Jeffool.com

In these days of Minecraft, IndieGoGo/Kickstarter, Steam, and online markeplaces on console, it would be easy to say that small/indie developers are where the innovation lies. That the AAA games are just refinement, over revolution. Well, I can think of one idea, relatively easy to implement, that would let any game (AAA or indie) greatly benefit from emergent gameplay. It’s easily demonstrated in FPS’, but really any game with shooting mechanics could do it, and it especially could benefit the open world games that AAA developers love to make.

Calling your shot – Let players tag their target. Just, let them point, hit a button, and have that target marked in some fashion. From there, the possibilities expand exponentially.

1. Skill: If they hit it, dependent upon size, speed, view, power of shot, maybe even weather and penalty of missing given other nearby targets? Give them some kind of recognition or bonus. Hell, give players skill points for using that skill.

I never really used a bow in Oblivion, instead preferring to cleave enemies with an axe. But there was one time I did… When I saw deer. It was natural. It was primal. When I saw a deer, I pulled out my bow, snuck as close as possible, and shot. Invariably my sucky skill meant the deer lived, which meant I had to chase the deg through the first, completely forgetting whatever I was in the middle of. It was like they were purposely meddling with my fun with their… Fun!

2. Challenge: It was just like taking to a rooftop in GTA, pulling out your sniper rifle, and plugging interesting looking civilians. It was a shooting gallery, and I had tools to shoot with. How could you NOT save your game and occasionally do it?

Of course eventually police would come, increasing in number and strength, and eventually take you out. (Usually.) But man what fun it was, plugging a citizen going about their way, and seeing the chaos that ensued.

3. Self-defined Narrative: The key to emergent gameplay is that the player brings it with them. And that’s never more evident than when done with intent. But if you pick out the target, and tell the player why it needs to be done, then there’s no wiggle room. Instead, Let players mark people/places things, and let them tag them as important for themselves, for whatever reason.

Emergent gameplay gave us “zombie” in Halo 3, when it emerged from Halo 2 players consciously creating the rules from thin air. Oblivion gave extra damage if you shot a target while unseen, making initiative on a target worthwhile. GTA had instant kills with headshots.

These are just a few evident ideas that come with letting the player point at things. That’s all I’m suggesting, really. And anyone, AAA or indie, can do it.

Lines edited out of this post:
-Fact: I would’ve been trying to balance apples on the heads of Cyrodiil’s guards.
-Many games check for regional shots/damage. A game could even go so far as to let players highlight not only targets, but regions of targets.
-Imagine an action game that lets you press select/back, pauses the gameplay, and gives you a freeform camera to zoom around and pick your own target, then you get to try for it.
-Maybe a game with one player as the spotter, and the other as the shooter/sniper. Or a game where both players “mark” the other’s target, and they have to chase it down. (Instead of killing each other.)

Today at Joystiq Justin McElroy wrote what I’ll dramatically describe as an unsurprising slap in the face of the latest Spider-Man game, Spider-Man: Edge of Time. Go read it. He gets it. He wore Spidey pajamas as a kid. (Note: I dig his writing, and always have. Even during the huge fiasco when he made threats against U2’s Bono.)

Games are their gameplay mechanics, the choices and actions of the player. For all the crap we give them, licensed games actually often have a rare opportunity: unique mechanics. Any other game that mimics webswinging is going to be seen as a knock-off, or at least compared to Spider-Man.

To be fair, Justin notes that they try to do something with his “Spider Sense”, but that’s certainly not what I think of first when I think “Spider-Man”. What he rates a 2.5/5 game sounds like a thoroughly mediocre beat’em-up, which is a disappointment, given my love of older Spider-Man games.

Spider-Man 2 (Xbox, PS2) is actually one of my favorite games. I was one of the people blown away by the webswinging. It was a perfect example of both “appropriate difficulty” (being slightly difficult, but very fulfilling to pull off well) and the “ludic displacement” that occurs when a game makes you feel like you really are doing what’s happening in the game.

Despite Spider-Man 2 being third person, and despite how bad the blur looks in this pixelated video, you really got that feeling you imagined as a kid, of being Spider-Man, dipping from the rooftops into the streets of New York city, swinging back up, flying forward as fast as a normal person would fall. (Ultimate Spider-Man was still great, less so Spider-Man 3… Both the victim of over-refinement, imo, but still.)

Super heroes are typically defined by having unique abilities. In that very nature, they’re begging to be put into games, giving players unique actions and choices. Older Spidey games got him right. The Hulk: Ultimate Destruction game did a decent job of making you feel like you were wrecking shit, though it could’ve been better aside from that. From what I hear both Wolverine and Batman games had great combat, making you feel like the characters were “right”. Marvel Ultimate Alliance was a fun beat’em-up, not because it was particularly deep, but because it rallied together almost 30 loved characters. Why do a game featuring a singular beloved character, or even two, without trying to do well what that character is known for?

