Sentimental Gamer

I've moved

2007-11-10T21:25:00.000-05:00

So long Blogger.

Hello Wordpress.

Don't ask why... I just like the options.

sentimentalgamer.wordpress.com

Dreamfall and the Illusion of Narrative Agency

2007-11-04T09:39:00.000-05:00

I began playing Dreamfall: The Longest Journey earlier this week, and finished it just last night. I actually abstained from reading reviews about it until afterwards, just to see if my opinion of the game agreed with the general opinion. That seems to be the case. The general opinion (and my own) is "riveting story, beautiful artistic direction, great voice acting..... and not much as far as actual gameplay goes".

I thought the game was tremendous. I actually was not a great fan of the original game, The Longest Journey. The overemphasis on April Ryan being "special" and "the savior of the worlds" and so on really killed the game for me. It wasn't bad, necessarily, but it was too wrapped up in the theme of "you are special" to allow its other themes to shine. Not so in Dreamfall. Zoe Castillo, the new female lead, is, for most of the game, spectacularly normal. She suffers from lethargy and indirection. Given that I was playing the game because I was feeling a bit lethargic, this of course caused me to have an immediate and arresting interest in Zoe and what would happen to her. I won't try to summarize the rather dense plot. I will say, though, that it elegantly constructs a meaning for Zoe without the explicit "this is your mission... this is your purpose in life" hammer that's so easy to apply. It doesn't feel forced. She does only what she feels is needed, then understands late in the game that doing what was needed is enough.
Of course, Zoe's personal journey is one theme among many. The game benefits from its multi-perspective approach. The player controls Zoe, April Ryan, and a virtuous but deadly apostle from far off lands in turn. During sections where these characters converge, the tension I felt was close to unbearable. Though a similar perspective technique could be employed by a film, there was some... factor... something about alternately controlling two non-omniscient characters that gave a palpable feel to the situations.

I could comment on the game's presentational and narrative strengths ad nauseum, but I feel that I must take issue with its highly linear, non-interactive structure. Rare indeed is the game where I feel agency over the story. Games tend to give me story, then agency, then more story. The two modes alternate. The best games, as many people other than myself have theorized, are those that give the player meaningful in-game choices that affect the story. I partly agree with this, but I would further postulate that the best games are those that give me the illusion of agency over the story. Honestly, I have very little wish to tell myself a story. The concept of "cooperative storytelling", where the designer gives a framework for the player to create his own story, doesn't appeal greatly to me. In this respect, I think I agree with Ebert; authorial control is a fairly central component of narrative and art. A story that I create for myself, by myself, will almost certainly be derivative. As such, I would prefer a game that is in truth linear, but gives me the impression that events somehow hinge on my actions. To accomplish this illusion, one needs to play the story; not just watch it. For examples, see Max Payne 2, Beyond Good & Evil, or the new Sam & Max episodes: linear, but since I am living the story, interacting with it, I feel that I matter. I am NOT the co-author of the story; instead, I empathize with the characters and am part of it. The two positions are incredibly different.

So, on this count, Dreamfall fails. It's a glorified movie. Most interactions are limited to walking 10 feet from one event trigger to the next (apart from the puzzles... but I've made it clear that I would rather there be no puzzles whatsoever in adventure games, unless they are very well suited to the scenario. Again, see the new Sam & Max episodes for good use of puzzles). If one were to divide the game by percent into story and other parts, about 90% would subjectively be the former. Because of this, the game fails horribly as "a game" since story is largely given via cutscenes. So, in a sense, I don't take issue with the linearity of the story. I take issue with its heavy use of non-interative methods to convey this linear story.

Ok that's enough of a ramble for now... certainly more to say to clear up what the difference is between giving an item in Dreamfall versus using an item in Sam & Max, but some other time...

A Computerized Model of Suicide

2007-09-30T09:16:00.003-05:00

"The balance of risk and reward changes depends on the value of R(s) for the nonterminal states. Figure 17.2(b) shows the optimal policies for four different ranges of R(s). When R(s) <= -1.6284, life is so painful that the agent heads straight for the nearest exit, even if the exit is worth -1."

