GameSetWatch

Analysis: Turn-Based Versus Real-Time

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 12:00:08 -0800

[In this in-depth design analysis, first published in the August 2009 issue of Game Developer magazine, Electronic Arts designer Soren Johnson (Spore, Civilization IV) looks at the myriad factors in the decision to make a game turn-based versus real-time.]

One of the most important choices a designer makes at the start of a project is deciding whether to make a turn-based game or a real-time one. Each type of base game mechanic provides potential benefits and drawbacks.

While turn-based games favor more strategic and transparent play, they can feel a little stodgy to players used to action-oriented titles. Real-time games, on the other hand, are more immersive and multiplayer-friendly but can also easily overwhelm new players if they are not well-paced.

Turn-based games, of course, descend directly from the board game tradition which predates video games. Indeed, the fanbase for turn-based games still overlaps significantly with the fanbase for board and card games. Real-time games (excluding sports) were only truly possible with the advent of computers. Indeed, quite a few games - Super Mario Bros., Team Fortress, FIFA, Pac-Man - could only ever conceivably be developed as real-time games.

However, quite a few games could go either way, with an understanding that each path comes with its own set of trade-offs. Roguelike dungeon-crawlers, for example, have been made as both turn-based and real-time games. Early versions, such as NetHack, were purely turn-based; the game’s clock only moves forward each time the player takes an action.

However, Blizzard’s Diablo put the same explore-and-loot formula into a real-time environment and created an experience that was less strategic but more visceral and potentially addictive. Furthermore, without the waiting inherent in a turn-based system, the designers could develop a viable multiplayer mode.

Nonetheless, Diablo has not supplanted the continuing popularity of turn-based roguelikes, such as Pokemon Mystery Dungeon or Shiren the Wanderer, which maintain their own tactical charm. Thus, deciding between turn-based and real-time is not a question of which system is “better” or “worse” but rather a question of which set of trade-offs best fits the game the designer wants to make.

How Much Stuff?

One simple way to look at a game is by asking how many game systems and elements the player needs to master to feel competent. For example, a typical shooter might have ten weapons; a real-time strategy game might have fifteen units per side; a role-playing game might have twenty spells available. New players can often be intimidated by the sheer quantity of new concepts and options a game presents to them, and the time pressure of a real-time game only makes this learning experience an even greater challenge.

When first prototyping the original Civilization, Sid Meier originally built the game as a real-time simulation. Inspired by Will Wright’s SimCity, he tried to extend the concept to a global scale.

He quickly found, however, that players were overwhelmed by the high number of new game systems they needed to juggle at once. After all, SimCity had no diplomacy, no trade, no combat, no research, and definitely no marauding barbarians. Thus, he changed course and rebuilt his prototype as a turn-based game, and the phrase “just one more turn” entered the gaming lexicon.

Designers always should be aware that each game can only contain so much “stuff” before the center cannot hold, and the experience overpowers the senses. By removing time pressure, turn-based games allow players to adjust the learning curve to their own needs. Veterans can still play quickly, but new players can take their time poking around the interface and thinking through their moves.

Thus, turn-based games are generally more accessible than real-time ones. It is no surprise that many of the most popular casual games are turn-based, from staples like Solitaire and Minesweeper to PopCap’s stable of Bejeweled, Bookworm, and Peggle.

Deterministic or Chaotic Play?

At their core, turn-based and real-time games play to different strengths. One example is the question of whether an experience should be deterministic or chaotic. With the former, success often depends on knowing exactly what the results of one’s actions will be; in Puzzle Quest, for example, the player needs to know that when a row of four skulls disappears, the other pieces will fall in a specific way so that a new column of consecutive red gems might form.

Just because some luck elements are involved - such as the unknown new pieces which fall from the top - doesn’t mean that the player isn’t mapping out an exact series of events in her head. This sequential gameplay is one of the core strengths of turn-based games. On the other hand, chaotic, unpredictable gameplay is a strength of real-time games.

When players first spot a heavy-medic combo in Team Fortress 2, they know that they are probably in trouble, but the sequence of events to follow is so varied that players know it’s impossible to overanalyze the situation. A sniper could kill the medic. An explosion might knock the heavy off a platform. A spy might sneak up behind them. An event on the other side of the map might encourage one side to simply abandon the area.

Real-time games support chaotic gameplay best because, with the added pressure of a shared clock, players are not able to reduce each situation down to a repeatable series of moves and counter-moves.

Multiplayer or Single-Player?

Another divide which defines the different strengths of turn-based and real-time games is whether the focus of the experience is multiplayer or single-player. Generally speaking, multiplayer games work best in real-time wheras turn-based games usually focus on single-player sessions.

Turn-based games, like Advance Wars and Civilization, have only a tiny, hard-core multiplayer audience. On the other hand, real-time games with similar themes, such as Command & Conquer and Age of Empires, respectively, gained much of their popularity from their multiplayer modes.

The reason for this divide is clear - waiting for another player to finish his turn is anathema to fun - so designers looking for a synchronous, multiplayer experience almost always prefer real-time games. However, because no one else is waiting, designers of purely single-player games give themselves the option of using turn-based elements whenever convenient, to either add some spice or allow more strategic play.

For example, the single-player game Fallout 3 allows players to pause real-time combat and enter V.A.T.S. mode to strategize which enemy body parts to target, even displaying the exact probability of success for each possible choice. Similarly, the Baldur’s Gate series is a hybrid model, with real-time combat that pauses depending on certain player-selected events, such as when a character receives damage or a new enemy becomes visible.

Breaking the Rules

Indeed, these games are but a few of the many games that blur the line between “pure” turn-based and real-time systems. For example, what about turn-based decisions with a time limit, such as Madden’s play-calling clock? What about X-Com, with its crunchy real-time strategic shell surrounding a gooey turn-based tactical core? Or the Total War series, which does the exact opposite?

