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GameSetWatch notes that the 2007 finalists for the Independent Games Festival have been announced. The IGF is an annual event meant to highlight and praise the work of independent game designers of all stripes; it's run by Slashdot Games editor alumni Simon Carless. Simon puts the spotlight on the Seamus McNally Grand Prize finalists, the 'best of the best' at this year's IGF. My vote goes to World of Goo: "Building off the concepts from Tower Of Goo, one of Kyle Gabler's projects from the Experimental Gameplay Project at CMU, the first game from Bay Area duo 2D Boy uses the hitherto unexplored structural ability of blobs to make an addictive construction-based puzzle action title. There's no release date or demo for the game yet (aside from Tower Of Goo, a kind of 'prequel'), but there's screenshots and a trailer on the official site."

Gamer 2.0 writes "The Gamer 2.0 site has a look into the role of advertising in gaming journalism, with a few reflections especially topical given the Jeff Gerstmann controversy. From the article: 'It should come as no surprise that just about every gaming forum on the internet is ablaze right now following the news of GameSpot's termination of long-time editor, Jeff Gerstmann. This article, however, is not an exposé or look into what really happened at GameSpot this week. Rather, consider this a look at the direction of gaming journalism, advertising, and how this all plays a role in the content you read.'" There have been a few more developments in the situation since Thursday night, with rumours, scuttlebutt, analysis, and cynicism reigning on every message board from here to C|Net. There has even been a spontaneous act of solidarity from elsewhere in the games journalism field.

A recent Gamasutra story noted something interesting in Electronic Arts' financials filing. The company is extremely reliant on brick and mortar retailers like Wal-mart (which made up 12% of its net revenue) and Gamestop (about 15%). Simon Carless, writing at the GameSetWatch blog, takes that analysis one step further and postulates some of the horrible things that could happen to the software giant if the conditions were right. It's all meant tongue-in-cheek, of course, but it's an interesting discussion of how even large companies can be vulnerable to simple issues: "5. Wrong System, Wrong Time! 'Our business is highly dependent on the success and availability of video game hardware systems manufactured by third parties, as well as our ability to develop commercially successful products for these systems.' More specifically, as EA explains, this is the Wii/DS effect in action: 'A platform for which we are developing products may not succeed or may have a shorter life cycle than anticipated.'"

Via GameSetWatch, an interesting critique of game cut scenes at the blog ItBurns. He compares and contrasts several games and their use of story, gameplay, and in-game movies (with video) to get across his point. "Splinter Cell takes a more simulative approach to many of the character interactions that occur in the game. In the next clip, Sam Fisher grabs his target, Sadono, from behind and places a gun at his temple. Using Sadono as a shield, Fisher backs towards the door and forces Sadono's head into the retinal scanner to open the lock. Fisher continues through the doorway towards the roof, interrogating Sadono as they walk to the waiting helicopter for extraction. At no time during this sequence does the player relinquish control."

The regular Game Mag Weasling column at the blog GameSetWatch usually runs down the contents of publications that recently hit the newsstands. This week, blogger Kevin Gifford tackles the thorny subject of falling subscriptions as they apply to game magazines. He references a discussion of falling subscriptions in the magazine publishing industry at large, which notes that a metric just as important as real subscribers is the number of readers-per-copy. Re-reading among friends and the appearance of a magazine in a doctor's office is another important factor to consider in a magazine's success. "Game Informer's [readers-per-copy] audience is 'only' about 68% larger than EGM's, despite having over four times the paid circulation. If you put enough credence to the numbers, it means that GameStop is spending a lot of money printing, mailing, and distributing those two million-odd copies of GI each month, yet not being as efficient in attracting an audience with those printed copies as EGM and GamePro is."

