In an astonishingly short period of time, Japanese developer Level-5 has transformed itself from a small developer operating under Sony's wing to one of the premier independent game companies in the world. They've set the bar high, releasing a series of highly polished, well-crafted RPGs, including the under-appreciated Dark Chronicle, Dragon Quest VIII, Rogue Galaxy, and Jeanne d'Arc.

In 2007 Level-5 released Professor Layton and the Curious Village, a departure from its RPG-exclusive focus, and a flag planted firmly in the soil of Nintendo's portable juggernaut. Between now and the end of 2010, Level-5 will release 15 more games for the DS, including Dragon Quest IX and two more Professor Layton titles. Time will tell if the developer can sustain its standard of excellence across so many releases.

Tucked in among those forthcoming releases are two games that have captured my attention, despite precious little information available about them: Fantasy Life and The Another World. I know the gap between pre-release excitement and post-release reality is often wide and sobering, but a few things about these games make me think we have good reasons to be hopeful. Level-5's involvement is one of them, but there's more.

Fantasy LIfe is a collaboration between Level-5 and Brownie Brown. For some of you, that may be all you need to know. Brownie Brown (along with HAL Laboratory) developed Mother 3, a game I consider one of the finest RPGs ever made. It also features a soundtrack by the renowned Nobuo Uematsu, composer for the Final Fantasy series.

That's an impressive pedigree, but what really excites me about Fantasy Life (and it sure ain't the generic name) is Level-5 president and lead designer Ahihiro Hino's description of the game as a "slow-life RPG." The game presents a persistent world ala Animal Crossing in which the player creates a character and then selects one of 20 lives to lead - such as guard, merchant or miner - and then goes about daily life accomplishing tasks associated with that chosen life, slowly attaining happiness.[1]

The player can live in two fantasy kingdoms; one populated by NPCs, and the other by other players living their own lives via wi-fi connection. Fantasy Life won't appeal to everyone. But to a player like me, for whom games like Animal Crossing, Harvest Moon, and The Sims hold a strange allure, the concept of a "slow-life" experience in an evolving virtual world that I carry in my pocket? Bring me that game.

The other forthcoming Level-5 game is potentially even more exciting than the first, and again pedigree is a factor. The Another World is a collaboration between Level-5 and the legendary animation house Studio Ghibli.

This game represents Studio Ghibli's first foray into games, and while details on the game are sketchy, we know the game will include a magic book containing various spells activated using drawings with the stylus. The game will also include an actual booklet that is meant to represent the magic book from the game and is required to play the game.[2] Early screenshots and artwork suggest Studio Ghibli's loving touch.

The November issue of Nintendo Power revealed that Studio Ghibli composer Joe Hisaishi (Spirited Away, Howl's Moving Castle, Princess Mononoke) is composing a fully orchestrated soundtrack, which will require the game to be released on a 4-gigabit cartridge, the largest ever used for a DS game. Once again, I say bring me this game.

FYI, Gamasutra recently ran an interview with Level-5's Hino in which he discusses the keys to his company's success. It's well worth your time, if only for Hino's explanation of what he calls "boom triggers."

Here's hoping at least one of these games delivers on its promises. But, hey, why not both?

So here I am, an elf mage in another high fantasy RPG. This time it's Bioware's Dragon Age, filling me with  Baldur's Gate déjà vu and reminding me yet again of the coalescent predictability of the genre. I say that like it's a bad thing.

It is and it isn't. Criticizing Dragon Age's formulaic plot, malleable though it may be, is like shooting fish in a barrel. The demons from the spirit realm, the shadow lord arch-villain, the descent to the netherworld, the errands, the team gathering, the mages, rogues, and warriors - it's all well-worn territory. Dragon Age elevates it with richer characters, more interesting sidequests, and a dialogue system that can lead to genuinely surprising outcomes; but a revolutionary RPG this is not.

Dragon Age explores well-defined mythic territory, so complaining about its formulaic nature is like whining about all the singing in opera. No, my problem with Dragon Age isn't about archetypes or storytelling tropes. It's about the all-too familiar mechanical constraints that have worn out their welcome. As games like Dragon Age grow more ambitious, offering role-playing that feels increasingly flexible and responsive, the rigid niggly stuff seems more out of place than ever.

Example: I enter a refugee village full of lost orphans and hungry, displaced men and women. They desperately need food, shelter, and supplies. Meanwhile, all around the village I see glowing crates full of goodies that apparently none of these refugees can see. Why? Because those crates are how game enables me to replenish my implausibly large backpack with items I need. A homeless refugee may be paces away from an unlocked stash of valuable stuff, but that stuff is for me and only me. And once I've taken it, I can't give it to anybody except my party pals. It's an RPG thing.

