Hobbies:
Outside of playing games, I enjoy many different creative activites, such as woodworking or painting, and more mechanical activities, such as auto or computer repair. I enjoy trying something new, especially if it involves building or making in some way.
Items of Interest:
- Birdmen and the Casual Fallacy by Sean Malstrom
This take on the current “casual boom” really confirmed some things that I’ve been thinking for a long while now. Much of the time, people assume that things are black and white, ignoring the shades of gray. The same principle applies here, where while there is a perceived difference between the “casual” and “hardcore” gamers, the groups are not really separate entities. In the end everyone is more spread out than can be assumed by those two terms, as there are people that are on the upper and lower end of each, merging them together, creating a new classification of the “casual-core” gamers.
Favorite Games:
- The Legend of Zelda: ( Twilight Princess, A Link to the Past, Windwaker )
Zelda is the first series that I ever played and basically has grown up with me. Rather than continuing to innovative along its entire run, the series has changed things in bits and pieces, trying things and succeeding or failing, but always learning from itself. Not only is it the basis for a simple, interesting storyline, but it also gave me a strong example of how iteration affects gameplay and the fun factor of games. Particularly, the Windwaker and Twilight Princess both attempted, and succeeded in a fashion, to push the series into new directions, the Windwaker with its graphical style, and Twilight Princess with its older, more mature take on the classic story.
- Okami
Despite not bringing overly much innovation to the genre, Okami deserves mention in my mind for blending its art style into its setting and its mechanics. Working from setting to mechanics is something that I very much approve of and something I feel that makes building immersing, believable worlds much easier. Specifically, the use of the celestial brush as one of your main ways to interact with the world flows directly from the characters and makes sense from the perspective of the world.
- Half Life 2 (and its episodes)
The Half Life series is another set of games that inspire with their sense of history and narrative. The games feel like they grew organically, making you unsure if they were planned in their entirety or were kind of made up on the fly. It also stands as one of the few story driven First Person Shooters, making use of the silence of its main character to allow the player to enter the shoes of Freeman and his fight to save humanity, which is very reminiscent of early RPGs.
- Portal
This game, in my mind, proved that a game can be short and also very appealing to gamers. Portal combined the unique, a strange puzzle first person shooter, with the depth of the Half Life universe, creating an interesting game all around. The fact that it was basically built originally by graduates from my college is another thing that makes me respect it, since it gives me a glimpse of what I might one day accomplish in the industry.
- Tales of Vesperia and Tales of the Abyss
This series, and in particular the two games listed here are among those that have most effected my focus and goals in design. Particularly unique in that these are large scale RPGs that have real time battle systems, but more importantly are playable by up to four players at once. The ability to play with each other in this setting allows for tactics and learning about fellow players. On the developer end, designers are given lots of freedom to make interesting characters that play well as AI, but also mesh well together if they are all being played by humans. This offers unique opportunities such as being able to take advantage of real time positioning, combos, and other thing that are are only viable by human interaction.
This ability to bring people together in one room to play was once rather prevalent, but became less so at the advent of the online gaming era in the late 90’s. It has since enjoyed a resurgence with games like Rock Band and to some extent Left 4 Dead, though that is more about cooperative play, which also factors into that experience.
- Dungeons and Dragons 3.5
Perhaps rather obvious, and rather a staple for most of those in the design profession, Dungeons and Dragons represents not only itself, but the entirety of the Tabletop Roleplaying genre, as something that formed the person and designer, that I am today. Dungeons and Dragons is here specifically because it is the first game of its kind that I played. The wealth of different types of Roleplaying Games to be found stands as a testament to what we can do in the games industry. If they have had this many things to write about and let the players imagine, how many more things should we be able to do in the unlimited canvas we call video games?
On the other side of things, Tabletop Games are where I began to come out of my shell, changed my personality, and helped me to become the easy to work with and interesting person I’ve become today. They can take the introverts and change them into extroverts, and build friendships that we might never otherwise be able to construct. Another benefit, especially for me, was simple being immersed in a setting with bound rules and mechanics, and weaving a story from them. This is the place many started down this path, and I think the imagination it provides will always make it so.