10000000, ideas, and open development When I played 10000000 two things went through my head. First, this game is brilliant. It is simple and accessible enough that my whole family could play it, but addictive enough that we kept coming back. My second thought was, “dammit, he beat me to it”. 

A little bit ago, my oldest son said he wanted to program something. While the thought of passing on my love of techno geekery had me overjoyed, I knew that there was no way he would stay focused long enough to really grasp loops or variables, or why they are important. At least not yet. 

Closing out 2012, I figured it would be worth it to have a think about the year. Not really self reflection, I do enough of that, and it’s pretty dull for anyone who isn’t me. I think I’ll just go over the one thing that struck me about games and the state of the game industry this year. I’ll state it by way of prediction. 

Best Games - Puzzle Uo Poko I’ll just get this out of the way right off the top.

 This is my close approximation what Adventure Caddie will look like. Have you ever had an epiphany? “What sort of hyperbolic nonsense are you treating us to today, you ridiculous goof?” you might ask. You would probably be right. I am a ridiculous goof, but I do have epiphanies from time to time. Usually while I’m peeing. That isn’t, exactly, an important bit of trivia. I’m not sure if I was peeing when this particular epiphany struck me, but it is possible that my pants were down. If that put any unfortunate images in your head, that’s on you. Everybody pees. 

Modelling with Owen If you’ve read any of these posts you will notice that my initial intent to write about the development of a game fell off pretty much instantly. I figure I’ll write about whatever is jangling around in my noggin. I’ll attempt to keep it to games, not that will be too difficult since those are usually the thoughts doing the jangling. This week I was thinking about modelling a game character, so if that is what you showed up for you are in luck. If not you can watch this anyway. It’s only fifteen minutes long, there is a subtitled commentary, and I put some nice classical music in there to back up the visuals. It’s sort of relaxing.

The illusion of racing I really enjoy racing games. Racing has a built in drama and tension that requires nothing more than increasing speed and an opponent. The opponent is optional. Foot racing is likely the original “game”, and endures, undiluted, based on that drama alone. Given a free moment, people will race anything. The feeling of mounting velocity, driving headlong toward the finish. Toward the goal, the next corner, the next target. It’s a rush of energy and excitement that builds in the center of your chest and radiates outward. Racing is a feeling that is universally human.

Best Games - Magical Drop 3 Every colour is sharp and vibrant. Staccato notes sing over a bouncing march. It sounds like joy. You play. Your moves are quick and precise. The tones rise with each consecutive match. 1. 2. 3. Your pace drops as you search for your next move. 1 quarter second to late. You miss. Not quick enough. You rearrange the board, making single matches looking, again, for an opening to line up a new combo. You see two reds beside three blues. Above them is a layer of green. You pull down a solitary red from the far side of the board and dash quickly back under the pair.

Quiet Moments. The Walking Dead is the first game that has ever made me cry. Games, sports included, are typically full of gung ho bombast. There are moments of high energy, and deep strategy, but your motivation to attempt these tasks, is kept light. Games feed our power fantasy and escapist needs. Games are consequence free conflict. Precise management of time and space. The best games are usually honed to eliminate any extraneous elements, anything that could obstruct our fun. There is a very narrow emotional band being targeted by most games, somewhere between tension and adrenaline. Time and again they successfully hit that mark. When a game makes you feel something new, it’s worth thinking about why. 

WorkFlow Tweaking and refining a workflow is a huge part of any repetitive task. I used to work in sign shops, where I would make, you know, signs. A lot of them. When you do any sort of assembly line or manufacturing work, refining your workflow is fundamental. The first one of anything will take you a very long time to build, each subsequent unit will be faster and more efficient, until you hit some sort of equilibrium. The trouble with signs is that you will almost never create the same sign twice. If you manufacture bearings you will make millions of the exact same bearing. The function of a bearing requires it to be as close to identical to other bearings of the same type as possible. A slightly different bearing, is probably a bearing that won’t work properly. Making 100 signs, in a run, all with slightly different design or copy, is the norm. Making ten thousand signs with a variety of dimensions, shapes, designs, and materials is what you can expect to do, if you take up making signs. Every time you pick up a work order, the sign you are making will be different. Making games is not like making bearings.

So right now I’m working on art for one game, while programming another, and thinking about yet another. Maybe I should focus more, or maybe I’m just running from project to project, without ever finishing anything. Those accusations would be true. I also think that it is a fairly common way that people work, and it might be the way that I work best.

Mal Reynolds: It’s my estimation that every man ever got a statue made of him was one kind of a son of a bitch or another. Think about some of your favorite game protagonists. Quite probably, they are an asshole.

Sculptris has been around for a little bit, but I decided to be all late to the game and whatnot, so I just tried it a couple days ago. About a half hour after downloading it I made this.

I’ve been working on a lot of experimental things. Many of them have been in the builds, and you might have seen some of them. Some others, I have been working on in other scenes and tests. Since I haven’t set up the ability to play with previous builds (still coming), I figured I should give a quick run down of some of these experiments.

I just put up a new build of TurboGarbageTruck. This is easily the most broken build I’ve put out since the very first tests. It’s also one of the most interesting, as far as I’m concerned. There are a few things that I’ve been working on in different experiments that have gelled together in this build. That it functions, on even the most basic level, is enough for me to call this a success.