Articles by chris

One of my guilty pleasures is in retro gaming and retro computing. My basement storage room is filled with arcane devices and hundreds of games: a venerable Commodore 64, an Apple ][e rescued from a garage sale, a local family’s Apple ][gs that was donated to me, a MAME arcade cabinet, a Mattel Intellivision II - the list goes on indefinitely. I just can’t bear to see these things tossed out. Lately I’ve found myself playing Ultima VII: Serpent Isle on my 486 DX2/66 (now with a Roland MT-32!), and my 360 has sat untended for months.

But does playing these old games matter? Does writing about them matter? What value is there in sweatin’ to the oldies? Is it only for reminiscence or nostalgia? In this article I make a few arguments about retro gaming/computing that outline the meaningfulness of tying together the past and the future in the present..

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“Not being a games designer, Douglas was still thinking linearly,” says Steve [Meretzky]. “As we got more comfortable working together, and I began to assert myself, and Douglas got more familiar with the possibilities of non-linear storytelling, that changed - the majority of the game has the most fiercely non-linear structure of any adventure title I’ve ever worked on.” 

As a followup to friday’s link to Andy Baio’s archeology of Milliway’s (which incidentally made Slashdot), I remembered an excellent article posted in issue #45 of Retro Gamer magazine. Since this is a rather obscure magazine I decided to scan in the entire article because getting back-issues of the U.K. based magazine is rather difficult. You will notice that several of the Infocom folks who contributed to the article also commented on Andy Baio’s page, which gives a sense of interconnectedness to the situation. The article gives a quick look into the creative forces behind the games as well as a sense for the creative environment engendered at the time.

Warning: each page image is over 500kb. It may take you less time to order it from the U.K. than wait for it to download via 28.8k modem.

Page 1 | Page 2 | Page 3 | Page 4

Edit: I forgot to include a link to the publisher’s web site! If you’d like to order a copy of, or subscribe to, Retro Gamer - which comes with my highest recommendations - head on over to Imagine’s eShop to order it online.

It has been a long time since I had something worth posting here, so I hope I don’t disappoint with what I think is an utterly fascinating story. Yesterday, Andy Baio of Waxy.org posted a story reminiscent of a game archaeologist’s dream that he pieced together from internal e-mails, design docs, and prototype builds all culled from a network drive image of Infocom’s shared network hard drive. Yes, someone made an image of the “Infocom Drive” before splitting from the company in 1989 and has kept it safe for all these years. Revealed on the hard drive are (quoting Andy):

design documents, email archives, employee phone numbers, sales figures, internal meeting notes, corporate newsletters, and the source code and game files for every released and unreleased game Infocom made.

So why does this matter? Because he went through the drive and weaved together the tale of why Milliway’s: The Restaurant at the End of the Universe was never completed nor released. If you have not played the excellent Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy IF game (designed and created by Steve Meretzky and Douglas Adams) you’re missing out on a crucial piece of computer game history and a damned fun (difficult!) game. I’ll let Andy tell the story, except for two points:

1. It tells the story of a venerable game company in decline; crisis even. Being 1989, Infocom had already merged with Activision and Milliway’s had been languishing since its inception in ‘85. The company closes with not a bang…
2. It comes with a playable prototype of Milliway’s (!!)

Comments from the ex-Infocom folks on the story seem to agree with some of Andy’s story, however it is quite clear that there is more to this than meets the eye. It will be interesting to see what comes of this in the following weeks, as it quite clearly has ruffled a few feathers - and for good reasons.

Thankfully Jason Scott’s new documentary, Get Lamp, is scheduled for release some time this year. I suspect that his own exploration into the world of interactive fiction, complete with interviews of major designers and programmers, should be just as utterly fascinating just as his epic BBS: The Documentary was.

Image courtesy of gaygamer.net

Although I initially reported on Periscopic’s excellent re-envisioning of the Oregon Trail some time ago, the game managed to garner nearly universal acclaim from gamers and critics alike, most notably indiegames.com who ranked it #19 in the top 20 freeware adventure games of 2007.

