Electron Dance Highlights
Charlie’s Shooting Spree
![[space phallus screenshot - sperm, dog's head]](http://www.electrondance.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/10/space-phallus-r.png "Space Phallus")
Charlie Knight's first successful game was an arena shooter called Bullet Candy. It made some money, attracted praise and propelled Charlie onto his next project, another shooter but more ambitious. This was five years ago.
“It was completely mouse controlled with a simple gesture system that worked by clicking the mouse and waving your hand about,” he tells me. “The actual gesture bit worked pretty well, but the game became too much for me to handle in the end."
The ambition proved to be the game's undoing. “I'd been programming a system whereby the game would learn how you played and which special attacks you preferred and would counteract by creating situations which forced you to use different powers or strategies. The problem was it grew ever more complex with every addition and, after two years, had grown into something that was out of control, that I'd never finish well.”
So what did he do? “I dropped it and wrote Space Phallus.”
Men of Science
While I was researching, writing and castrating myself over Where We Came From, I did manage to find time to work through the Portal 2 co-op campaign with prestigious Alliance of Awesome pal, Gregg B from Tap-Repeatedly.
So this week Gregg and I chat about the special, intimate moments we shared together - but first, here's a short video with scenes taken from our game. My intention here is not to demonstrate Portal 2 but capture the camaraderie of co-op play. I think it works and there's bound to be at least one scene that will bring a smile to your face:
HM: Right, I think we need to say something about the podcast-sized elephant in the room, our Portal 2 discussion on the Alliance of Awesome podcast. We were a bit down on this puppy, weren't we?
GB: Only in a small way, at least for such a great game.
HM: Yes I'm talking about the podcast that never got broadcast.
GB: Apparently it was my fault. Too quiet or something. Try telling that to the Gregg that played Portal 2 with Joel Goodwin.
HM: You're actually louder than me on that video. That's because my microphone only pumps out the left channel for reasons I still have not got to the bottom of.
GB: It's been such a long time since I played the original Portal but playing Portal 2's co-op mode made me realise what it was that I loved so much about it. In the original Portal it felt like I was walking into each chamber and all the puzzle pieces were there in front of me; it was just a case of me putting them together in the right way. With Portal 2's single player I sometimes felt like I was searching for the pieces as well as putting them together, namely those damn Portal-able surfaces.
HM: Yeah let's get our single-player grievances out in the open here, go all open kimono on this.
Tomorrow’s Promise
This is the eleventh article in the Where We Came From series.
At first there is nothing except the hot, orange glow of the toxic Fractalus atmosphere. A second later, ragged mountains and valleys fill the cockpit window and the player gasps.
Tomorrow, it appears, is already possible.
It Starts With George Lucas
While producing the original Star Wars trilogy, George Lucas felt physical model-based special effects were limiting and established the Lucasfilm Computer Division in 1979 to explore the application of computers to special effects work. State of the art hardware was not good enough for the challenges of the big screen so the division’s goal was to prepare for when technology had caught up with the ambition.
Then in 1982, Atari suggested Lucasfilm should diversify its business into video games. A partnership was forged in which Atari paid Lucasfilm $1M to fund the Computer Division's Games Group. In return, Lucasfilm would develop games for Atari’s platforms.
The Fukushima Syndrome, 2
This is the tenth article in the Where We Came From series.
Last week: Attempting to learn more about the ongoing crisis at the Fukushima Daiichi reactor, I study a complex simulation program that was released on the Atari 400/800 computer in 1981, SCRAM by Chris Crawford. I've read the manual and bought the T-shirt. Now it's time to show this reactor what I'm made of.
Atoms, apparently.
It's probably just me, but I like to visualise the process of nuclear fission as atomic sex. All it takes is just one neutron to penetrate the heart of an atom, to fertilise it. The fertilised atom divides into two and, in this orgasm of reproduction, fires more neutrons into the atomic void. These neutrons find other atoms to fertilise... and the reactor core becomes a vast, self-sustaining sex orgy.
But what happens if the orgy gets out of control? How do you stop nuclear reproduction? Obvious. Nuclear condoms.
The Fukushima Syndrome, 1
This is the ninth article in the Where We Came From series.
On March 11, 2011, a wall of water made an incursion on the Pacific coast of Japan, travelling six miles inland to erase 15,000 people and the places they lived.
The tsunami also attacked the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear power plant and took out its generators, leaving the reactor for dead. What followed was a desperate attempt to shut down the reactor's enraged metal heart in a battle that continues to this day. Fukushima is not Chernobyl but the environmental impact remains significant as radioactive material continues to leak from the site.
Friday Night Random: Fly Guy
I don't have too much success with StumbleUpon, it keeps sending me stupid top ten lists, real-life mockups of game items and sweeping future city/apocalypse CGI vistas. But sometimes I'll be fed something that's five years old. But sometimes I'll be fed something absolutely lovely.
Dare to daydream? Go and play Fly Guy.
Between A Rock And A Hard Diamond
This is the seventh article in the Where We Came From series.
Toronto, 1982. Peter Liepa, having never written a computer game before, reached out to a local game publisher asking for what kind of ideas might be in vogue. The publisher put him in touch with another programmer, Chris Gray, who had built a game prototype in Atari Basic. It shared some similarities with the arcade game The Pit (Centuri, 1982), in which the player is sent to retrieve jewels from an underground cavern filled with dirt and rocks.
