Errant AI's Arcade Set

This is a long overdue review.

When I spoke with Errant AI (A.K.A. "EAI") about his vendor machine set Errant AI's TGC Store Products review , we discussed our mutual love coin-operated equipment.  At that point in time (probably a year and a half ago) he mentioned he'd do an arcade set, which I was jazzed for.  I grew up in arcades and spent more than my share of allowance money there.

It was a great time and brought back fond memories.  He soon released the kit and... I didn't have any money.  NONE.  I was flat broke.  It sucked.  So for months and months bigger priorities would come up and I'd look at the store and see the really impressive looking set for the arcade objects that EAI built.

Recently I've managed to get my finances squared away and could spend some money on new objects for my upcoming sci-fi shooter.

It was at this point... I looked again at the priciest of EAI's growing collections (4, as of this writing) - the Retro Arcade Pack.  The Retro Arcade Pack clocks in at 15 USD.  It's by no means a cheap purchase.  But I'm a believer that if you want to have a quality looking game, you need quality looking assets.  This pack delivers - in spades.

 The full kit contents.  It's like my youth, reborn!

As you can see, the pack comes with a significant bevy of 30 items, which come in about 50 cents per object, depending on if any sales are occurring.

Most of these items are doubles - in many cases they are a blank version which can likely be modified to present your own possibilities.  Very cool!

In this case, the billchanger comes in both token and cash money varieties.

Now you may look at these and think "Yeah, that's cute - but how good is it, really?"  - what really sold me were the perfectly done animated screens which of course can only be watched in the form of a movie.

The above should show you the sheer and frankly unparalleled level of quality EAI brought to the table.  Even his previous offerings are overshadowed but how absolutely perfect these are.  While I realize it's not an asset for every game, you'd be surprised how you can work them in.  The biggest difficulty in using assets like this is that they tend to make your other assets LOOK WORSE.  It's a bit like taking your ugly friend to the bar to make you look better.  It doesn't help their case to have you standing there, that's for sure.  So if you are planning on using assets like this, prepare to have other assets - LIKE THIS.  It doesn't hurt that I have the snack attack pack and some other really high quality stuff that I've gotten through the community.  I meticulously filter and comb my assets to ensure that the quality is at bare minimum, consistent.


What's interesting is I was discussing 2-D "mode" for Game-Guru with Synchromesh - a forum user.

After some experimentation, he had discovered a way to fake a 2-D mode for Game-Guru.  He shared the secrets with me and filled in the blank spots in my own testing.  So the plan is to make a virtual arcade and then have it warp you off to another level when you use the machine - the level will be a two dimensional simplified mockup of one of these games!  I intend to do a walkthrough later after I've made a functional version of a few.  The driving one should be simple enough.

The bottom line:  The simple version is are you going to need this for all your projects?  No.  It's far more specialized than other packs he offers.  Is it one of the highest quality assets on the store? Absolutely.  If you can manage it, then by all means - find a way to work it in.  I for one, will be using it.

The Retro Arcade Pack can be found here: https://en.tgcstore.net/pack/10474

Pasquill's Vehicle Pack 1

I'll be continuing my analysis of Doom 1 level design very soon - but for now I need to get a review out - that's the point of this blog, isn't it?  To provide people with some insight on what they might spend their money on with game-guru?  So this week I'm reviewing Pasquill and a pack of his I recently purchased.

I recently purchased Pasquill's vehicle pack 1 as a reward for my five year old son doing a good job on his schoolwork.  Being he loves cars we spend a lot of hours building huge sprawling maps and just making cars in all positions.  He loves a good car wreck.  So he'll position them and I'll set the details up like smoke and lighting.

Up until recently I've used my City Pack (which has somewhat cartoon looking blue, red, green and orange cars) and some freebies I've picked up over time (like the dark city stuff by Cosmic).  It's nothing spectacular but does the job for a five year old.

The vehicle pack features 24 high quality, ~1500ish poly count models which utilize 2048x2048 textures.  In short, they look great!

Tons of shapes, colors, and variety!

The pictures don't do this pack justice.  You get 24 different vehicles, in five different styles.  Those five styles get a lot of mileage though, with drastically different textures, additional bits (such as missing windows or sirens being added) and colors.

The detail on the side panels is a nice touch.

As you can see above, the van is really nicely made.  I have several vans from other makers and they vary in quality but generally the models are a bit lackluster (it is a box on wheels, after all).  However note the subtlety of the texturing and modelling here.  There's lots of indentations, smooth and graduated edges.  What I like best are the wheels - gone are the dodecehedrons  most of the older free models had.  Here we have really beautifully round wheels that look great.

What's really impressive though are the textures on the damaged vehicles:

This little beater has seen far better days.

 This is where that 2048x2048 texture size pays dividends.  While the flat colored vehicles look nice the rusty and damaged vehicles look SPECTACULAR.  If you're doing a zombie apocalypse or warzone - or hell even a junkyard level - these vehicles are pretty much a must have.  Coloration, design, shape, damage - everything looks phenomenal.  The tires are even flat!  It's a huge amount of detail for what is a very reasonable price.  We're talking 62 and a half cents (USD) per car!

The bottom line:  For the money there's really no better vehicle-based pack on the tgcstore.  You get a big variety of high quality models that are different enough to be worth the expense.  Fifteen dollars seems like a lot when we're talking an online resource market that has things priced criminally low - but take my word for it - it's been worth it.