Tag: video games

Ideas

Ideas are easy, despite popular opinion. They’re like water. They flow easily, are all around us, and are necessary. Without ideas there is no living. It’s fleshing out those ideas that gets tough. Turning a speck into a handful, a handful into a bucketful. It takes work. Putting that ass down to the chair and doing the work.

There’s no explaining the thought process in writing a story or creating something, but if I was to try, I’d say it’s a matter of variety. Coming up with a multitude of ideas so that the mind can wander from one to another. They can be distracting. They can get in the way of sitting down to do the work. But, fuck, what’re you gonna do? Ignore them? That’s arguably more harmful. The distraction keeps you on your feet. Broadens those precious horizons.

This new idea of mine isn’t a remake of someone else’s idea (Dead Space), which makes it exciting. It reminds me of the way it used to be. Original work. And so it’s taken precedence. It’s the autobiographical nutball game I’ve been trying to develop since last year. It was a matter of the type of game. Adventure? RPG? Should there be combat, or just straight story-telling? I can’t even imagine a game in which the conflict isn’t realized through violence. I kept getting hung up on the technical implementation.

The work I’ve done on the 1987 project has helped plan for the technical challenges. Now it’s a matter of the creative. God, my favorite part. Ideas coming in from all sides.

I’m calling this new thing 25 to 30.

Ideas

Ideas are easy, despite popular opinion. They’re like water. They flow easily, are all around us, and are necessary. Without ideas there is no living. It’s fleshing out those ideas that gets tough. Turning a speck into a handful, a handful into a bucketful. It takes work. Putting that ass down to the chair and doing the work.

There’s no explaining the thought process in writing a story or creating something, but if I was to try, I’d say it’s a matter of variety. Coming up with a multitude of ideas so that the mind can wander from one to another. They can be distracting. They can get in the way of sitting down to do the work. But, fuck, what’re you gonna do? Ignore them? That’s arguably more harmful. The distraction keeps you on your feet. Broadens those precious horizons.

This new idea of mine isn’t a remake of someone else’s idea (Dead Space), which makes it exciting. It reminds me of the way it used to be. Original work. And so it’s taken precedence. It’s the autobiographical nutball game I’ve been trying to develop since last year. It was a matter of the type of game. Adventure? RPG? Should there be combat, or just straight story-telling? I can’t even imagine a game in which the conflict isn’t realized through violence. I kept getting hung up on the technical implementation.

The work I’ve done on the 1987 project has helped plan for the technical challenges. Now it’s a matter of the creative. God, my favorite part. Ideas coming in from all sides.

I’m calling this new thing 25 to 30.

Dead Space 1987

Though I’ve been working in video games for nearly ten years, I’ve never made a game. I’ve always been in a support role. Testing, marketing. Maybe some copywriting, if I was lucky, but not much of it. The few games I tried to develop in my initial college years were half-hearted and half-assed. My greatest creations of the era were little experiments like Larry the Looter and Herman Hunt.

But I learned some basics in programs like Flash and Photoshop, and since then I’ve witnessed the development of game titles from early stages all the way to conclusion. The world of hobbyist game development has also flourished, resulting in games that can be made by anyone who knows how to use a computer. The tools–such as Adventure Game Studio, GameMaker, RPG Maker, and Construct 2–are robust, understandable, and best of all do not require the once-limiting factor of skill with programming. Something like Twine can be used to write and create interactive stories that don’t require art. It’s a hell of a time to be alive if you’re into making your own games.

So I have the tools, but there’s the rest of the equation. Ideas, imagination, talent. There’s that question: do I want it enough? Can I overcome self-imposed walls to create something? I wrote short stories for years and started to develop a knack for it, but severe writers’ block and an inability to travel has stopped me from doing that for some time. The former the primary problem, the latter a hindrance for someone whose imagination is fueled by personal experience. For me, no travel means little in the way of story ideas.

That leads me to this decision. I worked on Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3 during my time at EA. The span of time of those two projects (2009-2012) was also a particularly tempestuous time in my life. I started to think, how can I cap that off? Working at Double Fine is an incredible and inspiring change of pace, but I’ve tired of not spending my own time making something. Action toward creation. The decision then is to take action and make something. Get moving and gain some experience.

deadspace_nes_BMiggs

The tool: Construct 2.

