Verbalíada 2013
This Sunday we attended to a very particular event, the Verbalíada.
The Verbalíada is a really special contest, like a quiz show, where young boys from Catalonia compete using their wits to solve peculiar riddles.
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| -Photo from Francesc Meseguer- |
There were 135 participants that already proved their might during the qualifying rounds that took place in libraries all around Catalonia. These brave contestants had to fight during three rounds to earn a place up in the stage and claim victory.
There were lots of different prices for the first fifteen winners, but these prices were not economical. The lucky kids that managed to earn a prize had to choose between different experiences such as being a journalist for one day, watch a theater rehearsal or visiting an awesome videogame's development studio called Beautifungames. Yes. Us.
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| If you were one of the winners, you'd had to choose between THIS. |
Actually, the top winner, Jordi Fortuny Profitós, the first one to choose any prize, chose to visit us!
Soon, him and Pau Magester Carrasco (another lucky winner), will come to our office to see, first-hand, the intrincate process of videogame development which involves nerdy programmers, hysteric artists, tyrannical designers and lots of youtube videos, featuring mainly kittens.
We'd better prepare something awesome to do here, because the expectations are high.
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| Aniol & Lourdes, in representation of Beautifun games. Behind them, a guy who is really scared of developers. |
And here's an evidence that proves that this whole story is real. Aniol climbed to the stage to deliver the prize with a charming smile and gangsta attitude.
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| And here's Aniol, standing in the stage like a boss. Tony Vercetti style. |
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Games We Wish We Made (1)
What games do Beautifunners play?
Here we are again, telling you about the games we make - but what about the ones we play?
After all, our love for games is what brought us to make them in the first place. So yep, you guessed right, we are quite heavy gamers.
(Actually, we could probably finish our games faster if we played other's guys games a little less... but hey, when we devs play games, it's not really playing. More like research. Benchmarking, you know. Analysis and all that. Yeah.)
That is why we are starting this new section on this blog, to let you know about the games we are "researching" at the moment. The ones we baaadly wish we made - especially indie ones.
So what have we been pla...eeeh, analysing recently?
"Begin Game Over Again Game Over Again..."
There's been a fever for SuperHexagon here at BeautiFun, spreading like wildfire through Programming. The coding guys seem to have a special thing for the pulsating, rotating, color-changing hectic hexagons.
Our CEO Aniol is pretty much addicted to the game, not to mention to the amazing soundtrack by Chipzel which he plays a lot at the office.
Pol, one of our programmers, says "everything about SuperHex is addictive. It's a very fast gaming experience, it motivates you to play and play and try to beat your own high score".
Not too difficult, right?
"Difficulty makes it EVEN more addictive. It's part of the fun, it's a challenge - it makes playthroughs so quick that you don't mind starting over a thousand times. And you keep trying hard every time. The music's also super crazy, it's another factor pushing you to play and play and keeps the frenzy up".
Kevin (Game Design) takes the question to heart. "It might seem like a simple game, but in fact it speaks the language of videogames in its purest form. It's sheer gameplay - utterly abstract, without a context or plot. That's something quite unique nowadays, since we designers are exposed to so many influences that we can barely conceive a game without a story attached. SuperHex instead goes the same ways as classic Pacman or Tetris - undiluted gameplay. That makes is as addictive as magnificient".
Faster Than Permadeath
Our Marketing guy has been talking about FTL: Faster Than Light for whole days (and playing it for whole nights, instead of working on this blog).
"What I love about FTL is the devilish gameplay" says Víctor. "Easy to learn, damn hard to master. I ignored the in-game advice about trying it on Easy first and I'm paying for my arrogance. Big time. This one time I had a really cool ship, able to lase anything out of the galaxy - and got killed because a small fire in the oxygen generator got out of control. So just after winning an epic battle, I spent five minutes on pause, carefully preparing my strategy to repair it. Which I managed to do, but not before air levels dropped and everybody died."
He stares into the void, pondering the fate of his immaculate ship, floating away unscathed but with a dead crew. "That's the greatness of FTL for me - you can ace a dogfight and then die because of some minor oversight. Space is a hard place, and FTL manages to communicate that. As an SF writer, I feel vindicated. It felt like Heinlein shouting "I told you so!" into my ears".
