The title of the talk was ‘Writing Games: Tall Tales of Triumph and Terror’ and it was held last Thursday at the Writers’ Guild of America, West headquarters in Los Angeles. It went alright, with some discussion of what it’s like to be a game writer, the new and growing position of game writers within the WGA (which allows game writers to join according to lower standards than film or television writers), and lots of nods to Uncharted 2 and Half-Life.

Everything pretty much went as I expected, but I found it very unfortunate that we did not see a discussion of the art or craft of game writing. We only really heard about the differences in work environment and technicalities. For example, it was generally agreed that game development involves far less clearly defined roles than filmmaking, so a writer can expect to play some role in game design and should expect the game designer to play a role in writing. A script writer should also expect his usual 125 page script to shoot up to around 800 pages for a game, since games are longer and a player may only experience a fraction of a game’s writing in a single play through. We did not, however, hear about anyone’s ideas on game writing, how a game is structured, approach, how they use the game to convey meaning or feelings. At one point it was mentioned that while in film it is said that a writer should ‘show’ and not ‘tell,’ in games a writer should ‘do’ and not ‘tell,’ but that was the extent of artistic discussion.

I stood up for the Q and A at the end and asked about the difference between games with mute protagonists and those with talkative protagonists, citing Half-Life and Uncharted and asking how each writer felt about the different approaches to game writing. This, I thought, was a question they could bite into. Surely one of these guys struggled at one time or another with the contradiction of a game’s protagonist being both a unique character and being played by the player, or at the very least, thought it was interesting, thought something could be done with that. Right? One of the writers reiterated that Uncharted 2 and Half-Life were both great games and simply said sometimes you go the one direction with a mute, and other times you go with the yapper. Nobody else had anything to say. So that was my shot. Oh well.

Anyway, I had a good time, especially talking to some of the writers over cokes. I even met a flash developer by the name of Tamar Curry. Seemed like a cool dude.

This is my second IGDA meeting and I recommend checking them out, especially if you want to meet some local LA game developers. Students and indie devs show up in addition to folks from some of the larger companies, so it’s a good bunch.

-Christopher J. Rock

• First-Person Shooter. Check.
• Post Apocalyptic World. Check.
• RPG Elements. Check.

I had held off from getting an Xbox until Halo 3 came out. There was all the drama with the Red Ring of Death and there were lots of rumors of a new motherboard with less problems, coincidentally around the time of Halo 3′s release. After playing through Halo 3 I ended up getting a Wii and Super Mario Galaxy — mostly using my Xbox for XBLA games ( Braid, Rez, Castlevania: Symphony of the Night, Banjo Kazooie, etc.) Last Fall I decided to get caught up with Xbox retail games, and borrowed a bunch from Ricky.

Bioshock

Bioshock was high on my list. It was mega-hyped, looked pretty cool, and one of the prettiest games out at the time. There were a lot of demo videos leading up to its release, demonstrating the variety of ways you could interact with the enemies and environment to get through situations. Using electricity to deactivate machines, using fire to make enemies run for water, making the Big Daddies fight on your side, and the like. It looked exciting and I had to see what the game was about since it was one of the best examples of our game technology.

So I played it. And got into it. Maybe too into it. I enjoyed the feeling of being lost in this underwater city in Bioshock but it stressed me the hell out. I got tired of hearing voices in the halls and guys jumping out at me shooting around every corner. After spending a day at work, coming home and playing this aggravating game didn’t make me feel and better. I quit while I was ahead and moved on.

Okay, another game I wanted to play was Fallout 3. It looked cool, I had friends that were Fallout fans and I never played PC games so I never got around to playing it. A friend at Zenimax Online had copies laying around so he sent me one. God bless his heart.

Fallout 3

So I dug Fallout 3. Immersive world. Maybe too immersive… Constantly stressed because you’ll get randomly attacked by gangs and giant creatures while wandering from town to town. And you have no bullets, you can only buy a limited amount in shops at any given time. And you don’t even have much money, you can sell some bottle caps I guess. I get that this is the future, and everything’s scary and resources are limited but why they hell do I want live in this stressful world after I spent a day at work??? Ahhh!!!

