Make It Big In Games - Latest Comments in General

Re: Inspiration From Other Forms Of Media

Lawrie — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:26:55 -0000

"Making games as fun as I can possibly imagine them" - Sid + Al's Incredible Toons is a great illustration of this. I have many happy memories.

Re: Inspiration From Other Forms Of Media

jefftunn — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 15:05:12 -0000

Nice thoughts, Josh. Toys and books are huge sources of inspiration for me as well. This post was just because I was particularly inspired by some great movies made be great movie makers. I love your saying about there is a game in everything. I used to say the same thing, and one day I was saying it to Randy Dersham while sitting in his office looking down at the bus station. I was bragging that I could even make a game out of what goes on at the bus station, and I did. Well, after a few iterations, the "game" became a story telling screen saver named Johnny Castaway.

Re: Inspiration From Other Forms Of Media

joshuadallman — Sat, 23 Aug 2008 07:31:11 -0000

Two of my favorite places to find inspiration for game ideas are book stores and toy stores (or better, the toy section of thrift stores, which has more chaos in its mix with which to play with).

When in book stores, I beeline to the kids section. Just this week I bought two kids books, one about magic, and another about dragons. I have no kids, these books are for me - both books will serve as creative grist for the mill. Every game designer should have a "creative library" or "well" to dip from, so to speak.

Movies are another natural source of inspiration. When I was a kid I had a writing teacher who used to say "There's a story in everything." Well there's a game in everything too, if you can find it! Inspiration is all around. Always be open to finding it, and find it you will.

Re: Inspiration From Other Forms Of Media

jgostylo — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 20:46:11 -0000

Thanks for the tip. I will see what I can do. Unfortunately for the layout of the page my strengths of rules and guidelines for games far outpace my skill for visual layout :).

Your comment about inspiring media makes me wonder whether your inspiration from other media and not in lecture of game topics speaks more of your veteran status as a game maker or your personality.

I would assume it is mostly personality but I would not totally discount the other. I love seeing how other people go about solving what they perceive as problems. Maybe you have been there and done that and have seen the same thing too many times.

Re: Inspiration From Other Forms Of Media

jefftunn — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 17:29:42 -0000

I find that I get much more inspiration from media outside of the game industry. Music, movies, books, and real life give me inspiration and ideas. Seeing somebody else ply their craft in an expert manner makes me want to get better at my craft.

BTW, I checked out your Terra Tanks project. Could be cool, but your front page need a redesign. Most people will not even sign up for a free account unless they can see what they are getting into.

Thanks for the ideas on future blog posts.

Re: About

David Klein — Thu, 14 Aug 2008 04:20:35 -0000

Hi!
I am going to wordcamp on Saturday, and during Wordcamp, I am going to be leading online wordgames on different people’s blogs.
They will be silly, fun, low tech games using wordpress blogs.
Would you like to host a game on your blog?
Each game takes 15 minutes, and you would need to be able to post the game, and keep track of comments that 15 minutes while you are at wordcamp.
Go to http://www.bodyabcs.com/bwp/word-games/ to read more about it.

Much Love,
dk

Re: Inspiration From Other Forms Of Media

Gaiiden — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 12:13:55 -0000

I haven't seen There Will Be Blood yet, but the other two I caught in theaters and were indeed amazing movies. A compressed air gun. Brilliant.

Re: Inspiration From Other Forms Of Media

Novack — Wed, 13 Aug 2008 04:27:17 -0000

While some Hollywood film directors think games are not creative enough (I will not say names, lets just call them "Arrogant Bastards"), others agree on the videogame as the final successor for the film art, allowing a new whole space where there are no more spectators, but characters/players of its own story.

As a matter of truth however, the mainstream studios are not getting the memo, as the infinite posibilities are limited by the risk of earn not-so-much money.

Good Times for us indies.

Re: Inspiration From Other Forms Of Media

jgostylo — Tue, 12 Aug 2008 22:09:25 -0000

Jeff, glad to see you back on the blog. That seemed an odd topic but I can relate that seeing good art makes you feel like producing good art in your own medium.

