Ooo, I totally did not look into this thinking it was just some movie hype thing. Gotta try, looks awesome!

Hi everyone, haven't checked the forum for a while so this was a nice surprise since I really value your opinions! I was also suspecting more criticism... I'm sure you have some

The "something between a game and a notgame" was certainly something I struggled with during development. I think its blessing and its curse is that it lands kinda in-between (definitely towards the game side):

You can lose = it's a game for sure!!!
You're meant to lose, it's the most memorable thing in the whole game = very much not how game works...

The thing to remember is that I didn't really have the concept of a notgame in mind while I made the game, I was very much working within the constraints of normal game design but turning it into something that was more like the experience I am looking for in video games. After hanging out here at these forums I feel like I have more tools/concepts to design without thinking GAME first. Maybe if I re-made it I would make it "purer"... I dunno.

I have it and tried it once with my gf, it was very fun! Just need to learn the interface a bit better.

Erik, the "Hobby Games" book also covers a variety of other tabletop games- RPGs, collectible card games, etc.

OK, cool!

Yeah, A Theory of Fun and Understanding Comics are both great. This board game books sounds really nice, I'll check it out asap!

Thanks guys, that's some great tips!

I'm not specifically looking for technical books... maybe rather "theory" books. Has anyone read "A Pattern Language" by Christopher Alexander? I'm thinking about picking that up but I'm a bit scared.

I'm surfing Amazon.com on a hunt for books that will help make me a better (not)game developer. Does anyone know of any gems that could be of interest? Anything that made you feel more inspired/better prepared to make the kind of games we talk about here. I have a pretty decent collection of books on graphic design, programming and normal game design but not much more that is useful. Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks!
Erik

I think they said in a couple of months... but we all now how hard game development is!

Yeah, approaching text/words from a rock perspective certainly works within music so why not in games.

The main reason I wanted to link to the article here is actually because when he defines what "the native language of video games" is, he never talks about winning or losing or competition or power struggle or anything game like, instead it's something quite inspiring:

This was the native language of videogames: synesthetic audiovisual expressing a meaning, where sound and image and logic come together and feel right, where the communication is nonverbal but nonetheless articulate, where you understand what's going on the same way you 'get' the communication of a song, the same way you can be blown away by a painting or a piece of sculpture.

I like that, it emphasis that these are the things that are easiest and most natural to achieve in video games. That doesn't mean that other things should not be done (gameplay, language, etc) but they are not the most perfect fit. Even though that's something that we have talked about a lot here it's nice to see other people write about it, especially at a site as big as Boing Boing.

I played the Superbrothers game (Sword & Sworcery) at GDC and it certainly has some notgamesthink in it.

A good read: http://boingboing.net/features/morerock.html

I like this little thing for iphone/ipod:

http://itunes.apple.com/us/app/record-makers/id353002505?mt=8

It's free and fun and not a game!

Btw, an interesting idea would perhaps be to write the character as the game is played. For example when confronting a steak the player could choose "Yuck! I do not like meat!" or "Yummy! I love meat", thus shaping the character through choices and this could have consequences later on. Do not think that solves anything though.

Oh, that sounds really cool to me! It might not solve the big problem but it surely helps you to keep track of how your character is developing... I wanna try a game built around that principle

What if you give the player a real chance to prepare for playing the roll of the character. Maybe freely investigate the environment you are supposed to know about, go through some scenes with defining moments in the life of the character (don't you do that in Fallout 3?) and learn about who the character is (talk to his/her friends?). Maybe even rehearse? (in a playful way that makes use of the fact that it's all in a computer)

I think people could really buy into being an actor if you tell them to (doesn't everyone want to be one at some point?)
And if you give them this responsibility in a well-defined and special way maybe they will take on the job seriously and really try to get into the role.

I think Crayon Physics Deluxe works like that a lot actually. Many of the levels are really easy to beat by building a really boring solution and just pushing the ball forward. Any one who just runs through the levels in that fashion will surely get tired very fast though. The second you start trying to come up with creative solutions the whole game changes and become so much more enjoyable. Basically you could stay at the first level forever, playing around with the system. And since progress is so easy it could be classified as voluntary and (kinda) immediate.

I remember from Petris talks that he first tried to fight this phenomenon (which is a natural instinct from a game design perspective) but later decided to instead embrace it -- the game is so much better off because of that!

Can you think of any games that are this honest?

Eh, maybe I'm misunderstanding but my little manuscript actually tried to show how most games are being dishonest. They show you stuff that looks like it's working (like a chair for instance) but then you can't use it.

I think there are a lot of ways to be clear about these things (instructional text, graphical clues, etc). But in the end the best thing is to just leave them out and build the game with components that just don't need explanation, I think. Or are we missing out on thing then?

About trying things (as a player) -- tinkering and seeing what works is really fun in certain contexts (and hell in others). Partly it must be about familiarity: If we are in a kitchen we want the stove to work and the fridge door to open (= things should "just work"). If we are in a room with a strange panel with buttons that activate different sounds we have no expectations and are more open about what should happen. There's a good reason so many games are set in a fantasy world.