The regular Game Mag Weasling column at the blog GameSetWatch usually runs down the contents of publications that recently hit the newsstands. This week, blogger Kevin Gifford tackles the thorny subject of falling subscriptions as they apply to game magazines. He references a discussion of falling subscriptions in the magazine publishing industry at large, which notes that a metric just as important as real subscribers is the number of readers-per-copy. Re-reading among friends and the appearance of a magazine in a doctor's office is another important factor to consider in a magazine's success. "Game Informer's [readers-per-copy] audience is 'only' about 68% larger than EGM's, despite having over four times the paid circulation. If you put enough credence to the numbers, it means that GameStop is spending a lot of money printing, mailing, and distributing those two million-odd copies of GI each month, yet not being as efficient in attracting an audience with those printed copies as EGM and GamePro is."

simoniker writes "Areae president Raph Koster is perhaps best known as a designer of Ultima Online and the previous CCO of Sony Online Entertainment, and in an in-depth Gamasutra interview, he discusses his views on 'game grammar', the uniting of MMOs and online worlds, and the software patent problem. In particular, he's been talking about the 'barbarians at the gates' for hardcore MMO makers: 'Even the creation of the MUD in the first place was that. It was the Internet-based reaction to the stuff that had existed on the microcomputers and the Plato network and all of that. All of a sudden, "Oh, wait! We can put a text MUD on Arpanet!" And it was like, "Whoa!" and it spread like wildfire, and all of a sudden, all of that other stuff went away. So it's really possible for that stuff to be happening now with microtransactions, with portals versus traditional publishers, with digital distribution publishers versus traditional publishers, and with MMOs from MTV versus MMOs from Sony or EA or NCSoft.'"

GameSetWatch points out that the big list of entrants for the 2008 Independent Games Festival is now online. Can't tell the winners without a program, right? GSW points out some of the names to watch in this year's showdown: "Gish 2 - Gish 2 is the long awaited sequel to the IGF 05 grand prize winner Gish. In Gish 2 you take the role of physics based blob whose movement and control are physically modeled around the shape and texture of his body. When his girlfriend Brea is murdered, Gish sets out to the Isle of the Dead to make a deal with Quietus (the god of death) to bring her back to life. Noitu Love 2: Devolution - In Noitu Love 2: Devolution you're thrown into a classic action and beat-em-up scenario but with a twist to the gameplay that creates a new and fluent style of play using the mouse. Pixeljunk Racers - Simple addictive puzzle racing game based loosely on slot-car racing, with 32 types of game and up to 7 players simultaneously."

Via GameSetWatch, links to the 1up site for a giant feature on the complete history of the Panzer Dragoon series. From the GSW post: "As Mielke explains: 'The reason for this unique cover story is to take a look back at this underappreciated, underbought, near-legendary series that climaxed with the release of 1998's Panzer Dragoon Saga, a game that is unlikely to ever see a port to any system, ever. Taking the DNA of Sega stablemate Space Harrier and welding it to an Empire Strikes Back-style plot, developer Team Andromeda created an epic, picturesque showdown between good and evil that would send lasting shockwaves through the fledgling 32-bit era.'"

Via the ever-enjoyable GameSetWatch, a post on a blog for the development house Surreal Game Design. Surreal is a Midway division, and it's interesting to see a company blog actually ponying up opinions on the work of other designers as they do in this discussion of the unlikeability of Bully's setting. They discuss the problems with setting the game in a boarding school, the protagonist's sniveling classmates, and the unfavorable comparisons between Bullworth Academy and the halls of Sunnydale High or Hogwarts. From the post: "A while ago I was talking to Director of Design Richard Rouse along with some of the other Midway studio creative directors about our experiences with Bully. In both our cases, we really, really wanted to like it, but only played a few hours before giving up. Since it was blessed with many high reviews, we were left wondering 'What were we missing?' ... Harvey Smith of Midway Austin (and Creative Director of Area 51: Blacksite) rightfully pointed out that high school has been a successful setting of great things like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and the Ultimate Spiderman comics. Richard noted that the high school of Buffy was populated by attractive, always-witty teenagers that killed freakin' vampires. Those California high schools you see in TV and movies are probably some of the most idealized environments you'll ever see."

simoniker writes "Are MMO populations 'tribal', and if so, what's the next tribal shift after World of Warcraft? At Gamasutra, academics including MIT's Henry Jenkins and Ludium's Edward Castronova discuss what's next for the MMO market, based on their research and play patterns. Jenkins states that WoW is getting _too_ much analysis from researchers right now: 'WoW deserves attention because it has so captured the imagination of gamers over the past few years. That said, I don't think it is healthy for the field of games studies, which is still emerging, to be so fixated on a single game franchise — no matter what the franchise. A few years ago, it might have been The Sims or GTA, now it's WoW.'" For more on this topic MMOG industry veteran Gordon Walton spoke on this topic last week at GDC Austin, and notes from that event are also available at Gamasutra.

