Youth Radio - Topic: Video Games

The Frontier of Play: IndieCade 2011's Best New Video Games

rgee — Tue, 11 Oct 2011 16:44:59 -0500

Hundreds came from all around the world to descend on Culver City, California this weekend for IndieCade -- the international festival of independent games. Known within the industry as the “Sundance of video games,” the festival’s purview extends far beyond the screen and embraces experimentation in games across the spectrum of play. Mind bending gravity puzzles, games that emphasize empathy, and twists on playground classics were all represented.

Johann Sebastian Joust

It was always possible to find where Johann Sebastian Joust (Technology and Impact Awards) was playing, day or night. All one had to do was look for a large crowd of cheering spectators and the sound of Bach sped up and processed.

Joust (for short) is a physical group game played with Sony’s Playstation Move controller. Players each hold one of the controllers, whose distinctive feature is a brightly lit orb at the top. The objective is to unbalance the other players so that the vibration-sensitive controller registers a “hit”. Players must move cautiously to avoid tagging themselves out while the music is subdued, and strike their opponents quickly when the Bach speeds up.

“What’s important is that the audience, just by watching a round or two, really knows what’s going on,” says creator Douglas Wilson -- an American PhD student in Copenhagen, who made Joust with his game collective . Wilson says that when he started out making “face to face” games using the Nintendo WiiMote, he was thinking in terms of classic video games like Street Fighter. Those kinds of complex systems didn’t yield the results he was looking for, so the group changed tactics.

“Once we started thinking in terms of more like folk games instead of computer games we started making better stuff,” says Wilson. “Simple, really audience friendly games.” Wilson’s studies involve digging into “contemporary art and old folk games” where he pulls lessons from “the history of play and creativity,” and applies them to game design.

It’s designers like Wilson who exemplify the spirit of IndieCade; modern day Renaissance men and women who bring together the arts and sciences to remake the world through play. Of course, all that effort wouldn’t be worth much if the games don’t actually get into the hands of players around the globe. “In another world where the Move controller sold really well I’d like to do a whole collection,” Wilson tells me he has lots of Move prototypes.

Unfortunately for Wilson, the Move was not the sales success that Sony wanted. He says that collection is “probably not worth my time, but to do Joust really quick and sell it for like 5 dollars on the Playstation Network? Yeah we’ll probably do that.”

The Bridge

At just 22-years-old Ty Taylor is part of the next generation of IndieCade’s all-star designers. Taylor describes his game, The Bridge, as Isaac Newton meets M.C. Esher. Players move their character around through a puzzle world they can rotate, changing the orientation of gravity.

The art, rendered in beautiful black and white shaded pencils by Mario Castaneda, gives the game a tone reminiscent to indie game darling Braid -- a crossover hit that Taylor acknowledges as an inspiration. “I love the 'Aha!' moment of solving a puzzle,” says Taylor, who poured up to 80 hours a week for a year into the game as his masters thesis in Computer Science.

We asked Taylor if he was surprised to get into IndieCade. “I would say I’m humbled. Not to be unmodest, but I do appreciate the quality of this game. I appreciate this game for being among peers. I look around and I’m surrounded by great games. This is my first festival and I’m just starting to get used to that I’m one of these great game makers now.... this started as a college project and now it’s up with the big boys. This is the best of the best of indie development. I’m among them and I accept that. So I wouldn’t say that I’m surprised. I put the work in that’s for sure.”

Taylor needn't be modest. The game captures that “aha moment” beautifully, with Castaneda’s animation acting as a lure for the visually inclined indie game connoisseur.

Humans Vs Zombies

Everywhere you turned in Downtown Culver City you could see them. Teenagers and middle school kids with orange bandanas tied around their arms, legs, or heads. The city was the playing field for an update on “tag,” and a twist on the classic college campus game “Assassin," known as Humans vs. Zombies. Groups of humans (those wearing the bandanas/strips of fabric on their arms or legs) were armed only with rolled up socks and did “battle” with packs of zombies (bandana on the head).

