Electronic Plastic (Büro Destruct)

The reason why I am into electronic games lately is that I bought this nice book called "Electronic Plastic" by Büro Destruct.

Electronic Plastic turns time back to the Stone Age of computer games in the early 80s, long before Gameboy and Playstation existed. Designer Jaro Gielens collected more than 380 originally wrapped, battery-powered oldschool computer games. The finest and craziest ones are presented and commented on in Electronic Plastic. The layout is by Lopetz from "Büro Destruct", a latent computer game addict himself, and author Uwe Schütte putsus in the mood through his atmospheric introduction about the period end of the 70s - early 80s. From a cultural point of view, Electronic Plastic documents a bygone era of consumer electronics.Computer games like Blockbuster, Pinball and Race`n´Chase ruled. Today, the "Handhelds" and "Tabletops" fascinate through the wonderful retrodesign of the game shells, packages, logos. Anyone enthusiastic about design, typography and/or computertrash will even just enjoy the boxes and the typefaces used and will acknowledge how consistently the game shells and the packaging perfectly match the games´ concept. Besides that, the manufac-turers - with fine names like Bandai, Bambino, Epoch and Gakken - also managed to develop highly entertaining games with very simple means: a miniscreen and a few small buttons. The "oldschool" computer gadgets were superseded by exchangeable cartridge systems in the middle of the 80s. Handhelds and tabletops disappeared from department stores. Today they are rare collector items which one usually only still gets to see in dusty attics, or in Electronic Plastic.

A nice resource, with great pictures attesting the diversity of interfaces at that time!

Gamespace and architecture: \"golf holes in playgrounds\"

Alex Wiltshire's take on gamespaces in ICON is very interesting. Here are some excerpts (I put some emphasis on parts I found relevant):

The aim of every gamespace is to provide for and enhance gameplay with engaging and believable environments. The design must take into account how players will use, interact with and move through the space, and how they will approach and depart from it. A successful design will subtly control the player's behaviour and evoke emotion, using an array of devices, such as architecture, lighting and camera work.It will also suspend the player's disbelief by providing a consistent set of physical and behavioural rules that govern the way the game environment and its inhabitants act. (...) Technology is a vital factor in creating believable environments, as it defines the level of possible detail in a gamespace. (...) More processing power also enables more visual effects.(...) But processing power is still profoundly limited. (...) Technology is by no means the only influence in the creation of a gamespace. Designers consider two other sets of choices when creating game environments: how to make a space that provides good gameplay, and how to present the gamespace aesthetically in order to create atmosphere and a sense of place. (...) esigners consider where the start point, or tee, in a level is. They must think about all the things that the player can see from that point, decide on the view distance and which hazards to show and which to hide. The goal of the level should either be shown or hinted at, with the mechanics - or, to continue the analogy, the golf clubs - to achieve the goal made clear. (...) A basic way of creating a sense of movement is with types of walls: long, linear walls encourage movement along them; tall, thin walls suggest movement up them; concave structures invite players inside; and convex structures encourage them to move around the building. Rhythm can be achieved with the repetition of certain structures, such as bulkheads along the length of a corridor on a space ship, which move or nudge the player forward with confidence and security. Tension can then be introduced with a sudden break in the pattern, like a collapsed strut in the corridor, that makes the pattern unpredictable. The designer can thus direct the player's mood and movement. A problem with creating richly detailed environments in games is a resulting loss of legibility, which leads to players not noticing elements that are meant to prompt specific behaviour, such as a certain action that must be performed or the direction for progression. (...) Viktor Antonov. "Our art department uses basic design principles close to those of photography, such as contrast, silhouette, grouping elements together in larger masses, the use of perspective to draw attention and define a focal point and the use of colour to suggest depth and to play with moods. Sometimes we want to overwhelm the player's senses with a large amount of visual noise, and at other times offer a moment of rest with a low-contrast area." (...) he lack of such a narrative in multiplayer first-person shooter games, like Quake 3 Arena (1999) and Unreal Tournament (1999), means that the principles of design behind these gamespaces are entirely different. Levels are designed to enable as much player-to-player interaction as possible. Each space in a level features multiple entry points so players can snipe, assault and escape, with the only limit to freedom being their skill. Important beneficial items are placed in certain areas to intensify action, and the most successful multiplayer levels are very simple in form, such as the classic Facing Worlds level for Unreal Tournament, which features two towers connected by two bridges that cross in the middle. The objective for the two teams is to capture their opponent's flag and return it to their own tower. Such simplicity means that the level is quickly understood by players, allowing them to formulate strategies easily. (...) Once planned, gamespaces must be given meaning and significance for the player - a sense of place and atmosphere - with a set of aesthetic choices. (...) When building an environment, our production team tries to create a sense of place with real history and depth.