simoniker writes "A new 'Analyze This' feature on Gamasutra examines analysts' views on the rise of Nintendo's Wii and DS, and how well game publishers have reacted to it, with Wedbush Morgan's Michael Pachter commenting: 'It's hard to criticize anyone for putting too much faith in the PS3, as most [publishers] haven't created "cutting edge" titles yet for that platform. Most of the PS3 titles so far have been perennial titles, like Madden, Tony Hawk, etc ... I'd say that most failed to capitalize on the DS and Wii opportunity. The exception on the DS side is THQ, which has made every game it can for the platform. On the Wii side, Ubisoft took a big chance by making ten games for the [Wii] launch window, and it has performed very well, so far. I think that the others will catch up no later than early next year.'"

Via GameSetWatch, an article at the Manic Pop Blog about the way in which game genres disappear and reappear based on current trends. The post's author discusses the death of the Adventure game genre, and its reincarnation thanks to casual gaming: "A casual game like Azada takes that basic "Seek and Find" formula, adds in some additional bridging puzzles, and you end up with a game with a series of static screens filled with items to discover. You put these items in your inventory and combine them in order to open up additional areas. And some areas require that you solve puzzles to advance. And it's all wrapped up in a storyline, further driving your desire to "finish" the game. In other words, it's an old-school adventure game."

simoniker writes "BioWare's QA director Phillip DeRosa has written a piece called 'Tracking Player Feedback To Improve Game Design' over at Gamasutra, which deals with how game developers can use statistics, even before a game is released, to improve gameplay. DeRosa "...explains how the Mass Effect creator has set up and executed code-based monitoring of key metrics to test, analyze, and refine its projects through playtesting." Is this approach sensible, or could it be more like movie producers 'pandering' to test audiences?"

GameSetWatch is running an editorial written by Alex Handy, the former editor of Game Developer magazine and a well respected figure in the games journalism business. Today he's discussing the recent show of support from EA and id Software for the Apple platform, essentially saying that he doesn't think much of it because it's all been said before. "We've been here before. I've been here before. Waaaaaaaay back in 1999, id was right there at MacWorld, with Carmack talking about how rad the OS was, and demanding that a multi-button mouse arrive. And this was Mac OS 9! People applauded. Those, like myself, who covered the Macintosh gaming world for a living saw a bright future ahead. EA wasn't there, but Activision was, and Aspyr was bringing Madden to the Mac anyway. MacSoft was bringing Unreal Tournament over, and StarCraft was still on the Mac, and still kicking ass. And then, nothing happened. There was a little while there when Mac game companies were expanding, and the best PC to Mac game porting house, Westlake Interactive, was barely able to keep up with all the demand for its services ... By 2001, the brief flash that was the Mac game boom was gone."

Via GameSetWatch, a feature on the personal site of the well-traveled games journalist Richard Cobbett. The Circe Du Strange details fifty of the strangest, most out-of-place game elements in the history of PC gaming. From classic text adventures to games released in the last few years, the piece outlines some mighty odd design decisions. "30) Command and Cretaceous - While the original Command and Conquer suffered from really bad expansion packs, the first offered a particular entertaining secret. Adding the -funpark parameter when running the game opened up a top secret set of five missions that pitted the standard armies of GDI and Nod against. dinosaurs. For no reason. There was even a briefing movie and bonus music track. And developers Westwood didn't even mention it."

The wildly successful Alternate Reality Game Perplex city, which ended in February of this year with the discovery of 'the Cube' will not be seeing a second season immediately. GameSetWatch has a bevy of links about the announcement, which was quite a surprise to players. Mind Candy, the company behind the game, made the announcement after the departure of their Director of Play, the COO, and several other top company personalties. "It is Mind Candy's hope that they will bring back the ARG in the future. However, the facts for now are that all of the story team has left Mind Candy, and Perplex City Season 2 is not coming out any time soon. The cards are going to continue being sold and supported; they're all designed and we already have some copies of wave 2 in the office."

Via GameSetWatch, a link to the official blog for the animated film Castlevania: Dracula's Curse. The story for the film is being written by the iconic Warren Ellis (Transmetropolitan, Planetary), and the blog has tidbits of information from the writer about what we can expect with the film. Encouragingly, the movie is very much not aimed at children, will probably be just the first of a planned trilogy, and is generally based around the story from Castlevania III: Dracula's Curse. From the GSW post: "He explains, grinning: 'To make it work as a film, I had to introduce new backstory, and I went through five drafts of the premise and three of the full outline to get the material where [Koji Igarashi] wanted it. He remains absolutely passionate about Castlevania. After eight rewrites of pre-production material, I remain absolutely passionate about beating the crap out of [Igarashi] in a dark alleyway one day.'"

