GDC Found Art

I've recently been showing you (y'all) various interactive thingymajobbers that can be engaged with on the web. And, I... seem to be unable to stop myself.

I attended the Game Developer's Conference last week. Normally this is an excruciatingly pleasant affair for me; I really dig swimming around in academic-style higher-learning thinking, and reminding myself of the fundamentals of what we do.

This year? Not so much. I was fighting a flu of some kind, and when I get sick I get stupid. So, I missed most of the talks I wanted to see, the talks I did see sucked badly, and I just generally walked around and went "duuuuuuuuhhhhhhhhh..."

However, I did find something I want to show you.

The Independant Games Festival (IGF) is a hoot; folks make games for free, and then compete for a cash prize and the prestige of their fellow game developers (which hopefully translates into some kind of distribution deal--HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA *wipes tear from eye* hooo, boy I crack myself up sometimes... no, seriously though, I think someone one time got some money for it, but I can't confirm that).

The IGF benefits me directly, because I get to play their games. Most times, they are not so good. Lots of love there, but...

Common mistakes repeat themselves endlessly among the new initiates into the realm of entertainment making, and games are no exception to that. But, every once in a while, you get a rare gem. Something that could not ever possibly make money, but is so completely captivating that it can only be described as art.

Palette is that.

Before you click on that, here's a couple of hints to help you navigate the unbelievable overdone website. Click on the door, and then... don't panic. Everything's okay; the little window that just exploded and then resized itself is the game. I know, I know, it's just a black window. Wait for it. Wait... wait... it'll load. Do not try to click back to the main site; it's useless to you now.

There you go. Now, as a favor to the latent stained glass artist in all of us, spend ten minutes with it.

Oh yeah, and turn the sound on. It's just not the same game without the sound.

Here's something that isn't obvious until you've dumped four hours into it (like I might have done, I don't really remember, it's all a blur of color and light... so... beautiful...): there are several color layouts for each "window". When you replay, you will likely have a completely different problem to solve than the first time you played it.

Not sure if you care that much. God knows I do. But, I'm starting to wonder about my sanity.

Here's Something For Ya

I have spent about 30 minutes with this thing so far. It is...

Well, here, take a look for yourself.

There is this whole new experience that the vile alchemy of Teh Interwebs + Flash + Creative Geniuses + lots of free time has created. Let us call this branch on the tree of entertainment "Amazing Things That Should Not Be Free But Somehow Are". There are many examples of this, some of which can be found on the sidebar of this very blog. Yes indeedy.

Actually, let's just remind our readership (all two of you) about some of that.

If you haven't played Tower Of Goo... well, what the hell, man. Do I have to spell it out for you? C-L-I-C-K... T-H-E... L-I-N-K. I know, I know, "But I have to download it, man. How come I can't just play it?" Yeah, shut up. Download, play.

On the topic of The Swarm, it is important to understand that my daughter, once hooked in to a particular challenge, is pitbull-like in her inability to release the tether until she has somehow pegged an impossible score. She did this with the "keep the red box from hitting the blue boxes game", and she did it here. I think the macabre nature of the piece in question helped keep her attention. I believe her highest impact velocity was 218mph. Beat that.

There are more. So many more. I hesitate to even link; I fear the destructive power such a post might have.

All of this coalesces into the strange world that is the Now; a world where we can casually drift across a vast network of information, and occasionally be entertained by objects of such beauty and simplicity that ten years ago, and rolling on back four million years, they were impossible. I caution you: the future has more of this coming for you, and it's coming soon.

Okay, So I'm A Nerd. So What.

Play this.

So, the confounding thing about this is that it is "From the creators of Diner Dash™". Can anyone, anywhere, tell me who these people are?? I want to know. I mean, I know that PlayFirst is covetous of their exclusive relationship with their money tree, but still! I mean, are we talking space aliens here?

Who makes these games?

And how can I get more?

[edit: Oh, and if you haven't played Diner Dash, then goddamn it, I thought I told you to play it. ]

Once You Start Down The Dark Path

Yesterday, I go wandering into one of my designer's cubes. He's working away on his XBox dev kit, but (clever boy) he left a Darklord trap right there on his screen. His web-browser was pointed at... at...

Well, at this.

