3/24/09
12/4/08
Makin' it big
The article on GameCraft finally made it's way to a website on the 2nd. Check it out here
11/24/08
Quintet of Suckage
Every once in a while games introduce us to a character so vile you cannot forget them – years later they still stick like hot bubble gum. But they say that being able to verbalize your pain is the first step to recovery, so I have trekked for through the dank, overgrown jungle of my mind in the hope of healing the hurt. Here they are, my Top 5 Worst Videogame Characters.
Navi, Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (N64)
1.She tops every list. I know, I know “Hey, Listen!” But the way I see it, she's been recognized so often for her abuse I'm just going to close the book. Navi who?Announcer, Crazy Taxi (PS2)
2. So first on the firing line is the announcer from Crazy Taxi.
With the throaty voice of a reptile on crack, his riffing assails the player with some of the worst X-treme dialogue ever written, from the title screen up until you shut the damned system off in rage. Finish a round? “Awwwwwright! It's time to check out how yuu deed t'day now let's take uh look! Uh Clayusss Dee lycense!” And in the world of Crazy Taxi, you don't make money, you make “Cuh-razy munney!” Oh, and did I mention the game's entire soundtrack is from The Offspring and Bad Religion? Yah-yah-yah-yah-yah!Oddjob, Goldeneye 007 (N64)
3.Ah the good old days, when you could dual-wield PP7's and sneak around Soviet missile silos. I always liked it when my character's health would drop for no reason, making me swerve wildly trying to get a bead on my opponent. Never did quite figure out why that happened – oh yeah, now I remember, it was that little crouching bastard Oddjob who would hide behind the grates of a ventilation shaft. You can't see him in there, but he can see you. Like a Cold-War Killer-Rabbit, with a cute little butler suit and a top hat, he hopped from his burrow to claim your life.
Cool Spot, Cool Spot (SNES)
4.Third was a close tie between two equally shitty
marketing turds: 7up's Cool Spot, and Izzy of the 1996 Atlanta Olympic games. Cool Spot wins out however, because he's a red dot... with sunglasses... and sneakers and gloves. How such a game was ever made I will never understand, but nevertheless you – the lucky player – get to step into the awesome shoes of Cool Spot, the radical 1990s mascot for 7up. You'll make a platforming pilgrimage across such perilous locations as: the beach and under-ground, collecting – you guessed it – red dots!Mesprit, Pokemon Pearl/Diamond (NDS)
5.Ever since the Gameboy originals, Pokemon has been on a downward spiral, cranking out blob after blob of generic, lightly colored smiley faces. Just when you didn't think it could get any worse, meet Mesprit. She fits all of the requirements of a new Pokemon: pastel colored, check; made of basic shapes, check; big eyes, check; stupid name, check. This may look like an ordinary pokepoop, but don't be fooled, this balloon-animal is “Known as the being of Emotion. It taught humans the nobility of sorrow, pain, and joy.” Jesus!
(Rumor has it the upcoming Pokemon Uranium will feature a light-blue square pokemon called “Boxlor”. And yes, he'll still have that same 64kbps modem growl.)
Dishonorable mention:Beat, The World Ends With You (NDS)
If you've played it, you know.
11/21/08
Chris is a Winner!
As a side-note to GameCraft, I managed to presage my winning the raffle. I got a copy of Steven Spielberg's Wii title Boom Blox which is a lot of fun, unless you don't have a Wii to play it on, in which case it's only mildly fun to have sitting on the counter.
GameCraft has a winner!
Austin, Texas: State capital, indie music mecca, and home to a few no-name development companies like, oh, Bioware, Midway, Retro Studios, NCSoft, Sony Online Entertainment, and Red Fly. It's also the host of the annual Austin Game Developers Conference, SXSW, and where Richard Garriot rests his head. Last night, tucked away in the University of Texas campus, the Electronic Game Developers Society (EGaDS) held the their annual design competition “GameCraft”.
“[We're] mostly made up of students who want to work in the game design industry” Joseph Harding, president of EgaDS, tells me. “[Our group] serves as an educational networking resource for these students. UT does not have a game development program, so we fill that role. As our members do often go on to work in the game design industry, we keep in contact with them and try to maintain an industry-student relationship.” I asked Harding about any notable EGaDS alumni: “Currently working in the industry, that I know of, we have Gary Bland (now at Vigil Games), Alan Comely (now at Pixel Mine), and Ryan Beberwyck (on leave from Sony Online) as well as the founder of EGaDS, Michael Agustin, who now owns his own game company, Gendai Games.”