Borderlands

My friends got Borderlands and were having a ton of fun online, killing stuff. Now Borderlands was a fun game for me. It had a similar setting to Fallout but it was lively and comedic. It played like Halo. Don’t have to worry too much about ammo and weapons, as they’re freely available. You aren’t even penalized too much for dying — you just respawn at a checkpoint and can buy more items without even leaving the mission. It plays like Halo-meets-Diablo, how can you go wrong? Well, the wrongness this time actually had to do with my internet sucking. My Xbox-wifi adapter sucks and can’t keep a stable connection. Which resulted in my dropping out from the game all of the time or not being able to tell if my shots are connecting when playing online. Without the online play to amplify the enjoyment of the game I started to see what the game for what it was — kinda pointless.

The story is pretty non-existant. And the gameplay is basically shoot stuff to get better weapons to shoot bigger stuff to get bigger weapons. In the time that I played I didn’t see enough diversity in the gameplay to make me feel like I was missing anything if I stopped playing. So I stopped.

And after quitting 3 top-notch cutting edge AAA games I began to wonder why didn’t they keep my interest. I think it has to do with them all being about running around and shooting things. And that’s pretty much it. You might have to find some items along the way but your progress is determined by how well you can run around and shoot. You don’t have to be clever about it. And then there’s the RPG elements. Which I feel are tacked onto the FPS gameplay just to give the illusion that the game has more depth than it really is.

Although I’m not a fan of FPS games, I don’t hate all of them. I love the Halo games for instance. But I love them because they take that they’re a first-person-shooter very seriously. Halo is tactical and your progress depends on your strategy of approaching the enemy. The enemies are aware of their environments and react depending on how you approach them. You can try to ambush and die. Then sneak up and die. Then snipe and die. Then try and run everyone over and maybe you make it to the next checkpoint.

In Halo, you don’t have to wonder if you can afford health or weapon upgrades in a vending machine when you reach an enemy you can’t take down. Nor do you need to count up how many bullets you have remaining between 14 guns, and check how much damage your guns have, and how much weight you’re carrying. You don’t have to fiddle with some skills tree and worry about that headshot only doing 4 damage because your level isn’t quite high enough. Ahhh!!!!

Do you know what game I bought and actually beat?

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

I rushed through it and had a lot of fun. In quick sessions. And when I died, I didn’t get stressed. I had more fun overcoming the challenge. And it didn’t have RPG features to needlessly complicate it. And it didn’t take me over 20 hours to finish. And I got to play it with my friends.

Lost Odyssey

Besides Mario, I’ve been hooked on Lost Odyssey, my current obsession. I probably sound like a hypocrite, with the game being an old-school style Japanese RPG that we’ve seen a million times before, but I’m a sucker for these things. It feels like a Final Fantasy game but it breaks enough gameplay conventions that it’s not. It’s difficult and doesn’t have some overly complex skill system. It’s far from perfect but has some great things going for it. I think the gameplay is top-notch and overall I’ve enjoyed it much more than Final Fantasy 10 and 12.

Rage from id

I don’t think we’ve seen the last of The Same Game as id’s Rage is coming soon. While the graphics are off the chain, as usual, it looks to be the familiar FPS RPG hybrid.

Over the weekend I noticed a sudden surge in traffic and I noticed most of it was coming from Agame.com. Turned out they had just stolen it and added it to their frontpage on Thursday and a lotta people were playing it. It’s nice to know people are still playing it after 5 years! haha. My favorite part is still reading all of the insightful comments like “cool ima pimp nigga“and “DONT STEAL HIS BIKE“. Mostly spam here, but the Newgrounds comments are still gold to me.

Thugjacker’s been our most popular game, by far. A great deal of it has to do with it being our first game, with Ricky and I spending so much time with it. The gameplay has a stickiness that keeps people coming back — I think it’s just fun to mess around and beat guys up. These days, it’s easy to be lost on Flash portals so it’s usually hit or miss if people notice the game or not. Thugjacker usually does well but LUV Tank usually gets lost. LUV Tank only really took off on Addictinggames.com for some reason, but it’s usually the game that the not-so-hardcore gamers tell me they like the most.

