Year-End List 2013

Year ain't over yet! I am going to finish 3 games before the year is over, you mark my word. If they are not finished by then you get one wish.

Hit The Targets Tennis!!

I have been playing a lot of games on the website Glorious Trainwrecks and I felt like I should make something quick as opposed to the long project that I have been working on for over a month, so I made "Hit The Targets Tennis!!" It's a pretty simple idea based around the idea that I wanted to quickly make a two player game that could have a lot of different levels. This is the most "game" like thing that I have made and it was an interesting experience thinking about all the stuff I have learned about level design and pacing and difficulty which are things I haven't thought very much about before.

The pace of making this game felt good as I tried to make one level per day that I was working on it, so the whole thing took me about a week to make. The speed of making each level forced me to think on my feet and to try and keep things fresh. For this game I also wanted to make all of the graphics rather than relying on clip art so the game has sort of a simplistic and cohesive style rather than feeling like a collage or having different resolutions.

Anyways, have fun messing around with HTTT!! Also, here is an in progress town map of the pizza game that I have been working on.

More Screenshots!

Making a game at the scale of what this is now is fun! I will talk about some narrative structure and such when I am done, but I feel like I should write less and do more! My goal is to have this game finished by the end of the month at the latest!

New Game :-)

Here are some screenshots from a new game I am making about a Pizza Hut delivery person that I am making in Klik & Play For Schools. I am taking a break from my telemarketing game because it was taking a while to design and I wanted to make something more narrative.

This game is going to take place in a suburban/metropolitan area so part of the environment will be a commercial "mall" like area with brand named stores such as Pizza Hut and Staples. Hopefully this will be finished in the next few weeks so I can finish the telemarketing game!

Too Many Ideas

Recently The Angry Video Game Nerd posted a video for his long anticipated AVGN: The Movie. Apparently it has been in development since 2006 and is only until recently, maybe, possibly going to be released sometime in 2013 or 2014. In his latest update he talks about how he feels like he is most excited for his movie to be finished just because he wants to work on other projects. He used the term "creative constipation" in a way where he as a bunch of ideas and he cannot get them all out because he is still working on a project that he started 6-7 years ago. I can relate because I have come up with countless ideas for other games with working on this one. Because of the new games I want to make I feel as if I have to get this game done as soon as I can.

Post-Job Complication

Because this game is based on a business that I previously worked at I am completely unsure how legal making this game is. Most of the player dialogue and choices are based on real scripts from that tele-donation center that I used to work at (which have been obscured by Photoshop filters above). I have been copying text from these scripts and trying to remember, what best I can, what the details of the job were and talking to former co-workers about what their experiences were when I could just go back to the job that I quit in order to take some pictures and copy some of the scrips if they would allow it. I do not think that this game is going to have any political sway about the job or show anything secret towards the public, but I am fearful of them asking me to stop making the game or to change things about it.

Either way, I want to set a deadline for this game to at least have all of the dialogue figured out by the end of next week so I can start fleshing out the design and user interface.

Thoughts on Google Drive Drawing

 

Recently, for my upcoming game about tele-donations I have been creating concept maps and user interface models (as seen above) in Google Drive. Because I feel as though I have used Google Drive's Drawing application enough to give anyone a headache I feel as though I should write a little about some of the cool features, tips, tricks, and what Google could improve on.

Google Drive's Drawing application seems to be made for making concept maps though I have not seen it say that it is explicitly for any other use or for general use, so I have been trying to possibly bend it for my use. Drawing allows the user to add different picture and text objects (graphs, text, a selection of clip art, word art, hyperlinks, and picture files) to a resizable field of space. For the most part, what I have been making are charts for the branching dialogue trees that I will be programing into my game so the programming of the game will go smoother because I will have a set plan.



In my graphs each line of dialogue and each response are represented by different blocks with text with the respective dialogue in each box. These boxes are then connected by different colored lines with arrows. One thing that I enjoy about Google Drive Drawing is that the different ends of the lines can be magnetically connected to the different text and picture objects. This is cool because after magnetically connecting two objects by a line the user can drag either connected object around the field and still be connected. This has been convenient to me because the maps that I have been making have been very complicated. I also enjoy the selection of clipart and word art that they have available; though limited, they are well designed and they satisfy my needs.

As something that I do not think is used very professionally it has its flaws. One of the obstacles that I have been encountering is that it seems to give each line a entire invisible rectangle to select to just select a line based on the size and direction of the line. This is annoying because I frequently end up selecting lines that are no where near the object that I want to select. Another main problem that I run into is the clipboard for copying and pasting information. Sometimes I will want to copy part of a graph from one Drawing document to another. During the copy the graphical information is usually lost. This is probably due to it being an in-browser application, but I feel like Google can find a way around it hopefully in a near future update.

