Every year, Microsoft runs a competition called DreamBuildPlay.  Last week DBP 2009 was kicked off.  Things you should know:

• DreamBuildPlay is a contest in which you or your team (of up to 7) build a video game for the Xbox 360.


• Your video game needs to be built in XNA Game Studio 3.0, or 3.1 when it comes out in May.


• You get a free 12 month subscription to XNA Creatorrsquo;s Club just for registering.


• Grand Prize Winner receives $40,000.  Prizes of $5,000 to $20,000 available for subsequent winners.


• If the judges really like your game (even if yoursquo;re not the grand prize winner), they may offer you a publishing contract for Xbox Live Arcade.


• The Dishwasher, an XBLA title released last week was a DreamBuildPlay winner in 2007.  Other DreamBuildPlay winners are in the pipe.


• No theme this year, so you can build any kind of game you want.  But it has to target the Xbox 360, not Windows.


• Submission Deadline is Aug 6, 2009 (My Birthday!)

If yoursquo;re an amateur or hobbyist game designer/programmer/artist and you have a wild idea for a new game, this is your chance to hunker down and get some eyeballs on what you can do.

Register here.

I know your deeds challenges players to survive over the course of months and years, trapped in a city dominated by nightmarish zombies. While of course concerned with the ever-present threat these creatures represent, the player will face long-term concerns like obtaining sources of food and water, building shelter from attack, and the overall survival of the human race.

Game Mechanics:

The player begins in a semi-randomly generated urban environment. A full day and night will take place over the course of 20 minutes, the proportions of which will depend on the time of year (i.e. More of that twenty minutes is day in the summer, less in the winter). During the day, the player enjoys relative safety from zombie attacks (at least outdoors), and those encountered tend to be lethargic and confused. Days are typically spent scavenging for supplies and building materials, constructing barricades and traps, and investigating scripted plot points.

Crafting

A crafting system exists in the game, in which players need to collect tools and materials to build and reinforce whatever position theyrsquo;ve chosen as their base of operations. Stress is induced in the player as collecting these materials, building, and setting up the barricades and traps will take up more time than they have allocated in a given day, and the attacks that will occur all night wears down these defenses, requiring repairs the next day.

Sleep

Sleep also takes a major position in the game. If the player refuses to sleep, they will begin falling asleep while performing tasks, and generally perform miserably. Sleeping during the day is safer, but sacrifices critical time that could be spent building and scavenging. Sleeping at night means you may be rudely (and suddenly) awakened by a zombie chewing on your throat. Additionally, nighttime sleep is less restful, due to the loud noises going on outside. Going to sleep on a daily basis thus becomes a thing of terror, rather than relaxation.

Freeform

Unlike most survival horror games, there are very few scripted events in I know your deeds, beyond the seeding of background story information and certain key events which are linked to game timeline. The plot is developed by finding items which piece together a patchwork background story, eventually resulting in a method of destroying the zombies en masse. The player can ‘hole uprsquo; in any building they choose, and reinforce it as they can. Items and buildings are pseudo-randomly generated in a manner that makes each game unique, but also consistently playable and interesting.

Difficulty curve

As time goes on, more and more of the framework of society begins to fail (for example, initially the electrical grid may still be working, but will eventually collapse), creating an increasingly difficult environment in which to survive, and forcing the player to continually be allocating time to deal with these situations, instead of ‘base buildingrsquo;. Additionally, as time goes on, the zombie threat becomes continually more intense and ferocious.

End Game

The game ends when either the player can no longer handle the zombie threat and is overcome, or the player gathers the information and materials necessary to build a device which will end the zombie threat.

1.  Gamers shall have the right to return games that are incompatible or do not function at a reasonable level of performance for a full refund within a reasonable amount of time.

2.  Gamers shall have the right that games they purchase shall function as designed without defects that would materially affect the player experience.

3.  Gamers shall have the right that games will receive updates that address minor defects as well as improves game play based on player feedback within reason.