The inspiration: Dead Space by B. Miggs and Metroid.

The goal: plan and execute a fully fleshed-out recreation of the original Dead Space as if it had been released in 1987. The closure of being done with that part of my life.

Dead Space 1987

Though I’ve been working in video games for nearly ten years, I’ve never made a game. I’ve always been in a support role. Testing, marketing. Maybe some copywriting, if I was lucky, but not much of it. The few games I tried to develop in my initial college years were half-hearted and half-assed. My greatest creations of the era were little experiments like Larry the Looter and Herman Hunt.

But I learned some basics in programs like Flash and Photoshop, and since then I’ve witnessed the development of game titles from early stages all the way to conclusion. The world of hobbyist game development has also flourished, resulting in games that can be made by anyone who knows how to use a computer. The tools–such as Adventure Game Studio, GameMaker, RPG Maker, and Construct 2–are robust, understandable, and best of all do not require the once-limiting factor of skill with programming. Something like Twine can be used to write and create interactive stories that don’t require art. It’s a hell of a time to be alive if you’re into making your own games.

So I have the tools, but there’s the rest of the equation. Ideas, imagination, talent. There’s that question: do I want it enough? Can I overcome self-imposed walls to create something? I wrote short stories for years and started to develop a knack for it, but severe writers’ block and an inability to travel has stopped me from doing that for some time. The former the primary problem, the latter a hindrance for someone whose imagination is fueled by personal experience. For me, no travel means little in the way of story ideas.

That leads me to this decision. I worked on Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3 during my time at EA. The span of time of those two projects (2009-2012) was also a particularly tempestuous time in my life. I started to think, how can I cap that off? Working at Double Fine is an incredible and inspiring change of pace, but I’ve tired of not spending my own time making something. Action toward creation. The decision then is to take action and make something. Get moving and gain some experience.

deadspace_nes_BMiggs

The tool: Construct 2.

The inspiration: Dead Space by B. Miggs and Metroid.

The goal: plan and execute a fully fleshed-out recreation of the original Dead Space as if it had been released in 1987. The closure of being done with that part of my life.

‘Legend of Silence’ from Mike Meginiss’s ‘Navigators’

Legend of Silence is a fictional video game in a short story that is compelling for the way it presents the character’s downward spiral. The video game character’s descent into enlightenment mirrors the father character’s descent into isolation. The reader wants to find out how the game ends as much as the father and his son, through which the story is told. That said, the game doesn’t actually seem fun. So, although it is interesting in the story, who would actually want to play it?

legendofsilence3

A fake screenshot for a nonexistent video game.

The story’s author discusses that in a post on his blog. He covers a lot of it.

http://uncannyvalleymag.blogspot.com/2011/06/screenshots-for-my-fictional-video-game.html

I wrote about this story before. Immediate thoughts for future reference.

Contrast immediately. Mention of Walmart. Decidedly modern. Considered what I may have submitted that was more “classic” or “universal” but c’est la vie and all that.

Are video games really as niche?

“In games, where it was so often so easy to lose perspective, but also in life.” This line was not necessary. This story could’ve been a parable. I’m going to be thinking about it the whole way through.

“The ill-gotten fruits of not being and not knowing.” Is this an attack on denial of responsibility? Is existence an acceptance of the responsibility to exist?

The Road is about a father and son. Its style is more barren. Prose to match the landscape. Their journey is one for survival. Literal life and death. This one’s father and son are also on a journey. Is it metaphysical? Is their journey towards completion of the game–towards not being–also about survival? The title is plural. They’re in it together. They’re mapping the world towards the goal of nonexistence.

Why is the character in the game a woman? Aping Metroid’s protagonist? How do things change when the lead is a female? How does this affect the perception of it?

The first moment of understanding is the loss of her wings. She is a bird girl and then she is weighed down by her choice to don the metal boots. Their choice, not hers. She can’t take them off. She loses her flight before she loses the added weight.

