GameSetWatch

Now, here's something interesting. In the raft of press releases we get sent here at GSW, we came across Heileen, created by the folks at Tycoon Games.

It's, intriguingly enough, a PC indie title that's a "historical-fiction visual novel game with multiple endings", and the release for it has Tycoon's Riva Celso insisting: “Visual novels are the next wave of interactive fiction games. They're like a hybrid of books and games - they're deeper than the average video game since they're narrative-based, and they're interactive; what the player does affects the story and ultimately the outcome.”

The game, for which there's PC, Mac and Linux demos available, and 4500 screens of dialog, 8 chapters and 3 different endings, "...tells the tale of a young girl from the 17th Century, Heileen. Her merchant uncle leaving her no choice, she undertakes a voyage to the New World. She'll meet old friends, like her childhood friend Marie, and get the chance to befriend other people, like John, the young, dashing sailor, Marco, the ship's cook, and Lora, the shameless mistress accompanying her uncle on the voyage."

Of course, those who know the visual novel genre will realize that they are pretty popular - in a niche way - in Japan, but have never really made a big impact in the West, primarily because they're not interactive enough for a lot of people who consider themselves gamers, one suspects.

In any case, I caught up with Italian native Celso, who has made a surprisingly eclectic set of homebrew-ish titles, including Universal Boxing Manager and the RPG/card-ish Magic Stones, and asked him a few questions exclusively for GameSetWatch via email about his new game and his thoughts on the genre:

What made you decide to try the visual novel, given it's popular in Japan but not so much in the West?

First of all because I like them. I remember playing those kinds of games already 10 years ago, like True Love, Paradise Heights 1 & 2, and so on. Second because I'm an indie, that means I can try making any game I want, and not always follow the "market rules".

Is romance as major part of your visual novels as it is in Japan, or even explicit content?

Romance is present, and sensuality as well (the character of Lora for example) but there's more than that. It's basically a story and there are choices like in real life, which influences your relationships with the other crew member. There's not only love in the game, but also friendship, hate, envy and more.

Who do you think the target market is for this kind of product?

I believe everyone who enjoy reading books or comics, and sometimes thinks "If I was the protagonist, I would have made this other choice".

This is quite different from your previous products, which include sports simulators - why the shift?

I love making simulation games, but they require lots of effort, research, and unfortunately, big name licenses to sell well. Playing a soccer game where all player names are false isn't as exciting as playing an "officially licensed game". Beside that, I am always experimenting with various games genres. I did a card/RPG (Magic Stones) and a space wargame (Supernova 2) too. However, I'm really enjoying making visual novels so probably will make more in the near future.

Do you think the relative non-interactivity of the genre presents a problem in the West?

It could be, I don't want to lie. Some players really don't get what's so exciting in those kind of games and I can understand them.

In Heileen I tried to break a bit from the classic visual novel scheme introducing a "Quest System" inside the game and a final rating similar to those you find in Sid Meier's games, to add more replay value.

What are your favorite examples of the visual novel genre?

Well I've mentioned some earlier, if I have to talk about more recent titles, I liked Hanako's game Fatal Hearts, but honestly apart for that there isn't anything else that caught my attention.

In this round-up, we highlight some of the notable jobs posted in sister site Gamasutra's industry-leading game jobs section, including positions from RealNetworks, TimeGate Studios, Factor 5, and more.

Each job posted will appear on the main Gamasutra job board, and appear in the site's daily and weekly newsletters, reaching our readers directly.

It will also be cross-posted for free across its network of submarket sites, which includes content sites focused on online worlds, downloadable console games, cellphone games, independent games, 'serious games', and more.

Some of the notable jobs posted in each market area this week include:

Gamasutra.com - Game Industry Jobs

RealNetworks: Casual Game Designer
"GameHouse Studios is a leading provider of games serving the Casual Games market since 2000 and has over 50 games to its credit. We have an open environment and value creativity and hard work. GameHouse Studios is owned by RealNetworks, Inc. a rapidly growing, cutting edge technology, web based digital music, online gaming and streaming company headquartered in Seattle, Washington. Real provides the universal platform for the delivery of any digital media from any point of origin, across virtually any network, to any person on any Internet-enabled device, anywhere in the world."

Factor 5: Combat Designer
"Designers at Factor 5 are responsible for a combination of level and system design. Depending on the specific role the balance may shift towards one discipline or the other, but each designer is expected to have at least a basic understanding of all aspects of design and be able to learn quickly even in areas outside their primary expertise. Designers will work with the Lead Designer to document all game systems and levels, then work iteratively with all other disciplines to create 'AAA' quality gameplay."

AiLive: Art Director
"AiLive is a California-based company best known for its motion control products on the Wii. AiLive has spent years perfecting a one-of-a-kind machine learning technology for behavior capture, which will drive entirely new forms of gameplay. Earlier this year, the lead designer of Guitar Hero and Rock Band joined AiLive as Creative Director. The Art Director will join as another key member of a growing, world-class team that is determined to exploit their unique strengths to create amazing new games."

TimeGate Studios: Senior Technical Artist
"TimeGate Studios, developer of the award-winning F.E.A.R. Extraction Point and Kohan series, is looking for talented and driven individuals to work on its current line of next-generation products for major publishers. Projects in development include the Unreal Engine 3-powered Section 8, a team-based first-person shooter where elite powered-armor infantry wage war on epic sci-fi battelfields."

WorldsInMotion - Online Game Jobs

Bluehole Studio: Director of Marketing
"Bluehole Interactive is seeking a Director of Marketing for its flagship MMORPG title in North America. The title is being developed by the core members of the team that developed and serviced Lineage II, which achieved worldwide revenues second only to World of Warcraft. The new title is envisioned to be one of the top three MMORPGs in the world by 2011. The title has been under development since March 2007 by 100 + developers, and it is on schedule for beta release in the summer 2009."

SeriousGamesSource - Serious Game Jobs

America's Army Game: Artist Squad Leader
"Launched in July 2002, the America's Army game has penetrated contemporary culture and is one of the most recognizable game brands as a result of its unique inside perspective of the U.S. Army and its exciting game play. As the game's popularity continued to grow, the Army has expanded its brand through a variety of products including console and cell phone games In the near future, the America's Army brand will expand with America's Army Game version 3.0. We're looking for an experienced, exceptionally knowledgeable, talented, and motivated Lead Artist to join our team."

To browse hundreds of similar jobs, and for more information on searching, responding to, or posting game industry-relevant jobs to the top source for jobs in the business, please visit Gamasutra's job board now.

[Continuing to bring Montreal Game Summit goodness - and how come nobody else ever writes anything up longform any more, huh? - Gamasutra's Chris Remo tackles Elite co-creator David Braben's fun and intelligently developer-focused, if a tad ranty MIGS keynote.]

In a Montreal International Game Summit keynote, Frontier Development chairman David Braben spoke on the evolution of game consoles over the last five game generations and speculated on the future, concluding his talk with a reflection on the benefits of rapid development as exemplified by the studio's own LostWinds.

Calling himself an "old-timer" who got his start in 1982 with Elite, co-authored with Ian Bell, Braben began by identifying some consistent trends over the decades.

"There's been a very consistent six-year tick throughout the generations," starting in about 1986 up until the present day, according to Braben. He pointed out that performance has increased exponentially since then, while storage capacity and RAM are progressing at a slower rate.

"When we started in the early 80s, the machines were not leading edge," he pointed out; developers were working on machines that were already dated in some ways. Now, on the other hand, generational shifts constantly push the bleeding edge.

Looking at that same six-year "tick," the next generation may occur in 2012. But what does this mean? The Wii suggests evolution may come with new input devices rather than purely performance.

"Nintendo, just by being clever, have bypassed" the traditional generational curve, Braben said.

"What Nintendo were very, very good to spot is that the reason we're increasing performance dramatically with each generation is so that we can make much better games with that performance," he explained. "Arguably, by the PlayStation 2 and Xbox, the return on that investment was reducing."

Braben continued, "We still had good animations and recorded voice, but there are other ways we can make better games, and that is what Nintendo have spotted. The lesson I take away from the Wii is not that it has a good controller, but that you can do great things with that controller."

The Online Myth

Braben then criticized ongoing comments from WildTangent's Alex St. John, who argues that the current console generation will be the last such generation. "That to me just feels bizarre," said Braben.

"The more likely scenario is that the next console generation will be sold as media devices," he argued, "but to suggest they don't run games -- I'd be astonished if they don't run games with controllers."

