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Jenova Chen: Journeyman • Articles • Eurogamer.net
"So what happened when you removed collision detection?" "Players started looking for other ways to get more feedback. Helping each other yielded the most feedback so they began to do that instead. It was fascinating." A lovely interview - and great piece of writing fro Simon - with Jenova Chen. The parts on how players regress is particularly interesting, as is Chen's ambition to be _different_ rather than just 'artistic'. I particularly enjoyed the anecdote about collision detection, hence quoting it.
journey  thatgamecompany  games  simonparkin  writing  interview  jenovachen  play  childishness 
8 weeks ago by infovore
Dave Hickey - The Heresy of Zone Defence [pdf]
"Kareem, after the game, remarked that he would pay to see Doctor J make that play against someone else. Kareem's remark clouds the issue, however, because the play was as much his as it was Erving's, since it was Kareem's perfect defense that made Erving's instantaneous, pluperfect response to it both necessary and possible—thus the joy, because everyone behaved perfectly, eloquently, with mutual respect, and something magic happened—thus the joy, at the triumph of civil society in an act that was clearly the product of talent and will accommodating itself to liberating rules." This is phenomenal writing.
writing  play  sport  games  basketball  davehickey  juliuserving 
february 2012 by infovore
Hookshot Inc. | Writing about the games that arrive via SPACE.
Parkin / Donlan / Porter / Stuart start a blog about sub-$15 downloadable games. This is going to be good.
friends  games  writing  downloadable 
february 2012 by infovore
Lucy Prebble: 'Gaming is an artform just like theatre' | Technology | The Observer
"...a whole art form has developed in my lifetime. I remember for the first time reading: "Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way." I remember the first time I heard: "I believe in America. America has made my fortune." And I remember standing in an open field, west of a white house, with a boarded front door. There is a small mailbox here." This is quite baggy and in places unfocused, but every now and then, there are moments of sharp focus. Most notably: the relation of the impulse to write to the impulse to play games (an escapist impulse in Prebble's mind, but that's not a bad one), and the understanding that 'culture is culture'.
games  culture  writing 
february 2012 by infovore
Insult Swordfighting: The loneliness of the support gunner -- Video Game Reviews and Rants
"My energy is flagging and he is disappearing over a rise. I wonder: Had he even known I was there? Had I imagined our moment of shared transcendence? And I wonder: Will no one take my ammo?" Battlefield is often like this, which is why it's frustrating, and why it's brilliant.
battlefield3  games  teamwork  mitchkrpata  writing 
january 2012 by infovore
Kill Screen - In Brief: Who Rules the Rules?
" If real human players are serving as the authority, the spirit of the rules is intact even if they are not followed literally. Rules are checked for reference when a debate comes up about a certain ability or tactic, but they are not a constant authority. There’s a certain flexibility present when the players have the final say on what is acceptable. They only bend the rules when it makes the game more fun." This is very good: textualism versus contextualism.
games  writing  rules  systems  context  killscreen  lbjeffries 
november 2011 by infovore
Kill Screen - My Purple-Haired Made-Up Best Friend, and Why She Had to Die
"I only got to hang out with Rachael once: in San Francisco, for a week, during the Game Developers Conference...

Here’s how we did it: She shared my eyes and ears, and she wrote her impressions through my laptop and my BlackBerry. When we touched down at SFO, she wrote the first tweet, and she eavesdropped on the game designers that I sat with riding into town on the BART. We were working press—except I was the one sweating the deadlines, and looking for good ideas, while she was just loving it..." Chris Dahlen on writing pixelvixen707
games  transmedia  writing  chrisdahlen  marketing  args  pixelvixen707 
november 2011 by infovore
Kill Screen - Fallout New Vegas DLC Review
"...you play other roles than “protagonist.” That there are other ways of seeing." Very good.
writing  agency  games  fallout 
november 2011 by infovore
Cardboard Children: Heroquest & More.. | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
"I think games connect us to a time when we had time. In your youth, time is elastic. You have exactly as much of it as you need. You have no responsibilities. No job, no children. Nothing but time, and friends, and shit to play with. When we play games now, as adults with too much stuff going on, we do so because we’ve made time for them. We’ve set time aside to indulge in some nonsense with people we love. When you make that time, you HAVE that time. And when you have that time, it’s like being back there – back in that place, that living room, that bedroom, that house full of memories. With time to spare, and everything exactly as it was." Oh, Rab. Marvellous.
games  writing  childhood  nostalgia  robertflorence 
august 2011 by infovore
David Sudnow: Pilgrim in the Microworld | The Gameshelf
"He spends a chapter meditating on the nature of practice and mastery, both in general and in its application to Breakout. Eventually, and after much frustration, he concludes that Breakout doesn’t want to be played that way. Instead, he embraces what he calls the game’s “lucratively programmed caring,” the way its few but distinct design elements work together to guide the player into getting incrementally better at it, revealing more about its inner workings, bit by bit — but only for those who fulfill their end of its contract, who agree to approach the game on its own terms. Treating it like a piano exercise, it turns out, doesn’t work." I'm reading Pilgrim at the moment, and it's an incredible book for all manner of reasons. This lovely piece is something to return to when I finish it.
