gewgaw

Mahk: “It’s Checker’s rock climbing game meets Barbarella”

Indeed!

PS: She’s draggable, which is part of the… fun?

PPS: Fixed the link (thanks Andrew) and Barbarella spelling (thanks Kim).

Looking to go to GDCE? Studying games?

The IGDA’s annual GDC Europe Student Scholarship Program is underway.
Submit your scholarship application on or before July 20, 2005 at the IGDA web site!

Looking for cosplay tips, discussion and gear?

Check Costume Get.

Thanks Jos!!

Attention game researchers!

The Game Design and Technology Conference will be held November 8 and 9th in Liverpool, UK. Alongside AIIDE and the ACM’s ACE conferences (next year: Hollywood!), this conference offers a chance for CS researchers and students to meet and mingle with industry speakers.

I’d also encourage people doing work in CS/Games to submit to the Future Play conference, which will be held in Michigan, this December.

In case you were wondering, I’ve been in Wisconsin, attending Games, Learning and Society, with many of the people I just saw at DIGRA. What fun!

In addition to teaching a mini MDA workshop with Mahk and Eric, I gave a talk on my dissertation work. The goal was to address DDA in the context of learning, focusing on the notion of “design for experience”, to lead into Doug’s talk on improvisation and exploration as design goals.

This gathering, organized by James and his students at UW Madison, was much smaller than DIGRA – with just three tracks per session. Perhaps because of it’s “boutique” feel, I found it incredibly productive and eye-opening.

On Saturday I attended a small post-conference meeting – after which some of us met up on the terrace with Mahk and Pier, ate popcorn and drank beer. A good time was had by all, and I cannot wait to attend next year.

And I’m not just saying that so that it rhymes!!!

I’ve finally put up the slides from the Interdisciplinary Workshop panel I participated in at DIGRA last week.

The panel was a two-part, 3-hour affair, organized by the ever-clever Eric Zimmerman. In the first half, we (6 researchers from diverse fields) played a “Newlywed Game” – answering questions as we thought our partners might answer them. In the second portion, each of us gave a short reading of World of Warcraft, followed by a proposal for research (the prize: an imaginary 1 million Euro grant).

Richard (communication, innovation and policy studies) outlined a 10-country ethnographic study of the game and its players in various social and cultural contexts, while Rene (cognitive neuroscience and mass communication) proposed scientific observation of players including FMRI scans (an extension of his “RL” research, actually). Rikke (socio-cultural learning) wanted to assess WoW players and their learning patterns – to inform the development of new learning software. Ken (philosophy and media studies) described an in-game Socrates (who would essentially pose deep philosophical questions to players), and the transformation of interstitial spaces within the game itself (visually and otherwise).

Bart (sociology, technical and cultural studies) actually gave my favorite reading and presentation. For the proposal, he envisioned an island research facility where the he (and the judges… and perhaps some of the panelists) could play WoW without the irritating and unnecessary distractions of job-related quests. The goal would be to conduct a massive in-game ethnography which helped analyze how players (in groups, guilds and so on) relate to the “work” they do in-game. His notion of WoW as the McDonaldsization of Play was hilarious… but also pretty accurate. I think there’s at least one great paper just in that comparison.

My own proposal focused on building AI to provide dynamic NPC/bosses, world-scale “events” which encouraged cross-level coordination (mitigating some of the “kiddie table” feeling you get when you’re small, while fostering community spirit in higher-level players)… and most importantly, some kind of “lore” system that reflected “legendary” actions back to players over the course of their careers. The end goal of this work would be to foster more expression within the game, making players feel unique, powerful and tied to a larger community… without interrupting the fundamental mechanics of the gameplay (which, as we all know, are tightly-designed and well-tuned).

Overall, the panel was amusing – Richard and I won a “romantic box of chocolates” for our newlywed efforts, and Rene walked away with the grand prize (actually manifest as Understanding Gamers). But it also provided a lot to talk about w/r/t the research interests and practices/philosophies within our disciplines. Also, both exercises gave us a great way to approach our differences, while encouraging us to keep an open mind about our similarities. According to Eric, the panel was much-discussed at the DIGRA rap-up, and cited by Franz and other organizers as a model for how game researchers might learn to be more “playful” in their communications with one another.

Note: The slides I’ve posted are brief (I only had 4 minutes total – and ended up taking 8) but hopefully they provide a gist of the discussion. Once the full set is available, I’ll post that as well.

This is too dope for words

Look what I found on my desk this morning:

*giggle*

Thanks Rob!

GDC Europe is proud to announce a distinguished line-up of keynote speakers:

Phil Harrison, Executive VP of Development, Sony Computer Entertainment
Wednesday, 31 August 2005
Industry veteran, Phil Harrison, discusses next-generation development and provides insight on the state of the European interactive entertainment community in a dynamic keynote Q&A session.

Keita Takahashi, Creator of “Katamari Damacy”
Thursday, 1 September 2005
Celebrated game developer, Keita Takahashi, gives a detailed inside look into the development process for the quirky sleeper hit “Katamari Damacy,” and previews new gameplay innovations he will be presenting through his latest project: “We Love Katamari”!

What a treat for our European cousins! Up-to-date info here.

Look! Proof from Andrew that not every developer in the Vancouver area spurned the DIGRA conference (Borut and Isaac are currently working at Radical).

I say this because there was quite a bit of discussion during the conference about the lack of developer turnout. In my opinion, turnout wasn’t great – but it also wasn’t terrible. Ideally, there shoud be a few interested academics at every industry conference, and a few interested developers at every academic meeting. That way – there’s always a chance for dialog (rather than open melee, as it were).

In unfamiliar environs where one is outnumbered but not necessarily under attack (tourism, essentially) it is possible to make interesting, unusual and eye-opening observations about the nature of one’s everyday life/process/beliefs. This is what I want to encourage, through my work with the IGDA and in my own personal encounters with developers and academics. Short, thought-provoking vacations across the disciplinary divide.

And with that smile – who can possibly say no? “Hello – I’m Robin Hunicke, game researcher, gadfly and…. cartoon character! Let’s go on a wacky, mind-expanding journey! Yahoo!”

:)

ps: I think Andrew wins the flattery award with this line from his DIGRA photo post: “The real reason to go to these conferences is to talk with such intelligent, beautiful game scholars.” Indeed!

On Sunday, after attending Jame’s talk and grabbing lunch with Eric and Jason (to discuss new initiatives for the Education Committee), I decided to play hookey – and headed with a bunch of friends to the Commercial Drive festival.

This was quite an adventure – involving a trip on the SkyTrain (no run-ins with the “SkyCops” thankfully), street performers and stalls, groovy lesbians, sweaty bohemians and stoked bike modders… everyone warm and happy in the afternoon sun (a change from the grey days previous).

Not to mention music, food, sangria, mojitos, beer and … well, you get the picture.

Friend, father and gamer Dan Matkowsky has started GameFam – a new weblog for parents who game with their kids. Not only will he review games, he’s decided to cover other children’s entertainment – including music. Hooray!!!

Even if you don’t have kids (or friends with kids), I think this will be a great way to get some insight into the mind of a parent gamer. And this week’s bonus? In addition to looking at Dog’s Life, Dan has posted photos of the new contender for “most fabulous object in the entire world”: the PacMan guitar!

Today I attended, among other things, a panel on the state of international games research. There were many interesting presentations, and over time they seemed to converge on two main issues confronting this emerging field.

The first concerns program funding and buy-in (on a government or societal level). It seems that games research has really flourished (to the extent that it has – we have a long way to go) in places where it can co-evolve with a culture of creation. In other words: games are studied in ernest in places where games are also made. This is interesting because games are played in a variety of places and have (one would assume) an impact regardless of whether or not they are also produced in the cultures that consume them.

The second is that the positioning and outcomes of the game effects debate has a lot to do with the culture in which the games in question are made and played. I think one very important thing that the international games research community can do is to present a united front with respect to the effects impact/learning meaning conversation. Specifically, people should address the issue from many cultural perspectives, in order to show that while this question has two very different sides, game studies can help shape and direct the dialog (and one hopes) the development of future products and applications in this area.

Several wonderful people spoke on this panel – but I found Geska’s remarks particularly coherent, thoughtful and interesting. She’d kindly agreed to forward a transcript of her remarks, which you can read here.

…from Vancouver – where I’m attending the second DIGRA conference!

Opening evening’s highlights: a wonderful talk on the “production of play” in Everquest by TL Taylor (which will actually help me cast my own presentation on WoW for this audience) and playing Organum with Jane, Andrew, Ian, Eric and a host of wonderful European game researchers (who I never really do get to see enough).

Click here to see the piece in action as we “sang”. The three-part avatar moves on a given trajectory depending on the pitch of incoming sounds.

Organic! Physical! Trippy! Yay!

lessons… Kim is teachin’ and preachin’ over on his blog. Amen, brother!

In a related thread, 1-up has posted an EGM article on retail experiences of a woman (actually a game journalist) who asks novice questions.

The EB employee evaluation is hilarious/sad… and pretty close to my own experience. I know it’s common for clerks to cop a ‘tude (especially at indie music stores – Christ already, you and your Captain Beefheart! Enough!) but it’s just lame in a retail chain where the goal is to sell “fun” products. I guess this is what happens when there are no surviving hobby shops…

Here in Evanston we have a girl clerk in addition to the eye-patch dude (surly know-it-all) and various snob-collector types. She is cool, if a bit bored and put-upon by the majority of customers (I can only *imagine* what it’s like to be in that store all day). She’s especially patient when I ask about how things are selling – and points out oddballs (music mixing games, stuff like that) that I might enjoy.

I’ll actually miss her, when I move.

When people ask me how E3 was, I generally grumble. This is true for most years (tho worse this time), as the combination of noise, sequels, licensed drivel and disappointing hopefuls is a bit overwhelming. But a few weeks after the show, I get a little perspective, and the good games rise to mind.

This year, as I said, I really enjoyed Nintendogs, Electroplankton, Trauma Center, and WLKD. 50 Cent, while interesting from a cross-marketing standpoint was a yawn… but The Movies, with it’s complex “machinima” capabilities (professed, I should say) still seems interesting – especially if people are allowed to save off the movies in a non-proprietary format.

On the downside: I saw the demo crash 2 different times and when I did finally get the walkthrough (you were not allowed to drive!) I was a bit dismayed by the “Look – plastic surgery is faster than exercise” bit that ended with “See – now she’s worth more to the studio!”

Reality not always so fun, I guess…

—

On the last day of the show, I wandered around by myself with earplugs tightly in place… that is, until I picked up the controller for X Tango: Shuffling Roses. At first, I just watched someone playing (leading)… but the complex footwork and driving Latin beats made me want to open my ears and grab a controller (which is saying a lot, given how overloaded I was at that point).

Essentially, this is a tango sim. You dance with partners, competing for cash which you can use to by better outfits. There are a number of settings and music selections. On screen you see your dancers, a crowd (that reacts to your skill much like the crowds in KRev) and a color-filling bar (blue=boy=lead, red=girl=follow). The bar fills up in time to the music, giving each player 1/2 the time (say, 4 beats each) to execute their moves.

Single-player (leading), the game is pretty enjoyable. You can only do simple steps at first, but later combos lead to some pretty stylish moves – so that by the end of the first song I had my “street tango” pair rocking some pretty fancy stuff (coordinated kicks, leg-entwining stuff, dips). Then, one of the designers came out to play with me, at which point I played a basic two-player lead/follow game (essentially button-matching). It was so-so.

Now – it may be that the “cooperative” aspect of the game increases as your characters level up and so on – this seems like it would be the right way to go. However, as far as I could tell, there was no beat-matching component to the game whatsoever, which seemed like a missed opportunity. I love music games, and find it impossible to think of a dancing game without beat matching (let alone dance pads!!). Maybe that’s my limitation, but if I were making a tango game, it would involve paying attention to the downbeat.

This demo seemed to ignore beats for anything other than general lead/follow timing. In fact – the timing bar was a hare too slow. I felt compelled to press the first button of my “follow” combo on the mid-bar downbeat – and often landed just outside the red. After discussing this a bit (via a translator) with the designer, I asked them if they’d consider participating in this international games showcase thing I may do at GDC. I hope it happens, and that they can send over someone to show off the game – cause it’s pretty different, as games go.

—

Overall – despite the somewhat limited 2-player experience, I still really enjoyed playing X Tango. It was almost surreal, sitting there on the edge of the hall (they were just next to the Rockstar rock star trailers – a really swave idea, if maybe a bit crowded for meetings), making these two DOA-type characters dip and swerve. For a few brief minutes, I actually tuned out all the other noise, swayed along to Christina Aguilera (in Spanish!), and watched the dance. It was… pleasent. Relaxing, even.

So – after all that gushing about Trauma Center, I’m picking X Tango as my favorite game of E3. It offered a unique, easy-going experience, made me smile and tap my feet, and I wanted to keep playing it long after I left – especially with a dance pad (stated in their marketing copy as “The Advent of Exergaming”. Gah!). What’s more – it made me want to take dance lessons. And really, when was the last time a game made you want to do something like that – especially an XBox game???

Speaking of different, indie, alternatively marketed and so on – Smoosh seems like they are pretty fucking awesome.

When I was 12, I was probably… nose-deep in the LOTR books and praying (in vain) for a beautiful, golden tan. Not only have they solved this problem – they’ve recorded an album to boot!

Check out the also boughts for She Like Electric. Yo! Crazy!

