Archive for the 'Video Games' Category

The Snap, development log: Day 6

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

Mac build (r46)
Windows build (r46)

Status: Time loops now! Every ten seconds a copy of you will spawn on the screen and begin replaying your actions from game start. Also, there is sound.

Things are still pretty primitive. You cannot interact with the copies. Chipmunk physics is now disabled so there’s nothing stopping either you or your bullets from going off the screen. There may be a problem now where framerate chugs every few seconds while lots of bullets are being fired. And you can’t time travel yet. Still, this is the first demo where you can see a sense of what the eventual game might be like.

This update includes what I think may be my favorite line of code I have ever written:

forever now;

The Snap, development log: Day 5

Sunday, January 23rd, 2011

Mac build (r39)
Windows build (r39)

Status: Fixed the problems with the controller code I discovered after posting last night. Analog stick setup is less stupid sensitive now and the 360 controller is now fully supported.

I also changed a whole bunch of stuff you can’t see.

The Snap, development log: Day 4

Saturday, January 22nd, 2011

Mac build (r36)
Windows build (r36)

Status: Gamepad support is now complete and controls are now configurable. To set the controls for a player, click “Set p#1 Controls” or “Set p#2 Controls” at the main screen and follow the instructions. Controls are not saved when you quit the program yet. I recommend using a gamepad’s dual analog sticks to move and fire if you can.

So far I’ve tested the controller code with: Keyboard; a Sony Dual Shock 3 (on a mac, using the tattieboogie driver); and a vintage “Gravis Gamepad Pro”. But I haven’t yet tested anything on Windows, and also different brands of gamepads behave very different in SDL so the fact that I know these two gamepads work doesn’t say much about whether other gamepads work.

So I’d be extremely curious, if anyone out there has a gamepad, if you could test and see (1) could you configure your controls without incident (2) could you then play the game (…to the extent it can be played right now) and have it work. I am particularly curious whether this code works with the XBox 360 gamepad, and in particular, I’m curious whether the 360 d-pad works. The 360 gamepad does its d-pad in a weird way that requires an entire code path to itself to handle, but I don’t have one to test with.

A little amusing thing: I don’t impose any rule that different players each have to have their own gamepad, so I realized it was possible to set player 1 to control with the analog sticks on the Dual Shock and set player 2 to control with the d-pad and face buttons on the same controller. Despite my jokes about Twister before, I’m actually sort of considering encouraging people to play this way with two people! I attempted the 2 players, 1 controller thing with my spouse and it was actually weirdly workable and fun in a silly way (the configuration we settled on was player 1 had d-pad to move and right analog to fire, and player 2 had left analog to move and face buttons to fire).

Update: I found someone with a 360 gamepad. It works, but the d-pad does nothing. Oh well. Another thing I’m noticing is when you’re setting controls it’s way too sensitive about when it goes ahead and sets an analog stick axis, so it’s really easy to accidentally set your controls “sideways” if you accidentally push up a little and then left a little when you first touch the stick. I’ll fix this tomorrow.

The Snap, development log: Day 3

Friday, January 21st, 2011

Mac build (r23)
Windows build (r23)

Status: Same as yesterday but now there is rudimentary gamepad support. Player one is still controlled with WASD+IJKL. Player two is controlled using the dual analog sticks of the first HID gamepad found. In my tests I used a Sony Dual Shock 3 using the tattiebogle driver and it worked; I wouldn’t especially expect it to work on anyone else’s system until I’ve added the ability to actually configure controls.

There are buttons in the main menu for setting the controls. They don’t work yet.

Doing the geometry wars thing and controlling my little square shooting its little bullets using the dual analog sticks was actually startlingly fun considering the game doesn’t actually do anything yet. I’m feeling better about the whole top-down shooter plan than I was yesterday.

The Snap, development log: Day 2

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

Mac build (r21)
Windows build (r21)

Status: Option of 1 or 2 players; in 2 player mode there is a blue and a green player. Each player can now fire bullets (the small squares). Player 1 moves with WASD and fires with IJKL; player 2 moves with FXCV and fires with HBNM.

But there’s no collision logic on the bullets yet, so they just bounce around and accumulate in the corners of the screen.

