Why 3DS?

Screw it... after lunch, let's go to Best Buy

I've been trying to justify the expense of purchasing a Nintendo 3DS since its North American release. Given that I own and operate a software company (capitolhill.ca, yo!) I could easily justify it for business purposes... well, at least in the sense that it's a deductible business expense.  On a more personal, practical level however, it could only be justified, perhaps, if my iPhone App would sell a few copies.  As it currently stands, a 3DS and one game would drain my corporate bank account and I need that money for five martini business lunches.

Amidst this personal struggle, and perhaps in spite of my wife's unexpected support in me pissing money down the drain, I decided to read what other people have said.  For the most part the reviews have been positive (Google "3DS review" to see for yourself).  They are typically quite comprehensive; evaluating everything from battery life, to controller features, to the plastic shell that contains the hardware.  This is all stuff I couldn't care less about, because it is, obviously, the glasses-less 3D screen that sets this device apart from the rest, and the only reason I really want one.

As a casual gaming device, I see incredible potential for the Nintendo 3DS. I want the three-minute bus stop gaming experience, because my lifestyle (simultaneously blessed and encumbered by two small children) allows for little else.  As such, I like solitary card/board/Brick-Breaker-type games that I can commence and cast aside as time permits. That said, what does the 3DS offer that existing DS systems do not? Yes, the 3D screen... but why 3D?

Yes, why?

That question was raised as result of this review. Specifically, the reviewer's assessment of Super Street Fighter IV: 3D Edition:

There's also a new, over-the-shoulder view to help augment the illusion of depth, but it won't take long for serious gamers to revert to the traditional side-view.

3D is cool. There's no doubt about that. But what does it really add to game play?  The Street Fighter game wasn't the only one reviewed that gave rise to this question... 3D might be a thousand times cooler than standard 2D game play, but it seems that all the existing titles are equally fun and equally playable in 2D. Before I absorb the expense of a 3DS, I'm going to wait for a game that can only be played in 3D.

Or, better yet, dream one up myself....

Global Game Jam 2011 - Beefalo and HTML5

Okay, GGJ11 happened like six weeks ago, so this post isn't even the least bit timely, but if I let it slide I couldn't call myself a wannabe game producer. 

In the days leading up to the actual Global Game Jam event I kept hoping that something would come up that would give me an excuse not to go.  Mostly I didn't like leaving my pregnant wife and 17-month old daughter for 48 hours.  Also, I absolutely loathed the idea of forgoing sleep in favour of being hunched over an 11-inch laptop monitor.  But, when the weekend was over and all the pussies who whined about not having the time or being too old asked me how it was, I was able to report that it was simultaneously the worst and greatest thing I've ever done.

Well... maybe it wasn't the greatest thing I've ever done, but it was totally worth it.  I will almost certainly go back next year (unless I can think of convenient excuse to do otherwise). 

Because I actually am too old for this game jam nonsense

This year's game jam theme was extinction.  With that in mind, my three teammates and I decided to do something buffalo themed.  Then, recalling the whole infected-blanket-aboriginal-genocide thing, we decided to go with the buffalo's politically neutral half-brother... the beefalo.  

Cow + Buffalo = Beefalo

As it happens, this tremendous beast occupies a special place in my heart.  It also boasts a coveted top-ten spot in my list of funniest things ever.  Few things tickle me more than the simple fact that this creature actually exists.  In Grade 8 I even self-published a comic book starring the The Incredible Beefalo and his side kick Low Self Esteem Man.  Conversely, this abysmal comic creation ranks in the top-ten of the most embarrassing things I've ever done.  It was bad by Grade 8 standards.

Being the kind of guy who likes to make life hard for himself, I convinced my team that creating our game entirely in Javascript and HTML5 would be a good idea.  To make it even better and because I'm totally bad ass, I decided to write the whole thing from scratch (i.e., without the aid of any tools or libraries).  Did it work?  Yes!  Is it fun?  Not in the slightest.  It's only fair to mention that the other programmer on my team had to work the first evening.  Had he been there, he would probably have talked some sense into me and our game would have been a thousand times more awesome. 