davidsudnow  games  breakout  writing 
august 2011 by infovore
The World Warrior | insert credit
"His base is too good, and I don’t have the choke. He proceeds to take a more dominant position, scores points, and my body is burning from the effort. The choke he applies toward the end of the match is almost a formality, since I’m far too tired to do much more than hang on. Second place. Second place because I’m learning the triangle choke, not learning Jiu Jitsu. Chipp never wins tournaments." A fantastic piece of writing, about beat-em-ups and combat sports, and the mindset you get into as you play both. I'm not a combat sports man, but it nails some of the inside of your brain when you've played a lot of beat-em-ups, for sure.
mma  brazilianjiuitsu  insertcredit  fighters  games  writing 
july 2011 by infovore
Gaming Made Me: Colossal Cave Adventure | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
"I didn’t contact Charlotte; I want to leave the memory untouched. So that we will always both be Crowther’s daughters, too." I think that line - that one, remarkable, final line in a lovely, lovely paean to ADVENTURE - made me tear up a bit.
games  crowtherandwoods  colossalcave  leighalexander  writing 
june 2011 by infovore
Plot has consequences — Sophie Sampson
"Robert Downey Jr really sells the idea of being a design engineer. To be fair, the Iron Man script does him the great service of having him have to build himself a new heart in a cave in Afghanistan, thus having to make imperfect things and fettle them to fit. That feeling gets slightly lost later in his super-engineer pad where apparently nothing needs filing when it comes back from the rapid prototyping machine. But he still manages to exude a kind of mad joy at making things, a fundamental character trait in the way that having nice breasts is not." Sophie on the emotional truths of storytelling.
games  writing  plot  narrative  storytelling  sophiesamson  truth  masseffect2 
march 2011 by infovore
Mnemotechnics And Ultima Underworld II | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
I swear, just go and read this right now; it might look like it's about games, but really, it's about space, and memory, and Memory Palaces, and wrapped around a retrospective of a marvellous game, and a little bit about how games make us who we are, in ways their creators might never have imagined.
games  ultimaunderworld  ultima  memory  memoryplaces  marvellous  writing 
march 2011 by infovore
The IF Theory Reader | The Gameshelf
"So is it worth reading dusty IF history? Well, I haven't read it yet. But I can say that the book really represents a tour through the past ten years of the IF community's thinking. Some of the essays are from 2001; some have been revised for this edition; some are brand-new. Many have been published in other forms, so if you've been devouring our blog posts and essays for the past few years, you will see few surprises. But if your awareness of IF dates from the last century -- or if you've been following us only casually -- I think this book has something to offer."
if  interactivefiction  games  writing  criticism  reader 
march 2011 by infovore
Curveship: Interactive Fiction + Interactive Narrating
"Curveship is an interactive fiction system that provides a world model (of characters, objects, locations, and things that happen) while also modeling the narrative discourse, so that the narration and description of the simulated world can change. Curveship can tell events out of order, using flashback and other techniques, and can tell the story from the standpoint of particular characters and their perceptions and understandings." This looks both bonkers and brilliant.
if  interactivefiction  narrative  stories  python  games  writing 
february 2011 by infovore
Verbatim and the facts « rotational
"Trust is the key to breaking [this cycle]. And I think Talese’s method shows us how we might gain it: by checking with our subjects and making sure we understand what they’re trying to express, beyond what they actually say. Because if our subjects are interesting enough to report on, they’re deserving of respect. And if we respect them, they will respect us. That’s a much more virtuous circle." I think Alex is right, you know.
games  journalism  trust  respect  writing  quotation 
january 2011 by infovore
Why We Fight: Street Fighting Man | Five Players
"Street Fighter is about everything games are about – all you’ve learned about positioning and strategy, every reaction tightened by every sudden twitch of your trigger fingers, every educated guess made at your opponent’s next move – all played out in a simple two-dimensional box where you test everything you’ve ever known about videogames. Street Fighter IV is the same old game of two-dimensional space control, strategy, and flat-out mind reading but it took whopping great polygons in an old-fashioned game to take a 2D fighter back to the masses." This is all true.
streetfighter  games  fighting  writing 
december 2010 by infovore
In Print: KillScreen | ben abraham dot net
"To apply the same point to videogames, ‘we’ are exceptionally good at the analytic mode and extremely poor at the rhetorical persuasion. As a cohort, we’re remarkably analytical. There are not many writers, bloggers, critics, etc of videogames who are either committed to the persuasive communication of the veracity of their feelings, moods, and strange hunches about videogames, but there sure is a lot of people willing to point out the textual or dramaturgical features of XYZ latest game." This, many, many times over. It's one reason I tire of so much wordy criticism at the moment: it is exhaustive, but lacks direction. (This, for me, was the gap between my first years at university and my final year: finding the courage to make my own arguments, rather than just synthesizing everything around me).
writing  games  criticism  analysis 
december 2010 by infovore
Mitu.nu » Kandinsky and Game Design
Mitu makes a series of interesting connections here, though the conclusion she came to isn't quite the same as mine - which is in the comments. But there's a mass of starting points here as to notions of the "abstract", and what it might mean for games. Something I shall be returning to, for sure.
