Skaf energi

ElectroCity er et New Zelandsk produceret spil om energi – et lille tile baseret spil med masser af muligheder. Du skal administrere en by og dens omkringliggende natur ved at balancere energi, forurening, landbrug og forlystelser i forhold til dine indtægter. En af de ting som virkelig gør dette til et sjovt spil er, at hver tile kan blive ved med at videreudvikles for hver tur og igen efterhånden som du får flere penge. Et spil består af 150 ture!

Så er det ellers rart at se et initiative som bruger computerspil til at undervise i noget så vigtigt som enegi forbrug. Efter at have spillet dette spil et par gange, begynder man faktisk og tænke over det forhold der er mellem energi, underholdning, forurening og menneskelig overlevelse. Det er alligevel godt gået af et computerspil – og så er det altså sjovt!

Syndes også lige jeg ville nævne, at det er ved at ligne en trend med disse tur-baserede tile universer. Vi har i hvert faldet set noget lignende på FNs store succes Stop A Disaster, hvor man på samme måde gør en dyd ud af at vise de isometriske tiles der så igennem spillet kan udvikles. Men altså, det ser jo godt ud.

Der er et yndigt land

Jeg har nu besluttet mig for at føre denne blog på dansk. Det er trods alt mest den danske debat, jeg er interesseret i, så derfor vil jeg også skrive på dansk.
Fremover vil jeg også prøve at skelne mere mellem to slags indlæg. Jeg vil skrive indlæg om spil, jeg har fundet på nettet og som jeg syndes er interesseate. Der ud over vil jeg også skrive indlæg om mine egne tanker, ideer og andet godt om online computerspi.

Håber i nyder det.

What I am playing right now

Right now I am playing two online games. They are both adgames and both only take about 5-10 minuet of play a day to keep going. However, both games stretch over several weeks.

The first game is called Sharkrunners, made by area/code and is a promotional game for an upcoming SharkWeek on The Discovery Channel. Basically, you are a sharkrunner which means, you are a scientist that roams the ocean, tracking down sharks to gather scientific information – you are hooked on studying sharks. You steer your boat around the costal area off California, where you can see indications of shark observations. The fantastic idea is that while your boat is digital and fictional, the shark information is based on current and real data. The game uses real GPS data to locate the sharks as many sharks are already tagged for scientific observation. Great idea!
You set the course of your boat and wait. When a shark is spotted, you receive either an SMS or an email and you then have 3 hours to react before it is too late and the sharks are gone. From here, you gather your scientific information about the sharks, sell it to institutions and when you reach port again, you upgrade your boat, crew and equipment from the money your observations have earned you.

The other game I am playing, is also a promotional adgame – this one for the promotion of the new Bourn film starring Matt Damon. The Ultimate Search for Bourn has been launched by Universal Pictures and Google and sets you on a while goose chase around the internet to find Bourn. To play, you will need to have a Google account and some patience – but it is worth it. You are given a daily mission to solve which will involve finding information from an agent through a (fake) dating site, analyzing YouTube videos as well as applying other Google tools. Generally, the gameplay is not kept to in the interface, but scattered across the internet. It’s a fun idea and it will have you cracking codes the next 15 days. At times it’s a little slow but it is worth a play simply for the idea.

Enjoy.

Scriptwriting and games

I just finished reading Linda Seger’s Making a Good Script Great which is a fantastic book about scriptwriting, drama and character development. As I was reading this book, I really started realizing how relevant and underappreciated this topic still is in a lot of games. Especially when we look at online campaigns and educational games. PC games are really beginning to pick up on the topic and have for a while, but to many online campaigns are still about bells and whistles while a majority of educational games are still created by teachers and not game developers.
A company like Nintendo has always done a great job of telling engaging and simple stories in there games. Just think of Donkey Kong – the monkey stole your girl, now go get her back! You believe the story and bring it with you, when you play the game.
Right now game developers can only really look towards film and tv for inspiration on how to tell visual stories. Imagine when the field grows and we start developing a more structured school of thought on interactive scriptwriting. I can’t wait.
For now, I have really been inspired to spend the time to develop the story aspects of the next couple of games I am involved in. And, I can strongly recommend Linda Seger’s book!