I have mentioned, have I not, how much I appreciate the indy games industry? Yes? Well and good. Now, there is another games industry afoot; one that is strange and multi-colored. Here and there, you can find these websites that are basically full of very, very addictive flash games & puzzles.

That you can play for free. Until you pass out. Or manage to pry yourself away from the screen.

Now, this particular incarnation of the free flash game is particularly insidious; it's half logic puzzle, half guessing-game, built around the idea of discovering the rules that govern this strange little world it's creator has fashioned, and then winding your way through the maze of possible triggers to find the win condition.

You poke it until it brightens up. Along the way, funny things happen. You know, games.

There are others of this sort, of course. They will also destroy your mind, if you let them. (I have not yet solved either of those two prior links, FYI. Taunt me at your leisure.)

Point to the Darklord: I solved the GrowCube. And I'm going to post the solution here.

Now, I'm not posting it for you. You should go and solve it. But, see, the best way for me to record the solution (so that I may later taunt my friends with my mad skillz) is to write it down. And, believe it or not, this here blog is currently the most reliable place for me to store information that I want to keep and be able to refer to later.

Does that scare you? It scares me. It certainly scares my wife.

So, here it is, for my record keeping.

People,Water,Seeds,Pot,Pipe,Fire,Dish,Bone,Spring,Ball

Don't cheat!! Solve it yourself!! It's freakin' bizarre, and totally worth it! Don't give in to the dark side, and peek at my solution before you solve it yourself!!

[evil laugh]

Revolution!! Or Something.

I want to talk about this Manifesto Games thing. (Here's some more. Oh, and this, and this. Maybe some of this, but only if there's time left over after Q&A.)

Boy, he sure did generate a lot of press!

I have the greatest respect for Mr. Greg Costikyan and his inciteful writing. When I was on my own, and struggling to try and make something out of nothing in the games industry, his direct, take-no-prisoners style writing and clear thinking about what makes games games kept me warm through the long dark night.

But...

Okay, so as far as I can tell, the pitch here is that the games industry sucks, and that the way out is for Mr. Costikyan to incite revolution (with a new company that he has announced very publicly) that will change the economics of games in a way that gives more money to the creators.

Foundational to this idea is the notion of Scratchware, a term he coined (watch out for popups on that link), which is defined as follows:

"The phrase scratchware game essentially means a computer game, created by a microteam, with pro quality art, game design, programming and sound to be sold at paperback book store prices."

I would like to respond to the assertion that Mr. Costikyan and his brave revolutionaries are going to generate a whole new industry, filled with scratchware, and free himself (and other oppressed creators like him) from the shackles of The Man.

*ahem*

• PopCap Games
  
  
  
  • - Insaniquarium
    
  • - Zuma
    
  • - Heavy Weapon
    
  • - Bejeweled 2
    
  • - Chuzzle
    
  • - Feeding Frenzy
    
  • etc.
    
  • PopCap also has a Developer Program which allows you to use the PopCap Games Framework for free.
    


• PlayFirst
  
  
  
  • - Diner Dash (this game is AWESOME)
    
  • - Oasis
    
  • + many more
    


• Retro64
  
  
  
  • - Platypus
    
  • - Cosmo Bots
    
  • + more
    


• Digital Eel
  
  
  
  • - Strange Adventures In Infinite Space
    
  • - Plasmaworm
    
  • - Dr. Blob's Organism
    
  • - Big Box of Blox
    
  • - Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space (coming soon! yaaaay!)
    


• Kraisoft
  
  
  
  • - dozens of games
    


• Sigma Team
  
  
  
  • - Alien Shooter
    
  • + lots of Alien Shooter expansions (yaaay, shooting aliens!)
    


• Moonpod's Starscape
  
• Wik & the Fable of Souls
• War World
  
• Alien Hominid
  
• RAKEINGRASS's Jets'n'Guns (w00t! blow shit up!)
• NinjaBee


• Outpost Kaloki
• Void War
  


• Chronic Logic
  
  
  
  • - Bridge Construction Set
    
  • - Gish
    

• WildGames
• Fate


• Shrapnel Games
  
• Reflexive
• Iron Will Games
• Ashen Empires
• Skotos
  
  
  
  • - Castle Marrach
    
  • - Grendel's Revenge
    
  • - Lovecraft Country
    
  • - The Eternal City
    
  • + many more
    


• Iron Realms Entertainment
  
  
  
  • - Aeotolia: The Midnight Age
    
  • - Lusternia
    
  • - Imperian
    
  • - Achaea

(Well, hell. I guess I'll just have to include them all.)