4.  Gamers shall have the right to have their games not require a third-party download manager installed in order for the game to function.

5.  Gamers shall have the right to have their games perform adequately if their hardware meets the posted minimum requirements.

6.  Gamers shall have the right not to have any of their games install hidden drivers.

7.  Games shall have the right to re-download the latest version of the games they purchase.

8.  Gamers shall have the right to user their games without being inconvenienced due to copy protection or DRM.

9.  Gamers shall have the right to play single player games without having to have an Internet connection.

10.  Gamers shall have the right to sell or transfer ownership of a physical copy of a game they own to another person.

Given the recent announcements both by Stardock and Valve on the topic of DRM, I think there are arguably some adjustments to be made.  In the customer report from which that list was pulled, Stardock discusses the issue that the burden is not on publishers to provide mechanisms to sell and transfer digital titles.  I find this highly ironic considering one of the primary features of the new ldquo;Goordquo; system they announced is to do just that.  However, I agree, that the burden is not on the publisher, itrsquo;s on the distributor.

Video Games in the 21st century are not like games in the 90s.  Certainly to a large extent today, and ever more so going forward, games will be distributed through the internet, or will at least leverage the internet.  Games no longer exist in a vaccuum, on their own right, but are tied into a larger social platform such as Steam Community or Xbox Live.  As this process continues, it means that when users choose where to buy a game, it is no longer the choice of a commodity, buying the same game from Walmart or from Gamestop.  Itrsquo;s not even the choice of interface (Do I want to play this game on my console, or on my PC).  When you purchase a game, you are contributing to your personal space within a social ecosystem.  Itrsquo;s like choosing between MySpace and Facebook. 

What this means is, that for the first time, Distributor/Retailers are now also developers of a social network, with all the benefits and responsibilities thereto appertaining.

This has implications.

In the new world, the existence or lack thereof of a disc is irrelevant.  You are not purchasing a CD - you never were - you were purchasing the right to play that game.  With a CD (at least on a console), you have the ability to easily transfer, or loan your rights to another person.  Stardock is the first, as far as Irsquo;m aware, to easily enable this process on games that are purely digitally distributed.  Kudos to them, it will mean competitively, if this is a popular addition in the marketplace, that all the other players will likely have to follow suit.  Score one for the gamer.

I think there are some nuances potentially missing here as well though.  While a secondary market is important, there are also a lot of loans going on, which is not enabled by this system AFAIK.  There is a logical distinction between the person who owns the game, and the person who is currently playing (or allowed to play) the game that is disabled in a system where only the owner of the game is allowed to play it, using their account.  This prevents members of the same household from participating in their own social groups using a single instance of a game (but not at the same time), or from allowing friends to loan each other games, or for any kind of time-limited loans of titles to be made.  Irsquo;m not aware of any platform that currently supports these scenarios in any sophisticated way.

Because of the nature of these emerging environments - distributor as social network - it means that in the near future an oligopoly will form around a very small (1 or 2) number of distributors who can build our their community the fastest, with the best features.  Presently the barrier to entry to create a game distribution platform is relatively low, because game publishers treat these platforms as just another kind of retailer - if yoursquo;re able and willing to sell their games, and the publisher needs to do little or no work to get on your platform, theyrsquo;re willing to do business with you.  Providing benefits like piracy protection and metrics (e.g. Steamworks) only sweetens the deal.  As users become lsquo;locked inrsquo; to a specific network, where all their licenses exist, and all their friends play, and all their status symbols are kept, the barrier becomes more difficult, because in order to create a new platform, you need to shift a significant install base from an existing network.  There will be a Facebook/MySpace of PC-centric gaming platforms, and the race is on, but itrsquo;s not clear who that winner will be yet.

1.  Gamers shall have the right to return games that are incompatible or do not function at a reasonable level of performance for a full refund within a reasonable amount of time.

2.  Gamers shall have the right that games they purchase shall function as designed without defects that would materially affect the player experience.

