Category: Uncategorized

It’s true. I’ve become one of those people that has a del.icio.us account and incorporates it into their blog. I’m one them, now.

I have to say that, apart from any gripes to be had with the complexity of the URL (“del, icio, us” is how I remember it), del.icio.us is one the most useful pieces of web tech that I’ve ever used, which is most likely why it’s so famous and stuff.

If you’re unaccquainted with the site, allow me to give a brief rundown. del.icio.us is one of several “social bookmarking” sites, or what I call “aggregate” sites. Aggregate sites cull their content entirely from their users, making them 100% dependent on community. If an aggregate site does not have a community of users publishing, then it has no content, and therefore no readership. In order to quickly overcome this hurdle, Netscape.com — old site, new aggregate — decided to pay top bookmarkers from other sites to begin bookmarking for Netscape instead. Other sites, such as Digg, Reddit, and my buddy del.icio.us, have relied on word-of-mouth to build wide-reaching communities of “social bookmarkers.”

Though the aesthetic and implementation may differ, the basic idea of social bookmarking is always the same. Users submit websites, articles, or basically any URL of interest to them, often associating it with a number of categories, or “tags.” The more users that link to a specific URL, the more likely it is that that specific URL will appear on the aggregate’s main site. In this way, featured news is determined by popularity. Sites with hierarchical membership (read: older, or well-respected users are better than newer ones) often rely more heavily on high-level users (like Netscape’s “Navigators”) to determine what stories will appear on the front page.

The term “social bookmarking” suggests that aggregate sites are a community-based evolution of the browser-based bookmarks, which is accurate. Now, instead of adding an interesting link I found to a pile of bookmarks that I’ll never look at again, I tag it and throw it on my del.icio.us site. Tagging allows me to organize the list of links by a number of topics (games, gamedev, gamedesign, play, bunnies, etc.). Because it’s online and public, my bookmarks can easily be seen by my friends and family (and anyone else who happens upon my site). At the same time, it preserves a list of topics of interest to me, allowing me to go back to them over time. Kevin Slavin refers to his del.icio.us account as “his virtual brain,” and at this point I’m inclined to agree.

If you’re a fan of aggregating (or you think newspaper clippings are cool but outdated), you should look into setting up a del.icio.us account. It’s free, and is surprisingly fun. And be sure to check out my del.icio.us links in the left sidebar and on my del.icio.us site.

There. That is the last I will mention of it.

Olde English started as a comedy troupe at my college, and continues to rock out on the internet and NYC to this day (you know, a few years later). I enjoy their antics because they always remind me of Bard, and because, well, they’re also just so darn funny and clever.

A recent example of this is their live show Olde English: Rules!, which was built around the premise that each sketch presented at the show was created by following a strict set of guidelines imposed by one of the group’s members. Example:

I’m going to play a song for you. The sketch must contain at least two minutes of the song I’m going to play, and it must be played at an audible level. The song must be played three separate times. All characters must lip-synch while the song is playing. When the song is not playing, all lights must be off.

These rules coalesce to form Supersonic, which certainly might not be considered a crazy success, but sure does follow those rules good!

In contrast, Adam dictates his own rules to Raizin:

Two mathematical constants are on a bllind date, but one of the them has a chilling secret. And no physical objects may be portrayed in this sketch.

From this, Raizin makes Blind Date, which is far and away one of my favorite sketches.

I was thinking about using this as a springboard to talk about rulesets, and the potential created when constraints are applied, but I think I just managed to say it all, so… favorite sketches!

Newer: Raizin and Adam Live Together, Pokemon Day, The First Date (which is different than Blind Date, so don’t be fooled), and Balloon Bangers.

Older: General Procrastination, Adam’s Orange Stand, Funny Face, and Video Will.

Warning: These have cusses in ’em. Enjoy!

40 from Splurge on Flickr. Thanks!

I was working on a tiny little analog game this past week when I realized that I wasn’t getting the same satisfaction that I had when working digitally. It was still satisfying, to be sure, but it was different. Why?

So I asked myself what I enjoyed about designing something. And I reasoned that my favorite part of the process was knowing that I was creating something worthy of interaction, and I wanted that interaction to be satisfying to the player.

