May 16, 2007
PS3 v Wii
I'm not feeling too perky today - I have a cold that can't decide whether its coming or going so random heavy sleeping ensues... - so I thought I wuld watch one of my favourite commerials
Enjoy!
Posted by dottie at 4:49 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
March 3, 2007
Gaming Industry v.s. gameplay
The games industry is in a weird space right now.
At first glance it would seem to be healthy, profitable, on top of its 'game'.
There is a problem though. The point has been made before that modern games, while they look great, can be frustrating, pointless or even boring to play.
On reason for this is that so much resources go into making sure the game looks great. Game companies even go as far as releasing pre-rendered movies claiming that they are the actual in-game experience.
Lies!
The funny thing is that rendering engines have come a long way. For example there is a rendering engine that is offered to independent developers and studios (ie. thos with no major distribution contracts) for $200. The C4 game engine looks pretty good.
There may be a lot wrong with it for the fussy fan boys of full-screen anit-aliasing or 12 pass poly-shading or whatever.
All that shit doesn't matter. If the gameplay is poor then all the rest is just turd polishing.
The point is that there are game engines out there that are cheap and do all the necessary basics.
Why aren't there more games with great gameplay?
Years ago there was a game called Deus Ex. This game responded to the way you played by changing the way people interacted with you. In other words your actions had consequence.
When I downloaded the demo and played as I would normally play in a first person shooter my colleagues in the game (your colleagues are all A.I.) treated me like a pariah. It was great!
OK, the graphics left a lot ot be desired and the actual way you interacted with the world was quite clunky, but the gameplay shone through despite that.
Most game companies now spend all those years of development work in writing a new game engine. You've got to ask yourslef that after a certain level are they game companies or game engine development companies?
The distinction is huge.
Back in the day, you would send a game company your money, money order, cheque in the post and they would post you back anything from a box full of cut-up bits of cardboard and bits of plastic to a spiral bound book explaining how to play their particular brand of soldiers.
They were real game companies. Most of their time was spent worrying about how the game would work and then they polished the game pieces for distribution.
Nowadays, that is all turned on its head. All the bits are polised first and then they sit around wondering how to create a compelling game.
bleh.
People still play chess, draughts, snakes and ladders, dice games, card games and will continue to do so for many hundreds of more years because the game is stripped down to its bare essentials.
I'd love to spend some time writing a game using the C4 game engine and I might even download the demo to see what it can do.
Meanwhile for your delectation some alternate game developers:
My favourite - Experimental Gameplay Project
IGDA - Independent Game Developers Association
Posted by dottie at 1:26 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
May 19, 2006
Bastard child of Inform 7 and Unreal Tournament
Reading about Inform 7 earlier and the fact that I have been back-brain thinking about games and AI for a while made me have a thought just as I was drifting off to sleep.
I want to be able to react with the world as well as characters in a game. One way to do this is to shift the way you think about the problem. I started wondering would it be an idea to treat the world in a game as a character?
This then changes your perspective on everything in the game. Everything should be a character. The ammo, the spent casings, the blood sprays.
Things are sortof heading this way with the new physics engines, but I'm not talking about mere physics here! (always wanted to use a line like that....)
I'm talking about the characters and their motivation.
The Inform 7 'engine' allows you to script a characters motivation in sort'a-plain english. This includes the 'motivations' of non-human characters like buckets, doors, birds and what have you. This is based on sematic rules and relies on the writer to supply the logic and to a great degree I would imagine that our own brains and imagination are needed to flesh out the interactions and connect the implied logic of elements in the game.
I'm not going to try to white room the design of the Inform 7 engine so I'll stop there.
The point I'm making is that the game engine should be able to accept descriptions (not in plain english obviously) of objects and their motivations with hints as to what aspect of the world is affected by the mottivations.
For instance a large rock might be motivated to stay sitting in one place but this motivation could be overcome by a large force acting obliquely on its west side that would cause the stone to be motivated by the force of gravity to roll down a hill and crush any players in its path.
That kind of thing - except that is still too high level a description - more like acceleration (a) = 0 until F > 100 Newtons at vector (0,0,1) then a (0,0,1) = F/mass etc...
But then that is too low level. The game engine handles everything else in between but can also handle stuff like - Johnny likes cars and is motivated to watch any unusual cars that pass by expecially 59 Plymouths. If a 59 plymouth drives by he will follow it distracted only by pretty girls in high hells and short-shorts.
Do that for a number of characters and the story writes itself. The player would have to wor very hard to get themselves included in the story at all.
And that's the way it should be - encouraged engagement.
Posted by dottie at 1:58 AM | Comments (0)
May 18, 2006
Interactive Fiction
I really will have to delete my RSS subscription to 'the escapist' and many other blogs if I intend to get real work done...
They have just drawn my attention to the release of Inform 7 a tool for creating interactive fiction.
What's that in the who now? Interactive fiction - modern name for - text adventures.
I love them. I always wanted to write one, had visions of being up there with the likes of Zork. But my dreams lurked in a shadowy corner of my mind for too long and sadly, were eaten by a grue.
