flOw: Realizing Dynamic Difficulty Adjustment

I was sifting through my daily websites yesterday, when I happened on a new game that launched over on the PS3 called flOw. So I found out it came from a PC game created by this master's student named Jenova Chen from USC (who is currently working at EA on SPORE).

Let me try to explain to you via text and see if it does come out to what the game is like.

The game is like goo. It sucks you in at the start cause of how it looks. I like the blue - but what really hooked me in is just these basic shapes that swim around in 2D. Very ethereal, when I look at it. The shapes have a soft hue around them that gives them the feeling of life.

Oh I forgot, this is a flash 8 game. Run's on the website, small footprint. Okay back to the game.

You've seen spore right, little viruses/bacterias that move around in the primodial gunk eating like pac-man. At its fundemental its a meat and potatoes eat the pellet game, but instead, we're eating little tadpoles. The more we eat, the bigger we grow, and evolve into cooler looking tadpoles.

No instructions are given, you just learn the game as you go. Slowly, things will start to make sense. I will be finding out how many iterations this game has gone through but it was designed quite well. Graphically, its charming and surreal in a way. And the music, wow, its just right.

Let's start with the graphics - its simple vector based characters floating in the water. When you do get to eat larger 'beings' they will split into smaller parts that you can devour. When you devour this, you get bigger and evolve. So for example, there is one part that looks like a hexagon with a mouth moving in between, eat this, and you will get a bigger mouth. Good art design - simple yet effective.

Sound design, ethereal music - with nice sound cues for evolution and consumption. I like.

So try it out guys - go to the site at http://intihuatani.usc.edu/cloud/flowing/

Jenova Chen - you rock!

Gamers Hideout Gears of War Lan Party and other miscellaneous stuff...


ahhh.. I like the smell of napalm in the morning.... huhhaaahh!

Gears of War. Three words that bring on the next-gen craziness. Pure Bliss and utter gratification.

Tough road ahead... get off if you want to.

Recently I tried asking some hard questions in the IGDA Forums specifically within the Malaysian area. The question asked on where the talent has gone from Malaysia - specifically 3D animators --- good ones... I managed to get some good answers and also some weird individuals really not understanding the question asked. But I did get this....

Allan Simonsen the IGDA Coordinator from Singapore had to say this:

IGDA is about trying to work together to promote game development. It's not a zero-sum game; Malaysia's Loss is not Singapore's Gain... quite the opposite. Our best bet for pushing the entire SE Asian game development scene forward is to work together, find opportunities, and collaborate.Some of the malaysian developers, like Brett Bibby, has been doing this for longer than anyone in Singapore. Gamebrains is the only SE Asian company that's successfully published content on console and high-end handheld platforms. While Singapore's games industry is currently doing well, you don't have to go more than 2 years back in time to remember it lying with a broken back.

MistaMan; for ideas on getting skilled people into the games industry:-

• Find the opportunities (bringing in companies that do interesting projects)
• Remove obstacles (silliness like having to relocate to CyberJaya does not help game development companies, and it makes it a lot harder to recruit)
• Remove barriers to entry (make it easier to hire from abroad, look at ways of making visa-acquisition easier)
• Send Students overseas (do merit-based higher-education with bonding)
• Send Staff overseas (do things similar to TAP, where the government pays 50% of overseas training costs for fresh employees working in an MNC, in return for a bond to work in Singapore)
• Hire an industry liason (Someone like Hilmy, that can help coordinate schools, incomming companies, government incentives, etc. Perhaps especially important to have someone outside the regular government structure that can help companies navigate the different government roadblocks and incentives)
• Promote a student/grassroot community ( the people attracted to this will be the leaders of the next generation. An IGDA student chapter may be the way to go)
• Look at how you can promote part-time lecturers (people from the industry have the right skillset, but have no intention of going full-time into a staid academic environment. Look at how you can promote more part-time lecturers from the industry teaching the high-end classes on modelling for Game Development, Graphics Programming, etc).
• Sponsor industry trips (sponsor in full or in part for Malaysian developers and high-powered students to go to industry events like GDC or AGDS . Let them get experience in what the industry outside of malaysia is doing, and build the contact network that will help them be succesfull.).
• Look at ways of making local startups more successfull (MNCs are great, but sooner or later they'll usually leave to the next low-cost country with government incentives. How can you nurish startups; especially those created by the experienced ex-MNC developers? Look at content development grants, low/zero cost incubators with soft-services, advisory boards, business coaching sessions, pre-paid software and hardware licenses, handheld devkits, etc)
• Stop making large bets on the usual suspects (this is a bit controversial, but as a rule a lot of SE Asian grant money's gone out to the people strong connections and existing experience in siphoning off the government. Instead of doing 2-3 RM50M bets on large MNC/GLC companies, look at doing 100 RM1.5M bets on small startups, and find other ways to counterbalance their weaknesses in business and organization)

There's probably a couple of more ideas, but that's a good start
Allan

Interesting points - there is a tough perception problem about doing business in Malaysia. It does not help when it is perpetuated almost daily with the problems we have. But, I am not too sure that people within Malaysia are really the villains here - I think most are victims.

