The Gamer's Quarter

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Liveblogging from GDC in this thread.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

At the Jeff Minter keynote, watching him demo his XBLA game Space Giraffe. it looks fucking amazing. Tempest + Rez + the particle effects from Geometry Wars.

Edit: Alpha submitted, maybe code complete end of march, May or June release?
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Lestrade · Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 12:58 pm Post subject:

When does anything of consequence begin?

helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

I think Jeff Minter is pretty consequential.
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helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

Also, I hope dessgeega bucks up the courage for that interview she was talking about.
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dessgeega · Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:01 pm Post subject:

i introduced myself to him. after matt interviewed him. now i've embarrassed myself in front of two of my idols!

i also met jonathan mann of the super mario opera (who is striding around in full mario regalia).
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Lestrade · Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:02 pm Post subject:

Mister Toups · Posted: Mon Mar 05, 2007 3:10 pm Post subject:

Jeff Minter's keynote was great. Space Giraffe looks really really amazing.

The most interesting part of the keynote was when he talked about his motivation for making games. He said that games were more about "a feeling" than telling a story.

And he also made a joke about games being "electronic art" as opposed to "Electronic Arts". I lolled.
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Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

Now I'm imagining you bursting out with laughter in a silent room. I wish I was there Sad

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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Innovation in Indie Games panel

Kyle Gabler: Technology will overtake us eventually, lead to new age of content. So don't worry too much.

Jenova Chen: Games need to express feelings, not technology (genres of movies vs genres of games) before they can be considered mainstream entertainment.

Jonathan Mak: Games don't need innovation, we don't look for innovation in other forms of entertainment necessarily, and to expect it is dumb.

Jonathan Blow: Gimmicks don't work for movies, and game industry can't even do gimmicks. Innovation cannot save us now.

Andrew Toups is taking much better notes on this panel than I am so hopefully he can post notes. It is very interesting.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

The representative from Tell Tale Games had a Microsoft Word doc on his desktop named "Wii docs". Starting unfounded rumors itt.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Ok, so, today was fruitful.

Exceptionally.

First I got an interview with Jeff Minter. It helped that I smoked the same brand of cigarettes (camels). Anyways, I'm convinced that he is the avant garde artist of game design, and Space Giraffe will be amazing.

After this I ran into Trip Hawkins who I interviewed and it ended up not very usable because I made the mistake of mentioning that I had not seen his keynote, which he took the opportunity to reiterate most of it to me. I did get a good couple of lines of quotes from him.

Then we saw the innovations in games panel. Which was amazing. It's pretty much changed my theory on what I was going to write about for GDC. As stated toups is working up some notes on the game.

After this I got an excellent interview with Jenova Chen, creator of flOw. I think I tapped into some items that he really wanted to talk about because the interview lasted a bit longer than I had expected.

I'm doing guerrilla tactics for interviews and basically chasing people down to get them. I had some pretty terrible ones planned out but I'm just scrapping them at this point.
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"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

Scratchmonkey · . Joined: 02 Mar 2005 Posts: 1439

I suggest checking out "SPORE's Magic Crayons", which is from 2:30-3:30 on Friday. The speaker is Chaim Gimgold -- I linked his thesis over in the Reccomended Reading thread and I've spent a small amount of time talking with him about games. I think he ran the Indie Game Jam (or whatever they call the equivalent thing at GDC, the thing that Eric Zimmerman is running this year) two years ago and he just generally has really interesting things to say about game design.

Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Discussion over lunch with people we are meeting is far more interesting than any of the panels have been so far. I wish we had brought the recording equipment because this conversation would make a really interesting podcast.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago from That Game Company (cloud, flow) gave a very interesting talk about developing student projects. Also, the geek crowd surrounding Kellee was about five times larger after the panel than Jenova (although in fairness, she was wearing a skirt and Chuck Taylors and Jenova wasn't).
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D-A-I-S · . Joined: 26 Nov 2006 Posts: 123

Isn't Igarashi giving a lecture on 2D? Are you going to live blog that?

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

That's in a few days. I will be liveblogging if there's internet in the room.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Today I learned that the entire video gaming industry is just one gigantic ass, capable of creating shit of all colors and flavors, serious or casual, indie or mainstream (which is to say, diarrhea).

Also, we met the creator of the Super Columbine Massacre RPG and went to dinner with him. He's this tiny filmmaker who was both extremely interesting, and willing to listen to us go on with things we think are wrong with the industry.

