The concept is that most podcasts (particularly gaming podcasts) are very long, site/personality-dependent, and about how the hosts feel about the news and games they’re playing, all in an attempt to entertain. We go in the absolute opposite direction. Short (less than 3 minutes,) factual (no grandstanding, that’s why I have a blog,) and serious, with intent to inform.

Want to be informed and still have an extra hour to spare? Listen to the Game Industry Newscast. Have some GIN.

Imagine a rural community on the border of Tennessee and Kentucky. Wait, rural America? Damn right. Why? TN and KY are second and third in the rate of domestic US marijuana production (according to the latest numbers I found, 2006: http://www.drugscience.org/Archive/bcr2/domstprod.html.) This gives awesome potential for a series whose linking element is that you control a criminal.

See, I don’t want Rockstar to out-do themselves with a sprawling huge city with FOUR major areas instead of three and call that progress. I want them to out-do themselves with the amount of in-game data that they’re able to juggle. I’d gladly take a smaller more persistent world over a larger more sprawling one. More persistent elements in the world would go a great way toward helping create a more dynamic narrative structure, and that’s going to be important if we’re creating a world we’re going to want to expand on. I want them to make the game-story as open as the world, or to at least try.

So we start with a small town, an “across the tracks” neighborhood (where poor blacks live,) a trailer park (where poor whites live,) homes around the city for the more affluent, and a handful of apartment complexes for middle income folk scattered across the town. Straight through the city is one long six-lane Interstate with a four-lane loop around it. The ends of the six lane Interstate have a mountain tunnel on each end that just loops the player around. In the barren area around the city? Plenty of dirt roads, farms, a river with a few creeks, a small private airfield full of Cessnas, forests, maybe a sand dune, and hidden marijuana fields.

I want it filled with different actions like aircraft, bikes, side jobs, police missions, fire dept. missions, minigames, etc. just like San Andreas was. Keep a robust amount of activities with which to play off of later, but don’t use them all in the game’s plot.

I want Frank, the town drunk to start out at McDonald’s, and by the time I drive all the way around the town, he’s only stumbled his way down the road to Pearline’s Fried Chicken. (Whereas in the current GTA games, he’d probably just magically appear at random locations around the city.) I want some redneck named Clevon’s Station-Wagon-meth-labs exploding with a slight irregularity and small town news vans showing up like it’s the most important thing that’s ever happened. I want someone like Sheriff Buford T. Justice harassing a guy named Leroy for being black, but the Sheriff will claim that Leroy is a suspected drug dealer, so Leroy calls out the Sheriff on his racism, and the Sheriff skulking off. And once he’s gone, I want Leroy to actually sell drugs. If you shoot someone, the body should stay there (unless you move it,) and if someone finds it, the police and media show up. The county coroner plots against the sheriff, the city commission plots against him, small town politics get ugly. Cops keep their eyes open for any impropriety. I want cops to keep an eye out for your car, and your clothes, and changing them is how you ditch cops, not going through some magical paint shop. This is the world I want to play my games in.

But why? What kind of story could we get from this?

Put the player in the role of a young troublemaker banned from his similar county back home in Tennessee after being a known drug runner, but him never being caught. Keep alluding to “the shootout,” as the final straw that had the Sheriff of his last home threaten to kill him if he didn’t leave. Have a few references to a bloodbath in his home town, and have people who find out where he’s from be a bit in awe, and ask questions someone who’s been in serious shit wouldn’t ask. I’m convinced that this is golden.

Expansions?

-After the game’s end, the County Coroner arrests the Sheriff for being corrupt (as revealed in the game proper, after which our hero drives off in the sunset.) Of course, he’s even more twisted. In steps a secondary character in the game to save the day.

-Pizza delivery guy gets robbed and goes on an epic mission to get his $12.93 and tip.

-A pilot trying to make an important deadline makes an emergency landing on the town’s small airstrip and finds himself in the middle of thugs loading an airplane with gross amounts of weed. They try to kill him, but as he runs into the forest for safety, he stumbles across a cabin with a good ole boy who saves him. The player must now retrieve his aircraft by spoiling the operation, getting his plane fixed, and escape by a set time in order to make his mysterious delivery. More hijinks ensue.

