Kill Screen on GOODhttp://www.good.is/The editors of the magazine Kill Screen explore what it means to play games.Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:39:54 -0800CakePHPhourly1en-us <![CDATA[The Short Game]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-short-game/ http://www.good.is/post/the-short-game/ This month, the Experimental Gameplay Project, a monthly challenge for game designers, released the results of their latest effort. They wanted to see who could create the best games that only ran for 10 seconds. That’s it: the videogame equivalent of a mayfly. The approaches that different game designers have taken are quite fascinating. I Can Hold My Breath Forever has players controlling a little cave diver as he hunts for a mysterious person who’s gone ahead of him—but for only 10 seconds at a time. Cold as Death is a black-and-white text adventure that has you trying to avoid freezing to death. But my favorite by far was Run, Jesus, Run, a charmingly pixelated game that delivers a racing Jesus speeding through the Gospels.

As much as gamers love a long, complicated, and well-thought-out game, there’s something wonderful about brevity. I say this not as a time-strapped videogame player; rather I appreciate the creativity that arises from constraints. With videogames becoming ever more complex, mimicking the complexity of real life, what has disappeared in a sense of abstraction and a sense of restraint: Because anything can virtually be accomplished, games often move in the same direction with a focus on polish, but without a real sense of character or oddball creativity.

Anton Chekhov, a master of the short story, wrote hundreds during his life and was a master of the form. The limitations of the short story was a boon, as the novelist Richard Powers observed:


One can say with some assurance that in settling upon the short story as his chosen narrative form, Chekhov elected in essence not to represent all of life, not to make a splash, but to fashion discrete parts of life and focus our attentions and sharpest sensibilities there as a form of indispensable moral instruction. […] Chekhov made his stories precisely commensurate with life and with a view of it we can accept in an almost homely way.

The game designers for the 10 Second Contest are thinking along the same lines. By drawing back their intentions, their games pull a different type of narrative into sharp focus.

Which one is your favorite?

]]> This month, the Experimental Gameplay Project, a monthly challenge for game designers, released the results of their latest effort. They wanted to see who could create the best games that only ran for 10 seconds. That’s it: the videogame equivalent of a mayfly. The approaches that different game designers have taken are quite fascinating. I Can Hold My Breath Forever has players controlling a little cave diver as he hunts for a mysterious person who’s gone ahead of him—but for only 10 seconds at a time. Cold as Death is a black-and-white text adventure that has you trying to avoid freezing to death. But my favorite by far was Run, Jesus, Run, a charmingly pixelated game that delivers a racing Jesus speeding through the Gospels.

As much as gamers love a long, complicated, and well-thought-out game, there’s something wonderful about brevity. I say this not as a time-strapped videogame player; rather I appreciate the creativity that arises from constraints. With videogames becoming ever more complex, mimicking the complexity of real life, what has disappeared in a sense of abstraction and a sense of restraint: Because anything can virtually be accomplished, games often move in the same direction with a focus on polish, but without a real sense of character or oddball creativity.

Anton Chekhov, a master of the short story, wrote hundreds during his life and was a master of the form. The limitations of the short story was a boon, as the novelist Richard Powers observed:


One can say with some assurance that in settling upon the short story as his chosen narrative form, Chekhov elected in essence not to represent all of life, not to make a splash, but to fashion discrete parts of life and focus our attentions and sharpest sensibilities there as a form of indispensable moral instruction. […] Chekhov made his stories precisely commensurate with life and with a view of it we can accept in an almost homely way.

The game designers for the 10 Second Contest are thinking along the same lines. By drawing back their intentions, their games pull a different type of narrative into sharp focus.

Which one is your favorite?

]]> Jamin Warren Fri, 23 Apr 2010 09:30:00 PDT <![CDATA[The Armchair Revolution in Gaming]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-armchair-revolution-in-gaming1/ http://www.good.is/post/the-armchair-revolution-in-gaming1/ A videogame designer recently posited something interesting: Players are getting older, he said, and there's more integration between the lives they live on-screen and off. That's certainly true when you consider the glut of new games that blend play with social justice. We pointed to some already with the charity work around Haiti, but one new game is taking it even further: Armchair Revolutionary wants to inspire offline action, while you're playing.

The premise is simple: Take some of the ideas built into popular games like FarmVille and apply them to real-world tasks. Started by a former United Talent Agency employee Ariel Hauter, Armchair has several projects that players can get involved in, from selling low-cost solar kits to the world's poor to creating an ocean activism game. Rather than purchasing in-game items, the game allows for 99 cent donations in the form of virtual currency called "Kredz."

The idea of Armchair is to translate something that games do well—reward incremental actions—into something tangible. Part of the problem with giving, according to the philosophy of Armchair, is that people don't associate individual gifts or donations to a charity with global change. It seems that only someone like Warren Buffett can move the world.  

But games are excellent at spurring small individual actions into large collective efforts. By rewarding each small behavior with "Kredz," everyone has a chance to chip away at a larger problem. In David Edery and Ethan Mollick's "Changing the Game," they describe how Microsoft used an internal game called Beta1 to reward members of the team for finding bugs in Windows Vista. The result: quadrupled participation in what was previously considered a boring task. Now imagine the same game but to the effort of curing a tropical disease or aiding conservation efforts.

If you haven't seen Jesse Schell's talk from DICE this year, you can watch it here. He makes an excellent case for how and why games are working their way into every aspect of human life—something we'll no doubt be seeing more of as time goes on.


]]> A videogame designer recently posited something interesting: Players are getting older, he said, and there's more integration between the lives they live on-screen and off. That's certainly true when you consider the glut of new games that blend play with social justice. We pointed to some already with the charity work around Haiti, but one new game is taking it even further: Armchair Revolutionary wants to inspire offline action, while you're playing.

The premise is simple: Take some of the ideas built into popular games like FarmVille and apply them to real-world tasks. Started by a former United Talent Agency employee Ariel Hauter, Armchair has several projects that players can get involved in, from selling low-cost solar kits to the world's poor to creating an ocean activism game. Rather than purchasing in-game items, the game allows for 99 cent donations in the form of virtual currency called "Kredz."

The idea of Armchair is to translate something that games do well—reward incremental actions—into something tangible. Part of the problem with giving, according to the philosophy of Armchair, is that people don't associate individual gifts or donations to a charity with global change. It seems that only someone like Warren Buffett can move the world.  

But games are excellent at spurring small individual actions into large collective efforts. By rewarding each small behavior with "Kredz," everyone has a chance to chip away at a larger problem. In David Edery and Ethan Mollick's "Changing the Game," they describe how Microsoft used an internal game called Beta1 to reward members of the team for finding bugs in Windows Vista. The result: quadrupled participation in what was previously considered a boring task. Now imagine the same game but to the effort of curing a tropical disease or aiding conservation efforts.

If you haven't seen Jesse Schell's talk from DICE this year, you can watch it here. He makes an excellent case for how and why games are working their way into every aspect of human life—something we'll no doubt be seeing more of as time goes on.


]]> Jamin Warren Fri, 16 Apr 2010 11:30:00 PDT <![CDATA[Gaming's Environmental Toll]]> http://www.good.is/post/gaming-s-environmental-toll/ http://www.good.is/post/gaming-s-environmental-toll/
In last year’s indie hit Flower, you play as a flock of flowers, wistfully floating through the country landscape, collecting fellow petals, and reclaiming fallow patches of land. Developed by thatgamecompany, the game is a meditation on the renewal and rebirth of plant life, as you turn barren land fertile once again.  Strange then, that to do so in a digital environment, involves an environmental cost in real life.

Flower is played on Sony’s PlayStation 3, and it—as well as other other consoles—can eat up quite a bit of power. The latest round of videogame consoles can consume as much power as roughly two new refrigerators and don’t automatically go into a sleep mode when they are idle. (You can fiddle with the power saver mode that’s buried in the options, however.) The National Resources Defense Council found that videogame consoles eat up 16 billion kilowatt-hours annually—about the same amount of electricity needed to power San Diego for year.

As a result, the videogame industry has become a target for the democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who introduced S.1696 last fall. Reviewed by the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources last month, the bill would require the Secretary of Energy to conduct a study of video game console energy efficiency.

This isn’t the first time that the videogame industry has been put on watch. In their annual Guide to Green Electronics, Greenpeace lambasted Nintendo for its tactics: "Nintendo scores most points on chemicals; it has put games consoles on the market that have PVC-free internal wiring. It has banned phthalates and is monitoring use of antimony and beryllium. Although it is endeavoring to eliminate the use of PVC, it has not set a timeline for its phase-out. It continues to score zero on all e-waste criteria."

Nintendo issued a response, saying “we take our environmental responsibilities seriously.” (To be fair, the Wii consumes the least amount of power, compared to the PS3 and 360.)

Personally, I am thrilled that videogames have now earned the ire of environmentalists and are being held to the same standards as everyone else. It’s another sign that videogames and the people who love them are entering into a larger public conversation. Certainly, there’s change afoot as well. Even without S.1696, there are plenty of things we videogame players can do.

