Published by Charles Joseph March 13th, 2008
in Notes.
TETRIS: BEST/WORST MOBILE GAME EVER
with Rick Marazzani
Hopping over to the Mobile Summit I sat in on this lecture, which really turned out to be more about causal games than mobile games. The presenter, Rick Marazzani, started by stating that “Tetris is the best game ever”. According to him it was played by more people across the world than any other video game. He then took a more business oriented tack (as people who present on casual games are wont to do) and said that it had sold more units than any other game in history. In the lecture that followed there was a bit of an undercurrent that the success of Tetris in the long run had mostly been because of the changes that made it more acceptable to a casual audience, and that there may still be some improvements to make!
Continue reading ‘Notes from GDC: The Summits, Part 2′
Published by Charles Joseph February 29th, 2008
in Notes.
SCATTERSHOTS OF PLAY - POTENTIAL OF INDIE GAMES
with Kellee Santiago, Jonathan Mak, and Pekko Koskinen
This was the first talk at the Idie Games Summit and unfortunately I came in a little late. When I sat down the panelists were discussing the difference between ‘intrinsic rewards’ and ‘extrinsic rewards’. As far as I could understand, things like points or levels are extrinsic rewards, in that that they are separate from the fiction of the game’s world, while something like a beautiful explosion, or a character’s dance, is an ‘intrinsic reward’ because it takes place inside the gameworld. This reminded me a lot of Alex Galloway’s writings on the diegetic and non-diegetic in games, and led into Jon Mak’s subject which was “input and output”.
His central point was that when all is said and done games are simply software where people use something to input a command and expect an output. He said that he was really interested in the way that a very simple game can be an incredibly rewarding experience if the output is interesting. Bringing up Everyday Shooter on the projector as an example, he showed the game stripped of all it’s complex visuals, and pointed out how boring it was. Then with a few key strokes he added the visuals and showed how much more interesting the experience became. His point was basically that while gameplay (input) is very important, designers mustn’t overlook how the output is expressed, through visuals, sounds, etc.
Finally, Pekko Koskinen started by saying that while most people there had gathered because of video games, it should always be remembered that games are not a medium. Indeed, he pointed out that games can be found in any medium, from human language to sculpture (I guess he meant board games) to screens. He then mentioned a really intriguing project that he was working on: a massively-multiplayer theatre piece taking place in a Finland. All this led to his final point, which was that in the process of making a game most people focus on the product of the endeavor being the game itself. What we design when we design gameplay though, are behaviors. Therefore we should think of our product as being the players themselves, rather than being games.
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This is a summary of one of the panels that I attended during GDC ‘08. It’s pieced together from notes, so if you have any specific questions just ask them in the comments and I’ll answer as best as I can remember.
Published by Bob August 27th, 2007
in Notes.
If you’ve been reading this blog for the past few weeks, you might’ve noticed my little emotional explosion over Tim Shaffer’s Psychonauts, a game which I have officially given up on and returned to the shelf of my collection. It’s not the first game that I’ve abandoned like this, however, and now that I’ve been settling into another game, whose Dispatches I’ll begin posting within the next few days, my thoughts have turned to all the games I’ve played and thrown to the wayside. Some of them were pieces of crap I never should’ve played in the first place, some of them were gems whose worth I couldn’t see until it was too late, and others still are titles I’ve still got hanging about, my ambivalence keeping them squarely within reach, but not quite within will.
As much of a confession as it is a catalog, here is a list of those games I’ve walked away from, starting with the namesake of this post:
Continue reading ‘The Ones Who Walk Away From Faxanadu (Variations on a Theme By Ursula K. Le Guin)’
Published by Charles Joseph April 1st, 2007
in Notes.
Published by Oren February 26th, 2007
in Notes.
I know this is a little late, but here are the notes I took-
Continue reading ‘Class notes from 2-12′
Published by Kunal February 6th, 2007
in Notes.
Published by Derek February 1st, 2007
in Notes.
*Reading Discussion
Story vs. Mechanics
-inherent storytelling in the mechanics or explicitly needed?
Story telling has mechanics
-story arch
-plot device
-tropes
Q. posed: Why do we care?
Continue reading ‘AGS class 2 notes’
Published by Thomas January 24th, 2007
in Notes.
class advanced game:
What is wanted for the class
- long term commitment perspective
- Not about making a game for this class specifically nor analysis per se but fueling current and future projects.
- no particular “homework” but indeed personal involvment and proposition of work.
Prerequisites
- Importance of terminology: not really, most of the vocabulary is common one.
- game knowledge: being literate (see list of games to know about what a literate person is)
Goal?
- Notion of Deep play (don’t accuse me, I wasn’t the one saying that)
- jonathan blow? game ‘Braid‘ , his webPage link!
- what can video games can explain and tell us… or something, I didn’t catch the name (book by him according to his majesty Charles the First)
People and what they want to do
- Josh Knowles, fell in love with games during ITP.
- Chris Paretti worked in games.
- Thomas Duc was interested in games and finally found a place to (try) to talk about it seriously.
- jury big screens public space phone.
- huinong yang?(sorry for butchering a name) text games. game theory interest (journey to wild devine, brainball)
- fusrine?(sorry for butchering a name) flash games + interest in theory
- Ming sun lee(sorry for butchering a name) also known as James Bond Sam. Interested in designing small games.
- sinan(sorry for butchering a name) Interest in user experience designer, how game are compelling.
- Mat Fargo : peripheral stuff for game companies. Took classes in game in berkeley.
- Charles (also known as his majesty Charles the first), game and interactive art.
- charly, (also known as his majesty Charles the second)future of games, pushing the enveloppe. Experimental work
- Rob: interest in play for short term, casual games.
- Robert: research project , games and learning : game designer research.
Domain of game design for kids, Game behaviors
- Oren Ross, undergrade in games. thesis??? game, serious game?
- Tikva (sorry didn’t catch this one Tikva).
- Lea period piece game.
- Kunal game design experience and got sick of it because bad experiences. social game and rules.
- Franky. Interaction design
- Bob trying to get to game templates
- Derek, Gamer. tries to be taken seriously.
Continue reading ‘First colloquium of the international of Games (AGS class 1)’
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