All in all, Google Drive's Drawing application is very useful. Like the other Google Drive applications I enjoy the ability to have cloud storage, multiple user connectivity for collaboration or for viewing purposes, and the close quality to Microsoft Office. With a few more additions I am sure Microsoft Office will have a potential run for their money.

Mountain Dew Game Fuel

Talking about the long anticipated release of GTA V (and how it compares to Saints Row IV (something that I won't get into in this post)) reminds me of when I used to get really excited about games. Feeling as though I am older, now in my early-approaching-mid-twenties, it is hard for me to say which games I am excited for right now. My excitement over the release of new games is probably caused by my exposure to a vast variety of video game and art criticism (appreciation of people like Anthony Burch, Jim Sterling, and Ben Croshow), an evolving taste, the rise of the independent market, the disappearance of Blockbusters (to allow me to rent any console game that came out), and my post-graduation financial situation. Though I am not a huge fan of the GTA series and have approached the series with an amount of skepticism, GTA V looks kind of fun, like something my younger self might have been excited about. However, my reaction to GTA V was, "That's kind of neat, probably won't play it, I bet Saints Row IV will be better, but I won't play that either." Maybe if I had $60 for every game that came out I would be more eager to play them, however 6 years ago I would have gone through many lengths for my fandom.

Halo Origins

Since elementary school I usually favored games that were unique, had interesting mechanics, or had some aspect of adventure, though some of my favorites were competitive games. From hearing about the buzz over the first Halo and having previously played Marathon (an earlier shooter by the people who made Halo (which is still one of my favorite games ever)) I knew that people thought Halo was a great competitive game. At the time, I did not have an Xbox to play Halo on so I had to wait for the PC release which I bought immediately. It was an instant classic in my eyes because it was the first time I had ever played an online shooter. By the release of Halo 2 I knew that I had to get it as soon as it came out, though when I finally got an Xbox I did not have Xbox Live to play online.

By junior year of high school, when the Xbox 360 came out, I finally had a console with online support. I had played Halo 2's campaign mode several times over, but I had not played it online until I got a 360, so I was pretty late to the game (playing online more than a year after its release). One of my best friends, Mike Timko, was pretty pro at most shooters, so I knew I would have to play just as much as, if not more than, him in order to beat him or play with him in a team game. Because of the amount of time we both ended up playing the game and my limited amount of real life and online friends that played Halo, we ended up playing Team Doubles together almost every night. Team Doubles is the variant of online skirmish that pinned two teams of two against each other on small maps in a variety of objectives such as Capture the Flag, Oddball, and Slayer. As we practiced we rose to the point where we were consistently playing against pro players and getting our asses kicked almost every game.

Halo 3

During the summer of 2007 (between junior and senior year of high school) I was obsessed with Halo 3. I eagerly awaited the Bungie Podcast, I tried to follow the AdjutantReflex alternate reality game, and drank a lot of Mountain Dew Game Fuel (which Mike and I called "Grunt Piss" in reference to one of the enemies in the game. I worked a small summer job doing lawn care just so I would be able to afford Halo 3 on my own. I wanted to get it as soon as it came out, but I could not go to the in-store release (being released on a school night), so the day of, as soon as I got out of school, I biked across the highway overpass to the nearest Kmart which luckily had a few more copies of the game (and posters too). I immediately hung up the poster (which is on the wall of my old bedroom to this day) and that night I played for 3 hours straight before doing homework.

When I hopped online I saw that all of the people on my friends list were playing Halo 3. It felt like I was a part of something much larger than myself and as if I could finally relate to so many other people at least on one level. Though many popular games have come out since the release of Halo 3 none have made me feel like the reception has been quite as universal. However, I may be confusing universal reception with hype in the media, clever marketing, record breaking sales though it was an overall great product.

Game Fuel

Game Fuel in retrospect (and at the time actually) was pretty stupid/genius. The reason I say "(and at the time actually)" in parenthesis because the stupid and genius in "stupid/genius" were switched around when I was 17 because I thought it was more genius than stupid; I bought several cases of Game Fuel, and it was all I drank. Not only was it a Halo Mountain Dew flavor, but it was delicious, one of my favorite soda flavors to this day. This flavor was similar to my then favorite Mountain Dew "LiveWire", which was orange flavored, but the difference was that the citrus flavor was "infused" with cherry.

I was so obsessed with Game Fuel that, in anticipation of its limited release's end, I saved all of my empty bottles and washed cans in a few cardboard boxes and tried to save a few full ones for the distant future in my garage's refrigerator. I made sure to tell my immediate family members not to drink them.

