tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-187489162012-01-27T17:00:10.821-08:00...And all the men and women merely players.<br> A blog about the state of gaming and technologyJohnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.comBlogger191100tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-76125493557495323092012-01-19T11:21:00.000-08:002012-01-19T11:21:45.196-08:00

The other day I had a random argument on Twitter. I don't do that often; I sometimes see things that annoy me but usually restrain myself from lashing out. But this one's stuck with me for a while, so I wanted to do a post about it and flesh out my feelings. It started with Robert Khoo, from Penny Arcade, and the following tweet: "Bought a homeless man a hot sandwich today. He looked @ it &

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com5tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-36840892407411384952011-09-15T23:48:00.000-07:002011-09-15T23:55:19.086-07:00

I was recently having a conversation with someone and we got to talking about crowd AI in games. It raised some interesting ideas for me, and I decided to explore those a little. Specifically, I was interested not in the actual movement of crowds of people, and I wasn't interested in their behavior as individual entities, but how their behavior as a crowd can be modeled. I was most intrigued

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-27963436446256705672011-09-09T18:21:00.000-07:002011-09-09T18:21:16.302-07:00

It's nothing new to say that the Star Wars prequels harmed the series and the fictional universe as a whole.  Many people say that the original movies even seem to suffer from the damage that the prequels cause.  I have a theory about that, and I think it's also related to one of the big problems in video games today. In the original Star Wars movies, we're dropped into the story of a few

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-48280676326393561592011-08-26T08:40:00.000-07:002011-08-26T08:40:42.694-07:00

How does one set about making a Great game? Not just a good game, a fun game, or even a 99 Metacritic game.  I mean a game that takes a place in the canon, and will still be relevant well into the future. Here's a caveat: I've never made anything Great, certainly not on my own or as a primary creator. So I don't have any answers. But I'd like to make a Great work, and I like thinking. Of course

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-10376382627177935802011-08-05T13:01:00.000-07:002011-08-05T13:01:32.731-07:00

The other night one of my former coworkers, Kent Hudson, gave an IGDA lecture on player-driven stories.  It was a fascinating and inspiring talk, but I did have a couple of thoughts that might be contrary to some of his conclusions. The slides for his talk, with great annotations, are available here. Or if you have access to the GDC vault, he gave mostly the same talk earlier this year.  As a

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-62261546939537563932010-07-25T21:30:00.000-07:002010-07-25T23:49:25.481-07:00

 I recently read an article on "Alternatives to College", focused on general tech learning.  It certainly sounds interesting, but the article left a bad taste in my mouth.  The reason I feel that way is that the article focuses on education solely as a means to get a job. Why does that upset me? Because when you or someone else treats your education as a way to get a job and make more money,

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-45922195394110232952010-06-15T15:56:00.000-07:002010-06-15T16:12:06.704-07:00

Since I made that Hey Baby post a while back, I keep running into things that make me think about it and feminism in games more.  So here's a roundup of a bunch of little thoughts I've had. First, here's a response to the game from a feminist writer. Again, I don't really feel qualified to judge this from a feminist perspective, so I'm not going to talk about the article. Here's a response to

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-10239744118339894402010-06-10T16:39:00.000-07:002010-06-10T17:51:39.176-07:00

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I traveled a few hours across California to attend a several-days-long music festival in the mountains called Furthur Festival.  Here's the thing you should understand about this, the idea that will make this clear (maybe) or at least make you feel like you know what's going on: Furthur is basically the current incarnation of the Grateful Dead. So this was a

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-12472780388856190312010-06-09T00:09:00.000-07:002010-06-09T10:10:52.021-07:00

Have you ever seen Twin Peaks? Are you a fan of David Lynch in general? (If you're not sure, read this essay by David Foster Wallace. Maybe it will intrigue you.) Or maybe you like The Prisoner, or even maybe Lost? All of these things, to differing degrees, are weird. But weird in a very specific way. They start out normal - sometimes very, very normal.  There's a murder in a small town, or

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-12672673867943097622010-06-03T09:13:00.000-07:002010-06-03T17:39:35.533-07:00

