Today, God help me, I bought an exercise step

Watercoolergames pointed me to the Yourself! Fitness game.

But the IGN review is everything you ever wanted: The overweight, out-of-shape, hardcore gamer tongue-in-cheek trying to pick up a physical exercise regimen from the in-game personal trainer, Maya. (Named of the modeling program?)

I can’t come up with anything better than what the review says, so I’ll just quote some good bits:

Today, God help me, I bought an exercise step.
A week ago I bought some hand weights.

Last came a flexibility measurement. Sit on the floor, legs out, feet 12 inches apart, and bennnnd. Hold it. Now compare yourself to the onscreen bendy dolls and choose the closest one. I got as far as my calves.

Special note — one of the bendy folks on the screen is actually folded face first into the floor. Ha ha, Maya is such a kidder! Let’s all go to the circus!

I think regular readers of some women’s magazines will find the following a silly question, but it’s pretty good:

Another oddity is the meditation garden. While I am sure the routines are fantastic for someone more flexible than I am, I have no idea if or when I am supposed to use this thing. Is it a workout? Is it a relaxation area? Why would I go in there? The manual does not provide much depth.

So there is the whole question about target audience:

The Yourself!Fitness web site is woman-oriented, as are all the in-game graphics. The loading screens feature tips and advice from Prevention magazine, and some of the statements are geared directly towards women. I understand the desire and design to get women more interested in gaming and consoles in general, but let’s not be solely focused on one half of the population.

We can then discuss whether this thing really is a game, or just something that is distributed through the game channel.

Double-coding

With the discussion of academia vs. industry/practice blossoming at Intelligent Artifice and Terra Nova, a comment at the Zen of Design blog strikes a chord:

Double-coding is the practice of creating a work of art that speaks to two different audiences in different ways. It’s most often used to describe Children’s shows that also entertain adults. For example, Animaniacs and the classic Bugs Bunny cartoons are double-coded well – they have many references that a child won’t get but will amuse an adult. ‘Blues Clues’ is not double-coded – and as such, an adult watching it will be put to sleep.

Double-coding is what we, the academics (pick one) are / should be / shouldn’t be doing: Creating work that speaks to academics and to developers at the same time.

Academics are Stupid!

Actually, I say the above frequently.

But in First Person, Mark Barrett has written a response to Janet Murray’s article on cyberdrama.

Discussion at Intelligent Artifice.

Suffice to say that video game academics (all of us) get a terrible review. If you ask me, Barrett is doing some unnuanced generalizations, and he is about as wrong as he is right.
Since he seems to heavily dislike all academic video game theory ever, I wonder what kind of theory he would like? What would industry- (or Barrett-) friendly theory look like?

Game Studies 04/01 is out

It took some time, but here it is, Game Studies volume 4, issue 1.

Alexander R. Galloway: “Social Realism in Gaming”
Zach Whalen: “Play Along – An Approach to Videogame Music”
Castulus Kolo & Timo Baur: “Living a Virtual Life: Social Dynamics of Online Gaming”
Stewart Woods: “Loading the Dice: The Challenge of Serious Videogames”
Aki J?rvinen: “A Meaningful Read: Rules of Play reviewed”
Anja Rau: “Game Studies – Review: Germans at Play”

I am currently one of the editors of the journal (we take turns), and I hereby solemnly swear that I will do my best to speed up the editorial process.

Half-Life 2, the Good and the Bad

Finished Half-Life 2 Wednesday, and I really haven’t felt such an intense urge to finish a game in a long time.

What works:

  • Variation, pacing and length. Where Half-Life was an internimable collection of corridors and silly platform sequences, HL2 manages to get it just right. When I am bored with driving around in the buggy, the game changes into something else. When I can’t be bothered commanding the ant-lions, they disappear. This is games growing up: you instantly know that the film director is a novice or that the band has no clue when they prolong a shot or repeat the riff long after you’ve lost interest. It’s easy to fall in love with your own creation and forget the user/viewer/listener. Getting the pacing right is sooo important.
  • People. There is a lot of genuinely interesting interaction with the NPCs. I still don’t for a second feel that they’re more than mechanical dolls, but a good feeling of shared goals. The revelation of betrayal could be a bit more interesting though.
  • Physics. The physics add so much to the game in terms of gameplay and accessibility. Things you expect to work generally do work. When you want to make a ramp for jumping with your buggy, the puzzle is not “ramp goes up when player has placed object x on the far end”, but actual simulated physics where you can use whatever combination of heavy objects you want.
  • Box-less distribution. I bought it via Steam when it came out, and it simply worked. I don’t know what cut Valve eventually gets from this, but I prefer paying the developer to paying the truck drivers and retailers who added nothing to the game. If Valve begins using Steam for selling other developer’s games, things could be great. But it’s still a problem that you need a physical box to give a Christmas present.

What doesn’t work:

  • I have no body. As the Riddick developers, Starbreeze, have talked about, you are still the classic FPS floating gun with no body. You have no idea about the size of your body, and you can’t see your legs. Riddick really solved this nicely by letting you see your body and providing an external view for climbing ladders and so on.
  • Quick-saves. F6 to quick-save, F9 to quick-load. My fingers remembered this even years after playing Half-life. I thought we had moved on to checkpoint saves?
  • Lack of people. Every time you meet up with your pals in the resistance, they suddenly seem to disappear again.
  • Bad in-organization communication. It’s hard to ensure a good information flow within a big organization, but the enemy soldiers patiently wait behind a thin door while you fight with their colleagues on the outside.
  • Medikits in crates. Really. After all these years, the world is still littered with wooden crates containing medikits. Couldn’t we do this in a better way?

But IMO the best game right now, and infinitely better than Doom 3.

No Overtime Payment Making Video Games. And?

Since the EA Spouse story and the Randy Pausch document on Electronic Arts, the subject of game developer Quality of Life has come up a lot. News.com.
What’s usually missing in the discussion is that hard work with lots of overtime and no compensation is by no means restricted to Electronic Arts. As Tim Burke writes, it’s also quite common in non-profit organizations.
My worst overtime experiences have been working for a small Danish game development shop, working in my own company, and as an academic. It’s not just big companies and it’s not just the private sector. At universities, we all have contracts stating that we work 37,5 hours a week. This is just written in the contract for the fun of it – nobody pretends that this is true.

An important issue, but it’s no use believing that unpaid overtime only happens at EA – or that it will suddenly go away.

And just where are those interesting jobs with no overtime?