LF20M

So I’ve been observing the latest trends in Facebook game viral techniques, where now you have these wall posts in which players need x people to click on the link to help unlock an area or to build a structure.

I’m not really sure what to feel about all this move away from the single player experience in which you can buy virtual allies to a more multiplayer experience in which you need real friends to progress. Naturally I’m feeling somewhat vindicated because my thesis was, of course, all about more meaningful multiplayer gameplay and how current Facebook games fail at this because you don’t actually need other people to progress.

However, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind. It’s like the devs and I both looked at WoW, right? And I wanted to grab the positive experiences and figure out how to incorporate those. And they wanted to take the ANNOYING aspects and incorporate those, especially because they already fit in so nicely along with all their other quasi-evil viral marketing methods.

Sigh.


#game design #social games #rant

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Silicon Sisters: gamer women for women gamers →

I clicked this because I thought it was going to be a bad excuse for female gamers to flout their gamingness. But, actually, after reading it… they sound really legitimate and actually know what they’re doing, thanks to the following quote:

“But intermingled with those games were also the _No One Lives Forever_s and the CSIs which were definitely paying attention to natural female inclinations—shooting stationary rather than moving objects, finding hidden objects in cluttered spaces, stuff that we’re naturally good at. If men dig it too, all the better.”

I knew females instinctively enjoy hidden object games (lol sorority life)… but shooting stationary objects as opposed to moving ones? … Interesting.


#game design

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How Fast Should We Play Games? →

Thoughtfully written article. It’s an eternal problem, isn’t it? It always takes more time to design the content than it does for the consumer to experience it… which is why PvP ends up being so valuable sometimes, I guess.

There was one really intelligent comment left on the article… it’s too long to re-quote here, but the gist was that s/he believed a lot of modern games are too “schizophrenic”.

If you scour obsessively for secrets and treasures, you completely break the pacing of the game, greatly diminishing its impact, and if you are playing for the story, for the artistic, narrative aspect of the game, few things can ruin your experience as immensely as flawed pacing.

Well designed games, s/he continued, will give the player the illusion of being freely explorable, while preventing them from going too far off track from the main plot.

I think this is part of why I thought Portal was, as much as any game could be, totally “perfect”. The pacing was simply excellent, just enough tutorial and then letting the player loose in the field to really use everything they learned. Plot peppered throughout, especially in small areas that when discovered… they make the player feel like they’ve stumbled onto something optional, but their placement was really quite deliberate.


#game design

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TEDxPennQuarter - Frank Lantz - Reinventing Gaming.

This video is a little heavy and think-y. :P Nevertheless, there were some bits and pieces of wisdom that I thought were nice. But I wrote them down here, so if that’s all you care about, then maybe you don’t need to make time for the video. XP

Unlike the games of tennis and chess and Street Fighter, where you are punished for bad play right away, in poker you can make a bad play and be rewarded. And you can make a good play and be punished.

… It forces you to think beyond the sort of ‘local moment’ and the particular situation.

… What you discover that you need is a different kind of confidence. The kind of confidence that knows that some of your ideas are right, and some of your ideas are wrong. And you can’t believe everything you think.


#game design #ted

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The Facebook Game That Makes Fun of Facebook Games →

Ironically I saw a mention of this game first when I saw Quad post one of its things to his wall. Then I read this article and realized it was Ian Bogost’s game, which in retrospect makes everything make a whole lot more sense.


#game design #social games

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Video Games and Learning.

Not a bad video. But I admit… I didn’t know “Sephiroth” was a reference at all. O.o


#game design

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Casual gaming is not a disease.

Read this piece over at Kotaku and was, in a word, appalled. Instead Of Laughing At “Casual” Gamers, Try Helping Them! As if the title wasn’t insulting enough, the author has to write things like this:

If you know someone hooked on Farmville, someone you previously thought could or would not play video games, have a chat with them! Ask them what they like about it, why they keep playing, what compels them to log in day in, day out and…water a plant. What they tell you could reveal someone that’s in dire need of an introduction to something a little deeper, like the Football Manager series. Or Animal Crossing. Or maybe ease them in with The Sims. And from there, who knows where they could end up.

I guess I shouldn’t be too strident. Before I studied the mechanics and the market, maybe I would have said the same things. As it is, I’ve had my definition of a “good game” tried and tested and warped more times than I can count in the past year.

Don’t get me wrong, I still think the vast majority of Facebook games are not genuinely engaging. And I think there are a lot of tactics Facebook game developers should be using to craft more meaningful experiences, once they finish running their various cash cows into the ground. But I think it’s a horrible thing to say that Facebook game players, casual or not, are in “need” of something better.

The author also doesn’t seem to realize the importance of casual games’ simplified mechanics and reduced time commitment (per session). Some people genuinely don’t have the time or energy (or… money) to dig into a heavier game with leveling-questing-crafting-equipment-gathering-auctioning-dungeoncrawling-raiding-looting. And having a game that gives you the emergent narrative you’re seeking without all the excess time sink is going to be a godsend for these players.

Hell, these days I frequently have a hard time reading a 800 page novel over a short story anthology, because I don’t feel like investing the energy to understand an epic over a vignette.


#game design #rant

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That Roger Ebert Thing

The story in a nutshell:

Girl gives talk. (Kellee Santiago, of thatgamescompany, of USC IMD no less.)

Boy responds to talk, negatively. (Roger Ebert. You know, the film dude.)

The worlds of video game discussion explode in controversy.

Me, I quite like Penny Arcade’s stance, crude as it is.

But I must admit there must be something deeper going on, especially considering the fact that Ebert actually reviewed a video game for WIRED back in 1994… and gave it a fairly positive review.

Huh. >_>


#game design

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If you let a player level up their character, Eskil told me, “then people start caring about themselves.” But if you have them build something for the community then you have something that makes people respect you and from which everyone benefits.

—

“Love” Is The Game That Earns You Respect.

Nothing like finding an article and a game that ties into your thesis in such a way that it needs to be mentioned as a prior art example… THE DAY BEFORE YOUR DEFENSE.

Also annoying that someone else is releasing a game that primes on this concept before me, but oh well. >_>


#game design

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Fabulous.


#ted #game design

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