Not dead, just busy. I have a few posts in the works (manifesto for single player layout design, Dark Past pt. 3, documentation of my board game about open-pit mining) but I've actually been spending my time working on projects instead of blogging about them, which is an interesting shift in habit...

Kentucky Route Zero

Just wanted to remind people about the Kickstarter drive for Kentucky Route Zero, ending in less than 3 days. It has some very talented talent behind it. And, well, just watch the trailer and prepare to be amazed. (The $40 USD donation level looks the most "optimal" -- you get postcards, a poster, as well as the game. Oh, and good vibes / karma, I guess?)

Global Game Jam 2011: Thoughts / Post-Mortem

• "Extinction" wasn't a good theme. Too many people easily rationalized it to "any mechanic where you kill NPCs" which is, like, every single game ever?
• Non-digital games were tolerated, but not really accepted. It was impossible to adequately demo a board game during the 2 minute final presentations at the end. In this case, it really encourages bigger games where players actively stand up and move around / perform... which might've been interesting to make. Damn.
• There should be semi-mandated playtests / progress checks. Just sayin'. As it is, people talk sometimes but mostly just stay in their groups to work.
• Keita Takahashi's keynote was pretty awesome, though.
• Two games is easily doable and I highly recommend making two to everyone... Unfortunately, me and my teammate were a little too relaxed and ended up working only for 24 of the 48 hours. Oh well. 
• Here are my entries, collabs with Eddie Cameron: a 2 player board game about the extinction of love and trust in a marriage (Polymer) and a Unity-powered FPS about the extinction of print media (Goldblum).

BRB

Global Game Jamming @ NYU.

20 Brush Challenge @ MapCore: Vote Now!

"Ludonarrative Dissonance," by Matthew "Lunaran" Breit

The MapCore 20 Brush Challenge (as previously mentioned) has wrapped up and we saw some really awesome turnout (as well as some really talented new users!) submit maps. There are four (4) categories: best overall, coolest visuals, awesomest layout, and most creative brushwork. Guidelines / advice for voting is included in each thread.

Voting is open to the public (though I think you'll need an account) and it's more or less a screenshot contest -- but some of these entries really do deserve to be played, if not simply just to see them in motion, as with Lunaran's "Take On Me"-esque entry pictured above.

Anyway, please have a look and vote! You have 47 hours! (And stick around MapCore too, you might enjoy yourself...)

(Oh, and credit for running everything / being awesome goes to Mr. Weldon)

Can you find the fine line between a reward that encourages players to have fun and an incentive that enslaves them?

Then you should be a "Player Investment Designer," possibly the most evil-sounding game job ever? (via @witnessgame) Let's enslave all our players!

20 Brush Challenge @ MapCore: wrapping up!

This post shall serve as your last reminder to make something awesome for the 20 Brush MapCore compo. You have until this Sunday (January 23rd).

We're seeing lots of new faces / less than regular faces popping up and putting out amazing work, so you owe it to yourself to join our illustrious level design community and revel in the virtual camaraderie of a lifetime. (... But don't go into EOT. Don't don't don't go into EOT.)

Here's some stuff being thrown around in the WIP thread. (Note: I did not make any of these levels)...

Look at all this raw creativity oozing out of your monitor right now. Can you feel it? Can you smell it? Yes, it's urine -- but it's the urine of joy.

So if you know how to use Hammer, Radiant or UnrealEd, just whip up a crazy-looking 20 brush map and throw-in! You won't regret it. And it probably won't take you too long either.

Dark Past (part 2): On level design, hookers, cybernetic architecture, Tony Hawk and all that converges.

Last time, I mentioned a lot of games that we like for their emergence and "cool stuff that happens" -- but the difference is that games like Thief, or "immersive simulations," actually do something with that emergence.

If, in Grand Theft Auto, you beat up a sex worker to get your money back -- an immersive sim approach would have that hooker tell other hookers about you, and no hookers would ever service you again or help you in missions -- unless maybe you stole a nice car and left it in their parking lot as a gift, or ran over a pimp for them, etc. In this way, all your actions "listen" to each other.

A "hooker map" for GTA4. (Apparently they prefer the MET, Times Square, Long Island City...)

... But GTA doesn't do it because that's not what it's going for. (Too much thoughtfulness in my bowl of destructive mayhem.) And that's okay. But an immersive sim, like the Thief series, does it differently.

What I've always loved about Thief was the level design -- and by level design, I mean mainly the floorplans and complexity of the spaces -- not so much the visuals.

Not that the games are ugly or visually boring, but... Thief II, released in 2000, used essentially the same Dark Engine used in Thief I from 1998. Compare this to more powerful engines as those in Unreal Tournament or Quake 3 Arena, which were released months before in 1999... Thief II was already severely behind from the start. Plus, a lot of the models and animations remained untouched from Thief I, which was smart for production but limited its visual novelty.

Fortunately, "immersive sims" aren't "immersive" through their graphical fidelity or photorealism. (see: immersive fallacy) Rather, they're immersive in how they simulate / simplify the complexity of interlocking systems and the beauty of exploiting these systems or getting caught unaware by them.