John Scott Tynes: Transubstantiating the aether since 1995
Console game revenues plunged 42% in April vs. a year ago. For the year to date, console hardware sales vs. the same period in 2011 have dropped 15% for Sony, 21% for Microsoft, and 48% for Nintendo. In short, shit just got real.
Annual U.S. game retail could hit six-year low in 2012
"Should the contraction from 2011 continue at this pace, annual U.S. retail video game revenue in 2012 could fall below the $12.6 billion figure from 2006," says Gamasutra analyst Matt Matthews.
When I was a kid, I coded a starship bridge simulator in BASIC so my friends and I could “play space” and activate moments like blastoff, sensor scans, etc. with some simple sound and visual effects. But this . . . this is awesome.
The PA Report – Artemis allows six people take the bridge of a starship, and tell their own story
Artemis is designed for anyone who watched Star Trek and dreamed of what it would be like to sit on the bridge of a star ship.
This article by the designer of an upcoming 2D stealth videogame is insightful about the fundamentals of stealth gameplay and also discusses credible solutions to some of their design challenges. This paragraph near the beginning caught my attention:
“Why are stealth games interesting? The core thing that makes stealth games different is the flow of their gameplay is all “pull,” where in nearly all other 1st/3rd person avatar-based games it’s all “push.” Nearly all action games are actually about reaction, at least on the encounter level. The games unfurl by pushing encounters onto the player, which the player must then deal with. Stealth games, however, have the player pulling an encounter to them, at their own pace. It almost has to be this way by necessity, as opposition is unaware of the player and thus it’s up to the player to begin perturbing the game world.”
One of the great joys of Bioshock was that it provided both pull and push gameplay. The various slicer encounters were mostly push while the Big Daddies were always pull. While I understood this concept I didn’t have good terminology for it, so I’m grateful to these guys for thinking it through.
The PA Report – The secrets behind Mark of the Ninja’s bloody 2D stealth game play
When Ben asked us to mind the shop while he’s away getting his brain melted by the pounding bass and sweltering heat of the E3 show floor, I’m not sure he realized I’d seize the mic to prattle on about one of my favourite game genres. Or maybe that’s exactly what he wanted. Either way, that’s what i…
Holy crap, Republique actually crossed the finish line! You’ve still got a few hours to get in if you’re interested in this intriguing game.
This is amazing. Congrats to Mojang and my friends at XBLA!
Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition is the fastest-selling game on XBLA
Mojang and 4J Studios' recently-released Minecraft: Xbox 360 Edition has broken a digital sales record on the Xbox 360, as its day-one sales have outpaced those of every other game on Xbox Live Arcade.
The game design sensibility expressed here feels very much in line with the deck on gaming stories I shared here recently. They took a novel game mechanic, extrapolated a theme out of that core player-game loop, and focused on delivering a rich thematic experience within that loop. What little narrative they included was just a scaffold erected around the real experience.
The way for games to become art is not to make us cry with rich characters. It’s to deliver an unprecedented sensory and skill experience that arises out of the most basic interactions of play.
A storybook, not a novel: How The Unfinished Swan took shape
The creative director of the upcoming PSN game The Unfinished Swan explains to Gamasutra how the narrative grew naturally from the world the developers built while experimenting.
This is GREAT news. I worked a little on Joy Ride back when it was a controller game, not a Kinect game, and I’m thrilled to see that amazing experience coming back on Xbox LIVE Arcade. That was one of the few prototypes that I would repeatedly pick up and play just for fun.
Microsoft's Kinect Joy Ride sequel won't require Kinect
Microsoft has announced a sequel to its Kinect launch title Kinect Joy Ride , though this time, the game won't require the depth-sensing peripheral.
If you’re a Call of Cthulhu fan, you should really check out Dennis Detwiller’s Kickstarter to produce his new CoC campaign set in HPL’s Dreamlands. It’s called The Sense of the Slight of Hand Man and it’s looking great.
Dennis has already raised the money he needs to finish the project so on Monday morning this Kickstarter will be funded (at almost 300% in fact). Take a look at what he’s got — the Kickstarter is the only way to get a printed edition of the campaign, for example, since it’ll be an ebook for everyone else.
Dennis is a brilliant designer and artist and this campaign is going to rock. Give it a look before it ticks over Monday morning.
Last year I gave a presentation on storytelling in videogames at the Redmond Digital Arts Festival. I’ve finally posted my slides from that talk, with PDF comments added to summarize what I said verbally about each slide.
If you’re interested in storytelling and game design, I hope you’ll take a look at this presentation and pass it around. This link downloads the file in PDF format from my public Dropbox folder.