Creating Music for a phone game.

So a friend and I are currently developing a game for the iPhone and hopefully, if it receives even modest success, Android too. It is going to take a long time for us to finish this project as we are only doing it in our spare time, so I won't go into too much detail just yet. What I want to talk about now is a song I have recently created for it. If you just want to hear the song, scroll down to the bottom.

The Setup

iMac mid 2011
Logic Pro 9.1.8
MOTU 828mkII A/D
Newer Technology miniStack v3 (explained below)

The Instruments
Korg Microkey 25 key USB keyboard
Roland TD 15

The Cables
1x (Extra Long) Firewire 400
1x MIDI
1x USB, type A to type B
1x Firewire 800 (explained below)

The Music Creation Process

It's hard for me to say how I create music, because I don't think I really have a technique per se, it's more that I just blurt something out and then I begin working with the mess I've created. This whole song began because I was testing out a Christmas present, the Korg Microkey. I just wanted to have some fun with it and out came this riff. I used some sneaky short cuts to help me create this song. There is the obvious copy and paste of sections but also copying and pasting sections into different instruments to help me get an idea of the sound. Then I would take out unneeded notes, lengthen them or move them as necessary. Once I had finished using the keyboard and editing notes in the piano roll I moved onto the drumkit.

The Problems

Some of you may notice straight off the bat that the 828mkII uses firewire 400 and the mid 2011 iMac only has firewire 800. So to fix this, I used my powered portable hard-drive/hub, which handled all my connection issues. Next we come to the latency issue. I've never really noticed any latency issues with anything but drums in Logic and of course I wanted to record some drums, via MIDI in this project. I switched on Low Latency Mode in the options, which did nothing. So I Googled and read manuals and tweaked this and that to no avail. Turns out you have to switch the button in the arrange window, the option in settings does nothing. I guess it's a feature.

Mix for Mono

The first thing I noticed about my mix was that it sounded terrible through the tiny iPhone mono speaker. The combination of a stereo mix and the heavy bass sounds of Logics instruments meant I was getting some problems with sound going out of phase. To correct this I changed to a monophonic mix and I tweaked every sound I used. Mainly I needed to take out the bass, pretty heavily but on some sounds I had to cut some high frequency and adjust their volume/compression levels. After nine mixes I was happy to say it was listenable on that tiny iPhone speaker.

Read Before Listening: A Warning

Because Google are not the masters of the internet we thought them to be, mp3s are quite difficult to load into Blogger, so I have uploaded a video instead. I decided to use some footage I had taken with my iPhone at MONA and a gig I went to.

Warning: The video contains strobe lighting that may be dangerous for some viewers. Also it is of such poor quality it is recommended that you close your eyes and simply enjoy the song.

Hello Kitty Tap and Run: Super Cute and on the Run!! Review [Android, iOS]

Let's face it, we all want great Hello Kitty games to exist. Imagine if they made a Hello Kitty game so great, that everyone was playing it, from dude-bros to hobos, it would be amazing. Well… you better sit down.

Hello Kitty is a terrible game, I just don't see the point of any of it. I'm sorry to have built it up but you wouldn't keep reading otherwise. There is just so much wrong with it. Firstly, I hope you like the back of Hello Kitty's head because you're going to see a lot of it during the loading screens. Secondly, the translation is horrible, you are purifying the toys, purifying them!? I want to say so much on that but honestly, I think it's best not to. Thirdly, there are plenty of glitches Finally, the gameplay...

In case the name didn't give it away Hello Kitty Tap and Run is in the endless runner category of games, although it has stages instead of endlessly running. There is nothing wrong with this category but it needs something interesting to keep you hooked, Hello Kitty doesn't really have that. The levels are bland and often right at the end of them nothing happens at all. You can jump and you can attack, occasionally you might fight a boss but there is no skill to it. It's aimed at kids you might say but then why bombard you with all these dialogue boxes and crush kitties to make your ones stronger? Yes, you crush them together to power up your strongest (purest?) kitties. Okay they are meant to be mechanical toys but that fact may be lost on little kids.

