Author Archives: Chad Knick

Inspirational: Indie Game: The Movie

Posted by Chad Knick on

Hey there folks, so tonight, I can’t sleep. I’m driven mad by the desire to do artwork, create, imagine, sort out my ideas and my passions. I’m enthralled by the allure of what may very well, one day, be on video screens and consoles everywhere – but first I have to gather my pants together logically and realize something drastic. The video game industry that I see on television and news, and perpetuated in magazines is probably not going to be the same reality I’m going to have to face. It’s probably not going to be a walk in the park, and I’m probably going to get my face stomped on more than a couple of times by idea bashers and nay-sayers.

I’ve grasped this concept. Do I still want to move forward and be a game designer?

You bet your sweet Princess Peach backside I do!

Now this week I’m discussing a movie, that quite honestly, I’m ecstatic that something like this is finally being made! Those of you in the gaming world have probably heard of movies like King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters or Chasing Ghosts: Beyond The Arcade. Both of these movies are excellent documentaries of the old school video game arcade market, but now, the gaming industry has switched it’s attention to the indie circuit. The newest documentary to loom it’s lustrous digital locks in the face of the world, is a movie called Indie Game: The Movie.

The movie chronicles the game development process and interviews some of the most prolific indie game developers currently on the market. The creators, James Swirksy and Lisanne Pajot, take you on a journey through the lives of the designers and give you and inside look at the struggles trials and tribulations that game designers must overcome to succeed as independent entities in this industry. I personally can not wait till this movie comes out, and I want to see it in theaters.

If it doesn’t make it to theaters, I think I will be deeply saddened, but that just gives me even more incentive to buy a collector’s edition of the DVD whenever it’s released. If I get an opportunity to see the movie I will undoubtedly be writing a review for it, but I personally think that any designer worth his [ or her ] giga-bytes should definitely take a look at this movie. If you’re serious about getting into game design, it’s a really good glimpse inside of a very challenging field. It doesn’t scare me really, but rather, the movie gives me hope and inspiration to continue working hard towards my goals.

I know I want to be a designer for the video games industry, and the only way that I’m going to make it there is by having confidence in myself and practicing my abilities over and over until I end up with products like the fine gentlemen represented in the movie: Edmund McMillen and Tommy Refenes [ Super Meat Boy ]; Phil Fish [ Fez ]; and Jonathan Blow [ Braid ]. If you like any of these games, if you like games in general,  if you have a desire to see how games are actually made, or you’re just hankering for some cool nerdy movie art – I suggest you check this out!

I personally feel like, as designers [ or aspiring ones ] we become motivated and driven when we see other people’s successes. We begin to believe and have that ” I Can Too!” attitude like the books of our childhood emulated. Our minds begin to unfold the many vast ideas of our youth. Our childhood dreams and wishes come flowing out onto the paper, and if we use this sudden rush of inspired wisdom to the fullest, then success is surely in our midst. I feel like we grow as people from learning from other designers. We witness what they’ve done, how they’ve drawn, what mechanics they’ve implemented, what rules they’ve imposed, and we take the best and most entertaining to us and we warp them to fit games that we want to make. So – as you’re watching this, I ask of you, take away from this movie:

Drive, Inspiration, Motivation, and Determination.

Enjoy and I hope everyone gets a chance to go out and see the full movie!

Development News: Quantic Dream’s “Kara” Short Film

Posted by Chad Knick on

Today in Development News, I want to discuss one of my favorite development teams out there, Quantic Dream. Now, sure, I may get a lot of flack from time to time from my gamer buddies about my lustful enthralled enjoyment over Quantic Dream’s original title: Heavy Rain, but let’s face it – even if some hardcore gamers decide that Heavy Rain is a little too much narrative for their liking there is no denying one simple fact. The game is visually stunning and it really set the bar, in my personal opinion, for what the capabilities of the PS3 were at the time.

It’s been two years since Heavy Rain’s release in 2010 and since then we haven’t seen much out of the quiet studio with Quantic Dream, but today IGN.com released an interview with David Cage, the founder and lead developer over at Quantic Dream. He released statements about possibly having the studio be exclusive to working with Sony and he also unveiled a wonderful little short film that supposedly was produced by a new graphics engine that the studio had been working on. Now I know that doesn’t sound like amazing news, but in actuality it is and here’s why. The trailer I’m about to drop in here is a trailer for a short film called “Kara”

The trailer was done entirely in real-time on a PS3 using a new technology graphics engine that Quantic Dream has been working on for the past two hermitic years of solitude they’ve taken. Now apparently in the interview Cage mentioned that the trailer you’re about to see is taken from “Version 1” of this new engine and that the short film was completed on this engine “almost one year ago.” – so keep that in mind when you take a gander at this HD short film: Kara. I’ll discuss my opinions of the capabilities below afterwards.