games  abstract  kandinsky  writing  art  mitukandhaker 
october 2010 by infovore
Fatalism in Leboa-Sako and Bowa-Seko | Five Players
"Far Cry 2 invites fatalism, pessimism, and near-suicidal tactics because optimism and strategy went on holiday to Leboa-Sako and got murdered just like everything else. Hoping for the best doesn’t work. Being clever doesn’t work. Nothing good will ever happen to you in Far Cry 2′s Africa, and none of your carefully-designed plans will ever bear fruit."
games  writing  farcry2  fatalism 
september 2010 by infovore
Gamasutra - Features - Five Minutes With... Deadline
"In principle, the pressure ought to be off, since you've got a infinitive lives and a stock of smart-bombs. In practice, the game quickly becomes so pulsingly busy that I not infrequently become blind to the position of my own ship. I'm still playing - still winning - but have no visual awareness of the bright white claw I'm actually steering. The bit of my brain that handles moving knows where it is, but the bit of my brain that does the thinking has no idea, and they very rapidly start screaming at each other." Margaret's new column for Gamasutra goes live (hurrah). Talking about this was one reason I got sucked back into Deadline very deeply a few weeks ago. Deep enough to edge beyond randomness, towards a semblence of mastery, and at least understand the system. At least enough to understand quite how fine it is.
games  writing  gamasutra  margaretrobertson  geometrywars  analysis  column 
september 2010 by infovore
Searching For Me in Red Dead Redemption | The Paris Review
"A week later, I went into Rockstar Games in Soho for the recording and screamed two hours of lines as Marshall Leigh Johnson. I threatened, chased, arrested, and killed people. I even died. I didn’t just die, I died with an accent. I was in the freaking zone. After signing my paperwork, I left, sweating, voiceless, and thrilled to bid farewell to my voice-over innocence. A new day had dawned for me and my badass larynx." This is brilliant, and doesn't go where you think it might. I love voice actors.
games  voiceacting  reddeadredemption  writing 
august 2010 by infovore
Bissell, Braid, and the Use of Words « Emily Short's Interactive Storytelling
"This ghastly indie-art-game prose: it’s writing that tries to communicate ideas in the same way that game mechanics communicate ideas. Such writing offers allusions and suggestions, hints for the player to assemble, but it shies away from specifics or a through-line plot. Characters often go unnamed, or are named something thuddingly symbolic, or are Everyman. Theme is presented heavy-handedly (you wouldn’t want players to miss it!) and via the most cliché images. Expect frequent references to light and dark, cold and loneliness, broken hearts and shattered dreams. Memories may get a look in. Also death. It’s like reading a collage of the manuscripts sent to a high school poetry contest right after one of the students got in a fatal crash." Emily is right, and it's something I hate about certain games: just how *self-consciously* "indie" they are.
games  braid  tombissell  writing  emilyshort  indie 
august 2010 by infovore
ESPN - OTL: The Franchise - E-ticket
Madden isn't very big over here at all; it's hard to underestimate its cultural standing in the US. This article goes a long way to both explaining that and looking at the history of a juggernaut franchise that once started out very small. I really liked it as a piece of journalism.
writing  journalism  games  football  madden  ea  electronicarts 
august 2010 by infovore
Maps - Boing Boing
"Videogames are systems, not themes, but dress a system in the right theme and you can catch the attention of someone who would not otherwise be interested. So it is for my father, who, in these awkwardly rendered moments, catches a glimpse of what I'd been seeing my entire childhood." Lovely, lovely piece of writing from Simon.
simonparkin  writing  videogames  games  maps  jrpgs 
july 2010 by infovore
The Importance Of Writing - ludology - Kotaku
"But imagine if the writer came up with a "story" before the rules.  A "pre-rules story."  At that point, you could create the rules around that story, and even if the rules seemed unconventional or unbalanced, you could be confident that they would work as long as the story works." Erm, not really; crap rules are crap rules, even if they make sense within the story. This paragraph directly contradicts his previous (accurate) paragraph, that stories must follow the rules of the game. To then say: "but we can retrofit rules onto the story if the latter was done first" just feels wrong. One more thing on my pile of "stuff about rules".
writing  games  rules  mechanics 
may 2010 by infovore
Gamasutra - Features - Persuasive Games: The Picnic Spoils the Rain
"...there is something far more interesting at work in Heavy Rain: its successful rejection of the primary operation of cinema. The game doesn't fully succeed in exploiting this power, but it does demonstrate it in a far more synthetic way than do other games with similar goals. If "edit" is the verb that makes cinema what it is, then perhaps videogames ought to focus on the opposite: extension, addition, prolonging. Heavy Rain does not embrace filmmaking, but rebuffs it by inviting the player to do what Hollywood cinema can never offer: to linger on the mundane instead of cutting to the consequential." Ian Bogost is smart, and this is brilliant (and also provides a citation for "film is editing", which is something I've blathered about before).