Yesterday I was working on the Donut game with David. We had started talking about Thugjacker and I showed him a lot of the stuff we cut out of Thugjacker Half — David wasn’t working with us on Thugjacker. There were cinemas scenes that I didn’t have time to finish and implement. A lot of the real story. It’ll all find it’s way into the game eventually. This Donut game will give another side of the story.

Bryson’s been pressuring me to post about Children at Play for a long time, and I kept telling him “I’m too busy working on the game!” But enough a’ that crap. I uploaded the video preview to YouTube and I’ll have a playable demo up here very soon.

I started work on Children at Play at the start of last winter and its eaten a lot of my time since then. I consider it a small step, but an important one, in the right direction. I’ll save any in depth discussion for when I’ve got the demo up. For now I’ll post some text I’ve put together for various submissions and whatnot.

Team:

The team would be my brother and I. He handles sound effects and any non-procedural music and I do everything else.

Description:

Children at Play is a physics based puzzle game with gravity as its core mechanic.

Players must fire a blue star through curved space and around obstacles, bending space-time and igniting supernovae to destroy a red star target and darken the sky that much.

A boy’s mother refuses to buy him marbles, but while pouting at home, his wish is granted by a sparrow. The bird only requires the boy to play a game.

Beautifully generated procedural artwork and spacey, harmonic music are the backdrop to an eerie story about hidden consequences and the nearness of all that governs the universe.

Does Children at Play do anything new?

The experience of Children at Play is most similar to that of puzzle and sandbox games, but it is unique in that it lends meaning to the puzzle/sandbox skeleton within the context of a world and story and its primary means of doing so is via direct analogy, which I consider fundamental yet uncommon in game designs.

(THIS PARAGRAPH OF SPOILERS HAS BEEN CENSORED)

Furthermore, while the qualification of any game as art is regularly challenged, even those that agree games are art would not expect one to discuss the puzzle or sandbox genres as such. This is unfortunate because it is these genres that lay at the heart of all video games. Every game with an objective boils down to some kind of a puzzle, regardless of how far removed from puzzledom a game may appear on the surface. I’ll cite Braid and its predecessor Oracle Billiards because they each take a genre that would never be considered akin to “puzzles” and create an experience that I would consider primarily puzzle-like by exploring the use of time within their genres.

The sandbox is of greater importance to me because its curiosity-motivated, exploratory experience is exactly what I wanted to achieve with Children at Play, however it is the least respected of all genres. Even the gaming community will write-off sandboxes as “not really games” because they don’t have a clear objective. I find this extremely problematic because it is only a step away from claims that games cannot be art. The game cannot be art because its experience is variable or, in other words, the objective is unclear in comparison to works of static art (in which the “player’s” objective is obvious: sit and enjoy). The freedom of a player, limited as it may be in some cases, is what defines a game regardless of the artificial moral judgments enforced by point systems or forcing players to retry levels the right way. In fact, the only reason I included a point system in Children at Play was because some players seemed very apathetic without having something to maximize (or minimize–I included both to encourage experimentation), but ideally a player would invent challenges spontaneously.

Hope that wets some appetites. More comin.
-Christopher J. Rock

Chris and I attended the IGDA LA Chapter’s July meeting for a panel discussion titled “Running a Small Development Studio: Perils, Pitfalls & Promise.” I was interested in checking out the event because it was a relevant topic and I’ve yet to attend any of the LA Chapter meetings. I’ve been an IGDA member on 2 separate occasions but failed to see value in the membership since there were never any meetings. This year they’ve restarted and are having meetings the 2nd Thursday of every month.

The talk was excellent. The speakers gave a good idea of some of the challenges of getting a company started and keeping it rolling.