If you want to try The Running of the Beefalo, or if you just want to rip off our code, feel free to download the source.  It is offered without warranty and without documentation.  Have fun!  It works best in Chrome, though I've had some success with Firefox.  Just download, unzip, and double-click the index.html file.  I used to have it available online, but successful downloads/startups only happened about 50% of the time.  It's totally reliable when loaded locally, however. 

Finally, a special thanks to Owen, Norm, and Jeff.  If I have one regret, it's that I spent too much time focused on the code and not enough time getting to know you all better.  If you come back next year and are up for something crazy (not likely), it would be my privilege to work with you again.

I Finally Understand Post-Modern Irony

Such potential

I also discovered that Kokanee Mountain Size cans taste better when poured into a glass.  And that was only by accident when mom had somehow managed to puncture one on her way over to babysit.  Only now, having sent Grandmama home, do I have the opportunity to reflect upon my revelations concerning Post-Modern Irony and king-sized beer, best served in a glass...

I don't get it

My lovely wife, Lyndsay, and I had embarked upon a date, which is a privileged luxury seldom afforded to those who find themselves with child.  Our date, conveniently enough, was at the behest of Brad, with whom we were both acquainted, having spent several years in each others company whilst attending Ambrose Seminary in the service of Jesus Christ, our Lord, Amen.  It was, while in the attendance of said institute of higher learning, that I first learned of Post-Modernism, and, perhaps of more import, the fact that discussions of the era are taken quite seriously in some circles, in all sincerity, and without a trace of irony.

Having dumped our progeny off upon her unwitting ancestor, Lyndsay and I found ourselves in the company of two fetching older women, well-manicured, and suspiciously without escort.  The establishment was dubbed Cafe Koi, and perhaps it was due to my coyness that I failed to confirm if our neighbour was, none other than, Catherine Ford. Lyndsay insists that I was right to shy away.  Perhaps, though perhaps I’ll never know for sure.

Ugh, I'm actually thinking Arby's

It was while Lyndsay was in the washroom that Catherine Ford and I griped about having been sat at the bar, despite having made reservations two days in advance.  After all, if dignitaries such as ourselves were denied our appropriate seats of honour (Ford, having been featured in editorial pages across the land, and myself, having been photographed with Joe Clark, but never with Batman) then surely we must be in the presence of royalty.

After what seemed like half-an-hour, Brad’s band finally took the stage.  The singer’s velvety-smooth voice swept me away into an introspective dream-scape wherein I could contemplate such lovely things like love, art, and the Post-Modern flavour of irony.  It was, perhaps, when torn between this dreamland and the skeletal ugliness of its source that I finally got the point.

How ironic!

But why rush to the point?  It was, after all, long after what three years of seminary could never drive home, that I actually shook the strangely insubstantial hand of the man who first drove me to contemplate such things.  He, whose voice couldn’t help but to inspire, was a mere specter.  Fleshy, but skeletal, like he had no bones at all.  A Crunchie Bar... firm upon your initial grasp, but something that soon melts away when confronted with the menacing heat of your hand.  Stranger still, he had a haunted look, as though he’d lost his soul to antidepressants, LSD, or the Irish Potato Famine. 

It was, in fact, long before I shook the hand of this incorporeal being that I came to terms with what the most ridiculous amongst us term Post-Modern Irony.  Three years!  Three years of being immersed in such pretense!  Mine is a church so fearful of something so prone to self-destruction.  Something possessed by a ridiculous, thoughtless spirit, whose final defensive recourse is, and always will be, Well, that’s just your opinion!  As though the thought, that observation, having originated from my brain and being dispensed through my lips, needed clarification.  Thank you, very much... Not.  Idiot.

But there I was, gripped by the spirit of something for which I held nothing but contempt... I finally understood how I had been corrupted by the spirit of the times.  How my own Aspergers-like retardation was not the consequence of genetic chance, but by the fact that I was never allowed to empathize with those around me, let alone those who came long before me.

