Saturday, March 28, 2020

PUBG Mobile Leads The Charge In Esports’ Increasing Relevance In The Education And Economic Sectors In Africa

It's difficult to say if the players of Pong (1972) ever saw where this humble beginning would take player vs. player video games in the five decades that have followed. In 2020, competitive gaming has reached new heights, leaving the bat and ball behind in favour of high-octane games with crisp graphics and split-second decisions that cost or win players prizes that some traditional professional sports players won't see from earnings for years. 

Case in point, each of the five winners in a major esports tournament last year walked away with more than the total prize pool of the Tour de France. 

'Esports is a newly-burgeoning industry, but there isn't an aspect of the world's economy that isn't touched by it. It's not just as a professional esports athlete in which careers can be forged, but in direct services as well such as coaching, medical support, and administration. Opportunities also lie in all the auxiliary service, such as media, events, travel, education,' writes Colin Webster, of the South African esports association Mind Sports SA

In 2018, South African esports players made over R3.78mil in winnings alone, not including sponsorships, and in 2019, the biggest local player, Aran Groesbeek, took home over R180 000 during the course of the year. Although a small portion of the $1billion global esports industry, South Africa's economy is sure to see an uptake thanks to local efforts within the gaming scene.

PUBG Mobile's Tramayne Monaghan says, 'Until now the South African gaming economy is still nascent. But PUBG Mobile is here and proving that the gaming economy, across a variety of verticals, can add to the economy. Our hope as Tencent Africa is that the success of this game breeds a new and strong gaming economy for developers, influencers, casters and referees.'

Crucial to a country in need of a solution to high-end esports gaming rigs that can rack up into the tens of thousands, mobile gaming is on the rise. 

Sam 'Tech Girl' Wright, esports host and presenter writes, 'Mobile gaming has grown so much in the past few years on the global stage. Locally mobile esports are more accessible to a diverse range of gamers and allows someone to get involved in competitive gaming without the financial outlay for a big rig to play on. PUBG and Tencent's investment in the mobile competitive scene globally for PUBG Mobile has been a huge push towards even more growth, and I think South Africa will feel that impact soon.'

PUBG Mobile's focus on esports at tertiary-level is part of a greater campaign to boost the South African esports scene.  

'We know that in order to have a healthy esports community it's imperative to have a thriving casual community. Our focus is to grow our base in order for this to feed into the esports arena. We will do our bit in making sure that we grow the SA and African base inorder to support them on the global stage,' says Tramayne Monaghan, Head of PUBG Mobile in Africa. 

PUBG Mobile is currently undertaking a 'Play It Forward' project that will see students at participating tertiary institutions battling in-game to win one of two student bursaries of R25 000 each. 

On the campaign, Monaghan has called the initiative 'part of our broader plan of making sure that gaming is more accessible, that gaming supports higher education, and - most exciting - that gaming supports positive community involvement. Making a positive impact in the lives of students is big on our agenda.  We know that educational fees can be a huge burden for our players, and we want to do our bit in supporting them with things that really matter in their world. That's what "playing it forward" means to us.'

Interviews with Tramayne Monaghan are available on request. For further information on the 'Play It Forward' campaign, please contact Alez Odendaal at Tencent Games

Email: alez@tencent.co.za
Cell: +2771 597 2897

About #PlayItFoward from PUBG Mobile

The PUBGM #PlayItForward campaign will see big red loot crates dropped around a university or college near you soon. The loot drop will unlock over R50, 000 worth of prizes which includes two bursaries, and loads of spot giveaways like PUBGM merch and Chicken Dinners for students and their friends.

The crates will be dropped at whichever university or college garners the most support from its PUBGM ambassadors. Students can sign up to be ambassadors through the PUBGM website. Each institution will have a unique code, and the more students that download the game with their given code, the more likely it is that they'll soon be seeing a loot drop on campus. Loot crates will arrive at the two universities or colleges that get the most downloads. 

A R25 000 bursary at each institution will be given to the winner of a Single Classic game where the sole survivor takes all. For PUBGM ambassadors at those two universities or colleges, another R25 000 bursary is up for grabs in an ambassador-exclusive game.

Social Media
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PUBGMOBILE_AF
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PUBGMOBILE.AFRICA.OFFICIAL
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pubgmobile_af/

Don't have PUBG Mobile yet?
It's available to download for free on the App Store and Google Play.

