Game Idea #1: Be the artist, tell the story.

**this is the first game idea I came up with I hope to continue like this for a while.
Please comment about it if you want, add something to it in the comment section.

Game Idea #1: Be the artist, tell the story.
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High Concept:
I based this concept on the La Linea shorts. This series of small episodes (3-5 min) had a whining protagonist who kept demanding, the creator of his world, to draw something on screen to help him go through his day. In this game, the player will be the creator and help the character on screen to achieve his journey.

Platform:
Nintendo DS

Why it needs to be made:
This game focuses on players input to create a short story. Players want to be part of the games and create stuff with the emergence of user created content this game will let them use their imagination and see what happens with their input (drawings)

Description:
This game will be in 2D and plays on the horizontal plane. It will consist of many little levels each telling a story about the character's day. The user will have to draw on screen when the character on screen needs help to accomplish a task such as walking over a hole in the scenery, interacting with a character, cutting down a tree in the way. The world will be really minimalistic consisting of a couple of lines only and players will have to use their imagination to make something out the every situation.

Why it will be fun:
Creating stories with different outcomes everytime the player replays the game since he can draw many different things to help the character. Become an artist by drawing something on screen that will come to life.

Final thoughts:
I believe choices in games and user created content are the keys to creating great games that will be played by many. This game lets players be artist. Anybody can draw a line, a cloud, etc...

Game ideas every week

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update: i didnt read about all his ideas (only 4)... so I would not be scared to create a game to close to one of his ideas...
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I just read Patrick Curry's blog on the 52 Games idea, http://www.patrickcurry.com/thoughts/?page_id=67 .

He designed 52 games in 52 weeks and I think this is a great and challenging thing to do as a designer. Great way to toy with your imagination.

I'm gonna try it and see what I can come up with ... it will be fun.

will begin this week or at the worst next week.

;)

Almost a year in California already!

Viva California!

I've been in Los Angeles for a year already and it has been a great experience.
This year passed by so fast... it blows my mind how so many things happened in a year and it feels like I've been here only a couple of months.
Maybe its the fact that I had no winter season at all or the fact that so many things are to be done here which screws with my mind and makes me believe we're still in summer of last year or something.

We took advantage of all the free time we had to explore our new state, every weekend we had a blast doing something new or meeting with our new Quebecois friends from LA...

There are so many things to be done around here : Beaches everywhere, attraction parks, movie studios, beautiful cities to visit (san diego, santa barbara, newport, long beach, Las Vegas, San Francisco,...), playing volleyball with friends all year long, meeting people from Quebec living in LA from so many different backgrounds and line of work is so cool, interesting and different to me makes me enjoy this new life that I lived in the last couple of months.

The fact that I missed the worst winter ever in Quebec makes me feel happier about my decision to come to California :) What a great way of escaping the worst snow storms ever than to come here and live in the almost eternal sunshine !! Great experience and great choice.

Im not going home for a while just yet ;) Going back to Las Vegas this weekend to play and enjoy the great show 'O' from Cirque du Soleil! Going to Hawaii soon ... why not since I'm so close to these marvelous islands with Volcanoes, enormous waves and paradise setting :)

the only thing I dont like here is... the fact that I have no credit, no car and the bus system here is kinda bad, but cheap. oh yeah ... and I miss my friends who are freezing in Quebec...poor people :P

Ill enjoy the rest of this dream and hopefully I'll never wake-up!!!!

TV Shows

I've been following a couple of interesting tv shows lately and i want a talk about them.
if you dont know them you can take a look at some of them online on their respected tv network website.

Terminator :The Sarah Connor Chronicles (FOX)
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This is a follow up to the Terminator movies (after the second one I believe).

The story takes place a couple of years before the Judgment Day (4 years) and tells us the story of John and Sarah Connor trying to stop the evil robot company to be built (i forgot the name).

Whats interesting in the series is that you really get to know who the characters are and the writers did a good job of developping them a lot more than the movies. They explain their background, their skills and they really interact in a real world settings. John, Sarah and Cameron (friend robot) dont really run away (unlike the movies), but they attack, they have strategies and they investigate to find out how to prevent the Judgement Day and who is responsible for it.

