A second, second opinion

I read some crazy things on the internet, but that is why it was invented. So people had a place to write crazy shit about the subject of their desire.

Firstly this thing about Microsoft wanting to do open source development. Oh yeah, that has been their target for how may years now? While I really don't care about that, I have to say that I would like to see Microsoft open up their stashes for the people. I hear they have some cooky stuff on the stove over there, but because they don't have any commercial products to release them with they usually are buried deep in to the archives like the one in the end of Raiders of the Lost Ark. But let's not cry over spilt milk over here.

I have been reading MSDN and Coding4Fun for years now, and I enjoy the variety of projects they are working on there. Like that X10 stuff is cool as hell and when I make some money I'm going to install that to my house and program my computer to automatically control every electrical piece of equipment in my house, just to see if it will go crazy and kill me. Now THAT would be an event worth blogging about.

Now on to games...

I have been working on several game projects on my pastime, many inspired by the games of my past, ones I still play and ones I can't or won't play because they are better the way I remember then than they actually are. But such is a power of a game designer that I can actually make those shitty games in to good ones. What I need is some time.
I'm all for casual gamers geting their game on, but the line between casual and hardcore is becoming hazy. "Why what do you mean Mr. Suspense" yes, you can call me Mr. Suspense, I like that, almost like Snake which reminds me of Cobra Commander and that is a good thing. I mean that many who used to be in the "casual" category are now racking more hours in front of their screen thanks to World of Warcraft. Videogame addiction is hardly something I would call casual. Also, thanks to Nintendo's DS and Wii more and more people are finding gaming, and I use the term gaming loosely because even if I love Brain Training and Wii Sports, I can not call them games.

Let me give you an example. My brother almost never plays, unless few parameters are met. One is the social aspect. Playing games alone is not something a family man can do. Second is the content. While hardcore gamer will play the most utter bullshit like the umpteenth FPS game undisguishable from it's competitor, a casual gamer like my brother demands solid quality in the content. Many hardcore gamers will deny this and declare that they only play games of the utmost quality, they fail to see that their favorite game is something like Quake Wars or Battlefield 2.

Ok, everyone has a weak spot and my brother's is tycoon. But hey, we all like tycoon games of some kind. Go play Travian if you don't believe me. I believe that tycoon games are a good exaple of addictional gameplay that creeps in like a cocaine habit, unnoticed. Crafted like something anyone could play for a minute or two, this is what we call "easy to pick up" and hooks you forever with it's "instant gratification system" but still it's "hard to master".

These three methods applied to game design will make your game cool. I'm not saying that they will make you a millionare, because like we all know, that is what Halo did. And it has almost none of these things. Though it banks on one thing a game like that can, a story. But that is something you can design in to a game no matter what the rest of the game is like. My mantra is, greate a good game to give a good experience, then worry about the story. A completely reversed mentality of the movie business.

So. What did we learn? Make a good game, that makes you a good game developer, make a good story, that makes you a storyteller.