Nuke - Revision history

Aderack at 18:10, 3 February 2016

2016-02-03T18:10:04Z

Aderack at 17:58, 3 February 2016

2016-02-03T17:58:44Z

Aderack at 17:57, 3 February 2016

2016-02-03T17:57:58Z

Aderack at 17:57, 3 February 2016

2016-02-03T17:57:06Z

Aderack at 17:56, 3 February 2016

2016-02-03T17:56:46Z

Aderack at 17:56, 3 February 2016

2016-02-03T17:56:30Z

Aderack at 17:53, 3 February 2016

2016-02-03T17:53:15Z

Aderack at 17:52, 3 February 2016

2016-02-03T17:52:10Z

Aderack at 17:48, 3 February 2016

2016-02-03T17:48:51Z

Aderack at 17:48, 3 February 2016

2016-02-03T17:48:28Z

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 [[File:NukeSprite.png|center]]
-What, then, distingushes ''Nuke'' from a more traditional scrolling shooter is less in the grammatical role that the player undertakes than in the nature of, and the player's relationship with, the entities that the gameworld defines as targets. Typically a horizontal shooter will present three kinds of environmental objects: background architecture, hostile entities, and hostile projectiles. The background architecture is the geography that defines the player's path; some specific elements may be destroyed (e.g. the organic membranes in stage one of ''Life Force''), but largely the architecture exists for a structural purpose: to guide and shape the player's progress. As such, it must largely remain static. In most games, touching the architecture is fatal -- the strictest possible incentive for a player to stay within the lines, and perform the tasks assigned.
+What, then, distinguishes ''Nuke'' from a more traditional scrolling shooter is less in the grammatical role that the player undertakes than in the nature of, and the player's relationship with, the entities that the gameworld defines as targets. Typically a horizontal shooter will present three kinds of environmental objects: background architecture, hostile entities, and hostile projectiles. The background architecture is the geography that defines the player's path; some specific elements may be destroyed (e.g. the organic membranes in stage one of ''Life Force''), but largely the architecture exists for a structural purpose: to guide and shape the player's progress. As such, it must largely remain static. In most games, touching the architecture is fatal -- the strictest possible incentive for a player to stay within the lines, and perform the tasks assigned.
 [[File:NukeScreen.png|thumb|320px|Causing death and destruction in ''Nuke'']]

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 Whether you're shooting lasers or dropping bombs, the only real verb here is to destroy -- and yet it is an unusually cathartic destruction, due to the sense of total agency afforded the player within that strict grammatical structure. Given that in traditional game design the primary role of the player is to destroy, for an author to engineer an environment that is so wholly affected by the player's destruction is to provide the player a huge sense of positive feedback. Yes; we recognize your presence and importance within the given framework. Every choice that you make does in fact matter.
-It's a bewitching fantasy, and one that as a medium videogames do a better job than most media at propagating. To that end, ''Nuke'' does its job as a videogame quite well: it serves more deeply than most similar efforts to mythologize the player's role at the center of the game's purpose. It is a power fantasy writ large as can be achieved, with the tools at hand. Unfortunately for the spell, it lasts for just a single level. Within that, however, it certainly gets its point across.
+It's a bewitching fantasy, and one that as a medium videogames do a better job than most media at propagating. To that end, ''Nuke'' does its job as a videogame quite well: it serves more deeply than most similar efforts to mythologize the player's role at the center of the game's purpose. It is a power fantasy writ as large as can be achieved, with the tools at hand. Unfortunately for the spell, it lasts for just a single level. Within that, however, it certainly gets its point across.
 == Story ==