There you have it, people. We need to act now to prevent digital suicide by our beloved agents. When they feel like the only way out is -1, we need to help them cope with the intermediate negative reward values in order to find their +1 terminal state. :)

Wow

2007-09-21T12:57:00.000-05:00

Good lord, I really don't get around to posting on here that much.

Back at Cornell, of course, with all the work that it entails. It's not exactly been overwhelming yet. Certainly been time to not work and such, but I believe it may grow worse with time.

As the DGA has been sucking up most all of my free time (I like to think of it as a 4 credit course w/out the tests), work on Stage IV has... not really been going on. Schwartz left during the summer, so GDIAC is effectively nonoperational for now... it'll get back together, but later. So, I'm finding myself spending all of my time trying to get other people to make games and just about zero time making them myself. I'm admittedly envious of the projects that are really moving along, as I would rather be in the same situation. Any volunteers for DGA president? Entirely willing to abdicate.

As suggested in my previous post, I've shifted my mental attitude to be more appreciative of learning and less guilty about not being some dirt poor soul with no prospects. *Shrugs*. I guess it's more of the regular cycle/tide of one's brain than anything. I don't put that much stock into it because I'm sure it will again be altered within a few months.

Ayiyiyi... what else can we hit up here? Apparently a game called Eternal Sonata just came out for the 360 that really caught my eye. I'd not heard about it before, but apparently it's "about" the death of Chopin. He drifts in and out of a dream world w/ some girl who is at the center of a controversy between two kingdoms and magic and anime eyes and statistical battles blah blah blah... so not everything about it is original. But the idea of mixing the deathbed of Chopin and this magical world does intrigue me... now if only I had a 360 to play it. If they're taking a very real scene and connecting it to purpose of the fantasy world, well... maybe it's a bit on the nose, but it definitely beats out the pure fantasy of most games. Alas, maybe I'll play it a few years down the road, though the trailers that display about 80% battle scenes with stylized integers flying to and fro with each attack make me wonder if I could ever get into it. There's a place for stat battles, and there's a place for a story about the death of Chopin. I guess I'd want to mix them just about as much as I'd like garlic with that ice cream sundae.

Focusing on life vs learning

2007-07-15T11:40:00.000-05:00

I've recently come to the conclusion that I'm so often bothersome and irritable because I tend to spend my copious free time (and that does exist this summer) ruminating on just how much worse life could be. Yes, I make a fine as a parking ticket salary. Yes, I'm in a beautiful apartment in a beautiful community with a wonderfully loving family and a bright future. But me, oh I'm glum because it COULD be the case that I wouldn't be in such a fine position.

Not that I'm going to totally knock that position, mind you, but it seems that I've forgotten that there are actually allowed moods for people of such fortunate status beyond guilt. One that I've neglected lately, is wonder. In my focus on humanity and wordly affairs, I for awhile forgot that when all of the basic human needs are met (and then some), you are able to project your mind not just beyond yourself to other human beings, but to a place beyond humanity.

Specifically, I'm referring to picking up "A Brief History of Time" at a secondhand bookstore :), but I do imply a bit more than that. Once you get past the guilt of being such a fortunate person, be it by simply accepting life as is or by deciding that it really isn't a helpful mood, one can begin to move focus from the world to...

Ok, I'm losing myself. I'll stop here. Gotta get to the Sunday service at Island United Church, a wonderfuly place with ~20 weekly attendants but a heart that you'd normally find from ~10000000000 (does that even make sense? No, but oh well).

VOOM.

Summer in CA and Stage IV

2007-07-08T21:16:00.000-05:00

Ok, so Music Monsters did get done... unfortunately, likely because of my crappy programming, it had showstopping memory leaks that slowed it to nothing after a few minutes of play. Not only that, but turns out that I introduced a last minute bug in a change to the music lab I made just days before showcase. So the main innovation of the game was broken. Great. So.... I blew it, I would say. I'm not happy about that. I do want to work on it to fix my part of the game up, because other people really put work into that, and it sucks that it's ruined by my failures. We'll see what I can do, if I ever find the motivation.

