What’s Next For The Show…

Hey folks,

After feedback from a while back on the show…we changed direction and did deeper interviews rather than purely conference interviews. We also released deeper content with tutorials and books. I think the changes were for the better.

So what’s next…what do you like to hear…what articles do you want to read?

Thanks in advance for the feedback

Freebie: Mobile Game Design book…is now free for listeners…

Hey folks,

With a little luck, we’ve got a nice freebie for everyone today…

We always try to explore new ideas and concepts on the show that make experimental game developers more innovative and effective.

In that regard, I’ve written a book on mobile game design.

The book “Mobile Game Design”…which you can buy on Amazon…is now free for listeners for a limited time. It talks about the main mechanics for mobile games…as well as “hidden game mechanics” you can use to stand out in the marketplace. Enjoy

Put any feedback or suggestions on the book below

You can download the book here…

http://www.indiegamepod.com/mobile-game-design-book.pdf

Will the next generation of experimental games be hardware-based?

Is hardware making a comeback? As computing gets cheaper, KickStarter keeps funding new hardware projects, and Moore’s law impacts the price of hardware, there is now this new opportunity for hardware-based games.

Do you think the upcoming Independent Game Festivals will have more hardware-based games? I’m not even talking about custom android console devices. I’m talking about sensor systems that tie into games.

What types of hardware-based games can you see happening?

Poll: Should I Post Experimental Projects Here…

Hey folks,

I’ve been working on some experimental games…I wanted to know if you think it’s worth posting them here. The main goal would be to get feedback and opinions and insights to make things work.

My question is…are there enough people interested to make this worthwhile for everyone involved? Most of the experimental games I’m working on are mobile…so you’d need an Android device to test them out.

Let me know what you think. Thanks

Storyteller — IGF 2012 Nuovo Award Winner…

Hey folks,

Daniel, from Ludomoncy, talks about his innovative game — Storyteller…

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/storyteller-podcast.mp3

Or listen to it here…

Enjoy

Video Tutorial, Part 1: Make Your Own Mobile Game in 60 Minutes

Hey folks,

Here is a video on getting into making a very simple mobile game in 60 minutes. It complements the new book on “Mobile Game Design”

Enjoy

Ed, Founder of Liquid Entertainment, Talks About Succeeding in the Games Industry…

Hey folks,

I had a great conversation with Ed Castillo, from Liquid Entertainment, about succeeding in the game industry as well as current trends like social and mobile…as well as the future of gaming.

I’ve broken it up into 3 segments. Here’s the first segment…where Ed talks about surviving all the shifts in the game industry as well as the current state of the game industry…and the skills a game company needs to succeed in the industry…

You can follow him on Twitter here…
https://twitter.com/#!/GoLiquid

You can check out their Facebook page here…
https://www.facebook.com/pages/Liquid-Entertainment/186850428747

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/le-part1.mp3

Or listen to it here…

Guest Post: The Unmet Potential of RPGs for Storytelling

A few weeks ago, I decided I was going to make an RPG with RPG Maker for no cost. I wanted to do something new, so I looked back at a long list of the greatest RPGs of all time for inspiration. I finished looking through the list, and wound up quite empty, actually unmotivated.
Why? Because most RPGs are rehashes of the same generic RPG from 15 years ago – You and some friends from humble beginnings must save your world from the bad guys using yourswords and special moves you learn on the way as you get stronger. Now, I’m not saying some RPGs don’t ever break free from this very simple mold, but I don’t understand why all RPGs pull from a very short list of themes and conflicts. Good vs Evil. Save the world. Rags to riches (in terms of strength). Has an RPG ever rooted itself in the inevitability of death? The existence of God? Self sacrifice? War as a means to do good?

I also find myself disappointed with the characters in RPGs. Many characters in “new” games are parallels to characters in old games, all with the same “problems”. Why can’t we break free from these boring, already explored characters. I have heard much praise of the characters of Crono Trigger, and I think this is the greatest sign that RPGs need change. The characters of Crono Trigger were dull. The frog felt guilt for the man who died next to him, and that was about it. The robot and tech minded girl were absolutely flat, the princess was cliché, and Crono was barely a character.