It took me a little while, but I managed to get a hold of Periscopic’s co-founder and Head of Conceptual Design (not to be confused with the Head of Impressionistic Design) - Kim Rees. Kim ever so kindly rounded up the crew to give us a peek at how Thule Trail was built from concept to finished product. Much thanks goes to Dino Citraro - Periscopic’s other co-founder - who invited me to ask a few questions about the game in the first place. The sheer craftsmanship put into this game is stunning and is a testament to how the right kinds of collaborative relationships in game development can lead to great things - but I’ll let our Oregonian friends over at Periscopic describe how that works… Read the rest of this entry »

Imagine sitting in a private room of a smoky nightclub at the turn of the 20th century: the lingering flints of ice in your glass of scotch have disappeared into the tawny depths, your stash of cigars is running dangerously low, and the conversation that began with The Great Train Robbery of 1855 has drifted towards… topics of dubious morality. A man at a nearby table cat-calls at the waitress who turns and returns a sultry wink. You drunkenly stumble towards a table in the far corner of the room. The shadowy inhabitants push a chair over in welcome.

The bearded man in the top-hat leans back and says, “Have a seat. We are discussing the intricacies of Sophocles, Goethe, and Zelda. We call it The Game Cabaret.”

“Why yes. Yes, indeed. In fact, my dear colleague was just commenting on his recent viewing of the motion picture Cabaret and its use of psychological realism. You really must view a celluloid some time - they are quite stimulating!”

Ashamed, you confess that you have not been to viewing of one of those newfangled photographic contraptions yet.

The balding man to your right turns to you and exclaims, “Ah, but then you must try video games! They are quite superior! Why, I was just speaking to my colleagues about repressed homoeroticism in R-Type. I am a reader of Freud, mind you. Care for a cigar?”

At that, the table erupts in laughter.

“My dear colleagues! Let’s not trouble our new friend! Please, have another scotch and join our discussion at your leisure.”

Normally I avoid posting news, but I found this bit o’ information a little too tasty to keep to myself. First reported at the Dark Castle News blog, a Return to Dark Castle trailer video (Youtube version here) has been posted over at the publisher’s web site. The gameplay looks hilarious, and definitely captures the spirit of the original. I can’t wait for this classic to hit the Super Happy Fun Fun online store.

If you missed my earlier coverage of Return to Dark Castle you might want to take a peek at the article.

When I was 12 years old I received $25 for my birthday from my aunt. With the $5 I had saved from the previous weeks worth of allowance, I had a whopping $30 to blow on something frivolous. I convinced my mother to drive my sister and I to the largest computer store in the city (40 miles away) so I could buy myself a new computer game. After searching through the racks for almost an hour, I gave up - the games I really wanted were over $60, and the games selling for $30 or less looked unappetizing. I had given up and was ready to leave when my sister grabbed a copy of Monkey Island 2: LeChuck’s Revenge off of the shelf and handed it to me: “Buy this one! It has monkeys!” At first glance I wasn’t interested, but the screenshots on the back of the box reminded me a little of my other adventure games like King’s Quest IV and Police Quest II. I reluctantly agreed to allow my sister to chip-in $20 to buy it, and pouted the hour-long ride home as my sister opened the box and pawed through the ‘feelies’ inside. Sitting in the den in front of our 286 I unenthusiastically installed the game, and loaded it up. Within minutes my sister and I were transfixed upon the monitor and practically rolling on the floor laughing at the ridiculous conversations and character expressions. Monkey Island 2 quickly became one of our favorite PC games and was the gateway to a larger world of cinematic adventure games. Within weeks, I convinced my parents to buy me an AdLib sound card for christmas so I could hear the glorious midi music. In this article I look at LucasArts’s seminal iMUSE system - the Interactive Musical Scoring Engine that was used in every LucasArts adventure game from 1991-2000.
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Although Keira posted a comment several months ago in response to the rather dystopian sketch I scribbled of the BioWare sale, I accidentally overlooked her blog, Write the Game, until recently. A writer, musician, composer, and seasoned gamer among other things, Keira Peney has the uncanny ability of consistently writing thoughtful and organized articles.