So what does this mean for the future of gaming?

Well, clearly, we’ve seen in the past couple of years that gaming graphics engines are becoming far more advanced that the old 8-bit processors and even 64 bit consoles.  What makes the past couple of years even more amazing to me, as a designer, is that we’ve begun the design of engines that allow us to tell stories. No longer are we limited by pixel counts or motor limitations of character models, but our model development process has exceeded expectations leaps and bounds past what I assumed could be possible at this point.

If we take a look at the long list of games which I’m finding to have visually stunning performances: LA Noire, GTA 4, Assassin’s Creed: Revelations, Uncharted 3: Drake’s Deception, Heavy Rain, Mass Effect, etc.

The list goes on, and while certainly some of those games stand out visually more than others [ personally I found some pixelation and movement issues in all of these games at one point or another, but minor flaws are trivial in the scheme of storytelling.] I think that is actually the point I’m getting at, storytelling.

Storytelling has become an art form in the gaming media. We’ve gone from an industry that focused so hard to provide games that could be enjoyed strictly based off of the technology we had, to now focusing our efforts to tell emotional and meaningful story lines just like movies and television. When I watch this film I’m captivated, because I honestly didn’t believe that game technology was on a visual peak such as this.

If you had said to me years ago that one day we would get to the graphic capacity to where a model’s eyes would gloss over and cry, her mouth would move with every syllable, her emotions would be able to be captivating and engaging within a video game screen I very well may have scoffed at the idea. Most video game art has a sort of pseudo-realism.

Even the most prolific of designers and artists in the industry [ Square Enix, Bioware, etc. ] Often times I find that their models come out somehow reminding me that I am watching a video game, whether it’s through the coloring of the characters, the stylistic choices, etc. Something always reminds me that I’m witnessing a video game, thus, no matter how hard they try video games lose a sense of realism for me.

Now is that a good thing?

Absolutely. I think if games were so realistic and enthralling players very well may have an issue determining what reality from fiction is, but what I love about this technology and why I wanted to talk about it is simply because this is our next step in gaming evolution. Our whole industry revolves around design and graphics engines with the prolific capabilities that Quantic Dream has displayed. If we can create worlds, people, interactive environments with this amount of detail, then imagine what we can accomplish just within a small window of time in this industry?

No longer will stories have to be left to novelists and movie goers. The experiences and emotions which we gain from these mediums will be able to be attained through an interactive vision. I just want to ask my fellow viewers this: After watching the video how did you feel? Were you captivated by the tale and would you like to see a game made from this short film? How did just seeing these graphic capabilities affect you? – and would you like to see games developed with this sort of caliber? If we have the capabilities then why aren’t we pushing the boundaries of our next-gen systems before we start thinking about building new ones?

I would love to see a world where stories are told through interactivity. Where we can captivate children and parents of all ages with stories that reach them on a more interpersonal level. Games allow that to occur in our human lives. They allow us to interconnect with each other via online play, interconnect via story lines and emotions, and interconnect via the stories that we develop from listening to other people’s stories. We all learn in this world, and games are just going to be another way we can reach the masses through this. Given advanced graphics capabilities, I personally, say that the sky is the limit – and I can’t wait to make games for this upcoming generation, if the gaming society I’m going into will produce beauty like this.

Thank you Quantic Dream! Keep up the good work and I’m eager for your next project to reach shelves, whenever you decide to do so!

Gaming With A Cause: Spent

Posted by Chad Knick on

Today’s Game of the Week relates to recent topics that I’ve discussed on Gastrogamer. If readers will remember my admiration of Jane McGonigal, then you’ll see why I think this game would fit fondly into her game design forte. McGonigal is all about the development of humanity through gaming, and Spent gives a player to experience a part of the human society that I think sometimes we can overlook. Spent was developed by the Urban Ministries of Durham and a company called McKinney. Urban Ministries of Durham help in serving homeless shelters and providing for food for impoverished families in Durham, NC. The goal of Spent is to give players a chance to see if they can deal with the same hardships that many people go through daily.

Can you live for a month on 1000 dollars?

The game is pretty simplistic as far as mechanics go. The game only requires a mouse click to choose options, but what makes this game unique is that each choice you make is important to your survival and completion of the game. You log on and immediately you are thrown into an interface that challenges you with a premise:

“Urban Ministries of Durham serves over 6,000 people a year. But you’d never need help would you?”

“PROVE IT!”

The immediate human response that we get when challenged is to prove to others, as well as ourselves, that we can do the scenario that’s been posed to us. Spent forces the player to be in the position of an alternate scenario as if it was their own life. Each decision you make is met with trivia that expresses the hardships of low-income families. This game touched me emotionally, because it gives life a different perspective and makes you value every humbling reward of your life. You value your families successes, your financial security, your insurance, etc. You learn to appreciate your own life as you play through this game. This is why I recommend at least viewing it.

