Infovore : tag : game

18
March
2010

Links

Tagged as:
adventure, benheck, billpaxton, bitdifficultreally, forza, game, games, gdc10, hacking, homebrew, indie, making, pinball, programming, rendering, retro, romance, streaming, toplay, turn10.

GDC 2010: Streaming Massive Environments from 0 to 200 MPH « Double Buffered

"Here’s my notes for the talk Streaming Massive Environments from 0 to 200 MPH presented by Chris Tector from Turn 10 Studios. He’s listed as a Software Architect there, and obviously has a deep understanding of the streaming system they used on Forza 3. This talk was nice and deep technically, and touches all parts of the spectrum." Very technical. But: if you can grok what's going on (and this is about at the limits of my simple understanding – could barely start to recreate what's described), it's very interesting about the challenge of rendering beautiful, high detail environments at a solid 60fps, mainly by pre-preparing a lot, and maximising streaming performance both from disk and from memory.

(tags: turn10 forza programming games streaming gdc10 rendering bitdifficultreally )
Digital: A Love Story

"A computer mystery/romance set five minutes into the future of 1988." Looks jolly good.

(tags: retro game adventure romance indie toplay )
Bill Paxton Pinball

Ben Heck made his own pinball table. And it's not some half-baked pinball table running off a connected PC, with off the shelf components; it's largely built from scratch, from the cabinet to the LED matrix (!). All running off a single microcontroller. He's a smart guy.

(tags: benheck pinball homebrew making hacking billpaxton )

02
July
2009

Links

Tagged as:
analysis, blog, book, clothes, criticism, design, diet, economics, exercise, families, fashion, food, game, health, hipsters, imageblog, keffiyeh, kurtvonnegut, levels, lighting, marriage, notlocalanymore, nutrition, photography, quotation, reference, space, supermarioland, vonnegut.

auntie pixelante › level design lesson: in the pyramid

"this is good level design." A lovely dissection of a couple of screens from Super Mario Land; detailed, spot-on, carefuly analysis from Anna Anthropy. Amazing what you can do with four types of block.

(tags: game design supermarioland levels space analysis criticism )
chewing pixels » You Are Not Enough People

"Why are so many people getting divorced today? It’s because most of us don’t have extended families anymore. It used to be that when a man and a woman got married, the bride got a lot more people to talk to about everything. The groom got a lot more pals to tell dumb jokes to." The rest of the quotation is where the magic happens.

(tags: quotation kurtvonnegut vonnegut families marriage )
light-test.com

In which photographers, or, more likely, their assistants, upload lighting test shots. Some are striking; some are practical; some are made of awesome. Fun!

(tags: photography blog imageblog lighting )
Your Intifada: Now Made in China! | Mother Jones

The last keffiyeh factory in Palestine is going out of business; they're all made in China now. Well done, hipsters!

(tags: fashion clothes keffiyeh hipsters economics notlocalanymore )
The Hacker's Diet

Recommended by Matt Haughey.

(tags: diet health book nutrition exercise food reference )

20
March
2009

Links

Tagged as:
controls, crazy, design, game, games, historiography, history, interface, killzone2, overcomplex, play, ui, writing.

Insult Swordfighting: Using the sniper rifle in Killzone 2: A photo tutorial

"Here's a handy, step-by-step guide to using the sniper rifle in the smash-hit PlayStation 3 shooter, Killzone 2." Mitch Krpata has four hands.

(tags: games ui interface crazy killzone2 controls overcomplex )
One More Go: Majora’s Mask, or How to be your own hero of time – Offworld

"I hate the deep breath I have to take before asking if anyone remembers Jumping Flash or Rescue On Fractalus. I hate being the geeky bore who’s more interested in talking about games from twenty years ago than about BioShock 2 or GTA 5. But even more I hate the waste of modern game development, of watching talented teams burn time and energy reinventing wheels previously perfected by men now in their 60s."

(tags: design play writing history historiography game )

09
March
2009

Links

Tagged as:
bonkers, flash, game, giant, tetris.

Tetoris

This is ridiculous.

(tags: flash bonkers game tetris giant )

04
February
2009

Links

Tagged as:
actionscript, art, astronomy, bjp, blog, choice, code, coercion, comics, communication, crm, farcry2, flash, freedom, funny, game, games, information, iroquoispliskin, kentacho, management, online, photography, programming, safety, scraping, shmup, space, transport, transportchaos, travel, uk, useful, via:offworld, web, webcomic.

pup 15

Pup ponders the heat-death of the universe. Beautiful, and a lovely use of space, too.

(tags: art space comics astronomy webcomic )
Crew Resource Management – Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"CRM training encompasses a wide range of knowledge, skills and attitudes including communications, situational awareness, problem solving, decision making, and teamwork; together with all the attendant sub-disciplines which each of these areas entails. CRM can be defined as a management system which makes optimum use of all available resources – equipment, procedures and people – to promote safety and enhance the efficiency of flight operations."

