~Erin

Very informative, although I’m pretty much in the situation were you left off at. I’m also extremely fascinated with different ways of delivering a narrative, and, entering my sophomore year of college I’m still trying to find the best outlet for this. I even started taking film and communications-related classes, but I’m still looking for a direction really.

Anyway, please continue as I really enjoy reading these. And as an aside, please tell the team that this latest chapter of Tales of Monkey Island has really cemented you guys in my mind as the right people to be handling the series!

Yes: I’m an idiot and lack a proofreader. All fixed now.

Confusing, I know, but once I watched it as a kid would watch it, it made a lot more sense.

The thing is with the bi-monthly DirectX updates is that they don’t ‘hurt’ the older versions. If anything, they improve driver support of older games.

Case in point: With Strong Bad, we found that people who had ‘_27′ but nothing further would sometimes have the ‘missing eyes’ bug. This is where some textures wouldn’t show up, most commonly eyes ( A very scary looking Homestar, I must say! ). Even with the latest drivers installed, same problem. Once they updated DirectX, the eyes were fixed. No one has reported any funny business with other games besides performing better in some cases, so I don’t think including the latest is a backwards compatibility risk.

I wish I knew a better venue to have this discussion. I’ve used the ’send feedback’ button in Windows 7, but I might as well piss in the wind doing that. If part of the Windows strategy is to encourage gaming on Windows, a little help on the tech would be nice.

The following is all speculation by someone who is not in the game industry and stuff you probably thought of days ago:

My thoughts on the versions released with Windows 7 beta is that they are using “legacy” releases for compatibility-only purposes at this point, with up-to-date versions slated for internal testing and release candidates: after all, the public beta is something of a PR release too, and if the updates don’t mesh, it won’t look good. I’m curious if they release a separate version to developers, or if you (or your company) could get a custom build with alpha-level but up-to-date DX support.

As far as updates go, the general rule is security and stability updates in monthly windows updates, and feature updates (and, starting with vista, secure development cycle-triggered code changes) in service packs. The way the release schedule looks, directx must be a feature update in their eyes, and they decided to put the onus on the developer to bundle a new release to take advantage of a certain feature before the general release. It may also be an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality, as unrequested updates could nuke certain pieces of previously fully functional games.

Again, that’s all sleepy speculation. Thanks for laying it out for me – I can finally wrap my head around it.

I’m proud of guessing the GP2X, but for some reason, I missed the PSP as well (maybe I had to spell it out fully). Also I was thrown off because the Atari (PONG) was there, but the Atari 800 wasn’t. So I didn’t guess the 5200 or the 7800.

It also doesn’t have the Game Boy Pocket – I guess slim versions don’t count.

29/68, btw.

My program has a required “Ethics & Law” class, and it absolutely makes sense that anyone working anywhere near software development (which is 100% intellectual property) needs at least a fundamental overview of how IP law affects their work.

It has caused me to re-check my school’s IP policy. I’ve been over-cautious for the most part, and actually feel good in realizing that my school’s IP policy is ultimately kinder than I thought it was. For the most part students retain their IP rights it appears… I doubt that I’m going to be less cautious based on this news, but I’m happy to hear it.

You also have games that are a bit like drug store paper backs. They’re a dime a dozen, they’re not all that creative, but they’ll distract you for a while. I think that market niche in the gaming industry is currently filled by the glut of tactical first person shooters.

There are also games that are immensely entertaining, well put together, and have nearly limitless replay value. These are the games that everyone raves about, and people play for years. These are also the games that tend to win awards and get a lot of recognition.

The last group of games are what I like to call the Video Game Canon. These are the games that moved video games forward as an art. Among my friends, these are the video games that we make each other play because we feel like playing them gives you a bit more insight on why games are made the way they are now. Usually, they fall into the previous category, but not always. I think we need some sort of unique recognition for these games, but it can be hard to sift them out from all the great games that didn’t really advance the art.

Fantastic little gadget that is =)