Graham Jans' game design blog - Comments

Graham Jans comments on Teaser

Graham Jans — Mon, 27 Apr 2009 17:03:20 +0000

Yeah, I haven't decided yet if it's going to lean more towards bombing or dogfighting. Wherever the fun can be found, I think. Though it will definitely contain elements of both. Beyond that, I'm not going to say too much more; haven't got these things nailed down yet. :)

Simon Ferrari comments on Teaser

Simon Ferrari — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 03:16:50 +0000

You got me excited brother man! It's called "project bomb" ... so is it about early bombing airplanes? The design of the plane looks like it's a dogfighting game. Either way I'm excited. I never really got to play Blazing Angels because they just looked like a lame space shooter set in a retro environment. But my granpa was a WWII bomber and I always wanted a realistic look at his life. Good luck on it, whatever it is!

Graham Jans comments on PFrank - Easy Regex-Based File Renaming

Graham Jans — Mon, 30 Mar 2009 19:50:09 +0000

Yes, I agree. It's a tricky thing. In the past I've had wonderful conversations on various forums -- they really allow the short form and long form to exist side by side. The problem with forums is twofold though:
* They don't feature conversations, they feature threads. With a blog, you can land on the front page and see what the author is talking about. With forums, you are always a half-dozen clicks from seeing anything interesting.
* They don't have good exploratory features. Blogs have things like tags and the reblogging community aspect, Twitter has followees. Forums are just a heap of posts.

I think your blame on 'interesting' may be a little misplaced though. Basically, if I agree with a blog post, I usually have no compulsion to post a reply. I only comment if I disagree or think of an improvement to the original point. This in itself is fine, but then those comments and improvements are segregated from their original context, and any insights or changes in opinion are left out of the original post (coz who wants to go back and change it?).

And as far as people not being convinced or changed by a post or comment, well, that's just people. :P

Simon Ferrari comments on PFrank - Easy Regex-Based File Renaming

Simon Ferrari — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:52:39 +0000

Oh and since I don't Twitter, I need to comment on your latest couple Tweets. You don't see conversation on design blogs because they're not built for conversation. It seems like we're only capable of posting long essays or mind-numbingly short Tweets. We haven't figured out, semantically, how to condense Internet writing into discretely consumed, dialectic units. So you write a design essay, I have the time and attention span to comment meaningfully on one part of it, and then maybe write a reply essay that again you read part of and comment a tiny bit on.

Nobody's ever persuaded. You counter-argue, they say "interesting points, but" and then they repeat the argument you already critiqued. "Interesting" is already over-used in real world speech, but it's the AIDS of Internet-speak.

Simon Ferrari comments on PFrank - Easy Regex-Based File Renaming

Simon Ferrari — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 16:47:23 +0000

I only use command lines when I'm a) using software I shouldn't be because I'm a student with no money who's making no money off what I make or b) when we're working on a game over Subversion. Otherwise I steer clear. I remember when I was like 8 I would watch my dad sit around poring over a book on DOS for months trying to do... like, very little constructive activity. Give me a tool and let me script in it.

Simon comments on Cactusfruit

Simon — Tue, 24 Mar 2009 02:14:48 +0000

I feel like this would be a sweet way to procedurally generate changes in a mutating body or weapon in a game like Prototype. No game has really come close to the kind of body horror/transformation of Akira, but something like this has potential. I want to club bad guys with it.

Graham Jans comments on Play is Vital

Graham Jans — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 23:55:32 +0000

Well, make sure you don't play the version of Dwarf Fortess that's been on your drive for a year; it updates regularly! Also, so long as your report isn't on the steep learning curve, be sure to check out these:

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/03/10/dwarf-fortress-for-minors-newbie-tutorials/
http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2009/01/08/losing-is-fun-learning-is-better-dwarf-fortress-tutorials/

Nope, due to unemployment I can't afford GDC this year. :( This was going to be the year I finally went, too. BAH.

Simon Ferrari comments on Six Ways of Experiencing Gaming Pleasure

Simon Ferrari — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:41:33 +0000

The ones you call the "big hits" are also the ones people usually ascribe to the psychology of flow, too, right? Have you checked out Jesper Juul's summary of his GDC speech for this year? It's about constructive failure in games. Sounds ballin'.

Simon comments on Play is Vital

Simon — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:28:16 +0000

I'm breaking into Dwarf Fortress today for a design critique I've gotta do. It's been sitting on my computer for over a year just waiting to be played. I just need to keep myself from starting on The Path (just found out it was on Steam).

One of my favorite little fun facts from the anthropology of play studies is the fact that animals understand the difference between play fighting and real violence - begging the question, how stupid do you think your child is that he can't distinguish violent games from real life?

Gah my inbox is getting flooded from listserv emails of people at GDC chatting with each other, prompting me to want to an hero for not being there. Are you?

Simon comments on CA: Cave Spores

Simon — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 17:21:46 +0000

Gah I took a whole semester of nothing but Processing and I couldn't do this in a week let alone an afternoon. I should have taken a class on general object oriented programming beforehand.

The calcifying is the best bit, takes it way beyond the Conway Game of Life-iness into it's own little realm (such as, like, actually looking like a form of life as opposed to a math game).

I have to make a life sim for a final project coming up, but it's gonna be about political lifeforms instead of biological... cryptic enough? I'll link the .swf if it's any good.

Keep up the good Processing. Me and my friends have competitions to find the coolest stuff that people made with it.

P.S. Oooh your website gets angry if it doesn't get an http:// before a url.