The Update Above Novelty

The IndieGames.com weblog took a look at the hippyish Shadegrown Games development process. There are no new screenshots of Planck v.1 just yet, but exciting things are on the way.

If you read Magical Wasteland regularly, you are probably already aware of Kill Screen Magazine. I contributed a piece to issue #1, the No Fun Issue. It is called “Winner” and is about how overly competitive situations can drive out the fun of games. There is a lot of good writing in this publication. Please check it out.

I recently decided I did not have enough going on and started a Tumblr blog dedicated to interesting examples of video game music, with occasional wanderings into non-game territory.

Finally, due to completely genuine popular demand, you can now purchase an official Magical Wasteland t-shirt. They are not marked up, for I have forgone material wealth in favor of spiritual riches. At least in this case.

Comments

[Radek]

Hey, those are some pretty impressive procedural effects for Unity! Looks like quite an update from the IGF screenshots I saw.

I'm curious, are the songs entirely generated by the player, or did you go with standardized BPM and insertion points for the samples so everything would sync up smoothly? That was the approach I suggested for Armin van Buuren: In The Mix, although the very nature of trance music and its layered structure made it an easy choice (especially for freestyle/party modes).

As for Kill Screen, well, there's plenty of industry commentary available online or in the magazines I already read, but I am tempted to see what was the most disgusting puzzle in IF history...

[Darius K.]

@Radek: I think the difference between Kill Screen and most online commentary is that Kill Screen has editors that actively work to improve their contributor's writing. So far all of Kill Screen's contributors have been great writers in general, but their pieces for Kill Screen are superb, precisely because the articles go through multiple revisions. (In case you didn't know, most websites, even good ones, don't do a multiple-draft back-and-forth between an editor and a writer.)

[Zach]

I read "winner" and I was really impressed with the eventual argument that came out of it re: competition not really being a natural state. it's weaved its way into my thinking now too. i haven't done anything with those thoughts yet (it was too hot to think this month!) but it came up in a convo w/ my boss about productivity-games (like ribbon hero for office).

did you see chris hecker's GDC talk about motivation? i think that also fits in the conversation, but i haven't worked out how yet.

[Matthew]

@Radek: We use a set BPM per level and samples that are triggered through a quantizing / scheduling system so that everything syncs up. Our idea is that Planck never sounds bad in response to lower player skill, just not as complex. The system definitely skews towards electronic music, but there's quite a bit of room to explore in there. We plan to push the boundaries if we can.

@Zach: Yes, it's definitely part of the conversation. Alfie Kohn wrote another book that I didn't reference in Winner called Punished by Rewards, which discusses extrinsic versus intrinsic motivation in depth. It's well worth a read.

[obdurate hater of rhythm games]

I agree about excessive competitiveness: Companies are using inane bullshit, used to earn achievement points rather than fun challenges to lure customers. Should we have to prove to a bunch of idiots that we can perform menial tasks? Multiplayer is the same way: Instead of fun, varied challenges, we get repetitive fights through the same levels, again and again, with no goal, or purpose. Beating the game, kissing the ass of a very high difficulty level is very satisfying, and gives the player a feeling that the meaningless comments of strangers cannot reproduce.

Also, for examples of video game music, I recommend Phoenix, and Truxton 2.

[Dan]

Content like yours is exactly why I subscribed to Kill Screen. Thank you for writing Winner, it helped me realize my wife was exactly right when she looked at me funny for wasting time playing We Rule and We Farm on my iPad. As I played both games, I noticed a natural progression with other players. People were very attentive to their virtual worlds until they reached the max level and lost interest. I finally realized (somewhere around Level 20 and reading your article) that I wouldn't have anything to show for my time but a stupid virtual kingdom or farm with a continued demand for time and attention that would never be satiated. So I deleted both apps. My fields now lie fallow and I can get on with my life.