Aliens at the Beach

What follows is mostly a stream of conciousness brain dump as I get ready for bed. Please don’t hold it against me.

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Last Saturday my family and I trucked on down to San Jose to check out “Game On”, an exhibit at The Tech Museum of Innovation. Here’s what the flyer I have for it says:

“This highly interactive exhibition examines the exploding videogame industry from the game design process to games culture and beyond. Come experience the past forty years of electronic gaming.”

Highly interactive — check. They had so many arcade machines and consoles set up that it was a blast to play, say, Tennis on the original Magnavox Odyssey with my dad, or feel how awkward the controller for the Atari Jaguar was. A MAME emulator was set up and projected onto a giant screen for all to see. There was definitely alot to play with. One of my favorite aspects of the exhibit was watching kids play the old games. It’s amazing, they really do see to have a natural instinct for digial gaming. I messed around with Manic Miner on an old british Spectrum, got quickly frustrated, and backed off. Some nine year old stepped up and cleared the board without even trying. The other intersting thing about the kids was that it really didn’t seem to matter to them which of the games were the newest or prettiest. They’d play anything in front of them and seem to love it. My mom got to watch in awe as someone played Steel Battalion (she really likes mechs).

Interactivity: A

Game Design Process — Weak. There really wasn’t much at all on the actual process of making the games. Incidentally, this was a big reason I had dragged my family to San Jose in the first place. I was hoping to share with them a bit of what I do. There was a little bit on music in games, which my dad (being a jazz musician) found interesting, and there were some artifacts from the design process of GTA III and Tomb Raider. But what I was hoping for was something that examined the different roles in a game company and how they all work together. There was really nothing of the sort.

Examining Design Process: D

Games Culture — eh. The games culture “section” of the exhibit featured four big franchises (GTA, The Sims, Lara Croft, Pokemon), a few Japanese games, a tiny handful of indie games and a tiny handful of “Kid’s Games”. The franchises section basically showed off some interesting artifacts for each one (the original game outline for Tomb Raider, the post-it note design map for GTA III, etc.) and had a tiny blurb on how the game in question has found itself under non-game-player’s scrutiny. But the blurbs were so cursory, they didn’t really get into any of the issues at hand. For example, on the little plaque for GTA there was a sentence to the effect of “The Grand Theft Auto series has been the target of some controversy.” Uhmm, ok…care to elaborate on that?? The gameplay wasn’t even described, just the fact that Rockstar made it, it sold this many copies, etc. Weak. It was much the same for the other highlighted games. Zero context. This annoyed me, especially if you consider that the audience of this exhibition isn’t neccesarily the game-savvy. I was hoping that there would be interesting information to the non-gaming public. Alas, I was sorely disappointed. The Japanese games, indie games and kid’s games were not any of the more interesting ones I’d seen…I would’ve picked different ones and again, provided more context as to why.

Culture: D-

40 Years of History: Oh yes! Can’t argue with this one! How awesome was it to see an original PDP-1, the type of which helped spawn Spacewar! Or one of these gorgeous Computer Space cabinets. (This image stolen from the very excellent Dot Eaters site.) They had the yellow one too. Fun to see old ads, play ancient consoles and learn about the business that caused the rise and fall of each machine and company. The trip was worth it if only for all this.

History: A+

Summary:
I was disapointed by the exhibit, but I would still have to say it was worth the trip. Not mind-blowing by any means, and I am sad that the exhibit will probably be more interesting to people already enthralled by game history than educational to the general public. But since I am one of those game history fans, I enjoyed it. I would have done a ton of things differently, and this will always color one’s experience.

Overall: B-

Tron
Originally uploaded by Jetgirl Supreme.

This past weekend we attended the California Extreme in lovely San Jose. Was it extreme? Words cannot begin to describe…

Picture a warehouse filled with classic arcade games and pinball machines. Pumping 80′s tunes. And everything on freeplay. If they only had free martinis to boot, this would be my idea of heaven.