There is more to this game than just terrible levels, you can design your room, or spend all your parents hard earned money in the market but there are also many more terrible features I haven't mentioned like graphical glitches and repetitive music. You know maybe I just don't get this game, maybe I'm not a Hello Kitty fan at all but I tried my hardest and now I just want to be left alone to play some violent video games, you know, to purify myself of this game 2/10.

What if I only rescue 95% of her?

Australia Day Warning

Australia day is coming up fast people. If you are sober enough to remember, you might want to check out the deals on the App Store and Google Play. Titles made in Australia will be offered at discounted rates and possibly even for free. Apps to look out for include Epoch and Epoch 2 plus any titles from Half Brick Studios.

Humble Mobile Bundle 3

The Humble Mobile Bundle The Humble Mobile Bundle number 3 is looking pretty sweet if you are an Android owner. I reviewed Epoch earlier when it was out only for iOS and gave it an 8 so it is a solid game. Plus it's made by a team of Australian developers so bonus points for that. I also reviewed Kingdom Rush as a Flash game in a one sentence review giving it 9. It is a tower defence game but it actually added a lot of cool ideas to tower defence that many have copied now. Things like having little soldiers that block your enemies whilst your towers blast away and just the overall art style and theme of the game make this title really stand out. I haven't played the others but Ridiculous Fishing is just like Radical Fishin', which is a pretty sweet game that involves shooting fish.

The bundle is currently sitting at just over $5 USD for all six games which is pretty damn cheap. I say go and get it if you are an Android but not paranoid…

3 Games That Are Now Free To Play

There are a lot of games converting over free to play at the moment. Asphalt 8 and AVP Evolution are taking the microtransaction route, whilst Mecho Wars has just become free to play. 

Asphalt 8 [iOS, Android]

Asphalt 8 was a dollar to play for a short time, with plenty of pay for extras options and now it is a free to play, pay for extras game, confused? Good. The game offers a bunch of control modes with the worst being the on screen controls, meaning that tilt is the only real option. If this was a serious racer that would be a big problem but as it's an arcade, crash your way to the top title, it's not such a big deal. The crashes are completely ridiculous with minor taps sending cars flying and scoring you points. Sometimes cars will ram into me and this will count as me destroying them, granting me extra turbo bonuses. It's totally silly but that's half the fun. 

The menu is atrocious with everything smashed onto one screen and the most useful item, the settings button, is reduced to a tiny blip in the corner. Otherwise the presentation of the rest of the game is quite good. The graphics are top notch and it features music from some great musicians including my favourite Go with the Flow by Queens of the Stone Age. Some people are bound to love this game and if you want an over the top silly racer this is for you. For me though, I don't think racing titles will move into the "great" category on phones until titles are released with universal controller support, which, incidentally isn't too far away 7.2/10.

Mecho Wars [iOS, paid on Android]

My first impressions of this game were bad. It's full of typos, the story is horrendous, the graphics are an odd mix and the tutorial goes on for far too long. Basically I wished it was Advance Wars, the game on which it is clearly based. Yet, I kept playing and eventually I was hooked. It may lack the complex tactics of more advance turn based strategies but there is still some substance here. Once you learn which unit does what (and trust me the bizarre art style does not help this) the game begins to make sense. What it does lack though, are clear indicators of defensive bonuses, easy to find attack radiuses and just any useful information in general. The most outstanding feature is probably the music which apparently was nominated for a bunch of awards. I quite enjoyed it though I am suspicious that one of the songs is actually from Star Wars!

If I was playing this game on a Gameboy Advance or a PC, I think I would laugh at it till it ran off into a corner never to be seen again. But phones have such few options when it comes to turn based strategy that this ends up okay 7.3/10.

AVP Evolution [iOS, paid on Android]

It's cool because it's Aliens Vs Predators and those creatures are just cool. Unfortunately the game knows this and it doesn't really try hard at all to do anything with it. The original two games on PC will always be the classics, looked back upon for inspiration despite the fact they were hardly groundbreaking at the time. However they did incorporate a lot of classic moments from the movies in a relatively seamless and fun way. Now every game after them has to try to do this and it just isn't fresh anymore. You have to burst out of a chest and walk around as a stupid snake that can't do anything. There is no real jump in the game and the snake thing just jumps when necessary. You can't climb as the alien except where it wants you to and those sequences are just painful. Despite all of this I thought I chose to play as the Predator but I spend more time as the alien.

