This year's Global Game Jam theme was Extinction.

This seemed to produce a lot of ideas using the extinction of mankind as a springboard for tried-and-true (tired and true?) gameplay, i.e., "the aliens are invading and are going to make mankind extinct, kill the aliens". On the other hand it was also a fairly "negative" theme in terms of energy.

At our local jam there were quite a few projects that fit into the first category, and a few that went further and managed to create interaction that tied in more meaningfully to the theme. I think my favorite game was based around a clever and simple concept-- escape pods infected with a disease that you must keep separated by tapping on an iphone.

At any rate I didn't have or want to devote quite as much time or energy as some other jammers so I sort-of did my own thing, which maybe in some ways is the best way to enjoy an event like this (you get to enjoy the company of other people with similar interest without always being in conflict with them. =)

The Friday night I took a bike ride home and towards the end of it thought up this thing, which in the end came quite close to what I originally intended.

It's three scenarios about extinction, you can control them but not meaningfully affect the (negative) outcome; each scenario is followed by slightly a black-humored explanation.

This was really fun to present together with Yules Wai who helped a lot with the audio for the game.

>>> PONUS <<<

Let me know what you think. There is no hidden meaning here, it's more just an atmospheric exploration of the theme I guess. Again it was very fun to present as we had the sound effects quite loud and when paired with the dramatic/comedic readings it was pretty entertaining (I hope.)

Of course it's an oversimplification. I don't think Mr Bateman's point was to give a conclusive, final or exclusive explanation. It feels more like a answer to the question "what do popular works of art have in common?" And one of those things is that they require less imagination. Or at least that they are also accessible/enjoyable for people with less imagination.

Well, he does in fact say that it "should be a truism" not that it "is a factor". I agree with your point that it's one of the things that popular works usually have in common.

Moving on... =)

But I don't doubt that this is a property that shifts throughout the ages. In medieval times, it was probably very easy for people to imagine hell. So pieces depicting The Last Judgement might have been popular. Ditto perhaps Wagner. Maybe people in his time were quite familiar with the mythologies and characters and subject matter found in his work.

There's an element of media supporting each other that plays a part in this theory. A particular fantasy might seem far-fetched when it is first introduced, but as more and more works are made with the same subject matter, the audience becomes more familiar with it and the works require less imagination. Perhaps Vampires are a good example of this.

I think this is sound thinking. There is a collective imagination that contains certain ideas and images, and also certain rules. Vampire movies usually involve the rules around crucifixes, sunlight, blood drinking, etc.; even before you begin to tell your story there is already a lot of material beforehand. Of course you can go either way with that material, for instance in Terry Pratchett's novels the crucifixes have no actual power (to often humorous effect...)

I think there is some validity do this, but it's an oversimplification. Like:

- It seems to me that there are many, many reasons why war sims are popular.
- Wagner used to be really popular!

I think as a designer you choose to leave empty spaces for people to fill in with their imaginations (see: Dwarf Fortress, which is fun to play vicariously, i.e., read people's stories about the game, and I find the same true of Nethack.) Where those spaces are and how large they can be without losing people is going to depend on how much effort your audience wants to put in, not just on the depth of their imagination.

Tolkien is another interesting example. In his mind, many many more details of middle earth were filled in than he probably ever put down. This gives his stories a very fleshed out backdrop; but he DOES fill in a great number of details. The fact that he leaves many blanks in hinting at far, far more works so well because he has provided actually a great deal of context already.

Hey, I have had notgames forums on my bookmark bar since I posted this but sort of neglected participating! So I just saw the feedback now, thank you. Anyhow I'm going to try and participate...

[My Things]

I thought it polite to post an introduction here. I make games and I also make what I think might classify notgames!

My Things

Here is my latest game/notgame, The Legend of Elkanah.

I've known about this forum for awhile but not participated. I thought that Elkanah might be of particular interest to people who hang out here, and I'm interested in what other ideas are bouncing around as well.

Here is my website.

My Dev blog that I work very hard on.

A Bit About Me

I live in Calgary, Alberta and work half-time as a web developer. I like my paying job, the rest of the time I am spending on a game called The Real Texas. This is a more traditional game but I think it has a lot of interesting ideas an imagery in it. I ride bikes a lot, am married and don't own a car. I think it's fair to say that I am, in some sense at least, anti-car. There are a lot of reasons for this and I won't go into them here.

Here's a random smattering of my thoughts about the current state of games:

- Computer games can already do a lot of really interesting things, but there must still be many not-well-explored avenues. Many of the same times of games are made over and over. I think this is quite natural and human, however. There is nothing wrong with making another platformer, in the same way as there's nothing wrong with singing a song that has already been sung! Well, that's a nice analogy...

- Thinking like a player (or notplayer?) is very difficult. User testing is important and incredibly insightful, but requires a certain amount of humility.

- The "thematic" or story elements of a game/notgame is very important in determining the appropriate type of mechanics. I think this is a case of form follows function. Allowing for intuition and trying not to over-think, if you want to tell a story, then your story is functional. Choose or design gameplay mechanics that support what you are trying to tell. Think in spatial terms, as well as social terms when you consider what choices are important. On the other side, you can also start with gameplay mechanics and have those be functional, then create a story or framework that fits around this. But I think it's usually not very convincing to have the two at odds with themselves. I see a certain pattern lately of tying all kind of stories and feelings to platforming mechanics, which doesn't make much sense to me.

- Accessibility is important for game designers. Design with people with disabilities in mind. There was a great post somewhere on this recently.

- Try to be easy going!! =)

I hang out at The Games Collective and TIGSource. I lurk a little bit at NeoGAF. NeoGAF has a terrible reputation but I think it's a great community with a lot of interesting ideas, well worth paying attention to for game designers.

NARCISSISM END!