Gamer Insight

The Aesthetics of Cloning

2012-08-07T15:53:05Z

Taken from Penny Arcade:

The Flashpoint
Tycho
@TychoBrahe
Wednesday, February 22 2012 - 12:01 AM

I’ve talked about David Sirlin a couple times before. I think that if you were to crack open his skull, his brain would look physically different from other brains; I play his games because they’re good, but also in an attempt to figure him out. I felt confident that he’d have a useful perspective on the “clonin’ fever” that swept the web recently, and I wasn’t wrong. He makes a distinction I think is vital, and desperately missing from the utopian/free love model of creative work - what amounts to an Aesthetics Of Cloning. His games Puzzle Strike and Yomi are playable online at FantasyStrike.com.

Regarding cloning, copying, and stealing of game designs: let’s get a couple things out of the way first.

Copyrights. Never violate someone’s copyright, period. That only covers the verbatim expression of an idea though, not the idea itself. This means don’t copy exact art assets, literally identical code, etc. I think we’re all on the same page here.

Patents. Game mechanics really shouldn’t be patentable. I wrote an article on this, on how far warped the patent system has become since 1793 when Thomas Jefferson first outlined the criteria of a patent to be novel, non-obvious, and useful. In that article you can read about Sega’s absurd patent for a game where a car drives in a virtual city with an arrow floating above the car telling you where to go, and where virtual people jump out of the way of the car. Or Namco’s absurd patent on mini-games in loading screens. Wizards of the Coast has an absurd patent on cards turning sideways to denote a game state (aka “tapping”). If anything, go ahead and break some patents on game mechanics so this stuff can be struck down in court. These things stifle innovation, not encourage it.

—-

These legal issues were probably not Tycho’s real concern here, though. More informally, “is it ok to basically clone stuff or not?” I think it mostly is, and sometimes isn’t. The bad guys who do the bad cloning will surely cloak themselves in the quotes from the good guys though. The pro-cloning argument is that it’s not even “cloning,” it’s design. It’s creation. It’s synthesis. We don’t even want Super Mario Bros. to be the only platform game. We want more games that are similar to it because the idea of a platform game was a really cool one. We’re also glad that first-person shooters didn’t stop at Wolftenstein or something. This is a different concept than releasing a game with literally identical gameplay as Super Mario Bros though.

Quentin Tarantino is one of my favorite examples here. In some sense, he is a “big fat copier.” Pulp Fiction really rips off several other films. The glowy briefcase, inspired by Indiana Jones’ Ark? Or even more closely from the movie Repo Man. The scene where Bruce Willis stops his car at an intersection as Marcellus Wallace crosses the street right in front of him? That exact situation and framing is from a Hitchock movie (I think? I forget which movie, sorry.) The point is Tarantino mixed those elements and many other “stolen” ones in a way that truly made it his own, that created a totally new experience unlike the works he built on, and we are all richer for it. I want Tarantino’s cloning rebirthing to happen, as long as the rebirthed version is different enough and brings its own distinct soul to the table. Today, our remix-culture is even more about this kind of borrowing than when Pulp Fiction was made.

There’s another kind of clone that never has even the slightest intention of pulling a Tarantino though. This kind is a blatant cash grab to copy whatever it is as closely as possible. The intent isn’t to create a new experience or new way of looking at old mechanics, etc,—it’s a malicious (or perhaps blissfully ignorant?) intent instead. Probably Zynga is guilty of tons of this. The Yeti Town people clearly are as well. Yeti Town copies Triple Town down to the smallest detail, making no attempt at all at creating a new experience, advancing the field, or expressing something different. It’s not a new soul, it’s the same damn soul. Our first step here is to understand the difference between this “good copying” (aka regular development) and “bad copying” (aka without any creative contribution).