GameCraft challenges design teams to create a professional pitch for a game of their own creation. While a working version of the game isn't required to compete, the plot, visuals, gameplay mechanics, and production costs all must be accounted for and delivered in a neat and effective package – the way a developer would pitch to a potential publisher. After a grueling question and answer session from the judges, the top two presentations are awarded first and second place and given their pick from a group of top PC titles.
Industry veteran and Executive Producer at Red Fly Studios, Mike McSchaffry gave contestants some final advice at the preliminaries on November 6th. His top elements of a perfect pitch: originality, preparation, conciseness, and lots of art. “This is a visual industry” he explained, encouraging participants to show, rather than tell publishers about their game. He ended by reminding aspiring developers not to be nervous – big publishers like EA need people with ideas just as much as people with ideas need funding.
EA, NCSoft, and SOE have all been GameCraft sponsors in the past, with SOE attending this semester, providing prizes, food, and free goodies like t-shirts and posters. “We've had a lot of [notable] people come to EgaDS,” says Harding, “I really enjoyed having Suan O'Connor, local writer from Gears of War and Bioshock, come and speak because her field, dedicated writing, is normally under-represented in game design.”
After raffles, food, and introductions, the contest began. Four teams and four games came up to bat: “Time Marauder”, “Haunt”, “Arm of the Inquisitor”, and “Blind Faith”. The five judges, Julianna Budding, an EGaDS alumni and Designer at SOE; Jared Carr, Art Director at SOE; Oge Young, Producer at SOE; Steve Jackson, founder of Steve Jackson Games; and Kalani Streicher, the founder of Kalani Games Inc., represented the various disciplines that come together when creating a game. After all the teams had presented, the judges gave some final advice to all aspiring developers.
First, Steve Jackson asked contestants to justify the time that goes into coding a part of a game with the amount of time the player will spend actually using and exploring that content. Unless it is integral to gameplay, a mini-game, which might sound great on paper, may not warrant the time and money it would take to code. Programmers, like all the members of a development team, are a resource that must be used wisely.
Passion, something all the contestants showed, was a big plus in the judges' eyes. Games often take years to complete, and a developer's passion serves as a crucial anchor point for the entire team. “It's the ones you really care about that you're more likely to finish” said Jackson.
Jared Carr shared an exercise that he has used in pitching games, which helps to tighten the concept. After you've formulated a basic idea, ask your team to design the box for that game. This includes the front cover-art, title, back cover-art, and the text that appears on the back of the box. Designing the box yields several advantages: it instantly expresses the game's tone and visual style, it helps the developer to see if their game stands out against competitors, and it forces the team to boil the game's unique features down to three or four bullet points.
All of the judges echoed this need for uniqueness, with two good reasons in mind: it sets your game apart from the competition, giving buyers a reason to choose it over a hundred other games, and it gives publishers a reason to hire you and your ideas, rather than make the game themselves. The judges stressed how crucial it was to put your development team into the picture when pitching a game. If your idea, for example, is to combine the gameplay from Gears of War with the visuals from Team Fortress 2 and the plot from Wall-E, it must be clear to the publisher why they need you to create that specific game and not simply switch Gears of War for Unreal Tournament and make it themselves. Some concepts, however, are unique enough to justify the development team, like Narbacular Drop.
Lastly, Oge Young praised the elevator pitch as a crucial element of any presentation. The formula – This meets That, but with this other thing – instantly establishes common ground in explaining a concept. He added one last warning when employing it “...for god's sake, use a good game to compare yours to....” Sorry, no Haze meets Imagine: Babyz with Beverly Hills Chihuahua.
After the contest was over, aspiring developers had the opportunity to rub shoulders with the judges and learn more about getting into the industry.
To me, GameCraft represents the growing popularity of videogame development as a career. Gone are the days of developing in parents' basements, in obscurity and shame. Any doubts about videogames as a serious business have been obliterated by Nintendo's juggernaut gaming-for-everyone campaign. No one can ignore the billion dollar industry that is still going strong, not even the Texas Governor Rick Perry, who spoke at E3.
“The gaming industry portrays a work ethic, business model and embrace of new ideas that our nation would be wise to consider.... I congratulate this growing industry on its success, and invite further expansion in Texas where the barbecue is hot and the video gaming is even hotter.”
It's a wonder that, in a city as involved in the industry as Austin, the university has yet to offer a degree in game development or design; but it's only a matter of time before the rest of the country catches up with popular culture.