People often need aid from others, thus the Facebook attachments to the game, provide an even more realistic view to this simplistic game. Everyone, on occasion, requires the need to lean on other people for assistance. This game teaches us that we can’t always rely on ourselves to make it through our struggles, but sometimes we need to look to our friends and family for aid. It really opens up our eyes to the value of friendship and love and how hardships can bring individuals together.

I think the best portion of this game was the music though, because it gives a foreboding suspense to every decision you make throughout the game. This game is enlightening and gives an eye-opening experience that I feel like movies and television can’t even begin to grasp. Movies and television only allow us to visually experience a scenario, but given a game that puts us in the position of poverty, Spent gives us an even deeper understanding of the seriousness of our financial crisis and poverty.

I recommend this game, because games like this give us a deeper view of the world going on around us. It may seem like a depressing, dark, and foreboding game, but overall, the emotional impact of the gameplay is worth taking the challenge for. You can learn more about the Urban Ministries of Durham here:

http://www.umdurham.org/

Hopefully more games like this will come to fruition in the future, so that we can clearly see challenges that happen every day in our human society. We may sit at home and feel so secure, but in an instant, anyone can become unemployed, homeless, or living paycheck to paycheck. I feel so passionate about this movement, especially since the designers come from an area close to where I grew up. I would love to see more games discuss real human difficulties.

Please don’t give me more zombie apocalypses, or space warfare. These games are unrealistic and give me, and many players, fantasy realms to escape our dire realities from. If we spent more time as designers focusing on human hardships, relationships, and struggles ; then perhaps we can find cures, aid, and suggestions for some of our societies biggest problems. How many hit-points does my orc’s armor have in World of Warcraft? – I pray is not someone’s end-all-be-all lifetime concern for this world. If so, I really hope they consider the many struggles others are going about life with before they see their lack of proficient raiding armor as “a struggle.”

Now does that mean that all games should be ultra-realistic and I want to see all fantasy games destroyed? No, not at all, but I think a lot of games can take a page out of Spent’s playbook by giving players problems to solve and decisions to make. Bioware, Blizzard, and many MMO companies have been good at trying to implement these aspects into their games, but the truth is, they’re only aiding in solving fantasy problems.Where is the game where our fantasy hero is a person, not some fantasy Spartan, or some inhuman fantasy character who can tinker his, or her, way out of everything?

I want to feel like my choices in a game make a difference, teach me something that I wouldn’t have learned without playing it, give me a deeper understanding of the world around me. These are the types of games I look forward to going forward in the history of our world, and I believe that Spent is only a small trinket of gaming goodness that can be used to create even more meaningful and commanding experiences for us to learn from as human beings.

Enjoy folks! – and here’s your question: Can you Prove It?

http://playspent.org/

Tech Talk: Gastronomical Opinion: The Used Game Controversy

Posted by Chad Knick on

Well, here we are, in a world populated by games of all shapes and sizes from apps to PC mods – all of them are relevant and fun, but there’s an eerie foreboding option rearing it’s ugly head lately. This option comes in the form of two aspects: Online passes and the inability to play used games. Now, why in the world does this matter to us gamers? Well, I see this as a Gastronomical Opinion moment, and thus, I begin:

I’m all for gaming companies having to make money, honestly, I understand the inner workings of finance when it comes to the game industry. You have developers, publishers, licensers, console companies, manufacturers, and retail sellers all looking to be in on a piece of the gaming action. 60 dollars doesn’t seem like a ton, when we look at how the finances are divvied up. Here’s my problem though, I’m not opposed to game prices [ Alright, maybe a little, if Steam can make it happen you can too. ] but I’m opposed to the loss of a vital gaming staple: The used game market.

IGN.com released a personal debate via their podcast on the issue, that was posed via a rumor that the rumored upcoming  “XBox 720” would eliminate the ability to play used games upon it’s console, also Kotaku.com released an article on the subject:

http://games.ign.com/articles/121/1217464p1.html

http://kotaku.com/5879439/why-an-xbox-with-anti+used-games-tech-makes-perfect-sense

This, to me, makes absolutely no sense at all, same as how I felt when PS3 decided that the PS3 “Slims” and upgraded versions would take out backwards compatibility. Why, oh why, would you proceed to alienate your core players, your supporters, by altering your hardware to be inefficient to what your consumers desire? It makes no sense, and I hope to the sweet Lord that Nintendo has mercy on us with the upcoming Wii U and takes note that gamers like two things: Convenience and Compatibility. They don’t want to have to keep 5 consoles in their home, nor can they afford it in this economy [ unless they’re collectors and have money to burn.]