What about Europa Universalis, which is technically real-time but plays out so slowly that it “feels” like a classic, sprawling turn-based strategy game? How about asynchronous Web-based games like Travian, which play out over months instead of minutes, eliminating the time pressure but keeping the multi-player benefits of real-time play?

What about Bang! Howdy, which plays as a typical tile-based tactical wargame, except that each unit’s turns regenerate in real-time? In reality, a vast continuum stretches from one extreme to the other, and most games find a space somewhere in the middle.

Therefore, the most important thing to focus on is not the labels themselves but what types of gameplay they represent. For example, the tower-defense game Plants vs. Zombies is ostensibly real-time, but its characteristics are more in line with traditional turn-based games. Besides being solely a single-player game, the gameplay itself is strictly deterministic, even moreso than many turn-based games.

The map consists of five tracks along which the zombies progress, each with exactly nine slots on which to place defensive plants. Furthermore, the zombies’ behavior is entirely predictable - Pole Valuting Zombies will always jump over blocking Wall-nuts, even if that means falling right into the jaws of a Chomper plant.

The game may look chaotic to an observer, but - like most tower-defense games - the strategic play is built upon predictable enemy behavior. The real-time mechanics simply provide time pressure, not the other qualities usually associated with the format, such as chaotic play or a multi-player mode.

Likewise, Boom Blox is a turn-based game which eskews the usual strengths of the format. In the game, players have a discrete number of throws during which to knock down various block-based structures. Unlike most turn-based games, however, Boom Blox is a very chaotic affair, with unpredictable physics-based game mechanics.

Furthermore, unlike Plants vs. Zombies, in which players’ actions take place on a precise 5-by-9 grid, players of Boom Blox use strictly analog controls to point at the screen and then “throw” the ball with the WiiMote. Chaos theory dictates that an identical series of throws will almost never happen twice in a row.

Furthermore, this unpredictable nature coupled with the very short turns (each only a single throw) makes Boom Blox an excellent multi-player game, a rare feat for turn-based video games. Thus, in the end, deciding whether to make a game real-time or turn-based is less important than deciding which aspects of those formats are most relevant to the overall design. As they say, one needs to learn the rules to know how to break them.

Best Of Indie Games: Eufloria, Home, Run Away!

editors@gamesetwatch.com (timw) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 00:00:11 -0800

[Every week, IndieGames.com: The Weblog co-editor Tim W. will be summing up some of the top free-to-download and commercial indie games from the last seven days on his sister 'state of indie' weblog.]

This week on 'Best Of Indie Games', we take a look at some of the top independent PC Flash/downloadable titles released over this last week.

The goodies in this edition include the release of IGF 2009 finalist Eufloria, an experimental game set in a retirement home, a role-playing game with black and white pencil art for graphics, a turn-based strategy game about pushing blocks, and an on-rails platformer that plays a bit like a mix of recent favorites Canabalt and RunMan: Race Around the World.

Here's the highlights from the last seven days:

Game Pick: 'Eufloria' (Alex May and Rudolf Kremers, commercial indie - demo available)
"Eufloria, previously Dyson, is all about being an almighty conqueror. This kind of gameplay would normally involve tactics, planning and strategy on the player's part, yet the game turns out to be nothing like that whatsoever. Eufloria is a beautifully immersive world that many gamers will find themselves losing many hours to."

Game Pick: 'Home' (Stephen Lavelle, freeware)
"Home is increpare's experimental project in which you play as an elderly person in a retirement house, featuring basic life-simulation elements found in games like The Sims. The controls might feel awkward at first but you will understand the need for it soon enough. It doesn't take longer than a couple of minutes to play this game from start to end."

Game Pick: 'ButaVX: Justice Fighter' (Nekomura Games, freeware)
"ButaVX: Justice Fighter is a short role-playing game that features a likable line art look for the graphics and animation, although the adventure itself is an extremely short one and won't take longer than ten minutes to beat. The story is about a pig who loses his ball by accidentally kicking it through the window of a granny's house, so he sets out on a quest to retrieve it by running errands for villagers and searching for random encounters to be involved in."

Game Pick: 'Crate Expectations' (Haiku Interactive, commercial indie - demo available)
"Available via Xbox Live Indie Games, Crate Expectations sees players sliding crates around and placing ice blocks in an attempt to get their deliveries finished before everyone else. There's a bundle of bonuses to keep the game fresh too. Both local multiplayer and play via Xbox Live are included, with a drop-in/drop-out system in place, so players can hand control to a bot, or vice-versa."

Game Pick: 'Run Away!' (Jon Keatley, commercial indie - demo available)
"Run Away! is an 'on-rails platformer' in which you scramble over and under hedges, walls, gnomes, bananas and beehives to escape your pursuers who have decided to chase you for various reasons. Succeed and the love of Angry Girl may just be yours for the taking. This is great as a little something to rid that Sunday afternoon boredom."

Another World In Javascript

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Eric Caoili) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 16:00:15 -0800

Admittedly obsessed with Another World (or Out of This World), Gil Megidish has already ported Eric Chahi's game to several platforms -- PSP, PS2, GBA, and PC. Hist latest project is a "pure Javascript implementation" of the platformer that uses no plug-ins, ActiveX, or Flash.

With just a modern browser (Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Opera), you can load and play a portion of Another World. It's incomplete with only one supported level, graphical glitches, no sound effects or music, movement bugs, and a low frame-rate, but it works!

Megidish doesn't intend to continue work on the Javascript port, either, as he just wanted to create this proof of concept. He points out that you can already grab the official Another World re-release for Windows and mobile here, though you can't play them in your browser.

Rare's Killer Instinct Girls, Nunchucks At E3 1995

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Eric Caoili) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 14:00:59 -0800

Years before Microsoft acquired the British studio, Rare shared its E3 booth with former owner Nintendo. The Perfect Dark developer put on some interesting/absurd shows at that booth, like this one promoting Killer Instinct (SNES) at E3 1995.