games  ianbogost  heavyrain  editing  prolonging  writing 
may 2010 by infovore
Fullbright: Quick Hits 2
"For instance, when a film critic with a Twitter account says that video games are not art, the natural followup becomes, "Well then... what is art?" And suddenly we're in some goddamn flourescent-lit student lounge, sitting on a nine-dollar couch across from a dude whose shirt is self-consciously spattered with daubs of encaustic, hip-to-hip with the girl who stamped each page of a copy of The Feminine Mystique with an ink print of her own labia, hearing the guy over our shoulder mention Duchamp for the sixth time this week, and it all just needs to stop right now." Well said, Steve.
stevegaynor  art  games  videogames  writing  criticism  stopitalreadydudes 
april 2010 by infovore
My Nethack YAAP
"Nethack does what computers do best - what computers were invented for. It hands you a symbolic representation of something, and lets you interact with it. The symbols are utterly mundane ... but the interaction is extraordinarily complicated. Interacting with the game of Nethack can be glorious, frustrating, hilarious, and satisfying. Like any great game, it's even fun to watch and talk about when played by others. There are probably more web pages of people telling their Nethack war stories than there are pages discussing the game itself.

This is one of those pages. I'm writing this because, after twenty years of playing, I finally completed the game." It's quite a tale, and full of glimpses of secrets I never discovered. Always more of a rogue man.
yaap  nethack  ascension  roguelike  games  stories  writing 
march 2010 by infovore
D Nye Everything: Dante's Inferno
"The demo of Dante's Inferno provided absolutely the stupidest gaming experience I think I have had since possibly Ultimate Combat Mission on the Spectrum +2. I don't think God of War can meaningfully compete, because… well, because it isn't based on one of the most famous works of literature produced in the last thousand years. Dorothy L Sayers translated it, for God's sake. Kratos never really had to get past anything more culturally embedded than Clash of the Titans." Dan has been playing Dante's Inferno, and the end result is this lovely post, about classics, and living stories, and Just Plain Stupid Games. It's very good. "…there's nothing to stop an incredibly silly game being a very enjoyable game, but there's something about the abandon with which Inferno is being used art direction for a slash-em-up that is killing the joy of it a bit for me"
games  dantesinferno  classics  livingstories  dangriffiths  writing 
february 2010 by infovore
Assassin’s Creed 2: 0 out of 5 stars « Chungking Espresso
"How does a game about killing people, the Old Testament, and the Borgias completely bore an Italian Jew?" Simon Ferrari didn't like Assassin's Creed II; he explains why. It's entertaining, for sure (but I'm still going to pick it up).
games  simonferrari  writing  assassinscreed2 
december 2009 by infovore
Insult Swordfighting: Games of the decade: Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time -- Video Game Reviews and Rants
"Then, after the Prince topples the evil Vizier and rewinds time, back to before the Sands destroyed everything, it's as though they've never met. When we realize that the Prince has been talking to Farah all along, and not to us, it is a perfect storytelling moment: funny, surprising, achingly romantic. I don't remember if Farah falls in love with the Prince after that, but I did." Mitch writes about Sands of Time in his end-of-decade list. It's still, I think, my favourite game of the decade.
games  sandsoftime  princeofpersia  mitchkrpata  writing 
december 2009 by infovore
SLRC - Specious Living, Reasoning, and Criticism: Permanent Death - The Complete Saga
"After some delay I am now proud to announce that the complete Permanent Death saga is available for download. This definitive PDF version of the story, novel, machinima, whatever you want to call it, is something I am immensely proud of. I feel it eclipses both the scope and quality of anything I’ve ever produced before." It was a lovely endeavour, and still one of my favourite games - certainly of the decade, and perhaps ever.
farcry2  writing  games  benabraham 
december 2009 by infovore
The Game of Love by Marie Mutsuki Mockett - The Morning News
"On the last day of tutoring, I asked my 15-year-old student if he knew that he had a chance to woo and win Bastila. “Really?” He thought he’d known everything about the game, but the dialogue option never registered as flirtation. His face, usually so focused with youthful liveliness, grew wary. He frowned and blinked. He wasn’t quite sure how he felt about the fact that his beloved game would contain something so foreign. So adult. " Marie Mutsuki Mockett - what a name! - writes about KOTOR, Carth Onassi, and a little bit of magic.
games  kotor  romance  bioware  writing 
november 2009 by infovore
I Played Through Left 4 Dead 2 Holding A Goddamn Gnome, by Tom Francis
"In the Dark Carnival campaign of Left 4 Dead 2, you can win a garden gnome at the fairground near the start – and there’s an achievement for carrying it all the way to the end. It is, in fact, the same goddamn gnome I carried through Episode goddamn Two, for the same goddamn reason: there was an achievement for it. By the end of that ordeal, I prayed I’d never set eyes on his (”stupid fucking”) face again – but here he is, and here I am, and here we go." Tom Francis gets the gnome achievement in L4D2, and lives to tell the tale.
games  achievements  writing  tomfrancis  l4d2 
november 2009 by infovore
The Brainy Gamer: The servant and the someday song
"...sometimes I fear our endless preoccupation with making the case for video games is self-defeating. It feels defensive and, at its worst, produces a kind of micro-culture obsession with analysis: a 24/7 bloggo-Twitter tilling and re-tilling of the same small plot of dirt. In this self-absorbed environment, each new game's worth is measured by its ability to move the needle on emergent narrative, artistic expression, genre refinement...or whatever criterion we're applying this week to prove games matter to people already convinced." Yes. Not the reason I've been taking a break from writing about it, but something that plays on my mind before I put fingers to keyboard.