Why do I blog this? I always have been interested by level design. It's closely related to my research topic (how people use spatial information to collaborate on something). And video-games provides very smart environment that engage player in various activities. There are strong connection with architecture and urban planning. It seems that some architects are now observing video games, trying to understand what could be useful for their purposes. For that matter, Steffen Walz's project is very relevant. It's about using game design method to enrich architecture methods.

Motivation and mobile gaming

A submitted paper for Digra 2005 (I think they made a mistake and the system is badly protected, we should not be allowed to access to submission):User Experience in Designing Mobile Multiplayer Games by Anu Kankainen. The authors, as a user experience practioners, explains how motivation relates to the mobile gamer experience.

A motive is understood as a need that is driving the user to interact with the game. This need is often emotionally directed. (...) Motivational level needs address “why a person is doing what s/he is doing”; action level needs address “how person is doing what s/he is doing.” Action level needs are often cognitive level needs that are related to a mental model of how to conduct an action. Motive and action does not have a meaning without context. Context issues - time, place, things and people- are especially relevant to mobile game applications, since the game-playing environment can vary substantially. (...) 49 mobile game users participated in the tests. (...) design guideline examples:

1. MOTIVE: Games fulfil social motives by letting the avatar enjoy respect, love, or power, which the player will feel when really immersed in a game. Multiplayer games bring social concepts into play. Interacting with others makes people feel they belong to a group and that they get respect from others. Cooperation and competition are two sides of a coin. Being a member of a group requires friendly cooperation, but at the same time there is a constant competition for status within the group. Playing against real people means that power and admiration are at stake.
   • Games become more interesting when players can compare their performance with the performance of possible community members. Give the user the possibility of updating his/her scores to the high-score list of the game community despite the level of his/her scores.
   • Show the user both the scores of some of the best players and the scores of players who performed closest to the user.
   • Consider using the community high-score list in selecting opponents of equal strength for multiplayer games.
2. ACTION: Post game consists of actions after the game is over. Game communities, high-score lists, or chat with other players about game strategies and tactics can be an essential part of the game experience. In our user tests the greatest difficulties when acting in a game community were caused by inadequate feedback.
• When the user is connected to a game server, s/he needs to know what has happened and is happening in order to know what to do next. If there is no feedback about interactions on the server, the user will think the actions have failed.
• After the user has uploaded a file (for example, a clip or a ghost) to a server, provide clear feedback that the file has been uploaded and where the destination folder is.
• After the user has sent a challenge to a friend, provide feedback that the challenge has been sent successfully.
3. CONTEXT (TIME): In two-player games, the player does not usually keep playing when his/her opponent is interrupted. However, it should be possible to continue the game after the interruption, because short interruptions are frequent in mobile contexts.
   • In two-player games, the game should go into Pause mode for both players if one of the players is interrupted, for example by an incoming call. It must be possible to continue the game.
   • When in Pause mode, the game should go into its Main menu or Pause menu where the first command is “continue 2-player game”. It must be possible to quit the game during the pause, because the interruption may take long time.
   • The player who was not interrupted should receive information about why the game is being paused. For example, “Waiting for other player to continue”. In games with more than two players, other gamers may want to continue when one player is interrupted, therefore pausing everybody’s game is not a convenient solution.
   • Design games with more than two players so that the interruption of one player does not interfere with the other players’ game. The interrupted player’s game can be switched to the background without pausing the game or the player is dropped from the game. The preferred action depends on the game type.