The dancing, high-kicking girls presented a series of acts at the Nintendo booth every hour, according to video uploader Grooveraider. Here, they twirled orange nunchucks as a very cheesy, very mid-90's Killer Instinct song played and a giant panther head nodded in the background, clearly approving. If you watch the monitors on the sides, you can also see the Killer Instinct cast jamming along.

Make sure to check out Grooveraider's other Nintendo-related videos for interesting trade show clips, like the N64/Mario 64 demonstration at E3 '96 and Star Fox laser show at CES '93.

[Via @GDRI]

Round-Up: Gamasutra Network Jobs, Week Of November 6

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 13:00:53 -0800

In our latest employment-specific round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in big sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section this week, including positions from 5th Cell, Insomniac and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, including positions from Sega of America, 2K Marin and more.

Each position posted by employers will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, cellphone games, 'serious games', independent games and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted this week include:

Rainbow Studios: Senior Producer
"Rainbow Studios, a subsidiary of THQ, is one of the largest video game developers in the Southwest and develops premier original and licensed titles for current and next generation console systems. Rainbow’s video game history includes the critically acclaimed Motocross Madness PC series, the award-winning ATV Offroad Fury, top-selling Splashdown, the highly praised MX franchise, the blockbuster Disney-Pixar Cars titles, and the critically acclaimed Wii title Deadly Creatures, along with the soon-to-be-released MX vs. ATV Reflex."

Relic Entertainment: Environment Artist
"Your friends will call in the middle of the night, cursing you. When you see them, they’ll wear sunglasses to conceal their bloodshot eyes, and they’ll be alone, because their romantic interests left them without even texting goodbye. They won’t be able to stop playing. It’s a terrible fate, but I’m afraid it’s what we want. And we need your help."

Demiurge Studios: Senior Game Designer
"Demiurge Studios is seeking a talented, experienced Senior Designer to help lead our internal design team. A focus on communication, organization, iteration and polish are all critical attributes for our ideal candidate. Prior experience leading a team of designers and a demonstrable portfolio of game/level design across different genres are requirements for this position. If you can deconstruct reflex; if you can engineer adrenaline; if you can architect fun - we want to speak with you."

Sega of America: Senior Online Interactive Developer
"The Senior Online Interactive Developer will design and develop interactive online content including web sites, banners, promotions, games and other applications for the Sega family of web sites and other initiatives. The Senior Online Interactive Developer will be a part of the Online and Community teams as well as collaborate closely with cross-functional teams within the organization. This person will also manage staff and resources as necessary."

2K Marin: Engine Programmer
"2K Games seeks the talents of a seasoned and passionate programmer who enjoys a collaborative and creative work environment and is looking to work with like minded professionals to create a truly amazing game. Improve, maintain, and optimize the engine. Contribute to the design of a wide variety of enhancements to the Unreal Engine."

To browse hundreds of similar jobs, and for more information on searching, responding to, or posting game industry-relevant jobs to the top source for jobs in the business, please visit Gamasutra's job board now.

Column: 'Homer In Silicon': Mole's Eyes

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Emily Short) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 12:00:19 -0800

['Homer in Silicon' is a biweekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column by Emily Short. It looks at storytelling and narrative in games of all flavors, including the casual, indie, and obscurely hobbyist. This week she looks at "Fatale", Tale of Tales' take on Oscar Wilde's play Salome.]

Recently Tale of Tales (of "The Path" fame) released a new interactive piece called "Fatale", which explores the tale of Salome, the dancer who in compensation for her dancing requested (and got) the head of John the Baptist on a silver platter.

Like "The Path", "Fatale" is by turns frustrating and fascinating, with controls that vex and nervewrackingly slow pacing. It's infuriatingly easy to nose yourself into some corner of the playspace and have trouble backing out. (It doesn't help that I was playing on a Mac, so the work's built-in instructions to use, e.g., the middle mouse button were unhelpful.) On the other hand there is so much incidental beauty and horror that one almost doesn't mind.

The player's chief interactive task is, as in "The Path", to find objects of interest in the environment and then interact with them very trivially. There are lots of these objects, and some of them are tucked away in odd places, and moreover even if you know where they all are you can only handle them in a certain order.

This time Tale of Tales has included a readme, but it's a perplexing document, which both contains explicit instructions on how to interact and suggests that the player might want to skip reading them until after a first encounter with the work. Obediently, I gave the work a first try on my own, found it frustrating in many respects and awkward but just finishable; returned and read the document, only to find that there were shortcuts that would have decreased my frustration if I'd known of them.

The content is also mysterious. The Tale of Tales website presents this more or less as a gloss on Oscar Wilde's play Salome, or perhaps as an introduction to it -- something, at any rate, to help us understand the original. I found it to be just the opposite: "Fatale" was very hard to understand until I had read the text of the original play.

Part of this has to do with design choices. Fatale uses many lines of dialogue from Wilde's play, but they are presented as text floating in space, or else fiercely whispered with other noises mixed in. This produces a thoroughly creepy atmosphere, but it is not so good for helping the player understand what is happening. A bare-bones knowledge of the biblical story helps some, but there are a number of characters and themes in Wilde's story that don't appear in the Bible.

Nonetheless, I found "Fatale" vivid, memorable, and in many respects more satisfying than "The Path". Its brevity mitigates the irritations, and the thematic content is more coherent. I'd like to discuss how it works, but to do this I will have to describe the interaction in spoilerish detail. Considering that the piece is not really a game and that there's not really any kind of puzzle, this may not vitiate the experience as much as it would with another piece. Still, you may want to stop here if you would like to try the piece from a position of innocence.

Play begins with a viewpoint in a wet-floored sort of dungeon -- a cistern, according to the original -- and the player is confronted with language that harshly repudiates a woman, calling her daughter of Sodom and accursed. Music plays, and seven veils materialize along the bottom of the screen. At the end a robed executioner enters and chops off your head. Up to this point, I had been identifying more with Salome than with John, because the misogynistic language used against her fired me up on her behalf.