The speakers were:

John Beck CEO, WayForward Technologies (A Boy and His Blob, Where the Wild Things Are, Space Chimps)

Jenova Chen Creative Director, thatgamecompany (Flower, flOw, Cloud, Journey)

Tian Mu CEO, Co-Founder, Naked Sky Entertainment, Inc. (Star Trek DAC, RoboBlitz, RoboHordes)

Jesse Vigil Founder, Partner, Psychic Bunny (Codename Games, Lead Balloon)

After the talk, it transformed into a mixer. It was good chit-chatting with some of the homies and the regulars. Met and re-met a couple people we saw at the USC Global Game Jam. I had a good chat with the homies Nite and Deon, who worked on Lulu Cao’s thesis project, SomeDay.

This IGDA-LA event is every 2nd Thursday. It hasn’t been updated for a while, but you can try the website for info about the next one. If they keep having meetings of this caliber, I’ll have to renew my membership.

Oh yeah, baby. I came up. Won this wonderful game at the raffle.

I’m happy that all of 3 games in the project are hooked into each other through the game scenario and most of the art assets are completed. We now have an even clearer idea of how the project is working so it makes the refinement process go much faster.

To the left are some game assets from the car game. I drew these cars in Adobe Illustrator, and made a few color variations. I’ve determined 11 variations aren’t enough so I’ll draw a few more and make additional colors to break up the visual monotony.

Since the last post, I’ve added Cryptic Circuitry’s music and sound effects to the game. It sounds great and it’s becoming more obvious what sounds are missing now. We need to take another pass at the sound now that it’s in. The sound is always the time consuming part that I spend little time at the end on. With the energy Cryptic’s putting into the sound design, I want to make sure it all works smoothly.

As far as the Sokay war with Chris Rock goes, I declare myself winning. As he is too much of a wusscake to post any news on his game. He claims his time “working on it” is much more valuable than posting on a blog. Pssh!

Two guys playing with the Kinect at E3 2010

That’s right. Sokay is at E3 and nobody else will give you the breaking story on the games YOU want to play! Anyway, I’ll let you know how it went. For me, Nintendo was the show, so I’ll start with the other guys.

X-Box 360 Central

Microsoft had a lot of Kinect going on, lots of games that look like the same stuff they’ve been putting out for years, and some X-Box 360 Slims laying around (which I’ve got my eye on). Kinect looked pretty cool, but I wasn’t blown away by anything. You can read about Microsoft elsewhere.

Sony’s attractions I must check on again tomorrow before I can give a fair assessment of their presentation. They had a lot going on for the new Castlevania and Marvel vs. Capcom games, but they weren’t really worth mentioning (another 3rd person beat ‘em up and the MvC franchise goes 3D–sorry if you love those games, but it’s not exactly groundbreaking). However I did try out the PS3 Move controller with the new Socom game and was very satisfied.

I don’t find the Wii controller very good with shooting games; one’s aim always has to be offset a little to be accurate, but there’s no way to correct it with calibration. It’s unfair to make a comparison after just one game with the Move given my extensive experience with the wiimote, but I thought the Move felt a bit more on-target. I’ve always been a mouse and keyboard man when it comes to any sort of FPS experience, and I hate the wiimote as a replacement, but the Move wand did very well. I also found it to have a wider range of motion while manipulating the on-screen cursor. I assume this is because even as you point the wand away from the television, it’s still within view of the camera and therefore position data can still be used by the game. But I only got to play one game and that kind of stuff can be subtle, so it’s hard to tell if I was just imagining things. It’s also difficult to tell how much of the differences between Move and the Wii is purely algorithmic rather than being rooted in the hardware.

As for SOCOM, the game seemed pretty good, but again, nothing particularly new (other than the Move compatibility). SOCOM’s controls felt nice, which is saying a lot because I’ve found the controls on most of these run/cover/shoot 3rd person shooters to be so terrible I have no idea how they become popular, Kane and Lynch 2 is one such game.