(tags: management communication safety crm )
The little page of TRANSPORT CHAOS

Scrapes lots of things, produces a useful page which actually manages to stay up. Also, it spells TRANSPORT CHAOS the only way it should be spelt: in capitals.

(tags: information uk funny scraping travel useful transportchaos transport )
1854 – the blog of the British Journal of Photography

Named for the year the BJP was founded; nicely written, and not just a fast-moving press release stream.

(tags: blog uk photography bjp )
ABA | wonderfl build flash online

All Kenta Cho's code on wonderfl.

(tags: programming flash games web kentacho code )
forked from: forked from: forked from: AAShip | wonderfl build flash online

Kenta Cho's making stuff on wondfl, in ActionScript. This example is ASCII-based bulletty goodness.

(tags: flash shmup game kentacho via:offworld )
Versus CluClu Land: The Game Made Me Do It

"So perverse as it might sound, I'm going to plead for less choice in video games. It's a paradox: by limiting the player's discretion, you can expand the narrative possibilities of the medium. Coercion can create a kind of emotional heft that you can't achieve within the confines of the empowerment-myth." All true, and FC2 is a fantastic example of this. But: this is just one way of making games. More of this, yes, but don't forget all the other approaches.

(tags: games farcry2 choice freedom iroquoispliskin coercion )
wonderfl build flash online

"write Actionscript3 code in a textarea, and your code will be compiled server side. Your compiled Flash will be reloaded automatically in the right side of the page, so write code and see it real-time." And you can fork other people's code. It's like github and Heroku all at once, but for Flash.

(tags: programming flash online actionscript )

20
November
2008

Links

Tagged as:
activity, amazing, americana, anecdotes, application, bike, brooksreynolds, choice, context, conway, cycling, design, engagement, evidence, fallout, freedom, game, gameoflife, games, geo, guitarhero, interaction, journalism, life, malcolmgladwell, narrative, openworld, pastiche, photography, projects, reference, science, series, shared, supercontext, video, writing.

smule's ocarina (tecznotes)

"We've seen this all before… [but] these Smule globes seem strangely different and much more interesting, largely I think because you hold the phone in your hand instead of the laptop or monitor on your desk. It's a more personal, touched engagement with the screen that makes visualizing an earth-spanning army of phone lighters and flute blowers more physically personal."

(tags: geo supercontext application design context shared activity engagement interaction )
The Brainy Gamer: Second thoughts

"But succeed or fail, my awareness of game design is omnipresent, and I like it that way. It enriches my experience of playing. The in-world experience remains my first thought, but my second thought is nearly always focused on the system, especially when that system demonstrates originality or beautiful execution. I don't think I'm the only gamer who behaves this way." No, but it requires a certain degree of awareness of the medium to think about the second; the first is much more immediate, and the second is about an engagements with games, rather than a particular game.

(tags: games fallout openworld choice freedom design narrative )
Big Contrarian → It just goes to show.

"If I only have so many hours in the day to devote to genuinely insightful things, Gladwell’s track record screams at me to ignore Outliers. At least for now. At least until I’m stuck on a cross-country flight, liquored up, and ready for a good fight." Jack Shedd is bored of anecdotes.

(tags: writing journalism anecdotes evidence science malcolmgladwell )
Life Lexicon

"This is a lexicon of terms relating to John Horton Conway's Game of Life." Very comprehensive, with lots of examples.

(tags: conway gameoflife life game reference )
We Are Sleeping Giants

Ignoring the background music and a lot of Trajan, I really like this series of pictures from Brooks Reynolds; particularly, his use of lighting and depth of field. I'm a big fan of concept-series; they tend to be more than a sum of their parts.

(tags: photography series projects brooksreynolds americana )
YouTube – Bike Hero

I don't care that it's not playing the game or anything, there is no way in the world that this is anything less than super-awesome.

(tags: guitarhero bike cycling video pastiche amazing )

28
August
2008

Links

Tagged as:
advert, api, arcade, awesome, camera, cinematography, classic, commerical, design, doc, documentation, ds, education, engineering, film, filmmaking, game, games, gyrus, hd, hirokazuyasuhara, homebrew, interaction, layout, making, merge, music, nintendo, nintendods, omnigraffle, photography, play, prototyping, qix, rails, red, reference, rhythmaction, rspec, ruby, sketching, technology, tempest, template, timelapse, userexperience, ux, videogames, wired, wireframe.

Analog Meets Its Match in Red Digital Cinema's Ultrahigh-Res Camera

"I'm passionate about this because I'm building the camera I've always wanted to shoot with," he says. "When my grandkids and great-grandkids look back, they're going to say I was a camera builder. I did handgrips and then goggles and then sunglasses to prepare myself. But cameras are magic." Fantastic article about Jim Jannard and his Red digital movie-camera business.

