Ars has a great review on the conversion of the popular board game Catan Junior.
It was at this point that Owen came to the realization that he had accidentally cornered the market on wood. His stockpile was enormous, and only three additional wood remained in the marketplace for all the other players to compete for. Owen was suddenly a very popular person, the youngest lumber magnate in northern Illinois. Owen and William both began to haggle mercilessly with Teagan and Jeff.
The kids simply lit up over the game. I talked a bit with Jeff after the game was over about how he felt the kids took to the game. “I enjoyed it. It allowed me a lot of opportunities to get them to start to think about (consequences). I think continued play will reinforce the next level thinking.”
Your phones when it is up or down, left or right all thanks to an accelerometer in the device. But what exactly is an accelerometer? Here’s a short video answering that very question and it’s even cooler than you think it is!
In many ways the gaming industry can learn from the film industry and game trailers are a great example of an area that game developers should be taking notes.
When studios drop insanely huge amounts of money on making movies that will inevitably be bad they spend potentially even more money on advertising it. A good trailer communicates what to expect in the final product, this is true for films and games. The problem is that there is no clear formula for a good trailer and Hollywood regularly messes things up.
When trailers are bad it means that the film is a) bad or b) not going to be watched by people. The best example of this is for the movie John Carter, take a look at this trailer and try to figure out what the movie is about.
A trailer needs to tell its own story and ideally doesn’t give away too much of the overall story of the movie/game. The key is also to make sure that the caliber of the game and trailer match up, this is similar in concept to how movie trailers have a different feel based on the genre.
Dead Island’s trailer was apparently way better than the game and this disconnect led to great disappointment for some players.
When it comes to genres there are tons of trailers that use the style of one sort of trailer to make a movie appear the opposite to what is. My favourite one of these has to be the Shining remade into a romantic comedy.
So at the end of the day how does one go about actually making a trailer for their game that respects the above? Fortunately for you somebody has created the ultimate guide to making a video game trailer and it’s really good.
This is the TL;DR from the guide:
Capture High Quality Gameplay Footage
Set aside at least a full day to capture your footage.
It takes a long time to capture good gameplay “moments”.
Use High quality software and capture with as little video compression as possible.
Engage and Entertain your Audience
Don’t think of your trailer as an ad, because you’ll focus on too many things
Make something entertaining, and focus on one core aspect of your game
Resist the urge to show off every feature and aspect of the game
Ensure the quality level and tone of your trailer matches your game
Tease the viewer that what they’ve seen is only a glimpse of what’s to come
Don’t overwhelm the viewer with information
Don’t give too much away
Keep your trailer Short (under 90 seconds), Simple, To the point.
Create a story with your trailer
Give it a beginning, middle and end.
Try to treat your trailer like a very short film.
Give your trailer structure, and build to some sort of payoff or resolution at the end.
The amount of data that’s out in the world is absolutely amazing and the problem is becoming less about getting the data than it is about understanding it. It’s great to see projects like the one below that follows 300,000 Norwegians move around Norway and beyond based off of tax return information.
Every time I see something like this I can’t help but think about how to get data like this into video games in a meaningful way.
Created over “a couple of months of evenings after putting the kids to bed,” each person becomes a line on a 3-D map, explored through an ever-changing camera perspective. The effectiveness is in the subtlety: Rather than simply travel from point A to point B, each mover actually fades out as they reach their destination. And rather than showing us a full speed “Pachinko machine” of information, Westvang slows things down, crops, and curates the content.
A project I’m working on is based on/inspired by the world of high fashion and I’ve been trying to get up to speed on what “fashion” is all about. I’ve had some help in this process (hat tip to a ghost amongst others) and I think there’s some key things I feel I should note here.
The most recommended things to watch about fashion are documentaries, both set in New York (Paris plays a role too).
The first is Paris is Burning about the drag scene in the late 80′s. It’s interesting the connection of identity, class, race, and gender all intersecting around one event: “the Ball”.
The second is The September Issue about Anna Wintour and the making of the most important issue of the year for Vogue magazine. Wintour is the considered to be the god of the fashion world and she has the power to make or break someone’s career in the industry; she also has a reputation of having a cold heart.
That idea of the cold heart is better captured in the fictional tale The Devil Wears Prada. This movie actually covers the only story that the fashion world (or at least its followers who aren’t in the industry) seem to want to listen to: “ugly/ unfortunate” woman accidentally gets a job at a fashion magazine/house/company and everyone thinks she’s incompetent, then she proves herself to her coworkers and gets tied up in the industry. The story ends with the now-competent and well-dressed woman realizing that the fashion world is a shame and inner beauty is what really counts (but looking good still helps).
This has been true for every fictional fashion movie I’ve seen except maybe Zoolander.
It’s also worth posting this amazing product that can revolutionize the fashion industry.
Here’s another fun video exploring why men’s fashion TV shows pale in comparison to female-focused ones.
After going through this exploration of the popular conception of what fashion is and represents I’ve really come to terms with what interests me most is the eye for design. The next step for me is understanding the design choices made and I think that’ll be more interesting.