"If you look at the PC, that's what's problematic," he continued, noting that the success of the PC is online games -- but those games will increasingly not require a PC, as more and more systems gain online capabilities. "We'll see the PC moving away from being a mainstream game platform. We'll see those online games moving to other media devices."

But Braben says that even in the next generation, online connections will not be ubiquitous -- in 2007, only 53 percent of United States homes have broadband connections, and data suggests a smaller proportion of consoles are ever taken online. Even by 2012, some forecasts suggest that only 70 percent of homes will have broadband.

"There's a lot of lack of appreciation of the benefits online," he said, adding, "Over in Europe, we're probably slightly ahead of the U.S." when it comes to proliferation of online access.

The Retail Myth

"As an industry, we're in denial about the problems with retail," Braben argued, citing a common myth that online distribution will become the norm in the coming generation.

"Retail is killing the longevity of our titles," he said, with the massive used game market contributing to the problem. "The industry sees none of this" when it comes to preowned sales.

Meanwhile, the retail film industry puts its new films front and center, and the stores in which movies are sold are often more attractive and inviting than game stores.

"What's worse, if you ask for a new release, they'll offer you a used one, and it's not even much cheaper," said Braben. "What it's doing as an industry, means the long tail, which is what games rely on, is going to go away. And relying on online is killing ourselves."

Braben suggested selling higher-priced copies of games to rental stores, then lowering the prices of not-for-resale copies -- thus making new games more affordable for players, while introducing additional revenue streams for rentals.

"We can add value for people who have actually bought the game," he said -- designers should come up with additional content that rewards those who buy games new.

A Broken Business Model

Braben pointed out that under the current business model, revenue is shared roughly equally between developer, publisher, distributor, and retail -- but risk is almost entirely shouldered by developer and publisher, making the revenue split uneven.

"I think there is an inevitability that development costs increase again as capabilities increase," he said, "because as developers, we can't resist" taking advantage of the latest technology.

"We'll see more in-house development by publishers, and more publishing by developers. Publishers are already saying it now -- 'Let's grab the big slice of the value chain,'" he said. "What does this mean for a pure developer, who doesn't publish or fund their own titles?"

"The important thing to do is de-risk development wherever we can," Braben continued, suggesting developers look for ways to reuse their own content, keeping hold of their own intellectual property, and sharing technology as much as possible.

Capturing Design Ideas

"The upside of this is that it's us in this room who are shaping the sixth generation now," he said. "Customers don't buy machines because of fancy controllers, they buy them for what you can do with those fancy controllers, or the new performance, and it's us who determines that. ... The important thing is, how can we stay fresh as an industry? It's certainly why I'm still in the industry -- to learn new things."

"Almost everyone I know in the industry has some element of game design in their heart," Braben continued. "What I mean by that is not producing documents -- but you might be in a pub and say, 'Oh I really hated Crackdown, if only they added this, or if only I could do this in another game.' That is essentially game design. Just wacky ideas, and see where it goes. Sadly, this creativity is very rarely captured."

Several years ago, Frontier introduced a "game of the week" program, where developers pitched ideas for discussion by the team. "Some of these ideas should stay in 'game of the week,' but some are really fantastic," Braben said. "For a long time, nothing came out of this. But the first game to go through the system was LostWinds."

"We made the game in fifteen weeks," he said, pointing to the rapid development techniques used during production. Once the concept had been developed, six days were given to a programmer and designer to create a prototype -- simply taking the 2D images from the design document and mocking them up as a playable to test the control mechanics.

"Some of the control mechanisms we tried actually worked very badly, so we learned a lot from this," Braben recalled. "We could do playtesting regularly, every week, with a new group of people, just so we could see their opinions genuinely fresh."

"Rapid development requires real discipline in the tasks you do and the tasks you don't do," he warned, explaining that it is important keep to the schedule and not let unnecessary features creep in. When a feature starts to go awry, it may be worth simply cutting it.

"The mantra was really to get the maximum fun from the minimum time," said Braben. The game was completed fifteen weeks after the prototype.

"It was very exciting for all that worked on it," he added, "and [to have] the feeling of euphoria to have completed a game in this day and age in that [amount of time] instead of two or three years."

The game ended up topping WiiWare charts in North America and Europe, but Frontier had initial difficulties breaking into the Japanese market. "I'm delighted to announce today that LostWinds will be published in Japan and the rest of Asia by Square Enix," Braben announced.

The veteran designer concluded his talk by showing brief artwork from Frontier's ambitious upcoming nonlinear game The Outsider, promising more details on the long-in-development title next year.

[This piece originally appeared on big sister game business site Gamasutra - don't forget to visit, check out the jobs, and subscribe to the RSS.]

Time to round up some of the best links we've dug up here at GameSetWatch in the last 24 hours or so - headed by some discussion of Obama's buddies and their love of Azeroth (please, put away the pitchforks).

Some of the other highlights of the lovingly scraped links here - Cliffski on the making of Kudos 2, Life magazine's (pictured) photos of video game-related randomness, Retro Game Challenge explained for the DS, Gus Mastrapa on reviews getting no respect, and quite a lot more.

Mar vell us:

Obama’s FCC Transition Team Co-chair a WoW Player - GigaOM
'The Wharton professor is a hardcore World of Warcraft player, a member of two guilds.'

Games That Weren’t » Bioforge Plus intro on YouTube
'Former employee of Origin Systems, Jeff Morris, informed us today that he captured and uploaded the introduction cinematic of Origin’s unreleased PC game "Bioforge Plus" (an extended version of the original game) to YouTube.'

Geometry Wars: Retro Explained Interview - Page 1 // Xbox 360 /// Eurogamer - Games Reviews, News and More
'The very first version was just kind of a test application... We didn't know why we weren't getting the right analogue [input] out of it, so we wrote a test app just to play around with the analogue sticks.'

Cliffski's Kudos 2 post mortem
'Pretty early on it became clear that the original game was too dark and miserable, and to sell better, it needed to be more upbeat, more engaging, and less like the diary of a manic depressive.'

evandorkin: National Tragedy
Not very game related, but this is soo beyond Yahtzee in amazing vitriol (re: a New York comics convention) that I must share.

1UP: Retro Game Challenge Hands-On Preview
'Retro Game Challenge features "cameos" from a few well-known Western game journalists. Expect to see columns from "Dan Sock," "Milkman," and "Johnny England".' This is going to be interesting.

Curmudgeon Gamer: Review: Mirror's Edge
'The last half of the finale profoundly angered me. A man can only eat so many cheap sniper shots, so many deaths by machine gun from over 75 meters away, so many attempts at a final tricky jump to a tiny ledge across a giant gap, so many degrading restarts.'

video game source:life - Google Image Search
The Life Magazine photo archives have pretty bad video game images, semi-unsurprisingly.

Hit Self-Destruct: Interactive Journalism
'Sometimes, though, you do feel like Deep Throat and Woodward's not giving you his full attention because at that moment he's booked for three other garage appointments where he's going to be told all about new Xbox 360 faceplates, a Mean Girls-branded Puzzle Quest clone, and "what's next" for mobile gaming.' This is actually a bit obnoxious, but hey, it's well-written.

Media Coverage: Readers, We Hate You Too - GameDaily
'I'll let you in on a little secret. People who review video games have feelings too. Funny, right?'

['The Interactive Palette' is a biweekly GameSetWatch-exclusive column by Gregory Weir that examines the tools and techniques of the digital games trade with a focus on games as art, using a single game as an example. This time - a look at diegesis in Grim Fandango.]

In video games, there is a division between the world inhabited by the game's characters and the representation of that world to the player. The game environment, world objects, and most sound effects and dialogue exist in the game world; that is, they can be perceived by characters. Other elements, such as most background music, loading screens, and subtitles, exist outside of the game world. They are part of the narration of the game, and help to provide the player with information or emotion that is not necessarily apparent to the characters of the game.

The film world calls this concept "diegesis." This is most easily explained in relation to music. If a film's music comes from a source inside the world of the film, like Casablanca's piano-playing Sam, it is said to be diegetic.

The dramatic music that plays over a James Bond action scene, however, cannot be heard by Bond; it is non-diegetic. Video game music can be looked at in the same way; Super Mario Bros.'s earworm background music is decidedly non-diegetic, but when the player comes across a radio in Portal playing a Latin version of "Still Alive," that music is diegetic. The player character Chell can hear it just like the player can.