games  writing  criticism  michaelabbott  blogs  navelgazing 
november 2009 by infovore
The Undeniable Case For Pink Floyd: Rock Band | Edge Online
"And if you the beat the game? An animation plays, showing Waters and Gilmour sitting at a pub, chatting like old mates. And as the screen fades to black, they share a little fist bump." Chris' column really is a lovely addition to Edge Online. This is a good one.
beatlesrockband  pinkfloyd  music  games  chrisdahlen  writing 
september 2009 by infovore
Insult Swordfighting: It's not called "Rock Band: The Beatles" for a reason -- Video Game Reviews and Rants
"I've developed a habit of delivering a drum solo at the beginning of every Rock Band track -- just a little wailing away while the song cues up. It's a way of making the songs mine. You can't do that in The Beatles. Hit a drum pad before the song starts, and nothing happens, because that sound isn't on the original recording... More important, it's the game's way of making sure that you don't dare mess with perfection! I'm not a huge fan of that attitude. Past -- and, technically, current -- Rock Band games are about engaging with the music on an equal level. This game, though, is a ball-washing of the highest order. Maybe the Beatles are more deserving of such treatment than any other band, but I don't think any band deserves that treatment. Not now that I've seen the alternatives." Mitch Krpata on his problems with Rock Band: The Beatles.
rockbandbeatles  mitchkrpata  games  music  creativity  improvisation  writing 
september 2009 by infovore
Pitchfork: Album Reviews: The Beatles: Rock Band
"The Beatles: Rock Band is the total opposite [of Rock Band 2]. The "characters" are untouchable, and the tracks don't even toss you a freestyle section. Your only choices are to get the song right, or not. Sure, it's a cliché that most videogames make you save the world, but at least in those games, you know you're needed. I've never felt less important in a game than this one." Chris Dahlen makes an excellent point in the midst of his excellent (and otherwise uniformly positive) review of The Beatles: Rock Band for Pitchfork.
chrisdahlen  savetherobot  beatles  beatlesrockband  music  harmonix  games  writing  customisation  player  focus 
september 2009 by infovore
Rock, Paper, Shotgun: Bumblebird vs Man-Man » Some Stuff About Open World Games
"So to come full circle with the sense of dissatisfaction with open world games: I think the way we experience them, by comparison with linear games, says something about how our gaming imagination functions. We seem to understand that when linear games point us in a certain direction, that’s the way to go. When an open world game appears, its very structure suggests something about how we should behave, or want to behave, and predisposes us to judge on the basis of how it entices us to go somewhere that the game itself hasn’t suggested, and on how it then deals with that action." Jim on open-world gaming.
games  openworld  jimrossignol  rps  writing 
july 2009 by infovore
chewing pixels » Gaming Made Me
"But in truth you don’t get to choose the games that make you. Rather, these are the ones that time and circumstance pair you with. You don’t get to pick your DNA." I think Simon's short fragment was my favourite by a mile of the RPS "Gaming Made Me" features.
simonparkin  games  writing  experience 
july 2009 by infovore
Rock, Paper, Shotgun: The Force is The Method » Fuel: Around The World In Eight Hours
"I was, instead, going to see what it would take to drive around the world in a single sitting. It would have to be a single sitting because, without unlocking the game, I could not easily return to where I had driven to, or save my location. I was going to drive without the safety-net of a saved game, or even a checkpoint." Jim takes a tour of a properly big open-world; Fuel's not a game I'm very interested in for its mechanics, but the world always seemed interesting, and it's nice to have that confirmed.
games  fuel  openworld  narrative  jimrossignol  writing  exploration 
june 2009 by infovore
Alabaster
"The Queen has told you to return with her heart in a box. Snow White has made you promise to make other arrangements. Now that you're alone in the forest, it's hard to know which of the two women to trust. The Queen is certainly a witch — but her stepdaughter may be something even more horrible..." An interesting take on conversational IF, even if some of the most interesting endings - and best writing - his relatively cryptic to access...
games  if  interactivefiction  textadventure  writing  narrative 
june 2009 by infovore
E309: the 7 things you need to know about Microsoft's press conference - Offworld
If you want a wrap-up of the Microsoft keynote, you could do no better than Brandon's wrap-up for Offworld - spot on, nicely detailed, and covering all the facts with great illustration. Whilst their titles - L4D2, Forza 3, etc - are obviously real assets, it's their commitment to the 360 as a platform in the living room that was impressive.
e3  entertainment  blog  offworld  microsoft  games  technology  media  writing 
june 2009 by infovore
Insult Swordfighting: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
"It will [violent metaphor] you." Mitch has seen one too many press releases, methinks.
games  press  pr  e3  mitchkrpata  writing  funny  humour 
may 2009 by infovore
Gamasutra - Features - From The Past To The Future: Tim Sweeney Talks
Jolly good interview with Tim Sweeney, with lots on ZZT (hurrah!), and, I think most interestingly lots of on building games around editors and tools - from ZZT through Unreal to the present day. I like his acknowledgments of his shortcomings as a progammer - but perhaps also his shrewdness as a manager.
