A few thoughts on Space Dave! now that I've put nearly 10 hours into it

I've got to be honest: my initial impressions of Space Dave weren't great.

You see, one of the things I liked most about this game's predecessor, Woah Dave, was its simplicity--and I mean that in terms of its graphics as well as its gameplay.

That's not how I would've described Space Dave's graphics and gameplay after booting it up for the first time a few weeks back. Actually, I'm not sure I'd describe them that way now.

After all, this Switch eShop game's visuals are a strange, and often kind of off-putting, mix of really blocky and somewhat less blocky backdrops and sprites. (Think Atari 2600 on the one end, and NES on the other.) Also, there's a lot more going on with Space Dave's gameplay than what was offered up in the relatively straightforward Woah Dave. (This is despite the fact you can boil Space Dave's premise down to "use whatever means necessary to clear each screen of enemies.")



Although it took me a while to develop an appreciation for Space Dave's looks, I came around to its deeper-and-more-strategic-than-it-first-appears alien-shooting action pretty darn quickly. In fact, just a handful of 15- or 20-minute stints was all I needed to realize it's not only a worthy successor to Woah Dave, but to the games--like Space Invaders and Galaga--that inspired it as well.

Here are a few reasons why I've since become so smitten with Space Dave that I've dumped just under 10 hours into it:

It's the perfect Switch game for when you've only got five or 10 minutes of free time--Sure, there have been times when I've spent 30 minutes or even an hour with Space Dave. Usually, though, I play it for 10 minutes here, 15 minutes there. If that doesn't sound like much, consider that you can make a good number--five? maybe 10?--of high-score runs in those scant few minutes. Or you can if you're like me and you abort a run if you die or stupidly allow a descending alien (à la Galaga) to crash into the ground and create a lava pit before you reach a certain point.



Space Dave also is a great game if you want to forget about time completely--That's because it's one of those "just one more level" kind of games. Or maybe I should say "just one more run" kind of games--as in, just one more run at a high score. I don't know how other people are playing Space Dave, but for me, every time I hit "start" I do so either to move up one of its online leaderboards or to top my previous best effort. It's possible to "beat" or finish the game--at least I think it is; I've yet to conquer it myself--but seeing its credit roll isn't my main goal. And yet I continue to plug away at it, day after day. In other words, prepare to become blissfully addicted if you decide to plunk down some of your hard-earned cash on Space Dave.

Its soundtrack is sublime--And not only that, but it perfectly complements the game's frenetic on-screen action. Admittedly, Space Dave's soundtrack is so similar to Woah Dave's that I had to ask creator Jason Cirillo if the two were one and the same when I interviewed him a couple of weeks ago (related aside: they're different), but don't take that to be a criticism. For me, Space Dave's music is one of its many highlights. It (and its accompanying audio) makes me feel like I'm playing the game in a packed arcade during the 1980s--and that's only ever a good thing.



I've had a blast trying to discover all of its secrets--At first, Space Dave's gameplay can seem pretty basic. (Not as basic as Woah Dave, mind you, but still basic enough.) You can move Dave left and right, you can make him jump and even hover, and you can shoot at the aliens that flit and twirl overhead. Give it a bit of time, though, or "cheat" and do a little Internet sleuthing, and you're sure to discover some of the secrets that make playing Space Dave even more thrilling--and strategic--than it was initially. One example: if you leap into the wave that erupts from one of the game's POW-like "SPACE" blocks, it'll temporarily make you invincible as well as boost the power of your weapon.

If you'd like to know about more of Space Dave's secrets, tricks, tips, and advice, by the way, stay tuned. I'm prepping a blog post that'll cover all four.

In the meantime, I'd highly recommend buying Space Dave if you've got the dough ($9.99) and if you've got room on your Switch. It's a wonderful evolution of single-screen arcade shoot 'em ups like Galaga and Space Invaders. Plus, if you're like me, you'll probably still be playing it this time next year. How many games can that be said about these days?

Note: both Woah Dave's and Space Dave's names actually end in an exclamation point, like this--Space Dave! That can make writing about either game a bit of a nightmare, though, so in an attempt to make my life (and yours) a little easier, I axed the exclamation point throughout this post.

Ten questions with Space Dave! (and Woah Dave!) creator Jason Cirillo

So many amazing indie games are hitting the Switch eShop these days that it's getting hard to keep up with all of them.

A relevant case in point: although I adored Woah Dave!--a frantic, Mario Bros.-esque platformer released for 3DS, PC, PS4, Vita, and Wii U back in 2014 and 2015--I totally blanked on its spiritual successor, Space Dave!, until right before it hit the Switch eShop late last week.

Oh, well, all that matters now is it pinged my radar just in time. And, boy, am I glad it did, as I've become thoroughly smitten with Space Dave! in the four-plus hours I've spent with it thus far.

Don't worry, I'll share some impressions of the game in the next week or so. Today, though, I'm sharing the contents of a little tête-à-tête I recently had with its creator, Jason Cirillo.

Before we get to that, I need to make something clear: although proper references to both Woah Dave! and Space Dave! end in exclamation points, I'm going to remove them from here on out in an attempt to make this post as readable as possible.



