Lately, I’ve found myself doing a lot of “bizdev” – talking to people, maintaining professional relationships, generating revenue for my company by leveraging contacts to land contracts. It’s a lot of email writing and a lot of talking on the phone, things which, in a former life, caused me embarrassing consternation. I still get a bit wound up sometimes and start talking way too quickly, but on the main it’s like anything else. Do it enough and you get better at it. Mostly, it’s about getting to the core of what concerns people, or what they think concerns them (sometimes I think, people aren’t sure, which provides an interesting interpretive guessing game.) People say things just to say things, sometimes, just to have something to say. Once in a rare while, they say things they don’t really mean because they’re after things that they don’t want to just come out and say. Mostly, though, people just have specific, rational, completely valid concerns. If you can identify what these concerns actually are and are willing to work at making sure they’re addressed (and here there can actually be some good, old fashioned, enjoyable creativity) you can maintain a business relationship where everybody wins. This is, in my limited experience, how the business world goes round.

Earlier this week, I screwed up.

I have a contact at a large company, one with whom we’ve done our most substantial business. I like him; he is an affable, extremely intelligent gentleman who’s turned out to be very open minded and is engaged and interested in what we do (game design) despite having no prior experience with it. He’s put up with my awkwardness and lack of corporate experience and I feel I’ve learned volumes from working with him. Long story short, we made a game for them, one that they were very happy with, and we’re working with them on another game project. So, we’re in the initial phase, work is spooling up, and we’re having a bit of back and forth. I got a call from him and he mentioned being out of town. My brain registered ‘vacation’ for some reason and I sent a follow up email that said something like “hope you’re enjoying your vacation – I wasn’t sure when you were going to be back .” In response I got this:

“Not really a vacation — I was with my father, who passed away on Monday. I will be out Monday and Tuesday for his funeral, but would like to pick this back up again later next week.”

Ouch. When I read his reply, I felt all concern, all my petty bullshit, melt away. I love my father. All I can think about is the moment I had to face, accept, and embrace the fact that his time, like everyone’s, is limited.

So why post this? Well, it’s interesting, it’s something I’m thinking about it, and it occurs to me that there are some interesting dynamics at play here. Lest I wax too lugubrious (and too far from the subject of game design) I was wondering if it would be possible to express the way I felt through interactivity. I will disclose that it was Rod’s “The Marriage” that made me wonder about this. Does a game about something personally significant and emotionally charged like this have the potential to be the most pretentious thing ever? Sure. Does that make it too scary to try? Gosh, I hope not!

So my dad was diagnosed with colon cancer, which was a major drag. It was also surprising as he had completed two marathons earlier that year. Initially, it all felt very unfair, very tragic, very “why me?” But, my dad, he’s a pretty amazing guy. He was cheerful and upbeat; he posted a picture taken of the cancer (from a colonoscopy) on the wall of his office with the words “THE ENEMY” written boldly across it in thick black marker. He continued running at his normal level, ate healthily like he always does, and scheduled his various procedures as soon as possible in order to get them over with. He was upbeat, but not naive. He took my shoulder and told me “Don’t worry about it, I’ll make it through this.” Casually, almost as an afterthought, he added “I’m going to die some day, you know. You’re a great son, I’m happy how you turned out. You’ll do great stuff.”

It was a lot to chew on. The cancer was, they surmised, genetic. My grandfather succumbed to a similar malady after a long battle. It felt very recursive; it has ramifications for my father, me, and any children I have.

The following week, we took him down to the hospital so barbarism of the only sort known to ‘cure’ colon cancer could be practiced. They cut him open – the largest and worst injury of his life – and whacked out the offending chunk of colon. They wheeled him out, we were there waiting. He had “done great” and they were “very grateful to him” for being in such great shape. I kissed him. His mustache was prickly. Two hours later, we played a game of chess in his recovery room, and I was soundly trounced. That night, it stormed. Dad had a storm of his own. I think his body finally realized what had been done to it. After that first night, we stayed up in shifts, my mom and I, keeping him company night and day for the rest of his four day hospital stay.