gamasutra  articles  games  writing  timsweeney  epic  shareware  editors  creation 
may 2009 by infovore
Well Played 1.0: Video Game, Value and Meaning | ETC-Press (Beta)
Well Played is now out, and can be read online and purchased from Lulu. It's exactly the sort of thing I've wanted for a while - a reader for videogames, and for the actual experiential side of them - and it's got some great authors contributing pieces on a host of games. Worth your time, for sure.
games  writing  reader  stories  books  publishing  analysis  criticism 
may 2009 by infovore
GameSetWatch - Column: @Play: How To Win At Nethack
God, Nethack is far, far, far too complicated. This only reminds me why I hated it so much (compared to Rogue, or even Larn).
nethack  roguelike  games  tips  writing  overcomplicated 
may 2009 by infovore
Fullbright: Single-A games
"They're like triple-A games, but trimmed down and tightened to fit a smaller team, smaller scope, and usually a smaller audience-- to try new, interesting, and exciting approaches that the baggage of a triple-A game can almost never allow. Single-A games: they're what we need more of, and they're what The Path and Zeno Clash are outstanding examples of." I like your coinage, Steve.
stevegaynor  writing  games  independent  singlea  newwave  industry 
may 2009 by infovore
Mike Darga's Game Design Blog
Mike Darga's blog is a smart, insightful, data-driven look at game design, especially for MMOs. It's very good, and goes straight into my subscriptions.
games  blog  writing  design  play 
may 2009 by infovore
Gamasutra: Greg Costikyan's Blog - Twiggy Game: Will Videogaming's Future Look Like Boardgaming's Past?
"The Twiggy Game is a charming cultural object from a bygone era; it's also a stark representation of what went wrong with boardgames, and a stark warning for what can go wrong with games as a whole -- at least, if we fail to inculcate, in ourselves and in others who love games, an aesthetic that prizes something beyond the brand." Costikyan on the dangers of games having a 'lack of culture'.
culture  criticism  gregcostikyan  games  writing  history 
may 2009 by infovore
Locked Door | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
"I hate the way I’m expected to give up trying to open you when I see the words “this door has been locked from the other side” or “this door opens elsewhere”, as though they’re a command from God himself."
games  writing  mechanics  doors 
april 2009 by infovore
Versus CluClu Land: Against my Better Judgement, I Discuss Citizen Kane and Maybe Art
"The problem with all this is that we're asking the wrong question. The “are games art?” question is boring...
The interesting question, to me, is what /kind/ of art games are. That is, we should be asking ourselves what kind of formal dynamics and pleasures are inherent in the medium, and be able to identify when these formal capacities are used well." Sensible, rationally thought out, and also a reminder as to /why/ Kane is used as a benchmark. "Command of formal capacities" is an important phrase.
art  videogames  criticism  games  iroquoispliskin  writing  citizenkane 
april 2009 by infovore
Cruise Elroy » The game that was a book
"As I tried to unravel Braid’s interstitial text I realized that solving the puzzles and understanding the text required very similar approaches. Their concealed machinations and thematic ambiguities are teased out using the same mental processes, and are part of the same overarching search for meaning. In a way, I was “reading” everything in the game. It’s not the unification of narrative and gameplay that we’ve come to expect, but it’s a refreshing and effective one." Dan Bruno has an interesting perspective on Braid; not sure I agree with it entirely, but the feelings he describes are certainly familiar.
games  braid  literature  writing  criticism  exploration  comprehension 
april 2009 by infovore
Architecting the unreal: the hubs and spokes of BioShock's Rapture - Offworld
So I'm going to be writing the odd thing for Offworld from time to time, and this is my first post, on a nice post from Steve Gaynor about architecutre, and leading players through stories with architecture alone. More to come, pop-pickers.
offworld  games  writing  me  bioshock  architecture  tomarmitage 
april 2009 by infovore
Ending BioShock, by Tom Francis
Tom Francis posits an alternate ending to Bioshock, that makes sense of the Vita-Chambers switcheroo, gives the player the agency they've craved, fixes some of the issues with the original ending, and asks you kindly to DROP THE GODDAMN RADIO.
bioshock  games  narrative  play  storytelling  writing 
april 2009 by infovore
GDC Takeaway: Tiny, Tiny Stories « Save the Robot - Chris Dahlen
"Many deep, sophisticated emotions can emerge from those three plots. But they should emerge in the experience, in the actions the players take, in the reactions they receive, in gestures and decisions and deaths and tasks and achieving or failing to achieve a goal. They should not emerge from people sitting around talking to each other in a cartoon." Chris Dahlen on post-GDC09 narrative.
games  narrative  story  chrisdhalen  writing  character  plot 
april 2009 by infovore
Well Played - Forthcoming: 2009 | ETC-Press (Beta)
"The goal of this book is to help develop and define a literacy of games as well as a sense of their value as an experience. Video games are a complex medium that merits careful interpretation and insightful analysis. By inviting contributors to look closely at specific video games and the experience of playing them, we hope to clearly show how games are well played." Looks fantastic - great selection of writers, great selection of titles, and what the games canon needs. More Like This, please!