Let me say plainly what no one did, or could, say to me before: satire ruins some things.  I actually realized this long ago, having had the privilege of watching the Grapes of Wrath, only to know the ending in advance because of my beloved, The Simpsons.

Stellaaaaaaa!

Ohhhhhhhh! Bemoan me, bretheren!  Is this what Ray Bradbury was bitching about?  Has television become the only medium through which us intellectually impoverished proles can become acquainted with that which once was considered refined?  Don’t be stupid.  Yes, obviously... stop pretending that’s a bad thing, jackass.

I know only that which was delivered through a lens for purposes far flung from the author’s original intent.  And here I sit, poured beer in hand, confronted with a lifetime of explanations... Explaining why something so obvious is true.  Explaining that yes, the author actually meant what he said.  Explaining how things are exactly as they seem.  And finally, contending with a retardation most profound, just trusting that everyone can at least accept that some opinions are better than others.

Yet Another "Future of Gaming" Prediction

A couple of weeks back I learned about a group called the Independent Game Developers Association.  A few nights after that I had the privilege of meeting with some members of the local chapter.  Only four guys showed up my first night (including myself) but it was an experience that I look forward to repeating.

The IGDA conversation mostly revolved around console and PC games, which is a world largely unknown to me.  This is mostly because I haven't had the time to play them since the Super Nintendo was cutting edge.  For this reason, and others, my interest in games and game design is academic, primarily, and commercial, secondarily.  Despite being on the periphery in many respects, it was fascinating to listen to the conversation drift back and forth between developer talk and gamer talk. Being on the outside gave me an interesting perspective... all the while I couldn't help thinking that these guys were pretty old fashioned when it comes to gaming.

Pwnd!

For any IGDA guys who might be reading this, I mean no disrespect when I say old fashioned.  It's just that when I'm thinking about designing games and potentially making money from them, I don't see much opportunity in the whole console-PC arena.  Maybe I'm pessimistic, but for a small-time sucka like myself, there's not much room to break into that hyper-competitive billion dollar industry.  If there are trails to be blazed and money to be made, it's not going to be from putting new titles on the shelves at Best Buy.

So what does the future hold for those of us looking to make our mark on the gaming industry?  There's no shortage of opinions on the subject (ask Google), though it might be said that there is a shortage of originality.  In general, those looking toward the horizon see this:

1. Games will be increasingly social (whatever that means)
2. Virtual goods will be an important source of revenue
3. Game data will go online so that play may resume from any computer
4. Mobile device development, like the domestication of the dog, will continue unabated

There it is... the future of gaming in a nutshell.  Mind blowing.  Sarcasm aside, Point 3 is actually a really good one.  The idea of being tied to a PC or console will become increasingly antiquated as the need to install game software on your local machine declines (attribute this to the cloud, or whatever other dumb buzzword is currently in fashion).  Similarly, do not necessarily think cell phones when reading Point 4, because iPads are actually pretty nifty. They hold a lot of gaming potential, especially for the board variety I loathe so much. 

Now, can I interest you in a virtual coffee table?

So where does this leave us?  Well, it leaves me wondering what kind of sucker would actually pay for virtual goods.  I don't doubt that people do it, but I have a hard time picturing myself plunking down real-world cash to upgrade my avatar or obtain some super-awesome weapon essential to advancement in the game.  If I can't progress in the game without spending money, then that's where the game ends for me (I'm looking at you Tower Madness for iPhone).

This also leaves me in the sheepish position of wondering if the overall future of gaming is too obvious to state.  Maybe, but I'm going to do it anyway... we're going to see a lot more targeted advertising within games. Of course, this already happens to a limited degree, but not nearly to the extent it could.  For the most part, game designers have not yet been able to properly exploit what Facebook does best: collect demographic data.  With Facebook, advertisers can effectively target a group of people with an unprecedented degree of specificity.  Contrast Facebook with radio advertising, by way of example.  Radio stations gear themselves toward a gender and a generation.  The 25-34 year old female demographic, for example, is the most coveted in the industry.  Facebook, on the other hand, is capable of narrowing that range to the point where a person's stated interests may be considered when placing advertising within the game.  Facebook's own advertising reflects this fact, though they still don't share the revenue  third-party developers generate, for some reason.