Here’s a few free suggestions for Activision’s next Spider-Man game.

• New York City – I’m serious. Forget corridor fighters. Don’t be silly.
• Make swinging a matter of skill – Anyone player should be able to do it, but being good at the mechanics should pay off well.
• Spider-Man has a history – Not saying you shouldn’t do “origin stories” or work them in, but, Spidey has a very deep gallery of well-known, well-defined, fun, friends and enemies. Utilize them.
• Peter Parker exists – Spider-Man has a personal life. Don’t be afraid to use that in more than a reference.
• Peter Parker is a photographer – Some games did it recently, but then cameras have only become MORE popular in society, as well as other games. Some even do it well. You could, too.
• A random encounter should blow my mind – Sure, Spidey fights generic thugs all the time. That happens. But sometimes? Sometimes? Sometimes that bank robbery you stumble across should be Rhino.
• Subscriptions – Learn from comics. Everyone who owns the game gets a free few missions each week. They culminate each month in an arc. Do this for a month, free. Then charge a fee, $1 a week, $3 for a month, or sell subscriptions $10 for three months.

C’mon. Activision can’t say no to that last one. And face it, you’d buy them. I would, and I don’t even have a job.

Also, hi Activision. So, maybe you need someone to help with your next Spider-Man game? I mean, I don’t know if you heard, but I’m on the market. I’ve even got five years experience in producing. (Another medium…)

So, I was fired from my job in TV news on August 26th, 2011. I had porn on my work PC. (But wait, there’s more!)

Over the five years I’d worked there, producing a weekday morning TV show. (About six years before that working in the studio.) I’ve visited a website called 4chan. You may know it, it’s the site that the “hacker group Anonymous” (who shut down Visa’s and MasterCard’s sites in late 2010 over the Wikileaks thing, and hacked Sony earlier in 2011) is often associated with.

Now, porn? Sure, I looked at nude women on the site. It has lots of that, too. LOTS. I actually befriended some of the people who post it. They’re good people. (And at least one has a pretty good eye for photography!) A few others have a good eye for porn, and that’s fine too.

My point in all this? It’s not like I was looking at the porn at work. The site actually has valid uses too, right amongst the porn and foul shit it gleefully offers.

4chan is also the site that, back in 2006 when I first started producing, was (wrongly) targeted for a(n unfounded) bomb threat on NFL stadiums. Though I knew of it before, that was the first time I visited the site; to find info about the bomb threats because of my job. The scary part? Over the years? It’s clued me in on lots of things.

I ran a story on Visa and Mastercard’s websites being shut down the morning it happened. I wrote the story before it even happened, because I knew it was coming. I got the story from 4chan, when they were planning it. Hell, it’s where I heard about Wikileaks years ago before they got that cache of US communications. Back then they disrupting Kenyan elections! (Also soon after I got the producing job in 2006!) It was where I first read about Wikileaks’ initial release of the “Collateral Murder” video and the “Cablegate” releases. The place is an info-feed on steroids. And like much of the Internet, lots of it happens to be sexual, and/or horrible, dark things.

In the UK, I could’ve claimed I was doing research for Page 3. In south Georgia, visiting a site that’s the cultural engine of the Internet, and thus much of Western society (seriously, let that sink in. It really is.) is a firing offense.

And not just being fired, but being told I could not procure (myself, or have provided) material to use for my resume for future jobs. I effectively have to start over in this industry, I’m finding out. I recently had an interviewer tell me that they’d like to give me a second chance, but without resume material, I had no chance. (In my industry, most people require a copy of a show you’ve produced as example of your work ability.)

I hope this doesn’t come off as whining and bitching, at least not too much. I actually liked the people I worked with. And actually? I get that this is a big issue. But being fired for visiting a site that, despite having a horrible “worthwhile:waste” ratio, can be worthwhile depending on the context? Man. That sucks.

I wrote most of the above (minus the last two paragraphs) that day, but never got around to posting it. The same day, my mother was found on the floor of her apartment. She’d been there 20 hours, and was very dehydrated. (She’d been sick, and hadn’t been taking care of herself well.) We almost lost her. She’s better now, thankfully. Got out of the hospital a couple of weeks ago. Oddly, I think that took some of the edge off of focusing on the job thing. First, for having a larger worry, and after the first week, when we realized she was going to be okay.

So, yeah. Busy times. But, I forgot I had this as a draft until today, so, I added and published it.

Anyone out there know know of anyone hiring in TV news? Or writing/editing? Or project management? (Essentially the two parts of TV producing.)