It seemed like every kid in Culver was playing the game, even if it meant ignoring the rest of what IndieCade had to offer. Created by a group of friends at college, it’s a safe bet that Culver City will be the site of future -- if smaller scaled -- zombie apocalypses for at least a few more weekends.

WAY

If you wanted proof that gaming is “growing up” you need to look no further than Chris Bell’s Way (Developer's Choice Award) -- a cooperative platform puzzle video game that elicited high praise, and elated looks from other designers.

“I’m kinda overflowing with love,” says Robin Arnott, whose game Deep Sea we told you about during E3, “I didn’t know who I was playing against and the limited kind of communication you can have... I feel like I grew a bond with whoever this stranger was I was playing with. And as soon as the game finished I just wanted to go give them a giant hug. And that’s what we did.”

“In this game, one player can see things one way and the other can see it another,” says designer Bell, “and they have to communicate back to the other player to overcome the obstacles we provide them.” Joust’s Wilson, who also uses the word “love” to express his feeling for the game, explains: “For me there was this 'holy crap' moment. It's the first time where you really kinda have to collaborate. So I was in a doorway that let me see certain invisible platforms in his world, right.

But the first time this happened, he had no way of knowing that there were invisible platforms that he had to use, and I was like ‘oh wait’: those special platforms I can see I bet he can’t see. I have to tell him about them somehow.” With no voice chat, the players must rely on the puppetry and emotion gestures that are built into the game to communicate. Players liken it to creating or discovering a language together over the course of their play with an anonymous partner.

In the final version of this game that other player may be anywhere around the world. At IndieCade, the unknown partner was a few tables away, leading to those actual end of game hugs. Bell says the game “uses the metaphor ‘we see the world differently.’ How I perceive the universe to be is very different than you. It’s important that we share that in order to understand the world together for each other.”

Bell’s Way shares this theme with That Game Company’s Journey, a game that’s gotten a fair amount of buzz in the enthusiast press since being announced by indie game design hero Jenova Chen. “When Journey was announced,” says Bell “it was more tragic for me than great because I was, ’Oh that’s the game that I want to make, I want to take games that you play to connect two people intimately and really make them care and appreciate them.”

Way says once he got over his initial disappointment, he spoke to Chen about his work telling him: “I’ve made a game that’s similar in spirit. I’d love to work at your studio and now I work there.”

Both Way and Journey should reach players at home next year, signaling a potential shift in the the way that video gamers play with each other after years of online interaction being dominated by the fiercely competitive first person shooter genre. That gamers would get bored with the endless repetition of head-shots and kill streaks was inevitable as the hobby grew. That one of the heirs to the throne of gaming is a style of play that emphasizes communication and empathy is the kind of dramatic turn that only happens in stories. Stories and games.

All photos: Noah J. Nelson (@areyouthatguy) Check out our additional, full photo gallery roundup post.

Video Games: Landmark Supreme Court Ruling Protects Game Makers

rgee — Tue, 28 Jun 2011 19:06:03 -0500

By Noah Nelson, Turnstyle News

In a landmark ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States today, the Court struck down a California law that would have created a ban on selling violent video games to kids. Writing for a plurality of justices in a 7-2 ruling Justice Antonin Scalia noted that.

Reading Dante is unquestionably more cultured and intellectually edifying than playing Mortal Kombat. But these cultural and intellectual differences are not constitutional ones. Crudely violent video games, tawdry TV shows, and cheap novels and magazines are no less forms of speech than The Divine Comedy, and restrictions upon them must survive strict scrutiny... [even] if we can see in them “nothing of any possible value to society . . . , they are as much entitled to the protection of free speech as the best of literature.” Winters v. New York, 333 U. S. 507, 510 (1948).