Logically, it doesn’t seem that Microsoft would do this. The retail companies carrying their games would ultimately drop their ties with the massive platform of Microsoft. This would be a horrendous notion and it would kill their profit completely because, if retailers refused to carry games due to this, then they’d have an even deeper loss of revenue. The games market is a huge profit business, and unfortunately in our industry, the market is expensive to create. This is a sad killing blow to most consumers, due to the fact that this economy has sucked a lot of expendable revenue that typical gamers use throughout the year to purchase new games out of their unfortunate pockets.

I have tons of used games that I have purchased over the years, and granted, I’m primarily a Playstation user, but I still don’t think this will float – nor do I want it. I’m vehemently opposed to this. I’m a huge indie supporter and I’m sorry if it seems like I’m ranting, but it’s just confusingly offensive to think that a massive corporation would screw their fans over with a massive used-game overhaul. Microsoft, please be nice to your fellow gamer. We’ve been nice to you with all of the success of Halo and Gears of War – why in the world would you do this?! Here’s a list of functions I suggest that ALL consoles take into consideration as this used game debate concludes:

1. Backwards Compatibility:

Seriously? Playstation destroyed this lovely convenience to many gamers, when they developed the new PS3 Slims. This is ridiculous and, sure I have my original PS2 and PS, but why should I have to toss my old games because it’s a revenue savvy for you? I’m an avid gamer, and hopefully designer, and so I understand the need for funds – but do you consider that players own old games from past consoles? Backwards Compatibility is a must have, and it helps so much for players like myself, who have a plethora of games on different consoles. I, and I’m sure others, don’t want to have to pay ___ amount of dollars for a game I already own to be digitally downloaded.

2. Streaming Games:

I was thinking about this today, that with all of the success with Netflix, why in the world hasn’t the gaming industry caught on with streaming media? Sure. We have some free-to-play downloadable games out there: Lord of the Rings: War In The North, DC Universe Online – but there are days where I go onto the console services and witness that I have to pay ___ dollars to play a great vintage game. Now I’m not asking for game developers, publishers, and console families to stream new and modern games, but I’m sure that the vintage games: Mega Man, Mario, Capcom’s Street Fighter, etc. These vintage staples that I love could probably be easily streamed via a service. The ball is in your court though console families, take it into consideration please.

3. Touch-based gaming

Now this is something that I’m fond of, because at Gastrogamer, I’m concerned with accessibility of games. Nintendo seems to have gotten a jump on you Playstation and Microsoft – as usual. They’ve dropped the gauntlet of the Wii U. A touchscreen peripheral which will, hopefully, expand the accessibility of their games beyond what it used to. I would love to see this technology implemented into the future of games. Microsoft you’re already discussing the capabilities of a Kinect 2, why not see what sort of other accessibility applications you can grab from it?

I’ve clearly witnessed that Mass Effect 3’s audio command program is a possible game changer. Awesome. You did it, now go further. You’ve given deaf gamers an ability to play the game, but remember that you’ll probably want to include subtitles into games if this is going to happen. I’m by no means a troll looking to call out my fellow companies and rant about what I hate. I love a lot of the decisions that are being made, but what needs to be focused on is accessibility. Accessibility and technology both physically and financially. If you conquer all of these portions:

You’ll have a happy gamer! These are my two cents – use them as you will.

Inspirational Gamers of the Week: Jordan Verner & Roy Williams

Posted by Chad Knick on

Good morning folks! My apologizes for taking a little downtime from updating the site. I’ve caught a bit of a bug, and thus, it’s been slowing my writing time down. With that being said though, let me introduce you to a wonderfully heartwarming story I’ve found.

Now this event occurred almost two years ago, but to me, the meaning behind it is still relevant. Today’s Inspirational Gamer of the Week is actually a culmination of two people: Jordan Verner; a blind gamer from Ontario, Canada; and Roy Williams; a fellow gamer who lent a hand to Jordan’s gaming needs.

This story touched me so much that I felt I just had to post about it, even if the event is old, the story is still filled with emotional connection. Jordan expressed his desires to complete the Nintendo game ” Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time“, arguably one of the best in the vast saga of Zelda lore. Jordan posted out to the world, via Skype, his overwhelming desire to receive help beating this game, and low and behold, an individual miles away from him took it upon himself to help Jordan beat the game. How was this accomplished?

Well Roy went about writing a transcript for Jordan with the aid of some friends and it basically entailed every timed move of the game, every treasure chest, every turn of a joystick, every sound cue, everything was detailed down to the n-th degree.

This is a story that I’m ecstatic about, because it shows that there are gamers out there who do appreciate the desires of gamers with disabilities. They recognize a players limitations, and instead of chastising them for being different, wish to aid them in succeeding. Roy and Jordan are a true example of the friendship and camaraderie that the gaming universe can have. The online universe isn’t filled with strictly twelve year old potty-mouth tools who only want to own you within a game just so they can brag to their friends like some troll on Youtube.