games  writing  books  publishing  criticism  analysis  experiential 
april 2009 by infovore
Gamasutra - Features - Game Writing From The Inside Out
This is both good and bad in places; I'm not totally convinced by the "What would players rather shoot -- a wall, or a Nazi?" argument, but I'm very interested (as per my previous writing on Far Cry 2) in notions of non-player characters as protagonist; the player as lens through which story emerges, rather than hero of said story. Stuff to think on, for sure, but I'm still working out how to respond to this; I'm not sure it fulfils its goal of discussing "how writers and designers can collaborate smoothly and successfully"; it just shows me some examples.
design  games  writing  narrative  story  structure  protagonist 
march 2009 by infovore
Dubious Quality: Killzone 2: I Live For This Shit!
"I would be very interested in seeing a BSD game that introduced some moral ambiguity, or unexpected and painful consequences. I'd love to see a game where you start off with balls in full swing, then slowly start to realize that--mother*ucker--you're on the wrong side." Bill Harris gave up on Killzone 2. I'm mainly linking to this just because of the coinage of "BSD" as a genre, which is perfect.
games  writing  billharris  bsd  killzone2  machismo 
march 2009 by infovore
Spectre Collie » Blog Archive » On Brevity
"Just because a line is functional doesn’t mean it can’t be clever, funny, insightful, or dramatic. The real art of videogame writing is being aware of the context: understanding how, when and where the line is going to be used, and how to compensate for the times you have no control over when the line is played." A nice piece on writing for games, and brevity (or a lack of it).
games  writing  dialogue  brevity  relevance 
march 2009 by infovore
Wax on the Arm | Gamers With Jobs
"I smile. I didn't fool him in the slightest. But it doesn't matter. I didn't fall. Wax on the arm." Lovely.
games  music  writing  culture  marriage 
march 2009 by infovore
Hit Self-Destruct: Domestic City, Part One
Wonderful, delightful, charming writing from Duncan Fyfe; this, and the eight chapters that follow it, are pretty essential, and they're nice and brief. Speculative fiction about games, culture, and the future. And fandom.
games  writing  culture  society  lovely  speculativefiction  duncanfyfe 
march 2009 by infovore
Gamasutra - Analysis: Tabula Rasa 's Final Moments - A Firsthand Account
"It is probably safe to say that, despite decades of ever more spectacular Hollywood visions of extra-terrestial domination, humanity in its worst nightmares never imagined it would have to contend with spawn-camping aliens." Chris Remo documents the end of Tabula Rasa from the frontlines.
games  writing  mmo  journalism  apocalypse  tabularasa  end 
march 2009 by infovore
Grand Text Auto » The Tell-Tale Brick
"This is not a book about the VCS, nor breakout, nor video games and video game culture; it is a chronicle of the experience of that entity we might call “the player.” Oddly, there is little I can take from it in terms of approaches to video gaming or thoughts on the VCS Breakout. But it did enlarge my perspective and help me think about physiological, cognitive, and, let us say, monomaniacal aspects of video game play. Nervous, very dreadfully nervous Sudnow has been, but why would I say that he is mad?" Sudnow passed away very recently; I really ought to read his book, more than ever.
games  writing  criticism  books  arcade  davidsurnow  ethnography  breakout 
february 2009 by infovore
Video Games I Quit On: Force Unleashed | My Chemical Romance
"I shouldn't even explain it- you should probably just youtube some gameplay footage if you're interested and watch the insanity." Gerard Way on quitting Force Unleashed - and hinting that he's going to talk more about other games he's given up on. That should be interesting.
games  writing  mychemicalromance  failure  gerardway  defeat  frustration 
february 2009 by infovore
One More Go: World of Warcraft, home is where the hearth is - Offworld
"Warcraft’s success has always been substantially due to the extraordinary physicality of Azeroth, to the real sense of land transversed, of caves discovered, and of secrets shared. Players old and new bemoan the endless trudging that low-level travel requires, but it’s crucial for binding you to the world." Yes. Despite QuestHelper, I'm always in awe of the new areas. I just wish more people were playing the game as slowly and badly as me. Another beautiful One More Go, and one that resonates a lot right now.
games  writing  place  wow  worldofwarcraft  home  onemorego  azeroth  belonging 
february 2009 by infovore
GameSetWatch - Column: 'Homer In Silicon': Blue Lacuna
"There are no cut scenes, no uninteractive passages, no portions where the characters are essentially "switched off" and indifferent to what the player does. Everything counts. Everything is part of the story." Excellent Emily Short piece on Blue Lacuna
games  writing  storytelling  narrative  interactivefiction  if  bluelacuna 
february 2009 by infovore
Scribblenauts Preview - Page 1 // DS /// Eurogamer - Games Reviews, News and More
I can't really quote from it, but you need to read this; it's the most deliciously bonkers concept, and if they pull it off - which seems like it might just be possible, given the level of detail they talk about the game at - it could be properly magical. Lovely preview, too.
