I’m coming up for air after an eventful GDC week. Did I mention: Lightning Prototypes, a group of crazy-talented folks, is now open for business?
We’re only a few days old, so there’s not much to tell you, but be assured, exciting things are in motion!
Once again, I am humbled to be working in the company of a truly outstanding group of visionaries, dreamers and doers.
This last Tuesday, the EA axe swung again, lopping off the Boom Blox team.
This is an amazing team, full of passionate dreamers and doers, who can take on a new platforms like no others I’ve seen. It has been my great pleasure to work with them, and I sincerely hope we will work together again soon.
All our good thoughts are with those who remain behind at EA. Good luck to you and your projects, friends!
And now…let’s see what’s next!
I had a great conversation recently with a couple of good friends, both grizzled industry veterans. A couple of quick introductions, before jumping in.
Gareth Hinds kicks off the conversation. Gareth is a creator of graphic novels, whose excellent adaptations of Beowulf, King Lear and The Merchant of Venice are not to be missed. He also has a dark, secret past as an extraordinary game artist.
Dave Konieczny is co-founder of Bithoard Games, whose recent release Blastination is one of my favorite iPhone games.
Gareth: What advice do you give to high school kids who think they want to become game designers? Is there anything like a recommended course of study as they head into college?
I recently got asked about this by two different kids.
Sean: You’re asking me? I just made stuff up as I went along, and somehow got people to pay me. But that was more than a decade ago…not sure that works anymore. };^)
Having a background in programming and art is certainly helpful from the standpoint of effectively communicating your ideas. That has certainly been a huge help to me over the years.
There will be math. Algebra, trig, statistics. You will be happy with a strong foundation in maths. The more you know the better off you’ll be.
But the biggest thing, and here is where I think art is important, they have to make themselves keen observers. They also need to read widely, travel, go for nature walks, pretty much everything but sit in a classroom/cubicle all day. Get out of the echo chamber of popular culture once and awhile.
Tell them not to get attached to ideas. Ideas are a dime a dozen. Focus on turning ideas into a product, a demo, something real.
This is the next step in the evolution of the nGon toy. But into what is it evolving? That’s a very good question.
Now it can be told. The game I’ve been working on announced today. Here’s the skinny:
EA Will Ask Steven Spielberg To Make A ‘Boom Blox’ Level
Boom Blox Bash Party in Pictures
Spielberg’s Boom Blox Bash Party Rocks Wii This Spring
I wish all games could be this much fun to work on, and the team is the best I’ve ever worked with.
So, first…buy this game when it comes out. It really is, no kidding, fun for the whole family.
Second…make sure to try your hand at building your own levels. It has one of the easiest to use editors out there.
And lastly, an oldie but a goodie:
I’ll post a picture once I’m sure the traffic-storm that was Democracy Day Patch has subsided.
Prototyping gameplay can be a quick and dirty* way of answering design questions. The big ones, like: is it any fun?
Here’s a Flash/ActionScript prototype I did for my last game, a Wii title called "Destroy All Humans: Big Willy Unleashed."
There’s a more detailed discussion of it over here.
* If you do it right.
WARNING: What follows is a game only a Geek could love.
Today’s design is a twist on the venerable game of chess, via quantum mechanics (See…I warned you).
If you’re the kind of savvy reader that hangs out at the Chrome Cow, you doubtless are familiar with a certain theoretical feline belonging to one Erwin Schrödinger. This cat has the misfortune to be confined in a box with a deadly device that has a 50-50 chance of triggering with an hour. At the end of the hour, goes the thought experiment, the cat, sealed from observation inside the box, is neither dead or alive, but is in superposition, a combination of these possible states. The cat does not live or die until the box is opened by an observer, who through the act of observation collapses the possible dead/alive states of the cat into one or the other state.
So what’s that got to do with Chess? What, indeed!
Enter Superpositional Chess (Super Chess? EigenChess? Quantum Chess? Schrödinger’s Pawn?).
Continue reading »
You Said