App Store: https://apps.apple.com/app/id1330123889 
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.tencent.ig&hl=en_ZA 

About PUBG Mobile 

PUBG MOBILE is based on PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS, the phenomenon that took the world of interactive entertainment by storm in 2017. Up to 100 players parachute onto a remote island to battle in a winner-takes-all showdown. Players must locate and scavenge their own weapons, vehicles, and supplies, and defeat every player in a visually and tactically rich battleground that forces players into a shrinking play zone.

Also read:

Looks Like battleMETAL Will Fill Some Mechwarrior 2 Nostalgia

Just came across this cool video and project which aims to implement a Mecha game and SDK on the Quake1 engine (Darkplaces specifically):



You can find more details on their website and the Github repository.

Art assets are apparently not available yet due to some non-free placeholders, but I hope this will be changed soon. Also no multiplayer, but that might be possible to fix.

Also really cool would be a Occulus Quest VR port via the already available and quite awesome Darkplaces VR port called QuakeQuest.

Leave a comment on our forums.

Troops On Parade - 28Mm Italian Desert Force


It's time for another episode of the occasional "Troops on Parade" feature here at Yarkshire Gamer in which I look at one of the various collections of figures here at YG HQ. This week it is the turn of my 28mm Desert Italians who have been a regular feature in the ongoing Op Compass Campaign reports posted here.


I've just completed a final batch of vehicles for the army and (stop laughing at the back) I think the army is finished, so what better time to do a review than now. In fact with no expense spared below is a hard hitting YouTube documentary where I drone on for 20 minutes about stuff.



For those of you without super fast broadband  😉 to download the video below is a more leisurely stroll through the various units involved.


First up are some Bersaglieri, instantly recognisable from their helmet plumage (which is beautiful). A random purchase from the local Recon show a few years back when I couldn't find anything else to buy, there are 3 Squads of 10 men plus some command.


Followed by a big chunk of regular Italian Infantry, all metal from Perrys Miniatures, the Infantry had a strange organisation 1 squad of a Sgt and 11 Rifles and another of 9 men with two 3 Man LMG teams, I have 8 squads plus some spares for use as snipers etc.


The final Infantry type, the Giovanni Facisti, a home conversion with Perrys plastic Afrika Korps as the base. Heads from the plastic ACW plastic box set , a total of 6 squads and command in the collection.


The dismounted support weapon includes 3 47mm Anti Tank Guns, a couple of 20mm Anti Tank Rifles, 2 HMGs and a Mortar. I'd like some 65mm Infantry Guns but no one makes them.


Artillery support comes from 2 x 75mm Field Guns from Perrys and a 100mm Gun from Warlord.


A motorcycle Bersaglieri Squad, love these figures, avaliable from Dog Tag Miniatures.


Command of the army comes from this rather swift Italian Command Car avaliable from Perrys.


Soft Skin transports are a bit of a cheat, these are metal "collectors" miniatures from a Company called Days Gone By. They are a bit small but can be bought on eBay for a couple of quid each, which is a lot better than 20 or so for a 28mm truck (If you can find an Italian Truck), so this lot was 15 to 20 pound instead of £140, that's the tight Yarkshire Man !

The models come with company logos on etc but nothing that a light sanding and some black primer won't sort out. I have just painted them as normal and added an Italian Divisional symbol to the doors and there you go.

The type of truck I have used is a Fordson as the front grill resembles a Fiat 626.


There is a bit of a beast lurking around at the back of the group, a 90mm Breda Anti Aircraft gun mounted on a lorry with crew. Used in an anti tank role similar to the German 88, it's an old model which has yet to see action on our table. The model is from Company B which used to be imported into the UK by The Wargames Command Post, I'm not sure if they have a current UK distributor.


Moving onto the "armour" starting with the tiny L3 Tankettes, 6 of them. 5 have standard armour and 1 with a 20mm Anti Tank Rifle. Sold by the Perrys, having stood next to one in the Tank Museum I have no idea how two blokes got in one.


A couple of odds, a flamethrower version of the Tankette from Empress Miniatures, seriously who would get in one of these, not only are you cramped into one of the smallest poorly armoured vehicles of all time, you're towing a bomb !

Being that is a 47mm Semovente Tank Destroyer, a bit after our time frame but a nice model from Perrys.


A pair of Italian self propelled 75mm Semovente, they arrived in North Africa in Dec 1941 (just within our cut off point) but didn't see action until 1942. These are the Warlord Games version.


Proper armour next, on the right is the M11/39 tank, the first proper tank for the Italians, a twin MG turret with a 37mm gun in a pivot mount in the hull, great for colonial warfare not so great against British Tanks. They had their first outing on the table recently, report coming soon.


