Notes: God Hand

Some things I learned from God Hand.
1) Style matters. Music matters. Make them good.
2) Ramping difficulty: The way God Hand gets more difficult the better you do seems to work very well. It encourages doing well and not getting hit, while at the same time, not letting difficulty drop too low when you aren't doing well. It ensures you'll constantly be challenged. (note: it is important to include a reward with higher difficulties to encourage people to want to get it high.)
3) The skills all have subtle differences that aren't obvious at first. Number crunching isn't going to really help any. Intuition, experience, and experimentation are key. I think that's important.

EVE's council

http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/previews/2606-EVE-Online-The-War-on-the-Impossible-Part-2-Democracy
Sounds like it's an elected council of advisors. They have no actual power beyond the ability to speak, and the implication that they will be heard.

God Hand

Fist of Gold
Swinging high
Sending enemies
To the sky

http://www.capcom.com/godhand/
It appears the official page died, guess I'll just have to settle for the wiki entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_Hand

I love this game. Bloody hard though.

Random Writings

Time to try,
Making rules for a game.
'tis a shooter I want.
Chaos aplenty.
Yet, control needs to be,
for the puzzle I seek.

Tricky weapons.
One shot kills.
Chain reactions.
Puzzle, not skills.

The right manuver,
the right place.
A single shot,
fired in their face.

I want a shooter,
with a fight.
All the enemies,
line up just right.

A single shot,
A single space,
Sending fire,
All over the place.

Different weapons,
different means.
Different people,
different teams.

Tonight I try,
to make this out.
A sense of chaos,
all planned out.

Links

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_32/200-Infinite-Princesses
I like this article.
There can be more to gaming, than just the player and the game.

http://www.escapistmagazine.com/articles/view/issues/issue_96/537-Vision-Doesn-t-Sell-Copies.2
Reminds me of an observation I heard once regarding movies. The ones that get great reviews are rarely blockbusters, and the blockbusters rarely get good reviews.

Mechanism Design

http://www.prospect-magazine.co.uk/article_details.php?id=9880

Trying to create a system of rules that won't have unwanted side effects is bloody hard.

One of Bioshock's charms.

I think one of the important "little things" the game got right, was having a character who could experience Rapture as a new and strange place, just like the player does. Having the player and character share the same experiences, is important to immersion. Note: Avoid amnesia. Unless the player has amnesia, they won't be able to relate.

Link time...

http://www.raphkoster.com/gaming/lawsindex.shtml
A bunch of laws about online games. It's funny, because it's true.

Virtual Toys.

I was reading an article on Habbo Hotel (http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1946/designing_a_gameless_game_sulka_.php), and when trying to describe what it was, they made this analogy: "if you go to a room and you're alone, it would be just furniture. There's no play. You're kind of playing, but it's the same as if you had a doll's house, just moving the furniture, which you can also kind of play, but it's definitely not a game. "

Seems to me like the word they are looking for is "toy". A virtual toy.

I feel a need to link this.

http://www.nowheregirl.com/

Bad Design

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/1667/the_designers_notebook_bad_game_.php?page=2
I linked to the second page in the article, because I felt it and the next page had the most salient points. I especially liked the example, at the bottom of the page I linked, of how to give lots of information fast.

Random Writings

A mountain of pain, built from failures.
The inability to express, what I most desire to confess.
I have a dream. I have a dream.
Yet, I amount to naught.


The Writings I make, are the best I've got.
Their vagueness, all the precision I have.
Forever frustrated, I turn to this.
Incomplete, inadequete. The best I've got.
The best I've got.

The more you define something, the more you lose sight of it.

Amusing Quote (with link)

"Will Wright's genius wasn't in making a sim of human life. It was in making the world's easiest-to-use CAD tool. " - http://web.archive.org/web/20130531004646/http://www.wired.com/gaming/gamingreviews/commentary/games/2007/08/gamesfrontiers_0814

Random Writings...

Distant dreams
impossible it seems
Hope flickers,
and then dies.

Dreams lost in darkness
Hopeless
Light forever missing
False hope
The paths they tell us,
end in ruin
Pain sets in,
it stays
Rhythm dies
the path forward lost

Endless desire
never met
Needs
never seen
Problems
ignored
Pain
not believed
When you don't belong,
no one understands you.
They can only see what they know,
They only know, what belongs.
If you are not a part of the world they believe in...

Random Writings

Darkness calls to any who will listen.
Yet, it is not feared by all who hear.
For some, it can even be a comfort,
the one stable thing in life.

