Misc

A quick mock-up showcasing how social networks are starting to become a web of its own
I sometimes get the feeling that the Internet is starting to become just a network of social networks. Sure, I know there’s so much more, but they all feed into a social network sooner or later. Myself, I already use a number of these networks and services, that all link to each other. Initially just to clear my mind, I assembled this map basically only showing how I’ve connected all these social networks into… a network. In other words, my social metanetwork. Social Media Forwarding Map Of course, this is a rough prototype – for any formal use, I would give it more thought (and make it pretty), but it drives the point home. By writing this post, I’ll show it on no less than three networks by only forwarding stuff back and forth. The same goes with any activity on Foursquare or Youtube. It’s not that I don’t like it – it’s a great way to stay active on the web, reach more people and save time doing it. I’m just baffled I need to create a map to know where all my posts will be shown to avoid multi-forwards and circle-forwarding as it grows more complex. I’ll be […]

Internet – The Social Metaweb

 in Misc by
I’ll just write down off the top of my mind a “review”-like thing for Heavy Rain. I happened to play it all – in one play-though – with a friend last evening, and really feel I should write it down while memory’s still fresh and not yet affected from “better” thinkers then me. I’d love to start off with the story, but I’ll save that to last. It’s a very, very, story-focused game, and I’ll prefer to use plenty of spoilers (of what happened to me and my friend, at least). So I’ll start off with my thoughts on the controls of the game. You see, Heavy Rain has been accused both before and after to be “a series of Quick Time Events” (QTE). That’s only half true, and the true half is gravely misleading. Let’s just give a quick description of what I consider a “Quick Time Event”, just to remove any confusion. A Quick Time Event is a series of prompts asking you to press, hold or smash a specific button within a short lapse of time that does something a regular move would not. Atop of that, it usually have grave consequences if you fail and doesn’t […]

Thoughts on Heavy Rain

 in Misc by
For a very long time, game developers (and in particular, I guess, game designers and game writers) have worked to get games as close to movies as it’s possible. And, although I understand as well as support the idea behind a cinematic presentation of story elements, the comparison in my opinion breaks completely when you use it on interest curves. Some have used television series as an example, and although this works fairly well, it’s still a bit flawed. The comparison that should be made is to a medium so taken for granted we barely think about them: Books. And, more specific, novels. “What?” you may ask. “But books are only a mass of text. Interactive fiction might fit, but not audiovisual games”. And this is the same logical trap that makes the comparison to movies appear over and over again. Because, as audiovisual as games are, they tend to be 10 to 40 hours long. A movie is for most considered too long for most if it reaches four, a length considered short for a game. This length demands of a movie to quickly get to the intrigue and get on with the story to reach the end quickly […]

Let those movies go!

 in Misc / On Things in Games by
I see I haven’t made any real updates this week. Which is strange, because I’ve been reading and playing more stuff then usual. I guess I should start making myself some opinions and get writing! Anyway, I made sure to make the Link Tips-posts less a sad thing then they’ve been before, and took a new strategy to build them (that is, throwing all links in and edit a draft during the week). And, lo and behold, it seems to have worked! As always, Rock Paper Shotgun’s Sunday Papers and Gamesindustry.biz’s article Depth Changes – and a Eurogamer-blog article about Gaikai turned up while I was searching. On Gamasutra, an opinion called Can Games Become “Virtual Murders”?. I’ve always had a worrying feeling about the “shoot people in the face”-focuc of gaming (as some earlier posts goes through), so this is really refreshing to read – but it seems like the post gets the same sort of opposition I tend to get while speaking about it aloud. I hope it’s the first step in realizing things, denial, but it could just as well be a defense of the established, home-blindness or plain “I want my guns!”. Anyway, great article. Eurogamer […]

