Category Archives: Games and Game Development

Thoughts on games and game development

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Ballergiving

I had a wonderful evening of games and stories and food with the ballers!

Beatles Rock Band is a blast, and far superior to normal Rock Band, and even Lego Rock Band, in my opinion. Most of this is due to the classy visual between-gig load screens, and the hilarity of multiple part harmony with Scott and Maria. I would have loved to sing, but alas, my voice is completely lost, so I stuck with the guitar.

I can only use Rock Band style guitars, because I can only use the meedley string buttons at the base of the neck. My hands are too small for the normal buttons, as are Beth’s, which lead to this conversation snippet.

Beth: I can’t use this, my hands are too small.
Maria: Mine are too, that’s why I don’t have to give prostate exams!

After dinner and pie and catching up on stories with the Clarks, we gathered to play Shadows Over Camelot with the Merlin’s Company expansion. I think the expansion is an excellent supplement to the game, but Merlin couldn’t help the knights this time, as I had my first successful game as traitor. Muahahaha! The lack of voice didn’t help, as all my commands and narration turned to diabolical hissing.

Nevertheless, it was a fun game.

I also got to see Brenna, who was very happy to see me again, and George (who is always happy to see anyone). Hooray for puppies!

Hopefully I’ll be able to hang out with people again some tomorrow night. There is a plot of my brother and sister-in-law to go see Return to Oz, which is this week’s midnight cult movie at Baxter. I would totally go see it, but my flight leaves at 6am Sunday morning, and a midnight movie would probably end up with me staying up all night.

We shall see, we shall see…

Games Played, Musings on Game Design

More on Uncharted 2

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Josh: So, which is better? Uncharted 2 or Arkham Asylum?
Me: Hmmm, it’s a tough choice, but I’m going to say Uncharted
Drake: I don’t think so

In spite of Nate’s humorously-timed modesty, it is true. Both are amazing games and super fun, but I’m gonna name Uncharted 2 as the winner because of being an original IP.

Now, I could talk about all the mechanics that make this game wonderful, or its amazing character and story development, or I could speak of its touching amount of polish. Many elements of the game are blogworthy, but you can probably read about all those elsewhere.

Today, I will instead talk about how appreciative I am of the design of the main character, from my perspective as a lady.

Now, note that as a girl into games, I’m used to being subjected to character design aimed to please the straight male demographic. Many a time I have rolled my eyes at the stock shape that most girl characters seem to take, and the attention to detail in the realm of boob physics. At the same time, male characters also seem to be designed for the straight male demographic, because apparently straight males fantasize about being large and unattractively bulky? I don’t pretend to understand.

I long ago accepted this quality as the way of games, and moved ahead with my life.

But at long last, ladies (and gay men), we have been given a piece of eye candy unto ourselves! Surely those Naughty Dogs must have made this character for us, and I am proud of whatever research into the straight female/gay man market they did to finally come up someone that we could gawk over.

Sure, sure, they made Chloe to appease the straight males, and how the straight males latch right onto her. They don’t seem to mind that the main character has been given to us. It’s a win situation for everyone involved!

Also, butt!

Even more, it has perhaps helped bridge the gap between the sexes. For example, I was always a little bit baffled when my male friends preferred hot and scantily clad women to use for their avatars. I would make male avatars, sure, but never from the perspective of them being attractive. But now, with Drake as my default Multiplayer skin, I understand!

And so, thank you, Naughty Dog. Thank you not only for making the best game I’ve played so far, but for creating a fictional character who is easy on the eyes for the…uh…more neglected gamer demographic.

Musings on Game Design

Dream Games

I often have dreams about games I’ve made, and of course they’re the awesomest ever in dreamland, because they follow dream logic. When I wake up and start reviewing my awesome new game idea, it is usually quickly apparent that, in real-world logic, they wouldn’t work at all.

All the same, I try and write them down, because even if they are meant for the land of dreams I occasionally pick out some idea or mechanic or insight that could be useful later. In some cases (like tonight) I wake up immediately after the dream and can not get back to sleep until I write it down.

tonight's dream game

Musings on Game Design

MW2 Controversy: a rant to other game devs

So, the controversial Modern Warfare 2 footage leaked out, and now all the world’s in a hissy fit. Some are in a hissy fit because they are offended by the content, while some are having a hissy fit over the fact that anyone would be offended by the content. Most of these arguments I’ve read (from both ends of the spectrum) are from people who work in games. It’s a lot of the same bickering over and over, which mostly induces eye rolling in me.