I’ve spent the last few days reading her impressive back-catalogue of posts and while I think all of them are certainly worth your time, her six-part composition on the history of video games stood out for me. These articles demonstrate Keira’s intimate knowledge of retro games, a keen eye for details, and impeccable research skills. For someone born in 1984 (the year of King’s Quest I, Championship Lode Runner, and Seven Cities of Gold) she sure as hell knows her Dune II and Command and Conquer - two games that I spent countless hours playing and subsequently debating about with my junior high school friends. If you’re at all interested in reading a thoughtful piece on the history of video games (and their developers) with some interesting analyses, be sure to read the entire series of articles (start at the bottom).

Edit: Keira posted a reply to the lively ongoing discussion started by Michael over the Brainy Gamer on “photorealism” in video games. I’m hoping to continue the discussion in my next post, and attempt to outline some new ideas on the subject.

When I was 10 years old, we moved to another province. One of the first friends I made in our new community was a kid named Fraser. In a far corner of Fraser’s basement, his parents had a Macintosh 128k covered in a protective plastic sheet. Although it was strictly taboo (the Mac was only to be used for word processing!), when his parents were busy upstairs Fraser and I would sneak into the room and quietly load up a few games he had copied from our school’s library. Two of the games that we secretly giggled over in front of that monochrome screen remain burned into my childlike mind to this day: ChipWits and Dark Castle.

ChipWits was an edutainment game that was released in the early days of the Macintosh. One part puzzler and one part GUI-based programming teacher, ChipWits used an icon-driven programming language (IBOL) to command a miniature robot on rollerskates around a room. Through combinations of operators and arguments, the robot would traverse the room picking up, eating, or frying objects at your maniacal whim. I don’t doubt that games such as The Incredible Machine, and more recently Chibi-Robo, gained much of their inspiration from this classic.

Dark Castle was a mixed action/puzzler/platformer that put you in the shoes of the bumbling adventurer Duncan in his quest to defeat the Black Knight. The game featured eery waveform sound effects and wonderful character animation reminiscent of later ‘rotoscoped’ animation. (Interesting side note: Co-developer Jonathan Gay later came to pioneer the now-ubiquitous Flash animation software. The designer and illustrator Mark Pierce later became the co-founder of software giant Macromedia. Holy jebus!) Full of slapstick humor and frustrating puzzles, Dark Castle is probably one of the least known indie masterpieces of the 1980’s.

Unfortunately, neither of these games have been playable on modern systems without frustratingly clunky emulation software. That is, until now! I was very pleasantly surprised when I found out that both have been remade into modern sequels by indie developers:

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Pictured above: ‘Sigil View’ by Fuflon, courtesy of deviantART.

A few weeks ago, Michael over at the Brainy Gamer wrote some final thoughts on his play-through of Planescape: Torment, a cRPG that many consider to be one of the best role-playing games to ever hit the PC. The beginning of his post caught my attention right away:

Planescape: Torment is a text-based RPG. True, it manages to squeeze every bit of isometric splendor out of Bioware’s Infinity Engine. And yes, the game occasionally treats you to a pre-rendered cutscene. But these are merely window dressing. Planescape: Torment places all its narrative eggs in one giant 800,000 word basket.

In this article I begin to explore the idea that photorealism in games ultimately detracts from immersion and gives players the feeling that the story and characters are contrived and un-real. I suggest that immersion and dramatic investment aren’t a product of good technologies, they are a product of good artisanship.

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Martin, author of Digital Tools Magazine, recently contacted me and I wish I had found his site sooner! Martin’s short and eclectic articles bring together an impressive range of writing, from in-depth interviews with a wide range of developers, to technical inspirations normally found in the workshop of a mad clockmaker. His interests in the mechanical, retro, conceptual, and algorithmic, should inspire any fellow artist or creative mind to pursue their own unique development style. I found his how to make games article particularly interesting because he describes four very different methods of development that generate, in my opinion, four very different kinds of games. It goes without saying that certain kinds of games demand certain development methods - for instance a 50-hour RPG won’t be very interesting if all you do is spend your time on the engine without a strong, suitable narrative (ahem, I’m looking at you Oblivion!).

