The Ludi Bin

Our Ouya arrived! Some blurbs.

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Thu, 09 May 2013 20:45:00 +0000

It's small and cute.

Our Ouya arrived yesterday! Acius had to do some display wizardry with the TV to get the resolution right, but other than that it was pretty easy to set up. It's definitely running on Android! And anyone can develop a game on it for free! I love the graphic design of the Ouya UI so far--sans serif fonts with logical category names that don't have too many subcategories.

The controller came out pretty well. The batteries are actually in the handles, which feels both clever and kind of a pain to replace. The analog sticks work wonderfully, but I'm wishing the D-pad were more precise. I'm not sure why, but the D-pad doesn't always do what my fingers tell it to. I'm hoping there's some sort of pattern to the madness that I'll get used to.

There aren't that many games yet, but I played a few so I thought I'd give 'em some blurbs. All games on the Ouya have some sort of playable demo or trial; trying them is free! :-)

Favorites so far:

before Acius fixed the display it looked too large. Also, Harry Potter road trip!

The good:

Organ Trail gives me some nostalgia and makes me snicker like a 6th-grader. I love simulation games (yes, it is a zombie version of Oregon Trail), and so far the zombies aren't too scary (I didn't get very far though, since their trial is timed... I might buy it). There's also some real strategy going on with what kinds of provisions to take along and when to go searching for stuff.

I played the demo for Puddle a while ago on my Vita. It's a physics-based game where you're tilting liquid around to avoid obstacles and whatnot. I thought it was too hard then. I found it easier on the Ouya since you can only tilt so far.

Platformers are easy to make but hard to make well. League of Evil starts out with fun things like double and wall jumps and has kind of a Super Meatboy vibe to it. Playing this game actually made me want to get out my Vita and play some more Guacamelee, since I felt like the platforming was tighter there. It's hard to tell if it's the game or the controller who is letting me down here, but it's still fun.

The maybe-you-will-like them:

Abbigale and the Monster: a cute puzzle game that does the two-player-characters-mirrored-who-have-one-control thing. I found it frustratingly difficult, but I liked the aesthetic (simple pixel art) and music.

The Ball bills itself as a FPS puzzle game. Admittedly I didn't get too far but I really didn't like the horror vibe going on. I think it was the music and the skulls, and the promise of enemies later, but it turned me into a chicken. It feels like it's missing little things like foot noises and good voice acting.

No Brakes Valet is a silly, simple car manipulation game. Cars come into the parking lot at breakneck speed, and you have to slow them down and park them for tips. Difficult.

The things-need-to-change games:

Polarity is another FPS puzzle game and its puzzle rooms remind me of Portal. I want to like it but something is a little off about some of the physics. I should come back to it, since I like puzzle games, but I have some other more polished FPS puzzle games to finish.

Vector is a Parkour game the looks pretty sharp. You do things like jump, speed up, or duck depending on your environment. I think it has some in-app purchases, which rub me the wrong way (I much preferred Organ Trail's timed demo).

Maybe I'm being too harsh a critic on these mostly indie games. I feel like with Steam sales being what they are, indie games have to compete with professional studio games, and to do that they should offer something another game isn't already doing better. I'd love to see more games with an engaging, semi-branching story, although I know that the target demographic for Ouya games is probably the more "hardcore" set that people assume just wants platformers and shoot 'em ups. Anyway, I'm excited to see what other games crop up for the Ouya (and also relieved that Ouya made good on their Kickstarter promise).

For those of you still waiting on your Ouya--I got my "it's on its way!" e-mail about 17 days ago. After two weeks I was going to e-mail them, since my tracking number wasn't working, but it turned out it actually was in the mail.

What bad inventory puzzles can teach us about objects

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Sat, 27 Apr 2013 02:58:00 +0000

Inventories in adventure games are getting a little hate, and perhaps with good reason. Ron Gilbert boasts that The Cave has no inventory; this review of Penumbra assures you that there are no inventory-based puzzles, and the makers of Hamlet have “no inventory” as a feature. If you’ve played more than one adventure game, you’ve encountered the frustrating situation of an inventory-based puzzle; sometimes you simply try every item and then try to combine them with themselves until you find a solution (or if you’re like me, you just look it up in a walkthrough). These types of puzzles are rightfully hated because all too often, an inventory item is a one-use hidden key that solves one puzzle.

The main problem with inventory puzzles arises when the expected functions of an item do not match the in-game functions of an item. Consider the monkey that’s later used as a monkey wrench in The Secret of Monkey Island. It’s a use that would only make sense in a videogame. Or consider the “put gems in a pile of honey” puzzle from Kings Quest V. While these puzzles are illogical, they ironically force us to see inventory items more abstractly, in a way that an object-oriented ontologist would be proud of.

Object-oriented ontology is just one way to describe the idea that humans and the uses they have for objects don’t describe the entirety of objects, and in my argumentation, their uses. When we look at natural resources, we’re always thinking of how they can help humans and other life forms (which is only natural, given our states of humanness). When an idea arises, it’s often dismissed if it doesn’t concern humans, or our wants and desires.

Now, it would seem like a videogame, which is designed for humans to use and enjoy it, would depict objects in a human-centric way--that is, most objects in a game are there to fulfill some kind of puzzle or make a joke. But the very strangeness of some inventory puzzles undermines our expectations of how objects can serve us, and further alienates us from how humans normally use objects. It forces us to confront the very nature of the inventory puzzle, which is that “x (with y) used in z way solves the puzzle.”

Inventories can include items that aren’t physical objects. Trauma Team has patient symptoms and murder clues as inventory items, and the Ace Attorney series has statements and ideas as item types. Lost in Shadow had your character collect memories, and Resonance allows you to refer to past events in your “long-term memory” section of inventory.

To name a memory, and object, or a thought--is to both reduce it to less than it really is and to allow us to manipulate it. An object is more than its name, but without using that name or icon, we cannot think about what we want to do with it. But virtual worlds are different. An item in a game will have a verbal and pictorial description (including within the game’s code) that completely describe how the item works in that world.

These ideas-as-objects in a game are both what they say they are and not. You’ve probably experienced a moment like in Hotel Dusk where you know what you need to do but your character doesn’t. That time in Ace Attorney where you present evidence that contradicts the testimony, only to have it not be the “right” thing. It’s frustrating, yes, and maybe the designers could have done better, but if we ignore them for a minute and just look at the game they produced as an object, it’s an object that teaches us how unsympathetic computers are. How computers do exactly what we tell them to do, and they don’t have feelings.

I’m in awe of how objects, even man-made objects, can teach us things unintended or unknown by their designers.

I initially write this piece for something else, and now a few months later I figure I might as well publish it here, even if it is kind of weird and might not accurately reflect OOO. Also it is kind of obviously/painfully inspired by Bogost's Alien Phenomenology.

