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.

My own humble mockup.

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.

Basically, you wrap a cord around a wooden object, which paints the object. Sessions feel half like a game and half like some kind of soothing knot-to-untie.

This game has vision; all the elements feel unified in a monastic, gothic way. But the game is not just cohesive aesthetically…the entire thing feels polished in a way that you rarely encounter. That alone adds some pleasurable quality to interacting with the game.

Part game, part toy, part puzzle, part relaxation fetish. I love this Zen Bound.

(Note: Jordan, this game is for you.)

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.

After hearing about them for a while, I finally started listening to Glasvegas this week. One part melodrama, one part grit, I love their music entirely.

I’m playtesting my iPhone game a lot right now, near the end of the project. (This is, more or less, a regenerative side project I’m doing with a handful of other people, while working on longer-term first-person RPG-style stuff with Arkane Studios.) Out of many, many great qualities, one of the best things about the iPhone/iPod is that you can general pop on headphones, turn off the game’s music, and play to your own soundtrack. Not completely novel, but better supported than on any prior platform.

My favorite music while playing my iPhone game: Dan Deacon, Cut Copy and–more specifically–the Teenagers’ remake of a song by Vampire Weekend. Glasvegas works well too, it turns out.

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.

I just found out that Puzzle Quest and Passage are available on the App Store. I first played PQ via XBLA and found it addictive and interesting. For me, Passage was the hit of the Gamma256 event in Montreal (in 2007?). Having both of these games on my iPod is great, for different reasons. PQ will allow me to level up on planes and trains, something I love, and the iPod version of Passage will allow me to show the game to people who normally might not encounter it.

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.