I have 7 of the 11/39 tanks, 6 Blitzkrieg Miniatures 1/56 versions and one from Company B, the latter is considerably bigger and is closer to the Warlord Games 28mm scale.


Final tanks are the more modern M13/40 tanks, 10 in all, all from Blitzkrieg.

So this is a project that started out as a "box of plastic" and a couple of Tanks and this is just the Italians, let this be a warning to you all 😂

Monday, March 23, 2020

Troops On Parade - 28Mm Italian Desert Force


It's time for another episode of the occasional "Troops on Parade" feature here at Yarkshire Gamer in which I look at one of the various collections of figures here at YG HQ. This week it is the turn of my 28mm Desert Italians who have been a regular feature in the ongoing Op Compass Campaign reports posted here.


I've just completed a final batch of vehicles for the army and (stop laughing at the back) I think the army is finished, so what better time to do a review than now. In fact with no expense spared below is a hard hitting YouTube documentary where I drone on for 20 minutes about stuff.



For those of you without super fast broadband  😉 to download the video below is a more leisurely stroll through the various units involved.


First up are some Bersaglieri, instantly recognisable from their helmet plumage (which is beautiful). A random purchase from the local Recon show a few years back when I couldn't find anything else to buy, there are 3 Squads of 10 men plus some command.


Followed by a big chunk of regular Italian Infantry, all metal from Perrys Miniatures, the Infantry had a strange organisation 1 squad of a Sgt and 11 Rifles and another of 9 men with two 3 Man LMG teams, I have 8 squads plus some spares for use as snipers etc.


The final Infantry type, the Giovanni Facisti, a home conversion with Perrys plastic Afrika Korps as the base. Heads from the plastic ACW plastic box set , a total of 6 squads and command in the collection.


The dismounted support weapon includes 3 47mm Anti Tank Guns, a couple of 20mm Anti Tank Rifles, 2 HMGs and a Mortar. I'd like some 65mm Infantry Guns but no one makes them.


Artillery support comes from 2 x 75mm Field Guns from Perrys and a 100mm Gun from Warlord.


A motorcycle Bersaglieri Squad, love these figures, avaliable from Dog Tag Miniatures.


Command of the army comes from this rather swift Italian Command Car avaliable from Perrys.


Soft Skin transports are a bit of a cheat, these are metal "collectors" miniatures from a Company called Days Gone By. They are a bit small but can be bought on eBay for a couple of quid each, which is a lot better than 20 or so for a 28mm truck (If you can find an Italian Truck), so this lot was 15 to 20 pound instead of £140, that's the tight Yarkshire Man !

The models come with company logos on etc but nothing that a light sanding and some black primer won't sort out. I have just painted them as normal and added an Italian Divisional symbol to the doors and there you go.

The type of truck I have used is a Fordson as the front grill resembles a Fiat 626.


There is a bit of a beast lurking around at the back of the group, a 90mm Breda Anti Aircraft gun mounted on a lorry with crew. Used in an anti tank role similar to the German 88, it's an old model which has yet to see action on our table. The model is from Company B which used to be imported into the UK by The Wargames Command Post, I'm not sure if they have a current UK distributor.


Moving onto the "armour" starting with the tiny L3 Tankettes, 6 of them. 5 have standard armour and 1 with a 20mm Anti Tank Rifle. Sold by the Perrys, having stood next to one in the Tank Museum I have no idea how two blokes got in one.


A couple of odds, a flamethrower version of the Tankette from Empress Miniatures, seriously who would get in one of these, not only are you cramped into one of the smallest poorly armoured vehicles of all time, you're towing a bomb !

Being that is a 47mm Semovente Tank Destroyer, a bit after our time frame but a nice model from Perrys.


A pair of Italian self propelled 75mm Semovente, they arrived in North Africa in Dec 1941 (just within our cut off point) but didn't see action until 1942. These are the Warlord Games version.


Proper armour next, on the right is the M11/39 tank, the first proper tank for the Italians, a twin MG turret with a 37mm gun in a pivot mount in the hull, great for colonial warfare not so great against British Tanks. They had their first outing on the table recently, report coming soon.


I have 7 of the 11/39 tanks, 6 Blitzkrieg Miniatures 1/56 versions and one from Company B, the latter is considerably bigger and is closer to the Warlord Games 28mm scale.


Final tanks are the more modern M13/40 tanks, 10 in all, all from Blitzkrieg.

