GameTruth

I think Seth and I try on purpose to leave most of the game legislation and censoring garbage off this site because we do not know any lawyers and its always found unconstitutional. However, I am posting this link to the Game Politics blog where there are some posted pieces of actual testimony against Jack Thompson. The Florida Bar is trying to disbar him on ethic and other violations, I am not a lawyer so I do not care much for the details. What I did find fascinating is how insane Thompson actually is and I think this testimony shows it well. The testimony of the Judge in the Alabama case is coming I believe on Thursday. If you have some down time I really recommend giving this stuff a read.

-Mark

Its been a while since we have sent out a question.  We have had spring breaks and other things going on recently.  Anyway, in the news there is an article about Atari using Steam to distribute games.  I think this is awesome because I believe Steam solves so many PC gaming problems.  The best part about Steam for the industry is the security it provides against piracy.  The other awesome aspect of Steam is that it will allow multiplayer games to have a standard when creating a multiplayer experience through Steam’s matchmaking.

The thing I believe Steam is missing most is a casual portal.  When Steam releases a casual games section I think it could easily rival Popcap and Pogo for the casual audience.  I see Steam becoming the Xbox Live Arcade for the PC, it already has over 15 million users.  I realize that there is already some casual games available but I would like to see free games available to play on Steam that are multiplayer in nature.  Even if it is only a demo and the real version can be purchased.

The question is, will Steam become the dominate form of digital distribution on the PC, therefore making digital distribution viable for indie games?  I totally think that it will.  I think there is going to be a shift in digital distribution with the support of Steam that will allow independent studios to go around big name publishers for PC games and release directly to the audience.

-Seth

Since I am not at GDC I have been reading coverage of it from many different sources. This question comes from a blog post on Terra Nova, which can be seen here. It is the summary of a panel discussion about the future of Massive Multiplayer Games. The second question down asks if MMOs are headed for consoles and there is a unanimous “yes” from the panel.

This is something Seth and I have discussed this before. I cannot wait for MMOs to hit the console for many reasons. The first reason is that moving MMOs to the console will force them to be simpler. There is no reason that in World of Warcraft each class has over 40 different spells, I would like to see it go more the way of Guild Wars with tons of spells but only being able to carry 8 at any time. Reason 2 is that I prefer playing games on my couch, using my TV over sitting at my desk staring at my screen, may just be my preference. Reason 3 is that the current gen of consoles has the ability to patch and send out episodic content just as well as the PC so there is really no reason to not them on consoles.

The whole panel summary was good. Seth said he was actually at the talk so maybe he can comment some more.

-Mark

Over on Kotaku they have an extremely interesting article about the creation of the story and world in Bioshock. It specifically discusses the creation of the dystopian society based on the the beliefs of the people who would live there. The use of objectivism in the story helps to build a believable feel for a society that would choose to live in underwater isolation.

So the question is how far do designers really need to go to create a believable world? It seems that in Bioshock the entire story was hinged upon creating an beautiful environment that felt alive. It seems that by taking the extra time to think not only about your environment, but the society and the individuals that will inhabit it will obvious help complete your world. I would argue that this could be taken further and should be used by any game that is trying to create believable characters with interesting relationships and complex motivations.

Either way, read that article, it is really awesome.

- Seth

P.S. GDC is this week, so be ready for some really interesting questions.

This question has two parts, I will start with the first. Its a pretty simple question: if you could make a new IP into a game what would it be? I am bringing this up because of this. Go ahead and click on the link and then give it a try, the game has a 5 minute duration and it is worth your time. In an industry saturated with sequels and licensed IP I love seeing whacky, edgy, and completely different IPs bursting forth. So what would mine be? Seth knows this, probably sick of hearing about it but I want to make a survivor game. A game where the player is forced to survive, you know make fire, a shelter, get food, etc. The main reason I want to do this is because I think it would be fun and also because Les Stroud is my hero. I would also make a survivor game based on his IP (Survivorman) but I would rather do the survivor game as a new IP, in light of that thought is the second part of the question.

That second part being: what established IP do you want to see made into a game? A while back a Ghostbusters game was announced, also just last week an Ender’s Game game was announced. So which IP would I pick? I am a huge Battletech/Mechwarrior fan, huge, HUGE fan. I want to see an MMO. I want to get with a group a friends and not be some girly elf or ugly orc in some sewer, I want to be stomping around piloting a robot the size of a building in the open air showing fools the business end of my shoulder mounted missle launchers. The Battletech universe is more than diverse enough for an MMO and has tons of rabid fans of everything from the books to the tabletop games.  I would love to see it done because it would not be just another fantasy DPS/dungeon based MMO.

-Mark

I wrote an article for the Escapist and it was published today. Head over and check out Dreamcraft 101, it is all about my experiences at the Entertainment Technology Center and a specific class called Building Virtual Worlds.

- Seth

I know that the text above is not really a question, hell its not even a sentence. However, I wanted to talk about my experience with Super Mario Galaxies (SMG). I am currently about half way through the game so I am no expert but at this point I am comfortable commenting about it.

Let me describe the gameplay of SMG. Mario flies to a nicely themed galaxy in hopes of making it out alive and with a star. By nicely themed I mean that the power-ups, environment, enemies, music, etc all fits together nicely. When he lands in the galaxy he has to complete puzzles of all kinds on a planet so that he can move to the next one. These puzzles include platforming, killing enemies, throwing switches, etc. Mario’s main attack is a spin attack which stuns enemies and then Mario kicks them to finish them off. There are also power-ups throughout each galaxy that include items that increase the total health Mario has, exta lives (I love that green mushroom), stars for invincibility, and others (like the bee mushroom that lets you fly). Also Mario can get coins to refill his health.

