The trees are normal mapped

Polygon Fiction

2005-10-04T16:39:00.000Z

No updates in a million years, true. I've moved to 'Boro', The North, to study interactive art for three years. To celebrate, here's my new, turbol33t alternative blog. It can be found at

www.samgoldwater.com

RSS users can just take the feed as this link:

http://www.samgoldwater.com/?feed=rss2

Brand new

2005-09-12T22:25:00.000Z

The cabbie's making conversation, he's told you that work's been a bit slow today, and traffic was bad on the way to the airport, where he picked you up. Outside the grubby windows, implausably tall, gleaming skyscrapers disappear into the clouds, the sun flickers in the corner of your vision, a nearby suspension bridge's symmetric struts interrupting its gaze.

"You new around here?" He says, off-handedly.

You've only been playing the game for half an hour, this still feels like the playable intro. He's implying you are in the way he asks, but the UI brings up a discreet overlay - 'yes' or 'no'. Its the first time you've had a choice in dialogue from your otherwise silent character.

He's expecting a response. Smiling at the fact of it:
"Yes", you reply silently. Look out of the window again, "brand new" you think.

----------------------

A single optional choice dialogue, what the NPC responds with is appropriate, but only a line for either choice. In a sense, it's rhetorical, in that the actual choice is non-concequential. What's important is that the player thinks about the question for a second. And in a sense, that choice defines a binary attitude to the game that may stay with them. Bright eyed, hopeful, excited 'yes', or jaded, disinterested, deceptive, experienced 'no'.

Luminescence

2005-09-10T11:50:00.000Z

The sky is an ashen wash, painted monotone. Get up late and feel like you'd never been to sleep. Cloud cover filters a low light, noon feels like five o'clock. Rain tip toes across welcoming foliage, watch from a window with the tungsten down. Greens are greener, soft shadows.

So much water - it takes you back there, hundred of feet beneath. Echoing chimes of the Electroplankton return, their blithe expressions a portrait of serenity. Passing by the glass, a jar, invading droplets spurred by the howling wind make dusty lagoons of the window sill.

The pitter-patter cacophony takes an intermission. Sun-Animalcules and Luminaria hum contentedly, basking in the luminescent haze of the ocean floor.

SL

2005-08-17T20:01:00.000Z

500ft up, I took a drag thoughtfully, smoke rising in spheres. Foggy vistas far beyond made a rocky line graph of the horizon. Nearby, A man strutted back and forth, waving his arms and rotating his hips on thin air. I floated next to him for a while.
"I can't stop dancing", he said.
Quietly, in the background, Aphex Twin seemed to agree.

Procedural

2005-08-13T13:24:00.000Z

Goosebumps of excitement wave over me as I consider the monumental impact offered by procedural elements of virtual worlds.

Remember when Will Wright destroyed that entire planet in the GDC demonstration of Spore? That planet was unique - the culmination of an unprecedented formula of fluid choices. There was a history to that spherical nation. Now it is gone.

In the same way physics introduce a piece of infinity to games, as will procedural elements. It is the elimination of a fundamental limitation we are bound to, and as a new starting point for content creation, it is one better based on reality. In the quest for virtual worlds in which every character is the result of a piece of genetic code, where the Sun is a physical entity millions of miles away, and all the accepted facades of gaming melt away, this could be regarded as the important milestone since 3D.

Perhaps gameplay

2005-08-12T20:56:00.000Z

I feel better. On my left a woman with sandals and a large rimmed hat sits casually, virtuosically plucking a kind of mini harp. On my right, through a doorless opening, visitors discuss the Forest's most recent art installation. Behind me, through the heavy curtain, a free two man play is being staged. I choose to stay here, between it all, soaking in the woody smell and sipping grape juice. "Here's your grape juice, Sam." On the low table beneath this circle of couches - a Japanese to English dictionary, some wilting plants, an unbranded foil of pills. A charcoal coloured church, clearly visible through the cafe's glass front, provides a medieval backdrop, upon which top hatted Fringe performers and loosely clothed frequenters come and leave through the front door.

Perhaps gameplay can be defined in this way - the process of virtual learning, cerebrally and dexterously.

Watching the harpist, her enjoyment of playing comes from a satisfaction - a self recognition of skill. Also from the challenge of exploring the boundaries of that skill.

Good gameplay seems to share those traits. If the learning process involved isn't fun, it is bad gameplay. If the learning process isn't engaging, perhaps because you've learned a similar skill before, or it's too easy, this too is bad gameplay.

Progression through the game must be like the best harp teacher would guide their lessons - Challenging, but forgiving, varied, and with potential for the student to experience rewarding freedom and allowed opportunity for personal expression.

One angle

2005-08-11T20:16:00.000Z

We are all products of our environment. I think games are generally as clinical and devoid of originality as they are because of the sub-concious influence of the deplorable 60htz portal on which they are born. The concepts of hotkeys, code bases and algorythms are less interesting than directing a film crew on set. Perhaps that's not the best comparison, but obviously the glare of the XP rectangles isn't the most inspiring environment for the creation of art. There's no alternative of course, but it gets me down to think that's how the majority of my time could be conditioned under. Shit, it already is.

That's one angle. Another could be that with a connection, the widest possible library of literature, music and visual art is instantly available. This might be the preferred take of Linden Lab's Philip Rosedale, who boldly stated that did he not think Second Life's players were coming away from the game emotionally richer, better people than they were without the experience, he would quit his job.

The rest of the MMO based panel of the social gaming discussion at EIEF today all seemed to, if not agree, at least place their games (Guild Wars, Habbo Hotel, Xbox Live) as a worthy alternative to prime time TV, that they argued players replaced the latter with. While I'd like to share Rosedale's confidence - which in Second Life, I do kinda - a friend of mine down the road dropped out of school for Wow. Another ended up joining the police following an academic u-turn, again, Azeroth driven. What do they come out with? Fond memories of Ironforge, not much more. Gaming seems less the pure, emerging creative format for cases like these.

Going to Cargo, industry party started an hour ago.

running and jumping

2005-08-10T19:27:00.000Z

Ian Livingstone doesn't have much to say. For a co-creator of dungeons and dragons, the climax of talk titled 'geek to chic' being the point-and-laugh absurdity of an American hunter who played Deer Hunter in the off-season, was under whelming. Eyes down, he reeled off a jilted history 'of gaming' in sound bite monotones, introducing video montages and documentary sections of a few minutes each. Most felt like Sony marketing videos, others, like the appalling 'booth babes' clip served, in his words, to indicate women's increasing participation in the industry.

Gaming's apparent 'geek to chic' metamorphosis amounts to new consoles doubling as other devices, having wireless controllers, and being backward compatible. Hurrah. Livingstone said 'geek' as if a presenter of gaming TV show, as if as far away from such a term as possible. He tried to coax the audience into admitting to having tried cosplay, as if he wasn't partially responsible for a good deal of its invention.

What really got me was his final point (made through another video clip): how ridiculous it was that this guy would turn to a game when his outdoor hobby was impossible to partake in. What the hell does he think gaming is if not the artful recreation of real life? I used to love skating on the street in the september warmth, until the rain set in when we'd run home to play Tony Hawk instead. If I'm lonely with nothing to do, I may well turn to Second Life - where I can fly into someone's house and discuss virtual joinery, or Linden Labs politics.

His focus on Tomb Raider - a character he created - as an icon that helped move gaming into the public domain was dominated by a unwatchable skit following some moron interviewing four cosplaying Laras at a mini-golf course. Maybe he's just terrified the next game will play as badly as the animation looks.
Or maybe he just hit a nerve of mine, but showing full length Tomb Raider film trailers and irrelevant Angelina Jolie interviews in a games conference just pisses me off. Moron.

I'm now sitting outside the 'Go Play Games' event at the EIEF. From inside come drifts of overly popular pop music from the Dance Dance variant, Far Cry Instinct's piercing M16 fire and the cry of glee from children discovering Donkey Konga. As Hugh Hancock pointed out, it was nice to have the surrounding virtual carnage interrupted by the Machinimation demo kiosk in the middle of the floor, serving ten players at a time the chance to film their Quake 3 characters running and jumping.