Feminine Aesthetic in Game Design

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Sat, 30 Mar 2013 00:21:00 +0000

I've been thinking about how gender influences design and narrative style in videogames.

In my graduate seminar on Western-American literature, we discussed the book Borderlands: La Frontera. The book is written by a woman who sees herself on the border in the ways she defines herself: in her ethnicity, her sexuality, and her culture. We talked about how a writing style can be masculine or feminine (of course using very stereotyped definitions of masculine/feminine). Academic writing is, according to this theory, very masculine: it's highly linear, hierarchical, orderly, and institutionalized (in its publication, who can write it, etc.). Feminine writing is more circuitous, expressive, and personal. Maybe feminine isn't a great word for it; maybe it should be called experimental or expressionist. But I wonder if gender plays into it.

If you've read Anthropy's Rise of Videogame Zinesters (I reviewed it), it's a good example of a "feminine" non-fiction narrative style. It includes personal experiences, videogame history from a non-AAA point-of-view, how-tos and inspiration for making your own games.

Recently I've been playing Magical Diary. It's a scheduling-type game where your decisions and stats determine how you pass your exams and who your romantic interest is. You need to play through the game more than once to see all the possible options; for this reason I'll label it "circuitous." This is different from a New Game + where your character is stronger or the bosses are harder on a 2nd playthrough. There are a few conversations where you get to decide what to say, so I'd say it's also kind of expressive.

Recently, many personal games have been coming out of the Twine scene, many written by women (not that a man couldn't write in a feminine style, just that he often chooses not to). They're experimental, personal, and/or branching. So I think if I were to apply this idea of feminine aesthetics to game design, it would look like this (and I don't think any one game is completely feminine or non-feminine; just some ideas):

circuitous, non-linear, cyclic
expressive: the emotions of the player or player character are central to the game's "message"
personal: since many games by women are made by small teams or individuals, they can put others in their shoes in an eye-opening way. Think dys4ia or Mainichi or Actual Sunlight.

Aspects of masculine design could be the inverse... but they don't have to be. For instance, Oblivion is a very non-linear game, but its hierarchical quest and level structure are very masculine aspects of the design. So masculine design aspects would be:

linearity or being "on rails"
empowering: the game makes players feel powerful or special
hierarchical: tied to empowering; a linear structure enables a game to scaffold the player's learning (like in Portal), or familiarity with an arbitrary combat system (leveling, quests, etc.).

This ties into videogame publishing and feminist aesthetics. This article, in describing the background of feminist aesthetics, describes the fear as "the systems of representation that are available in Western culture are so irredeemably male that a woman can only be heard if she adopts a male perspective, if she speaks as a man." Since self-publishing is easier, women's voices are out there, but are they being listened to?

Otome dating sims, where you're a girl looking for romance, are kind of hard to find. There are a few good publishers and they're small. There are a lot of visual novels out there too, and it's kind of hard to find excellently written ones. Is it because the feminine aesthetics that brought them into being are fundamentally opposed to an orderly distribution service like Steam? Or is it because Steam (or other large downloadable publishers) only listens to women's voices when the speak "as a man"?

There are other games that include many feminine aspects but are still masculine in their design. Take Portal. You're making paths instead of killing people; your character is a mistress of the void, yet you are carefully led through a linear series of puzzles. I think Tomb Raider especially suffers from this conflict between masculine and feminine design aesthetics, but I haven't played it so I don't feel like I can write much more about it.

I'm trying out ideas here; is it silly to designate some design aspects as "masculine" or "feminine"? Or do you think it's a distinction worth thinking about?

I consulted this feminist aesthetics article when writing this.

Best games for coping with pain

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Mon, 25 Mar 2013 18:11:00 +0000

When people are sick, they usually want a familiar distraction. I read about various games people play when they're sick, and they come from all genres. Writer Coombs says he likes playing Super Mario Bros. when he's sick, since he's played the game so many times and his muscle memory can automatically get him through it. For me that would be crazy. I can barely get through the first few levels when I'm well. Coping with a sickness is a lot about waiting out your misery until you feel better.

Games that help me cope with pain are similar, but require a more specific type of game to be effective. SnowWorld, the VR game that helps burn victims cope with the pain of skin treatments, focuses on total immersion. The patients wear headsets and noise-cancelling headphones. When compared to a game like Mario Kart, SnowWorld is much better at distracting from pain. I know that games can be a powerful distraction, and I think a game's ability to distract depends on the genre of game and the player's experience with that game.

For me, the best pain-distraction game is Lumines. It's a falling-block game where the difficulty waxes and wanes with the soundtrack, and I'm proficient enough to play for 30-40 minutes before losing. I loaned out my Vita and struggled to find a good replacement game.

Tetris and Dr. Mario got too difficult too quickly for me to "zone out" to them. It made me wish that either game had a fixed-difficulty "endless" mode. I also tried out a match-3 game Zoo Keeper, which had many of the qualities I sought: it requires continual attention, the task is not too difficult and game sessions last a long time. However, as you level up, you have less time to find a match; it made me panic (it's otherwise a fun and cute match-3 game).

I tried out some other types of games to help with my pain. The DenpaMen,* a dungeon-crawler where you sit around watching your Denpa men automatically fight for you, was pretty good to zone out to, but it doesn't require enough of my attention to make me forget I'm in pain. RPGs are pretty good, but when the story gets going it's like I'm reading a book, which isn't as... interactive? So I've been trying to play more puzzle games in hopes of finding a good "zone out" game. Any recommendations?

*listen to parts of The DenpaMen soundtrack here... it's cute.

Inspiring Women Game Devs

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Fri, 01 Mar 2013 19:25:00 +0000

I haven't participated in Critical Distance's monthly Blogs of the Round Table blog prompts for a while, but this month is about ladies in videogames we admire. And um... there are a lot of women in games I admire. I'll start with developers.

Christine Love: When I played Don't take it personally, babe, it just ain't your story back in 2011, I was first impressed with the mechanics/story of the game. Then I realized that Christine wrote all the code and story herself (it's also where I found out about Ren'py). Which is awesome. And after that I kept finding more women who were making games that I liked a lot more than the puzzle-platformers I keep seeing (they're fun sometimes, I just like a little variety in my indie games).

Deirda Kiai's Life Flashes By was another game I played happily (remember when Brainy Gamer was like "you've probably never heard of it" thereby solidifying his position as indie game hipster?). I was impressed with how the story inspired reflection on my own life choices. And after I played it, I found out it was designed/written by a woman. The quality was a little amateurish at times, and I realized that at some point a game can still be really good, even if it doesn't always look/sound like a professionally-made game. I mean "amateurish" in the best way possible.