—-

This hits closer to home these days than it should. The CEO of one of the biggest board game companies cried foul that my game Flash Duel is not just the bad kind of copying, but that it’s actually illegal in his eyes. I think we’re all helped by the gaming public being educated about the difference between wholesale cloning and the rebirthing of an idea into something new, so that we can reward creators who use good ideas as a springboard, and shun those who merely clone. It’s painful to see someone get it so wrong in this example though.

Flash Duel is an evolution of the 20 year old game En Garde by Reiner Knizia. En Garde had a nice core idea that you use numbered cards like a “5” to move 5 spaces or to attack the other guy if he’s exactly 5 spaces away (and he can block with a 5). The thing is, En Garde is kind of boring and there are things about even its very few rules that weren’t great to me. The board is too big. The discard pile rule should be public information. If you’re 5 away from the guy, you should be able to move forward or backward 5, not be forced to attack. If you can’t complete a move (for example you try to move past the opponent and you aren’t allowed, or you try to move off the edge of the board), you should move as far as you can, rather than the entire maneuver being illegal. These things alone change the dynamics of gameplay quite a bit. That last rule change actually causes your “1” cards to be more valuable than the other numbers, but that’s kind of too much detail to go into right now. When a game has hardly any rules, and you change several of them, you have a different game, is the point.

If I stopped there I’d have had a different game, but still a boring one. To me, asymmetric gameplay is just about the coolest thing, meaning everyone starts with different powers. You know, different “characters” who have different personality and different gameplay, yet they’re all balanced against each other. So Flash Duel has 20(!) characters, each with three abilities. There’s actually more abilities in Flash Duel that in all of Dominion’s base set + a full expansion (compared to 0 characters and 0 abilities in En Garde). I didn’t stop there either though. There’s a single player mode—with video game-style achievements! There’s a 2v2 mode. There’s a raid mode where up to 4 people fight a powerful dragon who has 8 abilities of his own. And guess what, I got the idea for that raid mode from the World of Warcraft Trading Card Game. And they got it from the World of Warcraft video game. Which, incidentally, got its ideas from Everquest. Oh, and there’s a “traitor” mode too in Flash Duel, in which I try to legitimately advance the field of design with the specific workings of the traitor. I got the idea of a traitor from the board games Shadows Over Camelot and Battlestar Galactica. And in this post I talk about the specifics of how I tried to improve on the information sharing rules common in such games.

So you know, it’s quite a rebirth there. And yet that was called clone by someone prominent, not just in the bad sense but in the actually illegal sense. That’s a dangerous stance because it would lump in legitimate regular innovation on many fronts (Flash Duel) with the wholesale theft a design (YetiTown). The two are not at all analogous. YetiTown didn’t even bother change the cost of 200 turns to be something other than 950 gold like in Triple Town, much less rebirth anything or inject a new soul into anything. I mean, seriously.

—-

In closing, let’s touch on the age-old issue of new vs good. New is fun, and we all like new but frankly, a lot of new things suck. It’s admirable to try to make new things, and if you manage to make something that’s both new and good, we all win. We should really be more concerned with good things, though. Good things often take a lot of tries to get right, and by a lot of people. Counter-strike wasn’t the first FPS, World of Warcraft wasn’t the first MMO, and Flash Duel wasn’t the first…uh, dueling card game thing. Even Street Fighter came from Capcom refining Karate Champ, much to the dismay of Data East’s lawyers. But luckily, we have all these things, and I think they’re pretty good.

Next step in gaming: The Painstation

2011-10-21T18:19:47Z

Original Posting:

In 2001, art collective /////////fur//// developed Painstation, a video game designed to punish the player’s poor performance. Based on the classic Pong, Painstation measures your skill and reacts to how you’re playing compared to your opponent. The right hand controls a simple joystick controller, while the left hand is placed about the PEU – Pain Execution Unit. The PEU contains a heating element, a miniature leather whip, and it’s connected to a circuit used to deliver electric shocks.

