
Friday, July 30, 2010
OOOooo

Thursday, July 29, 2010
Samus Croft



Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Confirmation Bias

Tuesday, July 27, 2010
R-T-Esses

But it's been a long time, and I look forward to checking it out, particularly the single-player campaign. Oh, and the cinematics. Drool.
Monday, July 26, 2010
Saturday, July 24, 2010
P-Day?
I just realized that no update went up on Friday. Here in Utah, the locals celebrate Pioneer Day, and because Jen had the day off, I was in a similar mindset. Anyway, happy P-Day, even if you have no investment innit.
Thursday, July 22, 2010
Mario?

Wednesday, July 21, 2010
Heavy Rain, Pt.7: Final Thoughts

There were times that the control had me yelling at my TV in frustration, completely yanked out of the deeper experience I had moments before, but the game is important because it shows how simple gameplay mechanics juxtaposed with context-sensitivity can involve you in a character. It shows how high production forks in story can help make moral choices extremely meaningful. And it raises interesting questions about the nature of its story, and how well the illusion of consequence can be pulled off when the range of emotion is much wider, as it is in games like Mass Effect.

Tuesday, July 20, 2010
Heavy Rain, Pt.6: Tweaks
Here are some quick reactions on how control might be improved, without understanding the limitations of the game's development.
Quicktime Icons
The game pastes quicktime events over objects in the game as you near them to show you what you can do, and overall the approach seemed improved from Indigo Prophecy, but it was still often difficult to tell what action an abstract motion was correlated with. Am I drinking orange juice or closing the fridge? I don't know, even though my character would.
Descriptions appear with actions when they are thoughts around my head, so why not "Close," "O.J.," and "Beer" in the fridge interface? If screen real estate with multiple options is a problem, let me use the camera to "focus" on a particular icon and accompany that with text.
Thinking Aloud
A system for hearing your own thoughts was an interesting convention that could have helped my personal knowledge of the world, but the mechanics of the system were occasionally vague when using the system was important. The game never explains that you sometimes need to think something near another character in order to make a branch of action appear. Also, there was a few times in the game where dialogue choices via thoughts appeared wherein either the selection or button was too difficult to read to make the choice I wanted within the timeframe given.
Visibility seems like a matter of tuning alone, but if actions become available after thinking something, then have related icons flash in the screen after you think them. For example, I think about feeding my son, and an icon flashes near him. I go over and talk. After our chat, icons flash in the kitchen near the objects I use to prepare dinner. A brief icon flash is way less of a immersion deal-breaker than playing a character that doesn't know how to feed his son a damned microwave dinner.
Driving Your Human
You are propelled forward in a walk by holding R2, and it sucks. The left analog stick is obviously more intuitive, and the character happened to move around like a tank anyway; very unresponsive controls.
If keeping it on a trigger is absolutely necessary, at least make it so that holding the trigger turns on a "ready-to-walk" mode (instead of "walking" mode) and then move in the direction you want with the stick. In avatar control, the animation really should compensate to player intent. If I want to change directions, make me move in that direction instantly, and let the system interpolate.
It was a shame control ever got in the way of immersion, and I would love to see these things addressed somehow, if another game like Heavy Rain is ever released. (I hope so!)

The game pastes quicktime events over objects in the game as you near them to show you what you can do, and overall the approach seemed improved from Indigo Prophecy, but it was still often difficult to tell what action an abstract motion was correlated with. Am I drinking orange juice or closing the fridge? I don't know, even though my character would.
Descriptions appear with actions when they are thoughts around my head, so why not "Close," "O.J.," and "Beer" in the fridge interface? If screen real estate with multiple options is a problem, let me use the camera to "focus" on a particular icon and accompany that with text.
Thinking Aloud

Visibility seems like a matter of tuning alone, but if actions become available after thinking something, then have related icons flash in the screen after you think them. For example, I think about feeding my son, and an icon flashes near him. I go over and talk. After our chat, icons flash in the kitchen near the objects I use to prepare dinner. A brief icon flash is way less of a immersion deal-breaker than playing a character that doesn't know how to feed his son a damned microwave dinner.

You are propelled forward in a walk by holding R2, and it sucks. The left analog stick is obviously more intuitive, and the character happened to move around like a tank anyway; very unresponsive controls.
If keeping it on a trigger is absolutely necessary, at least make it so that holding the trigger turns on a "ready-to-walk" mode (instead of "walking" mode) and then move in the direction you want with the stick. In avatar control, the animation really should compensate to player intent. If I want to change directions, make me move in that direction instantly, and let the system interpolate.
It was a shame control ever got in the way of immersion, and I would love to see these things addressed somehow, if another game like Heavy Rain is ever released. (I hope so!)
Monday, July 19, 2010
Sigh
Friday, July 16, 2010
Heavy Rain, Pt.5: Controls
SPOILERS AHEAD
Perhaps the oddest thing about Heavy Rain was the juxtaposition of moments where immersion was outstanding with those moments where it immersion was utterly broken. When things broke down, it was a combined problem of control abstraction and lack of information about the character you play.
Consider the following examples:
It was interesting that even though the Dragon's Lair approach to connecting you with the characters lives was mechanically minimal, having them all be context sensitive and appropriate to each scene made them enough of a connection to absorb me. However, when they became unintuitive obstacles to perfectly reasonable and actionable intent, it was amazing how rapidly my immersion died.
Next, some brainstorming about control fixes.

