It's been quite some time since Alter Ego hit the shelves and impressed the press. Have you designed any other video games since?Well,
Alter Ego was to be followed by a game called
Child's Play -a humorous simulation about raising children, but
Activision fell on financial hard times and had to be scrapped. The project manager was someone named Brenda Laurel, whom everyone first referred to as "The Lizard Queen" in the early days of the Internet.
Since then I have had some game ideas. One is finally coming to fruition. It's Internet based and code named
K-OS.
K-OS? Will it be an MMO sort of game? Could you describe it briefly?Only briefly. People purchase computer generated DNA. They feed, train and teach the creature that forms from it. The creatures meet in a virtual world on line, fight, consume each other's attributes until one becomes most superior. You know, the kind of touchy feely activities psychologists are known for.
Any idea when it should be available to psychologist adoring masses?Well a lot depends on how much time I can slice from my media business which is doing quite well right now. My guess would be Winter 2007.
So, back to the old days, if you don't mind. Alter-Ego. How would you describe it in a couple of sentences?Alter Ego was a life sim, written in a tongue in cheek style which permitted people to explore the consequences of their decision making. It was built on a foundation of hundreds of interviews I conducted with people about their most memorable life events. Combined with stuff I just made up!
And how did you decide to undertake such an apparently mammoth task? What was your inspiration? Your PhD in psychology perhaps?Actually, it was the other way around--it was my love of game design and the prospect of making some money. Psychology was a way of breaking out of the pack of other designers.
Hehe... A cunning plan indeed!Well, its more than that, although I am cunning. Technology is by nature an exploitative enterprise. You have to strike while the iron is hot and you need to innovate in order to achieve that. That is what juices me up about working in this business and that's why I rarely sit in a room with people who tell me about their anxieties.
Alter Ego, despite being critically acclaimed, didn't sell very well. Why do you think this happened?It sold well enough to buy me a house and a car. However, it did not sell like
Mortal Kombat.
Why? Well, the egoist in me thinks it was before its time. It was developed during a period of gaming that did not know what a game activity was. It came after the initial shoot em ups and after some
Zelda like stories, but was quite different than both. People have been begging me for years to re-do it.
Actually, should you re-do it, it would still be innovative and unique... Creativity in the mainstream gaming media seems to be at an all-time low... Or not?Well, a project like that needs some cash behind it. It would have to go through a big developer like
Sony. It would also have to be multimedia because that's what turns people on -and well it should be- better for the nakedness and the killings and all. However, large developers wisely stick to their franchises--sports games, carjackings, and war themes. I don't know if it would make it past the funding stage.
Then again, the Sims did it... And it was the only truly successful spiritual child of Alter Ego.Yes it was, damn it. Can't do
the Sims again though; it would be me imitating an imitator of me.
How surreal and psycho-confusing....Thank you. If someone would toss a few million my way, I am sure I could come up with something.
Which reminds me, have you played Timothy Leary's game? Actually met the man? Helped him with his game?Only by phone. Tim was an interesting sort of fellow. Lots of ideas about technology but no real clue. On the other hand, I don't like people mucking about with my stuff, so I learned programming from the ground up. I am actually quite a technical person.
But where did you learn game-design and coming up with intuitive and never before seen interfaces?
I think game design is a function of a person's idiosyncratic way of living. To some, life is just one big game. HA!
Wow!I just realized what that implies about Alter Ego.When I was younger I used to make up games to amuse myself and to torment my little sister.
Did you ever hit her with an Alter Ego manual, then?No, she was already too old and strong to mess with.
Sisters, tsk... Like reviewers really. Remember any of the reactions and/or reviews back in the day Alter Ego was released?We all grew up in Brooklyn and had to learn to street fight relatively early in life.
Oh people loved it, the reviews were excellent with the exception of two guys from
Compuserve who hated it because it relied on manipulation and was nothing more than a simulation based on psychology. Imagine! I laughed my ass off when I read that review.
Besides laughing at reviews, what else did you enjoy from the Activision era?Well, also, loved the perks. Activision was big on treating their designers like rock stars. It was hilarious that when we showed at
Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas we were always right near the porn stars!
Now, one final question. Which games did you recently enjoy?I like the online multies.
World of Warcraft is a good game -causing quite a stir with parents who say their kids are too involved in it
Well, parents can be funny, but WoW is a huge and all consuming time sink....Sure, but you can expect more of the same. People are becoming more vegetative, and the more they veg, the more they will be looking for these kinds of activities.
Now, that I've never thought. Quite the vicious circle really...There's a reason televisions are getting bigger and bigger, and if you listen to Bill Gates everyone of them will have a web browser built in in just a few years.
Actually, quite a few anarchist believe that a color TV equals a black 'n' white life...I can see that, but what's going to stop the deluge? Nothing.
I see. Now, care to add anything else?Well, only that there will always be a fascinating interplay between people and the widgets they keep themselves occupied with -and in that there is still a lot to learn, explore and exploit.
Thanks so much for the interview. Oh, and good luck both with K-OS and Tendrilmedia!
80 kilobytes can hold more than enough data to keep most broadband challenged gamers off the streets (and zoos). To prove my point, I'll introduce you to the pretty self-explanatory Block Out 8k and Turrican 32k retro remakes, and to the definitely more original DaShoota 32k (pictured above). Now, you be helpful and stay off the streets. Thank you.
Detailed sprites, a colourful cutesy game character, pure arcade action and fantastic hand-painted backgrounds... it's got to be another (only slightly) retro Amiga game, right? Well, shockingly, no. It's Feyruna - Fairy Forest, a brand new PC indy game from Germany, sporting some refreshingly old fashioned game mechanics and lovely 2d visuals. Interested? Good, let me elaborate a bit then.
