"Outsider" says "hi"

[Noumenon]

Hello, Notgames Forum.

I usually go by Noumenon or Nou in the online world, but my real name is Andrew and I'm an Englishman living in Madrid. I pay the bills here by teaching English and I also have a small forum moderation business (which you've probably never heard of) but my creative life is focused on writing. I studied screenwriting over a decade ago, but since then writing has had to become a hobby while I keep a roof over my head through more traditional means (well, fairly traditional; my employment history is... disperate). Now I quietly work on short stories in various genres, tinker with feature length film scripts in the hope of getting them to a submission-worthy state, and I'm slowly planning a number of novels for children, young adults and adult-adults in case I suddenly grow some courage.

And I play games.

I came across this space after playing The Path and The Graveyard via Steam, but I was pleased to recognise some good ol' titles being slung around here while I've been lurking - I had The Ceremony of Innocence back in the day and enjoyed it very much. Over the summer I've been dipping into some of the recent projects created by or linked to by NGF members, and my appetite for more is well up.

I only broke from my intermittent lurking after reading the facinating "Players are Planners" article linked to here (and I'll be running it past some of my more advanced students next week) but the reason I hesitated beforehand was that I didn't really know what I might contribute to the forum beyond a vague air of the uninformed fanboy. However, after scratching the surface a bit deeper I'm seeing (correctly?) that the point of discussion here is to find new and interesting ways to entertain gamers, rather than to dogmatically eschew conventional game content including, which is of particular interest to me, narrative.

Of course, I do have an idea for a computer game (a new stage of the social archetype - it used to be that everyone had a book in them...). It's an isgame, not a notgame, but I'm not a programmer and I didn't sign up here to pitch the concept to anyone. I'm interested in storytelling, and if I can provide assistance to anyone here with their work I'd be delighted to do so. The trick would be demonstrating that I can help - but I have an idea about that too...

[ghostwheel]

Welcome!

I'm not the spokesperson for notgames, that would be Michael and Auriea. This is only how I see things here and my opinion only. First, there are no outsiders. We aren't a clique (and personally, I hate cliques). We don't want to be exclusive. Second, notgames isn't a genre, merely an approach. The only thing we share here is the desire to expand game technology beyond the typical sorts of games and games in general. Some of us are pushing thing further than others. It's really about the art more than anything. That's it.

Please share you ideas! And don't just think about making a game, make it!

[Chris W]

Glad you decided to speak up.  I can relate somewhat to your situation - I don't really consider myself a game maker per se, but simply an artist with a burning inner inspiration that I desperately want to communicate (which make me very much appreciate your screen name).  As such, I dabble in writing, painting, sculpture, and other things.  I'm a professional game developer, so that gives me the experience and tools to use this medium particularly fluently.  Also, like most here, I think the medium is very new and underutilized as an artistic tool, so the possibilities are great, and the possibility of being on the forefront of something new is exciting.

[Noumenon]

Thanks for the greets, gentlemen. I'm about to climb back into the teaching saddle after an extra-long summer break, so forgive me if it takes a while for me to properly emerge from the shadows and get involved with discussion...

[Michaël Samyn]

The notgames idea is just a means to an end. That we don't know what exactly this end might be, or that it is probably different for every one of us, is somewhat the point. It's about exploration of the unknown, of the potential for amusement and enlightenment we all feel is present in this wonderful new medium. Many of us feel that exploration of this potential is being held back by the reflex of making games in the strict sense of the word. Hopefully at some point this reflex will disappear and we can abandon this place. Until then, you're very welcome to this wonderful little corner of the web.

[Noumenon]

Thanks for the further welcome.

I don't want to clutter the place up with threads that may be of little interest to the general population (I'm not trying to make you all sound like prisoners when I say that) and while I'm finding lots of interesting things to read my very quick search hasn't yet thrown up an existing suggestion, so in case there is an obvious answer to my question I'll ask it here for now.

I am thinking of developing a concept that (ignoring any graphical interface) could be boiled down to a variation on rock-paper-scissors, but although I studied "programming" at school twenty years ago I have no real knowledge of how to do it now. It's right up there with my ability to speak French: studied at school, never got used, quickly atrophied like the third arm growing out of my back. Looking ahead to an actual platform I would like to create a 2D mobile phone app, but already I'm getting ahead of myself - something I can make work on a PC-with-keyboard would be a singularity moment for me.

So, my question: what software would anyone recommend for me to take my first baby steps in "game" programming? The more dummy-friendly the better...

[Michaël Samyn]

Google has an interesting looking tool for developing for Android: http://www.appinventorbeta.com

[György Dudas]

I was experimenting with Multimedia Fusion 2 and Game Factory 2 for the last 2 weeks (the demo versions). The Tutorial is pretty good, and MMF2 even has an iOS device exporter (for iphone, ipod etc)...

http://www.clickteam.com/eng/mmf2.php


it is kind of a visual development tool, so you do not program in the traditional way... for 2D projects it is not bad at all...

[Kjell]

Google has an interesting looking tool for developing for Android: http://www.appinventorbeta.com

Yikes .. looks like they went with the Scratch interface for visual programming