I wasn’t particularly interested in the first Kane and Lynch, but the sequel caught my eye because of the “video camera” look it achieved. I’ve long thought that a lot of computer generated effects look ironically realistic when viewed through a video camera (I remember recording Gran Turismo 3 once). The modern audience is accustomed to reality through a video camera, but the devices are incapable of delivering very much data, which makes simulating reality through these machines relatively easy (See Cloverfield). Kane and Lynch 2 takes advantage of this and while many surfaces still appear too smooth or shiny for reality, and the visual defects don’t match the game’s HD resolution, it does attain something unique with its graininess, steep gamma curve, occasional auto-focus error, video quality lens flares (versus those of epic 35mm lenses) and camera shake as if it is handheld by an operator struggling to keep up with the action (even if it’s a little annoying now and then). However, the rest of the game was uninteresting.

Finally, Nintendo. I had already spent part of this morning hearing about the “bombs” Nintendo was dropping at E3 from Bryson (and rousing his loyal defense of the Zelda series when I speculated on flaws in the new motion based control scheme–unfortunately, I was unable to verify its performance today). When I first arrived at the expo, I was disappointed by the small selection offered by Nintendo. Some wiiware and sequels to games I didn’t really care about, but then I realized there was another Nintendo presentation in the next hall and that’s where all the action was. By the time I got there, things were just about wrapping up. I took a look at Donkey Kong Country Returns and Zelda: Skyward Sword, both of which look promising. But there was no time to play because as soon as I got near the place a woman brushed me aside and bellowed “5 more people to see the 3DS, ONLY 5 MORE PEOPLE!!” I made myself one of those 5.

Notice the glimmering gradient

Nintendo had glass cases containing very pretty 3DS models adjacent to a very long line which led to a tightly secured platform containing 200 girls tied to Nintendo 3DS demos (some of whom were literally attached to the machines). There was actually a set of eyes dedicated to watching every single demo up there. The demos weren’t much and most were only videos showing off the 3D effect, but it was worth seeing.

For those that haven’t heard, the 3DS has 1 screen which displays images in 3D (without requiring glasses) in addition to the lower touch-screen present in the current models, 2 rear cameras for capturing 3D images, and other upgrades I won’t go into like a PSP style analog slider and a faster processor. What you may not have heard is that the 3D effect can be controlled with a little dial on the right side of the 3DS. Push the dial all the way down and the image is plain 2D. Push the dial all the way up and it’s really hard to focus on the screen (because of how REAL it is). I usually preferred only a slight 3D effect. If you pushed it up too high the image could be a bit disorienting and I noticed what I’ll call ‘illusionary artifacts,’ meaning that I didn’t see artifacts in the image itself, but I could see them as a part of the optical illusion.

Foreground: 3DS Models in glass, Background: The demo platform.

I played a 3D pong game which was nearly identical to an old shockwave game. One demo took a photo of the my face, mapped it over a 3D model, stuck a helmet over it and had me shooting balls at my own head. Both the pong and ball shooting games took advantage of the rear cameras to use reality as their backdrop. I was aware that the 3DS had TWO cameras on the rear and was therefore capable of capturing 3D video, but the demos didn’t seem to use that effect. I asked the nearest girl (who was glued to my DS) and she insisted that yes, the 2 cameras were displaying a 3D image (and slid the 3D dial up and down while everything in the game EXCEPT the camera image warped in and out). I could’ve sworn she was lying to me, but after she said Xevious3D used the 2 cameras too (even though Xevious didn’t display anything from the cameras) I was pretty sure she was just confused.

Ridiculous staffing at the Nintendo 3DS Demos

Xevious3D was a bad experience because it was difficult to focus on flying and grounded enemies simultaneously. And Nintendogs in 3D was basically the same as Nintendogs in 2D, however they did allow the puppies to approach and lick the screen if you held it up to your face.

I watched video demos for a long list of classic games, Mario Kart and others, but the only really special one was Kid Icarus. If this E3 has anything to say about it, Kid Icarus will be THE game on the early 3DS. Not only does it look generally impressive, but where it seemed most games would treat the 3D effect as a gimmick (like most movies), Kid Icarus appeared to use it very well. What I saw were dynamically deep images of well composed shots that allowed the eye to settle on a focal point and enjoy the game. For a long time I’ve been wondering how long it will take developers to understand 3D, get over its weakness and use it well as a part of gameplay, not just another graphical effect. If that little video demo means anything, Kid Icarus will be a step in the right direction.