Every once in a while you’ll find wonderful cases like this – where one gamer reaches out to another so that an impaired player can receive the same amount of satisfaction and accomplishment as any abled player could. I think, especially now, that we need to look at these aspects as designers, not necessarily to promote games just for the blind, but to start thinking in a generous manner. We need so start examining the design of our games as a whole and ask ourselves: Who does this game cater to? – is our audience broad enough? How can we make it broader?

We should look to design games that give players the opportunity of compassion and love for their fellow gamer. Games that become accessible on multiple fronts, and games that can be shared and played by all people. Gaming is vastly becoming a premiere mix-multimedia that allows individuals to express their goals, beliefs, and ideas out to the world.

If Roy and Jordan can use Ocarina of Time to show and express the power of compassion and friendship, can’t we then use this knowledge going forward to help build games that provides that sense of teamwork and interconnection with our fellow man – regardless of the struggles and difficulties each of us have to overcome? We are all human, and for those of us who enjoy games, it’s a way for us to escape to a sense of accomplishment that we wouldn’t get anywhere else – so why shouldn’t it be able to empower us to share this feeling with everyone?

Thanks Roy and Jordan. Your story inspired me to keep aware of the different types of gamers I’m designing for, and you’ve given me faith in a loving, caring, and beautiful gaming society. Thanks again – and I hope others take your wonderful triumph to heart.

– Chad K.

Game of the Week: Cut The Rope

Posted by Chad Knick on

And now for something completely different, for those of you who like more vibrant graphics and perhaps a little more cuteness in your gameplay than 8-bit zombies. Now I’m sure quite a few of you have heard about a little smartphone game dubbed: Cut The Rope.

If you haven’t you’ve been hiding in a cave, away from all smartphones, and you’re probably just now discovering that there’s products called apps. If that’s the case then, don’t worry, I won’t be insensitive and I’ll gladly guide you through the wonderfully cute, and rather addictive, physics based world of Cut The Rope.

Cut The Rope is an app game developed by ZeptoLab, and quite honestly, their little dinosaur character would make Walt Disney squeal with joy. The concept is you have been given a pet dinosaur, affectionately named Nom Nom, and your goal in the game is to get a single piece of candy to his mouth. This is accomplished through a series of physics based puzzles and each level gets progressively harder.

The overwhelming love I have for this game is primarily due to it’s accessibility. The game is all done with touching, and though timing is sort of a prerequisite for certain tasks to be completed fully, the accessibility is really high for this game. Most, if not all, actions can be done with just one hand. Instructions for new abilities are written on the back wall of levels for deaf gamers, and it’s just got a very cozy feel to the gameplay. Cognitively impaired players may have a tough time with some of the further levels, but overall it’s a simple, addictive, and thoroughly enjoyable experience. You can pick up Nom Nom and his candy grabbing escapades in Cut The Rope for .99 cents in the App Store and Android Market.

The smartphone version has tons of puzzles to sort through, but you can play the browser version right here. I promise you’ll probably get a cavity from all the candy grabbing fun:

http://www.cuttherope.ie/

Game of the Week: Organ Trail

Posted by Chad Knick on

Hey folks! Well, The Last of Us, isn’t getting here any sooner than my little grubby fingers can get a hold of – but while I wait for it [ for months and months on end! ] I can at least simulate the plot line right? Right? Absolutely! – well, sort of, anyways let me explain. This week I’m going to be posting up MORE THAN ONE Game of the Week. Yeah – I know! Two, Three, Four – for the price of one – you don’t know how many I have in store – and thus it begins!

You are isolated, stranded in a station wagon somewhere in the middle of an infested town. You and your buddies are all that are left standing in a world filled with zombie mutants – and you run on MSDOS programming. What are you? Why you’re none other than a nostalgically accessible indie game from the developers The Men Who Wear Many Hats. No, I’m not just saying they like hats, that’s actually their company name [ though they actually do like hats.] The game is called Organ Trail and it’s reminiscent of one of my favorite games growing up as a kid – Oregon Trail.

Now what’s different here? Well take the you + a team of friends concept that’s in Left for Dead. Toss in MS-DOS 8-bit graphics and a chip-tune soundtrack – and you have a road trip of awesomeness ahead of you!

The gameplay mechanics are simplistic, and for the most part one-handed. The only requirements for this game are that you get a list of options to choose from and you pick a choice based on the corresponding number. There is no timer so you can take as long as you like, and shifting from menu to menu is as easy as the enter button. The the only problem players may face is the scavenging sections as that requires two hands really to navigate precisely, due to the WASD keys for movement on the computer version and use of the spacebar to fire the gun. The coloring is a bit off putting – lots of bright neon colors over a black asphalt floor, so it may be a bit odd for color-blind gamers. Unfortunately, the game doesn’t have a text to speech function for blind gamers, but other than those minor issues the game is pretty accessible overall.