One day the one bottle I was able to save went missing. I immediately assumed someone drank it and questioned my grandmother and grandfather. My grandpa told me he was very thirsty and he thought he had bought that specific drink. The drink had been out of stores for several months. At the time I didn't know my grandpa's cancer was back and the Mountain Dew saved him from dehydration. I also didn't know that Game Fuel would come back 2 years later, though with World of Warcraft labels, last October during the release of Halo 4, and sometime this fall.

Hype

Maybe the reason I don't get excited for games quite as much, or in the same way, is because I learned my lesson with Halo 3. While Halo 3 was my favorite multiplayer game, playing it every night for the majority of the three years between my last year of high school and my time at community college, I was a disappointed in the campaign mode. I loved Halo: CE's, Halo 2's, and all of the Marathon game's campaign modes (along with the future Halo ODST's and Halo Reach's campaigns), but there was something that was not as fresh about Halo 3. What I loved about Halo: CE was the feeling of open exploration of the terrain, Halo 2 was the scale, variety, and amount of new environments and enemies, Marathon was the feeling of wonder and mystery. Halo 3 had a lot of iconic moments, but it did not nearly satisfy the hype that preceded it. That feels insane because of how much I still love Halo 3.

Telemarketing Game

What is this game about?

I had a tele-donation job for a month earlier this summer before I made Breaking Bread. The job entailed trying to passionately read off of a script to potential benefactors to convince them to donate money to different sorts of Jewish funded causes. While making Breaking Bread I realized the job I had was very similar to the game that I was making at the time. Based on the scripts, tele-donation statistics, and different stories my friends or I have had I am making scenarios for this game.

Above is a peak of a dialogue chart. Once I have access to my personal computers I will make more progress on actually making the game. For the past month or so I have only been sketching out how the mechanics will work which I have found to be a helpful mode of production. Production on Breaking Bread was different because I just went into making it without any planning or preliminary writing or any preproduction. I have heard of a lot of indie developers (I should cite this with some examples) advocating for not doing any preproduction because the final product is more fluent or something. I think doing these preliminary writings should be helpful and I am sure I am going to make changes while actually working on the game. This preliminary process seems as though it will be helpful because when I am doing actual production because I will have most all of the mental labor done and things will be less confusing.

I don't know, I'll see.

If you want to see the full dialogue chart as it is in progress click this link.

:-)

MolyJam Pt.2

Cool Games

Now that I am looking on the Games section of MolyJam, some of the games that I thought were most interesting are not featured. There was a realtor text based game and another game that had the player resize distorted photos to their correct size that I cannot find. One of them that I did find was "MolyNews". Moly News is a game in which the player plays as Peter Molyneux and has to choose different jumbled sections of actual Molyneux quotes to make complete responses to a journalists questions. Check it out!

"Limbo-esque"

At MolyJamDeux there were several teams that used the term "Limbo-esque" to talk about the game they had made. This bothered me for several reasons. While I think Limbo is a good game I am annoyed about how people talk about it. When people hear that I like freeware, downloadable, or "indie" games people often say, "Oh, have you played Limbo?" This is notable because Limbo has had a clear impact on people outside of the indie community. What I often hear about what people thought was interesting about Limbo was primarily the graphical style. People label it as artsy because the depictions are in black and white, cartoony, and vague. Though the primary gameplay mechanics are never elaborated on and the graphics were very stylish, I still enjoyed the game.

I enjoyed the game for the way story was incorporated with gameplay mechanics; this is not what the people who described their games as "Limbo-esque" meant. I have a problem with this because it equated black and white graphics, platform mechanics, and mood to things that make good games.

MolyJamDeux!

MolyJam2013

Game jams are something I have been aware of since I high school. I was always really jealous of people who lived in bigger cities (New York, places in Canada, places in Europe) because they had game jams and there is not that big of a game making community in Dayton. Now that I have finished college I saw this game jam as a chance to meet people in the game making community, and get experience making a finished game. What we made was "Molyneaux Slope" from a team of programmers, Clint Levijoki and Mark Michaels.

What Happened?

The team changed a few time during production which was difficult. We first started out with Clint, Mark, and I and then three others joined our team. Working with six people seemed to be far too complicated at the start because everyone wanted to design the game. We did a lot of back and forth and just settled on Clint's idea to make a dog park simulator. We settled on his idea because he was the most persistent and had the most tangible idea. Before we settled on his idea we had basically two really solid ideas that we were fighting against. We broke for the day and met the next morning.