Why do I blog this? This all relates to the discussion we often have at the lab about how to engage users with mobile technology. A tough issue.

Stamkey: giving virtual real-estate a physical presence

Stamkey is a pc/mobile application developed by Sachihata. A tag embeds personal information into a camera-phone readable format that can be imported into mobile phones. As I don't read japanese, I rely on Josh Rubin's blog for the game comcept explanation:

The Stamkey is a stamp that you open up and creates a 2D barcode that can be scanned by a mobile phone. The data received from the barcode is personal information, which is then stored in the mobile. They say that people are placing these 2D barcodes on business cards. But really the possibilities are endless. Just think, no more standing around dictating digits for another for punch in their phone or the expected call back for proper digit exchange.

Will Wright\'s Spore

This new game called Spore seems impressive in terms of user-centric innovation. With Will Wright (The Sims, SimCity...) as game designer, it's very appealing. At the Game Design Conference, he explained the main assumptions:

At the same time, what he calls the "value to gamers" levels off after a while. (...) But fortunately, Wright learned another lesson from The Sims: People love to make their own content. They love to customize their experience. By way of example, he put up a slide showing his Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas character -- who wore a fedora and red-heart boxer shorts. His character was ridiculous-looking, but it made the experience custom for him. Players get a huge value out of content they make for themselves. "Owning" the content in this way means that all the stories that the gamer creates are much more meaningful. Putting two and two together, Wright concluded that there had to be some way where users could create content, instead of armies of developers, and a way to make a game craft itself around the user's contribution.

Based on this concept, the poitn is to allow players to raise tiny microscopic creature and let them evolve into somthing more complex. To do so, the player is provided an editor interface cto custom his creatures as well as buildings. Then the point is to play with all that stuff:

he tide-pool played like Pac-Man, the tribal game played like Populous, the city conflict game played like Civilization. But on the whole the game is pretty light and casual. 40% of it, Wright estimates, is just aesthetics: building stuff you think looks cool and discovering stuff that other people have built.

Why do I blog this? just because it's another example of "give more power to the users"

Mobile gaming innovation

An article in the IHT about the rise of mobile gaming:

For now, many of us take a spin through the games menu on our phones only because of the Mount Everest phenomenon: because it's there. But that is the extent of our adventurousness. Mostly, we stick to solitaire or poker games. But In-Fusio, your mobile phone carrier and the rest of the industry want game-playing by phone - either by yourself or with others - to be part of your standard daily entertainment. (...) 5 million registered players who have generated 35 million downloads for its carrier customers around the world, Giles Corbett, co-chief executive of the Bordeaux-based In-Fusio, (...) Even though cellphone game-downloading isn't turning out to be the huge hit carriers hoped for a few years ago, they still need to offer it for their younger customers. For carriers, Corbett said, "It is very much about appealing to new groups of consumers who will be their core market the next 20 years or so." The key to getting more of us to play, Corbett maintains, is simplicity. If it is a one- or two-click process to get a new game for a couple of euros, we'll do it. Besides making games itself, In-Fusio builds and manages the games infrastructure for mobile operators. Its newest "game engine," which needs to be built into phones as they are being manufactured, gives players more options. Orange of France will be the first to use it, probably starting this summer. For one thing, the software will let you have access to a catalogue of games on your phone, without being connected to the network. Whenever you download a game, it updates the catalogue in the background. In addition, Corbett said, "Within two clicks, I can recommend the game to a friend, or I can rate the game. More importantly, I can see how all of the other users have rated each game."

The rating/recommendation system is appealing, with lots of users it might work well and be fruitful.

Get high IN virtual worlds

After ordering pizza and taking picture, virtual worlds (in video games) now allow you to get high, according to the NYT.

In Narc, which is rated M, or Mature, for ages 17 and older, players control one of two narcotics officers, partners who were once separated after one became addicted to drugs. The gameplay primarily involves arresting dealers, whose drugs can be confiscated and used.

