regarding having offline systems, hard copies I will tell you a personal story. 

Living in a war torn country through my teen years taught me something interesting.

when the power went out for months, I was a stupid teen who was not looking at the fact " oh shit we are at war " I was more of " I am not going to school and there is no power to play my PS2? shit! that is shit luck! " after 3 months of no power and then our neighbor got a generator OH MAMA! first thing I did was power that bad boy and game. but it was still limited cause gas access was limited but I still felt secure about my gaming, I had everything right here, I just need power, and then I was able to exchange (PS2 Mod chip) they were popular at the time and cheap, exchanged it with a Game Boy Advance that had a damaged screen.

batteries were available and cheap and I had my way to make them run longer that I picked up from my dad, and it was the time that I felt " man I am lucky to have this " as we sit in the dark when the power was out and I still enjoy Castlevania, Metroid and more cool ass games, and when the power is back, I can instantly fire up my PS2, mind that, this whole time since the phone lines were down... Dailup internet was not accessable.

this experience in my life taught me a very important thing, what if I lose my power and internet, this is why I was super excited about android gaming, like bro, you get a pocket size device that acts as your phone but also you can game until the sun goes down, and you slap a solar cell outside to charge it! SIGN ME UP!

This is exactly why high end graphics and game streaming and online gaming never worked for me, I am harnessed to the scenario of what if I lose my access to all of this with a blink of an eye, which we lost during the war ( Power and connectivity ) what will I do?

I am not saying you should live like me or think like me, I am saying, do not tether your selves to something remote that you can not access directly, and someone else can pull the plug on you, this is a very important thing that I hope now in today's age are in full understanding with the current market situation at hand.

This is the experience that I am pulling from, especially at your job imagine some shit will happen under sea cable is attacked and now you can not connect to your AI servers, your games, music, netflix, what will you do? 


Just a thought and experience to share, a spark to see the dark world around you for a fraction of a second, stay autonomous

Dark Souls 2 Miscommunicated

I was was writing my previous blogpost about DS2 weapon durability, this thought started to form.

 

Dark souls 2  released with lots of broken promises, and issue but there was a deep problem within the Darkouls community at the time, remembering the comments on the groups about how cheap and shitty it was, weapon durability is bullshit, enemies are bullshit, getting back stabbed more easily ( but you an backstab more easily so it can go both ways ) 

Darksouls 1 had a tagline " Prepare to Die " this tag line was super important, it gave perception to the player that this game is going to destroy you. Darksouls 2 had nothing and when the complete version release it was " Scholar of the first sin " more towards lore.

I think if it had a tagline such as " you are never safe " that would have shifted Player expectation and perception towards all the " cheap deaths " that were actually teaching players lots of mechanics, core mechanics that can be used such as striking a gun powder barrel with a fire sword causes it to explode,

 that teaches fire makes things go BOOM! which results in strategy shift of looking for those barrels in the environment and how to utilize it by hitting it with a fire arrow or a grenade,

 weapon durability forced un expected players to shift strategy and a change weapon in the middle of a heater battle, getting ganked by an enemy that chased you from Far away in the level,

and my mortal enemy, the pursuer just showing up when you think you are safe or got out of the frier into the fire. 

A simple marketing tagline that might have not save the game from its shortcoming but it might have shifted perception enough for the player to look at the game in a different lens... 

The problem wasn't only that DS2 had questionable design decisions. It was that the game didn't adequately communicate the design philosophy behind those decisions.

what do you think? 

In the defense of Dark Souls 2 Weapon Breaking system

 Hello there! 

This will be the most Raw and un edited thought I will be posting here. 

As I was walking a while ago I remembered Dark souls 2, the fond memory of boss fights and tough encounters, how that game made me play it in a way like I was playing a stealth game, I was constantly worried of each encounter, fearing if I get ganked by a bunch of baddies and lose my humanity, souls and everything. 

what is worse is dying in the middle of an intense boss battle or a deep run but why you lost... that! is what makes things interesting! 

Weapons breaking on you is a solid reason why you sometimes lose, the interesting part about that system is that you are constantly watching out for the gear, your shield, your weapon, you are constantly watching their health while fighting trying to make sure they will not break as fixing them some times cost a good number of resources you could invest somewhere else. 