After that we hit up a party thrown by Flashbang Studios (who make shovelware, but throw a good party) and got to see fucking virt do a live set. I have had little exposure to chiptunes before, but I fucking loved virt's set. He's also really humble and was a pleasure to talk to.
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

So, like, today sucked.

But tonight was amazing. It started with dinner in the company of Danny Ledonne, creator of Super Columbine Massacre RPG. He was a really great guy and very interested in what we had to say about games.

Then we went to a party I got invited into. As mentioned it was thrown by Flashbang, who is run by good guys stuck making shovelware.

Anyways, I ran into Tom of Gamasutra podcasts, and he happen to be hanging out with (motherfucking) Virt of chiptunes fame. He was being a very nice guy and didn't seem to realize that he was fairly popular.

I was getting a little buzzed, talking to the creators of Gamma Bros. and also John Mak and then I went to get another drink and ran into someone who recognized me. He just happen to be the developer for Small Arms and a fan of the magazine. So I proceeded to drink more and bought him a drink and we talked about shit for a good hour.

Tonight was awesome, and I have a good 4 more interviews set up for this week.

It's going well here at da GD.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

captaincabinets · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 4:27 am Post subject:

I don't know how you can call Dream Day Wedding shovelware. Sounds magical.

Dream Day Wedding Features:

* An untimed mode for relaxing play.
* Nine exciting mini-games.
* Soothing orchestral music.
* Romantic hidden object fun.

I guess that last bit is in the secret honeymoon level. Hot coffee anyone?

Winged Assassins (1984) · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 4:52 am Post subject:

Hot coffee or just tea and biscuits?
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captaincabinets · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 6:10 am Post subject:

the hidden tea and biscuits minigame can be unlocked in GTA:Gloucestershire.

ApM · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 12:33 pm Post subject:

Lestrade · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 2:22 pm Post subject:

Playstation Home: Sony invents The Matrix (as they said they would years ago), and it looks fucking boring. I sure can't wait to hang out with a bunch of rednecks who keep pressing the "heeeeeey-hoooooooh" emote button.

Little Big Planet looks really interesting, though. It really is beautiful, isn't it?

EDIT: LBP looks fucking incredible. Holy shit, I am just in awe here. And that music is just off the hook.

SuperWes · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 3:05 pm Post subject:

I don't know, I think the Home thing looks like it could be pretty amazing. Boring as hell for sure, but I can see it becoming enormously huge, especially if they make the casual games and entertainment things interesting to see and do.

The SingStar stuff looks pretty great as well. I can see trading stupid karaoke videos online becoming the next big thing.

-Wes
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Lestrade · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 3:07 pm Post subject:

Cross-posting all over the place:

SONY PLAYSTATION® HOME® Instructions // Playing Media Files
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

To listen to music in your private Home environment, move your Sony PLAYSTATION® Home® Avatar to your media enjoyment room. Walk over to your Sony Boombastic™ CD Player and press "X" on the Sony SIXAXIS™ controller. A short advertisment will play. Following this advertisement, a playlist will appear on-screen and you can select the song you'd like to listen to by moving through the playlist with the Left Analogue Stick on your Sony SIXAXIS™ controller. To listen to the song, press "X".

There is something just inherently stupid about using a 3D world—one rife with advertisements, I might add—to do things that I can do on Xbox Live through a few menus and two buttons.

- -

Super Paper Mario is making me happy. I really can't wait to play it.

Winged Assassins (1984) · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 3:48 pm Post subject:

Playstation Home sounds like Second Life Lite. That is either a good thing or horrible nightmare depending on your point of view.
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SuperWes · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 4:19 pm Post subject:

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Home is lame.

You can invite people to your apartment (sorry, Virtual Private Space), that you've decorated with RESISTANCE FALL OF MAN wallpapers, furniture you paid $5 for, etc etc.

LittleBigPlanet or whatever is AMAZING.

Here's my notes from the keynote.

10:30
Rush to the keynote because Andrew Toups told me the wrong hall.

10:35
Giant soccer balls are passed out to the crowd. I get hit in the head twice. Clearly someone at sony has gone to a Flaming Lips concert in the last year.

10:37
It's a game, each half of the crowd has a goal and a scoreboard. The crowd has to hit the ball into the goal.

10:40
Maybe the winning team will get PS3? It's not like they're hurting for them.