When you see the future,
it can be hopeful, or hopeless.
I pray for the former,
and hope to change the latter.

Darklight
An oxymoron?
Perhaps, but even the darkness can illuminate truth.

Pray, meditate, and listen.
If you're lucky,
it might tell you something.

A link... (can AI save gaming?)

http://www.skotos.net/articles/engines07.shtml

A link... (Game Design)

http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20070326/sorens_05.shtml
"Solution 2: Make creativity the object of the game"

That really caught my eye. I've been looking for a good creative outlet, and haven't been able to find one. I'm not good enough with words to make a story, or skilled enough in other forms of art for pictures or movies. I've tried messing around in Second Life, but I just don't have the talent to create what's in my mind. So I could really use a game, where the whole point is creative expression with the tools to make it easy, and the ability to share with friends (and the world).

A link (on the challenge set before game developers)

http://chessack.wordpress.com/2007/06/06/open-letter-to-game-designers-the-value-of-your-game/

While I don't have the same time constraints the writer of this article has, I do find that I just don't enjoy time sinks anymore. A game (or other distraction) must be intriguing to hold my attention. Otherwise, it quickly becomes a source of misery.

"Logic"

I just read an article on Game Theory and the Traveler's Dillemma (Scientific American, June 2007). In it, they explained how the "rational" choice (as explained by Game Theory) was almost never chosen by actual people, and that the "rational" choice generally fared worse than real people did. The simple answer, is that the so called "rational" choice relies upon foolish assumptions.

The dillemma is this: You and another traveler have to pick a number between 2 and 100. Whoever gives the lower number gets paid that amount +2, and whoever gives the higher number is paid that amount -2. If they both give the same number, they both recieve that amount.

The so called "logic" that is supposed to be rational, is to realize that whatever number they choose, you should go one lower, and whatever number you choose, they should go one lower. Following through the logic of what you think, they think, you think, etc... eventually degenerates to a final answer of 2, because if they choose 2, you can't do better than to choose the same. The flaw is the assumption of how the other person thinks (and thus will act).

My answer is this: you don't know them, so you can't assume how they will think. So, I believe it is best to assume all numbers are equally likely to be chosen by them. Then I just start comparing options.
If I choose 100, I get either 100 (if they choose 100) or I get whatever they chose -2.
If I choose 2, I get either 2 (if they choose 2) or I get 4. So if they choose 2, 3, 4, or 5, my choosing 2 is better than 100. If they choose 6-100, then my choosing 100 is better. Clearly 100 is better.
If I choose 99, then I get 101, if they choose 100, and 99, if they choose 99. Two results better than if I choose 100, and the rest are all the same. So 99 is better than 100.
I continued this for a bit, until I found that 97 was better than 98, equal to 96, and better than 95.

So I conclude that the most rational choice is 97. If you have reason to expect the other person to follow this rational, 96 might be better, but going lower is generally not wise without a very strong reason to believe the other person's choice is going to be low.

Silly thoughts

http://web.archive.org/web/20140209180204/http://sinfest.net/archive_page.php?comicID=2428
The earth is god's sketch book :P

Question:

Does Solar power actually help reduce global warming?

The reason I ask is that Solar power essentially catches energy from the sun. The sun's energy is also what heats the earth. So I wonder if the reduction in green house gas emissions is enough to make up for the increase in solar energy absorbed (as compared to just building solar reflectors).

Regarding Iraq

2007 0116

I have heard that it is in America's best interest to pull out of Iraq. I have yet to hear someone claim it is in Iraq's interest that we pull out. From what I have read, it sounds like leaving Iraq would doom it to anarchy and civil war. Some say we cannot stop it, and might as well leave now, before more of our own troops die. Others say we can stop it. Personally, I think it is in Iraq's interest that we stay. I believe our soldiers can do more good in Iraq, than at home. Since Gorge Bush seems to believe it as well, I now just hope this belief is true.

Summary:
Pulling troops out of Iraq will not help the Iraqi people.
Leaving troops in Iraq might help the Iraqi people.
Therefore, it is in Iraq's interest for our troops to stay in Iraq.

Pulling troops out of Iraq will (probably) reduce the number of American lives lost.
Leaving troops in Iraq will almost certainly result in more American soldiers dead or wounded.
Therefore, it is in America's interest to pull its troops out of Iraq.

End summary.

Personally, I think it is more important to serve the Iraqi people's interests than to serve the American people's interests in this matter. Why? Because we started this whole mess, and it is our responsibility.