Liepa took on the job of converting it to machine language but felt the game was not compelling enough, so he began pushing the concept in directions he found more interesting. It soon became apparent Gray and Liepa were pursuing divergent design goals and their collaboration broke down to the point where lawyers were eventually needed to resolve ownership of the final product.
Cats and Cubes
My head has been swimming in words for Where We Came From. My hands have been dipped in old games for vital research. This week. Finally. I played. With some modern toys.
Free toys.
Stanley Kubrick Is Gone
This is the third article in the Where We Came From series.
"When I was 12 years old, I picked up a medical encyclopaedia and it told me, in unequivocal terms, that people with CF die by 13. So I had my middle-age crisis real fast, and every year since about 15 or so feels like getting extra balls on a pinball machine."
1982. While the British belt out Come on Eileen like a football anthem, across the pond, the Atari Program Exchange releases a small game about a salmon swimming upriver. It's an unassuming début for someone who would one day be referred to as the "Stanley Kubrick of game design". But Bill Williams, who always feels like he is living on borrowed time, learns fast.
Always Floyd
This is the second article in the Where We Came From series.
I didn't give in easily, trying again and again to find another way to recover the access card. Maybe I could use the magnet through the crack in the adjacent Radiation Lab? No, RESTORE. Perhaps the breastplate of Lazarus might protect me? No, RESTORE. The laser could take out a mutant or two? No, no, no. And so I reluctantly continued the game on the back of a solution I had been handed on a silver platter. The card was mine. And Floyd was dead.
Keep In Touch
Time Machine
Commentary
- gnome on The Company of Troublemakers: Ian Bogost
- HM on The Company of Troublemakers: Ian Bogost
- HM on A Theoretical War, Part 3
- matt w on A Theoretical War, Part 3
- Raph Koster on A Theoretical War, Part 3
- gnome on The Company of Troublemakers: Ian Bogost
- HM on A Theoretical War, Part 3
- CdrJameson on A Theoretical War, Part 3
- James Patton on A Theoretical War, Part 3
- Raph Koster on A Theoretical War, Part 3
Electron Dance Projects
Friends
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- Gnome's Lair
- Jonas Kyratzes
- Switchbreak
- Tap Repeatedly
Link Power
The Slow Feed
- Transcending the ToolsetI’ve been trying to figure out how to talk about the work of Nicolau Chaud, Brazilian freeware developer and psychotherapist, but it’s hard. I’m having trouble for a couple of reason. First off, other people have already pulled it off, … Continue reading → […]
- The three things I want to ensure a healthy UK games industryThis is a lightly edited transcript of a talk I gave at the Westminster eForum on the future of games last month. Thank you and obviously well done to TIGA and UKIE for the tax breaks. I’m here to talk about business models, I want to talk about three things: I want to talk about change, I want to talk about adaptability, and I want to talk about resistance. […]
- Bundle In A Box to launch on May 23Yes, the Bundle In A Box - Adventure Bundle will indeed launch on May 23; that's a week from now! Head over to bundle-in-a-box.com, bookmark the site, subscribe to the newsletter and wait for those seven brilliant DRM-free games I have personally hand-picked. Oh, and you do know we are debuting one fantastic new game, don't you? […]
- A debate on free-to-playThis post takes a special format: Cliff Harris of Positech Games and I exchange views on free-to-play gaming, and then share the conversation with you. Let me know if you think the format works, and don’t forget to join the conversation below! Cliff Harris, Positech Games Nicholas, FreeToPlay is not the future of games, or at least I hope it isn’t. The entir […]
- Marvel Rolls Infinite SevensI have a bold idea: have the U.S. government producing the next 10 Avengers features to get itself out of debt. With $700 million banked worldwide after a mere 13 days, Disney should net north of a billion before Blu-Ray sales. So what transpired to make this Marvel film so successful? Was it the MARVEL fanboy nation, the hype machine, Joss Whedon’s deep B […]
- Adventure Lantern - the May issueAnother month, another issue of Adventure Lantern. Download the (free as ever) magazine here and read all the latest adventure related news, as well as an eclectic selection of reviews, previews and interviews. Expect quite a bit on The Dream Machine, The Journey Down, The Walking Dead and The Lost Crown. Oh, and while you are at it, do not forget to read ( […]
- Talking About Videogames(cross posted from ow) Browsing around Gamasutra this morning and stumbled across this great Brandon Sheffield piece on game preservation and once again found myself wondering whether in ten years time, there’ll be a big black hole where this generation … Continue reading → […]
- Grab a Fedora and Kickstart Tex Murphy - Project FedoraTex Murphy, adventure gaming's fedora-wearing, wise-cracking, lovable and down-on-his-luck detective, has been solving crimes ever since his first appearance on 1989's almost classic Mean Streets. More than a few games followed and each and every one of them managed to be a mostly brilliant, generally succesful and usually innovative point-and-clic […]
- Taptitude – a Windows Phone Success StoryThis guest post is cross-posted with permission from Four Bros Studio. FourBros Studio began developing Taptitude early in 2011. This article is going to look back over the last year as the game has evolved to see how far we’ve come and how we got here. For those not familiar with Taptitude, it is a free Windows Phone 7 game with a collection of over 60 co […]
- Conference Report: GameCampAt a lecture given to the RSA, Everything Bad Is Good For You author Steven Johnson asked: “Where do good ideas come from?” In five minutes he outlined a theory that the most fertile environment for ideas is one where they can meet, bounce off each other and joyfully breed – where half-formed hunches can combine through conversation to emerge as beautiful bu […]