The concept of diegesis applies to more than just music, of course.HUD elements can be non-diegetic or, as in Metroid Prime or Star Wars: Republic Commando, incorporated into the player character's helmet and therefore diegetic. Metroid Prime, in fact, plays with diegesis via the game's very interface. By using the X-Ray Visor, it becomes clear that while the player selects Samus's weapons with the C Stick, Samus herself chooses weapons by moving her fingers into various positions.

One work that pays particular attention to the concept of diegesis is LucasArts's 1998 game Grim Fandango. The game creates a very cinematic atmosphere by dispensing with many non-diegetic elements. Playing the game feels very much like watching a film noir piece due in part to this decision. By looking at how Grim Fandango handles diegesis, we can see how this concept can be used in video games.

With Bony Hands I Hold My Partner; on Soulless Feet We Cross the Floor

Grim Fandango is the successor to a long line of adventure games put out by LucasArts. All of the company's previous titles use the SCUMM engine, where the player controls the game with a mouse cursor, choosing verbs for the player character from a list or a "verb coin." Clicking on the ground moves the character, and the character's inventory of held items either occupies a portion of the screen or is visible via a secondary screen.

Grim Fandango, however, is based on a new engine. The GrimE engine, as used in this game, has no visible verb list, no mouse cursor, no inventory screen, and no hover text for world objects. Instead of clicking to move the main character, Manny Calavera, the player steers him with the keyboard. Interactive objects are indicated by Manny turning his head to look at them as he moves. The non-diegetic inventory screen is replaced by a close-up view of Manny's jacket, where he takes out various objects as the player flips through his collection, putting each item away before taking out the next.

This design decision has clear advantages. The lack of non-diegetic screen elements encourages player immersion by making the game world seem less artificial, and the inventory system does a similar thing by ensuring that every player action, even that of searching through the inventory, represents an action taken by Manny. Additionally, the gameplay looks more cinematic, which reinforces the game's connection to its film noir inspirations. The game almost feels like playing a CGI noir film.

However, the diegetic elements have their downsides. The movement system is often more awkward than the simple click-to-move approach, and Manny's gaze is a less useful indicator when he is near multiple interactive objects.

The one-item-at-a-time inventory system creates the most problems; at some points in the game, Manny is carrying a large number of things, and scrolling through them all can be annoying, with the amount of time it takes for Manny to remove each item from his jacket and describe what it is.

The Music Stops as if to Answer an Empty Knocking at the Door

There are still several non-diegetic elements left in the game. The conversation system is a notable exception to the immersive interface. When Manny speaks to someone, Grim Fandango presents a rather standard conversation tree interface, with visible options that the player can scroll through and pick from. It's understandable why the developers made this choice.

A diegetic alternative could be created, maybe letting Manny think about various topics in his head and mumble the options to himself, but this would probably be even more awkward than the inventory system... and would make Manny's character much more tongue-tied and socially awkward.

The other major non-diegetic element is the music. Most of Grim Fandango's music is non-diegetic; generally, the wide array of jazzy tunes don't come from an in-game source. This is in keeping with the cinematic feel of the game. While the music seems to work against the player's suspension of disbelief, it does support the illusion of the game as film. This is an aspect that would have been easy to make diegetic; there are ample opportunities in the world of the game for diegetic music. However, the developers' choice to make the music non-diegetic doesn't weaken the game.

But Now We Dance This Grim Fandango and Will Four Years Before We Rest

Diegesis is fundamentally a method of bringing the player closer to the game. Every non-diegetic element, whether it's a mouse cursor or a soundtrack, serves to reinforce the "fourth wall" between the player and the game world. By removing non-diegetic elements, the developer can make it easier for the player to lose herself in the game via immersion. That isn't to say that immersion isn't possible in a heavily non-diegetic game, but all other things being equal, a diegetic game will be more immersive.

There's an important caveat, though. If an element of the gameplay experience is made diegetic at the cost of usability, the player is pulled out of the experience again. Consider Manny's coat-based inventory; using this system is actually more difficult than it would be for Manny to actually pull something out of his pocket. In this case, immersion would probably be restored by using an easier but less diegetic inventory system. This would undermine Grim Fandango's goal of creating a cinematic experience, but it would make the game less frustrating and easier to use.

Grim Fandango is one of the most well-crafted video games of all time, and it has a lot to teach us about how video games can and should be made. Its use of diegesis is probably the way in which the game is most unique among games.

Diegesis is something that all developers should consider in the course of making a game: when is it better for an element of the game to be diegetic, and when is it best to make it separate from the game world? By considering this, developers can ensure that their game strikes the best balance between immersion and usability.

[Gregory Weir is a writer, game developer, and software programmer. He maintains Ludus Novus, a podcast and accompanying blog dedicated to the art of interaction. He can be reached at Gregory.Weir@gmail.com.]

[Well, the final update from Ryan Langley at sister console download site GamerBytes finishes previewing the launch set of XNA Community Games, following Part 1 and Part 2. Are there new games even past these by now? Probably, blimey.]

Here we are, the final selection of XNA Community Games that are available to you from day one on the New Xbox Experience update for your Xbox 360. This time, we've got a little more than 10 titles, pushing it past 30 separate titles on day one. That is an awful lot of choice.

Titles can go up at any time, so it's difficult to keep track. We'll continue keeping you informed with every new game that comes available, hopefully with a little commentary to give you a bit of an idea of what each game is like.

Video: Alien Ambush Game Trailer

Alien Ambush

Creator: Star Gaming Network
Genre: Classics
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: A Space Invaders / Galaga clone. It's also not very good from what I could see from the trial. Enemies follow very simple patterns and overall just seems a little boring. Sorry, Star Gaming Network.

Video: Loot, Steal 'n Destroy

Loot, Steal 'n Destroy

Creator: reallyjoel
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: A game about looting gold from the source and from your enemies. The game is multiplayer only, but looks like it could be some fun. A hearty opening theme too.

Video: Blow

Blow

Creator: David Flook
Genre: Other
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: One of the best games on the service right now, Blow is a entrancing puzzle game where you set up fans in order to blow bubbles through checkpoints and on to the exit. The game relies on you setting the speed of the fans, and whether they can make bubbles hot (and rise) or cold (and fall faster). Sporting 70 man made levels and infinite procedurally generated levels for endless variety, it is absolutely worth your 400 Points.

Video: Colosseum

Colosseum

Creator: Shortfuse Games
Genre: Fighting
Price: 800 Points

Trial Play: Here we have one of most expensive XNA Community Games, Colosseum. It's a 4 player brawler which uses the second analog stick for combat. While it looks nice, the single player experience appears to be pretty mundane. It will probably be at its best in the local multiplayer modes.

Totem

Creator: Fervent Interactive
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Totem is a single player puzzle game involving a variety of totem pieces. Each stage is about surviving through whatever the computer throws at you.You then stack up several totem pieces of one color, and when the next comes crashing down, the matching ones break. It's simple and a bit of fun, and has some nice artwork too. Reminds me a bit of the GameBoy Mario & Yoshi title with a dash of XBLA's TiQal.

Video: Artoon Trailer

Artoon

Creator: Oscar K
Genre: Platformer
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Bounce your buddy Art through tens of levels as you rack up a multiplier by jumping on new squares in the level. It looks nice - Oscar K has his head around some very neat shader effects, it has some decent techno music, and it includes a split screen challenge level too. The first few levels are very simple, but do the later ones offer any challenge?

Video: Galax-e-mail

Galax-e-mail

Creator: BogTurtleCarl
Genre: Shooter
Price: 200 Points

Despite the crazy premise, this game is actually quite fun. The graphics, while simple, are consistent and very clean looking - it "knows" what it is. I'm not really sure just how the game does work in terms of levels (does the game simply generate a level based on difficulty) but for 200 Points it looks like it may be worth your money.

Video: Trailer for "In the Pit" for Dream Build Play 2008

In the Pit

Creator: luvcraft
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Now here is something that can only be done on XNA - In The Pit is not your normal game. In fact, the game has no graphics whatsoever. It is an audio-game. You play a blind monster in a cave, and new prey is dropped into your cave. Using only sounds, you must find these people and eat them. You hear them breathing, running away, all through your surround sound system. The controller vibrated to their heart beat too. It's certainly something you've never played before.

Video: Smashell

SMASHELL

Creator: Antab
Genre: Platformer
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Plug yourself into an arena and begin to jump on top of enemy heads. This is one of the better looking XNA games on the marketplace, but I don't know how long it will last. You appear to be able to upgrade and see many different kinds of enemies, but you don't see a lot of that in the trial space.