Many developers take this approach in making the protagonist as non-existent as possible to better allow the player to seep into its skin and escape into the game, but THIS IS NOT HOWYOU TELL A STORY! By making the protagonist an unconscious mute, you throw out any possibility of exploring internal conflicts beyond the external conflicts of the gameplay. This is true for all games. However, I don’t expect the next Legend of Zelda to examine Link’s lack of confidence in his manliness or Mario’s deep sexual desires. But these games focus on gameplay, and have no need for a deep story – the fun is in the mechanics. However, it is different for RPGs.

Let me break that down for you – Role Playing Games. These games NEED story, unlike most other genres. Any RPG that fails to explore story beyond the “save the princess”, “stop the bad guys”, or their lovechild “stop the bad guys who have the princess” has failed by its very definition. This is why there can be no more Cronos’s in the genre.

The gameplay has also become very uninspiring. All RPG gameplay focuses on combat – walking from A to B and defeating every creature in your path, usually with your sword/bow/whatever. Many declare Pokemon a childish game, but it is the only game I see to make a significant change to the RPG formula, with the collection and training of little monsters,who can be both friends and foes. It has sold more games per year on average than any other franchise. Even Mario. By a long shot. How about gameplay focused on conversation? Instead of Attack/Defend, maybe you can choose between friendly, flirty, mean, uninterested…, thus exploring social aspects of life and relationships. (This is just off the top of my head.)
I may sound like a complete pessimist, but I see the utmost potential in the RPG genre. It is probably one of the easiest genres to include meaningful stories (although I can think of very few examples), and designers have a lot of room to innovate. One thing I am very intrigued by is the progression of RPGs. All RPGs have made strength the element of progression (EOP), but I look forward to playing and designing games where this is not always the case. Maybe games can explore the progression of a relationship, disease, faith, age… Life is all about progression, and so are games, but they have only just started to explore this with the XP system that many developers confuse as an integral and unchangeable part of RPGs.
Maybe the reason RPGs have become less popular (with the exception of the very fresh, although now stale Pokemon) is that RPGs are no longer new experiences. Maybe the reason we aren’t as interested in traditional, straight-up RPGs is because they have grown stale. Games like Fallout, Mass Effect, and Kingdom Hearts thrive in the action-RPG genre, but a traditional RPG hasn’t won the IGN RPG of the year since Dragon Quest VIII 6 years ago, a year of little competition. In fact, I can’t remember the last RPG I have played that wasn’t a port/reimagining, as that lowers the bar and tells its consumers not to expect anything new.

I look back at Crono Trigger, and see Homer’s Odyssey. I look forward and see Catcher in the Ryes, The Grapes of Wraths, and 1984s left and right. It is time to push the boundary of RPGs from solely epic adventure to artistic experiences that examine life and speak of the human condition.

Dylan Woodbury lives with his family in Southern California. He runs http://dtwgames.com, a game design website that posts intriguing new articles every week, both beginner’s tutorials and theoretical ideas. He also has an interest in writing, and is planning his first novel. His primary goal is to change the world through video games.

Guest Post: Learning Through Games

How much thinking is allowed in games? What many don’t know is that we think a lot when we play video games. Whenever we make a decision, face a beast, or strategize, we are thinking.
Many don’t know that thinking/ learning is the primary reason for fun. Learning may not sound like a lot of fun, as school pops into one’s mind, but the learning in school isn’t the learning you do in games – or in life, for that matter.

People play games much like toddlers go through life – we examine a situation, predict the outcome of a certain action, test it, and examine the results. Whether it’s trying to bring down a boss in Super Mario Galaxy 2 or releasing a balloon into the sky, we are still learning.

