Alt+Games is a blog about games by a couple of gamers. Role-playing
games , computer and console games , board games etc. Focus on games that
enable playing together , whether in the same room or over the net. We
try to feature interesting stuff you don't hear from elsewhere.
Tässä on nyt siis esittelysivuni. Ikävän tyhjän näköinen. Mitäpä jos kirjoittaisin esittelyni laulun muodossa (ok, olen lukenut liikaa Alan Mooren Top 10 -sarjista viime aikoina).
Liikaa tekemistä, pelkkää lätkytystä...
Äh, ei tää toimikaan suomeksi. Teenpä sitten tylsemmän (eli vähemmän pakkohauskan) version ja kerron vain jotain itsestäni.
Lätkyhistoriani alkoi kaikenlaisilla lautapeleillä. Monopolia tuli pelatta perhetuttujen kanssa jo ennen kouluikää. 7-vuotiaana sain c64:n ja menin lopullisesti sekaisin. Mikrobitin peliluolan myötä roolipelit tulivat tutuksi ja D&D:n punalaatikon myötä menin entistä enemmän sekaisin. Yläasteella tietokonearsenaalini uudistui, kun sain Atari ST:n. Lukioaika ja sen jälkeiset vuodet kuluivat pitkälti larpatessa. Sen jälkeen erilaiset PC-pelit, roolipelit ja sittemmin myös konsolipelit (pleikka2 ja Wii) ovat tulleet mukaan.
Olen nykyään ohjelmistosuunnittelija, työskentelen vakuutussoftan parissa. Ennen olin tutkijakoulututettava ja pelitutkija Jyväskylän Yliopistolla, nyttemmin olen sitä enää harrastuksen tasolla. Asun Helsingissä siippani, kahden kissan ja kämppiksen kanssa.
Minulla on paljon harrastuksia, joihin ei meinaa aika riittää. Tekisin mieluusti harrastajateatteria, pelaisin (enemmän) lautapelejä, suunnittelisin pelejä (ja kaikkea pelien ja muiden mediaobjektien välimaastosta), mutta olen huomannut että hitaasti hyvä tulee.
The player interacts through the game, does something,
the game responds to the action,
the game provides feedback on the results
player interprets the feedback and essentially creates a model of how the game works in similar situations.
The player learns a singular skill by looping through this sequence multiple times. This is called a skill atom. An example from DanC's article is from a Mario Bros-like platformer game.
Learning successive skill atoms usually requires the player to have mastered some of the more simple skill atoms. The example (this one too is from DanC's article) is also from a platformer.
DanC suggests improving the method of game design by designing skill chains out of these skill atoms and designing the game mechanics and levels based on those. This sounds like tremendous advice for designers of video games.
I recently got thinking that the same kind of feedback loop, only possibly more complicated, happens also in role-playing games. I got to thinking about this as I was trying to come up with an article on how to get the most of the excellent modern war role-playing game Shell Shock.
New Dogs
18.05.2010
We started a Dogs in the Vineyard game a couple of weeks ago with a character creation session.
This was the first time I played RPGs since Senja was born.
Matti (being the GM) explained the game briefly and then we went through the character creation process. By my suggestion we then proceeded to talk a little bit more about the game and our expectations before creating the characters. We read bits of text from the rulebook and the introductory one-page pdf and we talked about the tone and style of the game we would like to play.
After that we started the actual process of character creation. We had agreed that we all wanted a colorful group of Dogs with some variety and difference of opinion in it. We ended up choosing different backgrounds for each one. Each player bounced his ideas of character concepts aloud at first. Then we kind of went through informal question rounds of 1) what kind of character I'm thinking about and 2) what kind of Dog this character is (each one adding a different viewpoint for his character's dogness and saying how it differs to the others characters).
After that we started to fill out the sheets. This was also quite collaborative as we asked for second opinions on stat allocations and trait naming quite a lot. After we had filled out the details each of us presented his character briefly.
The final part of the evening was playing out the initiation conflicts of the characters. That way we got to try out the conflict system in action. What we found out that the initiationconflicts were pretty tough; I think no-one won his conflict. The other thing we figured out was that losing 'just talking' conflicts was in fact mostly advantageous as the character got experience but there was really no danger of major fallout. We immediately decided to look for conflicts to lose in our game :)
Our group of Dogs turned out pretty interesting. There is one half-mountain folk dog, a sullen goth-type dog with a great legacy and no social skills to fill the boots of her mother (!), a former street urchin with a lot of repressed hate and one quarter-back type youngster that is ready to make the world a better place for everyone (that's my character).