By then two of the members from Columbia University had dropped out and we were left with four people. I was on the art direction and left all of the code to the other members. All of the other members of the group work professionally as programmers and none of them had made games on their own (outside of a company) before as I recall. There was a bit of a struggle between what language was going to be used but they all just followed what Clint was doing because during the night Clint had set up a framework for the game. The rest of the day was mostly Clint trying to set up multiplayer and the others trying to learn the language that he was using. I got a bit nervous because our game did not look like much. I had made the character and dog animations as well as some of the background assets but not much was implemented.

The final day was trying to wrap up text commands. Everything became implemented and we finished a little early. In the end we just made a bunch of extra character sprite sheets so not all of the players would look the same.

Tomorrow I will write about some of the games I played at The New School's hosting of MolyJamDeux and what I thought.

In Between Two Games/Where Should I Live?!

Where Should I Live?

So, for the past month I have not had a job in order to finish "Breaking Bread", a few comic book projects left from school, my general portfolio, and to figure out what I want to do career wise. I am now at the dilemma of either staying in Brooklyn, finding a new job, and new place to live, or going home, finding a job, finishing my computer science degree, and then a new place to live afterwards. Either path I take I will either be in Dayton or Brooklyn only for the next year or so because by then I will hopefully be at graduate school (which is something I need to figure out too). I would like to continue making games and such, but for the next few weeks I need to work like crazy because my feeling right now is to stay in New York just because of the amount of jobs, opportunities, and experiences. I have a fear of going back to Dayton because I do not want to go back and become stuck.

The thing is, either place I go I will still continue making games. In Ohio I will possibly have more free time, but the environment will not be as conducive to the process due to the lack of critically thinking people to interact with. In New York, there will be more people to talk to about critical subjects, but there are plenty of distractions, money is harder to make and to keep. Also, the idea of studying computer science again leans me to going back to Ohio, though I could easily study it on my own enough in order to make games.

Finishing My First Game!

I have made plenty of games with my friends from home, but I never finished anything. People would always become busy, or we would not make progress on something for a while, so things would just die off. It feels exhilarating to have finished a game, though made in Klik & Play, a game made by myself in a sense, without a team or partner to directly work with. There was a part near the end of the development where I got caught up and frustrated with some of how the game was working, but it was just a hump I had to get over. That hump was the sort of thing that stopped past projects from being finished, so it felt like a big thing to overcome.

How I Overcame the Hump

"Breaking Bread"'s interaction is mostly dialogue tree based, so things became confusing to edit. My mistake was to only write the dialogue and how the dialogue interacts in the program. During the end of development I started writing down all of the dialogue and drawing out lines to see how things connect. This helped me see how things connected easily! It also helped me write things and edit things in a way where I would not be afraid to edit things just because of how difficult it would be to change them later. This way of working also makes it a lot easier to troubleshoot if I did something out of order or forgot to add in some dialogue. I am starting a few other dialogue based games that are similar in interaction, and I am definitely going to start writing them down beforehand!

Finished: Breaking Bread

So, I just released the final working version of the project I have been working on for the last month or so, "Breaking Bread". I feel a bit relieved now that it is finished because now I can work on some ideas that I came across while making this game. So far only two people that I know of have played it and the reception was positive. The game is pretty inaccessible being made in Klik & Play, so it can only be played on a Windows machine, and only in something XP or before, and it is about a TV show that not everyone has seen.

I hope you enjoy this and future games! :-)

The Effects of Video Games

Found a paper I wrote a little while ago.

The Effects of Video Games

When was the last time you have played a video game? If you have played Mario, Halo, Madden, or Tetris you have been influenced by the music, the graphics, story, and even the graphic design. Interactive media has taken over the entertainment industry. Kids aren’t the only ones playing games today either, adults are too. Due to the media coverage of video games, they are being condemned. People now think, "Are games going to hurt me?" "Are my children affected?” “I've heard they are violent." "I'm really not into video games; none of them really interest me." Being an avid video game player and a video game designer, I know a lot of the answers to these questions and statements. Video games may be looked down upon by the mass media because of many negative effects, but video games have just as many positive effects. 

Most "gamers" (those who play video games) from the turn of the century were eight to fourteen years old according to Michael Brody in his article, "Playing With Death." In a summary of "Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy," Dudley Barlow states that most children in the 8th and 9th grade spend more and more time playing video games. Girls of this age group play around 5 hours per week and boys play around 13 hours per week (Barlow). Around this time of growth for a child, the child has a "transitional space" in which a child finds his or her self or purpose (Brody). In this transitional period children are filling this time with video games (Brody).