I spent most of the day piecing together a homage to Stalker in a dark, granite themed map with Fountainhead's gloriously easy tools. Used a track from some monk chanting album I had on my iRiver as the backbone for some generous use of black, dotted with clips of Quake 3's decadent deathmatch cast walking alone through slimy corridors. Very Tarkovsky. Also had the opportunity to look at Resident Evil 4 again. It is excellent. Well the first half hour is.

Looking forward to the industry stuff, starting tomorrow.

Edinburgh is beautiful.

EIEF

2005-08-06T17:36:00.000Z

Some of my machinima is going to feature at the Edinburgh Interactive Entertainment Festival, at a lecture given by genre flag-bearing Paul Marino.

Wootage. To the max. Anyone who reads this (3 person(s)) that includes anyone who's going (1 person(s)) and excludes me (0 person(s)), should come down. It's a great line up of events: Philip Rosedale of Linden Labs will be talking, Charles Cecil of the Broken Sword series, seminars and discussions on humour, narrative and social gaming, the Edge awards etc etc etc.

Caffeine

2005-08-02T11:11:00.000Z

Maddox on a gaming-political issue so absurdly farcical, I get too frustrated even thinking about, let alone commenting on.

I want to shoot people in the face, bang prostitutes, traffic drugs, steal cars, and terrorize police officers without this filthy smut in my game. Frankly, I'm appalled that Rockstar would allow such wholesale corruption of our youth. Years from now when America has become a withered husk of the morality it once stood for, historians will look back at what triggered it all and point to one event: a boolean variable that unlocked a simulated sex scene in a video game.

Read the rest here

Oneida

2005-08-01T14:15:00.000Z

Best bands seen in New York were

Antony and the Johnsons,
CocoRosie,
The Flesh,
Oneida,
Extra Action Marching Band,
Chris Brokaw.

All had something to offer, particularly CocoRosie, who I'd love to see again. Antony was at the Town Hall, Times Square. He was unbelievable. His voice really is something else. Such a lovely guy too.

The Notekillers did as their name described. They supported Jason Lowenstein who, to a lesser extent, also killed notes.

Random guy at The Flesh. They supported The Dirtbombs, who, irritatingly, I had to miss due to subway works and large travel distances.

Location, location, unique static mesh.

2005-07-29T06:57:00.000Z

Here are a few ways I think the player can be coerced into caring for their environment in-game.

Environmentally memorable - there must be iconic visuals to remember the location by. The Hollywood sign represents the ostentatiousness of rich LA, perhaps also it's desolate, sprawling scale.

A feeling of ownership over a place or property. This can be cultivated with potential for individuality. Static, museum-like abodes, ala San Andreas don't cut it. In Vice City, owning the mansion broke down to long walks between the essentials like cars and save points.
Home, to me, was a little place in west Balmora, Morrowind - Caius Cosades' house after he kindly lent it to me for the duration of the game. That tiny single room apartment became a clumsily organised base of operations for my epic questing. Expensive tools, magpie-esque trinkets, weapons and collected books stacked up during the 120 hours I inhabited Vvardenfell. Every time I went to someone else's house, I'd steal their candles to brighten up the place, even eye up their vases and decorations, always thinking of my own four walls Back Home. The extent to which the current location differed from my flat only increased the sense that it was my flat.

People. The inhabitants of the environment have to share a quality that links them appropriately to their surroundings. If they don't have any character, then they don't have any impact on the identity of the place, and may as well not be there. Evidence of this personality can be en mass in the form of news stories or linear plot happenings, but there should also be player-witnessed 'street level' personal experience with the populace. Player governed experiences are always the most memorable. Easier said than done? This can boil down to minor writing changes for NPC responses, etc. Of course, how complicated this would be to implement varies according to whether speech is voiced, blah blah.

Effect. The player must feel some responsibility for at least one aspect of the location's make-up. If he/she cannot alter the world, then there is no emotional inclination to preserve (or change) it. *

Respect. There has to be a sense of something larger or more powerful than the player at large. A lot of players follow a specific desire to rule, or be the best - for them to retain this urge, something or someone must be the object of their desire. This also provides a opportunity for mixed emotion for the environment - ownership of a private property, ability to complete missions etc are all actions that empower, awe or fear for the same place in different ways provides a palette for more complex feelings in the player, (always a good thing, yet almost exclusively MIA).

My (real) experience of America has been one far richer than games have presented me with, naturally. But a lot of what I think has taught me most about the States is stuff that wouldn't be that hard to implement in-game. The first thing I thought of as we left in a taxi from LAX was "wow, this really in San Andreas". The comparison extended barely any further than the road architecture, but authenticity and identification with a virtual equivalent, or any fictional environment, I think, could be increased through the cultivation of the mentioned factors.

New York from the Empire State Building a couple of days ago. Wouldn't that be an amazing set piece? The NPC character who shows you up here could be an enthusiastic engineer, loves skyscrapers - dies falling from one - bittersweet association with the location is created.

* Of course, a want to have effect when it is impossible can be equally emotive - killer leaves to find your wife leaving you tied to a chair, etc. Perhaps a taste of both could prove the robustness of the world and its ability to cope with the player's presence, and narrative quality in sections when you feel most strongly and have no power to act. (More emotive when power to act is allowed? Hmm)

Second World

2005-07-27T04:09:00.000Z

When I reviewed Second Life for VGL, I rated it at 93%. Re-entering the Second World today - a year or so later - reminded me why I placed it so highly. First there's the glee of exclaiming "Look! Look guys, I'm buying clothes in a game. Omg look, industrial themed roller disco lottery night in a game! R0FL to the max, cosplay! In a game."

The depth of this virtual world is so uncannily life-like, that the lines begin to blur to the point where you wonder what the purpose of your being there actually is, referencing that real life has the noticeable benefit of soft shadows. First Life food also tastes better.

Today's italics inducing experience was actually the reason for my visit: the newly opened Always Black library, a 3D extension of an excellent site showcasing people's mainly gaming related writing. Even lil' 'ole me has a submission there somewhere. I entered the co ordinates supplied by Rossignol into the teleporter/mapscreen, and followed a red marker from the point I spawned at, some 800 meters away. The UI made it obvious exactly where I was going, but to humour myself, and to get a sense of the local inhabitants of the Furness region of SL, I paused as a green dot came into view on the mini map. The human player was standing on top of an enormous glass dome, someone's ostentatious mansion, or perhaps an up-market car sales room, I floated down to her level and perched near, floating on the glass tiles. Yonke Ming was a large, tubby cat with a feathery tail and blue shoulder length hair, she looked at me as I descended.

You: hey
Yonke Ming: Heyas.
You: how goes?
Yonke Ming: Fines.
You: I'm looking for the Always Black library, seen it around?
Yonke Ming: Nope...
You: oh, ok.
You: Do you have a place round here?
Yonke Ming: A place?
You: yuh
Yonke Ming: No, it's in Munro.
You: Oh ok. What do you do?
Yonke Ming: Make avs and stuff. Fatfurs, roleplay, that stuff.
You: cool,
You: roleplay? Like, act? Are there SL stages?
Yonke Ming: Nope.
You: oh,

...pause

You: Well, hilarious talking to you.
You: I'm gonna go look for that library.

It was only 200 meters away, a tall, white, airy building with spacious windows and open-plan interior. Swanky. I waited for the geometry to load, (everything loads on the fly in SL), wanting to get the full effect before I went in. When it had done, I fell to the entrance steps and sauntered into the high ceiling main room. Alice, Kieron Gillen, Jim Rossignol, John Walker and others were all up on display. Downstairs, a door to what seemed like a private office (almost felt like trespassing) had two laptops on the desk. One invitingly titled with a pop-up "blog from here!".

"Guys, guys! Come look at this! I'm blogging, in a game.

Roller-coaster

2005-07-26T03:29:00.000Z

Faith in gaming is a like a sport for me. Read the news, be wowed, hear about a publishing fallout, this indie developer goes down, predictable sequel announced, free content replaced by retail expansion pack, EA get bigger, Facade gets released: it's a roller-coaster. A low point came today when UK Resistance parody 360 launch list that came out a few days ago was replaced by a real one. The hilarity of the former becomes more prophetic than perhaps is comfortable. Lets compare some of UK:R's joke ones with real (approved by actual respiring human publishers) game names:

War of The Wars
Super Robot Wars

Elite Men Troops
Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter

Storm Commanders: Ultra War
Dead or Alive: Xtreme 2

The first of each are fake, but it wasn't all that obvious, was it?

