Review: Straight Outta Lynwood
After last Sunday’s premier of a Robot Chicken episode that featured a Weird Al video, the Adult Swim bump said something to the effect of: “If you took a time machine back to 1986 and said, in 20 years, Micheal Jackson = flamed out, Weird Al = still relevant, we’d have laughed our asses off.”
Not only is that true, but Al’s new album shows an amazing versatility, and a master of the parody maker’s art. Herein I dissect the new album track by track and give an overview of the animated music videos contained on the dual-disc release.
OSU/GAMA/Wargamer Study Results
Remember that survey I asked you all to take?
They have the first “sortie” of data back.
They haven’t gone indepth with the analysis yet (and they admitted it was flawed in a few ways) but what we do have back are some not so surprising results- perhaps surprising in how overwhelming they are.
93% of respondants were men! 90% white! Over 72% between the ages of 23 and 50!
Kinda disheartening, huh?
From A&B to Remotes & Nunchuks
This week for me has been all about the Wii.
I was interested to know what the price was, but I already knew I was going to buy it. Mainly I wanted to know how long it would be before it was mine.
Twice the work, double the crazy: Playtesting your own RPG
My current project (well, it’s been my current project for about 5 years now) is a supplement for d20 Modern. It introduces new classes, new character options, all that good crunchy stuff. It also has a very specific setting to the game that would need to be conveyed in a sourcebook to a GM. I have the specific setting detailed in my head- it helps that it’s based on a real place- but it’s challenging to get it out of my head and onto paper.I am attempting to remedy this problem by running the game, which will force me to have information for the players, and thus actually have it concrete somewhere. Then it’s just a matter of cleaning it up and organizing it. Plus, I get the advantage that players will contribute content (and I will reward them in game for such!)
Of course, I also want to run a good game, and make it enjoyable for everyone. If I, the creator of the game, can’t run a good game of it, how much hope is there for anyone else to, and for anyone to buy it?
So here is a condensed “design diary” for the game I am about to run, abstracted as to not give anything away for the players or talk too much about the game itself.
Hard Truths About Game Design
It sounds like a riddle: “What job pays less than minimum wage, but everyone wants?”
Sadly, the answer I’m looking for is Game Designer.
You might eventually be able to find a high paying job as a game designer for a video game company, but if you want to design for any other field, you won’t be a millionaire. (And if you do video games, you’ll probably be doing stuff other than pure design work.)
Very few designers have become millionaires from their games. Understandably, most are reluctant to disclose their finances. There’s only one that we’re sure of, and trust me, you aren’t going to design the next Magic: The Gathering (at least until our economy picks up significantly.)
He sure doesn’t dress like
a millionaire…
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The Digital World of Analog Play
One of the stories posted in nearly all the news sites I read is that Microsoft is going to make three Spiel Des Jahres winning boardgames available as downloadable content from Xbox Live. Turning boardgames into videogames has been going on for a long, long time: my parents used to play Backgammon and Bridge on their Atari. The question is about the REVERSE- how can technology improve your non-digital games?
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GTF Principle
Quick, what do:
Dungeons & Dragons
Magic: The Gathering
Diskwars
and Mage Knight have in common?
They enjoy or enjoyed commercial success by the GTF (Get There First) Principle.
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A Solid "1"
A friend of mine has a rating system that he uses mainly for tv and movies (no, not the -90 to 90 scale that many of us here are fond of.) He rates them on a scale of 1 to 5, but not necessarily on quality. To briefly summarize as best I understand it, A 5 is a great piece of work, that is very well put together, innovative, and enjoyable. A 4 is a good movie, that was well done, but is just missing a piece to make it a 5. A 3 is a completely average movie- nothing great, nothing terrible. A 2 is a bad movie.
And that leaves the most interesting rating, the 1.
When Genres Collide
This is the first in my series of (hopefully) weekly columns talking about various design issues in different mediums. I have a certain aesthetic sense in how all things gaming and literary work, and I hope to share with you all some of my insights. I’ll also talk about various game designs, provided it doesn’t interfere with actually making money from them.
As I was making the internet rounds at work, I came across an excellent article: The Problem with the X-men. One of the author’s problems (he lists more than one Problem) is that there are too many things crammed in to the X-men: time-travel, aliens, clones, etc. In an effort to make new and exciting storytelling, creators often throw in other genres outside of the core themes as part of spicing it up. While I understand that this is now part of the continuity of these works, it offends my sense of design aesthetics, and not just in comics either.