I’ve got development work to do before the Indiecade deadline passes me up, and life in the real world so I can’t be killing my hours going to trade shows and telling you people about it, but I’ll do my best.

-Christopher J. Rock

I’d have liked to see Santiago take Ebert down a notch with a strong argument, but she came off as many of the ‘game school generation’ do: all talk and born to sell out (e.g. using marketability as evidence of artistry). I assume this is because graduates would rather not alienate the industry or general populace with their ideas, but the need to maintain a friendly facade dilutes the message too much for my taste. For that reason, I’d also have liked to see Ebert take Santiago down a notch, until he stopped making sense.

One of Ebert’s key failings is that his actual views on art remain a mystery and for that reason, I hope to convey my perspective through my discussion of Santiago and Ebert. I welcome attack.

I agree with Santiago’s saying that games “already are art.” And I more or less fall in line with her concession to Ebert’s infamous statement:

“To my knowledge, no one in or out of the field has ever been able to cite a game worthy of comparison with the great dramatists, poets, filmmakers, novelists and composers.”
-Roger Ebert

But I’m not impressed by her conservative declaration that Chess cannot be considered a work of art, saying that “We must draw a line.” In my view, the status of art is binary. Games either are or are not art. I argue that they are art, but as a whole, I wouldn’t call them very good art. Perhaps Santiago would support my distinction because she bases her definition in part on Robert McKee’s description of good writing–not art writing, but good. And with popular video game development over 30 years old, I do not buy the argument that games as an art form are in their infancy. Film was invented in 1895 and by 1925 the world was full of masterful and respected filmmakers practicing their art solely as an art and their work is studied to this day.

Ebert rightly attacks Santiago’s description of ancient art as “chicken scratches,” however I’m not sure why he discusses the cave paintings of Chauvet-Pont-D’Arc because Santiago displayed a completely different example of ancient art that appears to be Native American (though I don’t recognize it off-hand). And while Ebert fails to appreciate Santiago’s examples of gaming artistry; Waco, Braid and Flower; they are the same examples given in countless other art-game arguments that also failed to persuade the least of sophisticants and I would happily expand upon Ebert’s criticisms if prompted. I am again left with no side to take when Ebert becomes distracted by Santiago’s screenshot of George Melies’ A Voyage to the Moon (1902) because I’m more apt to compare the average video game to Thomas Edison’s Electrocuting an Elephant (1903). Ebert’s criticisms are entirely appropriate, but at each attempt to formulate his own idea, it becomes clear that this debate isn’t going very far.

His meandering struggle to imply a philosophy led me to believe Ebert’s thoughts are far too disorganized for him to be taken seriously as any kind of theorist, especially in regards to games. This may go without saying considering his famous distaste for film theory and more importantly, that his judgment of the entire video game medium comes without having played a one of them.

Ebert cites famous approaches to art, suckerpunching Santiago’s attempts to define it until at one point he seems to consider the act of defining art a pointless endeavor, saying

“But we could play all day with definitions, and find exceptions to every one.”
-Roger Ebert on defining the word ‘art’

I was very disappointed by this because ever since Ebert’s initial decree that games are not and never will be art, I was curious about what complex and deep understanding of the arts led him to that conclusion. Without providing any reasons for his statement, it appeared that he preferred to attack the work of others without ever making his own ideas vulnerable–like some kinda lousy critic! Not so, because throughout the entirety of a discussion inherently linked to the definition of art, Ebert managed a single related concept:

“My notion is that it grows better the more it improves or alters nature through an passage through what we might call the artist’s soul, or vision.”
-Roger Ebert enlightening no one

I couldn’t help but notice the hint of hypocrisy passing flatulently between Ebert’s words,

“Kellee Santiago has arrived at this point lacking a convincing definition of art.”
-Roger Ebert clearly meaning to address himself

Ebert does state that a difference between games and art is that you can win a game. Ah, what a school of thinkers to join, the ‘art is the thing you can’t win’ guys. He goes on to make one obvious point against his definition of art as ‘a thing one cannot win’ in saying

“Santiago might cite a immersive game without points or rules, but I would say then it ceases to be a game and becomes a representation of a story, a novel, a play, dance, a film.”
-Roger Ebert implying that if games are art, they must be some other kind of art (?)

