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May 042011
admin
Apr 202011
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Playing abandoned Facebook games is kind of fun. Though the challenge aspect is gone, it does feed your inner completionist. [caseyodonnell]
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RT amen @SwearengenCD: Game Dev Truth: Those who demand crunch rarely participate in it. [caseyodonnell]
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RT @biphenyl: Mind: BLOWN. RT @lamnatos: LEGOrgasm: http://t.co/lelJcZ0 (via @lucasmeijer, @attilam) [caseyodonnell]
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Apr 082011
I’ve found myself relaying to students recently, a story of my experience at GDC this last year. I wound up at the Scandinavian Indie Games Party watching and playing the 2008 Vertical Slice of the Xbox 360 Game Limbo. It was actually one of my primary reasons for going to this gathering. I was interested in learning more about the tools and production practices that resulted in Limbo. What I got instead was a really valuable and heartening experience of someone else’s work-in-progress. [I also had the chance to reset the game several times as it sort of hangs after you beat the game. Leave it to the anthropologist to observe Arnt reset it once and then step in to fill the role so others can continue to play.]
Its hard to convey to someone how much one can treasure those creative/intellectual endeavors that one undertakes. Books, essays, games, movies, music, etc can each fall into these categories. When we set them in front of others, we place those stories on display in a very vulnerable way. Its made even worse by the fact that we often only see the faults in these artefacts. As a player moves through a level, all we can see is the hiccups and jumps and jerks and flaws in the system. I find it almost humiliating and yet it is a necessary part of the creative process. We learn and improve based on those resulting critiques and conversations.
[As an aside, perhaps this is my deepest critique of the double-blind peer-review process. Wouldn’t it be more constructive to read a fellow person’s work with them sitting there (or nearby) after which you can have a conversation about the work. Much more meaningful and connected that what most peer-review looks like now.]
What I had an opportunity to do was to see a game, which despite some linger critiques, I quite enjoyed playing. Limbo’s aesthetic and production quality are stunning. I’ve been deeply curious about its development, their production, tools, and numerous aspects surrounding the game. What I was able to do, was to see the flaws in something that were otherwise invisible. The 2008 vertical slice of Limbo made possible the game released in 2010.
Now recently, I came upon a video of Jonathan Blow talking about the Xbox 360 Game Braid. The discussion and dissection of his design process is excellent, but it’s the first few minutes of the talk that got me. It’s his first playable version of his game, created in “7-8” days and how it encapsulated the design of what became Braid. He showed Braid to several of his close friends and we’re not sure what happened after that point, except for this line:
“The Only Difference Between that and the Shipped Game is Three Years of Development” – Jonathan Blow
But this is precisely it right? It speaks directly to the “90-10” rule. The idea that the “last 10%” is really 90%. While the numbers might not be quite that skewed, the idea is. It’s also what makes Chris Hecker’s plea all the more heartfelt I think.
One really needs a commitment and time to bring a game to where it should be or ought to be to “explore fully” a particular mechanic. But you also need to finish it. So I ♥ the vertical slice, precisely because it’s not “the game,” it’s a moment in time where a developer has really found the game and now has some arduous task ahead of them trying to really coax that game out of the hitchy-glitchy thing that was the vertical slice. But one really does develop a commitment to that.
I ♥ vertical slices.
But also know when to break up with your vertical slice. 😉
Apr 072011
[Note: For those of you getting this link because of your “(baby)alexis” notifications, I couldn’t help not including you. :)] Osy (“Osy Osmosis”), a game cooperatively developed by myself and members of a research team at the University of Georgia hit the App Store late last night. Osy’s development has spanned just about two years now, though actual development time was about three months to vertical slice, which was the deployed widely for preliminary testing throughout schools in Georgia. It is this version of the game featured in the documentary piece found on the Osy website. Little happened with the game after that point until April of 2010, when the UGA OVPR provided a VentureLab seed grant for our freshly created company IS3D, LLC. A portion of this money was used to port Osy to iOS and move the game into full production. It paid for bringing in wonderful folks like Ben Throop in to tell us what we’re doing right and wrong.
What makes Osy special, for me, is that it is my stab at thinking about making games… that just happen to contain concepts that educators are interested in teaching to students. I often say very deliberately that Osy is not “edutainment.” Put more academically, the procedural rhetoric of Osy is the story of osmosis. Too often, educational games ignore the procedural rhetoric and only thinly layer educational images/concepts on top of game mechanics that have nothing to do with the message they hope to deliver. In far too many cases it is actually worse, “gamelike” visuals are layered on top of quiz/test systems and it is referred to as a “game.” In part, this is because testing/quizzing is the primary procedural rhetoric (or game mechanic) of schools. I recall one day during the design of Osy where I said something to the effect, “If you put a quiz in my game, I’m done with it.” This is an approach, that I think is conscientious of the kinds of critiques that some are leveling at the Game-ification of Education.
I’ve also been somewhat worried about many people researching games and education becoming too focused on only the importation of off-the-shelf standard game industry games into the classroom. Isn’t that the equivalent of giving up the ghost? Why not create high quality games with education sitting in the back of your head? Clearly, game developers draw on scientific concepts for the systems within games (physics, evolution, …) though it comes secondary to the overall game. Why not have it as an equal on the field of idea-battles that occur during the development of a game? That I want a player to understand/feel/know X where X includes some scientific knowledge becomes part of the design process.
Go Osy go!