10:42
Clearly this is the best game Sony has done in YEARS.

10:45
GDC guy introduces Phil Harrison.

10:47
Phil Harrison comes out and congratulates Team B. Audience participation and teamwork? Title of the talk is "Game 3.0". Says Time Magazine's man of the year (you) is a milestone *gag*. Drops "Web 2.0" name, "not a set of rules, not a set of software," I say it's not anything at all.

Game 1.0
The disconected console, the static game disc or cart. Slide includes all systems up to PSX

Game 2.0
The connected console or PC, with static game content on the disc. PSP noticably absent.

Game 3.0
Console connected to the internet, Why is the PSP there if the DS is in Game 2.0?

Home - Runs of the PS3 cross media bar. "This service runs on the PS3 as this entire presentation has been." Oh god he's been holding a sixaxis this whole time.

10:52
Brings out the producer of the Home network system. Can't find the PS3 they need (they're so hard to find).

Home loads after some video glitches. Looks like The Sims as drawn by the KOTOR engine. Walking animation is horrible. Edit using analog sticks on graph to change the 3D model. This is just silly. In game ads on billboards. Menu in Home is a Virtual PSP. HD quality video on a screen in the game. Names looks like World of Warcraft name things.

PSO style chatting. Tries to type "How" but ends up typing "Ho" instead.

10:56
Games lounge:
God of War II video, pool tables, arcade games, bowling alley. Bowling is done using traditional game input (buttons and menus), not sixaxis wii sports ripoff. Arcade game looks moderately interesting. Not actual old titles, looks like original content.

Each user has an apartment that you can "trick out". Game related wallpapers available (and ugly) Invites other user and shows up on the couch. Both avatars show up on the couch and it looks like an awkward come on.

Sony is getting into the microtransactions business, Linden Labs should be afraid.

Action interface for avatars is clearly ripped off from The Sims.

11:01

Taking a photo of the crowd, putting the memory stick from teh camera into the PS3. But he put it into the wrong PS3 so he can't actually demo that.

Goes to a bigger room, multiple floor apartment with deck and pool table. Drops in Sony Bravia TV and loads Casino Royale trailer. Proximity based audio. Can throw TV down the stairs but it doesn't break ("Your sony bravia is a very reliable device")

11:04
Switching to a movie content channel, defined as a movie theater. Shows Spiderman 3 trailer. Now pimping Grouper (have to get their money's worth somehow). "Great way of building community around media content".

"Home is not just about sony brands and sony games"

Shows bubbles for spaces based on brands and game series. There's a bubble for Loco Roco. Goes to the EA sports platform,. Says easy to develop, uses 3D models from Maya. Until this point, I forgot he was speaking to developers. Oh god, one of the actions was "The Guns".

Hall of Fame (Xbox Live Achievements). "Trophies given by achieving things in games" There's a locoroco trophy with a 3D model, which I'm guessing is confirmation of Loco Roco PS3. I think I see a cover of the game too.

There's a trophy for "On 100 friends' lists".

Trophy room looks like the senator's chamber from Star Wars episode 1 or The Matrix.

11:11
He keeps using the words "spaces". Large-scale beta trial begins in April 2007, service launches fall 2007.

He's holding a sixaxis again. Talks about Singstar, added online functionality. "Singstar Live" My singstar online profile with background music. "SingStore" Picks Avril Lavigne "Complicated" from the store and adds to cart..

"you'll notice the track is downloading the background... which is a good feature."

Can record performances with web camera or digital camera, and let people rate them. Coming out in May/June in PAL territories and later this year in the US.

11:15
Playstation Edge
"Core tools and technology that have enriched our first party titles, and we're going to be sharing these tools freely with all developers"

11:17
New game, LittleBigPlanet.
Creators of Ragdoll KungFu. Brings on two founding members of studio that created LittleBigPlanet. Empowering players to do whatever they want to do. Adding blocks using a XMB-like interface. Creating in the game the gigantic cog that's on the right side of the stage. Clearly everything on the stage is being recreated in the game.

Stickers. Drops sticker icon onto one of the cloths hanging behind him, moves with the cloth in 3D rendering live.

"Communal creativity"

Puts face on the gigantic orange and rolls it around. Zooms in on characters. Characters run off the edge of the level and go to another level. Run around the level, Can grab each other by the neck. This is actually really cool looking. Rolls ball and grabs on at last second flinging himself into the air. This is very cool.