Thoughts:

  • I cannot help but think. What if I just stopped here? Like, maybe added damage from bullets and said, okay, here’s my 2p arena shooter. How on earth would anyone play this? The WASD/FXCV scheme would require the players to configure themselves in extremely odd ways to reach the keys; Player 2 would basically have to be sitting in Player 1’s lap. Perhaps we can think of this as an activity for couples.
  • These controls can’t stay even if the Twister problem is fixed. Firing diagonally is really difficult with the IJKL aiming.
  • Maybe I’ll have to rethink my position on physics. The more I start moving toward actually implementing the time/replay mechanic, the more it starts to seem like implementing physics would be really, really easy. (In fact it may be easier to implement full physics than not implement it– the current build has some really weird behavior due to the fact I’m using Chipmunk for collision detection but then in my first-pass way of doing movement I’m treating it in ways a physics engine does not expect to be treated.) The big problem with physics though is that the world I present– 1 black screen, 2 autonomous squares, bullets that are destroyed on impact, unmoving walls– gives very little opportunity for a physics engine to show off its presence. Of course I chose this gameplay idiom specifically because it imposed simple physics and made the mockup easy to finish, but it means if I try to think of “what are cool flourishes a physics engine could add?” I don’t have a lot of room to maneuver.

    I’m increasingly starting to wonder what this game would be like if instead of a top-down/Combat! sort of thing it were a vs. 2D platformer where the players had free-shooting guns (like in All Of Our Friends Are Dead, or something) and were free to run around and jump and fire at each other. That would give the physics engine a lot of neat stuff to do and might simplify things like how to present the controls. I have doubts I could get this done for the competition deadline though so maybe that will have to be something to consider later.

The Snap, development log: Day 1

Wednesday, January 19th, 2011

So Tigsource is running a 1-month game competition with the theme of “versus” play. I think I’m going to use this as an excuse to quickly knock out a prototype on an idea I had a long time ago, and while I do so I am going to try a Thing. Every day I work on this project, I am going to come back here at the end of the day and post my current build and a screenshot, so that you can see a record of the project developing day by day (the first build can be found at the end of this post). I will also be posting these logs in my project thread at Tigsource.

The project is this:

The Snap
(A first person shooter)

This is an idea that sprung out of two conversations: One years ago with my friend Chris about how you could make a game with four-dimensional gameplay; and an argument a bit more recently with some people I know about my opinion that first person shooters all feel the same to me, because they seem to me to just provide the same gameplay from game to game while changing only superficial tweaks to mechanics. After this argument I started trying to think about whether I could come up with a mechanic you could introduce into an FPS that would alter gameplay fundamentally rather than just presenting a more refined version of that same gameplay mode.

Here’s the basic idea:

  • Deathmatch FPS. Machine guns. Scattered ammo packs. Health canisters.
  • Gameplay takes place in a room or building where time is occurring in a loop, say 60 seconds long. All players materialize in places throughout the building at time 0. At time 60 copies of the players rematerialize in their starting positions and the game “replays” their actions from that point.
  • In addition to their weapons, each player has the ability at any time to perform a “Snap”. When they do this, they jump back 10 seconds in time. (If you jump back before time 0 you loop back around to time 50-something.)
  • A multi-track timeline at the top of the screen shows where each player is “now”. Because the snaps only move you a fixed amount, at any one moment in “real time” there will only be (say) six points in the in-game timeline each player could be at.
  • Changes to the timeline propagate. So if you shoot someone 10 seconds in the past, they lose 10 health throughout the timeline after that. If someone grabs an ammo pack, and then you jump back in time and grab it before they do, then they lose 10 bullets throughout the timeline after that. If you fire a bullet, and kill someone, and then someone goes back and retroactively steals all your ammo so that you did not in fact have any bullets at the time you killed the other player, then your bullet fire is undone and the player springs back to life.
  • The hope is that the game will thus be about strategically managing the timeline and trying to cause, or retroactively prevent, certain events, rather than just about shooting and cover.

The plan I had originally was:

  • 4 players, on 2 teams. This allows for the interesting “resurrection” mechanic of trying to bring your teammates back to life by preventing their deaths.
  • Actually a first person shooter
  • Some sort of networked multiplayer
  • Physics of some sort– you can push people’s “past selves” out of the way as you run past them, for example, and physics would “rubberband” so that the past selves simply run a little faster around you to get to the point they were supposed to be at for the next “event” (like getting hit by or firing a bullet). The game would attempt to present an illusion that small changes to the timeline (like shoving people two feet) correct themselves but large changes (like killing someone) alter the timeline and propagate.