Time out here with Oracle is going fairly well... weather is always sunny, slightly to moderately windy, highs in the high 70s/low 80s, low humidity. I have extremely nice apartment, rental car, and nice salary, complements of Oracle. I guess I'm not really comfortable with life like this though. Mind you, I'm not a masochist, but living such a wonderfully blissful life just doesn't' sit well with me. I've made up my mind that one of the worst moves I can make in life is to make a lotta money and live in comfort, because it just makes you so complacent and... well, it just makes life flow like hot oil, if that's actually a phrase.

Then again, I'm young. Young people are like that... think they're not gonna just be like their parents, etc. I know that my opinion on what kind of life I want will change. Someday, I will be happy with this life. Stable job, stable money, modern convenience. But, conversely, it's not a sin to follow what you find to be true now. I can't declare "my current state of mind will pass; ergo, I shall live in accordance with my future state of mind." Wouldn't make much sense. And this is all hopelessly selfcentered blather. Shutting up on it now.

Anyways, the point I wanted to write about in this entry was brainstorming for Stage IV, my tentative title for what I hope will come together as my Fall 2007 game. I've been referring to it previously as "the cancer game", but that's not exactly very appealing, is it now? :)

While I've got a lot to say about it, basically, the "meat" of the game will be conversations with the three major NPCs in the game. You're playing a young man (in HS still, though, as being away from home would not work for the game). Your dad's diagnosed with stage iv cancer, and it's basically a drama of life for you and the 3 other main chars as it gets worse and worse. A little close to home? Yeah, maybe. Autobiographical? Darn close. I'm still not sure where the line is supposed to be between just talking about yourself and drawing on personal experience for your work, you know? Will people look at it and say "wow, he really likes to indulge himself in his own world"? Or, will basically recreating life for me in 2006 be a wise idea? Hard for me to say... I'm new to all this stuff.

Anywho, got a buncha notes on it that I don't really feel like detailing now, but one thing I did want to say is that I've realized that I can't really form up the game system, then attach story to it. Over the past few weeks, I've tried to concentrate on how I'll build the game system, the underlying engine, trying to forget about how the specific story content will be applied.

This just doesn't work.

The game and story must evolve together. Otherwise, it's like the proverbial square peg in a round hole. They'll feel disjointed, unmatched for eachother. Odd as it may sound, I've noticed this while playing Sam & Max, the new episodic chapters (Gametap is nice....). The puzzles in these comical games work extremely well, but only because they are moreso a part of the story than most any I've ever seen in adventure games before. They're not ad hoc add-ons; they are both story and game at once. This is the same sort of gameplay I want to create, albeit with a more serious tone.

Cutting it close

2007-05-05T23:29:00.000-05:00

So when I only took 4 classes this semester, I TOTALLY thought that I'd be giving myself more time to work on the game.

I was apparently wrong.

Showcase is Wednesday.... game needs lots o' work....

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to crunch.

Virginia Tech

2007-04-20T19:56:00.000-05:00

Since the past week's been a work nightmare, I've kinda been out of the loop concerning the shootings at VTech. I mean, I heard about them on Monday night, but I was up all that night doing game work, and the rest of the week was packed too, so I just didn't let it sink in. But I had my nice slow meal tonight, and I just sat and read the paper, and it just hit me like a ton of bricks. I nearly started crying right there in the dining hall.

I know this will sound cruel, but it wasn't so much for the people who died. I mean, yes it's horrible that wonderful, bright young people died, but you know gruesome and wrongful death isn't a new thing in the world (well for that matter, most anything isn't new...). As many op eds will readily point out, you don't need to look any further than Baghdad for that, or any number of other places. So while it hurts more because it was people just about as similar to me as you could possibly get, you can't just say "omg this is the most tragic event ever"... just like I'd be wrong to think that Dad's dying was any honestly any more important than any other death by cancer.