I could go on all day, none the single most original thing you’ve heard, but all enough to make anyone’s imagination say “hey, yeah.” No, I don’t expect anyone to read this far, but, I had to expand on it. It’s been rumbling around in my head for a while and I meant to post it here a while back. Good to get it out.

Having written a somewhat lengthy comment on his blog, I figured “Hey, why not put it here, too, as to simply get something on the blog?”

The crux of his argument, I feel, can be summed up in his included quote. What follows is my reply.

I remain convinced that in principle, video games cannot be art. Perhaps it is foolish of me to say “never,” because never, as Rick Wakeman informs us, is a long, long time. Let me just say that no video gamer now living will survive long enough to experience the medium as an art form.

While I sadly agree that games generally aren’t art, I find it not a fault of the medium, but the fault of the people involved.

It’s particularly in your accusation of “lack of authorial control” that I find myself annoyed. Yes, to give choice is to not dictate what the player does, but the authorial direction lies in how the system (the game) responds to the player’s input. It’s a conversation between the player and author that, in the end, the author has all control over. I’d like to cite an unusual example: “Sim City.”

You’ve likely heard of “The Sims,” the virtual doll house created by Will Wright. Long before that, he made his name on Sim City, a game in which players are tasked with building a city for virtual denizens by issuing zoning permits (Residential, Industrial, Commercial,) building roads, libraries, public transit, and the likes. How is this example valid? Because if you build a city with no public transit, people will eventually rage. If you build a city with no roads, people are only discontent. Ideally, public transit permeates your city, and roads simply “exist,” inverse to how many major cities are today. Choices like this and the judgment of if the placement of zoning is “correct” or not is not one made arbitrarily, it’s one of artistic intent, and to ignore than is to ignore how games function.

These things aren’t the result of some study of urbania meant to make a realistic simulation, this is purely the definitive example of a perfect city as described by the creator, Will Wright. This is his artistic vision put forth, largely (and obviously, given the game’s visuals,) influenced by his Californian upbringing. It’s by the player choosing different avenues of development, and seeing them marked as “incorrect,” that Wright makes his case to the player.

It’s with this view on games that you should consider a “win state” of a game as merely “an end” that agrees with what the creator puts forth as “correct.” Films end, novels end, poems end, and games end. Games just have multiple endings due to their interactive nature, but this doesn’t preclude them from all narratively driving to a singular thesis (not that such a thing should be required to meet any definition of “art,” but it does make the understand simpler in modern games. An alternate ending can simply be another viewing of the same point the game strains to make.)

Now, my definition of art (“a product of human creativity”) is likely vastly different from yours, but I would certainly love to hear a better justification for not considering games art than “lack of authorial control,” which games absolutely have. The issue of why you don’t see this more often is a much better question, and has partially to do with the old Hollywood studio system that permeates the Game Industry today, chopping potential artists off at the knees. More than that, it’s the fault of fans.

I agree that the vast majority of games are worth nothing artistically speaking, and I say this not with derision, but sadness. I see such potential and I see it wasted on Michael Bay levels of emotional exploration solely because it’s easier for developers to make with interactive explosions than it is with interactive emotion. This is the fault of gamers for preferring cheap and instant gratification to emotional and heartfelt. These are the same people who make death threats at you for having a different opinion and sharing it. But I certainly do believe games can drag themselves out of the era of cave paintings, but it will be dragging the majority of its fanbase behind it, kicking and screaming.

I think it certain that games will reach levels of artistry as complex as any other medium. I just really hope that I’m alive to see it. Though, like you said, I expect I won’t be, simple due to the complete lack of regard for subtext in interactivity.

Gaming is an artistic medium, despite the people involved.

Anyway, keep up the good review work, sir.

In a 1994 interview in the magazine Fami-Tsushin, Shigeru Miyamoto talked about what he felt RPGs should be like.

Miyamoto: Let’s say you tie someone completely up – even their individual fingers – and then wait a while. Then, if you start to untie the ropes one by one, they’ll of course be happy. Anyone would. The method of sticking someone in an incredibly tight situation then untightening it little by little and then saying, “There! Aren’t you happy now?” becomes very boring as soon as it becomes evident. So, instead of that, my personal theme when making RPG-like games is, “What can I do?” I don’t think creating happiness comes from starting from a negative and returning to zero. It’s starting from zero and ending at one hundred, and I try to think of ways to allow that.