Show me a villager deadset on an idea, and I'll show you a villager who's mind can be changed in a moment. A simple "Don't you think you should reconsider this?" from me is enough to provoke a full 180. Why? Because I've been grinding my way through Persuasion boosts for hours. My ability to persuade has almost nothing to do with the power of my ideas or convincing counter-arguments. Who needs 'em? I'm persuasive because I've got mad stats. It's an RPG thing.

Let's say I do something awful in the game. Chances are I'll lose status points with one of my party members, but not to worry. I can always boost my status by gifting an item I find in a crate or on the body of one of my victims. No matter how objectionable my actions or how vociferously my companions object, redemption is just around the corner with a little trinket largesse. Scruples? Who needs 'em? Why? Because the game needs a mechanism for allowing me to boost my status and hold onto my party members. Mechanics trump character integrity. It's an RPG thing.

Applying a plausibility standard to games is a ridiculous idea, of course. Games require big imaginative leaps from us, and that's half the fun. One reason the spattered blood effects in Dragon Age often seem laughably absurd is that the game seems to inexplicably strive for a burst of 'realism' amidst a sea of outrageously unrealistic action and characters. I'm not hoping for a more realistic Dragon Age; I'm wishing for a less incongruous one.

As RPGs evolve - particularly western RPGs - the problem is less about plausibility and more about leftover mechanical constraints from older games. Repeatedly bumping into the incongruities I've mentioned (and these are merely a sampling) feels less necessary than it once did. We're supposed to overlook them, but I'm beginning to wonder why we should.

Had your fill of the "Are Games Art?" debate? This edition of the podcast, featuring an interview with veteran game designer Brenda Brathwaite and art historian John Sharp, takes the conversation in a different and, I hope, more useful direction. Focusing on Brenda's remarkably poignant game Train, we discuss the intersection of art and game design and consider how a designer's personal vision and game design skills dovetail in the conception and development of a new game.

We also discuss John's views on the coming Ludic Age, and both guests share their thoughts on educating young designers for careers in the game industry. These and a variety of other topics - including an exciting conference announcement - in this edition of the Brainy Gamer podcast.

Note: If you're unfamiliar with Train, I highly recommend reading Ian Bogost's thoughtful account of it at Gamasutra. I'm linking to the section of his article that deals directly with Train, but I hope you'll read the entire piece. C'mon, it's Bogost. You know it'll be interesting. :-)

• Listen to any episode of the podcast directly from this page by clicking the yellow "Listen Now" button on the right.

• Subscribe to the podcast via iTunes here.
• Subscribe to the podcast feed here.

• Download the podcast directly here.

Show links:

• The Art History of Games conference
• Brenda's Applied Game Design blog
• SCAD - Interactive Design and Game Development program

Manifestos are fascinating documents. In the arts, they exist as snapshots of transitional cultural moments, offering insight into the ideas and motives of the artists who render them. Marinetti (Futurism), Breton (Surrealism), Zavattini (Neo-Realism), and Bazin (New Wave), were passionate advocates who urgently pointed the way forward, outlining a philosophical framework they believed would revitalize painting, sculpture, and film.

Manifestos typically require targets, so they often employ a persuasive strategy of invalidating the models they reject. The Seneca Falls Declaration of Sentiments, the Dada Manifesto, and The Cluetrain Manifesto differ wildly in their individual goals, but each call to action presumes the prevailing system is unjust, corrupt or irrelevant.

I write this as Clint Hocking wraps up his barnstorming Click Nothing Tour, spreading his message of change to game design students in New York, Boston, Pittsburgh, Savannah, and Atlanta. I don't know if Clint considers his message a manifesto, but I believe it essentially functions as one. He generously posts the texts and slides of his talks on his website, so I encourage you to check them out and decide for yourself. Here's the abstract for his most recent CN Tour talk:

The games of today unsurprisingly strive to mimic the linear, authored structures of previous generations of media largely because gamers and game developers have grown up in a world where those media are culturally dominant. That is changing. As our media become more richly interactive and as our experience of the world becomes increasingly fragmented and parallelized, a new media culture is disintegrating the old. Games of the future will reflect this cultural shift by themselves becoming more fragmentary, more parallelized, and less focused on rich simulation and traditional notions of immersion.

Hocking isn't the first or only person to talk about these things. As far as I can tell, Doug Church got the ball rolling with his  "Abdicating Authorship," talk delivered at GDC in 2000. Randy Smith has referred to authored narratives as "dead," and Jonathan Blow and Steve Gaynor, among others, have also written eloquently on the subject of storytelling and authorship in games.

I've listened to Clint Hocking speak at the last two GDCs, and I've interviewed him on my podcast. It's fair to say I've learned more about game design from him than anyone else - not mechanics or level design, but the fundamental symbiosis of game/player. His vision for the future of games excites me, and I'm convinced by his assertion that the true potential of interactivity lies in emergent player-driven narrative.

