by Federico Fasce on 28 February 2010
Yesterday I’ve finished Heavy Rain.
It’s still here in my mind, in a quite deep way. A lot of people complained about the core mechanic of the game being that of quick time events, which ultimately brings players to the dark times of Dragon’s Lair.
But I kinda disagree on that. First, because basing a game on QTE will not necessary lead to the boring button-guessing dynamic of Don Bluth’s lasergames.
Secondly, because I’m starting to feel that Heavy Rain is not much about pressing the right button at the right time. Indeed, the real game starts when you finish it the first time. Then, the true core mechanic shows up. It’s all about exploration. Exploration of a non-physical space, but of sides and possibilities of a story.
Which, I think, is a quite interesting exercise.
by Federico Fasce on 14 February 2010
I really love not only the new Flixel website, but also the way it links to the rival flash library Flashpunk (and it’s linked back).
This kind of development doesn’t need harsh competition, but fair play and love.
Kudos to Adam and Chevy.
[For my italian friends, I talked about the two libraries on Flow]
by Federico Fasce on 31 January 2010
Global Game Jame has ended, and I’m pretty satisfied with it. I learned a lot (as usual) and got to know a lot of nice people. ELIOS Lab guys are working on pretty interesting stuff, and I sincerely hope to work with them on a shared project some day.
Meanwhile, thanks to the words of Rudy (one of the great coders of our team), I will learn something new during this year. LUA is a scripting language used by game designers working in the largest game development teams, so it’s a good shot for me. I will learn LUA through Löve 2D engine, which is a new framework pretty good for fast prototyping. This will be a big achievement, if I will succeed.
Let’s see what happens.
by Federico Fasce on 28 January 2010
So, Steve did it and the iPad (which is winning right now the “worst name for an electronic device” award) is finally here.
Out of the hype and out of the lots of critics, which appear to me as a part of an already seen scheme, I hereby state that this is going to be an interesting game changer.
In a couple of months the device will be out, and I’m ready to bet, it will be a huge success. Yes, even without a built in camera. Yes, even without e-ink screen. Some people say that it is just an oversized iPhone/iPod touch. And it is, indeed. But the whole is always more than the sum of its part. And an iPhone with a 10″ display could be a tipping point product.
This thing could be great to enhance the experience of reading a newspaper or a magazine, as you can see, right now, with the NYT application. I strongly believe that it is possible to take advantage of the iPad features to enrich the experience of the news, not only through movies or big photos, but even putting people inside the news through interactive infographics and explorative environments. This seems to me the right place to experience something like the great Play the News.
Now, onto games. I was really disappointed in seeing just another FPS and a racing game as a showcase for the device. Apple should look less to EA and the big giants and more to indie developers, which have already understood one simple concept: touch devices aren’t PSP or NDS, they need to completely reinvent the game dynamics, taking advantage of the multitouch capabilities. As for the iPad, I see this thing at the center of a table, with four people controlling the device togethere. It’s a huge space of possibility (and think about social games as Farmville). And it could be more, if only it will be possible to connect and play with other iPads/iPhones.
So, these are just two simple examples. And more will come, I believe.
by Federico Fasce on 22 January 2010
From the 29th to the 31st of January I will be at Global Game Jam, here in Genova.
What is GGJ? Imagine an event conducted at the same time in several cities of the world; participants will form local team and are given a theme. They have 48 hours to deliver a complete game describing that theme.
I never did something like that. Now, thanks to Elios Lab, a pretty neat serious game research team based here, I can. I hope to do a good job.
If you are interested, you can look at the twitter stream here. And if you can’t come, but still want to follow the event and see what’s happening, you can watch the video stream here and even join a chat. So, see ya next friday!