So this is a project that started out as a "box of plastic" and a couple of Tanks and this is just the Italians, let this be a warning to you all 😂

Friday, March 20, 2020

Oceanhorn On PS4, Xbox One – Out Now!

Oceanhorn has fantastic voice actors!

Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas is out now on PS4 and Xbox One. Do not miss this opportunity to play the entry to the Oceanhorn franchise on your favorite console! Get your copy from Playstation Store and Microsoft Marketplace ($14.99 / €14.95).

We hope that these new platforms will bring Oceanhorn many new fans. Initial responses to the game have been very positive all around! People appreciate the smooth gameplay and nice visuals, but also the bug free port (FDG Entertainment, Engine Software) and Oceanhorn's great soundtrack (Nobuo Uematsu, Kenji Ito, Kalle Ylitalo).

On top of that, I want to present you the fantastic voice cast of Oceanhorn: Monster of Uncharted Seas!

Starring...
Ray Chase as Father. Ray has worked with us since Death Rally (2011) and his latest performance can be heard later this year in Final Fantasy 15 as the main character Noctis!

Co-starring...
Kevan Brighting as Hermit. Kevan is a remarkable and colorful voice actor of Stanley Parable fame.

And last but definitely not least...
Fryda Wolf as Princess Fin and Neeti. Fryda has done a lot of video game voice overs from Fallout 4 to Street Fighter V and Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII.

As the console versions are now out, the development team wants to thank everyone involved in Oceanhorn's story. Thank you for taking this amazing journey with us. We're looking forward to working with you all again in the future!

Knights of the Lost Realm awaits.

Thursday, March 19, 2020

Simplifying Encumbrance

Ah, encumbrance. How I've loved to hate thee, but how I've found that thou art needed...

This is my simplified encumbrance approach. Many of you will recognize this as the approach from BX, but it's also the approach taken in Chainmail - encumbrance is based primarily on the armor worn, and then by what else the player is carrying.

To make it more simple, I've simplified that further into just number/type of weapons, amount of treasure or number of items in the pack.

This chart shows the progression of move rates, starting at what kind of armor they are wearing. Shield is included. Rates shift right as the PCs grow more encumbered and shift left as they grow less encumbered. (Note that I use the OD&D/AD&D rates of inches - roughly translated into tens of feet for folks using BX or retroclones.)

Unarmored  Leather/Chain  Platemail  Encumbered  Overencumbered
12"9"6"3"0"

With these move rates, I'm also assuming a small amount of equipment. A light weapon or two and a backpack with a few supplies and equipment (less than a dozen).

For each heavy weapon or every three light weapons, shift one rate to the right.

Heavy weapons include the pole arm, halberd, pike, two-handed sword, morning star, flail, and battle axe or similar. Light weapons include the spear, sword, mace, hand axe, and bow or similar.

For every 300 coins in treasure, shift to the right/heavier. (Alternatively, if they're carrying around sacks of gold - a small sack holds 50 gold, a large sack holds 150 gold).

I usually rule that more than a dozen items in the backpack/on the person requires a shift to the right. It's a rough guideline, if the items are large or bulky, it will be fewer items. If the items are small, I might allow double.

Strength counts! For AD&D, the damage bonus for Strength also counts how many shifts to the left (lighter) they get. For OD&D, Str 14 -16 shifts one left, 17 gives two shifts left, 18, three shifts left.

An example or two:

Kujo the Fighter is wearing chainmail and has a shield. He has a sword, and a backpack with a bedroll, 6 torches (I count the bunch as one item), a crowbar and ten days of iron rations (I'll count that as two items).  His move starts at 9". 

In town, Kujo buys a bow and a quiver of a dozen arrows. He's still at 9"

In the dungeon, Kujo recovers a halberd from a dead orc. He now moves at 6", with the heavy/bulky weapon. Later in the dungeon, he comes upon a treasure chest full of gold and silver coins. There's about 300 coins in that chest, so he's now moving at (a very slow) 3"! I hope Kujo makes it!

If Kujo has a Strength of 16, then for both OD&D and AD&D, he would start at 12" and after his dungeon adventures, be moving at a 6" rate. Go Kujo go! If Kujo had been at an 18 strength, he would have remained at 12" the entire time.

So the question comes up "What's a little vs a lot?" "Why do you rule that someone is carrying a lot."