As far as I can tell the gameplay is about fighting with the camera and then bashing to death anything that isn't you. I could say more but what's the point? This is for fans only 5.9/10.

Star Wars: Tiny Death Star {Android, iOS]

Star Wars: Tiny Death Star is Tiny Tower in space. Just like Tiny Tower you are in charge of a series of rooms stacked one upon the other and you need to manage their day to day affairs. Restock stores, deliver people to floors and get bitizens to move into your apartments. However it's not all the same, the game introduces some new ideas and streamlines some functionality of the previous title.

The premise behind the game is that the Emperor needs to make money to fund the Death Star, so the Empire rents out space to shops and apartments. You can also build Imperial levels which go below your other levels and they allow you to complete Imperial Assignments. Like in the last game people come to your lobby and you take them by elevator to the floor they want to go. The twist in this one is that you can take anyone down to an Imperial level to speed up it's production time. My favourite is to take unsuspecting Gungans down to the interrogation room to be tortured. Well they just walk through the room but I like to think they are being tortured.

Other new features are things like, you don't have to spend money to buy stock for your stores and the Emperor gives you missions to complete but the main new thing is that this is Star Wars. The Star Wars factor is probably the only real appealing thing as if you've played Tiny Tower you've played this. Again it is a pay or wait type game so it isn't as interactive as other titles out there but the little details can really suck you in. When the Cantina theme plays or an Imperial Guard moves into one of your apartments, it really brings that fun Star Wars feel to the game and these are the moments you play it for. The game gets you to chase rebel spies and sometimes plays little vignettes of events going on which add a bit of atmosphere to the game.

At first I was quite surprised buy the generosity of the special offers going on in the store but I quickly released how limited these are. The game wants you to decide straight away on a purchase as the more you play the worse the deals get. This is a step in the right direction but ultimately it falls flat, which is a shame as I thought it would be something I would purchase.

If you haven't played Tiny Tower or you are a Star Wars fanboy you have to play this game; it's free so you won't lose anything. It's bound to while away a good amount of your time before the repetitive nature of it brings it all crashing down 7.5/10.

Three Free App reviews [iOS, Android]

FIFA 14 [iOS, Android] It's cool, really cool; you can play with touch controls which is very relaxing or more intensely with an onscreen control pad and I like that. They want you to pay for some stuff but that's okay because you get to do a lot for free, even play as an A League team! However connecting to Origin is entirely broken both on Android and iOS, so once you get past the initial stages you can't do anything 6/10.

Pocket Trains [iOS, Android] It's sort of a game that you don't play; you wait around for your trains to get their goods to the destination, then you tell them what to do. It's not bad, it feels enjoyable when you do play it, it's just that you need to be playing another game, or doing something else, otherwise you'll just get bored 5/10.

Turbo Racing League [iOS, Android] I've had this game on my phone for months now but the movie has only just come out here so it seems like the most appropriate time to review it. It's a simple racer but it includes a lot of different race modes, boosts and upgrades which keep you coming back to the game.  It's a very highly polished game but there are some annoyances, it bombards you with ads and the tracks seem bland and repetitive after a while. Sill it's the pick of the bunch 7.2/10.

The World of Mystic Wiz: Quiz RPG [iOS, Android]

What a name, what an odd game. It's a freemium quiz RPG and it's actually pretty fun. You need to successfully answer trivia style questions in order to do combat damage to the enemy monsters with your spirits. Spirits are collected in card form and can be enhanced or evolved into more powerful spirits. It's an odd mix but it definitely makes it unique... also my code is 7UAGWDVD, add me!

The game gives you your standard story driven quest mode and an online battle mode where you still battle the A.I. but compete to see who can beat them in the shortest number of turns. The questing features an odd but reasonably interesting story which includes your standard rise to greatness. The name of the game takes its title from your master Wiz, like a lot of Japanese games on phones and tablets poor translation is a feature here.