It's been two and a half years since my last post. But sometimes 140 characters aren't enough. Yesterday, Twitter (at least my corner of it) caught fire with discussion about a new game. The game is called Hey, Baby. Along with the game came an article by Leigh Alexander, titled "You Look Nice, Miss". The Twitter discussion went poorly for me - one of my personal heroes was quite angry at me,

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-73484382970581519132008-01-09T14:58:00.000-08:002008-01-09T15:02:40.899-08:00

From Gamers With Jobs, an amazing Flash game that has single-player co-op. How, you ask? Play the game!It's great how many simple, experimental gameplay concepts are coming out of Flash games. It's a fantastic platform for experimentation. I need to break my reliance on tech-heavy development and just whip out some things in Flash... Perhaps the Deconstruction Project?

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-42705137993943298482008-01-04T12:21:00.001-08:002008-01-04T12:28:18.724-08:00

Over the holidays I came up with an interesting idea for a project. What I'd like to do is take the existing game genres, and reduce them to their simplest expression. I'd like to create a game that is a shoot-'em-up, for example, that is just the most basic features of shoot-'em-ups - the minimum necessary elements in order to be considered part of the genre. Then do the same for RPGs, FPSes,

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-9843585484903320372008-01-02T15:56:00.000-08:002008-01-02T16:05:16.305-08:00

You've already seen the stories all over the Internet, but I think Rock Band is our greatest hope for world peace.I took it with me over the holidays, and I've never seen so many different sorts of people try playing. Even the Wii wasn't this popular last year (and actually, the Wii came along this year, only to be totally ignored in favor of the ROCK!)There were countless instances of non-gamers

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-71284256266737027772007-12-20T11:37:00.001-08:002007-12-20T11:40:41.207-08:00

I was struck by a short blurb I read in The Economist. They claim (or rather, the analysts they are quoting claim) that each console will have its day in the sun, and that the PS3 is on track to surpass the Wii in 2011.Now, I think the PS3 is a fantastic console. It's got a ton of power, it's got features that blow everything else away. But let's be realistic here - people aren't stalking UPS

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-31819683342401630852007-12-19T14:25:00.000-08:002007-12-19T16:47:25.455-08:00

So I still haven't finished Bioshock. My motivation ran out somewhere around Arcadia, where I got sick of the gameplay repetition. But I recently had cause to revisit it, and I found some things to appreciate.First, easy mode. Maybe it makes me a wimp, since the game was quite easy anyway. But maybe it just means that the game comes down more on the story side of things than the gameplay.The

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-20769666997950542582007-12-11T16:51:00.000-08:002007-12-19T16:45:34.680-08:00

Well, it's been two years since I had something worthwhile to say. Not really, but two years since I was last motivated enough to post on a blog. Luckily I've recently been re-motivated.So without further ado:This article on Destructoid got me thinking. It's an interesting question, no doubt. Are people on Xbox Live jerks because gamers are jerks, or because people are jerks? The conclusion the

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-1131764669768604332005-11-11T18:37:00.000-08:002005-11-11T19:04:29.776-08:00

Microsoft usually isn't seen as a harbinger of innovation, a generous company, or a company that would shake up the status quo.However, lately Microsoft has been talking about the uses for the Xbox Live Marketplace, and one of those uses includes a distribution system for independent game content. It's yet to be seen what that means, and what sort of licensing restrictions independent studios

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-1131513807783250952005-11-08T21:06:00.000-08:002005-11-11T18:36:49.346-08:00

Shadow of the Colossus is one of the saddest games I have ever played. It has a gigantic world, entirely empty but for you, the colossi, and some small animals. The landscape is breathtaking, but devastatingly empty. There are signs of big, beautiful buildings everywhere, but they are nothing but ancient ruins.You're not battling the colossi so much as slaughtering them. They are the most alive

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-18748916.post-1131423600053633732005-11-07T19:47:00.000-08:002005-11-11T18:37:06.006-08:00

..and all the men and women merely players.I created this blog in order to share my thoughts as an insider in the gaming industry. I find I have a lot of things to say about games and their place in society, and too few people to say them to. I feel the gaming industry is at a crossroads - games are beginning to gain serious ground as a part of our culture, and also asn entertainment business.

Johnnemannhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14185694744317272366noreply@blogger.com1