Playing these classic games makes me think of a couple things. One is what a difference a custom interface makes. My old Atari 800 had a set of paddles that you could use to play breakout. “Paddles” doesn’t really describe what they were: twisty knobs would be more descriptive. Playing games like Discs of Tron, Robotron 2048 and Tempest make me wish I had a custom controller for every game I own. They really do make a huge difference to the feel of the game. Are the games we play on our home consoles constrained by the interface? (I feel less stupid for having bought my Donkey Konga drums).

The other thing that occurs to me is the importance of gameplay. These games sometimes had an extremely loose framework “story” and of course graphics were not at their visual peak. But it doesn’t change the fact that the games are fun. You can play them over and over again, unlike our modern marvels with epic storylines that take 40 hours to complete. Then, exhausted, you never want to look at the game again.

I am a firm believer that game designers need to constantly study their craft. These games, free of the trappings of beautiful graphics (though they are beautiful in their own way) and lovely stories boil the game down to the gameplay experience, allowing the student of games to easily get right to the heart of the matter.

Ironically, this week Gamasutra also posted answers to “Question of the Week: Coin Op Favorites”. I definitely know which games I want in my personal arcade. Do you?

GDC was awesome, as always. I wish there were two a year instead of one. More than two would be way too exhausting, but the charge I get out of going could stand to be repeated more than once a year. Here are my top highlights:

Marriage proposal at Game Developer Choice Awards
One of the guys from Chronic Logic (makers of Gish) accepted their indie game of the year award and proposed to his girlfriend on stage. She was crying her eyes out and accepted and it was all really sweet. I had tears in my eyes.

Sheri Graner Ray Gets Community Award
I was so stoked that Sheri Graner Ray was acknowledged for all her work making women an actual force in gaming, both in the workplace and as consumers. It warms my heart that the IGDA cares about women in gaming.

Richard Bartle
I love Richard Bartle. Love love love him. Not only was he the force behind the first MUD (and wrote lots of excellent material that helped my LARP and MMORPG paper) but the man is funny as hell. A couple people said he was smashed, but he seemed pretty lucid to me. And who cares anyway. He was the most entertaining part of the award ceremony.

Andrew Stern Throws out Semantics
I went to the panel on why are there no interactive stories. It was comprised of Michael Mateas, Tim Schaefer, Warren Spectre, and Neil Young. They all had interesting things to say, things I mostly knew but had forgotten to think about for a while. But the real kudos go to Andrew Stern who was moderating. Right off the bat he said that this was not going to be a semantic argument, and let’s not get into discussing what a story is or a game is. Instead, let’s focus on the pleasures we want in our games and try to discuss it from that point of view. Can you imagine how this talk would have gone without that very important set up? Bleah. Yay Andrew! Think of how far we could get in the academic world of gaming if we dispensed with the ridiculous semantic arguments!

Women’s Group Gathering
The women’s group gathering was nice once again, although I had to miss the experimental gameplay workshop to go. I met a number of nice people and it just made me happy to be surrounded with other women at a male-dominated conference. The space we had to meet in was way too damn small though.

Daniel James Exhibits Lack of Paranoia
I went to the production talk on Puzzle Pirates, and it made me very happy that SOMEONE in this industry is willing to be open about their business in the hopes that it might help someone else. There is too much damn secrecy and paranoia in the gaming industry. WHY can’t I talk to you about my up-coming title? WHY do I have to suppress my excitement over the thing we are going to try to do differently? I know Peter Molyneaux wishes he had talked less before Fable came out, but if I am having a problem designing one part of my game, I have no one outside of my (tiny) company to go to for input. This kinda sucks. I wish the culture would change a bit so we could feel free to actually communicate with others in our industry for the betterment of all.

Martinis on the ETC
The ETC knows how to throw a party, make ye no mistake. I loved drinking their free drinks and devouring their fancy hors deurves. I long for the day when the EGL has this much money to throw around.

Bonding over Cheese
At the ETC party, I was about ready to leave for the Puzzle Pirates party, but I had only had two olives to eat since lunch and was famished. So I made my way to the snack and cheeses table to tastelessly gorge myself (in a tasty way!) before moving on. There I met a party crasher (though a related profession: he was an electrician) who had somehow found his way here and was also enjoying the cheese and snacks. He guided me through the taste sensations on the table, and we had a fun chat. At one point I was finally getting full and informed him of this. He shook his head. “Then this relationship is over!” Nonetheless, I gave him my email address. Maybe we’ll get to chat over fancy cheeses at a party he’s actually invited to sometime.

