Is this thing on? ... errrm, Hi!

[Jon N/A]

I'm Jon N/A.

Yeah, first name Jon and last name ... is not available!
Of course that's not my real name, I mean, Jon is not a Persian name!
That's right I'm Iranian and Jon N/A is my pseudonym as an artist.
Although I have not started my weblog* yet, so this is the first time I use my pseudonym in web and this post kinda marks my activity.

So, Why do I like to be "born" in here instead of my blog which I have lots of plans for it?

I was attached to adventure games as the best genre for telling a story in a game after Syberia.
Was a hardcore player of them and thought they have not been payed attention enough.
Played lots of Adv. games, Nancy drew, all titles from TellTale games, some LucasArts's old titles, and some other independent ones ones found in BigBlueCup.com
I had become such a big Adv. Gamer that I even wanted tell my story which I worked on it for more that a year now through an Adv. Game.

Till ToMI finished, and now, 4 months after, I read your Over Games presentation.
It really had a big effect on me.I started remembering bad experiences I had with games I played in my life;

- Tetris: I always thought the point of this game is to make beautify shaped bricks and ... [Just like LEGO!], till a friend told me the real rules.What? arranging those bricks just to see them destroyed? well that's depressing, and pretty unpleasant.I was quickly disappointed, So I never played it again.
- S.Mario.B [G.Giana.S]: I always thought something really BIG is gonna happen in the last level, tough I hated playing it, so my sister played it**.I just sat there and reported what Giana is doing(!), the damn game had no story!After the last level, she didn't stoped playing, but due to my disappointment from the last level which was defiantly not a satisfying end, I stoped watching my sister playing it.Jesus, what a waste of time... like the game was designed for it, wasting time ...
- PacMan: A pointless game that I could never stand playing it.I palyed it till 1~2 levels then I got tired***
-The Neverhood: The first game I felt I can't stop playing.I always loved it's beautiful Stop motion animation.Although it had lot's of puzzles unrelated to the story.It had so much puzzles that I thought the game has no story and is just puzzles that seemed more like IQ test that puzzles related to story.My only motivation was to find some floppy disks [20, I guess]that told a story.I figured that the game actually has a bad guy, but after playing more than 50% of it!since I had no access to a walkthrough, it took 3~4 years for me because the difficulty of puzzles.I aged from 9 to 12 playing the game.
- TheSims: Freedom! the only thing I hated about it was the sims moaning for sleeping and going to toilet, which made me angry and disappointed.sometimes I even killed a Sim by putting them into and empty room with no doors!So I spent most of my time making buildings and decorating them.
- Syberia: The game that made me an adventure addict.I loved it's environment and music.The things Kate said was like she's reading my mind! I was totally connected with her.Although I hated the non-logical puzzles and wandering around with having nothing new to say to characters.Specially when the same music was being played and there was only one piece for each level.
- Max Payne: The only thing that mattered to me in this game was it's brilliant story.I never liked guns in games although it's bullet time made me interested in playing this 1st-P-Shooter.I loved that there were actual TV series being played in TV's and all.It seemed everything was planned and you never wanted to miss a thing, of course if you weren't just playing for the action.It would be better if it was written in an engine made for the game.It's like the developers tried to fit all the TV's and all in it in rush.They shouldn't have used an genre others made.They should have made their own genre, like you did with the PATH.
- Delta Force2: I just wandered in game space and did stupid things! Like killing my own palls with a bazooka(!) Once I actually took the game seriously and passes a level.What was my reward?Another level!
- Psychonauts: a great and highly inspiring story which was shoved into platformer genre's throat by force.
- Neighbours from Hell: the rewards never made me want to play more.there was no story.The only neighbours I know from hell are Barton Fink and Charlie from Hotel earl!

