Game Design Advance

I just finished participating in the amazing Art History of Games conference. And the last panel, moderated by Ian Bogost, included Whitney curator Christiane Paul and game designers John Romero, Harvey Smith, and Richard Lemarchand. I thought of this comment too late to say it then but I want to say it anyway.

Earlier Christiane had said that certain games, like DOOM, don’t belong in a museum, but that it wasn’t about high and low, that she didn’t believe in that distinction. But as I was listening to the panel, I thought about the influence of heavy metal on the creation of DOOM, about how John and the rest of the folks at iD had wanted to capture the speed and power and over-the-top energy of that music in the game. And I couldn’t help thinking that this distinction was all about high and low. And the thing is, that’s ok. That’s what it means to be a smart person with good taste nowadays, we recognize that high and low exists, not as a value judgement, but as different modalities, different tones, different styles, and then we make value judgements within those different modalities.

DOOM doesn’t belong in a museum, not because it’s not worthy, but because it’s rock and roll. It’s too fast, too loud, too hard, and too fucked up to be in a museum. There are some games that will work in a museum and some that won’t ever and that, by itself, doesn’t say anything about their value. We need both.

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Mark Essen, better known as ‘messhof‘, sits down with us this week and talks about his short, but so far illustrious career as an independent game developer. From his high school days in Los Angeles programming opaque exploration games to his emergence as the art world’s favorite game designer, we talk about his influences, what he likes and dislikes about his own games, as well as how he feels about the independent game scene.

The episode is up on iTunes but you can also download it here:

Another Castle Episode 11 – A Conversation with Mark Essen

The episode has also been added to our Podcast page, where you can download older episodes of Another Castle.

We’re always looking for feedback on how to improve the podcast so if you have any thoughts feel free to comment on this post or email me here.

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This week we sit down with John Sharp, professor at Savannah College of Art and Design (SCAD), to talk about his switch from art historian to game academic. Along the way we talk about the strange provincialism of game enthusiasts, what makes a game ‘good’, and the upcoming Art History of Games conference, which John organized along with Ian Bogost and Michael Nitsche.

The episode is up on iTunes but you can also download it here:

Another Castle Episode 10 – A Conversation with John Sharp

The episode has also been added to our Podcast page, where you can download older episodes of Another Castle.

We’re always looking for feedback on how to improve the podcast so if you have any thoughts feel free to comment on this post or email me here.

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I’ve been playing a lot of Dragon Age: Origins recently and I’m still trying to figure out why I’m enjoying it. I’ve gotten far enough in the game to hit the point that I hit in nearly every 80+ hour RPG, the point at which I stop really caring about sidequests or character arcs and I’m basically holding down the escape key to skip past every conversation with a character not related to the main plot. The point at which I lose the patience to read about bandits robbing the town or the cave infested with spiders. So I must be playing because of the gameplay. Except I’m not really that interested in the battles – I feel like the important decisions I’ve made were choosing my talents in the level up screens, and the way I handle the battles has only a slight effect on the outcome. That said, there are some battles that are interesting, battles where that slight effect is the difference between winning and losing, but the vast majority of the battles are the standard slog through minions to get to the boss. The other main part of the gameplay, the character progression, is mostly a guessing game about the exact numbers behind text descriptions.

So what am I enjoying about Dragon Age? I think it’s this: there’s a system, and I want to break it.

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This week we’re talking to a veteran of the New York games industry, Wade Tinney. Wade tells us how he went from being a DJ in London to co-founding his company Large Animal Games. He also gives us some details on the New York game scene, the IGDA, and the design of casual games.

The episode is up on iTunes but you can also download it here:

Another Castle Episode 9 – A Conversation with Wade Tinney

The episode has also been added to our Podcast page, where you can download older episodes of Another Castle.

We’re always looking for feedback on how to improve the podcast so if you have any thoughts feel free to comment on this post or email me here.

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Racing the Beam @ MIT

I really enjoyed this. It looks at game design from the perspective of the design of the Atari VCS (2600) system itself — how the limitations and quirks of that game console led to certain design decisions (good and bad) that affected some very seminal games.

I’m a programmer, so when I think about game design it’s very hard for me to completely distance myself from thinking about what would be easy or difficult (or impossible) to actually implement. Sometimes laziness prevents me from making design choices that would be harder to execute. But I like to think that having an intimate understanding of the platform (say, iPhone) gives me a more refined sense of how to make something good particularly for that platform. I can avoid getting mired in things that just won’t work. Like how painters study their brushes so they know what the possibilities are as far as texture, stroke weight, etc. So talking about game design from exactly this perspective clicked with me very nicely.

Also: I am just a bit young to have experienced the Atari 2600. I’ve seen them and probably poked at a game or two as a kid, but I’m of the Nintendo generation. Reading this book with the internet handy to watch some of these games in action gave a really great introduction to the Atari 2600 (or, at least, as good as one could get without really playing one). And this book contains a lot of info about the history of Atari (and Activision and other 3rd party devs) as well as the historical context of all of this.