Perhaps its the beer talking, but re-reading Always_Black's Jedi Knight 2 piece, mentioned on Wonderland today, filled me with hope for the potential of Gaming. I use capitals to emphases my reference to everything the industry has to offer. All too often, I'll express to someone what Gaming could offer, it's black hole depth and starry potential only to find that when I've finished berating a poor listener, it's frustratingly clear how few examples I have to reference. The JK2 piece shows just how effectual gaming can be, and it reminds me of a handful of (mainly multiplayer) moments in which I felt like more than a player. A leader, a comedian, mystic, hero: times when I've felt like I haven't wasted time.

Its the designer's job to make that amount of wasted time hopefully, eventually, become as rare as the good moments are now. W00t, lets make artful games, everyone!

Slow Burn

2005-07-25T05:28:00.000Z

Not too long ago, I saw Stalker for the first time, (Tarkovsky, 1979). The film is truely on another level of cinema, so beautiful that it makes me happy just to know it exists. We actually drank to it's brilliance at a pub a couple of weeks ago. There's a slow-burn, highly visual theme to the film, you are immersed in the setting just through the immaculate, gentle pacing. Its a story about a place where people have to leave behind their selfishness in order to survive, and learn an ultimate truth about themselves, that may be their undoing.

Vector Park is about the joys of exploration. The unexpected discoveries of a world that obeys unusual sets of laws. It responds to your input in rewarding ways. It also looks and sounds delightful. Welcoming, but also subtly unsettling: lonely. It is, in fact, an excellent gaming equivelent to Stalker.

I'd love to see a more substantial 3D furthering of what Vector Park does so eloquently, combined with a sense of majestic atmosphere Stalker evokes.

Repeating geometry

2005-07-23T06:19:00.000Z

I don't know if these cacti are normal mapped, but the Joshua Tree desert region of eastern California certainly masters the tesselation of sand texturing.

CA

2005-07-21T20:19:00.000Z

Blogging on the move.

LA is full of wireless networks, you can hardly move for them. My mail client just sent some outbox items while I was typing from a moving car. Just like 24, California is comprised of wavy heat haze and rusty chain link fences. Sharp desert shrubs and melting auto garages also feature. The relentless glare, July Sun, pelts softening tarmac and scalds pedestrians who slave up and down the metric boulevards. The Flag is also everywhere. Outside people's houses, in front of high schools, little ones protrude from porch doorways, faded strips of white and red loll from fast food joint roofs. Underneath, SUVs rumble across desolate highways. Everything is larger here, and somehow, more easy going. Less assuming.

London

2005-07-07T21:12:00.000Z

I got there at about 1pm.

People watching from one side of Russel Square.

"Ripped open like a sardine can", they said: the bus wreckage outside the BMA.

Kings Cross station, obscured by fire engines.

City workers with no transport home, resorting to Viz.

Westminister Cathedral - a service to mourn those lost.

Media

2005-07-06T16:15:00.000Z

Today, I am consumed with a love for what I can watch, hear, or play: virtually any artistic media I wish to. I am hugely greatful for the opportunity to experience the imagination of a incredible wealth of creatives in such a wide range of platforms. I realise it's something that cannot last, warez won't be around forever.

Leadership

2005-07-03T15:06:00.000Z

I mentioned once the importance of the torch to Pandora Tomorrow multiplayer. To the spy, watching the guard's mouse driven flashlight is an opportunity of voyeuristic intimacy - you are acquainted with the enemy's every wrist action. It's a means of detailed expression in communicative gameplay - multiplayer.

Battlefield 2 too, purely through design rules, channels meaningful communication for players.

I was commander of half a 64-player server, a position that I hesitated before taking on. Squads one and two were full, I assumed fully operational. Eager to prove my worth, I commanded my Alpha (unit one) to the nearest hostile point. The leader, one 'Snake_007' accepted the order immediately. I watched as the green blips of his crew drew together, ploughed out to the location through the flooded paddies, killed everyone and took the point in 30 seconds. He requested a supply drop - I obeyed. Chinese killer ants Alpha had proven themselves to be, I selected 'commend' from the response list: "You're the best damn squad I've ever set eyes on!" (Woah, not like that, why are these macros so enthusiastic?)

Bravo and Charlie (units two and three, full and almost full) were lacking attention, I decided. I sent them to some adjacent points along the front line, cunningly governing my lovely Alpha more intricately, planning a pincer around a critical junction at which they'd meet Bravo and Charlie. I ordered in radar and supplies for my men as they converged on the enemy base. Rag tag units five and six are summoned to defend a disputed zone of our defence. The flags turn blood red, victory.

The game is near. I lay the groundwork for a direct assault on the final points down the road. Real, human loyalties and relationships were already established. Alpha, my white knights, Bravo and Charlie, my workhorse steadies, and five and six - half full units I considered unreliable. The dreamy 'Snake_007' and his men would lead the operation. I issue commands and offer radar and artillery assistance to the relevant parties. Ready. Alpha, go! ...Did he hear me? Alpha? Alpha squad! What are you doing? Suddenly angry, I macro "Start following orders!" (woah, that sounded harsh.) Necessary though, Bravo and Charlie are requesting assistance and Snake_007 is skirting the no-fly zone in a boat, half the map away. His men are scattered. I hail him again. Nothing. I have been betrayed.

Communication, right there. Well, it was the lack of it that brought this particular match to life. In quite a different way to the low level, one way, strip tease dialogue of the watchful spy and the projecting enemy torch, Battlefield 2 offers player communication that makes multiplayer meaningful. It’s in the delegation of power. Very quickly, squad members see their leader's ability to lead, leaders see their commander's, commanders see the leader's ability to obey, and the leaders see members. The cogs of functionality for this system are greased by the easy macro commands and balanced class roles, but essentially, it's a system that perhaps inadvertently, is built to quickly illustrate a quality in other players.

Leadership down. Next I'd like to see sense of humour.

Pacifist

2005-06-29T23:10:00.000Z

The battle repulsed me. I exited the buggy as my teammates passed through a small fishing village on the way to a hotzone further north. The friendly tanks rumbled past, an inane inevitability. Instead of sprinting the fastest possible route to my certain death, as they did, I took to the hills above the village shacks. Ambling up surfaces shallow enough to climb, I eventually found myself skirting a river that ran across the combat zone. The air was alive with the sound of wildlife, although there were no obvious sources for the sound. Lofty trees stretched upwards in clumps amongst the dull grass, sparce, forlorn in the dense fog that lingered over the water's deep stillness. It stretched seemingly forever in all directions, save for the skewed angle that looked like a ship wreck.

Artillery growled far away, I lay in the tropical mud, blissfully aware of destruction I was no longer a part of.

Battlefield 2

2005-06-26T17:18:00.001Z

A review of Battlefield 2 has been added to the archives. It currently isn't published anywhere. (If anyone wants it for their site, let me know).

UPDATE: Gone to Thunderbolt

Back on the ground, more gushing praise can be sung for the graphical splendour of the game's Eastern theatre. Enemy black hawks cast down ominous shadows, artillery sends up giant, devastating spews of opaque debris, specularity reflects the evening sun off the runway, and the environmental detail observed from a lonely dam-top watch tower takes the breath away. At maximum detail anyway. Weigh it up - graphics card vs non-essential internal organ.

Read it here

Grove Street

2005-06-18T21:22:00.000Z

Following a comment posted recently about the importance of environmental detail choice, with reference to San Andreas, the game's now out for PC - I've been able to peruse its locales from about five ft nearer the screen. Barely had time to start, but tonight I fired it up for 10 minutes for a bike ride around Los Santos.

When people talk about gameplay over graphics, they've obviously never wheeled a bmx out of their garage at dusk in the newest GTA. Sauntered down the Grove Street cul-de-sac, wheelie-ing lazily past the homies' shacks before breaking into a frantic pedal down into dry canal ditch. Up the other side, veer wildly into the main road, past the gym, and over the bridge - you're almost home. The view distance stretches so far in any direction that where ever you look, the world always looks invitingly explorable.

