Hippohippo

From youtube video comments, found today:

@dilendo97 A lot of ppl think gay is a word used for evil. >.> The world is becoming so retarded. Im not gay though staright. But, i dont get it.

(From this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2CSrY8CoMLY)

Fire the canon

Trusted Colleagues!

So, here's a link to a build of the game I've been working up, with dummy assets. The idea is based on the VW Remix Road interactive ad. It's a  concept test. In the zip file that you can download, there's a mac-compatible version and a windows-compatible one. I hope it works, this time, Jon!

Some instructions:

This build allows you to push the keys a, b, and c when the corresponding placards approach you in the game. If you hit the key in time, the combo count goes up, and an object is added to the scenery...Jon, this is where the new layer of sound will be added in. If you miss a placard, however, the combo count goes back to zero, and the objects stop appearing. It's a very basic test--just to show you how the game will work.

At the moment, the biggest question (which Kate, my advisor, has put to me) is about the context of the game. I think originally I had planned for this game to be just visually and aurally stimulating, like Peggle. The reward was going to be just watching the space develop and get more interesting to look at. But I don't think that's enough, necessarily. So I'm asking you guys for ideas. What do you think this game could do narratively, or what could the reward be for correctly identifying something that comes towards you? 

At this point, Lahta and I are planning on all the placards (the things with letters on them, coming towards you) are going to have fruits on them, and you'll have to type the name of the fruit to "complete" that card and have it fly away (or show a funny picture, instead). The original intention was for it to be a game that helps ESL students ages 8 - 11 practice their vocabulary. 

So what do you think?

Simon & Lahta

How it all went down.

Check out this discussion of platforming game design. I think there's a lot of interesting information here about how the play experience in Jonathan Blow's Braid is constructed. It's a rather long video, to be sure, but it also contains a lot of discussion about animation. There are a lot of things in here I didn't notice when I played the game.

I finally feel like there's some real deep thinking about game design being done in public--books are not the only subject of deep textual analysis by the public. Let's open them doors!