Lively Ivy is another woman who keeps making games, and has been making games for a while. After I played a little bit of Spooks I felt like maybe I could try to do some pixel art sometime. It's inspiring to see how these artists started out doing smaller projects which eventually get put on Steam and stuff.

I don't actually know Bentosmile's gender, but their small games have inspired me too. I love how cute the games are as well as how they say things about the world. Things like "the attitude you have affects how you see others." I really like Zoe Quinn's games too. Even the small ones.

Speaking of niche genres, I was so happy when I found Hanako Games. I felt like there were other people who liked simulation games and games with lots of story. I just found out that Georgina Bensley pretty much runs Hanako Games and... that's awesome. I loved Long Live the Queen and the demos of the other games. I'm so glad these genres aren't dying out.

Around the time I started going on Twitter last year, I read Anna Anthropy's book about how anyone can make a videogame. It inspired me to make a simple and stupid game in Stencyl, and then another game in Twine. It helped me feel like even if I couldn't make a really professional game, making a game is still worthwhile. It's kind of like how I cook all the time even though I'm not a professional chef. You don't need a food license to cook for yourself, and you don't need a degree in computer science to make a fun or stupid game.

My older sister Andrea is also an inspiration to me. She made a math game on her graphing calculator for me when I was a kid, which was basically Data from Star Wars: TNG asking me math facts. She helps me feel like programming is something I can do if I sit down and think about it. You know, the logic of "well my sibling did it so I should be able to do it too." She also made a choose-your-own hypertext adventure game about a spaceship that I can't find anymore (maybe it was someone else?). She has written her own murder-mystery parties, and she and her husband made a mod for Neverwinter Nights. Oh, and she and I are making a videogame together about newlyweds colonizing a planet (I just help a little with writing).

It's not just one woman making games who has inspired me. It's how multiple women have successfully made games that I really like, and how they keep doing it, even though their games have kind of a niche audience. So... thank you, women making games! You inspire me.

Virtue's Last Reward fixes all the annoying things about 999

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Mon, 25 Feb 2013 17:50:00 +0000

Remember when I was whining that visual novels should learn a thing or two from sequential art/comics? I think a designer over at Chunsoft must have felt the same way, because Virtue's Last Reward (VLR) solved most of the problems I had with 999. VLR is the sequel to 999 and is in the same genre: visual novel with periodic escape puzzles.

The worst thing about the writing in 999 was that it was redundant to visual information. It was like they were expecting a blind person to play the game and describing physical attributes and degree of passion on comments when we had a picture of the person and their expression to learn that from. Thankfully, VLR cut back on this annoying literary technique. It made the dialogue go by faster and helped it feel like a game where characters are talking to each other and not a novel being read to you.

By far my favorite part of VLR, which I think other branching stories should adopt, was the story flow chart.

After you get one ending, instead of starting from the beginning and skipping through lots of text, you can go back to the last story-branching decision and choose the other option. Or you can go to some other branch and see how that part unfolds. You still end up skipping a lot of text, but compared to the alternative it is relatively painless.

The other nice part is that after you escape from a room once, you don't need to ever solve it again to escape. This feature isn't used very often though, because the designers made it so every single path has a different puzzle room to solve. So the writing is better and the branching story is easier to navigate.

Another aspect I liked was that the things you learn in some branches of the storyline unlock other parts. It made it feel more like you were building up to the "true" ending and less like you were just seeing all the possible endings. The fact that your character can sometimes remember things from other timelines makes this like... a modernist visual novel? Or you know, just ridiculous sci-fi. There are so many crazy reveals and it made me look forward to each ending. I can't believe I actually LIKED the ridiculousness of it all. I'm looking forward to the sequel.

Depression Quest!

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Thu, 14 Feb 2013 18:13:00 +0000

For a long time, I've been somewhat fascinated by depression. I've had friends who suffered from it. I studied psychology in college, and depression was a part of those studies. I've read personal essays and fiction describing the abyss and clustercuss that is a depressive episode. But none of these experiences have made the experience as clear as Zoe's Depression Quest (well, Zoe Quinn and Patrick Lindsey). If you choose to isolate yourself and give in to feeling crummy, your depression gets worse. These negative feedback loops are the things that feed depression. But you can't "just do" things or snap out of it--depending on your depression level, certain options will be unavailable.

Playing this game fills me with compassion for those who suffer from depression. It also helps me recognize my own "depressive"* thoughts--like when it seems like everyone is doing cooler things than me, or when I feel useless, or when I don't feel like talking to anyone I haven't known for more than two years. I think everyone should play this game--it will make you more compassionate and understanding if you haven't suffered from depression, and it might help you feel like you're not alone if you have.

*I don't have clinical depression. But we all get down sometimes.

Ni no Kuni is bringing the airship back

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Fri, 08 Feb 2013 18:29:00 +0000

"I want an airship in my game. Not an airship where you just select where you want to go, but one you can actually move around the world in." This was my husband's one stipulation about what an RPG should have. After a bit of discussion, I wasn't sure if such a game existed this-gen (although I think Tales of the Abyss has one). I remember googling "airship JRPG" to try to find a JRPG with whole-world exploration, and not being able to find one (it's not the most searchable topic... so please comment with your favorite explorable JRPGs).

So you can imagine how we've been enjoying Ni no Kuni, the JRPG that incorporates some aspects of old-school design (including a way to explore the world aerially), while at the same time making the genre highly accessible.

And by "accessible," I mean, "a good introduction to JRPGs for this generation." Some JRPGs get difficult very quickly, and require strategies that a 10-year-old might not think of. I'm glad we have games that are difficult, but I still appreciate games that are made with children and adults in mind; Ni no Kuni does this excellently. The pun-filled "pieces of art" quests might go over a few kids' heads, but they made me chuckle. I don't mind that Drippy always tells me how to beat a boss, and I've enjoyed playing on easy to just enjoy the exploration and story.

Being able to explore a world is key to my enjoyment of an RPG. In some games the amount of possible exploration is overwhelming (like Oblivion), but I'd prefer that to a railroaded course like in FFXIII. Repeatable battles still strike me as a way to extend the "fun" content of exploring and story-reading, which makes me wonder if I'd like an RPG that completely got rid of combat (I probably would; I really enjoyed To the Moon).

Combat in Ni no Kuni is what has bothered me the most. In an effort to make the game easy for children to understand, the AI controls are very minimal (but exist!). It's very common for an ally to dump all their MP out on a battle they could have won using only one ability (the alternative is "no abilities"). It's probably a sign that I've matured in my RPG strategies; I doubt I would have cared about ally AI as a teenager.

The lack of AI control is completely forgivable given how well-written and gorgeous the art is. The creatures you fight have funny names like in Pokemon--one chick creature is a "Teeny Bopper" while a cat creature is a "Purrloiner." Yes, it's that kind of humor.

Have you been enjoying Ni No Kuni? I-I think you would probably like it.