While there is a lot of digital ink being spilled over the fact that the ruling means stores can sell violent video games to children, let’s get something clear right from the start: it was never really about that. This was a fight for the survival of the industry, which the Electronic Software Association noted in it’s brief to the court (summarized here http://www.theesa.com/policy/ESA_Brief_Summation.pdf):

“[T]he Act could result in self-imposed restrictions on the game content made available to adults. A retailer who faces substantial civil penalties in the event that a clerk intentionally or negligently sells a proscribed game to a minor may simply not carry the game in the first place. Likewise, video game creators will be induced to create games that do not contain expression that risks running afoul of the Act, further narrowing the range of expression available to adults.” (pp. 54- 55)

This was the chilling effect that the industry feared above all else, that a government enforced sales ban to minors would have prevented sales to adults as well. That an “M” rating in games would become the equivalent of an “X” in film: an unmarketable proposition. While the ruling ends the current debate over whether or not games are protected as free speech under the first amendment (spoiler: they are), it doesn’t necessarily protect the games industry completely from legislative attack. The Supreme Court found that the California law was too vague in setting up the restrictions, which may be interpreted by some crusading legislators as a signal to try again. [Via Kotaku, Gamasutra]

More Than Just A Game

jbrown — Fri, 10 Dec 2010 22:41:20 -0600

I feel very passionate about video games. Lately, that has been a hobby for me... just staying home all day on weekends when I don't have anything to do. I just turn my game system on and play it. Recently my favorite video game genre has been sports. The games are very interesting and captivating, because of the constant improvements on graphics and their real life
adaptations. My new favorite game to play is 2k11.It’s a NBA based basketball game. My favorite part of the game is that basketball legend Michael Jordan has been featured for the first time ever. I like how you can play other people online for a match. The reason I like to play video games is because they are a time killer and they are actually fun to me, and I like to be competitive towards other people when I am playing online. The 2K franchise has been around for a couple of years now. They have a good online community, but the servers for the games are kind of laggy, which means that when you are playing somebody online the game tends to slow up which causes it to glitch. To some people it is their life, but to me it has been just a recreational thing. I like to play video games but I feel passionate about it at the same time.

Playboy's Video Game

denise — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 17:46:10 -0500

Now Playboy is hoping to be known for more than breasts--like killing. They're getting into the online gaming game.

The company announced today that it will join forces with Bigpoint, an online gaming company, to help launch A online multiplayer game called Poisonville.

“Poisonville is an action-oriented, Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) that puts gamers into a fictional U.S. city where crime and corruption rule the streets. Players must complete a series of missions in order to counteract corruption, regain respect, and rebuild their reputations. Throughout the game, players will be encounter beautiful, Playboy-caliber women. In full-3D, players can drive a variety of vehicles, engage in player vs. player combat, and compete in ongoing competitions designed to stimulate gang warfare – all through a standard web browser.”

via Joystiq

Surprisingly the game will glorify violence rather then sex. Check out the game for your self below

Maker's New Math: Edmund McMillen's Indie Game Dev Cred

noah — Tue, 25 May 2010 14:08:25 -0500

On this episode of Maker's New Math we talk with indie video game developer Edmund McMillen. He's been a mainstay on the Indie Game scene for years now with games like Aether and Gish, and is on the verge of a mainstream breakthrough with his next game. Super Meat Boy, which will be making its game console debut this Fall on the Wii and XBox 360 platforms.

Edmund talks frankly about risking it all to make a living from doing what you love, which is at the heart of the Maker's New Math series.

Also: check out this interview with Edmund in the trailer for "Indie Game: The Movie".

(download mp3)

Check out this gameplay trailer for Super Meat Boy:

Links:

Team Meat: Super Meat Boy's Website

Edmund McMillen's website

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Throw us a "like" on Facebook.

While you're at it, you can stalk Noah (@areyouthatguy) and Brandon (@1o_a_K) on Twitter as well.

Indie Game: The Movie Looks Super Sweet

noah — Wed, 19 May 2010 18:56:41 -0500

You gotta love your gorgeous looking documentaries of geeky subject matter. In the fine tradition of Helvetica and Objectified comes Indie Game: The Movie.

Now this little gem came up on the radar from a couple of the video game blogs I follow, but what really piqued my interest was the teaser trailer featuring indie gaming auteur Edmund McMillan. You see we're interviewing McMillen next week on Maker's New Math and it was a real kick to see the profile interview with him in the teaser. (We're going to be talkin' business with Mr. McMillen, one of the creators of the games Aether, Gish, and the upcoming Super Meat Boy who wrote this fantastic article on indie game development Do's and Don'ts for GamePro.)