Now at the end of galaxy there is a boss fight that usually consists of a large boss themed after the galaxy and to defeat him Mario must use some gimmick to stun the boss and then attack the bosses weak point.

Does any of that sound familiar to anyone else? In any of the 3D Legend of Zelda games the gameplay in the dungeons is as follows:

Link goes to a nicely themed dungeon with the purpose of coming out alive and with some item he needs. When he arrives at the dungeon he has to complete puzzles in rooms of the dungeon to unlock other rooms, get a boss key, get a compass, and get a map. These puzzles include switch puzzles, platform puzzles, killing enemies, etc. Link has a spin attack plus a slew of other moves to defeat enemies. He can also find heart containers to give him more health, new equipment and spells, fairies for extra lives, and potions to refill his health and magic. At the end of each dungeon is a large nicely themed boss that can be killed using a gimmick usually learned in the dungeon. Link must use this to stun the boss and then attack his weak point (usually a blinking area or something like the eye or brain or jaw or whatever).

Now I am even confusing myself about these games. There are even closer similarities, like the sound effect that comes with unlocking some secret in SMG, it sounds just like the sound Zelda has. Also things like floating in a bubble and using fans to get through a platforming puzzle in SMG. Slap a green suit on him, pop the bubble and give Mario a leaf and he could be Link in the Wind Temple of Wind Waker.

So what is the point of even bringing this up right? Who gives a shit if they have almost the same gameplay? Well the point I am getting at is about using the weaknesses of a games design so that they become strengths. Portal did a really good job with this as well and I have a draft of a longer game design question for it in the works. SMG seems boring, you fly some place, you solve easy puzzles, you defeat an easy boss, you get a star, you fly home and repeat like 300 times. However, this modular game design (by modular I mean that there does not need to be continuity between the galaxies, the player can choose their own path of which ones to play so they take these modular pieces and weld them together for their experience) gave the designer a lot of advantages.

This modular type gameplay gave the designers a lot of freedom in what they could do without breaking immersion. Sure, why can’t a junk heap galaxy with the boss being a spinning top be next to a galaxy that has an ooze spewing spider as a boss. They are separate galaxies. Also by separating the galaxies the designers split up the experience making each level of a galaxy short in duration which lowered frustrations for the player and let the player feel like they were accomplishing a lot during play. This also gave the designer the ability to reuse puzzles but with enough galaxies in between that the player did not get bored. However, under this immaculate design and theming is the dungeon crawl dynamics of Zelda, a proven fun gameplay dynamic with enough new twists that few people even realize they are playing a dungeon crawler.

I am currently really enjoying SMG, I recommend it to any Wii owner. It has its faults but that is a discussion for another time.

-Mark

While I do like to bring current events into the daily questions it is not often that I will directly take a question and post it here. However, I think this question is different because much like politics or religion, much of gaming is based on opinion.  So I am throwing down the gauntlet.

I say that the Nintendo 64 (N64) is the greatest console of all time. The N64 was the first console to have native 4 player support, something that is now standard across all consoles. The N64 was also Nintendo’s first 3D console and the last console to use cartridges. These two points are important because it being the first 3D console lead to some of the greatest games of all time and they were in cartridge form which meant that at the time they had much faster loading times than disc based systems.

When I said GREATEST GAMES OF ALL TIME, I meant it. Namely speaking of 007: Goldeneye and Legend of Zelda: Orcarina of time, these games are incredible.  Along with those two games came several that were brought to 3D for the first time and became games of legend: Starfox 64, Mario 64, and Mario Cart 64 just to name a few. The fact that Nintendo has not rereleased all of these games on the Wii as downloadables is a shame.

Now on to controller design, the N64 controller was good for any hand size and was the first controller to feature “trigger” and “shoulder” buttons. Also it had an expansion slot for memory cards or a rumble pack. I wish todays controllers had expansion slots and I think this feature may return as more and more games push the envelop for unique control schemes.  So it is not that the N64 controller is the greatest ever, but its impact on future controllers is quite visible.

So in conclusion the N64 is the greatest console of all time because it forever changed the path of both hardware (4 player native, 3D, cartridges) and software (Goldeneye, Ocarina of Time, Starfox 64).  Also it came in a wide range of colors of both console and controller.

-Mark

The reason why there have been no questions for over a week is simple, Seth and I bought The Orange Box. First off, I think Portal is a great game, I will get more into the gory details in a game design question but I did really enjoy it. Having said that I think The Orange Box is the best move Valve has ever made.

Lumping a multiplayer game (Team Fortress 2) in with a very well done mod (portal) and the new episodic content and old content of Half Life 2 is awesome. This brings me to the question of the day: where is episodic content going?

I really like the way Valve has done the episodic content for Half Life 2 and I am also a big fan of Steam. On the consoles I think Xbox Live is great. For a long time I have been a proponent of episodic content, having shorter experiences with a lower price more often I think is what games really need. So why hasn’t it spread like wild fire? Unfortunately, I do not have a good answer to that question.

I think as more gamer shift to community tools (like Steam, Xbox Live, Playstation Network, etc, etc) we will see more games goto an episodic format.

-Mark

With the writer’s strike still going on the Golden Globes and a variety of other television programs have been suffering.  Luckily, Microsoft has created the Xbox Live Arcade Awards.  Normally I would find this stupid and a waste of time but I really like what Microsoft is trying to with Xbox Live.  They are creating a true community of developers, which I think will win the current battle for social site for gamers.  I think if Microsoft puts some effort in they could hold the winning social network ticket, as long as they continue to develop tools to allow hobbyists to make games for the Xbox 360 they will be ahead of the pack.

-Seth