Metaplace

Was checking up on Metaplace’s progress – Areia will always be in my heart as the one game developers who actually read my resume – and got to playing with their tile transition tool. It does two things: Makes any pattern tile with itself, and then calculates transition tiles to smoothly transition from one tile to another. It’s meant to make it easy to construct tile-based landscapes, either the 2D ones like in the Legend of Zelda, or the 2.5D games like Ultima Online and other isometric games. ...

I was delighted to be able to join another Metaplace stress test last night – these are open to everyone, so if you ever thought you might like to make or play sophisticated multiplayer Flash games, it’s worth keeping an eye on what Areae is up to here. Uberspace, an arcade-y space-y maze-y shooter in the vein of SOE’s free-to-play Cosmic Rift, isn’t remarkable so much for its gameplay, but for the technologies it tests, and the way players play. ...