[‘Design Diversions’ is a biweekly new GameSetWatch-exclusive column by Andrew Vanden Bossche. It looks at the unexpected moments when games take us behind the scenes, and the details of how game design engages us.]

Video game secrets were the schoolyard legends of our gamer youth. They thrived in the early nineties, due in large part to two key factors:

1. Actual secrets hidden within video games.
2. Lying children.

From this was born a beautiful cycle. Young gamers would, through luck or skill (mostly luck), find their way to some amazing unexplored aspect of the game and then gleefully share it with their friends. Those that weren't so lucky made them up, and so found their revenge. The only thing we were sure of was that anything could be true, so we were ready to believe anything.

Never before had lies been so believable. The rumors of the hidden Pokemon Mew lurking underneath a van, the dozens of ways you could supposedly resurrect Final Fantasy VII’s Aeris; all these and more generated days of frustration out of the fuel of raw hope.

A burgeoning internet, gullible userbase, dumb luck, and unscrupulous lying came together to make the mid-nineties the golden age of lying to (and by) children. But now there’s Gamefaqs, better search engines, and more widespread internet access. It’s hard to tell if secrets still have a place in an age where you can’t keep them anymore. That is, if keeping them was ever the point in the first place.

Keep Pressing Spacebar, That Wall Looks Funny
Secrets mean different things in different games. Some games keep track of them, others don’t. For an appropriately wide definition, secrets can be any goody or reward in the game that isn’t immediately obvious and isn’t necessary for the game’s completion. No matter how well hidden an item or tricky to solve a puzzle, it can’t quite be called a secret if you're forced to discover it.

Real secrets are buried deeply, the sort of thing you could play a game through without finding. It’s the difference between satisfying your curiosity about the environment and having a clear goal behind finding which door you need to get past.

That’s the secret to secrets. They stay hidden because you never have to look for them. You can miss them if you aren't careful, and that makes them precious. They’re tangential, an exercise founded foremost in curiosity. Lots of games (those of the Mario variety come to mind) spur this on by keeping a tally of the total collectibles that exist to give interested players an inkling of what they should be looking for.

This nudge can be even more subtle. Symphony of the Night, the classic iteration of Castlevania, has plenty of interesting areas to it that are normally impenetrable and aren’t required for an ordinary clear of the game. These little clues encourage exploration and curiosity. They may not encourage it over linear progression (depending on the game’s focus), but it certainly makes things a bit more interesting for the interested. It rewards people who like to languish in their games.

Something Behind Every Door
No useless rooms is just a dream for many games, but it’s a philosophy that’s great to believe in. This is the idea that every part of the game has a purpose, and that places that may seem empty or useless simply haven’t been searched thoroughly enough, or have some purpose that will be revealed in time. It’s the difference between wondering if there’s a point in what you’re doing, and knowing that your exploration and curiosity is not a waste of time.

Secrets help that process. The tantalizing possibility of what lies behind the obstacle you can’t seem to get past, and how to get past it, is the element of puzzle solving that gamers adore. Secrets are a powerful lure because players are aware they are looking for something without being entirely sure what it is or if it exists. Secrets are in the imagination. That’s how we were able to lie so convincingly to our friends about the code that would make Lara Croft take her clothes off. Anything could be possible if you looked hard enough.

Real secrets can add a lot of depth to a game. Lies about secrets can provide a lot of amusement for one person and a lot of frustration for another. So it shouldn't be too surprising that real secrets that sound like a lie lack both the enjoyment of exploration or the sadistic pleasure of watching a friend do something stupid. Instead, you get the experience of watching yourself do something stupid, the whole time knowing how stupid the thing you're doing is.

An Eternal Recursion of Idiocy
Final Fantasy XII, a game with a fair share of both wildly successful and completely backwards game design, isn't the first to do this to its players, but it is certainly one of the worst. Specifically, it is the weapon called the Zodiac Spear (specifically, the secret of obtaining it) that is an example of game design that is so mind-numbingly cynical that even reading about it causes me to feel mentally cross-eyed.

Secrets exist to be discovered. Some don't, but they aren't intentional, and they range from the merely embarrassing KOTOR II to GTA's multi-million dollar cup of hot coffee. But it isn't often that a secret is paradoxically meant to be revealed but also impossible to find on a player's own.

The Zodiac spear was not intended to be discovered through natural play or even unnatural play.

Let me tell you about the Zodiac Spear. It's the strongest weapon in the game, and the process for obtaining it is almost insane. Scattered throughout the game are treasure chests. Oddly, they are random spawns, and usually contain nothing useful other than a handful of coins. Of course, early in the game, they're actually a tiny bit useful, so you'd think, given that this is a video game and an RPG at that, opening treasure chests would be a good thing.

A Puzzle That Makes Sudoku Look Like Hopscotch
And that's where you're wrong. Because when you open these treasure chests that have absolutely no distinguishing features, you lose the chance of obtaining this ultimate weapon permanently. Let me repeat: Not only is there no indication that this weapon exists at any point in the game, not only is there no way to know what chests not to open, in no way is any of this information in any way conveyed to the player. A player who decides to buy this game will remain blissfully unaware of this until his friend tells him halfway through the game.

Excuse me, I forgot for just a second. That's not how you get the Zodiac Spear.

You get the Zodiac Spear by buying the strategy guide.

I have nothing but faith in the abilities of gamers to discover the undiscovered, and no doubt in time it might have been found naturally. But no one even got that chance, because it was there as soon as people opened the guides. No joy of discovery. Not even a sadistic lie perpetrated by an entire corporation on an international scale. Just an embarrassingly obsolete plot to sell strategy guides.

The only thing more insulting than a cynical decision to sacrifice game design for marketing is an ineffective one. Perhaps informing those in charge of the existence of Google, or the internet, might have given them pause.

What's the Secret of Fun?
Now, I won't say that the Zodiac Spear is a mortal sin (only a venial one), and it hardly makes a difference in the overall scope of a game that had many other successes. But I won't back down from making a big deal over it because this is symptomatic of a certain kind of philosophy of game design that does not favor fun or the player. It is to trade the experiance of playing a video game in exchange for a very poor attempt to gouge players. Remember that games are made to be compelling and fun. As players, we should be suspicious when games are designed against us.

Sure, it might be fun to have the Zodiac spear, but gamers know the real fun is in the getting. Secrets tend to come out in one of two ways. You either figure it out yourself, or you read it on the internet. Which, of these two options, is the most fun for the player? Or, more easily answered, which of these options had anything to do with playing the game?

This is why the Zodiac Spear is the worst secret ever. To not know of it is to never find it. And to know of it is to instantly know how to get it. It’s like a puzzle that has no question, only a solution.

Secrets, as they exist in video games, thrive off of the nebulous state between ignorance and discovery. Only knowing that something is out there is enough. So all you need is the suspicious wall, the jump that seems impossible, the mysterious object without a readily apparent purpose. Players don’t need anything else. They’ll make the bridge between the two on their own.

[Andrew Vanden Bossche is a freelance writer and student. He has a blog called Mammon Machine, which discusses videogames and how he couldn’t eat for a week after playing Saya no Uta, and can be reached at AndrewVandenB@gmail.com]

Posted by Andrew Vanden Bossche at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In our latest employment-specific round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from Propaganda, Insomniac, Rockstar, and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:

Propaganda Games Rendering Programmer
"Propaganda Games is seeking an experienced Rendering Programmer that knows the ins and outs of game rendering from the asset workflows to the low levels of the graphics engine. In this role you will work closely with the Rendering Team as well as working directly with other programmers and artists on the team."

Rockstar North Mission Scripter
"As part of the Level Design team you will be using our proprietary in house scripting language to code game missions and create immersive gameplay scenarios featuring AI, physics and interactive storytelling."

Activision Lighter/Environment Artist
"Seeking a new opportunity? We are currently hiring top talent for a soon to be announced project based on a successful Activision owned IP. We offer a competitive compensation and benefits package, including royalty plan and relocation assistance."

THQ Animation Director
"The Animation Director is responsible for directing all animation efforts for the WWE game franchise across multiple platforms."

Black Rock Studio Sr. Technical Animation Artist
"Reporting to the Technical Lead Artist, the Sr. Animation TA at Black Rock Studios, will provide specialist support to our animation teams. Working closely with the project leads and directly with the teams, you will design, develop and integrate animation pipeline , workflow and tool solutions."

Insomniac Games Sr. Designer, MP
"Insomniac Games is looking for a designer who is uber-versed in the online games genre, and has the ability to filter, digest, and parse (who uses that word!) large amounts of feedback from a variety of sources. We are looking for someone who has a general voracity for collecting design knowledge and honing their respective skills in creating the best player experience."

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Since the Hello Games guys contacted me a couple of weeks back, I've been keeping an eye on their announcement plans for neat-looking digital download title Joe Danger -- and here's a chat with them about the rather stylish title.]

Tiny UK studio Hello Games has announced its first title, Evel Knievel-inspired stuntman bike racer Joe Danger, on its way to digital platforms.

The studio co-founder is former EA and Criterion's Sean Murray, who's held lead programmer and technical director roles on games like Black and Burnout 3. But now, Murray and just three friends -- veterans of UK studios like Kuju, Climax and Sumo Digital -- have struck out on their own.

As he describes it to Gamasutra: "We're all young upstarts who climbed our way to the top of the pile in big companies and have now gone back to being just four guys in a tiny office in Guildford UK, grafting tirelessly over our super polished arcade masterpiece for the last year."

We decided to have a chat with Murray about his brave new venture, Joe Danger, and reinventing as an indie.

When was Hello Games founded, and what made you want to strike out on your own?

We started up around the middle of last year, working on my dining room table to begin with. When I joined the industry, it was absolutely my dream job. I'd been making games since I was a kid and this was an amazing opportunity.

I loved it, but I've never thought of doing anything except starting up on my own. I think that's the same for all of us. Dave [Ream] and Grant [Duncan] used to make Doom levels together as kids, I was always tinkering with some game or other, Ryan [Doyle] is the same. We didn't even discuss it that much to begin with, it was just assumed, we'll work together and start a new company. We had that instant connection, that is so rare.

What did you learn from working at a bigger company that you think will differentiate you as an indie?

We have met hugely talented individuals since we started out on our own. Other indies who are having to do everything for themselves – audio, graphics, coding... everything. We are constantly learning from them, and experiences like that are what it's all about for us. We are in awe of people who haven't worked in the industry before and had to learn the development process alone.

We were lucky enough to work for some amazingly accepting and open companies previously. Ryan and I joined Criterion around the same time. After our first year we were both brought into a room and asked to pick an area to lead. In a company full of some of the most talented game developers in the world, that's a fantastic opportunity to learn from the best. Hopefully that gives us a nice head start, but we just feel we have so much to learn.

How did you come up with Joe Danger as a project, conceptually?

It's funny how it all came about. We know each other so well the type of game we were going to make was just implicit. Once we had an office, we spent a couple of days just giddily spinning in our chairs, before we actually settled down to design something. We knew the type of game we wanted to make – just not the actual one we were going to make.

Grant had a box of toys he brought down from his attic. Something kind of beautiful happened when he brought those in. There was an instant power to demonstrating your latest game idea with Optimus Prime in your hands. I like to think we designed our next five games that first week, just setting up toys on the office floor.

But we kept coming back to one toy, an Evel Knievel stunt cycle. We just sat and actually played with it, building bigger and bigger ramps, launching it out of windows, down corridors. We started to build this little character around who this hapless guy was. The world's most determined stuntman. It kind of tapped into the character you imagined as you played with those toys as a kid. Designing the game from there just flowed naturally.

Are there particular facets to it that you feel are new, or is 'new' over-rated vs. 'fun'?

I imagine the aim of any games developer is to entertain, we'll certainly never be ashamed of saying our focus is on fun. Having said that, I remember reading somewhere Hirokazu Yasuhara, saying they realized on Sonic a player can't have fun if nothing is new. Sonic's a good example of something that wasn't necessarily a ground-breaking game, but it did innovate in hundreds of ways, big and small.

When people play our game, I think they are surprised at how fresh it is. It's a racing game, but it's secretly a platformer, and also one where you are holding a combo and constantly thinking about your score as well as exploring.

Some of the press who have spent time with it have said they don't really know what to compare it to – but landmarks like Crazy Taxi, Excitebike, Sonic, Super Monkey Ball come up a lot. Which we totally love, but I think we're our own game.

What are the advantages (and disadvantages) of working in a really small team?

Something we often say to each other is that this is the most productive we've ever been in our lives. I think that's especially true because we are bringing our industry experience into a small team. So it's all the process and technology, but we've left behind lots of the production overheads.

Kind of the best of both worlds. Something that surprises people is just how tight knit we are, we're a proper little band. That comes from working intensely in a confined space, but also we were friends before this ever started.

Ryan and I have sat side by side each other for years now, Grant and Dave grew up together. When it comes to working we have a kind of hive mind. Grant never has to do any concept art, he can just scribble and everyone knows exactly what he's after.

We definitely have to wear lots of hats, though. There are more roles for us to fill than there are people. I think we're trying to make a pretty big game, we don't have a designer, we don't have PR, or a business manager. There's just the four of us.

Do you have a particular preference for one or multiple PC/console SKUs to release this game? What's the ETA?

PSN and XBLA are markets that have a lot of barriers to entry. We'd love to bring our game to every platform if we could. Even on PC, it's really important to get someone like Steam on board. I guess it's really naive, but we had this concept of, if we build it, they will come.

So we just put together a PC build, then a PS3 one and an Xbox 360 [build] as soon as we got our hands on dev-kits. We're slowly building up our list of contacts and talking to the right people, and we'll announce our plan as soon as we can.

With a such a small team though we would struggle to bring it out on everything all at once, even if we were allowed to. I made a Linux and Mac build in my spare time just for the hell of it, I have no idea if anyone wants it!

What small-team games are you particularly enamored of?

Personally I'm a huge fan of Flash games. You have a huge community of the most prolific and talented small groups out there. Most of them can't make a living unless they regularly get played by millions of people, so you have games that get to the core of the player's experience instantly.

It reminds me of arcade games in that way. People like Brad Bourne with Fancy Pants Adventure, the guys behind Auditorium, the Casual Collective who made The Space Game – we really admire those people and we love their games.

What's the one thing that people would be surprised to learn about Hello Games?

I have no idea. How about this? We once got arrested in our office. We were working so late on a Sunday, they assumed that we were trying to rob the building. It was actually surprisingly difficult to convince everyone that we worked there.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

M K Productions' NES Screensaver does more than just display an NES game's demo mode (and movies recorded with the group's UberNES emulator) on your screen whenever you stop working on your computer; you can actually tile dozens of games across your screen to watch them all play at the same time.