3.  Gamers shall have the right that games will receive updates that address minor defects as well as improves game play based on player feedback within reason.

4.  Gamers shall have the right to have their games not require a third-party download manager installed in order for the game to function.

5.  Gamers shall have the right to have their games perform adequately if their hardware meets the posted minimum requirements.

6.  Gamers shall have the right not to have any of their games install hidden drivers.

7.  Games shall have the right to re-download the latest version of the games they purchase.

8.  Gamers shall have the right to user their games without being inconvenienced due to copy protection or DRM.

9.  Gamers shall have the right to play single player games without having to have an Internet connection.

10.  Gamers shall have the right to sell or transfer ownership of a physical copy of a game they own to another person.

Given the recent announcements both by Stardock and Valve on the topic of DRM, I think there are arguably some adjustments to be made.  In the customer report from which that list was pulled, Stardock discusses the issue that the burden is not on publishers to provide mechanisms to sell and transfer digital titles.  I find this highly ironic considering one of the primary features of the new ldquo;Goordquo; system they announced is to do just that.  However, I agree, that the burden is not on the publisher, itrsquo;s on the distributor.

Video Games in the 21st century are not like games in the 90s.  Certainly to a large extent today, and ever more so going forward, games will be distributed through the internet, or will at least leverage the internet.  Games no longer exist in a vaccuum, on their own right, but are tied into a larger social platform such as Steam Community or Xbox Live.  As this process continues, it means that when users choose where to buy a game, it is no longer the choice of a commodity, buying the same game from Walmart or from Gamestop.  Itrsquo;s not even the choice of interface (Do I want to play this game on my console, or on my PC).  When you purchase a game, you are contributing to your personal space within a social ecosystem.  Itrsquo;s like choosing between MySpace and Facebook. 

What this means is, that for the first time, Distributor/Retailers are now also developers of a social network, with all the benefits and responsibilities thereto appertaining.

This has implications.

In the new world, the existence or lack thereof of a disc is irrelevant.  You are not purchasing a CD ndash; you never were ndash; you were purchasing the right to play that game.  With a CD (at least on a console), you have the ability to easily transfer, or loan your rights to another person.  Stardock is the first, as far as Irsquo;m aware, to easily enable this process on games that are purely digitally distributed.  Kudos to them, it will mean competitively, if this is a popular addition in the marketplace, that all the other players will likely have to follow suit.  Score one for the gamer.

I think there are some nuances potentially missing here as well though.  While a secondary market is important, there are also a lot of loans going on, which is not enabled by this system AFAIK.  There is a logical distinction between the person who owns the game, and the person who is currently playing (or allowed to play) the game that is disabled in a system where only the owner of the game is allowed to play it, using their account.  This prevents members of the same household from participating in their own social groups using a single instance of a game (but not at the same time), or from allowing friends to loan each other games, or for any kind of time-limited loans of titles to be made.  Irsquo;m not aware of any platform that currently supports these scenarios in any sophisticated way.

Because of the nature of these emerging environments ndash; distributor as social network ndash; it means that in the near future an oligopoly will form around a very small (1 or 2) number of distributors who can build our their community the fastest, with the best features.  Presently the barrier to entry to create a game distribution platform is relatively low, because game publishers treat these platforms as just another kind of retailer ndash; if yoursquo;re able and willing to sell their games, and the publisher needs to do little or no work to get on your platform, theyrsquo;re willing to do business with you.  Providing benefits like piracy protection and metrics (e.g. Steamworks) only sweetens the deal.  As users become lsquo;locked inrsquo; to a specific network, where all their licenses exist, and all their friends play, and all their status symbols are kept, the barrier becomes more difficult, because in order to create a new platform, you need to shift a significant install base from an existing network.  There will be a Facebook/MySpace of PC-centric gaming platforms, and the race is on, but itrsquo;s not clear who that winner will be yet.

Go play this game.  Irsquo;ll wait.

