RDKF: Possibly the most fun you will ever have with rag doll physics.

[SurfD]

Just did my bi-monthly steam update, and they had a link to a little gem called Rag Doll Kung-fu in their update news popup window.

It's rather hard to describe this game, other then to say try picturing an old school kung-fu action movie, except as a game, where the characters contort like rubber, and movement/combat is all preformed using nothing but tripped out rag-doll physics and your mouse.

Its still in the finishing stages of developemnt appearently, but you can see some shots of the game in aciton from their downloads page (example linked below)

http://personal.lionhead.com/mhealey/rag_doll_trailer_2.avi
http://personal.lionhead.com/mhealey/rag_doll_kung_fu_fighting.avi

[Alkiera]

Um.   WOW.

That looks hard has hell, and yet, really cool.  And it apparently has multiplayer.  Wow.

Alkiera

[Mr_PeaCH]

But what I want to know is...

Can you find Carl Douglas and put him back in the studio with Aerosmith to cut the soundtrack?!   

[SurfD]

Was digging through their links, and discovered the following link, which hints that they might try to bring the thing to the Nintendo DS.  Just the thought of playing it with a stylus would be one of the few (probably the only) reason I would consider getting a DS.

http://gameboy.ign.com/articles/529/529483p3.html

[stray]

Awesome...Hope it isn't too pricey on Steam. I'll definitely get that.

[schild]

The multiplayer is going to be like the fighting in Team America. That said, it'll be fun to fuck around with.

[stray]

The multiplayer is going to be like the fighting in Team America. That said, it'll be fun to fuck around with.

That is, until people start getting really good at it. Then it'll be even better.

[MrHat]

Didn't I post this like a week ago?

nvm, I'm thought I did, but the effort of starting a new topic dissauded me.

[Calantus]

Didn't I post this like a week ago?

nvm, I'm thought I did, but the effort of starting a new topic dissauded me.

Not enough of an attention whore to start a thread, but enough of one to point out you knew about it first? KK.

:P

EDIT: Those vids were pretty cool, dunno if it's enough for me to fire up steam but it's close.

[Trippy]

Coming soon through Steam (ugh!):

Featuring a wide collection of single and multiplayer games, either online or with multiple mice, Rag Doll Kung Fu provides players with one of the most creative and unique game experiences delivered in years. Additionally, between game rounds, the challenges of an aspiring Kung Fu master are revealed via outlandish cut scenes inspired by classic Kung Fu cinema.

The game is the brainchild of artist and designer Mark Healey (who moonlights as a lead artist at Lionhead Entertainment). During last year's Game Developer Conference, Healey presented Rag Doll to industry colleagues. Immediately after this presentation, several Valve employees invited Healey to visit Valve and discuss Steam distribution of Rag Doll Kung Fu.

Steam offers developers and publishers a direct distribution channel to over 5.5 million customers. Rag Doll Kung Fu will be made available for purchase via Steam on October 12, 2005 for $12.95.

Edit: Link to actual PR:

http://www.steampowered.com/index.php?area=news&id=446

[Nija]

I like Steam a whole lot already. Releasing low-budget stuff like this at low prices is cool in my book.

Facewound should be out before the end of the year, also on steam.

http://www.facewound.com/
http://www.facewound.com/img/

[Alkiera]

I like Steam a whole lot already. Releasing low-budget stuff like this at low prices is cool in my book.

Facewound should be out before the end of the year, also on steam.

http://www.facewound.com/
http://www.facewound.com/img/

World's Shiniest 2d Plaformer!

Seriously, that's some impressive shiny.

Alkiera

[Pococurante]

Facewound should be out before the end of the year, also on steam.

Gary Newman - too freaking funny.  Now I feel old.

"Here in my car..."

[Nija]

Same guy who made the Garry's mod for HL2, if you've played that.

Check out some of the movies in that /img directory.

Maybe he does have red hair. He does in my mind.

[schild]

I will buy Face Wound.

[Trippy]

I like Steam a whole lot already. Releasing low-budget stuff like this at low prices is cool in my book.

If Steam is just used to let me download a copy of the game I can live with that. If, however, I have to fricking connect to Steam everytime I want to play the fricking game, I'm not buying it no matter how cool it is.

[Samwise]

If Steam is just used to let me download a copy of the game I can live with that. If, however, I have to fricking connect to Steam everytime I want to play the fricking game, I'm not buying it no matter how cool it is.

Offline mode for the win.

[Trippy]

If Steam is just used to let me download a copy of the game I can live with that. If, however, I have to fricking connect to Steam everytime I want to play the fricking game, I'm not buying it no matter how cool it is.

Offline mode for the win.

You have to be online to switch to offline mode and you have to be *physically* disconnected from the Internet to stay in offline mode. Fuck that.

[Zetleft]

Soooo, anyone try out the rag doll kung fu game yet. 

[HRose]

I spend more time downloading games than playing them.

[Yoru]

I gave it a shot last night. It's a funny little game, but not something I can play for more than ~30 minutes without my mousing arm cramping up. The controls are fairly basic: left mouse button lets you drag a limb around; dragging hands along the ground lets you sprint while dragging anything into the air lets you jump. Right mouse button aims an attack with the nearest limb to the cursor; releasing the RMB performs the attack. You have to move the mouse in little circles to charge up 'chi power', which is required to get any sort of distance and power into your attacks and jumps. Between that and all the clicking-and-dragging required to move or attack, you're looking at a lot of tightly-controlled mouse motion.