After years of fighting copyright and legal issues, the group recently announced they have begun construction on Painstation 2, which is expected to be released in the coming months.

Though as the article states... Bond did it first.

Censorship in the 8/16-bit Nintendo era

2011-06-17T17:07:11Z

Tron Legacy Prequel - Tron Evolution

2010-11-16T01:42:38Z

I hear that Tron Evolution will have several different stories taking place between the original Tron movie back in 1982 and Tron Legacy in 2010.

Different platforms/systems get a different placement along the timeline.

Here's the official site.

Sounds idea for folks that have multiple gaming systems. They can get a piece of the story arc of the prequel to Legacy.

The question is, is it a good game?

Preorders are now. Evolution comes out early December.

Is it worth getting?

Here's a preview review.

Just for fun

2010-07-24T01:53:55Z

A movie and now a game based on a comic...

2010-06-16T11:21:07Z

A new take on an old game

2010-02-15T22:47:28Z

Fake Trailers

2009-07-03T04:55:29Z

Scribblenauts

2009-06-09T15:27:14Z

An amazing new game that will be coming out for the DS. Essentially, you are to help your character through the level by typing out various words. The game is supposedly programmed for thousands of words with images attached to each:

I am continually amazed by the directions Nintendo is taking the gaming industry. To them, it's not about having the fastest system or the greatest graphics, it's about innovation and redefining what it means to play a video game. It's about having fun.

Super Smash Bros. Brawl PC Level Editor Changes The Rules

2009-04-22T17:24:31Z

Source

Considering how hyped I once was for Nintendo's all-star Wii title Super Smash Bros. Brawl, my enthusiasm cooled once I'd experienced all that the game had to offer and explored all that I cared to see. I'm not quite sure what happened considering that the previous Melee title continued to see heavy use during the entire GameCube era. One Brawl aspect that was good for an impressed musing was the stage editor, although I also relaxed on that once I discovered that my creations were limited by the less than expansive scope of the editor. I may have to revisit that part of the game now that there's a Brawl stage editor for the PC that simplifies the creation process while adding the ability to tweak variables that the built-in Brawl editor does not allow to be touched. Kombo has the details and a YouTube video of the program in action.

One of the aspects added to the game design of Super Smash Bros. Brawl to help grant it greater longevity was a stage creator, so that with the help of its players, there would always be a new place to hold matches. But unfortunately, the interface may not be for some people.

Thankfully, someone has come up with a PC-friendly solution which allows aspiring stage designers to implement all their ideas on their computer, save it to an SD card, and transfer it to the game itself. Even better, it has some extras that the original program native to Brawl doesn't have, such as setting spawn points, creating custom thumbnails, and of course, typing.

I haven't tried this editor yet, but if it's easy to use as it seems and delivers on what it promises, then I think it's a great idea. The beta version of Xane's Brawl Stage Studio is available for download over at Smashboards. Nintendo historically locks down this kind of game modification away from the end-user level, so hurry and try it out before the company updates the Wii's system software to somehow block the SD card slot from accessing these unauthorized custom stages.

Posted by MattG on April 22, 2009 at 12:11 PM

Mirrors Edge - Third Person Hack

2009-01-27T21:37:50Z

Source.

"When Mirror's Edge was released late last year for the Sony PlayStation 3 and Microsoft Xbox 360, some people said that the game would play so much better if it were not locked into a first-person perspective. Some of us need to see our character run and jump in order to time actions properly. Now fans of the game's PC version have found a quick little hack that will pull the camera out of heroine Faith's head and allow players to control her from a third-person viewpoint. I'll direct you to Greyfox of the On-Mirror's-Edge Forums."

Not sure if anyone knows this, but here's the command line for 3rd person view and also no clip view!

Go to "Documents\EA Games\Mirror's Edge\TdGame\Config\" open the file "TDInput" with notepad. Add this line to the "bindings" list:

Bindings=(Name="F4",Command="FreeFlightCamera",Control=False,Shift=False,Alt=False)

then press F4 a few times!