As I reported a few months ago, the Ultima VII engine emulator Exult was ported to the Sony PSP by The Food Sucks team. Not only was it fantastic to see the classic RPG/adventure game ported to a handheld gaming platform, but the quality of the homebrewed port itself was stunning in every respect. (If you aren’t familiar with Exult but you own a Sony PSP, I highly recommend heading on over to the development team’s page and give it a shot.)After playing Ultima VII: The Black Gate for several hours on my PSP, I felt compelled to thank the team with a small gift in appreciation for their tireless efforts punching deck. Although it took a few months, they finally received the gift: a uh… somewhat new.. Nintendo DS Lite! I can only hope that it inspires the team to work on another quality homebrew project…

Pictured above: Half-Life by deviantart member buzzt

Every once in a while I come across a thoughtful, well-written blog that I keep up with. Recently, I came across Doc Love’s rather unassuming blog. Like Michael’s thoughts over at the Brainy Gamer, Doc Love reflects upon the past, present and future of video games as a gamer and a cultural scholar. The latest post focuses on understanding the experience of playing Half-Life 2 - through the lens of dystopian literature and film, and through an examination of the player’s part in assuming the role of the protagonist Gordon Freeman. The links Doc Love draws between Blade Runner, Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four, and the game are all apt of course, but I am more struck by the way the article is framed through Barthes’s essay Death of the Author. Read the rest of this entry »

This has to be one of the most original fundraising ideas I’ve ever seen. Do you remember the ill-conceived and unpublished classic, Penn and Teller’s Smoke and Mirrors? No? Perhaps you’ll remember the infamous Desert Bus - one of the three mini-games packed into the Penn and Teller game for the Sega CD.

From Wikipedia:

The objective of the game is to drive a bus from Tucson, Arizona to Las Vegas, Nevada in real time at a maximum speed of 45mph, a feat that would take the player 8 hours of continuous play to complete, as the game cannot be paused.The bus contains no passengers, and there is no scenery or other cars on the road. The bus veers to the right slightly; as a result, it is impossible to tape down a button to go do something else and have the game end properly. If the bus veers off the road it will stall and be towed back to Tucson, also in real time. If the player makes it to Las Vegas, they will score exactly one point. The player then gets the option to make the return trip to Tucson—for another point (a decision they must make in a few seconds or the game ends). Players may continue to make trips and score points as long as their endurance holds out.Some players who have completed the trip have also noted that, although the scenery never changes, a bug splats on the windscreen about five hours through the first trip, and on the return trip the light does fade, with differences at dusk, and later a pitch black road where the player is guided only with headlights. 

I played it last year on my Sega CD (after downloading it here) and the description that Wikipedia gave it is absolutely accurate. It is truly the worst, funniest, game that I’ve ever played in my life. After the initial laughs wear off, the tedium sets in and the next 7.8 hours of your life will be among the worst.So, LoadingReadyRun.com is hosting their first annual Desert Bus For Hope marathon for the children’s charity Child’s Play. The Canadian comedy group is self-inflicting the worst kind of torture I’ve ever seen: sponsors pay them to play Desert Bus, hour by torturous hour, until the clock (or the money) runs out. If you’ve got $5 to spare, head on over to the Desert Bus web site and prolong their suffering.

I thought I’d create a new regular feature that highlights new or budding indie projects that may not have reached audiences through the regular news sources. This week I bring you two very impressive freeware indie projects, both remakes of the 1993 space-sim/rpg Wing Commander: Privateer.

The first, Privateer: Ascii Sector, is an impressive ascii-based interpretation of the original. The graphics are colorful and almost completely faithful to the gameplay of the original … minus one dimension of course. While the interface shares many similarities with roguelikes, there are many interesting enhancements that give the game a completely unique style. Most of the time I was absolutely stunned that a single developer - Christian Knudsen - built the entire game - ascii art, gigantic maps, fluid and colorful animations, and in-game economy algorithms - his work is absolutely polished. The game is currently at v0.2, and Christian is hard at work at bringing v0.3 to completion. If you play the game, please send Christian some encouragement, either over at his forums or at his Great Games Experiment page - I’d love to see a final release candidate of the game get released some day. Download it here.