Music reminds me of Loco Roco and Katamari themes. Now they're flying around with jetpacks. Dynamic lighting based on set pieces. It must take forever to build these levels. Shows dropping stickers on the level, I wonder if graffiti will be a problem.

Finale is riding a skateboard down a drop, polaroid photo of them like a roller coaster is taken. Holy crap, I am going to need to get a PS3 ;_;

They show videos of building levels, but they're all timelapsed. Ranking levels based on views and comments in a youtube style. On the Playstation Network in 2007 and on Blu-Ray in 2008.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Things to check out, not all have been released:
Goatscape
Everyday Shooter
Sylvans

Holy shit portal looks amazing. I need to get a computer that can run the Source engine.

Crush for the PSP this summer, looks amazing. Allows you to "crush" the world into 2D to navigate levels.

Dude from Finland makes some fun, small games in a week or less each. I'll look the link up later when I have more battery life.
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Persona-sama · Posted: Wed Mar 07, 2007 6:06 pm Post subject:

You bastards. ;___;

Someone find an Atlus employee and ask them when Persona 3 is coming out, k?

Also, I think GDC would've been a better place to pimp TGQ than E3 in retrospect. I'm sure the indie community would be willing to support a zine like ours more than big companies afterall.
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Cycle · Mac daddy Joined: 08 Sep 2006 Posts: 2767

LittleBigWorld or whatever looks awesome but I was hoping it was a sequel to the Little Big Adventure games Sad

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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Kotaku says that Super Paper Mario is playable on the GDC Expo floor although I walked through the entire thing at least twice (once holding a beer) and didn't see it. If this is some invite only hidden backroom shit I am going to be pissed.

Is it just me or is Microsoft picking up a lot of really great indie games for XBLA? At least two or three times I've heard of something big that was here last year or even playable now that is going to XBLA. It seems like they're making a lot of right moves.

Probably won't be updating again until after the shigeru miyamoto keynote tomorrow morning. Maybe they'll announce they're ripping off Sony and Microsoft?
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Hell, I guess there are separate Nintendo and Sony booths in the West hall which we didn't get to see today, so I can see Super Paper Mario tomorrow.

I got to see Shigeru Miyamoto accept the lifetime achievement award from the GDC which was really awesome. I guess I could have seen him three more times, seen Tim Schafer being Tim Schafer, and the creator of Tetris if I didn't have to give Andrew Toups a ride to a bar.
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Six · . Joined: 15 Jul 2006 Posts: 313 Location: montreal

Has Warren Spector talked about his new thing yet?

dessgeega · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 1:55 am Post subject:

the ps3 wannamii channel misses the point entirely. it misses the point of achievements too. it's pretty much an avenue for sony to serve players to advertisers. and i'm offended that phil harrison held a press conference instead of a keynote speech.

the saddest thing that's happened so far was a woman from the nabacular drop / portal development team spoke about the projects and at the end someone got up and asked if she did the voices in the trailer.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Also, like, did she like totally write code for the game because chicks who code are like, totally hot.

Anna, did you do the voiceover for the trailers for Invader?
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Shapermc · Hot Sake! Joined: 14 Oct 2004 Posts: 6279

Today was an overall good day.

I got an interview with Dan Paladin and then a little later Tom Fulp of the Behemoth. I also did an official interview with the Super Columbine guy. I got Warren Spector to agree to an inteview... but only through email Sad

Home... really misses the point of what makes the things it's ripping off so great. It's like this simple idea blown WAY out of proportion. Part of what makes it great is how simple it is.

LittleBigPlanet is going to be god fucking amazing. I'm really happy that there's a game for this system besides MGS4. Now I just need a PS4.
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“The average man has a secret desire to be a swaggering, drunken, fighting, raping swashbuckler.”
-Robert E. Howard in a letter to a friend circa Decmber 1932

"There is no place in this enterprise for a rogue physicist!"

helicopterp · . Joined: 13 May 2006 Posts: 1435 Location: Philadelphia

Persona-sama · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 9:50 am Post subject:

Somebody ask if anybody that reads TGQ likes the comics. ;_;
I want some e-love.
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ryan · . Joined: 20 Feb 2005 Posts: 999

hey, persona, here's some e-love. just for you.
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aerisdead · . Joined: 03 Dec 2006 Posts: 254 Location: Toronto, Canada

Lestrade · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 2:10 pm Post subject:

Maybe I'm glad I never went to E3. It sounds like something odd happened there.

Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

These are my notes from the Nintendo Miyamoto keynote this morning. It was AMAZING.

10:31
No sign of starting yet. The line for this wrapped completely around the Moscone Center north hall and was ending near the front doors. There are more screens, one on each side of the main video display, presumably for Wii gameplay as they are showing the Wii menu without any channels.

Andrew Toups wrote in his fake live-blog that "my stomach sank into the depths of my prostate." Dessgeega and I explained to him the complete impossibility of this based on the way the male human body is laid out.

He has a podium that is actually a video screen as well. Phil Harrison just stood on stage with his SIXAXIS controller, but I guess this is more formal. Should be interesting to see if this is really a keynote to developers or just a press conference.

10:47
Discussing Shigeru Miyamoto's fetishes now, since we have nothing better to do. I'm looking at hardcore shounen-ai manga (just for you, Lestrade).

I'm guessing that they're going to announce an online infrastructure for the Wii, given that there appears to be more than one Wii. There's one on each side of the stage and I'm guessing they'll announce that you can play online (where in this case the two online opponents are on different halves of the stages).

10:52
I kind of want to go up to Reggie and ask him if he did the voiceover for the Wii Sports trailer.

10:53
"Please take your seats, the show is going to..... begin shortly." It's as if the announcer doesn't believe it even.

10:59
Executive director of GDC comes out. Slathering Shigeru Miyamoto with praise, but it is deserved and all. The main screen switches to a Wii menu with a GDC channel. Loads a Shigeru Miyamoto mii, then in the Mii plaza three people standing there (same three standing on the stage).

11:02
"Eight years since we had the chance to talk." Pulls out the wii remote, doing presentation on the wii photo channel. Switches to a photo of his garden, zooms around looking for pikmin. Talking about the past, Donkey Kong and Pac-Man. Shows photos of typical gamers (kids and salarymen as well). Talks about 1998 best sellers, Goldeneye007. Gamers were just experiencing the most popular form of entertainment.

Contrasting top five titles in 2004 (GTA, Madden, Halo), says the press started asking if they were changing gamers into zombies. "Even if sales went up, our reputation as an industry went down.... Players only wanted the same type of game."

"The essence of any game designer, the creative vision"

This sounds a lot more like a keynote than press conference so far.

"The Nintendo difference." Three elements to corporate vision:
1. Expanded audience - Taken form in Nintendo's corporate vision. Miyamoto talking about personal experiences, calls it "The Wife-o-Meter: The interest level in my own wife." Pacman and Mario Bros were not important moments for his wife. Miyamoto thought his wife would be interested in Tetris but she was not. Ocarina of Time interested his daughter, and his wife became more interested. Animal Crossing: assured wife there were no enemies, so she agreed to touch the controller. She enjoyed exchanging letters with children, cutting down trees (wife-o-meter moves up to half way).

Miyamoto loves dogs, his wife loves Cats, talks about the question from the Everybody Votes channel. Shows screen shots of the Everybody Votes channel. Shows photos of his dog, "if you look at his face, it looks sort of like a guitar pick [alicenote: it does], so we named him 'pick'."

He looks really excited to be talking. Relates dog story to Nintendogs. Then Brain Age turned wife into true gamer. Has now accepted video games as part of her life. Today the wii. Last month on valentine's day, in Japan women give chocolates to men. She downloaded the Everybody Votes channel on her own. "It would be more normal for me to go home and find Donkey Kong eating at my table"

Brain Age 2 has a Dr. Mario mini game, and Miyamoto's wife says "I can beat you at this game! Me!" Wife-o-meter is nearly full but still needs maybe 15%. Talks about Mii channel and Wii sports. "Her first step towards game design. She's going to come up with a unique idea, and when she does, I can retire."

2. Devotion to the entertainment business. Don't have to worry about diversification, every employee is able to focus solely on entertainment. Nintendo has a well-struck internal balance. Makes them more efficient at developing new products.

Talking about controller design for each Nintendo system. Shouldn't just say "Miyamoto created this controller" or any one person, it's a group collaboration. Creating wii was more intense than ever. One team concerned with general audience, another team focusing on classic gamers playing traditional franchises (Zelda), a third team working with the third-party developers.