games  ds  nintendo  writing  creativity  drawing  brilliant  scribblenauts 
february 2009 by infovore
One More Go: Rhythm Tengoku, or Why plucking the hairy onion makes a new woman out of me - Offworld
"...it turns out that a GBA and a cart isn’t any more use than a GBA on its own. It’s only when you build a machine out of a GBA and a cart and a me that you’ve got a real Rhythm Tengoku Machine. Bolt those three components together and you’ve built an entirely new organism, an extraordinary creature who can shoot ghosts, dance with monkeys, and climb stars like staircases."
games  play  writing  hardware  offworld  gba  rhythmtengoku 
february 2009 by infovore
Ragdoll Metaphysics: Soap Opera & The Sims - Offworld
"Imagine it: instead of text adventures and MUDs being designed to entertain MIT students and 23-year old computer engineers, they fall into the hands of bored housewives and teenage girls... This time there are romantic text adventures, digital doll's houses, dating games. Card deck games where you collect friends, or Versace. The trend continues and the licences that get picked up are not action movies, but those of popular soap operas: Not just hot teenage stuff like 90210, but Guiding Light, Days Of Our Lives, and One Life To Live. This is a games industry completely different to our own, and yet somehow... plausible." Jim Rossignol on the soap-as-game.
games  writing  offworld  alternatehistory  jimrossignol  soapopera  thesims 
january 2009 by infovore
Dangerous High School Girls In Award Ceremonies | Rock, Paper, Shotgun
"Customers seem to respond better to the Sims than all the adventure games ever made combined together. Then there are Bejeweled and Peggle and other game games. Who needs a stink’n story? I prefer making interactive stories." The writer of "Dangerous High School Girls in Trouble", interviewed on RPS, drops an interesting one.
games  writing  rockpapershotgun  dhgit 
january 2009 by infovore
One More Go: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat - Offworld
"We spend a lot of time talking about games and films, but a much more useful corollary is music. The processes are spookily similar. Creators devise an experience, and commit it to code. The code then sits there, lifeless, until a performer picks it up. Then, through a complex tool which requires substantial manual dexterity to master, the performer interprets the experience the creator devised. No two people will play the code the same way. Some players will perform better than others. Some will get stuck and give up before the end."
games  music  play  writing  performance  interpretation 
january 2009 by infovore
The Brainy Gamer: "I'm With the Band" - a short play
"My crystal ball tells me you will hear music - great classic rock tunes - and you will believe, truly believe, that you are playing that music on your toy guitar. And you will feel, truly feel, that you are cool. A hero of the guitar." Lovely.
games  music  play  writing  rockband  guitarhero  michaelabbott 
january 2009 by infovore
One More Go: Ranarama - Offworld
"But in a game - or, at any rate, in the kind of game you used to get for Christmas - you’re literally the only person in the universe, and literally the only person with the power to fix things. No-one’s going to come and help, no-one’s going to come and tell you off or second-guess your choices: there’s just you and a world that will stay broken unless you fix it. What’s in the box isn’t a frog power fantasy - it’s a vibrant, momentary taster of the glorious pressure of being a grown-up." Margaret, being brilliant (again) on games, Christmas, childhood, and what it means to be meaningfully alone.
games  play  writing  childhood  ranarama  atarist  christmas  empowerment 
december 2008 by infovore
The Offworld 20: 2008's Best Indie and Overlooked - Offworld
The Offworld 20 "...isn't just a list of independently made and under-appreciated games, it's a list of the games that celebrate what makes Offworld Offworld: the beautiful and the bizarre, and the games trying to push the medium forward and give us something we've never seen before, in whatever incremental way." Smashing. I love Offworld already, and this is a lovely list.
games  writing  blogs  offworld 
december 2008 by infovore
GameSetWatch - COLUMN - Chewing Pixels: 'The Nightmare Before Christmas'
"I am a terrible gaming evangelist. Every time I think I’m onto something my mind’s invaded by Marcus Fenix and his sweaty, homoerotic pecs, by Cloud and his implausible sword and cod-philosophy and, most poignantly, by me, in my pajamas aged nine playing Tetris on the toilet and by me, in my pajamas aged twenty-nine, playing Tetris on the toilet." And Simon powers straight into /my/ favourite games writing of 2008. Bravo.
games  play  writing  culture  videogames  excuses  evangelism 
december 2008 by infovore
LRB · John Lanchester: Is it Art?
Lanchester writing about games, from the point of view of a smart person who's actually played the games he described. I certainly don't agree with all his points, but I don't disagree with them all, and he's not mouthing off: he's making smart connections and indicating more than a passing familiarity with the medium. Might write a tad more on this.
games  writing  culture  criticism  art  lrb  johnlanchester 
december 2008 by infovore
Farewell: Maggie Has Left the Tower
Bye, Maggie Greene. You made Kotaku a much, much better place, and you'll be missed. After your sabbatical, please get back to writing about games somewhere.
games  writing  criticism  blogs  kotaku  maggiegreene 
december 2008 by infovore
The Problem with Games Journalism: Part One | Snappy Gamer
The comments thread on this is pretty epic, and I'm really not wading into that one. Suffice to say: it's quite a while before somebody mentions the word "criticism", and it's not in the main body of the article at all. That's the important word, to my mind.
games  writing  criticism  journalism  rant  misguided 
december 2008 by infovore
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