"I haven't tried this and do not know if it actually works, but the screenshots provided have me convinced. There's also a YouTube video showing the hack in action. Don't hold Faith's jerky movements against her. Remember, we weren't supposed to be able to see her like this, so her motions are likely unoptimized."

And here's the video mentioned in the above article:

The Downside of Rampant Unrestrained Customization

2008-10-31T19:36:41Z

Yeah, although I love to see what people can do... some things should never be done.

Playback: Update on Console Wars

2008-09-21T02:42:27Z

Link

Indie Games

2008-06-02T03:07:15Z

Sometimes you gotta turn to indie games, things made by individuals on programs such as RPGMaker or from obscure names in order to get some bizarre but interesting explorations of ideas.

Yume Nikki (Dream Diary)

Name: Yume Nikki
Developer: Kikiyama
Category: Adventure
Type: Freeware
Size: 40MB
Download link: Rapidshare, WHFF, mirror (unzip .rar files using 7-Zip) - (follow the above link to get to the main article)

In Yume Nikki (Dream Diary), you're cast as a young girl living in a small apartment. There is very little to do in your room, but fall asleep and an entire dream world is yours to explore. The Z key can be used to interact or gain new effects. Certain locations beyond each door may yield more than one effect for the player to discover. Press 9 to wake yourself up. Use the desk in the room to save your progress, and hold the escape key for more than two seconds to exit the NASU console game.

Acquiring the bicycle, lamp and knife should be at the top of your list, as these items will double your character's speed, light up dark areas and allow basic attack moves to be executed. Nearly all locations are wrapped around, hence walking in one direction endlessly will always bring you back to the starting point.

Installation instructions are provided in the zip file. Yume Nikki does have a proper ending. (source: Sekhem, Starmen.Net)

There is a lot of surreal space in this game. And the developer also takes advantage of almost secret strangeness (see second video, it's pretty repetitive until you get a little past the three minute mark). The whole experience delves into the dreams of the main character, who doesn't appear to leave her apartment except while in the dream world. And if I am correct, you may find yourself ending up following various dead-ends, which can be sidetracked by waking yourself up and re-entering the dream).

The Sewer Goblet: The Wu-Tang Clan and the Wu-Tang Baby

From the mad minds behind Barkley, Shut up and Jam: Gaiden comes an all-new adventure – The Sewer Goblet: The Wu-Tang Clan and the Wu-Tang Baby! As the story goes, The Wizard stole the Wu-Tang Baby and fled into the sewers. You must send one of the Wu-Tang Clan into the dungeon and bring the baby back! Along the way you’ll tangle with Teknodwarfs, Baby Seals, and other unsavory characters.

The Sewer Goblet gets a lot of credit as the first rap-themed roguelike game, but doesn’t do too much to innovate the genre in general. Equip weapons, learn spells, manage your hunger (in TSG, every action costs hunger points), eat Wu-Tang snacks with randomized effects, etc. Not that this is necessarily a bad thing – it’s a solid dungeon crawl that’s easy to get into and somehow it never quite gets tiring bringing “da ruckus” as the Wu Tang Clan. Each member has his own special abilities that will aid you on your quest.

Legend of Zelda the Movie

2008-04-02T03:53:33Z

I had predicted this little gem :P

Extra Value Combo Alpha

2007-10-17T22:14:59Z

Now this is a game that needs to be made.

Deviant Art Link here.

Cross-posted to multi_genre_fan

Super Mario Brothers Z

2007-10-16T01:57:18Z

This is such a fantastic idea that I thought I'd share - combining Sonic and Mario Brothers...

TMI or... Has the Net Snared Us?