Take a look at parts which I made bold... It's like I always belonged to this place!I want to be born in here simply because this is my true home!
Then I played The PATH.****I figured game don't have to be adventure to tell great stories.And now that I'm part of the Initiative, I decided to turn my story in a not-game.
But since I ave no knowledge of any programming language.I don't know where to start.I think starting with learning flash action script would be a good idea, afterwards I'll learn Visual Basic and then I'll move to more complicated ones like C.What do you think?

For know, I can just share my ideas and talk with you about making not games.And I will introduce two great not-games, sheep, dog n wolf and The Sting!(Der Clou2) which are my most favourite games.
I'm a graphic designer too.I can help with making a logo for now.I can sketch for a new web design but I don't have any HTML, ... knowledge ... yet. 

Phew! Can you believe it's nearly a week that I'm trying to write this?
It's because of my damned perfectionism I mentioned below .... 
Anyway, I'll see you guys more!

PS:I'm sorry I saw the post that you asked guests to sign up with their real names after I signed up.I don't want to tell my real name in the web now.I may say it to my future weblog's readers after I found my dedicated readers (If I find any ...)
----------------------------------------------------
*I'll hopefully start it this year.I'm such a perfectionist guy, I want to learn HTML and CSS and PHP and Java and ... to make my blog theme perfect, till the theme is not done, I ... just ...  cant ... start bloggin 
I do have a twitter account that I cannot access it because of the filtering.
**She played the Great Giana Sister version of course, I don't know why, maybe as a girl playing boys game(!) she prefered the hero to be the same, doing things that boy heroes do in games!
***Now, I've been writing this and were thinking about LOST and I came up with an idea for a comic about PacMan, but since I'm reading for my exams I can't make it soon, I anyone likes to make it, do it.But don't forget my name thanks.Here's the Idea;

PACMAN LOGO WITH A LOST STYLE 3D FLOAT IN GREY
THE GAME IS ASKING THE GAMERS IF THEY ARE READY.
NOT-GAMES Initiative LOGO WHICH IS SIMILAR TO DHARMA Initiative'S LOGO COMES UP.ITS A VCR BEING PLAYED.TV SHOWS A PACMAN GAME
PACMANGAME STARTS.GHOSTS LOOK AT EACH OTHER WONDERING WHAT IS PACMAN DOING

SHADOW/BLINKY
Jesus what the hell is he doin?
Whats the point of eating those goddamn balls?

SPEEDY/PINKY
I'll go ask him...

SPEEDY FOLLOWS PACMAN WHILE TALKING TO HIM.OTHER GHOSTS COME BY TOO.
PACMAN IS PAYING NO ATTENTION AND EATING YELLOW POINTS

SPEEDY/PINKY
Ahh, hey man, what's the point of eating those?

PACMAN STOPS AND LOOKS AT SPEEDY IN SHOCK

PACMAN
Oh, of course I have a point, you see those numbers up there?
I'm trying to reach score 4815162342 so they are reset to 108.

SPEEDY(shocked)
What? You can't just waste you whole life for tha...

PACMAN(shouting)
Don't tell me what I can't do!
I'm saving the world.It's my destiny!
No one's gonna stop me!

PACMAN EATS A POWER PELLET AND THEN EATS UP ALL OF THE GHOSTS.
THEN THE AFTERMATH OF REACHING TO 4815162342 SCORE APPEARS:

NOT-GAMES LOGO COMES BY.IT INVITES PEOPLE TO JOIN

****I haven't finished it yet.I went through lots of trouble and had very very little time this year.I'll defiantly play it this summer.I hardly had time to play ToMI, I played it thoroughly by a walkthrough

[Dagda]

Yow! That's quite a wall of text you've constructed there, Jon. (All the more impressive since you kept it pretty interesting.  ) I know what you mean about perfectionism- actually, I'll repost something I wrote out for another thread here:

I used to spend alot of time editing these fan-made music videos, like the ones you see on youtube (though 99% of the ones you'll find there are garbage). I liked to put a ton of effort into each one, making sure it had a high level of polish. There were a couple of different editors out there at the time who were starting out like me, but their work didn't compare because they were always doing these quick rough works. I thought it was a shame, because they could make something really impressive if they'd have focused some more on quality of over quantity.

