Sticking Forks into People

The most asked question since the invention of the cellphone: where are you?

I see the utility in the technology, though I do hate when someone in point-blank range rapid fires inanity into their phone. “WHERE ARE YOU? I’M ON THE BUS TOO. DID YOU GET MY TEXT? YEAH THAT’S WHAT I THOUGHT ALSO. YEAH SEE YOU IN A FEW MINUTES.” For a blast of silence, I recommend Shure earphones.

Games can be annoying also; multiple loading screens, laggy menu controls, explodable barrels. Imagine a mobile game that, every time you lost, your phone calls you and says you suck, and the game will only allow you to play again if you answer the call. No, I wouldn’t want to play Put Your Balls in a Vice either, but since we’re already being absurd, there’s no point in being sane now.

Let’s imagine a game that did have a Game Over screen not nearly as outrageous as the one above but had some element that annoyed you; perhaps the sound of your character dying makes you feel like you’ve been kidney punched; perhaps the sequence of flashing lights makes your eyes want to vomit. What if despite these factors, you still liked the game, that the Game Over screen is the only bothersome part? What if you continued playing and realized you aren’t trying to “beat” the game and instead are trying to avoid that infuriating you’re dead screen? The motivation isn’t inspiring, but the result might be that you become a better player at the game.

And if this becomes a style, the most common game expression will be “I hate you.”

Something to think about: Is there such a thing as a well-made, balanced game that isn’t fun?

...Red Fish, Blue Fish

This rainbow is illiterate.

A comment from last week said it’d be cool to know what we think is important or interesting to read when it comes to our jobs. Now, I’m the kind of person who could make a pretty badass fort out of my collection - well, half of one; a stack of trade paperbacks is structurally weak - so my answer is gonna be read everything, but there is much more to it. Hold on a sec while I don my smoking jacket and pat my clown nose.

There is an idea that once we find our place career-wise, we should take in all the books that relate to our job title. Reasonable - you read theories and then make sense of them through application. I’d rather superficially know a couple dozen books spread across all genres instead of being intimate with a handful from one. There is the intelligence of someone who knows their discipline through and through, and there is the person who doesn’t know the sub-atomics of a subject but can use a jack of al trades knowledge to draw parallels from various sources.

For example, in a Gamers With Jobs podcast, guest Shawn Elliott talks about the different AI types in Gears of War 2. It’s a typical game element most gamers are somewhat aware of but don’t have the eloquence and articulation of Mr. Elliott, and then seemingly out of nowhere, he compares the gameplay to a hummingbird’s dietary needs and how this itself is like a lock-and-key scenario where every baddie can be handled by utilizing a particular weapon set against each type. Clearly he wouldn’t have been able to draw comparisons just by reading books and articles on games.

It’s all about understanding the behavior of things, to see if relationships from different subjects are puzzle pieces that can fit together to form new shapes with weight and depth. It’s not insta-smartification; just another way of thinking and articulating a point, ideally an original one. Don’t count yourself with the sheep. It will only make your audience fall asleep.

It’s a tough mindset to get into - I thank my family for pushing me into this mode. My mother wasn’t much for book-reading herself, but when I was a kid she gave me a subscription to some readers book club. As I got older I remember my older brother reading a lot, and since I thought everything he did was cool, I copied him.

How did my father contribute? Well, I remember this one time when he beat me with a rolled up newspaper.

Something to read about: What books made you say, “hot damn that’s interesting”? We should all be on the lookout for good reads. I’ll put my list in the comments so that it doesn’t look like we read tumbleweeds.

The Perilous Adventures of Shampoo and Conditioner

While coming out of the Brooklyn Battery Tunnel, I saw a billboard for Valve’s Left 4 Dead, a zombie apocalypse shooter, and ads for Bethesda’s Fallout 3 on the side of 3 buses. People probably think these are big-budget, high-profile games, which they are and in the latter game’s case, one of the voice actors is Liam Neeson.