Video: Biology Battle (Sneak Trailer: XBox360)

BIOLOGY BATTLE

Creator: Novaleaf Software
Genre:Action & Adventure
Price: 800 Points

Trial Play: The most XBLA-like game on the service. Biology Battle pits you inside of a giant cell, battling the oncoming hordes of bacteria coming to kill you. It's got a whole lot of modes, and online leader boards through some tricky measures.

Video: Funky Punch XL

Funky Punch XL

Creator: SolusG
Genre: Fighting
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: A 3D fighting game played on a 2D plane. You play as very simple characters, ranging from fireball throwing karate masters to cheerleaders. The game does support online play, which is great for such a game. It might be some fun for kids, but I can't see many people getting into it unfortunately.

[Continuing the XNA Community Games coverage blowout by other means, Gamasutra's Christian Nutt recently got to chat to Weapon Of Choice creator Nathan Fouts, who has a really interesting story to tell about his Xbox 360 egalitarian game debut - and his game is really retro-creepy cool in the best 'programmer art' fashion, too!]

The XNA Creators' Club is being touted as a way for semi-pro and amateur developers to bring their designs to the masses via XNA Community Games, which launch alongside the New Xbox Experience today.

At its recent San Francisco XNA Community Games event, however, it became clear that a lot of the developers who have created the most polished and ready-for-market games on the service actually do have professional backgrounds.

At the event, we had a chance to speak with Nathan Fouts, founder and president of Mommy's Best Games (as well as its only full-time employee.) His game, Weapon of Choice, is a neo-retro throwback that brings to mind classics like Contra while embracing contemporary design choices.

Despite its hardest-of-hardcore looks and (nearly) one-man creation, it sprang not from the mind of an enthusiastic amateur, but a seasoned professional.

Though Fouts left Insomniac Games to found his own company, Insomniac CEO Ted Price, when recently asked, called him "an instrumental part of Resistance: Fall of Man... one of the most creative programmers I've ever met."

What is it that drove Fouts to leave his job at one of the most successful independent developers in the country and strike out on his own, and why through XNA Community Games? The answers may surprise you.

Did you have any sort of professional background in development before you started this project?

Nathan Fouts: I've been in the industry for over a decade now -- I guess I'm getting old! I've worked at Running with Scissors, I've worked at N-Space, I've worked at Insomniac Games.

I actually designed and programmed the weapons on Resistance: Fall of Man, the launch title. And I did the bosses on Ratchet & Clank Future: Tools of Destruction.

So you actually have extensive experience on high-budget, next-gen projects. You decided to give that up and make your own project?

NF: Yeah. It's kind of crazy. We were making good coin at Insomniac Games.

They still are, without you. (laughs)

NF: Oh, yeah. Everybody there. That place... it's a great place to work. Basically, though, we had a child -- I don't know if you guys are interested in this from a developer standpoint, but because we're getting older, a lot of people, a lot of the professionals I'm friends with have had kids.

We had a baby and we decided to move back to the Midwest to be closer to my parents, so they could be with their grandson. This wasn't going to work, working at a big place. So a couple of years ago I started to think about forming my own place. And we didn't know how, and we knew that we couldn't pull it off until the whole downloadable thing started, with the new systems, basically.

Once Live Arcade started moving, I thought, "Wow, if we can get our money together, this might be possible." When XNA came through, and when Community Games announced that you could make money through it, that's when I knew we could do it.

How many people did you have working on the title?

NF: Me.

Really?

NF: Okay, that's extreme. But basically, I did original concept, design, art, programming, animation, sound effects, and then I had a really talented musician out of Tucson who did the music. I wrote the skeleton for the story, and then I had a science fiction writer friend write the story and the dialogue. So, basically, 95% of the game.

Wow. How long have you been in development?

NF: Like I said, we saved our money for a couple of years, and then I quit my job at Insomniac, and then I started full time in November last year. So it's almost been a year now.

I can imagine that's been like perpetual crunch.

NF: You know what's funny? Just, again, for the other developers' standpoint, working at home, it's been perpetual crunch that has been doable because I get these, like, mini-breaks.

You have dinner, there's your wife, your kid, and then you keep working. It's not as bad as a real place. I've done plenty of crunch before, and it drains your soul. But this hasn't been as bad. Anyway -- it's just different, working at home.

It's something, as you said, that people are facing. People want to start families. Everyone comes coastal to work in development. You don't really have a lot of choice in the matter.

NF: We didn't love Los Angeles, honestly. We lived there a couple of years. The only reason we were there was to work on games. There are a ton of places there. It's easy to move around. It isn't nice, but...

The interesting thing is, with the internet, it was possible to do our game in the boonies. We live out in the country, in Indiana, actually. And so it was actually possible to keep in touch with people, share files, and actually share the game itself, so that actually made it possible.

And your wife worked on it, too, right?

NF: Well, I did the development side, and she's like business, and producer -- well, quasi-producer. She does marketing, and helps with the press and that kind of stuff.

She's actually a fundraiser grant writer by trade, so she's really good at talking with people and working with them and everything. It's kind of like the Frank Zappa scenario. His wife managed him and did the marketing, and he did the music.

We actually have a couple of guys, very freelance, who helped me with the art, off and on. So I wouldn't mind expanding, but it's a really touchy kind of thing -- you have to be really careful about it.

I heard this story from Kathleen from Microsoft -- she said it's based on a concept that you had when you were 17, and then your wife found the designs, and it kind of grew from there. Can you tell me about that?

NF: Sure. I don't want this to turn into a... what's that Silicon Knights game?

Too Human.

NF: It's not a Too Human.

(laughter)

NF: I've always been playing games, and as a kid, as a middle-schooler, I'd do game design. And then I would send in game designs to, like, Electronic Arts, and get refused. And then I'd send them to Tecmo, and Sega, and places like that.

Now, with my wife, we're actually living with my parents, and she was digging through these old boxes, and found my old drawings.

And the funny thing is, they look similar to the new stuff that I've been working on -- but the game design is totally different in this. It's just the fact that I was doing this old style...

Well, the game is very reminiscent of a 16-bit aesthetic. It was a semi-credible story.

NF: No, it's true. It's fine that they say that, but it's a conscious thing -- I wanted to make a new 16-bit kind of game, that looks better, that plays better, that's more fluid, but it plays like that.

In the game there are a lot of elements that make it more playable, nowadays. It's an instant-kill game, but there's an element called "death brushing." Everything slows down, and you have this brush with death. It can happen as often as it needs to, and it's infinite, and it makes it a lot more possible to not die. It's an old-style game with new influences.

It's such a small thing, but the title screen really looks like a TurboGrafx or Genesis game to me, aesthetically.

NF: Exactly! That was a conscious decision. Another comparison that Steve Wik, of Postal, the game designer there -- he said, "I'd expect it to be on a marquee for an arcade machine from, like, '87." Yes!

I love that kind of art. I just love that you can see the pencil drawing in it, and you can just imagine the guy laboring over it, and I wanted to bring that through -- and I labored over it.

And the other thing is, and this isn't a negative on Resistance: Fall of Man, but when you go from one thing to another, that game is, the color palette is really kind of... low-key.

Brown.

NF: Okay, it's brown. It's Brown World. It just gets to you. Ratchet was very full and colorful, but that did not cure me. From working on Resistance, I was like, "Man, I want insane aliens, and I want crazy colors!" I've been seeing forum posts that have been saying it looks like an acid trip, and I've been like, "Thanks!" You know? Cool!

It reminds me a lot of 16-bit games, but more so. Based on what I've just seen.

NF: That's the idea. A lot of the weapons -- the other design idea behind the weapons is that each character has a weapon. It's his weapon of choice. But each character has a weapon, but when you play him, he's a life.

So when you play him, you're stuck with that guy. And even though you think you may not enjoy that weapon, you get to explore it more, and every weapon has a lot of depth to it. So it's easy to use at first, but then there's a lot more things you can do with it, and hopefully you'll grow to like all of the different weapons.

So it sounds like you've definitely put a lot of thought into how to evolve the design of a 16-bit game and make it compelling for a contemporary audience. I mean, we all have a lot of nostalgia for old games, but Mega Man 9 notwithstanding, it's a bit hard to approach them.

NF: And I'm playing Mega Man 9! And it kicks my butt. And it's a wake up, man. When you start those old games -- I still play a lot of those old games -- but when you start them, they smack you in the face! And in this one I wanted it to be a little bit more of an ease-in.