The book Halo Effect is an intriguing title that takes a look Bungie's best-selling Halo titles from a number of different angles. Each chapter includes coverage of specific elements; included are descriptions of pro events, a bit on the development process, and the making of the Red vs. Blue series. One of the most interesting chapters takes a look at the science behind the Halo world, talking about the physics and logic behind ringworlds and the hi-tech weaponry seen in the game. Thanks in part to a mini-review of the book on the GameSetWatch site, Gamasutra has been allowed to reprint the entire 'science of Halo' chapter on their website. "A 5,000 kilometer radius would yield a circumference of roughly 31,400 kilometers. If we assume a width-to-radius ratio similar to that of Niven's Ringworld, they would be approximately 5.37 kilometers wide. They are significantly wider, though, at 320 kilometers. The Halos, then, would have a surface area of 10 million square kilometers - slightly larger than the surface area of Canada, and approximately 2 percent of the surface area of Earth. Of course, since we know that there are lakes, seas, and rivers on the Halos, the livable surface area would be fractionally less." Update: 05/02 18:30 GMT by Z : The initial version of the article posted was from pre-production and contained some errors. They've been fixed in the article and now here in the post as well.

Via GameSetWatch an in-depth article on the Alternate Reality Game Network site explaining how Andy Darley found the cube, and completed the first season of the Perplex City game. Written by Darley himself it's an engaging account of what it's like to actually play one of these games, and the process by which the cube's location was discovered. "It was then that I realised I was practically standing on a spot where the topsoil was the colour of the clay that ought to be hidden underneath it. It wasn't 10m from the post, it was slightly further - practically a continuation of the line I'd just investigated, exactly where you'd end up burying something if you walked 10m, stopped, and leaned forward to start digging. Seeing sub-surface clay with just a very thin covering of the material that was several inches thick elsewhere was deeply suspicious." GSW also links to an exhaustive look at an older ARG-in-a-children's-book, the game Masquerade, which is well worth reading up on.

The rumored first 'real' expansion to Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion has been confirmed. Shivering Isles will be available for the Xbox 360 and PC versions of the game, with the expansion available as a download for 360 owners. In additional Oblivion-related news, GameSetWatch made a point to single out the double-layering of content for the PS3 version of the game. The title (due out next month with all 'add-ons' included) overcomes the slow speed of Blu-ray discs via a simple kludge: putting the content on there twice. From the article: "A perceptive comment from 'Marvin' is worth reprinting: "You'd automate the duplication at the image creation stage to avoid any stale data problems. People have done this on other platforms before for the same reasons - particularly the PSP, with its horrible UMD seek times. However, it does rather negate the whole increased storage capacity advantage."

Ziff Davis, parent company for the 1up website and the magazines Electronic Gaming Monthly and Games for Windows, is working to sell off its gaming group. Simon Carless, at GameSetWatch, pointed out the company's interest in active offers for the package. Ziff's games group apparently reached just about the break-even point last year, and along with the sale of Ziff's Consumer Small Business group (PC Magazine, etc) essentially represents the end of Ziff Davis as a publishing force. From the article: "As I alluded to in a recent post on game magazine circulations, I do personally feel like Ziff might have closed Official PlayStation Magazine a little earlier than they might otherwise have done, in order to make the Game Group more attractive to potential purchasers, who obviously care most about 1UP. Which makes sense, because in most cases (prestige low-circulation magazines such as Edge notwithstanding), circs and revenues in consumer print are only going to trickle down over the next few years."