The questions vary widely in difficulty from extremely easy to ridiculously hard. They do offer an interesting mix of questions with some of them even being Australia related. However, mostly they are American and this can make it difficult for anyone who isn't obsessed with Americanism. In addition some questions have been matched with the wrong answer set giving you some bizarre answers.

The pay wall is pretty good in this, it won't get in your way too much. It does have a regenerating MP bar that you use to fight battles but I've only used this up after playing for a long time and it regenerates quickly anyway. The prices are astronomical so I wouldn't bother paying anything for this game, why they didn't introduce something decent is beyond me. You earn new cards by playing the game or invoking which can be done via friend points or by using gems. Using gems gets you better results and you earn a decent amount in game. It costs you five gems for one spin but they only give you two gems for a dollar, that seems quite harsh. Sometimes I wonder if freemium games developers don't want to make money.

As I mentioned before you can enhance and evolve your spirits to make them more powerful. Enhancing is just leveling up and it requires you to sacrifice cards and spend in game money to do so. Evolving is more or less the same but this time you need special evo cards, it will cost you more money and you will get the next level of card. Evolving is a little bit tedious as you will need to have a max level spirit card, then all the right evo cards and it only results in you power up your card one step. Some of your cards do have special powers though and making these more powerful is quite a boon. Powers include, doing a type of damage to all opponents, healing your team and knocking out an incorrect answer in the quiz.

I had a lot of fun with this game and it was very nearly an 8 but there are a bunch of things that let it down. Some questions repeat too frequently, poor translation and the odd bug, not to mention the overpriced in game store are the main culprits. Still I think you can have a lot of fun with this game and if you are looking for something a bit different you should grab it 7.7/10.

In App Purchasing Done Wrong

Plants Vs. Zombies 2 and Real Racing are both good examples of poor decisions when it comes to in app. purchasing but what do they do wrong exactly? Poor value for money is one of the key problems, nerds like to feel they are getting a good deal and these games don't really convey that feeling. There are often too many confusing options, and what the usefulness is of your purchase is not clearly laid out. Too many "currencies" I'll also look at what other games have done right when it comes to in app purchases.

What does buying a $0.99 app get you these days? Quite a lot actually and that is a problem for a lot of in app purchases. Especially if you have bought a previous version of the game, you know what you got for your money. If you paid between 1 and 5 dollars for a whole game, you aren't going to be happy spending 10 dollars and just getting a small bonus and some useless in game cash. It's partly a psychological thing, I mean you got the whole game for free why pay so much for these little extras? The best example I have of this, is that the original Plants Vs. Zombies, will set you back $10.49 for a computer version, yet the free sequel wants to charge you $4.49 just for the use of a special plant!

Plants Vs. Zombies 2 is probably the best example of confusing in app. purchases. Unless you have played the original game the value of a lot of the things you can buy will be totally unclear. How useful is a Squash or Jalapeno in the game? I would say these types of items are not very useful at all, certainly not for the price but that is because I have completed the original game many times. Often these games want to give specials and bundle deals that are more attractive to the user, than some of the standard options. That's fine but usually this confuses the deals and what they come with exactly, is made unclear. Again this comes back to a value for money thing and the value really isn't there.

Real Racing 3 is a great example of too many types of currencies. It  uses "Real Dollars", "Gold", and requires you to have "Drive" to enter certain races. Real Dollars (not to be confused with actual money) are used to buy in game cars and upgrades, that makes sense and is fine I think but then gold will allow you to speed up things like your car being repaired. Plus you are going to need drive to enter special types of races, it's all a little too much and Real Racing isn't necessarily the worst offender out there. I think companies like this as it adds to the confusion over value but that is exactly why most people hate it. It's much simpler when you can purchase one currency and then use that on whatever you want to rather than being forced to spend your money all over the place.