But what got me was the responses... what people say. It seems like the people who observe such things are split between those simply without words, and those who just can't talk enough. Not that that's bad, but just... the hate... I can't take it. Anything from how cowardly and sick Cho (the shooter) was, to how ineffective security was at preventing the deaths in the time between he first started and the real tragedy hours later, to society as a whole screwing him up. Everyone wants to blame, to find who was wrong, because god knows that somebody must be wrong. One op-ed in particular made me nearly lose it. It was titled something to the effect of "Stop the blaming", so I thought I'd find relief in it. Instead, it spoke for a few paras on why not to blame any other party, but eventually concluded with something like "we only have the cowardly cho to blame... he did this... he is wrong."

I can't take those sort of accusations, those blunt declarations of, quite simply, as they see it, what happened, what the right and wrong was. It's my problem that I can't see evil... I guess I'd say I don't believe in it. I mean, yes there's so much wrong in the world, but I just... I don't sense evil, that there's somebody who is the wrong one. I think of everybody as a human, and I can't label somebody who is so upset as to shoot over 30 other people as some sort of "coward". I mean jesus christ, people, remind me the logic of that again? He was so cowardly that he... shot everybody then blew a hole in his head? Why is this cowardly? Is it brave? No, but is everything that is not brave cowardly?

But it's not just him... it's everybody blaming everybody. People can be ineffective and not on the right track, but I guess I just want to cry because I don't say "ah you idiots were wrong and I was right". Or maybe I do... and so I guess I hate myself for that.

It's the video game mentality, the video game worldview, that's what I can't handle. When distressing events happen, you just watch people segment up, choose sides, prepare for the conflict, fight the fight.... it's like they're all just in this big game where they MUST win. I know that's a weird take on games, but it's so true. I think I have such difficulty formulating my game ideas because, frankly, they're not games. That's what I'm finally letting solidify. Games are not just anything; they are competitive, they have fights, some sort of struggle. No matter the type, there is the effort, the trying to "win", whatever that is. It's just that I can't imagine that that is all there is, that voila... we've been searching for the meaning of existence, there it is... to struggle in conflict.

No, I'm not suggesting that games created this sort of mentality. Not like they're that powerful or widespread. I mean that video games are the product of that mentality... If you just started out saying "we make interactive, electronic entertainment", nothing there says that you make games. But almost all of what that covers today, all of it is games. And so I just.... I talk to much, that's what. That's enough.

Truth or truth

2007-04-11T22:08:00.000-05:00

Ah that can do it...

"a rousing game of truth or truth".

For those who don't know it, this is quite possibly the best variant of truth or dare. It's playable by two people who really can't do any other game when they are separated by distance. And yes, it's just a "joke" game. All it is is asking questions, getting answers. Unconditional.

Draws people together, even when they're far apart....

Word buffers

2007-04-11T22:02:00.000-05:00

God help me, I don't know why... but whenever I want to talk about deep things with somebody, I often end up pushing them to frustration and annoyance, if not outright anger. Obviously, this is a bad thing. But at the same time, it feels like the only way to get past the buffer of words. It's as though there's a deep basin with a punctured hole at the bottom. As we're talking, it fills. When we have pleasant, normal conversations, it's just a trickle, and it all quickly leaks out the bottom. But I want to fill it, and the only way to do it is just to unleash the torrent, to have it slosh over the top. Only then can I get at what I wanted.

But like I said, that's a horrible thing, so I guess I'm a bad person. There's got to be a better way to get at things than to just create artificial, unpleasant situations.

So when I say word buffers, it's just that that's what I want to get around, because you can sit forever in the buffers and never make it past them. And it's just so shallow, empty... even when you think you're talking about big things, that it drives me nuts.

Music and Tarkovsky

2007-04-07T23:50:00.000-05:00

Reading Tarkovsky's Sculpting in Time for film class, and while a lot of it is just over my head, his view on music in movies is interesting to me. He doesn't like it because he frowns on its use of just reinforcing the meaning of the images. Kinda banging you over the head, giving the audience cues for how they should feel. Instead, he'd rather not use it at all, or, if necessary, only as a way to morph the image. In his view, a sequence should only have music if it would have a different cast entirely if it were devoid of it.