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 In the case of ''Nuke'', the player's relationship with the background architecture is akin to the giant beasts in ''Rampage'': it constitutes a world for you to demolish. As you fire upon buildings, they collapse under the weight of their own debris, sending up plumes of fire. If you want to pass a particularly tall structure, this is your chance -- plunge through, before the chaos settles into a grim skeleton of human endeavor.
-Whether you're shooting lasers or dropping bombs, the only real verb here is to destroy -- and yet it is an unusually cathartic destruction, due to the sense of total agency afforded the player within that strict grammatical structure. Given that in traditional game design the primary role of the player is to destroy, for an author to engineer an environment that is so wholly affected by the player's destruction is to provide the player a huge sense of positive feedback, or validation. Yes; we recognize your presence and importance within the given framework. Every choice that you make does in fact matter.
+Whether you're shooting lasers or dropping bombs, the only real verb here is to destroy -- and yet it is an unusually cathartic destruction, due to the sense of total agency afforded the player within that strict grammatical structure. Given that in traditional game design the primary role of the player is to destroy, for an author to engineer an environment that is so wholly affected by the player's destruction is to provide the player a huge sense of positive feedback. Yes; we recognize your presence and importance within the given framework. Every choice that you make does in fact matter.
 It's a bewitching fantasy, and one that as a medium videogames do a better job than most media at propagating. To that end, ''Nuke'' does its job as a videogame quite well: it serves more deeply than most similar efforts to mythologize the player's role at the center of the game's purpose. It is a power fantasy writ large as can be achieved, with the tools at hand. Unfortunately for the spell, it lasts for just a single level. Within that, however, it certainly gets its point across.

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 In the case of ''Nuke'', the player's relationship with the background architecture is akin to the giant beasts in ''Rampage'': it constitutes a world for you to demolish. As you fire upon buildings, they collapse under the weight of their own debris, sending up plumes of fire. If you want to pass a particularly tall structure, this is your chance -- plunge through, before the chaos settles into a grim skeleton of human endeavor.
-Whether you're shooting lasers or dropping bombs, the only real verb here is to destroy -- and yet it is an unusually cathartic destruction, due to the sense of total agency afforded the player within that strict grammatical structure. Given that in traditional game design the primary role of the player is to destroy, for an author to engineer an environment that is so wholly affected by the player's destruction is to give the player a huge sense of positive feedback, or validation. Yes; we recognize your presence and importance within the given framework. Every choice that you make does in fact matter.
+Whether you're shooting lasers or dropping bombs, the only real verb here is to destroy -- and yet it is an unusually cathartic destruction, due to the sense of total agency afforded the player within that strict grammatical structure. Given that in traditional game design the primary role of the player is to destroy, for an author to engineer an environment that is so wholly affected by the player's destruction is to provide the player a huge sense of positive feedback, or validation. Yes; we recognize your presence and importance within the given framework. Every choice that you make does in fact matter.
 It's a bewitching fantasy, and one that as a medium videogames do a better job than most media at propagating. To that end, ''Nuke'' does its job as a videogame quite well: it serves more deeply than most similar efforts to mythologize the player's role at the center of the game's purpose. It is a power fantasy writ large as can be achieved, with the tools at hand. Unfortunately for the spell, it lasts for just a single level. Within that, however, it certainly gets its point across.

@@ Line 22: / Line 22: @@
 In the case of ''Nuke'', the player's relationship with the background architecture is akin to the giant beasts in ''Rampage'': it constitutes a world for you to demolish. As you fire upon buildings, they collapse under the weight of their own debris, sending up plumes of fire. If you want to pass a particularly tall structure, this is your chance -- plunge through, before the chaos settles into a grim skeleton of human endeavor.
-Whether you're shooting lasers or dropping bombs, the only real verb here is to destroy -- and yet it is an unusually cathartic destruction, due to the sense of total agency afforded the player within that strict grammatical structure. Given that in traditional game design the primary role of the player is to destroy, for an author to engineer an environment so wholly affected by the player's destruction is to give the player a huge sense of positive feedback, or validation. Yes; we recognize your presence and importance within the given framework. Every choice that you make does in fact matter.
+Whether you're shooting lasers or dropping bombs, the only real verb here is to destroy -- and yet it is an unusually cathartic destruction, due to the sense of total agency afforded the player within that strict grammatical structure. Given that in traditional game design the primary role of the player is to destroy, for an author to engineer an environment that is so wholly affected by the player's destruction is to give the player a huge sense of positive feedback, or validation. Yes; we recognize your presence and importance within the given framework. Every choice that you make does in fact matter.
 It's a bewitching fantasy, and one that as a medium videogames do a better job than most media at propagating. To that end, ''Nuke'' does its job as a videogame quite well: it serves more deeply than most similar efforts to mythologize the player's role at the center of the game's purpose. It is a power fantasy writ large as can be achieved, with the tools at hand. Unfortunately for the spell, it lasts for just a single level. Within that, however, it certainly gets its point across.

