Hello and welcome to the forums  

I just played Katabasis, it's pretty good - very atmospheric with a Dear Esther-y vibe. I really liked the environmental storytelling, but there were a few parts early on where I almost didn't feel enough incentive to keep playing - I could have done with a bit more drawing in - but as I got further in I was absorbed (when I wasn't lost). It also didn't run too well on my laptop, it seems to require a pretty powerful machine.

I played Deep Sleep last night. It is an atmospheric, point-and-click, escape game thing which does a very good job of creating a creepy mood/atmosphere. It's also pretty short (if you use the walkthrough from the menu) and probably worth a play if you have a few minutes.

I had a go at it, but I didn't stick with it very long - I didn't feel much compulsion to explore.

Yes, thanks for sharing. It made me feel a lot better about wanting to create things.

That is more analogue to changing rolls of film than a 'proper' jump-cut. I had not seen anything like the cuts of going from the party back to the airport before; though I would much like to see a game which has done it.

Yes, the more I think about it the more I realise you are right. I'm sure there must be some games that have jumped from one time/location to another without a loading screen (although I can't think of any off the top of my head) but they always clearly signpost it as a transition with either a loading screen or some sort of "screen effects", it has a very different feel to it.

Boldness.

Well, that seems reasonable for this case

I also played this the other day and I thought it was certainly one of the better games I've played recently. Only being 15 mins long was a big plus (I think pretty much all games could benefit from being shorter) and the non-linearity of the story and requirement for interpretation were also in its favour.

Jump cuts are hardly revolutionary for videogames since pretty much all older games had them whenever you went to a new level, though I guess that was a bit different due to the loading times and the fact that the games would come to a halt before restarting at these points.

I think that the reason the interpretive nature of the story worked so well was that the game exudes confidence. That makes it so that when there are bits of the story I don't understand I am willing to assume that there is some meaning there and that it's not just nonsense. I'm not entirely sure what it is that makes it seem confident though, lots of detail? detailed idiosyncratic elements? thematic consistency? general consistency? There's something about it...

That's a shame 

You should still visit these forums though since it's nice to have someone around who likes to disagree.

Ok, so this was my final-year project from university which I finished working on around easter, but because it was a marked piece of work I couldn't post it online at the time, though I think it's safe to post it now. I'm not sure how interesting people will find it - its intentions were always more scientific than videogame-ific, though I'd like to think it could apply to videogames somehow.

Below is a link to a webplayer of one of the scenes from it, though that page also contains links to the unity source (using which you can access the rest of the scenes) and the write-up. Controls are listed at the bottom of the page.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/33741815/My%20Games/Final%20Project/WebPlayer/WebPlayer.html

I don't think we can communicate our ideas any better.

I'm not sure that this is true. The ideas have all been discussed and clarified a lot on these forums, but how much external communication of these ideas has there been? I can't think of that many instances.

When Jonas says "It’s not like film and theatre, it’s like pseudo-artistic European directors (fictional in this case, but such types exist) claiming that their movies are “notfilms” because they are unlike what Hollywood produces" that's not really the case, if this were notvideogames rather than notgames he would have a point. It's more like if films were called videoplays and had all started out as recordings of plays, then one day someone said I'm going to use this medium for something other than recording plays, for notplays. Perhaps part of the problem is that people use the words games and videogames interchangeably? Does he think that calling things notgames implies they're not videogames?


As for notgames being used as a category, I think it's inevitable. As long as notgames is something, you can create a category from it (and someone will).

I've been a bit behind with playing games that have piqued my interest online so I've only just played this most recent one, but it was really good. I'm not sure about the ending and to quit I had to use the task manager, but the atmosphere was excellent, I felt really relaxed while playing.

I guess the terrain deformations in the first video were pretty good... On the whole it doesn't really seem to be a huge step up unless I'm missing something (presumably I am).

http://www.unity3d.com/ninjacamp/projects/10180

It would appear that someone at Unity is interested in Bret Victor, even if they did misspell his name. Although it dosen't seem that there's going to be anything close to his ideas in Unity any time soon, at least not officially.

It does look intriguing (if very gamey). The creator also did a pretty interesting interview on killscreen recently.

Collectively speaking, perhaps we're not as averse to repetition as we may think at first. We may even enjoy being bored as an essential part of that which we look for in games. There's something extremely comfortable about repetition in the creation of a safe environment where the player knows what to expect, often unlike the unpredictability of real life.

I don't think we enjoy boredom as such since it is a feeling of weariness from lack of metal stimulation, thus repetition does not imply boredom unless it makes the person weary. I think you're right about repetition being comforting, and thus desirable, though, I know I would much rather watch several episodes of a T.V. series than a film (usually) simply because it does not require me to get to grips with new characters or places very often (maybe I'm a little more adverse to change than most).

And I think Erik is right in that it is the slight variations that are what stop it from becoming boring. In a videogame this can even come in the form of slight variations of the non player characters, whether they're computer controlled of other players, which leads to enough variation to stop it from becoming boring, but only variations that are for the most part expected within a comforting, known framework.

I still don't think that "hardcore" gamers are the enemy you think they are. I think it's just the general perception of what a hardcore gamer is supposed to be.

Recently I've been thinking that "hardcore" gamers are actually the only potential target for games that are more meaningful, or that eschew immediate "fun" styles. This seems to be the way it is in most media, i.e. people who aren't really into music tend to listen to superficial pop music and don't want anything other than a quick immediate response from it, similarly people who aren't especially into films just tend to watch whatever blockbusters are showing whereas the people who are into films might seek out foreign films or those that would be described as artistic. Maybe the main exception to this are people who are into 'art' as a concept and culture in general, but I don't think this necessarily represents a large proportion of the population.

Essentially I think that only hardcore gamers will want to play anything other than a quick-fun-fix type of game, and even hardcore gamers will only want them once they're bored of the shallower offerings. The hardcore gamers of today are the notgamers of tomorrow, they just don't know it yet. (Not that a hardcore gamer / notgamer divide actually exists.)


As for the article in question, I'd bookmarked it rather than reading it since I was planning on playing silent hill 2 soon and I wasn't sure if there would be spoilers of any form.