The video above shows 60 games running across two screens (audio is streamed from an "active" movie, which you can change with the arrow keys). What makes the screensaver really great, though, is that you can click any of the running UberNES videos to take over the game. It's a lot like how OnLive lets you jump into in-progress games, but with locally hosted NES titles!:

[Via TCTD]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

Along with its expected sessions and speakers, this week's 360iDev iPhone conference in Denver hosted an iPhone game jam. Though indie game developer Noel Llopis (Flower Garden) and others only had three days to set up the jam after coming up with the idea, the event attracted dozens of interested designed and produced 15+ projects.

Developers had only 10 hours to code their games, hacking away all night between dinner and breakfast. The participants included both iPhone novices to platform veterans like Imangi Studios (Word Squares), PJ Cabrera (OpenFeint), and FuzzyCube Software (iQuarterback).

You can see and read about many of the projects at the iPhone Game Jam wiki. The variety of titles range from simple games like HippoHighDive, in which you guide a diving hippo through flaming rings and into a narrow pool, to Amoeba Wars (pictured), a multiplayer RTS taking place in "molecular goop."

Posted by Eric Caoili at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Earlier this week, our own Leigh Alexander caught up with the folks at Robomodo in Chicago, who had an interesting challenge - start over with the formerly Neversoft-helmed Tony Hawk franchise. Here's how they tried it.]

From the ashes of EA Chicago's studio closure, Robomodo was formed, and it wasn't long before the team of 23 had become a team of 70, developing skateboard peripheral-equipped Tony Hawk Ride for Activision.

"We've grown quite a bit," CEO and creative director David Michicich tells us. Situated next to Chicago's Flashpoint College, the studio also has the support on the QA side from student interns and recent grads.

Robomodo's founding staff was comprised of much of Fight Night 3's core team, and Michicich asserts those staffers' experience in innovating on game mechanics is part of what made them so desirable to publishers like Activision once the EA studio closed its doors.

A New Project For A Close Team

"Every publisher kind of rained down on Chicago to try to pull all the talent... everywhere there was job offers flying back and forth," he describes. But primarily, the team wanted to stay in the city and keep the team together.

"When you have a team that you build over time, there's this synergy that you just can't build overnight," says Michicich. "It was really important for us to maintain and keep the team together. What we did was we put a packet together and we approached a bunch of publishers. It was Activision -- to their credit, they were able to really jump on us," he said.

Although the partnership was formed as Activsion finalized its Blizzard merger, the company was also interested in "reinvigorating" its Tony Hawk franchise. It wanted an innovative game mechanic, and Michicich says all the philosophies aligned for Tony Hawk: Ride.

"Art supports gameplay supports art -- [we have] this looping philosophy," he says. "Game mechanics need to be innovative. That's a term that's thrown a round quite a bit in this industry, but we needed to give weight to that word and we think we've completely done that with the board -- is phenomenal. It's amazing. It's an experience."

That board is the special Tony Hawk: Ride-specific accessory, and Michicich says it's not such a stretch for some combat game designers to start working with a sport peripheral.

"We have a lot of experience on the team, and some of us go back to the arcade days," he explains. "We go back to Midway and doing the arcade games and the full stand-ups, so there was a lot of interest in really selling the experience -- getting somebody to stand up on a board and use their muscle memory and their balance and really immerse themselves in the game."

That's why the team collectively jumped on Tony Hawk: Ride, from among a few Activision portfolio projects under discussion. "We all jumped on Tony Hawk because if seemed like a great fit; we all loved skateboarding and had a lot of interest there," he says. "You really need to be interested in what youre creating or it's not gonna work.

The skater himself is "amazing to work with," Michicich adds. "We work very closely with him, and that began pretty much right away."

Iterating Hardware And Software Hand In Hand

Lead designer Patrick Dwyer says that instead of being a roadblock, the challenge of developing the game mechanics alongside the board hardware is one of the most fun and interesting parts of developing Tony Hawk: Ride.

"It was pretty interesting, in the fact that we knew we wanted to change the control mechanic of the skateboarding game and we also wanted to make the skateboarding game that represented Robomodo," Dwyer tells us.

"Most of the after-market products that go on top of [skating games] kind of work with the game, but you have to hold the controller," says Dwyer. "We knew that if we were going to go with this idea for a peripheral, we had to develop the software and the gameplay mechanics around what the peripheral would do, around a unique experience that you could not get holding the controller."

The question of appropriate input device is a particularly salient one in the current environment, as peripheral-equipped games become more popular, and gesture-controlled inputs are viewed as a way of increasing a title's appeal to new audiences.

So which comes first, the game mechanics themselves or the device used to interact with them? Bundling software with peripherals has played a significant role in Activision's business model, so does development of titles like these trend toward peripherals first, design later?

"Philosophically, it really depends on the game," opines Dwyer. "Before you develop a peripheral for a game, you kind of develop what your goals for the experience are... it wasn't about, 'we have to make a peripheral and then we're going to make a game because that's what gaming is leaning towards.'"

And despite the experience with stand-up arcades, the development experience was mostly new for many of the Robomodo staffers. "People that came from EA Chicago had never worked on a peripheral hardware system as a full team," says Dwyer. "So there was a lot of learning there, but around Chicago there were tons of resources available to us as far as hardware, lots of sources that could give us lots of information on how to better make this peripheral."

And strong prototyping experience in software naturally translates to hardware, Dwyer adds. "The number of iterations we put on just getting the board to feel right when someone stands on it... our level of iteration experience on software really helped us in developing this piece of hardware."

Frankenstein's Skateboard

Rather than getting the peripheral design locked down early before the mechanics could be developed, Dwyer says that it was important to take the time to iterate on the board itself. "We really wanted not to be tied down to something until we fully investigated everything."

Early iterations of the board featured buttons, track balls and all kinds of experience. "They really ran the gamut of stretching your imaginations," he laughs. "We started out with wires everywhere, we took apart Xbox 360 controllers, we had the gyroscope from a PlayStation 3 controller... all Frankenstein-ed together. We took the prototypes that we made and really pulled out lots of good gameplay nuggets."

Former Mortal Kombat designer Mark Loffredo became a go-to technology person at Robomodo as far as the peripheral's circuit boards, and played a key role in solidifying the hardware design. But that's not to say the process has been easy.

"The biggest challenge for any independent startup is taking on an AAA project like this head-on, and to ensure delivery of a good product, you really need not reinvent the wheel all the time," says Michicich. "It's very challenging; it's a daunting task to do ... development is not easy, and then taking and doing a peripheral that's never been done before, we're creating hardware, we're creating software, we're creating a rendering engine, we're doing it for Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and Wii."

Making use of existing tools was a key part of Robomodo's process, then. "One thing that's really important is you know about what's available; you make other professionals out there work for you and with you."

"You want to form some strategic alliances -- we leaned on NaturalMotion's Morpheme runtime in our game, so we didn't have to create the whole animation tree, which would have been very, very, very difficult to do within the window we had to get this game done," he adds. "We leaned on Havok for physics, and that's just two examples. It gets the team the ability to just concentrate on making a good game and not reinventing a wheel."

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Polytron's Phil Fish (Fez) presented his other game currently in the works, Power Pill, at a recent Montreal event. Developed in collaboration with Infinite Ammo's Alec Holowka (Aquaria, Marian), the iPhone game has you playing as a cure-all pill navigating its way through people's bodies.

Power Pill takes advantage of the iPhone's multi-touch capabilities and enables you to expand, shrink, or rotate the smiling character while you squeeze through passageways and avoid touching the walls. It reminds me a lot of Soul Bubbles and Irritating Stick, both of which I love.

One advantage this iPhone title has over those two games, though, is that Power Pill will have a built-in level editor, if all goes according to plan. You can see the proposed editor explained in the video above, taken from Fish's Montreal presentation.

Fish also posted his slides from the presentation at his site, several of which I've included below:

[Via Infinite Ammo]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Riffing off of Gary Clarke's "Movie Posters for Minimalists" set, illustrator InfiniteContinues creates his own series of images exploring how you can pick out familiar video game characters from a few basic forms.

"It’s a testament to the details of these character designs that they can be recognised when reduced to a few simple shapes and colours," explains InfiniteContinues, who currently works as an artist for SCE Europe.

I picked out five favorite pieces and pasted the below. You can see the rest of the artist's series on his Flickr set.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Canabalt, Adam "Atomic" Saltsman's simple but addictive Flash game originally created for the Experimental Gameplay Project, jumped out of a computer monitor and landed onto the iPhone/iPod Touch App Store last night, bits of broken glass tinkling around its feet.

The mobile game is near identical to the free version, except with local high scores and a new aspect ratio for the portable's screen. Saltsman also revealed plans for a forthcoming update that will introduce online leaderboards and allow players to import their top 10 scores from their device to their online accounts.

While the game is already too elementary to require a free Lite version on the App Store, you can play the original Flash game for free on Saltsman's site.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[In an in-depth round-up from Japan for the GameSetWatch-exclusive 'Sound Current' column, Jeriaska speaks to a number of major soundtrack composers -- from Square Enix through Q Games to Capcom -- to document the major audio-related goings-on at the annual trade show.]

The 2009 Tokyo Game Show, which took place last week in Chiba, Japan, has often served as a platform for announcements related to video game music.

TGS offers a special opportunity for game companies to unveil debut trailers for newly revealed titles, hinting at what to expect from their musical scores. As the enjoyment of game soundtracks has traditionally transcended language barriers, audio-related news from the show tends to spread quickly among those who follow it internationally.

Game companies including Square Enix and Capcom have marked the occasion in recent years by debuting albums of remixed game themes at the Makuhari Messe exhibition hall. There also tend to be live music events, though 2009 proved to be an exception, perhaps a reflection of decreased attendance and economic recession. Nevertheless, a number of game designers and composers were on-hand to relate their views on current developments in game audio.

To focus on a few, Dylan Cuthbert was present at the Q-Games booth, offering news on the music of PixelJunk series installments PixelJunk Shooter and PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe. Dan Paladin provided some background on the process behind licensing tracks for The Behemoth games. Nigoro elaborated on how they are currently remixing their background music for the WiiWare remake of La-Mulana, and sound studio Noisycroak had details on the score for the third installment of Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman.

This report offers some impressions from the designers participating in the event. In addition, Square Enix Music department director Soushi Yoshida provides an outline of the fourth volume of their annual music sampler, while sound director Ippo Yamada, who last year composed for Mega Man 9, introduces his new game arrangement compilation Chiptuned Rockman.

The Square Enix Music booth at the 2009 Tokyo Game Show

Square Enix has consistently led the way when it comes to promoting album releases at TGS. This year the company’s music-dedicated booth had on sale such recent releases as the Blood of Bahamut soundtrack album, Reunion Tracks (songs from Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children Complete for Blu-Ray) and the 20-disc SaGa series Premium Box. Those who made a purchase at the booth were treated to a sampler CD of material from upcoming game and album releases, the fourth such volume in consecutive years. Speaking with director Soushi Yoshida, we received an overview of the sampler foreshadowing the fourth quarter music releases from the company.

This year the sampler includes the previously unreleased music from the 2007 TGS promo for Final Fantasy XI: Wings of the Goddess, composed by Naoshi Mizuta. The same composer wrote the following track, the main theme of 4 Warriors of Light: Final Fantasy Gaiden. A Nintendo DS RPG, its score mixes classical music instruments with NES sound card samples. Hidenori Iwasaki's track on the sample, from the Wii action adventure title Crystal Chronicles: The Crystal Bearers, leads off with a lighthearted hoedown feel that is reminiscent of "Fiddle de Chocobo" from Final Fantasy VII.

Appearing next on the sampler, arrange album Love SQ appears to be positioning itself as a high profile equivalent of the doujin arrange albums made by Square Enix fans. The game company is recruiting popular artists outside of games to remix Final Fantasy, SaGa, Chrono and Mana titles published during the Squaresoft days. While jazz musicians PE’Z can be heard performing a big band rendition of the Final Fantasy IV theme on the sampler, Sexy Synthesizer, note native and others will also appear on the full album.

Following Love SQ, C+D makes an appearance. Revisiting “Calling” and "Déjà Vu" from The World Ends With You, the arrangement throws some old school game sound effects into the mix, likely presaging a retro remix compilation. Another album revealed by the sampler is a follow-up to Piano Collections Kingdom Hearts. Yoko Shimomura’s music from the series will be further treated to live music arrangements, as a result of the greater-than-expected popularity of the original. The song “Sinister Sundown” is present on the sampler. “Senkou,” a battle theme from Final Fantasy XIII by Masashi Hamauzu, rounds out the album, juxtaposing an austere full orchestra recording with metal-style electric guitar.

Square Enix Music director Soushi Yoshida provides a rundown of the Volume 4 Sampler

While the XBox Live Arcade title Castle Crashers may be less well known within Japan than in English-language regions, developers The Behemoth had a booth set up to show off the playable build of their as of yet untitled third game. PixelJunk Eden composer and art director Baiyon dropped by to talk with art director Dan Paladin and exchange illustrations. The Behemoth has been influenced by classic Japanese videogames, fueling discussions at TGS.

Not only was Paladin responsible for the art for Castle Crashers, he wrote the introductory and ending music themes. Asked how composers were contacted for the game, Paladin explained that all the music was discovered via the Newgrounds site. Formed in 1995 to host Flash games and movies, the website has served as a portal for connecting game designers with user-generated content that is available to license.

"Game 3" is currently without a soundtrack, and a similar process of scouring Newgrounds is planned. The art director says, "I wish more people would go to the Newgrounds audio portal and approach those guys, because they would love to work on other games."

WiiWare is currently anticipating several 2D games from developer Nicalis. Recently the company announced that they will be localizing a downloadable title by Nigoro, a small team previously responsible for the slapping-based Flash game title Rose & Camellia.

The team is currently putting the final touches on a full remake of their archeological adventure title La-Mulana, an auteur creation in the same vain as Nicalis titles NightSky (formerly Night Game) and Cave Story. The music is being fully arranged for the Wii by game designers Naramura and Samejima.

Kyoto-based developer Q-Games had a booth at the Tokyo Game Show to demo their upcoming Playstation 3 title PixelJunk Shooter. The game includes music by High Frequency Bandwidth, one half of the techno group The Orb. Company president Dylan Cuthbert has been following the artists' releases for years, and he describes the Shooter soundtrack as a mix of genres, “very modern sounding.”

Also new to the PixelJunk series are ten or so additional music tracks by Otograph, which are being added to the PSP downloadable title PixelJunk Monsters Deluxe. The game became available October 1st on the Playstation Network. Not only are there new songs, Otograph has created several music videos, which can be unlocked by meeting certain conditions in the game. The omake extras underscore artists Takashi Iura and Sachiyo Oshima's history as audio/ visual creators, having made interactive installments for numerous Kyoto art exhibits.

Q-Games president Dylan Cuthbert describes the soundtracks to the upcoming Pixeljunk installments

Nigoro talks La-Mulana music

NIS America hosted an event during the Tokyo Game Show to announce the localization of two new titles. Localizer Allison Walter confirmed that role-playing title Atelier Rorona is scheduled for release in English-language regions on the Playstation 3 with music by Ken Nakagawa. The sequel to Holy Invasion of Privacy, Badman is also in the midst of being translated, and is headed to the PSP. Music from the first two titles is available to sample on the official site for the album release published by Aniplex Records.

Proceeding in parallel with the localization, musician Hideki Sakamoto is already in the process of composing the score for the third game in the series, titled Yuusha no Kuse ni Namaiki da 3D. A play on words, the installment does not actually take the retro series into the third dimension. Rather, it features three dungeons as opposed to a single playing field. Members of Sakamoto's sound studio Noisycroak will be performing all the instruments for the soundtrack.

Speaking on the subject of the upcoming score, Sakamoto offered a few details on the music for the series. "In the previous installments, the concept for the score was to limit ourselves only to instruments practiced in elementary school," he said. "These were all performed by our co-workers at Noisycroak, every one of whom has memories of practicing them as kids." In terms of what to expect from Badman 3D, he mentioned, "This time out, it almost sounds as if an adult were providing backup. We have some elaborate use of string instruments for one of the songs, and it's perhaps the biggest departure from the previous games. "

Noisycroak musicians Hideki Sakamoto, Tsuyoshi Yukawa, Keisuke Itou & Hiroyoshi Kato

It has been said that '08 was witness to an 8-bit boom in Japan, a phenomenon linked to the time warp undertaken by the Mega Man series. Last year at TGS, Inti Creates announced Rockman 9 Arrange Soundtrack, and this time at the show a related album was made available for the first time at the Capcom CD shop. "Chiptuned Rockman" compiles various artists’ remixes of Mega Man series music, transformed and expanded upon within the domain of 8-bit Famicom chip music.

The CD divides its playlist on the one hand between SNES or Playstation tunes given retro revisions and on the other, classic 8-bit themes like "Snake Man" and "Air Man" treated to Blip Festival-style improvisatory riffs. Ippo Yamada, sound director at Inti Creates, described it as a natural product of collaborating with chiptune artist hally, opening the doors to the participation of twenty musicians. They include international artists Zinger, from Sweden, and Virt, who this year arranged "Freddie Freeloader" for the 8-bit Miles Davis tribute Kind of Bloop.

Primarily Chiptuned Rockman is a collaboration between composers and chip music artists based in Japan. KPLECRAFT, a duo that last year performed live at the EXTRA Hyper Game Music Event, brings their high octane club music style to the iconic Mega Man 2 intro. Cave shooter music composer Manabu Namiki remixes Mega Man: The Wily Wars, while Akari Kaida, having arranged "Jewel Temptation" last year, makes a return. Also participating are Inti Creates composers Ryo Kawakami and Hiroki Isogai.

While live performances all but vanished from the Tokyo Game Show this year, there appear to have been signs present at the Makuhari Messe of collaborations flourishing among musicians via digital media. Whether through the remixing of classics like Final Fantasy and Mega Man, or the localization of downloadable content, a number of unique music projects are transcending the particularities of geographic location. The economic climate alone appears to be a compelling reason for musicians to investigate what creative opportunities are existing elsewhere in the world.

Ippo Yamada introduces Chiptuned Rockman

[Images courtesy of Square Enix and Capcom. Interpretation by Miyu. Additional translation by Yoshi Miyamoto. Photos by Jeriaska.]

Posted by jeriaska at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Czech studio Amanita Design (Samorost) has posted playable demos for upcoming PC/Mac game Machinarium, releasing on October 16th. In the IGF-winning puzzle/adventure title, you play as "a little robot who’s been thrown out to the scrap yard behind the city [that] must return and confront the Black Cap Brotherhood and save his robot-girl friend."

You can download the free PC demo from Big Download and the Mac demo from GamersGate. Amanita also put up a preview of Machinarium's soundtrack composed by Tomas Dvorak, allowing you to steam six excellent songs from the game.

Don't forget that you can get $3 off the release's $20 price if you preorder Machinarium!

[Via IndieGames]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

British comedian Charlie Brooker debuted Gameswipe, a one-shot video-game themed show styled after his Newswipe and Screenwipe programs, on BBC4 this week, and it was so glorious, it made up for every cringe-filled episode of GamesMaster, Video Power, and GamePro TV that many of us suffered in the 90s.

In the 50-minute show, Brooker (whom Zero Punctuation's Yahtzee cited as his "main inspiration" for his own video reviews) introduces viewers to different game genres while bringing on guests to hash over releases like Gears of War and Grand Theft Auto, as well as discuss topics like inane plots and frustrating elements that keep you from seeing the entirety of a game you've paid for.

BBC's iPlayer site is streaming GameSwipe but only to viewers in the UK. The rest of you will have to rely on clandestine Youtube rips like the one below:

If you want to watch the rest of the show -- which you really should, especially for Brooker's scathing breakdown of 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand -- you can click the "Related Videos" section of the above video or just pull up a search on Youtube for recent Gameswipe uploads.

If I had to cite one flaw with the program, it would have to Father Ted and The IT Crowd director Graham Linehan, who mistakenly credits Valve's Gabe Newell as the writer for Left 4 Dead. There was at least one Valve superfan who was upset with this gaffe:

Yeah, this meme kills me every time. Back to Gameswipe, while it was commissioned as a one-off, Brooker did admit on his Twitter account that the show pulled in more viewers than both Screenwipe and Newswipe last night. Perhaps that will prompt BBC4 to order more episodes? The comedian also indicated that future Screenwipe episodes could also include game content.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[Once again, I was very privileged to take part in Sense Of Wonder Night at Tokyo Game Show this year, both as onlooker and judge. Here's a full write-up of the presented games, and there's screenshot-based overviews on the TGS website.]

At a busy event on the Friday night of Tokyo Game Show, CESA presented the second Sense Of Wonder Night, showcasing 10 presentations -- each of 10 minutes -- from creators of interesting, innovative experimental games, including notable titles such as Shadow Physics and Transcend.

In the introduction, organizer Kiyoshi Shin of IGDA Japan presented an update on some of the previously showcased titles from 2008's event. He noted that Gomibako launched worldwide as a PlayStation Network title in 2009 (it's called Trash Panic in North America), and that Ian Dallas' Unfinished Swan is now in production as a full game, as Dallas founded a company to make it after leaving university studies.

This year saw 65 worldwide submissions from 18 countries and regions, with ten games picked for creating a 'sense of wonder' by a judging committee (pictured below) including noted shmup creator Kenta Cho, Enterbrain's 'Maker Series' producer Kenji Sugiuchi, Katamari Damacy/Noby Noby Boy creator Keita Takahashi, Vector's Takashi Katayama, and IGDA Japan's Kiyoshi Shin, as well as the writer of this article (IGF Chairman and Gamasutra publisher Simon Carless).

The full set of presentations, which were showcased in front of around 400 noisemaker-toting Japanese and Western audience members (with speeches translated into either English or Japanese from the presenter's native language) were as follows:

Ball Carry (Takuya Ono / Japan) - screenshot.

First up was Ball Carry, whose creator admitted that he was "a bit tense tonight", and then showcased his title, an experimental title made in a week, where you have to roll a ball towards a goal. He explained that this in itself wasn't new, but you have to press multiple keys on the keyboard to make depressions in the ground.

Each key physically corresponds to a location on the playfield you can manipulate. So if you are trying to move it from the left to the right, you'll press the A button, then the S button, then the D button, and so on. The creator noted that the uniqueness is in that the "game reflects directly the layout of the keyboard", and commented: "I don't think this knd of game existed before."

He said that people are very good at playing this game might be good at touch typing, but it's not really about typing words, rather being spatially aware, making it different from Typing Of The Dead-style games. In fact, the title was birthed from the fact that he wanted to make an augmented reality game, but it was "very troublesome" to use such complex peripherals. So he figured just using an existing device is a good idea, and noted wryly that "it's not necessary to come up with new devices to create a new experience."

Hazard: The Journey Of Life (Alexander Bruce / Australia) - mod download/trailer

Next to the podium was Alex Bruce, an Australian developer, who presented Hazard: The Journey Of Life, an abstract Unreal Tournament 3 mod about "philosophy, player expectations... and learning through experiences". He showed the Portal-style alternative take on a first-person action game, which includes philosophical concepts inlaid into a stark visual style.

In the title, the player makes choices, and then they may get some kind of moral or life lesson. For example, the player can try to jump over a pit that is not initially make-able, despite an exhortation to 'jump'. The player must fall down to learn how to get up annd keep playing.

There's also an experiment with red and blue paths, which -- if the player believes they have reached their goal -- will get a message saying: "Life isn't about getting to the end. It's about what you experience along the way." The game uses mottos and abstract shooting puzzles (allowing the player to fill in certain blocks to open or block doors, for example) later on in the title to present puzzles and ideas about life, and elicited a positive response from the audience.

Shadow Physics (Enemy Airship / United States) - SoWN presentation video

Steve Swink and Scott Anderson of Enemy Airship then presented Shadow Physics, a project that was shown -- in an earlier version -- at the Experimental Gameplay Session at GDC. Much upgraded, this stars a character that only exists in a shadow world, and must clamber over shadows of real objects to reach the shadow-only star that leads to level completion.

The duo showed that when you push on the shadow of an object, it will actually move that physical object. In addition, as Anderson noted, if you "use shadows for physical objects... when you change the light, you change your entire world." They then showed a level where you move the light to build stairs for a character.

It got more interesting and complex from there, since the two creators demonstrated a level which has two lights and two shadow-men in one of the levels. Both of the characters had to be manipulated at the same time to reach the two stars, eliciting much applause from the audience. Finally, the two creators showed a mock-up of the final game look, with much more impressive graphics.

Incompatible Block (Jun Fujiki / Japan) - downloadable game/trailer.

Next up was Jun Fujiki, creator of PSP and PS3 downloadable title Echochrome. The designer has produced a number of interesting prototypes using similarly Escher-styled concepts, and showcased one in particular, Incompatible Block. In it, the user can drag blogs around the screen from a certain perpective and stack them.

Using some very strange attitudes to perspective, Fujiki showed that you can move around shadows on the placed blocks, and even place multiple shadows to then create multiple blocks in a certain perspective compared to the placement. You can then color the blocks and even draw lines across the blocks which then appear drawn in 3D space on the blocks.

He then showed a cute dog made out of blocks, and showed that when you quit, the blocks collapse in a realistic physics style. This title was just one of several experiments that Fujiki has done in recent years, and is much easier to try than explain -- though he did show his parallel projection methodology for getting some of the perspective tricks to work as part of the Q&A.

You Only Live Once (Marcus Richert / Sweden) - playable Flash game.

Next up, Marcus Richert, a Swedish journalism student showed You Only Live Once, a cheeky conceptual title which is available in 25 languages. It features a single level, certain failure, but a massive amount of game over screens that tell a story of the player after death.

As a spoof, it's somewhat better played than described, but it's definitely along the lines of You Have To Burn The Rope, another conceptual title that both amuses and asks a question of the player: what really defines a game and what preconceptions do you have about it? The player's death is just the beginning.

One neat thing that Richert revealed - if you try to turn the game back off and on again, even after all of the endings are finished, you will see a grave with your character in it. Also (and this is a spoiler alert) if you restart the game 30 times, then a zombie version of the character pops up. And if you restart one more time after that, you see that the zombie character... is less well. Judge Keita Takahashi said that he liked the "corniness" of the game.

His and Her Disconnected Conversations (Himo / Japan) - trailer/Japanese production blog

The Kyoto-based developer behind His and Her Disconnected Conversations, Himo, showed an interesting Japanese-language title in which couples are discussing things with each other in text boxes, and you have one minute to decide which couple matches another by reading what they are saying to each other. If you get it right, the number of couples to be matched increases.

There are different themes to the stages in terms of conversation, with around 50 sets of conversations to pick from. The title has sequential stages, including love stages and fight stages, throughout the course of the relationship. The creator said that making the story matching interactive really involved the player in understanding the narrative.

He noted: "The player goes through emotional experiences by going through these multiple stories at one time", and you can even set an answer before the time is up if you're impatient. In addition, you can edit the conversations in the game via a webpage to add new discussions -- a unique version of user-generated content.

Ecolpit (Misi / Japan) - trailer/info.

A Japanese creator, sometimes known as Misi, showed Ecolpit, a topdown 2D title with bug-like characters eating food and fighting with each other. You can either defeat all the other characters besides yourself, or you can outgrow all the other characters to complete each level.

His "truly foolish" AI nonetheless has a massive memory, recalling when other bugs shot at them, and retaining that hostility for a long period of time. They will also develop hostility towards characters that attack their friends, and camaraderie is also built up over time by each of these odd-looking bugs.

Mishi explained that the bullets are also "a tool for communication among characters" in the game, since they affect relationships. This "communication shooting" genre has characters that are conscious of social norms as they react. So you won't want to shoot or be shot at by another character. But you'll need to shoot the food to split it up, or smash against the food, damaging your body in the process.

Swarm Racer 3000 (Joseph White & Lexaloffle Games / Japan) - trailer.

Next up, Joseph White of veteran indie outfit Lexaloffle showed Swarm Racer 3000, his alternative topdown racing game. In it, you control an entire swarm of characters, and you can control the size of the swarm while you try to pick up gems. He noted: "The entire game is about learning to control the size and movement of your swarm."

He showed a number of demo levels in the retro-looking title, where you need to split or expand your swarm to collect the gems as quickly as possible. There are also additional entities like fairies that can auto-collect gems for you, and you can even manipulate spheres in the level to block off lasers that might otherwise reduce your swarm's size.

White noted that the original idea for the title came from a Ludum Dare competition 3 years ago, which had swarming as a theme. So his new version is an update inspired by that 48-hour competition, and the original version of Swarm Racer is available for free online.

Para Rail (Kuniaki Watanabe and Onitama - ZENER WORKS Inc. & Team OniKu / Japan) - trailer.

The creators at Zener Works and Team OniKu then presented Para Rail, a vector-style Asteroids-looking spacecraft that is not directly controlled. In fact, all you can do is increase the amount of games being played simultaneously. You can increase the amount of games and see slight variation between each version.

So how do you control the game? Well, you need to delete any game that you can see is about to end in Game Over, because any individual game that ends will finish the entire game for you. So you'll want to delete the game instances that look like you're about to die, and increase the instances of the ones that are going well. As the makers explained: "You don't actually manipulate and play the game, yet still get the feeling of enjoyment."

The makers ended by suggesting some future applications to this experiment, arguing that parallel universe versions of RPG titles and other games could be an avenue of exploration. They also suggested that multiple players could co-operate across the network to collectively create optimum 'replays'.

Transcend (Fishbeat / United States) - screenshots/info

Finally, Fishbeat's Zach Aikman showed off Transcend, an evolution of the IGF Student game-winning Synaesthete which is currently in development with Xbox Live Arcade. In the title, you have to avoid enemies and attack them by tapping in time to the beat, creating a music action game.

The abstract title included circles of trees attacking you and giant dancing mushroom bosses in a lush visual atmosphere, with bright trance-like electronica soundtracking the upcoming XBLA title. He also showed a new orthographic camera approach that the team is developing to implement into the game.

In the Q&A, Aikman noted that the team had simplified some of the mechanics from the original Synaesthete student release, but the resulting title has somewhat of a changed art style and new flavor.

It was this and the other nine titles that the judges, when rounding up their comments on the evening, commented were somewhat of a breath of fresh air. In particular, Katamari creator Keita Takahashi said pointedly that the titles on show at the second Sense Of Wonder Night were "games that the people here were not forced to create, but games that they really wanted to create".

[Thanks to Jeriaska for many of the pictures used here. More information on SoWN's games is available via this Gigazine article. In addition, full videos of the ten SoWN presentations will be available online in the near future.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[We round up the top console digital download news of the last week from GamerBytes, including brand-new game announcements and scoops from the world of Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network, WiiWare, PSP Minis and DSiWare.]

The week has been a little quieter than usual - strange considering the Tokyo Game Show was on. Didn't stop everything though - Gyromancer's looking great, and there's the leaked Sega document claiming Dreamcast titles might be making their way to PSN.

Store Updates

XBLA Update - Zombie Apocalypse, Ion Assault, The Warriors,, 3 new Arcade Hits, cheap Pinball FX
NA PSN Store Update - Commanders Challenge, Zombie Apocalypse, cheap Brain Challenge, Droplitz
EU PSN Store Update - Heavy Weapon, Punisher Demo
NA Nintendo Update - You, Mean & The Cubes, Family Tennis, Last Ninja 2, Clubhouse Express, MySims Camera
EU Nintendo Update - Monkey Island 2, You, Me And The Cubes, Sexy Poker, R-Type, Yummy Yummy Cooking Jam

Microsoft (Xbox Live Arcade, Xbox Live Indie Games)

TGS '09 - Snoopy Flies To Xbox Live Arcade
"At the Tokyo Game Show Microsoft have revealed that Snoopy Flying Ace will be coming to the Xbox Live Arcade, courtesy of Smart Bomb Interactive."

TGS '09 - PopCap And Square Enix Team Up For Gyromancer
"A couple of weeks ago we spoke of Gyromancer, an upcoming Xbox Live Arcade title being published by Square Enix. Now the game has been officially announced, but what surprises us is that PopCap are also involved."

TGS '09 - Toy Soldiers March To XBLA
"What do you get when you mix an RTS with 3rd person action? Toy Soldiers plans to find out."

TGS '09 - Death By Cube Starts To Make Sense
"When Death By Cube was announced back in April as Project Cube, we were baffled. Now with this new trailer we're starting to understand it... well, at least a little bit."

Sony (PlayStation Network, PSP Minis)

Leaked Document Reveals Dreamcast, PS2 Games To PSN?
"An internal document that discusses a meeting between SCEA and Sega back in August, have been leaked onto Sega's FTP server. It details several upcoming Sega titles, but also discusses the possibility of PlayStation 2 and Dreamcast titles coming to the PlayStation Network."

Critter Crunch Two Weeks Away, Bargain Priced
"Capybara Games have revealed the release date and price for Critter Crunch on the PlayStation Network, and done so in this delightful little trailer."

Nintendo (WiiWare, DSiWare)

Airport Mania Flies To WiiWare
"In the latest collection of ESRB updates, it has been revealed that Reflexive Entertainment's Airport Mania: First Flight will be making its way to WiiWare."

PopCap To Release BookWorm, Bejeweled Blitz To DSiWare
"Earlier this year PopCap detailed plans to bring their classic Bookworm and Bejeweled titles to the Nintendo DS. Now it has been revealed that they will also be releasing pocket-sized DSiWare versions alongside them."

Zombies Ate My Neighbors Coming To Virtual Console
"Zombies Ate My Neighbors has been rated by the Australian Office of Film and Classification for a Virtual Console release."

Posted by Simon Carless at 11:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Out to conquer the noodle market, Samyang Ramen hired the talents of Korean pop group Girls' Generation to help pump its brand. The company wasn't satisfied with just having the singers dance in white outfits and hug Samyang pillows; it composed an adorable, catchy tune for the girls to meow -- a song that sounds an awful lot like the Bubble Bobble theme! I doubt Samyang sought Taito's permission for the jingle.

I've eaten a lot of Samyang Ramen, and despite its Tide detergent-esque packaging, it's actually pretty good as far as instant ramen goes; just the right amount of spice, in my opinion. It never compelled me to spontaneously sing made-up words to the Bubble Bobble theme, but maybe I just haven't eaten the right flavor yet.

If you want to hear more of the song or if you just have a fetish for Asian women eating noodles, jump past the break for the commercials "Making Of" videos:

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Wil Overton, an artist at British developer Rare and an illustrator for UK mag NGamer, published Smart Bomb, a new comic anthology with a video game twist. He enlisted the help of his Rare co-workers, like Ryan Stevenson and Eddie Sharam, and other artists to help stuff its pages, too.

The product blurb reads, "We guess the best way to describe it is a modern day, video game-related version of those old British adventure comics of the 70s and 80s like 2000AD, Battle, and Action. There's 40, full-colour pages packed with adventure, action and excitement and it's all-ages friendly too, so there's nothing kids can't see."

While the magazine is geared toward kids, what with its free HACK cards, poster, and activity page, it's still an enjoyable read as an adult. And not all of the comics are video-game themed -- Double Dragon, for example, actually follows a chomp-filled brawl between a T-Rex and a Dragon.

You can purchase a copy of Smart Bomb from Overton's online shop Dinkybox, or you can read the full digital issue online here.

[Via Nintendolife]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It should be unsurprising by now to see a video game-inspired film diverge from its source material in order to (unsuccessfully) present a more compelling film, especially when its based on a fighting game, but the amount of liberties taken with the upcoming King of Fighters movie is astounding.

I can accept that they cast a caucasian actor to play Kyo Kusanagi and that MaggieQ's lean frame doesn't quite match Mai Shiranui's curvaceous figure (though I'm sure many other series fans will find this unacceptable), but Terry Bogard as a CIA agent? And the whole tournament takes place in another dimension?

Make sure to watch the entire actor and director commentary above to hear why the King of Fighters movie is a lot like Fight Club, and see Iori Yagami dressed up as a hockey goalie for some inexplicable reason.

[Via Chairhome]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

[Since I've been out in Australia, the GameSetLinks have been thin on the ground - apologies. But you do get some write-ups from the Film Victoria event I just spoke at, starting with David Edery talking XBLA, PSN, WiiWare, and so on.]

In a talk at the Digital Distribution Summit in Melbourne, Australia, former XBLA portfolio manager David Edery discussed opportunities for creators on Xbox Live Arcade, PlayStation Network and WiiWare, suggesting that though the market is "smaller than a lot of us would like", it's growing quickly.

Starting out, Edery, who now runs consultancy Fuzbi, sketched the size of the market for console digital download. He commented that, according to his sources, Xbox Live Arcade was the top in terms of market right now, PlayStation Network is "still lucrative, but potentially smaller", and WiiWare is the smallest of all.

He particularly suggested this is because the WiiWare service is "buried in the Wii dashboard", with no demos and no user ratings, so you can really only depend on word of mouth and external website reviews for creating buzz.

He pointed out that the inverse is true regarding approval and funding -- it's "reasonably difficult" to get approval, funding or a publishing deal for Xbox Live Arcade platforms, and it's much easier to get approved for WiiWare. So this is important to weigh when looking at systems to target.

Edery did comment: "The market is smaller than a lot of us would like at this time" - but it's growing quickly. He cited the recent 300,000 unit sales for Trials HD, and said: "these [digital distribution] ecosystems are going to be the future" -- if perhaps not dominant in this console generation.

Tackling the pitch to the platform holder or publisher itself, Edery commented: "The longer your pitch, the lower the chances of your success is", since many of those who get pitched a lot "don't really have a lot of patience and time". In fact, he said: "If you can't describe your game in a single sentence, than you have a problem."

Other potential pitfalls were also listed. It's also vital to be able to describe your target audience. Edery noted that many Xbox Live Arcade pitches sent to him either didn't have an audience named, or was incredibly broad. Having a specific age and interest range in mind is quite important.

In addition, incorrect information can wreak havoc with approaches. For example, Edery noted that "we would get pitches from developers for card and board games" by citing Carcassone, which, according to disputed chart creator VGChartz.com, had sold a great deal of copies. But VGChartz bundles in free copies of the game, something that the pitches had misconstrued, and much of that revenue was in fact not there.

How about current development budgets for Xbox Live Arcade games? Edery estimated that when he joined Microsoft soon after Xbox Live Arcade's start, the averange title had a $250,000 budget. The average when he left was $500,000, and perhaps now, he thought, it was $750,000 -- so as sales increase, the budgets are getting larger quite swiftly.

Moving on, Edery noted that "understanding the platform agenda" is important. For example, in the early days of PlayStation Network, Edery believes that games were not greenlit if they didn't show they were pushing the PS3 hardware forward. For XBLA, Microsoft was looking for bite-sized, especially casual and retro titles. For WiiWare, making novel use of the Wiimote was key.

The consultant said that these agendas changed more often that you think. Edery said that there were 7 re-organizations in the 3 years he was at Xbox Live Arcade, and at least 2 major changes of direction, with many more minor ones. So you "really really have to stay in touch" to make sure everything is similar to before.

Edery then warned about 'The Long Tail' concept for digital downloaded games, noting that "hits are still what drive the business". And the importance of marketing is paramount, as he quipped: "Do not make a great game, and presume that because it's great, you're all set."

Finally, apart from announcing your game early and communicating with your community often, Edery commented that get friendly with the platform holders is important. He notably cited NinjaBee's A Kingdom For Keflings, which was the first game to properly integrate Avatars into their Xbox Live Arcade game, and became enormously successful, partly due to this and Microsoft's support of it.

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

My initial reaction after hearing about Raw Thrills' karaoke arcade game based on American Idol was to groan, but the concept of the setup ad its technology is actually interesting. Players stand in front of a green screen while the game films them and creates a music video background while they sing. Their performance is then emailed to them or burnt onto a DVD players can take home.

Unfortunately, Raw Thrills cancelled Star Studio earlier this year after 18 months of work. Though the company didn't give a reason for killing the project, programmer Cameron Silver's voiced frustrations provide a hint: "These [Star Studio machines] would have been a star, if only they weren't blasted out if the sky by petty politics and brain-dead morons."

Silver posted a detailed developer's diary for the arcade game's production, but it's unfortunately no longer available online. We do have several embarrassing videos of Silver and others playing the game that we can watch:

"The effects were all scripted by a program I wrote (along side writing the entire game too)," says Silver. "I doubt that I'll ever top this, and the fact that it was killed on account of stupidity really hurts. The team solved every problem and made a product that was pretty much suitable to everybody."

[Via Arcade Heroes]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 6:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

['Chewing Pixels' is a semi-regular GameSetWatch-exclusive column written by British games journalist and Flash game producer, Simon Parkin. Today, a look at how children trump adults when it comes to Scribblenauts.]

What’s the best way to get rid of a bothersome fly? It’s one of the first questions asked by Scribblenauts, the DS game that grants its player access to a dictionary of more than 30,000 nouns with which to solve puzzles. Type the word “Swat” into the game’s dialogue box and a sketchpad representation of the object will ping onto the screen, ready and prepped to squish the insect.

If pushed for an alternative answer, you might try, ‘Insect Repellent’ to shoo the fly away, or perhaps ‘Turd’ to lure it elsewhere instead. And herein lies the genius of this extraordinary database: where the vast majority of games give us a handful of tools with which to solve their conundrums, Scribblenauts offers solutions as wide and deep as our own imaginations. It’s a subtle yet seismic shift: a game that, rather than focusing on what you do with your tools, simply asks which you want to use, chosen from a catalogue of everything.

And yet, the disappointment is that many of the game’s tasks lack invention, posing somewhat vanilla, mundane tasks for you to complete: eliminate the fly, fetch a bouquet of flowers, tidy up the rubbish, make a packed lunch.

This is just one of the reasons that Scribblenauts, which is in at least one-way revolutionary, has received a somewhat lukewarm response from critics and consumers alike. While the technology is a sort of irresistible witchcraft, the application is often dry routine. It’s like someone gave you the power to move mountains and then forced you to spend all day shunting shopping trolleys around Tesco’s car park.

But play the game with an imaginative child, and wide-angle concerns over mission structure melt away, as the true and dizzying wonder of the game’s conceit is unlocked. When I asked my daughter, who’s too young to read, how we should get rid of the fly, she thought for a moment before tentatively suggesting we create a frog. Frogs eat flies, ergo they are an excellent way to get rid of a fly, went her sound logic.

But there was a problem: the fly, hovering in the air, was out of the frog’s reach. Before I could even suggest we summon a chair or stepladder with which to raise the frog upwards, she jumped in with a suggestion: “A trampoline! Give the frog a trampoline”.

In a sense, a child, by definition, shrinks Scribblenauts’ scope. The game’s potential solutions are necessarily limited by vocabulary, so players with a smaller vocabulary have fewer options open to them. But, free of the dry, efficient logic of adulthood, a child’s imagination also opens the game up in ways beyond most adults’ reach.

Most games demand expertise for success, their richest rewards reserved for those who invest time into developing skills and technique. By contrast, Scribblenauts reserves its richest rewards for those who can devolve their expertise, unravelling the tightly wound habit of always seeking out the quickest, most efficient solution to a problem.

It asks that we all rediscover a sense of childlike inquisitiveness rewarding those who play with the game, rather than merely try to solve it. Through that lens, the normality of tasks heightens the thrill of discovering leftfield solutions, rather than diminishing it.

As the frog pogo’ed up and down, bouncing rigid and absurd on the trampoline, we laughed together as long and as hard as we ever have. The frog stared out at us, unblinking, springing up and down, uninterested in the meal that was now well within its tongue’s slimy grasp. Who could blame it? It had a trampoline.

Posted by Simon Parkin at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Like a gluttonous dragon consumed with adding treasure to its hoard, the god of high score legacies anxiously eyes every gleaming item that passes his way, and demands a steady stream of gems from his worshippers.

"He gives strength and honor to the denizens of the video arcade, who have inscribed their three letter alias into the pixels of posterity," describes Matt Reynolds, who shot and edited the above video. "He is a greedy god, and is easily distracted by luster and wealth. But his powers in the realm of the two-dimensional make him a trusted ally, and a fearsome foe."

Reynolds says this is part of what he hopes will become a series of videos depicting imagined paper deities. I hope they are all as creepy as our patron arcade god!

Posted by Eric Caoili at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

['Battle Klaxon' is a bi-weekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column where traveling games journalist Quintin Smith fights to win a bit of glory for the beautiful, brave but overlooked games that people are missing in their lives. This week: The snap, crackle and pop of Red Orchestra.]

I've been hating on Battlefield 1943 a lot recently. Last week when a fan of the series thrust a calloused finger in my direction and demanded games which did large-scale combat better, I obviously mentioned Warhawk, but was surprised when another name fell out of my mouth. Red Orchestra. The UT2004 mod turned full game that paints a grubby, heart-stopping picture of the Eastern front of WW2.

Red Orchestra solves a problem I've had with almost every shooter I've ever played- that of them steering clear of simulating real guns and real bullets. Game guns are relatively quiet, don't have much recoil, can be shot with accuracy while you walk or run and are always reloaded in a few seconds.

Game bullets have the mysterious ability to fill the clips you're carrying in your pockets so those clips are always full when inserted into guns, and when shot game bullets don't so much as cause anyone pain until enough of them are lodged in a single body that they cause some kind of mysterious stroke.

There are tons of games which act as exceptions to one or two of these rules, but Red Orchestra's the only recent game I can think of to ignore them all. In Red Orchestra you point a gun at someone, there is a BANG and they DIE and you don't RELOAD because it takes AGES and besides in a tight spot you'll never empty a full magazine before getting SHOT yourself anyway.

It's obvious why this is traditionally avoided. It means combat's over in a flash and becomes the domain of twitch-gamers and campers.

And yet that's not the case in Red Orchestra. In most multiplayer games, the game's designed first and the weapons are chosen and tweaked to fit. In the name of setting itself apart, Red Orchestra built the guns first, the most worrying and wicked and downright real things the UT engine has ever seen, and created something great by packing the game tightly around them like a snowball.

It Tolls For You

At once the sneakiest adjustment and the one that's sat in everyone's face at all times is RO's map design. Levels take place in cramped, ruined cities, labyrinthine industrial sites and murky sprawls of countryside, all of which make it very tricky to line up enemies under your sights. By which I mean it's a pretty taxing process to actually find the other team. It turns the game from a shooter into more of a hunter and a creeper, elongating that combat which those realistic guns would originally render too short.

The player uniforms do the same job. The Russian side wear murky brown. The Germans wear browny green. All of the levels are murky, and some are murky browny green. This is a pretty awesome joke in a game where life and death is divided and decided by a split-second and friendly fire is always on.

I've had more than one match of Red Orchestra where I was exploring some broken house, rounded a corner, come face to face with Another Guy and both of us leapt back out of sight again because for each of us it was the only option that'd definitely keep us alive and prevent us from team-killing.

The really fun part comes when the two of you decode the mental image you're left with and realise no, oh no, you actually are on opposite teams, you missed your chance for a snap shot and now you're alone in a house with a murderer. Although shooting from the hip can be a bad time too. Unless you've attached your bayonet, missing at close quarters with those old bolt-action rifles is a very noisy way of announcing your pants are temporarily down.

Again, the point of this is to slow down the combat, to plug the flow of death, and have everyone moving slower and more thoughtfully.

Another thing Red Orchestra does to accommodate its deadly weaponry is take the disadvantages of real guns as well as their capacity for murder, like having to aim. Shooting in Red Orchestra means looking down ironsights, which means being close to stationary and ditching your peripheral vision. As I've mentioned, it's possible to fire from the hip but unless you're close enough to an enemy to smell the tang of BO and vodka you might as well be firing blanks. Reloading takes a long time, of course, and there's no counter as to how many bullets are left in your clip. But you remember how to count, right?

The list goes on. Machine guns must be deployed on something to get the most out of them. Bullet drop is modeled for all guns, so if you're shooting from one end of the map to the other you'll need to aim above your target as well as leading them if they're moving. Even taking out tanks with anti-armour rockets means you can't hit your target from an angle or the projectile will bounce off the armour. You need a direct hit.

How many countless late nights and unnutritious meals went into experimenting with all these features I'm not sure, but the results can't be argued with. Red Orchestra is a distinctly playable and fast-paced shooter that boasts honest-to-God real guns.

It's an achievement in itself, sure, but on paper it can seem like a pointless one. When a thousand shooters have had (and continue to have) incredible success dancing around the concept of realism, getting only as close as they can without burning away at the fun of the game, why would you try and force your way closer?

There's an answer hidden in that question. A thousand shooters offer something fun. Battlefield or Warhawk or Counter-Strike offer up fun with both hands and a grin on their painted faces. Red Orchestra? It, and it alone, can provide something else.

Little Rabbit

I remember joining my friend for his very first game of Red Orchestra, how we dropped into the same server just as the match was starting and found ourselves in the muddy woolens of a crowd of Russian infantrymen. We were standing next to a truck in a snowy forest.

As the game began the rest of our team ran off as one to take up positions in the barns and trenches that gave us the best chance of survival, with my friend and I sprinting in their footsteps, rifles against our chests. Soon the first shots were crackling in the distance, their origin and destination unknown to us. We lay there, shoulder to shoulder in a ditch, and we waited and watched for movement.

"OH MY GOD", typed my friend. "I AM ERNEST HEMINGWAY."

Never mind the, uh, multitude of inaccuracies in his claim. The word is immersion. Red Orchestra's guns, seductive as they are, are really only the starting point of something greater.

See, realistic weapons that obey all the rules of the real world lead to one thing only, and that's realistic, believable combat. Because of its weaponry, Red Orchestra organically creates so many of the tactics and tropes that games like Call of Duty, Medal of Honour and Brothers in Arms have to fake through set pieces and abstract mechanics. Flanking, suppressive fire, stealth segments, hesitation before shooting, even morale and panic, all of it exists within Red Orchestra without the developers adding so much as a single line of code or breathing a word about it to the player, simply because of the way the guns work. Adapting to survive means adopting the small-unit tactics that exist in real life, and that'll happen whether you're conscious of it or not.

Another war story. I was playing a machine gunner on a heathery, flat map with a massive maze of trenches making up the centre. Through luck and more luck I'd managed to slink through to the far side of it undetected, and found myself and my enormous gun standing some twenty feet behind several enemy soldiers who were lying on their bellies and shooting down at my friends in the trench.

Feeling empty, I lay down facing them and tapped the key that began the laborious process of propping up my machine gun on the ground in front of me. As I was lining up the first shot I noticed a scrap of colour between me and the man I'd chosen to die first. Pulling back from the ironsights, I saw it was a single flower. Gee. It was a pretty thing. The rest of the landscape was so ugly.

That was when one of the soldiers turned around, saw me, whipped up his gun and shot me dead before I could have breathed a word. Some of us don't have it in us, I guess.

I love that story, because it's too saccharine to appear in a piece of war fiction. A soldier dying because he was totally absorbed in the captivating beauty of a single flower? C'mon.

Think about this:

Because everything in a piece of fiction is preordained by the author, certain events, occurrences or coincidences are off-limits because they appear too unlikely or because they're too obviously meaningful or ugly. They either destroy the story because they aren't believable, or because the give off the stench of bad storytelling, or both.

Ridiculous, overblown imagery then is an area in which games can play where other forms of media cannot, because it's not something placed by an author. It can be something you find, or create yourself.

So, I love the flower story because it's a war story that only a game could tell, and I love Red Orchestra because it's he only game telling it.

Yikes. I remember when I envisioned Battle Klaxon as a light-hearted thing. Not sure what happened there. Tune in next time when I'm sure I'll have written 4,000 words on the parallels between Daggerfall and the Canterbury Tales.

No. No! Something fun, next time. I promise.

[Quinns is a freelance journalist who has fun working for Eurogamer, contributing to Rock Paper Shotgun and reading Action Button. You can currently find him either relaxing in Galway, working in London or at gmail dot com.]

Posted by Quintin Smith at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (10)

Obviously in love with the steampunk aesthetic, Doug Haffner spent 60-80 hours building this MAME arcade cabinet, shaping the wood with a CarveWright carving machine and decorating the side panels with green lithopanes of Frankenstein's monster and the creature's bride.

Haffner made turning on the machine just as interesting as its design -- the power switch is hidden in a fake book of Dr. Frankenstein's lab notes, which is mounted inside a door on the bottom of the cabinet. The builder explains, "I didn't want children toggling the power to the computer on and off."

[Via Technabob]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

When I last posted about From Software's 3D Dot Game Heroes, I pointed out the PS3 game's strange similarities with The Legend of Zelda -- "the bomerang, retaliating chickens, and Pegasus Boots-style dashing". If those seemed like coincidences at the time, this new series of videos.

After seeing the hookshot, fire rod, Octorocs, Tektikes (jumping spider-looking things), Moblins, Zora, and secret cave entrance bombing, I was so convinced this was a complete recreation of The Legend of Zelda's world that it was jarring to see coins, not rupees, drop from slain enemies.

The 3D Dot Game Heroes clips below show how ridiculously huge your sword can get and a short playthrough using the fragile hero from Spelunker (the results are predictable but still enjoyable to watch):

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

N+ developer Metanet posted a video to show its progress "after a year of groundwork-laying" for its next title, Robotology. Note that the images you see in this walking demonstration are debug graphics, soon to be replaced with proper art.

"In the video, all movement is animation being driven based on time," says the company." "The next step in terms of modeling movement is to add some sort of feedback to the system, since currently it’s all just blind forward animation (i.e 'wind-up toys'). ... We also have a lot of work to do on the tools side."

"We made a basic parametric model which can generate legs and feet, but it’s quite rudimentary and can’t handle, for instance, wheeled or flying robots. Oh yeah, for sure we need wheeled and flying robots. It’s definitely a huge improvement from hard-coding everything — making a biped now only takes ~20 lines of code to define some parameters which are then used to generate the necessary data, instead of 200+ to make all the shapes and constraints by hand."

Planned as a "traditional platformer", the game features the walking robots as enemies that players can interact with. Metanet co-founder Raigan Burns hints that the interaction could be something comparable to Shadow of the Colossus but admits that the project is still very early in development, so nothing's set in stone.

You can read more about Robotology's walking demonstration at Metanet's blog.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[Every week, we round up sister iPhone site FingerGaming's top news and reviews for Apple's nascent -- and increasingly exciting -- portable games platform, as written by editor in chief Danny Cowan and authors Louise Yang and Jonathan Glover.]

This week, FingerGaming covers Square Enix's accelerometer-controlled RTS Sliding Heroes, Q Entertainment's iPhone port of Lumines, and the emulated Sega Master System action-RPG Golvellius: The Valley of Doom.

Here are the top stories from the last seven days:

- Square Enix Releases Sliding Heroes, Announces Two More Titles at TGS
"Square Enix has significantly stepped up its support for the iPhone platform, announcing the release of the accelerometer-based RTS Sliding Heroes and revealing that two more titles -- Song Summoner and Hills and Rivers Remain -- are on the way to the App Store in the months ahead."

- Top-Selling Paid Game Apps for the Week
"Konami's iPhone port of Frogger comes out on top in today's paid app charts, with sales boosted by a recent drop in price to 99 cents. geoDefense Swarm debuts this week at second place, as TightWire takes fourth following the release of a popular Lite version."

- Lumines: Touch Fusion Gameplay Impressions
"Previously released on the PSP and other platforms, Lumines challenges players to match same-colored bricks in square formations. Successful matches are cleared away by a line that sweeps across the playfield to the beat of a background music track."

- Sega Master System Action-RPG Golvellius Released for iPhone
"iPhone owners looking for a The Legend of Zelda-like experience can look no further than Golvellius: The Valley of Doom, an excellent (and often overlooked) Sega Master System action-RPG that finds new life in the App Store thanks to developer DotEmu."

- Top-Grossing Game Apps for the Week
"Madden NFL 10 reigns atop today's top-grossing apps chart, and also finishes among this week's top sellers by volume. Gameloft's first-person shooter Modern Combat: Sandstorm trails at second place, while Uno and Scrabble take third and fourth."

- Leisure Suit Larry Creator Al Lowe Brings CyberJoke 3000 to iPhone
"CyberJoke 3000 collects more than 100 of Lowe's personal favorite jokes, all of which are read aloud by a professional comedian. Users can save favorites to a customizable list, and rate individual jokes in an online global scoring system."

- Top Free Game App Downloads for the Week
"iBright Studios' debut App Store effort TightWire Lite has seen a steady climb up the free app charts, and finishes as today's top download in the Games category. Zynga's Word Scramble 2 follows at second place, while A Quest of Knights Onrush captures third."

- Spore Origins Developer Releases Social Puzzler Puff
"High scores are tracked via GPS, and player location is listed along with scores on Puff's online leaderboards. Players are also able to design a custom balloon avatar to show off in their online profile, and can issue challenges to friends via e-mail invites."

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As with his diaries for My Summer Holiday and Zettai Zetsumei Toshi 3, the Japan-only sequel to Raw Danger/Disaster Report, CoreGamers' Bruno de Figueiredo has posted a thorough preview from the opening hours of another recently released PSP game that will likely never reach the States, Zener Works' (Okage) Diamond and The Sound of a Gun Shot.

It's a visual novel game (e.g. Fate/Stay Night, Time Hollow), a genre that hasn't yet caught on outside of Japan, with the exception of the Phoenix Wright series. In Diamond and The Sound of a Gun Shot, a police negotiator tasked with talking down criminals in order to rescue hostages and resolve the situation without anyone getting hurt.

To calm down the criminals, you will need to use advice and information provided by your negotiation team while selecting appropriate text options that will keep the hostage-taker calm. You can also investigate cases by talking to informants, interviewing suspects, and talking about the case with your partner at a local bar. You can read de Figueiredo's record with direct-feed screenshots of Diamond and The Sound of a Gun Shot's introduction and first chapter here.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

After revealing Silent Hill veteran Takayoshi Sato's involvement as the character designer for Fatale's biblical heroine Salome, Belgium developer Tale of Tales is now calling attention to the interactive vignette's voice acting and music with an audio-only trailer.

"One of the cornerstones of our approach to design for interactive entertainment, is that all elements in the production are of equal importance," says the company's co-founders and designers Auriea Harvey and Michael Samyn. "We do not single out any element above any other: 3D artwork, animation, interaction, text, sound and music all contribute in equal parts to the multi-sensory experience."

They continue, "Our aim is to communicate on many levels simultaneously and offer many different forms of amusement and delight. Traditionally, video games tend to be a very visually oriented medium. But in our work, sound is of equal importance. And somehow it felt fitting to release an audio-only trailer for a project about a man who loses his head."

Jarboe and Kris Force, who worked with Tales of Tales previously on IGF finalist The Path, worked on the voice acting, ambient music, and sound effects. In the trailer above, you'll hear Jarboe reciting lines from Oscar Wilde's play "Salome". Gerry De Mol, the singer-songwriter behind The Graveyard's perfect song, also composed dance music for Fatale.

Tale of Tales also posted the first screenshot for Fatale, which gives a hint of Salome's story and how she ordered the head of John the Baptist. It shows a window in the ceiling of the cistern in which Herod imprisoned John after the preacher condemned the king's marriage to his half-brother's ex-wife:

Tale of Tales will release Fatale as a digital download for PC and Mac on October 5th.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (5)

['The Magic Resolution' is a bi-weekly GameSetWatch column by UK-based writer Lewis Denby, examining all facets of the experience of playing video games. This time, Lewis is angry. He's rubbish at video games, but he still wants to enjoy them...]

So you're pointing and clicking your way through a hot new adventure game, if such a thing still exists. You're stuck at a point where a mighty evildoer has rigged the entrance to the next area with all manner of preposterous boobie traps. What do you do?

Do you go to the local arms dealer and trade him some items so he'll explain how to disarm the explosives? Do you search around for a secret door that'll allow you to bypass the traps all together? Of course not. That'd be too easy. Too sensible.

No, what you have to do is take a rubber chicken to the local grave-robber, who'll give you a skeleton in exchange. Then you'll have to break off Mr. Boney's arms and legs, grind them down into a powder to give to a voodoo sorceress, who'll make you a potion as long as you bring her three sprigs of thyme in exchange. After that, you can feed the potion to a cat, who'll immediately vomit up a map of the island on which you reside, marked with an X.

Go to the X and dig - with a magical trowel, naturally, not the ordinary one you've had in your inventory for ages - to uncover a piece of paper with detailed instruction in how to sneak by the traps undetected. Oh - as long as you dress up as a woman.

Of course.

There was a time when puzzles such as this would have been all the rage. Gamers have always loved a challenge - that's the basis from which the medium is largely constructed. But there's a reason why such obtusely difficult and illogical sections of games are widely hated today.

As games become more and more about the experience, rather than about leaderboards and showing off to your friends, such horrendous difficulty spikes are becoming a real problem. They're making games annoying, frustrating and not at all fun to play.

No Entry

While the adventure genre is the one that many would point to when it comes to such matters, it's by no means the only area of gaming to suffer from such design idiocy.

Take the first-person shooter where every door is locked except the one you have to progress through, which isn't signposted one bit. Or how about the RPG that demands hours of grinding away at repetitive side-quests before you can crack on with the story? There's always the inevitable section in every platformer in the world where you've to precisely leap across tiny stepping stones above a sea of fire, where jumping just an inch too far means restarting the level for the eight hundredth time.

This might have been okay when games were purely about bettering yourself, or bettering other players. But in a climate where the medium is as much about storytelling, atmosphere and immersion as any other factors, it's a serious issue that needs to be stamped out.

The problem with difficulty in games isn't that it's tricky to balance, or that no one will ever be able to please their entire audience. It's that a great deal of games are simply too difficult, no matter how you look at it. Too many developers are failing to understand the very point of their own titles, with releases billed as immersion-driven mood pieces being broken up by vast swathes of obtuse design.

There's nothing at all wrong with highly challenging, fiendishly difficult games. The title I've played more than any other this year is Derek Yu's Spelunky, a remarkable, procedurally generated platformer that's utterly relentless in its arbitrary slaying of the player. But that's part of its charm. Though there's never the opportunity to save your game, meaning each death deposits you back at the start, the randomised level design means you're never facing the same challenge twice.

And the complete lack of fairness to the rules? Well, that's a rule in itself. From the very first time a missile shoots out of a near-invisible trap in the cave wall, you know Spelunky's playing with dirty tactics. This is what you're signing up for. So as you progress, and as the game spectacularly evolves, you establish new ways to outsmart it, and promise yourself you won't fall for the same trick next time.

But having to play out the same battle in the next big action blockbuster again and again, never being quite sure why I'm not good enough to progress, is not the same thing. This is at best lazy design; at worst it's a way of artificially lengthening the experience. And all the while, all that detail in the level design, all that beautiful artwork, all those Hollywood-level voice actors... they're all going to waste. All you're focused on is one last attempt at beating that boss, before you slam the controller down in a rage and never return again.

Easy Does It

So I play my games on easy mode, wherever possible. I'm the guy who loved the Vita Chambers in BioShock, the one who adored the streamlined gameplay of Deus Ex: Invisible War. I play through most titles without ever having to reach for the load button. Maybe I'll play through a whole game in a single sitting. Perhaps I'm not getting my money's worth out of that. Perhaps I'm just making sure that every second I spend in the game's company is enjoyable and worthwhile.

And maybe I'm simply not very good at games. I never got on with the Thief titles, much to everyone's absolute dismay. "It'll take you weeks to get good enough to start really enjoying them," someone once told me. Frankly, I don't have the time. I'll invest plenty of time into a game, but only if it's letting me actually have a bit of fun, or get something equally valuable out of the experience.

So let me play Thief on very easy mode. That series' difficultly options are famously brilliant, with the tiniest of details adjusting depending on your chosen level of challenge. But it still fails spectacularly when it comes to letting someone like me, tremendously ropey at my sneaking, get the most out of the product I've just paid good money for.

Max Payne featured dynamic difficulty, where the efficiency of the AI adapted to your own talent at the game. This might be a smart route to go down. Many adventure games are now incorporating advanced, intelligent hints systems, for those times when you're particularly stumped by a madcap puzzle. That's probably a good idea too.

In all honesty, I don't care how the problem's resolved. As long as these games don't remain part of some elite party to which I'm not invited, I'll be happy. I just want to be able to enjoy, soak up and become immersed in any title I choose to play.

[Lewis Denby is general editor of Resolution Magazine and general freelance busybody for anyone that'll have him. Wander over to his website for more information and contact details.]

Posted by Lewis Denby at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (13)

Photographer Jennifer Lyseng recently shot a photo series of game disks and manuals from Infocom's classic adventure titles, presenting them with relevant objects (e.g. like a sword and a stone for Arthur: The Quest for Excalibur).

The images were commissioned by Rick Thornquist, who is writing a book on the history of Infocom's games. He plans to use the photos in the book and as backdrops for interviews he'll conduct with Infocom developers, which will be featured on a DVD included with the book.

You can see more of Lyseng's series below for titles like Journey and James Clavell's Shogun, with high resolution versions available on her Behance page:

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Indie game developer Digital Eel is giving away its strategy/adventure game Strange Adventures In Infinite Space (SAIS) for free. Originally released in 2002 for PC and Mac, SAIS was a 2003 IGF finalist and the predecessor to the studio's 2006 IGF-winning game (for Innovation in Audio) Weird Worlds: Return to Infinite Space.

In the seven-year-old title, players "explore a randomly created universe, meet aliens, [and] acquire artifacts in the name of scientific progress and stellar manifest destiny". Designed to be played in 20 minutes in around 5-20 minutes, SAIS features 21 ship types, 69 weapons/drives/shields/gadgets/artifacts, 18 alien lifeforms, 7 alien races, and 17 kinds of planets and star types.

Digital Eel also announced that it's posted Soup du Jour -- a physics-based match-three PC game that has you clearing colorful, bouncing candy while Kitchen Gremlins send bombs and missiles in your soup pot -- for free downloads, too.

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Returning to the courtroom for another, Ace Attorney star Phoenix Wright defends an Elite Beat Agent and an accused murderer. Things don't seem to go well for Wright's case as all the evidence indicates that the sunglasses-wearing defendant is the culprit, but fortunately this non-canon scenario takes place in Osu!, a homemade PC rhythm game based on the Elite Beat Agents/Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan! series.

Also lucky for the lawyer and his client, Queen's "Don't Stop Me Now" is playing to inspire and motivate them to successfully present their case and uncover the real killer. Watch the playthrough video to the end for the surprise twist!

[Via GoNintendo]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

[It's a fact of game development that something will go wrong, but panic's not an inevitability. In this opinion piece, Divide By Zero's James Portnow shares tips and tactics for keeping chill under pressure.]

We’re in the business of building video games. We haven’t gotten it down to a science yet.

Be it anything from a minor bump in the road -- such as when one of the engineers creeps into your office with his head down and mumbles, "Remember that thing we thought the animation system did? Well, it doesn’t do that" -- to the more major hurdles, like the 9am call from Mr. _____’s administrative assistant to let you know that "Due to present financial realities, we have regrettably been forced to cut your funding," the unexpected will happen. The only question is: how will you deal with it?

Panic!

We’ve all heard the old platitude about "prepare for the unexpected." But you know what? Sometimes something will come up that you simply didn’t prepare for. When that happens, you have two options: Panic, or don't.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen even industry veterans get blindsided and panic, and when that happens, all hell breaks loose. Panic is infectious and destroys morale, eating through teams and sapping the strength of studios.

I won’t name any names here, but I’ve seen projects get delayed for years, studios fold, and 90-hour work week crunches all because someone panicked. In this article, I will try and lay out some basic tips and reminders that I use (and force on anyone who works with me who is in charge of other people) to stay frosty when the unexpected occurs.

Don’t Respond Immediately

There’s some primal tendency, especially among young males placed in leadership roles, never to admit weakness. When the unexpected occurs, this usually manifests itself by propelling those in question to leap into action, or snapping off an answer so as not to appear to others as unprepared.

Or, there's the mistaken belief that any action is better than no action, and that the people below need firm and confident leadership, and that the only way to project this is through immediate decision-making.

This is panic. If you feel like you have to answer off the cuff you will be always be wrong, because if you had the right answer it wouldn’t feel as though you were being hit with something you hadn’t prepared for.

These spur-of-the-moment decisions are the decisions that I see most often reversed somewhere down the road, sowing confusion in the ranks, creating resentment or distrust of the leadership (because they’ve caused the trenches' troops to do wasted work -- and nothing stings like wasted work), and taking people away from tasks that could have been productive.

This sort of machismo is hard to repress in the heat of the moment (I’ll admit to having to wrestle it down often myself), but it’s easy to deal with if you simply make a habit of taking a breath and making sure you’re offering a solution rather than reacting.

If you are faced with a unexpected situation that to which you’re not sure how to respond, I’ve found the best course of action is to simply tell the messenger that you understand, and then ask them if there’s anything else they could be working on (almost always people know another productive task they could do).

Let the team work on something else while you take the time to get the facts and deliberate. At the end, you’ll probably be stuck making your best guess, but it’s going to be a heck of a lot better than the one you would have made otherwise.

This sort of quiet deliberation will earn you the trust of your team ten times faster than decisive action. We’re not fighting a war; no one is going to die if you take your time to think before acting.

Note that at the beginning of this section I upbraided young men, because I’ve found this problem to be common among young male producers who are just getting their sea legs and really aren’t sure of themselves. But really, this is an endemic problem.

I’ve seen managers of both genders who have a reputation for being "large and in charge" feel compelled always to have a firm answer because "that’s who they are," and let me tell you, while reactionary decisions are bad when they come from an AP, they’re a hell of a lot worse when they come from the CEO.

What Would You Do?

Many disasters can be avoided simply by asking the question, "What would you do?"

Often, when someone comes to you with a problem, it’s something they’ve been thinking about for quite some time and, unless it’s an interpersonal problem, it’s usually within their area of expertise.This almost guarantees their input will be valuable to your decision making process -- but because they’ve rocked the boat in the first place (or because of the way the company hierarchy works), it’s common for people to feel uncomfortable offering their input until prompted.

Don’t let a curveball throw you so much that you forget the value of the person pitching it to you.

A Magic Bullet or a Bee in Your Bonnet?

One of the classic signs of panic is grasping at straws or looking for miracles. One of the assured signs of panic is looking for different miracles every week.

I once knew a man on an ill-fated MMO project who described the work environment as a "rubber ball in zero G". Each week, the team was reassigned to focus on a new task which had become top priority because each week, the word came down that "our problem is X, and if we just fix that, we’ll all be okay." Somewhere up the chain, someone was panicking.

If you ever believe that a game hinges on one thing, take a step back carefully examine why you think so. If you ever believe that a game hinges on one thing, and that one thing is different than the "one thing" the game hinged on a few weeks ago, take a couple of days off -- your team will thank you.

Freezing Up and Defeat

One of the clearest manifestations of panic is freezing up or giving up. When this happens --and it happens to the best of us at times -- break down your tasks into the smallest chunks you possibly can. This will reduce what’s facing you to large number of accomplishable task, rather than a daunting monolith of unfinished work.

One word of warning, though: if you’re in this stage of panic, you’ll feel as though you don’t have time to go and break down your work. If you ever feel that pressure just take a step back and realize that that’s an indicator of panic. You’re always going to be better off taking the time to split your work into tasks that you can manage than to continue butting your head against a wall of undirected labor.

If you do this and still feel overwhelmed or powerless, talk to the next guy up the chain -- perhaps they can give you what you need to do your job (and now you’ll have a much better idea of exactly what that is).

There’s Always an Answer

Lastly, one of the best ways to stay cool when sidelined by something completely unexpected is to remember that there’s always an answer to any problem you face in this field, the only question is whether you find it in time.

When things break down, just bring yourself back to reason behind why you needed whatever went wrong to go right in the first place and look for other solutions from that perspective rather than try and solve the specific problem that confronts you.

For example, let’s return to our busted animation system that we talked about in the opening paragraph: just ask yourself, "Why did you need your animation system to do whatever it is that it you now know it doesn’t do? Is fixing the system you currently have the best solution, or could you get the effect you’re looking for some other way?"

Once you start examining things from this perspective they become much more manageable - you’re looking for solutions and making cost-benefit analyses rather than facing a problem. This pulls you away from panic, and pushes you towards a calm approach that will infect your team.

Conclusion

Avoiding panic really boils down to three simple things:

1. Take your time
2. Trust your team
3. Trust yourself

If you can do that and keep in mind that everything has a solution and nobody dies if you fail, you should be able to keep your cool in the worst circumstances.

So good luck with your projects and, for yourself and for your team, stay frosty.

[Questions? Advice? Flames? Comment here, ping me at jportnow@gmail.com,or hit me up on Twitter @jamesportnow.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

All of the major gaming news sites have galleries up of cosplayers from last week's Tokyo Game Show, but I just wanted to feature one outfit from the expo that amazed me, this Cyborg Ninja from the Metal Gear Solid series.

Almost all of the photos I've come across of the costume are striking. Chalk it up to the talents of the photographers, the subject's bright blue contact lenses (I'm not certain if that's a man or a woman in the outfit, but I'm leaning towards woman), and the contrast of the hard white plastic helmet on the blue padded suit. More photos after the break!

[Update: As Cullen points out, the Cyborg Ninja is actually cosplayer Omi Gibson, who is "very much not a boy."]

[Via Cefca Palazzo, Keio, and Kosei.S]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 4:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Undead Knights hits U.S. stores this week and Japan in mid-October, but for some reason Tecmo released a new trailer and demo today for the latter territory. It's not that serious an issue, though, as you can still enjoy both without knowing a word of Japanese. In fact, the video above is probably funnier hearing the Japanese voiceover guy saying "zommmmmbie" and singing, "Zombie bridge is falling down."

You can download the PSP demo -- which has you fighting armies, turning soldiers into your undead minions, and commanding them against your enemies -- from Undead Knights' Japanese site.

[Via PSP Hyper]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 2:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

['Game Mag Weaseling' is a weekly column by Kevin Gifford which documents the history of video game magazines, from their birth in the early '80s to the current day.]

   

It's a busy time in my life, with freelance duties dive-bombing me from all directions and me hardly having a chance to enjoy the unseasonably cool weather at all. Sometimes -- like all writers, I suppose -- I wonder if my work is worth it, if anyone's really reading the things I work on, if I could be typing "asdfjkl ovfo w4oivn" all day on the keyboard and accomplish the same effect.

At times like this, I comfort myself by saying "Don't worry, Kevin Gifford. Even if nobody cares now, even if you become penniless and wind up in the gutter burning copies of Game Player's Strategy Guide to Nintendo Games to keep warm, someone might appreciate it all afterwards. Just look at Maximum."

Maximum, published by UK outfit Emap from 1995 to 1996, is very much a product of its time. During this volatile period, when games were shifting from 2D to 3D and companies were flying in and out of the industry at lightspeed, Emap was still competing on pretty even terms with Future Publishing, snagging official licenses from Nintendo and Sega and raking in massive profits from both titles. They were also publishing Computer & Video Games, the oldest multiplatform mag in existence, which had a long history but was experiencing a major sales lull in the mid-90s, dipping down to 15,000 copies sold per month at the worst.

In that environment, Emap decided to hold an internal contest within its editorial corral to come up with the "next generation" of multiplatform mags. The winner was Richard Leadbetter, editor of Emap's Official Sega Magazine (later retitled Sega Saturn Magazine), and art director Gary Harrod, working on Nintendo Magazine System at the time.

In issue 25 of Retro Gamer, Leadbetter commented that both he and Harrod were "really annoyed at just how shockingly awful the multiformat magazines were" in the mid-90s. You can definitely gauge their response to this state of affairs within Maximum's pages. The basic idea behind the mag was to provide extremely exhaustive coverage of only the best games coming out every month, giving 14 or so uninterrupted pages to the really big releases like Virtua Fighter 2 and Super Mario 64 -- a different approach from the kitchen-sink design favored by the C&VG of the time (and, arguably, by EGM all the way to its demise).

"We also saw that gamers were turning into collectors and we wanted to produce collectible coverage to the games of the time," Leadbetter added in the Retro Gamer piece. Again, this is obvious after a quick look-through -- as you can see above, every spread (they were all spreads; Maximum never attracted much advertising) looked very clean and emphasized long series of screenshots to demonstrate some point or move in the game being covered. It looks less like a Brit-mag and more like a strategy guide, to be honest, and it's pretty obvious that Japanese strategy books were one of Harrod and staff writer Dave Hodgson's biggest inspirations.

Issue 1 of Maximum came out October 1995 at a price of £3.50, which was £2 more than C&VG back then and more along the lines of what mags with bonus disks or CD-ROMs charged. It sold between 20,000 and 25,000 copies, which was considered good for the high price Emap was asking for. However, sales slipped rapidly with the next couple issues, which Leadbetter blamed partly on major delays due to the staff's perfectionism and partly on placing two Saturn games (VF2 and Sega Rally) in a row on the cover. "At the time, none of us editorially cared about the business side of things," he said. "We wanted to get the mag out, but only if the quality was there. This led to a whole series of enormous rows with management, and it was an argument that we'd never have won."

Emap's games division itself was generally on the decline at this point -- especially after they lost the official PlayStation license to Future in '95 -- and the management was not particularly interested in supporting Maximum. This became especially true after C&VG reversed its fortunes, getting completely redesigned by the team of Paul Davis, Tom Guise and Ed Lomas in 1996 and drastically improving its sales (a story I'll cover at some other point). "I think by the end of the Maximum era, they were outselling us four to one," Leadbetter noted.

By the time the last issue rolled around in mid-'96, Hodgson had gone back to Nintendo Magazine System, Garry Harrod and a few others had moved to Die Hard GameFan, and Maximum was essentially zombified. There was talk of relaunching it at the end of 1996, but no one at Emap was apparently very serious about it.

The GameFan link may be appropriate here, because it would've taken someone like a GameFan staffer to really appreciate what Leadbetter and crew were attempting with Maximum. Like a lot of mags in this niche, Maximum was both ahead of its time (predicting the coffee-table collector market before titles like Edge really filled it) and behind its time, offering the sort of extreme hardcore coverage that only a small piece of the market could ever appreciate. Its time may have come today, though -- complete sets occasionally go for a lot on eBay in the UK, and if you're less morally minded they're pretty easily findable on torrent sites.

Hopefully my stuff will be equally appreciated after its time, at the least. It's not like I get royalties for any of my work anyway!

[Kevin Gifford breeds ferrets and runs Magweasel, a really cool weblog about games and Japan and "the industry" and things. In his spare time he does writing and translation for lots and lots of publishers and game companies.]

Posted by Kevin Gifford at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Justin Whitlock already has a bit of web popularity for his G.I. Joe-sized arcade machines of classic games like Ms. Pac-Man and Galaga, but his latest posted project shows that he's eager to advance his abilities in this tiny field. This Terminator 2: Judgment Day machine features two mounted guns, t-molding, and a plexiglass screen (which shows a shot of the game).

Whitlock spent around 12 hours (with breaks) creating this machine and used the toy uzis from the 25th Anniversary G.I. Joe Iron Grenadier for the guns. Because of its unique parts, he's selling the machine at a more expensive price than usual, $38.00. You can see more photos and a video tour of the game below:

Posted by Eric Caoili at 10:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Celebrating 20 years of working in the video games industry, Double Fine CEO and LucasArts vet Tim Schafer posted several documents from his time with the sector, including rejection letters from Atari and Hewlett-Packard (he hoped to follow in the footsteps of novelist Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who toiled away at General Electric during the day, and wrote short stories at night).

Schafer eventually stumbled upon an "Assistant Designer / Programmer" job posting for Lucasfilm's Games Division and put in a disastrous call for the position -- after raving about Ball Blaster, his favorite Lucasfilm release at the time, the company's interviewer pointed out that Ball Blaster was the pirated version of the game and that Ball Blazer was the real title.

Fortunately, the interviewer invited the young game designer to send in a resume, and thinking he'd ruined any chance of getting the job, Schafer sent in this graphic adventure-style cover letter printed from an Atari 800 dot-matrix printer:

Of course, Lucasfilm awarded the "Scummlet" position to Schafer, and he worked there for 10 years on celebrated titles like The Secret of Monkey Island, Maniac Mansion: Day of the Tentacle, Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. Still, he doesn't suggest other job-seekers copy this gamble: "And for everyone on a job hunt right now—good luck! Don’t do what I did. It only worked in the 80s!"

[Via brandonnn]

Posted by Eric Caoili at 8:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

[We're delighted to announce that Independent Games Festival sister event IGF Mobile -- which got special attention from Apple last year for its iPhone honorees, plus a lot of buzz -- is back again for 2010. Here's the info for handheld devs who want to enter.]

The Independent Games Festival (IGF) Mobile, the premiere venue that celebrates creativity and innovation on handheld platforms, has opened submissions for its third annual festival.

The overall IGF Mobile winner will be awarded at the IGF Awards Ceremony, which precedes the Game Developers Choice Awards on March 11th, 2010. Both the IGF Awards Ceremony and the Game Developers Choice Awards are part of the 2010 Game Developers Conference, which takes place in San Francisco's Moscone Center in March.

This year's competition -- the sister event to the main Independent Games Festival -- will again feature independently-developed handheld games for all mobile devices including Apple's iPhone, other cellphone and smartphone OSes, Nintendo DS, Sony PSP, and other handheld devices.

IGF Mobile submissions are now being accepted at the competition's official website through December 1, 2009; finalists will be announced in January 2010, and will each receive one pass to attend the 2010 Game Developers Conference.

Finalists will compete for $5,000 in prizes, including notable awards for design, art, and technology innovation in mobile game development. This year, winners in each category -- with the exception of 'Best Game', will be announced before the show, on February 8th, 2010. Each category winner will receive $500 in spending money to come to the 2010 Game Developers Conference in March 2010 and showcase their mobile game.

The five category winners will exhibit their games in a special area of the main IGF Pavilion. The winners will then compete for the coveted IGF Mobile Best Game award, worth $2,500. The prize is presented on stage during the main Independent Games Festival Awards, preceding the Game Developers Choice Awards ceremony on March 11th, 2010. In addition, the winners in each category can take part in an IGF Mobile Finalist Showcase at GDC10, a session during which the five IGF Mobile main prize finalists will present their mobile games to the audience.

Now in its third year, IGF Mobile has blossomed into a major showcase of the handheld form. Last year's IGF Mobile 'Next Great Mobile Game' winner Reflection has been signed by Konami for Nintendo DSi, and Apple's App Store created a special Store section just to highlight the IGF-nominated iPhone games from 2009's IGF Mobile competition.

Submissions to the competition are now open to all independent developers working on mobile platforms, including game development for cell phones, iPhone, PSP, DS, and other handheld devices. The important dates for IGF Mobile in 2009-2010 are as follows:

September 28th, 2009 Submissions Open
December 1st, 2009 Submission Deadline
January 22nd, 2010 IGF Mobile Finalists Announced
February 8th, 2010 Category Winners Pre-Announced
March 9-13th, 2010 Game Developer's Conference 2010
March 11th, 2010 IGF Awards Ceremony

For a complete list of IGF Mobile 2010 information, please visit IGFMobile.com.

Posted by Simon Carless at 7:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With less than a month to go before Machinarium's PC and Mac release, developer Amanita Design released another new trailer for the gorgeous adventure game. There isn't much puzzle-solving going on in the video, but you can see its robot star recounting old memories and a diligent automatic vacuum cleaner reminiscent of WALL-E's VAQ-M.

Machinarium will release through various digital download platforms like Impulse and Steam on October 16th (you can preorder the game now, though, for a $3 discount off the $20 price). Amanita's founder and designer Jakub Dvorský also sent over several pieces of concept art from the game, which you can see below:

Posted by Eric Caoili at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Back once more, it's time to go through the top full-length features of the past week on big sister site Gamasutra, in feature form, plus some GameCareerGuide features du jour.

And with the holiday gaming season kicking in, we had some high-profile interviews with the creators of the just-released Halo 3: ODST and the upcoming Forza 3.

Plus, there are good developer articles on global production models and game audio evolution, and the latest GCG Design Challenge cycle concluded.

Here's the stories:

Racing Evolution: Forza 3 And The Changing Driving Sim
"Turn 10's Dan Greenawalt talks Forza 3's development lessons on the evolution of the racing genre's baseline and its ever-blurring line between arcade and sim."

Dynamics of Narrative
"What can the well-established techniques of other media teach developers about game audio? Exploring structure, dynamic range and other ways to put the 'sound' back into sound design."

Globalizing Production for the Future
"Game developers must reassess outdated production processes and mature their business models -- true globalization goes beyond outsourcing, and here are the risks, realities and rewards."

Please Remain Calm: How Bungie Met The Challenges Of Halo 3: ODST
"From its first trailer that told gamers to "Please Remain Calm" to its release this week, Halo 3: ODST underwent substantial changes. Bungie executive producer Curtis Creamer told Gamasutra how the studio met technical, personnel, and time constraints, and came out the other end relatively unscathed."

Persuasive Games: Little Black Sambo
"Scribblenauts' vast dictionary accidentally includes an archaic racial slur. In this opinion piece, game designer and writer Ian Bogost analyzes the ethical quandary -- and, more importantly, the ensuing response."

Results from Game Design Challenge: Be the Hero!
"We present the results in the Game Design Challenge "Be the Hero!", which asked entrants to come up with a game concept starring a supporting cast member from an existing franchise."

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[In a new analysis for GameSetWatch, writer Zoran Iovanovici has a look at how the emphasis on video game voice actors differs from Japan to the West, including interviews with a Western voice actor on how she's perceived by fans and the industry.]

Pop quiz. How many gamers out there are familiar with the contributions that Nolan North, Terrence Carson, and John Di Maggio have made to the video game industry? Don’t feel bad if you haven’t the slightest clue. In the U.S., most people would be hard pressed to name the actors that voice some of the most prolific game characters. Few know the names behind the voices of Nathan Drake, Kratos, or Marcus Fenix.

Over in Japan it’s a completely different story. Voice actors (or seiyuu as they are known in their native land) are major celebrities, their names and faces often instantly recognizable by the general public. They appear on magazine covers, advertise clothing lines, and host their own internet radio shows.

In the video game industry, seiyuu have major roles in promoting the video games they work on. They’re often the focus of magazine preview interviews, they sometimes cosplay as the characters they voice, and they attend major launch parties and various promotional junkets. In Japan, there’s a whole culture of appreciation and awareness in regards to video game and anime voice actors. In the U.S. – not so much.

Before delving any deeper, it’s important to note that Japanese voice actors build their careers around voice acting. The American Hollywood actor who occasionally moonlights as a voice actor is not comparable by any means. In Japan, seiyuu aren’t just voice actors, they’re voice idols.

Japanese voice actresses in particular are frequent guests on Japanese variety shows, trivia/game shows, and comedy specials. Take for instance the newly released Idolmaster DS where the three lead voice actresses Haruka Tomatsu, Kana Hanazawa, and Yuko Sanpei took part in a television special promoting the game. Or consider their Idolmaster colleague Chiaki Takahashii who recently started making waves as a pin up model in Japanese men’s magazines.

A world apart
U.S. voice actors aren’t treated with the same reverence as their Japanese counterparts. They’re nowhere near as big a part of the PR machine as they are in Japan. Sure, you’ll see the odd panel at E3, Comic Con, or Blizzcon, but when was the last time you saw a video game voice actor appear as a special guest on a late night talk show or a premier red carpet event? Even the wildly popular David Hayter doesn’t quite enjoy that prestige despite becoming a household name among Metal Gear Solid fans. Hayter may seem larger than life to MGS super fans, but he’s not likely to be recognized out on the street as often as a Hollywood actor like Johnny Depp or George Clooney.