I know that this is largely born out of my own desire to be satisfied with interactivity. As a player, I desire reaction. Even if my action is meaningless, I want there to be confirmation of it.

This goes beyond game design. This is a general principle of interface design, and a very, very important one. Let’s call it “call and response,” not only because they’re the first words that popped into my head, but because, as it turns out, they have a real and utterly parallel meaning.

According to Wikipedia (you know, right now), Call and reponse is “spontaneous verbal and non-verbal interaction between speaker and listener in which all of the statements (‘calls’) are punctuated by expressions (‘responses’) from the listener”. Apparently this plays a large role in West African culture, and emphasizes the importance of communication as a dialogue (however obvious that sounds). With call and response, a statement does not pass without affirmation of its reception, regardless of how the listener regards it.

In terms of interface, “call and response” means a button should tell me when I click on it, before a system performs any consequential tasks. This response could be visual (the button depresses), aural (the button makes a clicking noise), or a combination thereof.

This isn’t masters level geek speak; this is common, antiquated knowledge. Kids are taught from an early age to expect reaction from their interaction. My 7-month-old niece has several toys that are designed solely to react. When she rolls her giant fuzzy cube to the side with the cow, it moos. When she presses a button on her pretend phone, it plays music. These are toys, just as much as a game is. And what I’ve learned is that entirely separate from the design of a digital game — and just as important — is the design of its interface. A player needs to know the game is listening. A player wants reaction.

After figuring this out, I realized that satisfaction in an analog game was a very different beast than the satisfaction in a digital one, because the digital medium is able to respond to interaction in a way that a board game, or a card game, can’t.

I suppose this is important to reconcile because I’m looking for a particular satisfaction out of designing analog games that I’m never going to get. Players are parsing their own data in an analog environment, and as such, must be their own listeners. I’ll figure out what this means later.

» big red button from anatomist on Flickr. Thanks!

It’s fun to type your name into Google, and it’s only slightly less fun to type your name into the address bar of your browser, followed by a .com or .net to comply with the standards of hypertext transfer protocol. Today, I typed in scott.com to see what would happen, and I found The Scott Page, a compendium of people and businesses on the internet named Scott! People and businesses like me!

The site, which also serves as the web page for Scott Web Services, features listings of businesses named Scott, people with the first name of Scott, and people with the surname of Scott. The site invites users fitting into one of these categories to submit their web site to the listings. Naturally, I felt up to the task, and looked forward to adding myself to the ever-growing taxonomy.

That was before I realized that the collective of Scott-named persons was a close-minded, cultish conglomeration. It all became apparent in the Scott People Page Request section, which greets you once you’ve decided to add your name to the Scott People Page list. The rules start out simple enough:

• To be considered for The Scott People Page, you must have a personal web page. Scott businesses are listed on The Scott Page.

La dee dah! Simple enough. Check!

• Your personal web page must mention your full Scott name. If your page doesn't mention your Scott name, it is not a Scott People Page and your submission will be rejected. The links featured here go to someone's web page where you see a Scott name on it! That's what makes cruising The Scott People Page so much fun!

O…kay…

• You must have your own page. You can't use a page you share with non-Scott people.

“non-Scott people”?

• Your first or last name must be spelled "Scott". Other spellings are not allowed.

Suddenly I doubted whether I wanted to belong to such an exclusive club. No longer a common space for even those whose names *sounded* like “Scott,” The Scott Page revealed itself to be a place of fear-driven isolation. In a way, I felt guilty that I and my home page fit so neatly into the site’s well-defined category of perfection. I wished to be an outsider, but could only offer stale gray conformity.

In the end, I signed up regardless of my feelings, joining the ranks of those proud to be named “Scott,” and not “Scot,” “Skott,” or “Jim.” Though barely perceptable, a tiny part of my soul has withered to nothing. Hello. My name is Scott.

» Related: a man all too happy to be named Scott

…not because I want to be like him, or do anything close to what he’s doing, but because he manages to somehow be a complete idiot and an incredibly intelligent personality at the same time.

Take, for example, this episode on the topic of his ugly MySpace contest. Watch it. The first 55 seconds are a motif of ugly myspace pages, complete with a horridly self-produced song asking “do you know you some ugly?”