That opening passage is minimally interactive, in the sense that you can wander around the cistern and look at things written on the walls, or (and I only discovered this on replay) gaze up through a grate at the dancer above, but the dance of the seven veils will proceed at its own speed regardless and will always end in your death.

The bulk of the work involves floating about the terrace above the cistern, finding candle lights and snuffing them out. Snuffing one lights others, and your progress is tracked by a rather mysterious circular "aureola" that gradually fills with sigils. As you progress, you also hear more of the whispered dialogue; and when you are done exploring the game goes to sunlight and white-noise.

There's a superb achievement in atmosphere here. Video game settings are often awe-inspiring. Setting is easier for games than plot or characters, and atmospheric settings are legion. Still, the combination of music and language, the way the sky turns red at times, the way the wind whips across the landscape and stirs up the sheer silk veils and bends the trees, the horrible hugeness and warping of the moon -- these convey an apocalyptic sense of the natural world reacting to the moral sickness of humanity. If there were ever to be an effective translation of the Oresteia into interactive media, it would require just such an atmosphere.

Thematically this fits the Wilde play, which makes much of the menacing atmosphere. Several characters mention the moon -- as a chaste goddess, but also as something that seeks after death. The image is a mirror of Salome herself: Salome admires the moon goddess for never having been soiled by a man:

"How good to see the moon! She is like a little piece of money, a little silver flower. She is cold and chaste. I am sure she is a virgin. She has the beauty of a virgin. Yes, she is a virgin. She has never defiled herself. She has never abandoned herself to men, like the other goddesses."

At the same time she's attracted to the severe inaccessible purity of John the Baptist, and is finally able to kiss him (and bite him, like a fruit) only when his severed head is delivered.

So the scenery is gorgeous, and suits the original. But what's the interaction about?

There's something sinister about deliberately going around snuffing out candles; at least, the first time I did it, it seemed like some kind of symbolic gesture, especially since the first candle looks to be lighting a little shrine. By the time I'd done, however, any hesitation was thoroughly worn away.

When you snuff a light, you get a little candle flame to move around, which you can hold up to objects for a closer look. Then when you step away, the flame is gone.

This interaction does force you into close examination of many bits of the environment: a luxuriously-appointed bed, a table with the remains of feasting; a splatter of blood, perhaps left over from the execution; the executioner himself, who stands mute guard; Salome, with the head of John on its plate beside her, watching over the terrace. Above is an enormous, incredible moon, and from the higher parts of the terrace we can see a shifting seascape and the domed roofs of the surrounding city.

It is a landscape both beautiful and disquieting, where the player is constantly confronted with the excesses of the society that might produce such things: the lapis tiles, the carpets, the spilled wine. And thanks to the positioning of objects, it's impossible to snuff all the candles without getting a close-up view of Salome's uncovered breasts and buttocks, as well as her face. She's pensive, just occasionally blinking or slightly frowning. She is eating a pomegranate and listening to her iPod.

No, I don't know why the iPod. But it's unmistakeably there and impossible to avoid, as the face of the iPod is one of the light sources the player must extinguish. Her earbuds dangle around her neck, appearing to the first glance like part of her huge archaic necklace. The white noise at the end is modern too, with car horns and the sounds of cityscape.

Perhaps the most satisfying way to regard "Fatale" is as an illustration of Wilde's play; a sort of updated, new-media replacement of the original lush and decadent line drawings of Aubrey Beardsley. As in illustrations, the flow of time is erratic and unreasonable. Long periods pass in which the characters stand still and the player explores the environment around them. Occasionally they blink or gesture, but they seem otherwise unaware, suspended; though the player's manipulations, like a strong wind, disrupt the environment and change the lighting.

The few anachronistic elements, meanwhile, might assert the modern relevance of this ancient story of lust and violence. I don't always think that works, but I've seen plenty of theatrical directors at least claim that was their intention, when making the Montagues carry tommy-guns, or showing slides of Rwandan orphans during the interludes of Trojan Women. (Why then the iPod as the item that crosses time periods? Is it perhaps rather the music that lasts through generations, while the violence is of its time? I haven't settled this to my own satisfaction.)

In any case, if "Fatale" is meant to be like an illustration, then a collecting interaction as a way to force close-up engagement with the set makes a certain amount of sense; and in fact we're able to review the close-up images of the snuffed candles again, after we've finished with them.

But what does it mean to look closely at this play?

"You are always looking at her. You look at her too much. It is dangerous to look at people in such fashion. Something terrible may happen."

...says one of Wilde's characters, to another obsessed with Salome; and

"What is that to you? Why do you look at her? You must not look at her.... Something terrible may happen."

and

"Do not look at her. I pray you not to look at her.

While Salome herself says

"Why does the Tetrarch look at me all the while with his mole's eyes under his shaking eyelids? It is strange that the husband of my mother looks at me like that. I know not what it means. Of a truth I know it too well."

and when she is obsessed with John (in Wilde's play called Iokanaan):

"Bring out the prophet. I would look on him."

and cajoling another character:

"Look at me, Narraboth, look at me. Ah! thou knowest that thou wilt do what I ask of thee."

I could go on: there are 80-odd instances of the word "look" or its derivatives in the play, counting a handful in the stage directions.

At the end, trying to bribe Salome away from her request of John the Baptist's head, Herod offers her an extremely large emerald, a gift he has from Caesar, that magnifies what you see through it: the opportunity, perhaps, to select and desire someone new. Salome refuses and insists on the prize she originally chose.

In short, the glance itself is dangerous in Wilde's Salome. It is the means by which people become infected with desire, and desire leads to death: the death of a young guard, John's death, eventually Salome's own death.

Perhaps that destructive desire was something Wilde wished to celebrate and encourage: some academic readers of the play have certainly understood him so. But it does give an oddly edgy meaning to the interaction of "Fatale": if to look is to desire, and to desire is to court destruction, then the player of "Fatale" plays at his own peril.

