March 2012
2 posts
I'm making a game, and you can help! →
I’m making an iOS game with my friend Caldwell (who’s work you may know from Loldwell or College Humor,) and I’ve set up a Kickstarter project to help fund the end of the game’s development.
February 2012
3 posts
7 tags
A Missed Opportunity with the Last of Us?
By the time I had finished watching the first trailer for Naughty Dog’s the Last of Us back in December, I was really interested in the game. Not because it was a new Naughty Dog game, but rather because from the way the trailer was put together it seemed you were going to be playing as Ellie, not as Joel. Thinking about what that would mean, not only for how the game’s narrative would be...
7 tags
Good Writing is not the Future of Gaming
To say that good writing is the future of video games is, I think, a bit sort sighted. Video games have generally had relatively good writing, which has really gotten only better over the years. There has been a jump recently in the quality of writing, but it’s not because of game studios hiring good writers.
The problem with writing in video games has generally been that writers have...
6 tags
Creating Our Own Story through Interaction and...
To What End is a game made for the 2012 Global Game Jam by Michael Molinari and Chelsea Howe. You should probably go play it before you continue reading; it should take you less than five minutes.
Finished?
Ok.
The thing that is most notable about this game is not how it manages to convey a story through the actions you make as the player, but rather how the game tricks you into creating a story...
January 2012
5 posts
6 tags
Little Mac vs. Goliath: the Dual Themes of Punch...
Mike Tyson’s Punch Out, the classic NES game, has a rather clear theme to the core narrative that the player experiences. This theme is that of the underdog, the classic sort of David vs. Goliath theme that someone small can defeat someone that is much larger than them. But it also shares another theme with the David and Goliath tale, which is that intelligence trumps physical strength.
Now what...
8 tags
Combat Control: How Scores in Combat Systems Can...
After writing the piece about the way in which Bulletstorm’s scoring system can influence a player’s behavior in changing how they approach combat situations by rewarding player trial and error, I started to think about other games and how they might be influencing a player’s behavior in combat through the use of a scoring/combo system. There were three games, (well game series) that specifically...
4 tags
Bulletstorm's Scoring System: More Than Just...
I finally got around to playing Bulletstorm the other day and the thing that struck me about it, which I think probably strikes everyone about it, is the scoring system attached to the “skillshots” you can perform whilst you dispose of the game’s enemies rather indiscriminately. It’s an interesting system that actually seemed to add a good bit of fun to the game, and so I started to wonder about...
5 tags
Is the PC the Next Home Game Console?
I wrote the previous blog post about Valve yesterday, (even though I posted it this morning,) and shortly after I wrote it videos started rolling in on Razer’s Project Fiona gaming tablet. Now initially after seeing it I was a bit turned off by it, since it looks a bit silly, it also seems to be trying to fill a need that isn’t there. However after thinking about it, especially thinking about it...
4 tags
Is Valve Looking at the 'Big Picture?'
So I was in the middle of writing a new blog post about how Valve has turned their Steam sales into games, and how that goes along with my previous post about how Steam is a service first and a store second. But then remembered seeing an article saying that Valve had announced that Steam had 100% growth since last year, so I went and read it since I figured there would be some useful information...
December 2011
3 posts
3 tags
Steam: It’s a Service First, and a Store Second
I picked up Saints Row: The Third for PC a few days ago, but I’m not actually going to talk about the game itself, rather my experience purchasing it. For the first time in a while I chose not to purchase the game on Steam, but instead I got it through Amazon as a digital PC download (well had a choice to not purchase it through Steam, I didn’t have a choice of where to get Battlefield 3 for...
Quest to Nowhere: The Next Elder Scrolls Game... →
pumpkinapplemuffins:
q2n:
It’s been a few weeks since Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim got released, and since then I’ve wanted to write a blog post about it. But every time I tried to come up with something to write about, I couldn’t really come up with anything to write about. I think this might be because all of its flaws, and…
No.
The changes to quest lines that you suggest would take away from...
4 tags
The Next Elder Scrolls Game Shouldn’t Have a Main...
It’s been a few weeks since Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim got released, and since then I’ve wanted to write a blog post about it. But every time I tried to come up with something to write about, I couldn’t really come up with anything to write about. I think this might be because all of its flaws, and everything it does right are fairly obvious, so trying to talk about anything often seems like I would...
November 2011
3 posts
2 tags
Irrational Interviews
Was going to write a blog post last week about Skyrim, but couldn’t find anything to really latch onto. I had some ideas, but they sort of fell through while writing them (also I just wanted to go back to playing Skyrim.)
Anyway I wanted to post something, because that always feels better then posting nothing. So at the bottom of this is a link (well two links) to a 2 part discussion...
2 tags
Food + Heat = Bulgogi
I‘ve decided that I’m not just going to talk about video game here on the blog, but also talk about other things I enjoy. One of which is cooking (and well food in general,) so expect future posts at least about my own exploits in cooking, which will include instructions on how to make said things.
Ever since my friend (now roommate) got me into eating Korean food a few years back, I’d been...
5 tags
When Small Changes Add Up to Big Problems: What...
On the most recent episode of the Enter Your Initials podcast I talked about how Uncharted 3’s combat was broken and bad. After finishing the game and thinking about it some I wasn’t entirely sure if the combat was actually broken and bad, or just that the combat mechanics were the same as Uncharted 2 and just hadn’t aged well over the past two year.
So this weekend I decided to revisit Uncharted...
October 2011
2 posts
5 tags
A First Person Problem: Objective Storytelling in...
While I was writing the last piece I came to a realization about an additional rule/criteria for what is needed to tell a good objective story in a videogame. It is however somewhat unrelated to the previous two rules, since it’s not about narrative or gameplay, but rather how the game is presented to the character.
3. The game should not take place primarily in the first person.
This rule...
5 tags
The Character in My Head vs. the Character in the...
Upon finishing Batman: Arkham City I found myself wondering how it was that I felt like Batman when playing the game, which further led me to wondering how it was that in other games with objective storytelling I often didn’t feel like the character I was playing as.
To quickly explain what I’m talking about storytelling in games is generally either subjective or objective. Subjective storytelling...