Games like Halo, Final Fantasy, Gears of War, Metal Gear Solid, and Call of Duty are all very popular games among children as well as adults. All of these games have astoundingly realistic graphics and unreal fantasy settings. It is hard to picture why anyone would not be attracted to such fantastic wonders. Though these games are popular with children they are all filled with violence, blood, gore, and negative portrayals of women. A study in 1996 that says popular games among children were mostly violent (Barlow). In most games women are rarely the main character, but objects of desire like princesses in castles or seductresses (Brody). In games like Counter Strike, Halo, Gears of War, and other popular shooters, the main objective is to kill.

Violence is in 80 percent of games (Brody). This percentage of video games cause physical and mental symptoms related to aggression (Barlow). According to an article from BBC News, some effects are "auditory hallucinations, repetitive strain injuries and obesity". High blood pressure and aggressiveness (Brody) are others that have been seen for short and extended periods of time (Barlow). Video games cause a lack of charity and a surge of aggression in those who play violent video games (Barlow). Psychologist, Jane Healy, says, "Habits of the mind become structures of the brain," inferring that playing violent video games give the players aggressive tendencies (Brody).

According to a study by Iowa and Kansas State Universities, video games are correlated to aggression, but the study couldn't find if aggression was related to the violence in the games or not (Aggressive Behavior). It was also found that the length of time someone plays a video game does not change the effects (Aggressive Behavior). People who play violent video games aren't necessarily violent either (Economist). When a criminal is known to be a gamer the media goes wild. If half of Americans play games, why is it such a big deal (Economist)? 

In the past rock and roll, movies, comics, and certain books were looked down upon. Just as video games are today, those forms of entertainment were accused of turning people into "devil worshippers" “and "drug addicts" (Economist). Even in 1816, waltzing was labeled as an infectious disease (Economist). In 2005, The Watchmen, a comic book, has made the Times All-Time 100 Novels list. Movies are now used for educational purposes and artistic expression. Now, people who read a lot of books are deemed "smart." If history repeats its self, video games will be just as accepted as books in the future. 

Even though some people view gamers as anti-social, video games teach good team working and social skills. I know from firsthand experience that video games promote team work. When playing Halo 3 online, I know that I have to constantly communicate with my team-mates about our location, enemy location, and strategy. I also know from my friends that play massive multi-player online games, such as World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XI, teamwork is required to make it through any raid or mission due to the large groups of people involved. It is surreal hearing friends talking about having to get around language barriers just to finish a dungeon raid. Apparently Japanese speaking people do not like to be in the same party as an English speaking person, because of language and cultural barriers. To get around such an obstacle is a great learning experience on its own.

Will Wright, creator of The Sims, Sim City, and Spore wrote in his article “Dream Machines”, "Through trial and error, players build a model of the underlying game based on empirical evidence collected through play." Problem solving has evolved because of video games (Wright). Such new skills were taught to professionals by video games as kids. Their skills have not been used only on dragons, robots, and aliens, but used in their real lives (Lewis). Those professionals have probably played games that are devoted to problem solving, point and click games. 

George Lucas, creator of the Star Wars movies, founded Lucas Arts in 1982. Back in the 1980's and 1990's, when Lucas Arts did not only make games based on Star Wars, they made point and click adventures. They were one of the best companies at it. They made fun, funny, creative games like Day of the Tentacle, Sam and Max, and Grim Fandango. These games were not just “fun and games” they were difficult and they required a lot of problem solving skills. Sierra also made the impossible to beat Kings Quest series. I remember when I played Kings Quest VI, I had to get a bunch of wall flowers (not a bunch of shy people, but shy flowers) to dance so I could capture a hole in the wall (yes a portable hole in the wall) so I could look inside a castle in which a princess was held captive. If those are not some advanced problem solving skills at work, I do not know what could be.

The dying genre of point and click games, does not typically have twitch game play that relies on the players’ hand-eye coordination to progress through the game. People who play fast paced action games not only get better at slaying Grunts in Halo 3, but they form an "increased visual attention capacity" for situations that require concentration (Chatham). This can be related to the lessened attention blink (Chatham). Attention blink is when gamers eyes are opened longer so he or she can keep focus on objects longer. While some skeptics say that hand-eye coordination skills learned in games can only be used in combat, other jobs also require such ability. For instance, surgeons who play games don't make as many mistakes as those who don't play games (Oak).

It is not typical to associate video games with the player becoming more and more creative, but in the gamer community creativity is a huge part of gaming. Will Wright has said, "Games aren't just fantasy worlds to explore; they actually amplify our powers of imagination." This statement especially applies to his game Sim City. Mr. Wright originally made a helicopter game called Raid on Bungling Bay, but he thought that creating little cities for the helicopter to fly around in was more fun than actually flying it. In turn, he made Sim City out of his personal level editor. Sim City is a game where the player can not only sustain a city's economy, but build the city from ground up. This single game has influenced other games like it called "sand box" games. Sand box games are basically games where the player can do what he or she wants to. Some such games are Crayon Physics, Gary's Mod, and Line Rider which leaves the game play up to the gamers' imagination.