And so the final surprise of the work: when we snuff all the candles we are left staring into sunlight and noise, with no option left but to quit. If, however, we restart the program after having finished, we are shown Salome's dance at last. Desire is fulfilled, but only by making the player completely passive, unable to interfere at all. And this perhaps is the form of our death.

(Disclosure: I played a copy of this work that I purchased at full price. I have had no commercial affiliations with the publisher at the time of writing.)

[Emily Short is an interactive fiction author and part of the team behind Inform 7, a language for IF creation. She also maintains a blog on interactive fiction and related topics. She can be reached at emshort AT mindspring DOT com.]

Libraries Celebrating National Gaming Day On Nov. 14

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Eric Caoili) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 10:00:41 -0800

The American Library Association will celebrate its second annual National Gaming Day on November 14th at hundreds of public, school, and academic libraries across the country, inviting others to visit their locations and take part in gaming activities, including a national video game tournament.

Last year's inaugural event attracted over 14,000 people to 600 libraries, and the ALA promises that 2009's National Gaming day will have more participating locations and more board and video games available. Players will also have an opportunity to see how their scores rank on local, regional, and national leaderboards.

The ALA believes gaming has recreation and educational value, and can potentially teach leadership, problem-solving, and team-building skills. It also pointed to a recent Pew/Internet study indicating that in-person social gaming encourages "encourages civic engagement among teenagers and helps them become invested in their community."

"Historically, libraries are well known as key providers of print resources," says the ALA. "With new digital formats such as downloadable audio, video, and board and video games, libraries continue to create and promote modern educational opportunities for their users. They play a valuable role in providing a social gaming experiences not found elsewhere in the community in a safe, non-commercialized space."

You can find more information on National Gaming Day and see if your local library is registered for the event at I Love Libraries.

Gainax Pays Tribute To Chip Musician, Incinerates Current Gen Consoles

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Eric Caoili) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 08:00:18 -0800

Eminent anime studio Gainax, responsible for revered series such as Neon Genesis Evangelion and FLCL, replaced its site's welcome screen yesterday with a surprising image -- a strange character clad in Famicom gear wielding a Super Scope as all three current generation home consoles represented as burned buildings in the background.

That odd figure is actually Professor Sakamoto, a chiptune artist known for performing with a cape gracing his shoulders and a Famicom system strapped to his head. His Youtube profile reads, "Hello everyone. I'm Prof. Sakamoto, [a] Japanese musician playing game music with the Nintendo Entertainment System. Please insert your ROM into my head."

He composed a wonderful song, "8bit shower", which Gainax briefly featured on its site accompanied with the art that you see below, painted by the studio's Daisuke Kikuchi. I'm unsure why they decided to torch the contemporary consoles -- perhaps Sakamoto reviles any system that's too heavy/large to fit on his head?

The music track and art are no longer on Gainax's welcome screen, but you can still see/hear them here (click the music note).

[Via GoNintendo]

Piece of Pie, Orioto Debut Swimming Under Clouds

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Eric Caoili) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 06:00:27 -0800

Chances are you've come across Mikaël "Orioto" Aguirre's impressive video game-inspired wallpapers, but did you know he's also contributed art to several games? He's mostly worked on casual Facebook puzzlers (Elementz, Goo Deluxe), but his latest project is a beautiful, golden puzzle platformer.

Piece of Pie Studios's Yacine Salmi, formerly a developer at Havok, brought in Orioto to direct Swimming Under Clouds' art. The 2D game follows a lost pet goldfish encased in a bubble of water, solving physics-based puzzles as it tries to find a way back to its owner. The goldfish loses water from the bubble as it progresses and uses its "super jump", but players can replenish the bubble at checkpoints.

The team submitted Swimming Under Clouds to IGF 2010 and hopes to release the game "as a digital title on a console" in 2010. You can follow Swimming Under Clouds' development at Piece of Pie's site, and read an interview with Orioto and Salmi at BeefJack.

[Update 1: It appears the embeddable trailer is no longer available. You can still watch the video here.]

[Update 2: Added a YouTube embed. Thanks, Tim!]

Interview: The Melancholy Of Keita Takahashi

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless) — Fri, 06 Nov 2009 00:00:11 -0800

[GSW correspondent Simon Parkin sits down with eccentric Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi, to learn about his work on children's playgrounds, and why he's begun to feel like he's "just not suited to the games industry."]

Keita Takahashi sits alone, six thousand miles from home, in a damp, vacant house set within the grounds of an autumn forest somewhere in the middle of England. He wears a puffer jacket, huddled next to an electric fire for warmth.

With slow, meticulous movements he wraps a length of string around the short, rounded sword he’s fashioned from a bent coat hanger. Aside from an intermittent cough, the house is otherwise empty of all noise.

Pastel sketches are spread out on the table around him, pastoral scenes, all browns, yellows and familiar yet unidentifiable rustic blurs. Clutches of green sticky notes punctuate a white board above. On each square of paper a single word is written in all-caps English. Some are verbs: “VIEW”, “RUN”, “LIE”, ROLL”. Others are nouns: “HOLE”, “TUBE”, “GRASS”, ”SLOPE”, like a checklist for creation written into existence by a monosyllabic god.

There is no rhyme or reason to the layout. The words towards the top of the board are no more important to those at its base. They are not annotations on a ground plan map, even though Takahashi will, at some point, have to reconcile his ideas to the realities of geography and physics.

For now, the eccentric video game designer seems happy to be playing in the abstract. Giant trails of string loop around the room, tacked to the ceiling. On some, tiny plasticine models of children hang from paperclips, swinging as trapeze artists on micro-ropes that, if ever scaled up for humans to enjoy, would defy both the laws of gravity and health and safety.

I have no idea how one goes abut designing a playground but, from this random assortment of ideas and trinkets, I’m almost certain that Keita Takahashi, the enigmatic mind behind Katamari Damacy and Noby Noby Boy, is no wiser.