Crayon Physics at a science museum

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Mon, 21 Jan 2013 23:34:00 +0000

Do you remember Crayon Physics Deluxe? While I was in Portland I spotted it at the science museum OMSI in a display in their physics lab, alongside World of Goo. It made me smile inside.

An adorable adventure game you might not have played yet

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:04:00 +0000

I love how The Sea Will Claim Everything (TSWCE) looks homemade. It reminds me of the little mazes my older brother and I would draw during church. We drew little swords and shields to collect on your quest to the end to fight a static but scary boss. Other styles have their place, but Verena Kyratzes's illustration style is warm and inviting. The music makes me feel the same, like I've come home to something I can befriend.

TSWCE is a point-and-click adventure in a fantasy setting. Like in fantasy novels, circumstances mirror our own, like the financial ruin of governments and irresponsible leaders and stupid bureaucratic things. The home you start out in is a complex biological organism, and every mushroom and book is given a loving and humorous description that Terry Pratchett would be proud of.

We have so many games that are edgy and gritty and stupidly self-aware. This game provides the antidote to self-satisfied naval-gazing: a sincere story, warm, cute art, and characters who aren't either good or bad, but have opinions that you might agree or disagree with (unless they're the bad guys and well, yeah). Lana at Bit Creature wrote more eloquently than I of this game's loveableness.

I want you to play this game too. If you're not sure if you'd like it, try the free The Fabulous Screech, which has the same feel in a short-story game format. You can buy TSWCE for $10 and upvote it on Steam's Greenlight, if you like what you see. And if you do play it, let me know what you think! Part of the fun of playing games is discussing them.

Best of the past few months!

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Tue, 04 Dec 2012 20:26:00 +0000

Hey reader! I've been writing stuff on other sites, and some of it is good reading.

Nightmare Mode:
I'm a contributing editor here. I wrote about how eating in videogames should mean more than just food; it can be a way for the game to introduce players to a unique fantasy culture (games should have that too). I also wrote an article on the ethics of killing people in videogames; my conclusion was that it depends on your intent. I'll be publishing on Nightmare Mode on the first Saturday of every month.

Kill Screen:
I finished up my internship! I wrote a butt-ton of headliners; 3-5 a day the six months I worked there. Now I'm trying to spend less time reading game news online and more time on actually playing games, editing, and being a good housewife. My favorite headliners were on psychology research related to videogames; how enjoying your leisure time is a sign of maturity, how kids who play games are more creative in writing and drawing, how playing a 3D first-person game can improve women's spatial reasoning, and how videogames relieved one girl's Tourette's symptoms. I also wrote a review for them on Gravity Rush, where I discussed the game's magical realism elements.

HEY ICE KING: Why'd you steal our garbage? Review

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Wed, 21 Nov 2012 18:36:00 +0000

I've been anticipating this game with much excitement! I played through it yesterday and this morning and it is excellent (if a bit short)! The Adventure Time DS/3DS game is fun for any fan of the series. My husband who is not as big of a fan said it looked fun too. It's a 2D action/adventure game, and I think an old-school game deserves an old-school review. So here we go!

THE GAMEPLAY: People have been saying it's a lot like Zelda II. The enemy encounters and walking everywhere on the minimap are like Zelda II, but the difficulty is not. It was easy enough for me to beat, and I suck at Zelda games. For those who like more challenge, supposedly the New Game+ is a little more difficult. You hit enemies with one of several moves to do damage; if you can't avoid them you take a hit.

Food lying around gets you health back, as do the numerous save points. You can combine condiments with food to make it better, but only if you find the right combination (I put wildberry jam on a royal tart and it actually hurt me when I ate it). Oh, and I think apple pies are probably the best healing thing in the game.

There were lots and lots of items to give you temporary powers. I tended to save them up instead of using them... the only ones I was glad I saved was a bomb for a boss, and some wings to get to a certain area sooner. The others I think I should have used as soon as I got them so I could have had more room in my inventory for food.

I loved the save points in this game. They were always there when I needed one, and since they give you full health, they cut down on the need to constantly chomp down on hamburgers.

img src

THE STORY: You're running around on fetch quests trying to find the Ice King, who stole your garbage. You get to interact with many characters from the TV show, and it's hilarious. I laughed out loud several times.

A few times I was feeling stuck and almost stopped playing, but I thought "I'll just go back here or explore this next area" and that always worked. Like I said, the game wasn't very long, but I'm actually glad it didn't get much harder. It might have been cool to have one more area in outer space or something, but the arc of the game felt good, and I wasn't sick of playing when it ended.

THE MUSIC: I loved it. I think my favorite was the little remix of the theme song for the victory music. I didn't care for the song playing on the title (the theme only covered by a different band), but the rest matched my expectations for zelda and megaman-themed music. The final boss theme song was also hilarious and awesome.

THE GRAPHICS: Cute and perfect.

THE COLLECTOR'S EDITION: The map was the map from the game and... not all that cute, although I guess they were going for a retro feel, which I understand. The little monster guide booklet had some cute copy in it. The sword stylus is cool, but this game doesn't use the stylus that much, so I might have to use it for some other game. The Enchiridion case is awesome, and since I'm a big fan it was worth the extra $10 to get some goodies. Otherwise it's probably not worth it (like most collector's editions).

PERFECT FOR: Children with a 3DS who are old enough to read and understand information (it's all text), and fans of Adventure Time.

Play Therapy and Asperger's Syndrome

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Sat, 17 Nov 2012 19:36:00 +0000

A while back I wrote a post about "ludotherapy," or using videogames as a springboard for discussion in psychotherapy. Kevin Hull, who wrote the dissertation I discussed there, e-mailed me and mentioned he wrote a book related to his dissertation, and I asked him for a copy in exchange for writing about it. My bachelor's is in psychology, and I worked with children in high-conflict divorces for a brief time, which often included playing with them. This was my first time reading an entire book about play therapy, and it makes me want to read more.

The structure of Play Therapy and Asperger's Syndrome is highly organized with specific play therapies recommended for the problems children with Asperger's typically encounter. Hull's approach is anecdotal (with a few citations where needed), and he stresses the need to adapt techniques to each individual. There's no one chapter on videogames, but rather, the book is organized by problem type with videogames as a resource for addressing several different problems. I was struck by Hull's high level of respect for children and teens with Asperger's, which seems fitting of a child therapist. My own eye-rolling to the constant reference to "these remarkable young people," made me think I should stop being such a cynical reductionist about certain types of people.

So what is play therapy? It's more than a way for a child to feel comfortable talking with the strange adult who is their therapist. It's also a safe, nonverbal space for them to express their fears and insecurities. With videogames, it often becomes a way to teach children that they can transfer their skills of persistence and problem-solving to the real world.

