I only played three games yesterday at Game Developers Conference, all of them in the PlayStation Bloggers' Lounge. I tried "PixelJunk Eden Encore," which I wrote about it already. I played "Infamous," which I'll be writing about soon. And I played "Fat Princess," which ran more smoothly than it did when I first touched it at E3 last July.
"Fat Princess" at GDC exhibited no gameplay revision. It still pits two teams of players and computer-controlled warriors against each other in a capture-the-flag contest. The flag is a princess hoping not to be kidnapped from her castle and carried to the other team's. The princess' own team can prevent this by donning hats that turn them into warriors, woodchoppers, archers or magicians. They can also prevent her capture by feeding her lots of cake, fattening her up so she is too much of a burden to be spirited away.
When last I played the game it had a framerate problem. At GDC it's main problem is that players need to exercise teamwork. Going solo is death, as there are at least a dozen enemies always clustered between your spawn points and the enemy castle. Coordinated strategy will be more fun, but coordination is rare at gaming events, where every reporter is fumbling and it's too noisy to shout tactics.
The game is set for summer release as a downloadable title for the PS3's PlayStation Network.
