GBGamesThere is a new podcast at the Indie Game Developer Podcast site. It’s an interview with Rohit from Maw!soft.
Rohit talked about how he got into game development and what his favorite games are. He talked a little about Boxen, the newest version of which I’ve seen evolve at the Chicago Indie Game Developer Club meetings. He also gave his views on the need for a single leader for a project.
By the way, I didn’t know that Maw!soft was pronounced that way.
Why We Need a Corporation for Public Gaming argues that we need a publicly funded organization dedicated to making high-quality, educational games for the public good.
The author, David Rejeski, made comparisons with the television industry, noting that noncommercial programming did not do very well without government involvement. A Corporation for Public Gaming would fund the educational games that aren’t as commercially viable as another FPS.
…The interactive nature of games, their ability to present complex and dynamic information, and, increasingly, to allow thousands of people to meet in sophisticated virtual environments means games can accomplish what TV never could in terms of addressing educational and social challenges.
However, serious games, like serious TV, are likely to remain a sidebar in the history of mass media. Non-commercial television floundered, despite millions of dollars of investment by the Ford Foundation, until the government stepped in and created a viable and long-lasting alternative. With similar vision and foresight, and a relatively small amount of funding, this could happen with video and computer games.
Some people complain that public television holds a political agenda, and so people might worry that games will be made that also express certain political viewpoints. “Not with my tax dollars!” is the cry. I haven’t really looked too much into public television’s supposed problems, but I believe that unpopular viewpoints need to be expressed. Unpopular pretty much means that it wouldn’t have funding from anyone.
If the industry is going to go where the money goes, then it isn’t likely that many serious games will get the funding they need. The CPG would also be an interesting development because it would also raise awareness in the general public about the nature of video games. Most people still believe that video games are just for kids, for example.
When I program, I tend to hack things out rather than follow some set plan. The reason is because I’m not very good at writing plans yet. If I try to make a plan, I end up questioning everything and never get anything started, let alone completed. It’s known as analysis paralysis. Basically, you become so afraid of doing something wrong that you end up not doing anything at all.
So I hack. In this way, I’ll have something to work with. Maybe when I started I was clueless about the problem domain, but every moment I spend taking actions means I learn just a little bit more about what I am doing. Some planning can be good, of course, but if I don’t know what I am doing, there is only so much I can plan. Hacking is like chipping away at a stone.
Of course, hacking only gets me so far. By definition, hacking means I am blindly working, and so I can expect to hit a wall or two. Sometimes hacking allows me to make a lot of progress quickly. Other times, I can’t seem to figure out how to do what I think I need to do. It’s at those points when I start to doubt my abilities. I begin to think “I might not be able to do this.” Eventually it can become “I can’t do this.”
So how do you deal with “I can’t”? I realize that such thoughts are due to doubt. It’s kind of funny since the point of hacking, for me, was to avoid not knowing what to do. So to have more productive thoughts, I change “I can’t” into “How can I?”
“How” is much better because it forces you to think. Whenever I start to question if I can do a task, I always ask myself, “Well, how would you do the task?” It puts you into an entirely different level of creative thinking, and I’ve found that being creative is always motivating.
For example, I was working on a project recently, and I hit one of those walls. I couldn’t figure out how to design some classes to get the kind of behavior I wanted. Up to that point, the code was flowing, and then…nothing. So I started to ask “How can I do this?” And I started getting detailed. What is it I am trying to do exactly? I know the basic idea, but how do I get from here to there?
I suppose you could say that this is the kind of thing I should have done in the first place. If I knew I would have had such a problem, I probably could have prepared for it. Since I didn’t, I think what I’m doing will help me gain the experience I need. Eventually I’ll be able to anticipate all manner of problems, but for now I’ll have to hit those walls before scaling them. The important thing is that I don’t hit that wall and decide that I’m permanently stuck.
Edit: It seems that Steve Pavlina’s article for today also covered this topic, but in a more general sense. Check out How to Squash Negative Thought Patterns for a good way to change “I Can’t” into “How?”
Danc at Lost Garden wrote about GameInnovation.org, arguing that we need better, standardized language in order to discuss game design. If everyone has a different definition for “challenge” or “reward”, then you can’t hope to have a meaningful conversation with other game developers.
The goal of the GIDb is to classify and record every innovation in the entire history of computer and videogames.
The Game Innovation Database is in a wiki format, which means that anyone can contribute. I especially like the Challenge Page, which asks questions such as “What was the first digital RPG (role-playing game)?” and “What was the first game with autofire? “. You can browse by game or by innovation, and of course you can edit something if you think an article is lacking, missing, or just plain wrong.
For this week’s Thousander Club update:
Game Hours: 63.50 / 1000
Game Ideas: 221 / 1000
Target: 231
I only did a few hours of work this week, and I fell behind in game ideas again. While this week was packed with errands and projects that were not related to game development, I think a big part of the problem is that I haven’t been waking up as early. I used to wake up around 5:30AM, which gave me time to work on game development before going to my day job. In the past two weeks I have been getting up late. Sometimes I didn’t get up until 7:30AM, which is when I usually finish getting ready and start coding.