My inspirational medium as of late has been some videos of a Warren Spector lecture series on game design he did at UT Austin where he interviewed a bunch of famous game designers. I don't want to bankrupt the guy who is hosting it by posting the URL here, but if you were interested in hosting the videos I can send you the link.

One of the biggest revelations I acquired watching this was how common failure was even with very successful designers and how to deal with the failure. This has been weighing on me recently with a published game that did not go anywhere, a game I shelved after 2 years of work, a flash game I am working on with a friend while we both maintain a job, and a web MMO that I finished and am trying to foster into a community. (www.terratanks.com (I think you would consider it a failure if I missed that opportunity))

I have nothing yet that I can consider to be a success (meaning I can support my family with it and do it full time) but after watching the videos I realized that I just can't do anything but make games if I want fulfillment in my life.

Can you post some insight on project failures, shelved games, and in particular what you think is the best way to recognize failure and reach the point of success as quickly as possible? What habits have you noticed in others that made you think "that person is just going to flounder in mediocrity their whole career?"

Re: Bill Gates… Thanks For Your Contributions To The Game Industry

jefftunn — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 23:33:37 -0000

I wasn't brown nosing. It is just the way I feel. Oh yeah, and thanks for the astounding insights on the obsolete 68000. All those programmers out there still making their living creating products for that chip thank you.

Re: Bill Gates… Thanks For Your Contributions To The Game Industry

marcus — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 21:19:15 -0000

yah, that's some good brown-nosing there. also, the 68000 is not a 16-bit cpu no matter how much you focus on the fact of its 16-bit wide external databus. it does not matter to, or affect, any programmer that it shuffles 32-bit data to/from memory in two steps, becuse its data registers are 32 bits wide, and you do 32-bit operations with them, and you 32-bit operations on memory - you work with full 32-bit capabilities at your hands in the -exact- same way you do on any other 32-bit cpu.

Re: Bill Gates… Thanks For Your Contributions To The Game Industry

jinjouk — Thu, 31 Jul 2008 16:59:17 -0000

I think Bill and MS have done a lot for the games industry.
The XBox 360 is an amazing console with a lot of great games.
Then there's XNA to allow hobby developers to get thier games on the console, which is really cool.

XBLA is really good for small dev teams to get games out, without having to go through a 4 year development cycle and risk no return.

Then my favorite, and a lot of people will agree, the absolutely amazing Visual Studio (especially 2008). It's the standard IDE/Compiler used in the industry and it makes life so much easier.

Thanks MS.

Re: About

jefftunn — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 20:59:05 -0000

Thanks for the kind words about Willy Beamish and other Dynamix games. I loved working on Willy, but I doubt there will ever be another one. Vivendi owns the rights to the intellectual property.

Re: About

PedroPerez — Thu, 24 Jul 2008 08:24:25 -0000

Jeff,

As a child, I grew up playing games on the C-64 and then branched out into PC gaming. Dynamix had me hooked from A-10 Tank Killer and onward. However, one of my all time favorite games was "The Adventures of Willy Beamish" for the PC. Due to the whole "Generation Y" content, it stood out as a landmark game in my mind. Along with Heart of China and Rise of the Dragon, the point and click adventure days are still discussed over at the Digital Press brick and mortar store during the monthly retro events. For a while, I've been wondering if the Willy Beamish property was ever going to make a comeback on any of the newer systems. With episodic content being available on the current generation consoles and the internet, will the property ever have a chance at life again?

Cheers and Thanks!

Re: Bill Gates… Thanks For Your Contributions To The Game Industry

sascha/hdrs — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 08:07:29 -0000

Very well said! I think people should stop bashing Bill Gates and start bashing Tom Cruise instead ... who does not support games at all!

Re: First Day Of The Rest Of My Life

Thomas Brooke — Thu, 17 Jul 2008 18:11:33 -0000

Congratulations on what you did with GG and good luck in your new venture! In the process of completing an indie game so will keep tabs on your ruminations to provide guidance.

Re: Lively: Has Google Jumped the Shark?