First thing's first, though: Power down our systems when they’re not in use, and if possible, unplug the thing so it doesn't suck energy even while off. We shut off the lights and we should do the same for consoles.

For more tips, see Planet Green's tactics.

]]>
In last year’s indie hit Flower, you play as a flock of flowers, wistfully floating through the country landscape, collecting fellow petals, and reclaiming fallow patches of land. Developed by thatgamecompany, the game is a meditation on the renewal and rebirth of plant life, as you turn barren land fertile once again.  Strange then, that to do so in a digital environment, involves an environmental cost in real life.

Flower is played on Sony’s PlayStation 3, and it—as well as other other consoles—can eat up quite a bit of power. The latest round of videogame consoles can consume as much power as roughly two new refrigerators and don’t automatically go into a sleep mode when they are idle. (You can fiddle with the power saver mode that’s buried in the options, however.) The National Resources Defense Council found that videogame consoles eat up 16 billion kilowatt-hours annually—about the same amount of electricity needed to power San Diego for year.

As a result, the videogame industry has become a target for the democratic Senator Robert Menendez, who introduced S.1696 last fall. Reviewed by the Committee on Energy and Natural Resources last month, the bill would require the Secretary of Energy to conduct a study of video game console energy efficiency.

This isn’t the first time that the videogame industry has been put on watch. In their annual Guide to Green Electronics, Greenpeace lambasted Nintendo for its tactics: "Nintendo scores most points on chemicals; it has put games consoles on the market that have PVC-free internal wiring. It has banned phthalates and is monitoring use of antimony and beryllium. Although it is endeavoring to eliminate the use of PVC, it has not set a timeline for its phase-out. It continues to score zero on all e-waste criteria."

Nintendo issued a response, saying “we take our environmental responsibilities seriously.” (To be fair, the Wii consumes the least amount of power, compared to the PS3 and 360.)

Personally, I am thrilled that videogames have now earned the ire of environmentalists and are being held to the same standards as everyone else. It’s another sign that videogames and the people who love them are entering into a larger public conversation. Certainly, there’s change afoot as well. Even without S.1696, there are plenty of things we videogame players can do.

First thing's first, though: Power down our systems when they’re not in use, and if possible, unplug the thing so it doesn't suck energy even while off. We shut off the lights and we should do the same for consoles.

For more tips, see Planet Green's tactics.

]]> Jamin Warren Wed, 7 Apr 2010 14:00:00 PDT <![CDATA[Putting the Medium in Human Hands]]> http://www.good.is/post/putting-the-medium-in-human-hands/ http://www.good.is/post/putting-the-medium-in-human-hands/ sleepisdeathJason Rohrer's new game takes improvisation to the next level.
One of the central tenets of gaming is that the computer remains an active participant. Play a little and it will play back. An enemy sees you enter the room and reflexively fires his gun. Push a wooden crate off a cliffside and it shatters on the ground. The computer awaits your input.

Not so in Jason Rohrer's forthcoming game Sleep is Death. In this experimental two-player game, the computer doesn't get to give any feedback. Instead, player two speaks its voice: You enter a world of player two's design. It could be abstract or figurative, a log cabin or a women's restroom. The characters and objects therein react to you according to the whims of your partner, whose interface portrays the world as a grid and provides controls for editing sprites, music, and speech bubbles. Player two pulls all the strings in this production-yet doesn't know how you, player one, will act on the stage. You can find the real game in that interplay.

"It's almost like you're blocking out scenery and costumes for a piece of improv theater," Rohrer says. "You think about what situation you want to explore with the other person. You spend some time cobbling together some scenery, some props, to prepare. And then you have the other person connect to you."

Perhaps most interestingly, Sleep is Death sidesteps the limitations of technology altogether. Currently, no computer can be programmed to anticipate your every move. Inconsistencies-such as a window that won't break, or a non-player character who repeats herself endlessly-are common and glaring. But a human can listen to you, interpret, and improvise.

Players take turns spinning out the story. Player one speaks and acts; player two decides how people and objects will respond. Each player has 30 seconds to make things work. The challenge is to keep the illusion alive, and much of the fun is in the struggle.

Ideally, both Sleep is Death players sit in the same room, face to face, able to laugh at one another or sense the mutual tension. Knowing that the subject is human and not a machine is an invitation for each player to surprise and push the other. According to Rohrer, the story usually ends up different-and more interesting-than originally planned.

But it's crucial that this is a meditation on videogaming, a mediated encounter between two people. The computer is still the tool, and the screen still stands between player one and player two.

"It takes what's going on out of the imaginations of the people, and puts it in this concrete thing that's in front of their eyes that they can focus on and poke out," Rohrer says.

"We can't make a game about the most interactive things in our lives, which are the people around us," he says. "It's hard for me to make a game about this important interaction I've had with my wife; or my coworkers; or at the store, where I'm trying to return something, where someone's arguing with me. An argument-that's an interactive thing!"
Read more
]]> sleepisdeathJason Rohrer's new game takes improvisation to the next level.
One of the central tenets of gaming is that the computer remains an active participant. Play a little and it will play back. An enemy sees you enter the room and reflexively fires his gun. Push a wooden crate off a cliffside and it shatters on the ground. The computer awaits your input.

Not so in Jason Rohrer's forthcoming game Sleep is Death. In this experimental two-player game, the computer doesn't get to give any feedback. Instead, player two speaks its voice: You enter a world of player two's design. It could be abstract or figurative, a log cabin or a women's restroom. The characters and objects therein react to you according to the whims of your partner, whose interface portrays the world as a grid and provides controls for editing sprites, music, and speech bubbles. Player two pulls all the strings in this production-yet doesn't know how you, player one, will act on the stage. You can find the real game in that interplay.

"It's almost like you're blocking out scenery and costumes for a piece of improv theater," Rohrer says. "You think about what situation you want to explore with the other person. You spend some time cobbling together some scenery, some props, to prepare. And then you have the other person connect to you."

Perhaps most interestingly, Sleep is Death sidesteps the limitations of technology altogether. Currently, no computer can be programmed to anticipate your every move. Inconsistencies-such as a window that won't break, or a non-player character who repeats herself endlessly-are common and glaring. But a human can listen to you, interpret, and improvise.

Players take turns spinning out the story. Player one speaks and acts; player two decides how people and objects will respond. Each player has 30 seconds to make things work. The challenge is to keep the illusion alive, and much of the fun is in the struggle.

Ideally, both Sleep is Death players sit in the same room, face to face, able to laugh at one another or sense the mutual tension. Knowing that the subject is human and not a machine is an invitation for each player to surprise and push the other. According to Rohrer, the story usually ends up different-and more interesting-than originally planned.

But it's crucial that this is a meditation on videogaming, a mediated encounter between two people. The computer is still the tool, and the screen still stands between player one and player two.

"It takes what's going on out of the imaginations of the people, and puts it in this concrete thing that's in front of their eyes that they can focus on and poke out," Rohrer says.

"We can't make a game about the most interactive things in our lives, which are the people around us," he says. "It's hard for me to make a game about this important interaction I've had with my wife; or my coworkers; or at the store, where I'm trying to return something, where someone's arguing with me. An argument-that's an interactive thing!"
Read more
]]> Ryan Kuo Wed, 31 Mar 2010 14:30:59 PDT <![CDATA[How to Have More Fun]]> http://www.good.is/post/how-to-have-more-fun/ http://www.good.is/post/how-to-have-more-fun/ NNBA new iPhone app makes productivity fun and fun productive.
"Everyone is so busy, aren't they?"

As a designer at Namco Bandai Games, Keita Takahashi keeps busy devising new ways to entertain. With his latest creation, an iPhone application called Noby Noby Boy, Takahashi is looking beyond games. Now he wants to turn productivity on its head.

The app is named after a game Takahashi released last year on the PlayStation Network. At the time, Noby Noby Boy was criticized for abandoning structure and overt rules, which many consider the fundamental material of games. The iPhone app goes further: It attempts to remake the organizational tools that increasingly structure the world. "I think that people need to have a little fun even though they are busy with their jobs," Takahashi says. "With this app, I don't want people to be focused on anything. I simply want to tell people that they do not have to be serious all the time."

Swimming through the app is the protagonist of Takahashi's game, the wormlike character known as BOY. You are free to stretch and fling BOY's body, which feels akin to bouncing balls and ramming toy trucks and cars into each other. BOY, then, is a release from productivity. But he is also a foil, a floating question mark after the assumption that pocket devices such as the iPhone make our lives better. Like a second iPhone within your iPhone, Noby Noby Boy boasts among its features email, music playback, Google maps, picture- and note-taking, Web surfing, and a clock. Takahashi says the iPhone's functions have brought the Noby Noby Boy app closer to his original vision for the game than the final PlayStation 3 release.

Here's why: Notes are typed right onto BOY's lurching body; photos become randomly shaped objects for BOY to interact with; BOY himself points out the hours and minutes on the clock; every sent email includes a screen capture of BOY playing in the background; music streams out of a dancing robot whose arms and legs swing wildly, knocking BOY about the screen. BOY even sneaks onto Google maps, stretching as far as one can travel in the real world.