Via GameSetWatch, 1up's look at recent virtual console releases on the Wii. The hub site's weekly retro roundup is going to make it a point to talk about Wii, 360, and PS3 downloadable games, with a focus on the old skool become new. They also will touch on old games rereleased on handheld systems, such as the fantastic FFIII. From the article: "Ecco the Dolphin - A curiously tranquil game that sees a normal dolphin embark on a quest to save his pod pals from a giant space vacuum, Ecco's nevertheless challenging -- besides oceanic hazards, our hero constantly faces the threat of suffocation should he stay underwater for too long. The idiosyncratic (read: sort of awkward) controls certainly don't make things any easier. All told, they make Ecco an acquired taste, and at the eight dollar standard rate for Genesis games this might be a tough sell. But we'll go ahead and give it the nod just for its boldness in straying from the beaten path. "

Via some extended commentary on GameSetWatch, a post by Greg Costikyan on the Games*Design*Art*Culture blog on the lack of 'prestige' games in the modern game industry. By 'prestige' Costikyan means titles that may not do terribly great commercially, but that attract a lot of goodwill towards the developer and publisher. From the article: "Suppose Capcom, instead of closing Clover Studios and muttering about 'disappointing sales' had trumpetted Okami's critical success, instructed its publicists to attempt to interest both game and tech media in presentations of art from this beautiful and visually stunning game, and announced their strong support for innovation and creativity in future? They might have produced greater interest in, and sales for, the game, but more importantly, could have worked to establish for Capcom what no company other than Nintendo has in the industry today--a reputation for actually caring about gameplay. Could Ubisoft not have done the same with Beyond Good and Evil? And since Ubisoft is in direct competition in most of the cities where it has studios with EA, which has a reputation for mistreating its staff and a lack of innovation, would this not also have benefited their recruiting efforts?"

simoniker writes "Over at GameSetWatch, Kevin Gifford has been talking about the history of the video game company newsletter, explaining it as '...a concept that's likely completely alien to people who began their game careers anytime after the SNES. During the classic era, and especially during the NES years, free newsletters were a common way for third-party software makers to build a mailing list and advertise directly to consumers.' He then shows off some scans of some of his own collection, including newsletters from Acclaim, FCI, and even Natsume."

Via GameSetWatch, an interview with South Park Producer Frank Agnone, Tech Supervisor J. J. Franzen, and Director of Animation Eric Stough. The discussion, on the Machinima.com site, goes into a lot of detail on how the South Park WoW episode was made, their rationale for doing it, and the amount of assistance they received from Blizzard. From the article: "Q: How long did it take to capture, puppeteer, and edit all the WOW footage? JJ: Uhm... A really really long time. We decided early on to treat the in-game capture sessions as regular film shoots. Our 'set' ended up being the lobby of the studio we produce South Park in. We rented 12 PCs, set up a bunch of folding tables, and were basically good to go. I decided that it would be best to capture on a Mac, since we would be able to capture directly to a quicktime file, which would make getting the captured footage onto the editing system a lot quicker. So, I hauled my shiny new MacPro out into the lobby and spent the next two weeks in a much bigger, if less private, new office. We had 5 'shoot' days, the first on the 20th of Sept. which lasted about 3-5 hours. The next was on the 26th of Sept. which also lasted about 4-5 hours., and then we shot almost every other day up to the last few days of production Monday and Tuesday were full days, with the last day going from 10am Tuesday morning to around 3am Wednesday morning the 3rd of Oct,, the day the episode aired."

Citing the advent of downloadable game demos and an inability for the magazine to 'fit into our integrated media network or afford us digital media opportunities', Ziff Davis' Official PlayStation Magazine will be closed out in January of next year. From the Gamasutra article: "According to the firm, Sony Computer Entertainment America will remain a key content and marketing partner for Ziff Davis Game Group, which will cover SCEA's PlayStation 3 and first-party games extensively across all of its media outlets, including EGM, 1UP.com, and GameVideos.com. The Game Group editorial team will also 'work closely with SCEA in the development of digital content for the PlayStation Network, accessible only through the PS3.' Due to the long-term decline in the magazine advertising market, Ziff Davis has been gradually transitioning away from print for some time, aggressively building up 1UP.com as its central website portal." 1up is carrying a story with the official announcement and some low-key commentary. If you're interested in how much this had to do with subscription numbers, GameSetWatch has a run-down on subscribers for many of the large gaming rags.

MTV is taking another crack at a 'Gamer's Week' this week, and they're already showing they've learned since last year. Offering programming that's about 100x more respectful than anything at G4 (thank you Stephen Totilo), Gamer's Week 2.0 (really obnoxious Flash) will offer up many segments all week long on the next-gen consoles, upcoming and popular released games, and even some games industry esoterica. From the GameSetWatch article: "Tuesday, 11/14 — The spotlight falls on video game classics on Sucker Free as it features special Pro-Gamers, like Triforce from Empire Arcadia, the first fully realized urban gaming clan seeking prize money in organized competitions and arcade hustling, Dana Platt from 'VOA: Valkyries of Arcadia' and David 'Walshy' Walsh from Kianeto gaming clothing, and a look back at Tetris, Grand Theft Auto 3, Pacman and Super Mario Bros."