So for me, I'm a lover of music. I love the way it instantly can modify my temperament, making me feel different ways depending on whether it's sad, offbeat, happy, crashing, etc. But when I listen to music, I'll often imagine how my games will go. Obviously, though, the two media are very different and don't use the same methods. So I guess my problem is that I need to understand how to translate that raw emotional power of music into the more subdued game. Maybe then it's more lasting than just harnessing humanity's built-in emotion-o-meter to do with as you please.

2007-03-31T20:49:00.000-05:00

Not that I agree with all of the Realtime Art Manifesto, btw... but god help me if I don't love to see things like this:

"Don’t make games.

The rule-based structure and competitive elements in traditional game design stand in the way of expressiveness.
And often, ironically, rules get in the way of playfulness
(playfulness is required for an artistic experience!)."

Realtime Art Manifesto

2007-03-31T20:44:00.001-05:00

"Step one: drop the requirement of making a game.

The game structure of rules and competition stands in the way of expressiveness.

Interactivity wants to be free.

Gaming stands in the way of playing.
There are so many other ways of interacting in virtual environments.
We have only just begun to discover the possibilities.
Games are games.
They are ancient forms of play that have their place in our societies.
But they are by far not the only things one can do with realtime technologies.

Stop making games.
Be an author."

Go to link. Read. Be happy:
http://www.tale-of-tales.com/tales/RAM.html

Fiction...ish

2007-03-03T20:32:00.000-05:00

I have officially discovered the joys of reading something that is not either a.) assigned for school and/or b.) a contemplative assessment of life, deep questions, and all that.

My Aunt Amy gave a package-load of books for Christmas to our family, and I got A Walk in the Woods by Bill Bryson, a story of his hike on the Appalachian Trail. It's a great read, and unfortunately has been sucking up my time for the last couple days when I should work more. But I guess I'm happy, because it's reminding me that yes, I can do something that is not mind-numbing and repetitive (games and animated comedies....) but doesn't have to be staring at the sky and wondering the meaning of life. By God, wouldn't you know it, there is an in between. Maybe that's how people can deal with it... by taking life in degrees.

I'm not saying I don't live right... just saying that I'm pleasantly surprised at the enjoyment I get out of the book. Poor video games will have to catch up, because there's thousands more books like this, so games have work to do before they even reach the level of common books.

Fantastic Landscapes

2007-02-24T23:25:00.000-05:00

Why are we so drawn to fantastic landscapes and fantasy adventures? I just thought now that it's because they make a visual image out of what our mind feels. I don't mean it in the sense of "hmm that's a cool landscape in my head" and then we make it. I mean that we have a feeling, a sense in our head, that is very nicely visualized by the fantasy adventure.

But now it's been made common by the plethora of adventure pictures and novels and game titles.

So if I can find a new way to "frame" this feeling in the head, hot diiiiiiiggity... that'd be a nice starting point for a game.

Imagination

2007-02-24T23:14:00.001-05:00

The funny thing about imagination... is that you think it's just imaginary... but if you augment the world as you see fit, then where's the line?

Dad

2007-02-24T23:00:00.000-05:00

It's weird... I'm not sad about it anymore.

I'm not saying it's ok, or that I'm happy, or that I'm perfectly fine with his not being here...

But his dying is what I was sad about. Dying is awful, death isn't.

It's weird... I'm not saying I understand it all... I understand nothing more than I did before, but I see it more... as I lie in bed at night, I just talk mentally to the air, and I address him. Still have no clue if it's meaningful at all, but if it's not... then what is lost? If he's gone, if the last physical trace of him is the pile of ash in a box, then what would it matter anyways? I'm at most 80 years from the same fate.

But if he's there... then there's something else. I talk to him in the same way I would ask him about other things he's done before me. High school, going to college, his jobs, etc... the whole dying thing was just another event that he passed through before me. I can't know what he is now, if he's still there, but I can talk to him... just sit there and say "Well what's it like?"