None of the app's functions is entirely straightforward. For example, the Web browser does not allow you to enter a URL of your own choosing. Instead, it comes preloaded with five bookmarks-one of which is Google, which you can use indirectly to navigate to your favorite sites. Likewise, the music player does not allow you to browse your library; it asks you to listen to your songs in alphabetical order or shuffle through them randomly. Performing the most mundane tasks resembles a form of play.

Playing with BOY also generates results. Across the app, BOY's movements generate units called Hearts that can be transmitted to his counterpart, GIRL, a planetary traveler. Hearts cause GIRL to grow in length, edging her closer to her next destination. In the app, a map pinpoints all the users on the globe who have added to GIRL's growth. Her current target, Saturn, is some 400 million kilometers away-a distance that could take months, even a year, to traverse. That's a lot of work for mankind.

My guess is that Takahashi, who is also designing an experimental playground in Nottingham, England, wants us to see that life is not about striking the perfect balance between work and play. It's about seeing the playfulness inherent in our daily activities.

"People say that the world is in a bad state, but I don't think that we have to make any drastic changes," he says. "All we need to do is look at things from a different perspective to come up with solutions to make the world a better place."

Read more
]]> NNBA new iPhone app makes productivity fun and fun productive.
"Everyone is so busy, aren't they?"

As a designer at Namco Bandai Games, Keita Takahashi keeps busy devising new ways to entertain. With his latest creation, an iPhone application called Noby Noby Boy, Takahashi is looking beyond games. Now he wants to turn productivity on its head.

The app is named after a game Takahashi released last year on the PlayStation Network. At the time, Noby Noby Boy was criticized for abandoning structure and overt rules, which many consider the fundamental material of games. The iPhone app goes further: It attempts to remake the organizational tools that increasingly structure the world. "I think that people need to have a little fun even though they are busy with their jobs," Takahashi says. "With this app, I don't want people to be focused on anything. I simply want to tell people that they do not have to be serious all the time."

Swimming through the app is the protagonist of Takahashi's game, the wormlike character known as BOY. You are free to stretch and fling BOY's body, which feels akin to bouncing balls and ramming toy trucks and cars into each other. BOY, then, is a release from productivity. But he is also a foil, a floating question mark after the assumption that pocket devices such as the iPhone make our lives better. Like a second iPhone within your iPhone, Noby Noby Boy boasts among its features email, music playback, Google maps, picture- and note-taking, Web surfing, and a clock. Takahashi says the iPhone's functions have brought the Noby Noby Boy app closer to his original vision for the game than the final PlayStation 3 release.

Here's why: Notes are typed right onto BOY's lurching body; photos become randomly shaped objects for BOY to interact with; BOY himself points out the hours and minutes on the clock; every sent email includes a screen capture of BOY playing in the background; music streams out of a dancing robot whose arms and legs swing wildly, knocking BOY about the screen. BOY even sneaks onto Google maps, stretching as far as one can travel in the real world.

None of the app's functions is entirely straightforward. For example, the Web browser does not allow you to enter a URL of your own choosing. Instead, it comes preloaded with five bookmarks-one of which is Google, which you can use indirectly to navigate to your favorite sites. Likewise, the music player does not allow you to browse your library; it asks you to listen to your songs in alphabetical order or shuffle through them randomly. Performing the most mundane tasks resembles a form of play.

Playing with BOY also generates results. Across the app, BOY's movements generate units called Hearts that can be transmitted to his counterpart, GIRL, a planetary traveler. Hearts cause GIRL to grow in length, edging her closer to her next destination. In the app, a map pinpoints all the users on the globe who have added to GIRL's growth. Her current target, Saturn, is some 400 million kilometers away-a distance that could take months, even a year, to traverse. That's a lot of work for mankind.

My guess is that Takahashi, who is also designing an experimental playground in Nottingham, England, wants us to see that life is not about striking the perfect balance between work and play. It's about seeing the playfulness inherent in our daily activities.

"People say that the world is in a bad state, but I don't think that we have to make any drastic changes," he says. "All we need to do is look at things from a different perspective to come up with solutions to make the world a better place."

Read more
]]> Ryan Kuo Tue, 9 Mar 2010 15:00:57 PST <![CDATA[Guerrilla Gardening for Gamers]]> http://www.good.is/post/guerrilla-gardening-for-gamers/ http://www.good.is/post/guerrilla-gardening-for-gamers/ "The Earth laughs in flowers." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

In most videogames, plant life is merely party of the scenery-which is why I was surprised to find that in the new action shooter game Battlefield: Bad Company 2, players can actually knock down trees to clear the way for tanks.  It's not quite the model of conservation the Sierra Club has in mind, but at the very least it reminds us that plants are more than a prop.

Game designer Miguel Sternberg wants to take that a step further. In Guerrilla Gardening: Seeds of Revolution, General Bauhaus has removed all of the city's plant life and it's up to Molly Greenthumb to reclaim urban space in the name of nature. The game preview shows flowerbeds brightening up desolate town squares, public parks projects, and characters hiding behind trees to sneak past cops. Sternberg says that originally the idea stemmed from an interest in street art, but changed course when he read about a group of renegades covertly turning urban plots into flowerbeds. "I wanted to explore the relationship of public space and private space," he says.

Sternberg was one of the early founders of Capybara Games, which has gone on to gain renown for its successful Critter Crunch.  Wanting to step out on his own, he left to start Spooky Squid Games. Right now, the gardening game is still a prototype-about "half-way finished." Sternberg hopes to be able to sell Guerrilla Gardening on digital distribution platforms like Steam, Direct2Drive, and Xbox Live Arcade.

While Sternberg's game is decidedly lo-res, one of the benefits of the increase in graphical capabilities in games is the realism of plantlife. I had a friend who would often invite girls to his apartment to show them the remote African landscapes in Far Cry 2. To him, it was no different than a walk in the park or a sunset on the beach-you sit, look, and reflect. He saw the beauty on-screen as a worthy echo to places he didn't have immediate access to, and he wanted to share them with others.

Thatgamecompany's Flower shares the theme of reclamation with Guerrilla Gardening. In the downloadable game for PlayStation 3,  you control a flock of petals and turn fallow ground into lovely pastures of wildflowers. The game's final level sends you to an abandoned city which soon becomes overrun with plants: a scene from Alan Weisman's The World Without Us that projected the planet's reaction to mankind's disappearance.

Sternberg hasn't played Flower, but says he plans to. In fact, he only recently tried his hand at guerrilla gardening and signed up to do a project with the Toronto Public Space Committee. Thankfully, he was assigned to a detail close by. "It was a median at the end of my street," he says. It's probably not a bad idea for Sternberg to stay close to home. He's got a lot of work to do.

Read more
]]> "The Earth laughs in flowers." -Ralph Waldo Emerson

In most videogames, plant life is merely party of the scenery-which is why I was surprised to find that in the new action shooter game Battlefield: Bad Company 2, players can actually knock down trees to clear the way for tanks.  It's not quite the model of conservation the Sierra Club has in mind, but at the very least it reminds us that plants are more than a prop.

Game designer Miguel Sternberg wants to take that a step further. In Guerrilla Gardening: Seeds of Revolution, General Bauhaus has removed all of the city's plant life and it's up to Molly Greenthumb to reclaim urban space in the name of nature. The game preview shows flowerbeds brightening up desolate town squares, public parks projects, and characters hiding behind trees to sneak past cops. Sternberg says that originally the idea stemmed from an interest in street art, but changed course when he read about a group of renegades covertly turning urban plots into flowerbeds. "I wanted to explore the relationship of public space and private space," he says.

Sternberg was one of the early founders of Capybara Games, which has gone on to gain renown for its successful Critter Crunch.  Wanting to step out on his own, he left to start Spooky Squid Games. Right now, the gardening game is still a prototype-about "half-way finished." Sternberg hopes to be able to sell Guerrilla Gardening on digital distribution platforms like Steam, Direct2Drive, and Xbox Live Arcade.

While Sternberg's game is decidedly lo-res, one of the benefits of the increase in graphical capabilities in games is the realism of plantlife. I had a friend who would often invite girls to his apartment to show them the remote African landscapes in Far Cry 2. To him, it was no different than a walk in the park or a sunset on the beach-you sit, look, and reflect. He saw the beauty on-screen as a worthy echo to places he didn't have immediate access to, and he wanted to share them with others.

Thatgamecompany's Flower shares the theme of reclamation with Guerrilla Gardening. In the downloadable game for PlayStation 3,  you control a flock of petals and turn fallow ground into lovely pastures of wildflowers. The game's final level sends you to an abandoned city which soon becomes overrun with plants: a scene from Alan Weisman's The World Without Us that projected the planet's reaction to mankind's disappearance.

Sternberg hasn't played Flower, but says he plans to. In fact, he only recently tried his hand at guerrilla gardening and signed up to do a project with the Toronto Public Space Committee. Thankfully, he was assigned to a detail close by. "It was a median at the end of my street," he says. It's probably not a bad idea for Sternberg to stay close to home. He's got a lot of work to do.