But I'm not ready to concede that authored linear narratives are the 2nd-class citizens of game design. My recent experience with Uncharted 2 suggests that there's plenty of life left in such games if - and it's a very big if - the storytelling and the game's delivery systems for that storytelling elevate the player's experience beyond the standard stuff we've seen from video games.

In other words, the problem with linear authored games isn't a question of core design, but a question of quality. If you want to make a game that relies on '30s serial action adventure movie tropes, then you must to do that extraordinarily well - with plenty of style, panache, and Hollywood production values to carry you over all the obvious pitfalls. You need genuinely smart (not just smart...for a video game), well-written and performed dialogue, and you need gameplay that feels responsive, fun, and connected to the story.

If all this sounds terribly formulaic, that's because it is. Formula can be the paint-by-numbers template that makes your project look wholly derivative, or it can be the sturdy container that holds something special. You'd be hard-pressed to identify a single genuinely original aspect of Michael Curtiz's Casablanca. Dozens of movies have told similar stories with similar characters. What elevates Casablanca is the way each of its elements: cinematography, music, performances, screenplay - so clearly surpasses the pedestrian work of other similar films.

The Casablanca parallel works on another level. Casablanca is a thematically simple film. It could have been a more ambitious meditation on pacifism or patriotism, but it's neither of those. It's a romance with action and intrigue set in an exotic locale with charismatic characters. Structurally, it's a linear narrative with an extended flashback sequence. I'm well aware of the apples and oranges objections when we compare video games to films; but in this case I think the parallel is apt. Uncharted 2 is a successful game because it doesn't try to box outside its weight. It's a ripping adventure that makes good on its wisely limited ambitions.

It's also a helluva lot of fun, and that's no small thing.

One more quick point about authored narratives. I hope we never lose sight of the fact that we humans love stories. But more than that, we love to be told stories. I'm thrilled by the power of video games to put the player in the driver's seat, but Uncharted 2 proves it's possible to do that while still appealing to our love of a good story well told. It functions beautifully as both story and storyteller. It's quite possible to see this distinguishing feature of games as no less compelling than their ability to immerse us in an emergent player-driven narrative.

Above photo: Amy Hennig, Creative Director of Uncharted 2.

This post is part of a short series devoted to Uncharted 2: Among Thieves. You can find the first two posts here and here.

We often talk about pacing in games, but I'm not sure we're all talking about the same thing. What exactly do we mean when we say a game is well or poorly paced?

Before I began writing about games, my understanding of pace grew out of my experience as a stage director. In the theater, pacing has mostly to do with tempo and rhythm; speeding up and slowing down. Good actors have an acute awareness of pacing and its variability from night to night with different audiences. Comedy, in particular, relies on carefully tuned pacing. Sometimes a gag fails simply because the audience didn't have time to process the setup. Slow it down a bit, and you'll get the laugh. Feel the laugh wave crest, then push the next bit forward. Advance too soon, and you'll kill the laugh; too late and you're milking it. Pace. Rhythm. Timing.

Lots of reviewers have praised Uncharted 2 for its pacing - and I believe it richly deserves such praise - but what does this mean, exactly? I think Uncharted 2's success in this regard can be traced to the same factors I described above, but the interactive nature of games adds a layer of complexity to the formula that's worth exploring.

The most obvious expression of pacing in Uncharted 2 is its elegant shifting from one style of gameplay to another. Just as the player begins to tire of climbing, swinging, and jumping - along comes a combat sequence or a dialogue scene or an environmental puzzle. In its most frenetic moments, the game throws a cocktail of gameplay options at you all at the same time.

SPOILERS AHEAD

Consider Chapter 12: "A Train to Catch." Up to this point the player has grown accustomed to shooting or climbing his way out of trouble, but here you find yourself unarmed and surrounded by bad guys. The preceding chapter concluded with a frantic escape. Now you and Drake must catch your breath, take your time, and find a stealthy route out. You can take cover behind a barrier and wait for a guard to come nearby so you can disable him and grab his gun. Or you can attempt to scurry unseen from cover to cover and avoid combat.

Either way, you've got time to deliberate and act. When you're ready to kick the action into high gear, start shooting and the pace rapidly accelerates. Before you reach your goal, the game will throw running, precision jumping and rope swinging at you, as well as a cutscene between Elena and Nate that cleverly explains (by doing rather than telling) why Elena is the woman Nate will choose at the end.

Here is where the interactive nature of games most clearly distinguishes itself from theater and film. The player retains a certain degree of control over the pace of the game. If I want to press forward and engage the enemy, I can play a fast and furious version of Uncharted 2. But if I need to collect my thoughts - or if I simply want to challenge myself with a tougher option - the game provides me with many opportunities to stop and assess the situation before pressing on. When I make my decision, the game resumes control of the pacing until I complete that section, then hands it back to me.