Nothing comes back, and I eventually just go to sleep, but I still do it because, like I said... if he's there, then I want to find him, but if he's not... then it doesn't matter anyways.

But it's weird to have this feeling. I miss him, but I'm not sad that he's gone. I'm sad that he had to die, but now... we knew he would be gone by now while I was coming home... what difference would it have made? And if not by now, then within 30 years, he'd be gone... and what difference would it have made? and if when I'm 90, he'll be gone, and myself close behind... and what difference would it have made? It sounds like I'm bemoaning it, but I'm not. And no it's not a grand, universe-solving revelation. Wouldn't even classify it as that... but it's February, and as I came home on November 3rd, we didn't think he'd make it much past Christmas.... this is what I was ready for... now. So it seems ok, because we expected it now.

Weird.

Intensely Mundane

2007-02-24T22:49:00.000-05:00

Excellent phrase.

The Intense and the Mundane.
The Intensely Mundane.
Mundane Intensity.

...

and pancakes. Ok so pancakes aren't in my head... but the words intense and mundane were... haha.

GDIAC: Not what you think

2007-02-14T15:53:00.000-05:00

This is too good....

GDIAC: Acronym for the Game Design Initiative at Cornell.... or...

GDIAC: Acronym for "go die in a corner", according to urbandictionary.com

Either way, Schwartz though it seemed pretty appropriate :) .

Edge-y-Sketch (y) Game

2007-02-10T22:16:00.000-05:00

So I finished Syberia... it was ok... it was an adventure game... enough said.

And now I need something new. I need something... just out there, insane, controversial, pulse-pounding. Essentially, I want some game that I don't think exists. And if it does, I dunno about it.

Think of it as the gaming equivalent of death metal, or maybe heavy, loopy techno. No, not a game that uses those types of music in the soundtrack. I just mean a game that is just an insane experience. Irrational, quick cuts. Sometimes I want something normal, some slow graphical adventure or a nice hack & slash. But sometimes, I just need the video game equivalent of a bad acid trip (I, of course, don't actually know what a bad acid trip is like, but I've heard the phrase used enough to gain a rough idea of what it describes... dark, loud, sketchy, sensational... or would that be a good acid trip :) .

Think the illogical magic of Katamari, at least less controlled. The characters in game would have an acute awareness of being in the game. They would stare at you, face filling the screen, address you, then cut out of the picture. Lonely walk in the woods at night, with just the black trees and the glowing blue of the snow, then static-filled cut to city, cut to room, alone in a chair. Music comes and goes as you fly. I guess Vanilla Sky-like... just a loss on the real, or the knowledge that what you see is what is real... you're in control. But it makes no sense.

So this definitely is not a concept doc for said game, but... god I wish I had that game now. I would totally play it :) .

Your Religious Interactive Experience

2007-01-24T21:41:00.000-05:00

Blast aliens
Solve logic puzzles
Strategy
Resource Management
Match the colors
Pwn your opponent
Stay in rhythm
Win
Win
Win
Exercise your competitive mastery
_____________

These are games and their themes today. I do not wish to make them.

Spirit
Uncertainty
Love
Anxiety
Fear
Hope
Discovery
Longing
Transcendence
Bewilderment

_______________

These are what I feel. I want to express them in computer interaction...

But how!?!? *sigh*... wouldn't I like to know.

2007-01-19T22:05:00.000-05:00

Oh lordy... mtvU is fishing at Cornell for a game to be made... so now I've got 2 days now to come up with a nice killer concept that fits the MTV criteria....

So if anybody has a gun, you know.... feel free to just shoot me.

Two weeks and counting

2007-01-08T23:26:00.000-05:00

Time for semester number 4... the lead up to that glorious halfway point. Things are definitely spicing up, and I"m hoping my next 5 semesters are much more like this past one (minus the assuredly horrid changes at home). I don't care about my other classes... I wanna make games. I wanna learn about them. I want to learn how I can communicate feelings, thoughts, emotions... without just preaching it. Admittedly, I'm at a distinct distance behind other students in that regard... it's just never been something that I've considered. Maybe it won't be so bad though, seeing as the very idea of using games as storytelling is only so many years old as it is.