It was harrowing, to be sure, but with the horror came a surprising confrontation of mortality, both mine and my father’s. In a weird way, it was then that I “became a man.” In admitting that my dad is human, that he will someday be gone, I accepted the last bit of responsibility for my own life, my own well being, my own existence. His courage, good humor, and peace with his life are with me every day of mine. It was a passing of the torch. I could imagine vividly a world without my dad. It sucked, it had a massive gaping wound in it, but it was no longer unimaginable to me. When that day comes, as it must, life will go on.

Rod wanted to make a game devoid of representation, that was his criteria. He wants to answer the question “can I express emotion and artistry through rules and rules alone.” I dig what he’s getting at, but I think that his game is incomplete without seeing him explain it in person as you play it. To properly experience The Marriage, you need Rod there coaxing the pink circle “Come on baby, come on, you can do it…” And explaining in complete sincerity each facet of the game and what he was trying to express with it. So, in his own way, he is still representing things. He may not have sound or representational graphics built into the system, but the system he’s constructed needs to include his spoken explanation to effectively express what he wants it to. This is not a criticism, by the way. The Marriage is an extremely beautiful something. I just think that while attempting to express things entirely through game rules is a great exercise because so much stock gets put in representation, one shouldn’t ignore the value of polish.

So what would my game be? Well, I’m not happy with the concept I have at the moment, but I’ll post it here for the sake of continued mulling. An amorphous white shape stands in a storm, absorbing the damaging weather. Underneath it, two smaller shapes huddle, safe from the storm, a smaller version of the white shape, and a soft edged pink one. Over time, one of the small shapes begins to grow larger. As time passes, too, small hands and tendrils are ensnaring the larger shape and pulling it down. Eventually it will be pulled under. As it grows larger, the small white shape can venture out into the storm and collect experiences. If he gets too weather beaten, he will be dragged under, so he must constantly return to the protection of the larger shape. If he never leaves protection, however, he will wither and stay stunted. This is important, because when the large white shape dies (as it eventually must) the smaller shape must have grown large enough to protect the soft pink shape and the tiny white seedling now growing beside her.

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UPDATE: Pictures are here!

Well, that was fun!

We (IGDA Phoenix) put together a little Game Jam last weekend. Nothing too huge, just six or seven of us, friends and acquaintances from local studios. Instead of the traditional ‘pick a theme’ or ‘insert random quantity’ methods employed by most game jams, we decided to make this Jam’s theme “Backburner.” Essentially, pick a game idea you’ve been kicking around for a while but haven’t had time to implement. Then talk it over with some bright chaps, think about implementation for a few minutes, and dive in. Make that sucker in a weekend!

Jamming is fun because it puts the focus on what’s fun about game design and development and provides a hard-as-a-hammer deadline at the back end which really helps design ideas crystallize and prevents any kind of waffle. It’s easy to prioritize tasks and test whether or not an idea is working if you only have two days to make the whole game. I think the games that got completed are unassailably fun. Says me. Anyhow, play em and judge for yourself:

Conformity by Scott Anderson

Download Conformity here!

Controls: Click and rotate

It started out as an experimental abstract game idea that Rohit came up with about not conforming. The core of the game was the shape and I started to prototype it a couple of days before the jam. Manipulating the shape was appealing enough that I decided to work on it during the jam and put gameplay into it.

During the jam I went through a variety of failed experiments, including a raycasting collision system that didn’t quite work. In the end I ended up with something inbetween Rohit’s original experimental idea and a casual game. To me the shape looked like a web or a net and that’s how I thought up the final “fishing” mechanic.

Interestingly enough you can still apply the conformity metaphor to the game successfully. The rest state is conforming, while you conform you are always safe but can never make progress. In order to make progress you need to break the mold, but if you are too risky you will get hurt.

During the jam I went through a variety of failed experiments, including a raycasting collision system that didn’t quite work. At one point near the end of the jam the game reminded me of cheesy pornographic arcade games, so I threw in a sexy picture as a joke. In the end I ended up with something inbetween Rohit’s original experimental idea and a casual game. To me the shape looked like a web or a net and that’s how I thought up the final “fishing” mechanic.

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Raptor Assault by Matthew Wegner (Art by RC Torres and Wadam Mechtley)

Download Raptor Assault here!

Controls: WASD

Mostly, it was a test in executing a feel. I wanted to do everything I could think of to make it seem more like a helicopter: first with the physics control, and then with additional visuals like the grass. The ragdoll raptors were an amazing afterthought.

