Charles Randall

I’ve been interested in procedural generation in games for a while, so when Notch’s entry for Ludum Dare 22 (Minicraft) was released, along with the source code, I went spelunking. I’ve always been intrigued by Minecraft’s world generation, and this gave me a chance to peek behind the curtain at a 2D version (which, in all honestly, is more inline with my sensibilities).

I isolated the core algorithm. It looked vaguely familiar, almost like some of the pixel upsampling algorithms I’d looked at in the past. But I wanted to know if this was something known, or if Notch rolled his own. So I immediately went to my favorite question and answer site: Stack Overflow, where I asked about it. A quick response pointed me in the right direction.

Something I’d like to see is a move to shorter games. I find my time comes at a premium, so when I do encounter games that can be finished in an evening or two, it leaves me happy. But it’s more than just the time requirement, it’s that when game is compressed to a short narrative, you can digest it as a whole, rather than being in the situation where after two weeks of play, the narrative references a character from the first few hours and you can’t remember why he’s important.

Note: This post contains minor spoilers for the movie Inception. So if you haven’t seen it, you should. Also I’m going to assume you are familiar with it so this may be confusing otherwise.

Now that that is out of the way. After seeing Inception the other day, I could not help but see what a great game it would have made. In fact, to be entirely truthful, I was jealous. The setting contains the perfect conceit for a game – that anything is possible. That the movie industry came up with it before us is more of a sad commentary than anything, especially in a time when hollywood seems only able to remake movies and crib from other mediums.

More content coming soon! Move, wedding, and honeymoon are done with, so I have some time to start thinking (and thus writing) again. Don’t delete that bookmark just yet!

One of the topics I like to talk about in my work, is how we are, in general, only using our vocabulary as game designers to express literal conflict. Few things are as well represented in games. But our vocabulary can be used to express far more.

A really great example of this is a small flash game called Small Worlds, which was created by David Shute for Casual Gameplay Competition 6. I do recommend you go play it now, as I will talk about it in detail.

Choice has always been a finicky thing in games, and how developers have consistently used choice has trained gamers to react to it in a certain way. That way is almost exclusively about weighing the costs of what you may get or lose. We have, by and large, tied most choice in games to rewards, or lack thereof.

Bioshock, for instance, pretty much told you up front “If you play this way you’ll get a reward, and if you don’t, you won’t.” So you weren’t making a choice based on the story or your emotions, you were making it as a calculating gamer deciding which way was better. Even if you thought you were making it emotionally, you likely weren’t, as you likely expected, even if subconsciously, to be rewarded for “picking right”. And the game obliged; if you saved all the little sisters, you ultimately got a better reward for it in the end.

Bejeweled has been around a long time. Closing in on ten years, I expect. And the formula has changed very little in that time. The match three style of puzzle game that it spawned is pretty much everywhere nowadays as well. Not many people have tried to innovate on that formula (though there are some notable exceptions). So boy was I surprised when I decided on a lark to fire up Blitz on my iPhone copy of Bejeweled 2.

Eve-Online has one of the deepest and most intricate combat systems I’ve ever seen. It’s also heavily balanced for fleet combat, so that every ship type is not only effective but necessary. From the smallest to the largest, everything has a role it can fill effectively. Given that it’s an MMO, in general it’s one person per role, and one person per ship. Which can be extremely chaotic at times. Of course, Eve’s PVP is amongst the best PVP experiences I’ve ever had, and I go back to it when I can. But for each great combat engagement, there can be literally hours of cat and mouse, hopping from system to system, gathering intel, and chasing people who don’t want to be found. The ten minutes of frenetic action more than makes up for those hours spent preparing and gathering and finding a fight… but you will spend significantly more time doing tense - but boring - maneuvering.

It’s funny how as a long time gamer, I sometimes take things for granted. As a game designer, that’s probably not the best habit.

I was having a conversation about Darksiders with some coworkers over lunch the other day. I’ve been enjoying the game, it being a seamless blend of Zelda, Metroid Prime, and God of War, despite the obvious cribs from those games. One person though, having never played a Zelda or Metroid Prime game, wasn’t enjoying it at all.

I am a pretty big and unabashed Popcap Games fan. Not all of their stuff, mind you, but I’ve spent more money and wasted more time on their games than I’m willing to admit. I’m playing Chuzzle again lately, since it’s been released for iPhone (and with all honestly, when I got my iPhone it was the first game I searched for on the app store). One thing I’ve always loved about Chuzzle was Zen mode.