In app. purchasing is just one option available to videogame companies and it isn't always the best way to go. Sometimes though companies do get it right, here is a look at some examples. Sid Meier's Ace Patrol got a lot of things right with it's in app purchasing and the main thing they did, was to give you a pack at a discounted price. The packs contain all the Aces for example or the campaign pack had all of the missions besides the already discounted British Pack. That was another great thing they did, give you a whole campaign for just a dollar. It felt like good value and due to the gameplay being so excellent it was good value. The Walking Dead also had a great system, they gave you the first episode free, then you could buy one episode at a time, or buy the whole pack for a discounted rate. It was a simple and clean no bullshit approach. Ultimately I think it is in the companies interest to make a clean system that the user will appreciate, not only does it help their review score but I know personally I am much more likely to buy from a company that does this well.

Games for iOS, Android and PC

Run That Town [iOS] The Australian Bureau of Statistics finally has a game! I know we've all been waiting and it's even got Shaun Micallef. You can run any town you like from Kambah right through to Thornbury and just like everything the ABS has ever done, it's as boring as hell 1/10.

Iron Man 3[iOS, Android] This one is an endless flyer and like a lot of it's endless runner counterparts it uses the ever terrible tilt controls. This game wouldn't actually be too bad if it weren't for the timers put on everything to make you pay. It does however have quite pretty visuals and interesting missions to complete but at the end of the day it's for fans only 6/10.

Reus [PC] An indie title where you play as a planet, well sorta. You control the deities that are spawned by the planet. These gods represent the ocean, forest life, mountains and swamps and these gods bring life to the planet. The highest level of life is of course humans and you will need to make them happy to succeed in this game. To level up you need to complete achievements, things like get a town to x prosperity level, or have a town with so much greed. It sounds like a cool idea and was great fun at first but the gameplay really drags on as you repeat the same steps over and over again 6/10.

3 Short Reviews

BioShock Infinite [PC, PS3, Xbox 360] A solid game game but no-where near as amazing as the press had made it out to be. The powers aren't as exciting to use as those in Dishonored and the story takes a lull right at the time you are hit with a chunk of repetitive gameplay. Still well worth a play even if it's just to see how pretty it looks 8/10.

Running Unicorn Attack 2 [iOS (coming to Android)] The 80's have made quite a resurgence in videogames this year with Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon launching only a week ago and Running Unicorn Attack 2 (RUA 2) only a few days before that. Although they are probably both more early 90's than you might care to believe, RUA 2 embodies the spirit of what we have come to believe the 80's were. It combines cheesy music and memories of over the top children's T.V., with the ubiquitous endless runner. You play as a unicorn jumping, dashing and flying about the world, collecting tears and fairies, smashing stars and giants, all set against beautiful backgrounds that feature flying whales, dolphins and seahorses. So yes it makes no sense. It has some let downs like the occasional bit of slow-down and it does get a little repetitive but it's free and well worth the experience of cheesiness and rainbow-pooping unicorns 7/10.

Haunted Hollow [iOS] Is a turn based game from Firaxis who can't stop mentioning that they made the latest XCOM. What Haunted Hollow lacks that XCOM had in spades is depth. There are some really cool ideas here but little to keep you playing after your first few run throughs. You can play versus the computer or versus a friend in a hot swap arrangement or even online but there is only one map to play on. It's free to play but you will need to purchase extra monsters and items to get the full experience, oddly though, there is no option to buy a new map. The monsters are fun and the levelling up your house to get new, tougher ones is a nice feature but due to your movement points also being your cash for new monsters, you rarely have very many out. It's an interesting idea that could have been better executed 7/10.

Lazy Sarcastic Reviews Part 4

Nimble Quest [Android, iOS] One of the best takes on the snake game, a pity it comes over 30 years (yes that's right) too late 4/10.

Defender of Texel [Android, iOS] Definitively proves that Google and Apple really have no standards on what they allow on their stores -1 googol/10.

 LEGO Ninjago [Android, iOS] Terrible controls mix with terrible product placement to create a terrible game, proves that sometimes the sum of all parts does not create something greater 0/14.

Games to Play Whilst You Wait for Your City to Earn Money in Sim City.

