Author: Scott

So my birthday’s today, and I decided to boot up our Wii to see if there was any mention of the occasion. On the Nintendo DS, the system information includes the birth-date of the owner, so when he/she enters Pictochat on that day, the system presents a special message. Since each Mii can be personalized with a birth-date, I figured the same sort of attention would be given.

But apparently not. :( No mention of my little Scott’s special day anywhere.

It’s a missed opportunity on Nintendo’s part. They’ve got this super-adorable Mii Channel, and yet no Mii birthday parties? At the very least, I expected my Mii to be wearing a party hat. In my most grandiose expectations, however, I imagined that when the player entered the Mii Channel, the birthday Mii would be front-and-center, and all the other Mii’s would be throwing confetti, jumping up and down, and singing “Happy Birthday.” How cute would that be?

(P.S: I’m 22 now. Twenty-two. That’s a lot of numbers.)

So I’m trying my damnedest to put together an early design document for Glyphbreaker. The problem is that design docs are difficult to write, and even more-so when you have little experience doing so. So, I’ve started looking for good references.

There are lots of sites and books out there that want to tell me how to write a good game design document, but I’m much more of a hands-on guy; I learn by example. I want actual design documents to reference, and it turns out that it’s not quite as simple as that.

Not a lot of companies or individuals seem willing to publish their design documents. It might be a legal thing, or it might simply be paranoia, and an attempt to protect original game mechanics from nefarious rival designers. Whatever the case, there aren’t a whole lot of design docs out there at the moment, but the exceptions are certainly worth noting.

Exception 1: Chris Bateman of International Hobo posted the original design document for Play with Fire on Gamasutra. Play with Fire was originally intended to be a PS2 game, but is now an indie title published by Manifesto Games.

Exception 2: David Jaffe recently posted a ten-page design document for Calling all Cars on his blog. Calling all Cars is an upcoming digitally-distributed PS3 title. Jaffe’s the God of War guy, and what his design doc lacks in robustness it definitely makes up for with solid design ideas and great concept sketches (see above image).

I’ll continue posting original design documents whenever I can find them. I had an idea a year ago of writing a regular column where I convinced companies to give me their design docs to publish. It’s still not a bad idea. I just might try it.

Klaus Teuber’s Settlers of Catan is hitting Xbox Live Arcade in mid-March. There’s been a lot of buzz recently about the title, specifically surrounding the news that Big Huge Games, developers of the Rise of Nations RTS series, are the ones bringing Settlers to the console.

I had a chance to interview Brian Reynolds, current chairman of the IGDA, as well as CEO and creative director of Big Huge Games. In the interview, Brian talks about the upcoming adaptation of Settlers of Catan for Xbox Live Arcade, and goes in-depth on some of the finer points of porting an analog idea to a digital platform. I have yet to play the game, but from everything I’ve heard and seen Catan Live will make a smooth transition from tabletop classic to online addiction. If only I had a 360 to play it on.

» Off the Grid interviews Brian Reynolds of Big Huge Games.

Artie said that they are over and he had sex with someone other than Dana when he was down in Atlantic City this weekend. Artie said that the Monday after vacation is the worst. He said he got crazed when he saw that. Howard’s Ed Bradley Memorial Service Experience. Howard did an impression of Richards and Fred played some Gilbert Gottfried laughs while he was doing it.

He said the baby was over 7 pounds and it was too big for his wife’s body. She was born during their vacation.

Howard is now figuring that he got the whole ball rolling because he left that first message for Kelly.

Artie said that he’s always had that problem and used to sleep at work on the docks.

Sid said he was at a Mets game when he got the call to come back to the station. Howard said he was thinking that Bill Clinton would love to see Beth’s titties in her dress but he never got near anyone up front. Howard said his assistant Laura sent him a note saying that she has TiVo’d Seinfeld for the past 5 years abut since that whole thing went down with Michael Richards, she has stopped watching it.

One guy used to listen to him on WFAN and said they really miss him. Artie said he saw the Rolling Stones the first weekend they were off, then he went to see The Who and figured he had to get rid of some of his bloat. Daniel was doing his own little show getting the two retards to say the N-word. He had his eyes closed through a lot of the show. No one was sure what kind of case they could possibly have.

— t. (vbo@tymaq.com.ar)

Apple’s site has been pissing me off lately. It’s a silly little thing, but it’s frustrating to me. They’re advertising the iPhone on the front page of apple.com. It’s shiny, it’s pretty, it’s the bleeding edge, but the site is instructing me to do something that I can’t do.

I can’t “slide to unlock,” because the phone is just a quicktime video. And the second I click it, before I have a chance to slide, it sends me to the iPhone page.

It’s stupid, right? But I doubt that I’m the only person who tries to “slide to unlock.” And this isn’t just an annoyance. I want to slide to unlock. I want to be able to have a playful relationship with that image, and by extension with Apple, their website, and the iPhone.

Let me slide to unlock. If nothing else, give me the satisfaction of having that tiny interaction. At worst, it will give people a half-second of enjoyment. At best, it’ll make them feel a connection to the phone; a direct causal relationship to its interface. It might even make them want to play with it more.

And I’m not saying this to belittle the actual game; Smooth Moves is probably my favorite Wii title at the moment (even beating out the unsinkable Wii Sports). It’s innovative, it’s unpredictable, and there are probably a million other things I could (and probably will) say about it that have most likely been said before.

But its instruction manual is just incredible:

In a move of Infocom-esque proportion, the instruction manual for Wario Ware defies all the modern standards and norms of its printed peers. It’s laid out in part like a trashy tabloid, complete with a letter from the editor, and dramatic headline titles for each section. The entire thing is printed in full color as well, and the writing features some of the same dry humor which makes the game so fun to play.

Which I guess brings me to my point. Instruction manuals have become a sort of necessary evil in retail packaging. They’re a place to print the warnings and warranty information, and write the repetitive copy for controller usage and drilling through a game’s menus as well. But one of the first things I look at when I open a new game is the instruction manual. It’s a habit left over from my childhood, when I would open a game like Super Metroid on the way home from Toys R Us, and read through the manual ten times before I even got to put in the cartridge. Since then, I’ve grown to understand the instruction manual to be a subtle reflection of a game’s quality. If it’s thick, and full-color, then I know I’m in good hands. But if the manual’s only a few pages long, and printed in greyscale, I’m worried about my purchase before I even turn the console on.

When a developer understands that, and takes the time to make the manual match their game in terms of presentation, it shows confidence in the product, and a type of attention to detail that I hope to be a part of someday. It’s a cue the industry could take from Apple: the player experience begins before they even open the box.

I found out this week that I was accepted as a student scholar to the 2007 Game Developers Conference by the International Game Developers Association. I am extremely excited. I figured I should mention it. Yes.

The event is in March in San Francisco. And I suspect that it will be a somewhat different experience than our last trip.