But I didn’t think I’d ever actually find the time to do this, so at some point I mapped out a simpler, “mockup” version I thought I could do in a month. This is what I’m doing for the compo:

  • Overhead Robotron 2084 style shooter, Apple // graphics, maps like Atari “Combat”. All players are colored squares. The game will still be prominently labeled “a first person shooter” as a joke and/or commentary along the lines that “FPS” is a type of gameplay rather than a camera angle. The game will make as few acknowledgements as possible it is anything other than a 1990s cliche FPS. For example the blue square will be “Biff, the grizzled space marine” and the red square will be “Sophia, the beautiful and brilliant scientist”
  • No physics, no networking. In order to make multiplayer still possible, maps are probably no bigger than one screen and players probably need to use gamepads.
  • Also to accommodate the above, probably only 2 players.
  • Z axis and jumping [i]might[/i] be included.

The mockup should be enough to at least try to identify where the “exploits” in this type of gameplay are (i.e.: do players just repeatedly jump back to time 0 and try to pump bullets into the helpless past selves? And if someone tries to play this way, are there countermeasures the other player(s) can take?) or determine if the game concept is workable at all. I intend to write the mockup in a way I can move it forward to the “full” concept if the opportunity ever presents itself while maximizing code reuse.

Pitfalls:

  • It’s been a long time since I’ve actually played any FPS type games, so I may wind up reinventing some gameplay wheels
  • The “mockup” version seems like just an arena shooter. I think there have been a lot of these in indie-world lately; I haven’t really been playing them. I may wind up again reinventing some wheels or producing something not terribly different from existing arena shooters
  • Will continually having to re-adjust the “timeline” be excessively computationally expensive? I think I know how to do it such that the answer is “no”, but I’ll have to watch out for this.

I started coding this morning, and as promised here’s my progress so far:

Day One

Mac build (r19)
Windows build (r19)

Status: It draws a black screen with a green square. If you use the WASD keys the green square moves around.

A follow-up on “Quantum Mario” (also comments are fixed now)

Tuesday, January 18th, 2011

So a random little thing that I ran across and had me sort of floating on air… if you’ve played the amazing indie platformer Super Meat Boy, you’ll have seen an interesting feature they have where once you beat a level, they play back all the (many) attempts it will have taken you to complete it, simultaneously and superimposed. An example, via IGN:

Super Meat Boy

If you’ve been reading my posts here, you’ll have probably figured out by now that I really like punishment platformers. So I’d been playing Super Meat Boy more or less nonstop for several weeks when someone forwarded me this Game Informer interview with Team Meat, wherein it turns out that the replay feature was actually inspired by the “Many-Worlds Mario” video I made and posted here way back in 2008:

How did you come up with the multi-death replay system?

Refenes: Basically, there’s a video that’s been floating around on the Internet for awhile. It’s a modded Super NES emulator that’s rigged to play custom-made Super Mario World levels. They rigged the emulator so it would record every attempt and then overlay them and play them at the same time. So this one video, it’s called Quantum Mario, it’s just one Mario jumping from platform to platform and he’ll fall off on the left, fall off on the right, or get hit with a bullet, or jump off of the bullet. It’s just every one of his attempts. It starts through this incredibly difficult level and just goes all the way through until it’s just one guy remaining. I love that video and I was like “We should do that with Meat Boy and I can do it in real time.” I just kind of coded it in over a weekend or something and perfected it as we were going through the development. It was an on-the-whim kind of thing. And it worked out as a great reward for f—ing up.