Though games have all of these great aspects, the negative media coverage on video games are there for a reason. Most video games are violent and most video games are non-artistic. Jason Fagone from Esquire magazine says, "Game companies have spent so many years trying to make skulls explode complexly and water ripple prettily that they haven't invested any time in learning how to make games that are as emotionally dense as the best novels and films." There are actually a few people trying to make artistic creative games to help shape the way we look at games, one being Jason Rohrer. In his game Passage the player can have an experience driven by emotion like no other. Without giving away any spoilers, the player can learn a lesson about life and death the few minutes it takes to complete the game.

After evaluating all of the positive and negative reasons video games are simply a fun form of escapism. Video games are not passive media, so the interaction that gamers have with games make video games a better alternative to television (Oak). Computer games can be just as stimulating as sports. Research by Mark Griffiths, a professor of gambling studies at Nottingham Trent University, says that video games can distract patients with sickle cell disease who are going through chemotherapy (BBC). While computer games can be a healthy activity, it is best that they are played in moderation.

To conclude, video games may deserve the negative media coverage because of the content and aggression effects, but the same thing has happened to every new form of entertainment. Video games teach players about team work, sociability, problem solving, creativity, and good hand-eye coordination while providing a healthy alternative form of entertainment. There are plenty of video games in stores and for free on the Internet so I would advise you to look up whatever interests you, whether it be problem solving games, shooters, or creative things like Passage. Afterwards, you should look at game reviews to see if the games content best suits you. Lastly, play in moderation and have fun!

About.com. Aug. 2001. 30 May 2009. http://mentalhelth.about.com/cs/familyresources/a/videojap.htm.

Barlett, Christopher. Branch, Omar. Rodeheffer, Christopher. Harris, Richard. “How Long Do the Short-Term Violent Video Game Effects Last?” Aggressive Behavior, Volume 35, pages 225-236. 2009. Academic Search Complete. Ebsco. Sinclair Library. Dayton, OH. 29 April 2009. http://web.ebscohost.com.sinclair.ohionet.org. 

Barlow, Dudly. "Violent Video Game Effects on Children and Adolescents: Theory, Research, and Public Policy." Education Digest. 72.6. Feb. 2007. Academic Search Complete. Ebsco. Sinclair Library. Dayton, OH. 29 April 2009. http://web.ebscohost.com.sinclair.ohionet.org. 

“Computer Game Play ‘Aids health’”. BBC News. 14 July 2005. 1 June 2009. http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/england/nottinghamshire/4684057.stm.

Brody, Michael. "Playing With Death." Child & Adolescent Behavior Letter, Brown University. November 2000. Academic Search Complete. Ebsco. Sinclair Library. Dayton, OH.  29 April 2009. http://web.ebscohost.com.sinclair.ohionet.org.

Chatham, Chris. “Video Games – Mental Exercise or Merely Brain Candy?”. Developing Intelligence – The Old Version. 10 July 2006. 31 May 2009. http://develinetl.blogspot.com/2006/07/video-games-mental-exercise-or- merely.html.

"Don't shoot the messenger." Economist 382.8512. 20 Jan. 2007: 18-18. Academic Search Complete. EBSCO. Sinclair Library, Dayton, OH. 1 June 2009 http://sinclair.ohionet.org:80/loginurl=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx? direct=true&db=a9h&AN=23817852&site=ehost-live.

Fagone, Jason. "The Video-Game Programmer Saving Our 21st-Century Souls." Esquire. 20 Nov. 2008. 20 May 2009. http://www.esquire.com/features/best-and-brightest- 2008/future-of-video-game-design-1208.

Lewis, George. ”Researchers Tout Positive Effects of Video Games”. MSNBC. 19 May 2005. 29 May 2009. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7912743.

Oak, Manali. “Psitive Effects of Video Games”. Buzzle.com. 27 May 2008. 29 May 2009. http://www.buzzle.com/articles/positive-effects-of-videogames.html.

Wright, Will. ”Dream Machines”. Wired. April 2006. 31 May 2009. http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/14.04/wright.html.

XP Mode

Klik n Play which was made in 1994 and people still make games today in 2013 with the same software. However, there have been some setbacks, but one that I had not yet thought about was accessibility. Not only is Klik n Play PC only, but Klik n Play can only run using XP Mode. I have been using a PC the only has Windows XP so I did not think twice about this setback until I tried setting it up on my Vista PC in my studio that is not connected to the Internet, so downloading XP Mode is kind of a pain.

