spaceship789

Good point LeChimp, In terms of gameplay styles, lets face it - many game play styles were * inevitable* If platoon or colony, or ultima, or wolf 3D didn't invent the FPS - then someone else was going to. If Doom didn't invent FPS on a network, then someone else was going to. Ditto for sports games, including pong. There would be a tennis sim eventually. Final Fantasy, MUDs - as long as there was D&D, there would be similar games. All are as inevitable as car games. etc. But how about more abstract styles of games - ingenious games that paved a path that would otherwise have never been paved? I'm beginning to think that these are much more important... Donkey kong - maybe Tetris - yes (As well as cementing nintendos hand held reign that continues til this day!) Lemmings- yes! Pacman - no. being chased thru a maze was popular ven back in greek ages, as were topographical maps of mazes. Katamari - yes! Truly original games. They are important games because without them, the history/future of computer games is pretty much predictable.

Super Mario.. the game that put the NES into 1/4 of American households. Crash Bandicoot was pretty important. It was the killer app that put Sony where they are today. Without it they could have easily been to consoles like what Nokia was to hand helds. Doom. Started the chain reaction that made Network support a must have feature for many types of games. Halo on Xbox. the killer app for XBox. Dunno about in the states but down here in Australia, the multiplayering goodness of Halo had some of the most ardent windows haters dropping their guard for the sake of male bonding.

It was a rocky release, but they planned it that way. My guess is they wanted to release pre E3 in the US, when the air was free of hype. An then use the momentum generated from the initial US sales to float their PS2 and Eurposean releases, some months later. And they have had lots of support, from game sites, and I see that Entertainment Weekly has got behind their hometown boy. But sales aren't so good. Personally I think people will look back at Psychonauts and go "what was with all that green?". I don't know. I guess it was the result of being so closely tied to Xbox for so long, they began to dream in green. Green in most of the levels, green in lots of the banner ads, and a good cover art illustration lost in a big swirl of green. For the PS2 release, they should lose the green on the cover - I'm sure ps2 owners are subsonsciously predisposed to hating green. Or atleast simplify the background so that the character stands out. That raz character has one of the most striking silhouettes of any game - they should use it!

I think the difference between this and black and white may be that the gameplay relied on the on organic/procedural/computery stuff, and suffered as a result. But here, the gameplay is tried and proven, and the organic stuff won't make too big a difference. ..or maybe I'm way off.

Nice work, really polished. Loved the dialog interaction. Everything worked, from the little quirks of some of the characters, to the climactic puzzle, to the multiple ending scenario. Some bold decisions made that probably have some strong precents, and solid grounding. With its neat interface, and cute little top down graphics, it looks like this game could really appeal to RPG players aswell. Could this stylem or similar non-traditional style of adventure games be the savior of the genre?

Jeezurs! In one of the photos has fall 2001 behind it, he is fat and chunk with big arms. In four years he is quite skinny. I would dream of having such an incredible transformation as J. Allard! I can only guess that: - he is naturally skinny, but ate fast food daily during one stage of his life. - he is so filthy rich he has a treadmill in his private jet. - talking is the best trigger for metabolism I think its good that he lost weight - less strain on his heart - but I think many of us hold affection to the photo of him tinkering behind an XBox because he looks so much like Jason Alexander from Seinfeld.

I can relate a little, because I used to make games when I was in school. I'd code them up in various languages, and do the graphics and they'd look really good (mainly by way of the graphics). I'd get all excited and send them off to various publishers who would give me enough positive feedback, to get even further excited. So, in the end I took this youthful energy, channelled it and have done really well for myself. So I feel a little obligated to put you on the right path. Basically, stick in school and study really hard. If you get ideas that make you want to sit at the computer and make another opus like this one - then just write them down (with simple drawings) in a big book, you can get to them later, but now, your energy should be directed at your studies. In the future you'll be such an expert at using a computer that adding a bunch of hotspots to some images, and scripting up some dialog interaction will take you a day, and not several weeks. (contact me privately, if you ever need any advice in regard to authoring programs, coding or artwork. )

In regard to your game, I thought it was pretty good. I reckon it proved that even if you just have pretty graphics and dialog sequences that it still can be enjoyable. Perhaps even use your own artwork next time - with fingers that fast you might want to take up drawing!

the piano and guitar versions require much more pratice and skill. but they had a good time making it and thats the most important thing.