External powers can influence within....

First Creative Commons Board Meeting

First Creative Commons Board Meeting
Originally uploaded by mistaman.

We've started the ball rolling on Creative Commons Malaysia and the whole community building aspect. We launched the program earlier this year - but this is actually the core of the program. The industry pushing the project forward with the community driving the program.
We just had the first meeting of the Creative Commons Board which included many individuals from the creative industry. This meeting sought to inform the industry of what Creative Commons as a creative community program has to offer.
Within this meeting, we talked about the issues that revolves around creative works and how they are protected via copyright and how they can be protected in the future via creative commons. CC is the little brother of Big C - the value add - standing on top of Big C (copyright) to help little guys be on top! :)

Check out the website at : http://creativecommons.org

Metal Gear Solid 4 : E3 Edition

If there is really anything to look forward to with the PS3, it would be the 4!
Hideo Kojima's baby - Metal Gear Solid 4.
The epitomy of japanese shiatsu massaging chair chic coolness dashed with a bit of james bond spliced in it - and make sure to pepper it with a bit of apocalypse now salt.
E3 - I missed it again this year - due to my lack of a travelable passport, but it's all good. With the Internet (not bandwidth withholding) I can download all the videos I want. Just that I can't experience the booth babes..... ergh.
MGS4 and PS3 - the biggest show at E3! I am flabbergasted at both the technology and creativity the folks at sony and kojima productions have put into their cash-cow. It may be a cash motivated project - but I can tell you this much. If we ever had an ounce of their passion in what we do, I think Malaysians can take on the world. This is evident in the work that has been presented - they don't even give you a chance to say.. hmm maybe if they did it this way it would have been better. Its drool induction to the max! Everything! the minute details - the powerhouse technology. EVERYTHING!

There will be 2 things we hope that will spur the industry here: I am banking on these 2 -
1. Talent
2. Funding

Which will lead to enough projects to keep the industry sustainable. Let's hope the puzzle falls into place - the future can be ours if we want to change it.

other than that --- enjoy the show:

Learn More about Creative Commons | Creative Commons

What is Creative Commons?
simply put ~
"Creative Commons defines the spectrum of possibilities between full copyright — all rights reserved — and the public domain — no rights reserved. Our licenses help you keep your copyright while inviting certain uses of your work — a "some rights reserved" copyright."

In other words, how best to share your creative works on the net with the option to protect it the way you want it and still allow others to use, abuse and work on top of it.

I got into the whole CC movement last year (and still reeling from the effects) when Ng Alina came to talk to me after she returned from STANFORD as Dr. Ng Alina! She was did her PhD thesis with Professor Lawrence Lessig ( the main man evangelising the CC movement). I heard about CC but I did not know much. But, then, why not? Why not help Alina?

Hey, i'm creative. And I guess you are too. CC helps both of us share our creativity without worrying how people use our works for their own convenience.

But I guess the hardest task for me is to ensure that we as malaysians could contribute to CC by putting our works licensed on the net with the CC licenses. This will be the biggest hurdle and hopefully we can get all the support we can. This is why we have created the CC Board helmed by a few notable creative heads. This will hopefully spur the support we need to move the project forward.

Will report more on this later... for now.. go check out the URL attached.

Learn More about Creative Commons | Creative Commons

IP Creators Challenge: MSC Animation Pitch 2006

Check it out guys, time to get your ideas out in the open. Or as they say - Stand up and be Counted! This is your chance to prove that you got what it takes and your ideas will stand the test of the international market...

From the Website:
The Creative Multimedia Department of Multimedia Development Corporation (MDeC) is organizing an animation pitching competition, under the MSC Creative Multimedia Content Initiative (M-CMCI). In this competition, companies or individuals will have to pitch their ideas or pre-production of their animated characters, the story and eventual background information of the show.

OBJECTIVE:

•	To use this as a content creation platform and to create more quality content that can be showcased or marketed globally.
•	The competition will be an avenue to encourage and nurture new talents in turning their Ideas into reality.
•	To attract animation content developers to come out with greater ideas and stories

FIVE winners will be awarded a RM50,000 grant each, to support their trailer or pilot episode. The competition will be opened from 26 April 2006 until 14 June 2006.

|| Creative Multimedia Cluster + MDC ||