The second project, Privateer Gemini Gold, is a 3d platform-independent remake of the game for Windows, Linux and OS X using the Vega Strike game engine. If you’re looking for a way of playing the original Privateer with high-res 3d graphics without running Dosbox - this project is definitely the way to go. A very large team of 3d artists, programmers, designers, playtesters and audio engineers have created a truly faithful reproduction of the original game. The development team is die-hard dedicated to the project, and respond to suggestions and comments on the forums regularly. If you were a fan of the original game, you will be immediately at home with this remake - it is probably the most detailed remake of a 3d game I’ve ever seen. If you haven’t played this classic, I strongly suggest heading over to the download page and giving it a shot.

Pictured above: ‘The Destroyer of Worlds’ holding the Avatar in the palm of his hand, in Ultima VIII: Pagan. It is no coincidence that Origin’s tagline was “We Create Worlds”.

In the excellent Escapist article The Conquest of Origin, writer Allen Varney paints a picture of the rise and fall of Origin Systems Inc., the creative masters behind series such as Ultima and Wing Commander. Throughout the article we are shown how Origin gradually loses its managerial and creative control as (in)famous publisher Electronic Arts asserts its corporate dominance.In the light of that story, I was concerned when I heard the news that local developer BioWare Corp. was purchased wholesale along with co-conspirator Pandemic Studios in an $855 million-dollar sale. The question resting on everyone’s lips was, of course, what does the purchase mean? Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk seem to be claiming outwardly that the sale is the best thing for their company and that they “believe in [EA CEO] John [Riccitiello]’s vision”. Others are more concerned about the purchase; there is no shortage of doomsaying, fear-mongering, and other generalized anxieties of EA.

The question is of course, how can we make some sense of the purchase? What might the purchase mean for the future of BioWare/Pandemic, the future of role-playing games, and PC gaming in general? In this article I try to make sense of the purchase by looking at some of EA’s corporate history, their modus operandi with the companies they’ve owned, and the vision that CEO Riccitiello has for the monstrous game publisher. Read the rest of this entry »

Congratulations to Petri, of Kloonigames fame! He correctly guessed that the pumpkins I carved (in order) were: Day of the Tentacle, Katamari Damacy, and The Legend of Zelda. Petri’s prize choice was a copy of Defcon. There were only 2 entrants in the contest - was it really that tough?

Defcon, like all of Introversion’s games, stands out as an impressive indie effort. The game succeeds precisely in its focused effort: the play map is small, the player has only a few different options in battle, and the battle interface is simple and clear. With that simplicity comes the polish of balanced gameplay, a very Cold War era-esque aesthetic, and chilling soundtrack. I hope Petri enjoys it as much as I did!

I don’t usually post news, but I thought this was a nice little surprise. One of the artists and developers for the DS port of Dragon’s Lair has posted some insider sneak peeks (videos and screenshots) of an alpha release of the game. The game is being developed by United Coders and published by Conspiracy Entertainment. According to Gamespot, Dragon’s Lair II: Time Warp, and Space Ace will both also be ported to the DS at a later date.

Dragon’s Lair has always drawn serious polarities from gamers - some people (like me) have fond memories of dumping $20 worth of quarters into it at the local arcade; others find the game unforgiving or simply unrewarding. According to the source of this news clip, the game has both a “classic” 1983 mode that is identical to the original game, and a new mode that makes use of the DS’s stylus and microphone.

Happy Halloween from the Artful Gamer!

This year I had the opportunity to carve some very gamesy pumpkins. Unfortunately, the trick-or-treaters we had were almost all under 6 years old, and didn’t recognize most of these games/characters (one kid recognized the pumpkin on the far right though!). We had 45 kids this year - definitely better than last year when it was 15 below celsius and snowy.

That being said - the Artful Gamer is holding a special Halloween contest. If you can guess the three games represented in my pumpkins correctly, I’ll enter you into a draw. The winner of the draw will receive one of three downloadable games from the Introversion Software online store (valued at approximately $20 USD). You can choose between Defcon, Darwinia, or Uplink. I own all three of these games in fact… and each definitely has a unique charm. Let’s continue to support indie game developers - especially the good ones!

Entries will be accepted from now until Midnight, Friday, November 2nd (GMT - 7). That gives you 2 full days to figure this out. E-mail your contest entry to: chris {@t} artfulgamer {d0t} com

The winner will be announced on Monday, November 5th. Thank you for continuing to read AG - your support and comments keep this site alive and well.

Pictured above: Concept art drawn by Rah-Bop. Artwork found in The Endless Forest forums.

When I logged into The Endless Forest, the first thing I did was fiddle with the controls. I walked my fawn around in circles. I had it rub its side against a tree, and eat some purple flowers. I visited an ancient stone shrine that made my fawn’s head glow after kneeling before it for a minute, and visited the ruins of a cemetery. It was serene, but lonely.

Then I logged out, slightly frustrated. I was worried that I had missed something crucial… a cleverly hidden gameplay mechanic, a story-line or introduction that failed to get trigged… some kind of point to the game!

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Michael’s article, “Good game / bad game” over at the Brainy Gamer, provoked me to come up with some sort of response as both a psychologist-to-be and a gamer terribly critical of the existing debates surrounding games-and-culture. Michael’s article takes on the existing (rather heated and polemical) debates about games and their relation to academic research, and his hope that academic research may paint a path out of a moral minefield full of hot air and rhetoric. Without cutting to the chase too soon, I hope to demonstrate that in fact academic research has (so far) done very little to bring any kind of intellectual finesse or insights to the debates on video games, gives us no reason to look to them for help, and is just as susceptible to unintelligible monkey screaming matches.

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As reported earlier this month over at Wired’s Game|Life blog (yet somehow glossed over by other blogs!), Swedish car rack maker Thule has released an online flash game called The Thule Trail. The game is a genuinely hilarious re-take on the Apple/DOS classic The Oregon Trail. The developers over at Periscopic obviously dedicated themselves to creating an authentic Oregon Trail experience - this time with a car or SUV instead of wagons, and road junk food instead of buffalo meat. And not a single blatant advertisement throughout the game that I could see, other than the car rack on top of your SUV.

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Last week I got an e-mail from Michael over at The Brainy Gamer, and I was thrilled to find another author interested in both the arts and video games. He started writing in August, and he already has a fairly large collection of articles available for your perusal. The articles themselves are absolutely worth your time, and go far beyond mere opinion pieces or news items - something I immediately look for when I read an article,

Why don’t mainstream media outlets like Time and the NYTimes get video games? Why do they so regularly and predictably fail to get beyond the worn out Pong / Pac-Man / Mario reference points?

I think it’s because most of them rely on a 19th century model of journalism that continues to define what the news looks like today. Journalists and editors tend to use three basic criteria when determining what they will deem “newsworthy” - conflict, novelty, and prominence. J-School 101 dictates that a story about a video game is worth writing only if it meets one or more of these standards. {more here}

And not to mention prolific! Somehow he manages to pump out an article every day. His articles cover the entire gamut of video game culture - from mainstream games, to indie games, design and production, artwork, storytelling, politics, and (you’ll find) … his loathing for Halo 3 (agreed!). And mostly importantly - it’s refreshing to find an academic who actually has a history of playing video games [and still plays regularly] and is not just a ‘ludological theoretician’!

Anyhoo, I’m not trying to up-sell you here - The Brainy Gamer speaks for itself and I’m enjoying the reading so far.

As for the Artful Gamer - I apologize for the large lag between posts. I’ve been recruited to serve as the Best Man at a wedding for a friend of mine, and those duties (aside from marking 10000 midterm exams) have obliterated my opportunities to write. Coming soon is my review of Ultima VIII: Pagan, an interview with the creator of now-defunct indie MMORPG “Omega Syndrome”, and a short article on pencil’n'paper roleplaying games.

Just a quick note - due to the increased number of visitors I’ve had lately (and thank you - I truly appreciate that you would bother to read this series of randomly ordered phrases!), I will be transferring the domain over to a private hosting service. This means that service may be disrupted in the next 24-48 hours, but I’ll have things back up ASAP.

The move took about a day to finish and it went fairly smoothly. Apologies for the disruption in your regular programming.

Pictured above: Spaceflight in Ultima II: Revenge of the Enchantress.

This news has been covered by plenty of other news organizations, but I thought I’d mention it here for anyone that came by to read my interview with Stephen Emond. Furthermore, I am reviewing a copy of the book, Dungeons and Dreamers: The Rise of Computer Game Culture, from Geek to Chic - the book features Richard Garriott quite prominently throughout (the review should be posted in a week or two).

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Pictured above: Illustration from William Blake’s Gates of Paradise.

I recently came across a post over at Jeff Tunnell’s blog that reminds game designers how important it is to have many design ideas in mind, rather than just relying on a single idea. It made me think about one of the central problems in modern mainstream game development: a lack of fresh, innovative games. As I was writing this article, GameSetWatch posted footage from the Independent Games Summit of an “Innovation in Independent Games” panel consisting of Jenova Chen, Jonathan Mak, Kyle Gabler, and Jonathan Blow. After listening to the hour-long discussion, I decided to integrate many of the comments into this article, because they were inherently relevant and profound for any discussion of the creative process.

While many people assume that independent game developers, by virtue of being unconstrained by publishers, auto-magically have creative, interesting ideas. However, as I hope to demonstrate - creative innovation is far from guaranteed simply because we’re ‘indies’, and requires a certain kind of developer or team to come up with something worth playing.

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On September 4th, the University of Texas Videogame Archive held a fundraising event to both raise money and promote the development of the new museum collection. An article over at GameSetWatch listed some of the memorabilia that were auctioned off at the fundraiser; one of those items was a pre-release copy of Emond’s book, “Ultima: The Ultimate Collector’s Guide”. A web search yielded few results, and I was compelled to contact Stephen regarding his soon-to-be-published book. He told me that not only was his book auctioned-off at the fundraiser, but he was an invited guest for the entire affair. I asked Stephen a few questions about his experiences at the fundraiser, his interests in the Ultima series, and (of course) his upcoming book.

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After reading psychochild’s critique of the industry’s failure to learn from WoW’s financial success, I keep asking myself: does this re-analysis tell us anything about how to advance the mainstream game industry?

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Above: Screenshot from Lothian’s burial in Ultima VIII: Pagan. (with respect and admiration)

I was saddened to read, courtesy of Raph Koster’s blog, that John Watson - a respected and well-liked designer/programmer/writer for many Ultima and Wing Commander games (among many others since) - passed away on September 9, 2007. After reading through the memorial page that has been set up by the Wing Commander CIC, it is obvious that his unexpected death has been grievous for his friends, family, and co-workers; I offer my deepest condolences to those who knew him.

As I’ve mentioned before, the Ultima series has always held a special place in my heart. I can imagine no better time than to write a full review of Ultima VIII: Pagan in light of this sorrowing news, and attempt to redeem what I think was one of the most underrated RPGs of the 1990’s (to which John is listed as the co-designer and a co-writer of). I will post the review and analysis in the coming weeks.

Above: How many times did you see this screen when you last played Fallout?

Throughout the summer there was an interesting thread in the Mobygames forums on the subject of ‘death’ in video games, in response to an article written for The Guardian. The general feeling among players questions the importance of death in games, and why it remains to be such a central part of the medium. I wasn’t satisfied with The Guardian’s article which doesn’t penetrate the issue very deeply, so I thought I’d take a stab at the notion of what death ‘means’ in gaming, and how (as designers) we might start to re-think the rather hackneyed game mechanic and come up with slightly more novel ways of making deaths meaningful for players.

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In some more oldie gaming news, thanks to the Boring Beige Box podcast I recently found out that Sierra On-Line’s visionary (yet financially doomed) massively multiplayer online service of 1991, The ImagiNation Network, has been given new life thanks to the ImagiNation Network Revival Project!