If that seems disconcerting, spare a thought for the considerably less famous but equally talented Quinton Flynn who voices Raiden in MGS as well as the fan favorite Axel in the Kingdom Hearts series. Or look at voice actor Nolan North who has done, in addition to countless anime series, voices for lead characters in blockbuster games like Nathan Drake in Uncharted and the latest Prince in Prince of Persia. Even better, consider Gideon Emery's incredible voice over of Balthier in Final Fantasy XII, a role that not only helped make Balthier the most beloved character in the game but also stands as an example of the top tier talent that fans have come to expect of the series. In Japan, these actors would be absolute idols and people would know their faces and names.

Turning Japanese

While things are clearly on different wavelengths across the Pacific, it doesn’t stop some professionals from trying to attain a similar status in the U.S. that their Japanese counterparts enjoy overseas. I caught up with anime and video game voice actress Cristina Vee for a quick chat on this very topic.

Vee recently finished up work on Blazblue, where she did the voices for Noel Vermillion and Nu v-13. Throughout her young career she’s been taking her anime and video game voice acting and merging it with other forms of entertainment in a way that’s very Japanese. When she’s not doing voice work in studio she performs English versions of popular anime songs on her YouTube page, she’s a member of an indie band named Siren Call, and is a co-host on the Anime Olympics web show.

“It was really surprising to hear about the recognition that Japanese voice actors get. It’s unlike anything here in the states,” she tells me. “Even my own family still doesn’t get important role that voice actors play in the entertainment industry. Growing up it was hard to do any recording at home because my parents were always worried about me, thinking I was talking to myself in exaggerated character voices. They were always knocking on my door and checking up on me.”

Intrepid young voice talents in Japan aren’t likely to face the same mystified reaction. Their friends and family would at least recognize and understand the desire to work alongside other accomplished celebrity voice actors. Cristina got no such comfort in the states. “Oftentimes if people don’t see your face on television or in a movie, they’ll just shrug off your performance as a voice actor. It’s like you aren’t a real entertainer. There are times when you feel really underappreciated as a voice actor,” she explains.

Gamers, on the other hand, are a more receptive bunch. They know good voice acting when they hear it. Just the same, they immediately recognize how terrible voice acting detracts from a game. The embarrassment that was the original Resident Evil on PlayStation simply isn’t tolerable these days. Great voice acting is expected of top tier games even if the voice actors go unrecognized and underappreciated in the Western gaming world.

But media hyped big-budget titles aren’t the only ones that put heavy emphasis on top caliber voice acting. Stellar voice acting is now part and parcel for every genre and this certainly applies to the explosion of fighting games we’ve seen in the last year or two.

In the case of Blazblue, where most of the story mode sequences are voiced, there are over three thousand lines for each character. Moreover, there are two separate voice tracks for each character meaning that the tone of voice for each player differs in mirror matches. It’s a great extra touch that’s never been done before in a fighting game but it will likely fly under the radar as most gamers assume fighting game voice tracks are simply a small collection of grunts and yells. This doesn’t do much to boost the credibility of the voice actors involved in the project.

“It’s totally up to us to become as involved as we can with the fans and community. The industry doesn’t do it for us,” Cristina explains. Even the official Aksys sponsored Blazblue launch party was under the radar. No major gaming outlets covered the event, you won’t find a photo shoot in any print magazine, and there certainly wasn’t any television coverage.

But it doesn’t stop there. Many times a voice actor’s desire to become more involved is simply shrugged off by the developer/publisher. Cristina recalls once such situation while working on Blazblue: “I really wanted to do English voiceover for Noel’s stage music. The original track is a song called ‘Love so Blue’ and it appears in the U.S. version of the game but with vocals done by Noel’s Japanese voice actress. The song is so catchy and I was willing to translate the song and sing it in English but my request was simply turned down.” In Japan, lending vocals to a theme song is a big deal, often leading to other opportunities such as performing the song live at anime and gaming conventions to promote the game.

Cosplay and conventions to the rescue?

Oftentimes, Western voice actors are left on their own if they want to showcase their talents and show their devotion to the projects they’ve worked on. The best opportunities come in the form of appearances at gaming and anime conventions. This is perhaps the only area where Japanese and Western voice acting culture is on equal ground.

“I’m constantly getting requests from fans to cosplay as the characters that I voice at conventions. That would be great in Japan, but I’m trying to sort of pull back so that in the eyes of the industry I’m not just another fan girl. That’s something I’m always cautious of here in the states. Cosplaying as a character I did voice work for might come off as shameless self promotion by people in the industry,” Cristina explains while lamenting the distance she has to put between her professional career and her fun loving fandom.

While cosplay has certainly gained tremendous ground in the U.S. over the years, it’s nowhere near as common and prominent as it is in Japan. Let’s not forget, Japan even has cosplay sales reps on hand at retail stores during major game launches. This was even the case for Blazblue.

Another voice actor known to make the most out of major anime and gaming conventions is Reuben Langdon. Langdon is perhaps best known for doing the voice acting and motion capture of Dante in last two installments of the Devil May Cry series. Langdon was actually the first to do both the voice and motion capture for a lead character in a game. It’s quite an accomplishment and he’s taken every opportunity to become involved with fans and the industry ever since.

Recently at Fanime 2009 in San Jose, Reuben not only took part in a Devil May Cry industry panel discussing his motion capture and voice over work, he also took part in a charity event that saw attendees bidding for opportunities to challenge Reuben in matches of Street Fighter IV. As the English voice actor for Ken Masters in SFIV, Reuben played as Ken in every match, complimenting his in-game voice work with live commentary throughout the matches.

Langdon, with his blonde hair and exceptional martial arts skills makes a great Ken Masters, but don’t expect him to make any cosplay appearances in the U.S. anytime soon. You also won’t be seeing him performing acrobatic stunts while dressed up as Dante for the sake of a television commercial. Cool as it sounds, that sort of thing is exclusive to Japan (and YouTube, of course).

So we’re left wondering if voice actors in the West will ever enjoy the reverence that seiyuu do in Japan. It’s probably best not to hold one’s breath, but as gaming grows as a dominant form of entertainment and cultural expression worldwide, it’s very possible that voice actors will one day be granted mainstream respect on par with the adoration they receive by fans whose lives and hearts they touch with their voice talent.

[Zoran Iovanovici is a freelance writer and commentator - you can contact him at kitschy@graffiti.net.]

Posted by Zoran Iovanovici at 12:00 PM | Permalink | Comments (3)

In our latest employment-tastic round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from THQ, Neversoft and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:

Playdom: QA Automation Lead
"Do you possess exceptional knowledge and passion for games in all genres. Are you frequently recognized for exceptional delivery on short production schedules, creativity, innovation, project management, and brilliant documentation? Are you anything BUT ordinary? If this sounds like we are describing you, we just may be able to make some of your dreams come true. Keep reading and let us know…"

Neversoft: Audio Programmer
"Neversoft Entertainment is looking for an Audio Programmer whose focus will be the research, development and maintenance of cross-platform audio systems and tools for the next generation of games consoles. This is an ideal opportunity for someone with a solid audio software background and a strong desire to apply this knowledge to the games industry."

Demiurge Studio Senior Engineer
"We're looking for a talented and experienced programmer. The ideal candidate will have a broad programming background, with the ability to work fluidly in existing codebases. Flexibility over a variety of tasks and platforms is a must, as are team-based work practices. This position will allow for great influence over future company direction and code processes. In addition, the programmer will be asked to provide input on future hires and upcoming programming tasks."

Black Rock Studio: Technical Art Director
"Black Rock Studio, a Disney Interactive Studio, is currently looking for an experienced CG Supervisor to join the team who are developing an unannounced game on Xbox 360 & PS3. The CG Supervisor defines the production techniques used by artists, and ensures that the art team has all of the relevant tools and workflows they need to operate at peak efficiency. They also develop the Art Direction into an optimal CG look, and ensure that all art content in the game is being built to withstand performance and memory requirements."

Telltale Games: Character Rigger
"Telltale Games is looking for a talented Character Rigger to assist in rigging of characters and asset export. The ideal candidate should have excellent art and character skills as well as a solid technical expertise in using Maya’s rigging tools and MEL scripting."

THQ: Senior Software Engineer, Tools/Plugins
"The Animation Director is responsible for directing all animation efforts for the WWE game franchise across multiple platforms. Tasks will include working closely with external Technology teams to develop new animation systems and pipelines, directing multiple animation teams with an emphasis on quality and efficiency, organizing and scheduling animation tasks, mentoring team members by regularly reviewing work and providing feedback on in-game animations and cut scenes."

To browse hundreds of similar jobs, and for more information on searching, responding to, or posting game industry-relevant jobs to the top source for jobs in the business, please visit Gamasutra's job board now.

Posted by Simon Carless at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

[It's a fact of game development that something will go wrong, but panic's not an inevitability. In this new editorial, Divide By Zero's James Portnow shares tips and tactics for keeping chill under pressure.]

We’re in the business of building video games. We haven’t gotten it down to a science yet.

Be it anything from a minor bump in the road -- such as when one of the engineers creeps into your office with his head down and mumbles, "Remember that thing we thought the animation system did? Well, it doesn’t do that" -- to the more major hurdles, like the 9am call from Mr. _____’s administrative assistant to let you know that "Due to present financial realities, we have regrettably been forced to cut your funding," the unexpected will happen. The only question is: how will you deal with it?

Panic!

We’ve all heard the old platitude about "prepare for the unexpected." But you know what? Sometimes something will come up that you simply didn’t prepare for. When that happens, you have two options: Panic, or don't.

Unfortunately, I’ve seen even industry veterans get blindsided and panic, and when that happens, all hell breaks loose. Panic is infectious and destroys morale, eating through teams and sapping the strength of studios.

I won’t name any names here, but I’ve seen projects get delayed for years, studios fold, and 90-hour work week crunches all because someone panicked. In this article, I will try and lay out some basic tips and reminders that I use (and force on anyone who works with me who is in charge of other people) to stay frosty when the unexpected occurs.

Don’t Respond Immediately

There’s some primal tendency, especially among young males placed in leadership roles, never to admit weakness. When the unexpected occurs, this usually manifests itself by propelling those in question to leap into action, or snapping off an answer so as not to appear to others as unprepared.

Or, there's the mistaken belief that any action is better than no action, and that the people below need firm and confident leadership, and that the only way to project this is through immediate decision-making.

This is panic. If you feel like you have to answer off the cuff you will be always be wrong, because if you had the right answer it wouldn’t feel as though you were being hit with something you hadn’t prepared for.

These spur-of-the-moment decisions are the decisions that I see most often reversed somewhere down the road, sowing confusion in the ranks, creating resentment or distrust of the leadership (because they’ve caused the trenches' troops to do wasted work -- and nothing stings like wasted work), and taking people away from tasks that could have been productive.

This sort of machismo is hard to repress in the heat of the moment (I’ll admit to having to wrestle it down often myself), but it’s easy to deal with if you simply make a habit of taking a breath and making sure you’re offering a solution rather than reacting.

If you are faced with a unexpected situation that to which you’re not sure how to respond, I’ve found the best course of action is to simply tell the messenger that you understand, and then ask them if there’s anything else they could be working on (almost always people know another productive task they could do).

Let the team work on something else while you take the time to get the facts and deliberate. At the end, you’ll probably be stuck making your best guess, but it’s going to be a heck of a lot better than the one you would have made otherwise.

This sort of quiet deliberation will earn you the trust of your team ten times faster than decisive action. We’re not fighting a war; no one is going to die if you take your time to think before acting.

Note that at the beginning of this section I upbraided young men, because I’ve found this problem to be common among young male producers who are just getting their sea legs and really aren’t sure of themselves. But really, this is an endemic problem.

I’ve seen managers of both genders who have a reputation for being "large and in charge" feel compelled always to have a firm answer because "that’s who they are," and let me tell you, while reactionary decisions are bad when they come from an AP, they’re a hell of a lot worse when they come from the CEO.

What Would You Do?

Many disasters can be avoided simply by asking the question, "What would you do?"

Often, when someone comes to you with a problem, it’s something they’ve been thinking about for quite some time and, unless it’s an interpersonal problem, it’s usually within their area of expertise.This almost guarantees their input will be valuable to your decision making process -- but because they’ve rocked the boat in the first place (or because of the way the company hierarchy works), it’s common for people to feel uncomfortable offering their input until prompted.

Don’t let a curveball throw you so much that you forget the value of the person pitching it to you.

A Magic Bullet or a Bee in Your Bonnet?

One of the classic signs of panic is grasping at straws or looking for miracles. One of the assured signs of panic is looking for different miracles every week.

I once knew a man on an ill-fated MMO project who described the work environment as a "rubber ball in zero G". Each week, the team was reassigned to focus on a new task which had become top priority because each week, the word came down that "our problem is X, and if we just fix that, we’ll all be okay." Somewhere up the chain, someone was panicking.

If you ever believe that a game hinges on one thing, take a step back carefully examine why you think so. If you ever believe that a game hinges on one thing, and that one thing is different than the "one thing" the game hinged on a few weeks ago, take a couple of days off -- your team will thank you.

Freezing Up and Defeat

One of the clearest manifestations of panic is freezing up or giving up. When this happens --and it happens to the best of us at times -- break down your tasks into the smallest chunks you possibly can. This will reduce what’s facing you to large number of accomplishable task, rather than a daunting monolith of unfinished work.

One word of warning, though: if you’re in this stage of panic, you’ll feel as though you don’t have time to go and break down your work. If you ever feel that pressure just take a step back and realize that that’s an indicator of panic. You’re always going to be better off taking the time to split your work into tasks that you can manage than to continue butting your head against a wall of undirected labor.

If you do this and still feel overwhelmed or powerless, talk to the next guy up the chain -- perhaps they can give you what you need to do your job (and now you’ll have a much better idea of exactly what that is).

There’s Always an Answer

Lastly, one of the best ways to stay cool when sidelined by something completely unexpected is to remember that there’s always an answer to any problem you face in this field, the only question is whether you find it in time.

When things break down, just bring yourself back to reason behind why you needed whatever went wrong to go right in the first place and look for other solutions from that perspective rather than try and solve the specific problem that confronts you.

For example, let’s return to our busted animation system that we talked about in the opening paragraph: just ask yourself, "Why did you need your animation system to do whatever it is that it you now know it doesn’t do? Is fixing the system you currently have the best solution, or could you get the effect you’re looking for some other way?"

Once you start examining things from this perspective they become much more manageable - you’re looking for solutions and making cost-benefit analyses rather than facing a problem. This pulls you away from panic, and pushes you towards a calm approach that will infect your team.

Conclusion

Avoiding panic really boils down to three simple things:

1. Take your time
2. Trust your team
3. Trust yourself

If you can do that and keep in mind that everything has a solution and nobody dies if you fail, you should be able to keep your cool in the worst circumstances.

So good luck with your projects and, for yourself and for your team, stay frosty.

[Questions? Advice? Flames? Comment here, ping me at jportnow@gmail.com,or hit me up on Twitter @jamesportnow.]

Posted by Simon Carless at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)