Again, I studied all of those old games really carefully. This is a game where you restart from the beginning -- which not everybody's psyched about -- but you do restart it from the beginning, I wanted to make it interesting every time you play.

So say you only play 10 minutes, and you fail. Then, you restart from the beginning. But when you restart, there's a lot of different paths to take. And within the levels themselves, you can actually branch and go a whole different way, and the story changes.

So if you keep trying this one path, and it starts to get boring, you can say, "I'm going to try this other path," but as you go, you're also picking up new operatives, so you're picking up new people with new weapons.

So say that one path you didn't get too far in -- it was too tough for you. You manage to save a new guy, you restart the game, and you have four guys -- four extra lives -- and now you are able to get further down the path. And that's how we make it playable for everybody. We've focused a lot on that.

To talk about something a bit different -- you said that your original inspiration was that you thought you could go on a traditional download service -- you made it sound like you were going for Xbox Live Arcade, when you initially had this idea to do it yourself as an independent developer.

NF: Absolutely.

But you ended up moving into the Community Games space. That has the benefit that you don't have to wend your way through getting picked, and everything, but obviously you don't have the same level of support.

NF: Right.

Can you talk about that decision-making process, and your expectations?

NF: It's a hard thing to talk about, but I'll just tell you, we got refused from Live Arcade. The initial game didn't look as good as this one.

Basically what happened -- and this is for everybody else who's thinking about it -- we went in, we pushed the game through to them, and they thought it was really interesting and fun.

But they thought the art style just wasn't enough, so we actually took that and spent a month and a half redoing just about every single thing in the game, and it was just horrible.

What I did, initially, was really static, and since then I've re-animated everything -- all the trees, all the grass, everything moves. I've had Xbox people say it's even stronger now, and because they want to bump up Community Games, they want to keep it on Community Games!

I'm cool with that, because I like Community Games. But it's been tough. I wanted it on Live Arcade -- or I thought I wanted it on there. But this whole thing's been a blessing too, so it's really come out great. And the [Dream Build Play] contest was pretty amazing, so I'm really excited about the whole thing.

[This piece originally appeared on big sister game business site Gamasutra - don't forget to visit, check out the jobs, and subscribe to the RSS.]

Continuing the tutoring of the GameSetLinkDump, this time we're headed by the Montreal Mirror covering the GAMMA 3D competition - which is awesome from the 'indie folks getting noticed' angle, even if I forgot my 3D glasses today.

Also hanging out in here - Ste Pickford on the Bond approach to plotting, a Georgia Tech project about how video games can be used in journalism, how people coded games in 1991, the IFComp results, and quite a few more besides.

Link tast ick:

Montreal Mirror - 'Indie gaming on the rise'
'The future may belong to indie games, but for now GAMMA 3D will serve to introduce gamers and non-gamers alike to interactive entertainment that really doesn’t bear any resemblance to the Halos and Grand Theft Autos of the world.'

Cowboy Programming » My coding practices in 1991
'I wrote this in 1991, when I was writing Amiga and Atari ST games for Ocean Software in Manchester, UK. I think at the time I was working on Parasol Stars. It’s an interesting look at a simpler time in games programming.'

Media Coverage: The Case For Games Journalism - Video Game Features, PC Game Features
Missed Gus Mastrapa's hearty bravo for game writing: 'When I browse my RSS reader everyday, I'm consistently impressed by the quality and originality of the reporting being done by the video game press.'

TwitterCrit » PixelVixen707
Really interesting analysis of how games are discussed from the, uhh, fictional ARG character. (Yes, it's odd.)

Ste Pickford's Blog - 'Don't Start With Story'
A fine point, even for demos: 'If we're going to copy movies, then at least copy the right ones. Bond movies tend to start with a massive, stupid action sequence (almost like the end of a previous story), before settling down for the new story to begin.' This (Bond story structure!) coincidentally just got covered on Gamasutra.

VGPC.com Blog: 30 Rare & Expensive Gamecube Games
Prices are a little inflated here (highest ever new price is cited), but it's interesting to note the mix of uncommon but boring titles and actually interesting rarities.

Georgia Tech Journalism & Games Project
'This research project, made possible by funding from the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, seeks to understand the ways videogames can be used in the field of journalism, providing examples, theoretical approaches, speculative ideas, and practical advice about the past, present, and future of games and journalism.' Bogost-impelled, v.cool.

Dollarshort: The Definition of a Slow News Day
Not strictly game-related, but the same tabloid-related problems occurs. Also, it's depressing cos they are all great headlines. all hail the tabloid apocalypse!

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/VG Chartz - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Some interesting chatter in here: 'We don't base arguments for keeping articles on the accuracy of the subject—we base it (in part) on it the sources available.'

Results of the 14th annual Interactive Fiction Competition
Hurray, IFComp winners again!

[Not content with running GDC in San Francisco and our regular Austin GDC jaunt next year, my lovely colleagues here are expanding with GDC Canada, and for any Canucks or Pacific Northwesterners interested, here's the call for submissions.]

Think Services, co-organizer of the Game Developers Conference Canada has announced that next year's inaugural expo will run from May 12 - 13, 2009 at the Vancouver Convention and Exposition Centre in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.

The organizers have also opened the call for proposals on lectures, roundtables, and panel sessions, and will accept submissions through midnight, Friday, November 28, 2008.

GDC Canada, which has an extensive local advisory board including representation from BioWare, EA Black Box, Threewave, Radical, Next Level Games and more, will emphasize the challenges and opportunities of creating games with long production cycles, large development teams, and multi-platform releases.

The event's tracks are structured according to production stages of game development, so submissions should address the most pressing game development challenges that fall under the following development stages: concept/preproduction, production, finalling, and post-launch.

Building on the success of the Vancouver International Game Summit, GDC Canada, which is co-organized by Reboot Communications and Think Services, will feature global perspectives on cross-discipline and cross-platform content, with an eye to serving the increasingly significant Canadian games business sector.

The conference will take place during Vancouver Digital Week, organized by local government entity New Media BC, billed as "...an immersive week of innovative programming and partnership opportunities for the digital media industry that features top minds from around the globe."

To learn more about the submission guidelines and conference tracks, please visit the official site for 2009 GDC Canada.

[Here's another MIGS highlight originally debuting on Gamasutra, with Chris Remo documenting some really interesting discussion of procedural content creation from one of the Ubisoft Montreal folks behind Far Cry 2, which is rapidly wandering into 'underappreciated' territory for me - or possibly just 'too clever for its own good', if you're being cynical.]

During the Montreal International Game Summit, Far Cry 2 technical director Dominic Guay painted procedural content generation as an increasingly important game development technique, not just to control costs as games get bigger and bigger, but also to retain the crucial ability to make changes throughout the production process.

"This talk is not about Far Cry 2 the game," began Guay, who populated his talk with development examples from Far Cry 2's creation rather than descriptions of the end-user goals of the game's features.

Guay defined "procedural data generation" as "techniques and algorithms of runtime or highly automated offline data generation," but noted the term refers not just the algorithms and code that comprise systems, but also the surrounding tools that enable designers to make use of them.

The Evolution Of Proceduralism

Procedural generation is "nothing new," Guay pointed out, citing Bethesda's 1996 game The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall, which boasts a "land mass twice the size of Great Britain."

Going back further to 1984, he praised "the granddaddy of space trading games," Ian Bell and David Braben's influential Elite. It consists of eight galaxies of 256 planets each, generated procedurally using data tables and "pseudo-random sequences" -- the code for which can today be downloaded via Bell's website.

Moving to the modern day, Guay noted that particle systems, now widely used, are really a form of procedural generation. "It's a procedural approach to creating content that has become pretty common," he said.

However, "the industry in general tends to favor brute force approaches," he said. The Far Cry 2 team found itself butting up against that tendency, due to the vast size of the game's world.

"The first big draw of generating procedural content is to save on cost and time," said Guay.

"When we started conceiving Far Cry 2, we didn't have a senior animator on board, so we didn't really have an idea of what would be possible for an animation team," he recalled, and noted that the number of discrete animations required turned out to be unfeasible, "so we moved many of those animations up into a procedural animation system."

That approach allowed the team to blend animations that change based on the player's influence on the world -- early in the game, a character might perform certain acts in a way that demonstrates contempt of the player, but later on, when the player has gained notoriety, that same character could perform those same actions while "tainted" with visual cues of fear or intimidation.

Opening Up Innovation Fields

"Another big benefit [of procedural content creation] is that you end up being able to do stuff you simply couldn't do otherwise," Guay continued. "It opens up innovation fields. If you're creating things through code, you have a deeper understanding of what you're doing, and you can bake in some limitations."