“[We're] mostly made up of students who want to work in the game design industry” Joseph Harding, president of EgaDS, tells me. “[Our group] serves as an educational networking resource for these students. UT does not have a game development program, so we fill that role. As our members do often go on to work in the game design industry, we keep in contact with them and try to maintain an industry-student relationship.” I asked Harding about any notable EGaDS alumni: “Currently working in the industry, that I know of, we have Gary Bland (now at Vigil Games), Alan Comely (now at Pixel Mine), and Ryan Beberwyck (on leave from Sony Online) as well as the founder of EGaDS, Michael Agustin, who now owns his own game company, Gendai Games.”
GameCraft challenges design teams to create a professional pitch for a game of their own creation. While a working version of the game isn't required to compete, the plot, visuals, gameplay mechanics, and production costs all must be accounted for and delivered in a neat and effective package – the way a developer would pitch to a potential publisher. After a grueling question and answer session from the judges, the top two presentations are awarded first and second place and given their pick from a group of top PC titles.
Industry veteran and Executive Producer at Red Fly Studios, Mike McSchaffry gave contestants some final advice at the preliminaries on November 6th. His top elements of a perfect pitch: originality, preparation, conciseness, and lots of art. “This is a visual industry” he explained, encouraging participants to show, rather than tell publishers about their game. He ended by reminding aspiring developers not to be nervous – big publishers like EA need people with ideas just as much as people with ideas need funding.
EA, NCSoft, and SOE have all been GameCraft sponsors in the past, with SOE attending this semester, providing prizes, food, and free goodies like t-shirts and posters. “We've had a lot of [notable] people come to EgaDS,” says Harding, “I really enjoyed having Suan O'Connor, local writer from Gears of War and Bioshock, come and speak because her field, dedicated writing, is normally under-represented in game design.”
After raffles, food, and introductions, the contest began. Four teams and four games came up to bat: “Time Marauder”, “Haunt”, “Arm of the Inquisitor”, and “Blind Faith”. The five judges, Julianna Budding, an EGaDS alumni and Designer at SOE; Jared Carr, Art Director at SOE; Oge Young, Producer at SOE; Steve Jackson, founder of Steve Jackson Games; and Kalani Streicher, the founder of Kalani Games Inc., represented the various disciplines that come together when creating a game. After all the teams had presented, the judges gave some final advice to all aspiring developers.
First, Steve Jackson asked contestants to justify the time that goes into coding a part of a game with the amount of time the player will spend actually using and exploring that content. Unless it is integral to gameplay, a mini-game, which might sound great on paper, may not warrant the time and money it would take to code. Programmers, like all the members of a development team, are a resource that must be used wisely.
Passion, something all the contestants showed, was a big plus in the judges' eyes. Games often take years to complete, and a developer's passion serves as a crucial anchor point for the entire team. “It's the ones you really care about that you're more likely to finish” said Jackson.
Jared Carr shared an exercise that he has used in pitching games, which helps to tighten the concept. After you've formulated a basic idea, ask your team to design the box for that game. This includes the front cover-art, title, back cover-art, and the text that appears on the back of the box. Designing the box yields several advantages: it instantly expresses the game's tone and visual style, it helps the developer to see if their game stands out against competitors, and it forces the team to boil the game's unique features down to three or four bullet points.
All of the judges echoed this need for uniqueness, with two good reasons in mind: it sets your game apart from the competition, giving buyers a reason to choose it over a hundred other games, and it gives publishers a reason to hire you and your ideas, rather than make the game themselves. The judges stressed how crucial it was to put your development team into the picture when pitching a game. If your idea, for example, is to combine the gameplay from Gears of War with the visuals from Team Fortress 2 and the plot from Wall-E, it must be clear to the publisher why they need you to create that specific game and not simply switch Gears of War for Unreal Tournament and make it themselves. Some concepts, however, are unique enough to justify the development team, like Narbacular Drop.
Lastly, Oge Young praised the elevator pitch as a crucial element of any presentation. The formula – This meets That, but with this other thing – instantly establishes common ground in explaining a concept. He added one last warning when employing it “...for god's sake, use a good game to compare yours to....” Sorry, no Haze meets Imagine: Babyz with Beverly Hills Chihuahua.
After the contest was over, aspiring developers had the opportunity to rub shoulders with the judges and learn more about getting into the industry.
