Game Design Advance

If you’ve recognized that I haven’t left many posts as of late, it’s because the day job has had me pretty busy. I’m here now for some shameless promotion for the new release I’ve been working on at Kognito: At Risk.

At Risk is a game wrapped around a conversation simulation where you’re a professor at a college and you have to watch out for students who are showing signs of mental distress. If you have suspicions that there are students ‘at-risk’, you have to invite them to office hours and have a conversation with them, and if it turns out the student is truly ‘at-risk’, then you need to convince the kid to seek counseling (sort of an intervention). Feel free to play the demo and leave some feedback.

Keep in mind that the underlying motivation behind At Risk is to train faculty to recognize, approach, and refer mentally distressed students who might otherwise fall by the wayside. We made this game in partnership with the Mental Health Association of New York. Here’s the link (click on the button near the top of the screen to play the demo):

http://www.kognito.com/atrisk

PS: Please pass on to friends if you think they might be interested, any publicity helps!

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Great game/art that I just “came” across:

Dark Room Sex Game

The game has zero visuals. It’s all based on sound and, well, rhythm if you’ve got it. And the best part: there’s a Wii-mote version. The game was made by students at the IT University of Copenhagen.

And yes, there’s even multiplayer orgy mode.

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You may enjoy this write-up of a panel I was on at Austin GDC.

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A specter is haunting the world: the specter of my newest game!

However, there’s another old ghost that’s been haunting my mind, lately. When the news of the Fed’s proposed plan to bail out Wall Street was announced last week, I was reminded of an old line I always attributed to Ronald Reagan, though I’m not sure he was the one who said it. “The problem with communism,” as the Gipper might’ve said, “is that it takes away your freedom to fail.”

Now, I’m no fan of Reagan (warning to anybody else who watches TMC regularly: “Knute Rockne, All-American” sucks) and I’m smart enough not to consider myself a Marxist-Leninist (at least not openly; more on that later) but there’s always been something about that line that struck me as interesting, from a purely non-political angle. Since this is a game design blog, it stands to reason that the freedom to fail must have some relevance to how we design games, particularly when it comes to the losing.

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One of the most recent additions to the PSN library, Sony’s “The Last Guy” is the latest in a long line of video games about zombies.

Sort of.

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David Sirlin’s long-awaited, online collectible card game, Kongai, has finally been launched over at Kongregate. After initially finding the game uninteresting I was convinced by our friend Nash to give it another try. I’m glad I did, because it really is a great game.

Unfortunately the great game is hidden under a terrifying interface, making the best way to learn the game an in-person tutorial from someone who already knows how to play (which is actually a lot like real card game). On top of this there’s a lot of lag and a few server glitches right now that might cause you to lose games even when your victory is imminent (this seems to happen less on ranked matches). Also, there’s no ability to play with your friends, which is ironic for a game hosted on a social software site. Finally, the card distribution is draconian, so when someone uses an incredible combo on you it’s basically impossible to throw together a deck and try the move out for yourself.

None of that, of course, is David Sirlin’s fault (except maybe the interface stuff) and he deserves credit for creating a really compelling and rewarding game. Everyone should try it out.

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In honor of Independence Day, I’m posting my latest game, in its own way a rumination on the nature of life, liberty and freedom of speech in the 21st century. This is basically what I wish I could’ve finished in time for my thesis, and while there’s still a few typos and errors here and there in the text that I’ll be fixing as I go along, I can honestly say that this is a game I stand by (even if it is a work-in-progress until I decide otherwise).

Click the picture to open the game. For the uninitiated, here’s the essentials– press the arrow-keys to choose phrases, press the spacebar to speak, and press the enter-key to cancel your phrases and choose something else, or move to the next screen of text. Up says Yes, Down says No, Left asks a Question and Right gives an Answer. Whatever you do, don’t run out of light-bulbs.

Anyway, that’s it for now. Until next time, pleasant dreamers, be thankful that the founding fathers managed to establish at least one semi-regular three-day weekend…

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Every now and then I play a video game that really shows what’s possible with the medium. A game where the context and the gameplay are tightly woven, with the meaning reinforced by every element, from the smallest player action to the larger possibility space. It’s even better when a game like this is really about something. Something that sticks with you long after you’ve stepped away from the screen.

Link

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There’s a pretty great Arkanoid-style game up on Kongregate called Mr. Bounce. Goes to show that old games never die, they just get retooled.

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Ian Bogost has a post on his blog about a game called Identity Hero. To him it’s a great example of a game simulating the features of a product. To me it’s another example of how mechanics obviously don’t have innate rhetoric and so can be given any context by just slapping the right graphics and text on top of them.

Protip: In addition to adding an ‘O’ to the end of any word to make a game, see “Coin-o“, you can also put ‘Hero’ after any noun to create a compelling and accurate (albeit abstract) simulation.

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