Monsters, Inc. Run [iOS] Another 2D run and jump game but it's pretty good, at first I thought it may be a bit hard for it's demographic but then I realised Monsters Inc. came out 12 years ago which is kind of scary really. The graphics, music and sound are all top notch but with the game focusing on just running, jumping and collecting power-ups it lacks a little depth 7.3/10.

Battle Monkey [Android, iOS] You are a monkey in some kind of ancient arena that spits out power-ups. You jump from tile-to-tile collecting them whilst trying to kill the other monkeys. It has single and multiplayer support and whilst the game isn't bad the random nature of the game means it lacks any real strategy 6.5/10.

The Walking Dead Assault [iOS] Is a tactical real time zombie blaster. It draws more inspiration from it's comic book roots than the show, with drawings popping up during battles. I had a lot of fun playing this on my iPhone but it is really much more suited for a tablet. At first I found it lacked much strategy but as the game progresses there are some interesting ways to overcome problems and complete bonus objectives 7.9/10.

Baseball Superstars 2013 [Android, iOS]

You may recall I reviewed Baseball Superstars 2011 back in 2010 and it has been one of my favourite mobile games since then. 2013 doesn't offer all the modes of 2011 but instead focuses on the My League play where you play as a pitcher or batter throughout their career. This was pretty much the only mode people played in 2011 anyway so nothing is really lost, plus 2013 adds online multiplayer.

2011 cost me $5.99 and I think it was worth it, 2013 on the other hand has gone for the free to play model. I found this really disappointing as now there are a huge number of resources and items to keep track of, which diminishes the fun you have playing. Spending $6 in this game is not going to get you anywhere near as much stuff or replay value as 2011 did.

There are some redeeming qualities this time around though. Pitches have a lot more variety and hang in the air longer allowing for more tactical gameplay. The graphics are improved too, though there are some odd graphical quirks as you can see below. The music is nice and it seems more polished overall, despite seeing a lot of the same flaws from previous games.

Why are the pitchers blurry yet the batters are so detailed?

The game still suffers from an Engrish problem which can be witnessed in the rest of the series but mostly has an interesting story, though it is fairly similar to the previous games. You get to play quizzes and challenges all in the hopes of winning bonus G points to spend upgrading your character and team. I like the RPG aspect of the game it's just that this time around it is less generous with the G points and you need to spend them on more things. Going through and upgrading each of your team mates is boring and adds nothing of value to the gameplay whilst robbing you of G points. The addition of time machines so you can replay that all important match is a nice touch, though they are quite expensive.

I bet you are.

The game has seen some improvements but it has taken many steps back due to it's switch to freemium. I would say if you haven't played them before this is the one to get but personally I cant help but feel a little disappointed 7.5/10.

Saturday Morning RPG, Episode 1, Dream of Destiny[iOS, coming soon to Android]

Saturday Morning RPG is an episodic RPG that tries to bring the 80's back to the future. There are tonnes of 80's pop culture references featured throughout, from CD's to Transformers and it all adds to the charm.

You play as Marty whose girlfriend has been kidnapped by Commander Hood and you must rescue her before she is forced into wedlock. The story is quite silly and the game relies much more on it's 80's nostalgia to suck you in. It features a 3D world with 2D pixels and it makes for quite a nice effect. It may not be the prettiest game out there but it's art style is quite endearing especially for those who grew up with mainly pixel based games.

The gameplay mechanics are quite varied, for example, before each battle you scratch a sticker on your notebook to unlock bonuses for the fight. The fighting system is turn based and includes attacks where you play a little minigame and some attacks where you don't need to do anything extra. I found the system fun yet very repetitive. You generally power up, then do the same attacks over and over again, maybe eat a cookie to heal. There are cool little touches like defence being a timing based tap on the screen and you will find new skills to learn but in general the battles seem to drag a bit.

The game definitely has an aspect of silly fun and the first episode is given for free ($1.99 an episode or $5.49 for the lot) but it is just so short. In fact all of the episodes are really short. The gameplay is well suited to the phone platform and it is worth checking out it just lacks that something extra 7.5/10.