Shows wii remote prototypes, one looks like a circular gamecube controller, another a gigantic starman on a disc, one has half rotate horizontally, prototypes are moving more toward the wii remote.

With portable consoles, do we need a home-based console? These kinds of collaborations are the kinds of things only console makers can do, and maybe only Nintendo. He's right, I think, and the success of the Wii has shown that.

Most important for Nintendo is to invite game developers to creating new game experiences. This is not a press conference at all (so far).

Talking about a poetry museum in Kyoto near Nintendo's headquarters. Poems are displayed on the floor, and each person gets a modified Nintendo DS to control the screens in the floor.

This sounds fucking amazing, Lestrade, you need to check this out.

Large-scale form of entertainment. Since it isn't a game, no need to figure out how the game will end. Watches how this bridges the gap between generations. Providing young people with the opportunity to learn cultural knowledge, which is more important than just giving more information to people who want it.

3. Risk - Since Yamaguchi was president, encouraged employees to take risks. Took risk of questioning their own nature of what a video game is. Wii was the biggest risk they have taken, gamecube was only a half-step towards expanded audience.

Talking about risks with the wii remote. Miyamoto acted as an evangelist inside the company, and in doing so gave himself confidence. Wasn't until E3 2006 that he saw happy faces of people playing the Wii that they felt they made the right decision.

"Corporate vision is important, but corporations do not make video games. People do."

he has a link lapel pin KAWAIIII ^_^

MyFirstTouchDS website with videos of people playing the DS for the first time. Everyone has huge grins on their faces. "that's the reaction that I always want."

He addresses other designers working towards other emotions (fear, violence, revenge) and says there's nothing wrong with that. He just wants to create a positive feeling.

He might need to flip over the tea table.

"We as game designers often repeat the same mistake, because we know too much about the games we are making." This is still a keynote, not a press conference.

"Maybe you game reviewers need to add a new category to how you score games: how fun they are for people who don't play them." Big applause for this.

Communication
Players communciating with each other, or just with the computer. Talks about Legend of Zelda, did not go over well in Japan. People were confused, did not know how to move from stage to stage, couldn't solve puzzles, Took sword away to make them figure out how to solve puzzles. Hoped to foster communication between players as well.

Talking about Animal Crossing - Still enjoyed by hardcore gamers even if it is about communication. Animal Crossing sold seven million copies!

Prioritzation
Every game developer has the same problem, "not enough." Natural to think there needs to be more graphics, more content, don't want gamers to be disappointed.

Talking about Wii Sports Baseball, not realistic at all even though Miyamoto is a big baseball fan and would want to add lots of realism. Modeled Miis after kokeshi dolls. Time could be better spent making game feel more realistic, thus focus on pitching and hitting. Tried using mario characters as improvement on Kokeshi style. Found people liked using Kokeshi style better. Shows screenshot of Wii Sports Tennis usng all Mario models. He'd like to play a more realistic baseball game in the future, but he's happy that Wii Sports is being played by millions of people.

Tenacity
Shows picture of Nintendo manufactured pitching machine, and contrasts that with Wii Sports Baseball. NES Famicom disk system, shows face creation system. Looks exactly like mii channel but 20 years ago, which I suppose it is. No one saw how this could be a game at the time.

Then talks about the Nintendo 64 disk drive. Shows video from 64DD game, Talent Studio(?), has more realistic Miis with bodies, clothes. Models could be animated. Still didn't catch on.

Next shows eReader for GBA. Shows video of 64DD avatars dancing with Capt. Olimar, pikmin, animal crossing guy, etc in Stage Debut which was shown at E3 2002. This never launched as well.

Idea came up again with the Wii. Another team was working on a DS project. "I went back to my team and said, 'You guys are useless!'" Thought the idea would be too complicated for the masses, only appeal to creative people. No way to make it into a game or make it profitable. Miis didn't need to be a game, could be stand-ins for players in games.

With each hardware iteration, need to make graphics more complex. (uncanny valley itt) Ended up reducing the number of people who wanted to use it. Made it overly simplistic intentionally to make it accessible.

New Wii channel, allow people to hold popularity contests for miis worldwide.

Brings up image of 8-bit mario. "Maybe in too many games." What happened to Mario 128? The purpose of that demo was to show how the Gamecube could dynamically change mario games. Pikmin was really Mario 128, allowed the player to control numerous people individually or working together.

