Raven
Release type: Incomplete
Release date: 2000
Levels: 3
Author: Robert Brandon
Related games: Skate Board, Terra
Following John Brandon's work on Skate Board, he and his brother Robert branched off in different directions. While John continued to refine his notions of freeform, style-based play in Skatenig, Robert took the pieces of Skate Board and developed it into a series of games we can call the "Skate Ghoul" trilogy.
Whereas Skate Board was meant as an extreme sports game, it wound up playing more like an open-ended exploration platformer. In Raven, Robert seems eager to pick apart what makes the earlier game as it is. Here we abandon the strict horizontal perspective for something more like "belt scrolling" -- that angled side-view that you get in brawlers like Double Dragon, where you can walk up and down the street.
There is still a minor emphasis on tricks -- the Skate Ghoul character can do everything s/he can in the last game, and there are now many more places to fool around -- but this shift in perspective also rather shifts the player's relationship with the gameworld. Whereas (aside from the most interesting level) Skate Board largely just asks that the player keep heading to the right, Raven by necessity regularly asks the player to search for an exit. Combine this exploration-aligned goal with a broader depth of field to comb, and Raven begins to hew closer to the style of action-adventure game that Game-Maker was built to support.
Appropriately, the world of Raven is more detailed than that of its predecessor. To facilitate and reward this exploration, each level is more of an environment, with varied street furniture and a complex urban backdrop. Within a given level there still are few overt goals, but the levels are interesting enough to poke around while looking for an escape.
As with many Brandon Enterprises projects, Raven is not a full, thoroughly imagined game. It's a test of concept, an attempt to enhance John's earlier game by breaking it out into a faux 3D plane -- which in turn only emphasizes the parts of Skate Board that work under RSD's engine. For the third and final Skate Ghoul game, Robert would carry these results to their logical conclusion...
| Previous | Current | Next |
|---|---|---|
| Skate Board | Raven | Terra |
| SkateGhoul series | ||
Contents
Story[edit]
N/A
Instructions[edit]
CONTROLS[edit]
For best results, please use the numerical keypad.
- 4, 6: Skate left, right
- 7, 8, 9: Ollie Left, Up, Right
TRICKS[edit]
- 0 Ins: Board Slide
- Enter: 5-0 Grind (Do on rails)
- +: Spin
- *: Kickflip
- -: Nosebone
Credits[edit]
Designed by
- John and Robert Brandon
Engine and Tools by
- Recreational Software Designs
Edited by
Background[edit]
John Brandon:
- This game looks like it was one of my brother's projects.
Archive history[edit]
On January 21st 2010, Rob Brandon pseudonymously responded to a Reddit thread with a passing comment about Game-Maker. When pressed about his history with the software, he replied that all of his games were stored on a couple of defunct computers, either inaccessible or destroyed.
Over 31 months later on August 23th 2012, John Brandon commented on a YouTube clip that he had found an archive of his and his brother's old games. The next day he composed a long e-mail describing the contents of a jumbled collection of gameware files, adding up to an ostensible sixteen games. All of the games were in pieces, many of them incomplete.
Over the next five months, through regular consultation, the games were all reassembled as well as the materials would permit. The games were reconstructed or otherwise recovered on the following dates:
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Availability[edit]
Prior to this archive's online presence, this game is not known to be publicly available.
Links[edit]
Downloads[edit]
- Raven (103.2 kB)