Everyone has the right to a relationship. shrug. But as for the amount of pictures of her on the website. yeah, thats weird. And you'd expect them to be snaps of romania, and other people and stuff. But lets hope Romero settles down a bit with this girl. No more full page ads!

Theres always the argument that shooting games desensitize you, and make the impressionable kids more likely to be able to take the steps to killing someone, taking pot shots in their schoolyard, assasinating the president etc. But while desensitization is one thing, you can't debate that the emotional effect that the existence of this game has on those for whom JFKs assasination was the most greivous moment of their lives. And you could have easily predicted the outrage. (You need to watch more docos if you forget how half the country reacted to the event). Thunderpeel: stop trolling

Jeezurs they could have waited til the half of the country that was completely grief stricken from that event had passed on. Whats next, recreating the incisions made by jack the ripper to prove it must have been a doctor? Recreating the manson murder of Sharon Tate? I can see why they did it. They had a wonderful informative website. But that wasn't enough to counteract the Oliver Stone flic. They got a TV show. But still, that wasn't enough. They wanted mass market saturization. For those who dont see why it is greatly offensive, imagine if your father or father figure was assasinated in a violent and shocking way. And then you realised that heaps of kids, (perhaps your grandkids) were out there playing it as a game where they play the killer.

There may be a legal problem with not paying the overtime, but I see no ethical problem with it if they mentioned it in your job description. Its common knowedge that to ship a game you have to work long hours. If you don't want to work ridiculous hours - don't work there. When you are young, you can work the hours no probs, you get to brag to your friends, and you get the self satisfaction of shipping a product. Its much better to be doing it tough on a winning team, than doing it easy on a team that misses deadlines, gets dropped by their publisher, gets a bad reputation, and is just not good to have on your CV. Its definitely not the job to have when you're trying to bring up a family. But if you want a job straight out of uni that will increase your work ethic, get your confidence up, and look great on your CV, then the games industry is a great job!

Wow. All these videos are the "tsunami" that Tim talked about on the double fine website. I have been hearing about this game for so long - to finally see Schafer on the media campaign trail is exciting - like seeing a after years of letter correspondence. Admittedly, the videos are the first time I've heard Tim speak and watched him animate. There is clearly so much pent up "cool stuff!" to say about this game that he tries to get it all out in all the interviews and talks quite fast, and in fast chunks. Its interesting to contrast with film directors, who don't talk nearly as fast, in my experience. Maybe Tim realises that every second is an extra megabyte of mpeg. Or is just he so damn excited that FINALLY, after years of blood sweat and tears that things are finally going his way, his game is finally coming out, and he will take his place, not as the finest game designers that America has ever produced...but one of the finest designers that America has ever produced, and that people know about!

It is an interesting PR move to keep gamers confidence, at the risk of scaring away developers. For the developer, "penalization" wouldn't be different from dropping the base wage, and increasing percentages. Call it restructured wage package, and no one would care, call it "built in penalization" and it will turn developers away. I'd say Warner would have considered the negative PR to developers, but thought it more than worth the risk if they preserve the "Good Movie must be Good Game" myth that Enter The Matrix rode on. They want to sustain the "leap of faith" the game buying pubilc took on Enter the Matrix being a good game. Its a brazen move. Not even Lucasarts, although they now predominantly use movie licenses, try to so publicly convince people that the game will be good if the movie is. Its a quote that on the surface looks like its "Warner Bros focus on gameplay!", but it is the opposite. Its PR that seeks to perpetuate a myth, "That Good Movies will translate to good games", and in that sense it comes straight from the school of Marketing, with little regard for the school of Gameplay.