• Game Tunnel (the Independent Underground)
  
  
  
  • - Top 10 Indie Games of the Year (2004)
    
  • - August 2005 Indie Roundup
    
  • - Action games
    
  • - Adventure games
    
  • - Arkanoid games
    
  • - Puzzle games
    
  • - RPGs
    
  • - SIMs
    
  • - Sports games
    
  • - Strategy games
    

...

WTF is he talking about??

Break It Down For Me Fellas

So the July Monthly Indie Games Roundup is up.

(By the way, if you haven't tried Ye Olde Truck Dismount game, well, ya should.)

This gets me to thinkin'. (I'm obsessive that way.) I've read the Roundup every month since I found it, and I just keep wondering. These guys talk amongst themselves (if filing a one-paragraph review on a game can be described in such a manner) casually about how a certain game "is a Diablo II clone, and much better than most" or "is another R-type game", and it sets my mind to spinning...

...how many kinds of games are there? Is it, perhaps, a finite set?

Of course, that notion is absurd. However... when you throw out every type of game that doesn't score a 9 or a 10, the field shrinks dramatically. I'm starting to believe that there is a finite set of interesting games that can strike the fancy of humans. One list might look like this:

- the diablo (top-down iso real-time RPG with random dungeon generation)
- the rogue (top-down turn-based RPG with random dungeon generation)
- the xevious (top-down game-paced top-scrolling shooter)
- the commando (top-down player-paced top-scrolling shooter)
- the r-type (side scrolling game-paced shooter)
- the mario (side scrolling 2d platformer)
- the metroid (side-scrolling 2d platformer + shooter with up and down scrolling)
- the arkanoid (paddle-based ball & wall)
- the marble madness (or, the hamsterball if you prefer)
- the bejeweled (pattern matching grid game)
- the tetris (pattern matching time pressure game)
- the street fighter (2d fighter)
- the duck hunt (shooting gallery; also known as the hogan's alley)
- the bioware (top-down iso RPG)
- the kotor (3rd person turn-based-combat RPG)
- the zelda (3rd person realtime-combat RPG)
- the wolfenstein (1st-person shooter)
- the hitman (3rd-person shooter)
- the minesweeper
- the pinball
- the [insert all sports types]
- ...?

There are more, I am sure. Help me out here.

[Edit 11:11am: I've been helped! Here's my digestion of the brave Druid's post:

- the starcraft (top-down RTS)
- the battlezone (first-person RTS; lo, may we someday again meet one of your elusive kin)
- the sim city (city simulator)
- the civilization (turn-based cultural RPG)
- the sims (people simulator)
- the tamagotchi (pet simulator)
- the [insert all card games]
- the risk (turn-based unit-based map-based warfare)
- the advance wars (turn-based tactical warfare)
- the mario 64 (3D platformer)
- the druid is a sarcastic whiner (text adventures)
- the myst (1st-person clicky adventure)
- the police quest (3rd-person clicky adventure)
- the ddr (rhythm game)
- the robotron (swarm-based speed shooter; also known as the sinistar)
- the space hulk (turn-based squad-based action)
- the pac-man (speed-based vacuum game; also known as the katamari)
- the insaniquarium (swarm-based speed vacuum game?)
- the tempest (something completely unique, and never repeated; also known as the qix)
- the panzer dragoon (3D rail-shooter)
- the lineage (3rd-person iso massive online RPG)
- the world of warcraft (3rd person massive online RPG; also known, by heretics, as the everquest)
- the house of the dead (action-arcade shooting gallery)

...we're doin' pretty good! Are there more?]

[Edit 4:16pm: A few more occur to me:

- the contra (2D player-paced side-scrolling shooter)
- the kirby (2D player-paced side-scrolling fighter; also known as the rygar)
- the gauntlet (1 to 4-player top-down brawler)
- the dragon's lair (interactive movie)
- the resident evil (3rd-person survival horror)
- the grand theft auto (3rd-person urban life simulation)

...?]

Yeah, That Was The Point

If there is one thing that I have found to be consistently true about me, it's that getting me to do anything consistently is a chore. Take blogging, for instance. At the slightest disruption (you know, leaving one job for another, little things), my routine is OTFW: Out The Fucking Window. Routine and I have a passing relationship at best already; adding OTFW to the equation... well, let's just say it doesn't make things improve.