Read more
]]> Jamin Warren Wed, 3 Mar 2010 14:30:08 PST <![CDATA[Videogames' Slow Move Toward Accessibility]]> http://www.good.is/post/videogames-slow-move-toward-accessibility/ http://www.good.is/post/videogames-slow-move-toward-accessibility/ killscreenFor people with disabilities, many videogames have long been off-limits. Times are changing, though.
"The continuing existence of unfair and unnecessary discrimination and prejudice denies people with disabilities the opportunity to compete on an equal basis and to pursue those opportunities for which our free society is justifiably famous." -American with Disabilities Act, 1990

When Stevie Wonder took the stage at last year's Spike Video Game Awards, the evening took an interesting turn. In a plea to the industry, Wonder challenged videogame developers to create more games for the disabled. Praising rhythm games for their wider appeal, he asked the crowd to follow that example and create games that can be played by everyone.

He had a strong case. Back in 1990, President Bush signed the American with Disabilities Act to protect those with disabilities from workplace discrimination. Since then, public spaces have become increasingly accessible, and many other forms of entertainment and media have found ways to include those with handicaps. Television shows have closed captioning and movie theaters are accessible by wheelchair. Even professional sports have their spinoffs.

But videogames rarely offer such accessibility. Controllers come in a single size, many games are sound-dependent (such as first-person shooters), and even more are useless unless you can see. In December, a petition was started by those with red-green color blindness to change Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which uses the problematic colors to distinguish teammates from enemies during multi-player play. Ben Gilbert, a writer for game website Joystiq who has said color blindness, notes that "I can think of about 20 other games that need a solution for this before MW2. How about every puzzle game ever made that depends on color matching-I'm looking at you especially, Super Puzzle Fighter, you heart breaker." (A community manager for Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward has noted to issue and promised to bring it up with the team.)

There are some signs of change afoot, mostly from the community of people with disabilities who love videogames. Mark Barlet founded AbleGamers after watching a friend with multiple sclerosis become frustrated with modern videogames. Barlet himself is disabled with a spinal cord injury. The site has since spun-off into a foundation and an industry outreach arm to show game developers how they can make their games more open for everyone.

These are small steps, but it's steps like these that create movement.

Read more]]> killscreenFor people with disabilities, many videogames have long been off-limits. Times are changing, though.
"The continuing existence of unfair and unnecessary discrimination and prejudice denies people with disabilities the opportunity to compete on an equal basis and to pursue those opportunities for which our free society is justifiably famous." -American with Disabilities Act, 1990

When Stevie Wonder took the stage at last year's Spike Video Game Awards, the evening took an interesting turn. In a plea to the industry, Wonder challenged videogame developers to create more games for the disabled. Praising rhythm games for their wider appeal, he asked the crowd to follow that example and create games that can be played by everyone.

He had a strong case. Back in 1990, President Bush signed the American with Disabilities Act to protect those with disabilities from workplace discrimination. Since then, public spaces have become increasingly accessible, and many other forms of entertainment and media have found ways to include those with handicaps. Television shows have closed captioning and movie theaters are accessible by wheelchair. Even professional sports have their spinoffs.

But videogames rarely offer such accessibility. Controllers come in a single size, many games are sound-dependent (such as first-person shooters), and even more are useless unless you can see. In December, a petition was started by those with red-green color blindness to change Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, which uses the problematic colors to distinguish teammates from enemies during multi-player play. Ben Gilbert, a writer for game website Joystiq who has said color blindness, notes that "I can think of about 20 other games that need a solution for this before MW2. How about every puzzle game ever made that depends on color matching-I'm looking at you especially, Super Puzzle Fighter, you heart breaker." (A community manager for Call of Duty developer Infinity Ward has noted to issue and promised to bring it up with the team.)

There are some signs of change afoot, mostly from the community of people with disabilities who love videogames. Mark Barlet founded AbleGamers after watching a friend with multiple sclerosis become frustrated with modern videogames. Barlet himself is disabled with a spinal cord injury. The site has since spun-off into a foundation and an industry outreach arm to show game developers how they can make their games more open for everyone.

These are small steps, but it's steps like these that create movement.

Read more]]> Jamin Warren Tue, 16 Feb 2010 17:00:44 PST <![CDATA[The Rise of High-quality Nonprofit Videogaming]]> http://www.good.is/post/the-rise-of-high-quality-nonprofit-videogaming/ http://www.good.is/post/the-rise-of-high-quality-nonprofit-videogaming/ chime_XBLA_OBG3_2A new nonprofit shows that well-designed games can also do the world some good.
"Good works are links that form a chain of love." -Mother Theresa

At a conference of the country's top advertising agencies in 1941, legendary salesman James Webb Young took the stage in Hot Springs, Arizona, to ask a very important question: The ink was still drying on the Atlantic Charter, which would serve as the Allied blueprint for World War II, and Madison Avenue wanted to know how it could help.

Producing such legendary taglines as "Loose Lips Sink Ships" and characters like Rosie the Riveter, the Council rallied Americans to support their troops. When the war had ended, they were renamed  the Advertising Council and ever since the nonprofit solicits the work of advertising agencies on behalf of nonprofit clients like the United Negro College Fund.

Martin de Ronde says he's never heard of Ad Council, but his new nonprofit, OneBigGame, is cut from the same cloth. Founded in 2006 by de Ronde after he left Guerrilla Games, the publisher works with developers to create products and then donates the proceeds to Save the Children and Starlight Children's Foundation. Developed by Zoë Mode, who popularized Sony's SingStar series, OneBigGame's first project, Chime, was released as a download for the Xbox 360.

But playing Chime, you wouldn't know the game was done as a philanthropic endeavor. Somewhere between the bright colors of Geometry Wars and the puzzle block placement of Tetris, Chime has players place blocks and attempt to create large quadrants to fill up the gameboard. The bigger the quadrants, the more you fill and the more points you get. The game is also melodic, with the backing tracks of artists like Philip Glass and Moby, who donated material pro-bono. High quality is OneBigGame's M.O.; they don't want products that feel cobbled together.

"It's an entrepreneurial charity," de Ronde says. "Rather than going out to the companies and asking for money, we're asking for a certain amount of time and creativity. That's far more interesting rather than making a donation." In addition to Chime, OneBigGame will be publishing new games from Charles Cecil, creator of the Broken Sword series, and Masaya Matsuura, father of the classic PlayStation franchise PaRappa the Rapper.

OneBigGame is an interesting approach at doing good through videogames. The "serious games" movement put political messages at the forefont, as with MTV's Darfur is Dying. But one of the prevailing critiques of serious games has been that they're not very well-designed. Justin Peters wrote a scathing review of serious games in Slate in 2007: "In taking the fun out of video games, companies like [serious gamemaker] Persuasive make them less alluring to people who love games and more alluring to people who don't," he wrote.  (I disagree with Peters's distinction that games must be "fun," but he seems to be using it as a proxy for "well-designed.")

Of course, social conscience and high-quality gameplay are not mutually exclusive, but it's exciting to see OneBigGame approach one part of the problem. By inspiring designers to think of themselves and as (indirect) agents of social change, they're influencing people who buy games like Chime.

Read more
]]> chime_XBLA_OBG3_2A new nonprofit shows that well-designed games can also do the world some good.
"Good works are links that form a chain of love." -Mother Theresa

At a conference of the country's top advertising agencies in 1941, legendary salesman James Webb Young took the stage in Hot Springs, Arizona, to ask a very important question: The ink was still drying on the Atlantic Charter, which would serve as the Allied blueprint for World War II, and Madison Avenue wanted to know how it could help.

Producing such legendary taglines as "Loose Lips Sink Ships" and characters like Rosie the Riveter, the Council rallied Americans to support their troops. When the war had ended, they were renamed  the Advertising Council and ever since the nonprofit solicits the work of advertising agencies on behalf of nonprofit clients like the United Negro College Fund.

Martin de Ronde says he's never heard of Ad Council, but his new nonprofit, OneBigGame, is cut from the same cloth. Founded in 2006 by de Ronde after he left Guerrilla Games, the publisher works with developers to create products and then donates the proceeds to Save the Children and Starlight Children's Foundation. Developed by Zoë Mode, who popularized Sony's SingStar series, OneBigGame's first project, Chime, was released as a download for the Xbox 360.

But playing Chime, you wouldn't know the game was done as a philanthropic endeavor. Somewhere between the bright colors of Geometry Wars and the puzzle block placement of Tetris, Chime has players place blocks and attempt to create large quadrants to fill up the gameboard. The bigger the quadrants, the more you fill and the more points you get. The game is also melodic, with the backing tracks of artists like Philip Glass and Moby, who donated material pro-bono. High quality is OneBigGame's M.O.; they don't want products that feel cobbled together.

"It's an entrepreneurial charity," de Ronde says. "Rather than going out to the companies and asking for money, we're asking for a certain amount of time and creativity. That's far more interesting rather than making a donation." In addition to Chime, OneBigGame will be publishing new games from Charles Cecil, creator of the Broken Sword series, and Masaya Matsuura, father of the classic PlayStation franchise PaRappa the Rapper.