A digital puff of marijuana, for example, temporarily slows the action of the game like a sports replay. Taking an Ecstasy tablet creates a mellow atmosphere that can pacify aggressive foes. The use of crack momentarily makes the player a marksman: a "crack" shot. But using each drug also leads to addiction, which can lead to blackouts that cost the player inventory and to demotions or even expulsion from the police force, which halts progress in the game

Vow including drug effects into gameplay, that sounds interesting in terms of realism.

Virtual World Pictures

A Flickr for vitual worlds (allowing you to share picture/snapshots taken in virtual environment(games) seems to be a trend recently. For instance, Snapzilla allows everyone in the virtual world Second Life to share their snapshots with the world, directly through SL. In the same line, Phil Torrone proposes in-game moblogging, a Flickr from Inside Virtual Worlds! This is an interesting trend. One the one hand, we can order real pizza in Everquest. On the other hand we can take picture in a virtualk world and share them with others living in the real world. Both worlds seems to be more and more intricated!

A step toward crossplatform ubiquitous computing

(via),

Nokia announced a new game at GDC called HinterWars: The Aterian Invasion, notable for being a title on both PC and their mobile N-Gage platform that supports cross-platform play between the two. The game, available as a download from its website, casts the players as one of four races fending off the Aterians.

Why do I blog this? I really like the concept of cross-platform play: you can use various platforms to keep achieving the goals of the game, it's amazing.

A blurry distinction between the virtual and the real world

Greg Lastowka posted a great reflections on Terra Nova:

I think it's clear that the future heralds an increasing collapse of any easy lines drawn between physical and virtual spaces. The collapse is well underway, and I'm not talking metaphorically about eBay economies here. When I see things like Google Maps, A9's Block View, RFID, geocaching, Bluejacking, and Catch Bob, it isn't too hard to spot the fact that there can be, will be, and are currently increasing synergies between real space and virtual information spaces.

If you think about alternate reality gaming (the blending of "real-life treasure hunting, interactive storytelling, video games and online community ") it's definetely true! Greg goes on weondering about relevant issues:

I think we can safely predict that the importance of the tangible information in real space will continue to diminish -- posting a virtual signpoint or advertisement will be as effective as -- perhaps better than -- creating a real signpost. One question to ask is how we'll all feel about this creep away from the physically visible and toward the virtually important.  People seem already annoyed enough about how those talking into tiny cell-phones disrupt standard social expectations. What will they think of people playing pervasive games in real spac?

Another question would be: what will people out of the game/experience will think? Will we encounter another level of digital divide? I can see that since our CatchBob! game is played in public space, there are both lurkers (future catchbob testers) and people reluctant to try this experience.

Nokia\'s next move: audio games

Gamasutra summary of a GDC (Game Design Conference) topic: GDC Mobile: Novel Ways to Use Audio in Games. Some excerpts:

Audio often gets the short end of the stick during the mobile game development cycle, but researchers at Nokia are looking at ways to start from music and audio to create compelling mobile game content. Jukka Holm, of the Music Technologies Group at the Multimedia Technologies Laboratory at Finland's Nokia Research Center, presented examples of how game designers could use music as the starting point for video game content creation. (...) usic-controlled games. Now that modern handsets have the power to spare, they can analyze music and audio data. (...) The last part of Holm's presentation presented the idea of Shared Sound Worlds. Rather than treat each player as part of a single sound stage or as two distinct sound stages, components are shared between the individual handsets in a single world of sound data. In an example showing a volleyball game involving four people with individual handsets, the volume on each handset reflects the individual's player from the ball while the pitch reflects the altitude of the ball. For the player who is closest to the ball, he must "hit" the ball back up when it is within a range of pitch. (...) Holm said after the talk, and developers will soon have the tools to bring these more novel ideas into the marketplace, but it's clear that some intriguing research is going into the hitherto largely unexplored ideas for mobile audio.