2007-07-12T03:53:55Z

No, this is not a reference to "The Matrix has you," but rather what has been lost by the global information network. Remember the days when you were excited to find a secret, information, maps, clues, etc. I remember putting together a notebook of information for roleplaying games, special attack codes for Twisted Metal 2, maps for Wizardry - and it was fun to figure it out on my own. I remember back in the day talking with a friend about Metroid soon after it came out while in line at a Ponderosa and a person in front of us turned around and mentioned how to find the Ice Beam - that's a memory I still carry about the game and enriched the experience even more.

Nowadays, you look up any information you need on a whim. I've found out information on Wikipedia I never knew was available. I recently got on a kick to replay Phantasy Star 3 after reading the entry on Wiki, I didn't even realize the characters in the game had different personalities!!! And forget hint books, forget the days of Nintendo Power, those days are past. If you want some nice looking art you pick up a hint book these days, because you can get the tips and tricks you need quicker and usually more accurately with a Google search. It saves you money, it saves you time, but does that really enrich the experience?

And game reviews, have they helped destroy an opportunity with a game you were thinking of trying? How many times have you turned away from a game because it only got a 6.5 in whatever game review magazine. There are games I've played and enjoyed which I am sure would do very poorly under the critique of an armchair player. Look at movie reviews, how many movies been squashed in a review and then turned into a part of your dvd collection? Game reviews can't be too different.

Have our gaming sensibilities been diluted by having too much information, too much coverage, too much quantity over enjoying snippets of quality?

So in the end, has what's been lost greater than what's gained? Is it natural that we're at this point, how has this changed the landscape?

At the Movies... 01

2007-04-27T19:01:36Z

In the ancient land of Hyrule... a darkness has swept over its people. An evil army led by Ganon, the Prince of Darkness, invades the kingdom and steals the legendary Triforce of Power, a magical artifact bestowing great strength. In desperation, Hyrule's Princess Zelda splits the artifact's counterpart, the Triforce of Wisdom, into eight fragments, hiding them in secret dungeons throughout the land to prevent them from falling into Ganon's hands. Her most trustworthy nursemaid, Impa, escapes to find a man courageous enough to destroy Ganon. Upon hearing this, Ganon grew angry, imprisoned the princess, and sent a party in search of Impa.

Impa fled for her life but was overtaken by her pursuers. As Ganon's henchmen surrounded her, a youth drove the monsters off. The boy's name was Link, and Impa told him of Hyrule's plight. Link resolved to save Zelda, but to fight Ganon he had to find and reassemble the scattered fragments of the Triforce. Undeterred, Link set off for Hyrule in an epic adventure....

Coming in 2009...
THE LEGEND OF ZELDA

Starring...
Elijah Wood as The Hero Link
Emma Watson as Princess Zelda
Tim Curry as the voice of Ganon, Prince of Darkness
Linda Hunt as Impa

Remainder of Cast TBA

Directed by Peter Jackson

Do you have the power?

Games & Movies

2007-04-27T19:01:12Z

I thought it might be fun to discuss some hypothetical movies based off of games. Who would be best in certain roles, what the storylines should be / how much should they diverge from their sourc material, etc. So... I'll make a series of posts with games as movies.

Let me know what you think ^.^

Kingdom Hearts 2 Final Mix Extended Ending: Possibly Solved

2007-04-16T10:03:08Z

First, check out these links.

YouTube Theory 1
YouTube Theory follow-up

Intresting huh? The fact that Xeanhort without the X is a mixed spelling of "No Heart" But I have a few theories as well.

First off, if you look at the soilders, all of thier eyes are blue. Same shade and everything. Second, if the Organization XIII are "Nobodies" and remember what it's like to have a heart why aren't any of thier heartless show up? This is where it gets tricky.

Who were the people intrested in the experiment of the heart. Ansem the Wise, King Mickey Mouse, Xehanort, and possibly eleven other members, but let's ignore those guys. The main question is, What's the difference between the main three? Give up?

