I’m finally home after driving with Brenda Brathwaite to the Art History of Games Conference in Atlanta.
http://arthistoryofgames.com/
The event was great and timely, since I’m also taking an online art history class with SCAD. As usual, one of the best aspects was interacting with friends (old and new), talking about games.
Some of the speeches given at the conference made me realize that while–in crafting games–designers take up fierce positions and move toward absolutes, critics and academics often rely an elusive series of shifting positions and various lenses as a means of analysis. We tend to drive toward something hard, guided by a core statement or belief that might not hold up as consistent or perfect under intense scrutiny. (But a core statement that might be critical in terms of reaching the goal. Ie, “Multiple solutions to problems,” or “Modeling fight or flight response.”) They tend to ask questions from many different perspective, which is thought provoking and provides insight from earlier efforts.
Ever interesting, games vs stories comes up year after year. People make statements about whether games should include any embedded narrative borrowed from non-systemic, non-mechanical media like fiction or film.
I believe in our medium’s plurality. There’s no right answer. But for me the strongest experiences *right now* involve a synthesis…sublime moments that come from interacting with very analogue systems, wrapped in fiction that contextualizes the experience emotionally.
Best example for me, from the last year, is my 100 or so hours with Far Cry 2. Soon I’ll be playing Bioshock 2 and Battlefield Bad Company 2, trying to get the same sensation, which I cannot find anywhere else. Certainly not in film, lit. or art.
Since this thread appeared at NeoGAF, it’s gotten cooler by the day. It’s “…a theoretical series of video game releases for the more serious collectors (à la The Criterion Collection).” My favorite is the sepia-toned Bioshock box art. Brilliant thread. (Someone collected them all on one page.)
My own humble mockup.
KarmaStar App Store link.
Such a great experience, putting the project together. Everyone in games should make at least one mobile game.
Note: As of today, KarmaStar world record is 44. (Use wildcards, go for “the star” and try to stack up bonus scores.) And medium difficulty is more fun.
As a side project, I’ve been working with a small team on a card/board-style iPhone game called KarmaStar. The game is done and should be up on the App Store in a couple of weeks. (This is not my primary project with Arkane Studios…it’s something that I wrote up and we tested locally using marked up Uno cards and dice. I love the iPhone.)
I have a couple of things to say about this project:
First, it was completely rejuvenating to work with a tiny team on a small-budget project. I envy casual game developers in many ways. I had a really good time working with the people involved (directly or in support roles). I got to do a bit of everything, which reminded me of my skills (and deficiencies) and helped me sharpen up some.
Second, my respect for people who design strategy games just went through the roof. I mean, through the roof. Most of the time, we all just iterate on existing game rules. For KarmaStar, I didn’t start off using the (excellent, smart) design method of “taking an existing game and modifying it.” The structure was worked out without modeling it on something else exactly, mostly as a challenge. It was hard, even though this is a simple game.
http://fingergaming.com/2009/03/majesco-announces-karma-star-for-iphone/
I hope to post more on the project later…process, what-went-right/wrong, development quirks, details, etc.
I have a love/hate relationship with puzzle games. (I’d rather engage with something that allows me to play expressively.) But I love strategy games and a few puzzle games.
Subway gameplay involves moving pieces around to open a path to the goal. Each level (01-91) gets increasingly difficult.
The part I find fascinating is my approach to solving the puzzles. There’s an interesting mental shift, where I “let go” of trying to solve the puzzle overall, focus on which moves I *can* currently make, take into account what has to happen (in the final move) to solve the puzzle, and *try to solve faster*. I find that I’m far more successful when I make this series of mental shifts than when I try to approach the puzzle as a whole, or in a systemic way. Hard to articulate.
Subway also has a super clean art style and implementation that I love.
This game has made it onto my list of iPhone favorites, along with Galcon and Drop7.
I’ve been playing Left4Dead and I’m totally in love with it.
It’s a ‘game’ in a purer sense than many shooters…it’s a sports-like experience in terms of dynamics and phases of play. The game feels very smart in terms of dramatic pacing via mechanics: Each enemy class represents a different tactical experience, rising and falling in intensity as players move through a solid structure, from safe zone to labyrinth to arena to labyrinth to climax to safe zone. And each mix of enemy classes represents a different tactical experience. The variability in enemy spawning and items feels almost perfect.
It’s a great example of excellent mechanical differentiation. This is best seen with regard to enemy classes (witch, boomer, etc), but it’s all over the place (zombie-attracting pipe-bombs vs wall-of-fire molotov cocktail; zombies can’t open doors but have to batter them down; etc). I’m constantly seeing small, well differentiated mechanics that enhance the game in some way…that can be used tactically by players in different contexts. Enforced co-op mechanics are some of the game’s most interesting features and really matter a lot when a team is trying to survive a big finale battle. The game constantly gives the player clear feedback, with minimal noise. You get messages for goals, for bragging-rights, dynamic events, etc. Some of this is conveyed through character voice lines (even your own), which works great.
But it’s not enough to describe it as a sports-like shooter, because the setting, character archetypes and situations make it more than that too. Rather than feeling abstract (Team 01 vs Team 02), the player cannot help but surf along the edges of the zombie fiction. There’s a kind of media transference that happens because the player has seen so many nihilistic, desperate zombie movies set in the modern world. The game fiction leverages this very well, allowing the story to unfold dynamically as the player simultaneously drives and interprets the situation. That story is generally constrained to something between a zombie movie and a game of sandlot football, but it’s seamless (and brilliant for being so).
I love L4D. Kudos to the team for making one of the best games of the year.
Raphael and I just returned from Game Connection, which is one of the better game industry trade shows. The signal-to-noise ratio is exceptional. We had a great time and talked to a lot of interesting potential partners.
We’ve been thrown a recent curve ball by some industry shakeups, but we’ve got some good leads about what we want to do next. I’ve been feeling great lately, working on both strategy and RPG game systems.
One of the social highlights of the Game Connection show was the casino-themed party at the Mayor’s home. Hotel Deville is reminiscent of the Palace of Versaille.
Dear Stick Man Games people,
Would you please, please, please port Chaos Overlords to the iPhone so I can play it on my iPod Touch and listen to the music?
That’s all. Thank you.
It’s been a rough year for Austin game studios. Lots of upheaval. Some people have been affected adversely by project cancellations and layoffs, while others are staffing up, excited about the coming years. This seems cyclic to me, but there’s definitely been a lot of chaos, in Austin and elsewhere. I’m eternally optimistic, because I know that the desire to play (and design) games will never go; everything else, including “the industry,” is a distant second to that primal drive.
I’m excited by projects here at Arkane Studios and I’m hopeful for games underway at other independent Austin companies: Certain Affinity, Edge of Reality, King’s Isle, Blazing Lizard, Pixel Mine (who just got nominated for a couple of awards, I think), etc. There are a few interesting startups in the background too, coming soon. Larger companies like Nintendo, Disney (Warren’s group), and Bioware hold great promise, and I’ve even got high hopes for (ex-Deus Ex designer) Ricardo Bare’s project at Midway.
Because of the year we’ve had, I’m hoping that Austin GDC will be exciting and reflective this year; a bunch of smart people coming together to network, socialize, share ideas and debate the process of not just shipping games, but making games great.
I’m giving a career-track talk aimed at new people coming into games now, at a time when no one knows what the industry will look like in 5 years.
There’s a charge in the air…is it the imminent hurricane or is it something else, generated by passion… by people who love what they do, who want to pick themselves up and charge the hill again?