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Reading about play therapy made me excited to see children and try out some of the techniques myself—things like telling a child what they're doing to let them know you're watching them, or with older children (and adults), talking about how the themes from a videogame can help us cope with our anxieties and other problems. With videogames specifically, the "game as metaphor" technique was the most common Hull mentioned. Here's an example:

The "clones" from Lego Star Wars that constantly try to attack the player and thwart progress can illustrate bullies. Challenges that have to be completed to get to the next level can be used as metaphors for conquering fears and getting through situations that the child diagnosed with AS views as unpleasant. When a metaphor presents itself, I push the pause button on the controller to stop the action to explain the metaphor.

Merely playing a videogame is usually not enough to be therapeutic. It's the discussion of the game and how it applies to real life that makes the experience meaningful to a child. Hitting the pause button and saying "there, right there, you were brave."

Hull has another technique where he has the child play Tetris on a very high level, with the intent of frustrating the child. The frustrating experience provides a setting to learn and apply principles of relaxation and controlling your emotions that is a real test of those skills! I find these examples of teaching and practicing coping skills to be an excellent example of what applied psychology/psychotherapy should do well. I wonder if teaching adolescents to think about game design (why a level was made the way it is) could help them think more about how other people think and feel.

As adults, we are in a similar situation with videogames. We can play them "just" for fun, though some games are positioned to teach specific lessons. But I would argue that for any game, discussing the experience will make it more meaningful and applicable to our daily lives. I think that's why I feel passionate about videogame criticism; it's not just that I love videogames, but that thinking about them makes my own life richer. It's a way for me to contemplate life while still focusing on an experience in itself (playing a game).

In short, play therapy sounds like an excellent way for children and teens (and I would argue, adults) to express themselves. If you are a parent, I would encourage you to take a little time to play with your children, even if it seems awkward or you don't have a lot of time (children are impressed when you play with them! Even once a week can make a difference). I highly recommend this book to any child psychologist who deals with clients with Asperger's, and also parents of children with Asperger's and anyone interested in play therapy. It's a little on the expensive side to read on a whim, but if you're in college you can probably get the book on ILL. Next time a child asks "can you play with me?" think of it as an opportunity to enter their imaginative world! :-)

Traditional Halloween means more ghosts

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Fri, 19 Oct 2012 22:16:00 +0000

In true hipster fashion I have been ruminating on the true meaning of Halloween. I read up on some old
customs, and I was struck by what has changed and what hasn't.

Things that haven't changed:
-dressing up
-trick-or-treating
-bobbing for apples/eating donuts on a string
-drinking cider
-jack-o-lanterns (granted, some were made with huge turnips, but same idea)

Things we don't do anymore:
-we don't go door-to-door for flowers to put on the graves of our ancestors so they won't haunt us
-we don't make cakes with objects that indicate our future luck (one tradition baked a key, ring, and thimble into a cake. If you got one in your piece, they represented a journey, marriage, and spinsterhood respectively).
-we don't do weird stuff with mirrors/apples to find out the initials of the person we'll marry
-tell ghost stories

In short, I wish our Halloween traditions were more superstitious!

One tradition gamers have is playing horror games (because duh!). I generally dislike horror--it's full of surprising, gruesome, and inexplicable things. And sometimes they're really scary, although I have yet to play a game that has me scared like books or films I've seen. What I would really like to play during Halloween times are games that deal with the supernatural.

Ghosts figure prominently in Blackwell Deception (still available for cheap at the Fall Indie Royale bundle). It's startling to see a ghost, because it means that person has died, but they aren't out to get you, necessarily. The ghosts act like regular people who don't know they're dead yet, for the most part. I also love the rumors in Persona 2 (well, I would love them if I could get anywhere in that game) and how the devils have little personalities. Less scary, more weird!

(my information on Halloween traditions came from The Halloween Book, which you can download for free from Forgotten Books. Or you could buy it on Amazon. The image is from the concept art for Guild War 2's Halloween update coming up on the 23rd.)

Poker matching games: the safe way to play.

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 21:43:00 +0000

Since I'm Mormon I don't gamble, but if I did I think my bets would be on Blackjack. You're playing against statistics and the deck, not some weird bluffing game. Bluffing is a bit different in a virtual setting though, as this guide to playing poker in Red Dead Redemption shows; computers can't really see you bluffing. Although wouldn't it be cool if the computer could tell when you were bluffing based on your heart rate/sweat level (and not by cheating)? It's possible!

Okay, I'm not actually all that interested in playing virtual poker (it's more fun with friends). I am interested in a pair of games that look extremely similar. Poker Drop and Poker Squares initially look like copycats, but one is a falling block game while the other is not. They both involve making poker hands for points though.

I'm not sure what makes a poker block game better than other match-3 games. Maybe it's the allure of poker in the risk-free environment of a mobile app, or the traditional rules that make it more "accessible" to older players (I think Spider Solitaire is still the favorite of that demographic).

Poker Squares

Poker Drop

Academic Interlude: Videogames as therapy for mental disorders

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Fri, 05 Oct 2012 00:57:00 +0000

Last month I blurbed a study that made a videogame that senses various physical states and treated anger and anxiety. This game has been haunting me with how revolutionary it is. It's not just detecting brain waves like those cool moving cat-ear headbands. The game is connected to a system that measures sweat, blood oxygen levels, heart rate, skin temperature, and breathing. From these data, the game can tell what mood you're in (I think there are also facial and speech recognition tools in the software, but that's an even bigger piece to chew).

The researchers used a system called MobiHealth Mobile. This is what it looks like:

It's a lot less bulky than some biofeedback devices I've seen. Those little sensors probably go on your fingers.

Okay, so you have data about what the player's mood is. What can you do with that data? Well, you can tell when they're getting frustrated, and send them to meditate until they physically calm down.

When high undesired emotional and/or physiological reactions (e.g. anger feelings, impulsiveness, non-relaxed reactions, frustration, quick and unplanned responses) are detected by the video game, the game immediately directs the avatar to a relaxed area with the goal to calm down. During the whole game session, higher undesired emotional and/or physiological reactions are coupled with greater difficulty to reach the end goals of the video game (e.g. while diving the fishes are more difficult to catch, more obstacles appear in the mini-games). More relaxed and self-controlled reactions are positively reinforced by the game, making the situations easier to handle and the end goals easier to reach.

In their game PlayMancer, the frustrating minigame is trying to collect things underwater while maintaining their oxygen level. In the calming game, more stars appear based on how relaxed you are.

Now, what if there were a game that undermined these goals? You could make a boss get tougher and tougher based on how frustrated (or how calm) the player was. Or a game where you don't die until your palms are sweating with anger. Or a dating sim that only gives you the suave lines if you're really calm. THINK OF THE POSSIBILITIES. Think of how immersive this would be combined with the Oculus Rift.