To me, GameCraft represents the growing popularity of videogame development as a career. Gone are the days of developing in parents' basements, in obscurity and shame. Any doubts about videogames as a serious business have been obliterated by Nintendo's juggernaut gaming-for-everyone campaign. No one can ignore the billion dollar industry that is still going strong, not even the Texas Governor Rick Perry, who spoke at E3.
“The gaming industry portrays a work ethic, business model and embrace of new ideas that our nation would be wise to consider.... I congratulate this growing industry on its success, and invite further expansion in Texas where the barbecue is hot and the video gaming is even hotter.”
It's a wonder that, in a city as involved in the industry as Austin, the university has yet to offer a degree in game development or design; but it's only a matter of time before the rest of the country catches up with popular culture.
11/15/08
I rented Dead Space two days ago and it has reminded me why I love videogames - not that I needed reminding.
The alien-infested ship you're trapped on - the USG Ishimura - is a real place, sectioned into the vital components of space life: hydroponics, engines, asteroid defense systems, mining. Its job, when it had living people on it, was to "planet-crack": slice through a planet's outer-layer to access rich minerals deposits.
Like the best science-fiction, everything in Dead Space is explainable. Just when you've managed to get the ship's power back on so you can use the tram system, you realize the Ishimura is on a collision course with the planet it's orbiting. Of course! The engines are dead and the massive rocks held in the mining section are weighing it down. Arriving at the computer panel for the engine room you see a warning hologram and a simple model of a slowly turning planet with a ring of asteroids. Upon closer inspection, a small yellow figure within the asteroid belt is blinking - the Ishimura - and an arrow shows its current trajectory, straight into the atmosphere. You may not like it, but you know what you have to do: get down into the belly of the ship and get the engines working again.
You fight your way through the horrendous remains of the crew, repurposed by an alien life-form, and struggle to keep their lethal tongues, teeth, tentacles, and pincers away from your body. Finally, you reach the massive engine chamber and hit the ignition panel. The burners come to life in a beautiful, satisfying explosion. You've done it.
Relieved, you trek back up to the control room, the reverberating hum of the engines fading below. The hologram now shows the ships trajectory into orbit...through the asteroid belt. The radio on your suit crackles on and your two surviving crew mates are having a fit. The asteroid defense system is offline and the Ishimura is beginning to sustain serious damage. The only way to get the defense cannons back on is by getting to the circuit breakers. Here we go again.
Through it all there is an astonishingly good music engine. I call it an engine because it adapts to your situation. It never misses a beat and ultimately serves as a gameplay mechanic: your field-of-view is so limited, it is often impossible to know you are about to be impaled by an alien's scythe-like arm without the terrifying screech of violins to jolt you into spinning around frantically. Even outside of battles and "Gotcha!" moments, the score lends itself to the eerie mood in a wonderful way. Walking through tight, dark, smokey corridors littered with meaty fly-infested corpses and the haunting marks of something long gone is made even more nauseating by the rising and falling of a sea of strings.
After all this I haven't even covered half of what makes the game great, its Metroid roots, innovative menu system, visuals....
11/10/08
GameCraft Preliminaries in Austin
Austin, Texas: State capital, indie music mecca, and home to a few no-name development companies like, oh, Bioware, Midway, Retro Studios, NCSoft, and Red Fly. It's also the host of the annual Austin Game Developers Conference, SXSW, and where Richard Garriot rests his head. This past Thursday, tucked away in the University of Texas campus, the Electronic Game Developers Society (EGaDS) held the preliminaries for their annual game design competition “GameCraft”.
The contest challenges design teams to come up with a professional pitch for a game of their own creation. Plot, visuals, gameplay mechanics, production costs, all must be accounted for and delivered in a neat and appealing package, just the way a developer would pitch to a potential publisher. GameCraft also gives companies a chance to scout out future employees.
Industry veteran and now Executive Producer (read: “head ass-kicker”) at Red Fly studios, Mike McShaffry (http://www.mcshaffry.com/mrmike/) was on-hand to give contestants advice on how to pitch to publishers. His top elements of a perfect pitch: originality, preparation, conciseness, and lots of art. “This is a visual industry” he said, encouraging participants to show, rather than tell publishers about their game. Mr. Mike ended by reminding aspiring developers not to be nervous – big publishers like EA need people with ideas just as much as people with ideas need funding.
Stay tuned for the GameCraft finals taking place on November 20th. If you're in the Austin area, don't miss out on the chance to score some free schwag, talk to developers, and see some cool games.
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