So that’s a kind of a weird and encouraging feeling. I spend a month and a half making a bizarre youtube video, and three years later, it turns out the world is slightly different as a result… ^_^

A little housekeeping note: I discovered this weekend that for a really long time– probably six months or more– commenting on this blog has been broken. Apparently one day reCAPTCHA broke and started marking every single comment as spam, then deleting them after two weeks. So I’ve lost literally everything anyone’s posted here for I’m not even certain exactly how long. I am really sorry about this. I’d been thinking, wow, it’s a little odd how comments on the blog seem to have dried up…

I think I can promise a little more traffic on this blog this year. I’ve got a few interesting things in the pipeline: a new game that’s maybe half done, a little iPad music toy that’s mostly done, and a new version of Jumpcore that comes with support for iOS and Android (an alpha of that last thing is here). Also, keep an eye out for a post tomorrow, I think I’ll have something interesting for you…

A Game of the Year 2010 Poll: Results

Sunday, January 9th, 2011

CLICK HERE TO JUMP TO THE PRETTY COLOR-CODED FULL RESULTS

This explanation will look a lot like that of previous years, but:

Every year since 2004 I’ve been hosting this Game of the Year poll for the users of some forums I read. There are a lot of GOTY polls out there, but this one I think is kind of special. Most polls, you’re given a list of four or five options and you’re asked to pick the one you liked best. This poll, people are given a list of a couple of hundred options, consisting of every new game released in the previous year– and asked to rate their top ten or twenty.

This does a few interesting things. First off, we get to see all the information about what people’s second, third etc choices are. Second off, because the second, third etc choices count, people are more likely to vote for the game they want to win, rather than the game they think is likely to win– they’re less likely to engage in “strategic voting”. Finally, because we have all this information, we’re actually able to provide somewhat reasonable rankings for something like the top hundred or so games of last year.

The full results– showing the exact number of voters who ranked each game first, second, third place etc– can be found here. In the meantime, the final results were:

  1. Mass Effect 2 (8125) *** GAME OF THE YEAR ***
  2. Red Dead Redemption (4887)
  3. Starcraft 2 (3930)
  4. Minecraft (3678)
  5. Fallout: New Vegas (3513)
  6. Super Meat Boy (3205)
  7. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (3006)
  8. Halo Reach (2713)
  9. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (2505)
  10. Civilization V (2444)
  11. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (2378)
  12. Bayonetta (2257)
  13. Darksiders (1967)
  14. Just Cause 2 (1865)
  15. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (1855)
  16. Angry Birds (1740)
  17. Alpha Protocol (1677)
  18. Call of Duty: Black Ops (1604)
  19. Heavy Rain (1573)
  20. VVVVVV (1523)

The numbers in parentheses are the final scores each game got under the poll’s ranking system. Thanks if you voted, and some more elaborate analysis of the results (plus an explanation of the scores) can be found below.

NOTEWORTHY WINNERS

  • GOTY 2010:

    #1, Mass Effect 2

  • Top-ranked PC Exclusive:

    #3, Starcraft 2

  • Top-ranked Wii Exclusive:

    #7, Super Mario Galaxy 2

  • Top-ranked 360 Exclusive:

    #8, Halo Reach

  • Top-ranked iPhone/Android Exclusive:

    #16, Angry Birds

  • Top-ranked PS3 Exclusive:

    #19, Heavy Rain

  • Top-ranked DS Exclusive:

    #31, Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies

  • Top-ranked PSP Exclusive:

    #64, Valkyria Chronicles 2

  • Best RPG:

    #1, Mass Effect 2

  • Best FPS:

    #4, Minecraft

  • Best “Indie” Game:

    #4, Minecraft

  • Best Game Available Through A Console Download Service:

    #6, Super Meat Boy

  • Best Browser Game:

    #48, Robot Unicorn Attack

  • “Cult” Award (see below):

    #52, Deadly Premonition

  • Best Downloadable Game (XBLIG division):

    #59, Breath of Death VII: The Beginning

NOTEWORTHY LOSERS

  • Best game of 2010 which somehow nobody considered to be their #1 pick: #35, Alien Swarm
  • Worst game of 2010 that at least one person considered their #1 pick: #200, 3D Infinity (This is an XBLIG game; Only one person voted for this at all)
  • Worst game of 2010: #237, Dead Nation (Only one person voted for this; it was their #20 pick)

There were 23 games on the nominations list no one voted for at all.

ALTERNATE SCORING METHODS

The rankings listed above are based on a version of the Borda count voting method. Each vote cast for a game gives that game a certain number of points. If someone ranks a game #1, that game gets 20 points. If they rank it #2, the game gets 19 points. If they rank it #3 the game gets 18 points… and so on. I have a script that checks a couple of alternate ways of ranking the same data, though.

