Archive for October, 2007

Zombies should stay buried.

Published at October 26, 2007 in game design and my games. 2 Comments

At least, that’s the perspective taken in The Filler, a new card game I designed for The Escapist. One player takes on the fictional role of the Filler, a nice if somewhat withdrawn individual who uses his portable cement mixer to fill in graves with concrete, to prevent zombies from escaping. The other player is, of course, the zombie horde, whose sole task is to make the Filler’s life more difficult, and possibly get him fired from his job. Hilarity ensues.

Dry wit aside, I’m happy with how The Filler turned out. It was my first foray into resource-focused gameplay, and I enjoyed the process of tweaking and re-tweaking the numbers. Next month (fingers crossed), I’ll be premiering the game I intended on premiering this month, which is my first attempt at designing a board game. Panic ensues.

I play video games on my Mac!

Published at October 25, 2007 in analog games, general, joystiq and video games. 0 Comments

Well… kinda. I use my Powerbook as a display for video game consoles. It’s the easiest way for us to continue playing new releases on our North American systems while living in France (we’re damn sure not gonna miss Super Mario Galaxy or Smash Bros. Brawl). How it works exactly is the topic of this week’s Off the Grid, although the picture below is kind of a giveaway.

This piece actually marks the hopeful end to a bit of a dry period for Off the Grid. The move to France disrupted my normal flow of reviews, and I’ve spent the last week or so attempting to arrange for more review copies of games to be sent to my new address.

It’s going to be harder to review games here, in part because fewer companies are willing to ship review copies abroad. The larger problem, however, is the lack of players. It’s just me, Bonnie, and at the moment nobody else in this country that I’d feel comfortable subjecting to board games they’ve never heard of. At the moment, that limits me to games for two players. I guess I’ll have to start making French friends if I want to play anything more substantial than that.

Some good things to know about playing cards:

Published at October 22, 2007 in analog games, game design and ul. 0 Comments

I’ve been working on a game that uses a deck of playing cards, and have been keeping track of a number of simple stats and factoids about the cards during the design process. I thought I’d be nice and share.

There are 52 cards in a deck (not counting Jokers):

  • 13 spades (black)
  • 13 clubs (black)
  • 13 diamonds (red)
  • 13 hearts (red)

That means there are 26 black cards and 26 red cards.

Of the 13 cards in each suit:

  • 3 are face cards (Jack, Queen, King)
  • 10 are number cards (Ace through 10).

In total, a deck of cards contains 12 face cards and 40 number cards.

Counting by color, there are:

  • 6 face cards of each color
  • 20 number cards of each color.

We can add the values of number cards together to come up with total sums:

  • Total sum of each suit: 55
  • Total sum of each color: 110
  • Total sum overall: 220

Lastly, here’s a good rule to keep in mind:

  • If you’re going to leave the country for six months, bring at least one deck of playing cards with you!

I must have six or seven decks back in Pennsylvania. Now I have to go out and buy a French set. Just remember:

  • Jack is Valet
  • Queen is Dame
  • King is Roi

Photo from itzjere on Flickr. Thanks!

Us expat gamers have it hard.

Published at October 18, 2007 in joystiq, travel and video games. 0 Comments

I’m surprised and delighted by the number of comments to my latest Off the Grid post, which talks about the difficulties of continuing a video game obsession hobby while living abroad. The column is part one of a two-part series, in which I explain how I managed to get our American-born Wii and PS2 working perfectly in France. It’s no Not Without my Daughter, but it still makes for a good story, I feel.

I was concerned that the content of the piece would be lost on a lot of non-traveling gamers, but it seems a surprising number of people have been in my exact same situation. The comments I’ve received on the piece are extremely helpful, and I’ll definitely be taking their input into consideration while I write next week’s thrilling conclusion. I look forward to sharing my crazy, ass-backward solution with the world.

In travel news, we’re headed to Italy tomorrow. By train. We can take a train to Italy. How cool is that?

Portal is short and sweet, or so I'm told.

Published at October 15, 2007 in game design and video games. 1 Comment

As much is it hurts me to say, I have yet to play Valve’s Portal, that puzzle FPS that everybody is talking about. In fact, I probably won’t play it for at least six months, possibly longer, though I won’t let that get in the way of my talking about it.

So the popular word is that Portal‘s a fantastic game, but it’s short. The discussion of it reminds me a lot of Rez, another short but sweet game, and makes me wonder if compacted, succinct experiences might be a worthwhile direction for the industry to work toward.

You see, games like Rez and Portal are in opposition to the intentional bloating of modern RPGs, which is often done as a justification of value. A lot of games these days seem to be judged by their length, which is problematic because a 60-hour story isn’t necessarily a good story, and the only thing worse than a bad story is a bad story that’s incredibly long.

Indeed, the main criticism of Portal seems to be that it’s too short, but I wonder if maybe that’s because we as critics and gamers aren’t used to intentionally short experiences. The desire to want more isn’t a bad feeling to leave players with. What’s worse is leaving players feeling tired, and ready to move on. The best films end too soon; the best songs are too short — so why, in games, if the experience ends and leaves us wanting more, do we mark that as a negative?

I say that Playstation Network, Xbox Live Arcade, and Wii Ware are terrific opportunities for “short and sweet” games to thrive. Give me 4 hours of great game over 30 hours of “alright.” Give me something I want to re-play over something I’d rather not bother with (I don’t think I’ll ever feel the need to replay Twilight Princess; it just wasn’t enjoyable enough from end to end — and don’t get me started on Okami).

Hey, virtually nonexistent readership! Any other “short and sweet” games I should be aware of?

Off the Grid is back, for better or for worse.

Published at October 11, 2007 in joystiq and travel. 0 Comments

My Off the Grid column at Joystiq is back from its unofficial, unannounced hiatus. This week, it’s about good games to play on international flights. Not to spoil it or anything, but the answer is “None. I don’t want to play any games. Why am I not there already? More wine, s’il vous plaît.”

I passed my flight to France watching Dexter with Bonnie, replaying Metroid: Zero Mission, replaying Castlevania: Portrait of Ruin, and playing the same three or four Neutral Milk Hotel songs on Jam Sessions over and over again. I was going to do some design work, but… yeah right.

Next week is a very special Off the Grid. It’s special because it’s about video games.

I'm trying to be a blogger again.

Published at October 10, 2007 in general, meta and travel. 0 Comments

I’ve been super-negligent with this blog, but I’m hoping that’ll change starting now. I just made the difficult move to our lovely French apartment, and I’m currently trying to get back on a normal schedule of blogging, working, designing, etcetera.

I’ve very nearly caught up with everything, so hopefully things will get back to normal soon (well, normal in the sense that I’m living in France, but posting here regularly like a good little blogger).

In Scott news, both Officeball and Arrowgamé have been published at the Escapist. Check them out. What’s coming out at the end of this month? I’m not telling (because I’m not sure yet, but I’m also not telling).