Reiding…

I wonder about the value of selling a game to your audience via the technology it uses. I’ve been reading feedback on the Force Unleashed demo and many people confuse the middleware technologies we used in the game. They’ll call Euphoria the “Euphoria Engine” that handles AI and material physics. Not entirely true. Euphoria only handles a small part of AI behaviors, it doesn’t deal with attacking, defending or pathfinding. It’s used mostly to react to damage and physical forces inflicted on them or to jump out of the way of oncoming hazards for example.

I don’t blame the players for being incorrect, it’s really difficult to keep all of this technical information straight. Is it worthwhile to include technology related information in communications with players? What might be better is to describe and show the experiences possible in a game but leave out the technology that makes this happen. I think at the end of the day, while players may get some satisfaction from being able to talk the talk, what they ultimately care about is walking the walk, i.e. playing the game and enjoying it for what it is.

Google has a page up that lets you play around with some new tech that uses lasers to scan anything in 3D. Because there are no cameras, only data, you can manipulate in realtime the viewing angle of Radiohead’s new music video “House of Cards” from their album “In Rainbows”. One of the scenes is of an outdoor environment and it reminded me of an interview with John Carmack years ago, where he suggested that in the future, level designers/environment artists for videogames will scan in 3D environments of real world locations. Looks like this could be along the same lines.

Tip: Mouse wheel zooms in and out

I think, if the tools allowed, anyone should be able to manipulate the data, maybe even grabbing a cluster of points in the screen and moving them around. I do believe that as we move further into the data creation and manipulation age people will not be content to merely observe but instead demand interaction and participation. Everything will be customizable, from the design of our shoes and cars to the gameplay experiences. Everything is leading towards a world where individuals have power, not governments. We’ll have the tools and knowledge to create our own worlds. We’re seeing this now, but in limited form restricted to the privileged few.