I have a curiosity about what makes a game popular. I would like to make a game and make millions. I doubt I have the patience to build such a game. I like skipping to new things and figuring them out. I suppose it is more about feeding my curiosity than actually building things.
Whatever the case, this page is my collection of articles about what makes games great.
This video is too fun to pass up. It shows the side of 3D virtual worlds that most Second Life residents do NOT have to deal with. As we move in to using Blender and 3DS Max to build for Second Life™ we start to move into this world.
There is an interesting video about how Oculus VR™ (OVR) is changing the game design paradigms. I came across it in my Facebook browsing. 22 minutes. Nate Mitchell is speaking at GDC 2013 (Game Developers Conference) which ran from March 25 to 29.
I’ve written about what I think the user interface problems will be. This video really gets into some of the problems and how people are handling them.
Jo Yadley, of 1920 Berlin fame, has an update on the Oculus Rift from Rod Humble. See: Rod Humble: Oculus Rift already in Second Life, want to make it excellent. The title pretty much says it all. But, Jo provides some interesting background making it worth the read time.
Oculus Rift Compared to other display systems.
I think Jo is somewhat representative of builders like Loki Eliot, Penny Patton, and others that create fantastic builds. I expect many of that caliber builders will be looking at their builds though Oculus Rift eyes.
I suspect that a shift to Oculus Rift will change how Second Life is built and experienced. While I am looking forward to the Oculus Rift arriving in a retail version I am probably not as excited about it as Jo. It will affect all the things she says it will affect. But…
There is a good article on FastCoLabs: What’s The Big Problem With Developing Oculus Rift VR?
It seems it is not that hard to integrate into a game. Team Fortress 2 has an Oculus Rift interface now. Value, the owners and operators of Steam, helped create the interface.
Joe Ludwig, one of the Value programmers behind the Rift implementation, said, “Figuring out how to combine mouse and keyboard input with head tracking was not very well explored territory, so we had to break some new ground there.”
Neverwinter goes to open Beta today. They have a great trailer out. But, don’t confuse what you see in the trailer with the actual game. This is ad-hype at the height of hyping.
Neverwinter
See the American Times site for more details and some images from the ACTUAL game. Below is a video from the official site.
Prim Perfect has a great article up about BobbekinWorld. Title: Supporting BobbekinWorld – a new case use for Second Life. Check out the video and visit Prim Perfect to get more information.
You may have seen the trailers on the SyFy™ and other channels or may be YouTube. If you were curious and started looking, you probably found a ton of stuff generated by a massive advertising campaign. This is not just the release of a game and a TV show. There are incentives in the game to watch the show. In the show we will likely see incentives to play the game. I am sure they will be promoting it. The current commercials promote the game and show together.
This is a synthesis of marketing ideas I’ve not seen before. I think I understand that top players will be able to influence the show’s storyline. The show will add glory to the top game players.
Warning: Violent Content
One of the major costs of any TV show is the union writers. If the idea of pulling in role players can be implemented and used to replace writers it could provide a huge savings. Much like what happens with reality shows. So, just as computer games are using players/users to provide content at phenomenally low prices, this may be a similar attempt for TV content.