OneBigGame is an interesting approach at doing good through videogames. The "serious games" movement put political messages at the forefont, as with MTV's Darfur is Dying. But one of the prevailing critiques of serious games has been that they're not very well-designed. Justin Peters wrote a scathing review of serious games in Slate in 2007: "In taking the fun out of video games, companies like [serious gamemaker] Persuasive make them less alluring to people who love games and more alluring to people who don't," he wrote.  (I disagree with Peters's distinction that games must be "fun," but he seems to be using it as a proxy for "well-designed.")

Of course, social conscience and high-quality gameplay are not mutually exclusive, but it's exciting to see OneBigGame approach one part of the problem. By inspiring designers to think of themselves and as (indirect) agents of social change, they're influencing people who buy games like Chime.

Read more
]]> Jamin Warren Tue, 9 Feb 2010 16:00:39 PST <![CDATA[Paying to Play ]]> http://www.good.is/post/paying-to-play/ http://www.good.is/post/paying-to-play/ 1265052593-farmville-windmill-animal-crops-profitable1How some videogames are rallying for Haiti—and why others aren't.

The expansive relief effort to the earthquake in Haiti has been extraordinary. As with other major relief efforts, actors, artists, and musicians have deployed their talents to raise money for their causes: George Clooney and Wyclef Jean helped raise more than $50 million during a telethon with performances by Keyes, Jay-Z, Bono, and Chris Martin; Radiohead played a benefit in Los Angeles; several Tony award winners are holding a fundraiser in New York. These efforts make sense: celebrities using their particular talents to rally funds. But what are videogame companies doing to aid the crisis?

The response so far has been mixed. I reached out to a bunch of companies to see what they were doing, and only a few responded. Sony donated items to IGN's telethon, for example, and a spokesman said there was a "general corporate push." LucasArts "made a sizable donation and encouraged employees to contribute to the relief effort."

One area that has started to do that is the world of social games and massively multiplayer online games. "FarmVille" and "Mafia Wars" creator Zynga offered special in-game items that would translate into donations for the relief effort, and PopCap did the same with an entire day's worth of sales. The members of Hello Kitty Online are also rallying to collect donations. Sony Online Entertainment raised $25,000 in three days through in-game items for games like "EverQuest."

What is it about those games that have seem some of the most interesting (and most successful) donation drives?

Ian Bogost, an associate professor at Georgia Tech, says that social games and MMOs already have trained players to purchase digital goods to participate, so adding an additional item isn't a stretch. "Zynga is really smart, and they're looking for every angle to take advantage of what they've built for themselves."  Bogost, who was on a panel at the Game Developers Conference last year on the lack of election games, notes that in general videogame developers are "apolitical." The lack of broader videogame initiatives, he says, stems from that general ideological position.

Part of the problem is one of visibility. There are very few widely famous videogame designers who could influence the public the way a celebrity in another medium does. Videogames also take time to develop and implement: A song can be written in a day, but getting something on Xbox Live is not so easy. (Though, actually, Xbox Live will have donation tab that will allow users to give money to the Red Cross for another week or so.) Of course, there are exceptions. Bungie, developers of the Halo franchise, offered T-shirts for sale and donated $100 for every player who logged on to play online with a certain set of colors on their characters' outfits.  But Bungie's approach is rare.

One simple way to show support for Haiti could be bringing visibility to the country through the games themselves. (The Onion joked "Massive Earthquake Reveals Entire Island Civilization Called 'Haiti'.") We've seen our fair share of revolutionary figures in games, so how about a game involving the life of Toussaint Louverture? That would be amazing.

Image from Farmville.

]]> 1265052593-farmville-windmill-animal-crops-profitable1How some videogames are rallying for Haiti—and why others aren't.

The expansive relief effort to the earthquake in Haiti has been extraordinary. As with other major relief efforts, actors, artists, and musicians have deployed their talents to raise money for their causes: George Clooney and Wyclef Jean helped raise more than $50 million during a telethon with performances by Keyes, Jay-Z, Bono, and Chris Martin; Radiohead played a benefit in Los Angeles; several Tony award winners are holding a fundraiser in New York. These efforts make sense: celebrities using their particular talents to rally funds. But what are videogame companies doing to aid the crisis?

The response so far has been mixed. I reached out to a bunch of companies to see what they were doing, and only a few responded. Sony donated items to IGN's telethon, for example, and a spokesman said there was a "general corporate push." LucasArts "made a sizable donation and encouraged employees to contribute to the relief effort."

One area that has started to do that is the world of social games and massively multiplayer online games. "FarmVille" and "Mafia Wars" creator Zynga offered special in-game items that would translate into donations for the relief effort, and PopCap did the same with an entire day's worth of sales. The members of Hello Kitty Online are also rallying to collect donations. Sony Online Entertainment raised $25,000 in three days through in-game items for games like "EverQuest."

What is it about those games that have seem some of the most interesting (and most successful) donation drives?

Ian Bogost, an associate professor at Georgia Tech, says that social games and MMOs already have trained players to purchase digital goods to participate, so adding an additional item isn't a stretch. "Zynga is really smart, and they're looking for every angle to take advantage of what they've built for themselves."  Bogost, who was on a panel at the Game Developers Conference last year on the lack of election games, notes that in general videogame developers are "apolitical." The lack of broader videogame initiatives, he says, stems from that general ideological position.

Part of the problem is one of visibility. There are very few widely famous videogame designers who could influence the public the way a celebrity in another medium does. Videogames also take time to develop and implement: A song can be written in a day, but getting something on Xbox Live is not so easy. (Though, actually, Xbox Live will have donation tab that will allow users to give money to the Red Cross for another week or so.) Of course, there are exceptions. Bungie, developers of the Halo franchise, offered T-shirts for sale and donated $100 for every player who logged on to play online with a certain set of colors on their characters' outfits.  But Bungie's approach is rare.

One simple way to show support for Haiti could be bringing visibility to the country through the games themselves. (The Onion joked "Massive Earthquake Reveals Entire Island Civilization Called 'Haiti'.") We've seen our fair share of revolutionary figures in games, so how about a game involving the life of Toussaint Louverture? That would be amazing.

Image from Farmville.

]]> Jamin Warren Mon, 1 Feb 2010 16:30:00 PST <![CDATA[Bite-sized Gaming]]> http://www.good.is/post/bite-sized-gaming/ http://www.good.is/post/bite-sized-gaming/ eb ss 1A short-and-sweet game for those of us who can't stay up all night playing videogames anymore.
"A Mayfly flies a single day / The daylight dies and darkness grows." -Mary Ann Hoberman

What I remember most about videogames when I was a child was the length. They were all-night affairs as I would hunker down with a few friends, a Bigfoot pizza from Little Caesars, and an issue of Nintendo Power. We'd play Final Fantasy or Adventure Island until the wee morning hours and then flit back to our respective homes.

A lot has changed for me: I cannot find a Little Caesars anywhere near my home, and at the end of the day, I just don't have the time. I'm married now and have to schedule my videogame time around my wife's working hours. Weekends are spent with friends and family who, for the most part, aren't keen on watching me play games. But while perusing the entrants for the Independent Games Festival, there was one game that caught my eye: Enviro-Bear 2010 Operation: Hibernation.

The gameplay is simple enough. You are a bear and you drive around in a car to collect fruits and berries before winter comes. That's it. It lasts five minutes before the snow falls and the screen fades to black with "Game Over." The game's shortness is partly intentional.  Justin Smith, the designer, says it was designed for IGF and he never thought it would catch on. After being laid off from his programming job in Vancouver, the 33-year-old built Enviro-Bear in his free time.

What ‘s wonderful is that there is now a market for the bite-sized games such as Smith's; he sells it for 99 cents on the iTunes App Store.  "The 99-cent model is perfect for a lot of indie developers, where you just want to get whatever weird message across," Smith says. "You can say ‘Here's a few levels' rather than being guilty for putting in 20 hours of gameplay."

Games like Smith's are the new mayflies of the videogame world-lasting less than a day before passing into the night.

Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.


Read more
]]> eb ss 1A short-and-sweet game for those of us who can't stay up all night playing videogames anymore.
"A Mayfly flies a single day / The daylight dies and darkness grows." -Mary Ann Hoberman

What I remember most about videogames when I was a child was the length. They were all-night affairs as I would hunker down with a few friends, a Bigfoot pizza from Little Caesars, and an issue of Nintendo Power. We'd play Final Fantasy or Adventure Island until the wee morning hours and then flit back to our respective homes.

A lot has changed for me: I cannot find a Little Caesars anywhere near my home, and at the end of the day, I just don't have the time. I'm married now and have to schedule my videogame time around my wife's working hours. Weekends are spent with friends and family who, for the most part, aren't keen on watching me play games. But while perusing the entrants for the Independent Games Festival, there was one game that caught my eye: Enviro-Bear 2010 Operation: Hibernation.

