Critical Casts Episode 2

This week, I address game design issues, elements, and problems from a variety of different angles. Get in on the discussion, and get started on the hands on application. There are adapters to buy, games to try, and a design challenge that may blow your mind.

Download Critical Casts 2 HERE.



Show Notes....

Wiimote + Bluetooth
Neo*RPG (I'm going to try and post my design postmortem document as well)

Guitar Hero Type Games

Hybrid Game

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Language of Creators

In an article at 1up.com called " So You Want to Make a Game " several indie developers are interviewed about their craft. I lifted a few quotes from the articles that fall in line with the approach I'm taking with my games and that support the kind of critical-thinking we do here on the blog. Go find the mechanic at the heart of a favorite title It's important to start a game off at the core by thinking about the core mechanic. For Desktop, Preece created a game based solely on the real-time strategy genre's "mazing" mechanic -- forcing units down a path of destruction -- and banning any feature that didn't interact with that primary mechanic . Preece's approach to game developing involves focusing solely on the primary mechanic/function of his game. Mario is like that. There's already some interesting things about Mario when you're just moving him around. He's got a bit of inertia. If you hold the jump button, he'll jump a litt...
Read more

Lefty Loosy Righty Tighty

New Classical criticism focuses on identifying a game's primary function/action that sums up all of the player's actions, functions, and abilities into a single expression. This expression can be thought of as the interpretation of the game or what the gamer is actually doing when he/she plays. Sometimes the primary function can be encapsulated in a single word. For example, the primary function of the Super Mario platforming series is "jump". After the primary function is identified, the New Classical critic then looks at a game's formal elements to analyze how they promote the primary function. The formal elements include Sound, Music, Art style, Story, Graphics, level design, enemies, etc. Because the New Classical critic privileges interactivity over passivity (especially when focused into a limited number of rules and actions), such a critic is only concerned with how these elements shape the gameplay experience, and assumes that any formal element in a gam...
Read more

If Wall-e (the movie) Was A Game

Image
I'll keep this one brief and spoiler free. All images are taken from the online trailer of Wall-e. If Wall-e, the fantastic new addition to Pixar's powerhouse of films for all ages, was a game it would be a perfect example of... visual storytelling form fits function characterization through action clean (virtually spotless) design/story telling The dialog in Wall-e is sparse at first. Aside from the lyrics in the music and the audio track from a video feed shown early in the film, Wall-e starts off like a silent film. The crafters at Pixar truly took advantage of the freedom, power, and flexibility of visuals, the heart of films. Instead of bogging down the film with unnecessary explanatory dialog, Pixar let the images do the talking. Throughout the film just about everything the viewer needs to know can be extrapolated from the information easily gathered from the visuals, which are the most advanced and technically impressive computer generated visuals I've ever seen. S...
Read more