Now, unlike Kieronrsquo;s view of this game, I donrsquo;t think that this is a particularly lsquo;mean spiritedrsquo; take on the jRPG at all.  I do agree that the type of RPG Sophie is mocking here is definitely of the lsquo;classical jRPGrsquo; variety (think Final Fantasy, Star Ocean, Lost Odyssey, etc.).  The reason I donrsquo;t think so is, firstly, I donrsquo;t think you can be lsquo;mean spiritedrsquo; about a genre, only a specific example of that genre.  Itrsquo;s like saying someone is being mean-spirited about SciFi, you canrsquo;t really do it.  Secondly, This is what satire is.  You take something, strip it of the lace and trim and expose it for what is really going on behind the scenes as brutally as you can.  If you think thatrsquo;s in poor taste, fine, but I would argue that you donrsquo;t really understand or appreciate satire.

Finally, while I love what Sophie has done here - boiled the RPG down to grinding along a line in order to read a poorly written story - I think she could go further.  Start by interrupting the playerrsquo;s progression along the line every 2-3 seconds, randomly, and without warning, force them to watch the little stick figure dancing around (a 10 second process), and then to tap the same button over and over again until they are returned to the line, only to repeat the process again 2-3 seconds later.

It might dilute the message for those that arenrsquo;t familiar with the material at hand, but I would find it god damn hilarious.

The soundtrack for Earthbound does a lot of sampling of the work of other artists.  Now, mind you, itrsquo;s cranked down into a midi version, and Irsquo;m pretty sure you donrsquo;t need to pay royalties when you make a midi version of a sample of the Monty Python theme song, and then screw with the tempo.  Something about fair use.

Anyhoo, Nintendo of Japan is reportedly extremely uncomfortable with it regardless, and is also unwilling to release a version with different and definitely legal music in it.

Maybe someone should tell them that witholding products from the market that are in demand is why people install emulators on their Wiis and stop paying for VC content entirely.

You can read the full story on Starmen.net here.

From a pure game design standpoint, Adventure Games are not particularly interesting.  You have a game space, which can be seen as a very rigid tree, or occasionally a graph.  The job of the player is to manually perform a search on this tree until they reach a particular leaf node.

The method of node traversal takes different forms, but usually includes things like finding, combining, and using items, speaking to characters, moving to various rooms, and solving pre-constructed puzzles.  In 2009, there is nothing ludologically complex about this, for the most part it has been done.  We have learned certain lessons about the way in which you should or should not go about constructing your game tree (for example, having extremely deep branches that ultimately are dead-ends are frowned upon, as is progressing down a branch that is otherwise identical to the correct branch, but is missing some key piece, such as picking up an item, that does not become appearant until it is far too late, and the game prevents you from retracing your steps).  But assuming you follow these guidelines, making an adventure game does not involve doing anything revolutionary, from a game design standpoint.

Which isnrsquo;t to say they arenrsquo;t interesting or that people shouldnrsquo;t make them.  From a narrative standpoint, adventure games can be incredibly rich, and there are people (myself included) who greatly enjoy the excerise of traversing the trees you have made for us.  In fact, in the last few years, it is precisely because these games are so well understood and strictly defined that tools like AGS have been made available, providing one of the most direct routes for hobbiest game designers to implement their visions.  Irsquo;m a big fan of the idea that if anyone has the ability to write a book (as it stands today), then there will be a large pile of shovelware books, but also an increase in the amount of good material available for me to consume.  I feel the same way about games - although we are not at a point where making games is as straightforward as writing a book - Adventure Games are one of the best places to start finding them.

A final observation.  One of the reasons that the adventure game genre has been so threadbare in the last 10 years is a lack of market for them - they became a niche.  With the ongoing explosion of the market as a whole - especially in the realm of casual games, people who were lsquo;non-gamersrsquo; 10 years ago and are lsquo;casual gamersrsquo; now are beginning to discover this niche, to the point where casual portals like Big Fish Games are offering titles such as Syberia 2 - a very hardcore traditional point and click game - to their members.  That says to me that you may see this genre, commercially stagnant, have a revival in the coming years (to a point, you are already seeing this via Telltale Games, et al. on the Wii).