Stopping a meteor from crashing into the planet in Final Fantasy 7 is a return to the balance of “world-destroying meteors don’t crash into the planet all the time, and one crazy fuck doesn’t rule the Lifestream.” GTA4 is about a return to the normality of “gangsters aren’t trying to kill you and your friends all the time.” Heavy Rain and Alan Wake are about “putting an end to a fucked up killer/evil-force, and thus making the world safe and normal again.” But then again, that’s almost every game. Just look at Oblivion and it’s dreaded portals to other worlds.

Sure, Oblivion was fun, but it was silly. Those Oblivion Gates stayed open FOREVER on my game, and it had no adverse affect on the world! Some threat they turned out to be. Why? Because I was having far too much fun reuniting long-lost families and journeying into paintings. Sure it’s easy to say that “Well, that’s why the side missions are there, but the Oblivion Gates are the main thrust of the game!” Maybe in YOUR game, but absolutely not in mine.

My game was not the story of a nameless, faceless, world savior. I was a budding thief imprisoned and then turned loose under bizarre circumstances he didn’t give a shit about! What did I do with this new-found freedom? Why, I set out to fulfill my career as a world-class thief, of course! (And let me tell you; I did it. I was no common thief.)

No, my story was not one of a world savior who was a thief, but a thief who eventually got so bored he decided to save the world. Of course, the game never knew this, and that’s the problem with most games today. They’re not REALLY interactive. Not where it counts, anyway. Not the story.

If you want your game to be cinematic in presentation, that’s fine. In fact, it’s commendable. I’m perfectly fine with “making the game experience cinematic,” as obviously the visual cues of video can be grandfathered into games. But be aware that cinematic refers to camera technique, and how it can influence/inform the viewer. Being cinematic does not necessitate that the story be linear, that’s just the inability of developers to do new things. One new thing. The one thing that really matters any more.

Imagine, instead, that Oblivion’s main plot was removed. Imagine it kept count of each of those times I pick-pocketed, picked a lot, or stole. Or the amount of time I spent doing those things. Imagine it compared that count to my time spent on the main quest. Imagine I agree to a mission of stealing some grand jewel for a princess, so that a prince can’t use it for dowry to marry her, but before accomplishing this, I have to save and quit the game.

The next time I started the game, the game could recognize that I’m a sly thief, not a quick-tempered barbarian, and we could see cut-scenes of my previous exploits with, “The notorious thief again returns to the prowl, preparing for his biggest score yet, the (grand jewel name here)! Can he outsmart Prince X? Will he save Princess Y by stopping her wedding? Will he get caught, and be banned from the city Z?” (Whereas someone who’s spent more time killing, a warrior, may instead approach the problem with a sword, prompting the game to ask “Will he kill Prince X?”)

And it shouldn’t just be a bunch of linear missions for the player to complete, but a gameworld with interesting characters that conflict. A gameworld where the death of a prince matters to everyone. A gameworld where, if I marry that princess, I become King, and people plot against me. Or if I let the Prince marry her, they plot against him. Most games narrowly define the player, as framed by the story. I imagine a game that narrowly frames the story as defined by the player’s actions. That’s the game I want to play.

And the rest of the games? The ones that set up a rat maze for me to run through, that have a narrative with a beginning, middle, and end? One that promises variance, but really just has a few branching plot elements and a little flavor text? I’m tired of you. Really, I am. I’m tired of it, and if you’re not careful, I’m just going to stop playing. Please, I’m begging you. This is getting old. And you pussy-footing around and dipping your toes in it won’t get the job done here. I need a sign that you get it.

Related thoughts that didn’t fit coherently into my final post:
-Rockstar, let Tarn “ToadyOne” Adams give tips on your next sandbox game. In fact, give him final say. You can create the content, and just let him give you lessons on worthwhile world building. You don’t get it. He does. I’m sorry you had to find out this way. It’ll be okay; I still love you and am interested in LA Noire.