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Alone or Gravity Guy by Steve Swink (Art by R.C. “Sharkfox!” Torres)

Download Gravity Guy here!

Controls:

A, D – Rotate
Spacebar – Grab hold (when touching walls)
Click and drag – change gravity direction/amount

I started with the idea of infinite gravity control. I wanted to be able to set direction and amount of gravity at any time as much as the player wanted and see what came out of that. Also, I wanted the player to be compressed by gravity (not really in there at the moment, but I did a spring rig dude that looks pretty cool.) Other stuff I didn’t get a chance to try: enemies who affect gravity in their own way, creating ‘gravity wells’, objects that behave differently under gravitational manipulation, areas with fixed gravity directions, making a traditional platformer guy who was unaffected by his own gravity manipulation. Good times!

We started with five designer/programmers and two artists. Three created something show-able; everyone had fun. Success! I think we’ll plan for another jam in two months’ time. If you’re local in Phoenix, come on down!

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Stuff I’m thinking about: Flashbang’s next project. Innovation in games, and the results of my panel. The lameness of our current set of game genres. A bunch of game designs including but not limited to a game based on the paintings of Chagall combined with Bionic Commando in 3d, a game of ragdoll jousting knights (Shanke), a game based on the Godspeed You Black Emperor song “Dead Flag Blues”, a game where the avatar is invisible/ephemeral (like wind), a game that explores all the possible puzzle permutations of infinite gravitational manipulation, a game about spontaneous improvisational dancing, and a physics game involving a jetpack, a glider, a grappling hook, and a bunch of tall mountains. Whew! More on all that, sooner rather than later.

My panel was a resounding success, all told. It was interesting; I have never run a panel and, quite honestly, haven’t really seen a panel that I felt was particularly useful before, so I was a bit reticent going in. My fears turned out to be unfounded, though, as all the choices I made – participants, format, having dinner with everybody beforehand – turned out pretty well. I had everybody introduce themselves and give a short mini-rant on the subject of innovation in games. It was interesting to me to see how each member of the panel had interpreted that initial prodding. I sent out emails to everybody asking questions like “Is innovation really what we want?” and “How does one generate Earth-shattering ideas that will change the face of gaming while applying the constraints of small team size and tiny indie budgets?” Each panelist chose a different question to answer, more or less, and the answers were pretty damn awesome.

Kyle took the lead, answering a question I’d asked about the future of interactivity and what the unsolved problems are, what the frontiers are we’re trying to navigate. He said “I think I misunderstood the assignment” but, as I said, there was no assignment per se, just a bunch of topics intended to provide hooks for discussion. He did some research about futurists, looking at their predictions about the future of computing and processing power, and inferring some fun stuff about where those changes might take gaming. I’ll post a link to his slides when he’s gottem up. One thing that Kyle said stuck with me (pardon my lazy paraphrasing): ‘I make delicious candy morsels of gameplay. That’s all I do. I’m not interested in art or innovation or whatever, just making things that are fun to play with.’ I was going to say that Kyle has an inimitable style but, as has been proven by Petri and numerous others at experimentalgameplay.com, once people have seen it’s possible, lots of folks have been able to make small, delicious gameplay morsels. Like Roger Bannister and the four minute mile, I guess.

I had remarked to Kyle (who is as genially self-effacing a chap as you’ll ever meet) that before he and the other experimentalgameplay.com guys got the ball rolling, there really wasn’t a notion of “rapid prototyping” in the general consciousness. Indie Game Jams had been happening for years but they had been somewhat criminally ignored. He was like “really?”, with genuine surprise. That’s just so cool. That’s what his games are, and his persona is, self deprecating and unassailably cool. They’ve recently formed a studio, 2dBoy, and are working on their first project, World of Goo. My hope is that they create a sort of everlasting gobstopper of gameplay; delicious candy that lasts forever. You go, (2d)Boy!