This game really wants a stylus interface. Or at least a Wacom tablet.

The story mode is pretty short (I reached the final boss in ~45 minutes of total playtime, although I've still yet to beat him) and I haven't really ventured into multiplayer yet. There were a goodly number (>20) games available when I looked last night.

Oddly, most of the 325 MB download size is in large FMV cutscenes that play out between the story-mode levels. They're fairly funny (if often juvenile), but they're not really vital to playing the game.

[SurfD]

This game really wants a stylus interface. Or at least a Wacom tablet.

I think i mentioned a bit back that they are looking at porting it to Nintendo DS.

[HRose]

I gave it a shot last night. It's a funny little game, but not something I can play for more than ~30 minutes without my mousing arm cramping up.

LOL. I though I had some kind of disease. My arm is really hurting badly and I'm so *totally* impeded with this game (I cannot complete the tutorial). But it's a fucking blast!

I simply love it. It's polished till the smaller detail and is damn pretty. There are nifty stuff everywhere. The fully animated and "naif" scenery (and you can really "fly" high and there are often multiple platforms. The levels are bigger than how they appear), the "film" filter, the automatic zoom and camera movement (done perfectly, there's even a manual mode), the chirping voices of the characters, the customization, the music, the mixer on the splash screen and a bunch of different game modes. The multiplayer is just nuts, there's even an odd "soccer" mode where you have to kick a big ball to the other side of the screen.

This is one of the best toys I've ever seen. And sooo pretty.

[Trippy]

Do you have to connect to Steam to play the game in single-player mode?

[Yoru]

It's a Steam game and it streams in high-res versions of the cutscenes while you play, so I presume so. I've not actually tried to play while disconnected from Steam.

[HRose]

More infos (I love this toy). The multiplayer seems to have four types of games. Only the deatmatch is unlocked at the start. You can set a local game to play in "sandbox" mode, where you can add AI controlled opponents.

The options for deathmatch are:
- Select location (8 arenas in total)
- Mushrooms options (Four options with a slider. -never grow, grow rarely, grow very often- -small pickings, plenty for everyone- -low potency, medium potency, very potent- -small in size, medium sized, huge-)
- Pot options (break pots to find fruit to eat for energy and *weapons*. One option -never fall, fall rarely, fall very often- Then you can select which types: fruit, bendy pole, nunchukas, ball and chain, shuriken, HEAD CANNON, dog on a leash, bomb, short sword)
- Rounds to win (from 1 to 16)
- AI players (from 0 to 7)
- AI skill level (6 levels: weak, average, good, advanced, very hard, insane)

At the bottom of this menu you can also see your character and move it on eight colored bars (white, blue, red, green, purple, yellow, orange, aqua). If you click on the head of the character you can switch between the eight "presets" models (that you can edit and combine from the proper menu -name, import skin, head, neck, torso, arms, hands, legs, feet, mouse cursor -a bit bugged for me-, voice) and by moving on the colored bars you select the color of your "chi glow" around your ccharacter.

While in the game:
- Camera mode (auto zoom, manual zoom)
- Music (on/off)
- Film Grain Filter (It's a graphic filter, very pretty. on/off)
- Mouse sensitivity
- Game speed (from 0.25 to 1, "1" is normal real time, and you can slow down for some sort of "matrix" feel even if the controls are slowed down as well)

On the actual multiplayer there are three games, one upcoming (Athletics) and another is the "soccer". On the preferences you can set the connection speed that makes the game move super fluid or more stuttering but making it playable on slow connections.

The weapons are a BLAST and maybe even too fun and easy to use (the game has also stones that you can shatter and then pick the pieces to throw at people). In the game you have three bars. The first is your energy that you can replenish by breaking pots and finding fruit to eat (you move the hand on fruit to take it and them bring it to the mouth to make it eat), the second builds up by taking mushrooms and eating them (but if you eat too many you puke). This second bar has some psychedelic effect that practically allows you to keep pressing the left mouse button (consuming the mushrooms energy you built up) and fling precisely the character in the air, slowing down its movements matrix-like. While the third builds up by grabbing butterflies, till the bar starts to glow. Even if I still even't figured out how to use it...

And, in particular, this is one game that seem to require a whole lot of skill since it has a sort of freeform controls that you can master to do every kind of fancy stuff.

Between the "coming soon" stuff there's also a "world editor".

[Yoru]

'Butterfly power' is used to activate the special attacks. At 3 butterflies, you can get flaming fists, which cause extra damage and can be used to shoot fire at people. At 6, you get lightning fists, which shoot lightning in huge arcs and pretty much demolish everything.

To activate these once you've collected the butterflies, you need to do the 'butterfly pose'. You need to raise your arms out on either side of your body so that your arms are fully extended and your hands are about as high as your head; your legs need to be spread wide out, almost in a split.

[HRose]

Yeah, I finally figured out by doing the tutorial. I don't know why but I couldn't complete the first chapter because it ended with me having to kill those two guys while the continuously regenerate health. This is why I wrote I was completely inept with the game. Now it even too easy :)

Beside what I listed above I found also a "single-player mode" with eight sub games to unblock. The first is "Ninja Onslaught" where you have to fight an increasing number of ninja till you are able to resist.

I'm having lots of fun :)