We've now played one session of the game; I hope to be able to write a little about the actual play later.
Evoke parantaa maailman?
25.02.2010
Evoke, the new serious alternate reality game by Jane McGonigal, kicks off on March 3rd. That's next Wednesday, folks. I'm interested about experiencing and dissecting the game and I hope that you are too.
So, what's in the genre definition serious alternate reality game? Alternate reality games (Wikipedia) or ARGs use real world as a platform and leverage multiple media to mix fictional elements with the real world elements. Serious games are essentially games for other purposes than pure entertainment. McGonigal puts Evoke in her 'Invent the Future' category of games. The previous major gamein the similar vein McGonigal was involved with was World Without Oil (Wikipedia), which received wide media coverage, but contrasting reviews about its effectiveness of actually fixing the world.That's what I thought, at least, but turns out that I can't find the reviews I seem to remember. Here's one example of a review of World Without Oil calling the game basically a bore.
Anyhow, when I've discussed this game and similar games with people (there was a discussion on Ropecon and we had a reading group session last Autumn in Helsinki that included a lot of talkabout this matter) and read other discussions, such as this on on Story Games that have included critical viewpoints of the ability on these kinds of games to have an effect of fixing the real world.
This is why I'm particularly interested in exploring the game. I'm interested in discussing the game with other people with a critical
eye on the effectiveness, impact or the idea of this game. What does it
do well, what does it lack, what is it made of and so on. I've already signed up for the game and I hope you do as well if you want to discuss it with me.
The discussion I'm proposing can take place in blogs, forums or even face to face when possible. I really think that McGonigal's views on games changing the world are valuable and worthwhile, however I'm not sure that World Without Oil or Evoke represent the pinnacle of this frame of thinking. And I'd like to leverage people to think about what direction the pinnacle might lie.
Are you interested? Please sign up to the game and let me know!
There's really not that much info on what the players will actually do in the game, even what kinds of elements they will interact with. Here are some resources to Evoke (see the web site too) and McGonigal's thinking about world-fixing games in general:
My family just received a new member this Monday. It is a baby girl we like to call X (there's a bit of mystery for you :), Supergirl and The Thing. Everyone involved is fine and in good health.
On much smaller news Alt+Games also got a new graphical look last Weekend. I was never completely happy with the old one, mostly because of the wacky banner graphics I threw together (sorry 'bout that :). The template is Jamba from JoomlaShack with a green-black color scheme, the Alt+Games logo is based on the old one but this time it's sleek, cool and toned down and not ugly at all.
The icon banners in the right-hand top corner of the site are new too, there will be more of them later. Most of the banners are based on icons from MySiteMyWay , a very good source for royalty-free icon graphics.
There's potential for more changes, we'll see about the schedule. Maybe our Supergirl can help.
Hammerfight (was: Hammerfall) on Steam
05.02.2010
I just found out that the amazing physics based hammer-swinging game, Hammerfight by Russian Konstantin Koshutin and previously known as Hammerfall is available to purchase on Steam for €6.99. It has actually been available for a while as fun-motion.com reported it last Autumn. I'm gonna get the game so I can see how much has been improved and added to the commercial version compared to the free demo. I'll write a review afterwards, so wait for it (or get the game yourself if you are curious enough).
I did a feature on the Hammerfall demo on the old Alt+Games site, and now seems a good time for a re-run in the new site. Here you go:
I think that the FunMotion blog entry about this game started it. The Hammerfall v0.21 demo posted on a Russian GameNow.ru forum by a user with nickname GKosh has raised interest and inspired numerous blog post among indie game bloggers recently. I dl'd the demo and now it's official: I'm joining the bandwagon. Hammerfall is indeed a very promising and innovative action game demo for Windows machines.
Steampunk Action
The player controls a stempunk-style flying copter thingy which drags a massive rock on a chain behind it. The basic idea is to swat at enemies by swinging this rock-in-a-chain. The copter is controlled with the mouse; the rock follows behind following the laws of physics (yes, this game uses physics engine, too). The player can swing the rock into action with a circular flying motion.
<< First < Previous 12345 .... Next >Last >> Page 1 of 19 ( 92 Articles )
After that we started the actual process of character creation. We had agreed that we all wanted a colorful group of Dogs with some variety and difference of opinion in it. We ended up choosing different backgrounds for each one. Each player bounced his ideas of character concepts aloud at first. Then we kind of went through informal question rounds of 1) what kind of character I'm thinking about and 2) what kind of Dog this character is (each one adding a different viewpoint for his character's dogness and saying how it differs to the others characters).