In many times, it's the duck test - if it quacks like a duck, then I'm pretty sure they're carrying too much. Often, I'll ask the player... are you carrying a lot?  Many times, they'll own up to their own encumbrance. If it "feels" like a lot to me, I'll have the player convince me that they're not carrying a lot. To me, "a lot" is a good amount of equipment, bulky books, weeks of food, etc. If I could go either way, I'll go in favor of the player, but honestly, we all know when we're probably carrying too much.

What do you think?

Toy Soldiers, Part 2: Gaslands

Gaslands is another in Osprey Publishing's line of miniatures rule books that exist on their own, without a particular line of miniatures or accessories to go with them. In this case, the game is about post-apocalyptic vehicle combat, so naturally it is designed to be played with Matchbox cars.

The game uses a template-based system for movement (similar to X-Wing) and a rather ingenious way to simulate speed, with cars in higher gear getting to move more often in a turn. The rules are simple and straightforward, aided by an over-arching "rule of carnage" that states that if any rule is unclear or open to multiple interpretations, always go with the option that does the most damage.

The simple rules make it a fast-paced game, which is what you want from a game about speeding cars. Each round is split up into "gear phases" in which cars moving at that gear or higher get to move and then attack (either by ramming or shooting). Going faster gets your vehicle more chances to act, but it also reduces your choice of movement template, which could see your car unexpectedly careening into a bit of terrain, or even off the board all together.

Players are presented with a number of options for creating their cars, including different types of vehicles such as buggies, motorcycles, performance cars, pickup trucks, and even the dreaded War Rig. Cars are then festooned with armaments ranging from basic machine guns to land mines and oil slick sprayers. There is even one faction armed with mad science lighning projectors and EMP pulses, and another that uses jury-rigged catapults to lob bits of junk at their enemies.

While the game is undoubtedly a lot of fun to play, the real joy for most players is in customizing their toy cars, adding machine guns and rams along with dents, scratches, rust and weathering. An entire community has popped up on places like Etsy, providing accessories for players to stick to their toy cars, and in most Gaslands forums there is a lot more discussion about modeling the cars than there is about actually playing the game.

One of my criticisms of Ronin was the lack of accessories such as stat cards, but that's less of an issue with Gaslands, mainly because the game is a lot more popular and there are numerous online resources providing everything from plastic movement templates and custom engraved dice to reusable blank vehicle cards.

Rating: 5 (out of 5) A terrific high-octane vehicle combat game. It may take a bit of prep time if you want to create custom cars to play with, but that really is half the fun (at least).

Introducing IESF’s International Esports Referee Academy Instructors



International Esports Federation (IESF) is pleased to introduce the trainers for the debut session of the International Esports Referee Academy.  Combined, the three instructors have accounted for over 20 years of national and international Esports refereeing experience and over 50 years of global Esports insight.  They look to pass that knowledge on to the next generation of Esports leaders at IESF International Esports Referee Academy, which is set to kick-off its first session later this month.  

Introducing IESF International Esports Referee Academy instructors.

Sungwon Lee 
As a member of the F1 Amateur StarCraft Team from 2005 to 2013, Mr. Lee competed in all levels of events as an athlete.  Building on that experience, Sungwon began his career as a referee with the Korea Esports Association in 2009 as a referee for the StarCraft competition. He joined IESF''s team of international referees in 2017.  To date, he has refereed over 400 StarCraft and Special Forces matches, and has accumulated a depth of experience in Esports communications and event management through his work with the World Cyber Games, World Cyber Arena, Spotv Games, and VSGames.

Seonghee Sinnara Bae
Seonghee Sinnara Bae has been an Esports referee since the 2011 World Cyber Games in Busan.  She has worked with IESF since the 2012 Esports World Championship in Cheonan, and has worked with the Korea Esports Association since 2014.  She has overseen countless national and international competitions in the StarCraft, League of Legends, and DOTA 2 arenas. Her lectures around regulations and referee behavior will be a key component of the program.

Colin Webster
IESF President Colin Webster began refereeing esports events in South Africa in 1998 and has refereed and organized events at every level from regional through to national and international events.  He brings 30 years of leadership in the global mind sports and international Esports industries to the classroom, where he will lecture on topics of ethics, communication, and event management.

IESF International Esports Referee Academy is one of the three pillars of the Global Esports R&D Center in Busan, South Korea.  Through the dedicated support from both the City of Busan and Busan IT Promotion Agency (BIPA), IESF is able to develop initiatives designed to elevate and promote Esports.

