Luigi’s Haunted Mansion thoughts

wrote up some thoughts on this game, in response to an analysis on Gamasutra by Josh Bycer (which I felt could have gone further).
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Sleeping Gods: The meaning of “video games” (as computer-driven interaction systems?)

This was initially posted as a response to Tadhg Kelly’s blog post Techthulhu [Games and Future Fantasy] [@ whatGamesAre.com].

I think lack of sleep, yesterday’s ruminations on biometrics, and a few weeks of dissecting the philosophy behind joss whedon’s entertainment efforts all came together for me just now, to make a perfectly crazy ass rant. I started to re-read this and cringed. it might seem to contradict itself from once sentence to the next? is it one of THOSE crazy-as-fuck level rants? … huh. I dunno. but some of it struck me as very interesting. So i’m recording it here in my blog. hopefully revisit later (to either rethink it, or revise it to be easier to read). woof.
:::

Review: Kirby’s Epic Yarn (stitch free)

Over at The Escapist, I dug Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw’s latest hate-filled Zero Punctuation review of Kirby’s Epic Yarn (just now released in Australia, apparently). This is the first game in a long time that I wished I could return for a full refund. So here is my response to his review (dumped in his forums, amidst hundreds of random pithy one liners and crap-comments):

Gun Loco …become: Clans of the Alphane Moon?

Read this sad story of Gun Loco’s cancellation over at gamasutra (always sorry to hear the work is being abandoned, and a likely huge team of developers is seeing their baby killed).

First thought was : they should rebrand the game as an adaptation of “Clans of the Alphane Moon“!

User Feedback based design, and Biometrics

I’ve become very interested in “redesigning the game, after I gather mass of data.”
(I guess it’d be neat to change a game on the fly while gathering usage feedback, but since the tools I would use aren’t going to be widespread anytime soon – much more interested in iterating on a game which can end up widely distributed).

The lure/illusion of short time investments (re: game play)

Just commented on Christian Nutt’s feature at gamasutra : The Rise Of Dragon Age II.
I’ve been saying for years that “I’m just not an RPG guy” (though it seems I’ll avidly play every other genre). I think of it as a question of time : when I hear a game has more than 30 hours of gameplay – I hesitate to buy it. Because I know I won’t be experiencing everything it has to offer. (would you buy a DVD/Bluray if you knew some parts of the feature would be omitted?)

Marketing Concepts: the Calculated Climate Change of Bulletstorm

After reading Andrew Vanden Bossche’s High Aspirations for High Scores article on Gamasutra, I’m really surprised at all the ways Bulletstorm’s “Echoes mode” demo failed to hold my hand, and found it to be a major stumbling block in the game’s otherwise stellar promotion.

Would like to try and dissect the marketing experience so far, here:

gore gaming (thoughts on the genre)

it's like christmas all over me!

This post was originally ranted out at the Escapist forums, in response to Ben “Yahtzee” Croshaw’s post/article about Splatterhouse and potential gore gaming mechanics:

I think what’s interesting about gore gaming is – the concept of sadism.

If video games are this magical invention that frees you to “do anything you can think of,” then why are you perpetrating all this gore?
Make the game focus on this. If you ignore this aspect of the experience (by making the game about a stylish world travelling treasure hunter, for example) then you’re robbing the gore of it’s punch. You’re making a different genre of game that happens to have some gore in it. which strikes me as lame/irresponsible.

Game Dev Story : emperor’s new clothes? crippled tamagotchi?

(this was posted initially as a response to gamasutra’s best iOS games of 2010)
I’ve heard nothing but praise for Game Dev Story (GDS), but disagree heartily.

Isn’t it more like some sort of simple limited tamagotchi than a real game? (is there a better term? “micro simulation with minimal input allowed”?)

Kinect Gears of War idea

my dream for a Kinect Gears game (since I can’t make it) (as commented on wired’s Game|Life)

You are the president (of what remains of the human race basically).

A) You give speeches to the troops, with a first person pespective from a podium (minor kareoke mechanic decides if you are reading the teleprompter). Choose different speech pathes (a or b, color coded to indicate angry or heartstrings text) by gesturing to left or right.
Kinect tries to detect if you’re “spicing it up” with swear words or certain gestures. Like Dance Central: for delivering speeches.