Super Mario Galaxy video - mostly mario flying around in space. running on spherical surfaces. This is like a true 3D mario game. I wouldn't call it revolutionary, but it looks amazing and maybe the first real 3D platformer that takes advantage of the third dimension. Coming out this year.

:"Creative vision is not one element of game design, it is the essence of game design. Your vision does not have to be my vision. I am only one person. The future of our industry depends on how successful you are in creating that vision."

After seeing IGF earlier, he doesn't feel a need to worry even. Amazing.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

Super Paper Mario is excellent. It is a perfect mix of traditional Mario platforming, the 3D paper effects from Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, and normal RPG elements from the Paper Mario series. I feel like they finally got it right, and made a game that's compelling to play using the Paper Mario style. It plays wonderfully and the 3D turning plays just as well as it looks.

One of the Nintendo folks who worked on the localization said it's up to 50 or 60 hours of playtime with most of it being the platforming levels instead of a traditional RPG gameplay. The sheer thought of that gets me really, really wet.

I didn't get to play Super Mario Strikers Charged, but I watched a few folks play a match. It looks like a lot of fun, but I can see the common frustration I've felt with previous Mario sports games (esp. Mario Hoops 3 on 3) being likely to occur.

I played Lumines Plus after waiting over 20 minutes. Indeed they removed all the Mondo Grosso tracks from the game (at least the first few that started Challenge mode on the PSP) and the control felt off. It felt like I was playing Lumines: God of War edition since the station next to mine had the God of War II demo running with the sound way up, and it seemed like every time I got a combo Kratos would scream "I AM THE GOD OF WAR!!!"

DJ Max Portable (2?) is getting a US release from what I can tell. This makes me extremely excited.

They had this really funny tech demo of a group of 120 3D models (pulled from some random game) dancing in a square. It truly impressed me with its NEXT-GEN HARDWARE POTENTIAL.

A booth for this 3D modeling program has this video running with clips from games their software was used on, and one of them is The Idolm@ster. It's only a few seconds long, but I want more -_-

I need to go back down to the Sony booth and wait to play Flow, but otherwise everything I've played except Lumines Plus has been excellent, and hopefully some of it will see the light of day before Thanksgiving this year.
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Winged Assassins (1984) · Posted: Thu Mar 08, 2007 5:37 pm Post subject:

dessgeega · Posted: Fri Mar 09, 2007 1:21 am Post subject:

during a candid speech on the development history of the zelda series since he took it over, aonuma made a sexist comment about realizing twilight princess's new control scheme worked when "even the female employees" were able to kill bosses.

i got to play phantom hourglass's multiplayer mode. it's like versus pac-man on the gamecube, except more focused and requiring less hardware - aonuma admitted in his speech that asking players to connect gameboys to the gamecube was an unsuccessful experiment.
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Nana Komatsu · weak sauce Joined: 17 Jul 2006 Posts: 1293

These are my notes from the fantastic panel that Eiji Aonuma gave on the history of the Zelda series in the last few years. He was extremely candid, not just about Zelda but about Nintendo's strategies as a whole, and it sounded very much like a real speech addressing game developers than any PR piece (although there was a little of that at the end).

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Aonuma zelda panel

Extremely interesting.

"Gamer Drift" in Japan blamed for poor sales of Wind Waker in Japan. Describes as a trend for gamers to move away from gaming due to lack of innovation and more of the same. Adknowledges poor sales for Wind Waker in US too due to graphical style.

Four Swords was meant to combat Gamer Drift in Japan but sold very poorly as well.

Decided to give in to fan desires from North America since market for Zelda is much stronger. Aonuma said this was a turning point in the zelda franchise and making a wrong mistake might mean the end for the franchise. He approached Miyamoto and said "I want to make a realistic Zelda game!" What was to become Wind Waker 2 was changed into what became Twilight Princess.

DS Zelda project started as wind waker style typical gameplay. Aonuma felt this was not intuitive and the control was poor, so he instead pushed to have user interact with the environment to guide Link around.

Needed a theme for the realistic zelda game, drew on the past games in which there are two contrasting worlds. Link turning into a wolf is based on how he turned into a rabbit in the dark world in Link to the Past. Miyamoto yelled at him since doing a four-legged character is more difficult in a 3D game.

Then moved to Minish Cap GBA game. Even with gamer drift in Japan, GBA install base kept growing and seemed lucrative for a Zelda game. Many parallels between development of Minish Cap and Twilight Princess.

