Comments on: A lecture I just gave at Game Focus Germany.

By: flash game development

flash game development — Thu, 04 Sep 2008 10:06:40 +0000

I asked for a show of hands early on in the talk to see how many people were actually using Unreal, and it was a big fat zero.

By: Braid » Blog Archive » Another lecture, this time from Denmark.

Braid » Blog Archive » Another lecture, this time from Denmark. — Wed, 06 Feb 2008 06:45:18 +0000

[…] Braid Artful, Experimental and Expansive Games. « A lecture I just gave at Game Focus Germany. […]

By: Bernie

Bernie — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 11:59:27 +0000

Your lecture was very inspiring to me. I started looking for other lectures you gave and found the one you held in Melbourne about the “why” of game making as opposed to the “how”, and that really made me think. Do I actually want to go into the mainstream game industry at all? Probably all I’d be doing there is kind of lame, silly, and mainly uninspiring games. The only reason for going into that industry to me seems, to learn about the “how”. Which tools are best to use, which skill set is required etc. They could probably not tell me a lot about the why’s.
What do you think, (if I may ask)? Is it a good move to go into the mainstream business to learn about “hows”, Or should I just do that myself with all the knowledge that’s available online?

Finally, I wanted to point out this flash game “Samorost” to you. I think you would like it. (I really dig it.) Maybe you already know it. It’s like an adventure with beautiful graphics, lot’s of detail fotos from mushrooms and roots from the woods.
here:
http://amanita-design.net/samorost-2/

By: elias

elias — Fri, 01 Feb 2008 03:53:12 +0000

Awesome. Great lecture. I really agree with most of it, especially the stuff about “why create?” and “what is worth creating?” I absolutely think in those terms.

I think a happy medium must be found between the perfectionism/idealism that would always make you go back to the drawing board when you get close to finishing a game and decide you’d rather make a different game and the mentality of mechanically producing cookie-cutter games just to generate revenue. But I do think it needs to be a happy medium where the art is not lost.

Anyway, I just finished listening to the lecture part (haven’t listened to all the questions yet) and I just really felt like saying how much I liked it. Thank you. : )

By: Jonathan Blow

Jonathan Blow — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 16:35:58 +0000

Yes, well, that was part of what I was hoping to get at: as a beginner, programming is hard but design is easy, but that’s only because the overall skill level is low (so for example the quality bar for design is not very high yet).

It’s funny you say “their ideas work perfectly in their heads” because that is one of the main subjects of a new lecture I am giving tomorrow.

By: Tom

Tom — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 11:10:51 +0000

Again, great presentation. I like your thoughtful almost sketchy slides.. The sliding scale of barriers and difficulty curves between programming and design is an interesting one. Do you think that you need to overcome a number of difficult early technical barriers to realise that the design process is the hardest to hone? Or can you be aware of that even without overcoming the technical curve? Many of my students dont understand the difficulty in improving design because they lack the technical skills to implement their ideas, therefore their ideas work perfectly in their heads and dont need improving.

I also beleive that whereas programming can be elegant and architectural the results are usually judged on the surface, ie does the code perform as required. Design on the otherhand is closer to artistic intention/interpretation and therefore involves much more subjectivity. IMO this inevitably makes it harder to assess and improve.

However i still feel somewhat uncomfortable with the division between ‘programmer’ and ‘artist’, something i seem to routinely argue over with michale from tale of tales. Maybe as a programmer and artist I like to promote the rennaisance man ideal… i ramble … as always

By: Harold

Harold — Wed, 30 Jan 2008 08:35:18 +0000

Really funny to hear a game before seeing it! Really interesting (reverse sound, time shift omg!). btw, thanks again Jonathan for the sharing.

By: CoDi

CoDi — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 18:09:03 +0000

“I’m still not sure exactly what this lecture was about, but people seemed to like it all right.”

Haha! Well, even if you are not sure about what you were talking about, it was entertaining nontheless. 🙂 Catching a live two-minute glimpse of Braid was enough reason for me, but that’s a personal thing. I’m looking forward to its release, might even be the first game I pay for on XBLA.

I think your lecture was well placed right after Greg Costikyan’s keynote “The Independent Developer Shall Rise Again”. Overall, all the information about motivation, problems, advantages, pros & cons of indie development was probably the most interesting stuff I took from these two days. That and the free beer at the party.

By: Erik Franken

Erik Franken — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 07:36:23 +0000

“Please continue to post your lectures on your blog.”

I just wanted to second this, it’s very interesting and watching the powerpoint presentation with the audio as separate mp3 works rather well. Thanks for posting.

By: JP

JP — Sat, 26 Jan 2008 22:17:24 +0000

Jon: pretty much, the specific page with “We See Farther” on it:

http://gotcha.classicgaming.gamespy.com/We_See_Farther_Full_Small.jpg

is the one I was looking for, but I’m pretty sure the other page has some copy in common with it.

Regardless, what I find particularly inspiring about it is the way it implicitly ignores or breaks through the boundaries between artists and technical people, and likewise between art and entertainment.

Sadly, since then both of those divisions have widened and have come to define game design today, much like EA has abandoned the vibrant optimism of those early days.