This isn't always a bad thing. For example, my brief hiatus over the past week has brought forth evidence that there are people out there (actual human beings) who reading this skree. I was astonished and humbled at this. Hello there, Dear Reader, whoever you are.

It's a little bit like Rosencrantz & Guildenstern Are Dead (an absolutley marvelous play with a not-so-marvelous movie attached to it); here I was, lingering in my own secret backstage null-zone, blabbing away, only to find that the audience had crept in. Very strange.

Anway. That's neither here nor there.

I posted a while back about text adventures (and will do so again! I cannot be stopped!), and got some interesting responses. Here's one, from one of my eloquent friends:

So, I finished Spider and Web. It was surprisingly addictive (I got it the same day I got God of War, and yet I still haven't played God of War,because I wanted to finish this). [ ed. note: If you haven't already, go play God of War. Right now. Put down the keyboard, and just walk away. ]

In the end, I only had to look at the walkthrough once to [ put a big spoiler in my email. ] Admittedly, I got lucky with the "Big Puzzle" - I knew that my [ spoiler ] was being brought to the [ spoiler ], so I decided to hook the [ big spoiler ] up to the [ shhhhh ] so I could [ I could tell you, but I'd have to kill you ]. Imagine my surprise when I [ spoiler'ed ], only to have [ I ain't telling you the rest ].

Anyhow, despite all my obsessive playing, I'm not entirely sure that I *enjoyed* it. There's just this element of frustration (punctuated by brief periods of Aha! pleasure) that seems endemic to the genre. To be fair, this game had some of the most logical and least arbitrary puzzles I've seen, but it still felt like you are playing the game in shackles, looking at everything through a keyhole, if you know what I mean.

This is exactly what I was hoping would be clear. Let's read that again.

To be fair, this game had some of the most logical and least arbitrary puzzles I've seen,

Word. And, the point that I'm trying to make is that illogical and arbitrary puzzles have nothing to do with the genre of text adventures. They have to do with the fact that text adventures were last developed at a time when all video games suffered from illogical and arbitrary puzzles (that would be the late 80's). Every single one. I don't know if you remember, but think back. Finishing a game at all didn't used to be a testament of stamina, but was instead an indicator that you either a) were a frickin' genius, or b) you asked someone how to do it.

The corollary to this point is very simple:

Applying contemporary game design principles to the text adventure genre would completely transform genre into something pleasureable and unique. This is long-overdue; too long have text-adventure aficionados mimicked the ancient mistakes of the old masters. They didn't know any better, guys, and they aren't making games in that way any more. Neither should you.

My friend continues:

It's a tough balance. Either you severely restrict what the user can do/see,in which case the user feels constrained, or you give the user lots of freedom in which case the puzzles get really hard because there are just too many possible solutions.

No, no, see, this is what we've started to figure out in game design of late. What you do is you give the player many things to do in your interactive world, which generates immersion. You insure that only a few of these things to do will permute your puzzle space (it's safe to be able to move items around, but it's dangerous to be able to flood the whole complex). Then, you make the solution(s) to any puzzles you put in front of the player clear, but challenging. That is to say, it should be clear what you have to do, and the how should require some kind of mental dexterity (and require few, if any, short mental leaps. Long mental leaps are excluded entirely).

The best text adventure puzzles are built this way, and are deeply satisfying to complete. Say it stronger: the best games are built this way.

There is a list of items about 10,000 long that text adventures need to blow through to come up to speed. They include things like checkpoints, a "main menu", clear help systems, clear reward / scoring / objective systems, tutorials...

Simple enough to think about. More complicated to do.

But, it's text. It can be done.

I'm glad I played the game, though - it's definitely memorable. Thanks for turning me on to it.

You're welcome.

Week of the Unending Madness

I despise apologetic blog posts about not posting often enough. With a passion. One of the webcomics I read reg'larly does this a lot (that would be Megatokyo), and it drives me nuts.

...

I declare this week the Week From Hell In Which I Switch Jobs, Train My Replacement, Start A Full-Fledged Warhammer Campaign, And Play A Bunch Of 40K. And Not Blog Very Much.

It is not for lack of things to blog about. Ye gods, no.