I’m not sure how the functionality will change when the game is ported to iPhones, but all I can say is this game is fun, and it’s overwhelmingly accessible. If you love vintage games you should try this out. The game is simple, but addicting fun. There’s nothing like seeing one of your best friend’s names pop up like ” ________ has contracted cholera.” or ” _______ has been bitten by a zombie” – plus there’s an option to kill off infected party members just like in Oregon Trail.

Now why do I bring this game up you ask?

“This game seems archaic when I could easily be at home playing Zombie’s mod on my Black Ops disk.” Sure. You could – but it wouldn’t nearly be as cool as the ability to carry the game around with you on your PHONE!  Yep! The Men Who Wear Many Hats has used Kickstarter to license their product to iPhone App stores everywhere – I assume that it will probably come out for an Android market too, but I wasn’t able to find that out as of yet. You don’t have to have a phone to play though, shoot you don’t really have to have any friends. You can just play here on your browser for free till the game comes out for you to carry around.

Organ Trail:

http://hatsproductions.com/organtrail.html

Just wait. Eventually you’ll be out and about in public, playing Organ Trail on your phone, and you’ll disturb some fast food restaurant by screaming out “Aww! Really?! I contracted Typhus from the drinking water!” – and thus many a hilarious lawsuit may commence. Enjoy your 8-bit zombie killing escapades folks. I hope your party lives through the night in this 8-bit indie rebooted masterpiece. Much love Men Who Wear Many Hats. Thanks for bringing back one of my favorite vintage games and putting an incredibly accessible spin on it!

Tech Talk: Rock Vibe – A Beat for the Blind

Posted by Chad Knick on

Hello there folks! Now today I was debating on what to post first. I’ve found some really wonderful, and often times nostalgic, games around the webs and via console formats. I’ve also been spending a lot of time working on finding innovative technical improvements in the world of games as well though, and today, that won out as the topic of the day today. A game [ or games if I feel so inclined. ] will come later I promise. Now – onto the good stuff! So it’s not often I’m surprised by technical inventions in the world of games. Let’s face it the Wii didn’t even scare me or shock me that much.

I had this overwhelming feeling that motion control was the way the game industry was headed, but I just hoped they’d keep some semblance of an old control scheme – so much for that. What if the motions on the screen don’t matter though? What if you can’t see at all, and thus, can’t play many games with your friends?

The fact of the matter is though that a young lady from Mountain View, CA may very well have started something that I am totally supportive of. Now I’m not blind, though sometimes with my bad eyesight it feels like it, but I’ve had some blind friends before and I can’t imagine someone who used to be a gamer no longer being able to enjoy experiences of their youth due to loss of sight. This is something that I feel needs to be drastically fixed, and Rupinder Dhillon is taking a step towards making that gaming reality come true.

Today we’re talking about blind gamers and Dhillon has taken a wonderful stride forward with her product called Rock Vibe. She developed the concept during her time in college at UC Santa Cruz. Now Rock Vibe is an extremely cool concept. It works on the idea of sensor vibration in a fitted glove to play their game. A sensor in the glove will let you know when a color is coming up, and when you get it wrong it will make a small sound, as well as if you get it right. Now what does this mean? “Certainly I don’t want yet another music game to clutter my household I’ve already got 20” – you say. Well, sure, you’ve got 20 games that can be shared with your sighted friend while your blind friend has to sit off to the side and imagine that he, or she, is at the world’s worst karaoke concert – but do you have one they can participate with? Probably not.

My point is that games should be accessible to all people, and to exclude someone from activity just because they’ve lost their sense of sight isn’t a cause to say that gaming is dead for them. Gaming can still be achieved, but you just have to know where to look. The Rock Vibe glove looks like an amazing stride forward in the gaming industry, and if the game itself isn’t made, I hope that Dhillon at least gets credit where credit is due and someone picks her prototype up. The vibration glove she uses for this project could impact the way blind individuals can play in the future of games.

Blind people may have the inability to see, but their audio acuity is impeccable. As designers, we need to take this knowledge of the blind anatomy and put it to good use rather than squander it and exclude the visually impaired from the mainstream market. Dhillon is making strides to get kids involved in the music market, but what about other games? I look ahead towards the future and I see a gaming universe that uses her technology for the better. A game based where it can be played via controller for the sighted, and audio cues for the blind. We need to cross technological boundaries we haven’t crossed before. We need to attempt games that can be accessible to all people, and our consoles and PCs need to accommodate them all.

