Episodic Gaming

   Been thinking a lot about the above title. Episodic gaming, when's it been successful, when has it not and why? The main reason I'm putting so much time into it though is because of this idea I've been letting stew in my head for a number of months now.


   I have this idea for a game franchise that would be an episodic parody of 8 bit and 16 bit games from my childhood. More over, I think one of the things that could help this idea where others may have failed is that each episode can be seen more as a contained game of its own (similar to the bit trip games). They don't rely on each other to flesh out an over arching storyline. Although appropriately placed call backs stylishly replayed in latter games could be nice humorous bits for the fans who've played all of them, and even an incentive for others just beginning to bite the bit a little, to go back and play the previous titles. As well as allowing me to put a desired end point to the whole thing and build even more hype around a possible "SERIES FINALE". And failing that, if two or three can actually be released without getting to the finale, no loss. Self containment means nobody is left out to dry.

   In modern times, thinking about distribution and specific platforms can help lowly student grunts like myself reach higher plateaus. Hope this ends up being good. 

Ahhhhh, Weddings. You Make Me Think of Gaming

   So this weekend I was occupied with a wedding between two good friends of mine. As the night played out, I was taken aback by something that I thought was famously dying. Romance. And I pondered why I didn't see much of "this" type of romance in our consumption of media.

   Just to dive into the topic head first, I've come to notice that my interests in Sci-fi, fantasy and action cater very little to this immense force of nature. I dare say a male of my age group and interests is probably more bombarded with violence and humour then the arrow of cupid. But perhaps that also gave a little bit of weight to my observation.

The Elusive Fourth Post

   I've kind of hit the wall discovery project wise. I'm currently at the rules stage and I've found that it takes a ton of concept time and play testing. Although the points behind balancing luck and skill were invaluable, and will make fleshing the final rules out much easier. I could possibly pitch this as a game that could be played simply at first and then more complex with the level of comfort somebody has with the layout and rules.

   However that's also pretty ambitious for something that needs to be finished in 7 weeks total. I honestly should plan out a goal of where I want to be by next week. Since I don't really want to exhaust myself on rules, which admittedly are important, I want to have the game pieces already conceived sculpted and have started to paint. Don't get anywhere in this world without goals in mind, right?

A Great Top Ten List of Video Game Auteurs

Tags: GameTrailers.com, Top Ten Game Creators, PC Games, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360

There's guys out there working in the game industry that lend their unique signature to their work. It's much like movie directors with any unique flair they may have embedded in their film. This is a pretty good list of guys that have either compiled a cult following or just helped change the industry swiftly.

Art Form Schmart Form.

  So after just posting about the NYU Game Design lecture by Richard Garfield, I put a lot of thought into the little line I had pointed to from the video about baseball being designed at some point. Thanks to that little tid bit of information, I've now looked at the scope of a game as a whole, and it's pretty stagnant as far as a medium goes.

  Bold statement, I'm sure, but I have this feeling that much of the problem stems from a major contributor to interactive activity, video games, having a small obsession lately with becoming a full fledged art form. I must admit as well that I too am a culprit in this department, after all I mainly want to write. However the thing that stirred the deepest thought was the fact that as video games themselves grow and age, so to their audience. That's come to be obvious. And that same audience wants desperately to fit in amongst other meaningful media such as movies or literature, that the medium is catering to a hunger for recreating the narrative experiences unique to both movies or literature. Problem is that none of those three examples will ever be able to recreate the other, but the game industry is the only one that doesn't seem to get that point yet. Something that should be seriously reconsidered.

Luck and Skill in Games by Richard Garfield (NYU Lecture)

NYU Game Center Lecture Series: Richard Garfield from NYU Game Center on Vimeo.

I honestly thought this was interesting. As a guy who wants to generally drive game narrative, I was opened up to some ideas of thought that I had never considered when applying rules to skill and luck, but more importantly balancing the two.

For some of you who wouldn't know, Richard Garfield is the creator of the "Magic the Gathering" card game amongst many other card, board and video games. His approach to what he calls multiplayer "Orthogames" is scientific in nature, but something I should definitely consider using for my discovery project game.

And to paraphrase the video, even baseball was in the design stage at some point.