“On Game Design”

I was working on a coding project and I had a need to visualize a Data Structure I was making. One of the iterations ended up with this image.

I thought it was so cool, I saved it. It looks like a neat Modern Art painting.

I’m really slammed at the moment, so I though I’d post some excerpts from some analysis I did a while back on the exploration in Oblivion.

Note: I didn’t remove all spoilers or grammar errors, but I got a bunch of em.

Summary

One of the coolest things about Oblivion is how “free form” the game feels. As you wander through the world, attempting to do a quest that you have in your log, you are constantly running across other quests, ancient ruins, castles, cave systems, farms, camps, etc…. All of which are inevitably just slightly off your path, and which show up on your radar when you get close.

In studying how they accomplish this feat, I played through a few steps on the “critical path” quest line, as well as some of other the major quest lines in the game. My methods were as follows:

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Ripped from the earth’s womb
Abominations made flesh
All we want is love

And brains. Of course we
want your delicious brain meats
don’t get us wrong, here.

But we also want
the warmth of human touch. Would
you deny me that

just because I want
to sample that sweetest treat;
fresh human head cheese?

I was going through my Spyborgs materials and listening to a bunch of the songs that we didn’t include when we changed directions (but which are available on the disc as special features).

This one was one of my favorites:

Two Fisted Plumbing Commercial Jingle

In the original concept for this game (when it was a Saturday Morning cartoon) we had short playable commercials. This commercial was for a plumbing company called “Two-Fisted Plumbers”.

The two fish plumbers with banjos are sitting in a sewer singing the jingle and you strummed with the wii-remote along to notes that floated by underneath (guitar hero style). I wish I still had the art that went along with this stuff, cuz it was really neat. It was done by an artist we contracted named Katie McDee who has a really cool illustration style.

So it’s 1 in the morning, I’m awake, and I’m trying to think of things to do. I’ve exhausted my normal avenues of entertainment. I tried googling “make me happy” but got nothing useful.

To that end, I’m going to make a list here of things that make me happy. Because it’s my blog and I can do that kinda shit if I want to.

Oh yeah, I went there.

No particular order, here:

• Mary
• The Hamster Dance
• My buddy John. The man is a rock in rough seas.
• Our cats (well… at least the ones who are friendly.)
• George Washington
• Hanging out with my friends
• Kung Fu
• My family (they’re all pretty fucking awesome, really)
• Badgers! (http://www.badgerbadgerbadger.com/)
• My buddy Trevor from College. He fuckin rules.
• My new job – It rocks (and rolls)… all day long… sweet Suzie
• The Princess Bride (book AND movie)
• Ender’s Game – Sweet fucking book, right there
• Being inside when it’s raining.
• Sweep the Leg, Johnny – (Skip to about 2:20)
• Being outside when it’s raining.
• Hot chicks with crazy talents! – Not a porn link, honest!
• My buddy Tony — Dude fucking owns.
• The sound of rain
• All my other amazing friends, who I would totally make mention of but that’s a long list. Yeah, that’s right, I’m bragging about how many friends I have. What are you gonna do about it, huh? Oh yeah.
• Any Zelda game
• The smell of gasoline, for some reason
• lolcats
• My grandma. Amazing woman. I miss her, but she still makes me happy even now.
• Boundin
• The smell of Los Angeles air after it’s rained when you’re on a suburban street and there’s nobody else within sight or sound range and you look down the street and can see the mountains because there’s no smog. The kind of smell that smells like summers, except not summers as an adult — summers when you were a kid and you weren’t responsible for anything and just going outside was a treat.
• Floppy – A stuffed-animal dog
• Everything about rain
• Seattle — there’s a cool fucking city, right there.
• My mom — probably the single greatest human being who ever lived.
• Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance – One of the most important books I’ve ever read.
• NORAD Tracks Santa – There’s something about that that just makes me warm inside.
• Magical Trevor – Where is the cow? Hidden, right now.
• Lizard Music – I miss this book
• My sisters. Who teach me things I didn’t know I didn’t know.
• My new iPad
• That moment when you first walk into an electronics store, like Best Buy, and you stand there looking around at the shelves with all the people moving around them.
• Disneyland – Especially thinking about New Years Eve 1999 waiting for Y2K.
• My favorite blanket
• Bulgiey and Dexter – A cat-thing stuffed animal and a T-Rex puppet, respectively. They need to get out of the box I’ve got them stored in.
• Being alone outside on a work day (and not working).
• Portal
• Talking shop with my friend and former co-worker Colin Munson
• Thinking about my first day in the video game industry.
• Jonathan Coulton & Paul and Storm
• Crooked Little Vein, By Warren Ellis – One of the most amazing, fucked up books I’ve ever read.
• Having the back of my head rubbed – Mary is great at that.
• Casserole – The way my mom makes it (peas, rice, mushroom soup, hamburger, and cheese). Mmmm.
• My Grandma’s strawberry angel-food cake.

Ok, I’m done for now (sleepy).

It’s raining and I want to sleep before it stops so I can hear the dripping noises as long as possible.