Agency

2005-06-16T09:35:00.000Z

In my opinion, a best case scenario would be to experience a game like a dream. That is, the game would unfold before us, in the expert hands of a writer, but we would still be fooled into thinking we had agency.

- JhinAlexander - IGDA forum

What a perfect definition.

Interactivity = Creativity

2005-06-14T01:08:00.000Z

So TV doesn't require and decision making on the part of the viewer. This isn't interactive (in what I understand is the most common opinion of interactivity). In-game cinematics are often criticised from a design point of view - in our media, interaction is key, so any non-interactive element detracts from the essence of the form. It is argued that interactive media is fundamentally more important than non, but that is a moot point for this post.

So then if TV/film is non-interactive because it involves no impact on the part of the user, the most interactive game would be that that offers the greatest potential for diversity of player driven affect.

Now, we're seeing a trend develop in some newer, more original games, called 'sandbox' play. A method of design that offers players a set of tools to use, and manipulate creatively for their own personal goals - tailored for and by the user, unlike the traditional rigid objective style we're used to. SimCity has an element of sandbox play, Spore, The Movies, The Sims and even Dungeon Keeper all to varying extents offer sandbox elements. They all offer more freedom than usual towards an often distant aspirational goal.

But what is 'sandbox'? It looks to me like it's the design intention to cultivate player creativity. The more choices available to the player, the more creatively decisive input is required. If that is the case, what would be the purest example of this form? The maximum emphasis on player creativity? And in turn, wouldn't that also be the most interactive game?

I'm sure when The Movies hits the shelves, some people will be disappointed in the lack of complete freedom in the film construction element of the creation/management sim. So why not have a game based entirely around virtual filmmaking? Perhaps with integrated online submission/distribution/viewing systems, ratings, competitions, ladders etc etc? Sounds like the ultimate sandbox example to me. But wait, these systems already exist - level design game? Hammer or UnrealEd. Film editing game? Final Cut Pro. Music making simulator? Cubase. Are these programs (never yet described as games) actually the criterion of sandbox design and therefore, the epitome of interactivity?

'loads of cool stuff'

2005-06-09T19:08:00.000Z

In a thread titled "Post your innovative game ideas!!!" on PCGF today, one 'rumpleforskin' posted this wonderful offering:

u have your own car and u have to go on this trip to get to the other side of the city cause your mum is dying or something. On your trip u have to stop fill up petrol, eat, sleep and everything. For example if u dont sleep enough ure hands will be shaking and your vision will be going and u can crash your car. U can stop and change your tires or engine or whatever. u can go anywhere you want and explore and u also have some money but u have a time limit so u cant take to long. on the way u would meet loads of cool stuff.

what do u think?

Thank you, rumpleforskin, you have inadvertantly born a new benchmark of design. A standard. I propose that every design brief ever written from this day forth should be measured in quality as 'rumpleforskins' - this example calculating as 'one'.

Projected direction

2005-06-08T11:10:00.000Z

I picked a greenfly off of my t-shirt yesterday, and blew it violently off its bewildered perch on my fingertip. I wondered, what sensation does the greenfly feel as this takes place. What is it thinking? If you watch a players avatar run through a multiplayer game, couldn't the apparent thought process and number of actions available be compared to that of a more primative real world creature, like a greenfly?

What landed on my t-shirt can fly in any direction, the quake 3 player can run around and jump. The fly knows its purpose, and goes about it without question - as does the quake 3 player, but instead of feeding/mating/sleeping(?) he shoots, changes weapon and checks his score. The fly's ability to express its self (in our eyes) is very limited, as is the player's.

Perhaps evolution of the human species could undergo a change of projected direction.

Area of Effect

2005-06-07T13:30:00.001Z

So, F.E.A.R. MP beta - it's like this: there's dynamic lighting, but not to much gameplay effect, melee attacks aren't (quite) useful enough, team deathmatch mode works in a similar way to Call Of Duty, and there are lots of particles. Its cute though. That is all.

Because any more description than that would be nit-picking beyond what is reasonable. I am trying to maintain a wider perspective on gaming innovation so that when it comes to my turn, I won't expect my audiences to be happy with a game that, at a glance, only increases the number of smoke.gif sprites you'll be seeing at any one time.

If I was to pursue the finer points of Monolith's new multiplayer test, I might mention the intriguing item choices - only one grenade per spawn, thrown with a hotkey (omg Halo style :O:O:O) and how the less usual balance of tight, devestating area of effect impacts on the corridor based level design. Or the tactical significance of smoke walls created by more intense fire fights, whether this mechanic will have a lasting impact on common codes of multiplayer shooters. I might also comment on the blend of carnage and the more realistic touch ironsights introduce, along with leaning - also present.

But I shouldn't, because it's all nonsense! These are minute adaptations to a form we all know like the back of our hands. Concentrating on them is to encourage the development of them, rather than the reinvention.

Numbers

2005-06-05T10:43:00.000Z

Any representation of something numerical in-game retracts from something we call 'realism'. Real life is completely numerical, how heavy this optical mouse is, the friction of this flooring - the number of meters I can sprint, the amount of real hitpoints I have (subjective to real life hitboxes) is all entirely based on numbers.

But observe your surroundings for a second - you'd never know to look at it, would you?

Games are also based on numbers, just far, far less of them. The floating point clarity of the path this piece of paper would take through the air when dropped to the floor could be thousands of figures long in real life. In games, it'd be no where near as complex.

Less complex, and a lot more obvious. Look at your HUD - health is numerical, ammo, carriable weight, the damage of my sword. It's not even specific to any genre of game - the remaining health of your refinery, the movement speed of your newly researched attack chopper, how many enemies left to kill... Everything in games is too frequently, too obviously numerical. So lets fix this.

In Battlefield - you run across an open road to an alley on the other side. About half way across, you realise this was a bad idea. Enemies materialise from out of a wall of smoke further down the road and open fire. Bullets whine intrusively as you half stumble to cover on the other side. Just before you get there, your view skews slightly, and your character lets out a groan. You continue down the alley to a darkened porch, away from the advancing troops. You press the hotkey for 'examine wounds'.

No, no. Wait, stop. I was going to suggest a method of health system based entirely on visuals. No HUD, you have to be out of harm's way for a moment to check how badly you're injured, then decide what to do from there. But if you were shot, you wouldn't need to check visually how bad the damage was, the pain alone would be enough to give you some indication. You could make up some reason for it, "all our soldiers are given a couple of Neurofen at lunch time," but that'd just be insulting. Thinking about that feature, where under a limited number of animations and texture sets, your character observes his leg, arm, stomach, shoulder for wounds. It would be gimicky and boring. Not to mention laughable in terms of authenticity.

Besides, damage in games has been done before. Your already lacklustre movement speed is often halved in Swat 4, having taken a hit or two. Suddenly the thought of tackling that whole next floor at a snail's pace prompts me to restart the mission. Is that an effective implementation of realistic damage?

Yeah, well.. Games still need to be less obviously based on numbers. In another FPS example, there could be an animation to check the number of rounds in a clip, rather than the 2D HUD counter.

Class of '05

2005-05-31T03:11:00.000Z

Postcards from GW

Robes: Complete

2005-05-24T13:23:00.000Z

High Quality, 80mb. Seriously suggested.

Lower, 30. Not good though, subtitles are harder to read.

That's right, Robes, my second machinima film is finished and ready for download. I call it machinima, but it isn't strict. Here's a brief synopsis.

Tonight on Channel 6's documentary series 'Krazy Kult Kount Down', is an insight into the story of Leo Deus and his shady organisation, Leoism. So shady that even the most basic purpose and beliefs of the cult eluded the masses. Thankfully, Janey and Darrel, the Channel 6 experts, along with various other qualified persons are on hand to lend their limitless expertise, going behind the myth of 'one of the most popular cults in the last few years'.

Open Hammer

2005-05-20T13:58:00.000Z

Whatever the current state of the industry, I'm consoled today when presented with this image. Open Hammer, draw a box. Like God rubbing his omniscient hands before the creation of the Earth, whole virtual worlds of possibility are suddenly opened. Gaming can't be creatively doomed yet.

Despair and Disillusionment

2005-05-19T16:10:00.000Z

I'm losing faith in games. Look at the titles, or the trailers of any game shown at E3 this year. Count the number of games that centre around 'HIGH OCTANE KILL EVERYMUTHAFUKARTHATMOVES' gameplay, the number of games with 'war' in the name, the number of sequels, the number of games with bosses, or with 'destructible scenery', and you'll have accounted for every offering I've clicked on the name for during the trade show's coverage.