Games have become an interactive Hollywood, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing; bigger pushes for storytelling, bigger pushes for cinematic flair to go with high-production polish. And while I enjoy games taking the flashy elements of the movies, they should take the opportunity to borrow something else like manipulation and conditioning.

To an extent games already do these; players open treasure chests for loot yet also expect the occasional booby trap; players have learned to look before jumping over chasms because getting struck in midair usually results in falling into the darkness. These are universal. But what if game designers used these normative behaviors against the player? What if you the player were told to “come by after closing so I can give you your reward,” and when you return, you get robbed of all your possessions? What if you spotted a lone tower on the plains, and after fighting your way to the top, you find nothing of value?

The thing with most game conditioning is if players know they have to work hard for something, then they expect rewards. If we were to break this conditioning, introduce a new one that greatly increased consequence, then players will apply more thought into their decisions. “I could attack this fort, but what if I use up more resources than I replenish?”

Most games treat dilemmas like they treat their ethical binaries: both paths have different but equally valuable rewards.

Something to Think about: Conditioning doesn’t have to be isolated to gameplay. Like movies, think about how game designers could manipulate the players through the narrative.

Gun it, grandma

Take a look at the two game videos below. The one on top is from Rock Band 2 - specifically the song A Jagged Gorgeous Winter played on expert drums with a 100% hit rate. The bottom is from Ikaruga, a shmup where you change the polarity of your ship between black and white while you absorb enemy shots of similar color. Both games are chaotic, display different kinds of hells (one of bullets and the other of notes and chords). These games do not recognize grazes; you have to be precise with your hits and misses.

Yet only Rock Band has had any impact on our culture, and it’s not difficult to see why. The majority of the game’s concept can be understood through the title alone. But what is an Ikaruga? Is it a verb? A type of sushi roll? Look at the game description in the previous paragraph. That’s the first barrier to entry. Setting is the other. Music has a much broader appeal than controlling a spaceship that has to weave through curtains and curtains of fire. Put people in a game setting that makes sense and they will most likely become repeat customers.

But is it fair of me to compare these two games even though they are not of the same genre? Is this just an exercise in being reductive? I guess my point is not about what makes a game a cultural impact but how the chaos and acceleration components of a so-called hardcore game can be instilled in one that has mainstream appeal.

"I play video games better than everybody."

A couple months ago, Sony Computer Entertainment of Japan released a PSN game called The Last Guy. From Gamespot: “In the wake of a global catastrophe, you run through stages built from satellite images of notable real-world locations, from Trafalgar Square in London to the National Mall in Washington, DC.” Every other preview of the game mentioned its “Google-esque Maps” style.

Even though this Sony game doesn’t utilize Googlie Maps, the idea of using other apps to generate data for your game is an interesting approach; for one, real-life values don’t feel as cold and sterile as randomly calculated numbers. Let’s take a look at a couple of other turn-an-everyday-app-into-a-game possibilities:

”MIA on AIM”
The -esque: instant messengers
What’s It About: A text adventure game that plays in an IM window. you take the role of a private investigator who has been asked to look for a missing girl. And the person who sent you the message - the missing girl! Ooh, the suspense, it’s killing me…no really, it’s trying to break down my door. Help.
Why Should I Bother: you’re already on IM at work, so why not use IM while using IM to play a game while at work. That’s like killing one bird with two stones - heavy, boulder-sized stones.

make sure your replies are in the correct window.

”This Country Is Going Down The YouTubes”
The -esque: Youtube, embedded Youtubery
What’s It About: An epic high-fantasy game, its world map the Internet. You play a troll who must start fires in Youtube or any comment section that has an embedded Youtube vid in its post.
Why Should I Bother: Trolls are always depicted as the baddies. But not this time, because you are the troll, and since you are the player, that means you are the Hero. So go out into the Internet and become the most heroic troll there ever was.

can you bear being a flaming troll? *troll not shown