ARRRR!!
The Puzzle Pirates party was, of course, the best party hands down. We trekked blocks and blocks on aching feet to get there, but it was way worth it. The rum punch flowed freely in their spacious and stylish office space, and the company was terrific. I had many fantastic conversations and got a good lot of advice from other industry pros who had good advice to give. I ran into some fun people I hadn’t seen since the MUD-dev conference last year. I invited my husband to meet us, and he had a grand time geeking out about the Puzzle Pirates game itself with another attendee. I loved reading the fan mail in the bathroom and was tickled to score two decks of Puzzle Pirates playing cards. I also got to tell Daniel James all about my mom’s Puzzle Pirates obsession, which seemed to make him very happy.

Steve Jackson said I was Awesome!!
I met Steve Jackson! THE Steve Jackson!! Wait. You know who Steve Jackson is, right? If you don’t, hit yourself in the head with something, then read this artice. Then google him or something. Anyway, for the rest of you, not only did I meet him, but it turns out he’s a huge fan of Bone! He said I was awesome because we were making a Bone game at Telltale. He also warned me that we’d better not screw it up. I think I may have been a bit gushing when I met him, because when I walked away Eric Zimmerman mocked me. “That was kind of flirty.” Shut up Eric. Steve Jackson!!

The Rant Session
I went to the game developer’s rant. It was absolutely fantastic! One of the best sessions in any of my three GDCs. Warren Spectre ranted, after a sluggish start, got up to speed and complained bitterly of the developer/producer business model and encouraged developers to find new ways of getting their games out into the world and support others who try. (Like Telltale Games…) Finally Eric Zimmerman (moderating the panel) had to cut him off, just when he was on a true roll. Jason Della Roca, head of the IGDA ranted about game developers’ apathy and ignorance. Apathy towards helping make the world of gaming a better place, and ignorance of anything outside their small little game universe. He encouraged developers to look at other industries for business models. He didn’t use the word “arrogance” but he basically was calling on developers to stop being so arrogant about their own games and game industry practices and look at the rest of the world with an open mind. Then Greg Costikyan stood up and reamed everyone and everything. Nothing – and no one – was sacred. “My friends,” he said “we are fucked.” Between his blisteringly scathing criticisms of the industry and the big movers and shakers within it was a message of how innovation is being forced to give way to greed. And how the future is just going to get worse, as game development costs just continue to grow, causing even less risk to be undertaken. Brenda Laurel stood up next. I had never actually heard her speak before, but she made a convincing case for game developers to take responsibility for the content of their games. She was a great speaker. Finally Chris Ecker ranted about how the PS3 and X-Box 2 are going to be royal pains to program for (which of course increases the development costs). This whole session was freaking awesome, and if Gamasutra has any humanity, the whole thing will be put up in audio format on the web for all to hear. And all should hear it!!

Seanbaby!!
That’s right, I ran into Seanbaby! I told him a bit about the ET project and documentary, and he said it sounded like fun and he would love to be interviewed for it. Yay! I have to get back on that.

Spreading the Telltale Word
Like a true apostle, I spread the gospel of Telltale Games and our up-coming Bone game. Many people were very excited to hear that the former Sam and Max crew was doing their own thing, and people were intrigued about our downloadable content business plan. As for Bone, it was interesting to see people’s reactions. There were only two: blank looks and nods or else jumping up and down with barely controlled glee. The gleeful quickly turned to their blank companions and explained the story of Bone, and how it would make a great adventure game, ending their harangues with offers of loaning out their one volume editions of the comic. The blank smiled and agreed to read it. I take all of this as very good signs.

Camaraderie
The best thing about GDC is just feeling like part of something. In this case it might be a giant behemoth that is just awkwardly growing out of its teething rings. Nonetheless, I had a great number of great conversations with great people and had a chance to indulge myself in the company of people just as obsessive about games (and making them better!) as me. I am still not quite recovered, but I am getting there.

Can’t wait for next year!