I love TED. You always find interesting topics and it’s even better when games are part of the discussion. Very interesting video about what games can become. While the talk might be at the high-end of the optimism scale, I pretty much agree with it. Check it out.
And for fun, interesting talk about future UI.
No I haven’t abandoned Project Optimus (wow that’s been a while) and Project B is part of the bigger picture so that’s alive and well. Optimus just feel like it should be done when the time is right. I’ll be hitting it whenever I can but I think Zizzler should and will be taking most of my time. Hopefully for the better.
And there it is! Pre-pre-whatever-alpha of Zizzler. Going for a turn-based-tactics (chess and/or go) game with units to choose from. I’ll go into more details soon. This has been in the works way before my current CivIV addiction but I do feel like it “justifies” the overall concept for the game.
In the screenshot (can it really be called that?) all you see is the board and a “unit”. Just got all the possible positions a unit can be on. Next is to clean up a little bit. Finally got some foundation stuff coming along. If all goes well, the unit possible moves should be developed a little more. I say more because a few friends and myself have been developing this concept for a little to long now using chess boards and random pieces for units. We believe it’s really fun so we’re going ahead with it.
First to admit this shouldn’t be anything revolutionary or paradigm shifting game. Just good old fun!
Whoa, it’s been a while. I’m really trying to update this site at least once a week and/or two topics really worth discussing a month. With that said, this post will most likely expand from the previous post. This is one way I would like to state my goals as a game developer and developer who also happens to own a business. 
So, what do I want to do? Plain English: To be able to play ‘core’ quality games, anywhere. That deserves a little bit of explaining! There’s two aspects to this statement. A design side and a technical side. Let’s start with the technical.
It’s obvious that there are established companies trying, intentially or not, to make it possible so that we can play games “anywhere”. To have a game in the backend, running anywhere is a novel concept for sure. I don’t want to repeat what I said in my last post, so refer to that if you want my thoughts on gaming as a service. In the short term, it’s crucial that we get our game out there. Don’t really care how (Flash, Unity, etc) as long as the quality is there. But looking at it from a bigger picture, our platform ideally should be built on open standards, if not open source. Would be great if we can avoid plugins altogether but I’m not sure if that’s feasible seeing how the goal is to play anywhere. We can’t forget about that very important “native” layer that we all want access to. Taking advantage of that $300 GPU would be nice if it’s there. Maybe if the plugin was open source, like panda3d, browser developers wouldn’t mind including them in the distribution. (*cough*Unity*cough*) Sorry about that, getting over a little cold. As a side note, it’s known that I’m from the programming side of game development. But I know deep down there are a shit load of better programmers than me, which I hope to work with some day. They’re expertise and knowledge will definitely have a hand in how all of this turns out, no matter what I think!
Now with the design side. I really don’t want to use the term “hardcore” game. For that I point you to A New Taxonomy of Gamers (NTG). But for the time being, hardcore will have to do. I want to make hardcore games, that play anywhere. Now, that is nothing against “casual”/”indie” games. I’ve play a dozens of games that can fall into those categories. Nothing against them at all but I don’t want to make those types of games, not now at least. Who knows what I’ll want to make tomorrow! (Nice escape right?) At the same time, we might have different definition for what a casual/hardcore game is (Read NTG). Plants vs Zombies is a game that first popped into my head as a casual/hardcore game. Is it for you? For some gamers, the determining factor are the graphics alone! With that out of the way, I would love to develop Halo/CoD/Prince of Persia/etc quality games you start playing on the PC, then a little bit during your break with a mobile device, to finish the day on the couch. The same exact game, not a stripped or slim down version. I know this a little far off but I can dream, can’t I?
I know Gaming Anywhere will be a reality, it’s just a matter of time. I think this sums it up pretty well. If there is any doubt or questions, please feel free to ask. I’m here listening!
Update: They beat me to it…