This situation reminds me of reading Claire Bishop's Digital Divide. I talked to my professor at the time about a project I did with Super Nintendo Entertainment Systems and he told me to read the Digital Divide and brought up some interesting points. In summation, he said that older technologies especially things with pixel graphics have a loaded nostalgia that is hard to separate. Despite this, I believe that using old technologies today is not obsolete. There is much to say about progress by using older technologies. Also, no medium has been "fully" explored, so to negate a technology seems to deny potential.

Game Sketches

Before my Internet connection is shut off I want to make a quick update on what I have been doing. I have realized that the story game that I set out to make was maybe more complicated than what I want to make right now, so I have been just messing around with Klik & Play to see what everything does. I will upload some of these when I make something that I am really happy with. I have been making these sort of reactionary shooter puzzles. The basic sort of mechanics to each of these games are that there is a character player that can fire off a projectile in some way and if fired at the right object can fire off another object and if the player shoots that different object with another specific projectile then the sort of puzzle is "solved".

These games alone are probably even more complicated than what I should be making right now, but they are keeping my interest and that is what I have heard is important. I read an article published on GameCareerGuide about how amateur game developers should just make finished games. Brice Morrison writes about how it is really hard to motivate one's self to actually finish a game. This struck me because I have made a countless amount of game with my friends and I have virtually nothing to show from it other than some sprites that I made for the different games. Experience has been gained from these different unfinished games, but in completing the few games that I have recently I have been able to move on and feel accomplished. This energy that I got from participating in MolyJamDeux lead me to making this blog.

I am going to take the advice that Morrison gave. I am going to show a few friends my game for critique so that discussion can motivate me into finishing the product. I am also going to post a playable version of my game on the TIGSource Feedback Forums to get some possible feedback from the community. Also, I have read some other threads on the feedback forums in order to discuss things with other developers, to help them and to learn from what they are going through. I am also going to give myself a deadline for my Breaking Bad game in order to just move on and be able to make other long games. I have been in a bit of a pickle with the game currently because of the amount of writing that I am forcing myself to do, but I think just forcing myself to write will be better than not having a finished game. I am going to have the game finished by the first week of August in time for all the other Breaking Bad festivities in the New York City area.

Maybe I am just being self motivated, but any way to trick myself into becoming more motivated is still making me more motivated. Trick yourself into making games future game developers!

Stressed Out

When you are nitpicking like this it's probably best to take a break, so I went skateboarding today.

Also, I have been writing some short essays to apply for the UCB Diversity Scholarship which I may post when I am finished proofreading. I am still debating on if I would like to get into the sketch or the improv classes, but I have to get the scholarship first! If you contribute to diversity in race, ethnicity, age (over 35), sexual orientation, gender identity, or differently-abled diversity and are interested in the UCB, you should apply!

Always Save!!

Save Every 5 Minutes!

At least save every 5 minutes. That's one of those things you hear in school and you do it usually, but you always end up forgetting when you are really into working on something, you have this stride that you feel as though you cannot break it and if you save it will mess up your workflow because that one second of you saving takes too much time. Taking that time to save every few minutes will save you a lot more time especially with some of the quirks of Klik & Play.

Make Invisible!

When dealing with a lot of question boxes in Klik & Play I typically try to move a bunch of them off of the screen in order to see what the background and art look like and to reduce clutter. It is also easy to keep them expanded so I can read what the question and different answers are. If you "Play Level As Finished" with any question boxes expanded it expects for the player to be able to choose an answer. However, if any question boxes are hidden on the work-space the user will not be able to click on them. For some reason the program won't let you close the window or the game play until you answer a question, so you basically freeze the program.

Before you run the game, remember to save! Also, before you run your game, remember to make questions invisible unless you want them to run as soon as the game starts.

Duplication Error?

Also, there is this glitch that does not allow me to click on different active objects. I could not click on a hamburger to delete it and every time I clicked on the background it made more hamburgers that I could not delete. I do not think I had any keys pressed down.

Videogame Zinester

Anna Anthropy

One of the reasons I am using Klik & Play is because I found out about it in the book Rise of the Videogame Zinesters by Anna Anthropy. Last summer I picked up this book because I am a big fan of all of her games, especially The Mighty Jill Off, dys4ia, and Redder. I found this book to be very inspirational and educational because Anthropy shows that anyone can make games. In the book she talks about her relation to videogames, her issues with popular games, what will happen if non-professionals are able to make games, and some ways to start making games.

