@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 .