My Games Design

It really has been ages since I last used this blog. Good news is I have finished the thesis! Viva passed, minor corrections and the final submission due at the start of Sept :-) I will make sure to post a link to it once the final version has been approved. The last few months have been stupidly busy - I also started a new job at UCLIC - but I have managed to get some game-playing in. There are some thoughts I'd like to get down about those soon but for now I just wanted to post a video of my friend Rob Farrow presenting a paper we wrote together at the Philosophy and Computer Games conference earlier this year. There's some points he makes about meaning and choice that I'd like to think about more - particularly in relation to Skyrim and Mass Effect 3. But for now, here's "In The Game'? Embodied Subjectivity in Gaming Environments". Thanks Rob :-) UPDATE: We also had a longer journal article published in Philosophy & Technology , which you can find...

Thanks to Costas again for sending me a link to a fascinating blog that is looking at what happens when you decide to play a homeless family in The Sims 3 (see pic below of Kev and his daughter Alice, created by Robin Burkinsaw ). While it's pretty interesting in itself, it reminded me of some of Gonzalo Frasca's work which discusses Augusto Boal's Theatre of the Oppressed in relation to video game design and how this could be used to encourage critical thinking. In an article on the same topic (based on this thesis ) he discusses a hypothetical, open source version of the original Sims that would allow players to have much more control over character creation (which seems to have be part of the latest one). He argues that this control would allow players to create characters with the traits they want and gives an example of someone playing this version of the game and comparing the effects of these different traits. His main argument seems to be that by reducing im...

I finally finished Portal . It's a first person action/puzzle game, where an AI called GLaDOS challenges you to get through each of the test chambers through the use of a portal gun (which allows you to create a connection between two different locations in 3D space). Oh, and you are promised cake when you complete all the trials. I borrowed it ages ago from the library, and meant to complete a lot sooner but kept getting annoyed with certain puzzles and taking weeks off before trying them again. Now I’m well aware that a lot of people out there thought Portal was a piece of cake (pardon the pun…) and it only took them a day or something to get through the game. If anything, that’s an important part of why I just didn't give up on it entirely after the first time I got stuck – I wasn’t going to let this “easy” game beat me. But you see the problem wasn’t that I couldn’t solve the puzzles, it was that I had trouble putting my solutions in practice. I’ve never really played first...

I've recently had a look at Endless Ocean on the Wii, and it's proved to be an interesting change. First off, it manages to put you into some sort of trance like state by making you feel like you could actually be underwater (whilst somehow managing to keep dry). The graphics are obviously key to this experience (and perhaps playing it on a 32inch TV) but I think the music is quite important too. Tycho from Penny Arcade puts it well when he writes: "The rhythm of the scuba gear itself is sufficiently hypnotic, but they offer up musical selections in parallel: there is a warbling sea witch in this game whose voice can drown men. When we dive, I believe we dive in search of her." As you progress in the game, you can unlock further similar tracks but you can also play music of your own from an SD card you can plug into the Wii. It is probably best to find something more chilled out to swim around too though as the game is so relaxed it might be a bit disconcerting to ...