Get packin’

In this game for a cruize company, you move around in three rooms and fill up your suitecase with all the items you like. When you are done packing, thegame analyzes where you should go cruzin based on how you packed. It analyses your interestes based on how you packed and based on your interests, suggests you a cruize destination. Its really worth trying as its very well done and by the end you almost do want to go crusin….And how about those voices! Is it me or do they sound like the HomeStarRunner crew has been involved…? Actually there are a couple of more similarites like the answeringmachine. A fun concept, great voices and graphics…andI wouldn’t be surprised, if there was some kind of joint venture with the Home Star Runner guys.

Play game

Let your fingers do the walking…

“Let your fingers do the walking” is an old slogan for the Yellow Pages – instead of having to walk around to find what you are looking for, let your fingers flip through the Yellow pages and find a phone number for you instead. While not quite the same, this adgame for mobile phones has you training your fingers in the fitness center so you can dial away and keep up with your friends.

I really think this is a great game. The basic gameplay is simple and actually not that original…it just has tht little twist, just used in a new way, that does it for me. The use of film works really well and there is just such a tight connection between the idea, the product and the game. It simply works.

Make sure you go through all there floors at fitness center to get your fingers in tip-top shape.

Play game

Shoot em up

The movie Shooter with Mark Walberg, directed by Anotine Fuqua who also directed the excellent Training Day, is just out. Looks like a by-the-book action movie with a hero who turned his back to society. Society needs him now though and gets him back. Turnes out he was right to turn society his back though and after being set up, he now has to fight back both for his name and honor.
Well, I thought the movie site might have some nice shooting games, which are always great when done well – always loved a well designed crosshare. Turnes out I was right. The site has to really nice sniper games, where you have to take wind and your breathing into consideration whe shooting long distance. Its more about precesion than action. Over all, 2 good games.

Play games

Keep it in your pockets

 I am seeing more and more of these large viral campinges. Still not enough that they are not novel, but I know the genre by now. There basically two kinds of viral campaignes. There are the campinges which are meant to look like they were done buy amatures – real people doing real things

What I like about a seamless viral campainge, is that its usually a combination osuch an absurd story that it sucks you in 
See site

What is racing who?

In every way, this game is visually and technically cutting edge and conveys a good feel of being embedded in a story-line. The mix of 3-d, flash, movies and all the filters is pulled off so well and just seems really authentic. And the Flash, I am impressed. At times it looks like real-time graphics rendering. I have never seen anything like this before. One or two years ago, I was seriously wondering if Director was going get a comeback. Internet connections are getting so much faster, that it was really a question of whether the flash player could keep up or if developers and demand was simply going to make the switch to Director. This game shows Flash has nothing to worry about. The player can do it. And what it can’t do now, it will be able to do in its next version. Flash really is the plugin for multmedia delivery on the internet.

However, I get the same feeling from playing this game as I do from watching a movie like 300 (which I just got back from watching tonight). It has all the visuals but just no gameplay (or in the case of 300, no storyline). Now, I know there is a little artificial intelligence in the opponent cars, but not for real. Not like any of the other racing games on all the other platforms out there and I just can’t help making that comparison.

Again, I think these guys pulled it to the limit and I hope the limit keeps getting pushed. In the mean time, I think we need to keep the strengths of the internet as a platform for delivering games at the forefront. Let me point out again, that I am very impressed by this game – both visually and technically. However the strength of the internet is how it connects people across time and space. Internetgames are fun and unique when you  can challenge a friend, play with other people online or contribute to some kind of community whole. Diffrerent platforms have differnet strengths and interconnectivity is the strength of the internet as a gamedelivering platform and not neccessarily highscale racinggames. Not yet at least.

Play game

Viral talk

 

I think that viral campaigns can be really fun when they catch me off guards – and sometimes they do. I just saw The Great Pockets which had me guessing till the end. You can just see it’s too big of a budget to not be commercial, but you just can’t see for what. And then it subtly comes at the end. The guessing just had me going. At the other end of the spectra, there are the viral campaigns which really go for the documentary/real-life feel – like something exceptional was accidentally caught on tape.The Danish produced Dynamite Surfing add was the last one I saw of this kind – and I saw it several times! A third kind of viral campaign is where they just go overboard – let it all out and get you laughing while you are watching it. I laughed at the Amnesty TeleShop one.Basically, it’s just about getting you to tell a friend whether its human rights or surfwear…and sometimes it just really works.