For example, if we rank games only by the number of first post votes they got, we get a wildly different list, with tons of games listing that weren’t anywhere near the top 20:

First Past the Post

  1. Mass Effect 2 (231)
  2. Red Dead Redemption (69)
  3. Starcraft 2 (47)
  4. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (40)
  5. Minecraft (35)
  6. Fallout: New Vegas (29)
  7. Bayonetta (20)
  8. Super Meat Boy (19)
  9. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (18)
  10. Alpha Protocol (15)
  11. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (15)
  12. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies (14)
  13. Deadly Premonition (12)
  14. Rock Band 3 (11)
  15. Civilization V (10)
  16. Alan Wake (10)
  17. Halo Reach (10)
  18. S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Call of Pripyat (10)
  19. Super Street Fighter 4 (9)
  20. Call of Duty: Black Ops (9)

Most years when I look at the first-past-the-post list a “cult” game usually emerges that received very few overall votes, but where an overwhelming percentage of those votes were #1 votes; this year actually seemed to have more “cult” games than normal, but I think the cult award was pretty clearly earned here by Deadly Premonition, which went from a ridiculous #52 in the normal ranking to #13 in the first-place-votes ranking. Also noteworthy here though were Dragon Quest IX (jumps from #31 to #12) and S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Call of Pripyat (jumps from #37 to #15, tying with Halo).

I also did two more ways of sorting the rankings: an “approval” vote, where nothing is counted except the number of votes a game received (i.e. a first-place and a twentieth-place ranking count the same– all the matters is if the game was on someone’s list); and an instant runoff vote. Your eyes are probably starting to glaze over at this point, and these rankings very rarely differ from the Borda rankings, so I bolded the places where these two votes differ from the official rank. A small observation: 858 people voted this year. More than half placed some sort of vote for Mass Effect 2.

Approval

  1. Mass Effect 2 (440)
  2. Red Dead Redemption (284)
  3. Starcraft 2 (241)
  4. Minecraft (235)
  5. Fallout: New Vegas (217)
  6. Super Meat Boy (210)
  7. Super Mario Galaxy 2 (182)
  8. Halo Reach (177)
  9. Battlefield: Bad Company 2 (165)
  10. Civilization V (163)
  11. Bayonetta (155)
  12. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood (146)
  13. Darksiders (144)
  14. Angry Birds (137)
  15. Just Cause 2 (135)
  16. Scott Pilgrim vs The World (115)
  17. Alpha Protocol (115)
  18. Call of Duty: Black Ops (115)
  19. Heavy Rain (114)
  20. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm (114)

IRV

  1. Mass Effect 2
  2. Red Dead Redemption
  3. Starcraft 2
  4. Minecraft
  5. Fallout: New Vegas
  6. Super Meat Boy
  7. Super Mario Galaxy 2
  8. Halo Reach
  9. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  10. Civilization V
  11. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
  12. Bayonetta
  13. Darksiders
  14. Just Cause 2
  15. Angry Birds
  16. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
  17. Alpha Protpcol
  18. Call of Duty: Black Ops
  19. Alan Wake
  20. Heavy Rain

FINALLY: PER-FORUM BREAKDOWNS

As mentioned before, this poll mostly exists for a handful of video game forums where some people I know post. Since a couple years ago when I started posting the results on this blog, I’ve tried to actually run some extra results, in each case counting only those voters who– as far as one could tell from looking at the logs– had come to the poll from one particular forum or other.

So, here you have it– these numbers aren’t totally accurate because my logging method is not entirely trustworthy, but here’s an approximate by-forum breakdown of these results. Links go to color-coded full listings.