The next two minutes and twenty seconds are filled by an explanation of why this project exists, complete with a brief history of the mass prolification of media authorship and its tools. This. Is. Brilliant.

Special thanks go out to Mr. Jason Calacanis, whose blog pointed me in ZeFrank’s direction. How have I never heard of this guy before?

» You can subscribe to ZeFrank’s “The Show” with this feed.

Taking advice from both Rules of Play and Frank, I’ve been tinkering with board game design. Not anything too complex, just making something small and original. It’s been an on and off project, but recently I had a breakthrough, and excitedly showed my design in progress to Bonnie.

On a simple 7×7 grid, my game had two players starting out in the center, with the ending condition of the game being that one of them reaches the goal. Each player moves one space in any direction per turn. The twist was that the goal, represented by a larger pawn, was constantly moving. It would rotate around the perimeter of the grid, moving three spaces for each player’s turn. The strategy then becomes for the players to base their movement on where the goal is going to be. For a little extra layer of strategy and competition, I added “reverse” spaces, which would change the direction in which the goal would rotate.

I described all this to Bonnie, with my little prototype between us on the kitchen counter. Once I was finished, I paused to let her comment. It didn’t need to be positive. Anything constructive she could bring up would be immensely helpful. I decided this before talking with her so I wouldn’t get annoyed when she didn’t praise my brilliant design decisions.

She stared at the board for another minute, considering. “So, it’s Kill Doctor Lucky.”

“Excuse me?”

“It’s like Kill Doctor Lucky, but with a simpler ruleset, right?”

“What? No…”

“Well, you have a ‘goal’ that’s constantly moving around on its own, and the players are trying to reach the ‘goal.’ You can influence the ‘goal’s’ movement to foil other player’s attempts. The only fundamental difference is you don’t have to kill the ‘goal’ in order to win.”

I looked down at my board again. I had appropriated pieces from other board games in order to build my prototype. But not until then did I realize that my goal piece was Doctor Lucky, or at least his special pawn from my copy of the board game. It seems you can’t teach an old piece new tricks, and the good doctor had reverted to his old habits of movement, perhaps even relieved that his human opponents were no longer out to get him.

My first breakthrough and I wind up designing my favorite board game by accident. This would be Problem #1: watch our for “brilliant ideas,” because they’re probably not yours.

I could call it “Reach Mr. Goalie.”

Everybody loves embedded video…

…and I love this song. Found it on Napster years ago while going through an “everything Japanese is awesome” phase, and haven’t been able to get it out of my head since.

How do you use Sony’s Playstation Portable to play big games? Take advantage of the system’s ability to search for WiFi access points, and make that the basis of a scavenger hunt / puzzle game. At least that’s what Jonas Hielscher did when he created CollecTic, an inventive little title developed as part of Hielscher’s graduation project for the Media Technology masters program at Leiden University. From the man himself:

The objective of the game is to search for different access points, to collect them and to combine them in a puzzle in order to get points. In the game, the player has to move around in her/his local surrounding, using her/his PSP as a sensor device in order to find access points. By doing this, the player is able to discover the hidden infrastructure of wireless network coverage through auditive and visual feedback.

Bonus points go to Hielscher for moving beyond the simple scavenger hunt mechanic, and adding a bit of puzzler to the mix. According to his site, each secured access point is defined by a shape and color, the shape being determined by the manufacturer code of the unique MAC address, and the color determined by the product code of the same. When the player “collects” an access point he/she can then arrange it in a 3×3 square with other access points collected. Matching sets of three (by color, shape, or both), earn the player points.

As if that wasn’t enough, the game allows players to collect unsecured access points as well. Once collected, the unsecured points appear as either black or white stars. If they’re white, they act as “wild cards,” and can be used to complete matching sets. If the point is black, however, it clears the player’s grid, forcing him/her to start over with collecting.

These are small additions, but they can add a great deal to gameplay, as well as make the experience more aesthetically pleasing as a whole (in addition to size, shape and color, each individual access point is defined by unique sound, making for a nearly synaesthetic experience).