Inform 7 kinda changes things though. Its a total reinvention of the whole method of writing interactve fiction (well, so I was told by the escapist...). Natural language descriptions, high level descriptive 'programming'. Its more like describing a game to a developer who then goes and builds it for you.
I have got to get my hands on a copy.
Is it free?
OH MY GOD YES!
Goodbye sleep.
Hand me the bastard son of this and Unreal Tournament and you would make me a very happy man indeed.
Posted by dottie at 11:32 PM | Comments (0)
E3 fallout
I like games.
I like video games.
I like video games a lot.
I have been reading reports from various quarters on the E3 gaming (industry) expo and even watching some vids from it. SOme of the game trailers look pretty great and others show the state of current games - hollywood style big explosions, matrix without the story -err? and weirdness
What seems to be missign more and more, and something that is commented on more and more is gameplay, storyline, character development.
Don't get me wrong I like FPS games but most games now seem to involve either helping or harming NPC's. Some games expand on this a little but ultimately the world is vivified by the characters involvement.
I would love to see a game in a world where the NPC's have a life of their own and even if they never see the character they will do more than loop through a little set of actions. They will get bored, go for a drink, get in a fight, kill someone or get injured, go to hospital or jail and all that follows from that.
Are you trying to tell me that the characters in games like Grand Theft Auto have nothing better to do than interact with the player? These are nasty people - where is the richness of a life lived badly? Where are the late night, drunken tearfests about their abusive fathers?
Where is the humanity?
And yeah, I know you are going to say games are about escapism - so tell me about soap operas then - why are THEY so compelling?
Posted by dottie at 10:54 PM | Comments (0)
April 27, 2006
Machinima gets its wings
Machinima is the 'art' of using a games engine to create animations. One of my favourite is 'Red vs Blue' which uses the Halo (and now Halo2) engine to produce their animations.
Now I think Machinima is coming of age with the release of Episode 1 of Bloodspell
This is a real labour of love from the crew who have put in about three years of unpaid, hard labour to produce every aspect of the movie - music, plot characters, graphics, and the blood sweat and tears of producing the raw footage never mind editing it!
There is a surge of interest in home-brew video and creative content (ie. what big media companies call product). The likes of YouTube, Google Video, Flickr, Blogs and podcasting have made people realise that they can produce something relevant and fresh and creative and help push the boundaries.
Bloodspell is a bigger, more organised part of that - a sort of ad-hoc guild. Heres to the future.
Posted by dottie at 7:59 PM | Comments (0)
April 18, 2006
Oblivion tweaks
I have started playing the new Elder Scrolls game - Oblivion. Fantastic. Thankfully the DVD drive on my computer has packed in so I cant play it again until I replace it, otherwise it would quickly eat up all my spare time.
I stumbled across a great site for tweaking the game to get better graphics performance
I cant wait to try it out - check it out Brendan and let me know how it works!
Posted by dottie at 1:55 PM | Comments (0)
March 15, 2005
Video Games
Video games used to be developed by mavericks. People who had a vision and the tenacity of a badger; they never let go.
This brought about great innovation - table tennis (pong!), maze games (pac man), platform games (donkey kong, frak...), punch ups (Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat..), graphic / text adventures (Zork, myst, Elder Scrolls...), simulators (Tank Battle, F16, MS Flight Simulator...), first person combat (Doom, Quake, Unreal Tournament, Rune...).
All other games are variations on a theme or interesting combinations of themes. Grand Theft auto could be thought of as a cross between an adventure game, simulator and first person combat.
The game industry is reaching a crisis point - are there any more genre to develop? What will drive all future game development? Better graphics? Fuck that.
Like they say you can't polish a turd.
Gameplay is king. The depth of the non-player characters, the storyline, the difficulty of the puzzles (which can include interactions with the NPC's) the texture and descriptiveness of the world where it all happens. These are the things that matter, not the fact that they use phong shading instead of trilinear whatever when they render the world in graphics. It could all happen through text and still be compelling (difficult to do, but not impossible!) The point is that we are humans and since time immemorial we have gathered together around fires and passed on stories, fables, myths and legends. What games shuold be doing is creating new stories.
Doom did it, but is now falling foul of its own success, its still playing the same tune. It may be on a gold-plated, highly decorative instrument but the tune is the same.
The problem with Game companies nowadays is that they are becoming monolithic. It is getting ever more expensive to develop games. HIgh definition computer graphics cost money to program. Realistic physics engines take money to buy and time for programmers to master. Marketing (by far the most expensive part) is all encompassing and must bow down before that great god of commerce everywhere - the lowest common denominator.
Game companies dont want to take risks any more. Game companies (or rather 'studios' now...) are created for one reason - to make money. Anything that imperils this is hunted down and killed and has its head put on a spike. Which makes sense - people work long and hard to become as talented as they are in order to develop such visually spectacular games, I for one dont want to see them on the streets with a begging bowl.
Something needs to be done and the rallying cry is being made. Check out these appeals made to an auditorium full of game developers by established game developers - from Greg Costikyan:
Stirring stuff - and who said Video games didnt incite violence? ;)
Posted by dottie at 10:15 AM | Comments (0)
March 10, 2005
Text adventures
Hitchikers guide to the Galaxy
I remember playing this on my BBC B (I think) waaay back in the day.
