The Mighty Fine Actions at DoubleFine

Double Fine’s at it again, revolutionizing things and whatnot! This time, they’re opening up their game prototyping process to the public, a process they call the Amnesia Fortnight.  There are three days left for the public to vote for what game pitches will be turned into game prototypes.  Over the next 2 weeks, there will be a live stream of the teams developing those prototypes.

This is a phenomenal opportunity to see the game design process as well as how different teams approach it.

Kinda applicable to what we're doing in class.

 For info, check their site out!

http://www.humblebundle.com/double-fine#

Pheus & Mor

http://www.kongregate.com/games/PegasGames/pheus-and-mor?acomplete=pheus+and+mor

I was talking with one of my friend's about my original game design concept and he recommended I play this game.

One of the cool mechanics in it is that you have a separate controls for both Pheus and Mor.  This allows you to manipulate both simultaneously  if you so choose.  I found it rather disorienting to manage both at once at first but I slowly got the hang of it over the course of the game.

The game has a meaningful underlying story about the love between a boy and his dog.  Its mechanics reinforce the idea that this is good and mutual as a result of each character having a different skill set that's necessary to overcome the game's obstacles.  The boy can jump and slide on the ground but cannot swim, while the dog swims in water and can break walls down.  Additionally, some obstacles require Pheus, the boy, to use Mor as a stepping stool to transcend his own limits.  Through his dog, his beloved friend, he is able to achieve greater heights than he would alone.  This height metaphor runs deep in the philosophy of the game.

Enough rambling.  Play it!

Music is My Collin in Life

Collins continues onto dynamic music composition in chapter 8 of her book, Game Sound.  She describes the four advantages of dynamic music as: 1.) the ability to create music that changes with each play-through (which therefore increases audience interest by mitigating listener fatigue) 2.) the ability to create a multicolored production by transforming themes in the same composition (increases the cohesion of the musical soundscape of a production while also allowing the composer to utilize Wagnerian concepts of leitmotifs), 3.) the ability to add new surprises and increase gameplay enjoyment (dynamic music is modular and variable; hearkens back to point #1)  and 4.) the ability to add musical elements as gameplay features.

She continues on to discuss how games are non-linear and what the unique challenges for music are  within the medium.

The most important part of this chapter is Collins' breakdown of the manipulatable factors within music.   She covers ten separate aspects of music that can be manipulated.  In order to do this, she breaks apart the fundamentals of our perception of music.  This allows us to analyze what we can change while maintaining musical cohesion, which is important because games need to be interactive and maintain user interest.

Curiously enough,  I also met Guy Whitmore, another one of Collin's references, while I was in San Francisco.  My former employer, Ric Viers of BlastwaveFX, got me into a private party at Pyramind Studios--and, looking back on it, I was actually meeting some rather big names while I was there... Still can't believe it happened.