@@ Line 20: / Line 20: @@
 [[File:NukeScreen.png|thumb|320px|Causing death and destruction in ''Nuke'']]
-In the case of ''Nuke'', the player's relationship with the background architecture is akin to the giant beasts in ''Rampage'': it is a world for you to demolish. As you fire upon buildings, they collapse under the weight of their own debris, sending up plumes of fire. If you want to pass a particularly tall structure, this is your chance -- plunge through, before the chaos settles into a grim skeleton of human endeavor.
+In the case of ''Nuke'', the player's relationship with the background architecture is akin to the giant beasts in ''Rampage'': it constitutes a world for you to demolish. As you fire upon buildings, they collapse under the weight of their own debris, sending up plumes of fire. If you want to pass a particularly tall structure, this is your chance -- plunge through, before the chaos settles into a grim skeleton of human endeavor.
 Whether you're shooting lasers or dropping bombs, the only real verb here is to destroy -- and yet it is an unusually cathartic destruction, due to the sense of total agency afforded the player within that strict grammatical structure. Given that in traditional game design the primary role of the player is to destroy, to engineer an environment so wholly affected by the player's destruction is to give the player a huge sense of positive feedback, or validation. Yes; we recognize your presence and importance within the given framework. Every choice that you make does in fact matter.

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 }}As these descriptions tend to hammer home, Game-Maker is not an ideal environment for scrolling shooters. As a codified genre, the grammar of the shooter is fairly inflexible and is not readily adapted to Game-Maker's adventure-focused design language. Making a shooter in Game-Maker is like hacking ''The Legend of Zelda'' so that it plays like ''R-Type''. In principle the feat may be possible, even impressive -- but its road to success is going to be rough.
-The best examples tend to be the games that approach the genre laterally. Rather than directly replicate the structure of a shooter, they borrow a few key elements and then build them a new context out of the native rocks and soil. To this end, ''[[Nuke]]'' recalls some of the more fascinating efforts like ''[[Earth vs The Flying Saucers]]'' and ''[[Star Avenger 4]]'', with their shifted focus toward a situational context beyond just the relationship of projectiles and targets.
+The best examples in this engine tend to be the games that approach the genre laterally. Rather than directly replicate the structure of a shooter, they borrow a few key elements and then build them a new context out of the native rocks and soil. To this end, ''[[Nuke]]'' recalls some of the more fascinating efforts like ''[[Earth vs The Flying Saucers]]'' and ''[[Star Avenger 4]]'', with their shifted focus toward a situational context beyond just the relationship of projectiles and targets.
 Whereas those two examples build on a ''Defender'' or ''Choplifter'' model of backtracking a hostile environment while nursing a vulnerable payload, ''Nuke'' is comparably straightforward: destroy everything in your way. There are hints here at an abandoned or refuted rescue element, with occasional stick-figure civilians; as with all elements of this world, they serve only to perish at the player's hands.

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 '''Author:''' [[Yurik Nestoly]]<br />
 '''Related games:''' N/A
-}}As these descriptions tend to hammer home, Game-Maker is not an ideal environment for scrolling shooters. As a codified genre, the grammar of the shooter is fairly inflexible and is not readily adapted to Game-Maker's adventure-focused design language. Making a shooter in Game-Maker is like hacking ''The Legend of Zelda'' so that it plays like ''R-Type''. In principle the feat may be possible, even impressive -- but the road to success is going to be rough.
+}}As these descriptions tend to hammer home, Game-Maker is not an ideal environment for scrolling shooters. As a codified genre, the grammar of the shooter is fairly inflexible and is not readily adapted to Game-Maker's adventure-focused design language. Making a shooter in Game-Maker is like hacking ''The Legend of Zelda'' so that it plays like ''R-Type''. In principle the feat may be possible, even impressive -- but its road to success is going to be rough.
 The best examples tend to be the games that approach the genre laterally. Rather than directly replicate the structure of a shooter, they borrow a few key elements and then build them a new context out of the native rocks and soil. To this end, ''[[Nuke]]'' recalls some of the more fascinating efforts like ''[[Earth vs The Flying Saucers]]'' and ''[[Star Avenger 4]]'', with their shifted focus toward a situational context beyond just the relationship of projectiles and targets.