Below is her Kickstarter link. The project will be available for PC, if produced at it’s current level, but I’m hoping for future endeavors. Please folks she has 3 DAYS left on her Kickstarter campaign and she’s about 2,500 shy of her goal. If you have a blind family member or friend, I urge you to check this out. This may very well be the next set of hardware coming out for gaming consoles and making life a little better for blind and sighted gamers. It’s amazing to me that such technology goes falling by the wayside, but that’s why I’m here I suppose. I’ll let her explain the whole process, but I do pray you guys check this lady out. She’s an amazing inventor and she has a wonderful concept that could help not only music games become more accessible, but possibly other games designed for audio cues as well.

Much love gaming nation. Take care and let’s see this world becoming gaming accessible for all!

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/rupa211/rock-vibe-accessible-gaming?ref=category

Inspirational Gamer of the Week: Jane McGonigal – “How Gaming Can Make A Better World”

Posted by Chad Knick on

Evening fellow gamers. Once again the time is upon us this week to credit a gamer with a twinge of an inspirational “Hallelujah” – and this week it’s a designer, who is also a gamer. Her name is Jane McGonigal and she’s the author of a fantastic book that I think anyone interested in game design for the future should check out. The book is called “Reality Is Broken: Why Games Make Us Happy, and How They Can Change the World.” I know – it’s a long title, but honestly, this book is an astonishing and eye-opening read and I recommend anyone who gets a chance to read it immediately. Today I choose to promote McGonigal as my “Inspirational Gamer of the Week” because what she’s aiming for in the gaming universe can serve to help all types of problems, from economic to even the physical, if we as designers can begin to make intuitive design choices for our fellow gamers to learn more, rather than just play more.

In this video I’m going to post McGonigal posts some really interesting facts about our gaming society, for one being that, as a human society we currently spend almost 3,000,000,000 hours a WEEK playing online games. That’s certainly one reason then why the games market has made a move to make multiplayer aspects in games more common place in most modern games. This being said there are other things to consider – like the fact that all of those hours add up to us developing personal skills, that we otherwise wouldn’t feel confident, committed to, or driven to succeed in our normal given lives. The virtual worlds we immerse ourselves in become a safe haven for us to accomplish goals, achieve new successes, and feel proud of our endeavors. We have become problem solvers of a digital age, however, looking at the current games market – there’s far too many bullet sequences of FPS shooters, and accomplishing virtual achievements that we have lost focus on real world problems.

McGonigal insists that there is a way to change this notion. The heavy rate of play by players all around the world, provides an outlet for a mass exodus of creative collaboration between players all over the world. She is exploring the wonders of the gaming industry, not simply from a consumer stance, but from a humanistic, evolutionary stance. In her book she explains how our human societies have evolved through the process of learning with the means of games. It’s a fascinating study, but one aspect that really gets me is that her theories are all right. If designers began to look at ways to solve real world problems through collaboration with gamers then imagine what we could accomplish as people.

The economic crisis we face today, the oil shortages, wars, all of these aspects and scenarios of life could possibly be first tackled virtually through the form of games. Success is a hard thing to come by for some folks. They lack the confidence to speak their minds to others. They lack confidence in their ideas, share their thoughts, convey anything that means something to them. Games change that aspect of a person. In games, we become a virtual representation of ourselves. We are no longer “Mr. So-and-So” or “Mrs. What’s-Her-Face.” – we become “Player 1” and omnipotent, anonymous entity, who’s identity means nothing towards the goal of solving the problems at hand.

I’ll give an example. We currently see that in this lifetime we’re going through one of the largest financial depressions in global history. If I were to design a game around the financial crisis, and then I were to give gamers the controls and said, “Alright. The scenarios in this game are fictional, but they are very real possible outcomes of what would occur if we don’t fix the problems within the game. Fix it.” Could you? – and what would your steps be to get there? These are all questions you’d have to ask yourself in the confines of the game.

Gamers do this scenario all the time in virtual worlds, so why would it be hard to ask them to collaborate and become heroes within a virtual world that mimicked our own? McGonigal is an inspiration to me, because she stands for both gamers and society as a whole. She realizes that gaming, fun, and entertainment are only part of the whole coin of the game industry’s potential. We have billions of players worldwide, who play games for hours upon hours, solving in-game puzzles, quests, deeds, collecting necessary resources, etc. What if we put as much effort into a mimicked reality game as some folks do into Skyrim or World of Warcraft? – imagine the things we could do, the solutions we could produce. Our lives are fading into a virtual world, dominated by virtual presences with virtual story lines.

They, sadly, sooth us for the moment, and then leave us wanting more or leave us with a desire to obtain more accomplishment. If life were a game and each aspect of your life was dictated into “Accomplishments”, “Trophies” or “Achievements” how would yours pan out? Would you be able to look back on your gaming resume and say that you made a difference in the world? – that your presence or play made an impact on how others lived their lives? These are all questions McGonigal asks. The video is quite long ( 20 minutes. )

If you have that time to spare, great, I encourage you to watch the video at some point, but if not, don’t fret. It’s not the end of the world, but I will say to check out her book. She’s got phenomenal insight to human sociology and behavior, and she’s striving for a gaming universe where we’re not just some gamer “pwning” society one button input at a time. This is why I respect her so much. She mentions a few games as well in her video and I’ve posted links to them at the bottom if you’d like to get more info or see how you too can play. Her work and understanding of the gaming universe could change the way we develop games. The aspects that we focus on no longer have to apply to massive MMO virtual worlds, but rather, virtual worlds that assist real world problems.