It's fucking boring. High fantasy, sci-fi, sports, ancient civilisations... Very, very little has changed in a very, very long time. People studying cinema next year might be looking at old films like 8 1/2 and new ones like I Heart Huckabees. I'll be falling asleep listening to people talk enthusiastically about old games like fucking Lemmings, and new ones with names like Gears of War, Burnout Revenge, and Stranglehold. Urgh. It's artistically and intellectually barren nonsense with big sharp teeth, probably a rocket launcher, and maybe a spread sheet thrown in to remind you you're dealing with something as emotionally unattached as the numbers what you're playing is based on.

You could argue that I'm wrong, perhaps offering examples of intelligence in some recent games. "Swat 4 introduces some humanity in conflict", "Resident Evil 4 does something new for the importance of environment", you might say. You'd be right, these are the points I argue daily. But really, one game is an episode of a shallow cop show, another is a disastrously generic zombie flick. Step out a level - all these games are actually, derivitive, childish tedium fit only for those who would watch the non-interactive versions upon which these examples are based. And interactivity just doesn't make up for enough of the shortcomings of any of these titles.

I haven't played a single game this year, or, actually, ever, that has made me come away feeling better about myself, or more learned, or anything remotely positive. I'm tired of making excuses for the mind-numbing pap that makes up the majority of every game we play. In fact, I'm tired of worrying about the 3D Mark of my graphics card. I'm tired of banal details we pour over, oohing and aahing at alternate filing methods in and out of game. I'm tired of the innovation extending as far as the fucking GUI. I'm tired of ID3 tags, viruses, junk mail, IGN, the Splinter Cell series, Oleg Yavorsky interviews, EA, slow uploads, windows, even this damn chair. Excuse me.

Notice the claws on the character's feet. This makes him scarier.

Gaming Weather

2005-05-15T00:11:00.000Z

I don't know. And if it is the case that those with a life they really enjoy never have time for games, what is the point in making them? Watching the rain from my window I've often smiled, thinking; "ahh, ideal gaming weather". Yes - weather fit for doing nothing else. Apart from maybe testing a new umbrella.

When complimented by real, happening life, games seem dischordant and wasteful. Conflicting. Also drab, shallow, and always, always jouvenile. If I treat myself to an extra half hour of Guild Wars, I'll always regret it 30 minutes later, when I'm suddenly rushing to get my stuff together for school or something. Watching a bit more of Twin Peaks or Six Feet Under, I might feel defiant, angry at the commitments keeping me from watching something I feel is benificial on some level.

Not so with Guild Wars, or indeed, any other game. Defiance and frustration with other people and their deadlines is replaced by guilt, shame - regret for inflicting upon myself an extra level of stress, for the purpose of increasing my 'swordsmanship' skill from six to seven.

But I have more faith in Us than that. Fundementally, I think we just need better games. Perhaps also shorter games. More on that soon.

My Garden.

2005-05-13T11:38:00.000Z

What is the purpose of computer games? With reference to the fact that I can have a more vivid experience than almost any of them provide by simply standing in my garden.

Earthly Gamma

2005-05-11T13:54:00.000Z

Summer has a specific feel. Something quite additional to just the hard shadows and squinting brightness. Smell is a significant factor - the melting tarmac, the heightened pollution. The ambient sound also changes. Insects buzz, traffic noise somehow seems more prominant. Planes go over, patches of cloud push the earthly gamma slider around.

Games (thought I was straying there?) overstep or understate a good deal of the environmental sensory detail that's needed to create the mood for a scene. A summer atmosphere can evoke a lazy calm, or a heightened anger spurred by the heat. Winter; a whitened clarity, or a desperate foreboding maybe. So let's feel this in-game.

The best example of this I can think of was in San Andreas. I was knocked off my bike as I wheelied down my girlfriend's street - barged off the road, landing flat on my face. Standing up, shaken, I surveyed the area for the silver BMX. The sight before my eyes was one that was profoundly based on the environmental elements. The grass was long, neglected, blowing wavily around my knees. The low set houses, little more than shacks were mostly boarded up. A gun shot could be heard in the distance, and the heat haze blurred the cars at the junction up ahead. A perfect atmospheric composition. Even better is the level design to make your initial home where it is. My most distinct memory of San Andreas is riding across the train tracks on the main road near Carl's house, "Wrong side of the tracks" kind of symbolism immediately conjured. I'd bunny hop the curb to the gym in my wide jeans and white vest. Sandy buildings, contrasty shadows. That moment was hugely memorable. To me, it's what defines the game from it's predecessors. It was the authenticity of the setting - the economic but artful choosing of environmental detail.

The famous image of Stalker is the abandoned ferris wheel. Of course! What image could better connote the eerie, meloncholic emptiness of Chernobyl?

Don't confuse my point with something graphical - although these elements are graphically represented, it's the strategic and tactful choosing of these elements that makes effective environments. Summer is more than a fancy lense flare.

Conservative

2005-05-05T12:57:00.000Z

1up hands-on with Epic's new Unreal Tournament.

"Our goal is to make a much better UT than anything anyone's ever seen,"

- Steve Polge, lead designer.

There are some pretty mind blowing screenshots, and evidence that level design is based on geometry rather than artwork, but I thought that was standard practice. Also a new game mode, 'codenamed 'Conquest''. Get this, with an element of resource management. A new game mode? For a new game!? No DAMN WAY.

"It's only at a pen and paper stage right now," mentions Steve. Ah, excellent. Slap some new textures on some new levels, update the old games in the usual way, then add in the precious little (semi) innovation at the end. That way, it'll be too late to implement it to the rest of the game!

Here's an idea: stop playing to the needs of these conservative, anal-retentive UT hardcore types and do something interesting. I mean, Deathmatch could do with some reinvention...

Evolution not revolution then, as usual. On a more positive note, the first time I saw this as a thumbnail I was thinking "must be artwork, must be artwork, must be- ...OMGLOL It's not artwork! It's not artwork!"

Emerald Leaves

2005-05-04T22:01:00.000Z

Large amounts of time spent in-game inevitably takes its toll, in today's case by referencing itself outside of play. My life wouldn't make a hugely interesting game, so I try to avoid talking about it in this blog, but a Guild Wars analogy surfaced whilst standing a fair distance from my alternate 1152x864 existence that struck me vividly.

She stood there impatiently. An aging, stout, gnome-like woman with a no-nonsense countenance and eyes magnified by her glasses. I fumbled with my bag's zipper, half tearing the crumpled sheet of paper from the pocket.
"Here", I said, placing the tattered chart on the table. We were standing in the school lobby. Students passing by through the automatic doors brought gusts of cold air with them, the woman quickly placed a fist on my exam timetable to stop it blowing away.
"No, you don't have a clash. Look, you'll have philosophy in the morning, then media in the afternoon". She pointed at the contours on the page. A paperweight on the desk read "Mrs Cook - Administration".
"Ah, yeah, ok". I replied. "Won't that mean I have four exams on the same day?"
"Now you listen here, there are people who have seven, and asking for more". The woman's brow furrowed, suddenly affronted.
"In the real world-" she continued,
"Ok, ok. I know all about the real world". I thanked her and left. Strolling out of my usual side gate, across the playing fields and the school's surrounding area I paused to stare up from beneath the trees, marvelling at the emerald green of their translucent leaves against a pure blue sky. I don't know what the real world is like, not even slightly.

A perfect analogy for Guild Wars. What is known as 'pre-seared' Ascalon, the bright, green, lovely fantasy world you are eased in from. As with childhood, you're soon a big fish in a small pond. I've heard of the real world - out of the n00b area - but what's out there? The discovery is like a loss of virginity; a tainted innocence, a taking of one of life's major steps. Arriving in the 'post-seared Ascalon' is a shock. It's scary, and exciting.

Robes

2005-05-03T10:06:00.000Z

The teaser trailer for the spiritual successor to Dead Dogma is now available for download. More details soon.

