Experimental Videogames

Convention-class demon are sneaky because they blend with the background and it’s very difficult to realize you’re succumbing to them. Level Slicers devote themselves to make you think about splitting your game in levels too soon.

Level Slicers sometimes leave visible scars like meaningless progress numbers showing up, puzzling loading times and lots of decorative filler in levels that doesn’t need to be so big.

Their main poison are rationalizations:

• Technological limitations
• Delivering immediate reward fixes (junkgames)
• Make progress-status and menus a better trap (menus are another demon)
• “It’s custom, so it must be right”

But the worst variant is “It’s natural that this game is split in levels!”. And then their harm is evident: We are probably thinking we’ll have levels before having a good grasp on the core gameplay. And levels help divide the problem by, in turn, reducing the possible games we could have came up with.

We humans are used to deal with a continuum. We learn to divide and conquer just to make our problems easier to solve. But whose problem are levels solving? the player’s or yours?

Level Slicers are legion. We need more continuous games.

Yesterday I sent my current entry for TIGSource’s Procedurally Generated Content competition (Play It).

Originally, it was supposed to be a game about a huge alien that destroyed cities, breaking everybody’s heart. But the concept shifted quite a bit and now it’s completely different.

Some relationships (any kind) sometimes doesn’t work. And some other times they just barely work, but can’t bear themselves to break for fear of suffering the pain that comes with the breakage. At the same time, the pain is actually fearsome, and if taken in large amounts can be lethal.

It is not a game with goals, levels, punishment or achievements. It’s about exploring consequences.

Update: I made several fixes and improvements to the game. It includes more interesting endings.

Credits:
Hernán Rozenwasser for the music track.
The stars feedback is inspired in Rod Humble’s Stars Over Half Moon Bay.

Right now, I’m enjoying some vacations. Which means I’m spending most of my time sleeping, watching plays and movies, playing games and getting generally dirtier.

Thus I have my projects in the back burner now, but since I’m bored, I’ll share what’s cooking:

Space Opera in a Box

This game was to be part of the CODEAR: Banner Games compo, but quitting and stuff kept me from finishing it on time. It’s a Science Fiction collage poorly glued together. It’s all the space adventures on a single (short) game. Maybe.

The Raveler Alien & the Heartbroken Uruguayans

This is my unlikely attempt at the TIGSource Procedurally Generated Content compo. It’s about an alien, raveling and Uruguayans with a broken heart. I only know it’s not a game about hating uruguayans. But I’m still not sure what it is about. I could end up with uruguayans being removed instead of heartbroken.

Today we had a talk with Petri, and two ideas I liked came up with the conversation:

• How would you design a shooting game if the player were to be in a permanent ‘God Mode’?. It would force the game to be exploratory. But how do you keep the shooting? (excluding cheap rewards like scoring).
• Pixel art makes games feel gamey. Anybody looking at something made with pixel art will conclude it’s a game and couldn’t be other thing (like, something important). Petri had this idea. Made me challenge a couple of preconceptions.

Expect the games to be released in a couple of weeks or so.

Today was my last working day as Gameloft Argentina’s Programmer Lead.

I decided to pursue my own projects for a while, and gave myself a new path to walk.

Gameloft Buenos Aires was opened 3 years ago, and at that time we were 6 guys crammed into a tiny office. Now the studio boasts more than 300 people. Being the lead of programmers of such a large studio was a scary task. But every moment I spent there is always going to be a fond memory to me. And I can’t believe how much I grew during these years, both professionally and personally.

Contrary to what usually happens, I’m not leaving the company resentful or sick. Gameloft treated me in a special way and I was really happy doing my job. But happiness is about the search for a better happiness, and that’s why I made this choice.

I start this new stage feeling full of love. Then I know it’s going to be good. Expect plenty of stuff from Ludomancy.

I’m going indie for some time.

We’ve started a contest here in Argentina in the spirit of TIGSource competitions: It’s called “CODEAR: Banner Games!” and it consists of making a game in 600×90 max in a month.

The contest is open to whoever wants to participate, though it will all be handled in spanish.

This contest is part of CODEAR, a local initiative to push regional indie & hobbyist developers to do cool stuff and show it to the world.

You can find more info about the contest here.