(tags: hd film camera technology red wired filmmaking cinematography )
YouTube – future engineer-this kids amazing

Brilliant, brilliant little advert.

(tags: commerical advert engineering education awesome )
Video Games Hero – rocking the NDS homebrew

"VideoGamesHero brings you homebrew action at it's best – offering lasting fun and challenging action with over 65 Songs, 5 Game modes, Motion Card and Guitar Grip support, there is something for everyone!" Homebrew Harmonix-style rhythm action game for the ds. Awesome.

(tags: nintendo ds nintendods homebrew music games rhythmaction )
Gamasutra – Game Design Psychology: The Full Hirokazu Yasuhara Interview

"In this extensive interview, Yasuhara outlines his carefully constructed theories of fun and game design, including the differences between American and Japanese audiences, with illustrated documents." Lots of nice things in here, including a section on "tidying up".

(tags: game design hirokazuyasuhara interaction play )
Front page – APIdock

"APIdock is a web app that provides a rich and usable interface for searching, perusing and improving the documentation of projects that are included in the app." Handy.

(tags: api reference documentation doc ruby rspec rails )
adaptive path » blog » Peter Merholz » Pen(cil) and paper to live prototype – where’d the wireframe go?

"I think the role of the architecture diagram, user flow, and wireframe belongs very much after the fact, after we’ve sketched and prototyped an experience. Those are tools to document what has been agreed through sketching and prototyping. They are not the best means for solving challenging design problems." That seems like a good way of putting it.

(tags: documentation ux userexperience design sketching prototyping wireframe making )
OmniGraffle UX Template | Konigi

"In this template you'll find shared layers (masters) for a title page, wireframe, wireframe/storyboard hybrid, simple storyboard, and storyboard with notes. Column guides and a regular grid make it easy to use and keep your layout tight." Nice .graffle templates for UX designers.

(tags: design ux omnigraffle template layout prototyping )
Rosemarie fiore

Timelapse, merged photographs of videogames. Beautiful, especially Tempest.

(tags: tempest gyrus qix timelapse merge photography games videogames arcade classic )

22
August
2008

Links

Tagged as:
advertising, australia, braid, brand, design, fosters, game, games, marketing, mechanics, play, problems, promotion, psp, puzzles, stellaartois.

I Believe in Advertising | Advertising Blog & Community » Stella Artois: PSP

"Anecdotal feedback also confirmed that without exception, the PSP was regarded as the best sales presenter ever received. As a result, Foster’s is now reviewing further rollout of the tool." Fosters use a pre-loaded PSP as sales demonstration tool; it does very well.

(tags: psp advertising marketing brand promotion fosters stellaartois australia )
GameSetWatch – Design Lesson 101 – Braid

"Each world has a specific mechanic and overlapping rarely occurs between world mechanics. Instead, the player is given just enough objects on the screen to solve the puzzle with the limited tools available. By being able to concentrate on one mindset of solving the puzzle, eventually the solutions make themselves apparent." A nice Manveer Heir piece on why the puzzles themselves in Braid are good: because the game creates complexity out of limited tools, rather than throwing every mechanic in all the time.

(tags: braid game design mechanics games play puzzles problems )

16
January
2006

games

Tagged as:
ds, game, games, pixelsurgeon, review.

Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land

0 comments

“Seven years. That’s how long it’s been since Tony Hawk Pro Skater first rolled onto the PlayStation. Like it or not, Hawk is now a part of the gaming canon, committed to rolling out yearly updates. Indeed, Activision has exclusive rights to the Hawk brand until 2015 – we’re not even halfway through the series’ life.”

A new game review up over at Pixelsurgeon, this time of Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land on the Nintendo DS. Very impressed with this – an amazingly good online implementation, which, in terms of how it links up with the internet almost puts Mario Kart to shame; lovely cel-shaded visuals; none of the nonsense that the Underground games brought in. As the review says, it’s essentially Pro Skater 5.

Read the full review.

29
November
2005

posts

Tagged as:
advert, game, trailer.

Clever boys…

0 comments

Awesome trailer for XBox 360. Unfortunately, it was pulled by Microsoft’s lawyers, presumably because it glorifies violence. Well, if pointing your fingers at people and saying “bang” is violence, I guess it does. It’s a lovely demonstration of what silly multiplayer FPSes are like. Also, it references a great moment in Spaced, and has a lovely punchline. Watch it!

And when you’ve done that, watch this Consolevania style ad for the new Prince of Persia. Whatever the game is like, the ad is delightful, and one of the best games ads I’ve seen in a while. Capturing the feel of gaming without in-game footage – and that’s exactly what I like about it.

Tony Hawk’s American Sk8land

Clever boys…

Links & notes for this month

Endnotes