There is a lot of action that hook you up, but we can see that John and Sarah are human too and not only some kinda of mercenaries. The writers show us that Cameron wants to become human or be part in their life and she doesnt like to be "just" a robot.

I followed the series closely and I'm kinda sad who it ended ... i hope they will do a follow up cuz otherwise it would be sad end to a great series.

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Eli Stone (ABC)
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Eli Stone is a great new tv series. I heard about it during the first Lost episode of this season and the trailer was weird and for some reason I wanted to see more.

Eli is a winning attorney in a well-known lawfirm and for some reason (i wont spoil) he gets some weird hallucinations during his normal day. He sees things no one can see and everybody around him are usually acting in his visions and he reacts to them, but obviously once they end, he ends up looking like a fool in front of everybody.

His visions are clues to solving some cases he has to take otherwise they wont stop... would he be a prophet ?

Once again, character development is awesome, story is interesting and unusual for a tv show in today's "im afraid of something new" tv format.

I dont know how it does in ratings but I'm following it every week and i hope it gets picked up for another season. I showed it to other people who are listening to it now even though they didnt see the first episodes.

Plus every episode is a new case and trial so you dont reaaally have to see the first episodes.

Watch it cuz its good and new !

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Lost (ABC)
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Yeah of course Im following Lost ... well I was before they decided to "pause" the season again and show me the rest only in late April... :(

This season could be really interesting, but its so long and nothing much happens in each episode... it seems that the hooks they had before after each episode was once good but now its ...oh all right this might happen next...then during the next episode they only do so much...

anyways this year is kinda boring... less boring than the Heroes second season though!

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Two and a 1/2 Men
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Really funny show (fourth season i think) ... always makes me laugh ... Charlie Sheen is so funny.

new episodes started last week ... YES!

San Francisco : Feb 15 -19

I was in San Francisco for a vacation trip from February 15 to 19. It was my first time there so I had a lot of places to visit.

I really enjoyed the city which looks a lot like some European cities in the mountains.
Everything is close together, you can walk everywhere, but the bus system is great and kinda cheap (reuse your ticket throughout the day) so no real reason to walk long distances if you can't climb those streets. They also have a great metro system that you can take to go from SF airport to Oakland, San Jose and further north which is great if you want to visit the towns in the area.

My hotel was in the Fishermans Warf area which is mostly where the attractions are and its a good place to wander around with all those little restaurants with products from the fishermans day.

I biked the golden gate bridge which is a fantastic way to discover the bridge, the fort museum and the towns beyond the bridge. It was a long biking trip, but it was worth it for long term memories ;) The towns we visited were really charming with good restaurants, shops, beautiful houses and the view on the ocean was great.

we visited the golden bridge, chinatown, financial district, metreon, golden gate park, haight and ashbury area, fishermans Warf and market street area.

it was a great time spent there, but after 5 days it was time to come back to LA...nothing more to visit really after 3 days.

It so different than LA which is huge and cut by highways everywhere.

On the last day I was in the Metreon area and everyone had their GDC passes ... oh I wish I could get to the conferences ... maybe next year :(

I saw a lot of game developpers I knew in the streets of SF that last day.

Interesting town :)

No More Heroes (Wii)

I'll start by saying that No More Heroes is a must-play title not only because it's on the Wii and one of the only worth playing Wii titles so far (third party anyways), but because the concept is new, cool and retro.

Designer Suda 51 and his team have accomplished a great game with almost no comprimises from his own style and offers a game that is fun to play with a story that makes fun of the current state of the industry. Unlike his latest game, Killer 7, that was hard to get through without frustration and moments of "why are you doing this to me ?", No More Heroes his fun all the way and keeping the same kind of graphics that Killer 7 had which was a good element to it.

You are playing Travis Touchdown, who talks to the playing during the first moments of the game (kinda weird), who bought a lightsaber on the net and kills an assassin in the first moments of the game. Due to this action, he becomes the 11th assassin and gets in touch with an association of assassins which he needs to get on top of to become the top assassin.