Robes Teaser

41mb

Postcards from Tyria

2005-05-01T00:33:00.000Z

After a night of playing (slaving), there seems to be very little to distinguish Guild Wars from WoW. The clustered server system means that you very rarely see lots of people in one place, and the combat seems almost identical to Blizzards game. Player skill driven? How? Anyway, hooked up with someone. Tomorrow we're going to enter the 'real world' - leaving the soft, autumnal starting zone shown previously. Apparently it's big. Big and scary. There's inctricate PvP, guild combat, and customisable weapons options, all of which certainly sound worth a look. If they drag you through eight hours of The Grind to get to something that's actually original, they must think it's really worth it.

Tomorrow - Any substance beneath the style?

Fairy Tale

2005-04-30T11:58:00.000Z

The review copy of Guild Wars came. Haven't had time to look at it properly, but initial impressions aren't overtly strong. Streamlining is fine, but gamers also like substance. If you feel like what you're doing isn't substantial, the epic-ness RPGs famously evoke can be lost. Perhaps its that I haven't seen what it has to offer yet.

Either way, it's absolutely stunning to look at. The dreamy bloom effect that mimics HDR puts a far away, fairy tale impression on things.

In Pictures

2005-04-27T14:38:00.000Z

One mustn't judge based on first impressions, particularly ones as limited as this, but I find it hard to believe 3D Realm's Prey will include

...a tightly integrated story that packs an emotional punch, unlike other first person shooters.

based on:

But let us all keep open minds. For now.

We can instead point and laugh whole-heartedly at Digital Extreme's Pariah. If you pitched a film or a game synopsis to someone saying, "it's a mix of this, this and this", you'd be suggesting something new and interesting based on a blend of elements. Pariah's pitch could have sounded like, based on the multiplayer demo: "Halo, Unreal Tournament, and Not Fun." Vehicles and health system from Halo, but without the great physics and damage balance, plus the wackiness of UT, but slower and less wacky. Not Fun isn't a game, but there's definately some of it in there.

Oh, and the screen turns an ugly green when you equip the plasma rifle (not pictured). Presumably to curb what little enjoyment you might have pretended you were having.

Napalm Sprites

2005-04-25T20:59:00.000Z

The best stories capture something about humanity, illustrate something about ourselves that we hadn't seen before. Games very, very rarely do this.

Remember when Alyx is trying to get a word in between Barney and Dr.Kleiner? She's saying, paraphrased, "What cat? Uh, someone? What cat!?" When she gets no response from either man, who talks over her, she rolls her eyes at you and walks away. At you. Never have I felt so important in a computer game than at this moment, when this girl chooses to relate to ME. I laughed out loud with the surprise of feeling that caught me. It's something human, and humanity is something games severely lack.

Absurd isn't it? The most unemotional expression, and it strikes me as a historical gaming moment. Imagine, then, a properly intense interaction like a marital break down or a tender first kiss. Imagine if you were one of the participants in a charged, important social situation, in a game. The shy slightness of your partner's upward glance at you, or a hateful glare as your best friend fills with colour while you blunder into a comment they didn't want told in front of others. Games could, can do this, and it would be glorious.

Earlier, I was examining some low res gameplay videos trying to identify whether rag dolls in Battlefield 2 apply only to enemies killed by explosions - it looked to me like gun kills were animated. We seem to be limiting 'realism' in games to destruction detail and the quality of grenade shadows. Realism should constitute the quality of cohesion of the game's characters to the world. Fuck the resolution of the napalm sprites, I'd much rather see how my squad mates reacted to the plane dropping the stuff.

Anyway, we're not far off now. I can see the playable intro now; it'll be a ceremonial dinner, a close affair for the family. The women laugh and fuss around the cooker, asking you and the children how much gravy you all want. The men will sit back, elbows on the table, talking over each other and dipping their bread in the dip, served in the traditional crockery. Candles light up their smiling faces, the small yellow fires reflecting in the special glasses. When everyone's finally sitting down, ceremonial hats are donned, and the reading takes place.
"This is where we are from," quietly points your aunt, who's sitting next to you. A picture on the facing page of your ritual book, issued to all, depicts a far away land. One quite different to that you can half see through the darkened windows at the far end of the room.

At the head of the table, father booms the old language you don't understand. Children and adults sit with their heads bowed in concentration, but when any one of them meets your upward gaze, it is offered with affectionate return. The gleaming display of food between them all. The floral pattern of aunt’s dress looms large on your left side as you look around. A brother, his fringe cut crooked, frowns at you - motioning that you look at the reading as the others do. You concentrate on the picture of the far away place. None of children, even you, can follow the Old language father, with his loud breathing and louder Aramaic diction recites. The crude drawing seems to hold your all your attention. The foreign monotones and dim colours start to blur. When the discordant siren whines into blaring action, the recently happy faces become taut with fear, they seem displaced. A hand pulls you forward, you stumble across an over turned chair, the candles light is quenched.

Your memory doesn't seem to serve you well enough.

Chaos Theory

2005-04-25T08:42:00.000Z

Splinter Cell 3 has been added to archive. The piece was for Thunderbolt Games

Alas, in these times of guarded profits and publisher control, innovation suffers. By way of example; the colourful DVD case sings the addition of a knife to your arsenal. “The ultimate stealth equipment!” It proclaims. Rather anti-climactic to think that not since the medieval Thief games has there been a development in plundering paraphernalia. On the other hand, perhaps in Splinter Cell 4 we’ll get moss arrows.

Full Review

Gordon of Arabia

2005-04-21T15:28:00.000Z

Valve aren't doing enough. Yeah, Robin Walker is right in admitting "Right now, we're really, really good at making Half Life 2" but that's exactly why they should push it further than ammo crates and crowbars. Valve could be the developer that makes a game to really turn outsider's heads, who'd say, "If that's a computer game, I'll eat my hat. The one that says 'Games are limited stupidity for children' in big felt letters."

It's fine to stick with the same technology, it's by no means lacking, yet. But more of the same? Exactly the same? There's no excuse for such shameless stretching. The first game - Ok, so we want to make a really good first person shooter. Tick. Second game - Whoa, could we do it again? Next gen style? Look! We can add twiddly bits and re-define the genre! Tick.

The time is now, Gabe. You're riding on a wave of vast success; six Baftas, a publisher destroying distribution system, a huge, loyal audience base and a solid engine. If there's ever been a better position for a developer to do something really, really wild, I'd like to see it.

So carry on with Gordon and co, that's fine. But lets do something interesting with the content. Lets put in some seamless character interaction maybe. Lets make the escape out of City 17 and across the badlands into a vast epic. We can have some shooting along the way, defending the human convoy against the creatures of the flats, some hostile outback towns perhaps. But lets add some complexity.

You are the Shepard of the straggling survivors of the carnage. Alyx is injured early on and is carried in one of the makeshift wagons that make up the trail. More able citizens ride other machines or walk along side. Replacing destructive hardware, your default usage becomes an initially clumsy pair of hands. Actions like tying ropes, soldering metal or tending to the injured are managed with fluid, integral player-skill movements.* The various wheeled elements of your precession are physically governed - bits of scrap metal, armaments, tyres, perhaps even suspension can be added or swapped out of the wagons with rubbish you find on your travels. Each must be attached physically, and as best you can using the limited adhesives around you, again through the player-skill manipulation interface of dexterity.

Navigation across the open, barren (but far from empty) wastes is managed on the map screen. Send search parties looking for water, enemies, supplies, and outposts/settlements with simple commands, or do it yourself selecting members of your teams to assist you, riding your rag-tag, self-fashioned vehicles.

At the same time as manually adapting and maintaining your vehicles, re-supplying, planning your journey, scavenging, raiding and fighting off attackers, the recovering Alyx has to be tended to. How high your priority of defending and attending to the needs of Eli's daughter, as well as your performance in frequent, (subtle) optional choice dialogue scenarios attribute to her loyalty to you. Defend her not only from attack, but from Barney’s rival advances.

You could construct a tower on your flagship vehicle. Spread out the base with a longer axel you’ve found, then erect some piping, bit of structure, and a short ladder. You’d have a watch post to snipe or defend from.