Here's a short gameplay video of Playmancer, which looks like some kind of a college senior project, but the impressive part about this game is the inputs, which unfortunately you can't see.

Source: "Video games as a complementary therapy tool in mental disorders: PlayMancer, a European multicentre study" by Fernando Fernandez-Aranda et al.

Orson Scott Card on writing in videogames.

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Fri, 21 Sep 2012 04:28:00 +0000

The Orson Scott Card writing in videogames workshop was today! It went from 8:30-5:30... so it was a long day. Luckily Card is funny and engaging. The workshop was made possible from a grant a UVU faculty member applied for... so good on him!

Highlights: Card is so amazingly fun to brainstorm with. I found myself being critical of other people's ideas, whereas he ran with them to make some really interesting scenarios (see the notes for details). Maybe I need to work on brainstorming more, since turning my critical mode off would really be useful once in a while.

I'm a fan of the Ender series, so hearing an author I like talk for a while was kind of mind-blowing (authors are real people!). I admire that he's done so much on his own and how he tries to show both sides of issues, and how there isn't always a right and a wrong to a situation, which I think videogames could really use (thanks, Bioware). But then again, since combat is such a big part of so many genres, there's kind of a need for an everlasting, ever-spawning enemy, which limits the kinds of stories you can tell.

Drawbacks: Card kept complaining that he hadn't seen any awesome SF/Fantasy writing in videogames... but he's not all that into videogames. He's content to play Civilization II, which is fine, but he made a lot of generalizations about the industry that I felt weren't as accurate as they might have been ten years ago (he hadn't heard of Skyrim or Minecraft... just sayin'). He was aware of Kickstarter though, and how the publishing model is dying, so he's not completely behind the times.

Card is a writer and as such, was pretty focused on linear storytelling in games. It's what he does best! But I'm also interested in how story and gameplay can merge.

I've scanned in my notes below in the interest of archival-ness and maximalism.

Proof that this actually happened

Making a videogame is... really fun.

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Tue, 18 Sep 2012 23:25:00 +0000

I participated in Adventure Time Game Jam! I made a game called When Sneezles Attack. I used the engine Twine, which was really easy to work with. If you'd like to make a game in Twine, Anna Anthropy/Auntie Pixelante made an excellent tutorial (and look my game is totes on her list of sample twine games I am proud/flattered).

Writing the story was really fun. I had some ideas about how I wanted the story to go--I wanted to be able to visit parts of Ooo, I wanted to include some of the regular characters, and I wanted it to have the same kind of bizarre but sometimes logical humor I love in Adventure Time. It's much easier to imitate a style and use someone else's characters than to make my own, and that helped me write it all the faster. At first I wanted you to be Neptr and not realize it right away, and then have to find Finn and then start your quest, but I felt like that would be kind of frustrating. I liked the idea of undermining the expectation that you were playing as Finn though. Adam helped me design the story so you have a goal right away (at first it was just nebulous exploring), and he helped brainstorm a few things with me too.

After I wrote the initial story, I worked on the variables. Basically, if you ever pick up an item or return to a location, I wanted it to make a difference in the story. So the third time you visit Princess Bubblegum, she'll ask how Jake is doing (that one was actually pretty hard... but I found a way for it to work by ordering the text a non-chronological way). Whenever you get an item, the game remembers, so you can use it later on. It was my first time programming a complete game with variables, but this was an excellent place to practice that. It's like magic!

Working on the code was kind of strange... like, after I had read through the game so much I couldn't tell if it was funny or not anymore. It also felt like my brain changed from creative to complete bug-squasher. Coding also reminded me that I'm not a robot (if I were, writing <<endif>> [correct] instead of <<end if>> [incorrect, but a very common error of mine] would have been so much easier).

I feel really excited when people tell me they have played it! Especially if it made them laugh. Like, kind of giddy... is this how all game developers feel about their games? No wonder they keep making them.

I guess making this game, and seeing people enjoy it, reminded me that I can write pretty well, and given the right circumstances I can be funny too! I found it really satisfying. I recommend this experience. :-)

Things games haven't touched: how to get pregnant, mysterious illnesses, and housekeeping.

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Tue, 11 Sep 2012 03:02:00 +0000

Blogs of the Round Table, or BoRT, is back. Part of the topic this month is about what subjects games haven't explored and what they should focus on.

One thing games do well is simulation. I can grow a garden in Cultivation and maintain a dam in The Best Dam Simulation Ever. These are complex situations with multiple variables. I think the same technology could be applied to help women learn about their fertility cycles.

This sounds weird, but stick with me. I've been trying to get pregnant for a year and finally stumbled upon the book Taking Charge of Your Fertility, which discusses how a woman's waking temperature and cervical mucus can indicate if she's fertile or not (I discuss it in gruesome detail over on my non-gaming blog). There are a couple of different hormones that contribute to things. And knowing about how these variables are connected can help women understand when they can get pregnant or if they have emotional patterns associated with these variables. Do you see where I'm going with this? It seems like the perfect setup for a simulation! Easy mode could have completely typical hormone levels and simple goals like conception or avoiding conception, while more difficult ones could involve weird illnesses or thyroid disorders.

There are a lot of other topics I find would be good subjects for videogames. The game TRAUMA looks at a woman's experience with some kind of, well, trauma. It's one thing to have a sickness that doctors can identify and treat, but quite another to have real symptoms but no diagnoses. Wouldn't it be interesting to play a game in the shoes of someone who suffers from Fibromyalgia, and feel the frustration of not knowing what your body will throw at you next? I suppose that doesn't sound very fun, but I feel like games have such a potential for us to understand minority or simply unusual circumstances that I'm surprised there aren't more autobiographical games like dys4ia.

Another type of simulation I'd love to see is a relationship simulation with a significant other--someone your character is committed to and has already courted, and preferably they live in the same space. It could even be a roommate I guess. And then figuring out how to resolve various conflicts, like whether or not you want to kill the invading mice or who does the dishes or what kind of budget you have (basically housekeeping things). It just seems like the logical continuation after Princess Maker 2 or any game that ends with your character getting married.

I keep dreaming of a simulation game that involves all these things, but I recognize that I don't yet have the skill to implement it. I know game journalists wanting to make games is kind of cliche, but I'm definitely curious. And studying Python. :-)

8-bit sculptures as minimalist homages

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Thu, 06 Sep 2012 00:55:00 +0000

It's not enough to have cool/cute pixel art anymore. It has to relate to previous modern art canon. Michael Whiting's 8-Bit Modern shows how the elegant limitations of a pixelated form can make for beautiful modern art. As Whiting puts it:

In my visual experience Pac-Man came before Donald Judd, Carl Andre or even Mondrian. For me Broadway Boogie Woogie will always be an homage to Pac-Man. My current work explores the visual connection between minimalism and early video games.