Who knows. I'm hoping to pitch the storyweaver concept this semester, unless somebody has something else that thoroughly grabs my interest. The tech projects are fine and all, but really I need something that'd fit in nicely at Slamdance (speaking of which, check out the controversy about the Columbine game going down right now... interesting stuff).

Checking out XNA Game Studio Express... seeing how it works out. I'm sure nobody in the 400 level class is interested in using the somewhat outdated GameX engine. I liked it just fine, but then again I was never before a C++ programmer. Switching over to C# feels like the love child of Java and C++, so whether this is good or bad... guess I'll find out. Problem is I'll need to have other people working with it as well if my concept is chosen.. soo...

Two weeks and counting....

Holidays

2006-12-27T15:11:00.000-05:00

Home again... nice to be home and with family, but man my productivity goes down.

Gotta work on that...

Story != Game

2006-12-11T22:05:00.000-05:00

Ah that's it... that's why I can't find any games that I like. Because in pretty much all the games I play, gameplay is not story. There are games with strong stories, but entirely unrelated gameplay. Ex: Final Fantasy: epic, lovely stories with... statistical, turn based battles. Most all adventure games... sweeping, magical stories with... "logical" combinations of random items in order to progress the game. There are games with story intermixed with gameplay (Halo, Half Life, others). And you could argue that some games do give story, but ony mood-specific or base level ones(shadow of the colossus... the gameplay communicates the strong theme of david vs goliath). I'm not saying that shadow of the colossus doesn't have a nice story... if I had a ps2 you can bet it'd be in my libary, but its mix of gameplay and story really can't be generalized to other types of play. It works very well for that specific game, but don't look to build other games based on the same principles.

Very few games that I know of communicate complex, deeper-than-face-value story through gameplay. Facade does... supposedly Storytron will... so maybe that's why I'm excited about these. You aren't dealing with the story, hoping to get back to the "heart" of the game. The heart of the game is the story: character interaction, mood, setting... it's not just "side dishes" as Koster might call them.

I don't like gameplay... I like stories. That's why I want to make stories, not games.

A Beautiful Game

2006-12-10T23:00:00.000-05:00

Just watched "A Beautiful Mind" again... but since I actually knew who Nash was this time and actually had a clue what was going on, I liked it much more than the first time I saw it.

And once again, I must admit that russel crowe is pretttttty much in all of my favorite movies. Gladiator, cindarella man, a beautiful mind... the man's got it covered. Then again, a lot of the movies that he's in (at least recently) are at times dark movies but still with a persistent hope to them. EXACTLY the kinda game story I want to make. I don't want to make an game where everything is roses, but I don't want to give a cynical, hopeless view of mankind. I want to give my view as it is now... yes, a lot of things are messed up, but by god a lot of things are just so beautiful. Then again, that's just because I've been raised optimistic, with a nice home and loving family, all that. Everything's handed to me, so of course I see things in the end as basically good.

So maybe I should think about the fact that maybe everything just isn't so good in the end... and yet if I did that I'd be an emo punk, whining about my wonderfully easy life. Crap. What to do...

Boasts 40+ hours of gameplay? I'll pass,

2006-12-09T20:55:00.000-05:00

I'm not sure why adults use "hours of game time per dollar" as a measure of how good a game is. As I see it, there's two types of people

Kids: Lotsa time, little money
Adults: Lotsa money, little time

Obviously, not all adults have lots of money, and not all kids have tons of time (but they should! let them play!), but roughly that is the relative breakdown.

So if you're an adult, you can blow money, but the game just won't be worth it when you have 40 hours of diluted gaming as compared to 10 or fewer horus of nop notch stuff. Of course, you can have 40 amazing hours of gaming, but honestly, I've yet to come across a game that will just keep me riveted and in love for that long. Sure I'll play it, but there just isn't the "by god this is great!" feeling you get constantly from a shorter game.

Plus, I'll never finish it. It just gets old, there's more stuff to play... it gets dropped by the wayside.

Gamasutra's question of the week dealt with this, and I'm encouraged to hear that at least most other game developers prefer short and sweet. Of course, game designers are known for their short attention span, for figuring out what the game is at its core, then tossing it aside, but maybe other adults prefer shorter games, so I might be in luck.

Bleh... I hate to call what I would like to make games... but honestly there's just no better term right now. Interactive entertainment is too broad, too verbose. And anything that's not a game but might be called a game.... is "interactive". Gotta be some way to get around that interactive word...

Guardin' the Garden goes gold!

2006-12-05T23:00:00.000-05:00

Now say that ten times fast!

That's right, Guardin' the Garden, the first official game project for me, went on display at the GDIAC Fall 2006 showcase.

And it only crashed 4 or 5 times in approximately 12 hours of play (4 computers for 3 hours)! Hot stuff.

In some ways I'm so happy and proud, because the game went over really well. Actually, one of our problems was turnover, as people would start playing and tend not to rotate out, so a couple times we actually needed to ask people to let others have a chance. I see this as one of two things: either are game is downright fun, or it evokes that same feeling that you get from Everquest or other game where you're not really having fun... but ah you just want to win!

Oddly enough, I actually still play our game for fun at times. I figured that after living and breathing the game for its development cycle, I'd be sick of it, but actually the levels still are fun, with the exception that the game chugs at times... which means I'm suddenly hitting my beloved motion sickness EVEN FOR MY OWN GAME! I'm ashamed.

The reason I'm not entirely happy with the outcome is because I'm not sure how much I can credit myself for the success of the game. I know for sure that I wasn't the biggest force in getting it made. Muhammad was... he was a very good programmer who sunk more hours into the game than even me probably. So no, I can't really call this game "mine". But how much of the game is mine, then? How much can I look at Guardin' the Garden, and say... this is my work... this is what I am capable of. It matters since I'll have to appraise what I can do next semester without Muhammad. How much of the game relied on him, and how much can I actually do next semester and beyond? It's a question that bugs me. Plus I don't want to take credit for the game if I didn't truly impact it.

Eh... I'll mull it over... taint such a horrible question.

Pretty sure I made a horrible impression on the EA rep. She had graduated from Cornell last year, and I was tumbling over my words when I remembered that she had gone on to EA so must be here to "observe" and not just for old time's sake. I had my eyes so peeled for the usual University Relations person that I totally blanked on seeing the Cornell grad (I feel mean talking in general titles, but I assume it wouldn't be good form to give names). Oh well.. hope I didn't come off as too much of an oaf and incompetent person. When she asked what I did on the game, I wonderfully lost a hold of all the work I did, the jobs I had over the development cycle. Of course I did manage to spill out that I did a lot of the game paperwork... wow now that's what EA's looking for for sure... ayiyiyi....

Anyways, overall I'm glad the game got well received. No EA internship spilling out of this probably... but hey just try harder next time...

It's all the rage

2006-11-30T23:25:00.000-05:00

Blogs about making games, that is.

Taking a cue from names a lot bigger than myself, I'm starting a game development blog. With one title nearly officially under my belt, it must be legal to call myself a developer by now.

Why am I a sentimental gamer? Because over the past few years, I've gotten to the point where I barely even play many games anymore, yet I still call myself a gamer. It's becuase I like emotional games. The game that makes you cry. Sappy ones, if you will. Why? Well I'm a sappy guy.

But how many of those are there... jeez... in a way I'm still looking for it. In the end, I want to make it. Then make it again, but different. And again. I want to express things I feel so that other people can feel what I feel, be in my shoes. Then maybe they'll let me be in their shoes. And the world becomes a bigger, happier place. Excellent stuff.

Mostly, I'm just trying to get some thoughts out of my head that are always bouncing around and interfering with my real coursework.

Maybe I'll get feedback, which would be simply fan-freaking-tastic.

Hello, World. I'm Ben, aspiring game designer.