Such dynamic control of pacing - a give and take between me and the game - has no analogue in theater or film. You might say the audience has some measure of input in live performance, but certainly not to this extent or effect. To a great degree, Naughty Dog's successful management of pacing in this game is a cooperative arrangement in which my preferences and needs as a player mesh with my avatar's within a system that makes all this both fun and meaningful. Lots of games let the player decide what to do, but few games connect their storytelling to this dynamic system so satisfyingly well.

Pacing in Uncharted 2 is about more than gameplay shifts. It's also about tone and environment. Chapter 16: "Where am I?" contains almost no gameplay at all, and the player often has no control over Nate. This chapter introduces Tenzin, a character who speaks no English, and his Nepalese village. These arrive at precisely the right moment.

In terms of pacing, this chapter functions like an oasis, offering the player a chance to relax and explore without looking over his shoulder for an ambush. You can kick a soccer ball with a couple of children; you can listen to other children giggling at you behind a wall. You can watch a man chop wood. Nothing here advances the game or its plot, but I believe this section is pivotal to the player's experience because it feels so right; so necessary. Soon this contemplative moment will fade and these peaceful villagers' lives will be threatened, and your time here will make all that matter even more.

Pacing in games is an intricate balancing act, and Uncharted 2 manages it better than any narrative game I can think of. In my concluding post I'll discuss the game's marriage of cinematic and gameplay elements, both of which also contribute to the game's pacing. As always, your comments and observations are most welcome.

Infinity Ward posted a promotional video for Modern Warfare 2 on YouTube last night. The ad features an in-game version of Philadelphia Phillies pitcher Cole Hamels delivering a faux public service announcement for a faux organization called Fight Against Grenade Spam (FAGS, get it?) urging players to "be cool, and avoid random grenades. They’re for pussies."

It didn't take long for justifiably outraged folks to register their displeasure.

Publicity campaigns like this - and EA's "Sin to Win" contest and SEGA's "Can You Be Bayonetta?" contest co-sponsored by Maxim - suggest the game industry is aggressively targeting a core audience they believe will embrace edgy ads because they're purposely offensive, not in spite of the fact.

Spend a few minutes plowing through the comments on that YouTube video (1700+ as of this writing), and you'll see what I mean. The response can best be described as gleeful. Those who figured out the FAGS acronym seem especially delighted by their cleverness.

Nobody at Activision fumbled the ball here. Nobody's going to be fired for bad judgment. Infinity Ward (owned by Activision) is plugging into a real and widespread cultural pushback occurring among young American men. It's cool at the moment to be an insensitive jerk. Empathy and understanding are out. Tough guys with smirks on their faces are in. Infinity Ward knows this because it's their business to know. 

Like every major developer, Infinity Ward has reams of data on who buys and plays their games. Now, it seems, they've decided to eliminate the PR middle man and target their core audience directly with ads tailored specifically to them. Community manager Robert Bowling puts it this way:

Not only do we know the game but we know the gamer. We know what to expect from them and what they expect from us. So it helps us guide design decisions and decisions overall, including with PR. ... I think it is essential for developers to have that power. ... We are responsible for what we say and what we do, and we can be held accountable for our successes and failures.[1]

The marketing strategy for MW2 reflects the realities of the marketplace and a set of assumptions about the culture of gamers who play the Call of Duty series. I may not like what those assumptions imply, and I may object to a hegemonic characterization of "gamer" - but do I think that ugly little video reached its target? Bullseye.

If we want to teach boys why compassion and civility are essential to their development as men, we must do it one lesson at a time. We can disapprove of EA and Activision's despicable choices, but we shouldn't presume our outrage will impact the underlying reality. It's not about the games or the ad campaigns; it's about how we raise and teach our kids. We have created this callous consumer, and we should expect marketers to target him accordingly. Are companies who sell games and music and body spray complicit in all this? Of course. Are they to blame? No.           

The day your son gets a load of "Sin to Win" and decides he'd rather spend his money on another game is the day we begin to turn this around. And the marketing will follow suit. Those PR types know how to hit a moving target.

Addendum: Infinity Ward has pulled the video from YouTube (via community manager Robert Bowling's Twitter post).

I've been home taking care of a sick toddler for last couple of days, so I'm afraid I haven't been able to finish my mini-series of Uncharted 2 posts. Grandma arrives on a childcare relief mission this weekend, so I hope to find some good writing time then.

In the meantime, Zoe is perfecting her snot bubbles, and we're logging some serious play time with Animal Crossing and SimAnimals Africa. For what it's worth, she believes one of these games is significantly better than the other, and I agree. Two years old, and already a critic.

Sorry for the delay. More soon.