Merry Christmas 2009!

I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas, filled with all that it represents, and have a happy new year!

There is some interesting stuff in progress, so stay tuned. There should be some updates about that sometime early in the new year. As another one of those great teaser hints… “it’s going to rock your world.” Yeah. Feel free to guess or discuss in the comments. Merry Christmas!

Goals and Rewards

Back in the day, beginning at the dawn of computer games and continuing for some time thereafter, goals and rewards in games were fairly simple. There was generally just one ultimate goal, and the player did his best to overcome the challenges – be they monsters or soldiers or alligators or ghosts - to achieve that goal. In Pong, the player played to beat the opponent. Skip forward some years and we see Mario on a quest to save the Princess. Once the goal of the game was accomplished, that was it, the game was beaten. Unless the player wanted to play a higher difficulty, the game was conquered by the victorious player, and this was their reward for overcoming the challenges. Any more play was just redoing something that had already been done – perhaps still fun, but not as much, and not as fresh or rewarding.

Ludum Dare 16

Ludum Dare 16 is coming up, the weekend of December 11-13. In case you don’t know, somehow, Ludum Dare is a solo 48-hour game development competition. The competition has been getting bigger and bigger with every iteration of the event, with the last one bringing in a total of 144 entries. If you’re not planning to participate, or if you don’t have time… I’m sad for you. I mean, it’s ridiculously fun. It’s a learning experience. It’s also filled with a bunch of people that are crazy enough to try to make a game on their own in as little as 48 hours. Lack of sleep can be an issue, too, but sleep-deprived programming sprees can really complete the experience.

That is all.

On UE3 and Unity

If you haven’t heard already, there have been some exciting events for game developers lately, specifically the new accessibility and usability of the Unreal Engine 3 and Unity engine that have been getting a lot of attention. From what I’ve read, the general thought among developers and those reporting on the topic, is that it will be a boon, a brand new opportunity for the general of mass of game makers. And so it would seem, but exactly what effects will it have on independent developers as a group?

There are a few things that I wonder about, and I’d like to hear your thoughts too. First, while the Unreal Engine 3 is undoubtedly a powerful and excellent engine, how easy is it for the typical indie team (or even lone developer) to make something of quality with it? It’s a monster of an engine, and to benefit from anywhere near all of its many facets would take a sizable team. Teams like that do exist, but they’re usually already working on big projects on heavyweight engines. More commonly in the independent game development world, teams are small, or even single people. Secondly, independent developers that are serious enough to make quality games have used the Unity engine before. Will it be a big jump for independent development, or just something that people tinker around with because it’s there?

Don’t get me wrong, I definitely see value in both of these engines’ new statuses. At the very least, it will open some new doors for serious developers, and be another learning tool for beginners. Please leave your comments.

Interview with Mike Kasprzak

Mike Kasprzak, also known as PoV, is the man behind Sykhronics Entertainment. He offered an enlightening talk with me about his games, Ludum Dare and more.

Entar: Please introduce yourself, in whatever fashion you deem necessary, and describe some of the projects you’ve been working on.
PoV: Hi there, I’m Mike Kasprzak. I’ve been making games most of my life, and professionally for the past 10 years. I’ve worked on numerous console and mobile games, the majority for Nintendo platforms, but am diversifying. More recently I’m better known for my iPhone game Smiles, which launched almost exactly a year ago today (yesterday actually).

Entar: How did Smiles get started? What sources of inspiration did you have for the game?
PoV: Smiles started as one of several game prototypes I was making. When iPhone OS 2.0 was announced along with the SDK in early 2008, I started experimenting with some game ideas. I iterated through several concepts, and came to the conclusion that “Pattern Trade” (later renamed Smiles) would be the quickest of the more interesting prototypes to finish.