Ooooh! 30% off Canesten!

It sucks that Facebook doesn't give its developers a piece of the advertising action, but don't hold that against them, because they offer something of value for free: the demographic data developers need to make money with targeted advertising!  With that data there's really no limit to how such advertising might be integrated into a game.  It may be as simple as putting a product on a virtual billboard, or as complex as constructing a Pampers display at a virtual grocery store because the advertisers know that a certain new mother likes to play The Sims while on maternity leave.  This kind of targeted advertising only works because of the broad gaming trends named previously... especially the social aspect, without which the demographic data would not be generated.

For game developers there isn't anything particularly challenging about constructing a profile of your user and inserting new ads every time he signs in.  The challenge will lie in not allowing that integration to compromise the structure or playability of the game itself.  In-game advertising must be as ubiquitous as real-world advertising, while being similarly inconspicuous.  It's like selling virtual goods without placing the financial burden on the user.

Socializing Stock Ticker

Remember Alf? He's back! In pog form!

My very first video board game ever, Stock Ticker Classic, is finally in a near-finished state (from which it may never emerge).  Stock Ticker, for those who don't know, is an old board game many people say they love, but for which their affection was never strong enough to motivate them to actually go to the store and buy a copy.  The original Copp-Clark version hasn't been in print since at least the mid '80s, and the latest version, by the Canada Games Company, has a copyright date circa 1992.  Incidentally, Canada Games is no more... bankrupted by a tepid Stock Ticker fan-base and the fleeting appeal of Pogs.  And, Copp-Clark now publishes calendars, or something... I'm not actually sure.

Rest assured, I won't repeat the failures of past Stock Ticker publishers.  No sir, not me!  Why?  Because we've got this "new" thing called social gaming, all courtesy of that nerd in The Social Network.  Now, thanks to social gaming, the same people who professed such deep love for the original Stock Ticker board game can now post their game earnings on their Facebook news feeds.  This, in turn, will attract the attention of other Stock Ticker fans who want to reminisce over fond childhood memories of family game night and to demonstrate their superior game technique to their snotty Facebook friends.  This process will repeat itself until every one of Facebook's 6 trillion users has installed Stock Ticker Classic, clicked on some Google ads, and made me rich enough to finance my own nerdy movie... Freddy Got Fingered II.

And that, in a nutshell, is the extent to which Stock Ticker Classic has been socialized (and really, I haven't yet been able to determine if there's any more to it than that).  Stock Ticker Classic is still, at its core, a solitary game, but now it's plugged into this wondrous self-promoting feedback loop, which will inevitably spread it across the globe until the lives of every man, woman, and child have been touched by its magic.  So, let's see... it was released yesterday, where it quickly gained two new Facebook users (myself and my wife).  Today there are six users in total (my mother-in-law, brother, and a couple cousins).  That means there are three times as many users today as there were yesterday.  At this rate, Stock Ticker Classic will have 137,260,754,729,766 users in one month's time, which is pretty good. 

The Origins of Poker - Shrouded in Mystery

Tabernac!

Poker and the guillotine are France's only two worthwhile contributions to humanity... or so I thought.  If you'd asked me last night (up until about 11pm) I would have sworn by the moon and all the gold in the temple that the glorious game of poker was French in origin.  This may not be true, however, as the most reliable source of factual information currently available, Wikipedia, tells a different story.  It is a story of deep intrigue, mystery, and drunken boredom. 

This tale takes place after a delightful evening of fine sushi dining and Japanese beer chugging.  Having consumed one bottle of every kind Japan has to offer, me, my wife, and entourage, decided to cleanse our palates with the cheapest swill we could find at the local liquor store.  Given that my entourage consists mostly of computer jerks, it goes without saying that we are a socially retarded lot with mildly autistic tendencies.  Alcohol alone is not enough to lubricate sensible social interaction within a degenerate group such as this.  As such, we all felt compelled to play a game, which is a practice I loathe, but desperate times call for desperate measures.

