Portal is good

I don't want to get too review-heavy on this blog, but I just finished Portal, which is part of Valve's friginexelent new Orange Box half-life 2 comp. Portal's a short game, clocking in at a couple of hours, but it's really good. When I played it, I was strongly compelled in a way I've rarely been in a game. When I finished it, I was totally filled with joy, to similarly unexplored degrees. Granted I had been drinking. But still!

You've probably heard of its basic gimmick: there are portals that you make and go through. It pulls that part off well; going beyond the jumping puzzles I saw in Narbancular Drop and the 2d Java Portal game. They got pretty creative.

But that isn't even the point; the things that Portal does right are things that I wouldn't normally even think to look for. Something in its tone, its pacing, its feel.. it got something right. The game swept me up the way a movie or piece of widely-accepted-mediumed-art-proper might.

It seems like a lot of the time the game development process is: 1) make an engine that enables killer screenshots; 2) bang together some levels that will take "long enough" for people to complete to justify the game purchase. Portal could have gone that route, and used the gimmick to bang out some portal-jumping levels. But instead the designers demonstated a lot of creativity and a great attention to detail. There's a craft and vision to it that seems rare these days.

Some Reviews (Off Topic!)

I want to make an update about my new direction for the monster/city game, but its a little tough to get my head around. So I'll settle for exorcising some reviewerly thoughts that have been bumping around. If you just want game content, skip it, come back in a bit.

Game: The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass
I just finished this game, and I liked it a lot. It was a legitimate return to the things I liked about the classic Link to the Past on the SNES. The game reminds me a bit of Diablo. It uses the DS touch screen in a click-to-go, click-to-get-item, click-to-attack-monster way that quickly becomes invisible, and keeps me in that flow sweet spot. Also, its good at capturing that almost-there feeling; you feel like you're always almost going to accomplish something new, and multiple, overlapping goals come and go in a way that keeps you engaged.

It's sort of a sequel to Wind Waker, and has a similar boating/island hoping thing going. But its 2d, and that combined with the genius control scheme, makes it much, much more imersive and fun for me. I'll give you the short version of my rant against 3d games, in particular those with free cameras:
1) Moving the camera is not an avatar action. Every time I have to move the camera in a game I'm no longer associating myself with my avatar, and my immersion is broken. If I swing a push a button to swing a sword and jump and whatever, that is invisible enough that I feel like I *am* my character. But when I have to dick around with the camera to get a look at something standing right in front of me, I quickly become some clumsy jackass trying to peer over the hero's shoulder, and that's not any fun.
2) Relative motion breaks immersion. When up-right doesn't mean move Northeast, but rather, "move in a direction 45 degrees to the right of the direction the camera is pointing", I am distracted ever so slightly. When I do this 50 times a minute, I don't have fun.
3) The camera can lead to cheap level design. I was unable to get into Wind Waker for a bunch of reasons, but what finally killed me was playing some level where I had a big leaf that could blow gusts of wind. I couldn't figure out how to proceed, and eventually found that there was some big fan/gear thing that I had blow. But you couldn't see it unless you craned the camera around in some outlandish direction. Once I saw the gear, it was obvious what to do, but the challenge was added by making it hard to see. I'd rather have the cards on the table and try to solve the situation, not screw around with the camera. I'd rather play freecell than 3-card monte. Not to mention, my character could have seen the stupid gear easily, so strike 3 for immersion.

Phantom Hourglass kept me completely immersed with actions that stayed invisible, and puzzles that I felt like I had to solve, not use the game to notice.

It is a little too easy, and it seems to end before you really have a chance to take advantage of all the bonuses and things you've spent the game earning. To the extent that I almost wonder if there's a later post-game-ending phase that I'm missing. In any case, a good use of your ds, you will wholly get your money's worth.

Television: Arrested Development
In a compromise to several people I know who insist that Arrested Development is the Bee's Pajamas, I agreed to watch the first 6 episodes in order (one DVD's worth). Having done so, well.. I like it better than I did. And I did laugh, and I appreciate the writing more. But my mind is generally unchanged. I still deeply dislike the characters, and find them completely unbelievable - and I generally have to either like the characters I don't believe in (30 Rock?) or believe that bad people like this could exist (Sideways?).

And while some of the plots are very clever, sometimes I just feel like I'm watching the writers show off. I mean, the stair car allows for some opportunities that are well exploited: getting people into trees, getting people out of jail, allowing people to be mistakenly lead onto a tarmac at the airport. Laughs ensue. But that car SCREAMS being written into a script so that it could set up jokes. It shouts that fact right in my face. And there are enough plot points like this that I have absolutely no sense of an actual story unfolding; it feels like the writers are trying to work more and more absurd devices into the plot that they can exploit. And even if I laugh now and then, the whole show gives me a growing sense of soullessness that is tough to get past.