Indie Game: The Movie is doing a round of fund raising on Kickstarter, and has already manged to get pledges for over $9000 towards a fund raising goal of $15,000 in under a week. If you've been following Maker's New Math you're familiar with Kickstarter and this kind of story is a testament to the power of the new business model. If you haven't been following our podcast you can catch our interview with Kickstarter's Fred Beneson here.

Previously:

Maker's New Math: Robert Ashley's Well Wasted Life

noah — Tue, 18 May 2010 14:21:38 -0500

For this episode of Maker's New Math we spoke with games journalist Robert Ashley of the podcast A Life Well Wasted. Robert's podcast is billed as an "internet radio show about videogames and the people who love them". Each episode is truly a labor of love, as Robert delves into a specific theme and sets out from there on a series of interlocking interviews that take him across the country to talk with video game makers and the hobby's biggest fans. It is unique in the world of video games podcasts, a genre whose format is dominated by the news/sports round table format, in that Robert pours hour upon hour into the production of the show. As part of that effort Robert uses music from his other "free culture" project the band I Come To Shanghai, which released its debut album under a Creative Commons/Name Your Own Price license.

Robert partially finances the show with the help of artist Olly Moss who makes limited edition posters for each episode of the podcast (the central element of Episode 4's "Artists, Fans & Engineers" poster can be seen above). The posters always sell-out. Not bad for a show that started when Robert found himself facing the end of one of the magazines he wrote for- Electronic Games Monthly- and decided to interview his colleagues about the death of a magazine they had all grown up reading and gone on to write for.

Listen:

(download mp3)

Links:

A Life Well Wasted

I Come To Shanghai

Subscribe now:

in a reader via Feedburner

Throw us a "like" on Facebook.

While you're at it, you can stalk Noah (@areyouthatguy) and Brandon (@1o_a_K) on Twitter as well.

Bad Company Better Than Modern Warfare

patrick — Fri, 30 Apr 2010 19:31:44 -0500

Well for those of you who don’t know is that MW2 is Modern Warfare 2 which is the Call of Duty 6, which has a history of having the best first person shooters ps games. In the fps category BattleField 2 is a sequel of the original Bad Company, which was a pretty fun game. Which do you think is better MW2 or battle field 2? Well, this argument has been going on for a long time ever since Battlefield has came out with its release back in March 2nd, 2010 and MW2 back in November 10th, 2009. So the question is which is better? Well in this review you will find out which of the two is better.

Well to top it off MW2 has the best graphics available in the fps market right now. BF2 has average graphics like any other game in the fps market but it has amazing background. The thing that MW2 doesn’t have is morale type of game play an brotherhood type of feeling everytime you’re in battle and there is a bit of comedy. You have a Sargent, who basically has to take care of his men from harm from doing dumb mistakes all the time. You haven’t seen that type of game play in a while.

First let’s talk about the weapons and its game play. MW2 has the best weapons like the scar-h and auto torrent. But BF2 has more variety of weapons like from piloting uavs to even driving a tank and having a variety of weapons at your disposal. I’m not saying MW2 doesn’t have all these things its just that in BF2 you can use them anytime not like in MW2. In MW2, you have to get killing sprees to get what you want which a lot of players are struggling with during the game.

Now time to get into the campaign in these two games. First MW2 has one of the shortest campaigns in the fps because there are short missions. In BF2 you have these missions where all be in the same area and will do these crazy fire fights where you are involved in not like MW2. In MW2 you’re just another soldier put to the side to shoot. But the multi-player, in both can be really competitive. MW2 has a great multi- player but BF2 just tops it off with tanks, helicopters, and eaves because you get to operate them an control them not like MW2 they operate it for you. Another good feature is that you can respond with your squad. You can be revived if you have a medical player. This also brings me to the types of players that BF2 has. There are medical, sniper and etc. And you actually get to play there role unlike MW2 where you just roam around and that’s it. Battlefield 2 is bringing something new to the table which is good for fps fans who want to play something different. Well to top this off Bad Company 2 comes out on top because there’s more stuff to do and you’re more involved in the game. The two are competitive in the market but they just can’t compete that much because there so different in many ways like always in the gaming market the newer the better the older the average which brings me to my conclusion.