Games have been testing learning and thought more and more lately. People have obtained headaches after playing games like Braid or Portal. Challenges in these games require the gamer to think and learn more than ever before, and people have fun – learning is fun.

But if learning is fun, why is school so boring? Because we don’t learn in school – we cram, memorize, and follow an algorithm… that is not learning! I am here to propose that if school was set up more like a video game, school would actually be fun, and there would be no divide between smart and stupid people.

The first order of business is making the material matter to the player – making the material important. Good grades can be important, as they avoid consequences, regret, and a whole truck-load of negative feelings. A student may be motivated by grades, but that does not matter – a student must be self-motivated in order to succeed in school (or just have a skill set for following sets and cramming irrelevant information into one’s head, the modern definition for smart).

How do we make learning important to the student? The answer: by simply having the student learn organically. That means, you learn by doing. When humans learn, we use the scientific method (even though we might not be aware of it). First, we notice a problem or challenge, like portal puzzleneeding to get from one side of a room to the other without landing in the acid between the two sides. Next, we hypothesize based on previously learned information, thinking, “Maybe if I put a portal on this side and that side, I will end up on the other side.” Then, we test; we shoot the portals and jump through. Finally, we analyze the results and what we hypothesized (it worked). At that point, the player has learned – one can transport to a new area by laying portals on opposite walls. Even if it didn’t working, the player learns that the converse is true, bringing him/her closer to the answer.

At that moment when you find yourself on the other side of the room, chemicals of pleasure are released into your brain, rewarding you for the mission accomplished and motivating you to learn even more. After learning about the portals, you now have this concept tucked inside your head for the rest of the game. This is something that you won’t forget, because you have learned it by doing.

How can we use this method, for instance, to teach a child how to add two numbers? We can make a game! Why? Because a good game can organically teach and make learning the information important and fun.

I know that about half of my readers just rolled their eyes. “Educational games are boring!” Mostbad example of learning educational games are boring because they didn’t do it right! A game that simply puts two numbers on the screen and tells you to enter the result is not organically teaching. You can do that in real life! Games like these do not utilize what video games have to offer.

Let’s imagine a medieval game, in which the protagonist is doing the usual thing – defending villagers and defeating evil. We can throw in a learning challenge that teaches something very applicable in the real world. Let’s say you need to cross the river, but an obstacle is keeping you from crossing, like the sailor can’t figure out how much to cost for both the protagonist and his sidekick, or whatever. Suddenly, knowing addition becomes important, crucial to the player’s progress in the game. When given a reachable problem in an open environment to experiment and apply the scientific method, as well as a good streaming dose of feedback, the player will figure it out for himself/herself.

This can apply to all subjects on all levels. For an English crossing river gameexample, let’s the player must crack a riddle written on a secret cave, but the riddle has a word the player does not know. At this point, the player will either look up the word and apply his/her new knowledge (good), or by cheating, guess, and realize what the word meant later (great!). The player will have a better chance of remembering this word in the long term, as he/she discovered it by doing (not by repeating the word and definition a hundred times before the test).

These are not the strongest examples (revealing those would reveal my ideas), but I can tell you that the most important thing is making the learning crucial to progress in a game, and there are ways to do it without tacking on lame puzzles (trust me). It is very important not to add foolish puzzles that, for some reason, demand that you know what 8(3+4) equals. This area, creating challenges and setting up mechanics in a way that makes experimentation and solving fun and organic is the most challenging and important, but also what could drive games like these to revolutionize everything.

Education fits very well within video games, but for many reasons. Video games also have a great learning curve. What you learn at the beginning is constantly tested, the player is required to build new concepts on top of older ones, and in doing so, can face new, tougher problemszelda puzzle (does this not sound exactly like Legend of Zelda?). They’re even set up similarly – Challenge (problem), level (chapter), boss (test), final boss (final exam). The only difference is that in school, you have to learn before you do – taking notes, reading a lesson, etc. In a video game, you learn and retain all this by yourself. The reason why books come with lessons before the practice problems is that the student has no way of learning the material by doing the problems (no feedback, boring, and not motivating).

It is my hope that people begin to see beyond the criticisms like violence and addictiveness of video games, and see the great opportunities in them, like the ability to facilitate learning. I envision a modern education system that does not teach, but rather modern learning homeworkfacilitates the learning of students through video games (digital interactive learning environments – DILEs). I see a future where students look forward to school (crazy, right?), and not see it as a five-day crawl between weekends. Video games even propose to fix many other broken aspects in school, like the focus on following a series of steps (plugging in numbers, which, honestly, computers are better at) and lack of creative problem solving, doing something without knowing how to ahead of time (the thing we need most for twenty-first century jobs).

We are facing a complete revolution of school, video games, jobs, and life. The possibilities are endless, and there are many ways to facilitate learning through video games (I’m holding onto my secret ideas until I am in a situation in which I can make them a reality). Think about it.

Dylan Woodbury lives with his family in Southern California. He runs http://dtwgames.com, a game design website that posts intriguing new articles every week, both beginner’s tutorials and theoretical ideas. He also has an interest in writing, and is planning his first novel. His primary goal is to change the world through video games.

Guest Post: Rethinking War in the FPS

Games like Call of Duty and Battlefield have shown that war games, done right, can be amazingly fun and wildly addicting. They do this because they are designed well, and the concept of it all opens up a lot of fun possibilities for the designers to work with. But through the many iterations, with many more to come, and a lack of emphasis on story, designers have dulled the terribleness of war.

That is not a good thing. Just to make sure we’re clear here, I have no problem with games focusing on war. I just feel that the with light-heartedness some companies put into their games, they are missing something incredibly moving.

First, let’s put war into perspective. In war, multiple countries ask or force millions of men and women to fight one another with weapons that blow holes in people. Millions of young lives come to an end for the better of the country.

In war, people go through traumatic experiences. People lose limbs, are given quick surgery so they can get back up to help, watch friends die, and go through absolute hell. The lucky ones come back, and the absolute luckiest come back in one piece. Some, after war, cannot sleep. Others cannot be in public. Some go through flashbacks, completely losing grip on reality.

Words cannot describe how terrible it is, a lot worse than the armed forces commercials make it sound, not because of the physical demand, but because of the psychological torture one experiences on the battlefield. How much of this do video games take into account? Not much.

When you play Modern Warfare 2, you do not think about any of this. The story is more like a James Bond movie than a war story. There are many things designers can do, if they are willing to step outside the ditch they have dug out for war games, to refresh and make right the genre. We need to reexamine the blueprints of the modern war first person shooter.

First, designers need to change the way they show their enemies. When you infiltrate a camp in a usual game today, you are made to believe that everyone you are about to kill is a dirty, rotten, cocky scumbag, as if that justifies killing them. The designer is telling you it is morally acceptable to kill these people, using some of the same methods that wrestling-writers use to make you root for a certain person, the good guy.

The designer should avoid giving you these thoughts. The player should know that he is probably killing respectable people, men AND women, who probably have loving families at home like you. Instead of doing this, designers have twisted them into the generic “bad guys”, either to make the player believe in his cause or to make what the player is doing morally right, somehow.

So, I want to see the occasional enemy pull out a picture of their family after being shot. I want to see the youth in their face. I want to see both sexes on the battlefield. Before infiltrating, I want to watch from afar as the “bad guy” picks up a piece of trash, or horses around with his/her friends.

Secondly, the overall story, the war, needs to be a little less cut and dry. In Modern Warfare 2, the good and the bad is carved out very bluntly. Sure, there is betrayal and going undercover, but I am talking the issues – the reason you’re fighting.

It should be possible that your country is wrong. The right-wrong question in the game should be open to moral debate. Maybe there are rumors that you’re country is fighting for the money, not for the good of people. By leaving this question open, and removing the black and white approach on all levels, we allow the player to question the morality of it all on his/her own. This is one of the things you think about in war – am I fighting for the right and just side? What would it be like to fight for a side that people didn’t support (Vietnam?).

