http://gridley.res.carleton.edu/~mawhortn games, game design, and other musings Fri, 24 Apr 2009 06:19:06 +0000 http://backend.userland.com/rss092 en It functions as a social bragging right, a way of sizing people up, a quick reminder of one's accomplishments. But there is a tension between social "score", ie the way other players/people evaluate your accomplishments and the actual number. Should we come up with a simple figure and let the ... http://gridley.res.carleton.edu/~mawhortn/?p=55 http://gamestudies.org/0802/articles/jorgensen An interesting analysis of game audio in World of Warcraft (with specific focus on the Battlegrounds). Here’s my critique, which I think is focused on the sort of simplifying distinctions a lot of game studies people make (especially in assuming a sort of average player when referring to the player). ... http://gridley.res.carleton.edu/~mawhortn/?p=54 My paper submission to the Foundations of Digital Games was rejected. This isn't surprising considering I am not hip with the media or game studies times, although I'm currently taking an independent study which should help correct this. In retrospect I shouldn't have submitted it, but I have fortunately learned that ... http://gridley.res.carleton.edu/~mawhortn/?p=53 I talked about games (and art in general) that captured very specific experiences and simulated them in complex ways so that repeated play is needed to succeed, with JFK Reloaded being the best example. Trying to recreate the Kennedy assassination with realistic bullet, wound, and ricochet physics is ... http://gridley.res.carleton.edu/~mawhortn/?p=52 "What I am illustrating here is that in film, the film director is in total control of everything you see. In games you are in control and that is really immersive. I love films like ‘The Fast & The Furious’ but I want to be in control, so games like ... http://gridley.res.carleton.edu/~mawhortn/?p=51 Addictively hard, surprisingly deep, humorous though trying a bit too hard to be wacky. Much more fun that God of War even though its production values are rather horrible. Great pick for a primary camera angle. Being thrown off the deep end was fun in terms of the difficulty of ... http://gridley.res.carleton.edu/~mawhortn/?p=50 I submitted a paper and a scholarship app for the Foundations of Digital Games conference on a Disney cruise ship. My paper is part of my larger ideas about how games work as a medium, but it basically says that to have effective emotion, games mechanical structure must mirror the ... http://gridley.res.carleton.edu/~mawhortn/?p=49 I just read a very interesting conference book called Bioapparatus about the future of virtual worlds. A lot of it, even according to the final responses, devolved into misunderstanding between the artists, feminists, art theorists, and techies who attended, but it provided some interesting insight into the current state of ... http://gridley.res.carleton.edu/~mawhortn/?p=48 Great art direction, good graphics, pretty decent storyline bland, uninspired gameplay. My experience was colored by playing it on hard mode, which essentially meant that I ran out of ammo all the time and just had to let myself respawn at the vita-chamber and spam magic until everything was dead, but ... http://gridley.res.carleton.edu/~mawhortn/?p=47 Since I've decided to start doing things again, I should be making more blog posts soon. For now: Reading Kotaku is a great way to start hating both the game industry and games journalism. They're pretty much fanboys of the worst sort (the ones who don't think they're fanboys) and the only thing worthwhile about their site is the comments section (sometimes good, other times filled with retarded console warriors) and their frequency of updates. As the antidote to IGN, GameSpot and whatever else they are nearly as bad as the poison. ... http://gridley.res.carleton.edu/~mawhortn/?p=46