I have to admit, he’s gone over my head here. When the video game came about, everyone seemed to agree it was a new, patentable invention worthy of an original name and place within our culture, but apparently that’s when Ebert diverged from the mainstream. Is he conceding that our so-called ‘video games’ ARE art, with the caveat that they’re actually some digital offsping of dancing and books? Is he confusing games with the ipad? Frankly, I don’t care to find out, but in case his claims are anything more than totally ridiculous, I’ve cited a few ‘Loser Games’ at the end of this post, each of which leads one to question the concept of victory and each of which is clearly a game.

Ebert does end on a high note, condescending as it may be:

Why are gamers so intensely concerned, anyway, that games be defined as art? Bobby Fischer, Michael Jordan and Dick Butkus never said they thought their games were an art form. Nor did Shi Hua Chen, winner of the $500,000 World Series of Mah Jong in 2009. Why aren’t gamers content to play their games and simply enjoy themselves? They have my blessing, not that they care.

Do they require validation? In defending their gaming against parents, spouses, children, partners, co-workers or other critics, do they want to be able to look up from the screen and explain, “I’m studying a great form of art?” Then let them say it, if it makes them happy.

If I was unconcerned with the perception of games as art, I wouldn’t have written this post, but I don’t think we need to be pleading to anyone. We don’t need a friendly facade or to win over outdated critics. If you believe in games as art, the criticism of likeminded peers has to be feedback enough because catering to an audience uninterested in one’s art will only lead one to create bad art. I believe what we need is a higher standard for ourselves, our ideas, and our games. Today’s game development community is all too accomadating, especially among independent developers. Kellee Santiago is doing a good job screaming out the message and I hope she can bring together some talented people, but Ebert is right about one thing: video games as art suck. Everyone seems to agree with this when we discuss games in general, but no one has the guts to point out examples and criticize them. How else will progress be made?

Things are developing, but it’s not because of universities, publishers or markets. Just as in any art, it’s thanks to the artists who invest themselves independently of any of those influences, out of personal desire.

Ebert says that we won’t live to see games respected as an art form. I say give it 10 to 20 years and pretentious developers will have us wishing he was right. I say games are art, and yes, that makes me happy.

-Christopher J. Rock

Loser Games
If Ebert were ever to actually play a game, he might be aware of how questionable the claim of ‘winning’ one really is as opposed to ‘finishing’ it, as one does a film or novel.

Here’s a bit of artwork I drew for the Donut game’s intro animation. It’s roughly animated so my man Cryptic Circuity can lay down some tunes for it while I tend to other areas of the project. My current focus right now is the top-down driving portion of the game. I should be showing bits of that part soon.

Chris has been touring Europe for the past couple weeks so don’t think the war is over. He’s just been readying the quiet before the storm. I’ve managed to gain some ground on him without having to sabotage his project, but his game was just about ready for a demo release even before he left. Regardless, both of our games are looking top-notch and I look forward to revealing more.

Peace.

I’ve been hustlin’ on the Donut game. In the past month I’ve been busting out on the collision for the car segment and the intro animation for the game.

I’ve been working with the other members of the team — Ricky, David and Cyptic Circuity — to organize our tasks. Ricky’s doing most of the game’s character art and animation, primarily the Car segment and the Donut segment. David’s doing animation for a Fight segment — he did LUV Tank’s in-game animation. Cryptic Circuitry is doing the sound, as he did with Sammy Samurai.

I’ve had an idea of what I’ve wanted for the intro for the game for a long time but I had been conflicted on how I could get the story across without it being too drawn out. As an introduction to the game, I didn’t want the intro animation overshadow the game itself. I also don’t want to devote too much time to it when I have a game to make! I want something that basically says “Here’s your character. Here’s your scenario. Now play!”

I think of my games as interactive animations so I’ll continue to explore this balance. I haven’t made an animation like this in a while but I’m having fun so I may grow accustomed to it.