Penny Arcade Forums (666 voters)

  1. Mass Effect 2
  2. Red Dead Redemption
  3. Starcraft 2
  4. Fallout: New Vegas
  5. Minecraft
  6. Halo Reach
  7. Super Mario Galaxy 2
  8. Super Meat Boy
  9. Civilization V
  10. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  11. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
  12. Darksiders
  13. Bayonetta
  14. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
  15. Just Cause 2
  16. Alpha Protocol
  17. Angry Birds
  18. Call of Duty: Black Ops
  19. Heavy Rain
  20. God of War 3

Tigsource.com (39 voters)

  1. Super Meat Boy
  2. VVVVVV
  3. Minecraft
  4. Mass Effect 2
  5. Super Crate Box
  6. Starcraft 2
  7. Super Mario Galaxy 2
  8. Hero Core
  9. Halo Reach
  10. Amnesia: The Dark Descent
  11. Fallout: New Vegas
  12. Red Dead Redemption
  13. Recettear: An Item Shop’s Tale
  14. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  15. Alan Wake
  16. Donkey Kong Country Returns
  17. Limbo
  18. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
  19. Alien Swarm
  20. Hydorah
Platformers.net (38 voters)

  1. Mass Effect 2
  2. Super Mario Galaxy 2
  3. Bayonetta
  4. Super Meat Boy
  5. Fallout: New Vegas
  6. Dragon Quest IX: Sentinels of the Starry Skies
  7. Red Dead Redemption
  8. Minecraft
  9. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
  10. Super Street Fighter 4
  11. Bioshock 2
  12. Robot Unicorn Attack
  13. Tatsunoko vs Capcom: Ultimate All Stars
  14. Game Dev Story
  15. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  16. Ace Attorney Investigations: Miles Edgeworth
  17. Shin Megami Tensei
  18. Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light
  19. Pokemon Heart Gold / Soul Silver
  20. Just Cause 2

Thearcadians.net (27 voters)

  1. Mass Effect 2
  2. Red Dead Redemption
  3. Halo Reach
  4. Battlefield: Bad Company 2
  5. Starcraft 2
  6. Fallout: New Vegas
  7. Rock Band 3
  8. Assassin’s Creed: Brotherhood
  9. NHL 11
  10. Minecraft
  11. Bioshock 2
  12. Limbo
  13. Pokemon Heart Gold / Soul Silver
  14. Monday Night Combat
  15. Angry Birds
  16. Alan Wake
  17. Super Street Fighter 4
  18. Call of Duty: Black Ops
  19. World of Warcraft: Cataclysm
  20. Blur

iJumpman (Jumpman for iPhone)

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

My free Mac/PC game Jumpman is now available for iPhone, iPod Touch, and iPad.

HOW TO GET IT

  • Click here or search on the App Store for “iJumpman”.

GAMEPLAY VIDEO

FEATURES

  • All the content from the PC version
  • Gesture and tilt controls (plus optional button control scheme)
  • Full in-game soundtrack (plus iTunes library support)
  • Full level editor with integrated online level swapping
  • Supported languages: English, Spanish, French, German

PLOT

  • Guide Jumpman to the exit.

A Game of the Year 2009 Poll: Results

Friday, January 8th, 2010

CLICK HERE TO JUMP TO THE PRETTY COLOR-CODED FULL RESULTS

This explanation will look a lot like last year’s, but:

Every year since 2004 I’ve been hosting this Game of the Year poll for the users of some forums I read. There are a lot of GOTY polls out there, but this one I think is kind of special. Most polls, you’re given a list of four or five options and you’re asked to pick the one you liked best. This poll, people are given a list of a couple of hundred options, consisting of every new game released in the previous year– and asked to rate their top ten or twenty.

This does a few interesting things. First off, we get to see all the information about what people’s second, third etc choices are. Second off, because the second, third etc choices count, people are more likely to vote for the game they want to win, rather than the game they think is likely to win– they’re less likely to engage in “strategic voting”. Finally, because we have all this information, we’re actually able to provide somewhat reasonable rankings for something like the top hundred or so games of last year.

The full results– showing the exact number of voters who ranked each game first, second, third place etc– can be found here. In the meantime, the final results were:

  1. Batman: Arkham Asylum (7772) *** GAME OF THE YEAR ***
  2. Dragon Age: Origins (7019)
  3. Borderlands (5579)
  4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (4458)
  5. Left 4 Dead 2 (4295)
  6. Assassin’s Creed II (4205)
  7. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (3858)
  8. Torchlight (3792)
  9. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (3386)
  10. Resident Evil 5 (2941)
  11. Street Fighter IV (2576)
  12. Shadow Complex (2460)
  13. Demon’s Souls (2342)
  14. Halo 3: ODST (2104)
  15. Brütal Legend (2008)
  16. The Beatles: Rock Band (1991)
  17. Infamous (1844)
  18. Plants vs. Zombies (1773)
  19. Scribblenauts (1752)
  20. Prototype (1720)

The numbers in parentheses are the final scores each game got under the poll’s ranking system. Thanks if you voted, and some more elaborate analysis of the results (plus an explanation of the scores) can be found below.

