gewgaw

Home and recovered (mostly) – to find more goodness from GameCity in my inbox! For starters, Tony has updated his blog and site to include the awesome results of the SpiteYourFace “BrickStock” animation workshop:

Also, Brandon posted a piece on the Elite paper-folding event, and BoingBoing ran a piece on the 15 pixel megamix (flOw? C’mon now, readers!)..,

And Rex posted a super cool pic from our panel – with some great additions!!

Sugoi!!!

Greetings from Nottingham – host of GameCity 09!

This year’s festival has been a fantastic blend of talents – wonderful animators, artists, game designers, hackers and academics from around the world. Even tho we are mid-festival, I wanted to take a break and report on its fantastic events!

This is in no small part due to the blend of talking and performance that permeates the festival. Today, for example, I attended a panel on creating media about/for games which featured a live performance of GameBoy synth, and showcased the festival’s “mega=mix” of pixel-art tribute animations:

These were created for the festival by the same amazing team behind the Oxfam “Face the Music” spot – which takes basic game concepts and blends them with a message about climate change to create something truly remarkable:

But that’s just the beginning! Other performances included live playthroughs of Crysis (!!!), karaoke, the passionate singing of game reviews, and the especially cool paper folding session (plus artful arrangement) that culminated in a session about the glory of Elite.

And – as part of my visit, I conducted a live performance of Flower, which was truly wonderful. Not only was the game projected on lovely gauze screens in a beautiful old building… but as I played, flower petals were dropped from above, floating down into the atrium.

My favorite part of the experience was definitely the sound – which filled the hall, reverberating and mixing with the voices of spectators. That was really spectacular. Post-performance, we had a few questions about our new game (sorry – it’s still under wraps!), requests for more Flower content (maybe, someday!) and many lovely compliments.

Many thanks everyone who worked so hard to create Flower (you guys just ROCK!), the team that helped set up the performance (it worked!!) – and of course, to all who attended (you were fantastic)! It was such a pleasure to play for everyone and I think it’s definitely something we should do more often, with all sorts of games.

Finally – three cheers to the organizers of GameCity! Congratulations on creating a wonderful mix of discussion, debate, performance and play!

Great post on Attract Mode about the impromptu party-game of Tuning which emerged during the post-IndieCade BBQ @ Casa Roja!

Awww – I miss you all so much! Here’s to great adventures and wonderful creations. See you @ GDC!!!

We did it! IndieCade 2009 was a resounding success, full of awesome games, laughter, clowns and balloon animals.

Ok, maybe not clowns and balloon animals – but… chalk drawing, full-contact stick figures, poetry, creative shouting (”F*** You, It’s Art!!”) and of course, miles and miles of Indie developer love. Beginning the the super-fun Micro-Talks session at our opening party, through the awards, conference and closing party – it was a blast.

And who do we thank? The amazing, talented and inspiring game creators who made our celebration possible. Without you it would just be beer and finger-darts.

Presentation coverage includes a write-up of the Fresh Perspectives for First and Third Person Shooters” session, the iPhone Art Showcase, as well as some great coverage in the Los Angeles Times.

And on top of all that? Noby Boy decided to stay with us in sunny California! Visitors to TGC will find him swimming around on my desk, amongst all the toys and to-do lists. So best!

Thanks so much to everyone who came out – and for all the fantastic support from our local friends and devs. You make it easy to love being Indie!!

I’ve posted my last two talks, with notes and a few fixups for broken or missing fonts/pix. These are both works-in-progress… UX is the more polished, I think… but time will tell. I learned a TON in the process of writing them, delivering them and discussing them with the UX community.

Both trips were wonderful, especially the part where I got to meet and exchange ideas with people who are not in my own industry. Special shout-out to everyone who wrote following both talks – nothing is better than hearing from people as the ideas evolve in their own heads – especially when they continue the dialog with refinements, suggestions and questions. If I haven’t written back it isn’t because I’m not going to – it’s cause I’m busy with upcoming IndieCade events – and just plain old work!

For those of you who don’t have time to download and page through all the slides – the gist is that being at TGC has exposed me to the idea of “juicy feedback” – a squishy term that feels fun to say and is even more fun when in the game. The first talk explores my search for a way to relate “juicyness” to the MDA framework, and the second blends this more with notions about how UX & Game Design are converging.

