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Ah, Prince of Persia. You either love it for what it tried, or hate it for what it tried. We love it, though, and Tom Cross at GSW does a good job of explaining why.
Gaming on a laptop? It's hardly ideal. But that's going off the hardware limitations of 2008! By the distant future, who knows what gaming on a laptop will be like. Might even be like this.
Ian Bogost and his students have a new project underway looking at the intersection of journalism and games; their new blog is full of interesting stuff.
L.B. Jeffries has a nice essay up on the idea of 'games as languages' — a combination of coercing players to take certain actions and encouraging certain responses, creating a dialogue of sorts. As Jeffries says, "It's not exactly talking to another person...but it's not just rolling dice or pressing shoot either." As games get more complex, so does the 'language' aspect — choices are expressive elements, and the more choices one has, the more opportunities for unique combinations. Even the simplest of games involves communication — 'go here, do that.' With the influx of more diverse and user-created building blocks, it seems reasonable that the 'languages' would begin to emerge more clearly:
Posted by Seamus Byrne at 10:56 AM on October 30, 2008
Yesterday we had an interview with Gary Hayes from AFTRS about the new game courses launching next year (applications close November 7, people). Today we offer up an interview with Ian Brown, currently a lecturer in animation and visual effects. He has one hell of a track record, having worked at Animal Logic for ten years and had lead VFX roles on movies like Lord of the Rings. But he's also been making games since ye olde days, having even had a commercial release of a game for the Commodore 64!
We spoke with Brown more specifically about the game design side of the new AFTRS courses, exploring games like Portal, Braid, Flow, and God of War in a discussion of what games need to learn from film, how the game designer should be recognised like a film director, how gameplay and story should mix, and most importantly what a game design student at AFTRS can expect to take away at the end of the course.
Posted by Seamus Byrne at 11:45 AM on October 29, 2008
Still unsure about the AFTRS game courses? Don't have the time, the inclination, or the talent (oh snap!) to join a graduate course next year, but have what you think is a great idea for an original game? AFTRS is running GAMEJAM this Saturday, an event where anyone can come along and get 2-3 minutes to pitch game ideas to a panel of experts and do some rapid workshop work on their ideas, with prizes for the best idea of the day. A great line up of ten minute talks, with open slots for anyone to pitch their own talk. Sounds like a fantastic day for anyone who wants to explore fresh ideas in the Australian game development space. It's all happening 10.00am to 4.00pm this Saturday, November 1, at AFTRS. And did I mention it is FREE? Great value at twice the price. Lots more details at the official site.
Posted by Seamus Byrne at 10:16 AM on October 29, 2008
We recently mentioned the 2009 launch of Game Design and Virtual Worlds courses at the Australian Film Television and Radio School. If you are at all interested, remember applications close November 7 so you should be working on your applications now if you haven't already started.
We caught up with two of the key staff behind the courses and will be sharing those interviews today and tomorrow. First up is Gary Hayes, the Founding Head of LAMP and the leading light on the Virtual Worlds course. You can read his terribly impressive bio here. Tomorrow we speak with Ian Brown, with another ridiculously impressive bio (hello... Sequence Lead VFX Artist on Lord of the Rings), who shares more insights on the Game Design course.
Jump for the interview with Hayes, where we explore the general nature of the courses, the strengths of studying games in the AFTRS environment, and why it has taken so long for games to take story seriously.
Posted by Seamus Byrne at 12:52 PM on October 16, 2008
Tai Chiem, an emerging Australian designer has given the concept treatment to the PSP, working up some ideas on an advanced PSP2. I'm a sucker for concept designs so how could we not share his ideas with y'all?
My design is set for the future using emerging technology. Featuring flexible OLED display that can be conveniently rolled out. An electric charge hardens the material. I've come up with an alternate method for the action buttons. Instead of pressing a button, you instead use the joystick. So instead of pressing, X O, etc, you push either up down, left, or right.
Ernest Adams of the No Twinkie Database of bad game design decisions is back with volume 9 of his "bad designer, no Twinkie!" essay series. Based on a variety of suggestions from readers, Adams outlines a number of bad design decisions — not all of which I necessarily agree with, but certainly provides some fodder for discussion. Unclear outlining of win/loss conditions are an example of a 'Twinkie denying' design flaw:
I meant to post this interesting little history lesson on controller mapping since the NES a few weeks ago, but an ill-fated department camping trip to the wilds of SoCal got in the way; Matthew Gallant of the aptly named 'Quixotic Engineer' takes us down memory lane and on a flying tour of the evolution of various controllers:
