I figured that it was time to share with my secret stash. I've been using Google Reader to tag interesting articles and publish them all to a single location. Occasionally, I've added snarky comments. You can find the entire treasure trove here:
This list is updated a bit more regularly than my blog, but since I don't believe in covering Lost Garden with link fests, I'll keep it as a hidden secretive thing. So shh...tell only special people.
Engineering Emotions: More predictions come to pass
Back in 2007, I wrote about some hypothetical technologies like real time motion capture, voice recognition and biosensors that were on the horizon that would have a dramatic impact on how we design emotional games. Those technologies are now becoming mainstream with console accessories like Microsoft Natal and the Wii Vitality Sensor. Others techniques like feeding player's input into internet API's like search and social networks are already easily implemented using basic capabilities available to even the most limited game devices on the market.
In the essay Constructing Artificial Emotions, I described a 'crazy' futuristic game design called Bacchus:
"Bacchus is a multiplayer dancing game with a religious theme. The selling point is its ability to evoke intense emotions.
Imagine if you will, a decrepit theater filled with writhing, dancing people. The lights flare and swoop in time and the people chant in unison. A massive screen shows a mirror image of the hall like some surrealistic portal into an alternate universe. Instead of blokes and lasses in street clothes, the on screen spirits are clad in ornate ritualistic garb. The movements on each side of screen are eerily synchronized. The pitch of the chant rises.
The screen zooms in on a girl in the center of the room. The crowd, as one, turns and watches her figure on the screen. She begins to dance. At first her movement is controlled and intricate. The screen pulsates and she yells to its beat. The room takes up her words and amplifies them, giving them god-like resonance. Bass mixed with reverb mixed with primal, guttural passion. Her dance becomes wild. The pace increases and she begins to confess.
The theater reacts. Each word she utters shimmers on screen, merging with ghostly photos from her past. In a beat, the entire room witnesses her sorrow over the death of her mother, her time alone in an empty apartment, and her first kiss. An inhumanly beautiful electronic chorus rises, matches and turns her words into a song. Her movements become a blur. Her glowing eyes are ecstatic. At the peak, her spirit on the large screen explodes in light and the girl collapses to the floor in fervent religious swoon.
The crowd goes wild. The screen zooms out and the next god dancer is chosen.
The original essay is an admittedly difficult read, but I recommend revisiting it. In short, psychological experiments show that by intentionally mixing physical states of excitement with the appropriate context a designer can concoct emotional responses that are indistinguishable from naturally occurring emotions. The design techniques described within are no longer futuristic daydreaming. A basic form of Bacchus could be made in the next few years.
In the past games have been limited in the types of responses they can evoke in players because the range of human activities that we could model and reward were limited. We've admittedly designed amazing experiences that only rely on the limited ability to press a button. However, a cursory inventory of the human body and mind is surprisingly more comprehensive than a twitching thumb. We can move our amazing and capable bodies, we can engage in complex social interactions, we can become excited or depressed. All these basic elements of our humanity have been outside the realm of game design because we could not track them, build models around them or reward desired behaviors.
Now we can.
With these new tools and a mass market that embraces them, we have a vast laboratory of millions of players. Early mini-games will act as experiments in the engineering of human emotions. Initially, we'll focus on found fun since that is what our audience is currently trained to consume. With time and enough experiments, we'll begin to notice that with the ability to manipulate body, mind, social context and excitement level, we gain the ability to evoke deeply meaningful emotions. Imagine visceral sorrow, lust, anger, happiness, cruelty, generosity, stress and contentedness. All the emotions reproducibly evoked in psychology lab experiments become our creative palette.
Every game becomes a reality television show starring the player.
Every game designers becomes pragmatic engineers of the player's emotional experience, dissecting and reconstructing the ephemeral moments of human nature. Our games turn into intricate systems of hardware and software that play players like a willful instrument.
Hardware like Natal, MotionPlus, Sony's wands and the Vitality Sensor are really just the beginning. There is an entirely new class of middleware that tracks the torrent of new sensor information and teases out useful patterns of human behavior. Fresh emotional game mechanics that are as new to the world as moving objects in Spacewar! must to be invented from whole cloth. There is great work to be done.
Once again, I'm reminded what an exciting time it is to be a game developer.
I had an immensely good time collaborating with Andre on Fishing Girl earlier this year. He was looking for a new project and so we started idly chatting about random ideas. One thing led to another and he is now nearing the finish line on a new Flash game called Bunni. I thought Andre might enjoy a little bit of public encouragement as he enters the final stretch.
I've been wracking my brain and I don't know of another game out there that is quite like Bunni. Imagine if Animal Crossing had a long lost mutant sibling that coalesced out of a creative flurry in a mere four months. There is no clever twist on shooting, block stacking, or 2D platforming. It is not an innovative music game. Nor does it involve playing with time or bizarro spacial dimensions. If there are any puzzles, I apologize since they weren't intentional. In fact, it isn't a very hard game. I've yet to find a single hidden object, probably because there aren't any. Despite lacking all these critical things, play tests end up lasting for hours.
I don't want to give away too much about the game, but I can share a single, mildly cluttered screen shot. Yes, that is a pirate bunni. And no you can't have one unless you are very, very special.
Bunni: First Screenshot. Likely to change in inexplicable ways.
