Love the one your (actually) with

I wonder if there's a situation with designing for game worlds, where your just trying to add fun to what is otherwise an uninteresting and unrewarding idea of a world. I know alot of people are into setting, but in terms of gamism it's the real life hurdles that make the fun (or atleast with the gamism I pursue). And setting is just an idea - it is not as yet anything in real life.

Actually I guess that answers it - there is a situation where it's adding real life things just in the attempt to make this unfun thing, fun.

I guess I should be taking something I enjoy already, like lunch money or chess or connect four and...continue to enjoy it. If I feel like adding some sort of game world element to it, fair enough. But otherwise enjoy the fun thing that exists, rather than try and make something fun out of something that doesn't exist/is just an idea. Love the one your actually with!

BTW, if there's an ad above about guns and networking...well, what do you think about that one? I'm open to influence from posters on whether I let that one show up.

Evangelicized design and waiting for snood...

There's an interesting article over on 'Play this thing' about a game called Snood. It's a shareware title that tenaciously spread and apparently sold in the millions.

This ties into my previous post because this does not appear to be a game that has a 'journey' or a 'sense of menace'. I'll grant it probably has far more playability than invaders from space, but the point is these other qualities are make believe requirements for playability.

In the play this thing article author Costik* says game developers can't take it seriously, since they themselves devote their lives to complicated 3D worlds and huge budgets. And that's the thing - once someone devotes their life to something, they have a hard time thinking it's wrong. Indeed, they start evangelicising it and teaching it to others as if it's perfectly right. And so you get a culture who is basically out of touch with what human needs really are but couldn't consider being wrong at all, for how it would invalidate their lives (or so I'd hypothesize). A bit like the church (ooh, a sideswipe there, but also a genuine parallel).

So if your starting out as an indie game developer yourself now days, I think your probably facing up to abuse by your essentially brainwashed peers. If you want encouragement from them, you'll have to do things their way. Or you'll have to go it alone. Which isn't impossible, if snood is any indicator!

* Should I list his full name? I'd have to look it up for proper spelling, and this is the name he works under there. Hmmm.

Playability

Awhile ago on 'play this thing' I said I put the program 'everyday the same dream'  in the same pidgeon hole as 'the graveyard', in that there is no gameplay. No playability.

Recently I've been on the recieving end of much the same claim myself for my game 'invaders from space', so it's interesting to be in this position. Check out the comments section. The guys saying because it 'has no sense of menance' and 'no sense of journey' it's not playable.

Now the thing is, I consider playability to be that the outcome of play is uncertain. You have to play it to find out. If the outcome is certain even before you start 'playing' then it isn't playing at all.

I also include, not surprisingly, games like playing catch in the backyard as having playability and is a game. You may fumble and drop the ball.

So it's interesting to be in between these two assertions of unplayability. Invaders from space does have play - I lost at it during beta tests - the ending, as in whether you'll win, is uncertain. It used to only give one life, making it more uncertain, but someone suggested adding more lives so I did. While everyday the same dream - there is no uncertainty to the outcome - or atleast as far as I could tell. There seemed so little uncertainty I didn't play it all the way through. So someone might be able to blow me out of the water on this. But in terms of this blog entry, there was no uncertainty. Thus no play. Thus not a game.

But then I'm being told that games, for some reason, need a sense of journey and menace to have playability??? No, a game needs a sense of journey and menance in order to have a sense of journey and menace.

Now, I don't think my own standard for playability is just something I made up in my head - I'm sure catch has been played for thousands, perhaps millions of years by humans.

Having to have a sense of journey and menace? No, this is just made up shit.

Which I don't mind, except when someone takes the shit they made up in their head but doesn't take responsibility for it. They just pretend their invented shit IS the way the world works. Which still isn't so bad EXCEPT when they act upon it. In this case downrating. Because while they'll whine that the game has to have journey and menace, really they are saying 'do as I tell you - put in journey and menace'. But there's disconnect where they pretend to themselves they didn't invent the idea it has to have that - thus they can pretend to themselves they aren't telling you what to do or they will downrate/punish you.

But it's interesting to be in the middle, to claim non playability and to hear it too. I will say, every day the same dream would make an excellent music video that I would watch. Indeed, it basically was a music video.

Making money: Growing and selling vegies!

Spotted a great page on growing your own vegetables for profit and even as a main wage and this womans experience with that. Really informative!

I've been looking at the idea of growing and selling myself - just working on the growing at the moment mostly. It sounds like she has an awesome set up!

http://hubpages.com/_1yt6a3e3yrcm0/hub/Can-I-make-a-living-from-growing-vegetables-at-home

Do guilds themselves defeat the idea of massively multiplayer?

There's something I heard about mmorpgs - "Oh yeah, there are idiots, but if you get a good guild..."

Don't guilds actually destroy the idea of a mmorpg?

I mean, how many people do you have in your guild active when you are? Even in a really big guild, perhaps 200 or so? Most likely less?

And if the idea is that you stick with your 'good guild', then really your interacting with around 200 people or more likely, alot less.

That's hardly massive, is it?

It's a common desire in mmorpgs to have a guild - but it essentially removes the 'mm'.