Monday, March 16, 2020

Exploring Monster Taming Mechanics In Final Fantasy XIII-2

Let's just get this out of the way. I'm a huge Final Fantasy fan. I adore the original game even today, Final Fantasy VI is definitely the best of the franchise, and I've found things to enjoy in every one that I've played, which is nearly all of the main-line games. (I still haven't managed to crack open FFIII, but I plan to soon.) Even each of the games in the Final Fantasy XIII trilogy had something that drew me in and kept me going through the game, wanting to learn more. These games get a lot of flack for being sub-par installments in the Final Fantasy franchise, and some of the criticism is warranted. The story is convoluted, and the plot is as confusing as quantum mechanics.

That debate, however, is not why we're here now. We're here to look at one of the great aspects of FFXIII-2: the monster taming and infusion system.


This system is deep and complex, but not in the off-putting way that the plot is. The amount of variety and configurability in the monsters that you can recruit to fight alongside Serah and Noel is astonishing, which is nice because those two are somewhat lacking in that department. Their development paths are fairly linear. There are a few choices about what strengths to give them as they level up in the "crystarium," but it's mostly a matter of ordering the abilities they learn and doesn't make much difference in the end. The monsters, on the other hand, allow for huge variations in development that results in a system with fascinating choices for optimization and prioritization. Figuring out how to capture and develop powerful monsters early in the game is great fun, and its this characteristic of Final Fantasy games—of finding ways to build a strong party early in the game without tedious grinding—that I really enjoy.

On a totally different note, I've been considering different ways to practice using databases and building simple websites, and the monster taming system is complex enough and interesting enough that it would make for a good collection of content to use for that practice while having some fun in the process. So, the other goal of this series, other than exploring the monster taming system in FFXIII-2, is to explore how to get a data set into a database, put it up on a website with Ruby on Rails, and experiment with that data set in some novel ways. Before we get into all of that, however, we need to understand what the heck we're putting in the database in the first place, and to do that we need to understand this monster taming system in detail.

Monster Taming

Okay, what is this monster taming, and why is it so complicated? We'll have to start at the beginning and work our way through the system. At the start of the game there's just Serah, trying to stay alive. (Actually, the very start of the game is a flashy battle sequence and confusing plot points with Lightning, but let's ignore that.) Pretty soon Noel shows up and decides to help Serah out, so now it's a party of two. This setup goes on for a couple levels, but it's pretty weird for a Final Fantasy game. Normally there's three or four characters in a party. Then we come to a pitched battle with a Cait Sith and a Zwerg Scandroid. There will be a lot of weird monster names throughout this series. You're just going to have to roll with it. Anyway, after creaming the cat and the droid, they turn into monster crystals, which are basically the essence of monsters. These crystals are stored in your monster inventory, and you can assign three of them to coveted spots in your "Paradigm Pack" (not the name I would have picked). These three monster spirits will fight with you in battle, and so begins your long and precarious journey as the monster whisperer.

Monsters come in six basic varieties, conveniently matching the six roles that Serah and Noel can assume. These six role are briefly explained as follows:
  • Commando - The Arnold Schwarzenegger role, plenty of strength, short on finesse.
  • Ravager - The mage role, uses attack magic.
  • Sentinel - This is a tank role, not many attacking options, but it absorbs damage like it's nothing.
  • Saboteur - Weakens the enemy by removing protections and inflicting ailments like poison and slow.
  • Synergist - Strengthens the party with offensive and defensive enhancements. Also moonlights as a business executive.
  • Medic - Heals the party, and possibly the only obvious role name of the bunch.
While Serah and Noel can switch between these roles, the tamed monsters have fixed roles. Switching the monster's role switches the monster, and there are three role possibilities for any given battle corresponding to the three monsters that are on deck. The monster's type is only the beginning of what a monster is, though. There is so much more.

Monster Training

Monsters can gain experience just like Serah and Noel. Both the humans and the monsters have crystariums where they advance along a path to gain abilities and increase their stats. While the humans have a crystarium for each of their six roles, the monsters each have one crystarium, possibly with multiple levels, where they gain their abilities and stats. Because the crystariums of the monsters are more unique to the monster itself, each monster type will learn a unique set of abilities and end up with different stats. Additionally, while the humans can move through their crystariums by spending crystarium points gained from winning battles, monsters can only advance on their crystariums by using various types of monster materials that are dropped by defeating monsters in battle. This seems to be some form of cannibalism, but it's pretty mild because the materials are bolts and orbs and other things like that. Monsters require different materials for their crystariums depending on what level they're on their crystarium, and if they're biological or mechanical monsters. Different materials will also give different bonuses to the monster's health, strength, magic, or all three stats.