Jadaco — Mon, 14 Jul 2008 13:27:08 -0000

I agree, I think this is a credible venture. SecondLife is an interesting first step into the "virtual world" genre, but it really needs some worthy competition. Google has a very innovative track record, so if I had to pick someone to try this, they would be my first.

Re: Lively: Has Google Jumped the Shark?

timaste — Fri, 11 Jul 2008 00:22:38 -0000

I think I'd rather see an in-game advertising solution that takes advantage of google's back end and tracking, etc. Tracking and targeting ads, that's pretty damn complicated. Dumping out images and having them show up in a game, that's pretty easy. It almost seems like this situation is backwards, why not just make it so you can find out which gamer is online playing games, and target in-game ads? That seems more "google" like than a Second Life clone.

Re: Lively: Has Google Jumped the Shark?

blakdavi — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 17:22:02 -0000

I wasn't surprised by this and even expected it to a point. But I wasn't very impressed by it either. as others have noted, the 3D chat world is convoluted at best in my mind. My experience with it was pretty limited, but at least it was better than my experience with Second Life. 3D spambots are not my idea of a good time. I had enough of $$$.MAKE.MONEY.FAST.$$$ schemes on usenet. At least the private islands were more pleasant.

Re: Lively: Has Google Jumped the Shark?

Jeremy Alessi — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 07:16:28 -0000

LOL @ the fart comment ...

BTW, There was another place I saw it today that I couldn't recall earlier but was part of the whole feeling that Second Life was everywhere. At bank today and while I was waiting I picked up a local financial magazine. As I flipped through it there was a huge article about Second Life's virtual economics. This wasn't Forbes or anything, it was an obscure financial periodical local to the region.

That article plus the radio conversation made me think about how far games have come. The fact that Second Life is the game creeping it's way down these strange avenues is the biggest surprise of all. Then again as I'm playing through the latest Metal Gear (a real gamers' game if you will) it's not hard to see a contrast between games these days not unlike the contrast between gamers and non-gamers 10 years ago.

It seems that social networking was the missing puzzle piece. People want to accomplish things. Games being goal oriented have always allowed that. More than that though people want to accomplish things together ... walk and talk if you will.

I can see Google taking that really far. If you combine their information tools with social networking and the goal oriented nature of games you've got a powerful platform for smart action not just smart searching. Maybe that's just "pie in the sky" though.

Re: Lively: Has Google Jumped the Shark?

Gaiiden — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 06:58:19 -0000

Yep, I read the news initially on Gamasutra cause that just happened to be the first feed I saw that had it. I skimmed it, went "ho-hum" and continued on my merry way. Seems like a weird out of left field move from Google to me too.

Re: Lively: Has Google Jumped the Shark?

jefftunn — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:20:56 -0000

I totally agree about the generic, Second Life clone look. Or IMVU, or <<<insert VW here>>>. I also agree about virtual world chat rooms sucking forever. Like I explained, maybe I am missing something, but have a chat system that takes up 200M or so on my hard drive does not make sense.

Re: Lively: Has Google Jumped the Shark?

jefftunn — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:18:16 -0000

Second Life has an awesome PR department. If their CEO farts, we all know about it.

Re: Lively: Has Google Jumped the Shark?

jefftunn — Thu, 10 Jul 2008 00:17:26 -0000

From a revenue standpoint, I could understand creating an in-game, in-world advertising system that any virtual world could use, but creating their own is the thing that I have a problem with.

Re: Lively: Has Google Jumped the Shark?

timaste — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 23:03:08 -0000

I was a little surprised at that announcement as well, especially since it looked like every other Second Life clone.

Business wise I can see them pairing it successfully with their ad business like Brett mentions above, and it turns a lot of heads in the in-game advertising world.

Game wise, it doesn't look like it has anything special to make it stand out. It'd be neat to pair it with Google Earth, or SketchUp somehow. The recent article in GameDev about the big "little" worlds like Maplestory, Habbo Hotel, etc. makes it seem like the "gaps" between these big virtual life titles is actually a better space than the big virtual worlds themselves.

Also, 3D/2D avatar chat sucked in the 90s, it sucked around the millennium, and it sucks now. They are always impractical and bloated, and for most people, once the novelty wears off, simple text is way more practical.