Programmer Suey takes off his earphones for a second to utter his terse verdict: "It f*cking rules". Then goes to work again.
Last words before heading back to the hangar?
Kevin thinks long and hard before answering. "What works for me is that it has very few mechanics but a lot of content - battles, asteroid fields, exploding novas, weapons... And you don't have to be navigating menus all the time. It all works well while keeping the interface really uncluttered."
Suey chimes in again at the last second: "FTL = hell in space!".
Here we are again, telling you about the games we make - but what about the ones we play?
After all, our love for games is what brought us to make them in the first place. So yep, you guessed right, we are quite heavy gamers.
Pol studying FTL intensely
That is why we are starting this new section on this blog, to let you know about the games we are "researching" at the moment. The ones we baaadly wish we made - especially indie ones.
So what have we been pla...eeeh, analysing recently?
"Begin Game Over Again Game Over Again..."
There's been a fever for SuperHexagon here at BeautiFun, spreading like wildfire through Programming. The coding guys seem to have a special thing for the pulsating, rotating, color-changing hectic hexagons.
Pol, one of our programmers, says "everything about SuperHex is addictive. It's a very fast gaming experience, it motivates you to play and play and try to beat your own high score".
Not too difficult, right?
"Difficulty makes it EVEN more addictive. It's part of the fun, it's a challenge - it makes playthroughs so quick that you don't mind starting over a thousand times. And you keep trying hard every time. The music's also super crazy, it's another factor pushing you to play and play and keeps the frenzy up".
Kevin (Game Design) takes the question to heart. "It might seem like a simple game, but in fact it speaks the language of videogames in its purest form. It's sheer gameplay - utterly abstract, without a context or plot. That's something quite unique nowadays, since we designers are exposed to so many influences that we can barely conceive a game without a story attached. SuperHex instead goes the same ways as classic Pacman or Tetris - undiluted gameplay. That makes is as addictive as magnificient".
Faster Than Permadeath
Our Marketing guy has been talking about FTL: Faster Than Light for whole days (and playing it for whole nights, instead of working on this blog).
He stares into the void, pondering the fate of his immaculate ship, floating away unscathed but with a dead crew. "That's the greatness of FTL for me - you can ace a dogfight and then die because of some minor oversight. Space is a hard place, and FTL manages to communicate that. As an SF writer, I feel vindicated. It felt like Heinlein shouting "I told you so!" into my ears".
Programmer Suey takes off his earphones for a second to utter his terse verdict: "It f*cking rules". Then goes to work again.
Last words before heading back to the hangar?
Kevin thinks long and hard before answering. "What works for me is that it has very few mechanics but a lot of content - battles, asteroid fields, exploding novas, weapons... And you don't have to be navigating menus all the time. It all works well while keeping the interface really uncluttered."
Suey chimes in again at the last second: "FTL = hell in space!".
On Nihilumbra, secret projects...and poker
Lately we've been meeting a lot of cool people. Which is no surprise considering we work in games, but just the other day we got the chance to speak with the guys at Eurogamer - who truly deserve a "triple-A-cool" rating!
We got the chance to visit them in their trendy office in uptown Barcelona, with amazing views over the neighboring Sagrada Familia. There we had a beer and a nice chat with Xavi Robles and Albert Garcia, the masterminds who run the show at Eurogamer.es. They had many interesting questions, and we were thrilled to answer.
In this very interesting video interview (in Spanish), we talk about the development of Nihilumbra, our "glory or death!" approach to making games... aaaand we give some subtle hints about our new and secret project. Which is so new and secret it doesn't even have a name yet (not one we dare to mention here, at least).
And as a bonus track, we also revealed just how much BeautiFun Games owes to... poker. Yup, that's right.
So go watch it and give'em a thumbs up, these guys really did a great job!
We got the chance to visit them in their trendy office in uptown Barcelona, with amazing views over the neighboring Sagrada Familia. There we had a beer and a nice chat with Xavi Robles and Albert Garcia, the masterminds who run the show at Eurogamer.es. They had many interesting questions, and we were thrilled to answer.
Kevin, Albert and Xavi geting kind of hyper about Nihilumbra
And as a bonus track, we also revealed just how much BeautiFun Games owes to... poker. Yup, that's right.
So go watch it and give'em a thumbs up, these guys really did a great job!
