Saturday, December 20, 2008

Mightier: real world + virtual world = fun

Cool concept that makes use of the camera and real world to solve puzzles. It's ingenius the idea of printing out and drawing something on paper, then scan it back in to alter the environment in the game. A way to integrate analog creativity into our digital age.


Mightier from Ratloop on Vimeo.

I'd love to see something that played around with this idea for iPhone. I remember those bar code battler games from a few years ago, I wonder if there is some version of a game like that, where you take photos of real world items that map to the game and change the experience for the player.

Also, as a way to get people to creatively problem solve, it would be interesting to see what potential the drawing/design mechanics could have as an educational tool.

Something like this would have been awesome back in Art class when I was a wee bairn!

Download the game demo here

Sunday, December 14, 2008

transmedia update

A panel featuring 2 of the smartest people I know when it comes to understanding the power of transmedia and how entertainment is more and more converging as we all move to deliver content through the same digital channels. Jesse Alexander brought transmedia to NBC with his work on Heroes and Bill Gannon is flying the flag over at Lucasfilm.



Here is the book that Jesse and Bill reference, Convergence Culture by Henry Jenkins.

More and more, as game creators we have the potential to create properties that can be explored beyond gaming. This doesn't just have to be major big budget properties, like EA's recent Dead Space IP that launched with an animated feature & comic. There are so many low fidelity ways to create and deliver stories now, with comics, digital graphic novels and indie games. This is not cheesy brand exploitation. I'm talking about cool, authentic content that is created with care and love and can stand on its own.

Monday, December 8, 2008

Goo-tastic

World of Goo is a fantastic game, kind of Lemmings designed by structural engineers. It's one of a swathe of great indie content (Braid, Castle Crashers etc) that is really establishing a strong market . These are true indie developers, benefiting from the maturing digital distribution markets on XBLA, Wiiware etc by self-funding and self publishing their own games.



World of Goo Trailer 2, Director's Cut from 2D Boy on Vimeo.

Buy the game or download a demo here