Before E3 2005, the game was in a state of disarray without one cohesive experience, instead only a few set of set pieces. Nothing was unique about the movement of 3D realistic Link.

Miyamoto saw the buzz after realistic Zelda was announced and was expecting 120% from the team.

E3 2005 was very positive, but Aonuma felt he needed to bring something new and fresh to the game. Miyamoto suggested bringing Zelda to the Revolution. Demo of arrow control using pointer/remote was created and Aonuma felt safe making a decision to moving the Wii. Still, he didn't want to leave the Gamecube users out in the cold, and needed to branch to have two versions. Decided to push both versions to 2006 to make sure everyone was happy.

Waited until Gamecube version was stable before Wii development was started. He talks about difficulty of the camera controls, shows video of boomerang use.

Next he talks about the motion sensor, shows video of motion sensing controls where camera zooms into first person view (Red Steel style, without the rubber arm). Third person POV led to problem with link holding the sword in his wrong hand, was too disorienting. Moved to using B button for sword swing in E3 demo.

People were too confused by the E3 2006 demo's controls. Aonuma responds "you need to get used to the Wii controls. Players can't do that on the floor of a demo show." Went back and played with other Wii launch titles. Could not force users to get used to controls.

Made changes to the pointer camera, as it was not intuitive. Shows another video with horizontal movement using nunchuck analog stick, vertical using pointer.

Could not resolve how to control item usage as holding a direction on the D-pad leads to mistakes. Moved to using B button for item usage and D-pad for switching. "Key assignment does not seem like a big problem when you look at it objectively" Since they lost B button to items, sword usage needed a new control. Went back to motion sensor swing.

This meant switching Link to right-handed, but changing the character model would not be feasible. Decided to mirror the world instead, which caused its own problems but worked better with motion sensor control. Decided against mapping horizontal and vertical movement to corresponding actions, instead any movement caused a swing of the sword, as players would not consciously

Aonuma makes a kind of sexist remark that sets the crowd silent, although it may have been a translation mistake. "When I saw some of our female employees defeating a gigantic boss, I knew these controls would work"

Miyamoto came in and flipped the motherfucking tea table.

Zelda launched to great success in North America and Europe. Still didn't work so great in the Japanese market, which meant it was possibly still too confusing.

The DS Zelda has lots of concessions made to counteract this.

"Battle mode" is a misnomer, better name "Wi-Fi Hide and Seek". Link must capture the most force gems, other player(s) control phantom guards.

Shows video of gameplay, red link is on offense and moves around screen trying to find the gems. He does not see the enemies on his map. Once Link picks up a force gem, the phantom guards appear on the map. Also, while carrying the force gems Link is slowed down sand can be caught easier. Red link is slowed down variably based on size of force gems, and more points awarded for bigger ones.

Red Link goes down and switches sides. Next show video of blue Link on defense, map is on the bottom screen and lines drawn to guide phantoms around. Phantoms can always see where Link is on the map, even if he cannot see them. Light blue areas on the map where Link cannot be seen and phantoms cannot enter. Player draws a patrol path back and forth for one of the phantoms. Link disappears when he is on a space (goal where you take the force gems) as well.

This looks really fun. Kind of like a RTS for the defending player.

The key to winning is predicting where Link will go and dispatching the phantoms accordingly. Players take turns until set number of turns is reached and player with most points wins.

Zelda must continue to be creative as it is still considered too difficult.

Aonuma's wife has been with him a long time sees no value in games. She treats him like a happy-go-lucky guy who just plays games all day at work without understanding his hardships. He never considered bringing a console home until his son said he wanted a remote (not the console, just the remote). Aonuma brings a Wii console with Wii Sports home, along with Twilight Princess. Son was able to box without reading any of the rules, but Aonuma assumed this would be the case. Son also wanted to play Twilight Princess but Aonuma thought it was too complex for him.

(extremely cute picture of Aonuma's son playing Zelda here)

Then he catches his wife playing the game the next day. She's converted.

"Watching someone else play makes you want to play it yourself."

Wii is reminding developers what is important to a game.

(Video of Phantom Hourglass shown here)

It looks really interesting, I wonder how the controls hold up to all the actions required by the Zelda franchise. Rubbing used for word battles, draw lines for boomerang. Sailing is back!!! This really does look like mini Wind Waker (whcih I loved).

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On an unrelated note, this will be my final update from GDC. This is Nana Komatsu, signing off.
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