You need to collect enough money to enter each assassination contest to become number 1. To do so you will have to accomplish some Jobs which consist of mini game such as "Get coconuts from trees", "Collect scorpions", "Wash grafittis", etc... and perform some smaller assassinations. These tasks are appreciated because it would have become repetitive if the game consisted of only killing the 10 assassins ahead of you.

You can ride around town using your over the top motorcycle to get to shops, your motel, Jobs, different collect missions and roll over some pedestrians. The town is mostly a way to get from one fight to another and is large enough for the purpose of the game.

Each fight you enter will have a different setting to run around killing minions, getting treasures along the way to the big fight ... the assassin. Each Assassin has a different pattern he will use to move and attack the player which is a great way for players to use their skills in a different way every fight and tends to be less repetitive than killing normal minions.

Suda 51 used a good control scheme using the Wii controller. To attack you will have to press 'A' to use your lightsaber, using the motion control only to perform finishing moves; and using 'B' to perform melee attack and grabs to accomplish a wrestling moves using the nunchuck and Wii controller. This scheme is a lot better, I believe, than having to move the controller all the time which would be tiresome and wouldn't give the same effect for finishing moves.

You will usually kill all enemies with finishing moves except for the main Assassins where Suda 51 is messing with the player by having a cinematic showing the last hit instead of letting the player do it himself. This is one of the ways, the designer messes with the player's mind during the game.

During the first 2 hours I thought killing all those guys was repetitive and would become boring, but I've played more and it became a game I couldn't stop playing because the story was good, the other weapons you'll buy offer any changes to the game that it's cool to watch yourself kill all these characters using moves out of Star Wars movie ;)

I loved the graphics that have a retro look found in the arcade era... icons, arcade game done for the game, Highscore board for top assassins, the music, etc ... all feel they were taken out of the 80s.

We can see he really enjoys playing around with players expectencies... during the story, but also at the end of the game where you have the choice of watching the "Ending", the "Real ending" or continue roaming around the city. Choosing the ending is quite unusual and they offer a different side of the story you'll see!

I think it was perfect to use the Wii to implement this game since its the first Mature game on the Wii, the best third party game they have and hopefully other will join in and make this console great for all kinds of gamers not only the casual ones, it offers a solid use of the Wii controller and its an artistic game found nowhere else.

hope you enjoy too.

Super Mario Galaxy - opinions

I finished Super Mario Galaxy last week and I got around 60 something stars...

I didn't play the last galaxy, I went for the final boss instead.

Overall I enjoyed the game, I wanted to get as many stars as I could on each planet to see how they made the new parts available to me to get the next star.

They usually used a clever way to use that planet's theme to get us around to new areas.

Unfortunately I couldnt get some of the stars cause I really hated the races against blue mario...too hard compared to normal levels and you had to be just perfect controlling Mario.



I like the fact that levels were short and it a couple of minutes I could get a new star and be proud of what I had accomplished plus I could save and quit right after that if I had to. It was kinda a reference to Super Mario Bros 3 (which is my favorite SMB game) by its short levels and the themes used and the disguises we can use.

By the way, I like some of the disguises like the bee, the ice skates, but I didnt enjoy the spring mario.

Making the worlds spherical was kinda cool and new, but was disorienting sometimes when enemies attacked you, your controls were switched or my mind couldnt understand which way to push the stick anymore.

Furthermore, the swimming levels were so painful to play because they messed up the controls so I didnt know how to go up or down and the camera was pretty much always looking in the wrong direction or located behind objects. Swimming in 3D has been done better in many games, but Mario will have a better one next time.

I like the design of the enemies and mostly the bosses which were really fun to play. The most fun I had was in the 2D levels where gravity changed throughout the area and you had to go through this new type of puzzle trying to figure out where Mario would fall next.

The last Bowser encounter was underwhelming compared to the rest of the game.

Overall its one of the best games this year and one of the best Super Mario games released so far. Innovation was the key and using the galaxy system gave them the freedom to pursue any silly level design they wanted to include.