I managed to get to the pub at least!
Posted by dottie at 2:18 PM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2004
Quake 4, Doom 3
Woah. These games are amazing look at the graphics, the physics engines (for those realistic 'rag doll' deaths), new weapons, vehicles, big ass monsters, great level designs.
But one problem.
You are still the same old gun toting lunatic you always were. The only thing that has changed in any grand way is the graphics - and they have taken quantum leaps forward, volumetric lighting interacting with particle systems (ie, proper shadows on wispy smoke cast by moving objets - fuckin A! - check out some screenshots from the upcoming Quake 4 game
There has been very little development on game play, very little interactin beyond puhing a button, breaking a window or what have you. You should be able to interact with your environment in the same way you can in the real world - and by this I mean that you can apply your imagination, not that game physics should be limited to what can happen in the real world.
If you fire a rocket launcher indoors you can expect a lot of things to happen - walls collapse, fire, schrapnel, stairs are destroyed etc. Yes this does happen in some games, but only where the game devlopers allow you to do such things to drive the games on. What about burst eardrums, fatigue, thirst, sunstroke, hypothermia?
Non Player Characters are dumb. Your enemies generally start from the same spot and do pretty much the same things at the same time - dont they get bored? Real people would. They would goof off, they would run away when they saw you with a rocket launcher, they might even try and sneak around behind you.
Game stories are to blame for a lot of this - they are usually written by the developers and are tailored to produce maximum gore action, and push a player along a single story line. If the developers allowed multiple story lines a la Steve Jackson 'CHoose your own adventure' books, the situation would still be pretty much the same.
I havent played Kingpin or Grand Theft Auto, but I believe they are getting toward what I would lie to see - an open plan game where the characters are totally independent of the story line. The story line should be something that happens as a result of the player finding out certain things and coupled with information th NPC's have or things they can do opens up new vistas. This is something I've been thinking a lot about and I still havent formulated exactly what I want - I'll guess I should scribble down some ideas...
Jesus, all I'm asking for is the game companies ot recreate the universe - how hard can that be?
Posted by dottie at 2:08 PM
July 14, 2004
Curve ball
http://www.theflashgames.com/curveball-swf.html
Super curve bonus o rama!
Posted by dottie at 11:32 PM
Bowman
http://www.theflashgames.com/bowman-swf.html
fun!
try it with a wall and added wind!
Posted by dottie at 11:24 PM
February 13, 2004
We have a winner!
My very good friend Emmet is the penguin whaking master of Vodaphone. He's a busy man apparently :) !
The games just in case you missed them:
http://junk.dawnshadow.se/yp010.swf
and...
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/games/7/
Posted by dottie at 2:14 AM
February 4, 2004
Suicidal Super Puppy!
These things just keep getting better!
for those of you interested:
http://www.weebls-stuff.com/games/7/
enjoy!!
Posted by dottie at 7:08 PM
January 21, 2004
Wheee!
Just got sent this by a friend:
http://junk.dawnshadow.se/yp010.swf
read em and weep:
Comments
Jonah Montgomery
I don't know how to copy the pictures, but I was able to land 320.5!!
My name is Jonah, I live in Queens, NY. Age 28, married 3 kids! Don't ask me how, it's like I blinked one day and the next thing I know POOF I went from young punk to family man.
My mothers family is from Ireland, no idea where in Ireland, however.
I stand not quite as tall as you at 6'4" can't tell you what that is in any other measurements, as the normal american I didn't bother to learn any other system.
I do enjoy your writing and look foward to more.
Mark Lennox
Hey Jonah,
Ah feck! I tried to get that little icy gonaded ball of feathers a bit farther but couldnt beat 320 (huff). Ah well, I graciously pass the crown !
Thanks for the support. I was a bit surprised to see any comments at all, let alone positive!
Had a quick Google and figured that the Montgomery's come mainly from Longford. Although this page ( http://baz.perlmonk.org/surnames.cgi?view=alpha ) doesnt list the Montgomery name at all. They could have been aristocracy or landed at one time or another before the diaspora.
6'4" is tall enough my friend, any taller and you find the lintel in the doorways with the most sensitive part of your skull!
Call back again!
Jonah
I don't have too much time to smack that bird around. My wife says it is too violent for the kids to see.
My Irish descent would be from Ryan, my grandfathers surname. I really need to find out more about where I came from. I'll ask my mom and aunt for some more info, but I would hold off on the aristocracy bit, we most likely were potato farmers.
Montgomery is my dad’s side, Scottish. I do have a book on his family history. Four generations graduating from princeton and harvard law. Unfortunately, he felt that environment was not full of the people one should socialize with. So he decided that we (my two brothers and muself) would not be exposed to the ivy league. I understand what he was talking about, but if a persons character is strong enough it shouldn't matter was others say or think. He was a hippie hold over, would have had the long hair if he did not go bald. Full of love, peace and understanding for everybody but those in his family.
Thanks for the info on Irish names, and here I thought that the computer was only for e-mail and porn.
Off to work.
Posted by dottie at 2:47 PM | Comments (3)