Raspberry the Prototype, blow by blow! By Blow…

By: Xander

On: September 2nd, 2007

In fact, the very Raspberry that you would’ve seen in the video below, and thanks go to Xagarath for the tip in the comment section. I’ll keep this brief because obviously it’s mentioned in some detail in the video.

There’s also an included tutorial, which like most Jonathan Blow explanations is both in-depth and interesting throughout, as it chronicles the entire prototype itself rather than the simple mechanics of how to play the game, in a sense that echoes the earlier interactive flash videos we had a while back on Understanding Gaming. It also features four modes of play, which seem roughly to be the prototype at different stages of complexity, with the first being the simplest and the last being the full prototype with music working alongside the gameplay and the SFX produced from either doing well or sucking completely.

It’s not uncommon to be able to play Works-in-progress, but to play around on a prototype with such indepth documentation is something not to be missed really. Be sure to check out the ‘Readme’ file for a some impressions of the prototype from various playtesters (usually responded to by Blow aswell), which includes a response from Mr. Mak of Everyday Shooter fame!

…considering how famous that game is now, you’d have thought we would’ve gotten a chance to play it. Oh well, enjoy!

Posted in Developers, Windows | Tags: JonathanBlow

http://ithamore.blogspot.com/ ithamore

Raspberry is little more that an interactive audio visualizer with a scoring system. The score has no real impact on the gameplay, so I might as well leave the mouse alone while the game runs its course.

I like how the music actually effects the the game: wreath.ogg can be replaced with a different *.ogg song (by renaming the new song to wreath.oog) to change the progression of the game. This makes it much better than Euphonics (curtesy of the2bears: http://www.the2bears.com/?p=1079), which changed only subtly if at all with song replacements.

A more full game that would include an option to allow the player to upload a playlist of songs into the game to create a variety of levels would be an awesome improvement over Raspberry.
Jonathan Blow

I don’t think the music actually affects the game (does it?) All of the mode changes are hardcoded in, so if you put in a new song it won’t really match.

I agree that the scoring system doesn’t necessarily compel you to try and score well; that was one of the things I fixed in the next version. But part of the point of a prototype is that you pick your battles carefully so that you can find out how good the game is without working on it forever.

I eventually ended up taking this game in a somewhat different direction which I think is a lot more compelling…
Stwelin

I quite liked it. Something unique that i liked was how when the circles move around in a whirlpool like way, and the game mode is the one where you have to get them on opposite sides, it really just becomes a game of just slowing them down when they are on the right side. There is no way to keep them on the right side. You just have to slow and stall them when they are in the right, and speed em up when they are in the wrong, because they only move clockwise/counterclockwise.

I enjoyed it.
makeshifter

every time i try to play it. it says i couldn’t set up video modes?

help!?!?!
Jonathan Blow

Unfortunately because this is a prototype I didn’t try super hard on graphics compatibility.

If you have a new version of DirectX 9, and your video card can render at least 1280×1024, it should work. If it doesn’t… I dunno.
http://ithamore.blogspot.com/ ithamore

Oops, I was basing my perception of possible game changes on the impressions of my first play-through. Of course, everything seemed to take longer the first time in comparison to the subsequent replays I tried with different songs: the increments of consciousness of a new experience tend to be longer the first time around. Another part of the problem was expressed in the music I used for testing my presumption of the music’s effect in terms of style, genre, and length: my desire for a variation beyond the original warped my perception.

Even with Raspberry’s limitations, I’m still interested in learning how you’ve taken Raspberry from it’s gamma state and developed it into “Eight Balls”.