Some interesting recent or upcoming releases in this genre:

• The Chzo Mythos


• A Tale of Two Kingdoms


• AGD Interactive remakes of Kingrsquo;s Quest 1 and Quest for Glory 2


• The Whispered World


• Three Cards to Midnight, from the makers of the Tex Murphy series (Looking at a March 2009 or later release at this point)

It would seem, in fact, that Hirai-san does not even see Nintendo and Microsoft as competitors.  Nintendo, he claims, is in ldquo;a different worldrdquo;, which I guess is how you address a company that has nearly matched sales of your best selling console in a third of the time.  Microsoft, on the other hand, ldquo;lacks longevityrdquo;, and I suppose is beneath contempt in this regard.

My favorite quote from the article is as follows:

ldquo;We donrsquo;t provide the lsquo;easy to program forrsquo; console that [developers] want, because lsquo;easy to program forrsquo; means that anybody will be able to take advantage of pretty much what the hardware can do, so then the question is what do you do for the rest of the nine-and-a-half years?rdquo; -Kaz Hirai

Itrsquo;s very simple.  You WANT developers to be able to take advantage of what the hardware can do.  What that means is that for the rest of the nine and a half years, while PS3 developers finally learn to master the console and push it to its limits, Xbox 360 developers will have mastered the console years before, and can concentrate on Design.  If therersquo;s anything we should have learned from this generation, itrsquo;s that you donrsquo;t get great games by forcing the developers to work against the tools you give them.  The fun comes from a great, polished design and execution.  Sony should be working as fast as they can to make it EASIER for developers to harness the PS3s power, not treating it as some kind of gauntlet to be overcome.

• Cave Story (Available in English for PC/Mac here, this indie title finally gets its day in the sun on Wii)


• Halo Wars


• Heavy Rain


• Halo: ODST


• Resident Evil 5


• Star Ocean


• Brutal Legend


• Bioshock 2


• Puzzle Quest: Galactrix


• Deus Ex 3!!!


• Alan Wake


• Beyond Good and Evil 2!!!


• Mass Effect 2


• Overlord 2


• God of War 3


• I Am Alive


• The Sims 3

So all in all, I donrsquo;t know what Peter Molyneux is talking about.  Maybe he only gets excited by games he makes.

Interesting Notes:

• In terms of volume, the top 5 game sales of 2008 are all first party Nintendo Wii titles


• Sony has only one game in the top 20 (Grand Theft Auto IV on PS3)


• GTA IV sold nearly twice as many units on the Xbox 360 than on the PS3


• 2/3 of the games for Xbox 360 in the top 20 are titles primarily played online


• Of the 13 games for Nintendo Platforms in the top 20 (DS and Wii), only one (Guitar Hero 3) is not a first party Nintendo title.


• Games for Xbox 360 outsold games for PS3, PS2 and PSP combined in 2008 with over 84 million titles sold


• On average, as of 2008, the average Xbox 360 owner has more games than any other system (just over 10).

No Son of Mine Plays Oregon Trail Like That

A Snippet to tantalize:

I once completed the trail having survived three broken wagon wheels. It took me 10 days to find an Indian to trade with for the third wheel, and I still scored 6,000 points. The other day, I saw you quit the trail immediately after your wagon capsized in the Kansas River. You lost only an ox and a hundred pounds of food. I drank myself to sleep that night.

Michael Nelson Price, whoever you are, you are one strange dude.  And a tip of the hat to you sir, for that.

More scary, however, is a hack allowing users to upload or delete any file they want from the Home Server.  This presents the opportunity for hackers to send malware to every single Home-enabled PS3 on the planet, or to perform DDOS attacks using PS3s.

