Category: games

Pac-Man is officially 30 years old today. (This is what the internet has settled on, even though Bandai claims that it’s tomorrow.)

Just this morning the cleaning lady here professed that Pac-Man was her favorite of the arcade games we have in the NYU Game Center.

And I do think it is one of the few arcade games that remains as playable today as it was 20 or 30 years ago. Is it the Citizen Kane of video games? How would we tell? What would that mean? It certainly has a kind of internal coherence and perfection, a stylized graphical style that does not date, a gameplay that is clear, strategies that are sufficiently interesting, and little tricks like the fact that the ghosts switch between aiming for the player and wandering aimlessly, leading to many exciting near misses. It works.

It also happens to be playable on google.com:

Update: News.com writeup on Pac-Man, Google’s implementation.

I was previously writing about how Apple’s apparently random iPhone App Store policies could actually be so by design. (Because they save Apple from having to define and defend a universally acceptable set of policies, and because it can easily give special treatment when it so desires.)

Another example here, with a political cartoon app banned and then unbanned after the story got out.

Weirdly, what really got to me was how Apple recently changed their policies to prohibit developers from working in their language of choice:

“Applications must be originally written in Objective-C, C, C++, or JavaScript as executed by the iPhone OS WebKit engine, and only code written in C, C++, and Objective-C may compile and directly link against the Documented APIs (e.g., Applications that link to Documented APIs through an intermediary translation or compatibility layer or tool are prohibited).”

As a programmer, I find this particularly offensive because:

1. I think developers have a right to use whatever tools get the job done.
2. There are great applications out there written in Unity3D, for example, and horrible apps written in Objective-C.
3. Apple’s benefits are fairly obvious and obviously hurtful for everyone else: Prevent cross-platform development; control innovation. (Flash included, of course.)
4. It means that you cannot have a programming environment on the iPhone. Ever.
5. The official argument from Steve Jobs is unashamed BS: “Intermediate layers” decrease application quality. Actually, no. There is a reason why developers use middleware, 3D engines, scripting languages and so on: Because they increase application quality. Apple’s argument is a variation on the old claim that “we should write everything in assembler because it runs faster”. This, like Apple’s claim, only holds true for developers with infinite resources and infinite time. There aren’t a whole lot of developers like that, so maximum application quality is reached by using the best tools for the given task and resources. Publishers should not try to decide those tools ahead of time.

A lot has been made out of how the lack of Flash on the iPhone/iPad prevents access to most video on the net. Perhaps that is a red herring. Video could run in HTML5.

The bigger program is that there are a lot of interesting (indie) games being done in Flash, and HTML just isn’t close to be being a game platform. (Can you even play sounds yet?) No indie Flash games for you, buy something from the app store instead.

Bad Apple.

On May 6th, starting at 5pm, the NYU Game Center will be hosting a reception for No Quarter: An Exhibition of Games.

No Quarter consists of four games that explore the possibilities for social play in real-world environments, to imagine a new arcade that generates complex, surprising, and playful interactions in the public setting of a gallery space.

Three of the games were commissioned specifically for the exhibit:

Raging Hadron is a two player competitive game by independent game designer Mark ‘messhof’ Essen that combines swashbuckling swordplay with 8-bit psychedelia.

Deep Sea is a graphics-free, audio-only game about the terrors of deep sea diving by sound designer Robin Arnott.

Recurse is a manic game of twisting bodies, quick reactions, and physical feedback by game designer Matt Parker.

The exhibition will also feature 16 Tons, a four-player game of strategy and negotiation by the team of Game Center faculty Eric Zimmerman and architect Nathalie Pozzi, which was created for the Art History of Games Conference.

One of the goals of the Game Center is to support the New York game scene and to encourage experimental and innovative work by local independent game designers. To pursue this goal we intend to commission small-scale games on an ongoing basis. We believe that games, like other creative forms, can thrive outside the context of commercial development.

Please join us then on May 6th for a reception featuring all of these games and a chance to meet with their creators. The event is open to students, faculty, and the general public.

Food and wine will be served.

After the reception the games will be on display in the Game Center lobby through June 4th.

721 Broadway, 9th floor, New York, NY 10003

From XKCD.