In Shadow of the Colossus, the player character goes on a journey of sacrifice. Double-edged sword: sacrifice the creatures, sacrifice your humanity. He becomes a monstrous doppelganger of himself. The gargoyle’s significance. Why must it look like Alicia but with horns and healthy wings? As she sacrifices, others gain strength? Laughing in her face? Aesthetic choices on the author’s part, probably. From a game design standpoint, you simply reuse what you have. One less in-game art asset to design from scratch.

Cheddar scabs are fucking great.

“where dollars and coins flew at Alicia from all sides and clung to her body, briefly rebuilding her wings in their own green image.” Money is only a temporary fix for permanent problems. Okay.

The dirt clod beneath the chamber of commerce. The dirt clod beneath the chamber of commerce. The dirt clod. The chamber of commerce. The dirt. The chamber of commerce. The dirt and the chamber of commerce. The chamber of commerce. Dirt and commerce. Dirt and money.

Kill the orchestra. Kill the music. Kill art. Silence.

This kid’s dialogue makes him seem older in places, younger in others. Wonder if that’s intentional.

Looking for a replacement for mother?

Perhaps the dialogue is indicative. Joshua’s getting older. He’s learning things.

You forget fear. You forget love.

To be, then, is to forget. To be is to not know you are.

Waiting.

In hindsight, the game character was a replacement for someone they’d both lost. The complete devotion to playing through the game isn’t about fun. There is no fun to be had in this sort of journey.

‘Legend of Silence’ from Mike Meginiss’s ‘Navigators’

Legend of Silence is a fictional video game in a short story that is compelling for the way it presents the character’s downward spiral. The video game character’s descent into enlightenment mirrors the father character’s descent into isolation. The reader wants to find out how the game ends as much as the father and his son, through which the story is told. That said, the game doesn’t actually seem fun. So, although it is interesting in the story, who would actually want to play it?

legendofsilence3

A fake screenshot for a nonexistent video game.

The story’s author discusses that in a post on his blog. He covers a lot of it.

http://uncannyvalleymag.blogspot.com/2011/06/screenshots-for-my-fictional-video-game.html

I wrote about this story before. Immediate thoughts for future reference.

Contrast immediately. Mention of Walmart. Decidedly modern. Considered what I may have submitted that was more “classic” or “universal” but c’est la vie and all that.

Are video games really as niche?

“In games, where it was so often so easy to lose perspective, but also in life.” This line was not necessary. This story could’ve been a parable. I’m going to be thinking about it the whole way through.

“The ill-gotten fruits of not being and not knowing.” Is this an attack on denial of responsibility? Is existence an acceptance of the responsibility to exist?

The Road is about a father and son. Its style is more barren. Prose to match the landscape. Their journey is one for survival. Literal life and death. This one’s father and son are also on a journey. Is it metaphysical? Is their journey towards completion of the game–towards not being–also about survival? The title is plural. They’re in it together. They’re mapping the world towards the goal of nonexistence.

Why is the character in the game a woman? Aping Metroid’s protagonist? How do things change when the lead is a female? How does this affect the perception of it?

The first moment of understanding is the loss of her wings. She is a bird girl and then she is weighed down by her choice to don the metal boots. Their choice, not hers. She can’t take them off. She loses her flight before she loses the added weight.

In Shadow of the Colossus, the player character goes on a journey of sacrifice. Double-edged sword: sacrifice the creatures, sacrifice your humanity. He becomes a monstrous doppelganger of himself. The gargoyle’s significance. Why must it look like Alicia but with horns and healthy wings? As she sacrifices, others gain strength? Laughing in her face? Aesthetic choices on the author’s part, probably. From a game design standpoint, you simply reuse what you have. One less in-game art asset to design from scratch.

Cheddar scabs are fucking great.

“where dollars and coins flew at Alicia from all sides and clung to her body, briefly rebuilding her wings in their own green image.” Money is only a temporary fix for permanent problems. Okay.

The dirt clod beneath the chamber of commerce. The dirt clod beneath the chamber of commerce. The dirt clod. The chamber of commerce. The dirt. The chamber of commerce. The dirt and the chamber of commerce. The chamber of commerce. Dirt and commerce. Dirt and money.

Kill the orchestra. Kill the music. Kill art. Silence.