GameSetWatch looks at the moral middle ground of semi-official company organs. Otherwise known as adverblogging, GSW singles out Three Speech, a blog dedicated to the PlayStation 3. Though the site purports not to be a 'part of' Sony, they have insider access and company knowledge that separates them from your average blog. All this raises some trust issues, which the post explores: "You know, this 'free and open' is true to some limited extent, but why weren't there any difficult comparative questions asked about Xbox Live Arcade in the Harrison interview on E-Distribution? Surely the fact this is for a Sony site makes a difference? (The earlier discussion on SIXAXIS is a bit more rigorous in terms of asking tricky questions, mind you.) I'm aware that the interview was _largely_ just informational, and there are some tautological ways round this. But how about Sony just give Fahey a no-holds-barred interview with Harrison that would run in full on GI.biz, and then reprint the bits they want to? Or wouldn't that be bloglike enough?" Russ Pitts has a further exploration of this subject at the Escapist Lounge blog.

The GameSetWatch column '@Play' deals with the storied history of Rogue-like text adventures. This week, author John Harris discusses the many ways to die in Nethack. From the article: "The lowly cockatrice is perhaps the most dangerous monster in the game. There are plenty of monsters with more hit points, who do more damage, who have special attacks, and are just bigger, but cockatrices instantly kill anyone who touches them with their bare skin, and are thus very likely to kill players unwise in their dealings with them. Even Death up on Astral Plane has to succeed in an attack against a player to deliver an instakill, but a cockatrice can kill by being attacked. If the player attempts to fight a cockatrice without a weapon or wearing gloves and hits, he turns to stone. If he attempts to pick up a dead one with his bare hands, that will also turn him to stone. (It can also be wielded, however. Applications for a wielded cockatrice corpse are left for you to imagine, but I will say that it can be, hm, useful.)"

Despite the high hopes of Xbox 360 fans Gamespot pegs it as unlikely that Lumines Live will drop this week, or that there will be a Gears of War Demo on the Xbox Live service. In news that does seem to be legit, though, you can see screenshots of the first downloadable games for the PS3 service over at Game|Life. Titles include the previously mentioned fl0w, Lemmings 2, Blast Factor, and Go Sudoku. Commentary on the games available at GameSetWatch.

Via GameSetWatch, an article at The New Gamer talking about comfort games. These reliable, fun titles are the old favorites you consistently look to for amusement and solace after a bad gaming session, a bad day, a bad week. From the article, with the author's comfort games: "Mega Man 2 - This Capcom classic has been with me since I was a kid, and I know it like the back of my hand. I'm sure that, if blindfolded, I'd somehow intuitively be able to maneuver through the levels, but I'd much rather be able to view it in all of its 8-bit goodness and remind myself of the good times." My current top five would have to be Super Mario World, Half-Life 2, World of Warcraft, God of War, and Civilization IV. What are yours?

Via GameSetWatch, a post exploring the cost and payoff from an Xbox Live game. From the article: "Let's say you are a publisher or a developer that is able to fund your own development, so, a $10 game (800 Gamer Points) would net you $6.50, or 120,000 units * $6.50 per unit = $780,000. Again, if you are a starving Indie developer this sounds like an infinite amount of money. But, in the world of publishers, this is not considered a big hit."

GameSetWatch has the announcement that entrants for the 2007 Independent Games Festival have been announced. The complete list of entrants is available on the IGF site. There's a breakdown on some of the best entrants at Indiegamer.com, if all you care about is "What should I play?" From that post: "Bang! Howdy! -- The follow up to Puzzle Pirates by Three Rings took years and a big team. It's also innovative and fun. And it pushes a microcurrency system. Lookout IGF. Perplex City -- This real-world/online crossover game gives riddles to players in which they have to solve problems in the real world, on the internet, and in the game. Definitely Oscar... uh I mean... IGF bait. Plus they appear to have crazy funding and just announced a deal to distribute in Gamestop. These guys mean business."

