Category Archives: IGF

Broken Languages

I finally wrote an exhaustive review of Katawa Shoujo, the visual romance novel set in a facility for disabled teens (you may recall I first covered it back in 2010, exploring the cultural genesis of such an unusual idea). Over the past few weeks since the fan-made game’s made its long awaited launch, tons of you have been mailing and tweeting to see if I’d played the final version, so now here you are.

Games about conversations, about dating, about things less tangible than action, are clearly overwhelming to develop (and also to interpret critically, come to think). But I like when people try. Boy, do I! Over at Gamasutra, we’re doing those annual Road to the IGF interviews with the festival’s finalists, and today I’ve done one with the folks behind Prom Week, a game that promises an unprecedentedly sophisticated conversation engine.
The team gives a pretty fascinating interview. Mattie Brice asked me on Twitter about why more people don’t try to push social simulation technology (like, why was Facade so long ago, for example, with few comparable examples since?)
I think it’s because not only is it an enormous technical challenge, there’s also the perception that it’s a niche, a thankless academic corner that will never reach beyond an “indie” audience. Good thing some people try, though. (Mattie, is it a coincidence you go by xGalatea online, where Galatea the game is among the most iconic examples of groundbreaking, conversation-oriented interactive fiction in history?)
Anyway, back on task; I also interviewed the creators of musical landscape game Proteus for the Road to the IGF series. Cannot believe it’s only a handful of weeks til GDC!
This past weekend was the 2012 Global Game Jam. Good thing I have loads of friends who make video games for me to look at and talk about! As soon as I catch up with what all my favorite people have got done I’ll let you know about it.

Annoying Players On Purpose

It’s the biggest perceived “issue” with what people generally call art games — they’re counter-intuitive or inscrutable, players get frustrated, and then they don’t buy that artist’s line that the emotions they’re feeling are part of the intended experience.

The sensation that a designer has intentionally withheld his or her intention from a player’s reach often makes them feel tricked, excluded and frustrated. I’m the sort of player who likes to analyze what the designer is trying to get me to think and feel — and even I feel annoyed by games that punish me.

As it turns out, the problem with some of those games isn’t that they made me feel bad. It’s that I didn’t understand why they did. I learned this by talking to Douglas Wilson from the Copenhagen Game Collective about the group’s surprisingly fascinating philosophy of “abusive” game design.

The designers in the collective work in the discomfort zone because it’s a way of starting a conversation between the player and the designer. Ultimately, their work seems to see games partially as frameworks for interaction between people, not as the interaction themselves. It’s really thought-provoking: Read the interview!

Congrats Bee


Congrats to my former supervisor, favorite drunk-texting buddy and longtime friend Brandon Boyer on being named Chairman of the IGF. Brandon is the indisputable king of champions for our indie community and absolutely no one deserves it more.

Posting this photo of us at GDC (with David Hellman, no less!) so I can brag that I know him. Hope they don’t mind. This photograph is the work of .tiff, and overall I must say that those who photograph me/appear in photographs with me at industry events are people you should envy me for getting to hang with.
[Today’s Good Song: Animal Collective’s ‘Fireworks‘, the tune with which he taught me how to love the band.]

Post-GDC Mega Catch-Up, Yeah!

Well, I’ve been home for a few days from GDC — every year it’s an amazing, inspiring and invigorating time. I got to see Jason Rohrer discuss his new DS game, Diamond Trust of London (but Brandon Boyer’s writeup of Rohrer’s Sleep is Death is far more interesting than my article); he was talking alongside Molleindustria’s Paolo Pedercini, whom you know I adore.

I saw some truly impressive Unreal Engine tech demos and received reassurance on the future of AAA gaming from Epic’s Mark Rein (despite the concerted attempts of social gaming venture capitalists to discourage me) ; I heard wonderfully wacky Metroid and Wario Ware visionary Yoshio Sakamoto discussing his creative strategy, and I was refreshed to learn that at ThatGameCompany, development process actually comprehends that game developers are human beings and not design robots that produce when crunched upon.
It’s amazing what happy people who work well together can create, isn’t it? One of the highlights of my GDC was meeting many of the members of the team at Naughty Dog, who swept the Game Developers’ Choice awards (which I also attended, enjoying the hosting talents of Kyle Gabler and Erin Robinson). Friend and awesome person Andy Schatz won the IGF with Monaco!
To be quite honest, I have never been a big fan of the Uncharted games; when people ask me what I think of Uncharted 2, I use words like “impressive” “an achievement” “a beautiful game” and “very well done.” I mean all those words, of course, but when I’m writing criticism I tend to prize other traits. And I always like to root for underdogs; while I knew there was no chance whatsoever that Demon’s Souls would beat Uncharted 2 as Game of the Year at the Choice awards, I selfishly wanted to see it happen! I also would have preferred to see Brutal Legend recognized for writing, but hey.
However, having met a handful of the team’s senior members during GDC, I’ve gotta say I’ve never met a nicer or more humble group of game developers, and can’t help but feel that nobody deserves the recognition more. They are the kind of people who, when you ask them what they do while chatting at the bar, are humble to the max –you have to push to even get them to admit they made the Game of the Year, and they all seem thrilled and bewildered by the recognition.
(Leaders on a certain couple of 2009′s other major game successes often do not deign to socialize with us commonfolk, and if they did they would come in all popped collars, snakeskin boots and chest pounding over what they developed.)
The Dogs told me they feel like a family and love working together. I think that makes a difference. I would love it if more publishers got the idea that the way to get developers to make excellent games is to allow them to work according to their own internal culture (provided it’s a positive one).
These are the kinds of people and ideas that inspire me most when I am at GDC, although the indies tend to be my very most favorite. The Los Angeles Times has just run an article by me on the constituency of the Experimental Gameplay Project, many of whom I got to say hello to at the event this year. While at GDC I also heard 2DBoy’s Ron Carmel explain how a group of indie “angels” hopes to support independent designers in self-publishing.
I spoke on a panel, too. Mia Consalvo, Manveer Heir, Jamin Brophy-Warren and I discussed issues of diversity and race both within video games and on the development side. My friend Michael Abbott of Brainy Gamer fame (who is so warm and nice I cannot quite believe he is From The Internet, and who as usual I did not get to see enough of!) did an excellent write-up of our discussion. There seemed to be a great response to the discussion in general, and Cliff Bleszinski said it gave him ideas and “white man’s guilt”!!
Friend and fellow Kotaku columnist Tim Rogers completed a speaker evaluation of my panel that indicates he would not recommend it to others out of the desire to “keep it as a secret weapon,” that all speakers received zeroes except for I who received a rare “heart” ranking, and that “Bikini” is required to improve the panel. This was my favorite GDC Souvenir:

(courtesy of Tim, the high-res version of his speaker evaluation is here.)
The combination of hard work and hard drinking killed many of my brain cells, I’m sure — it was a whirlwind time and I’m glad to be back bumming around in Brooklyn with my snobby cat and not-snobby friends, but there’s nothing like GDC. I had a wonderful time, and to those of you who did come up and say hello to me, it was nice to meet you!
Don’t forget, you can find all of my GDC coverage, as well as the fine and excellent work of my colleagues, at Gamasutra’s designated GDC 2010 landing page.