Mar 302011
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First attempt at imperial stout bottled. Tasted great, smelled lovely, didn’t appear dark enough. 🙂 + 🙂 + 🙁 = 🙂 [caseyodonnell]
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Mar 232011
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En route to Cultural Production in the Digital Age (#CPitDA) workshop at Cornell. http://t.co/bjvowUc [caseyodonnell]
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Apparently waiting on a pilot for #Delta 4085. [caseyodonnell]
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RT @tinysubversions: "Salad bar econ" shows what you get with purely metrics-driven game design: a bucket of sun-dried tomatoes and waln … [caseyodonnell]
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Mar 162011
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OMG…. Meeting 3 of 7 completed. Kill me now. [caseyodonnell]
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Chasing the ice cream truck on Chain World. http://cay.si/h94H9m [caseyodonnell]
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RT @tinysubversions: One could auction @bbrathwaite‘s "Train" for charity money, but I’m not sure that would be the right thing to do to … [caseyodonnell]
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Mar 152011
Well, I’m going to quote Tom over at Oh No! Video Games! on this, “This one is going to get messy.”
The Game Developers Conference (GDC) was an exceptional one this year. There are numerous bits-and-pieces that I should comment on, though largely haven’t here because it takes a great deal of time to digest my notes and instead I’ve had to catch up on my return to work. However, several events, like the Game Educator’s Rant and the Game Design Challenge have had a life of their own outside the conference.
But first a story.
Having heard Jason Rohrer speak several times now, I knew when he took the stage at the Game Design Challenge this year, I was in for a treat. He proceeded to tell us about his grandfather and the impact he had left on the town in Ohio of which he had been mayor. The story he tells is about someone who has passed on and the traces that they leave on the world and their family and friends. All of this got me to thinking about my grandfathers. Sitting there listening, I heap meaning onto his words. I think about how for many in the room, grandparents may have been immigrants, making their way spreading across the midwest. This was certainly my family’s story and as such meaning heaps on meaning, I become invested in the sermon.
Of course as the story that Jason is telling progressed, it became clear that he was leading up to something that touched on Minecraft, which made it all that much more engaging. I’d cracked the code. I had been brought along the path of Jason’s design. In many respects it was a tribute to the idea of his grandfather, as much as it was his response to the design challenge. I don’t think I was the only one in the audience moved by the story.
In the end, Jason holds out to the crowd, dangling from a small lanyard, a USB thumb drive, which contains several scripts that customize the behavior of the standalone version of Minecraft. From the crowd comes an individual who takes the drive and walks back into the crowd. At the time I was somewhat aghast. It was too soon for that, I was still soaking in the talk. But rapidly the presentations moved on and I simply wondered what would happen in the future and thought quite clearly to myself, “I bet I wont have a chance to leave a trace on Chain World.” However, I wasn’t saddened. I was hopeful and still thought the whole idea quite beautiful. Even when in Q&A someone asked the commodification question, I erred on the side of faith, that everyone in the room had also been moved and that commodifying the idea immediately was too quick, too gamified. Eventually it would happen, but later after the glow had dimmed, at least so I hoped.
It happened immediately, which is when people began to get upset. Of course I don’t fault those involved or think that what they are doing is wrong. Clearly they are all people with the best of intentions. But they could have pushed it further? Why not actual volunteer work? Why not community changing work in the real world? There were so many options that spoke to the story that Jason told. Instead we get to click a button on Ebay to make a difference? Really? This from someone who does on-the-ground humanitarian work?
What really happened is that a modification for good was simply poorly designed. It failed to consider the context. In short, they should have attended Miguel Sicart’s GDC session. Even Jason has spoken out on Twitter encouraging the winning bidder to be unfaithful to the rules that do not fit his original design. Of course I wonder if the addition of Ebay’s legal context forever hack the game.
Of course, in many respects, this only proves the design. Chain World already has followers, people that care intimately about it, forks, interpretations, commodification, … But so many of us were hoping for something different. My friend Darius (who I didn’t get to hang out with!) seems to see along the same lines as I do. What is happening is legitimate, it simply isn’t faithful. Chain World was already beautiful. It didn’t need any help. Of course now I sound like a devout follower don’t I? I still don’t get to make my mark, but for a very different reason.
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(baby)alexis
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Mar 142011
Mar 092011
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Jeppe Carlsen’s puzzle design philosophy is a better model of effective teaching than any I’ve encountered amongst educators. #GDC11 [caseyodonnell]
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Hehehe… Had the privilege of resetting early Limbo build (2008 vertical slice) at Kill Screen vs. Scandinavia gathering. #GDC11 [caseyodonnell]
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One forgets… #GDC11 student expo pass day is Friday. And the top hats multiply. [caseyodonnell]
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Do you really need a whole 2-liters of diet coke to get through the day? #gdc11 [caseyodonnell]
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Queue for the "Bigger than Jesus" game design challenge session is already forming outside 3014 at #gdc11. [caseyodonnell]
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The queue for "Bigger than Jesus" might be bigger than Jesus. #gdc11 [caseyodonnell]
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Will Wright: "It’s hard to talk for an hour about a game you can finish in 10 minutes." #gdc11 [caseyodonnell]
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In light of things like Firesheep, open WiFi at the airport is as alluring as a dilapidated outhouse. [caseyodonnell]
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If you had a kick ass time playing the #metagame at #GDC11 this year, you should support it on kickstarter… I did: http://t.co/vY8t24O [caseyodonnell]
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I love Academia.edu notifications. However, someone in India is a Google Broken Record and keeps getting results they clearly don’t want. [caseyodonnell]
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RT @benimaru: somebody took my example scene from Detonator and posted it to Kongregate as their own. Funny part is it’s getting good re … [caseyodonnell]
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Just made an @EightBit character. Check out my profile http://eightbit.me/caseyodonnell [caseyodonnell]
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