The Gay Gamer: After the success of Woah Dave, I’m sure a lot of people felt, as I did, that you’d follow it up with a direct sequel. What made you go off in a different direction and make a game inspired by the fixed-shooter genre instead?

Jason Cirillo: The initial idea was that these games would all be arcade homages brought into the modern era. Woah Dave, for example, pulls systems from some of my favorites like Mario Bros., Bubble Bobble, and Space Panic. I wanted to do another homage-style game that pulled from an entirely different set of games. That's kind of how Space Dave was born. Some of the inspirations, like Galaga and Space Invaders, are fairly obvious, while some others, like Gaplus and Missile Command, might not be. There might be more games in this series that are totally different genres as well, who knows. There might also be a direct sequel to Woah Dave yet to come. It would have Woah Dave in the title.

The Gay Gamer: Did any more modern games serve as Space Dave’s inspiration?

Jason Cirillo: I'm not sure there's a specific title, though the more modern tower defense genre has crept in there quite a bit. Japanese bullet-hell shooters also were inspiring, though I don't do much of the fancy bullet patterns like they do.



The Gay Gamer: Do you think someone has to be a fan of old, fixed-shooter games like Space Invaders to enjoy Space Dave? Or, what are the aspects of Space Dave that you feel will or could appeal to people who maybe have never even heard of Space Invaders?

Jason Cirillo: I think it helps to be a fan, though I don't think it's necessary. I playtested the game with lots of people who aren't necessarily big retro game players, and they enjoyed it a lot. Lots of them like Space Dave better than Woah Dave. I don't think you'd have had to have heard of Space Invaders to enjoy it. Not to be cheeky, but in 1975, the entire world hadn't heard of Space Invaders. That proved to not be a problem for its eventual release!

The Gay Gamer: Which aspects of Space Dave did you create, and which aspects did other people create?

Jason Cirillo: I am the creator and director of the game, and I coded the original prototype of the game. I also did the music, sound, and graphics. When we went to console, we brought in a programmer familiar with the environment necessary to port it to work on Nintendo Switch. Our programmer, Garrett Varrin, is known for his work on Shütshimi as well, and he not only coded the Switch version, but he also lent a lot of great ideas to the game itself and really added a lot to the fun factor. The game definitely would not exist without his fantastic work on it.



The Gay Gamer: Did you encounter any particular challenges while planning, designing, or developing Space Dave? If so, what were they and how did you overcome them?

Jason Cirillo: The big problem was just trying to not be a straight-up Space Invaders or Galaga clone. I wanted it to clearly and unapologetically be inspired, like Woah Dave was, but I wanted it to be new. Making it feel new was the challenge. But I enjoyed that challenge a lot. I tried to overcome it by going back to what made Woah Dave work. I looked for opportunities where strategies could be developed and implemented. Putting in new gameplay elements that players could learn to use to their advantage was one way, like having the ground you walk on be a volatile element was a big part of that. Making stronger enemies that can more easily kill you become stronger allies to work for you was interesting, too. There's a fair amount of risk and reward in the game that makes it feel fresh.

The Gay Gamer: What are you proudest of when you look at and play the finished product?

Jason Cirillo: I'm proud that I made a game that I liked and that I wanted to play and stuck by that as my mission. Really, that's the only way I know how to make games. I'm always proud of finishing a project and seeing it in the hands of people who are having fun with it. That's always a really good feeling.



The Gay Gamer: I know Space Dave just came out, but how is it selling so far? Is it matching your expectations, exceeding them, not meeting them--or maybe something else entirely?

Jason Cirillo: It's doing way better than we expected, to be honest. Woah Dave also did really well--frankly, also better than we expected--so I think I expected there would be a little cultish following for Space Dave. Still, I'm blown away with how well it's actually done so far.

The Gay Gamer: Do you have any plans to port Space Dave to other systems at this point, such as PS4 or 3DS?

Jason Cirillo: No solid plans for other consoles at the moment, but I am very open to it. We're probably bringing it to Steam.



The Gay Gamer: How about Woah Dave? Is there any chance it’ll follow Space Dave onto Switch sometime soon?

Jason Cirillo: When we get a lot of demand, we listen. And we have gotten a lot of requests for Woah Dave on Switch. So, there's a really good chance.

The Gay Gamer: You recently asked people on Twitter which other genres they’d like you to explore in future Dave games. Did that help you at all? And did you already have an idea as to which other genres you’d like to tackle before you sent out that tweet?

Jason Cirillo: Yes, the responses I got from that question on Twitter did help. Some really fun ideas there for sure. I have a few old arcade games I'd like to pull from in another Dave game, though I'm not sure I am ready to spill the beans just yet on that. I'd love to just go berzerk in the third installment and have a lot of fun with it.

See also: previous 'ten questions with...' posts featuring auntie pixelante, Peter Bartholow (of Indivisible fame), the guy chiefly responsible for the English fan translation of Ripened Tingle's Balloon Trip of Love, the guys who created Wizorb, and the makers of THE 'DENPA' MEN 2

Re-introducing: Namco Gallery (GameBoy)

On my birthday last year, I bought myself the trio of games that can be seen in the photos throughout this post.