Following so far? Because we're just getting started. This monster whispering is intricate stuff. On top of the unique upgrade paths, abilities, and materials, each monster spirit has a set of characteristics that relate to how they will develop as they level up. A monster can be a "late bloomer," meaning it may be weak to start with, but it can reach the upper levels 70-99 of its crystarium. Maybe the monster is "brainy," meaning that it will learn lots of abilities, or it's "flameproof," which is pretty self-explanatory. There are 29 characteristics in all, and any given monster can have up to four of them. Monsters will also come with some initial abilities, whether that be actions like casting certain spells and attacking or passive abilities like "armor breaker" that allows it to penetrate an enemy's physical defense. Taming and training monsters are not the only ways to get monsters with certain abilities, however. This is where things get real, as in real complicated.

Monster Infusion

The third way to give a particular monster new and wonderful abilities is to take another monster that has the desired ability(ies) and fuse them into the desired monster through a magical monster infusion process. How does this work exactly? Who knows! How did materia work in FFVII, or guardian force cards in FFVIII? It's a Final Fantasy game; some things you just have to accept without question and move on. The source monster spirit is lost in this process of infusing the target monster with new abilities. It's a destructive process.

Losing the source monster is not the only cost, though. There are restrictions as well. The first restriction is that a monster can only have 10 passive abilities. If a monster accumulates more than 10 passive abilities, some of them are going to have to go. These abilities all have a rank, and higher ranked abilities will stick to a monster better than lower ranked abilities. Also, newer abilities are stickier than older abilities, according to when the monster learned them. The lowest ranked abilities will get the boot first, with order of acquisition being the tie-breaker—first in, first out.

The next restriction is red-locked abilities. These are abilities that cannot be transferred to or removed from a monster, ever. This restriction is pretty simple, unlike the next one.

Monsters can also have yellow-locked abilities, although these locks never exist by default. Yellow locks can be created, propagated, and destroyed by infusing abilities of the same type in various ways. Two abilities are the same type if they modify the same attribute. For example, HP +10% and HP +25% would be of the same type. Also, HP +10% is a lower rank than HP +25%. That's important for yellow locks because if you infuse a monster that already has a lower rank ability with an equal or higher rank ability of the same type, the infused ability comes with a yellow lock and will stay put when the monster's abilities overflow. Generally, if an ability of higher rank is added to a yellow-locked ability of lower rank, the yellow lock is kept. If an ability of equal or lower rank is added to a yellow-locked ability, the yellow lock is destroyed. It's a bit more complicated than that because there are about a dozen different combinations, but this summary should be sufficient for the purpose of setting the requirements of the database. Basically, we want to make sure we know the rank of each ability so that we can figure out the best way to develop monsters' abilities.

All of the red lock and yellow lock stuff has to do with passive abilities, but there are two other types of abilities that come into play with monster infusion: role abilities and hidden abilities. Role abilities are the actions that the monster will take in battle, and there is no limit to the number of these abilities that a monster can have. When a source monster is infused, you can choose from its role abilities up to the number that its crystarium stage is at, which will be 1-5 depending on how much you can level up the monster and how much you actually leveled it up. The disadvantage of infusing too many role abilities on a monster is that you don't have control over what it does in battle, and if it has too many options, it probably won't be doing what you want it to do when you need it most. Decide what you're going to use a monster for, and then don't give it choices. You can't remove role abilities once they're infused.

Lastly, hidden abilities are learned by a monster when it is infused with 99 levels worth of monsters of the opposite role. Commando and Ravager are opposites (makes sense), Saboteur and Synergist are opposites (makes even more sense), and Sentinel and Medic are opposites (the leftovers, I guess). For example, you could infuse nine level 17 Zwerg Scandroids onto your Red Chocobo, and it'll learn Jeopardize, which boosts the bonus the chocobo gets when attacking a staggered enemy. Each role has it's own hidden ability that it gets when those 99 levels of monsters of the opposite role are infused into it.

Acquiring the Data for the Database

Okay, that was a bunch of intricate, complicated stuff, but it gives us a good idea of what kind of data we want to put in our database so we can link it up and ask interesting questions about monster infusion. 