Finally, this book seems like a great introduction to the hardware history of computers. The book talks about the chips, the design of the motherboard (if that’s what it’s called), and how the hardware impacted the platform. And get to learn a bit how TVs work. Electrical engineers won’t be impressed, but I learned some stuff.

So, yeah — even though this book can get fairly technical (on an introductory level, at least), it’s still a very easy read. Well organized. Fun. Very interesting. Great book!

(Crossposted to Auscillate.)

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At the heart of Canabalt is a little piece of ludo/narrative dissonance.

In the game you play a character, whom I’ll call MJ (for his resemblance to the deceased pop star), that has the bad luck to be on a rooftop jog when his city is attacked by giant robots. Players must navigate MJ from rooftop to rooftop by deciding when he should and should not jump. This can get tricky because MJ gets faster the longer he runs without interruption, making it more difficult to see what’s coming and react before it’s too late. The robot apocalypse is a dangerous time and there are several gruesome ways MJ can perish.

What’s wonderful about Canabalt is that while it has only one interaction, jumping, it still manages to provide interesting decisions for the player. For instance, while players have direct control of MJ’s jump they also have indirect control over his speed. Scattered across the rooftops are boxes and office chairs that slow MJ down whenever he collides with them, and players can check MJ’s speed by purposely running him into these obstacles. However, since the levels are procedurally generated players must be careful about slowing down too much or MJ might not be able to leap the next gap.

The strange thing about all this is that if you were playing the game by putting yourself in MJ’s shoes you would never slow yourself down to the steady jog that gives you the best chance of survival. You certainly wouldn’t crash yourself into office furniture at regular intervals. Success in Canabalt then depends on the player acting in a way opposite of that which would make the most coherent narrative.

It would be interesting to know how many people role-played Canabalt and how many went for the high score.

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Our last podcast of the year is also our first interview with an out-of-towner! Wes Erdelack, also know as Iroquois Pliskin, was in New York for a weekend and was gracious enough to sit down and talk with us. In this episode we discuss his blog, Versus CluCluLand, as well as what philosophy can tell us about games. Finally, Wes and I have a little throwdown about whether or not games are ‘real’.

The episode is up on iTunes but you can also download it here:

Another Castle Episode 8 – A Conversation with Wes Erdelack

The episode has also been added to our Podcast page, where you can download older episodes of Another Castle.

We’re always looking for feedback on how to improve the podcast so if you have any thoughts feel free to comment on this post or email me here.

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In this episode of Another Castle we talk to game designer and theorist Eric Zimmerman. In the first half we talk about his current projects, including writing a book with Heather Chaplin. Later in the episode we talk about his books Rules of Play and The Game Design Reader, as well as the history behind his company GameLab. Finally, we discuss his opinions on the ‘games as art’ debate.

The episode is up on iTunes but you can also download it here:

Another Castle Episode 7 – A Conversation with Eric Zimmerman

The episode has also been added to our Podcast page, where you can download older episodes of Another Castle.

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Recently Matt Kaplan asked me to give my thoughts on the ‘No Russian’ mission from Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 that has caused some controversy. He published my thoughts along with those of others on his Game In Mind blog. Reading through the perspectives offered by the members of the game criticism literati, such as L.B. Jefferies and Ben Abraham, I have to admit that I started to feel a little out of place. What struck me was that they all in their own ways seemed to take the topic much more seriously than I did. While I could appreciate what each was saying I couldn’t quite connect to any of their feelings on an emotional level. For each of them the existence of this mission was an important moment in the history of games, at least in the way that it was finally bringing certain subjects to the surface. For me, the whole thing seemed a little banal (the incident in the game, not the discussion).

Just the other weekend I was in Boston and I had the pleasure of grabbing lunch with Wes Erdelack (also known as Iroquois Plisken). Wes’ site Versus CluCluLand is one of a few blogs on games that I always look forward to reading. As we sat over burgers and discussed games and those who talk about them I explained to Wes that I wasn’t really interested in fiction. Wes was kind enough not to fall out of his chair, by the look on his face I imagine he wanted to. It occurred to me then that the rift between my perspective on games and that of the rest of my small corner of the blogosphere might be a bit deeper than I had imagined.

Indeed, what unites all the big name games that have come out and are coming out, and all the discussion that swirls around them is the topic of fiction. Modern Warfare 2 is controversial because it allows players to shoot fictional bullets at fictional civilians and that makes some people uncomfortable for various reasons. The talk around Uncharted 2 basically centered on how the game portrayed the relationship between its characters, the pacing of its plot, and how it captured the feel of Indiana Jones movies. Most of the talk of Assassin’s Creed 2 is about its re-creation of the major cities of Renaissance Italy.

While I would never pass judgment on people who find these topics engrossing (it’s wonderful to find what you care about in a game and write about it passionately) I have to admit that more often than not I find myself wondering what all the fuss is about. More often than not I find myself wondering if anyone is ever going to change the subject.

What interests me about games are not the ways in which they are fictional, or fake, but the ways in which they are real.

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