Mickey and Ansem did NOT lose thier hearts. Now note, Mickey Mouse is known as the "King" of his world therefor he can hold the keyblade. Ansem the Wise is the ruler of Hallow Bastion. In the extended ending, note that he whupped the hell out of everyone like nothing and also made and split version of someone. And they can both hold a keyblade.

My theory - Ansem's knowledge about the heartless and somewhere during the experiment in another dimention or whatever, his "Somebody" is created with the same knowledge. And since Ansem is the Ruler, he can also wield the Keyblade.

Now, whoever was the dark Riku clothed guy has to be Xeahnort's somebody trapped and controled by the old man just like the fake Ansem and Riku. Just that like Riku, X's somebody got sucked into the darkness. That old man Also knows exactly what he's doing. That HAS to be Ansem's Somebody. 1) Beard, 2)Ruler=Keyblade like King Mickey. 3) "...the Wise" Meaning Wisdom which means instant magic.

Soilder - to - Nobody Relationship - The beginning of the ending when the old man appeared, the young one moved ahead first to try to get a shot at him, but the head soilder pushed him back and attacked first. Later on, the young soilder that looks like Roxas is frozen and the head soilder has Axel's close to same style hair. The head soilder did his damned-est to save the Young one. The same deal with Axel and Roxas. Axel did his damned-est to bring Roxas back before the good guys can get Soar back through Roxas. The difference? Sora DID lose his heart! That also means that Roxas is Sora's Somebody

This leaves one important character. Mickey's Keyblade is Gold and has a red outfit. The Mickey in the ending has a Spellbinder Keyblade and his outfit is all black. That has got to be Mickey's Somebody as well!

Something within that experiment created a different world, dimension, and or group of people.</div>

What do you guys think?

In Just 2 Days!!

2007-03-29T22:16:46Z

Saturday, March 31st at 8pm is the time for...

Video Games Live

It's a concert. It's video games. It's a dessert topping.

This concert is the one in New Haven, Ct. Go to this link to buy tickets online.

Buy tickets through here.

After the concert, wulven and I are hosting an afterconcert party. Those that come to the concert are welcome to come and party with us.

Bring your favorite food, drinks and snacks. We plan to get a room at a hotel that has a fridge and microwave.

This is just an informal get-together. Nothing fancy.

Though I'm thinking of making Naruto Ramen. No, no, not the Curry of Life.

On Sunday, we're going to see a matinee of 300.

The first show is about 12:30 PM. So we'd need to get to the theatre by noon.

Then after the film, it's off to the blue turtle for a rousing session of food, fun and videogames.

After Burner anyone?

If you're interested in going to the concert, book your tickets online. We'll contact each other via cellphone and meet up afterwards for the afterparty.

If interested in the Sunday activities, let us know via cellphone and we'll meet up at the hotel and go from there. Or we could meet up at the Milford Mall.

Post here to let us know who's coming so we know how many to expect.

Thanks in advance. Hope to see you folks there.

Legend of Zelda series Timeline

2007-02-18T18:49:35Z

The above video has a theory too interesting to pass up, I just love the possible connection they put forth. One of the things that always bothered me about the Zelda games was how it almost pulled a Final Fantasy, constantly rehashing the same storyline as separate games. But if this idea is true, it makes for some mind-boggling thought behind the actual story (probably set up as more thought out than it really is but still an awesome idea). And the whole 'legend' and story behind it now make me feel a lot more into this series.

Cartridge Games & Dead Batteries

2006-11-10T15:12:32Z

As our collections of fine classic cartridge games get older, it's good to remember that the batteries in those games will die - effectively killing the opportunity to play it again.

Fortunately, a recent article in pressthebuttons goes over the process to replace the batteries.

It's good reading, last thing I want is to be storing a whole lot of dead cartridges from back in the day.

The Early Shots

2006-08-16T03:02:08Z

Sometimes the journey a game makes from the early stages to the final product... fairly interesting.

Original Discussion