I hear a disproportionate amount of industry veterans mention joust. msut have been good in its time, and you've got to respect that.

Atomic Bomberman kicked ass. Wonder if it works on XP. It was directX, but needed an IPXSPX? network... The ultra responsive controls, the multiplayer mayhem, the taunts, the music, all made it a great game. Anyone know of any similar games today?

I'm happy to concede that people can call whatever they want art. I like big colourful animation (Disney/Pixar/Ghibli/etc), but animation isn't what we called 'art' in centuries past. So by the same token, I let other people use 'art' to call whatever they like.

Most same-ness comes from most middleware games being multiplatform, and only using use the set of 3Dgraphics subset common to all the platforms. Microsofts XNA will be good middleware. It allows you to preview the graphics on the XBox while building it the 3D app of your choice. This means more artists, and 3D app gurus will be doing the prototyping, and setting the agenda. More time on gameplay - not that the BF:V guys don't do a fantastic job already!

You're right. There is something about fat men. Tim Schafer, Ron Gilbert included. Maybe it *is* because they are jolly, like Santa Claus. Makes me want to pack on the pounds myself.

Yes, if what he meant by "our business" was Nintendo... ...but I've looked it up and he was at the Entertainment and Leisure Software Publishers Association conference in London. So he's stating his opinion on what is good for the industry. But why? Ratings, and a country's laws will decide whether a game is too violent. And if violent games did lead to a backlash, Nintendo would be in a prime position to take advantage of it, having a Disney-like image. I don't think he needed to say that at all. I've read other bits from his speech, http://news.spong.com/x?art=6906 and it reads like an emotional manifesto. He attacked journos, for hyping new hardware, game retailers for bundling games with hardware - not good PR, considering they are very important publics, and could have mailed/spoke with them personally. He also attached MS for releasing their console too early. Not good when nintendo japan are trying to gather momentum for Nintendos next gen console. This makes it seem like it was partly directed at Nintendo japan, in a deperate plea for them to hold out and not join the next gen race too soon. To me, the whole thing sounds like a rant from a man who is going out on a limb to get his point across. Is it good business? Well the GTA comment wasn't good business no matter how you look at it. And you really don't want to get offside with retailers, just cos they bundled a few games with a gamecube - lets assume they know their own business. But if it sparks debate about whether new hardware is worth the hype, and makes people cynical about it, then maybe some of it will benefit Nintendo in the long term.

When I see Hermes photo, I always imagine that he has gone into where that little mermaid statue is in Copenhagen, swung away, and is proudly holding aloft its hacked off head.

It solves the mystery of why pickachu has red dots on its cheeks!

Maybe someone at nintendo wanted to make the best Donkey Kong/ Oil panic / Greenhouse emulator ever! More likely however, is that they didn't want any applications of the touch screen to be negatively affected by the fact that your fingers obscured what was going on on the screen. I'm not sure completely sure about this - but in the touch screen games maybe the bottom screen takes the touch input, and the top one shows the result of your touching/pencilling. I wish I had a DS at school, then I could have kept a copy of the drawings I sent to other kids...alas lost to the ages. And you could possibly send animated drawings - like the magic animated drawing that the evil blonde haired kid gives harry potter! Cool!

Exactly! Whilst working doing realtime graphics, I find it offensive when directors DEMAND 'realistic' graphics. They're like "like we gave you realistic photos, why are you reluctant to make realistic animated characters". And you get the same thing for game makers trying to find a graphics house to do their graphics. I get things like "Our look is legendary realism. Very detailed, very tactile, photorealistic," its incredible just how much people don't get it. Exactly - atleast your games will stand the test of time... .. and not be written off by the world as 'horribly dated' in ten years.