It occurs to me that this is not all that unlike Seinfeld, which I like at least a bit. That show also felt very written, and also had characters that were tough to like. There's something subtle here though, I still liked the actors, and the creators. I felt like they were performing for me, that they wanted to make me laugh. In arrested development, there's something strangely snarky and hateful about the tone of the show. I feel like the show is laughing at me, not with me. I don't know how what that means, but it somehow sums up how I feel watching it.

Music: Gang of Four - Entertainment!
Somewhat relatedly, I've had this album for years, and while I like it, I never really got what all the hype was about. This week I decided to turn it up so loud it hurts.

I've always wanted to describe the guitar parts as "stabby", and there is definitely something violent about the metallic, staccato guitar sub-chords they use. When you get that shit cranked up, it makes you rhymically physically uncomfortable and angry, makes you identify with the songs' screeds against everything. And you grab onto those rolling bass parts for dear life, trying to ride your way out of the clusterfuck factory. To listen to this album, I think maybe you have to feel as pissed off as the songs do. Wearing a suit helps too. (This might seem at odds with my dislike of the discomfort in Arrested Development, but I guess there are some things I want in my post-punk that I don't want in my comedy television.)

Book: Scott McCloud - Understanding Comics
I (finally!) picked this up, and have been digging it something fierce, so far, two chapters in. There's something in his ideas about associating oneself with comics' protagonists that I feel like can be applied to games. I'll be keeping an eye on it.



I swear there is something about games in each of these, believe it or not. But I'm too pooped to go there for now. Also, is it just me, or is there something unpleasant about this post? I'm a hypocrite. Or maybe this post is more post-punk than television comedy.

Monster game update soon!

Three Hundred

Another quick link: this guy is working to outline 300 video game concepts. He's only up to 55 so far, but there's something appealing about the endeavor, and browsing the concepts is fun. I like the way he really digs down into some of these ideas, and illustrates them effectively - I really need more pictures on this blog.

I like to try a lot of flash/casual games, just to absorb their concepts, the interesting ideas behind their design. By just posting the ideas, this guy gives me half the enjoyment I'd get from a completed game, at a tiny fraction of the effort. That's my kind of equation I can get behind; it reminds me of The Shiteasters, that most groundbreaking of modern bands.

NYC Gamer

Just a quick link to another game blog I stumbled upon: http://www.columbia.edu/~tir2101/nycgamer.html

It appears to be defunct, and its mostly session reports, but there are some interesting theoretical discussions in there. In particular, I like his last post, pointing out the dilema of the most-powerful move, and the risk of waiting too long to pull the trigger on it. I wish he had gone into a little more detail about the implications of that mechanic, but then his is a game blog, not a game design blog. It got me thinking just the same - a simple idea with delicious tension.

Also, his photomontage of his collection over time is a feast for the eyes.

Finally, between my last post about dexterity games and Mr. NYC Gamer's post about some custom Crokinole boards, I am closer than ever to pulling the trigger on a board for myself. 150ish bucks seems like a god damned lot, but I continue to hear nothing but good things about this game, and it seems in line with what I'm looking for these days. I doubt I'll bring myself to do it any time soon, though Tumblin-Dice remains a cheaper, similarly intriguing dexterity-oriented proposition.

Social Games

I love the way that games, especially board games, have the power to provide a social experience. The giant joystick in this clip certainly got me thinking about that idea:

http://www.areyouindie.com/showcase/profile.php?id=19

Part of why I'm down on video games lately is that, while they can provide a heck of an experience, its generally not a social one. That often makes the experience empty, somehow, if you ask me.

Mankind's earlier games, from board games to general acts of vaguely organized frollick, were inherently social, at very least by nature of involving one or more people. One could argue that this was out of necessity.

Let me back up a step: one major difference between a game and a non-game activity is unpredictability. You don't know what's going to happen next when you play a game, and trying to affect that outcome, and experiencing the results, is part of the joy of it. This is why we don't play games that are "solved", why we shun the broken strategy, why a game without depth loses its appeal quickly. We don't want to go through the motions, we want the thrill of uncertainty, and the challenge of affecting it.

So, early on, the easiest way to provide challenge and uncertainty was to pit players against one another. You want X, he wants not-X, conflict ensues, the outcome is uncertain.

But computers can do a bunch of stuff under the hood, can cut decision outcomes along time-discretions so fine that our performance is at the mercy of our more base reflexes, they can provide an uncertain outcome in our interaction with them.

And sure, a deck of cards for solitaire can provide uncertainty. A ball-and-cup game, through the finer points of physics can provide the unexpected bounce and twitch.

But for many people, the social end of gaming has become the exception.