A huge bonus for set of trips was that I got to spend some quality time with the folks from Stamen and BERG (formerly known as Schulze & Webb). Ben, Mike, Webb and Jones each had very interesting and helpful things to say – and speakers/attendees from both events (including folks at Last FM, Sifteo, Mint.com, Adaptive Path and Nokia) gave me a lot to look forward to.

I’m really grateful to live just a short distance (in the design continuum) from such wonderful people. Thank you for being so “juicy”!

Looks like I will be in SF for “Park(ing) Day” – a celebration of parks taken to the streets. I’m going up to the city for the UX Week conference – and attendees have been encouraged to submit a design! The park should take up 2 parallel parking spots for $200 or less.

Here’s what I submitted – inspired by a desire for something simple & thrifty, contemplative… with minimal water requirements:

Transient Bonsai Appreciation Park

Flooring: Soft, earth-toned cotton sheets, held down along edges with smooth river stones.

Content: Small bonsai placed at measured intervels within the space, at ground level. In front of each bonsai is a large, soft pillow that you can sit on, so as to appreciate the bonsai’s smallness in the scale of the city.

Requires: a few modest but beautiful bonsai (can be purchased in Japantown), cushions & some flat sheets, 1-2 bags of river stones.

• Bonus #1: Sand can also be poured inside the sheets, in a rectangle below the bonsai to create a zen-garden feel.
• Bonus #2: Extra stones can be used to create a small sculpture near each bonsai, or be given away as totems from the experience.
• Bonus #3: Bonsai can be donated to conference organizers post-display, to encourage continued focus on small, beautiful, living designs!

Looking forward to the trip, and the UX park designs!!!!

Kellee went to GDC Europe last week – where discussion of TGC’s Flower began with the David Cage’s keynote talk on meaning in games:

Cage said, baldly: “Most games have no meaning”, and games don’t generally have anything to say — “you just spend some time getting excited shooting and jumping”, most of the time.

The Quantic Dream head added that he believed that games’ narrative structure is broken. As opposed to simultaneous narration and action in movies and books, cut-scenes split up the action in games. So, Cage concluded: “No-one cares about the story because nobody is there for the story.”

He added that most game characters must be close to caricature — to look like what they are. They also tend to need a simple goal, and need to look good for a teenager. In contrast, many movie characters have a background, a motivation, have relationships, and are created to generate empathy.

In further controversy, Cage suggested that, most of the time, game art is mediocre compared to other art forms. But some games can compare because they have “developed the emotional side”, he said, citing Ico, Shadow Of The Colossus, Rez, Katamari Damacy, and Flower.

So, said Cage, we have some decisions to make. Shouldn’t we start thinking about social emotions, if we want to evolve? “Do we want to be toys, or art?”, he asked provocatively. “Maybe there are books that you’ve read that have changed who you are.” Shouldn’t games do similarly?

How about the sandbox versus the rollercoaster? Contrasting with CCP’s EVE Online talk earlier in the day, Cage feels that, since “nobody conceived this experience for you,” it may fall flat. Whereas, in the rollercoaster, you can’t go wherever you want, but “someone designed the experience for you to be optimal.”

These are two different approaches, and Cage believes that the rollercoaster is the one he tends towards. Why? Because people want to play for just 20 minutes at a time, not necessarily for many hours or to find there’s nobody in the sandbox to play with.

How about journey vs. achievement? Cage said he believes many adults care more about the journey, with emotional highs and lows carefully mapped out, and cited Flower as a great example of that.

Kellee continued this discussion in her own talk – a postmortem of the Flower development process that highlighted the team’s search for meaningful gameplay that provides players emotional shelter – instead of the typical frustration/reward cycles in many game designs:

Santiago said that what the team found out is that “sometimes, hard fun is the enemy”, and going towards known mechanics can actually be a handicap. She said that fun is just a small subset of possible mechanics, and that Flower was carefully tuned to give the player an engaging journey.

This in-game journey that players took in the downloadable PlayStation 3 game wasn’t necessarily a conventional one, but was carefully managed to heighten emotional intensity by the game’s end.

The conclusion was that extremely rapid iteration and playtesting — whether in Processing, Flash, XNA, or PS3 — was what really helped to hone PSN standout Flower.

Great to see that the team’s efforts at pushing through a variety of mechanics to find the ones that supported their aesthetic goal has paid off – as it did with other games Cage mentioned in his talk (all personal favorites, as regular readers know). Three cheers for iteration, subtractive design, and the focus on player experiences! Here’s to continued efforts and new adventures!