Nights spent guarding the sleeping heroine in the rattling frame of her lightly armoured cart, threadbare curtains swaying with the movement and the dim light illuminating her strained features, you think about those trailer guide ropes that need replacing. Peering out from a viewing strip you made by re-attaching an upper corrugated iron slat with a gap between it and the lower one, you wonder: how many more miles for water? Ammo? Just then, she mumbles some sleep-bound incoherence. She just drank half an hour ago, you think. Food, maybe. A simple directional mouse gesture towards her nose with a spoonful of rice in your weather beaten (now gloveless) hands produces a slightly positive countenance. You move the mouse down a bit, she eats a few grains. For added effect you could mutter a silent 'Not far now,' or 'Nearly day light'.
Through the slats, you see a citizen jogs past, moving up the line. His face is barely visible for the dust guarding cloth around his head but he sees you as he passes, nodding an accustomed, "sir", on his way.

So yes. Gordon of Arabia, if you will. Nothing Source can't handle with some quick optimisations, and it’s not even far off the standard FPS mark. A year's concentrated work for Valve would be my approximation. I'd play it.

*On “fluid, integral player-skill movements”, I avoid the word ‘mini-game’ because that immediately suggests a dull formality - cute interface disguising a tedious pac-man or tetris clone.

I hazard using the term ‘gestural’, but that suggests more boredom, only synonymous with Black and White this time. These systems would be quick: painless but requiring practice to perfect. Also visually un-intruded by overlays or anything outside the standard view.

I don't believe you.

2005-04-17T21:05:00.000Z

Look, lets try it again. I'll sneak out from under this pitchblack corner of the room, and you pretend to be a little more suprised at the site of a grizzled, elderly spy with a large gun and three green eyes. "Intruder!" just doesn't cut it, mate. Especially as you were asleep three frames ago.

My statement a couple of posts ago suggesting that Irrational's Swat 4, like Act of War: Direct Action was childish, I'm finding my self regretting. [/Yoda] For the game actually has a more human feel to almost any other. There's still not much, but in a genre of game where humans are for shooting, there's a suprising amount of personality in the potential ragdolls.

It's in the encounters. In fear of death, a room full of people with guns erupt into a shouting match. The masked policemen aggressively yelling 'put down your weapons!' and the hostage takers swearing hysterically over the top. Because as a function of gameplay the lives of every character is valuable, you regret a kill inherantly.
I've deviated however. My point wasn't that Splinter Cell shouldn't disallow your guns on even more of its missions, what I'm saying is that at least in Swat 4 - NPC reactions have a degree of realism.

Why don't enemies fumble with their weapons when sighting a completely unexpected enemy? Why don't they put their hands up, shout for help with wide eyed terror, simply run away, or freeze - as any real person may well do. Of course, when faced with an entirely expected enemy, NPCs will shoot on sight or react with conviction and resolve.

...Alright, that description turned into mechanics would make a game with challenges way too easy or hard. But how do you strike a balance? For a game like Splinter Cell, where the level structure needs enemies to be in certain places at certain times, with quite a strict limit on mobility and variation - what can you do with realistic responses?

How about dialogues? Before they shoot shouting "Who are you? What are you doing here!" Perhaps with some Monkey Island style optional retorts. Yes, it's late.

And I'm not sure I could see that working either.

The Music

2005-04-16T23:14:00.000Z

A stupid idea for music implementation as a gameplay element of Swat 4:

A full orchestral arrangement follows the player through the tight corridors and volatile encounters of the game. Choir whispering when enemies are near, breaking into an epic theme when the action starts. High horn sections among the shrieks of 'Get the hell outta here!' and 'Police!'

As the ten or so NPC members get decimated in the crossfire, so does the density of the harmony. Your violin detail didn't make it out of the hallway in time? Then you won't hear them. Other members of the The Music will glance dismayed at the brutal death of the colleagues only for a moment between breaths on their brass notes. They won't get in the way - immediately pressing to the walls as you pass backwards by them - and will otherwise stand in formation as much as possible, tallest behind. Keen musicians, they seem surreally oblivious to the seriousness of each encounter. The deep red on a fallen soloist's bright white garments. Perhaps they're just trying to cover for a hidden terror.

Either way, they cost a zero point deduction when killed by enemies, and a minor one when eliminated by your own hand - in case some morose player had the juvenile inclination to silence them with an MP5 at the start of a mission. Enough to effect your performance if you killed them all, but not enough for you to worry about them, or mind catching one by accident as you aim over his shoulder.

An increased visual intensity to the charged urban situations of Swat 4, The Music would be a dark, surrealist joke. Hilarious.

Gesticulate wildly

2005-04-13T21:51:00.000Z

Imagine being so damn high that you'd stand up and dance. In front of everyone. Their stunned, sober silence saying more than make shift projectiles and hateful jeers ever could.

And not just a couple of steps. Not just a quick 'back forth back forth'. I'm talking raw, honest, expressive dance. Tell everyone how you feel; use your hips and breasts, arms gesticulating wildly.

In games, you can do this.

Could there really be a better arguement than that? Play games everyone, in virtual worlds - you can dance.

Dante's Awakening

2005-04-11T09:38:00.000Z

Devil May Cry 3 has been added to archive. The piece was for Thunderbolt Games

What Capcom have here is a flagship of a genre. Devil May Cry 3 is a showcase title, typical of the twilight years of an aging console. The game’s only downsides - painful difficulty and uninspired level structure - contribute to the old school theme, so whether it’s a post-modern reference or an ultimately shallow backtrack comes down to personal preference. Otherwise, its a detailed, consistent, artful slice of action adventure, bursting at the seams with the quality of the action and visuals, optimised admirably by a developer who has learned the PS2 through and through – you wouldn’t want to miss out on that, would you?

DMC3

Fetish decor

2005-04-10T12:16:00.000Z

I get home tonight, and I just can't quite bring myself to launch games called 'Swat 4' and 'Act of War: Direct Action'. Leaving the house puts some perspective on things, and upon returning to my room late on a Friday or Saturday night I'm finding myself more and more averted to all these games. It's not games in general, I'd just love to be playing something truely original and with some real substance. What about double clicking on the executable for "Wuthering Heights"? Wouldn't that rock? Looking at Kathy's scribbled drawings by candle light, when suddenly her ghost raps on the grimey pane above the bed, begging you through the bars to let her in?

I know there are dozens of reasons why Wuthering Heights wouldn't work as a game, it's just and example. But that scene could work, it could be drawn out and emotive, with bump mapped detail on Kathy's face in the window, illuminated in flashes by the lightning storm. Basically, as we all know, there are very few moments in games that conjure *any* emotion in the player.

I was struck yesterday by an unexpected example of cinematic integrity in an unlikely source: ironically, Swat 4.

I'd never played any of the Swat games, but I installed this one on the LAN to have a look at. Rob and I pored over the controls and load outs for a while, then tried the first map in Co op mode. We walked up the steps of a tired looking bungalow, melting Hallowe'en lantern grinning mirthlessly by the porch. A plan was arranged for the entry of the front door - grenades were chosen, positions arranged. A couple of minutes of debating past before we were ready to pick the lock and execute our method. Nothing. bin bags lined the walls, broken bikes and stained fittings, a few closed doors, the place looked normal enough. A lamp over-turned - nothing drastic. We cautiously proceeded to the nearest door and executed a less elaborate manouver. Still, nothing.

We moved through the house like this for several minutes, our torches flashing over darkened bathrooms, locking on un-opened doors. An ambient soundtrack crept in, a melancholy, minimalist tone, contributing further to our unease at seeing no one around. Getting impatient, we half stumbled through a basement doorway into a dark, open study. Coating every inch of the walls were newspaper cuttings, layered at angles onto the woodwork behind. My flashlight caught a glimpse of the headline 'brutal killing discovered'. There were more, but there wasn't time for that. We edged in, what was it we were dealing with here? It remained unclear for only a moment longer. The next opening revealed a large man with a shotgun, a girl tied to the floor wearing half a theatrical mask, and stranger fetish decor.

That moment, the careful exploration of a sad, neglected dwelling, and the climax of the discovery of the fetish room (less the actual encounter, the suspense was dissipated) was an intruging gaming moment. What made it all the more so was the elaborate teamwork and tactical thinking necessary to proceed through the level. The language we found ourselves using to coordinate movements.

