2007-03-15
thoughts?
- talked to Android
extolled the virtues of the super-large wacom tablet.
he has amazing skills in painter - switched to firefox for the time being so i can play Justin Hall’s Multiplayer Online Game. Talked to him about it for quite awhile at his poster session during the GDC.
- the pirate guy from Three Rings [1]
- raph coster quote something about the most important user created content in games is the screenshot.
- derek yu [2]made the lovely artwork for Aquaria
2007-03-17
after seeing Even More Footage from Little Big Planet i can’t help but think that this is actually the same thing as we are doing with The Endless Forest. We are also making a world providing elements where players make their own game. In their world they want you to make platform-type games (people will come up with other things but ultimately this is what they have in mind for a beginning) whereas we want people to make the sorts of games you would play outside. The elements they provide are physics based where the elements we provide are narrative based symbols. It’s only because the industry is so stuck in its genres that the parallels are not clearer to see. At the same time the fact that a big game like Little Big Planet comes out will only make it easier for us to explain what it is The Endless Forest is as a game. I think that if we could develop this aspect more (time&money) that TEF would become a spectacular toolset for user created gameplay... and visual poetry.
2007-03-20
games are mostly thought of as systems, as numbers. but i think we try to come at it as if games are worlds, atmospheres in which you can become immersed. we design that experience and make that fun. BuiltForJoy. if in the end there is a game there then that is good. but we want you to feel something first and foremost. it is not about scores or systems or spreadsheets or “gaming” even as such. it is like a poem or painting where reading it for a few moments can change your life. you are inside and interacting with a story with a world. we provide to elements needed to bring that world to life for you. we create situations you want to walk through, sybols for your to interpret. the rest is up to you. you make the story in your mind. maybe it inspires you to write it down. mabe you want to go back and play in that world some more? we hope so!
2007-03-26
I belong in this other place.