-I’m tired of fighting Bad Guy X. If I’m to be Don Quixote in this pointless exercise, at least let me pick which windmills are important to me. Mass Effect 2, I don’t care about disappearing human colonies so much as I do my friends, despite the fact that I play a “good guy.”

-Bethesda, I’m all for your upcoming Elder Scrolls MMO… Just don’t make it about time spent grinding. Levels shouldn’t factor that heavily into things, nor should weaponry. I know that’s very counter-intuitive, but, you know I’m right. Good/creative players should win out, not the one who’s been around longer.

-Fuck Citizen Kane, give me Seinfeld. Wait. Let me back up. I loved Citizen Kane. I think it still stands tall today, unburdened by all the merit lauded onto it. And for the record, I’ve seen less than five episodes of Seinfeld. I’m sure it’s awesome, but it just never grabbed me like it did so many others. That said, I think at this point games could probably learn more from serialized TV than film. That “previously, on Lost,” sets up EVERYTHING. (Actually, this thought will probably be recycled… But I’m keeping the title, as “a game about nothing, necessarily,” is pretty much what I want.)

What does it have to do with me? Good artists borrow, great artists steal. I’m going to steal Nathaniel’s entire 365 Project, from goals of daily short stories, down to his plan to Tweet a link to each Ficly entry, with the tag “Ficly365.” I may even make a weekly post linking to them. Not sure yet.

The obvious question to anyone who knows me: Do I expect to succeed? Well, I intended to write an entry for this blog on December 16th, having that date gone a full year without an entry. A year ago, and still now, I intend to shore up the blog a bit design wise. So, am I actually expecting to pull this off? No; but that’s because I’m a realist. Am I going to try anyway? Absolutely; I’m also a romantic, and what cause is greater than a lost one? I submit there is none. Only knowing full well the result of ones actions can one launch headlong into process without a specter of doubt looming over him, and knowing failure is imminent gives me the ability to proceed into an insane task without flinching.

Who needs opportunity? I want certainty, damn the outcome.

If you like, you can read the first entry here. It’s actually rather important to read the prequel and understand what the original writer was going for, as mine was just a riff on his.

The Karma system makes the game a tease from hell for players like me. I was absolutely a good guy in Oblivion, but I stole everything that wasn’t nailed down. Everything. I’m not even joking. Every god damn thing. But in this game, you lose karma. Stealing makes me a bad guy, so, I can’t steal! It’s horrible! See, normally I treat Bethesda games like they’re _my_ world. For me, they’re God games, in a sense. I decide what’s right, and what belongs to me (everything,) but when it comes to others livelihood, I do my best to make everything great for all involved. If you could Speechcraft the Dark Brotherhood in Oblivion to being good guys, I might’ve done those quests instead of killing them all. But, in Fallout’s Wasteland, Bethesda reclaimed the role of judge, and I’m in their world, I cannot be the kind and just God I was in Tamriel. Of course, I think the world is worse off, but regardless, I must abide by the rules of man. No theft.

And the action? The FPS can be difficult, but I imagine frantic shooting _would_ be difficult given that a ten foot tall green hulk looking guy is running at you. That’s why God gave you VATS. VATS is far better than bullet-time or any such device. Instead of slowing everyone else down, it completely stops them while you spend ‘action points’ to shoot your weapon at certain limbs, and it gives you a rough estimate of what a successful hit would take off. And if you damage a certain limb enough, the enemy will drop their weapon (if an arm,) start to hobble (if a leg,) or become dazed and confused (if the head.) Of course, continue to damage that limb, and it will gib, and they will die.

Of course, having played it on Xbox 360, I can’t help but think “God I wish I had a PC worth playing PC games on!” The mods for that game will be amazing. Period.

B) Left 4 Dead. I’ve only played it offline, and even then just a few levels, but I was blown away. I’m a hardcore ’slow zombie only’-junkie, but damn does this game deliver. I swear to you, the farmhouse standoff literally had my blood pumping. After a brief juant through a corn field infested with zack (zombies,) you come up to a two-story farmhouse where you have to fend off attacking hordes of zombies while waiting for help in the form of a military transportation vehicle.