Comparison

2005-04-08T14:07:00.000Z

Frank Miller's original

"I'll cash her cheque in the morning"

2005-04-08T09:43:00.000Z

I could only allow myself to watch the first scene of Sin City. Still debating whether to wait for the cinema release (later this month), or watch the rest of this lower quality, possibly cammed version I found yesterday. Anyway, whoever said this film was a visual treat really wasn't kidding.

As close to the comic as you could hope to get. The story board for the movie /was/ the comic - the photography is followed frame for frame. From the little I've seen of it, Robert Rodriguez seems to have made something pretty special.

Rehab

2005-04-07T11:25:00.000Z

I played my first two-way voice enabled online game yesterday. It's quite a different experience to playing with just text, and one a lot of people should argue, that should become standard. Microsoft certainly think so. Their included mike has been a major factor in Live's success, and Xbox2 is rumored to come with a web cam right out of the box.

What this means could be a major shift in how games and gamers are perceived in terms social disfunction, (or nerdiness). Would a match of Unreal Championship or Halo 3 on the new console - harnessing technology that allow interactions between players to be almost as detailed as real ones - be considered as lonely and inward as a session of the original Zork in a darkened room?

There could be some really interesting implementations for a camera as a function of gameplay. The only one I can think of right now would be a kind of Poker-ish scenario, where the player would have to try and minimize or bluff their expressions for multiplayer trickery.
Of course, this opens up a whole host of options for the kinds of morons who disconnect out of RTS matches, team-kill, cheat, and generally ruin everyone's experiences.

Or would it? With a large part of the anonymity removed, would cheaters still get the same kick, knowing that all the people that were quickly learning to hate them with the kind of deep, passionate fury usually reserved only for right wing American presidents may well remember them?

Perhaps a more concrete consequence system could be implemented. Portraits of the accused nailed to virtual telegraph masts around the server. Maybe even a kind of virtual Hell, where all the perpetrators are incarcerated together in a map of whatever game, forced to play only with their own kind. Rehab?

Whatever the effects of these developments, I can't help but agree that this will a be part of it.

No

2005-04-06T20:32:00.000Z

The Penny Arcade 'Spy Training Manuals' promotional work for Splinter Cell have now all been finished. I like all of them, but this is a favourite.

With new hacks being discovered for the PSP almost daily, (the latest of which being a web browser apparently hacked, somehow, out of Wipeout Pure), already including e-book viewing and PC connectivity for films and stuff, the newly priced system is looking increasingly appealling. £150, eh?

Sexy, but is portable gaming?

Hard realism

2005-04-05T12:57:00.000Z

Monolith's Geoffrey Zatkin on games, at Penny Arcade:

"So, to summarize, we're a young industry full of pale, egotistical people that dream up ambitious games, work impossible hours and sometimes smell a bit funny."

What I thought was most revealing was this:

"At PAX this year I was a judge for their "pitch your idea for a game" sit-in. I got to break a lot of hearts by telling the audience a very sad fact – that in my 8+ years as a professional game designer, not once has any boss of mine ever asked me for an idea for a new game. Not once."

Some hard realism there. But I'm not convinced this is entirely representitive. I remember Hideo Kojima saying something about a system in their office where everyone involved during the development of Metal Gear was asked once a week to submit an idea for the game.

The rest can be found on their news page.

'Use camo'

2005-04-05T00:25:00.000Z

"Hold down right click to use camo", he said. I did as he did, and we both melted into the hallway. The guard was just across the darkened lobby, his yellow visor clearly visible over a small wall, he wasn't looking.
"Now!" We loped up the stairs, piercing searchlights threatening our every pace, never seeing.

Multiplayer gaming, in essence, is a form of communication between the players. The more potential for expression the player is allowed, in theory, greater the experience. MMO duelling by quing up preset, purely hours-spent-playing powered attacks therefore, doesn't play all that well.

As an example of that communication; the guards intimidating, intrusive, unforgiving searchlight in SC MP is a function of mouselook - the most intimate degree of control the player has. If I can see your torch's beam, I'm seeing what you want to see, judging your mental state by how quick your mouse gestures are. To the pixel.

Overbright

2005-04-04T21:37:00.004Z

Splinter Cell 3 arrived today. If I ever wondered why I bought a 6800 Ultra, my questions were answered as the reflection of the silvery moonlight caught a wet patch of metallic flooring, on the wind swept deck of the cargo freighter map. Really, stunning.

Play the SP for the HDR. What I've played so far shows only artistic innovation. Some real thought went into the position of every light, not from a gameplay standpoint particularly, but from a cinematic one. Sheaths of over-bright, high colour that beam through orifices in the metal work to illuminate just the right detail, creating some beautiful compositions.

I'm looking forward to trying the multiplayer properly. Pandora Tomorrow was the best MP of 2004, in my opinion.

Shopping in a warzone

2005-04-04T19:55:00.000Z

My parents said "Can you or Dan collect the shopping when it's delivered tomorrow?". We got talking about Tesco's online shopping, (boring, you say, Tom Francis?), and I suggested their system should be a first person 3D environment, where you could walk around and choose your items. I thought "actually, wait a second", then said "and every item should be a physics object! And you're given a bat! And you can demand that NPC attendants do things for you, really curtly. Or order a whole stack of deli meat at the counter, and then kart it around on a trolly, throwing random bits at passers by and running the rest of it into the ground with the wheels of your wagon of chaos as you speed it across the now deserted isles! Yes!" Dad was unimpressed further than the 3D environment idea. To which I responded "C'mon! The actions social pressure prevents, now deliciously plausable with pixel shading 3.0 and glorious ragdolls!" Not in those words, but regardless, neither of them were even slightly intrigued.

Well, its not the most original idea ever, but a small, detailed environment with a moderate number of sandboxy, user devised anarchic experiences to be had, Postal style, would certainly appeal to me. I got thinking about how to increase the longevity of a game like that, (Postal 2 is glorious, for about 45 minutes). Multiplayer is one option that springs to mind. Then I thought about what would keep people coming back, even if it was a larger scale, maybe retail park themed MMO.

Postal 2 - gets old fast.

So how about a game that has real, practical links to the world. How about if to do your shopping, you could enter this gang based, territorial urban wasteland, with clans and avatar customisation, voice-over-ip and melee weapons. Try to run independant super markets by day, sabatage other people's and destroy their trade routes by night. ...Well, maybe not the day part, I think a "supermarket tycoon" game might just destroy any remaining realistic hope in this industry.

I'm serious though. If you had to join the server to do your shopping, this grimly exciting, expansive, high detail world would be routine, and necessary. Gaming is no longer pointless timewasting! Set up ambushes, run for gang leader, aaaand pick up this evening's groceries!

Fooled

2005-04-04T10:00:00.000Z

This must've been the best April fools prank. Sven Co op announces a new team leader! Convincingly written in a stupid way, the link to his email spans the rest of the following sentence, and its made to look like the guy even missed out the post title.

My favourite games include MS Flight Simulator (of course), Dune 2 and Civilisation 3. I've ordered a copy of Half-Life and Half-Life 2 off Amazon, which should be arriving shortly.

I'm new to Sevencoop but I already have lots of exciting idea's that you will definately love! For starters I've asked Nev and Sniper to work non-stop on inserting a flight engine into the game as I want him to combine the code with my "MS Flight Simulator 2002 Boeing 737 realism mod".

I also have many fun ideas for generating revenue for the mod. On a different topic, I buy all my jeans from http://www.hypemakers.net/azjeans/go.php?v=r&adv=1920. They are the best jeans, and there is a fun whack-a-mole game there!

Pretty good. World of Wordcraft shouldn't go without mention though.

Deterioration

2005-04-04T09:49:00.000Z

99 rooms - here's some interesting visuals. Well, its some animated pictures with audio, and some graffitti in there too. A kind of lonely, industrial Stalker-esque vibe, emphesised particularly by some great music. A couple of the animations really fit the scenes, like a small figure casting a much larger shadow as he slowly walks across the image. Here's a sample, but the best ones are only viewable in the site's flash.

Another, arguably better offering in this kind of bleak, lonely photography vein can be found at Henk van Rensbergen's abandoned-places.com - this guy goes around breaking into disused factories in Germany, yielding some really atmospheric black and white results. All the images are best viewed in their sets, so go there!

Birth

2005-04-03T22:37:00.000Z

Re-birth, actually. My old one was grey, and tired. Enter shiney new blogspot-dom, tadaa!