Via GameSetWatch, an article on Waxy.org highlighting the great audio commentary for Half-Life 2: Episode One. The article includes a few excerpts from the experience, via flash movies. From the article: "Most of the game's 115 nodes are audio only, pointing out interesting tidbits about the scene you're currently in, such as the visual design, character dialogue, or gameplay. Some of the best examples discuss the iterations a stage or puzzle went through, why original versions didn't live up to expectations, and how they reached their final design. It's a fascinating glimpse into the minds of the developers, very much like sitting next to them as you play through at your own pace. But a few commentary nodes do much more, taking over the player's view to show them something hidden or entirely new. I've captured video from some of my favorites." Completely worth it to play through a second time to experience.

simoniker writes "A new Gamasutra article asks provocatively in its synopsis: 'Could games like Civilization benefit from putting their interfaces on a diet? Can a player control too many objects at once in a strategy game?' Are RTS titles too UI-intensive? The author notes: 'Even for a Civ addict like me, the game isn't much fun after about 1800. Too many clicks. I counted the clicks, mouse movements, and keystrokes that it took me to get through one move of Civilization III in the year 1848. Many hours later, when that turn was done, I'd counted 422 mouse clicks, 352 mouse movements, 290 key presses, 23 wheel scrolls, and 18 screen pans to scroll the screen.'"

Via GameSetWatch, an article by Keiron Gillen about System's Shock's deeply creepy villainess, Shodan. The deeply disturbed AI is in some ways a cliche, but Gillen examines why Shodan transcends genre tropes to become a truly unique character. From the article: "The core of understanding Shodan in System Shock 2 is to understand that she's no longer the AI she once was. In the first System Shock she was the cold, perfect bully aboard citadel station. The position she finds herself in orbit around Tau Ceti, millions of miles from Earth, is somewhat different. In short, for the majority of the game, she's not the antagonist anymore - but the main supporting actor and even mentor. She's not who you try to stop - she's who you work with."

simoniker writes "Q Entertainment's Tetsuya Mizuguchi, creator of Rez and Lumines, has been discussing why he set up his own company as part of a wider Gamasutra interview, interesting because many major Japanese creators (such as Yuji Naka and Hironobu Sakaguchi) are leaving the big companies to form their own independent outfits. He explained: 'I don't know about everyone, but from just my case, I felt like I didn't have freedom. I was in Sega. At the time, I don't know now, but at the time, that was a big client for me, and I had a studio called UGA, United Game Artists. And I had seventy people. I had many visions, like to make casual games. Not big stuff, but small games. Not Lumines, but many other ideas. If I made a presentation to Sega executives about this kind of thing, and if they said no, that's over. That's it.'"

simoniker writes "At Microsoft's GameFest earlier this week, Gamasutra got up close and personal with the Xbox 360 Live Vision camera, including more information about packed-in game TotemBall, as well as the Xbox 360 facemapping tech from Digimask, and most interestingly, the gesture-based Xbox 360 software from GestureTek. This includes face and motion-tracking, as well as "a solution for tracking individual, non-facial objects on-screen, such as handheld peripherals". Could Wii-like control schemes work on Xbox 360 using this tech?"

simoniker writes "Author DB Weiss has confirmed that he's currently writing a Halo movie screenplay for producers that include LOTR/King Kong's Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh. When asked whether he was concerned about criticism from the long-time fans of any of his movie adaptations, Weiss commented: 'There will be the 5% on the fringe of any hardcore fanbase that get angry about any change you make to the source material. The truth is that novels, games, comics, and what-have-you are not usually ready to be slapped up on screen as-is.' In fact, Weiss suggests of this particular issue: 'If you did do a 100% faithful version, 999 times out of 1000 it would be a mess, and even the 5%-ers would recognize as much.'"