"Our artists needed to be able to build not a random tree, but a type of tree," he said by way of example. "It's actually much closer to building a particle system than building traditional art assets. Artists play with parameters more than they play with vertices."

Creating those tools allowed artists to define trees based on characteristics gleaned from extensive photo reference, more than to create a number of discrete tree variants based on those references.

That approach led to a huge amount of control and unique systems -- Guay showed an internal video of trees in Far Cry 2 growing from sapling to their full adult state. Those systems are not available to the player in the game, but they allowed the team to convincingly populate the world and deal with realistically regenerating trees that have, for example, been destroyed by fire.

"Another benefit of procedurally-generated content is the time you gain on turnaround for changes," he said, distinguishing that advantage from the more straightforward time saved in initially creating content.

"Level designers love to move roads around," he said as an example. "Typically, this would drive artists crazy. But [here], what will happen is that the terrain will actually smooth in according to how the rules were designed, and the vegetation will move and regrow." The designer can then drill down and more explicitly tweak the positioning of elements that have been adjusted dynamically.

Retaining Artistry

Procedural content isn't perfect, Guay admitted. One difficulty associated with the practice is retaining artistic control alongside the dynamic processes.

Initially, the team created a procedural sky rendering approached based on algorithms -- which led to a totally unconvincing skybox that was clearly inferior to what a hand-authored skybox would be. "We considered it to be a total failure," he said.

He explained that a great deal of focus must be put on the tools that surround the algorithms, to allow the systems to be properly harnessed. In the end, the game shipped with a revamped procedural sky system that ended up much more effective than the first attempt. It takes into account myriad weather patterns, atmospheric conditions, and other variables.

To demonstrate the effectiveness of the approach, Guay showed an image made up of rows of in-game screenshots essentially forming a color palette, with time of day on one axis, and "storminess" on another axis, representing the full spectrum of skyboxes that the player will see with all the combinations of time and weather.

Unfamiliar Complexity

Another drawback is simply the complexity of the pipeline and tools. Putting the focus so much on systems and rules can be shocking to artists, who are accustomed to much more straightforward, linear art tools.

"It's not always clear what the parameters actually do in the simulation," he said.

On that same note, "the guy with the great idea for procedural data not necessarily the guy with the right mindset to make the tools," Guay added. The Far Cry 2 team dealt with this by setting up teams that paired those "idea people" with technical staff capable of executing on the ideas.

Still, despite the improvements over early development, he said there is still a lot of room to improve the tools.

With most elements of the game, the amount of time spent on developing and refining tools was vastly greater than the amount of time spent on actually developing and refining the underlying engine. In the case of the environmental tools, 15 times more time was spent on the tools rather than the engine. The only exception was the skybox tools and engine -- which points to the team's difficulties in that area.

Another hurdle was that "everything depended on programmers," since such a great deal of the game's assets depended on underlying algorithmic systems that had to be programmed.

In the end, it took about three years for the asset pipeline for the vegetation system to reach a state where it was considerd "mature and flexible," after an eight-month prototype period.

A Testing Nightmater

Procedural content can also be "a testing nightmare," Guay noted.

When a team member made a seemingly minor after-hours change to the ecosystem, it ended up increasing the asset density of the game world by 25 percent -- resulting in more than a few headaches.

"If I'm tweaking a jungle procedurally, maybe I'll just tweak it in my test map," Guay said. "But when I integrate it into the game, somewhere in the 50 square kilometer game world, maybe in just three small areas, it might cause problems, and we won't find those problems until QA uncovers them."

Still, there are ways to mitigate those problems, such as automated information gathering that searches for discrepancies in performance, memory validity, and other areas. Towards the end of the project, the team also locked generation to stabilize the world.

Looking Forwards

Though he said he was loathe to delve too deep into predicting the future, Guay did try to extrapolate some general development trends that will affect procedural content.

Amount of content in games, he said, is increasing at an exponential rate, just as team sizes are increasing more linearly. Complexity of tasks, he said, are fortunately increasing more linearly.

"I still have some long-term fears," he said. He painted a picture of a potential future where these kinds of procedural systems have improved to the point where games can run essentially complete physical simulations, where items must actually be built according to real-world physics and architectual principles.

This would then begin to make it harder and harder to "significantly, or usefully, change the game content during production," he said, particularly if it means teams must start working with trained architectural engineers.

"Processes sound like the silver bullet," he said, referring to the idea of "failing early and failing often," with the aim that more and more mistakes can be pushed into pre-production so that by the time production begins, very few mistakes and changes are made. This idea comes from film, Guay said, where the production process is much more quantified and defined than it is in game development.

"But I think we need to preserve the idea of making changes during game production," he said, claiming there is a fundamental difference between a linear medium like film and an interactive one like games, noting that the role of creative leads during production depends on the ability to keep making changes.

"The bottom line here is that I'm not trying to say creating content procedurally is... the [only] solution, but it's an interesting avenue," Guay summarized, noting that a highly systemic attitude to asset creation can preserve the important game development property of allowing for important creative changes throughout the whole production process. In conclusion, he added, "After working on Far Cry 2 I'm interested in taking it further."

[This piece originally appeared on big sister game business site Gamasutra - don't forget to visit, check out the jobs, and subscribe to the RSS.]

[Sister console download site GamerBytes (psst, RSS it!) is continuing to very efficiently preview the XNA Community Games, following Part 1 and here's Ryan Langley with a look at another set of the indie/hobbyist titles launching with NXE in the next few hours.]

Today we bring you the second set of XNA Community Games that are gearing up for tomorrow's release of the New Xbox Experience.

There's 10 more games to look through here . It appears that over 30 games will be available on Community Games at NXE launch now - so think of these posts as a helpful shopping guide when searching through every single Community Game available.

The next update will include not only the final selection of XNA Community Games, but GamerBytes' top games that you should really consider buying. It's going to be a very big market - get ready to swim through it all.

Poker Ball

Creator: MarkcusD
Genre: Card & Board
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: Poker Ball takes the essence of Arkanoid and plugs Poker hands into the mix. The last 5 cards you've hit pop up in the side bar and you get an additional score based on the hand you get. Sounds good in theory, but Arkanoid is such a random game that even attempting to make a decent hand out of your cards isn't that achievable without a lot of chance on your side.

Video: Weapon of Choice: Strike Back Trailer

Weapon of Choice

Creator: MommysBest
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Feel like blowing stuff up? Than Weapon of Choice is for you. A hark back to the days of Contra and Metal Slug, WOC is perhaps the most game-like game out right now on XNA Community. Run around, blow stuff up, several different routes through the game, several different characters with their own unique weapons. Definitely give it a look.

Video: Beat IT!

Beat IT!

Creator: MonsuneMoon
Genre: Family
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: A multiplayer only game in which you play "Simon" with an Xbox 360 controller. The screen will tell you to do something - actions like twisting the analog stick or pressing the trigger buttons, and you've got to do it just before the timer runs out and the highest possible score value - it will also randomly tell you to switch players, while also getting faster and faster. Looks like the kind of game that'll get you laughing while you and your friends are drunk and barely comprehensible.

DUOtrix

Creator: Mo
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Think Tetris, but playing two games at once. Single blocks drop from the top and bottom of the screen to join up in the middle, but they could be different colors, causing all sorts of confusion. It's a little limited, it only has single player, but what's there is pretty decent.

Organon

Creator: DarthCheesiest
Genre: Shooter
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: A time based 3D-Space shooter where you've got to hit all the coloured squares in the level as quickly as possible. Not bad looking, but I felt the controls were not very well suited to the Xbox controller. I'd rather be able to move around like other shooters, and use the triggers to push forwards and backwards with thrust.

Video: Bad Atom: Episode 1 (Dream Build Play 2008 Preview)

Bad Atom Episode 1

Creator: kstrat2001
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: Bad Atom has you flying around a sphere, where you're always aiming towards the middle. You've got to maneuver your ship around the environment to shoot the red baddies with the blue and the blue with the red. It's pretty difficult to understand what's going on, but they've attempted to put in a bit of a story in there.

Video: Abstacked

Abstacked

Creator: lutas
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: Abstacked is another drop down puzzle game where you connect objects together. The hook is that you cannot remove the stars normally - you can only do so by putting two of the same shape on opposite sides of the stars. Nice idea, but the presentation is really poor on this one. Drab, stretched presentation with little or no audio makes it a fairly ugly game.