Next up was Jenova, who is really focused on emotion created by games. I really, really love the quiet, beautiful, naive quality of Jenova’s games, paintings, and writing. He really sees things in a different way. Here are his slides and a short explanation. What I found most striking was his comparison of film genres to game genres (slides 46-50 on his blog there.) I’ve had a feeling for a long time that game genres are totally broken and don’t do even a passing job of expressing the underlying experience of the games they attempt to categorize. As Jenova points out, film genres (and literary genres, for that matter) focus on emotion, the type of experience you can expect to have with that book or film. Game genres are a weird mash of technology, common rules and formats, and esoteric acronyms. Boo-urns. Our current genres just don’t ‘get it’, they simply don’t speak to the underlying experience. If you classify the game Soldat as a 2d shooter, that lumps it with things like Raiden, Worms, and Contra. The experience of playing Soldat, however, is much more like playing Tribes, Counterstrike, or Quake 3: it’s visceral, heart-pounding, a twitch-based game of skill. So, twitch-based is obviously not a good classification, but it’s certainly better than lumping Soldat with Cave Story. Heh. So, in the end, Jenova didn’t really address innovation per se, but said that emotion is the key. Good stuff.

Jon Mak did not use Powerpoint, bringing as he said, ‘my own innovation to this panel.’ My take on Jon’s mini-rant was that he doesn’t think we need innovation. Rather, that if you as an artist (in the more general sense, not in the sense of a craftsman who creates textured polygons or sprites or whatever) are true to your vision, your individuality will make whatever you create unique. So, he says, we don’t need intentional innovation, we just need people to “Don’t innovate; go home, play a bunch of games, figure out which ones you like, and make a game based on that.” I like Jon’s slant on things because it jives well with my own take, which derives in part from my background and training in art rather than programming. If you were to write a detailed design document or detailed pitch for a game idea and give it, without further explanation, to two competent game creators, odds are they’d create wildly different games. This has been my experience both professionally and personally. Ideas != Execution. Everyone talks about the need for more programmer-designers; I think we need more artist-designers. This does not mean game designers who don’t know how to program. Rather, this is game designers who take an artistic approach to design, like Keita Takahashi or, arguably, Shigeru Miyamoto.

Finally, John Blow concurred that innovation for innovation’s sake is a red herring. He noted the fine line between innovation and gimmick, and that being successfully different is more important than just being different. I think that at some level just being successful – making a great game – is a kind of innovation. Since the medium is so new and there are so many things that we haven’t tried and (as Eric Zimmerman noted) “games are fucking hard to make!” it’s a little miracle each time a truly good game gets made. That a merging of art, rules, programming, design, and whatever else has come together to create a meaningful experience is amazing; regardless what homage (or rip-off) is apparent in the final design, a good game is a rare and beautiful creature. So, innovation is perhaps not what we’re really after. Maybe we just want good games. Being different is just a reaction to the fact that so few of the games that have been made to this point have been good.

Or maybe we do need to actively, aggressively pursue the new, the radical, the innovative. I’ll save that counterpoint for another post.

- Swink

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Naughty blogger! I’ve been off doing all these cool things, meeting all these cool people, and I haven’t taken the time to blog about it. At this point, most people would apologize and promise to do more writing more consistently in the future. I started thinking instead about why I hadn’t posted. My relationship to my blog, as it were.

I think the real reason I haven’t posted recently is because it takes a lot of energy to write a post. And energy equals time. Would I rather spend time writing about games or making them? That’s not an excuse, mind you; it just occurs to me that this is the reason. In my mind, writing a post is a large, exhaustive endeavor. So, that identified, I need to find ways to make writing about stuff less exhaustive.

I tend to write things and then delete them, or rewrite them many times. One short piece of writing can take a few hours to complete. I guess it’s the sense that what I’m typing is binding in some way, like it’s adding to my voting record or something. Of course, that’s predicated by hubris; there really aren’t that many people who really care what I have to say . So, hey, I’m just going to start talking about things that I’m thinking about, which is what I do when talking to friends about games. Bollocks to authoritative writing, bollocks to being too meticulous. I don’t work for EA/Maxis, I can rant about whatever I want without fear of reprisal . Besides, I do enough writing of articles and things for various publications to see my need for anal-retentive writing well filled. Blog as design diary rather than soapbox. Huzzah.

So, stuff I’ve been thinking about recently (in no particular order and without much editing):

Emotion in games. I went to a killer round table at the very end of GDC, run by my friend Katherine, where the topic was emotion in games. She promised to tabulate all her results and observations from the roundtable and put them up in blog form, so I’ll link to that when it arrives. This is a topic people are hungry for, and one which gets folks pretty riled up. The discussion seemed, to me, to ping pong back and forth between being far too narrow in scope and far too broad. It was dizzying. At first, people were having it out over what the best way would be to increase player empathy, emotional connectivity in over the shoulder 3rd person action adventure games. Next, we’re talking about every emotional moment ever in any game, and whether or not games are capable of emotion without story.