Be sure to check out the site, which offers more information on the game’s development, photos, and short videos of the gameplay in action. Although CollecTic is not publicly available yet, Jonas Hielscher promises that it is coming soon, and will be playable on PSP’s up to firmware version 2.0.

»CollecTic via Kotaku.

Appeared originally on Away From Keyboard.

At first I went “huh?” but then I realized it was a match made in heaven.

For those unaware, Will Wright recently announced that Brian Eno — former glam-rocker and father of ambient music — will be creating the soundtrack to Spore. This is, of course, brilliant.

To solidify this relationship in the public eye (and possibly just as an excuse to have a good old chat), EA and Maxis recently held an open seminar in San Francisco, where a theater full of open ears listened to the rantings of two men who in very different fields are doing the exact same thing. Both artists (yes, I’m calling them that) use the idea of cellular automata as a basis for their creations. Cellular automata, I’ve recently learned, refers to a simple initial rule-set that is capable of generating very complex and disparate results. Wright can do a better job of describing this than I can:

“Science is all about compressing reality to minimal rule sets, but generative creation goes the opposite direction. You look for a combination of the fewest rules that can generate a whole complex world which will always surprise you, yet within a framework that stays recognizable…..It’s not engineering and design, so much as it is gardening. You plant seeds.”

Thanks, Will. I dig this concept as a root for game design. The implicit message here is that in generative game design, the designer’s task is not to create a world, but create the tools and rules that allow the player to create through their interaction. The fun and interesting challenge in this is to apply it to games outside of the “sandbox” category. Level design can become inconsequential, for instance, if the player can generate his/her own environments through play.

Tetris is an example of this style of design. The play environment is a direct consequence of the player’s interactions, all built out of the blocks delivered into the player’s control. Although it’s still a great big WIP, I’d like for Sqube to follow a similar design principle.

Let’s talk about the importance of metaphor — and not just in a game, but in its interface as well.

So Sony introduces the PS3 controller, and its gyroscopics, at E3 2006, during their big press conference. To demonstrate the potential of their “new” technology, Warhawk 3 — an action title and flight simulator — is demonstrated. The player up on stage gives the audience a taste of the future by using the entire controller to fly the plane around. Any tilt of the device in his hands yields the same tilt in the aircraft on screen. According to those who saw this first-hand, the control seemed rather tight, and the demonstration was an impressive example of the capabilities of this technology.

So, what’s the problem here?

Video games have struggled with realism for years, not just in the graphics department, but in terms of interface as well. A single controller to play hundreds of different kinds of games makes it difficult to customize the interface — and the direct interaction of the user — with every particular experience. A title like Guitar Hero tackles the issue by introducing a separate controller, specifically tailored to the demands of the software.

With the Wii, meanwhile, Nintendo is attempting to reinvent the wheel entirely by giving the controller less of a presence, and having it retreat into the background as the user’s own motions take precedent. With the Wii, you’ll fish like you expect to fish, swing a bat to swing a bat, and when you want to play tennis, you’ll know how to do that, too.

Our current generation of standard peripherals, however, struggle with intuitive, logical interface. There’s very little the standard Xbox/Gamecube/PS2 controller can do that feels true to its original form. In fact, I can think of only one thing that the analog sticks of our modern devices represent well, and that is flying a plane.

Hell, think about it. Our whole concept of “joystick” descends from the tastelessly nicknamed device pilots use to control the pitch and yaw of their machines. There is no place our everyday videogame controller is more at home than flying an aircraft.

So why did Sony go and muck up the metaphor? Why is it that, of all the possible ways to demo the controller’s “new” features, Sony chose to show the controller doing the one thing that controllers already knew how to do?

The result of this is obvious: every time we watch this dude in action, we can’t help but laugh. The method of control looks incredibly awkward, especially when we can see the dual analog sticks just sitting there on the face of the controller, waiting to be used. It’s like trying to fish by stabbing your rod in the water.

Most importantly, it doesn’t look fun. Because it doesn’t look like you’re playing a game about flying a plane — it looks like you’re playing a game about playing a game about flying a plane. Perhaps contrary to their original intention, Sony has crashed the metaphor, and moved the player one more step away from immersion. At least the graphics are good, right?