:)

Way to rock the slick, live performance, John!

Super wonderful times this week and weekend – everyone in LA for the show, and then some staying over to attend the annual “Missed My Flight” BBQ & impromptu afterparty at Casa de Roja.

In addition to a fantastic first week at TGC I was able to meet up with tons of fun Indie friends (including some quality time with team Scary Girl), rock out with our lovely Harmonix peeps, hang with Mark, Kim, big Ben – and of course, take some great photos!

Here is my favorite triple so far: from our evening with The Beatles – in which Lulu rocks her inner Joan Jett and Ross… just plain rocks!

Even better than having a whole week of seeing my leading lady and man – they will be back in town next weekend for a spectacular birthday BBQ (both she and Juli are celebrating!) that doubles as a shipping, job change and engagement celebration. I would wish for a copy of The Beatles to round out the event – but I’m pretty sure that it would cause Ross to explode in a puff of unicorns, rainbows and 3-part harmony.

Special shout-out and superthanks to our house guest Crankyuser… who not only helped Lulu clean up the whole place today, post-brunching – but also fixed the kitchen tap and front door – so that next weekend’s soiree will not include the sound of continual slamming. Should have known that our favorite UI designer & Project Natal schemer would have great ideas for improving the Casa’s user expereince. Rock on!!

Dug up some more random things that have been sitting in the “to post” pile – some of them for a looong time:

The Power of Mimicry – an interesting post from a while back on how some games capitalize on this fundamental human drive. A snippet:

The vast majority of modern videogames have a large component of mimicry. It added enromously to the appeal of a game like Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time (although this game was designed and structured in such a hardcore, challenge-oriented fashion that it could never appeal just for its mimicry), it is probably the chief reason that World of Warcraft is now outpacing the Everquest brand in terms of subscribers, and it is perhaps the principal reason for the astronomical success of the recent Grand Theft Auto branded games.

The power of mimicry can be seen in the success of games for which this is the primary form of play. Sim City had impressive success for its day by offering the mimicry of building a working city, but was limited by its focus: although creating a city was entertaining, it didn’t engage a great many players for an especially long time, in part because of its inherent complexity and emotional distance. In creating The Sims, Maxis offered a game of mimicry with a much wider appeal – and critically, a game with the potential to appeal to women.

It is not that mimicry appeals more to women than men, rather, it is that the types of mimicry that we are culturally indoctrinated into differ by gender. Boys tend stereotypically to play with toy cars and weapons – and games incorporating mimicry of vehicles and weapons tend to have an agonistic (competitive) bias. Girls tend stereotypically to play with figures (dollplay) and domestic situations (playing house). These play activities had not been provided as the focus of play prior to The Sims, because no-one had considered women a worthwhile target audience – thanks in part to gender biases in games industry employment. 10 million units and many satisfied customers later and (astonishingly) the industry still doesn’t recognise the significance of mimicry to hitting a wide audience.

Consider this: MySims & the Blox’s both include an element of playing with toy people, animals and blocks – which kids in Western culture do regardless of gender. Coincidence? It’s a long read that I still haven’t fully unpacked – but since I’m waiting for my Wii Update (so I can play my copy of BBBP!!) I figured I’d post it.

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For all my photo nerds out there – have you seen this awesome article on variable focus photograph technology?! This tech makes it possible for you to digitally re-focus a single exposure. Blade Runner – here we come!!!

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Here’s the link to the Introduction to Game Development – a huge book made from the IGDA Education Committe’s Curriculum guide! Longtime readers will remember the guide as my first IGDA contribution… a project that lasted over 4 years and introduced me to the developers who have shaped my life. At the time, my advisor warned that focusing too much on the curriculum would delay my graduation date. D’oh!!!! Ian – why are you always right??

But on the flipside: that was a decade ago – when, as a graduate student in CS, I realized that there was no way for me to study games, other than to talk to actual game developers in person (and build them on my own – blindly, slowly). Our first Education Summit at GDC 2002 (that’s right – I didn’t *always* have red hair!) introduced developers to several brand new college and graduate-level programs including one at MIT and another at CMU.

And today? I work at a company FOUNDED BY USC GAME STUDIES PROGRAM GRADS!

Is that not *awesome*?! If that much change is possible in just 10 years – imagine what the next 40 will be like!!

Lots of great things going on that I have been meaning to post… especially as we roll up to EEE.