This kid’s dialogue makes him seem older in places, younger in others. Wonder if that’s intentional.

Looking for a replacement for mother?

Perhaps the dialogue is indicative. Joshua’s getting older. He’s learning things.

You forget fear. You forget love.

To be, then, is to forget. To be is to not know you are.

Waiting.

In hindsight, the game character was a replacement for someone they’d both lost. The complete devotion to playing through the game isn’t about fun. There is no fun to be had in this sort of journey.

Resonance is really good so far, which isn’t far at all. I have played as a single dude who lives in a shitty apartment and is a scientist of some kind, and a streetwise cop who walks into dark alleys because he plays by his own rules. This screenshot is the beginning of a third character’s introduction. It’s the best thing I’ve experienced in a video game in a long time.

I’ve played several other games lately, more so than films or books. In particular: Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, Far Cry 3. That is also a ranking of the most to least interesting of that trio. Lara Croft’s trek was an interesting build-up, but Booker Dewitt and the Far Cry 3 guy (I call him “bro”) are not as interesting. All three characters are placed in certain peril and yet only Lara’s story really stuck with me. It’s as if her own term as innate badass has been washed away, replaced by a vulnerability that makes her more relatable in spite of all the extreme survivalist shit she pulls off. Her deaths are also cruelly graphic, which ups the peril factor. Bro is certainly a vulnerable character in the opening scenes, but they ramp him up almost immediately. You’re hunting boars and taking down army Jeeps full of natives in the first half hour. And Dewitt, hell. He comes in as a down-on-his-luck private detective who’s out to snag a bounty in exchange for a pardon of some kind of debt. Guys like that are hurricanes. There’s no doubt in his portrayal.

I’ve yet to finish the latter two, so perhaps I’ll change my opinion. My gut just kicks in early on with such things.

There’s a big loud voice out there that says video games have to appeal to certain aspects of the psyche. Kind of like what they say about comic books. People—mostly guys—want a power fantasy. Big muscles, hot and nearly-naked girls. Always the hero or the anti-hero. Never the (serious, not comical) villain, or the weak, or the NPC who appears as a background automaton. I don’t agree with people who believe such characters are just not interesting. Who wants to play as a powerless nobody?

I’m left to wonder why scenes like this one from Resonance or Lara’s struggles across the island make me feel more immersed and interested in these games than in others. I really have no answer. What I understand at this point is that vulnerability can make me feel powerless, and so I do not admit vulnerability. I do not feel powerless. Perhaps this whole thing—these kinds of video games, all those years of stories, and the kind of intimate fiction I admire—it’s an attempt at something. Trying to connect to a node which remains nameless to me. Just trying to feel, maybe.

That’s what art is good for anyway.

Resonance is really good so far, which isn’t far at all. I have played as a single dude who lives in a shitty apartment and is a scientist of some kind, and a streetwise cop who walks into dark alleys because he plays by his own rules. This screenshot is the beginning of a third character’s introduction. It’s the best thing I’ve experienced in a video game in a long time.

I’ve played several other games lately, more so than films or books. In particular: Tomb Raider, Bioshock Infinite, Far Cry 3. That is also a ranking of the most to least interesting of that trio. Lara Croft’s trek was an interesting build-up, but Booker Dewitt and the Far Cry 3 guy (I call him “bro”) are not as interesting. All three characters are placed in certain peril and yet only Lara’s story really stuck with me. It’s as if her own term as innate badass has been washed away, replaced by a vulnerability that makes her more relatable in spite of all the extreme survivalist shit she pulls off. Her deaths are also cruelly graphic, which ups the peril factor. Bro is certainly a vulnerable character in the opening scenes, but they ramp him up almost immediately. You’re hunting boars and taking down army Jeeps full of natives in the first half hour. And Dewitt, hell. He comes in as a down-on-his-luck private detective who’s out to snag a bounty in exchange for a pardon of some kind of debt. Guys like that are hurricanes. There’s no doubt in his portrayal.

I’ve yet to finish the latter two, so perhaps I’ll change my opinion. My gut just kicks in early on with such things.

