NYC Game Scenesters: Erik Wolpaw talk next Thursday

ATTENTION! If you're in the NYC area, you should RSVP for this talk with Erik Wolpaw on Thursday -- like, right now. You definitely won't be able to stroll in, and even if you do, you'll miss out on free croissant sandwiches.

It's open to the public. Go.

"The format for the evening will be a brief guided play-through of Portal 2 with Erik, followed by an interview and general discussion moderated by Game Center Interim Director Frank Lantz. The audience is encouraged to join the discussion. Please bring questions about Portal, game writing, criticism, narrative and the overall subject of games in general."

And the NYU croissant sandwich things are pretty awesome. Get there early if you expect any otherwise I'm going to eat them all.

New MapCore Compo: "The Door Challenge"

Attention! There's a new level design compo about to start at MapCore:

The Door Challenge, Friday, April 29th - Sunday, May 22nd.

"Using the included prefab in the engine of your choice, script a puzzle to creatively open the door! As this is a scripting challenge, you are encouraged to use dev textures and only what art assets are absolutely necessary to communicate key ideas."



Open to Source and UDK users! (And other engines, if you're willing to port the prefab yourself. I might port it to Unity, as self-proclaimed minister of Source-Unity relations.)

New faces are, as always, a welcome sight.

And remember: the "4 week timespan" doesn't mean you need to spend 4 weeks on it; last time, Thiago made his in 24 hours and won the Cube Compo with dm_zest. (Granted, he already made the textures, but still!...)

Still think it's too much of a time commitment? We're also thinking of doing shorter "weekend" challenges, so chime in there if you like that idea.

Also in the pipeline...

Prototyping a medieval baseball sidescroller for class: you're Troy Percival / Sir Perceval, famed professional baseball player / naive knight raised in the woods. Heavily dependent on a mechanic stolen from Cactus' Norrland. Will your reckless / senseless quest for strikeouts and saves consume you, or will you die triumphantly on the pitcher's mound of the 2002 World Series?

... Also considering a zombie mode. Quickly, strike-out zombified Derek Jeter before the infection spreads to the castle!

In case you hadn't heard...

The official announcement of CryEngine Indie. So I guess now it's CryEngine vs. UDK, battling for high-end standalone indie PC market -- which is growing a lot, with skilled professionals getting laid-off or leaving their jobs to go independent.

Valve is losing their "developer share" of hobbyists / indies with every passing day. I mean, why do they approve mediocre shovelware like Dino D-Day for Steam, but then reject Gemini Rue? Because Dino D-Day was a Source licensee? Hopefully the upcoming Dear Esther retail will restore some prestige to the Source indie brand.

... Oh, right. CryIndie press release goes like this:

"We'll be giving you access to the latest, greatest version of CryENGINE 3 - the same engine we use internally, the same engine we give to our licensees, the same engine that powers Crysis 2.

This will be a complete version of our engine, including C++ code access, our content exporters (including our LiveCreate real-time pipeline), shader code, game sample code from Crysis 2, script samples, new improved Flowgraph and a whole host of great asset examples, which will allow teams to build complete games from scratch for PC."

Ludodiegesis, or Pinchbeck's unified field theory of FPS games, or "please pee on my leg and tell me it's raining."

photo by National Media Museum, "You want a piece of me?!"

I'm reading (fellow frontiersman of modding) Dan "Dear Esther" Pinchbeck's PhD dissertation / unified field theory of FPS games. Contrary to what my inflammatory post title implies, I actually really like it and think it's valuable.

I've also kind of fact-checked my summary with him too, so let this post serve as a Wikipedia article of sorts for piquing your interest in reading the real thing...

“Story as a function of gameplay in First Person Shooters: an analysis of FPS diegetic content 1998-2007.” 

Central to his conceptual framework is the idea of "ludodiegesis" -- ludo meaning "play" and diegesis referring to "the fictive reality of the game." (If you're gagging at these words: remember that part about games being a legitimate form of art and culture? Well, we need to invent new words to effectively talk about this new media. So learn this word.)

It's his elegant way of growing something from the rotting corpse that is the narratology vs. ludology non-debate, mainly by shifting what "game narrative" means:

Castles & Trains

Recommended: "Castles & Trains" by Michael Todd.

In the pipeline...

Pilsner: Tactical Binge Drinking Action.  

I guess the Hollywood pitch would be Jersey Shore + Rainbow Six. The weaponized male gaze. A planned "gay bar" or "Top Gun" game mode -- or maybe it should be the default? Asynchronous multiplayer, mouse-only controls, over a dozen IPAs to choose from, etc.

Course syllabus: "Game Design and Architecture"

Here at the Design and Technology MFA program at Parsons, the "Game Design 1" course is extremely popular. Like, it's one of the first classes to fill up at registration. In it, you learn about analog game design and make your own board games / card games.

Conversely, "Game Design 2" is about level design, mostly in a digital context, and it is much less popular -- to the extent that this semester, it got canceled from lack of enrollment. (Or at least that's the reason they gave us.)

Why was Game Design 1 so popular, but Game Design 2 (level design) allowed to die? I see them as two very similar, important things for interaction designers to learn, but apparently both the student body and administration disagree with me.

However, I'm the one who's always right about everything.

So in my assignment for a design and education class, I thought I'd try to bridge the gap between the two and make a level design class for people who aren't particularly fond of video games. It focuses on interaction and environment across various types of games.

We deal with fairly simple, basic games and mechanics so we can focus on the levels. Also, keep in mind that the intended audience is middle school / early high school, though I'm sure if you crammed in some readings and essays in there it'd make for a decent college freshman class.

The working draft of the syllabus is pasted below. Feedback is appreciated:

Game Design and Architecture
Robert Yang. E-mail.

Think about the first level of Super Mario Bros. or your favorite map in Halo. Think about a game of Monopoly, when you're leaving jail and you have to brave the minefield of hotels. Think about a game of baseball in Fenway Park, where there's a 36 foot tall wall called the “Green Monster” that prevents easy home runs.

In video games, board games, sports, and anything else: it matters where you play.

Video games call this “level design,” but in this course we'll explore both digital and non-digital representations of the environment and how to build them. If you like board games, video games, sports, playground games, or anything else game-related: we'd love to have you.