Video: Endless Swarm Trailer

Endless Swarm

Creator: Andrew Thayer
Genre: Shooter
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Think Missile Command meets Desktop Tower Defense. You set up your laser and other cannons at the bottom of the screen, point them in a certain direction, keep them alive by healing them, and make sure the oncoming swarms don't take down your two factories. An interesting take on DTD games. Give it a go and see if you can get your mind around it.

Tail Gun Charlie

Creator: Duckocide
Genre: Shooter
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Charlie Chatsworth must shoot things in order to win. Plays like you're playing Space Invaders from looking at the bottom. Aiming seems to be pretty difficult and honestly did not have a lot of fun with this.

Video: UAV Wars - Xbox 360 Community Game

UAV Wars

Creator: Some Call Me Tim
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: You are a space ship shooting other space ships. The aiming is difficult as you need to judge vertical space as well. You also hear the sound of a lawnmower the entire time of playing. Just not really that much fun.

[We have a couple of people in situ at the Montreal Game Summit this week, and kicking things off, Mathew Kumar sat in on Warren Spector's opening keynote - some interesting, and happily somewhat optimistic things being said here.]

As the opening keynote for the fifth Montreal International Game Summit, celebrated game designer Warren Spector (Deus Ex) had to live up to his own legacy.

Origin and Looking Glass veteran Spector, whose Junction Point development studio is now owned by Disney, recalled a pessimistic talk he gave at the summit in 2005, "Gaming in the Margins," where he discussed industry challenges, from new hardware to increased media scrutiny -- and turned out to be "pretty much wrong about everything."

"The positives are all still positive and the negatives aren’t so bad," said Spector at the keynote. "Maybe it was because I was an independent developer struggling to survive, while now I'm in a corporation [Disney] which smooths things out -- or maybe I was just plain wrong."

Yet he admitted that thanks to the current economic downturn, "things have changed."

"Lots of companies are in trouble, and many of my friends have been laid off," Spector revealed. "So it in bad taste to be happy about how the industry is doing?"

But, he suggests: "I am still optimistic in the way I wasn't three years ago and haven't been in a really long time. We are still in a sort of renaissance, and we really can be the medium of the 21st century."

Knocked Down, Will Get Up Again

"Taking the long view, this current downturn will pass," Spector continued. "There are new audiences to find, new businesses will thrive. I know this may sound strange to you, but I was never really convinced that games were going to survive -- I was always sure that one day we'd become a niche product like comics. But I no longer believe that's possible, not until some medium comes along that no one in this room can even imagine."

"I may be known to hate MMOs," the Deux Ex co-creator laughed, "but compared to other mediums they’re some of the best entertainment value you can get. Even a sixty dollar game usually offers more value than a sixty dollar date..."

Though Spector feels that creativity and innovation are healthy in the industry even in the current downturn, he still warned that it was something that still needed to be argued for.

"The reality is that in tough times, most people get conservative," he said. "We need a renewed ‘pioneer spirit’."

How Pioneer Spirit Works In Games

Previous generations of developers were scientists, Warren said, noting early designers such as Ralph Baer. Next came the explorers -- early creatives such as Shigeru Miyamoto and Richard Garriott -- and then the settlers, developers such as Blizzard and Rockstar.

Considering himself part of the "settlers" group of developers from his time at Looking Glass, Spector said that this new, post-settling "pioneer" generation were the continuation of a story similar to that of the new world.

"If Richard Garriott is the person who discovered New York, then I'm like the first mayor of the city, the person who made it a place people wanted to live. The pioneers are the people leaving these settled areas to find the new frontiers."

"The most interesting thing to me,is that these guys in reinterpreting genres are not so much reinventing as turning things around completely," he continued, reasoning that this was a result of this new category of developers often being university educated and that many of them were women --"Thank god," he praised.

Considering a list of recent standout titles like Flow, Braid, Portal and Everyday Shooter, Spector said, "I don't know how anybody can look at the list on that screen and not feel positive about our future."

And this kind of creativity is infectious: "The amazing thing is that this isn't just independents who have this fever, the big companies do too," he said, referencing titles including LittleBigPlanet and Rock Band.

"Am I the only one to be excited to see EA create five new IPs this year? Rock on, EA!" he pronounced, to a chorus of applause.

The Road To Greatness Is Long

With all of this good news, Spector’s call to a renewed pioneer spirit could have seemed untimely, but he argued that "we’re not done yet."

"We're barely anywhere figuring out this medium. We don't just create commodities; we build communities and we create cultures. Sadly, to me, the cultures we have largely created are ‘nerd’ cultures."

Not trying to be offensive, Spector claimed a "card-carrying, D&D playing nerd heritage" but demanded an industry that offers more than just "adrenaline-fueled fantasies."

"How many games are you going to work on in your career?" he asked the audience. "If you're lucky you'll be a key creative force on some of them, so what are you going to offer the gamers that play your game? Hopefully something more than ‘I killed another alien today.’"

With this in mind, Spector began to reel of a list of areas where gaming remained deficient. These ranged from a need to put players more in control of stories, through better virtual characters ("usually the only interesting character is the one holding the controller!"), and the feeling that most conversation systems had barely moved on from the "Name, Job, Bye" system used in the early Ultima titles.

Spector urged: "We need to create better tools to offer more than just the fantasy of pulling a trigger."

In addition, developers needed to think of their game spaces as worlds rather than simply sets. "We create movie sets because it’s easier for us, not because it’s better for the player. If we claim we’re about interactivity, let’s prove it." However, he was quick to note that this did not mean all games had to be sandboxes.

The Team's The Thing

Of course, game developers need ways to foster this kind of innovation, and in Spector’s mind, working with a like-minded team was key.

He recalled: "The day before we went beta on System Shock, all of a sudden the (in-game) security cameras were tracking the player as they walked around. I screamed at the team ‘how can you add something like that this late in the game?’ but as I went into my office, I was ecstatic. You want your team to do things like that, to take chances and work hard on making the game the best it can be within a defined vision."

To ensure this, Spector recommended small teams ("You don't need much structure, communication is easier") that designers be open to change ("you have to believe in your goals, but you can't be married to a particular way of achieving those goals") and to learn to "fail often, but fail quickly."

"Having the time to focus and fix what is wrong is important. I used to call alpha stage ‘the game is finished but it sucks,’ and that is so wrong."

Concluding, Spector reiterated his points one last time: "Publishers, don't get conservative. If you're an independent developer, swing for the fences -- I see too many independents whose works look like portfolio pieces -- and if you work for an established developer, be an agent for change.... We can never satisfied with the status quo."

Well, another GameSetLinkDump, and I'm rapidly coming to the conclusion that there are too many links in the world. But hey, I'm having fun distilling them, and throwing them in your direction - especially if they involve Claymation, something that games do all too seldom.

Also hanging out in here - weird Space Invaders insanity, the return of the delightful Boyer in conjunction with those wacky Boing Boing folks, discussions on good E rated games getting ignored, GameRanger vs. Dungeon Keeper 2, and lots more.

Woo hah:

Boing Boing Offworld launches! - Boing Boing
Hurray, my buddy and former colleague Brandon Boyer springs into eclectogame action to launch Boing Boing's new game blog, with launch ad support from Intel - should be neat, eclectic stuff.

State of the Shoot ‘Em Up | Edge Online
Good piece on shmups from the print version of Edge.

ARGNet: An Interview with JC Hutchins: Personal Effects
More from PixelVixen707's daddy.

The Brainy Gamer: The big ignore
'Let's say you're interested in finding a good E-rated game (evaluated by the ESRB as appropriate for "Everyone")' Good points on the _good_ family games sometimes getting ignored.

Cletus Clay official dev blog
Oo, claymation game return of alert - sister site IndieGames has more.

Between Video Game Download - Jason Rohrer Games' New Between - Esquire
On Esquire.com? Intemeresting - see Bogost's analysis on Gamasutra for more details.

Nintendo > Science « Vancouver Game Design
'There are so many benefits to playing games already that it confuses me as to why Nintendo feels they need to lie in order to attract new gamers.' Wuhwoh!

GDN: GameRanger Helps you Scout out Competition
Yes, player matching for Dungeon Keeper 2, modernized for your pleasure! Very odd, cool - via AHandy.

Kotaku: 'Feature: Composing The Soundtrack To Blizzard's World'
Wow, sumptuous Blizzard soundtrack insanity, neat.

YouTube - Space Invaders Anime Music Video
Crazy 30th anniversary insanity - via Brandonn.