Thing is, when I came across them a year or two later they were way beyond me. They'd kept on doing the same thing, but now the results had this easy elegance and grace that I had to work for hours to come close to (assuming I could keep at it that long). It was like they'd switched their bikes to a lower gear while we were riding uphill.

In other words, I'm still struggling not to "write the final draft first", as one teacher of mine observed. Even if it seems like it makes each thing you make better, overthinking these matters can really hold you back in the long run.

As for what games can be, here's my key question for you. What do you want from games- from interactive virtual experiences- that things like novels and movies can't provide? I'm curious to hear your answers, here or in another forum.

[Albin Bernhardsson]

Hi there, "Jon N/A". Glad to see you here.

If you want to learn some HTML, CSS and PHP I can recommend the basic tutorials on W3Schools. PHP's official homepage is also excellent if you want to search for a specific function. Complete with descriptions and code examples.

Be sure to check the Java API whenever wanting to know about Java functionality (though I don't know of any good beginner's tutorials).

[personal opinion]When it comes to Flash, I actually find Adobe Flash to be quite horrible (for making games, it's ok for animation and smaller stuff). I've lately been checking out Flixel and FlashPunk in a FlashDevelop environment and I very much prefer it. Bonus: Contrary to Adobe Flash, it's all free.[/personal opinion]

[Michaël Samyn]

Welcome to Notgames, Jon!

Where to get started depends a bit on where you want to go. At Tale of Tales, we're hooked on 3D. So we use Blender3D, Quest3D and Unity3D. Python, Lua and Javascript, respectively (though Blender and especially Quest have a visual programming system). Flash and web browsers also use variations of Javascript. So that's definitely a good choice for a scripting language.

[God at play]

Welcome Jon.  I look forward to experiencing your creations.

[axcho]

Nice to see an Iranian here. I love Persian classical music.

I think you'll find your playing tastes well-described by the Wanderer player type, as described in the book 21st Century Game Design. Wanderer is my favorite style of play too.

As far as learning game programming goes, don't waste your time with Visual Basic. No one uses that. I even made my first game in Visual Basic, long ago, and I'm telling you now that there is no reason to ever learn it!

Start with Flixel and ActionScript 3.0, as Chainsawkitten recommends. Conveniently, I have put together a handy guide with links to the tutorials and resources you'll need if you want to get started: Where to Start with AS3, FlashDevelop and Flixel

All the tools are free, too. I assume you're using a Windows computer, since you mention Visual Basic? That will make things easier for you.

Flixel/Flash is probably the best option for 2D games, at least at the moment. If you feel the need to move to 3D, check out Unity, I hear it's good.

[Jon N/A]

[dagda]  Yow! That's quite a wall of text you've constructed there, Jon. (All the more impressive since you kept it pretty interesting.  Wink )   
 [Chainsawkitten]  Hi there, "Jon N/A". Glad to see you here.
[Michael]  Welcome to Notgames, Jon! Smiley
 [God at Play] Welcome Jon.  I look forward to experiencing your creations. Smiley
[axcho]  Nice to see an Iranian here.

First of all, my apologies for answering this late.
My Delay has 2 reasons;
1st reason is me being prepare for my 3 week long final exams I had after you all answered my post.
and 2nd reason is that I wanted to answer your kind replys the best way, you know, I didn't want to miss a thing you said from being answered.
Yeah, my perfectionism again ... holding me back ...
I'll discuss it with you all (especially you Dagda) in the end.
and 3rd [surprise!] reason is that I didn't know where to begin, So I made this [Attachment file], which made writing this post easier. (Freaky isn't it? OK, you can shout at me:"THIS ISN'T THE DAMN WIKIPEDIA MAN, JUST WRITE SOMETHING! IT'S JUST A SIMPLE FORUM REPLY, JESUS!" it's OK, I know).Have you seen f.r.i.e.n.d.s? you might as well say I deeply believe in Monica-ism (!) ... after perfectionism of course ...
Anyway, I didn't wanna quote you guys and answer each of your posts separately, I wanted to answer in a general, interesting and readable way.