If you’re not familiar with the INN, or (like myself) didn’t have the chance to sample the service during its relatively short tenure of 5 years, here’s a short history lesson. And if, like me, you thought that MMORPGs began with the advent of Ultima Online - you’re in for a big surprise.

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When I was in junior high school, there were only a handful of kids with computers. Most of those who were fortunate enough to have a computer in their home weren’t interested in learning how to use them, and even fewer used them to play computer games. Except for a couple of kids that were in my grade. One of those kids, Willy, found out that I liked role-playing games and handed me an old creased black box while my social studies teacher’s back was turned. I looked up at him, wondering what I’d have to trade for the rather austere black box with the words “Ultima VII” on the front.
He shrugged and whispered, “Here. You can have it. I can’t figure out how to play it.”

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A recent post over at Mentisworks that reviews a great collection of indie titles got me thinking about just how auteurs (a word borrowed from film-making, where a film is characterized by a film-maker’s particular authoring style) also exist in the game industry. Michal’s review of a collection of 27 indie games demonstrates the kind of personal styles that go into each creation, and how each author (or two, or three sometimes) develop a game that suits their particular interests and artistic/game influences. While I find that most of these games definitely show some amount of artistic (in the broad sense) skill, there is one game that always comes to mind as a truly impressive example of independent game artistry: Another World/Out of this World. I highly encourage you to play the game (a new Windows XP-compatible remake is available. Play the demo or buy it here). Afterwards, read on for my review/critique…

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As a small update to yesterday’s article - Christian McCrea at The Escapist posted his own views on game journalism, criticism and reviewing. Most of the article says nothing new, to be honest, but it does at least provide an attempt at adding something constructive to the debate. If you’ve read the article already, I’ve formulated my own response in the Escapist forums, which hopefully didn’t come off too preachy or indignant. The comment thread for the article may be worth reading as people respond to the article, and my comment on it. For the sake of completeness, however, I’ve included my own response below:

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For some strange reason, the stars aligned on the weekend and several news sites produced responses to Ebert’s recent column “Games vs. Art: Ebert vs. Barker” in which he replies to some of Clive Barker’s claims on video games as an art form. There was of course the obligatory response from the gaping advertisement-feeding maw of Kotaku, who (for once) provided an intelligible response; unfortunately the response came from a talented film critic who seems to have never played a video game in his life. Joystiq, Ragnar Tornquist (creator of The Longest Journey and Dreamfall), and a slough of other news sites provided their own commentaries on Ebert’s volley. Most notably, however, came much more informed responses from Arthouse Games and Mentisworks, who had already spent time discussing the subject over the past year. The question I’m left with here, however, is why does this all seem to matter so much?

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Okay, things are finally moving along. Although I’ve actually already read the book in its entirety, I’m back-tracking a bit to catch up on the reviews. This chapter, written by Richard Boon, continues in the tradition of the previous two chapters as being an introduction to more general premises in game writing. The chapter focuses, in general, on the relations between game design and narrative design, and how the two relate.

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In a freakish coincidence, Michal over at the Mentisworks blog posted his commentary/analysis of Okami.. the critically-acclaimed (and surprisingly financially successful) game from now-defunct japanese development team Clover Studio. This is a project that I always wanted to do myself, but lacked the time to release some polished thoughts on the game. I highly recommend reading Michal’s thoughts on the game, which cover everything from aesthetic style to storytelling with a bit of philosophy to round things out. In the coming weeks I’d like to formulate a response to Michal’s thoughts, trying to link Okami in with other contemporary games such as Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, which I believe both share in the same sense of artistic integration.

I don’t want to turn into one of those people that does nothing else but link out to other sites for news… I’m looking at you TIGsource! … but Jason over at Arthouse Games just posted a retro game review of Paradroid worth reading. Read his review first, then continue here for my comments on it…

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Okay, I wrote this entry over a year ago, but I chose not to publish it because I thought it was a little too acrid and rant-like. I decided to publish this today, because of the previous