There’s a big loud voice out there that says video games have to appeal to certain aspects of the psyche. Kind of like what they say about comic books. People—mostly guys—want a power fantasy. Big muscles, hot and nearly-naked girls. Always the hero or the anti-hero. Never the (serious, not comical) villain, or the weak, or the NPC who appears as a background automaton. I don’t agree with people who believe such characters are just not interesting. Who wants to play as a powerless nobody?

I’m left to wonder why scenes like this one from Resonance or Lara’s struggles across the island make me feel more immersed and interested in these games than in others. I really have no answer. What I understand at this point is that vulnerability can make me feel powerless, and so I do not admit vulnerability. I do not feel powerless. Perhaps this whole thing—these kinds of video games, all those years of stories, and the kind of intimate fiction I admire—it’s an attempt at something. Trying to connect to a node which remains nameless to me. Just trying to feel, maybe.

That’s what art is good for anyway.

I never played the text adventure game called Zork. I still haven’t, but I plan to address this in the coming week. I’m just not too familiar with the stuff from the 70s and early 80s. Some of it seemed pretty goddamn boring, you know? Not the kind of thing that’d hold my interest. Games like Pong, Ms. Pac-Man, Asteroids, and Galaga—which I have haphazardly played while waiting for a sandwich or a beer at some bar—were just a bit too simplistic when compared to a game like Super Mario Bros. Hell, games like those are now homework for game design students on their way to more ambitious projects. There was just something about playing a video game story and exploring a world in an interactive way that was more appealing. To quote a game programmer whose love of video games began with SMB:

I realized when I played Super Mario Bros. that […] someone made up this little world for other people to experience and to see. You didn’t even have to be there! It was just magical… Magical technology.

They also lack the instant nostalgia that I acquired from memories of my dad hooking up the Nintendo for the first time, or my uncle completing all of Super Mario Bros. 2 on Christmas Eve. Even my favorite aunt playing SMB because I was too sick to get out of bed and reach the controller. In essence, those older games—while iconic—were before my time. To me they are as silent films and music produced before 1900. I don’t know if I’ll discover the video game equivalent of other late personal discoveries like Man with a Movie Camera orTocatta and Fugue in D Minor, but it begins somewhere. The research alone is worth the effort. A great discovery is the best one can hope for.

In the meantime I’ve been enjoying something called Zork: The Cavern of Doom. Not exactly my kind of writing, but it harkens back to a time in the 90s when choose-your-own-adventure books allowed us to explore non-linear storytelling. And, best of all, look at that GUI. It’s fuckin’ beautiful in its simplicity. A text adventure game for the modern age.

I never played the text adventure game called Zork. I still haven’t, but I plan to address this in the coming week. I’m just not too familiar with the stuff from the 70s and early 80s. Some of it seemed pretty goddamn boring, you know? Not the kind of thing that’d hold my interest. Games like Pong, Ms. Pac-Man, Asteroids, and Galaga—which I have haphazardly played while waiting for a sandwich or a beer at some bar—were just a bit too simplistic when compared to a game like Super Mario Bros. Hell, games like those are now homework for game design students on their way to more ambitious projects. There was just something about playing a video game story and exploring a world in an interactive way that was more appealing. To quote a game programmer whose love of video games began with SMB:

I realized when I played Super Mario Bros. that […] someone made up this little world for other people to experience and to see. You didn’t even have to be there! It was just magical… Magical technology.

They also lack the instant nostalgia that I acquired from memories of my dad hooking up the Nintendo for the first time, or my uncle completing all of Super Mario Bros. 2 on Christmas Eve. Even my favorite aunt playing SMB because I was too sick to get out of bed and reach the controller. In essence, those older games—while iconic—were before my time. To me they are as silent films and music produced before 1900. I don’t know if I’ll discover the video game equivalent of other late personal discoveries like Man with a Movie Camera orTocatta and Fugue in D Minor, but it begins somewhere. The research alone is worth the effort. A great discovery is the best one can hope for.

In the meantime I’ve been enjoying something called Zork: The Cavern of Doom. Not exactly my kind of writing, but it harkens back to a time in the 90s when choose-your-own-adventure books allowed us to explore non-linear storytelling. And, best of all, look at that GUI. It’s fuckin’ beautiful in its simplicity. A text adventure game for the modern age.