Link Tips #3

 in Misc / Reading by
Yes, I know I didn’t post any last week. But here’s one! First off, the returning Sunday Papers and Gamesindustry.biz article. Also, a gamasutra feature about Dramatic Play. And another gamasutra article on Infamous’ pacing. Some marketing-posts: First off Dev.Mag’s Zero budget indie marketing guide, which links to Kieron Gillen’s How to Use and Abuse the Gaming Press and How the Gaming Press Wants to Use and Abuse You (and, yes, I do think I found that thanks to RPS). Finally a edge-online post by Introversion’s Thomas Arundel called Selling to Customers. I think that’s enough for this time. Embedded links makes these posts seem shorter then they are, or if it’s “not longer then they are”…

Link Tips #2

 in Misc / Reading by
The 1st of Mars last year, I wrote a post about MMOs and time-waste, where I – among other points – wrote: “For instance, you get a quest to kill some bears right outside town. Now, this town is on the top of a mountain, and the bears are down in the alley[sic], so you’ve got to get down that mountain to kill bears and then back up. Sure, this sounds like a small thing, and it is. It is when traveling includes flying all over the world back and forth taking several minutes for nothing that it, in my opinion, gets bigger. Or when I have to run down that same mountain the tenth time. Why can’t I just teleport around, moving to the target instantly? It’s not like I won’t have to know where I’m heading to make a precise estimation of where I’m about to teleport.” Sometimes, the world behaves in mysterious ways. Yesterday, Rock Paper Shotgun (RPS) posted an article asking why you can’t teleport in MMOs. Knowing I’ve asked the same, and during this year of education might have found a few answers, I feel I could make a post going a bit further into […]

Travelling in MMOs

 in Gameplay design / Interaction Design / Level Design / Misc by
If I have any readers, I wish to wish them all a happy midsummer! This includes you who don’t consider yourselves readers but happens to be here anyway. And, a few notes. Having started to play KotOR 2 again (a new “review” might be needed soon), I thought about buying Mass Effect, so I went to steam. There it costed 45€, or about 500 SEK. So I checked Webhallen.com and found it for 180 SEK including transportation. I just have to wonder how the reasoning behind keeping the price up is – surely a game retailer, digital or no, must realize they’re not alone in the market and customers find options if it sounds too expensive? They all sell the same product, after all!

Happy Midsummer!

 in Misc by
There seems to be plenty of common themes between the story structure of The Hero’s Journey and the path to reach the dream job.  I’m not sure if it accounts to everyone in every field, but my story to reach a Game Design position feels a lot like a Hero’s Journey-tale. Thus, The Designer’s Journey is born. It will be a storyfied tale about how I got interested in becoming a game designer and what I’m doing to get there. July 1994. As with every occation when I would get gifts, the excitement had sky-rocketed through the roof several days ago. I would turn 5 years old this day, and in one of the wraped boxes a wierdly shaped black box was drawn, called a “Sega Mega Drive”. Not knowing a single word of english, it quickly became the nicely rhymed “Sega Mega”. Bewilderingly opening the box, I was told something along the lines of “you can change what happens on the screen”. Imagining gingerbread men dancing at command or something equally silly, I was a bit disappointed only being able to steer some blue blurb through some green hills only to get beaten up by a car with a […]

The Designer’s Journey: Chapter One

 in Misc by
Someone who will watch this several years from now is likely to say “Hey, he’s barely active at all!”. Well, ideas comes in waves. I could have done five posts or something in the first week, but forget to post anything in two months after that. Then I prefer to do about one post a week. Besides, it gives me time to think what I really want to write about, what’s important enough for me to take the time to write on this blog which only use are years away. Thankfully, that time gave me this coming topic. Let’s put up this, probably very common, situation. You’ve bought, or gotten, a game that you’ve been looking forward to for a long time but haven’t done any detailed research on. Up and down in anticipation, you install the game and run. First thing you get is an intro increasing your urge to play, like. You go into “new game” hoping to start right away and get into a menu where you’re supposed to make your character. A bit of a setback. Now, what’s more likely of these two: You put in the effort to make a really cool character you can […]

Character-creation as first choice

 in Misc by