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Playing your part
One of the problem with video games that have a story component is that the player you represent can behave inconsistently with the “story of the game”. Games that do not have a story component, such as most Will Wright-style games, are the exception. An example of this problem is the very detailed story and…
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City 7: Toronto Conflict Reactions
I’ve had the install file for City 7: Toronto Conflict sitting on my desktop for a long time, but I’ve been too lazy to install it. So, here it is. It’s a mod for Half-Life 2 that represents an alternate timeline where, at the beginning of the game, Gordon Freeman gets teleported to Toronto (City…
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Psychosomnium
Wow. I just played another excellent example of platformer turned into a compelling mind-fuck indie game. Playable here. UPDATE: I didn’t really emphasize enough how important it is that you play this game, like right now. It questioned my meaning of existence, and its ending left me shocked for a long time afterwards. Please, please…
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Neuroticism is optimal?
I just read this article: Neurotic software has winning personality Austrian researchers made several different AI classes (agressive, defensive, normal and neurotic) and pitted them against a real-time strategy game’s built-in AI engine. Turns out the neurotic AI was the most successful of them all In other news, Lately I’ve been watching a lot of…
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Finally, womanly slapping as a gameplay element
LINK to Rose Camellia The plot of the game follows Rose, a low-born widow of the eldest son of a noble family who was only married yesterday. She must defend her stake to the family mansion by slapping every female in her way. Fantastic! The gameplay is entirely controlled by mouse-tracing, so you literally are…
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Games and Education
The link below is to “Statetris”, a game where you play tetris with the States of America. After playing it for about 3 minutes, I think I’ve learned more about the geography of the states than in my previous 22 years of life. Awesome! http://www.mapmsg.com/games/statetris/usa/
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Quagmire
I’m stuck here. I’m looking exhaustively at school programs for next year, specifically game design program. I have a little .txt file I keep full of all of them, and one has really caught my eye. It’s the Vancouver Film School Game Design Program. It’s a twelve-month intensive program, where I drop $29,000 to have…
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Wii!!!!!
I just got back home from my glorious friend Ryan’s house, where he introduced me to the Wii. Thus, I shall expound on it. We played Wii Sports, as he didn’t have any other two-player games, so keep in mind this is only reflective of Wii Sports on the Wii, not any other title. After…
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Mailroom!
Holy crap! It’s Second Person: Role-Playing and Story in Games and Playable Media
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Psssstthhh!
I know I’m supposed to be in Southeast Asia right now, but The Escapist has a great four-part article by Warren Spector (Deus Ex, Thief, Wing Commander, etc.) on Storytelling in games. link.