Creating Blueberry Garden

[Thomas]

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4322/creating_blueberry_garden.php

I thought it was quite interesting read! Good job Erik!

[God at play]

Very nice, great job Erik.  I hope you get a chance to explore more of those concepts you talk about.

[Michaël Samyn]

Love this:

It might be a strange feeling, since no one is telling you if you're doing it right -- but that's just because there is no wrong!

I think this may be one of the biggest challenges for the design of interactive entertainment that is not games. To make our players understand that any way they play is fine. That the story is theirs. That there is no winning or losing, simply because there is no game.

[God at play]

Yeah, I was struck by that same sentence.  Tumblr worthy?

[Michaël Samyn]

To me it is. I just didn't add it because I wasn't sure if it made sense out of context.

[Thomas]

I have had some clever people giving me pointers on how the simulation could be simplified to make it more manageable. This could involve running a less accurate version of the physics in far off places in the world, for example.

I don't want the game to work that way though. For me, a huge part of the experience is knowing that everything is "for real." In Blueberry Garden the tree falls in the forest even if no one hears it.

That really stuck to me. I can totally agree with that, and even though it is not something that would be fitting for all simulated environments (sometimes it would be impossible), I really like the intent of a non-player centered world. In a way, most videogames today are pretty much solipsistic and I just like the idea of a game world that does not care about the player. Sure, the player can interact and make a difference, but is just a part of the world. And while faster, less simulating, versions could be made of the game, that was impossible to tell apart for the full simulation, I still feel it is a really nice statement.

I first kinda a annoyed at the high requirements (my system is too poor to play it) and I wondered why he could not have added some tricks. But having read the above, I totally understand and can "forgive" Erik for making the choice

[Michaël Samyn]

I like this a lot too. It's one of the reasons why I'm always arguing for faster computers. Our hardware needs to become so fast to allow us to just create worlds in ways that feel intuitive to us, without having to optimize things for the computer. We should be able to spontaneously express our human logic with the computer, instead of having to adapt to the computer's logic (and basically becoming its slave).

Faster hardware is one of the crucial ways to make programming more accessible to artists. The only real reason why we still need programmers, is because our logic needs to be optimized to run on computers. In a way, programmers translate complex human logic to simple machine logic (often at the expense of the complexity and subtlety). But if computers would be more powerful , we could communicate through them directly in human logic.

[ghostwheel]

I'm glad it got alot of attention and awards. It's certainly a visually attractive game. However, it does have some serious flaws.

The problems he focuses on are not the problems I had with the game. I found the control to be awkward and the challenge level very high and not terribly fun. And as an "experience" I didn't enjoy it either. Though he was successful in one thing for sure:

A big part of what I tried to do was capture the mood of an empty island in the middle of the summer. The kind of day where it's neither cloudy nor sunny and a small wind is chilling everything down a little. The water is dark, and even though everything is very nice you have a certain sense of doom. If anything of that feeling has appeared in the room while you played the game I'm very satisfied.

This is exactly the feeling I got from it. And I didn't like it.

Like Osmos, how it was "sold" was a bit different from what it actually was. The difference is, that despite Osmos being somewhat different from what it appears in its advertising, as a game and an experience, it is very strong. The puzzles are well thought out, the gameplay is excellent and the graphics and music are amazing. I really wanted to like this game! It's ALMOST there but Blueberry Garden isn't satisfactory as a game or an experience (sorry Erik).

This is all my personal opinion so take it for what it is.

On reflection, this makes me even more happy with my choice to eliminate all gameiness from my Zlythy project. I don't want to be stuck in a middle place that isn't satisfactory as either a game or an experience.

[God at play]

On reflection, this makes me even more happy with my choice to eliminate all gameiness from my Zlythy project. I don't want to be stuck in a middle place that isn't satisfactory as either a game or an experience.

I don't necessarily agree with you about Blueberry Garden, but your comment here reminds me of an interesting post by Dan Cook about "innovating halfway" and how you should never innovate halfway.

You might want to check it out.  Very marketing oriented, but I thought it was interesting to think about.

[Erik Svedäng]

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.

[God at play]

Well I really enjoyed the experience, so good job.   And the article, too (I put my comments over there).

[ghostwheel]

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 wouldn't worry too much about my opinion. You're the one with the awards.