I took these photos in BYU Museum of Art's sculpture garden here in Utah. Seeing the abstract forms out in nature is surreal. Unlike their videogame counterparts, these sculptures are static and impervious to my actions. I recommend stopping by the museum this fall if you have time, especially since there's a Takashi Murakami exhibit there too.

Michael Whiting's site and his blog
Plus + gallery has actually professional photos of this exhibit at the MOA.

Ghost Trick expertly uses elements of visual novels.

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Thu, 30 Aug 2012 20:01:00 +0000

Whenever I have a hard time thinking of what I should write for a blog post, I try to think of a game I have played and not written about. Usually I'm like "ahhh I had things I wanted to say while I was playing this and forgot all about them!" So my advice to myself is: if you play a game, write about it. I've been trying to cover some more obscure things over at Kill Screen (maybe to a fault). And it's kind of hard to find stuff sometimes! I spend a lot of time curating--reading over news from various sites and mulling over whether or not our readers would find it interesting. I should probably get less picky because it's ridiculous how much time it can take (or not take).

ANYWAY, what I really wanted to write about is how Ghost Trick basically addressed all my complaints in my post about what visual novels should learn from comics. Short recap: Things that bug the heck out of me in visual novels are 1) information redundant to the artwork, 2) artwork that doesn't pack much information in it, and 3) a slow pace. Ghost Trick avoided all of these. The narration didn't tell me things I already knew from visual information (though it did review information I needed to make sense of the plot). Characters had unique animations that brought out their personalities:

The game ended about where I was beginning to tire of the mechanics, and had a satisfying, if ridiculous, ending. It was really fun to see a game execute parts of visual novel style in such an excellent way. Some might argue that it's not really a visual novel, in which case I might just have to admit that I don't particularly like visual novels as a genre.

I feel bad about disliking most visual novels... but I think if I'm going to spend all that time reading on a bright screen I want to have some interaction with the story. If there isn't some kind of gameplay (like the puzzle sections in Ghost Trick or 999), or a branching storyline, then I might as well be reading a comic book, in my mind.

I started playing around with Ren'Py, the python-based visual novel engine, and immediately I wanted to learn about things like making choices and keeping track of statistics. I think it's more about how the elements of visual novels combine with others that make it interesting (I find reading scripts for plays terribly boring, but generally enjoy seeing them... I see visual novels as a game that's missing vital parts). On the other hand, I can see how for a budding designer, learning one or two parts of a game at a time could be really useful, fun, and instructive. Feel free to share about why I shouldn't give up on visual novels!

We are revitalizing games journalism.

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Tue, 21 Aug 2012 21:05:00 +0000

There's a piece over at Nightmare Mode by Alan Williamson about how people who are writing about videogames for free are killing games journalism. I disagree with the article in multiple ways.

First off, I don't understand why Alan is so down on people writing about games for free, since he's writing for free for Nightmare Mode and has his own games site, which he explicitly states isn't making anyone money (I've contributed to Nightmare Mode in the past, so I'm going to refer to Alan by his first name). I always thought that Nightmare Mode could at least pay its server costs from ads, but it doesn't. I honestly thought the piece was going to end with Alan telling us they couldn't afford to continue publishing like this and Nightmare Mode was going to be a thing of the past, since that's the logical continuation to me. I think he was more frustrated that good videogame criticism often goes unpaid.

Alan's cognitive dissonance notwithstanding, I disagree with him on principle. Full disclosure: I've been working as an unpaid intern for Killscreen this summer, and I've been following videogame blogs for about two years. I believe that videogame journalism needs the casual, amateur, unpaid voices.

For game reviews, the wisdom of the masses is more useful than the opinion of a rushed journalist. When I'm thinking of buying a videogame, I overwhelmingly trust things like Amazon reviews, which have little vested interest in maintaining a relationship with a PR contact for more review copies. Amazon reviews have a great variety--people who are fans of the series, people who play lots of games casually, and people who bought the game for their offspring. Basically the only thing professional game journalists have over Amazon reviewers is that they get to have the game sooner, and have an excellent grasp of the politics surrounding the publication of certain games.

Really good game criticism is hard to find. I'm not talking about "yes! you should rent this game!" I'm talking about criticism that makes me appreciate a game I thought was terrible, or that helps me see the world in a different light. To me, reading really good game criticism is almost more fun than actually playing games. I think big game outlets are gradually realizing this, since they've been snatching up my favorite bloggers. Free games journalism isn't killing paid journalism; it is revitalizing it.

You don't have to pour hours of research into writing a really good analysis of the level structure in Wolfenstein or a feminist critique of Monkey Island. You do need a good background in literary theory, though almost any liberal arts degree can give you that. Basically, I think videogame criticism can be really good even if it wasn't paid criticism. In fact, I think that unpaid articles are often less frought with "what does my editor want to see on the site?" and "what will give us the most hits?" and more concerned with what individuals writers are passionate about.

It's perfectly possible to create good writing and get paid for it, I'm just saying that getting paid for writing adds a layer of external concerns. Sometimes those external concerns are about maintaining relationships with videogame developers, whereas an amateur who isn't making a career in games journalism might be more free in their criticisms simply because they don't have a working relationship with the publishers.

Alan's best case against free games journalism is when he states that investigative journalism requires more time and research than a casual interest can justify:

Researched writing is valuable. Investigative journalism is an essential check on the powers of the state, and games journalism is vital to protect us consumers from the motives of greedy corporations, never mind moving the artistic medium forward. I love writing, but frankly I can’t carry out that kind of research and hold a full-time job as well. If that research is your full-time job, whether salaried or freelance, your work will be better for it and readers will appreciate it more. Without the insightful criticism and investigative work that paid journalism allows, you’re left with ten thousand trite reviews and a smattering of Top Ten lists.

Alan's correct in that really good investigative journalism requires a lot of effort, and that the videogame industry would benefit from it, but the majority of stories have nothing to do with investigative journalism beyond "oh so-and-so posted this unpolitic thing on Twitter/Facebook." The most recent debacle with OnLive seems like it could have used some investigative journalism. The Escapist, which prides itself on doing journalism right, noticed that PopCap studios was also having some layoffs, but concluded that "the issue may warrant further investigation." It kind of feels like no one is doing this investigative journalism that Alan speaks of. Maybe there is some good investigative journalism out there and I'm not hearing about it?

so much... investigative journalism?

I think the bigger issue is probably that readers simply aren't as interested in company layoffs as they are in the teaser trailers from Gamescom. Sites that have paid content have plenty of top ten lists--to what mythical paid journalism does Alan refer? I believe he's thinking of more "highbrow" publications...

