Don't Get Me Wrong, I Love Increpare

... but sometimes I'm really just disturbed and at a loss as to what to say about his stuff -- "The Terrible Whiteness of Appalachian Nights" starts out promising.

The novel use of ASCII characters in this way (I especially like the "counter" and "TV") is cool, and the distortion effects are pretty nifty and sell a really cohesive, unsettling aesthetic. There's a "day" and a "time" counter but none of it seems particularly important. Your choices don't seem to make any difference. Player agency is incredibly vague, if it exists at all. Par for Increpare.

But then comes the last part which seems shocking and weird for the sake of being shocking and weird. It seems to undermine this incredibly interesting world / narrative he's built up, as if it's from an entirely separate game. The art style is different, the controls are mouse-driven instead of keyboard-driven, the mechanic is openly vulgar instead of subtly vulgar -- I mean, yes, maybe this jarring difference is meant to mirror the real-life phenomenon of night terrors, but I can't help but wonder if he could've done more than that. It seems more like a "one note" kind of thing and less of an exploration of an idea.

Poto and Cabenga: The Unspoken Story

First -- go play it. (image stolen from Rock Paper Shotgun, which cites my Facebook status as its source -- oh, journalism!!)

Second -- wow.

Look at the art style -- deep purples, a salmon-y orange, a magenta... almost no other game uses a palette like this. It's like a big "fuck you" to the grayed noisy wastelands of Gears of War. The flat cut-out layers work well for this type of game because platformers rely on silhouettes and clear space divisions between floor / wall / character. (Adam Saltsman explains this better than me.) So the art is pretty, unique, functional, and probably simple (but not easy!) to draw. Win win win win.

Listen to the sound -- when you collect a coin in Mario, why does it sound like that? Is that sound especially "coin-like" in itself? The sounds in Poto are similarly kind of abstract. Unique enough to be distinguishable, chip tuney enough to nod to the game's GAMMA / indie platformer roots. Speaking of abstractness...

Look at the characters -- what the hell are they? Some orange-yellow guy riding a purple platypus donkey duck thing. Does it matter? Their story is simply and masterfully told:

You (you being the orange yellow guy contrasting directly with the background, you being the rider, you being the only vaguely human thing) spend the first minute riding your animal. Both you and your mount move together as one, responding to the same button presses.

Then you're separated and the real game begins. One button controls both characters but in a pretty novel way that I haven't seen in many games. What results is a strange synchronization between both characters as they both move, still to the same button presses, but to a slightly different complementing rhythm to each other. In other words, they are dancing.

How do you know this animal is your friend? How do you know you have to be re-united? Because two people dancing, moving through the world together, is a beautiful thing. Because the controls and gameplay unite both of you and create a bond between both characters.

It's not some silly textbox pop-up saying "Poto cared a lot about Cabenga," it's a not a silly cutscene with the two characters embracing or one petting the other -- it's the controls and the gameplay mechanics that tell this story. It's what Ubisoft tried to do with the 2008 Prince of Persia re-invention, but ended up kind of failing. (I'm not saying textboxes or cutscenes are unilaterally bad, they're merely lazier and less elegant than, say, actually playing the game and interacting with your partner.)

The best part? It's fun to play and it's relatively challenging to master.

Anyway. The indie platformer has a lot of life left in it, so quit hatin', especially when they're as smartly designed as this.

GamesRadar UK likes me and my friends

http://www.gamesradar.com/f/games-without-frontiers-10-games-that-break-the-rules/a-20100407113451654034

Experimental HL2 mod scene, represent!

The Graveyard Speedrun Video

... still makes me chuckle every time. Genius. Absolute genius.

Liner Notes: Polaris, its narrative + Thoughts on Player Characters

SPOILER ALERT: "Liner Notes" discuss levels in Radiator. You should play Radiator first -- or if you don't care, read on.

Previously: the technical design behind Polaris.