For my part, I don’t necessarily think that games are the best medium in which to express classical dramatic emotions, and I don’t think that “story” in games should have to mean story in the classical sense, or in the Interactive Storytelling sense. My favorite emotional moment comes from X-Com, a game in which the game rules and system give rise to a powerful emotion bond to certain characters you control, but which is constructed in a very simulationist way. There’s almost nothing linear or triggered in the whole game. Because the characters are visually generic and ambiguous and do not speak, they are essentially blank emotional canvases on to which to project. This is something Will Wright has mentioned many times as one of the primary successes of The Sims as a design – because the characters don’t speak a real language, and are intentionally abstracted representations of humans, they invite emotional interpretation. Lots of people who play The Sims construct their families and friends, and play out elaborate scenarios. Because the characters are emotional whiteboards, and because the game rules tolerate a bunch of different activities, The Sims is designed to give rise to all kinds of emotional connection with the player. As Wright has said, ‘designing games is half programming the computer, half programming the player.’

So, in X-Com, the rules underlying the simulation are structured such that it’s a rare mission where every member of your landing party survives. If they do, they are recognized by the game and are given a rank up, from private to sergeant, sergeant to lieutenant and so on. As they rank up, so their stats go up; they become more accurate, stronger, and calmer under fire. In this way, the game encourages the player to have favorites, to project a story onto those members of the squad who survive, to imbue them with personalities of their own and to imagine how they feel about surviving so many missions, about having seen so many comrades die while they alone survive. This points to a different direction for creating emotion in games, one which Rod Humble is trying to isolate with his games A Walk With Max, and The Marriage: it is possible to express emotion, to convey emotion purely though game rules and structures.

This is another great direction to explore, one that I think will ultimately turn out to be more fruitful than milking canned, linear story, or attempting to shoehorn drama into interactivity. I’ve noticed many instances in games where rules, systems, structure have given rise to particular emotional reactions. One example that springs to mind is the game Hitman, in which, once costumed in something intended to fool other people (a busboy’s uniform, or a cop’s or whatever) you must walk painfully slowly to avoid arousing suspicion. In addition, other people of the same function (another cop, for instance) cannot be allowed to scrutinize you for extended periods of time, because they will realize you are not a friend or colleague. So you end up walking long, painfully slow stretches, through crowded spaces, aiming your face away from people who might out you, trying to ‘look busy.’ It’s a wonderfully claustrophobic feel, one that indicates to me a possibility for subtlety and heightened awareness heretofore unseen in games. Would it be possible to create a game about eye contact, where the player expressed themselves by where they looked, what they looked at, and how quickly or slowly they did so? Would it be possible to embed some kind of facial expression system in this? What would a game be like where the players cared whether or not you looked them in the eye? Interesting questions, ones which would need solving with system design, not story writing.

All that said, I think there’s a huge value in using story to “prime” players for emotion. For example, if you removed the Miyazake-like intro sequence from Cloud, you would not be primed to enjoy the serene, unfocused gameplay. Blizzard uses this kind of priming to great effect in all of their products; they have an entire department dedicated to creating brief, trailer-like short films that precede and punctuate gameplay in their games. I don’t think I’m going out on a limb here in saying that this strategy has worked out well for them. Too hook this concept back in to personal anecdote, each time I teach a class, I prime the class for enjoyment. The classes I teach last for four hours at a stretch; even with the most amazing, enthusiastic students, it’s hard to get buy in and keep engagement high for that long. So at the start of each class, I show a funny internet video or an irreverent picture. This gets everybody laughing and engaged and makes the class run smoothly. If I don’t do this, people start losing focus and it takes a great effort on my part to keep the class moving forward.

Woah, and that’s a post’s worth right there! Miraculous.