Making A Playground

“Obviously it’s my first attempt at park design, so I’m not sure what makes a good playground at the moment,” he tells me. “I’m just trying to work it out. What do you think makes a good playground?”

It’s been four years since Takahashi announced his desire to build a playground here in Nottingham, the location of the UK’s largest alternative video games conference, GameCity. Speaking at the event, in front of the gaming media, the admission caused a mild stir. Takahashi, a deeply atypical Japanese, has always been one to speak his mind, and his irritation at Namco Bandai’s turning Katamari in to a steamrolling brand was always played out in the public sphere.

Yet, while Takahashi studied sculpture at college, there was no way he could be termed an architect. Was this a cry for help aimed towards the suits at Namco Bandai? After all, he later admits to me he was only permitted to make Katamari Damacy because he refused to work on any other of the “boring” projects that were in development at the studio. Or was it a genuine yearning to return to the roots of play, to rediscover purity and innocence among the swings and roundabouts of youth?

In the clutter of the desk in front of him here, it’s clear that whatever the reason for the outburst, Takahashi was unprepared for his dream to become a reality. Last week, on the first day of Game City 2010, the organizers stood with Nottingham City Council to announce the commissioning of the playground on a small plot of land within the Woodthorpe Grange Park.

Alone With Pen And Paper

After the press conference, one of GameCity’s organizers drove Takahashi to the local art store where he filled his basket with crayons, stickers, pens, sheaths of paper and, of course, a coat hanger. Then they took a taxi to this room, and closed the door behind him.

It’s hard to shake the feeling its precisely this sort of largely directionless creativity, free from the constraints of financial targets, demographics and brand-building that has brought Takahashi to this unlikely nook on the other side of his world.

In answer to his deflected question about what I think makes a good playground, I suggest that I’ve always enjoyed a sense of progression, where one object leads to the next, giving the participant a sense of journey, like a playful assault course.

Takahashi doesn’t respond at first, mulling it over, perhaps masking a sneer. “If there’s a pattern embedded in the design of a park, the danger is always that all of the kids just end up doing the same stuff…” he murmurs.

It’s this sort of aimless approach to game design that frustrated some players and critics with regards to his most recent title, Nobi Nobi Boy, a game that’s difficult to articulate within the usual parameters of success and failure. And yet, this dislike of the order and rigid structure of mainstream games seems to imbue every aspect of Takahashi’s approach.

Alienated By The Industry

Indeed, it's difficult to consider this strange scene as anything but a manifestation of his disillusionment with the strict framework of the wider gaming industry. I put the question to him direct.

“I think that’s true,” he agrees. “In fact, I’ve been feeling for a few years now that I’m just not suited to the games industry. Yeah, that’s certainly been an impetus for working on the playground. You’re right.”

I suggest that perhaps Takahashi’s artistic bent makes him incompatible with the Japanese studio system, that his unwillingness to compromise vision to the business side of Namco Bandai makes him a poor candidate for a commercial video game designer. “Yes,” he answers at once. Then, earnestly: “Do you have any suggestions?”

While we talk, Takahashi is constantly busy with his hands. Having wrapped the sword with string halfway up its hilt, he then discards the idea and unwinds his efforts. He speaks in low, thoughtful tones, and his relentless reflection of my questions makes this feel more like a therapy session than an interview, though I’m not sure whose benefit it’s for.

I’m astonished by his frankness. After all, our translator, a Namco Bandai employee, is also here in the role of a chaperone. Perhaps, in asking me to propose a solution to his frustrations, he is answering the question secondhand.

To Be Independent

I collect my thoughts before suggesting that, as Japan’s games industry seems still very much based around big business, perhaps he should look abroad where he might be able to slot in more comfortably with an indie developer.

“Yes. My ideal would be to be a freelancer, working with different creatives in a far more loose structure,” he admits, smirking like I’ve passed the test. While his frankness is refreshing for a Japanese game maker, it’s hard to shake the feeling that it’s also a little petulant. Whatever his frustrations with his employer, Namco Bandai has allowed him to take 8 weeks out of the office, working on a project that they will earn nothing from, save for some mild PR. Takahashi is given a long leash. With that in mind, I ask him: why the disillusionment?

“There are two main reasons for it, I think. Firstly, I‘m just frustrated with the industry as a whole. I can’t seem to predict where it’s going, which makes me feel uncomfortable," he says. "Or maybe I just don’t like where I think it’s going. I’m not sure."

"That’s probably related to my second frustration. I just can’t perceive where the fun is in recent hit video games. I see nothing in them that resonates with me and, their success leaves me feeling confused. The things I find interesting and enjoyable just aren’t reflected in the popular games of today and, I feel like there’s not much room for my voice because of that.”

Has Takahashi ever really enjoyed video games? “Certainly. I used to enjoy the Famicom era very much. In fact, at that time I was overweight because I played so many games. But I find it hard to remember the things that moved me in my childhood games. Pretty much all I think about is based on games of the moment. To be honest, right now I find the idea of working in the physical world far more exciting than working in a virtual one. I feel like having something physical makes it easier for me to communicate what I think is fun to people. There are fewer hurdles to overcome.”

It’s impossible to not detect the melancholy in Takahashi’s demeanor. I wonder if he already has regrets about the path his life has taken him. “No. No regrets at this point. Of course, I can’t predict how I’ll feel in the future…” Maybe see how the playground turns out first, I offer. He laughs a warm, rare laugh. I ask him what makes him happy at the moment. He motions to the sword in his hand and, with a smirk, says: “Finishing this.”

