two pager, bible, review copy,
two pager review copy - investors, quick feedback one page minimum bible - everything (really) documentation - included in bible, general documents
consoles are generally a premium entertainment device
consoles getting further away from lowest 20%
android developers earn 7% of what iPHone devs do
f2p performing better on android than iphone
80s: apple 2 $4575 90s: 1992 PC $3065 now: student rec sys $4000 ( 18X hours )
- $1trillion ($1e15) in student debt
better for portfolios than sub prime were because of limited bankruptcy debt financed education direct money from the lower classes to the world of fincance, essentially taxing the poor
iterating games on what the top 10% like could be disastrous
your company won't last with a "luxury development focus"
something with zero tension can still be a game. some people have really stressful jobs and don't want tension in their games.
What has happened? What was left behind?
Portal, the cake is a lie. Environmental storytelling.
TTD:: Test Site Arena. Car Parts embedded into environment.
Demonsouls. If you die, you leave a bloodstain for other players. If you step on it, you can see a ghost animating the last few seconds of their life.
Detective Work.
Signposts and Tutorials.
Player's trace: Persistence of the world
Stealth games. You don't want to leave evidence. Pull bodies to hiding place. Footsteps. Misleading Indices, thrown items.
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How can the player leave traces? Who can see those traces? Players, Nonplayers? How does leaving traces affect gameplay.
Aquamancy:: cargo manifests, travel logs, carried by.
Hidden Object Games.
"Doom" happened.
Myst and Doom are both first person games. Two different views of games. Both were 1993 and disruptive. Myst pushed cd. They weren't though of competitive.
"Doom clone" used as descriptor for first three years after and replaced after by "FPS".
- Doom Mods.
Alien: Total Conversion Fist of Doom ChexQuest
The Ship (Total Conversion). Kill your target and take theirs. Lot of bots in the game, users would copy the mannerisms to appear like bots.
TF2 Achievement maps -> TF2 Achievement Troll Maps. Death Cats.
Trends. Team Cooperative mods. Art mods. Military vs Terrorist mods. Map mods.
Art Mods. Dear Esther. Radiator.
Mods meant: a way to "break in", cmmentary, a "default audience".
Minecraft Mod Community. Holy Mind-Fuck Big.
Indie FP Games At A Distance. Fotonica. Hockey. MirrorMoon. I Can't Find My Glasses. Unmanned. Perspective. Cities of Day and Night. Trauma. Trip. Kairo. Proteus. FRACT OSC. Dirac. Memories of a Broken Dimension.
"What happens if you take out the shooting?"
Mod scene had a proto-indie scene of engine tech argument.
the "mod" "died" because engines became cheap and able to sell end product.
indie fp game scene is HUGE and Advanaced.
Game Dev History? Tech/Engine? Distribution model? Geographic Location?
The Hand Eye Society ( Toronto ) - to help people create games - to connect gamemakers with each other and with an audience - to foster diversity in game creation and the public perception of games
- fighting the social stigma that games are only killing hookers and soldiers
- Programmed game culture events with the energy of a book launch, art gallery ...
Torontrons - classic arcade cabinets filled with Toronto games. F2P (literally)
- TIFF (Toronto International Film Festival)
Comics vs Games. Comic artists and game devs working together.
"videogame arts organization" together suprises people into conversation
Not a Indie v Corporate thing while Indie do have a greater chance to risk to make the art kind of thing.
- Membership available to anyone contributeing 10 hours to a community vg project.
pay after 10 hrs (25/hr, arts admin wage) give people small things to do, then biggr
Strong partnership with TIFF opened availability to present modern day indie games in arcade cabinets in the lobby of one of TIFF's building.
Funding. Indies funded each cabinet. $1000 each. Indies kept them. They are very heavy.
- Incorporation:
for TIFF Nexus funding, incorporated as a not-for-profit don't do it til there's money on the table as it's either costly or boring and stressful
look to see funding availability and change of receival before considering
adds $3k/yr to pay for accountant/ins. we chose not-for-profit to distinguish from a business approach but this has additional onerous requirement it does open up possible funding, but it's still not easy to get: they've never had operational
- there is a lot of credibility you can get from just calling yourself an
organization
- Funding:
never be dependent on a single funding stream never be an org that exists to continue existing slow growth (organic?)
- Partnerships:
find small ways to work together first with larger orgs: more money, more paperwork, cultural diff with smaller orgs: commit ot consenus ...
- Difference Engine:
teaching game making to women
conflicts: mostly where we made decisions without consulting participants
- all-women/homogeneity? all under-repped group will be sensitive to power
dynamics -- key thing for future DEI iterations
- All-Powerful:
have to appear as all-powerful to funding bodies increasing transparency: board members online, meeting minutes
- first annual general meeting. setting by-laws, how can someone become a board
member. deciding rules, (like games? huh)
permeable to people who haven't been there from the beginning
verification is a very simple process guiding generation is way more complex 1/50 maze rejection
analytics - player story summed to the end - stored game story by event
controlling level tone and difficulty individually during progression alter the game to suit a player explorers will get bigger levels people dashing to the goal, generate smaller levels or generate a goal near the start, or throw in more mines
Easy Money started with 100 levels. Scaled back to 25 after seeing (through analytics) that players were quiting after 10 levels when there were 100 total.