Also, designers should put more focus on the character, or, if the design is aiming to put you in the role of a generic person, you. When you are running through a dark jungle, you should see things in the darkness. When you are in an intense situation, your aim should be trembling. Your charcter is not a superhero – he’s just a regular guy in an extreme situation.

If the designers choose to have a protagonist with a strong story, we should learn his/her backstory. Seeing a picture of his kids might make me be a little more hesitant to running through the front steps of enemy territory rambo style. Every soldier has a story, and experiencing it can fill a gap long present in war games and motivate the player to do what is right, to survive, or whatever.

Things need to seem out of control. Checkmarks kill the player’s feeling of uncertainty. You know exactly where to go at all times in today’s games. What if you are given only a generic location in which to search for something, or you’ve been told something wrong. You want to keep the gamer on the edge. He/she should never feel completely comfortable with what is happening.

Finally, gamers should witness some of the horrific events that real soldiers go through. Seeing a dead family sacrificed in order to get to the bad guy would be a life-changing experience. Actually playing an accidental role in such a thing would make you ask even more questions. Is what I am doing right? The use of moral choice, the same concept used in games like Bioshock and Infamous, would work very well in this genre. By the end, it should be up to the player as to whether he/she wants to fight or not.

Game designers need to get out of the clichés they have dugout for themselves. The designer, instead of sticking to the usual formula, should experiment and try new things. Pull a Metroid, when we realize we’d been playing as a girl. Make the player question something he/she has not questioned before, in previous games and in real life. Even above that, developers should encourage innovation and change if the designers believe it will better the game.

The designer should take the gamer through what it means and feels like to be a soldier. The player should be questioning his/her actions throughout the game, and making believable enemies and a complex story can help this. You should see the psychological effects of war on your character, and at times, the game could become into a sort of survival horror game. More uncertainty would also help add to the game, both in ethics and in tasks. The game should be throwing things at you to make you reconsider your actions in the game and your beliefs in the world.

This being said, I am aware that too much of this could drive the player from the game, pushing the horrors of war a little too much. When you picture this different kind of war fps, you shouldn’t picture running through the jungle, over carcasses from the school you just bombed. You should picture something little more gradual.

When the game starts, you could have no reason to question anything your government is doing. In many stories of war (Red Badge of Courage), the character goes into the experience looking forward to the heroic adventure he/she is about to go through. This would be a perfect metaphor as to what the player pictures as he/she puts the game into the drive.

The game could start like the regular war shooter, with obvious good and bad. As the game progresses, smaller things might occur to make the player think. Seeing a friend’s legs get blown up, seeing things moving through the trees, helping an injured child, beginning to realize the corruption on top, and beginning to understand how terrible war is could make the player think.

Combining this with a good, thought-provoking story, including the slow realization that your country Is doing bad things, could set up the player for the ultimate moral dilemma in a game. Do you decide to go with your country’s plan, which will kill many innocent lives, or do you stand up against it?

I do realize the large conflict a game like this would cause. Morally, I think it is okay to portray war through a video game, especially if the designer makes it a goal to force the gamer to reexamine assumptions about war and life. In fact, I thinking making a war game like this would be more responsible if anything, as you would better show what war really is. This may be considered bad, but it would better than portraying war as a heroic trek, not taking into account the death and destruction. This has been a hot topic since Six Days in Falluja, but I hope I’ve represented the case well.

These are some things to think about while you are preparing to make another general rehash of what’s already been done. I believe we can combine a genre that many see as thoughtless and all gameplay, with the ability games have to make you think and open your mind to create something that will shine as one of the most respected games to date, while keeping the gameplay fun.

Dylan Woodbury lives with his family in Southern California. He runs http://dtwgames.com, a game design website that posts intriguing new articles every week, both beginner’s tutorials and theoretical ideas. He also has an interest in writing, and is planning his first novel. His primary goal is to change the world through video games.