Growing Up with Video Games

rpereira — Fri, 15 Jan 2010 17:15:49 -0600

When I was five years old, I used to watch my brother play video games. He would never let me in on the fun. Like a lot of grownups, he thought I was too young to play.

Once I turned nine, my luck changed. My brother got a great video game called “Hey You Pikachu!” The coolest part was the mic that came with it. The point of the game was to talk into the mic and tell Pikachu what to do.

Adults might find the game silly and pointless, but I learned a lot -- how to communicate -- and playing games was more interactive than school. I was hooked.

When I got to middle school I got into games like Mario Party. Those were fun because people would play together. No matter who won or lost, we all cheered each other on. A lot of people think that videogames make young people antisocial and violent, but it all depends on how often you play them and at what age.

As for me, it’s going to be a long time before I say “Game Over.”

Previously:

Bayonetta: Too Sexy?

noah — Tue, 12 Jan 2010 17:03:29 -0600

Don't let the librarian glasses fool ya, this isn't another Sarah Palin post. This here's about Sega's new action game Bayonetta and the debate that's picking up in the games press about whether the game is sexist in it's portrayal of the female form.

The first round of reviews- by mostly male video game critics- shuttled back and forth between praise for the game's controls and general design insanity and hand-wringing over the cartoonish sexuality of the main character. Bayonetta herself- a gun toting witch who fights "Angels" using medieval torture devices on occasion- makes a Barbie doll look like a realistic depiction of a woman's body and then adds about ten layers of camp. (Japanese game creator Hideki Kamiya has never been known for or restraint see: Devil May Cry.) That hand-wringing leaves the impression that male video game reviewers don't want to be caught with... actually, let's not use that metaphor.Let's just say the trend seems to be that guy game reviewers don't want to be seen as being too enthusiastic about Bayonetta for the WRONG REASONS.

A NEW CHALLENGER ENTERS THE FRAY. (After the jump.)

That would be Leigh Alexander, news director of game industry go-to news site Gamasutra, and arguably the highest profile woman in games journalism. Ms. Alexander jumped into the mix with an editorial for the resurgent GamePro magazine:

Bayonetta takes the video game sexy woman stereotype from object to subject, and it's tremendously empowering. The title character uses the mantle of her sexuality as a power source. Between Bayonetta and her equally fierce rival, Jeane, it's a women's world -- the boys just play in it. The Umbra Witches aren't to be messed with. With this unique theme, the game itself is an artistic representation of the concept that female sexuality is its own kind of weapon. This stylized love letter to femininity is signed and sealed with all of the game's tiny details, from the kiss-shaped aiming targets to the subtle grace of Bayonetta's butterfly-shaped shadow.

But no would-be controversy would be worth its weight in pixels without a little counter-point action. Stepping up to bat is former 1UP staffer and frequent gaming blog contributor Tiffany Chow:

I think it's still important to consider that this is still a game made by men, from the male perspective, for the male perspective, which is why so many of the cinematics seem awfully, well, porny. The fact that the gameplay and characterization of Bayonetta is such a spectacle in this way leaves it hard for me to interpret her as someone to cheer on as she crushes monsters' necks clamped between her thighs.

Responding to a DIFFERENT objection to her GamePro piece, Ms. Alexander tackles her status as "female gamer":

I know a lot of people hate my writing because I am often defending sexuality; I am accused of pandering to my male readership. Maybe I am. We've all gotta work, right? But I still maintain I don't especially care about gender issues more than any other facet of media criticism. These are simply the articles of mine that get the most traction; this is the use others most commonly have for me. It's not my natural instinct.

Now we'd be remiss for not pointing out the irony that Ms. Alexander's personal blog is titled "Sexy Videogameland"... but the discussion itself
- and the way it is being conducted- is proof that the culture around video games has really come of age. Not like that. HENTAI! In the sense that rational adults are debating the role of sexuality in media without devolving into frothing moralistic stances.

Then again, cable news hasn't caught wind of this yet. Give it time.

(Shout out to N'Gai Croal for linking to Tiffany Chow's piece.)

Previously: