Deus Ex Machinatio

New Business Cards!

Andrea — Fri, 10 Jul 2009 17:07:43 -0400

The gracious and talented Marcus Riedner has recently designed new business cards for me. I wanted them to give out at ARGfest, but I'm so pleased with them I thought I'd show off to the world at large. Go take a look!

Marcus is interested in breaking into the ARG world, too, so if you have a project you might need him on, go ahead and drop him a line. He's funny, he's creative, he's diligent, a good time will be had by all.

Augmented Reality & the iPhone

Andrea — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 11:03:50 -0400

Augmented reality still has the aura to it of a far-future technology, something eternally five, ten, even twenty years away. But the truth is that we have the tech right now. I'm sure you've all seen GE's fun augmented reality demonstration. Or maybe Hidden Park. Or how about Kweekies? That's just a trickle compared to the flood we'll be seeing by this time next year.

AR hasn't taken the center stage yet, to be sure; but since it's inevitably coming, this means we're in for this decade's biggest and most significant format war. Forget HD-DVD vs. Blu-Ray; who cares about dead media when digital distribution is the future anyway? No, the next big format war is one of platform, and has more in common with Xbox vs. PlayStation, or Mac vs. Windows.

A cabal of high-profile AR developers and researchers have come together to fire the first big shot across the bow in this looming battle. They've written an open letter to Apple asking the company to open up the iPhone SDK to provide developers with a public API to manipulate live video in real time. This is a crucial tool that would make the iPhone a powerhouse for mobile augmented reality applications. If you can't access live video, the device just can't access reality in order to augment it, so to speak.

I don't know if Apple will do it; they're a company that take their walled gardens very seriously. But hey, Apple, I think it would be a foolish business move not to. Developers are on your doorstep begging for the chance to make your device the go-to platform for mobile computing -- and you can give it to them now, not five years from now. How can you possibly turn that down?

Another Step Toward Global Domination

Andrea — Thu, 18 Jun 2009 11:57:03 -0400

I've got a guest post on the blog over at Luxurious Animals. If you've been reading me for long, very little of it will be new to you, but I'm proud of the piece because it contains the most succinct description of what the heck an ARG is that I've ever come up with.

Check it out and let me know what you think. I'm sure there must be at least one or two of you out there who don't quite agree with me.

Come Out & Play 2009

Andrea — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 09:06:16 -0400

Are you going to Come Out & Play this year? It's this weekend, Friday through Sunday, in New York City.

Sadly, due to a ridiculously overbooked schedule, I'll only be making it in for the festivities Saturday afternoon and evening... but that means I'd like to make the most of that time and catch up with as many people as I can.

Even if you won't be there at the same time as me, though, you should definitely go -- there are some fantastic games to be played this year, and great company to be had. It's sure to be a great time!

Booked Solid -- How About You?

Andrea — Mon, 11 May 2009 19:56:36 -0400

Thanks, everybody, it looks like I'm booked through about the end of the year. I'm still getting inquiries, though, so if you're an ARG writer or designer -- particularly in New York -- and you're looking for projects, go ahead and leave me a comment. I'd be happy to pass along names.

For that matter, if you're an ARG freelancer, be you a designer, programmer, artist, or video producer, drop me a line to get added onto the list over at ARGology. I'm traveling for the next few days so I can't promise I'll hop on it with record speed, but I'll definitely get to it!

Tribute to Dave Szulborski

Andrea — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 14:09:09 -0400

A moment of silence to mourn the passing of Dave S., game designer, author, and all-around warm, wonderful human being.

We'll all miss you. (If you don't know what I'm talking about, there's more information here.)

Fill Up My Dance Card

Andrea — Sun, 19 Apr 2009 19:48:08 -0400

I'm just about recovered from Routes, and it looks like my pernicious hardware issues are finally sorted out. That means I'm ready to get back to work making exciting stuff. I've got dozens of projects in various stages of planning (of course), but have a decided preference for stuff that's likely to be income-bearing, so I bring it to you, my faithful readers: Are you making anything I could help with? Do you know anybody who is?

My next big commitment is very tentatively scheduled to begin in late June or early July, so I've got several weeks mostly free on my dance card (in a pinch, it's likely I could push that commitment back a bit, too). If you're running an interactive online experience and you need game/interaction design or writing, I'm definitely your girl. But times and money being what they are, I'm open to all kinds of projects. Website copy? Certainly! Catalog copy? Sure! Technical documentation? Absolutely! Reasonable rates, quality guaranteed!

Go ahead and browse my LinkedIn profile, resume and writing credits. If you've got something you'd like to run by me, feel free to drop me email, or you can ping me on AIM (Andrh1a) or Skype (Andrhia). If not, well, thanks for looking, and please do pass on my availability to anyone who might need my services.

Racebending

Andrea — Tue, 14 Apr 2009 16:47:27 -0400

I've talked about gender issues here before, but really, all elements of social justice are important to me. Gender, gender identity, sexuality, and of course good old-fashioned race exist in a dazzling variety of combinations, and they all deserve respectful representation in media. This is something I learned how to do at the knee of Naomi Alderman, and I hope to continue it as long as I work (which will probably be as long as there is breath in my body). Perplex City was a place where men and women existed in equal numbers in authority roles; where gay relationships -- and, yes, marriages -- were celebrated as much as hetero; where skins and faces and hair came in all colors, textures, and configurations, and not much was made of it. Not bad for a quietly but profoundly xenophobic city-state, don't you think?

Around my house, we're all big fans of the cartoon Avatar: The Last Airbender. (Bear with me, I'll tie it all together in a minute.) We watched every episode, bought the video games, evangelized to our friends, and in general were the kind of consumers that any IP property longs to have. When we found out there was going to be a live-action film, we were cautious but excited; when we found out M. Night Shyamalan was on board to direct, we were frankly a bit skeptical, but still willing to give it a shot out of sheer loyalty to the franchise.

Why did we love this show so much? It's hard to say. The writing was tight, surprisingly deep and sophisticated for a children's cartoon. Avatar actually examines the themes of good and evil at some length, and there is a whole season establishing that the people living in a nation with aggressive leadership are still just regular (and sympathetic) people. We loved the research that went into it -- four distinct styles of martial arts for the four types of 'bending.' We loved the original and heavily Asian-inspired world and aesthetic. I particularly loved that there are girls in active roles, both as heroes and villains. The show was like a breath of fresh air, even/especially to withered cynics like me who despair of getting my girls out of the pink ghetto of consumerism and incredibly strict gender roles. Last year, my daughter chose karate over ballet, and I'm sure Avatar influenced her decision.

But the news out of The Last Airbender film is bad, and it keeps getting worse. The problem? Casting.

See, in Avatar-the-cartoon, there simply isn't a white face on the show. It's all shades of brown and yellow. You see thinly-veiled renderings of Inuit and Chinese cultures, very specifically, with the people from them colored to match. I loved this to pieces (I was shocked to find this show was made in America, and not an import). The world is a big place, my friends, and I'd like my children to grow up knowing that not everybody looks like them, and that's OK. More important, I'd like all of those children in the world who are brown and yellow (and black and red, too) to get to see people on the screen like themselves, who are good people doing great things. And then the film announced who it had cast for the leading roles. And by now you see where this is going: They were white, every one of 'em. Nary even a suntan in the bunch. That's standard-op Hollywood racism right there; it happened with Earthsea, too.

Now, this was pretty awful, and people were justifiably upset about it, so the powers that be behind the film decided on a change of course and recast a role to a minority actor -- one. You know who he plays? Zuko, the bad guy. So suddenly a show that was all about the strength and beauty of Asian cultures and the interplay between them has turned into a movie where three white folks are battling a brown menace. I'm sure I don't need to draw you a diagram to explain why I find this problematic. This is just as awful as if they had kept the all-white casting -- and arguably it's a lot worse.

Fortunately, there are actions you can take to try to get the studio's head on straight. For a more thorough explanation of the problem here, including some historical information on screen shots, please see Racebending. They have a fantastic list of resources on things you can do to protest, from signing a petition and joining a Facebook group to writing to Paramount Pictures to contacting local media.

Let's make some noise over this, people, and see if we can get it fixed. I'd really hate to have to skip the movie over this, but if nothing changes, me and a lot of other people will be staying home when it comes out.

Some Things I've Learned About ARG Design

Andrea — Tue, 31 Mar 2009 22:43:50 -0400

In no particular order. Design goals, best practices, aesthetic principles. Some things I find myself striving toward, talking about, doing. It's categorically untrue that I always do all of these things, of course. But maybe you can see what I'm reaching toward.

Feel free to add, elaborate, or dispute in comments.

Content is a reward. Make sure the content you provide is worth the effort you're rewarding. Even an autoresponder should be worth the time it takes to read it.

Never, never let effort go unrewarded, even if the effort isn't what you expected or wanted.

That said, don't excessively reward players heading in the wrong direction -- the volume with which you respond is an indication as to whether they're barking up the wrong tree.

Each discrete piece of your game should be independently entertaining in its own right, even if the player never sees another piece of it.

If you want to make a game for a mass audience, there should be something for every level of involvement, if possible, and for as many kinds of players as you can manage: explorers, achievers, socializers, killers; more than just spectators, speculators and solvers. Read up on Dr. Bartle.

Try to make an experience that would make sense even to a single player who is too shy or otherwise unmotivated to find or join a community.

Be aware of trolls. Consider interactive elements of your design from the perspective of somebody who has the most fun when defecating into somebody else's swimming pool.

Reference new content streams from within a known-in-game source as soon after discovery as possible. Once firmly established, this habit both supports the players' effort by acknowledging it and helps to prevent gamejacking.

Again, for a large-scale game, whenever possible, keep all communication in the open. Do as little as possible through private IM and email. This scales much better and will save you time and headaches.

Consider structure. Completely open-ended games can lose players who miss a road sign and get lost. Structure can mean a guide through the experience (often a cute brunette girl). It can mean a central website acting as a story clearinghouse. Just make sure players know where to look, and when, rather than guessing.

Make sure it's obvious to your players what their current goal is. Uncertainty isn't that much fun.

Use your structure to provide clear calls to action from time to time. It's helpful to get everybody on the same page now and again.

Provide rolling recaps. This serves two purposes: It allows existing players to attend to an urgency (vacation, term paper, conference) without risk of losing the thread of the story. It also allows new players a simple way to jump in, even late in the game.

Value your players' time and attention as much as they do. Don't release a lot of content solely for the sake of having a lot of content; don't create a lot of puzzles solely for the sake of having a lot of puzzles. It's surprisingly easy to overwhelm players with more information than they can process at once.

Manage expectations carefully. Don't commit yourself to a volume of content you can't realistically do, like live IM around the clock, or fifteen updates every single day.

The players will generally care less about plausibility than you do. Still, you need to put in the footwork on the motivations and actions of your cast. Make sure you understand how all of the parts of your game fit together, or the gears will grind instead of spinning.

Never let realism get in the way of fun.

Hear My Voice!

Andrea — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 17:03:22 -0400

Looks like I'm going to be a guest on the ARG Netcast tonight! I'll likely talk a bit about Routes, so if you're interested -- or if you're insanely curious as to what my voice sounds like -- tune in tonight at 9:30pm Eastern time. (That's 6:30pm Pacific.)

There's a chatroom during the netcast for questions and general kibbitzing during the live session; but if you can't make it tonight, the inestimable Jonathan Waite will have the recording up in a few days. Hope to see you there!