There is, for example, this, which is indirectly in favor of that text adventure thing I was going on about last week.

I got two other interesting responses to that very topic that I want to discuss.

However, all that will have to wait. May our collective breaths be baited.

> write blog entry

West of House

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.

There is a small mailbox here.

>

See, yeah. Even now, in these days of multi-pass shaders and 5,000-polygon character models, there's something there.

Admit it. You want to open the mailbox. I know, so do I.

> open mailbox

Opening the mailbox reveals a leaflet.

>

Yeah, and this is where the slippery slope begins.

Admittedly, a large part of the appeal of the text adventure back in the day was the simple fact that it was immersive and interactive. That portion of the appeal has now been claimed by the Half Life 2s of the world. Resoundingly. I mean, look at it.

So complete was the takeover that many fans of interactive entertanment ("gamers", for those of you keeping score at home) convinced themselves that there was, in fact, nothing left behind. That the world of text adventures was nothing more than a cored out husk, dry and brittle. A kind of technological mummy: interesting when observed in a museum, but only to provide historical edjumacation.

To these folk, I say, bah.

The best argument I've found to demonstrate why I still am interested in this ancient word-based form of entertainment is Andrew Plotkin's Spider and Web. There is, quite simply, no better way to convey this kind of experience than through interactive text.

[ A technical aside: in order to actually play the .z5 file that you'll find at the end of that link, you'll need Frotz for Windows. The way this works is you download the game file, and then run it with a "player", which is what Frotz is. In Frotz, do File->Open on the .z5 file. I know, I know. They're working on it. ]

(I am making the unreasonable assumption that if you aren't using Windows, you are likely capable of figuring out what steps to take to find a player for your system. Believe me when I say that there are players for Every Goddamn Platform Known To Mankind.)

There are others out there of that quality as well. And, the thing that makes me go "hmmm," is that these people are all unpaid fans. Imagine what would happen if there were actual companies out there who were making these kinds of games full time.

There's hundreds of dollars to be made out there. Maybe even thousands.

That, however, is the really interesting thing. Games as a whole are large enough now that even a 2% slice of a niche genre is enough to live on. I like it.

I Have Fallen Into A Hole

So, everything was cool this morning. The world was revolving as it should, I had coffee with my egg thing for breakfast, and woke my children from their slumber. Then, this happened.

I clicked, see. I clicked, when I should have turned away, disinterested.

Let me give you some background.

I have a deep-rooted interest in the evolution of the independent game development community. For years upon years now I have suffered the complaints and gripes of my fellow corporate slave monkeys who "wish there was some way to make money in games", who would "love to make their own game" if only "there was any money in it".

There are 10,000 variations on this line. The general idea is that where we are is all there is, and no one could possibly be doing the thing that we wish we were doing (which is making games that are fun), because clearly if that was possible, we, of course, would be doing it.

Let me apply an opinion to my otherwise dry and empty rhetoric. That, my friends, is a load of crap. So says I.

Thus, I watch with loving, adoring fascination as the independant games industry emerges from it's chrysalis, and spreads its wings. The last two or three years have been amazing. I've said to several folks that the independents of today as a whole look to me like the whole industry did about 6 years ago. That is to say, small teams, some very high-quality product (with some real stinkers in there), and some folks that are starting to figure out how to actually sustain a profit.

There is, for example, PlayFirst. Oasis is an outstanding game, one that I dumped a vast quantity of time into over the last month. It's the one that convinced me that it's all up and running. Diner Dash has eaten my children. It had me in it's foul grip for some time, but I believe I have escaped.

SO! Back to our thread. So I click. And I find Game Tunnel.

I had no idea these guys existed, and how can that be, but who cares, they have the Top 10 Indy Games of 2004! Shit, is that Wik & the Fable of Souls? I've played that! (It's awesome, btw.) And, other stuff... and... and...

So you see, it's been like this all morning, with no signs of abating. I have found, in the very same moment, proof that indy games are a viable alternative to the Big Guns (proof that I can send in an email no less), and found a rich, verdant jungle filled with mad gaming weirdness. HamsterBall?

It's going to be a long week.

Oh my god

Genius. I certainly ain't the first to pass this link along, but god DAMN it if I can't keep myself from linking:

http://www.experimentalgameplay.com/

In particular, Tower of Blobs must be played.