NOTEWORTHY WINNERS

  • GOTY 2009:

    #1, Batman: Arkham Asylum

  • Top-ranked PS3 Exclusive:

    #7, Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

  • Top-ranked PC Exclusive:

    #8, Torchlight

  • Top-ranked Wii Exclusive:

    #9, New Super Mario Bros. Wii

  • Top-ranked 360 Exclusive:

    #12, Shadow Complex

  • Top-ranked DS Exclusive:

    #19, Scribblenauts

  • Top-ranked PSP Exclusive:

    #46, Dissidia: Final Fantasy

  • Top-ranked iPhone Exclusive:

    #56, Canabalt

  • Best RPG:

    #2, Dragon Age: Origins

  • Best FPS:

    #3, Borderlands

  • Best Game Only Available Through A Console Download Service:

    #12, Shadow Complex

  • Best “Indie” Game? (I’m not even sure I know what that word means.):

    #18, Plants vs Zombies

NOTEWORTHY LOSERS

  • Best game of 2009 which somehow nobody considered to be their #1 pick: #30, Punch-Out!!
  • Worst game of 2009 that at least one person considered their #1 pick: #248, Harvest Moon: Animal Parade (Only one person voted for this at all)
  • Worst game of 2009: #284, Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games (Only one person voted for this; it was their #20 pick)

There were 17 games on the nominations list no one voted for at all. Also, FIFA 10– which was left off the nominations list by complete accident– probably deserves some kind of special “moral victory” award for the sheer number of people who were upset about its absence.

ALTERNATE SCORING METHODS

The rankings listed above are based on what was originally intended to be an approximation of Condorcet voting, but which I’m told is actually closer to the Borda count. In my Borda-ish voting method, each vote cast for a game gives that game a certain number of points. If someone ranks a game #1, that game gets 20 points. If they rank it #2, the game gets 19 points. If they rank it #3 the game gets 18 points… and so on. I have a script that checks a couple of alternate ways of ranking the same data, though.

For example, if we rank games only by the number of first post votes they got, we get a wildly different list, with the most obvious difference being Batman and Dragon Age swapping places:

First Past the Post

  1. Dragon Age: Origins (134)
  2. Batman: Arkham Asylum (119)
  3. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (111)
  4. Borderlands (58)
  5. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (45)
  6. Left 4 Dead 2 (45)
  7. Assassin’s Creed II (41)
  8. Demon’s Souls (41)
  9. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (32)
  10. Street Fighter IV (25)
  11. Brütal Legend (14)
  12. The Beatles: Rock Band (13)
  13. Shadow Complex (12)
  14. Torchlight (12)
  15. Resident Evil 5 (11)
  16. Halo 3: ODST (10)
  17. Muramasa: The Demon Blade (9)
  18. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II (8)
  19. Red Faction: Guerrilla (7)
  20. Forza Motorsport 3 (7)
  21. Infamous (7)
  22. Little King’s Story (7)
  23. Machinarium (7)

Most years when I look at the first-past-the-post list a “cult” game usually emerges that received very few overall votes, but where an overwhelming percentage of those votes were #1 votes; this year there was no obvious leader in the “cult” category, although the jump in ranking for Demon’s Souls seems pretty significant, and Murasama (which jumps from #37 to #17) and Machinarium and Little King’s Story (which jump from #40 and #48 to a five-way tie for 19th place) seem worth mentioning.