Like many Shadowrun players, Philip Richardson felt frustrated by the announcement that the SR title for the 360 was essentially Counter-Strike with elves. Mr. Richardson, though, happens to be the Program Manager at Microsoft's CRM team. He was invited by the folks at FASA studios to give the game a try, and GameSetWatch reports that he's actually pretty pleased with the situation after all. From the post: "Yes folks: it's share price increasingly good... Artwork: Feels like Shadowrun. Good Job! The SR universe has a lot of different types of artwork (as Tim pointed out yesterday). From the gritty stuff in the early source books to the more cartoonish work in the more recent editions. Gameplay: Feels like Shadowrun."

simoniker writes "Wonder how video game magazines are still alive and kicking, in the age of the Interweb? Here's 'a quick tour of all the game magazines you can find in U.S. bookshelves right now', with plenty of commentary and cover scans, from Nintendo Power to EGM: 'The output isn't quite what it was ten or even five years ago, but there's still a remarkable amount of print getting churned out each month -- and what's more, nearly all of it these days is written for 'core' gamers like you and me.'" I enjoy most of Ziff's magazines (EGM, CGW). I also happily pay through the nose for the British Mag Edge, which is the finest gaming magazine in the world.

simoniker writes "Veteran game designer Ernest Adams has posted a new column on 'Perlin's Law' which suggests that all books, movies, and games have a 'credibility budget'. For games, both the designer and the player decide what happens: '...the story itself can only tolerate a certain amount of improbability before the credibility budget is exhausted, and the story is ruined.' According to this new law, named after Ken Perlin, who gave birth to the concept, games should not be infinitely wide-ranging or allow the player to do anything he wants."

Via GameSetWatch, an article on the Guilded Lilies site interviewing a unique Oblivion modder. Phoenix Amon has taken on the task of rebinding every book in Oblivion, as well as spell-checking the documents within. From the article: "Q: How much time do you spend modding, and do you enjoy it more than playing games? A: I spend more time modding than playing recently, but I enjoy both a lot. I wouldn't have bought Oblivion if it hadn't been moddable, but that's because I knew from experience that I don't like a lot of Bethesda's game design choices. It's not a deciding factor for all games."

simoniker writes "Al Lowe, the creator of lounge lizard Leisure Suit Larry, has been talking about his comeback game with new developer iBase Studios, Sam Suede, asking why games nowadays are too violent, and revealing of his new title: "there's going to be guards, but instead of slitting their throats, you'll give them a wedgie." He also asks: 'Let me put this way, the shelf is full of racing games and shooters, RPGs and action games. Where are the comedies?' Well, where are they?"

Via GameSetWatch, an Edge Online article about rebooting the .hack series of RPGs. From the article: "Most RPGs work like this: a princess is kidnapped, or in danger. A brave young man comes to the rescue and fights off some great evil. We wanted something different. We wanted a duality between the user and character, between real and virtual worlds. With that, you can play between both those worlds, both realities. You enjoy the virtual world for its environment and story, but then you have the real world interacting with and affecting the virtual world."

simoniker writes "Former Infinium Phantom 'console' developer and current Lapboard accessory creator Infinium Labs has revealed multiple new details in financial filings, including the fact that it's changing company name to Phantom Entertainment, as long as shareholders approve. But with the SEC prosecuting former CEO Timothy Roberts, 'accumulated losses since inception of $69,331,794', and _another_ former CEO, Kevin Bachus, now suing the company for back pay, will the company ever release a product?"

GameSetWatch relates the launch of Bang! Howdy's Beta. The new game from the folks who made Puzzle Pirates even has a Beta blog. From the article: "The game ... is 'a hybrid between turn-based and real-time strategy gameplay, and is played in short fast-paced rounds', looks very neat indeed - and it's going to be 'play for free, pay for items' when it launches, just like a whole bunch of Korean titles like Kart Rider that have been super-successful. Also, damn, it's steampunk!"

Via GameSetWatch, an AP story about a boxed edition of several IGF entrants. The Independent Games festival has attracted a number of creative designers, and the results are now available on the retail shelves. From the article: "Indie games aren't commonplace outside of the World Wide Web. Despite that, Moondance successfully wooed Best Buy to stock 'IG: Independent Games' on their shelves beginning last fall. The disc features such casual games as the engineering sim 'Bridge Construction Set' and the popular robot battle game 'Dark Horizons Lore Invasion.' 'Our strategy is to have games for all kinds of gamers: traditional gamers, family gamers and now independent gamers,' says Chris Koller, merchandising director for video games at Best Buy."

simoniker writes "Publisher CDV has officially announced that it is dropping the controversial StarForce game copy protection scheme from its games, and is using the TAGES protection scheme instead, in what it calls 'response to consumer demand'. This follows Ubisoft's dropping of the scheme in April, as controversy continues about StarForce's allegedly negative effect on PCs. However, it's notable that the StarForce drivers have just passed Microsoft's 'Designed for Windows XP' certification programme, according to the company's official website."