Consider the following examples:
You need to keep track of your son, and suddenly worry as he begins to run off. You are in the middle of purchasing a balloon, however, and need to pull out your wallet quickly to pay the vendor. Four icons appear showing different quicktime-event-styled actions, and you fumble around from pocket to pocket, trying random icons until you succeed. The entire time, you are screaming bloody murder because you want to look after your son but have no idea where you put your own goddamned wallet.
Your wife comes home and asks you to help out. You want to! She says to pull out some dinner plates. You look around and don't notice the plates anywhere. In frustration you start looking around wondering where the hell anything is because it's your own house but you're completely clueless to its contents. After a moment, your wife complains about your performance.
After losing your older son, the younger one is distant and depressed. Your wife has left you. You want to make your life better, and are intent on doing good by your wife and son, so you look at the list of things you must do for him (e.g., feed him dinner, etc.) and at what time, to make sure everything is humming. It's time for him to eat, so you open the fridge. Different icons appear, but all they do is drink orange juice, beer, or close the fridge. Fail. Time is flying by in game-time (i.e., at a minute a second or so) while you accidentally get drunk. No! You try going to the microwave. No icons. The cupboard? No icons. You try using the game's "thought" system for a hint, and think out loud that your son is hungry. Great, thanks. While you fail at this simplest of tasks, you had no idea that you had to talk to your son to initialize the event, and only after the scripted animations from the last event are totally complete (e.g., he finishes walking back to the couch for more TV). It sucks when as a character, you want to be a good father, but you can't, because you can't mechanically figure out how to cook a microwave damned dinner.

Next, some brainstorming about control fixes.
Thursday, July 15, 2010
Heavy Rain, Pt.4: Voyeurism
SPOILERS AHEAD
In the same scene where Madison was introduced, there was a shower scene. The developer's comment about Heavy Rain being an adult game about adults (and so big whoop) is understandable, but I noted a disconnect because as a player, the scene was a bit voyeuristic, but my character just wanted trying to get some relaxation so she could sleep. At first, this made me wonder if the decision of including nudity was misguided, but later, I had second thoughts.
In a much later scene, I was given the option to striptease a creepy club owner as Madison to get information. Story cues push the entire scenario towards unease, but the voyeur component was still a possible consideration. However, because all was revealed in a mundane context earlier, voyeurism was far from my mind, and I went out of my way to get the information some other way. Would I have played differently without that earlier scene, and disrupted my immersion with more important emotional stakes? I wonder.
Next up, why controls sometimes made me hate playing Heavy Rain.


Next up, why controls sometimes made me hate playing Heavy Rain.
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
Heavy Rain, Pt.3: Decision, Decisions
SPOILERS AHEAD
The story of Heavy Rain worked because my choices mattered, and because they were constantly being saved. The game had an impressive web of branches based on both choices and execution that greatly altered the course of the story, and the fact that the game autosaved progress gave them genuine consequence. Without autosaving, I believe the sense of risk in choice would have probably been reduced.
Hearing about some of the ranges of success (no one dies) and failure (everyone dies) made me wonder how relevant Heavy Rain's theme was to your choices. If the story were feel-good, would choices ever seem to have as much weight, because failure still led to a happy ending? And if the range went from feel-good to downer, would the narrative seem less consistent? As it is, telling a story with different shades of unease, even in success, was a great way to set up having choices that matter. Heavy, indeed.
As a game fan and designer, I'm interested more in emotion more than agency, but I can't deny how agency heightened the emotion. The production cost of this approach seems high, and the amount of game that must be made and that most players will miss would be difficult for me to swallow, but playing the part of Ethan making a horrible decision to either shoot a man or save the life of my son was more powerful than that the same situation ever could be in a film for me. To some extent, unlike film, it was the life of my child on the line, and not just a character I empathized with, and without a choice, the anguish would certainly be lessened. Up next, a quick comment about the use of nudity.

Hearing about some of the ranges of success (no one dies) and failure (everyone dies) made me wonder how relevant Heavy Rain's theme was to your choices. If the story were feel-good, would choices ever seem to have as much weight, because failure still led to a happy ending? And if the range went from feel-good to downer, would the narrative seem less consistent? As it is, telling a story with different shades of unease, even in success, was a great way to set up having choices that matter. Heavy, indeed.

Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Heavy Rain, Pt.2: Story
SPOILERS AHEAD
When Heavy Rain shined, it really shined. I can't think of another another game that had me so freaked out during moment-to-moment decisions. What made it so compelling? I was immersed in the story and my decisions mattered.
You begin as Ethan, and the game was a difficult start because of control disconnects, but once those settled down, I enjoyed his arc. Very little connected me to Madison to start, but once she became involved in Ethan's life, I thought the interaction was great. Norman was perhaps the least interesting since his character arc seemed more situational (drug addiction) than emotional but I may have an incomplete view of the character since he died on me. And Scott was a perfectly lovable oaf.
Twists like the identity of the killer were fun, and I enjoyed the notion that Ethan might be torturing himself and kidnapped his own son, even though I couldn't believe it. But perhaps the best part of the story was the ratcheting of my tests as Ethan, going from being willing to hurt myself, to dismember myself, to kill someone else, to kill myself. Forcing me to react emotionally to these situations had me in knots at times. But other games have good stories without stressing me out. Up next, a comment on the real engine behind the emotion.

You begin as Ethan, and the game was a difficult start because of control disconnects, but once those settled down, I enjoyed his arc. Very little connected me to Madison to start, but once she became involved in Ethan's life, I thought the interaction was great. Norman was perhaps the least interesting since his character arc seemed more situational (drug addiction) than emotional but I may have an incomplete view of the character since he died on me. And Scott was a perfectly lovable oaf.

Monday, July 12, 2010
Heavy Rain, Pt.1: Expectations
After Indigo Prophecy, I was curious how Heavy Rain might improve the "interactive narrative" approach to gaming that the games' creator was after, and I have to admit that my hopes weren't that high. Though I played Indigo Prophecy long ago, I still remember that it it had interesting moments (e.g., I loved the tension in the game opener with the split screen camera showing me, standing over someone I had just murdered in the bathroom, and a cop entering the building to take a leak) but that quicktime events seemed utterly disconnected from what was going on in the screen, killing any real sense of interaction between me and the character, and that the game ending sorta petered out in a weird direction, as though the dev team ran out of production time to complete it. As a result, my hopes weren't that high.
Heavy Rain turned out to be an amazing experience that pushed some boundaries of emotion and immersion in really interesting ways, when it wasn't completely pissing me off with awful controls. Fortunately, that wasn't too often. Stay tuned for more thoughts, starting with some of the things that worked.
Heavy Rain turned out to be an amazing experience that pushed some boundaries of emotion and immersion in really interesting ways, when it wasn't completely pissing me off with awful controls. Fortunately, that wasn't too often. Stay tuned for more thoughts, starting with some of the things that worked.
Friday, July 9, 2010
And Next
All the E3 commentary was a bit lagged, but hopefully next week will be some fun writing, with some thoughts on Heavy Rain and Super Mario Galaxy 2 incoming.
Thursday, July 8, 2010
E3'10 Rambles: Ubistuff

Wednesday, July 7, 2010
E3'10 Rambles: Kirby

Tuesday, July 6, 2010
E3'10 Rambles: Nintendo Press Conf


And I long for more. More than I want to have fun and feel compelled to complete a Metroid or Zelda game, I want to have fun and become Samus or Link, and feel what they feel! Immersion before addiction. I wish, selfishly, that the most successful console manufacturer cared more about that.

Nintendo games -- with accessible themes, fun, and addiction -- feel like family movies, romantic comedies, or action flicks. Microsoft games -- with cutting edge graphics and scripted events -- feel like big, dumb, summer movies that only rarely transcend spectacle and provide powerful emotions beyond "supernatural skill" or "fear." And Sony games -- supporting things like Last Guardian, Heavy Rain, and Uncharted -- feel like pricey art house films (even Uncharted, despite being built like a summer blockbuster). I wish games had something like the Academy Awards that drove sales on critical darlings.
Third parties, indies, and the "other consoles" are the future that interests me; not of sales success but the art form. Unfortunately, Microsoft seems to be fumbling for Nintendo's audience and filling the blanks on summer blockbusters, and I only hope that developers find ways to push the immersive limits of that framework. Unfortunately, though Sony seems to be more invested in immersive experiences, I wonder whether they can keep leveraging these endeavors. Unfortunately, third parties are unsure of themselves, with habits steeped in risky blockbusters instead of the mass market product they forgot how to make. And despite my selfish interests, I deeply admire Nintendo for delivering great games to everyone.
Friday, July 2, 2010
E3'10 Rambles: AssassaCree

Thursday, July 1, 2010
E3'10 Rambles: Golden-Ick

But this video is a handy example of how flawed focus testing is. Notice the open room, with a group of kids within clear view of each other, talking to a focus test moderator about what each individual thinks. Silly. The first reasonable-sounding answer is almost always echoed around the room, each kid in fear of sticking out, clearly influencing each others' opinions. A kid that dares stick out usually endures ribbing and gets much more quiet, despite the moderator's best intentions. The opinions of the loud kid going "yeah-ha-ha" flavors every other kid in there.

So yes, a development team can gather useful information from focus groups, but it won't necessarily match the raw data gathered influenced by group-think. Too often, a development team will have its arm twisted to follow raw data before useful information, because the former will keep the higher-ups employed. Developers aren't always right, but the problems with this approach seem rather obvious to me, so forgive me this pent up rant.
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