Other stuff I’m thinking about: Flashbang’s next project. Innovation in games, and the results of my panel. The lameness of our current set of game genres. A bunch of game designs including but not limited to a game based on the paintings of Chagall combined with Bionic Commando in 3d, a game of ragdoll jousting knights (Shanke), a game based on the Godspeed You Black Emperor song “Dead Flag Blues”, a game where the avatar is invisible/ephemeral (like wind), a game that explores all the possible puzzle permutations of infinite gravitational manipulation, a game about spontaneous improvisational dancing, and a physics game involving a jetpack, a glider, a grappling hook, and a bunch of tall mountains. Whew! More on all that, sooner rather than later.

-Swink

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…the panel!

So, I’m moderating a panel at the Independent Games Summit at the Game Developer’s Conference this year. The topic is “Innovation in Indie Games.” Here is the brief, per the gdconf.com:

“Join the luminary creators of the Experimental Gameplay Project at CMU, IGF-winning Braid, flOw, and Cloud, and the brilliant Everyday Shooter as they dissect innovation in indie games. How do we generate Earth-shattering ideas that will change the face of gaming? Can small teams innovate? Is ‘innovation’ really what we want?”

Needless to say, I’m over the moon. I got exactly who I wanted for the panel:

John Blow – Co-founder of the Indie Game Jam and Experimental Gameplay Workshop, creator of the IGF-winning “Braid“.

Jon Mak – His works include Gate 88, ToJam Thing (a Toronto Game Jam ’06 contribution), and the soon-to-be released (and highly IGF-winning) Everyday Shooter.

Kyle Gabler - Co-creator of the Experimental Gameplay Project at Carnegie Mellon and the accompanying website, games, and, arguably, the whole rapid prototyping craze that’s been sweeping around lately.

Jenova Chen – Co-creator of flOw and Cloud, founder and creative director of That Game Company, and designer on the DS version of Spore.

I’ve designed the format for my panel and written a long list of questions, such as:

Do constraints breed creativity? If you had unlimited resources, what game would you make?

What are the metrics of success for innovation?

The Independent Games Summit has sold out, meaning that it has 500 attendees registered. What, I wonder, would everyone else like to ask these amazing, creative, luminary designers? If you’re in the audience you’re free (but not guaranteed) to ask your questions in person. If not, I’d love to hear from you.

Have anything you want to ask John, Jon, Jenova, and/or Kyle?

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@Guitar Hero 3

Mixed feelings. I worked at Neversoft so I know a lot of the people who’ll be working on this. Expect to see a Thunderlords song, and the guy in the Viking hat there, Alan, to be the lead designer. And huge ups to Dave Rowe, the audio-cranking beast machine. It’s gotta be a dream come true. But, seriously, harsh there Activision dudes. Activision has a habit of taking franchises and licenses away from the developers who created them and giving them to other studios they own…with mixed results. It worked out ok with Treyarch and Spider-man, but don’t think for a second there isn’t still some residual animosity at Neversoft over losing Spidey. Neversoft solved the major problems of a Spidey game in 3d waaay back, and were rewarded for their highly successful (2+ million units sold!) efforts by an insulting and unceremonious handing off of the franchise to Treyarch. It makes business sense, obviously; they’re using Neversoft as a multimillion dollar pinch hitter.

Unfortunately, Spiderman ≠ Guitar Hero. Here’s why: Harmonix is a music company. In order to be hired there, I’m told, you must, in addition to being really f’ing smart and really f’ing good at what you do, play an instrument. I’m not talking glockenspiel* here, although it would be badass if you could shred the gloc. You need to be able to hold your own in a jam session with the team at Harmonix and these guys are unbelievable musicians, every one. So, are there people at Neversoft who can make a functional sequel? Yes. Is it a good idea? I’m not so sure it is. And it’s odd, oh so very odd that Neversoft, the darling of Activision, has been tapped as a base runner on this one.

On the plus side, Harmonix is now free to reinvent the music game genre yet again (with Band Hero? Who knows!) The game industry: even when you win, you lose. *sigh*

@ Supple Interfaces

This is coinage by my friend Katherine over at RPI, and part of the title of her workshop “CHI 2007 Workshop on Supple Interfaces”, where CHI = Computer-Human Interaction. I’m conducting a lecture/activity at said workshop and wrote about ten pages “deconstructing feel” in games for my submission, which I’ll post here in chunks starting next Monday. It’s an interesting direction, closely related to my virtual sensation stuff, but it starts with player classifications of feel such as ‘floaty’ and ‘stiff.’ I think I could write an entire book on the subject. *ponder*

@ Flow

Having re-read Jenova’s thesis, I’m more convinced than ever that it was the single most important theoretical contribution to the field last year, and that most everyone missed the point. I think people are confused by his use of Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment (DDA) because of the various connotations and ill-conceived experiments given that name over the years. What he’s espousing is a holistic view of game design that integrates Flow theory into mechanic, system, and rule design. This in contrast to the bolt-on approach most people associate with the acronym DDA. So, as you’re designing your game, as a fundamental part of the process, asking the question ‘how can I allow the player to adjust the challenge to perfectly fit their ability?’ I think the key here is the notion of integration, of making the ability to adjust challenge part of the game’s primary mechanic, giving control of it to the player. Part of it is giving the player freedom and choice, but there are so many more concerns – you need to find the right kind of freedom, the right kind of choice. Giving the player four possible difficulty levels to choose from is a blunt instrument, as is adjusting the actual numeric difficulty of the game based on player performance. Jenova’s insight is to view control over challenge as simply another ability, another verb for the player which needs to be balanced against all the other parts of the system like any other.

The game flOw is a cool experimental step in this more elegant direction, neatly skirting issues of player intelligence (it’s too easy to game a real time number balancing system by lowballing early) and competitive psychology (some players, like me, will always choose the hardest difficulty level.) Anyhow, read the thesis and play the game. They contain a number of simple, startling insights.

*Not to impugn the noble Glockenspiel and its many fine, prodigious players, but it is Guitar Hero for a reason .

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Brian Eno (!!!)

I was actually listening to Brian Eno as I read this:

Brian Eno to Create Generative Spore Soundtrack

Yay, Brian Eno!

I’m getting this kind of sad feeling, though, welling up inside. Is Spore going to be the last game that Will Wright ever designs? He’s acting like it’s a swan song; pulling out all the stops, calling in the best of the best of his friends and acquaintances, talking about Spore as the game he’s always wanted to make…even his wife has stated publicly that she thinks this will be his last game. What a sad, beautiful thing that would be.

I was thinking of writing ‘I hope he writes a book. Or stops smoking. Or both.’ But, really, he teaches us so much more by his games, by his creative example. Oh, Will, won’t you ‘pull a Miyazake’ and make five games, each of which you declare your last? That would be peach

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Rapid prototyping, huzzah!

Shanke

Play Shanke Prototype 1 Here!

Time: 2 days.

This was a quickie physics game I cooked up for fun and as a launchpad for design discussions regarding our (the Art Institute of Phoenix)’s submission to this year’s Siggraph Game Competition. You can also press number keys 1-5 for different physics simulation speeds. Default is 2, I think 3 is the funnest. 5 is madness, 1 is molasses. Enjoy!

hotNote

Play hotnote Prototype 1 Here!

Time: 1 day.

This is based on a student’s board game design from last quarter – the notes scroll from right to left. At any time, you can click on one of the colored ‘pucks’ and drag out to create an arrow. When a note of the corresponding color hits the left bar on the musical staff, all pucks of that color who have had impulses specified for them are triggered. Eventually, we want multimouse support (better) or we may use controllers (not so great.) Either way, it won’t really be testable until we have multiple players going simultaneously. And, of course, we’ll need to demarcate which team is which, as both teams will have pucks of each color. Good fun .

Please help us out by leaving constructive criticism below.

- Swink

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OH EM GEE!

Do I really need to go into why this is an unbelievably awesome turn of events? I’ve been saying for a long time that Will would be a perfect guest for The Daily Show, since well before the Colbert Report existed. So, tune in and watch the magic unfold. I can’t wait for a wide audience to get a load of sweet, tasty Will.

By the by, I’m not espousing a return to the Romero days of game designer rockstardom. Rather, we should be celebrating people – Will especially – who really make our industry look good. Show them off, take im out, parade im ’round. Because, seriously, Will is a goddamn rockstar.

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So, looks like my Principles of Virtual Sensation article went up as a feature on Gamasutra. Coolness.

Principles of Virtual Sensation

This was actually a draft that got posted; I’m in the process of revising and cleaning up the language. But, hey, neat that they wanted to post it as-is and great motivation to write more neat stuff . Also, I realized now I never actually posed on my blog proper about the article itself, even though it’s been linked from the sidebar for weeks.

Whee!

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