Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Shaping the youth

I am going to be teaching game design at my former school Art Institure of Atlanta. In the land of the blind a one-eyed man is king!

Its going to be a special topics class on casual game design. I will be creating the curriculum from the ground up so I thought I would post here as I work on it.

What are Casual Games?
Yeah, this is a very sticky question but I will tune it for the class and the goals of the class.

The Rules.
There are many general rules that casual game live by. File size, commitment, etc. I also have many personal rules which could be boiled down to "be nice to your player."

Game Mechanics
My goal is to get the student to see that the core of game design is not just throwing out ideas. It's easy to say, "I have an awesome game idea, Zombie Chickens vs. Robot Monkeys," but its another task entirely to work out mechanics, levels, weapons, etc.

I want to use 2 exercises. One will allow students to come up with any mechanic. This should be something really focused. For example, a new weapon in an existing game, etc.

The second exercise will be a mechanic that fits a specific idea. Like the memory game I metioned in a previous post.

How Mechanics Create Dynamics
You need to predict how your core mechanics will be used. This helps you build around your core and also helps you find flaws in your designs.

Innovation vs. Polish
Students should understand how these two goals work with/at odds with each other.

more later...

Thursday, May 18, 2006

Toonbots Design

So when I was younger I really wanted to be an illustrator. I worked at it for a while but I got into design because the money was better... and I am not really a very good illustrator.

Now that my primary job is game design I don't get to draw that much anymore. I really just draw to inspire myself for whatever I am working on.

We did this game for Adult Swim Multiplayer games a while back called Naked Toonbots. I was flipping through my old notepad and found my design for Robot Carl. It was just a quick sketch but I really like it.

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Activity Abstraction

So yesterday we had our Atlanta Game Developer Meetup. I am making a greater effort to meet people in my area who are interested in game design. Besides, I just like talking about games.

Matthew Weise and I were discussing how cool it is when game use an abstacted game mechanic but it still related to the activity which you are doing enough to make a nice logical connection.

For example, in Puzzle Pirates the carpently puzzle you are really "repairing" holes. The game mechanics and the conceit of the game tie together very well. On the other hand some of the games, such as sailing, the tie is very loose.

Mathew mentioned a "remembering" subgame in Indigy Prophecy that was really just a simon says with arrow keys. Not a very good connection there but it got me thinking of what would be a good mechanic for remembering.

I imagine a web of nodes where you must connect paths, follow paths, make matches, etc. Memory really is just a bunch of connections. You could make some cool games based on it.

I threw together a really quick prototype. Its terrible programming is is very processor intensive but whatever.

Nodes connected with lines. You can click and drag the nodes when you release them they change color. Some ideas:
  • Once you move a node you cannot move it agian
  • Player has to connect so many nodes in a certain time period
  • Connect nodes to form a loose shape. This shape could be tied to "the memory"
  • etc.

This is a really wonderful exercise I think. I will have to work up some more tasks like this to tackle.

Monday, May 15, 2006

New Games!

So a few games that have come to fruition.

Big Shot Checkers
So the challaenge was "checkers with a twist." I am really happy with the design. Right now its property neutral as later more characters from other shows might be added. This game was reskinned for Adult Swim as...

Minoriteam Racist Checkers
This will someday be made for the AS multiplayer games. One of the names in the running was "Jump Whitey" but S&P wouldn't let that one through.

Flight of the Hamsters
An addictive little game in the penguin launch category. I wanted users to be active during the in flight action. Someone in the office got over 2000ft. total. Wow.

So I got back from E3 this weekend and will have a bit to say on that later.

Monday, May 01, 2006

Name Revolution: Wii

It’s a sad tale of irony. Millions of people crying out, “We want a new different game experience! We want innovation! The game industry will die without new ideas!”

But then you see the reaction to the name of this revolutionary console and you have to hang your head in shame. How are people expected to handle a huge paradigm shift in playing games, the very thing they have been crying for, if they cannot handle a simple name change?