I my self play usually as an Inga Bonga build, give me the big boi Great Sword 

I know if you were a broad sword kinda guy you can carry two, one breaks you shift to the other and you do not feel a thing, but when you are a great sword! the whole play field is different as you require a certain level of strength to just carry the damn thing but also you need strength to carry other things without getting overweight.

to me personally that is when things got the on the edge! as I was carrying this giant hunk of metal around and man this thing broke fast and in the heat of a boss battle, you can kiss it good bye! I remember the first time this happen, I do not recall against whom but I felt it, I remember the dread as I instantly had to scatter around running for my life while thumbling on the controller trying to change to whatever weapon I can use to replace it. 

this is when it sunk in, oh shit, I need more strength to carry more shit but also, what can I carry with it, and that is where this system came into full on strategy! I had to learn and get used to another weapon and play style as a back up plan as if the weapon breaks or low on health I can shift on the fly, at first all I can carry with it was a dagger, then I had to strip some of my armor pieces to carry a broadsword so my combination became Great Sword Main and BroadSword as 2nd form and if I shift to second form I taught my self to go quickly into the menu and unequip the BroadSword out of my gear to gain more movement and speed, if you break my Great sword, you will be in more trouble. 

until I started building my character's strength and health to get more weight limit and more speed. 

it was an interesting journey how the game punished me for my shortsightedness, cornered me into shifting to a new strategy and adapting to its systems with a new play style. 


Weapon breaking helps you adapt to the situation and not get too comfortable doing the same thing over and over, takes you off guard if you get too relaxed and smack you on the hand and say " stop repeating the same thing, do something else! " it was the curve ball that I needed in the game not to get too comfortable swinging that massive hunk of metal.

to me that system was the most powerful of DarkSouls 2 character and gameplay, if you disagree, give Darksouls 2 a run, with this in mind, see how it sits, take a different point of view. 

you might like it, or you might hate it more. 


just wanted to share this thought with you guys, have a good day! 

Triple A and graphics Fatigue. (Lowpoly is the new PunkRock) ?

Lowpoly is the new PunkRock?

By Zaid Al-Shaheed

a couple of years ago, I wrote a blogpost about Lowpoly is Digital 3D impressionism as it shares a lot of traits with the concept of impressionism, the concept of the impression of the shape, light and shadow to create something that resembles things that we are familiar with. lowpoly-3d-is-digital-impressionism

now we are here 2026 and seeing how games with high graphical fidelity still fails hard, massive budgets that does not meet expectation but also high budgets that does not generate back what was thrown at it. 

at best barely breaking even. 

it is not that High graphical fidelity is bad, but it is expensive, to produce and also expensive to run. 

with the raise of indie, we have notice a new trend of solo developers making small scale games but most important for 3D... Lowpoly. 

Lowpoly is lowbudget, a rise of style against the mainstream Triple A realistic graphics and dripping face sweat, challenging the normal convention building upon a foundation that was left unexplored once hardware was upgraded, for games that has bigger budget, bigger teams, more polished look. 

Lowpoly serves few purposes but as a 3D artists who is involved in game development I know it is the following : 

1- lowbudget ( Quick, does not require monster hardware to create, does not require Monster hardware to run! )

2- more accessibility 

the points above does not mean it requires less mastery of the craft to make, it actually requires more experience similar to impressionism. 

going deep dive recently in certain video articles talking about going against convention and mainstream makes me think. 

is Lowpoly and the current games we are seeing now, is Punk? 


I mean pulling similarities between Punk as a movement comparing it to what is happening now with lowpoly and low resolution pixalated texture, dithered alphas and heavily stylized 3D lowpoly. 


Punk rock did not expect anything back they just wanted to do and express.
a lot of indie lowpoly games are doing that.

Lowcost or no budget
Indies are doing that. 

going against the standard and norm, and not giving a fuck!
indies are doing that.

creating a game to communicate a feel that you have.
that is fucking Punk AF at least how I see it.

Steam Page

Of Love and Eternity

Air Frame Ultra Steampage

AirFrame Ultra

Samurai Unicorn

Samurai Unicorn

This is not to discredit high fidelity graphics games or high budget games, or any other game is " not punk " go check Suda51 games, Punk AF!

just an observation and a question that has been going on in my mind. 

Indie 3D lowpoly games for the love of the genre and going against the mainstream and standard is Punk?