Optimization and game mechanics

[zhai]

So, because the big project at the new place is large and Flash-based, right now we're doing a systematic analysis of Ferry Halim's Orisinal games. They're some of the most beautiful and innovative Flash games on the market, so worth studying when it comes to thinking about what kind of interactive mechanics you can put into a flash game

Comments

[justinhowe]

Sunny Day Sky = Nirvana

[zhai]

Really? It's very interesting to me which of his games people like. I'm partial to "Bugs", "The Crossing", and "A Daily Cup of Tea". "The Amazing Dare-Dozen" makes me feel bad but I can't stop playing it. Have you played his games before, and how many?

[justinhowe]

I like "Bugs" quite a bit not really into "The Crossing". I've played a few of the others: "What Comes Around", "Arctic Blue", and "Bubble Bees". Right now, I'm playing "Swordsman" and dying.

[zhai]

Yeah, some of those early ones are really difficult/clunky. The trick to "Swordsman" seems to be to jump all the time, though I most often die also. Check out "Perilous Voyage" and "The Bottom of the Sea" -- pretty cool alternatives.

[midnightglobe]

i remember the day i purchased Godel Escher Bach, i remember the place, the conversation i had with the clerk at the used book store, i remember walking home with it in my bag. that book has had such a profound influence on my thinking, i remember acquiring it with much the same level of clarity that i remember the day of my daughter's birth.

i cannot think of any way to more highly recommend it. it repays all the attention you give it, with interest.

[zhai]

Thanks for the comment. It's terrific to know that it had such a profound impact on you. It does seem like an opus.

Have you read I Am A Strange Loop? It's interesting to read them backwards -- he starts out with a full prologue of how he came to write Godel, Escher, Bach, and how he's always been plagued by a feeling that no one really understood what he was trying to do with it. I Am a Strange Loop is supposedly a revisitation of the same themes. Just from reading this one, I feel like I know what you mean about GEB. It reorients your thinking and how you look at the world.

I think he's amazing, though. So much is resonating.

[nofna]

Very cool connection between a player-game interface and the repetitious task you had to do. Nicely spotted. :)

[zhai]

Most games are all about repetitious tasks, insofar as the repetition is part of the experimentation process (do something, change one thing, do that something again, rinse & repeat). The trick is to find out how to make that process sufficiently rewarding across a 3D spectrum of personality types and points of view. :)

[nofna]

Being involved in the game business, have you ever thought of making your own game, where you wouldn't have to engineer it for mass consumption? Like a synthesis of your writing and what you've learned in the industry, built up into your own personal artwork.

[zhai]

I have many side projects. :) Some are small games, some are game proposals, but most are IP franchises that have specific implications in the game space. My overall strategy right now is to continue to push the fiction, and pair, say, a published novella (with solid reviews, etc) with a game pitch later down the road. I have one novella in the works that is built around a future intended game mechanic, and a couple of other more long-term projects where the structures of the world are set up with the intent to be collaborative or interactive (character classes, etc), with a longer trajectory to start with fiction, then move to something like a flash RTS, then eventually into full blown worlds. So, yes. :)

[arkineux]

Hofstadter is THE MAN. GEB is one of my all-time favorites.
We *absolutely* need to talk about this. I'll see you Monday night!

[zhai]

Hello there!

And argh. :( Just yesterday I found out that we had a milestone review rescheduled from this Friday to next Tuesday -- I'm going to have to be down in LA for the first two days of GDC. :( I would really like to talk about this, though -- is there any other time I can catch you??

[arkineux]

I'll be in SF all week, and I have no plans at all.

[zhai]

Cool. :) I'm currently planning on being at the GDC all day on Wednesday. There's some sort of IGDA lunch at 1:10, but I think that's all I have concretely scheduled... my cell number is the same as it was when I was in Troy last, but I will email just in case. :) If you're interested in really awesome dim sum on Thursday I may lobby for that as well.

Curse you for putting that "Achievement Unlocked" on your LJ, btw. I've seen it before, but I'd never played through the whole thing. I played through it via your link, did the whole damn thing, and then was patiently waiting for my meta-achievement when I realized I was on the Armor Games site and not Kongregate. Now I have to do it all over again...

I'm sorry to miss your presentation at the reception. It super-sucks.

[elenuial]

That's interesting, because when game-writing-designing, I think in terms of optimization, because I play in terms of optimization, but it seems like you're arguing for.. optimization of optimization? Which is something I haven't thought about, strangely enough.

I approach design as a giant linear programming problem, but I haven't put much thought into how players will approach the optimization itself.

I'm repeating myself, but I find this to be really really interesting, and will think on it for a while.

Also? I did not find GEB to be interesting except in a few specific places... Apparently, I'm in the minority, there. But by the time some stoned dude handed it to me with a croaking, "You should read thisssss!" I'd already encountered a lot of similar ideas elsewhere.

I might give "Strange Loop" a try. My thinking has changed a lot since back then.