All first person shooters consists of two basic verbs: looking and moving. Mirror's Edge brought on a lot of discussion about the "moving" aspect of an FPS, and it seems we're headed towards some holy grail of body awareness with that - but what about the "looking" aspect? The "looking" verb usually has no cost associated with it, no power - it is a passive action on the part of the player, mere observation. So how about we attach some more significance to the act of looking in an FPS? Can "looking at stuff" be fun too?

This is why nearly all first person games are about shooting: it is the easiest way to make "looking" into something powerful. Hey, I'm looking at your head, and now I'm going to make it explode.

The mechanics of stargazing are about perspective: stars that are lights years and light years apart can appear to be next to each other, forming constellations -- except they don't really exist. It's only when we look at them that they do; that is, the act of looking becomes performative and it actually creates something.

That's what the narrator is doing: looking back.

Thou Shall Notgames

And you thought I was pretentious? Look at this.

Now look back. Just kidding, this is some pretty deep shit that genuinely interests me. There are at least 5 graduate theses in the depths of those forum threads.

I mean, I like a lot of the ideas there, I'm just wary of how practical it would be to try to create a methodology out of them and test the design theory by making a game with it. It hurts my head to think about it so much -- and while I like playing super far-out experimental games, I don't particularly enjoy making them. (I'd say my own mods are "moderate" in this respect.)

But... "Notgames." I always thought that was some scrappy Gillen-ism, but I like the idea of using it for a new genre. Short and snappy. I think it works.

On Non-Photorealism and Weapon Models

Ladies and dudes, I present to you: Merveilles.

This... this is definitely a game.

But first, a digression -- a brief rant.

In a sense, there's never been a better time to be an environment artist looking for a job in the industry -- because you'll probably find one. All these studios are dedicating themselves to the (honorable?) enterprise of photo-realism because, ostensibly, photo-realism is what sells. But photo-realism, especially in the FPS genre, is also an arms race that requires assets and assets and assets.

I mean, more recently there are games like Borderlands and World of Warcraft that leverage different looks. But for them, I think it's more of a marketing / branding strategy than anything: the screenshots and the look are pretty distinctive and won't age as horribly as a photo-realistic attempt. But both games still require assets upon assets, armies of artists painting and modeling the soda cans and plants and rocks and every single fucking thing in the world.

For indie developers / modders, that's not the main strength of non-photorealism. Rather, the main strength is abstraction and its effect on both production and aesthetics.

Operation: Get a Job at GDC (Part 2)

This is part 2 of my adventures in job-hunting at GDC 2010. Last time, I was disappointed by the small number of actual studios in the GDC "Career Zone." I had some okay encounters and some pretty embarrassing cringe-inducing encounters.

And then I went to see Valve.

They weren't in the dimly lit, half-abandoned "Career Zone" ghetto with all the other booths. They were a 4 minute walk to the complete opposite side of the show floor in the quiet, austere, and intimidatingly ambiguously named "Business Area." (What kind of business?!)

This part of the floor was profoundly deserted and I felt like some sort of trespasser, but then I checked for my balls (yeah, still there) and decided that someone would yell at me if I wasn't supposed to be there. Then I saw it -- in the center of the maze was the "Steam-plex," complete with interview rooms and a lounge and a reception and food table and whoaaaa. It was more than a booth -- it was a mobile office, an outpost, a citadel. I wish I thought to take a picture.

I didn't expect to get anywhere, given my dismal results talking with Crytek and Bethesda. I prepared myself for blank, vacant stares followed by me hastily leaving a CV on the desk, apologetically bowing for wasting their time, and then promptly running out to the front of the nearest speeding bus to kill myself.

I walk in.

The man at the front ("Charlie Brown" -- the bestest name ever, though I'm sure he gets that a lot) seems surprised to see me. He hands me a form. I fill it out and hand it back to him. That's when he says, "Oh, there's Robin. Looks like he's finishing up right about now... you can go with him."

Wait, I think to myself. Did he just say --

And then I'm sitting at a table with the lead designer of Team Fortress 2.