After much trying, I finally corralled the three AI bots to where I was hiding out; outside of a second story window on top of the porch ceiling. Sure the zack still come, but there’s far fewer choke points for them to access you, so, it worked. Then an AI partner shouted “There’s the truck! I can see it!” I turned around and saw the headlights cutting through the fog as the truck approached from a side of the building where I couldn’t see it. They grew brighter and brighter until the truck stopped just in view. We seemed to be at a slack point in zack, so we jumped off of the roof and ran for the truck… And then a HUGE zombie ‘tank’ (a Hulk looking zombie,) came out of nowhere and instantly creamed me and one of the teammates. Out of commission, our only hope is to lie there and shoot while we wait for our teammates to come and heal us. There I am, lying on the ground bleeding out, shooting like a madman, hoping my two teammates are able to take the Hulk… And then another horde of zack pour out of nowhere and ravage me and my other downed teammate. We never had a chance.

And then I realized my heart was thumping out of my chest. I need to get the internet again. And I need to get these amazing games. Man, I need a secondary job.

Both of these firmly earn my approval. (I think I’m going to have to create a logo; Jeffool’s Maharoof.)

Game of the year? I honestly don’t care to pick.

Players choose their class and wage war! The VIP (King) starts on each players ‘fortress’, marked here:

Each player attempts to capture their opponents Fortress with their VIP. If your VIP takes an enemy’s Fortress for three turns, you win.

If your VIP is checkmated, then he is placed back on your fortress (or the nearest open square of the taken VIP’s choice.)

If a VIP is checkmated by a VIP while on his Fortress, he loses.

Choose any of the classes to begin, and set up your side appropriately!
Demoman

Engineer

Medic

Pyro

Sniper

Soldier

Scout

Spy

And that’s not all! The Scout and Spy have some ’special abilities’!

Scout
The Scout can move any two pawns forward one space (or diagonally to attack) in the same turn by audibly shouting “Bonk!” If the players are not playing in real time, Vent, Skype, or some other method of audibly getting the point across is required. If the opposing player doesn’t have speakers or headphones, the Scout is screwed.

Spy
The Spy starts with the exact same setup as the Soldier, but has a very special ability. At any time the Spy can reveal that any of his pawns is in actuality the ‘VIP’! If this is done when the VIP is attacked, the attacking piece is killed! When the VIP is revealed, the VIP and pawn must switch places to reveal their true nature.

More special abilities to come in future expansions! :D

Hrm. Wonder if I could find an online chess engine that lets players define rules…

(It’s important to note that his brother posted this on the net, and said that his suicide had nothing to do with his work, and was apparently in relation to personal problems.)

Working in journalism, I understand the need to frame information in a way that allows people to understand why they should care, but I much rather would’ve had news stories refer to him in ways that people didn’t know as well. Take the moment to read his blog a bit and realize that he had a great sense of humor. Mention that he was a parent who lampooned irresponsible parents (here, “I can’t stop my little children from playing 37 hours a week of Baby-Killer 3, because I don’t understand this little letter on the box it came in!”) or even an Army Reservist.

Of course, his blog immediately got comments with people saying they hoped he burned in hell, largely because of the Star Wars thing. Thus goes gamerdom… A bunch of assholes. The additional shame there is that it’s not like he ever got to make the game he wanted to make. He was just a guy with a job.

Of course the irony is painful; he really came across as the kinda guy most gamers would have absolutely loved. Just read this, written by a guy who actually DID know him. Chances are you’ll say “Damn, I wish I had a chance to know that guy.” That’s what I’m saying right now. If he’s going to be remembered as something to do with games, then why can’t he be “the guy who solved server over-population problems with a simple blog post:” http://web.archive.org/web/20050323233508/http://mythical.blogspot.com/ (You’ll have to highlight that first post. For some reason the Internet Archive fucked up the color.) Or the guy who said (something to the effect of) “To have a good MMO, you have to start with a world that would be interesting even without players.” Why can’t he be a guy who knew that better things were possible and fought that on the front lines?

Man, gamers are assholes.

Bah. Well, here’s his blog: http://mythicalblog.com/. I’m going to see if I can find some nuggets of wisdom left behind. Y’know, I recall him saying something along the lines of “you guys are tired of me talking about my game ideas all the time” once, but I can’t find it. I completely disagreed with that statement.