I also did two more ways of sorting the rankings: an “approval” vote, where nothing is counted except the number of votes a game received (i.e. a first-place and a twentieth-place ranking count the same– all the matters is if the game was on someone’s list); and an instant runoff vote. Your eyes are probably starting to glaze over at this point, so I bolded the places where these two votes differ from the normal rankings:

Approval

  1. Batman: Arkham Asylum (438)
  2. Dragon Age: Origins (395)
  3. Borderlands (347)
  4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (281)
  5. Left 4 Dead 2 (265)
  6. Torchlight (255)
  7. Assassin’s Creed II (247)
  8. Resident Evil 5 (215)
  9. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (213)
  10. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (210)
  11. Shadow Complex (175)
  12. Street Fighter IV (172)
  13. Brütal Legend (148)
  14. Halo 3: ODST (146)
  15. Demon’s Souls (143)
  16. Scribblenauts (141)
  17. The Beatles: Rock Band (133)
  18. Prototype (131)
  19. Plants vs. Zombies (130)
  20. Infamous (126)

IRV

  1. Batman: Arkham Asylum (438)
  2. Dragon Age: Origins (395)
  3. Borderlands (347)
  4. Left 4 Dead 2 (265)
  5. Torchlight (255)
  6. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves (210)
  7. Assassin’s Creed II (247)
  8. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (281)
  9. New Super Mario Bros. Wii (213)
  10. Resident Evil 5 (215)
  11. Street Fighter IV (172)
  12. Shadow Complex (175)
  13. Demon’s Souls (143)
  14. Brütal Legend (148)
  15. Halo 3: ODST (146)
  16. Scribblenauts (141)
  17. Infamous (126)
  18. The Beatles: Rock Band (133)
  19. Prototype (131)
  20. Plants vs. Zombies (130)

FINALLY: PER-FORUM BREAKDOWNS

As mentioned before, this poll mostly exists for a handful of video game forums where some people I know post. Since a couple years ago when I started posting the results on this blog, I’ve tried to actually run some extra results, in each case counting only those voters who– as far as one could tell from looking at the logs– had come to the poll from one particular forum or other.

So, here you have it– these numbers aren’t totally accurate because my logging method is not entirely trustworthy, but here’s an approximate by-forum breakdown of these results. Links go to color-coded full listings.

Penny Arcade Forums (767 voters)

  1. Batman: Arkham Asylum
  2. Dragon Age: Origins
  3. Borderlands
  4. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
  5. Left 4 Dead 2
  6. Assassin’s Creed II
  7. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
  8. Torchlight
  9. New Super Mario Bros. Wii
  10. Resident Evil 5
  11. Street Fighter IV
  12. Shadow Complex
  13. Demon’s Souls
  14. The Beatles: Rock Band
  15. Halo 3: ODST
  16. Brütal Legend
  17. Infamous
  18. Prototype
  19. Scribblenauts
  20. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn of War II

Tigsource.com (48 voters)

  1. Machinarium
  2. Star Guard
  3. Scribblenauts
  4. Canabalt
  5. Borderlands
  6. Assassin’s Creed II
  7. Captain Forever / Successor
  8. Don’t Look Back
  9. Dragon Age: Origins
  10. Don’t **** Your Pants
  11. Au Sable
  12. Left 4 Dead 2
  13. Plants vs. Zombies
  14. Small Worlds
  15. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
  16. Torchlight
  17. Blueberry Garden
  18. Glum Buster
  19. RunMan: Race Around the World
  20. Brütal Legend
Platformers.net (45 voters)

  1. Batman: Arkham Asylum
  2. Dragon Age: Origins
  3. New Super Mario Bros. Wii
  4. Torchlight
  5. Street Fighter IV
  6. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
  7. Shadow Complex
  8. Borderlands
  9. Punch-Out!!
  10. Retro Game Challenge
  11. Professor Layton and the Diabolical Box
  12. Rhythm Heaven
  13. Left 4 Dead 2
  14. Brütal Legend
  15. Halo 3: ODST
  16. The Legend of Zelda: Spirit Tracks
  17. Red Faction: Guerrilla
  18. Infamous
  19. Demon’s Souls
  20. Mario & Luigi: Bowser’s Inside Story

Thearcadians.net (26 voters)

  1. Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2
  2. Borderlands
  3. Batman: Arkham Asylum
  4. Forza Motorsport 3
  5. Dragon Age: Origins
  6. Torchlight
  7. Uncharted 2: Among Thieves
  8. Left 4 Dead 2
  9. Shadow Complex
  10. Assassin’s Creed II
  11. Halo 3: ODST
  12. Brütal Legend
  13. Trials HD
  14. Infamous
  15. Red Faction: Guerrilla
  16. Street Fighter IV
  17. Battlefield 1943
  18. 1 vs. 100
  19. Ghostbusters: The Video Game
  20. Resident Evil 5