Even though they arrived on my doorstep shortly after, I failed to photograph them--or, you know, otherwise acknowledge their existence--until earlier this week.



Anyway, the boxes look pretty nice lined up as they are in the shot above, don't you think?

Something you probably can't make out by looking at said photo (unless you click on it to blow it up): the frames featured on each volume's box art include elements that tie in to one or more of the four games contained on that particular cart.



The frame featured on Namco Gallery Vol. 1's packaging, for instance, includes depictions of Mappy's titular police mouse (above) as well as Nyamco (below), the game's antagonist.

(The frames featured on the covers of the second and third volumes include similarly delicious depictions of Dig Dug, Sky Kid and The Tower of Druaga characters.)



The backsides of the Namco Gallery boxes aren't as thrilling as the front sides, unfortunately, but they do give folks a nice look at the colorized versions of each compilation's games.

Just in case you've forgotten which games are included on which Namco Gallery volume, the first one contains pint-sized versions of Battle City, Galaga, Mappy and Namco Classic (a golf sim); the second offers up portable iterations of Dig Dug, Famista 4 (baseball), Galaxian and The Tower of Druaga; and the third consists of Family Tennis, Jantaku Boy (mahjong), Sky Kid and Tower of Babel ports.



My favorites are the most well known titles of the bunch: Dig Dug, Galaga, Mappy and Sky Kid, with the first game's puzzlerific (no, that's not a real word) "New Dig Dug" mode alone being worth the price of all three cartridges, in my humble opinion.

This portable re-imagining of Dig Dug is the only one of the above-mentioned ports to earn a North American release, by the way. I've wanted to own a complete-in-box copy of it for ages now due to its striking box art, but price-gouging eBay sellers have kept me from realizing those desires.

See also: a previous post with a bit more information on the Namco Gallery games

Getting to know: Namco Gallery (GameBoy)

Remember how I posited in this recent post that the GameBoy version of Dig Dug never saw the light of day in the Land of the Rising Sun?

Well, it seems I was wrong.

Thanks to a helpful bit of cyber-sleuthing conducted by my Twitter pal Brian (aka iamnotagoomba, aka the guy behind the Japanese 3DS tumblog), I now know that the GameBoy version of Dig Dug was released in Japan--just not as a stand-alone title like it was elsewhere.

Instead, it was included on the second of the three Namco Gallery games that hit Japanese store shelves back in 1996 and 1997.

Each of these portable compilations contained four titles. The first Namco Gallery featured ports of Battle City, Galaga, Mappy and Namco Classic (a golf sim). The second included Dig Dug, Famista 4 (baseball), Galaxian and The Tower of Druaga. The third, Family Tennis, Jantaku Boy (mahjong), Sky Kid and Tower of Babel.

The fascinating thing about these ports is that although they're pint-sized--not to mention black-and-white, or rather green-and-white--versions of their arcade and console counterparts, they look and sound and play as much like the "real deals" as is possible given the hardware.

That's even more true when you stick one of the Namco Gallery carts into a Super GameBoy peripheral, as doing so injects each game with various amounts of color while also surrounding them with some pretty fabulous borders (see the screenshots placed throughout this post for evidence).

After dabbling with each of them over the last few days, my favorite so far is the second release--thanks mostly to the "New Dig Dug" mode that's included in Dig Dug.

The others are nice, too, though; especially the colorized versions of Galaga, Mappy (above) and Sky Kid.

See also: 'Four GameBoy titles I'm surprised never saw the light of day in the Land of the Rising Sun'

Samus Aran spotted in downtown Seattle

I saw the following piece of Metroid-inspired window art while traipsing around downtown Seattle with a pack of out-of-town friends two weekends ago and for some dumb reason I forgot until now to share it here.

Anyway, I'm guessing someone concocted it (out of Post-It notes, I think) in honor of PAX Prime, which was held in our fair city over the very same weekend?

By the way, a number of other windows in the very same building sported similar creations--one of which was inspired by Galaga, I believe, and another that was inspired by The Legend of Zelda--but I was too busy and too lazy to snap a photo of them as well. Sorry about that.

To see a few (OK, a lot) more of game-related photos, check out my Flickr photostream.

Happy New Year!

Happy new year, everyone! Are you ready for 2012 to rock your world? I hope so, because it's here whether you're ready for it or not.

In terms of games and systems, are you looking forward to anything in particular this year? For instance, are you looking forward to the release of the Vita or the Wii U? Or maybe you're looking forward to the release of a certain title (or two or three)?

Personally, along with the games I wrote about in this post and in this post, I'm very much looking forward to learning more about the Wii U. I'm also looking forward to learning more about Microsoft's and Sony's next-generation consoles.

The image above was created by bartotainment, by the way. It's actually an animated GIF, but apparently Blogger doesn't like such things. (Either that or I just don't know how to imbed them properly, which wouldn't surprise me at all.)

Anyway, if you'd like to see how the Galaga-esque (or maybe I should say Aleste-ish, thanks to the ship?) creation is supposed to look--you know, moving and all that--check out this post on the artist's blog, PIXELkitsch.