First, we want to know all about monsters:
  • What's its name?
  • Is it tamable? We might have a separate tamable monster table since most of the following properties wouldn't apply to non-tamable monsters.
  • What materials does it drop in battle?
  • What's its role?
  • Where in the game can we find it?
  • What are its characteristics?
  • What's its max level?
  • What are its starting and ending stats (HP, strength, and magic)?
  • What are its starting abilities?
  • What abilities does it learn and at which crystarium levels?
  • How many crystarium stages does it have?
  • What is its feral link? (We didn't talk about this. It's a special action that can be triggered when the monster gets hit too much.)
  • What does the feral link do?
  • We could also include pictures if we want to get fancy.
We also want to know about abilities. This will be a separate table:
  • What's its name?
  • What's its rank?
  • What does it do?
  • Is it passive, role, or hidden? These may be separate tables, since they're different enough to warrant it.
  • Which role is it associated with?
We'll be interested in at least one aspect of the areas in the game:
  • What's its name?
  • How early can we reach this area? I.e. which area unlocks this area?
Since there's a fair number of monster materials, we'll want to keep track of those:
  • What's its name?
  • Is it biological or mechanical?
  • What stage of the crystarium is it for?
  • Does it boost HP, strength, magic, or all three? (The name does give this away, but let's be thorough.)
We'll also want to know a little about the monster characteristics because the names are not self-explanatory:
  • What's its name?
  • What does it mean?
This is shaping up to be a reasonably complex database with 5-8 tables interlinked by these different items' names. The relations in the database will happen through IDs, but everything does have a name as well. The names will be what appears in the tables presented as views of the database, likely with hyperlinks to their information in their own tables. So how should we get all of this data into a database? I certainly don't want to enter it by hand. There's over 150 monsters, dozens of abilities, and dozens of properties for each monster. 

Luckily, some ambitious people have already done the hard work of writing out all of these things in an FAQ, and it's available on gamefaqs.com. The Monster Infusion FAQ by sakurayule, BMSirius, and Taly932 contains almost everything we want to put in the database. It also contains example builds for post-game super monsters, but we're going to look at something a bit different with this series. We want to figure out the best monster builds we can do during the game in order to have monsters that can help us through the game without the need to do any grinding. All of the necessary information is in that FAQ. We just have to write a script to parse it and put it in a form that's easy to import into the database. That parsing script is what we'll figure out how to write in the next episode.

Sunday, March 15, 2020

TiRoBEx Terrain

Here's what I manage to finish up for TiRoBEx before CaptainCon. The ruins were fun, when I finally get around to the loads that I have for Epic I think I'll have a good process.

Ruined Building Ruined Building Ruined Building Ruined Building Ruined Building Tiny Robots Tiny Robots

Thursday, March 5, 2020

You Spoke, We Listened! Oceanhorn Coming To PS Vita On May 17Th



In September 2016 we released Oceanhorn on PS4 and Xbox One, our very first console game. Since its release we received so much love and overwhelmingly positive feedback from console gaming community. Thank you so much!

Oceanhorn  is our love letter to action adventures from past generations and combines the action and puzzle elements from Zelda games with the emotional journey of the Final Fantasy and Mana series.

Oceanhorn on PSVita in action

Wow these colours pop on the PS Vita screen!

Soon after launch we received many requests from players who'd love a portable PS Vita version of this game so we decided to do a Twitter Poll about it. What followed was an incredible Tsunami of likes and retweets – it blew us away! We are very happy to announce that Oceanhorn – Monster of Uncharted Seas will arrive on PS Vita on May 17th, 2017.


Taking full advantage of PS Vita


We've been working hard to deliver the same gameplay experience that you've loved on consoles, so we put many hours into optimizing our code. We're very happy to confirm that the whole game runs beautifully on the PS Vita delivering smooth performance all the way through the entire game.

It's just amazing to see the game coming to life on the colourful PS Vita display. Everything looks so expressive, adding an extra punch to the huge variety of islands like rainy forests or scorching desserts. Explore all of them on the go!

The game will take you from the deepest dungeons to the highest skies


Beautiful Game for a beautiful Handheld System


We didn't stop with just porting it, we also added features to take advantage of the Vita in unique ways. You decide if you want to use them or play in a traditional way. First of all we enabled Touch Screen for casting spells and to navigate the menus. This is a very comfortable and direct way of choosing targets or menu options.  Furthermore we enabled PlayStation TV so you can play on the big screen.

Oh and in case you're wondering: The game features its own set of trophies, so all trophy hunters rejoice, another Platinum Trophy to hunt for. Altogether we aimed to deliver a must have for every PS Vita library and it's our way of saying thanks for your support. Cheers!

Korbinian Mossandl// Producer, FDG Entertainment