Thatrsquo;s pretty much the worst case scenario for a console environment, short of leaking customer PIFs and credit card numbers.  Sounds like Home needs a security review before they let it out of Beta.

You know, in addition to the fact that itrsquo;s basically useless.

Unfortunately, logging into the site after yoursquo;ve migrated that account seems to be booched right now.  It either just sits there, swirling a ring around, or tells me I donrsquo;t exist.  This is probably because the entire free world is hammering on that site all at once, and hopefully it will be fixed soon.

Irsquo;m planning to revamp the site a bit to have a space for all my designs and prototypes, but for now you can find the current version here.

Technical Bits

The Friendship Game is built in Silverlight 2.0, using the Farseer Physics Engine.  The ball interactions are performed using custom springs that emulate electrostatic dynamics rather than spring dynamics.

Controls

You have a colored ball.  Your ball lives in a large triangle.  By clicking and dragging on your ball, you can pull your ball in the direction of the mouse.  Clicking on other balls will create a linkage between your ball and the other ball.

Rules

Balls may attach themselves to other balls.  Balls score points for each other ball that has elected to attach itself to that ball (e.g. if ball A attaches to ball B, ball B earns points).  Balls have a limited number of attachments that can be made at once.  If two balls become sufficiently distant, any attachments will be severed.

Balls have color.  Different colored balls interacted electrostatically, either by attraction or repulsion.

Each ball has a particular region of the map which is its goal region.  Balls score points for being in their goal region.  This region may change shape or location over time.

Balls also get points for being near other balls.  The amount of points allocated increases with the number of balls and the proximity of the other balls.

Concept

This is a game about personalities and relationships. 

As each ball is trying to maximize its own lsquo;happinessrsquo;, there are conflicting forces between life goals (regions of the map) and maintaining close relationships (attachments) to other balls.

A ball may, for example, be forced to destroy relationships with another group of balls in order to pursue life goals (and rejoin other balls with similiar life goals).

Dynamics of groups may change depending on the introduction of new balls or the removal of existing ones.  For example, in a group of balls with colors that are all attractive, some of them may be ousted completely, or pushed to the periphery by the introduction of a new ball that is only attractive with some of them.

Okay.  Gears of War is a fun game, and yes, it is fun (and also very graphic) to chainsaw someone in half in a video game.  The concept of putting a chainsaw on a large automatic weapon ishellip; special.

But listen folks, donrsquo;t actually go and do it in real life.  The video of this guy shooting at pumpkins and then whirling around chainsawing them just screams of ldquo;Irsquo;m a douche whorsquo;s about to saw his own leg offrdquo;.  The fact that you idiots think that this is a good idea boggles the mind.  I am boggled.

One reasonably high profile feature, and a personal favorite of mine, that you can see is Marketplace on the web, which you can find here.  Itrsquo;s a million times easier to find games and movies, manage the content yoursquo;ve already purchased, and play with your download queue.

Any feedback you guys have on either the new user experience, or especially the web-side stuff is welcome and appreciated!

Apparently Irsquo;ve been allowed to use my Avatar in public communication (although I canrsquo;t talk about NXE any more than has been publically disclosed, so track your vision balls to the left.  I can however point you at some reviews other people have done that I agree with, in lieu of opinions of my very own.

One can still point to a major gap in the lineup though.  Hopefully that will be fixed soon.

(Can you see Irsquo;m experiencing Writerrsquo;s Block?)

John Schappert, Corporate Vice President of Xbox LIVE, Services and Software, announced today during his Tokyo Game Show keynote that the New Xbox Experience will ship to Xbox 360rsquo;s around the world (in 26 countries, localized in 11 languages) on November 19th 2008.

I just tried out Netflix last night, and all I can say is that my god, there is something truely beautiful about streaming nearly any TV Show Irsquo;ve missed (Starting with second season of 30 Rock) from the last couple of years onto my 46Prime; Plasma seamlessly through my 360.  It brings tears to my eyes.