Yet more (early seems like an understatement) press for Spore in this this IGN op-ed on sequels and licensed titles. Majesco’s there, making a bid to be seen as an innovative publisher – which would be fine, if their E3 booth wasn’t so heavily dependent on derivative titles (and the demos so crappily executed).

Reading this article made me want to look at the numbers on Psychonauts and Jade Empire. A quick search finds reports of first month sales for Psychonauts at 12,000 units, while Jade (a less innovative game with a larger marketing budget, if you ask me) comes out at 96,454.

Hrm.

When you compare that God of War which sold over 200,000 units in its first month and is still going strong (or Halo 2, at 3.3 million in the first 4 weeks), it gets kinda depressing. Not to mention confusing. Look at the gap between critic and popular vote on that last review. Like – what does that say, really, about game consumers?

Word-of-mouth (darling of indie evangelists) may help Psychonauts sales a bit in the next few months, do you really expect retailers to carry more than one or two copies? GoW sales will swell over the summer, crowding the shelves as more and more kids enjoy it’s “mature” vibe in the cool, air-conditioned rec rooms of America. Who can blame them? It’s certainly not my style – but it’s a well made game, with clear goals, high production values, and an instantaneously familiar fiction.

*cha-ching*

—

So – life sucks if you’re an artist or want to see more indie stuff influence and flourish in the pop culture sphere. The fact of the matter is that it’s better to spend spare millions on marketing (or polish) for a product that you know will sell than to take a risk on something new – it’s just… the math of publicly-held companies. I’m not trying to make excuses for corporations – that’s a whole other issue. I’m just wondering: beyond acknowledging the situation, how can we inspire ourselves and each other to make a difference?

I hate to sound like I’m “on the koolaid” as Kim says, but until there is a cost-effective, solidly long tail way to market and distribute games (and believe me – plenty of people are trying to figure that out), ranting about the funding parameters for games (or retail strategies) really isn’t going to change anything. I’m not saying that we shouldn’t talk about it – I’m saying we should work on some other things, too.

So, from now on, I’m pledging to write at least a short Metacritic review for every game I play. I’ll cross-post, and that way I’ll be informing you – my friends and readers, as well as “them”… the marketing execs who look to these reviews when assessing the chances of new IP. It’s not the only thing I’m doing to make a difference – but maybe it can help.

Why not join me? As of today – Psychonauts has 8 user ratings – surely you can do better than this, people!

Since I read this Scientific American article on spam, I’ve paid a little more attention to what comes into my junk folder. This one caught my eye:

Sent: Monday, June 13, 2005 4:21 PM
To: cswomen
Subject: Live teen seex cams you can watch now artichoke

If you desire to watch teens perform live sex and live shows, show their buddy live in webcam and do crazy stuff – this is for you! You can enter now and watch. We have more then 100.000 pics and lots of video hours, including, as mentioned above, hot teens live!

http://www.urlomittedtoavoidencouragingspammers.com

description transportation of liquid asphalt and earth materials hauling and bobtail delivery. mary florence wonderful page and it already has nimrod jones information request on great sbo. giving a human face to worldwide threats to political and individual freedom through the power of film for info email. burp hehe gross i know but for some reason drinking pepsi makes me burp a lot and i dun really know why im drinking pepsi either i htink cos it was the last one in the fridge hhehhe. description sewer and water line installation installation of storm drains private and city sanitary sewers domestic water storm water sheet drains. i would like to note that by signing this list all have you have agreed to be my sows see the fine print on the webpage therefore i will soon be visiting each of you to claim my rights thank you. quote information relative to the operations of the united states squadron on the west coast of africa the condition of the american colonies there and the commerce of the united states therewith quot. carroll county ga i have ancestors who lived there and are buried there james w carter and matilda davis carter their son james j carter and laura victoria eades eady carter. musicks musics of carroll county georgia specifically david musick and caty emily williams who migrated to chambers county alabama then to tallapoosa county alabama. description civil geo-technical environmental engineering consulting materials testing. stretcher bars are the pieces of wood that stretch the canvas before framing. you can use this banner on your site copy and paste resize to suit your page if you like.

Clearly they are taking advantage of our weakness w/r/t to ranking sentences that follow one another (as opposed to words that follow one another). Note the to address – and the line about sows (italics mine), which was pointed out by the incredible Mr. Sharp. The Pepsi stuff is also kind of interesting, because it’s clearly from a chat (Rob noticed that one, of course).

I wonder – where do they cull this stuff from? Web-crawling? Random files from spywared hard-drives? Radio signals in outer space?

Art openings are the raves of this decade.

Seriously dude, think about it.