For starters – Ari and Ori over at Hollywood Hill have announced their latest awesome program: THE IMPACT LAB!

We are pleased to announce THE IMPACT LAB – a new joint venture between The Hollywood Hill and USC’s Games Institute, to build a new generation of videogames for real-world social change (aka Games for Change).

The Hollywood Hill’s event Social Change Videogames: The Next Frontier” on May 7, 2006 at Lawrence Bender’s home introduced our members to this new movement. Among the speakers were the founders of the NYC-based Games4Change trade association, as well as some of the game developers who have pioneered the early-stage games.

With our focus on the role of innovation in social change, The Hollywood Hill has always seen tremendous potential in the development of new types of videogames that can tackle the significant problems the world faces – from global warming to hunger and disease. Over the past year we started exploring a partnership with USC’s Game Institute that would combine the strengths and resources of The Hollywood Hill and its entertainment community, with USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, Viterbi School of Engineering, and Annenberg School of Communication.

This new lab will focus on the development of games that have real-world consequences – where the user’s actions in the game directly translate into real-world change. We plan to ramp up to an output of approximately 10 games per year, helping to develop a set of standards for the industry as well as measuring the real-world impact of the games as they are launched.

The Impact Lab will be based out of The Hollywood Hill’s new event facility and HQ, The Catalyst Center. Funding for the lab and its games is provided by Armchair Revolutionary (www.armrev.org), and partner foundations and sponsors.

Games for change, built in collaboration with USC’s awesome game design talent! Wish them luck – or better yet, contact the ‘Hill about sponsorship opps!

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Next up: IndieCade is ramping up for E3, and has also just closed submissions for the fall festival – to be held in Culver City this October… did you remember to submit?

I have joined the ‘cades advisory board – and am SUPERSUGOIEXCITED to announce that Keita will be joining us at the event as well!! Right now I am trying to whip up a few cool, on-site events for the weekend days of the festival (outdoor games, especially events that are fun for kids). Ping me if you have ideas and would like to participate… and I will certainly posted more info as the program evolves!

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And LBNL: Jennifer’s new story just posted on the Escapist today – you can read it here!

Random tidbit of the day: I found a pretty awesome writeup of this year’s Experimental Gameplay session in the Onion AV club coverage of GDC 09. I knew we had a great piece up on Destructoid but the Onion?? Who knew?!

I also dug up a few pix from this year (was busy with Boom Blox press so didn’t have the Nikon handy) – most of them very flash-y (sad). This one is my favorite because it shows Derek presenting, Jon & me semi-freaking-out about time (we were over this year!) and the words “dead mother” all in one frame. If you took pix this year can you drop me a note and a link to anything cool? I’m trying to get a bunch of stuff together for the site. Thanks!!

It truly was one of our best years – something I’ve been thinking about a lot since GDC. There is a supervibe of positive energy in the indie games scene now compared to even just 2 or 3 years ago. There are just *so* many great expereimenters out there, and so many of our favorite people have begun a second wave of games (Daniel immediately comes to mind here – his presentation just blew me away). I have a feeling that we are going to see more and more “Vitamin E” in games coming out in the downloadable space this year…

PS: Kudos to everyone who made the time to send in a game. If you didn’t get your game done for 09, there’s no time like the present to begin work on our ‘10 submission!!

Back at last!

This year’s GDC was packed full of fantastic events and no sooner had I returned home than work spun right back up! Add taxes and warm weather – and suddenly it’s been over 2 weeks without a single moment to post.

To start my GDC week in review, I wanted to post the slides to my GDC Microtalk – which I gave alongside a host of talented speakers on Thursday at the ungodly hour of 9am!! Thanks to all you dedicated conference goers who after a night of partying turned up to see Richard and the lot of us do our rapid-fire takes on the concept of “play”.

My talk was focused very concretely on looking at Play as it happens in Sony HOME. I’ve taken the liberty of adding notes to the preso post-facto… which describe the gist of my talk (I don’t speak from notes – too prone to improv!).

:)

Keys takeaway from this talk is that I used “the 4 C’s” (Creativity, Collection, Competition and Community) to brainstorm different activities that could be layered over the existing architecture of HOME to create a fun, expressive and reactive space that people wanted to return to over an over.

I’ve had several requests for these slides – please download and share them with anyone who you think might be working in a similar area! I want to see these sorts of games popping up all over the place, ya hear? No excuses! Get out there and build us some fun!!!

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Update: Brandon has posted a nice article covering the talk, as well!

Well – after a week of the flu, pushing to zero bugs and a bunch of craziness (including my birthday!)… I’m finally gearing up for GDC! Finalizing the press schedule for Bash Party, my talks, meetings, parties and lunches. Wow – how does a week in the future go by so quickly?

A highlight this week was definitely my visit The Mirman School, for their annual celebration of Women in Science and Technology. The students were so bright, enthusiastic and genuine… gasping out loud when they heard that the keynote speaker was someone who worked on video games!

It has been a crazy push this last month, for sure. Between finalling the game, playing games for the Experimental Gameplay session, and prepping my talks.. there have definitely been times where I wonder why I spend so much time volunteering outside of work. But then – I have an experience like yesterday – and am reminded that it’s because I love sharing my love of games with others. There’s nothing better than giving that joy back to the community!

Especially when you can do it with a game! Seeing the kids giggle and gasp as they toppled toweres of blox, explored underwater and outer space physics… it was like having my birthday all over again. And IGN’s first hands on with BOOM BLOX Bash Party mirrors this experience as well! Just knowing that this game will get out there and provide so much entertainment makes the labor pains fade from memory.

Now for some quality time with our peers! Can’t wait to see and play what you’ve all been up too – discuss the state of our industry, and make plans for the year to come. It’s going to be a great one!!

First official “mention” of BBBP on IGN podcast:

“We can’t write about it, due to NDA, but it is awesome. Instead of saying, “We played Boom Blox” We can say, “hell yeah bitches we F’n played Boom Blox” that will give you an idea of how much we loved it.”

:)

EGW judging coming to a close – we will have answers back to folks within the week. GDC party planning also got a jump-start (thanks Jane!!!), and I got a whole 9 hours of sleep yesterday. Wow – it’s nice to be almost done.

Great link from Kevin Marks re: Facebook and open gardens. As I mentioned in a lecture yesterday to Jesper’s class at MIT – one approach to casual-ifying any experience is open-ness: giving access to the content, giving praise, envisioning the experience as a constent flowering of new experiences – not just an earn & burn cycle. Super excited to see how smaller games and apps can leverage this approach in the next couple of years.

Also – thanks to Edge for the shoutout in the Hot 100 – and kudos to Rod, Jenova, Jon and all y’all for getting up there! Games are the communication medium of the 21st century – let’s keep pushing to expand their reach and capacity to create joy!

Finally – yes, there will be a birthday/party at GDC! Saturday, just after the conference. Save the date and make plans to stay in SF if you can! Jane & Lulu are doing the heavy lifting on this (I’m still shipping!) but I can’t wait to see you all! Travel safe!

Mail from Keita earlier this week reminded me that while I am here in LA, head down finalling… he is heads up in Tokyo… having just shipped! He will be at GDC to talk about his new game. So study up! Go download it on PSN!

Also – his note confirms that this is the proper way to draw Noby Boy in email:

 ( ' : ' )=======(       )

PS: I submit that the Girl should be drawn like this:

 ( * ; * )------(       )

Hee hee!

This time – for the Game Developer’s Choice Awards – in the Innovation category! Great news – tho it is some pretty stiff competition!

• SPORE (Maxis)
• World Of Goo (2D Boy)
• Boom Blox (EA Los Angeles)
• Braid (Number None)
• LittleBigPlanet (Media Molecule)
  

What I love most about this list is that through Game Jams, Experimental Gamplay Workshop and my career at EA – I have had the privilage of meeting and working with folks from every project on this list. And it’s especially awesome that Jon and I – who have so passionately debated the ethics, practices and meaning of game desigin & developement (and pursued such different means to oft-shared ends) – would end up working on games that are in the same category – side by side.

How wonderful to see such a breadth of game designs and development models in this list! It means we’re embracing new things even as we move forward in the areas we know and love so much. I hope this trend continues. If it can – we’ll ALL win!!

:)

Just a reminder that we’re currently accepting submissions for this year’s Experimental Gameplay Sessions at GDC!

Please pass on the call for submissions to friends – or submit a cool experimental game yourself!

Game Design Workshop here in Seattle – just wrapping up the second day. What fun!

I cannot even begin to say how much I have learned in this weekend – mind expanding and also just really enjoyable. Thanks to everyone who participated – especially dos guys from da Family.

:)

What a wonderful place!

Cannot wait to start attending sessions in the AM…