The gameplay is simple enough. You are a bear and you drive around in a car to collect fruits and berries before winter comes. That's it. It lasts five minutes before the snow falls and the screen fades to black with "Game Over." The game's shortness is partly intentional.  Justin Smith, the designer, says it was designed for IGF and he never thought it would catch on. After being laid off from his programming job in Vancouver, the 33-year-old built Enviro-Bear in his free time.

What ‘s wonderful is that there is now a market for the bite-sized games such as Smith's; he sells it for 99 cents on the iTunes App Store.  "The 99-cent model is perfect for a lot of indie developers, where you just want to get whatever weird message across," Smith says. "You can say ‘Here's a few levels' rather than being guilty for putting in 20 hours of gameplay."

Games like Smith's are the new mayflies of the videogame world-lasting less than a day before passing into the night.

Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.


Read more
]]> Jamin Warren Tue, 26 Jan 2010 05:00:23 PST <![CDATA[Landscapes from Virtual Worlds]]> http://www.good.is/post/landscapes-from-virtual-worlds/ http://www.good.is/post/landscapes-from-virtual-worlds/

James Barnett makes fauvist paintings of picturesque videogame environments.



"I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things." –Henri Matisse



In 1905, a group of young painters brought an unexpected display to the third Salon d'Automne in Paris, which was becoming a premier venue for new developments in 20th century painting and sculpture. Led by the 35-year-old Henri Matisse (one of the Salon's founders), the collection of canvases were so simple in their designs and so offensively bright in color that one critic labeled the artists as "fauvres" or "wild beasts." Inspired by cave drawings and children's paintings, the movement was short-lived, barely lasting the decade, but was immortalized for its examination of color and its naked, passionate approach. Fortunately, the field has one more entrant-James Barnett.



Bored after the collapse of the internet economy several years ago, the Arizona resident was looking for something to pass the time since work as an information architect had dried up. So he and his friends decided to throw an art show in a friend's basement. They bought black turtlenecks and wine and painted whatever they thought would make sense. "Every single painting sold," Barnett says. The modest success of the "opening" turned Barnett on to painting and, more recently, photography. But while flipping through a book of the aforementioned Fauvists, Barnett had a realization. The pastoral compositions of painters like Matisse and Braque found a correspondent in something he already knew: videogames.



barnett2



Barnett has been playing games for years, but now, he had a new direction. He had just bought a new video card to play the newest rounds of games and was amazed at the compositions he saw inside those virtual worlds. "The afternoon stuff in Call of Duty was just beautiful," he says. "You just sort of wander around." And wander around he did as he searched high and low for the proper landscapes to turn into paintings.



Barnett calls his work "fauxvism"-partly as a nod to Matisse and his ilk, but also as a play on his own self-taught status. He was attracted to the style for its use of color. "In my head, Matisse is a sort of cartoonist. There's an outline and color in the outline. There's not a lot of modeling and it's pretty flat colors." But applied to the verisimilitude of videogame environments, the result is something both familiar and eerie.  The wreckage town of Megaton from Fallout 3 and the Brooklyn Bridge of Grand Theft Auto IV take on a new tone through Barnett's eyes.



What's fascinating about the work is the potential it has for videogame developers. Many are deeply interested in creating virtual worlds that look exactly like the present one, but in fact, a layer of abstraction adds new depth to videogame environments. Barnett says the big problem is that videogame art directors sublimate their own voice in pursuit of realism. That's a mistake. "I like a cocktail napkin drawing better than a mirror. I like the energy where you can see the painter's hand as opposed to the still image."



Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.



Images courtesy of James Barnett





]]>

James Barnett makes fauvist paintings of picturesque videogame environments.



"I don't paint things. I only paint the difference between things." –Henri Matisse



In 1905, a group of young painters brought an unexpected display to the third Salon d'Automne in Paris, which was becoming a premier venue for new developments in 20th century painting and sculpture. Led by the 35-year-old Henri Matisse (one of the Salon's founders), the collection of canvases were so simple in their designs and so offensively bright in color that one critic labeled the artists as "fauvres" or "wild beasts." Inspired by cave drawings and children's paintings, the movement was short-lived, barely lasting the decade, but was immortalized for its examination of color and its naked, passionate approach. Fortunately, the field has one more entrant-James Barnett.



Bored after the collapse of the internet economy several years ago, the Arizona resident was looking for something to pass the time since work as an information architect had dried up. So he and his friends decided to throw an art show in a friend's basement. They bought black turtlenecks and wine and painted whatever they thought would make sense. "Every single painting sold," Barnett says. The modest success of the "opening" turned Barnett on to painting and, more recently, photography. But while flipping through a book of the aforementioned Fauvists, Barnett had a realization. The pastoral compositions of painters like Matisse and Braque found a correspondent in something he already knew: videogames.



barnett2



Barnett has been playing games for years, but now, he had a new direction. He had just bought a new video card to play the newest rounds of games and was amazed at the compositions he saw inside those virtual worlds. "The afternoon stuff in Call of Duty was just beautiful," he says. "You just sort of wander around." And wander around he did as he searched high and low for the proper landscapes to turn into paintings.



Barnett calls his work "fauxvism"-partly as a nod to Matisse and his ilk, but also as a play on his own self-taught status. He was attracted to the style for its use of color. "In my head, Matisse is a sort of cartoonist. There's an outline and color in the outline. There's not a lot of modeling and it's pretty flat colors." But applied to the verisimilitude of videogame environments, the result is something both familiar and eerie.  The wreckage town of Megaton from Fallout 3 and the Brooklyn Bridge of Grand Theft Auto IV take on a new tone through Barnett's eyes.



What's fascinating about the work is the potential it has for videogame developers. Many are deeply interested in creating virtual worlds that look exactly like the present one, but in fact, a layer of abstraction adds new depth to videogame environments. Barnett says the big problem is that videogame art directors sublimate their own voice in pursuit of realism. That's a mistake. "I like a cocktail napkin drawing better than a mirror. I like the energy where you can see the painter's hand as opposed to the still image."



Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.



Images courtesy of James Barnett





]]> Jamin Warren Tue, 12 Jan 2010 05:00:09 PST <![CDATA[A Videogame to Fight Cubicle Malaise]]> http://www.good.is/post/a-videogame-to-fight-cubicle-malaise/ http://www.good.is/post/a-videogame-to-fight-cubicle-malaise/

Paolo Pedercini's experimental game, "Every Day The Same Dream," challenges players to escape the dreariness of the working world.



When the curtain fell at last, it was an act of mercy. -Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road



The thankless malaise of office life is no mystery. In fact, the last year bubbled with depictions of the dreary inner workings of American workplaces. Sam Mendes' adaptation of Revolutionary Road and its suburban miseries was in lockstep with the Matthew Weiner's Mad Men on AMC. Both works, to varying degrees, present the potential dreariness of cubicle life-Frank Wheeler stays with a job he loathes while Mad Men's Peggy Olson desperately seeks affirmation in an ad agency where her work often goes unappreciated.



Game designer Paolo Pedercini shares Yates and Weiner's often pessimistic views of the workplace. "That was the fear of my life," he says of his time at a technical college in his home country of Italy as he worried about entering a repetitive career. (He subsequently switched to the greener pastures of art school.) His newest project, "Every Day The Same Dream," attempts to make those fears of the working world manifest and stems from a comic he drew more than ten years ago. The game's unnamed central character wakes up, gets dressed, drives to work, and sits at his cubicle-unless you help him make some changes. There are clues sprinkled throughout "Everyday" to help you turn your grey-suited avatar into a changed man.



Pedercini admits that "the greyness of everyday life" isn't a new concept, but argues that games are uniquely positioned to address the theme. Now a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University, he says that he wanted to use a concept common in games-dying-as a new interactive way to address the concept of workplace ennui. "I wanted to take advantage of the fact that you generate actions many times so that there's repeating and recursion. That makes you learn about the game. Because you physically die you learn how to solve a certain problem."



"Every Day" was developed for the Experimental Gameplay Project, headed by former Electronic Arts designer Kyle Gray. The goal of the project is "rapid prototyping" that focuses on building a new game mechanic around a particular theme in a short period of time. Pedercini had a week to create the game and opted for simplicity, using sparse notes of color to guide players throughout the game.



However, the game isn't merely an abstraction. Back in his hometown of Milan, Pedercini was involved with the EuroMayDay movement, a collection of activists and organizers. In particular, their target is "precarity" or the use by employers of casual, intermittent and temporary work that can result in low pay, lessened rights, and no conventional contracts. As an extension of his real life, the 28-year-old's works for his studio Molle Industria fall in line with the "persuasive games" or "serious games" movement that hopes to create videogames that challenge players to question existing social norms and conditions.



"I'm really concerned with the new generation of labor," he says.



Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.


]]>

Paolo Pedercini's experimental game, "Every Day The Same Dream," challenges players to escape the dreariness of the working world.