Some people are fine with all this, I'd reckon. 'Gimme uncertainty, via a person or a magic box or whatever, I want to impose my will on the world. Thank god I'm not at the mercy of having other people around to get my game on'. I can't imagine anyone actually uttering that statement, ever. But you get the point, I don't think some people see the loss of a human element in games as a problem.

For me though, I feel like I need that social element. Believe it or not, this isn't even meant as some screed in favor of social interaction, its just what I'm finding I want from games lately. When I play video games, I strive for coop gameplay when I can find it. Even when I play a video game alone, I find myself looking for games that are going to promote social interaction after-the fact. I like my ownership-of-experience games (I don't think I've done my rant on this yet here) where I can tell someone a story of what I did that is different from the experience that every player has. I want something where I can compare achievements and high scores. Bioshock's coming out, and I'm stoked to play it, but its at least partially because I want to talk about (what's shaping up to be) a landmark game, with other game lovers.

Side note, I played the demo, god damn. An enormous, abandoned 1950's underwater city, ready to collapse under the weight of the ocean at any moment, filled with period propaganda, magestic architecture, and crawling with maniacs. Abandoned, underwater, 50's, metropolis. Jesus! Best video game atmosphere ever? So yeah, I'm still a sucker for the solo elements.

This comes into board games too. They're inherently social, but I'm finding I want to weild this in ways other than outright competition. Not just because of my game-based neuroses, though I'm sure thats part of it, I feel like there are other kinds of interaction that can be inspired by games than I-win, you-lose. I'd like more cooperative games, and even games that encourage creative expression, for example. That's a lofty enough goal, I'll stop short of games that let you share your feelings.

To get back to the initial inspiration, I love the idea of the giant joystick. It's collaborative, but furthermore, it allows people to choose their own approach to the collaboration. Its cooperative, but there's a negotiation there, I can imagine. Its a creative act, just playing it, just deciding how to play it, and one that multiple people participate in. All this despite being a video game. Delicious.

I can only dream of a board game design like that: one that allows people to choose their own mode of interaction, while providing enough of a framework so that the whole exercise doesn't fall into disarray.

It seems impossible, but as if often the case with these posts, I'm warmed by the promise of the idea's distant glow.

Twin Peaks

I just finished Twin Peaks, part of an impromptu scouring of Lynch's stuff I've been doing recently. I really disliked large parts of the 2nd season, but man, the last couple episodes really pulled it together, especially the last one. It's surely hyperbole to say that that its the scariest thing in the history of TV, but I found it pretty intense (albeit at 4am after a couple drinks), and can't think of anything offhand that matches it. While I couldn't quite call the final wrapup satisfying, I was somehow pretty stoked by it.

Just to give a little bit of game-oriented content, I found myself really inspired with regards to the RPG system / setting I've been working on, now and then, for the last year or so. It started as a swashbuckling kind of game, focusing on over-the-top acts of derring-do. But I find myself adding an undertone of pseudo-Victorian high-society, whose members include gatekeepers of places beyond reality. The players, as duelists, brawlers, inventors and great orators, seem powerful compared to the coddled controllers of the port towns they visit. But these patricians and magistrates know of realms long lost, and the forces that dwell therein.

It would be fair to call the concept Lovecraftian, but I'm thinking less about chaotic realms of unseeable geometry and more about Twin Peaks' subtly twisted dreamworlds, or House of Leaves' merciless infinities. I'm hatching icy worlds with internal logic stronger than reason. The endless streets of identical, stark white pueblo-style houses. The long, clean hallways, leading to the well-dressed artisan, who crafts hundreds of marble statues of you. I want to build worlds inside the world, and ensure that they have their own compelling consistency, however strange.

This long-term RPG thing is less of a real project than a mind-occupier for dull moments, an exucse to dump out world ideas without being constrained by devising elegant game rules. But Twin Peaks certainly did a great deal to make me think bigger, and provided some inspiration about how to tease and trouble.

Artist - Album (Favorite Song)

I don't really have a personal blog these days, so I guess this is where I have to let the music overflow trickle. These are right rocking me lately:

Los Campesinos! - Sticking Fingers into Sockets EP (We Throw Parties, You Throw Knives)
Blitzen Trapper - Wild Mountain Nation (Sci-Fi Kid)
Genesis - A Trick of the Tail (A Trick of the Tail)
Dan Deacon - Spiderman of the Rings (The Crystal Cat)
Je Suis France - Afrikan Majik (California Still Rules)
Queen - A Night at the Opera (I'm in Love with My Car)
Ratatat - Remixes Vol. 2 (Glock Nines)

Edit: Fuck! We Throw Parties, The Crysal Cat, and Glock Nines make up my definitive 10 minutes of love transpastic right now.