Game Progress

I have more or less figured out how to script the things that I want to happen, all I have to do now is think about the content that I want to be in the game, the art and the dialogue. I am trying to figure out how much detail I want to give each scene and how interactive I want each scene to be. The main focus of this game is to navigate through dialogue trees but I also want the player to be able to explore the limited environments to unlock things that can change the course of the plot.

What I think I am struggling with is the idea of giving the user control or limiting user control for a more cinematic experience. For example I want the player to be able to explore the living room area where they watch TV in a bird's eye view way to move around things in order for there to be an illusion of choice. For the areas where there is dialogue I want there to be a forced social interaction between the player character and the friend character who is initiating dialogue. The way I want to force the interaction is to make it so the player can either move towards the friend and interact or move away. By forcing people into these limitations I want people to focus on the choices they have.

Complications

Tough times?

The process of making the graphics in Klik & Play has been pretty rough. The editor has a lot of useful functions. You can easily resize the canvas for your images and eye-dropping color is as easy as using your right click. Two of the main flaws that I have encountered is there is no way to change the width of your tool (so you can only have a 1x1 pixel brush or line which is frustrating for covering large surfaces) and the selection tool some times erases the entire canvas. Erasing the entire canvas is frustrating because the editor only allows one undo and there is no save function unless you move out of the window.

Lots of errors.

I would not have to worry about using this editor because there is an import graphics feature, but I keep getting this error if I do not save in a specific bitmap format which shuts Klik & Play off. When I do save in what I think is the correct bmp format it lets me select a section of the image I want to import. This is frustrating because with pixel art every pixel counts, so often times I am sure I am not selecting exactly everything that I want, but that doesn't matter because whenever I select anything the only thing that shows up is a sliver of color.

However,

These limitations, though frustrating, are helping me to find new possibilities. Klik & Play has an extensive clip art library that I have been utilizing. I have also been working very small and then blowing up the images and working on them so I can get big areas covered and focus on detail later. Sometimes this creates jarring differences in resolution, but using these harsh differences in resolution seems to be what the program is allowing me. Fighting these differences would not be using the medium of Klik & Play, so I should either stick with it or use another program.

This jet was featured in James Bridle's talk. 

New Aesthetic.

These changes in resolution are in direct relation to what James Bridle was talking about in his keynote speech "Waving at the Machines". In this speech Bridle talks about how digital interfaces and languages are being made real in the forms of sculpture, architecture, clothing designs, and various other mediums. He talks about how acknowledging these ways of seeing it is the the human way of trying to talk to machines; to try to speak in machine language it will help us communicate with machines easier.

Pixel art is talking to machines. Pixel art is seen as retro now because current standard resolution makes pixels less noticeable. I see using pixels currently as several things, though the primary is a way of understanding how computer graphics work. Whenever you zoom in on a computerized image the graphics still work on a pixel by pixel level. When working in 2D video game graphics two of the main styles are using pixel graphics or using vector graphics. The advantage of using pixel graphics no matter the resolution, the artist has absolute control.

For now,

I am going to use these differences of resolution in Klik & Play to my advantage in telling the story and creating atmosphere.

New Start

Other than short game maker tutorial based games this is the first game I have attempted to work on by myself. I am using Klik & Play For Schools an old program for Windows computers because it was intended to help people inexperienced with making games to make games. Though the program has limitations with the amount of things you can make and platform restrictions, this program is important to me because I want to make a few games with ease. I do not want to make a game for commercial success as of now, so I think it is important to experiment with these tools while I have the chance.

What is this game about?

This game, now untitled, is about talking about Breaking Bad. I had just finished the 4th season when I picked up Klik & Play. As I was trying to get used to the program I found that this software would lend its self to being a good engine for making graphical adventure games and games revolving around branching dialogue. Essentially, this game is a visual novel game with an interface that more resembles a point and click or classic adventure style game.

What are my focuses?

My primary focus is to make something that is finished. Some other goals I have are to make a game that I would like to stumble upon. Making a game I like means the visuals should be well realized, the game should feel interactive (choices should matter or should alter your experience), it should hold my attention, it should have a short playtime.

How does the game work?

The game works in two sections. There is a TV watching part and a Talking part. You go and read all these descriptions of the show and then you leave your house and meet up with your friend and talk about Breaking Bad. You talk about a season of the show at a time and then the game repeats and you watch and talk about the second season, then the third, then the fourth, then the fifth.

What are my current priorities?

• Write all of the dialogue trees and structure
• Create all of the environments
• Figure out a story
• See if I can make the TV watching parts more streamlined or interactive
• Make the game more interactive
• Finish the god damned game