BUT. I think it’s a shame, because people can’t put aside their bickering for two seconds to look at an interesting phenomenon, which could be extremely useful to us as game developers!

The two ends of the comment spectrum are equally frustrating. On one end is the “how could anyone defend this, it’s an abomination!” view. At the other end is the “how could you be offended by this when you play/make other shooters? You are a hypocrite!” The middle is peppered with milder, yet still annoying views, like the ever so common “IT’S A GAME.”

When I watched the video, my response was “wow, that’s pretty horrid! I hope there’s a way to skip it, because I don’t think I could play this and I wouldn’t be able to complete the game!”

Enter the people who don’t understand how I could feel that way when I play other shooters – the implied hypocrite stance. I don’t understand this reaction! One shooter evoked an emotional response in me, one did not. You can’t control the emotions that you feel, they just happen, you can only control your actions. The fact that one evoked an emotional response in me does not mean I’m a hypocrite, you guys.

ESPECIALLY since that seemed to be the whole intent behind the controversial sequence: to evoke a powerful emotional response. And they succeeded! They did their job, guys, it worked on me. They were TRYING to get me to have an intense emotional response where I may not when playing other shooters, that’s why they treated it so artfully.

It just happened that the emotions evoked in me exceeded some threshold, into the repulsion territory, as in “wow, I can’t endure that, abandon ship!” It’s the same reason I can never watch Boys Don’t Cry ever again.

Anyway, what’s the thing that everyone’s missing which I implied earlier? Well, if people could stop “how dare they”-ing Infinity Ward for including the sequence, and if people could stop saying “I wasn’t offended but you were, therefore there’s something wrong with you,” we could get a good learning opportunity out of this.

You can’t deny that this scenario is different than other shooters. People love to bark “how is this any different than x, y, z?” and I’m like, “well, HOW?” Explore the answer to your own question rather than using it as a way to say there’s something wrong with that person who felt something. There might be something useful in the answer!

It evoked a strong emotional response, others did not, and I’m not the only case here. Shouldn’t we, as game designers, be looking at WHY that happened? How mysterious! Why did this segment have such a different impact on this person? Was it the content? Was it the polish put into the ambiance? Was it the timeliness of the content? Was it some more complex arrangement of attributes that, standing alone, would not have been sufficient to evoke an emotional response? How are the people who had a response different than the ones who had none? Did it hit close to home for them on some level? Is there a correlation in demographic for the ones who did or didn’t?

Aren’t we always after tools and methods to create more emotional experiences in games?? We should be picking this thing apart and researching it, not arguing and accusing each other of being flawed because someone did or did not have an emotional response to it.

GEEZ, you guys. To hell with the lot of you! Hrmph.

Rant over!

Games Played, Musings on Game Design

Uncharted 2: A first look

6 Comments

I just played the first bit of Uncharted 2, and made this tweet: “Uncharted 2 has the best acting and dialogue I’ve ever seen/heard in a game. EVER.”

However, I feel I need to clarify my point. Seeing as I’ve just resigned myself to the fact that all voice acting in all games is going to be shitty, regardless of how good the game is, such a compliment seems meaningless without qualifiers.

So, here is a better metaphor. You know the L-Curve, right?

http://www.lcurve.org/

Now, instead of family income, pretend that graph is for “quality of voice acting in games.” The majority of the football field encompasses “all games.” The last stack there at the end is Uncharted 2. You’ll have to zoom out several times.

There, I feel like my comment has been qualified.

Games and Game Development, Personal Blog

Crawfish and other fun

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Today was a fantastically social day, by my standards, seeing as I normally spend my weekends napping. Rob and I and some others were commenting about how the older ETC alums know very little of the current first-years (or rising second-years at this point), so we decided to organize a brunch for the LA alums and students who were interning in the city this summer.

A healthy crowd turned up, and a fun time was had by all mingling and chatting and such. I got a really tasty drink, which was essentially water infused with lemons, oranges, and cucumbers, with a large amount of each floating about in it. It was cheap and refreshing, and I’d like to attempt making some myself at some point.

