February 12, 2010
X10 News
X10 News
I’m going to try as hard as I can to link to all the best and most interesting news from X10 this year. If I’ve missed anything let me know. (This post will be edited as the convention continues.)
First thing first, a very cheeky billboardfrom Apple – Everyone knows Apple is secretly trying to get on the gaming scene and advertising their game device at Microsoft’s game convention is a little cheeky.
Video of Alan Wake in action! – See if you can spot the Zork reference… if you can’t, go play Zork. It won’t be long before you find it! This is the first time I’ve seen AW actually being played. Honestly, I can’t say it looks to be anything more than a polished Alone in the Dark (chapter select included), but let’s pretend I have higher hopes than this.
New Left 4 Dead content in the form of The Passing. – We all love VALVe, but seriously, these guys can do zombies like nobody else. (Not even me)
If you want to see this year’s promises from Peter Moleneux that he’s going to disappoint us with in Fable III look here. – Child of the last player? So it’s a lot sooner than last time, which throws away the excuse I always used for how similar F2 was to F1… Throwing us in as king straight away is a nice touch, but far from groundbreaking. Don’t get your hopes up until we see it in action. (We now have video, but don’t think for a second I’m convinced yet.)
New details on Crackdown 2 – The first game was and still is great (for those of you who havn’t bought it yet.) Again, we just have to hope they havn’t just “gone bigger” without considering what the franchise needs. More coming soon.
And here is your collection of new Halo Reach screenshots. – I love the Halo universe. Their detials are actually quite good and they really put some thought into the history. The brand is just way too saturated to be interested now. Halo releases arent groundbreaking anymore. Here’s a quick breakdown: Halo -2001, Halo 2 – 2004, Halo 3 -2007, Halo Wars – 2009, Halo ODST – 2009, Halo Reach – 2010. Bungie need to move on for a while. How about a new Marathon game? (And a Halo Reach video. A more “human” story? About aliens called Spartans? Fiiiiine.)
February 10, 2010
Smevy Train – Placeholder
I know I said I’d try to post a second “Ideas Factory” today, but sadly I gained access to the demo for a game I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. It rhymes with Smevy Train. And Chevy Lane. And Heavy Rai– Damn…
So, I’m reserving this spot to talk about Heavy Rain, David Cage’s ideas in general and an actual review, based on the demo (I don’t do reviews often.)
I’m sure everyone will be playing it tomorrow anyway, but for a rough outline, it was good, but some weird design decisions that make you go “Hmmm…”
Next time!
Let’s Play – Morrowind – Part 2 -Karnak and the Pod-People
Right, the first of the posts with my trying vainly to get back on some kinda schedule! Let’s go!
When last we left our… okay, let’s say “hero”, he had just sold some priceless family heirlooms he’d had for generations and bought some shiny new equipment but of course not shoes, because “beast races” can’t wear shoes…
February 8, 2010
Zzzzzzzz… What? What day is it?
I disappeared for a while last week, as you might have noticed. Sadly lots of distractions hit me at once and took me over. Hopefully this fortnight I’ll purge some of the half-written articles I’ve currently got in the buffer.
(In case you’re interested, I’m currently playing the Alien vs Predator Demo, waiting eagerly for Bioshock 2 to become available tomorrow and I’ve been playing an old game called Angband, that I don’t recommend you look up at all! There’s no such thing as a “new” Angband player.)
Coming up:
February 3, 2010
Psychology for Game Designers 101 – R…
I’m hoping this series will be one of the more useful and better written parts of this site, but it’s also going to be one of the most complex, so I may come back to these posts later and make alterations.
Introduction to Psychology for Game Designers
Game designers need to know a certain degree of psychology. Mostly, this is topics that seem obvious, such as, repeatedly killing the player with a punishingly hard section is going to cause frustration. However, with some more elaborate techniques the game can be developed into something far more impressive. A large proportion of game design revolves around trying to make the player think certain things and behave certain ways. For example, the game designer needs to show a player instantly if a character is a friend or foe and needs to always ensure the player knows where to go next, even if they havn’t been told. I’m not suggesting game designers spend a year studying psychology, but some learning of basic ideas can he helpful.
This document will be split into multiple sections. Firstly, a simple explaination of reinforcement in games, then a description of the psychology behind reinforcement, a section detailing some examples of reinforcement from popular games, some examples of ways to reinforce training and finally a summary of the article with points to consider.
Reinforcement
Reinforcment is the most simple of psychological concepts the designer must understand. I did construct a simple demo application to show reinforcement in a simple game, but WordPress doesn’t allow Flash embedding so instead we’ll move on.
It is worth mentioning that the true psychological definition of reinforcement is a little different than the pop-culture definition. I’ll be using the pop-culture definition mostly, but in the phychology section, I’ll explain the traditional classification.
Reinforcement is a form of player-training. Through rewarding the player for correct actions and punishing them for incorrect actions, the player eventually learns the correct way to play the game.
February 2, 2010
Fight the Cliché – The Battle-Hardened Space-Marine
(… in power-armour)
Hmm… I’m not sure if this is going to be a series or just some random posts.
The idea is, I’m going to take some random videogame cliché and I’m going to beat it over the head with a baby seal until it’s dead. I’m going to explore ways of overcoming the clichés and their advantages (clichés exist for a reason. They’re good, but way overused.) Sure nobody’ll ever read this, but it’s good to get some rants out of my system.
The Battle-Hardened Space-Marine
If we’re talking videogame clichés, none are so prolific as The Battle-Hardened Space-Marine. I mean… crates come close, but we’ll come to those another time.
Shaking Hands with Death – Terry Pratchett
If you’re a Sir Terry Pratchett fan like myself, you may be interested in a speech he wrote, delivered by Tony Robinson (Richard Dimbleby Lecture – Shaking Hands with Death.)
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The Ideas Factory – Making a Zombie Game
Ideas Factory Introduction
Welcome to the Ideas Factory. Every week, I will look at another aspect of game design and take you through the process of applying it to a scenario. These walkthroughs will not teach you to program, rather they will take you through my process of developing an idea through to a final polished product. These articles will lead up to a full Design Document and leave you prepared for future questions you might be asked. It’s worth mentioning that I’m only working on these “as I type”. I’m hoping, but not promising that after six articles, I won’t decide it just doesn’t work.
The first in this series is going to be a zombie game. Why a zombie game I hear you ask? (Suspiciously seeing as nobody’s there to ask.) Two reasons. Firstly, people on the Internet like zombies. I don’t understand why, but it’s true. Secondly, though there are plenty of zombie games, so many fail in so many ways.
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February 1, 2010
Let’s Play – Morrowind – Part 1
Hi, hello and welcome. I’m Brithius, but if you got this far, I’m guessing someone already told you that! If not, read through my first post to learn aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaalll about me. Well, not -now-… but eventually you can do that! Totally!
So, the Let’s Play! If you’re not familiar with Let’s Play, it’s a common Internet system where people play through games and give commentary about everything. I’m going to be doing this a little differently. I’m going to be doing it as much as possible from the perspective of my character. This isn’t my idea. I’m not taking credit! Shamus Young did it first.
So without further ado, I announce my first Let’s Play!
Clockwerks Games 