3 games to check : Bug Man, CDEFGABC, AudioAsteroids. Why do I blog this? I always thought turning to audio is a good move to create innovative game design on mobile devices. The added value might be in using all the features of the device and audio is a powerful component to support various process: awareness of others, game control, game feedback...

Yahoo moves to mobile games

(via) In a strategic move to battle against Google, Yahoo! started a mobile game studio and -of course- bought some game studio (Stadeon).

"Yahoo wants to be part of the party," said Janco Partners analyst Martin Pyykkonen. Yahoo's strategy is to use games as well as e-mail and other services to keep users on its Web site. Gaming will not likely soon become a large revenue producer, as Yahoo gets most of its sales from online advertising, Pyykkonen said. He also said Yahoo was likely to target places like China and other parts of Asia, targeted by Yahoo and other Web companies future growth. "My view is that it's more of an Asia opportunity," Pyykkonen said.

TRAIN: a narrative controlled by cell phone

(via) This seems not be a nice game design!

Train is a hyper-narative that takes place on the physical layout of an HO scale model railroad. Controlled via cell phones, viewers guide the trains around the track, picking up passengers along the way. The passengers are familiar characters from well known films. When two or more characters are on board, they begin to have a dynamically generated conversation, overheard on the cell phone.

Mobiles Games at 3GSM

The Feature provides an short and nicely done summary of the 3GSM event that happened in Cannes. Apart from the paris hilton hack and the absence of WiMax, the author makes this relevant comment:

People love to play games on their handsets, and maturing technology means the experience will only get richer and the games will get better. But two Silicon Valley-area companies are taking very different tracks: Digital Chocolate, founded by game industry veteran Trip Hawkins, is looking to take advantage of the functionality the mobile phone allows and create new games and experiences, while publisher Sorrent is looking to create mobile versions of well-known console brands. In the nascent mobile gaming space, the successful strategy remains to be seen.

Mike Masnick also discussed this issue. Why do I blog this? As I am interested in user-centric design, I am always wondering about how to push further mobile applications. And I have to admit that the most interesting path I see is to take advantage of mobile phone feature (voice call or location based services for instance) rather than transferring old application coming from old platforms. Although some users might be interested, the innovation in this case is a bit crappy. I find it way better to use cell phones functionalities or even playing with the drawbacks as Matthew Chalmers pointed out with his concept of 'seamful design' (.pdf).

Future gaming: the control scheme rather than graphics/sound

There is a relevant interview of Richard Mrks ingame spy. He's one of the creator of the Eye Toy.

Game interfaces often get the shaft. Developers invest tons in graphics or sound or physics, but nobody ever invests tons of time into the control scheme. Often people don't even really think about it. Game controllers are ubiquitous. You push a button, and stuff happens. But the interface is literally a player's connection to the game: it's where the action happens.

And after a couple decades of stagnation (game pads are basically the same as they were for the NES, save for more buttons) we're finally on the verge of some crazy new technologies for how people interact with games. The Eye-Toy is leading the way, proving that there's an opportunity for new concepts to hit mainstream.(...) Marks started firing up demos and showing what new technology was on the horizon: Head Tracking (...) Future Cameras and "Per-Pixel Distance Measurement, (...) New Interfaces for Handheld: Adding a camera to a handheld can open up tons of possibilities. Dr. Marks, who used the PSP in all his examples, is particularly excited about the idea of using a handheld as a "lens" to view the world. In other words, stick a camera on top of the PSP facing out, then look "through" it (at your screen) at the real world but with digital stuff overlaid on top of it.

Why do I blog this? I always thought the game designers should get rid of the standard game controller (or at least try to innovate a bit about it). There are some nice things showing up here, but I still tend to think it's too technology-oriented, they really need some end-user perspective.

Some mobile game statistics

I am not a great fan of those marketing stuff but it might give some insights. Mobiles Games Blog shows some mobile game stats, gathered by 2 companies: Overloaded and Inside Gamer.