Some highlights from the past few weeks of Jeff Freeman’s blog:
Freeman Fights Torture
Freeman on (the lack of) Storytelling and Story Arcs in MMOs when compared to serial TV
Freeman on ‘banning’ players.
On Journalism, Entertainment Journalism, and Game Journalism

Heh, looking at it, he was quite the aggregator of quality media, too. Man, I’m going to regret not buying that buy a beer.

Everyone scratched their heads when the game Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe was announced. Everyone thought it was pretty dumb. The question I’m asking, and hopefully answering, is ‘why’? Why did we all, myself included, look at this idea, and just turn away? When you think to ask the question, I think it’s pretty obvious, and I don’t mean “the notion of these properties crossing over is dumb,” we’ve all overlooked far stupider things in games and loved them beyond belief.

What I’m talking about is two places where the Mortal Kombat series fell apart for me. Fighting(MK5) and story(MK4.) “Worried about the story in a fighting game?! That’s insane!” Yeah, I know. I’m not trying to say that it was Dostoevsky or anything, I’m just saying that it ‘worked’. But let me tackle the fighting first.

MK5 (Deadly Alliance) was the first to give each fighter a completely different movelist. Prior to this, everyone’s punches was the same, everyone’s kicks were the same, and everyone’s movement speeds and jumping were exactly. the. same. This was wonderful.

In a typical fighting game some characters are drastically overpowered, some are inherently flawed when used against other certain characters, and some are perfectly balanced. Imagine a chess game where each player has a completely random set-up, some have rooks on the front row, some have their king there, sometimes your king is directly across from an opponent’s rook/queen and it’s almost impossible for you to win, and sometimes? Sometimes you start with three queens. It all depends on both who you choose, and wh you’re fighting. That’s a normal fighting game.

Mortal Kombat 1-4 took a far different approach that was much closer to traditional chess. All of the characters had a first row of pawns, for one. That’s to say that all of the non-special moves were exactly the same. On the back row, however, you start with (roughly) similar layouts, but with changes in location. Sure, the ocassional character is a little stronger or weaker than the rest, but it’s not so insanely disproportionate as the previous system, and it’s usually far more obvious due to lack of complexity.

So, yeah, it was limited, but it was, to me, far more fun.

The story? Well, it just seemed to grow more and more disparate and whimsical.

Typically in fighting games ’stories’ are only a combination of context and character biographies/endings. (I’m not saying that they can’t be better, but this is all gamers require to consider a fighter to ‘have a story,’ is all I mean.) Imagine a series of threads, a few overlapping in places, but conjoining into a common weave for the game’s duration, and then fraying out again with each thread being each character’s ending. That’s how the minimum writing in fighting games usually works.

For sequels the developer traditionally picks one of the ending threads, decides it’s the ‘correct’ one and fashions a new story. This means they have to bridge the initial threads of returning characters (often including elements of those characters ending threads, chosen one or not,) AND tie in new threads introduced in new characters. Then of course they also have to create new ending threads for all of the characters. The fact that each character has his own thread that weaves throughout the game series opens the possibility for mind-numbing over-complexity, and bet your ass that Midway took this chance to wreak havoc with the MK world.

I’m used to reading comics, so when a character that’s existed for forty years says that he got his powers ten years ago, despite the fact that I’ve read his book for ten years, it doesn’t bother me a bit. I ‘get it’. But why the fuck is Noob Saibot really Sub-Zero I? Why bother killing him off and creating Sub-Zero II at all if he’s going to effectively be the same guy? Why go from a kumite in MK1 to an inter-dimensional war in MK3 if all the gods that held the kumite were in on it to begin with? Just declare war from the get-go.

I understand that the large array of characters was, hell, IS a draw, but seriously, wtf. It’s not like DC comics started out with the intent to become so convoluted as to require Infinite Crisis (much less Final Crises.) But MK seems hellbent on taking minimal requirements for storytelling and making me shake my head and just walk away in disgust. In ending, they really just need to reboot the series.

*In Brett’s Footnotes fashion let me note that I fully plan to give more thought to a class-based chess game now. Also, sorry, I lied, this wasn’t about MMOs, but I do have a notion swirling around in el cabesa, it’s just not coming out yet.