[We don't tend to crosspost most industry-related stories from Gamasutra, but in this case, Leigh Alexander has uncovered something pretty concerning and biz-relevant -- alleged wage-fixing in the closely knit Montreal game development community -- and so, since I know a lot of developers read GSW...]

Industry sources often claim that certain kinds of "truces" between game studios are fairly commonplace.

For example, competitors might occasionally agree not to hire one another’s talent for the duration of a given project, to help each other retain staff when all hands are needed on deck.

But a correspondence obtained by Gamasutra suggests that some Montreal-based companies may be attempting to collude on salary caps, under the auspices of benefiting the economics of the industry in a given region – and at the expense of competitive wages for development staff.

According to a scan of an internal email that we translated from French, human resources director Flavie Tremblay -- when employed by Eidos in June 2007 -- reached out to fellow Montreal publisher Ubisoft to propose just such a collaboration.

"As you know, there are more and more important players in the Montreal industry, and the well of our resources is limited," wrote Tremblay, herself a former Ubisoft employee, to Francis Baillet, as she welcomed him to the role of human resources vice president at Ubisoft.

"I sincerely believe that a collaboration would eventually allow us to better provide for our needs in forming a workforce, and avoid a bid for higher wages which would only benefit the employee, and which would end up harming the industry in the long term," Tremblay’s message continued.

"I know that all of us face the challenge of employee retention, but I sincerely believe that salary augmentation does not represent a long term solution. Let me know if you are interested in an eventual discussion. I believe that [Montreal-based] A2M will probably be interested; then, we’d only have EA left to convince."

Electronic Arts did, in fact, verify that it received a correspondence from competitors in Montreal similar to the one obtained by Gamasutra. But the company declined to provide any further details, neither to show us the correspondence nor to confirm the company or individual that sent it.

When approached by Gamasutra for comment on this story, EA Montreal vice president and general manager Alain Tascan called the letters "troubling."

"Colluding with competitors to restrict salaries in Montreal appears unethical and definitely contradicts EA’s core values," Tascan said. "EA is currently reviewing records to affirm our understanding that no representatives from our company participated in the meetings referenced in these letters, and that no one from EA colluded with competitors to restrict employee salaries."

Notably, Tremblay’s correspondence was written prior to the public launch of Eidos’ Montreal studio. According to claims from Gamasutra sources, Tremblay composed and sent the email in question on her own initiative and without the support of executives at Eidos. The company allegedly dismissed Tremblay some months after she sent the email.

However, there is no confirmation of how or whether Ubisoft or A2M responded to Tremblay's invitation, the status of any discussions or whether any such agreement was put into place.

Following her dismissal from Eidos, Tremblay has since returned to Ubisoft, and according to public information, is currently Ubisoft’s human resources manager.

Tremblay’s original memo -- independently verified by Gamasutra as being legitimate -- was also recently leaked onto the web, and the timing of the leak appears significant – it is, after all, over a year old.

According to Eidos Montreal’s official website, the studio held an open house to attract new talent on November 15 – the same time frame that Tremblay’s memo (which lists her as an Eidos employee) first surfaced and roused suspicions, making it possible the leak is another tactic in the region's recruitment wars.

Today also marks the kickoff of the Montreal International Games Summit, which aims to bring public and media attention to the games industry in Quebec and address the interests of its workers.

"Since EA opened a Montreal studio in 2003, we have fought a legal battle for an open employment policy that allows natural market forces to determine where people work and how much they are compensated," EA Montreal’s Tascain said.

"These letters are especially troubling given the generous support that the Quebec Government and taxpayers have provided to help these companies create jobs in the region."

Gamasutra attempted to contact all parties involved for further comment on this story. Ubisoft declined to comment or address questions on this matter, calling the issue "rumor and speculation," and Gamasutra was not able to reach either A2M or Eidos Montreal to obtain an official comment as of press time.

[Over at our sister console digital download site GamerBytes, Ryan Langley is taking an early look at the Xbox Live Community Games scheduled for launch in a couple of days time, and I'm really intrigued already - here's his roundup of the first ten or so.]

In just two days, the "New Xbox Experience" will be downloaded by millions of Xbox 360 users, and with that comes the XNA Community Games section, showcasing indie and hobbyist titles which will cost 200-800 points ($2.50-$10) to download.

Those who have been lucky enough to get into the NXE preview have been able to check out the current crop of XNA titles, with new games popping up everyday. For the few days left before it's released we'll be looking at each title that pops up, and and give you a little overview of each from the trial.

Today we look at ten titles to show up on the service - each of which has a timed, free demo. Some are good, some are bad, but it's all a part of seeing what can be done with just a couple of guys (or gals) in a short amount of time.

In some case, it seems like the creators got quickly bored with the project and released it anyway, but most of the initial XNA Community Games titles are interesting, and show what kinds of games can be made with XNA and the Xbox 360.

Culture

Creator: XNA Prod 001
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: During the trial mode, you are only able to play the "paint by Numbers" mode, which allows you to fill out a painting with flowers. The actual game is more like this - surrounding weeds with flowers. Why they didn't add that as the trial mode makes no sense to me. Is there a fun game here? Difficult to determine.

Cubage

Creator: Louis Ingenthron
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: This is exactly what it looks like. You want a Rubik's Cube program? You've got yourself a Rubik's Cube program.

Fruit Attack

Creator: ScrumThorax
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Essentially, Fruit Attack is a clone of Sega's classic Columns game, except with Fruit. It certainly does that job, and has a two player mode. It keeps your highest score but has no sort of scoreboard system, which is a little disappointing. I'd say its main drawback is just how bland the setting is. Brown wood backgrounds, plain fruit graphics... You need to have a bit more fun with your game creation!

Video: SpaceCombat - Xbox Live Community Game

SpaceCombat

Creator: cilcoder
Genre: Shooter
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: SpaceCombat is a very simple, cel-shaded space shooter. Its hook is that it has online multiplayer for up to 8 players for only 200 Points. Unfortunately I found the control scheme to be a little confusing and the choice of cel-shading makes it difficult to understand just how far away you are. If it can build up a community it might be fun.

Video: Being Trailer

Being

Creator: Chounard
Genre: Platformer
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: Being is a very simple platforming game. The entire point is just to get through its 4 or so levels. You can't attack - you're simply avoiding everything, grabbing keys and coins, and completing the level. It's the only 2D platformer of the bunch, and despite its rather mundane graphics, it reminds me of a few 1990 shareware titles I used to play. I did end up buying Being, and for the half an hour to an hour it took to finish it I had fun.

Fuel Depot 360

Creator: Interstellar
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: Fly your space craft around, and shoot the bad guys before they take all of your fuel barrels away. Did you ever have Wario Ware Touched and unlocked Pyoro-T? It's vaguely like that, I guess. Simple premise, but I feel it doesn't control all that well and figuring out what's going on is a little difficult.

Word Soup

Creator: Fuzzy Bug
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Word Soup is actually based off of a popular parlor game in Great Britain called Word Up - a simple "skill with prizes" game which you can win back a small amount of money if you play well. You simply find words within the grid and are graded based off of how well you did in 3 or so minutes. No winning money here, but if you're looking for a way to bone up on your knowledge of words this would be the place to do it.

Drift

Creator: Polychrome
Genre: Other
Price: 400 Points

Trial Play: Specifically tells you that "this is not a game". A collection of ambient screen savers. I don't think it's worth the 400 Points to be honest.

Video: Bloc

Bloc

Creator: Metacreature Games
Genre: Action & Adventure
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: A shooter that is more complex than it looks. You move around the screen as a ball of color. You rotate the ball around to change the direction the colors are facing, and then shoot said colors using the buttons of the controller. It's an interesting concept which might be worth your money. It does have cooperative play where each player controls two colors, so it might be good to get you and your girlfriend playing.

Lines

Creator: EdAndersenUK
Genre: Puzzle & Trivia
Price: 200 Points

Trial Play: This may look like a Lumines knockoff at first, but let me assure you it isn't. It's really a mix between it and Q? Entertainment's other title Gunpey - you have to set up several blocks together, but also put the line within each block next to another, like Pipe Dream. Connecting 5 together will cause them to disappear, and you can set up combos and the like.

My main concern is that you can royally screw yourself very easily - just set up two facing L blocks on the bottom and you'll never be able to get rid of them. I'm guessing that's why this game hasn't really been attempted before.

The game has online leaderboards as well - but instead of it being automatically updated, you have to go to edngames.com and put in your password. Unfortunately, it's the only way you can do it within the infrastructure.