Poker was our only option, because I hate board games and don't own any.  But matters were complicated somewhat when it was discovered that none of us had any cash, an element, without which, makes poker totally pointless.  Without a cash incentive and the cognitive wherewithal to maintain focus on a standard game of Texas Hold 'Em, things got goofy.  Since no one cared anyway, I suggested we kick it old school and play the game in what I believed to be its most primitive form: poque, which is a dirty French word for faire l'amour.

With that, we all unleashed our abrasive French personae, complete with French accents and obnoxious French laughter.  The only thing missing was the oppressive, lingering body odour, thinly veiled by stale cigarette smoke and Axe Body Spray.  Correction: we were still missing one thing... the rules to poque.  This didn't turn out to be much of a problem though, because there were no Frenchmen around to look down their noses and tell us we were doing it wrong.  The rules we cooked up actually made the game pretty fun, and fully comprehensible to our unsettled minds. 

Here are the rules, in a nutshell:

1. Standard poker hand ranks and dealing practices apply.
2. Players all place their antes in the pot before the cards are dealt.  The ante doubles every 10-15 minutes, as with the blinds in Texas Hold 'Em.
3. Five cards are dealt to every player.  There are no draws and no community cards.
4. The player to the left of the dealer is the first to bet.  Subsequent players may check, bet, raise, and re-raise, as appropriate to other poker derivations.
5. Once betting is complete, players reveal their hands.
6. The best hand takes the pot!

That's it!  So simple that even a group of culturally insensitive drunkards can conceive, dictate, and master the rules in minutes.

Although the assumed origins of poker were incorrect, it is not difficult to suppose that the most primitive form of the game would have been structurally similar to that described above.  (Also, it should be noted that these rules are basically mirrored by a poker derivative Wikipedia calls Straight, but for which it offers minimal background information).  Supposing incipient poker was similar, it is interesting to observe how the game has evolved from a form that reveals a very limited amount of information to the players, into something where more and more is made available.  For example, compare Five-Card Draw to Texas Hold 'Em, which is arguably the most popular form.  The latter affords much more data, which in turn gives the player much more information to work (or contend) with.  Does the availability of game data contribute to its popularity?  If so, what new forms of poker are on the horizon?

Stock Ticker Classic - The last 10%

Stock Ticker Classic is my very first video board game and it won't be my last.  There's nothing ground-breaking or remarkable about it.  In fact, anyone with even moderate programming skills could easily implement their own version.  It took me about five days to get the beta running, and I've spent five months working on what has been called the last ten percent.

I took the phrase from a chapter in Developing Games in Java by David Brackeen, et al.  The book is about seven years old, and not especially helpful.  Check it out from the library, if you can, but I don't recommend buying it.  If I'd bothered to actually read the chapter, and not just glance over the table of contents, I probably would have learned that the last ten percent is the most tedious, but perhaps most important part of getting a game ready for market.  Stock Ticker Classic in its current form is totally playable and true to the original board game, but it lacks a lot of the bells and whistles people have come to expect in their games (and software in general).  If a game designer doesn't meet those expectations, no one but supportive friends and family members will give the game any attention. 

Bells and whistles can mean many different things.  Here, of course, I'm referring to visual and auditory feedback, but I'm also including game deployment in the mix.  It's the visual and auditory cues that are going to get people hooked.  I don't have any quantifiable evidence, but judging from the traffic on the Stock Ticker Classic site, I'd say you have about thirty seconds to grab a player's attention or he'll just bugger off.  As for deployment, I've already stressed its importance in a previous article... make it easy and give the user every assurance that the software is safe to run, which it usually is anyway when loaded as an applet in a browser. FYI, some of that JNLP stuff is kind of weird.  I'm not sure real-world users will appreciate its security benefits, especially when the whole installation procedure looks fishy in and of itself.

Finishing the last ten percent is an onerous task, indeed.  Right now I want nothing more to move on to a new project.  It's taken a lot of restraint to stay focused on what's currently on my plate.  Given my vague commercial aspirations, I suspect the discipline I've gained from this experience will pay off in the long run.