Can you imagine a world that’s cancer free – due to gameplay creating a solution? Can you imagine if we solved diseases, financial instability, etc. – with social interactive gameplay? The world is out there, and now it’s up to designers and fellow gamers to grasp. I hope we do, and I can’t wait to see the future of gaming if it’s being promoted by this idea. Oh, and one note, I put the video into English Subtitles for the hearing impaired. If you need it in another language, feel free to click the video and it should carry you to http://www.ted.com where I got the video. They have tons more speakers and thinkers there that you can check out if you’re interested.

Evoke: A Graphic Novel + World Finance Game: http://www.urgentevoke.com/page/mission-list

World Without Oil: A Social Change Simulation: http://www.worldwithoutoil.org/

Superstruct: [ This game is no longer active, but the archive videos are pretty awesome.]  http://archive.superstructgame.net/

Much love and happy gaming to a better future! I look forward to a day when even console games get in on this social change action!

Developer of the Week: Double Fine Productions

Posted by Chad Knick on

If there were ever a caped crusader of the video game world that I looked up to in this industry it would have to be Tim Schafer. This is why Tim gets my nod today in my new segment – Developer of the Week. Now why, you may ask, is Schafer so well deserving of this praise? Well, for one, he’s made some really amazing games over at Double Fine Studios – and they’re usually indie and quirky, and those are definitely the types of games I go for.  He’s got a huge list of games, with some of the most notable being: Psychonauts, Stacking, Costume Quest, Brutal Legend, Once Upon A Monster, etc. and two – he’s doing something amazing using a little known site called Kickstarter.com

These games may seem childish to some hardcore gamers, who love to do nothing more than cap noobs on Sunday afternoons, but these games are an art that I don’t see many development teams aiming after lately. Games are art, despite what some folks tend to believe; they are more than just bloody, depraved, mind-numbing junk. Double Fine Studios proves my point. Schafer understands what it’s like to be a gamer, because he is one, but he also looks at games in a way I wish more studios would. He looks at games as artistic endeavors, and thus, where this article begins is at the heart of his artistic side. Perhaps I should let him explain, because if you haven’t seen his Kickstarter promotional video yet – you’re sadly missing out on greatness.

Tim makes an extremely valid point here; one of my favorite types of games ARE adventure games! I have fond memories of playing games on the old Apple or playing games that used MSDOS programming. [Here’s looking at you Museum Madness!] I fondly miss the days of old when one-click inputs were a way a game functioned perfectly. Now I’m not asking everyone to adopt this method to develop his or her games – that would be ludicrous and downright inconsiderate. Tim wants to develop a “point and click” adventure game though? I’m all for it! Given his talented studios’ art styles, vision, and drive to make games that appeal to the masses, I say the more that support this project the better. They’ve already raised over 1,000,000 dollars in funding – and they’ve still got plenty of time to go! I, for one, know that I’m going to be tracking the progress of this game and it’s implications into the game development world.

It’s sad, but honestly, in my humble opinion, I feel like big publishing firms can suck the very life out of the art of a game. They focus on the business aspects of the game so much that, often times, I find the new generation of games to be less enjoyable some times. Now this is in no way a knock on publishers, or on any game company for that matter, but it’s simply an endorsement of games as artwork and enjoyment. Schafer seems to have his sights set on a goal, a point and click old-school adventure game for all to enjoy. I can’t wait to see it come to fruition and I know I’ll be watching the documentary closely to gain insight to the video game development world.

The idea that he wants to focus on a point and click game totally hits home for me and makes me smile. The prospects of accessibility grow enormously, and I am sure that gamers, both abled and disabled will appreciate this movement towards a point and click game. They were incredibly popular back in the day when PC gaming and console gaming was just becoming an in-home staple, and so it’s a joy to see that this lost art form might be coming back to the main stage for video game audiences everywhere. If you would like to support Tim Schafer’s brain matter idea baby, and you would like to see it grow to a full fledge adult, graduate from high school, get married and somehow swoon it’s way into the hearts of your household – please feel free to visit Kickstarter.com in the link provided.

 http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/66710809/double-fine-adventure

Much love Double Fine Productions! Thank you Tim Schafer for providing the gaming world with a fossil of perpetual awesomeness! I look forward to seeing the finished product, and playing it till my heart swells up and bursts from happiness!

– Chad K.