Alan ends in urging us to put our money where our mouth is and pay more money for existing, impressive magazines like Edge and Killscreen. I think that's a great idea, but Mattie Brice's piece on how our monied culture excludes those who can't afford to vote with their dollars haunts me. If we can't afford such publications, why not support good, free writing by reading it, thinking about it, and responding to it? To me, a community of critical thinkers is much more valuable than my subscription to Killscreen. I agree that the features we used to have daily on the Killscreen website were often really good videogame writing, but I also believe that Nightmare Mode has had articles that are just as good. Your voice matters to me even if you are not paid for it.

Summer videogames!

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Thu, 09 Aug 2012 19:52:00 +0000

Hello everyone! In gaming I find I tend to cycle between playing lots of games and then not playing games and writing about them a lot. Right now I've been playing lots of games! So here's some games I've been playing in the last month I've decided to start an Amazon affiliate* account, so many links will be to Amazon. Steam has good deals too! :-) Most indie games aren't sold on Amazon, but I'll still talk about them, cause they're also awesome:

Pro Games
Psychonauts -You explore other people's brains in this action RPG from 2005. I love the collection and exploration aspects. Getting different abilities and trying them out in the world is fun too! I want to make a backpack like Rasputin's. The PC port is terrible, but my handy USB xbox controller fixed this problem. There's a lot of superfans of this game, which kind of turned me off for a while, but then a game scriptwriter, Rhianna Pratchett said it was like her favorite game ever.

Catherine -A puzzle/dating sim... I really like the moving-block puzzles, but I find the boss levels kind of ugly and unfun. I kind of wish the story were more upbeat (it's about a man cheating on his girlfriend), but at least it's weird enough to be unpredictable, and the anime cutscenes look good too.

Persona 4 Arena -I suck at fighting games, but luckily visual novel mode (yep! visual novel + a few fights) is easy enough for even my frenzied button-mashing. Some of the writing is a little lame but the fighting system has plenty of depth if I'm willing to put in the time to learn it (I might not be). I admit that I just got this game because I want to be in on all the Persona fandom... though I have yet to beat Persona 3 (I'm in September now!).

Sound Shapes -Really cute rhythm platformer for the Vita. Okay, you don't really have to have any sense of rhythm to play it (mostly timing... does that count as different?), but it's themed around collecting notes in a song that plays as you play. You can build your own levels too! Reminds me a little of Mutant Space Blobs Attack only more arty.

Indie Games
Long Live the Queen -A time management stat-cruncher! I loved the idea but I found it wasn't as flexible as Princess Maker 2 because it had kind of a story. I really liked how stats affects how you reacted to things, and how some of the classes (like foreign policy, a subcategory of history) seemed to be... really relevant for a queen-in-training. I might give it another go; the mood bonus system for learning actually requires quite a bit of planning.

The Sea Will Claim Everything -I've just been playing the generous demo but the free The Fabulous Screech will give you a good idea of the unique art style, point-and-click mechanics, and zany, Pratchett-like humor in a short, browser-based game. I love reading through the book names for gems like The Importance of Puns in the Release of Magical Energies, by Magister Erasmus of Zauberberg and The Voyage of the Darwin by Peter S. Beagle. Lana Polansky has played more of it and wrote a review praising its slower pace and political commentary.

Run -This experimental game has a soundtrack that's still running through my head! The story is a little weird, but I like that developers are messing around with how minigames can connect to each other.

What games are you playing this summer? Did you really hate a game I liked? Let me know in the comments!

*The deal with Amazon Affiliate links is that if you click an affiliate link, I'll get a 4% commission of anything you buy in the next 24 hours. I have no idea if it will make me any money, but I think it's worth a shot.

A videogame promoting moderation!?

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Fri, 27 Jul 2012 19:54:00 +0000

The Act is a vidoegame about controlling your body language. It's experimental and accessible; short yet satisfying.

While so many other games promote extremes of being completely good or evil, killing everyone and finding everything, it's refreshing to see a game promote moderation. There's no correct dialogue option; you actually have to watch the faces of the NPCs to determine how you should act. Originally, the arcade game had a knob to twist your character from shy to gregarious, but the iOS port uses swipes.

A minute in and you can get a feel for the gameplay. The other amazing thing about this game is that it's all animated, old-school Disney-style. While there are some frustrating parts, overall, I was very impressed with the exploration of this new style of interaction. I'd love to see a body-language slider in an RPG, but given how intensive it is to animate, I might have to settle for tone brackets like (sarcastic) and (imploring).

Jigsaw Puzzle Design: It's about being able to predict what pieces fit

noreply@blogger.com (Rachel Helps) — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 20:51:00 +0000

I recently had the pleasure of putting together a wooden jigsaw puzzle. It was so much more fun than the old cardboard puzzles. I got to thinking about why cardboard puzzles suck and thought I could do a little analysis for you.

Ravensburger puts out like a million of these

mini Japanese puzzle has even fewer piece types

This is from your typical cardboard puzzle. There are about six major piece types, and some rarer border and corner pieces. Since all the pieces look the same, you are pretty much stuck to looking at the colors on the pieces for figuring out where they go (oh, and the border-first thing). Having fun with this kind of puzzle relies heavily on having a diverse puzzle-picture, and having access to that picture.

Wentworth puzzle

These pieces are from a puzzle I picked up in England. Since each piece's shape is very different from the others, it's possible to build this kind of puzzle by looking at the shapes alone. There are edge pieces, but some middle pieces also have straight edges. The pieces are wooden and have a satisfying feeling of fitting, unlike cardboard pieces where the cardboard gives a little even when you're putting together pieces that fit. There are still some conventional shapes, for which you can usually guess which way is up. Little "whimsy pieces" are shaped like things and it's easy to tell which pieces fit around them (for instance, you can see the silhouette of the horse-rider's head in one of the pieces here).

the border is scalloped. This is a corner taken apart.

This last puzzle I found the most devilishly clever. The pieces are all unique shapes, but they're similar in shape and are completely unpredictable in their orientations. Even the pieces surrounding the whimsy pieces weren't immediately apparent. For this reason I found that I was using all the available clues--shape, color, texture, whatever. It was even more satisfying to look at a piece and know it was exactly the piece I needed, before fitting it in (this rarely happens when I put together cardboard puzzles).

This moment of epiphany, when I could see the solution before enacting it, is crucial to a good puzzle game. It's the same feeling I get when I play falling-block games or things like Portal and Catherine. It's what makes puzzles fun for me.

piece orientation is unpredictable. Artifact Jigsaw.

Another aspect of jigsaw puzzles is that I've liked is that they're easily multiplayer. If someone else sees you working on a jigsaw puzzle, they can instantly tell how far you are and what kind of puzzle it is. Piecing together a puzzle isn't timed, and it's cooperative. You can start without having to wait for it to load and play for as short or as long as you like (if you're willing to re-do your puzzle). I haven't really found a puzzle game that's as good at multiplayer as a good old jigsaw puzzle.