Murder Simulators

My obsession with roguelikes (head on over to Wikipedia now if you aren't familiar with roguelikes) is pretty well known among my friends at Full Sail. In fact, my first post in this blog was about them, and I'll probably have another post singing their praises later (I still haven't played Shiren the Wanderer on the Wii, but it's on my list).

Given this, one of my friends (Hi, Josh!) sent me a link to an article about a roguelike in which you play a serial killer. After reading the article and watching the video, I had mixed feelings.

First and foremost, I reacted as a fan of roguelikes and as a designer. I was absolutely blown away by the demo! It looks like it's got a lot of depth, the tiles are minimalistic but readable, and the concept is interesting. I assume the psychological backgrounds and any status conditions will affect gameplay, the inventory system was robust but not complicated, and the ability to leave (and, again, I assume) remove evidence could create a lot of interesting gameplay situations.

However, this is a game that is impossible to analyze purely in a cold, dispassionate way. There's a lot going on here. The way it's presented in the demo and article, it's disturbing at best. "Offensive" or "disgusting" are probably more likely adjectives.

My second reaction to the game was that of worry. I was worried it was being specifically made to be controversial. A few elements in particular seemed needlessly inflammatory. The choice of Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" for the theme song seems odd as it sets an unfortunate tone for the game. Also, the preset characters using names of infamous serial killers is a bit baffling. There are those that will interpret this inclusion as a glorification of serial killers.

In the original thread in which the game was presented, the designer claims this is not his intention. He was inspired to create the game by the Dexter, the TV show about a serial killer with a heart of gold. He also mentions other possible directions to take the game, many of which are quite interesting. For example, the player could be cast as a mob hitman, or a vigilante cop, or a nonviolent cat-burglar. Unfortunately, the demo does not highlight these possibilities and portrays the player as a mere psychopath.

It's easy to make a game that's offensive and disgusting if that's your goal. It's easy to make ridiculous violence just for the sake of shock value. Making a game offensive and disgusting in order to create controversy and using that controversy as a marketing tool seems lazy. It's uninspired.

Making a game that is disturbing because it challenges the players' rationalizations of their actions is much more difficult. It will probably still be controversial, sure, but that's often a side effect of a good design that makes the player think.

This game toes the fine line between being ridiculously shocking and being merely disturbing. I am cautiously optimistic after reading the designer's original post that he's on the right track. I hope the creator of this game agrees with me that following in Postal 2's footsteps would be a waste of its potential.

Unexpected Inspiration

Well, okay, so I haven't been writing daily, but I have stuck to my gaming fast. It has proven to be successful in getting me to find inspiration from other sources. I've been listening to podcasts, reading more about design, reading a lot of TV Tropes. That's all general stuff. I also watched an interesting documentary about Nazis and the occult, mainly as research for a game I'd been designing.

Today I ran across a magazine regarding upscale garden design. The photographs grabbed me immediately, but I had time to actually read it cover to cover. The articles explained the planning that went into the layout of the garden, the selection of what would be planted, the statues and stones placed for decoration. The synergistic interplay of all the elements got me thinking of parallels in level design. Many of the same principles could be used. Additionally, I've been doing a lot of research into horror lately. The juxtaposition of a beautiful, peaceful garden environment and something sinister struck me as interesting and worth looking into.

I realized too that magazines are a spectacular source for inspiration, especially ones with the high quality photos that this one had. As I mentioned, I've been doing a lot of reading lately, but the images in the magazine sparked my creativity much more than simply text. I'll have to start looking for more images and magazines to help with this process. Until then, I believe I'll start poking around in UDK or Source SDK and see what I can learn. I've always been very interested in level design specifically, as I think it offers the ability to make a lot of very subtle choices to influence the player's experience.

Other Plans

Short post tonight, as I have some pressing matters that will be occupying my time.

Some interesting stuff got announced this week. I'm very intrigued by the news that Clint Hocking is moving to LucasArts. Also, Valve may be creating a DotA game. And the new Bioshock trailer got released today. It has a ... different setting than the first two. We also get to look forward to the next Double Fine game, Costume Quest, a "Halloween-themed RPG!"

Okay, gotta go do other stuff. I'll write more tomorrow, promise!

Overwhelming Options

Today I got up, I went to work, I came home. I sat in front of my computer and caught up on my social sites and daily news sites. Then, I was at a bit of a loss at what to do next.

I had given up playing video games for the next month in an effort to force myself to do other things, but I hadn't really thought about what I'd be doing instead of gaming. I mean, I have general plans of what I'd like to accomplish, but the simple act of filling all my free time was a bit overwhelming.

I checked my Firefox bookmarks to see if anything else online looked interesting. I had gotten into the habit of bookmarking articles that looked interesting but were too long to digest at that moment. It was somewhat lazy, but at least I had a record of them to come back to when I had a chance.

I picked Ernest Adams' No Twinkie Database of bad game design choices to check out. I actually began to explore his site a little more, and found his list of quotes for designers to be inspirational. I also stumbled across a link to download an old design document template created by Chris Taylor, designer of Total Annihilation and (one of my personal favorites) Dungeon Siege. The template is exhaustive but easy to use with many comments from Taylor explaining the entries.

In all, not a bad haul for the first evening. This week I'll use the template to help flesh out some of the game ideas I've had bouncing around in my head for a while.

The ZGXP (Part 10 - Comics and Documents)

The past week was relatively calm for me at ZeeGee Games. Another of the Reader apps I've been working on went live. This one's Looking for Group, a webcomic loosely based on World of Warcraft. The final comic I had been working on should be released in the App Store sometime this week.

Other than that, the workload has been mostly writing and tidying up production documentation. I also wrote up a couple drafts of our new design procedures. Even better, I've started consulting on the design for our kid-friendly Flash virtual world My Tiny Planets. I hadn't been working on that project directly before so I've had a bit of catching up to do, but I'm eager to help expand and improve that game. I'll also be trying to wrap up the rest of the issues for Priest and start closing down that project.

Not a whole lot to report for now. I'll have another design related post (or perhaps a review, I haven't decided) up on Wednesday.