After the ETC Brunch, Ben and I headed south for the Long Beach Crawfish Festival, which is supposedly the largest festival of its kind out of New Orleans. The buzz had been spread around Insomniac about the event, and we were all for it. I’m certainly glad I went, for the crawfish were DELICIOUS. They scooped up a giant pile of steamed crawfish onto my platter, along with some red potatoes and corn, and it was all seasoned very well. I also picked up a plate of jambalaya from another booth, and it too was fantastically made.

We sat down in the shade with a multitude of other people and listened to some great live Cajun music, including one band featuring a washboard played with spoons. Fantastic! The atmosphere was great all around, as there were tons of people decked out in fancy hats, dresses, and parasols (much to my delight, as I was carrying my own). Everyone was having a great time, and I couldn’t help but snap up some photos of people dancing and enjoying themselves.

After our crawfish feast, we met up with Josue, who lives in the area, along with his wife and friend, and went to an arcade. Normally I am not one to pass up on playing arcade games, but today I was content to watch Josue and his amazing skills at the old school Star Wars game, as well as some crazy sword game on which he got the high score for the day (some other girl was doing quite well playing after us, and Josue eyed her intently, thinking he may have to defend his sword game title, but she only got 2nd place. Fortunate enough, as we may have been there all day, otherwise).

We parted ways at last and Ben and I returned to Burbank, where I was quick to catch a nap upon arriving home. Today was a delicious adventure, for sure. I think I’m going to have to make a pot of shrimp creole before too long.

Games Played

Fat Princess

So I downloaded Fat Princess tonight and gave it a whirl, and it had its pros and cons.

Overall I’d say it was enjoyable to play, especially since Josh and I worked out a system for playing through the single player story. I really enjoyed resource collecting as a worker, and he enjoyed fightin, so I’d resource it up in the beginning of the battle and upgrade the units, and he’d do the fighting necessary to finish it off. It worked out splendidly and was quite fun!

There are some things about the game that are very hard, as though they didn’t get enough noob-testing in. We gave up on the lava level after trying again and again to make some headway and failing each time. I feel like it’s the kind of game which, especially in online play, can end up being like old school Alterac Valley, in an endless stalemate. Though, even in the long games where little was made towards the end goal, I still noticed a lot of little gains and advances and retreats going on throughout, so that was pretty cool.

I was actually surprised at how little the Fat Princess gag actually comes into play, as most of the time is spent as different units – gathering resources, capturing holds, killin dudes and whatnot. The time for actually capturing the princess seems very short and swift, regardless of how many people it takes to carry her. It didn’t feel like the focus of the game, but I guess the gimmick helped sell it a lot more than a generic capture the flag theme.

Anyway, I loved the ease with which you could change units, and the theme of putting on a new hat makes you a new unit was delightful. I also loved that each unit is rewarded with points for doing its job, so the worker is rewarded for cutting down trees and mining ore. It helps make those players feel valuable and rewarded.

In the end, I feel like I would like to finish the story mode for this, and like it’s the sort of game I may drop into online play for now and again. Once you understand all the units, it’s easy to pick up and get going, in a very “Castle Crashers” sort of way. I’d say it’s worth a try for sure.

Games Played

Twilight Princess

Twilight Princess checked off my video game list! I finished tonight, and was extremely pleased with the game. I enjoyed it through and through, especially a lot of the items and mechanics that I wasn’t used to, and the storylines were all great. I really loved the relationship between Midna and Link that grew throughout the entire game – it was beautifully nourished (and I even shed a few tears at the very end!)

Creating believable relationships in games, and making you really care about characters, is hard as all get-out, as we all know. Many times if a game tries very hard to make you feel a connection to a character, it feels forced, contrived, and induces eye rolling and scoffing (*coughcough*GearsOfWar*cough*). The Midna relationship, however, grew and changed and was believable, and I latched right onto it. I feel like just about everything in that game (from the story, to the animations, to the audio) served that character relationship, and it worked!

Also, Twilight Princess has some of the best end credits ever. When I finish a game, I want the end credits to wind down the experience – a nice ease out of the interest curve. Credits that give nods back to the story and show “what happened after” are wonderful and gratifying. I’m pretty sure these end credits were the most pleasing I’d experienced since Final Fantasy VI.

Well…7 games left! I’d better pick up the pace! 🙂 I doubt I’ll make it by the end of the summer, but I’ll keep working at it.