Another adult Psychonaut.
So I’ve been replaying Psychonauts recently (ITS SO CHEAP AT THE MOMENT GO TREAT YOURSELF) and have been wondering what Psychonauts 2 will be like.
For those who aren’t aware, Mojang’s Notch has offered to use his personal cash to fun Double Fine’s long awaited sequel. Its awesome news.
I just thought it would be awesome if the kids of P1 are now full fledged Agents, ready to teach the new Psychic Campers a thing or two about being a Psychonaut.
So this is Dogan, still blowing things up, only now it is deliberately. (Most of the time.)
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I might do some more of these, if you chaps like them…
They’re not always good art and they occupy a different definition of “art” than we’ve previously been used to. They embody the art of the journey: interactivity, exploration, adventure - a kind of high octane theatre with a shattered fourth wall.
—Rhianna Pratchett, on video games as art.
Article: Endings Vs Endgame
Endings vs Endgame
Recently, on an exciting Friday night in, I was browsing my twitter feed when I spotted a friend of mine claiming that she was interested in trying the MMO City of Heroes. Knowing that she was at heart a gamer of the old school, and had never played an MMO, I messaged her with the advice that she should perhaps try some of the more “action” based alternatives like Champions Online or DC Universe Online. I then made what I thought was a helpful comment – “but the endgame is a bit lacking for those two”.
My friend, being a casual (certainly non-MMO) player, thought I meant that the endings of the games were poor, which immediately turned her off them. The realisation that the end of the game went on forever was no comfort – she wanted a satisfying conclusion. Personally, I had never considered this view – I love carrying on with a new set of challenges after the completion of a game (I spent many hours in the eternal corridor of Jade Cocoon). However, as a trainee game designer, it became suddenly apparent that this was a short sighted view. I needed to examine what makes a great ending, and what makes great endgame, and find ways to combine the two effectively.
If you watch a really good artist put pencil to page to draw a curve, he will take his pencil and strike it to the page 12, 15 times before he finds the curve. He doesn’t put his pencil down and draw the exact curve he wants. He sculpts, then selects one of those lines to darken.
That’s what we do on every front: the visuals of the game, the design of the game. We’re always sketching until we see, from that chaotic process, the right ideas emerge.
—Nate Wells, Art Director of Irrational Games on the development of Bioshock.
Game design books have arrived!
Watching a whole heap of new stimuli, sketching as i go. This is Afro Samurai and he is awesome.
Experimenting with some new ways of doing lineart.
Drawn very quickly in flash, in order to try out the “auto smoothing” of the brushwork.
Made a nice image quickly, but definitely led to less finesse and room for detail.
Problems occurred when exporting to photoshop for colour - the quality of the linework degraded severely, resulting in an extremely pixellated and rough looking image. This made it difficult to colour, and I abandoned it about halfway through.
The creature in question is a Snarg, from Terry Pratchett’s The Carpet People, and is part of a project I will be talking more about soon!
- INDIEWEEK -
Ben & Dan - Ben There, Dan That & Time Gentlemen, Please! (2008/2009)
An ode to the old classics, these games chronicled the trouble caused by Ben and Dan’s desire to watch McGyver.
These games are funny as hell, and you can buy them for less than a fiver! If you have any interest in adventure games, DO IT NOW.
So I wrote a poem.
I ain’t much of a writer, but I had fun with this.
Trying to describe my game without a boring wall of text.
