2010-Sep-18 OLDER NEWER
Endless Lair: Ninja

Endless Lair: Ninja is a video game that pays homage to Dragon's Lair and other such Laserdisc-based arcade games of the mid-to-late 1980s. Except you are the hero. No, really. You actually are.

Download

Endless Lair: Ninja for Windows / Mac / Linux (373 Mb)

Levels

Here are the three main levels that were made for the game. Viewing them outside of the game engine will give you a sense of how you can make a level of your own.

How Laserdisc Games Work

Many Laserdisc games work on the principle of linearizing a tree-structured story. Choose-your-own-adventure books are organized in the same way. At certain points, one is prompted to make a decision and then referred to an index — a page number in the case of books or a time code in the case of a video. That index represents the branch that reflects one's decision. Though other Laserdisc games adopted this method, Dragon's Lair was more successful because of its short and rapid story branches. By keeping branches of action short, the player has more chances to evoke wonder and pause on what may have happened if different decisions had been made.

Make Your Own Levels

Endless Lair is extendable. The steps for making a level are pretty simple!

  1. Make your video clips.
    • Make yourself a Ninja. (Ninja mask + red shirt)
    • Have the Ninja walk through an entrance door.
    • Repeat these steps until you run out of ideas...
      • Record Ninja encountering an obstacle of some kind.
      • Record Ninja failing that obstacle in one or multiple ways.
      • Record Ninja overcoming that obstacle in one way. (You can do multiple ways if you're a pro.)
    • Have the Ninja walk through an exit door if the player is successful in beating your level.
  2. Edit those clips together. We recommend this order:
    • All the "success" parts strung together.
    • All the "failure" parts strung together with about 2 seconds of extra footage at the start and end of each clip.
  3. Render your video as F4V.
  4. Build an XML file with each button press (up, down, left, right, attack) using the template as a base. Put the XML and F4V next to each other with the same name.
  5. Add your room to rooms.xml after the title screen.

We hope you enjoy making your own levels. We really did. You can even submit this level to be included into the full game that is distributed right here. Just have a look at the Vimeo group forum.

Join the Vimeo Group

XML Template

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>
<rgbk_laserdisc>
	<title>Three Ways To Die</title>
	<author>Max Normal</author>

	<cuepoints>
		<!-- 10 second intro -->
		<!-- followed by the opportunity to press UP for 1 second -->
		<!-- button actions and point-givings have an accuracy of 1/10th second -->
		<!-- 20 points for a success -->
		<cue time="10.0">
			<qte_open key="UP"/>
		</cue>
		<cue time="11.0">
			<qte_close key="UP" false_seek="trip,stumble"/>
		</cue>
		<cue time="11.5"><score>20</score></cue>

		<!-- 10 more seconds to see the ninja walk though the exit door-->
		<!-- then end this level -->
		<cue time="21.0">
			<exit/>
		</cue>

		<!-- these clips will only play if you fail -->
		<!-- <kill/> makes the player lose a life and exits the level -->
		<!-- cuepoints that are seeked to will not be accurate -->
		<!-- the movie will skip to the next nearest keyframe -->
		<!-- leave ~2 seconds of extra footage at the start of -->
		<!-- any scene that is seeked to -->
		<cue time="25.0" label="trip" />
		<!-- watch the ninja trip -->
		<cue time="30.0"><kill/></cue>

		<cue time="32.0" label="stumble"/>
		<!-- watch the ninja stumble -->
		<cue time="40.0"><kill/></cue>
	</cuepoints>
</rgbk_laserdisc>
Someone playing the original Endless Lair: Ninja at SPARKcon.

Exhibitions

  1. 80% @ Artcraft Sign Co. (2010-02-05)
  2. Digital Motion Showcase @ Fragment (2010-09-17)
  3. {Re}Happening 2012 @ Black Mountain College Museum + Arts Center (2012-04-07)

Who Did What?

Andrew Lindberg Videography HD Video Camera
Mitchell Bowling Videography Mobile Phone
Wray Bowling Videography HD Video Camera
Wray Bowling OOP Actionscript 3