So happiness for Takahashi is in helping others to find happiness, I propose? “Yes. During university I grew quite bored with sculpture, and with seeing the limits of that medium. That’s what got me looking at video games, their broader horizons and possibilities. I’ve always wanted to make things that would enable people to enjoy their lives. That’s one reason I first looked to video games, to be able to make things that people could enjoy around the world. Perhaps part of this experience is in rediscovering how I can do that in video games, by revisiting the limitations of sculpture…”

Helping Others Find Happiness

It’s dusk. We pack up and leave the house in the failing light. Standing in a nearby car park, waiting for a taxi, I ask Takahashi what games, if any, he’s playing at the moment. “Er, Noby Noby Boy on iPhone. That’s it,” he says. That smirk surfaces again and I realize he takes a certain pride in his derision towards mainstream game culture. Again, he turns the question back on me.

I pull out my phone and rack my brain for indie titles I’ve played recently, hoping to somehow earn his respect in that way a detached air of superiority often demands. Rolando 2. Mr AahH!! World of Goo, I list. He repeats each game title after me with a quick nod, an acknowledgment that he’s played each one thoroughly. For a man who supposedly only plays Nobi Nobi Boy, he’s bang up to date.

A little annoyed by this crass one-upmanship I say: Street Fighter IV.

“Ah! Street Fighter IV?!” He looks surprised at my changing the rules of the game and ceasing to kowtow to his anti-blockbuster sensibility. We catch each others’ eye and hold the stare for a second. In that moment I see, somewhere under the facade, the chubby 12-year-old Famicom nerd.

He knows that I know. And his face crinkles into the broadest smile of the day.

Tetris Building Blocks

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Eric Caoili) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 16:00:43 -0800

Designer Sergej Hein, currently studying fine arts at University of East London, animated this real-world version of Tetris by combining a time-lapse video of the sky and a photo of a "block building" shot from his bedroom window. The project took him two weeks to complete.

"The idea is based on a kind of parody about the former socialist building style combined with pop culture," Hein explained in an interview with Creator's Corner Blog. "They used to build whole cities where each house was designed identically to create cheap housing for workers."

He continues, "These blocks were so similar that in Soviet times, you could easily wake up at a friends place in another city and still feel like you are in your own flat (there is even a Russian film about it!). Even the furniture was the same."

I wonder if Tetris creator Alexey Pajitnov ever thought of his game when he saw similar block buildings in Russia?

[Via Brandonnn]

War Of The Worlds: Solar Flare

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Eric Caoili) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 14:00:36 -0800

DigiPen students have submitted seven games to the 2010 IGF Main Competition, some of which we've already featured like Kabloom and Igneous. Here's another project from the college to watch: Solar Flare, an RTS in which players battle rival planets around an unstable sun.

Developed by a team of four (Scorched Muffin Entertainment) as a junior year project over the past 13 months, Solar Flare has you building cannons, shields, and power plants on your world as you trade shots with other orbiting planets in the solar system. It looks like you can also create black holes to pull shots away from you.

You can see more media and download the final version of Solar Flare for free from the DigiPen group's official site.

Opinion: Why DJ Hero Can't Save Music Games

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 12:00:38 -0800

[Industry watchers say DJ Hero should give the declining music genre, dominated by band game sequels, a much-needed refresh -- but our own Leigh Alexander suggests it can't possibly have the same appeal.]

Fatigued of the music genre yet? Some people must be -- sales of The Beatles: Rock Band and Guitar Hero 5 didn't measure up to predictions, and some analysts think consumers are getting tired of plastic instruments. Industry-watchers have suggested that what the genre needs is a refresh -- something other than rock music.

Activision and FreeStyle Games' DJ Hero promises that refreshment, taking the peripheral-equipped music game out of the bandland and onto the turntable. The game's been well-received critically, although it's too soon to tell whether that high praise will translate to sales -- another issue hampering the genre right now is its high cost relative to other software titles.

But assuming consumers are willing to spend more than $100 on a single video game, could DJ Hero revolutionize rhythm games?

Obvious Appeal

On the surface it offers an intriguing proposition. The art of sampling and mixing is far more specific than the broad genre of "rock music;" its associated culture is narrower and therefore easier to draw strongly, and its current incarnation owes credit to a smaller pool of individual scions, many of whom make notable appearances in DJ Hero.

As some game critics have pointed out, that nearly all the playable avatars in the game are living, currently active artists adds tangibility. It may feel much more relevant to DJ culture fans of all levels to play as DJ Shadow or Daft Punk than to resurrect the grim spectre of grunge pioneer Kurt Cobain for corporate rock; the work of contemporary artists is immediately more relatable than, say, the nostalgia value of Van Halen.

And yet, there's a reason rock is broader and more storied than mixing culture. In fact, there are several reasons, but rather than launch into a history of rock and roll's relationship to the humanities, let's look instead at what it is about rock that helped Guitar Hero and Rock Band launch the music game boom -- and, arguably, reshape the face of video games for a new audience.

Aspirational Fantasy

Certainly rhythm games existed prior to plastic guitars, most notably with the work of Parappa progenitor Masaya Matsuura. But the peripheral craze hit at just the right time -- game design had learned that those intimidated by traditional button-mashing could have an entirely new experience with gesture simulation on the Wii, paving the way for the explosion of approximated instrument-playing with controllers that resembled real-life objects.

The advent of Guitar Hero let entirely new audiences tap into a near-universal fantasy. Whether video game fan or not, how many people have never once rocked out on air guitar, fingers twiddling in time to a fierce electric solo?

It's that fantasy of rock stardom, of guitar-god status, that charmed audiences and popularized music games. Rock Band expanded it further, adding the social element of group play and addressing another near-universal fantasy: Who hasn't thought fleetingly of starting a band with friends, wished for instrumental skill with which to own the stage?

That both games incorporated a progression from backwater to stadium also played a role in imbuing audiences with a sense of power -- one could even argue that it's the peripheral effects, like radiant star power and fans that scream just as the playing gets good, that truly make the experience.

Rock Band and Guitar Hero took a culturally universal experience -- seeing live music -- and let players try on transcending the audience role to take the stage, an empowerment that played a greater role in the games' success than song lists and celeb rockers.

Alone In The Booth

By contrast, being a DJ is something of a lonely art. At a DJ show, the mix master is quite often sequestered mostly out-of-sight in a booth, or elevated above the crowd, concealed behind the high walls that house his equipment. Crucially, nobody goes to a DJ show primarily to see the artist. They go to dance to his music. The spectacle is often laser lights or synchronized visual algorithms, not people. And if the DJ is doing his job and spinning a great party, his audiences are likely to forget he's even there.

Even hugely popular rock and indie bands that rely primarily on equipment effects rather than instruments -- take Animal Collective, for example -- have more subdued concerts than traditional bands. Who wants to spend a lot of money on a show ticket to watch guys stand still, bent over knobs and dials, heads down and twiddling away?

Mixing music is an art of technical craft and intellect, not of performance -- yet it's the desire to perform and the energy associated with it that's driven the success of music games in the past. In the case of DJ Hero, "empowering the audience" means taking them out of the high-octane party space of the dance floor and putting them into an environment of quiet concentration, alone with the beats.

That's not necessarily unappealing, but it's certainly going to be relevant to far fewer people than band games are. Think about how many people have wished they were career rock stars, and contrast that with how many people have wished they were up close and personal with a turntable -- not just for a few minutes of experimental wicka-wicka-wicka, but as a lifestyle.

Beat Generation

Of course, it's somewhat narrow-minded to say "everyone wants to be a rock star." The words we're overlooking here -- "urban youth" -- are a little bit tacky, and companies don't generally like to admit it as a target market, nor risk looking un-PC by generalizing about that segment's tastes.

But in general, for young ethnic males living in cities, the aspirational culture revolves around rap and hip-hop, not wailing guitars. The music of their cultural history owes far more of its roots to funk and house, less to big hair and flannel.

For this market -- who also tend to be big consumers of video games -- it's hard to argue that DJ Hero isn't more relatable than Guitar Hero, or at the very least, that a soundtrack featuring 50 Cent and Rihanna is preferable to Sonic Youth and Muse.

But even then -- even if that market would much rather be Grandmaster Flash than Tom Morello, and would rather hear 50 Cent samples than Aerosmith tunes -- the appeal of playing a music game, again, owes more to the fantasy experience of performing than it does to its music and its artists.

Players who'd like to be closer to 50 Cent want to live out Fitty's rise from the tough streets to champagne fame, beefing with haters and impressing impresarios along the way. They want to start off freestyling in an underground club full of close-knit admirers and end up blowing up the charts, dominating a stadium where all hands are in the air.

They probably don't want to end up head-down in the DJ booth when all the partying's going on outside it. Who would?

DJ Hero may offer rhythm games to an entirely new swath of music fans, including historically underserved markets. And it may broaden the genre with an entirely new kind of offering, refreshing after years packed with Guitar Hero sequels and spinoffs.

But it can't match the success of past band games -- and if it's true the music genre is declining, it definitely can't save it.

GDC 2010 Opens Reg, Details Reduced Pricing, Line-Up

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Simon Carless) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 11:00:16 -0800

[Just a note from my colleagues that GDC 2010 registration is open now, and thanks to optional lunches, we've managed to reduce the price by anything up to a couple of hundred bucks for those who want to attend next March - handy. Details below, hilarious pic to left...]

Game Developers Conference 2010 organizers have opened registration for the March 9th-13th event, confirming Social Game and iPhone Summits and revealing newly reduced price options for event passes.

The first two days of the San Francisco-based conference will feature a total of eight summits, two of which are new to the GDC lineup: the iPhone Games Summit and the Social & Online Games Summit.

New for GDC 2010 are reduced conference pass prices with the introduction of optional lunch packages. Attendees now have the option to purchase lunch provided by the Moscone Center based on their GDC week schedule, or to find their own lunch alternatives.

In addition, Game Developers Conference 2010 will see the return of the much-requested Audio Pass. This pass provides access to the Audio Bootcamp and all GDC Audio track sessions.

GDC 2010 -- produced by Think Services, as is Gamasutra -- will also play host to the GDC Expo Floor, the GDC Career Pavilion, the 12th Annual Independent Games Festival and the 10th Annual Game Developers Choice Awards.

"From year to year the Game Developers Conference continuously evolves its content to ensure that conference attendees receive the most current, relevant, and important insight into pushing the boundaries of what games can do," said Meggan Scavio, GDC event director. "We look forward to another eye-opening year of great content, speakers, events and awards, as well as sharing conference news and updates with the industry leading up to GDC."

Alumni registration for GDC 2010 ends December 17, 2009 and Early Bird rates end February 4, 2010. For more information on the 2010 Game Developers Conference, visit the official GDC 2010 website.

Gaijin Releasing Bit.Trip Void For Thanksgiving, Sponsoring Blip Festival 2009

editors@gamesetwatch.com (Eric Caoili) — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 10:00:50 -0800

Though Bit.Trip Void appeared in Japan last week, Gaijin Games plans to save the WiiWare title's U.S. release (11/23) as a Thanksgiving week gift for 600 Nintendo Points. Void is the third title in the Bit.Trip rhythm-based series, challenging players to collect black dots to expand their "void" while evading streams of white dots.

The game features four-player cooperative multiplayer, mid-level checkpoints (a boon to those who found the previous two Bit.Trip games too difficult), Nunchuk and Classic Controller support, retro cutscenes, and a chip music-inspired soundtrack featuring several songs from noted micromusician Nullsleep.

Gaijin also reminded fans of its Bit.Trip Beat album release, and announced that it is sponsoring New York City's Blip Festival 2009 this December. Both Nullsleep and Bit.Shifter, who guest starred on Bit.Trip Core's soundtrack, are slated to perform at the three-day chiptune concert.

"Our sponsorship of Blip Festival 2009 is one way of giving back to that creative community that we so admire," says Gaijin Games CEO Alex Neuse. The studio also encouraged gamers to contribute to The People's Fund to Support Blip Festival 2009 to help with the event's costs.