Games and gamers are a pretty self-involved bunch. We make games that are impossible to play without a couple years practice, games with communities that are hostile to “outsiders”, and games that talk, sometimes literally, about themselves. Are we still so insecure that we’re afraid to explore other fields or audiences?
Games are different. Unlike most other creative media, the consumer is required to do something, and the game is required to do something back. A game asks a question, “What do you want to do?” and a player answers. As you can imagine, this interactivity introduces a whole lot of complexity into crafting a game’s ‘experience’. A game’s author(s) can’t lay out the experience as they can in a book or movie, because no two players will put in the same input or receive the same feedback. This leads to that Important Question: “What does authorship mean for interactive media?”. After reading Clint Hocking’s recent post about authorship, I started thinking about where precedents may have been set in other media. And what else requires input from its consumers? Talkback Radio.
This is part two of a dev diary for a game I’m making in a month with Robert Yang, for the Super Friendship Club’s second pageant. The theme was mysticism, so somehow we decided to make ‘Cult Tycoon’ (still no real name). For the first part, take a look here. Onwards!
This dreary September,Robert Yang and myself are taking part in the 2nd Super Friendship Club’s pageant. These pageants, open to all, give you a month to make a game surrounding a theme. This time around the theme is Mystism. Stretching that slightly, we are making ‘Cult Tycoon’ (working title), where players must recruit cult members and make as much money before Judgement Day, while keeping the FBI off their backs.
As the ‘programmer’ on this game, this dev diary will go over code techniques and structures I’m using, and some of the lessons and tips I’m learning, in the hope it will help, or at least be of interest, to somebody. It will mostly cover basic practice, but may delve into more advanced stuff if I end up going that way. Also, since this is a somewhat different breed of game than what I usually make, I’m coding it almost entirely from scratch, so I’ll be experimenting as a go along. For more up-to-the minute progress reports, see our thread on the Club’s forums.
We seem rather fond of ‘immersion’ don’t we? Good games are often equated with immersive games. See this ’Most Immersive Games of 2010′ list, which may as well be ‘High metascoring games of 2010′. But what do we mean by immersion? And why do developers and the public lust after it?
