heavy rain

i haven't played it but i freaking want to. since i'm on the wrong side of the world right now, i watched it on a webcam. but STILL.

the Reasons Why I Love This Game and Also Potentially David Cage (despite not actually playing it)

the controls
A isn't jump and B isn't melee attack. everything adapts to its environment, the buttons are only used if it's relevant and the game only tells you about them when it's important. you don't need to learn controls, or refer to a key guide, the game simply tells you as you need to know. mirror's edge tried this kind of "revolutionary" set of controls. and once you got used to it it did kind of work - but put the game down and pick it up a week later, and good luck trying to remember what everything does...

the instructions
when your character is panicking instructions are flying everywhere - you can't see straight, you can't concentrate, and you can't make a slow decision. that interface between a character and a player, the controls and the instructions to that controls is the key to creating immersion. you blur that line, the player will feel more connected to a character.
intuitive controls are a part of it, but if you panic because you can't read the instructions properly as they spin around your character, or if you feel tense as your eyes scatter looking for the next symbol to press in a fight scene, that line fades in the background as you focus on more important things.

the storyline(s)
according to mr. cage there are 23 epilogues, but countless "endings" due to the different ways of reaching these conclusions. a 10 hour game can now be played over and over again, even if you already know who the killer is and each time it will feel like a new game. it's nice to finally see this kind of multi-threaded storyline, though i have no idea how it managed to get backed financially - who wants to pay money for expensive scenes if the player may never actually get to see them because he killed off the character a few chapters ago? i'm just glad someone had that sense eventually.
an interesting note i read in an interview: cage reported that a lot of players found that they didn't feel they really had varying choices in each chapter - they wanted to play the character right, and do what would be in the character's best interests. i'd say that speaks volumes of the games strengths, rather than any weaknesses.

the (realistic) characters
archetypes, cage calls it. he starts with an archetype: someone you can very quickly get to know, based on how the character looks, talks, behaves, moves, and by his voice and whatever. he then adds an additional layer of complexity, so you feel you really know this character but then discover an extra depth. he says he hates caricatures - the army guy with the huge muscles and the big voice, or the sexy girl with the big boobs. it's refreshing to see a change, it reflect cage's attempt to mature the industry. no longer should games be about what people think teenager's want. games aren't made by teenager's any more, and there's a huge market of adults and older people just waiting for maturer games.
it's just so nice to see real people, real faces, real personalities and real problems in a game.

the freaking EMOTION
oh man serious. to feel real attachment to your kid, and a real desire to bond with him again - how the hell do you recreate that? he's a firm believer in borrowing from cinema. if it works in cinema, take it and add something unique to this medium - interactivity. why not? it works. it really really works. emotion drove every design decision in fahrenheit, and probably this game too - the music, the camera, the story, everything. it just WORKS goddamnit.

overall, just so happy. so so happy. i've been super excited about this game for months and months and was getting really anxious as the previews started coming in. videos would pop up and people would react badly saying they didn't want a game where you brushed your teeth, asking why there are no guns, asking why the girl in it isn't as gorgeous as she could be. it made me worried, it did. this is the future of the industry, the signs of it starting to mature, i really want to believe it. there's a gold mine here, a real well of ingenuity and creativity. i just hope the fantastic reviews and (hopefully) number of copies selling encourages other developers to throw their hat into this ring. there's really something there.

LIZARDS

screw that, lizards are just awesome. just spent the last ten minutes watching one wiggle around outside. i could make a game about that. it'd be so cute!

at some point he'd pick up some balloons and float around for a while.

he'd have to eat bugs to get points, but in general the whole game would just be about walking around and looking cool.

pirates

pirates. honestly. pirates. they're the answer to all of this.

either that or marshmallows.

ohh! or cows! cows are pretty cute.

richard bartle

the guy came up with these four types of MMO player:
the explorer (spades)
the achiever (diamonds)
the socializer (hearts)
the killer (clubs)

unsurprisingly after taking the test i'm an explorer/socializer. woo.

so i wonder, is it possible to make a game that can identify what kind of player you are, and adapt the game to suit that experience? if you're an explorer, how could the game reward you for finding something that is only revealed to explorers (a reward greater than the player's own sense of accomplishment of course)? i don't know.

future lauren: please read through this.

music

the decemberists' latest album: the hazards of love has me caught up in this idea of turning an album into a game. each level would be a song, progressing the story; the style and pacing of the music would determine the style and pacing of the level. the thing with hazards of love is that the whole album is one story, each song in the album is like a scene in a play. nice and easy for games.

it brings to question whether i can design a game like this. listening to a song, picking up themes and emotions and atmosphere, and turning it into an interactive game. i guess it follows that aesthetics -> dynamics -> mechanics method of designing.

at any rate, it's probably not something researchable or reportable for a dissertation next year, nor something i'm technically or creatively capable of just yet. but it's something i'd like to hold onto until a time when i am capable comes.

i wonder if i'd have to ask the decemberists' permission to make a game from their album? o.O

mandatory first post

so i guess this is that post where i say, "omg welcome to my new blog!" and i tell you a bit of background and something about myself, and tell you everything that i hope to write about but probably wont. well here goes.

i'm a computer science student. i'm currently in singapore, on a sort of exchange, but when i get home i'll be starting my fourth year - and subsequently graduating (hopefully). in said fourth year, there's a little dissertation we have to do. a kind of research (as far as i'm aware), something to do with computing. this is a pretty wide subject so since i have an interest in games (and game designer is this week's dream job), i'm narrowing my topic to something game-related.

if the gods are kind, i may get a mentor that will let me have access to their little game room - fully equipped with the consoles, sweet-ass tv and some crazy mind-reading devices. if the gods are this kind, i may have a very exciting dissertation thing.

so for starters there's been a number of ideas cropping into my head depending on my mood before i even started this thing, they are written briefly as follows:

- dynamic camera for player-controlled cutscenes (a kind of programmed director determining good camera angles depending on what's happening in the scene)
- realistic player relationships with NPCs
- emotion-responsive something (because i really want to play with that mind reader thing...)
- a first-person shooter without controllers (because i REALLY want to play with that mind reader thing)
- somethingsomethingelseiforget

tada! fantastic.

another note: get used to the lack of capitalisation. none of these entries will be at all cohesive, this whole thing will (hopefully) serve as some kind of replacement for the scraps of paper i keep writing on and losing. here's hopin'!

and with that, bye!