Oh, and as a bonus, here are some t-shirt designs. Let me know which ones you like the best. (I tossed together a storefront as well just for fun. The internet is so awesome.)
Danc's Miraculously Flexible Game Prototyping Graphics for Small Worlds
Don't you think it is time for some new free graphics?
The originals The original set of miraculously flexible prototyping graphics have been out there for a couple of years now. In that time, they've been used in mini-MMO's, shooters, RPGs, platformers and dozens of various projects that lurk in the dark squishy nooks of the ever fermenting, communal indie mash.
However, they had some issues.
They were in a format that wasn't readily accessible to most users. In particular Flash games didn't make as wide a use of them as I would have liked.
They required a rather tricky placement system that most tile based engines had difficulty handling.
Very few games used the shadows system and without the shadows, they tend not to look very good.
There were also a couple other areas I wanted to explore.
HD pixel art: There is an emerging artistic style that showed you could keep the intricate iconic style found in pixel art, but modernize it in such a way to take advantage of the crispness found in modern high resolution displays. The result found in games like Pixel Junk Monsters, Patapon, and Loco Rocco is distinctly game art. It tends to be 2D and highly evocative. But is also is information dense and full of distinct iconic symbols that have meaning during game play. When there is a trade off between realism and functionality, functionality wins.
Vector art: I've done immense amounts of raster art over the years, but lately I've been playing with more vector art. The tools have gotten to the point where you can do some pretty nice stuff rather rapidly without needing to ever go to bitmaps. They are rendered natively in Flash or Silverlight and you can play with scaling without worrying about loss of detail.
Arbitrary placement: Once upon a time, you needed to use little square tiles for everything. Nowadays, there is no real need to make a tile based 2D engine. With arbitrary images with full alpha and lots of fill rate, you can put together a game like a sticker book. Drop down your graphics at arbitrary positions and layer like a madman. Games like Aquaria look great and tiles are nowhere to be seen. There's a good tutorial on the topic here: http://gametuto.com/in-game-c-map-editor-tutorial-with-indielib-engine-that-dosent-use-tiles-but-pieced-images-like-in-braid-or-aquaria-games/
Small World So I started a new graphics set that took all these into account. The theme I chose was the 'Small World', an intimate place of green trees and blue ocean seen from above. For ages I've been fascinated by tiny worlds that you could imagine keeping like a bonsai garden on a table top.
What types of games can the Small World graphics be used for?
Turn-based strategy games
Real time strategy games
RPG's
God and Sim games
Tower defense (the original inspiration for this set was Pixel Junk Monsters)
Crazy innovative games that will shock and amaze the world.
What does the set include?
70 high quality sprites
The original Illustrator CS4 .AI file
The exported Flash CS4 .FLA file
The exported Flash CS3 .FLA file
The exported Flash 10 .SWF file (with linkages)
Land
Forests
Buildings
Dialogs and buttons
Having the source files allows you to easily manipulate and edit the graphics so you can make variations or combine pieces together. You should have enough pieces to easily prototype attractive little worlds full of forests, fields and cities.
What doesn't this set include?
I have some characters that fit this set, but those will be coming along at a later point.
I haven't had time to cut out all the bitmaps. This is coming shortly unless someone else cuts them out first.
Other formats: In general there are a billion minor formats that all have their passionate proponents. Convert at will. :-)
The License Much of the email I get involves questions about how various graphics can be used. Though I love hearing from you, it has become apparent that the license needs to be clarified so that I can spend more time making stuff for you and less time writing back about the legal issues.
A second issue is that there have been some unfortunate incidents where players have taken talented developers publicy to task for 'stealing' my artwork or 'copying' game designs. 'Open source game designs' are admittedly a cutting edge concept in our IP-clutching world, so there is some education to be done.
As of today, I've created a separate Lost Garden Licensing page that outlines the license for these graphics. If you plan on using these graphics, be sure to read it. The basics are that they are free to use in both commercial and hobby projects under a standard Creative Commons Attribution license.
I'll be releasing some prototyping challenges that make use of these graphics in the future, but for now just have fun and give them a shot. They were a blast to make.
take care Danc.
PS: I also included graphics that allow you to make arbitrarily sized islands composed of splotches of land stuck together. This is a tricky technique that only advanced users will undertake. First lay down the water. Then lay down all the Land-Bottom graphics. Then lay down all the Land-Mid graphics. Finally draw all the Land-Top graphics. By layering the graphics in this order, you can create islands that merge together visually.
My short essay on future games was selected to be part of the recent Gamasutra 'Games of 2020' feature. The treatment is tongue in cheek and I owe anyone I photoshopped a free beer.
The result of all this is that I am now able to attend this year's GDC. If anyone wants to meet up in San Franciso (March 23rd to March 27th), drop me a note at danc [at] lostgarden [dot] com.
This site is about art and game design. You'll find galleries of my latest illustrations. Also, I have extensive ramblings on a wide variety of game design topics.
Why people read this site
"[...] probably the most interesting article I've ever read." Tycho from Penny Arcade on the Nintendo Innovation Strategy article
I've been a game designer, pixel artist, painter, tools designer, product manager and marketing guy. I got my first job while in college working on a shooter called Tyrian at a little company called Epic Megagames. These days, I'm designing games deep in the forests of the North West.
I remain, to this day, not a chickadee plucker. Despite the rumors.