When the curtain fell at last, it was an act of mercy. -Richard Yates, Revolutionary Road



The thankless malaise of office life is no mystery. In fact, the last year bubbled with depictions of the dreary inner workings of American workplaces. Sam Mendes' adaptation of Revolutionary Road and its suburban miseries was in lockstep with the Matthew Weiner's Mad Men on AMC. Both works, to varying degrees, present the potential dreariness of cubicle life-Frank Wheeler stays with a job he loathes while Mad Men's Peggy Olson desperately seeks affirmation in an ad agency where her work often goes unappreciated.



Game designer Paolo Pedercini shares Yates and Weiner's often pessimistic views of the workplace. "That was the fear of my life," he says of his time at a technical college in his home country of Italy as he worried about entering a repetitive career. (He subsequently switched to the greener pastures of art school.) His newest project, "Every Day The Same Dream," attempts to make those fears of the working world manifest and stems from a comic he drew more than ten years ago. The game's unnamed central character wakes up, gets dressed, drives to work, and sits at his cubicle-unless you help him make some changes. There are clues sprinkled throughout "Everyday" to help you turn your grey-suited avatar into a changed man.



Pedercini admits that "the greyness of everyday life" isn't a new concept, but argues that games are uniquely positioned to address the theme. Now a visiting professor at Carnegie Mellon University, he says that he wanted to use a concept common in games-dying-as a new interactive way to address the concept of workplace ennui. "I wanted to take advantage of the fact that you generate actions many times so that there's repeating and recursion. That makes you learn about the game. Because you physically die you learn how to solve a certain problem."



"Every Day" was developed for the Experimental Gameplay Project, headed by former Electronic Arts designer Kyle Gray. The goal of the project is "rapid prototyping" that focuses on building a new game mechanic around a particular theme in a short period of time. Pedercini had a week to create the game and opted for simplicity, using sparse notes of color to guide players throughout the game.



However, the game isn't merely an abstraction. Back in his hometown of Milan, Pedercini was involved with the EuroMayDay movement, a collection of activists and organizers. In particular, their target is "precarity" or the use by employers of casual, intermittent and temporary work that can result in low pay, lessened rights, and no conventional contracts. As an extension of his real life, the 28-year-old's works for his studio Molle Industria fall in line with the "persuasive games" or "serious games" movement that hopes to create videogames that challenge players to question existing social norms and conditions.



"I'm really concerned with the new generation of labor," he says.



Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.


]]> Jamin Warren Mon, 4 Jan 2010 14:07:52 PST <![CDATA[Advancing the Art and Science of Virtual Crowds]]> http://www.good.is/post/advancing-the-art-and-science-of-virtual-crowds/ http://www.good.is/post/advancing-the-art-and-science-of-virtual-crowds/

How Assassin's Creed 2 captures the rhythms of the masses



Every crowd has a silver lining. –P.T. Barnum



Every morning when Chris Weiler walks the 20 minutes from his home to work in downtown Montreal, he keeps his eyes wide open. Every gesture, every nuance, every stutter-step-he captures them all and makes a mental note. Sometimes he toys with other walkers' heads by tailing them and watching their reactions. "Sometimes they'll switch directions," he says. The specialty for the technical director of level design for videogame publisher Ubisoft is crowds.



Much like ringmaster Barnum was able to understand the contours and rhythms of the masses, Weiler and his team are similarly astute observers of human behavior. One of the defining characteristics of the game Assassin's Creed II, which was released this month, is the movement of the dozens of non-playable characters (known as NPCs in gamespeak) that dot the streets and plazas of late 15th-century Italy. You play favored son Ezio Auditore da Firenze-who turns assassin when his family is murdered-and the crowds play a crucial role as they aid your subterfuge throughout the game. The crowds serve as Ezio's unwitting accomplice and he exploits the bustling streets as cover for his various attacks.



To make his digital humans behave like real ones, Weiler tasked his team to focus on the small things. They added something called a "cycle breaker" to interrupt the way that NPCs would walk.  Every few minutes, a character would cough or make a hand gestures, just a real humans do.  They also implemented something called a "look axis" system which would trigger NPCs to stare at particular things. Sometimes they're fixated on Ezio, sometimes at a landmark, sometimes they even stare at each other. Characters also react to Ezio depending on what he's doing at the time. If he has his sword, they'll cower in fear or flee; if he's running, they'll turn their head at attention. For the first time in the series, NPCs also react to each other. When a guard passes another guard, they'll stop to talk, but if he passes a courtesan (that era's version of a prostitute), his agenda takes a turn for the, um, lascivious.



One of the hardest challenges for Weiler and his team was something called "pathfinding." Humans naturally do this whenever they interact in large groups. We pick a certain route and navigate our way through, predicting what those in front of us will do and adjusting our speeds along the way. Anyone who's shuffled through the throngs of SoHo or bustle of Venice Beach does so unknowingly, sliding past meanderers and slipping through crowds. With NPCs, it's not so easy. They often clumsily bump into each other and in the first Assassin's Creed, Weiner says traffic jams were a big problem. "When people move at different speeds, just like in traffic, they create jams as they catch up and slow down." Those pile-ups would grow exponentially and ripple outward as each NPC clogged another's movement.



Why does that happen? Last year, Japanese researchers released a video of  "shockwave jams" which showed how traffic can grind to halt even if motorists are driving in a circle at a constant speed. NPCs are no different, and to fix the problem, Weiner programmed them to be mindful "drivers" and allow faster walkers to pass. They also widened the streets to allow the denizens a bit more room to maneuver.



Now, the big problem for Weiner is how to stop noticing fellow walkers. "It'll be with me for the rest of my life."



Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.


]]>

How Assassin's Creed 2 captures the rhythms of the masses



Every crowd has a silver lining. –P.T. Barnum



Every morning when Chris Weiler walks the 20 minutes from his home to work in downtown Montreal, he keeps his eyes wide open. Every gesture, every nuance, every stutter-step-he captures them all and makes a mental note. Sometimes he toys with other walkers' heads by tailing them and watching their reactions. "Sometimes they'll switch directions," he says. The specialty for the technical director of level design for videogame publisher Ubisoft is crowds.



Much like ringmaster Barnum was able to understand the contours and rhythms of the masses, Weiler and his team are similarly astute observers of human behavior. One of the defining characteristics of the game Assassin's Creed II, which was released this month, is the movement of the dozens of non-playable characters (known as NPCs in gamespeak) that dot the streets and plazas of late 15th-century Italy. You play favored son Ezio Auditore da Firenze-who turns assassin when his family is murdered-and the crowds play a crucial role as they aid your subterfuge throughout the game. The crowds serve as Ezio's unwitting accomplice and he exploits the bustling streets as cover for his various attacks.



To make his digital humans behave like real ones, Weiler tasked his team to focus on the small things. They added something called a "cycle breaker" to interrupt the way that NPCs would walk.  Every few minutes, a character would cough or make a hand gestures, just a real humans do.  They also implemented something called a "look axis" system which would trigger NPCs to stare at particular things. Sometimes they're fixated on Ezio, sometimes at a landmark, sometimes they even stare at each other. Characters also react to Ezio depending on what he's doing at the time. If he has his sword, they'll cower in fear or flee; if he's running, they'll turn their head at attention. For the first time in the series, NPCs also react to each other. When a guard passes another guard, they'll stop to talk, but if he passes a courtesan (that era's version of a prostitute), his agenda takes a turn for the, um, lascivious.



One of the hardest challenges for Weiler and his team was something called "pathfinding." Humans naturally do this whenever they interact in large groups. We pick a certain route and navigate our way through, predicting what those in front of us will do and adjusting our speeds along the way. Anyone who's shuffled through the throngs of SoHo or bustle of Venice Beach does so unknowingly, sliding past meanderers and slipping through crowds. With NPCs, it's not so easy. They often clumsily bump into each other and in the first Assassin's Creed, Weiner says traffic jams were a big problem. "When people move at different speeds, just like in traffic, they create jams as they catch up and slow down." Those pile-ups would grow exponentially and ripple outward as each NPC clogged another's movement.



Why does that happen? Last year, Japanese researchers released a video of  "shockwave jams" which showed how traffic can grind to halt even if motorists are driving in a circle at a constant speed. NPCs are no different, and to fix the problem, Weiner programmed them to be mindful "drivers" and allow faster walkers to pass. They also widened the streets to allow the denizens a bit more room to maneuver.



Now, the big problem for Weiner is how to stop noticing fellow walkers. "It'll be with me for the rest of my life."



Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.


]]> Jamin Warren Mon, 21 Dec 2009 11:00:41 PST <![CDATA[Playing with Color]]> http://www.good.is/post/playing-with-color/ http://www.good.is/post/playing-with-color/

A crop of current videogames is exploring new chromatic possibilities.



"Seek the strongest color effect possible. The content is of no importance." -Henri Matisse



Hopefully this admission will not be anathema to you, but I only recently purchased an HDTV for my home. Part of my reluctance to join the one-third of Americans in the high-definition era was cost: I recently left my job at the Wall Street Journal for the lucrative world of freelancing. But the other piece was philosophical. I didn't want to succumb to the seductive pitches of videogame publishers that breezily pushed graphical fidelity as the most important consideration in understanding the medium. (Sony's new commercials for the holiday season are a prime example.)



