Warren Spector: Use the storytelling tools that work for games Warren Spector is well known for focusing on creating games where players can make meaningful choices. At a talk at the UC Santa Cruz's Inventing the Future of Gaming symposium, he set out to ask an important question, even perhaps the ventral question that defines his work: Can we level up game stories without compromising gameplay? But first, a caveat: "The games we're making you play now obviously aren't bad, they're tons of fun. He also made this stark observation: While there is plenty of "terrific" work being done in the indie space, and with games made specifically as art, "they're not changing the mainstream of gaming and I'm not sure they will." So he urged game creators who make mainstream games to "level up" their storytelling, and he had some concrete suggestions on how to approach that. The first important thing to keep in mind, he said, is that unlike in other media, "your story is exposed through the exploration of space." He noted four key things games can do:
Dogs of war - le jdr tactique de Cyanide Dogs of War est un jdr tactique en ligne - et par tour -, qui prend place dans le même univers que Aarklash Legacy, a monde dominé par 3 factions, elles-mêmes subdivisées en 3 branches. C'est surtout du buff et du dps, je regrette qu'il y ait si peu de crowd-control, je crois que ça s'explique par le système de tour/tour. SpyParty – A Spy Game About Subtle Behavior News - The keys to a company culture that works In a heartfelt talk at GDC Europe, Harald Riegler, co-founder of Sproing, frankly discussed the challenges and advantages of shaping a company culture that leads to respect and success. "The right company culture will bring really good things out of people where you didn't expect they existed," says Riegler, who manages a company of 65 that works on free-to-play and console games in Austria. Unfortunately, he says, forging the right company culture is a challenge -- but it's crucial to shape it, and that every team member understand it. "That culture will largely decide the success of the studio or team," says Riegler. While "the latest million-selling management style" books offer advice, Riegler was dismissive of trends and tricks. "A good company culture is built on some lasting principles -- principles, to me, means more than a set of rules, it's a foundation on how you live and how you act," he says. Here are his principles: "This is where it gets really tricky," says Riegler.
Le CryEngine pour tous - Crytek - News - Factornews (20h20) Le vertueux Pas mal le jeu de mot ! (19h51) BeatKitano Factrollnews (19h44) kmplt242 Je suis curieux de voir le niveau de Venise (mon préféré). (19h00) papysoupape Mirage: Arcane Warfare est gratos sur steam pdt 24h (16h36) Le vertueux j'en avais jamais entendu parlé si ça peux te remonter le moral Crocopower (14h06) Crocopower Certes, ceci dit je reste quand même plus rapide qu'un comateux (13h33) Crusing "surprise" c'est pas comme si tout le monde en avait parlé depuis une semaine t'es so août 2017 gro! (12h37) Crocopower En tout cas c'est joli, soigné, ça pourrait complètement passer pour un projet commercial (12h32) Crocopower Le level design ne guide quasiment pas, c'est un peu désarmant à notre époque, mais on reprend le pli facilement (12h28) Crocopower La jouabilité est exactement la même que les opus de Cristal Dynamics (Legend/Anniversary/Underworld), mais le ton du jeu retrouve l'orientation "exploration avant tout" des premiers jeux (12h26)Crocopower [tombraider-dox.com]
How can games contain and convey values? Technology is enabling play across multiple new platforms, but what do they become when we want more from them than entertainment? Dr. Mary Flanagan, author of 2009's Critical Play, believes creative ways of looking at design can lead to games that not only express values, but can convey them to others -- while still maintaining their sense of fun and genuine playfulness. Her lab, Tiltfactor, is now in its ten-year anniversary, and focuses on games as agents of meaning and intervention -- and investigates how they may lead to a more equitable and just society. At the Different Games conference at NYU Polytechnic this weekend, she shared examples from her work she hopes artists and designers alike can learn from. "It's really about cultural engagement, for me," she explains of the lab's work, which includes roleplaying, sports, board games and "game-related things" as well as traditional digital games. Is the game industry ready for "inclusive design"? What does playful change look like?