The survey of a representative sample of 1.000 hard-core gamers in the Netherlands and Belgium reveals that 20% of mobile phone gamers would be interested in a games subscription when offered by operators or portals. Next to that, mobile phone gamers are not frequent users of other mobile phone content; 58% indicated to never download ringtones and 79% indicated never to download wallpapers....

What about instructional games?

The New York Times on video games with an instructional content. The article criticizes this phenomenon.

Hundreds of recent video games reward players for shooting villains, vaporizing monsters or solving puzzles. But only one encourages regular and rigorous hand washing. (...) As a result, "I wash my hands a lot more than I used to," said Jillian, who has learned that "if you don't wash your hands one time, that could lead to the flu or any other virus." Like what? "Salmonella, I guess." (...) "In an era where you can't guarantee people are even watching television commercials, getting someone to interact for 15 or 20 minutes is just huge," Mr. Squire said.

For Rez fans

Rez is one of those fabulous video games with a nice design. It has been created by Tetsuya Mizuguchi. His blog is for japanese fluent geeks. Anyway, there is an interview of him by Tokyopia which is cool to read.

TOKYOPIA: Ok. Meteos. You are making a game with Sakurai-san, the designer of Kirby among other games. How did this collaboration come about? MIZUGUCHI: When I left SEGA, he left HAL laboratory at almost the same time. At the time, we had dinner; lunch, tea. We discussed future games on PSP, Nintendo DS, and the new mobile types of games. I really love 24. It is a real time drama. I watched that drama, and I felt the human brain changing from single task to multitask. In Japan, some young couples have dates and talk via email on mobile phones. So everyone can do the same things, many things, at the same time. You know what I mean?

TOKYOPIA: Yeah, especially in Japan, with Keitai (mobile phones) you are always connected. MIZUGUCHI: Well some people are playing games with chat. [From] that kind of feeling, I wanted to design a new type of game. In Meteos, using the touch pen, you have to do many many things. Like Tetris or even Lumines, [they] exist as a [standard] puzzle game. I don’t know why, but they have one block falling down and then the next block falling down. But Meteos has many many blocks falling at the same time. That concept, I told it to [Sakurai-san], and he took further with the touch pen. [Connecting the blocks and shooting them in the air]. The launch, kinda like a space shuttle. I heard that concept and [thought] “Wow. That is new. Simple, but new.” So we got very excited, [and said] “Let’s make the prototype.” When we were done and finished [with] the prototype, [it] was so fun.

Why do I blog this? I'm eager to see how game designers will more forward in the field of mobile gaming.

Learning while collaborating with video games

Short article in the Wisconsin Technology Network about how video games are now a valuable tool for learning.

Firefighters need to be fully prepared, practicing hundreds of times before their first high-rise fire. City officials need to respond to a chemical spill immediately, getting the right information to the right place. Military teams need to work together, planning the best strategy to avoid casualties. These high-risk jobs now have virtual training tools, thanks to a string of developments in video games.(...) According to Constance Steinkuehler, a cognitive researcher at UW-Madison and Co-Lab member, the major benefit that video games have over traditional methods is the high level of user collaboration.

Why do I blog this? howdy! it's because the collaboration feature in video games has just been recently emphasized and I am pleased to see that it now gets some interest! Out point here is not to use game to teach stuff to students. It's rather to use games to understand collaboration and socio-cognitive processes that occur during such tasks.

[Tech] The Virtual Raft Project

The Virtual Raft Project by Bill Tomlinson and others.

The Virtual Raft Project is a multidisciplinary undertaking seeking to create communities of believable autonomous characters that inhabit heterogeneous networks of computational devices. In particular, the project is interested in allowing the characters to break the plane of the traditional desktop screen. To this end, we have designed an interactive installation featuring a novel tangible paradigm for interacting with the characters. This paradigm involves the use of a mobile device, such as a Tablet PC or handheld computer, as a “virtual raft” by which a character may be transported among several virtual worlds. By enabling the character on the raft to react in real time to the raft’s motion in real space, this installation encourages participants to become physically engaged with virtual characters. We believe that this physical engagement can lead to an increase in the believability of the characters.