This week, I had a slight change of heart. No, I still don't care about granularity or beads of CGI sweat on rippling biceps. But I have developed a new-found appreciation for the importance of color. Games, of course, have been in color for some time. "Galaxian" holds the honor of the first videogame in true RGB color, but since then color has been a descriptive feature. Now, a handful of games are using color as a defining trait.



"The Saboteur," released by Electronic Arts this week, tracks an Irish racecar-driver-turned-apostate who attempts to sabotage the German occupying forces in Paris. The WWII setting, of course, has been tackled dozens of times. ("You can almost hear people's eyes rolling into their heads," says Tom French, the game's lead game director for Pandemic.) But the game's approach to the turbulent time period relies on a novel use of color.



In the game, the occupied areas are shaded black and white with strong notes of red on the Nazi insignia. As you liberate each of the Parisian arrondissements, the areas return to their previous cheery demeanor and flood with color. The shift not only indicates the change in mood, but also serves as a guidepost for the player. Colorful areas are safe; the monochromatic regions are dangerous. "Black and white sucks the life and removes the mood of the world," French says.



Getting the right shades was a long process. "I don't speak art," French says. "But I knew when something was a little bit dark and needed to pop. It's like I could say ‘Choose Pantone 483.'"  They cycled through several different shades of red before settling on one they thought worked best.



This new exploration of color can be seen in other games as well. In "the Unfinished Swan," you shoot color from a gun to illuminate the canvas of the world. In the tech demo for the game, the player's environment is completely white; projectiles of paint give the world its shape and allow you to navigate the terrain. In last year's "Mirror's Edge," color served as a signal to lead you through a world dominated by a coercive government. DICE, the developer, deliberately widens your field of vision (much like prey such as deer and antelope). This allows you to see a panorama but also makes everything very flat. That perspective shift forces you to fixate on individual colors. Reds serve as your allies and direct the eye to where the protagonist must go.



Like Matisse, videogame designers have strong chromatic sensibilities and are just as serious about technique and aesthetics as the legendary Fauvist painter. Games like "The Saboteur" won't pay for my television, but, at the very least, they add some much needed flavor to my new apartment.



Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.


]]>

A crop of current videogames is exploring new chromatic possibilities.



"Seek the strongest color effect possible. The content is of no importance." -Henri Matisse



Hopefully this admission will not be anathema to you, but I only recently purchased an HDTV for my home. Part of my reluctance to join the one-third of Americans in the high-definition era was cost: I recently left my job at the Wall Street Journal for the lucrative world of freelancing. But the other piece was philosophical. I didn't want to succumb to the seductive pitches of videogame publishers that breezily pushed graphical fidelity as the most important consideration in understanding the medium. (Sony's new commercials for the holiday season are a prime example.)



This week, I had a slight change of heart. No, I still don't care about granularity or beads of CGI sweat on rippling biceps. But I have developed a new-found appreciation for the importance of color. Games, of course, have been in color for some time. "Galaxian" holds the honor of the first videogame in true RGB color, but since then color has been a descriptive feature. Now, a handful of games are using color as a defining trait.



"The Saboteur," released by Electronic Arts this week, tracks an Irish racecar-driver-turned-apostate who attempts to sabotage the German occupying forces in Paris. The WWII setting, of course, has been tackled dozens of times. ("You can almost hear people's eyes rolling into their heads," says Tom French, the game's lead game director for Pandemic.) But the game's approach to the turbulent time period relies on a novel use of color.



In the game, the occupied areas are shaded black and white with strong notes of red on the Nazi insignia. As you liberate each of the Parisian arrondissements, the areas return to their previous cheery demeanor and flood with color. The shift not only indicates the change in mood, but also serves as a guidepost for the player. Colorful areas are safe; the monochromatic regions are dangerous. "Black and white sucks the life and removes the mood of the world," French says.



Getting the right shades was a long process. "I don't speak art," French says. "But I knew when something was a little bit dark and needed to pop. It's like I could say ‘Choose Pantone 483.'"  They cycled through several different shades of red before settling on one they thought worked best.



This new exploration of color can be seen in other games as well. In "the Unfinished Swan," you shoot color from a gun to illuminate the canvas of the world. In the tech demo for the game, the player's environment is completely white; projectiles of paint give the world its shape and allow you to navigate the terrain. In last year's "Mirror's Edge," color served as a signal to lead you through a world dominated by a coercive government. DICE, the developer, deliberately widens your field of vision (much like prey such as deer and antelope). This allows you to see a panorama but also makes everything very flat. That perspective shift forces you to fixate on individual colors. Reds serve as your allies and direct the eye to where the protagonist must go.



Like Matisse, videogame designers have strong chromatic sensibilities and are just as serious about technique and aesthetics as the legendary Fauvist painter. Games like "The Saboteur" won't pay for my television, but, at the very least, they add some much needed flavor to my new apartment.



Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.


]]> Jamin Warren Thu, 10 Dec 2009 07:00:10 PST <![CDATA[Post-Katrina New Orleans as "Fictional Space"]]> http://www.good.is/post/post-katrina-new-orleans-as-fictional-space/ http://www.good.is/post/post-katrina-new-orleans-as-fictional-space/ Videogame developers often shy away from putting real places in their games. That's perhaps for good reason. In 2007, Insomniac Games provoked the ire of the Church of England for using the Manchester Cathedral during one of the firefight sequences in Resistance: Fall of Man. Never mind that the game's title makes direct reference to the Christian doctrine of original sin nor the fact that film directors have long been demolishing holy sites without a whiff of controversy. For director Roland Emmerich, flattening the sacred in movies has become a matter of sport.



The potential backlash didn't scare off developer Valve Software from choosing the deep South, including a beleaguered New Orleans, as the site for the zombie shooter game Left 4 Dead 2. The previous title in the franchise made no mention of a particular place, but Erik Johnson, producer for the game, says that choosing a specific location was crucial to understanding who the four survivors of a zombie outbreak actually are. "We wanted there to be progression through a real place," he says.



Although a prominent setting in other creative mediums, the South is frequently neglected as a location for games. The industry has yet to find its Faulkner, but Johnson and his team chose the same noir setting that animates HBO's True Blood. "The geography, the plant life and the look of that part of the country lend themselves to gameplay. One area is in this hot, humid swamp and we chance you through that spooky place." Valve sent several artists to the region to capture the Greek revival, American Colonial and Victorian style that dot the area.



Part of what makes the finale in New Orleans so evocative is that we've seen that city in the midst of chaos. The images of the aftermath of Katrina are an integral piece of the public's understanding of what the city is and what it means to be from there. That's the burden of game developers using a real place-their audience already carries with them memories of how that world should and could be. Game theorists refer to that aspect of playing games as the "fictional space," the place where imagination and the computer-generated images meet. New Orleans has a particular resonance that Johnson didn't want to be confused or muddled. "With setting, people inherently know, even if they can't explain it to you, when it looks wrong."



Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.


]]> Videogame developers often shy away from putting real places in their games. That's perhaps for good reason. In 2007, Insomniac Games provoked the ire of the Church of England for using the Manchester Cathedral during one of the firefight sequences in Resistance: Fall of Man. Never mind that the game's title makes direct reference to the Christian doctrine of original sin nor the fact that film directors have long been demolishing holy sites without a whiff of controversy. For director Roland Emmerich, flattening the sacred in movies has become a matter of sport.



The potential backlash didn't scare off developer Valve Software from choosing the deep South, including a beleaguered New Orleans, as the site for the zombie shooter game Left 4 Dead 2. The previous title in the franchise made no mention of a particular place, but Erik Johnson, producer for the game, says that choosing a specific location was crucial to understanding who the four survivors of a zombie outbreak actually are. "We wanted there to be progression through a real place," he says.



Although a prominent setting in other creative mediums, the South is frequently neglected as a location for games. The industry has yet to find its Faulkner, but Johnson and his team chose the same noir setting that animates HBO's True Blood. "The geography, the plant life and the look of that part of the country lend themselves to gameplay. One area is in this hot, humid swamp and we chance you through that spooky place." Valve sent several artists to the region to capture the Greek revival, American Colonial and Victorian style that dot the area.



Part of what makes the finale in New Orleans so evocative is that we've seen that city in the midst of chaos. The images of the aftermath of Katrina are an integral piece of the public's understanding of what the city is and what it means to be from there. That's the burden of game developers using a real place-their audience already carries with them memories of how that world should and could be. Game theorists refer to that aspect of playing games as the "fictional space," the place where imagination and the computer-generated images meet. New Orleans has a particular resonance that Johnson didn't want to be confused or muddled. "With setting, people inherently know, even if they can't explain it to you, when it looks wrong."



Jamin Brophy-Warren is a freelance writer living in New Haven, Connecticut. He is a former arts and entertainment reporter for the Wall Street Journal, a contributor at Slate, and editor of the forthcoming gaming magazine Kill Screen.


]]> Jamin Warren Thu, 3 Dec 2009 08:00:16 PST