The article I linked above has one passage that made me stop and marvel.
They don’t actually use the Skylanders DS styluses to play on the DS at all. Firstly they used them to create their own plays in a make shift cardboard theater. By poking the stylus up from behind they could get the miniature Skylanders figures to act out different chapters from their adventures.
They then moved on from this when one of the styluses got inadvertently broken (apparently during a particularly hazardous Skylanders adventure involving a house brick in the garden). This resulted in the mini-figures being separated from the end of his stylus — creating an opportunity for some other ways to play.
The following day I found my youngest son trying to get the miniature Skylanders figure from the stylus to register on the game’s portal. I had to explain that only the big figures can be used in the game. “But I thought I could use baby Spyro to get between the little gaps in the game” was his response that actually made a lot of sense.
It makes SO MUCH SENSE.
Paul Reiche from Toys for Bob once told me that he thought this game might change the relationships between kids, toys, and games. That kids would get a toy and be disappointed if they couldn’t bring it to life in a game. I thought that would be impossible.
When I came to school that day, I was excited. I had something to share with my fellow students, something, maybe, that might convince them I was cool enough to finally be left alone.
I’d been given a book. A very old book, I thought. Older than me, even, as it had been printed in the 60s, but written long before then. It had belonged to the library last, though from how worn and tattered it was I suspect it had several previous owners. It was mine now, though, and I knew it would be my ticket out of misery.
I had read the book the night before (I was a fast reader), and was pretty impressed. It was about this wicked cool detective, Holmes and his buddy Watson. They solved mysteries, and my favorite was the mystery about a demon hound.
The day before, as with many days before that, I’d gotten jumped on the way to the Boy’s Club after school. A couple of other boys knocked me down on the lawn of an apartment complex while several others punched and kicked me. I was used to it by that point, and had gotten pretty good at avoiding any real damage (at least anything that would show). Still, despite my skill at the fetal position, I yearned for it to stop.
I knew I had it in my power to purge whatever it was about me they hated. And now I had a way. Once they saw the book, I knew they’d be impressed, excited even.
I knew that the bad times couldn’t last forever. Even then I was an optimist. People told me that later and I didn’t understand what it meant. An optimist? Not I.
No, i wasn’t an optimist. It couldn’t last forever because I wouldn’t let it last forever. Whatever it was about me that caused them to beat me up could be erased, and once I figured out what it was… I could erase it.
Needless to say, it didn’t go well. The only people interested in my awesome book were the people who wanted to tease me about it.
That day I got jumped again in the same spot. It wasn’t worse. It wasn’t better. Nothing had changed, really; whatever it was they hated lingered inside me still.
There wasn’t anything I could do. Telling my parents or teachers made it worse. Standing up for myself made it worse. Until I could fix whatever was wrong, nothing could get better, I was sure.
The reason I didn’t succeed that day or any other day was this: I was wrong.
I’ve been thinking about this lately amid the rash of gay, lesbian, and transgender kids committing suicide over bullying. I may not be gay, but I understand how fucking terrible the bullying can be. I understand how it can get inside you, how it can fester. How you can take the blame on yourself because there’s nowhere else to put it that makes sense to you.
If you’re a kid and you have the same thoughts, the problem isn’t you. It’s them. You’re perfect as you are, I swear on everything I know and everything I believe.
Some day I’ll believe that about myself. My dream… my fondest hope… is that you will beat me to it.
If any of you will be at GDC, swing on by and check it out. It’s going to be on Wednesday from 2pm-3pm
Here’s the details:
Session Title: Reaching Into the Toy-Chest: A Look into Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure’s Design
Session Description: Making games is hard. Making a game with more than 32 playable characters is very difficult. Now integrate a huge line of collectable toys and you get Activision’s Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure. Activision designer Mike Stout talks about the highs and lows of making this very challenging game.
Takeaway: It’s hard to make a game with so many unknowns (audience, franchise, and needing to question so many basic design concepts), but with good planning and solid design principles it is possible to succeed. This talk will outline how, from a design perspective, Skylanders did that and more.
Intended Audience: Designers will probably benefit most from the talk. I’m not planning to use any crazy jargon, though, so I think there will be good content for all disciplines.
Been very busy lately. Besides work and travel (been heading out to exotic locales, most recently Albany, New York) I’ve been working on a number of side-projects.
I’m working on a GDC talk that, if all goes well, I’ll be able to give. Fingers crossed!
I’m also working on more Gamasutra articles. My most recent one on Zelda level design (http://tinyurl.com/6tflzgf) was pretty popular, apparently, and Gamasutra would like me to do more like it!
So that’s cool.
I’ve also been designing a one-shot Star Wars adventure that I’m giving my friend John as a birthday present. It’s what we call an “evil dungeon” — a one-shot where everyone has secret goals and many of the goals conflict.
So in addition to all that, I decided to take up Tweeting full time. I know, how can I possibly do this!? What will I become!?
[Image courtesy of memegenerator.net]
My twitter alias (Twitsona?) is MikeDodgerStout – https://twitter.com/#!/MikeDodgerStout if you’d like to check it out. So far I’ve posted a number of game-design related things, and I’m hoping to do more. I like the format, as well as the relaxed social constraints (compared to facebook).
When I get a chance, I’m going to integrate it into the blog somehow. Not sure what the method will be, but there will be something.
Either I’ll have a feed on the side or something more elaborate. Have you seen it done well on other sites? If so, let me know in the comments. I’d love some ideas on what to do with it.
