My name is Jesper Juul, and I am a Ludologist [researcher of the design, meaning, culture, and politics of games]. This is my blog on game research and other important things.
So the GTA IV trailer? features music by Philip Glass and looks a lot like Koyaanisqatsi.
For a moment I am hoping that Rockstar is really thinking outside the box – after 80’s kitsch and Hip hop, the time has come to build a game around classical minimalist composers, with Terry Riley, John Cage, et al. as starring characters.
Probably not, but it would be outside the box.
To follow up on my previous post about the Metagame at GDC: It would have been out of line to openly brag.
“It was all about creating discussion”, but as a member of the losing blue team, I did see some smugness in the eyes of the winning red team (Jonathan Blow, Tracy Fullerton, Warren Spector).
And afterwards, I did keep returning to how we might have rephrased our final question. But I tried to hide it.
There you have it: a real-life negotiation of the border between what is in the game and what is outside the game.
I am on my way to the MetaGame session where we are to play a video game discussion game.
And I realize that I am in a position that I have written about theoretically: Since we haven’t played the game before, not with these people, and not in this context, I don’t know how much bragging is allowed. Can I sulk if we lose? Is it about discussion, or is about winning? What is the balance?
What is the lusory attitude of my own team? What is the attitude of the other team? What is the attitude of the audience?
In San Fransisco for the Game Developers Conference.
I wonder what the mood will be like this year. I think GDC ’05 was all about next-gen worries, ’06 was more about prototyping, and ’07 will be … what?
I guess most people will be happy about the Wii (innovation, smaller budgets), but that the big issue remains the platform holders controlling what games get in. Casual games and downloads in general remain the big hope, but how high can you go?
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My session this year is the MetaGame: A Battle of Videogame Smarts, which is all about discussing games with a pretty cool group of people:
The Metagame: A Battle of Videogame Smarts
Speaker: Frank Lantz (Creative Director, area/code), Eric Zimmerman (CEO, Gamelab), Warren Spector (PRESIDENT, JUNCTION POINT STUDIOS), Marc LeBlanc, Jesper Juul (Video Game Theorist/Assistant Professor, IT University of Copenhagen), Clint Hocking (Creative Director, Ubisoft Divertissements Inc), Jonathan Blow, Tracy Fullerton (Professor, University of Southern California)
Date/Time: Friday (March 9, 2007) 9:00am ? 10:00am
Session Description
Which game is more beautiful: Asteroids or Virtua Fighter? Is Sim City more innovative than Super Mario 64? Does Grand Theft Auto tell a better story than Planetfall? If you have ever discussed, fought over, or even just thought about questions like these, then you are ready to experience The Metagame. Combining a game show format with boardgame strategy and lively debate, The Metagame pits two teams of game experts against each other to debate and discuss vital questions of game aesthetics.
In this contest of strategy and smarts, our teams of game developers, critics, and theorists have to decide which games are more elegant, more influential, a better way to waste 10 years, or a better way to waste 10 minutes than others. When disagreement erupts, teams will challenge each other to debate the best answer but the audience will make the final decision.
Gameology pointed me to Rosemarie Fiore’s long exposure shots of old arcade games.
By strange coincidence, I have been working on something similar lately. (For the sake of truth, not beauty.) Here are two time lapses from the beginning and the end of a level of Asteroids:
Here is the same for Defender:
The aim here was to illustrate how the spatial layout of each game changes during a level – this is part of a piece for the Space Time Play anthology.
Asteroids goes from few large rocks > many small rocks. The Defender images are not quire as revealing, but the radar shows how aliens are initially distributed throughout the world, but hone in on the player at the end of a level.
This weekend saw the 2nd Nordic Game Jam held at the IT University in Copenhagen. In Danish, here is the press release and some pictures. With 80 participants, it seems to be the largest game jam in the world so far.
Since I wasn’t an organizer this year, I could focus on actually making a game. With the great team of Thomas Dougans, Rasmus Keldorff, Mike Sj?rslev Khamphoukeo, Tim Nielsen and myself, we created the two-player strategy game Baa-aah: The Lord is my Shepherd.
The core of the game is protecting your sheep from drowning in the rising water, while attacking your opponents’ sheep. To this end, you can terraform the land, building and breaking dams. Additionally, your sheep can be sacrificed to dramatically raise and lower a portion of the playing field. Here is a screenshot towards the end of a game:
Method-wise, we started by creating a level editor before making anything playable, and then we simply toyed around with making different levels, playing them, and refining the basic gameplay.
The game isn’t anywhere finished, but it’s actually playable and fairly fun, and I am quite proud that we did this in <48 hours.
Oh, and we were voted best game of the event by the participants ;)
(There’s a jury prize and an audience prize.)
The IT University (http://www.itu.dk/), home of the Center for Computer Games Research (http://game.itu.dk), is seeking applicants for two positions as Associate or Assistant Professor of game development. The faculty will teach in our international English language program that focuses on game design, analysis, and technology (http://www.itu.dk/mtg/). Relevant areas of research and teaching are:
For full information about the positions and application procedures please visit http://www1.itu.dk/sw58262.asp. Application deadline is 16 April 2007 at 12:00 noon. Questions about the position can be directed to Associate Professor T.L. Taylor (tltaylor@itu.dk).
I have been playing a Guitar Hero II lately, and I enjoy it immensely.
And yet, there is something disconcerting about the relation between the “frets” (the colored buttons) and the notes that are actually played. On an actual instrument, frets or keys really do correspond to specific notes being played – hitting the A string with your finger on the 3rd fret will consistently play a C. In Guitar Hero the relation is, well, inconsistent.
It looks like we can divide music and rhythm games into those that involve actual playing and those that are about performing.
In Donkey Konga (which I love), Taiko no Tatsujin, or Singstar, the activity of the player is consistently translated into specific sounds that are part of the music. Dance Dance Revolution, on the other hand, is about performing a choreographed sequence along with the music.
And this is where Guitar Hero II fits as well – you don’t play the music, but you perform a choreographed sequence. Performing this sequence just makes the music play correctly.
Guitar Hero‘s emphasis on performing cool/daft rock clichés does go very well with the performance aspect of the gameplay. And the emphasis on style is what Guitar Hero really adds to GuitarFreaks.
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While music and rhythm games are popular, there is also a fear of music[al notation] running through them – all of them eschew common musical notation in favor of something homemade.
In Singstar, why is there no option to make the game display the tune with proper musical notation instead of the colored rectangles?
And worse, in Guitar Hero, why isn’t there an indicator for triplets? (Triplets: Think about the intro in Killing in the Name). As it is, you have to read ahead and divine from sub-pixel positions of the indicators that the note sequence coming up is actually a triplet. A triplet sign would be nice.
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I can’t play by ear, but on occasion I have a flash of insight where I realize how to play part of some tune on the piano. That is always very strong – the experience of pressing keys not because they are choreographed, but because I can feel that these keys are the tune. Playing from notes is mostly a combination of those two experiences, following a choreography from the sheet, and pressing keys because those keys are the tune.
Is there something inherent in the music/rhythm genre that makes it hard to make a popular game that really could be played by ear? Singstar can be played by ear, but one with an instrument?