Video: Are some subjects too complex for video games? [This is a repost of a video from GDC 2012. To access chapter selection, click the fullscreen button or check out the video on the GDC Vault website] If you're reading this site, chances are you believe in the potential of video games – that they can evoke powerful emotions, and deeply affect the people who play them. Plenty of games have already proven that the medium is capable of dealing with complex issues, but are there subjects that video games just aren't equipped to handle? Margaret Robertson of the experimental game studio Hide&Seek explored this very question at GDC 2012, as she and her team ran into some real trouble when working on their interactive media experiment, Dreams of Your Life. The project was originally planned as a game that explored the death of Joyce Vincent, a woman who went unnoticed for three years after she perished in her London flat. The only problem was that making a game that captured those themes proved too great a feat.
Reimagining Evil: Ninja Theory On DmC’s Cultural Satire | Rock, Paper, Shotgun There was an unexpected element to DmC: Devil May Cry. It was always going to be about smashing up demons. It was always going to feature weapon-switching, combo-building, score-chasing, and combat tech-fests. What was possibly more of a surprise was it being an outlandish political satire which takes aim at consumer culture, finance and banking, surveillance society, and right-wing media. Ninja Theory’s Dominic Matthews explains the role satire plays in DmC’s cultural commentary on evil. Dante’s nemesis, Mundus, isn’t just king of the demons. “We made the concept of rebellion — also the name of Dante’s sword — the heart of DmC,” says Ninja Theory’s Dominic Matthews. Matthews explains that bringing a new, contemporary direction to the series was always the brief from. In the way that DmC deals with this new evil, it’s drawn a number of comparisons with John Carpenter’s They Live. It’s also anything but a po-faced critique of contemporary political and social institutions.
Unpredictability and control in turn-based combat: an examination « sinisterdesign.net Unpredictability makes art interesting. Twists of plot, unconventional characterizations, and surprising character development engage a reader’s imagination; unique instrumentation, sudden shifts in time signature, or an unexpected chord progression delight the ear. So is it with games. Real-time games, as a general rule, have an easy time fostering mechanical unpredictability. Without this sort of real-time interaction, turn-based games must look elsewhere for their mechanical unpredictability. This is a misapprehension, however. Randomized results Randomized results are the very first thing any game developer thinks of when trying to add unpredictability to a turn-based combat system, so let’s talk about that technique first. Randomized results are what happens when you interpose chance between a player’s chosen action and the results of that action. If you have played RPGs for any length of time, you are already intimately familiar with randomized results. So far, not too bad.
THQ, Wildman, & The Problem Of Voting With Our Wallets | Rock, Paper, Shotgun Vote with your wallet. We constantly preach it as an approach that actually Makes Important Things Happen, but does it? Does it really? It’s such an easy be-all, end-all argument to toss out, but things are rarely that simple. The recent death of THQ and potential failure of Gas Powered Games’ Wildman represent very tangible examples of how “vote with your wallet” can screech and shatter like so many piggy banks being hurled into a craggy abyss. It’s never easy to say goodbye. Sometimes, though, acceptance comes quickly. Here’s the thing, though: much as it tears me up to see super talented heads roll, the part that really bothered me concerned THQ as an organization. But it died. Sad? Of course, this brings us to another core tenet of the “vote with your wallet” creed: frequently, it refers to withholding money – not spending it. Are there exceptions to these cases? But hark, on the horizon, a potential bright side: gaming’s entering a new era.
The Writer's Guide to Creating a Science Fiction Universe (9780898795363): George Ochoa, Jeffrey Osier: Books don't die - gamedev interviews Video Game Advertising Strategy: Ladders, Bridges, And Sniper Rifles Everyone knows what advertisements are and why they are necessary to drive awareness. But making an effective ad is not as simple as just slapping some captured video into a YouTube upload and calling it a day. Your target audience is bombarded by ads all day, every-day. Your conscious mind spends much of its life practically bathing in them. So crafting a successful ad means assembling something that can cut through all of the noise and provide information that will stick. And the first step is determining a strategy for your ads. By Reading This Post, You Will Learn: The fundamental goal of advertising, and why it’s about the customer, not the productWhat “laddering” isHow to”ladder-up” and “ladder-down” using Gears of War as an exampleWhat “bridging” isWhy it’s important to focus on one attribute at a time in advertisements If you’ve read the prior posts in the Video Game Marketing series, the notion of yet another strategy might seem absurd. Do they want a compelling story? Like this: