'Rise of the Videogame Zinesters': Changing Games by Making Games

This week at PopMatters, I talk about Anna Anthropy's book, Rise of the Videogame Zinesters. It's a lively read with a simple, yet powerful message: everyone should make video games!

The book's subtitle is kind of a mouthful ("How freaks, normals, amateurs, artists, dreamers, dropouts, queers, housewives, and people like you are taking back an art form"), but it does a great job of encapsulating her message: the video game landscape is lacking in diverse experiences because entrenched (and moneyed) players have traditionally had a monopoly on production and distribution. The types of skills needed to code a game, the technology needed to produce it, and the capital needed to distribute it have had high barriers to entry. This is not so today: thanks to tools like Scratch and Gamemaker (or even Wario Ware: D.I.Y.), anyone with a relatively modern computer, an Internet connection, and the will to learn can make and distribute their own games.

Anna's remedy for the homogeneous malaise that so often afflicts mainstream gaming is simple: the proliferation of more numerous, more diverse voices will inevitably make the medium more representative of our society. Traditionally underrepresented populations (women, the queer community, non-programmers) and traditionally underrepresented game topics are much more likely to flourish if people can take on the responsibility of creation and distribution without being beholden to large corporations. True, many of the games that people will create won't be outstanding, but most of what people create in general isn't outstanding (see: YouTube). Then again, there will inevitably be some truly special things that would have never survived the constrictive traditional studio/publisher set up (see: YouTube).

More than anything, the book is an enthusiastic rallying cry for people to get personally invested in contributing to the medium. Anna is refreshingly candid about her early struggles with programming and her disappointing time at Southern Methodist University's game design program. She didn't fit the stereotypical mold of someone who works in the games industry, but then again, few people do. That doesn't mean she, and others like you and me, can't make games. In fact, maybe that means it's more important we do.

EXP Podcast #177: Journey's End

As you may know, Scott and I are avid thatgamecompany fans, particularly of Journey, their latest masterpiece. It was such a rewarding and almost mystical experience we did not want it to end. Steven Poole, however, thought it should have ended just a tad sooner. This week on the EXP Podcast, Scott and I discuss Poole's claim that Journey's ending is a "cop out" and, more importantly, examine the way game endings can violate themes and trends established within story and gameplay. As always, we love to hear your thoughts on the subject. Chime in with your comments below!


To listen to the podcast:

- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes here. Additionally, here is the stand-alone feed.
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
- Subscribe to this podcast and EXP's written content with the RSS link on the right.

Show notes:

- Run time: 28 min 41 sec
- "Journey's ending is a cop out", by Steven Poole via Edge
- Music by Brad Sucks

From Legends to Ancients

Finally, after waiting for so very long, I received a beta invite to DotA 2. The sequel to the hugely popular Defense of the Ancients mod is a so-called Mobile Online Battle Arena (MOBA) and shared the market space with League of Legends, Heroes of Newarth, and a few other competitors.

I have returned time and again to the topic of League of Legends, and its no surprise - I have been playing the game consistently for the past three years. While the time I spent in World of Warcraft is still my biggest achievement/shame, I am quickly amassing an impressive amount of time in this competitive environment. While all of this practice certainly gives me an edge in LoL, my expectations and play patterns are severely hampering my exploration of DotA 2. When making the move from one game to the other, I find it hard to tell the difference between personal taste and poor game design.

This biggest difference I have seen thus far between the two games is readability. Trying to glean information quickly and efficiently in this new game system is instantly frustrating. Character health bars seem to fade into that of minions, making it difficult to spot heroes in the bunch. The detail and size of the minions make this differentiation no easier. DotA 2 uses a relatively dark and mellow color pallet as well. While League of Legends is flashy, giving characters bright clothing and flashy ability effects, DotA 2 is dim, even in daylight, and character abilities seem to blend in with your own.

I want to immediately criticize DotA 2 for obfuscating their game, as though they intentionally hid important elements from new players to sharpen their difficulty curve. But then again, have my eyes simply adjusted to to League of Legends? When DotA players first play League of Legends, are the colors blinding and chaotic? Does the game suffer the same readability issues?

These same questions arise around core gameplay features. DotA 2 is a game of extreme punishment. Make a small error and your enemies will make you pay dearly. It seems as though all characters are incredibly lethal, shattering health bars in seconds. As a result, stuns are far more deadly. If you get caught behind enemy lines, there is little hope for escape. This might make the game feel more "competitive", "serious", or "hardcore" to some players. To me it seems unnecessarily unforgiving. The feels like it moves from a game of tag to a game of Russian roulette twenty minutes in.

If this sounds like the complaint of a "noob", its because it is. While my MOBA proficiency gives me some advantages, my intimate familiarity with League of Legends cripples my ability to look at this game free to bias, at least for now. Instead of enjoying the opportunity to play an exciting new game, I find myself trudging up a steep hill in a strange land far from home.

Community Building through Movie Tie-Ins

My latest PopMatters article is now live: Community Building through Movie Tie-Ins

First off, a big shout-out to Grayson Davis of Beeps & Boops who wrote the fascinating inspiration to this article about King Kong and movie-to-game adaptations.

I initially wrote this article as a way to justify the Battleship movie. Of course that idea came to me before the film was released and almost universally panned. The fact is, it is hard to justify

the production of shitty products that come off more as cash grabs than genuinely inspired works of art. Ok, so maybe Battleship deserves no praise, but in principle, a tie-in product can serve a community driven purpose.

If we look at artistic works as, in some way, community owned, then we have to find a place for tie-ins somewhere. Fans of particular works devote thousands of hours towards cataloging the project and plumbing its depths. Wikia (full disclosure, Wikia is my employer), precisely because fan communities want to be a part of an ongoing world. Look at the Elder Scrolls wiki. It has nearly sixteen thousand pages! Exploring those pages will yield more lore in an hour than I discovered while wandering the tundra of Skyrim. For many, participating in any Elder Scrolls experience, be it a game, a wiki page, or a comic-book or movie tie-in, adds to their overall conception of the world.

When we hear a movie will receive a game tie-in, we tend to shrug off the concept, and for good reason. These games are almost universally terrible. I can't help but feel that if we recognized tie-ins as small pieces of a community and world building project, then we might have more entertaining pieces of trans-media storytelling. If movie studios are ok releasing a small and even independently produce game for a low price, they might find fans of their I eager to put themselves in the world in any way possible.

EXP Podcast #176: "Indie Game: The Movie" Debrief

This week, Jorge and I take a trip to the theater and discuss the recently-released Indie Game: The Movie. It's a documentary featuring the creative folks behind three of the most well-known independent games of the past few years: Braid, Super Meat Boy, and Fez. The movie offers a glimpse of the extremely personal journey of making a video game and explores the personal and professional challenges they face along the way. The film has generated a lot of discussion inside the video game community and in broader press and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts in the comments!

Some discussion starters:

- What does the film teach us about the independent scene and the video game industry overall?

- Who is this movie for? What can gaming enthusiasts take from it and what might newcomers learn?

- What other independent developers would you like to see highlighted in a movie?

To listen to the podcast:

- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes here. Additionally, here is the stand-alone feed.
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
- Subscribe to this podcast and EXP's written content with the RSS link on the right.

Show notes:

- Run time: 46 min 35 sec
- The official website for Indie Game: The Movie
- "Indie Game: The Movie's new credits put end to conflict," by Allistair Pinsof, via Destructoid
- Music provided by Brad Sucks

At Home in the Bastion

I'm a year late to the party, but I finally had a chance to play Bastion. My only regret is that I waited so long; it's one of those games that feels like it was made specifically for me. I'll probably share some more detailed thoughts in the future. For now, I wanted to highlight a few of lessons I hope people take from Bastion.

When it comes to story and dialog in games, the old "less is more" rule is a good one to follow. Bastion's narrator, Ruck, is quite vocal and the game has a lot of backstory, but the game never gets bogged down with didactic explanations for dull exposition dumps. I also loved the economy of words used to convey Bastion's story. Ruck speaks plainly, and is a master of the understatement. So much of the game is communicated through subtext and inference, a refreshing break the multitude of games that beat you over the head with obvous messages. Take one of my favorite lines:

"In the history of Caelondia, no one's ever volunteered for another shift on the Walls. Out there, the Kid learned to fend for himself. Learned to build. Learned to break.

From this, we get a sense of the hardship of serving in Caelondia's military, as well as the possible existence of a social stigma attached to those who serve. We learn about the Kid's journey and how he became such a proficient soldier. After experiencing the Kid's fighting skills first hand, we know that the process of "learning to break" involved more than just smashing crates. The Kid had to break the wilderness; he had to break the uprisings; he had to break away from his youth.

The story is told while you play the game, not while you are waiting to play. Listening to Ruck's raspy drawl while my frantically dealing with hordes of enemies kept my brain working in more ways than one. Additionally, hearing the narration adapt to my actions and weapon choices was an incentive to avoid getting into a gameplay rut.

Bastion doesn't shy away from traditional brawler dynamics for the sake of its story or physical realism. On the contrary, the game encourages you to exploit action priorities by cancelling out of animations or dashing before an attack has fully completed. The constant barrage of various enemies and the many options of dealing with them makes the game feel like a modernized version of Golden Axe or Secret of Mana.

Ultimately, everything comes down to your ability to dodge, block, and attack, but the different weapons drastically alter the balance between these three actions. I found it hard to part with my trusty melee hammer, but once I forced myself to learn how to best use the rifle I never wanted to let it go.

Finally, Bastion has an extremetly elegant approach to game difficulty. Players looking for a challenge can opt to turn on idols that make battles more dangerous; some make enemies move faster or explode upon defeat while others cause random status effects. This is both more creative than simply cranking up the damage values or adding more enemies, as it actually alters the way you have to play, thereby teaching you new techniques. Additionally, activating idols also increases the amount of money and XP you gain from enemies. It's a great difficulty loop, as it serves players who are actively looking for a challenge, lures players on the borderline with incentives to increase their skills, and stays completely out of the way of those who aren't interested.

This scalability makes the prospect of jumping into Bastion's New Game Plus mode that much more enticing. After finishing the game, new challenges and rewards await, as do new narration dialog and story decisions. The depth to which Bastion's plot and game dynamics are revealed is left largely up to the player's discretion. Whether you're looking for a casual beat 'em up, a challenging action experience, or a cautionary tale about imperialism, Bastion invites you to make yourself at home.

The Organic Feel of 'Botanicula'

This week at PopMatters, I praise Botanicula's organic feel.

I picked this game up a while ago from one of the many indie bundle sales that seem to be popping up everywhere. Playing it around E3 time turned out to be a great way to experience the game, as it is quite different from the many brown, cover-based, swear-tastic, military shooters being pushed this season. The game's truly fantastical setting was a welcome palette cleanser after so much military fantasy.

However, even though Botanicula, I still feel like it is one of the most "authentic" games I've played in a while. It's difficult to explain (and I go into greater detail in my column), but everything about the game feels fitting. It's full of creatures and environments that could never exist in our world, but everything seems perfectly logical in the context in which it is presented. It's kind of like seeing a Tim Burton movie or reading a Dr. Seuss book; there is an internal logic that makes all the weirdness feel natural. Throw in the downright lush sound effects and musical score, and you get a game that feels organic.

Botanicula is Amanita Design's best game yet, which is impressive considering the high bar they set with Machinarium. This small team continues to push the boundaries of the point and click adventure game. With Botanicula, they ditch the inventory and item combination dynamic in favor of prioritizing interaction with the environment. You can click on pretty much everything in Botanicula and expect that something will happen. Sometimes, this reveals the solution to a puzzle. Other times, it simply introduces you to one of the game's many charming characters or one-off animation sequences. Even though the game has only one main storyline, the multitude of small offshoots make playing the game akin to exploring the many small details of a landscape painting. Some elements of the game are simply there to exist as charming bits of interactivity instead of predetermined pieces of a game system. It's a bold choice that makes the world feel less contrived (and more natural) than most other games.

Finally, as was the case in Machinarium, Botanicula folds some reflex-based challenges into the traditional point-and-click structure. It's nothing too extreme, but having to manually flex certain branches or actively navigate a dangerous cave offers a physical connection to the game's environment. It's subtle, but knowing that I'll have to do more than click on things dramatically expands the potential for exploration and puzzle solving. It also illustrates one of the ways the traditional adventure game structure can be blended with other genres.

There's plenty more I could say about Botanicula, but I'll end by simply recommending that you play it. In a world full of games trying to approximate the real world, Botanicula shows that you don't have to create a photorealistic world in order to make a game that feels truly alive.

EXP Podcast #175: E3 2012 Revisited

We made the drive back up to Northern California, but left pieces of ourselves back in the Los Angeles the convention center - mostly the tired and exhausted parts. This week on the show, Scott and I revisit our experience at E3 and chat about our general thoughts on the show, the weird experience such an industry show creates, and some of our video game favorites and let downs. Surely you watched the show from afar if you couldn't make it yourself. If so, chime in below in the comments section and let us know what your E3 surprises and disappointments were this year!

To listen to the podcast:

- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes here. Additionally, here is the stand-alone feed.
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
- Subscribe to this podcast and EXP's written content with the RSS link on the right.

Show notes:

- Run time: 34 min 05 sec
- Music provided by Brad Sucks

Tensegrity and the Eternal War

A recent post on Reddit sparked a swell of interest in one man's game of Civilization II. It became popular so fast that a subreddit was created on the subject and numerous redditors have joined the fray, offering assistance, playing the same game of Civilization themselves, and even writing a short story inspired by the game. The reason for its immediate fandom? User Lycerius has been playing this same game for ten years, maintaining the endless battle of Civilization off and on for more than a decade, well after the game completed its normal cycle. The conditions of this unique game world read like a page from dystopian novel: "The world is a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation. There are 3 remaining super nations in the year 3991 A.D., each competing for the scant resources left on the planet after dozens of nuclear wars have rendered vast swaths of the world uninhabitable wastelands."

The opportunity seems ripe to interrogate the Civilization series for its sociopolitical assumptions and its political implications. However, the franchise has already received plenty of criticism from myself and numerous others. Yet I do want to talk about what this sort of constant stale mate might illuminate about digital and real world systems and how they change.

I recently came across the word "tensegrity". It is an ugly portmanteau for tensional integrity, an architectural principle that describes self-supporting structures of isolated components held stable in a position of constant tension. These structures, commonly made of rigid pieces that never touch but instead hold each other aloft with a set of cables, are surprisingly stable despite their apparent fragility. The image below should give you some idea of the way such structures work.

Now imagine each of those three rods are a nation in Lycerius' so-called "Eternal War." You can see where I am going with this. Tensegrity is a useful framework to understand what is essentially a homeostatic system. Every time progress is made towards conquering one of the three civilizations, of bringing peace to this endless Civilization struggle, the enemy AI takes an action, such as launching a nuclear strike, to bring the system back to equilibrium. In this case, the oppositional forces of the game keep the system in static endless war.

It's interesting to see the player in this battle as an ineffective external force, as though Lycerius were pushing futilely on a rod in an attempt to bring down the system. In a way, we could say the game, at this point, is broken. The system ceases to care about player input. We could walk away. But, that's just not the way we behave. Reddit users have rallied around the call for help and have offered hundreds of suggestions. There is an avid belief within these comments that suggests we all know, despite the ongoing consistency of this game world, and while following the "rules" of the game, we can somehow cut one of the ropes and bring this system crashing down.

Do you see what I see? The simple hope that this same motivation drives change in real world systems, be they political or otherwise? Games don't change the world, people do. And they do so by diving into systems that seem both at first glance fragile or haphazardly put together, but soon reveal themselves as immensely stable and immovable. I think it is fitting, then, that the leading suggestion in the comments at time of this posting demands the implementation of an incredibly time-consuming strategy, slowly changing the conditions of play until Lycerius can make a final move to achieve peace. The most enduring and deep-rooted homeostatic systems, be they digital or real, change most dramatically with the gradual persistence of collected individuals.

EXP Podcast: E3 2012, Day 3

E3 is over! Right now a giant Sonic the Hedgehog statue sits in the dark, international developers are flying over the Atlantic ocean, and thousands of swag collectors are rummaging through their treasures like a child on Halloween night. While the show came to a close, Scott and I still had plenty of games to check out, some exciting and original works and other supreme disappointments. Thanks again for listening and be sure to tune in to next week's podcast when we discuss E3 with more depth and the benefit of hindsight.


To listen to the podcast:

- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes here. Additionally, here is the stand-alone feed.
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
- Subscribe to this podcast and EXP's written content with the RSS link on the right.

Show notes:

- Run time: 36 min 07 sec
- Music provided by Brad Sucks

EXP Podcast: E3 2012, Day 2

It's the second day of E3! Jorge and I spent a lot of time with the big publishers today. We saw high profile titles like Black Ops 2 and Dishonored, but we also carved out space for more niche games like Papa & Yo and Dust 514. We hope you enjoy the recap and we're looking forward to hearing your thoughts on the show in the comments!

To listen to the podcast:

- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes here. Additionally, here is the stand-alone feed.
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
- Subscribe to this podcast and EXP's written content with the RSS link on the right.

Show notes:

- Run time: 32 min 32 sec
- Music provided by Brad Sucks

EXP Podcast: E3 2012, Day 1

The E3 2012 show floor doors burst open today, letting industry professional tossing out business cards like they were beads on Mardi Gras, media reps carrying enough stress to kill an elephant, a horde of ravenous fans hungry for glorious swag. Scott and I sauntered in at some point too, a tad confused and more than a little curious. We took Day 1 of the show relatively slow, but we still have plenty to talk about. Join us on this E3 2012 podcast to discuss our first thoughts on the show, some of the IndieCade entries, Natural Selection 2, NBA Baller Beats, and more. As always, we love to hear your thoughts in the comments section below.
To listen to the podcast:

- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes here. Additionally, here is the stand-alone feed.
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
- Subscribe to this podcast and EXP's written content with the RSS link on the right.

Show notes:

- Run time: 34 min 36 sec
- Music provided by Brad Sucks

EXP Podcast: E3 2012, Day 0

California is big and brown and has very little 3G/4G wireless coverage in its middle. Regardless, Jorge and I have made it safely down to Los Angeles for E3 2012 while still managing to catch the all-important press conferences for Microsoft, EA, Ubisoft, and Sony. Join us while we discuss each conferences larger themes and our first impressions about what E3 has to offer. If you caught the streamed conferences yourself, let us know your thoughts on the show thus far in the comments below.

To listen to the podcast:

- Subscribe to the EXP Podcast via iTunes here. Additionally, here is the stand-alone feed.
- Listen to the podcast in your browser by left-clicking here. Or, right-click and select "save as link" to download the show in MP3 format.
- Subscribe to this podcast and EXP's written content with the RSS link on the right.

Show notes:

- Run time: 34 min 36 sec
- Music provided by Brad Sucks