I think it is because I haven’t been going to sleep as early, either. When I wake up late, I always feel that I need to make up for the development time in the evening, which means I might not go to sleep right away. It’s a terrible cycle, and it is one that I intend to break.
As of March 22nd, 2006, the articles of organization for GBGames LLC were officially filed by the Illinois Secretary of State.
I know that for months I have been talking about how easy it is to submit the paperwork, but somehow I still managed to put it off until a few weeks ago. I was surprised at how quickly it was filed since I didn’t pay extra to expedite it.
In any case, it was a great feeling to open the envelope and see the letter informing me that my company is real and official. I have officially joined the ranks of Americans who can say that they owned a company. w00t!
Now I only have to do something with it.
Action decided to be a party-pooper and do something beneficial for April 1st instead of playing pranks. He’s renamed it April Enlightenment Day. He started the first April Enlightenment Day with a new podcast show: Indie Game Developer’s Podcast.
The first podcast was with Tom Robertson of Aggressivegames.com. It’s a 16MB download and a little over 30 minutes long.
In this podcast, Tom talked about the obstacles that faced him when choosing to leave the mainstream game industry and go indie. I liked hearing his opinion on the difference between “revolutionary” and “innovative”.
I’m sure I’m not the only one looking forward to more indie game podcasts! Thanks, Action!
For this week’s Thousander Club update:
Game Hours: 60.75 / 1000
Game Ideas: 212 / 1000
Target: 210
I didn’t get much work done this week, but it wasn’t as if I slacked off. I just didn’t get much time on the computer this week in general, let alone time to work on game development. I helped a friend move this weekend, which was when I was originally planning on making up for the week. Oh, well. I still made 6%. B-)
Since some legal issues have come up, I thought now would be a good time to make it clear what the the end user license agreement for GBGames’ Blog actually says. This EULA outlines what rights you and I have when you read this blog and has been in effect since I started it over a year ago. Apparently some of you do not read the EULA and so are not aware of your rights and responsibilities. I am republishing the EULA as a service to you.
By reading GBGames’ Blog, hereby known as The Blog, you, hereby known as The Reader, must agree to the following terms and conditions. Failure to do so is copyright infringement and The Reader will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law.
- The Reader is allowed to read, peruse, skim, and/or view The Blog, so long as the Reader does so under the terms of this license.
- The Reader may make comments in The Blog about specific posts of The Blog using the mechanisms provided by The Blog. The Reader may post about The Blog in his/her own blog, hereby known as an External Blog, and may use a trackback to allow its existence to be acknowledged in The Blog. The Reader may also post about or read about The Blog in other media, including but not limited to web forums, mailing lists, or email. Doing any of the above requires The Reader’s External Blog to be likewise licensed under the GBGames’ Blog License.
- The Reader agrees to relicense any source code he/she controls, whether owned by The Reader or another party, under the General Public License, and all copyright shall be immediately transferred to Gianfranco Berardi, owner of GBGames.
- Reading this license implies acceptance of the terms.
- No, seriously.
- THERE IS NO WARRANTY FOR THE BLOG, TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW. EXCEPT WHEN OTHERWISE STATED IN WRITING THE COPYRIGHT HOLDERS AND/OR OTHER PARTIES PROVIDE THE BLOG “AS IS” WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE ENTIRE RISK AS TO THE QUALITY AND PERFORMANCE OF THE BLOG IS WITH YOU. SHOULD THE BLOG PROVE DEFECTIVE, YOU ASSUME THE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION.
- IN NO EVENT UNLESS REQUIRED BY APPLICABLE LAW OR AGREED TO IN WRITING WILL ANY COPYRIGHT HOLDER BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR DAMAGES, INCLUDING ANY GENERAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF THE USE OR INABILITY TO USE THE BLOG (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OF DATA OR DATA BEING RENDERED INACCURATE OR LOSSES SUSTAINED BY YOU OR THIRD PARTIES OR A FAILURE OF THE BLOG TO OPERATE WITH ANY OTHER BLOGS OR SOME OTHER WAY YOU MESSED UP), EVEN IF SUCH HOLDER OR OTHER PARTY HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
As I said, there have been some legal issues, and so appropriate and
proper steps have been taken. I basically hoped to inform and
reeducate my readers as to exactly what rights they may have
implicitly or explicitly been given or restricted in very clear, yet
legal terms.
Further developments may not be completely disclosed in the interest
of privacy, but anything I can provide will be made publicly available
on this blog. It’s been very, VERY trying for me in this time, but hey,
legal issues almost always are, right? I just try to think of my many
supporters. Without you, I don’t know where GBGames would be. B-)
So I’m working on a new game design. I found that a lot of the most popular games in the casual game portals are making use of the color yellow at some point. I’ve decided that I will make a Yellow-based game.
Yellow-based gaming is apparently all the rage, and I want to make sure I get in on the action before it becomes a saturated market, such as underwater-themed puzzle games. There’s a lot of money to be made in yellow-based games. In fact, I’ve been doing so much research on it that I will be giving a talk at the next GDC entitled “Being Yellow Ain’t Cowardly”.
It’s exciting to be on the bleeding edge of game development.