Thanks for the very kind welcomes and advices, all of you guys, Dagda, Michael, ChainsawKitten, God at Play and axcho.
It's nice to hear that my long post didn't get you bored Dagda
Also it's good to see you who recognises Iran with it's music axcho , Not by Persian cats or rugs or ... Omid Djalali! Or worse, recognising Iran by Irrelevant things to it, like Camels  
I'll talk more about Persian classical music in the end.

[ChainsawKitten]  If you want to learn some HTML, CSS and PHP I can recommend the basic tutorials on W3Schools. PHP's official homepage is also excellent i...
 
 [Michael]  Where to get started depends a bit on where you want to go. At Tale of Tales, we're hooked on 3D. So we use Blender3D, Quest3D an...
 
 [axcho]  As far as learning game programming goes, don't waste your time with Visual Basic. No one uses that. I even made my first ga...

you pointed out a very important thing Michael, Where to get started depends a bit on where you want to go.
Well, you all assumed that I wana make 2D games based on what I said.But I only meant that I think starting with flash and working on it helps me do better in 3D game developing.
But if I can start with 3D game developing without starting by easier ways (Flash 2D games), I like to work on 3D game developing.
And thanks you axcho for informing me about the uselessness of Visual Basic, I thought starting with it is the best choice for beginers.I did some research and I figured that currently python is the best choice for absolute beginers like me since it has lots of resources and manuals for learning it.
and, No I'm not on Windows, I'm using UBUNTU Linux.
Although I AM planning to install Windows soon, you know, for installing softwares from Adobe and Corel.
So, based on what you said I decided to pickup HTML, CSS, Python and Java script to learn this summer, and 3D modeling of course.
Anyway thanks for your advices on learning programing languages and scripting ones guys Really appreciated.
Until I learn Game developing, I'll join discussing here with you guys about reinventing games, which is our goal, which brings me to the next paragraphs topic...

[Dagda]  As for what games can be, here's my key question for you. What do you want from games- from interactive virtual experiences- that things like novels and movies can't provi...

What games can be, Or, What can we get from games that Movies and Novels and Comic books can't provide?
I have been thinking about this before you asked this Really important and Interesting question from me Dagda, and ... well I haven't reached a satisfying answer, to be honest ... Destroyed the good opening of the paragraph, huh?
But I found a way to answer this mystery; first we should find out what Movies, Novels and Comics provide separately.And then we should write what games provide, and then simply, we remove the facts that they have in common.There you go!
By saying "We" I didn't mean one can't reach to an answer, and I will defiantly work on this research this summer, but rather I meant that we can make this research a collaborative one to get to the results faster.By making it a Doc on a shared word processor on internet [Zoho, Google Docs, ...], or on a WIKI, or here in this forums.
I've been thinking that reaching to a definite answer to this question clears our non-game makers guidelines and makes making Not-Games easier.So it's a very important research for all of us.What do you think?

[axcho]  I think you'll find your playing tastes well-described by the Wanderer player type, as described in the book 21st Century Game Design. Wanderer is my favorite style of play

Thanks axcho, that article on 21stCGD was really interesting.I didn't know players are just as different as games themselves, Which makes it a big problem to make an enjoyable game for everyone ...
Yeah you got it right, I'm a wanderer too I care about what comes out of the game than worrying about goals and rewards.
it' interesting to categorise games like that.I Will talk about my most favourite games, Sheep Dog 'n' Wolf [Sheep Raider] and the Sting! [Der Clou2], I think you will love them too.Those games are really underrated.

