Away from school for the summer, and working.. New stuff can always be found at http://herotwin.com
Also enjoy our Magikarp.info complete with social networking
http://magikarp.info
FIND LOST SOULS WITH YOUR EARS
Lost in the underworld without a guide,
use your ears to find the lost souls
floating free in the river styx!
This audio game was made in 6 hours
for the RPI Game Jam March ’09
Theme: “Death is on Vacation”
by Benjamin Esposito & Manuel Pardo
Do make your decisions carefully!
Headroom is a new experimental game by Benjamin Esposito and Manuel Pardo. They are very excited to release it!
Check out the official page HERE
Know Your Sh*t is a series of short articles for aspiring game developers encouraging you to better know your games history!
Greg Costikyan
Greg Costikyan is a Game Designer, huge fan of Chris Crawford (see previous know your sh*t), and a HUGE proponent of indie games. He has an impressive ludography and has written many game related articles that we would do well to read! His most well known article is probably I Have No Words and I Must Design, a 33 page essay on developing a critical vocabulary for games. There’s a lot more to him than that article, though. I highly recommend reading Where Stories End and Games Begin. I thought the best bits were comparing a game to a song (they are not inherently storytelling mediums), and his critical look at leaders abandoning games for other mediums.
Greg is CEO of Man!festo Games and writes Playthisthing, focusing on nurturing indie games, channeling an indie aesthetic, and fertilizing the creative culture of games. Find out more about his work on his website, and use his resources for good!
This week we’re playing Jumpman from Mechanically Separated Meat
This looks like a wild one!!
Description: Guide Jumpman to the Exit
Check back this week for the group review! It’s like a book club but for games!
Know Your Sh*t is a series of short articles for aspiring game developers encouraging you to better know your games history!
Chris Crawford
Chris Crawford is important for organizing the Game Developer’s Conference (in his living room in 1987), he was eventually kicked out. He is also important for his Journal of Computer Game Design, later renamed Interactive Entertainment Design (my kind of stuff). You can read his collection of articles from 1987-1996 on his website. Unless you are still developing for the Atari, the context will seem outdated– but I find it unsettling how the best of the art of interactivity today are saying fundamentally the same thing Chris Crawford was saying twenty years ago.
Fellow youngsters, we can benefit from Mr. Crawford’s work on interactivity. I highly recommend the article Fundamentals of Interactivity for a butt kicking metaphor. Use his resources to super charge your lexicon!!
Found some diamond in the rough good bit of game history? Share it!
Conveying a Message through Gameplay Mechanics
Published February 9, 2009 article 1 CommentTags: MDA
Too often do I find myself playing a game that hasn’t been thoroughly thought out. The whole experience, from the time I enter the game and see the main menu, through the main game, to the end screen, has no meaning or I can see the meaning the designer was going for fall flat in his execution. It leaves me empty. These are the types of game that, once you get through to the credits, will not be remembered. I will probably not share this game with anyone (other than to get some laughs), and the game will not be handed on to new players that could enjoy the experience. It is not memorable, it lacks a message.
Continue reading ‘Conveying a Message through Gameplay Mechanics’
Sheep Stare
You are a sheep in a meadow. You get points for staring at the rock.
Design Challenge: Create a game with the lowest possible level of interaction.
by ben esposito 2009
Life is a garden
I was reading this article that inspired me to reflect on my “Life Metaphor” and it’s effect on me. A positive life metaphor like ‘life is a journey’ can help you expand as a person but a negative one like ‘life is a prison’ can limit you.
I am a firm believer that life is a garden, but I got to thinking about what the people around me identify with. From what I gather, everyone varies in their motivations and interests which (unashamedly) leads me to the question:
To what degree does your life metaphor reflect your preferences in the types of games you play?
If you look at your life as a race, are you more likely to play competitive games (even racing games)? If you look at life as a garden, are you more likely to enjoy resource management games? Adventure and exploration? This question applies to both digital and non-digital games. Perhaps the type of play you engage in can reflect your lifestyle!
Take a look at the article for ideas of different life metaphors. Do the kinds of games you enjoy tend to speak to your life metaphor?
-illustration and article by ben esposito
Perfect Stride Continuum
Perfect Stride Continuum is my first complete Half-Life 2 modification, it is a first person ‘momentum based puzzle-racing mod’
Read on to hear the full story of my experience and impressions with this syllable saturated game title!