[Dagda]  I know what you mean about perfectionism- actually, I'll repost something I wrote out for another thread here:
"I used to spend alot of time editing these fa...

Now it's time to talk about Perfectionism and Persian Music.
Yeah you're right about Perfectionism Dagda, it holds us back although it helps to reach the thing we're working on higher levels.
But I still think at least a little bit of Perfectionism isn't bad, as long as it doesn't stop us from working.
There were lots of artist that were perfectionist and successful, Like Michelangelo, Or my Favourite Director Stanley Kubrick.
Kubrick had the record of shooting the same scene over and over again! [more that 80 times] making actors really angry.
But look at his filmography, all of his movies are now considered classic...
But unfortunately I have the bad "All-or-Nothing" kind of perfectionism.I really should work on it, or it may become worse.
Wikipedia suggest that people who have this kind of perfectionism should:"set realistic goals and to face their fear of failure" which is hard thing for me to do, but I have to if I want to get rid of it.
As for Stanley Kubrick, He died because of heart disease, one of the diseases that comes after perfectionism ...  

[axcho]  I love Persian classical music.

Persian classical music, I don't want to disappoint you axcho, I'm really happy that I met someone that loves our classical music, but I can't talk to you about it cause I actually find persian music quite boring ... Yeah you think it's weird and all Iranians listen to them at their free times or in parties and such, well I should say that usually old people in Iran "enjoy" that music and us youngsters listen to the kind of music you listen to, Rock and Roll, or Rap.I myself love pop, rock and jazz Genres.
But, all those thing that I said doesn't mean that we [the youngest generation] hate classical music and we don't listed to it at all, No, it's not like that neither.We do listen to them but not on our choice.Of course there are some of us new generation who love Persian classical music.I'm not one of those types.I'm with the 75% of youngsters who don't love p-classic music but do listen tothem occasionally.
Thing is, I can't be a person you can talk about Persian music, cause I don't know the different sub-genre of it and such and I never listened to it by my own choice.
Although there was a case, a TV series was  aired here 2~3 years ago that had a wonderful soundtrack in classic Genre.In my opinion the composer was a genius and he had such a deep understanding of classical music that he knew how to use Persian music rhymes to show a moment of stress, sadness and joy ...
That was the time I remember I enjoyed the classical music.
There's this musician, Mohsen Namjoo, who mixed our classical music with jazz and bluse or other genres, I love his work.I can't say anything about his music, he's awesome! Listen to his music, I think you will love it, search him in Last.fm or buy his albums, I don't know if they're available on iTunes or not.
anyway, what kind of Persian music do you listen to? does it have a Vocal singer [who usually sings poems by Hafiz or Saadi] or non-vocal? I know I can't be a person who discusses Persian music with you but we can continue the discussion, somehow ... I do know some famous musician by name ...

I'll come here later t participate in discussions, introduce those 2 games I mentioned that I love and of course, to research on What games can be.
See you in the forums

PS: @ChainsawKitten How did you managed to make you avatar change each time the page-with-your-avatar reloads? That's really awesome!

[Jon N/A]

I guess no-one noticed my reply , don't you guys have anything to say about for example the path I suggested to answer this question, What do you want from games- from interactive virtual experiences- that things like novels and movies can't provide?

[Michaël Samyn]

I think we're all intimidated by the size of your post, Jon.   

Maybe you should address a single topic per post. Feel free to use the entire forum for that.

[Jon N/A]

You're right, well, yeah my post is long, but it's not intended to be a reply that everyone should read, some paragraphs (most of them) are targeted to only one or 2 persons.
OK, so to make my post clear, I'll put quotes before every paragraphs so to make sure that anyone, reads the paragraph that was written for.
I'll defiantly use the whole forums to discuss different subjects but lots of different matters were discussed in this thread and I couldn't ignore them, take the discussion about Persian Music for example ... what would you do if you were me? wouldn't you answer all different subjects that were discussed here?