Then again, bonus games are just that, a bonus. The main course of FFF has the player assuming the role of a fairy (you know, the one probably named Feyruna), a decidedly non-slutty female character, and going on to liberate places from the Princes of Darkness in a rather ordinary plot, that certainly doesn't takes itself that seriously. After all, FFF, just like every other action heavy game before it, isn't about plot, it's about fun, and this it delivers in abundance.
Adventure Europe might be a semi-defunct (partly due to its members developing games) video gaming site with point and click obsessions, but it did manage to revive the excellent Adventure Radio online radio thingy nonetheless. Tune in by following this link and all the music, starting from the Sierra/Lucasarts to the contemporary episodic Sam and Max era, will stream right through your shitty PC speakers and into your brain.
1979. The year arcade games got proper colour graphics and also the year Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini returned and seized political power in Iran. But, really, who was responsible for this? The Shah? The US? Atari? Imperialism in general? Simple, it was Galaxian. The first ever colour video game and thus the first game to put a stop to the utterly disgusting habit of sticking colored cellophane across monochrome displays.
To have a taste of some Galaxian gameplay, or to simply remember those glorious arcade years, you could be cheap and try this decent online version, irrational and purchase the rather mediocre Namco Museum 50th Anniversary or even be truly adventurous and hit the road in search of old arcades, bootlegged whiskey, good jazz and that beat mentality of yore. Mind you, even though underage gamers are not allowed to go all Kerouac, they will definitely enjoy this classic shmup. It's much faster, definitely creepier (it's insectoid thingies you're fighting here) and way more polished than Space Invaders, thus still astonishingly addictive.
Goldeneye: Source does something fantastic: it remakes the Ninendo 64 ueber classic GoldenEye 007 (it got a 9.8 @ GameSpot and a ridiculous 96% @ Metacritic) for the PC, or, to be more precise, for the still impressive Source engine. It is thus a brilliant and traditionally freeware Half Life 2 mod with a splash of retro gaming. So, uhm, download the Beta1 version of GE:S here.
Penny Arcade definitely has its moments and Ctrl Alt Del is quite a fetish, but none feature proper Warhammer humor. Not so with the brand new The Secret Lives of Mobs webcomic, a hilarious series of strips catering to the Warhammer lot and those that will soon enter Mythic's WAR MMORPG. It's really well done too, and also a fine addition to the already established Golden Throne and Light Dwarf.
Warren Spector, the master interactive storyteller and daddy of Deus Ex, got himself all interviewed in the most interesting of ways. Obviously and almost customarily over @ Gamasutra.
With the Nintendo DS proving to be quite an adventure-friendly little handheld and Sam and Max's rumored appearance on the Wii, it shouldn't come as a shock that The Adventure Company is porting its modestly successful And Then There Were None PC adventure game to the Nintendo Wii. Did I say porting? Well, I meant updating, as according to Adventure Gamers the new version will (unfortunately) be doing more than just using the Wiimote's obvious point-and-click capabilities:
Monday and the irony of the situation is more than obvious, as my Wii miraculously got connected to the Internet. Yes, today. I got all wireless on a Monday of all days, and all I'm hoping for is that fate won't strike back (not very hard at least), this weird Wi-Fi contraption won't mess with the Dreamcast and the PC will avoid getting burned.
Related Tags: Mega Man, MegaMan, Museum, Monday, Museum Monday, Retro gaming, Video games, Games, Game, Blog, Wii
Nali Chronicles, an old favorite and the first mod presented here, is one of those rare single player UT mods featuring an intricate and quite interesting story. You are cast as a Nali mage destined to fulfil an ancient prophecy, aided only by a brand new HUD, lots of new weapons and a handy selection of spells. Find out the rest and download said mod from its official website.
Spatial Fear Prologue, another one of them seemingly not so rare single player UT modifications, features less Nalis but more creepy space-stations. It also totally remakes Unreal Tournament into something more suitable for the select few people that enjoyed Event Horizon, by wisely using a radically different HUD, new textures, new character models, new everything. Probably the best single player mod ever. Get it here.
Regarding multiplayer mods, Infiltration should be of interest to the tormented souls that enjoy realistic squad based combat, as -allegedly- Infiltration is an immersion into realism, driven by intense military combat, in a squad-based, mission-oriented shooter. Each of those missions brings the distinctive taste of multifaceted warfare in any environment you can imagine. To download the mod visit the Infiltration website.
Draconians are the human-sized corruptions of dragons' eggs, which frankly doesn't sound very nice. Then again, they are quite a favorite among Dragonlance denizens and Dungeons & Dragons gamers, who can now show their appreciation by speaking and writing draconic by using this extra simple online Draconic Translator. Or to put it in a way a rotten egg would understand:
It's been quite some time since Alter Ego hit the shelves and impressed the press. Have you designed any other video games since?
And how did you decide to undertake such an apparently mammoth task? What was your inspiration? Your PhD in psychology perhaps?
Hopefully you've already enjoyed the demo of Runaway 2 and probably even started getting all sucked into the shiny full version of this rather brilliant adventure game. I know I have. Apparently the people over at Eurogamer too. Anyway. Even though Runaway 2: The Dream of the Turtle isn't the most taxing of video games, a walkthrough would definitely come in handy. Well, here are three:
Takeshi no Chousenjou, Takeshi's Challenge in English (well, I think), was -and to this day still is- the only video game ever designed by film director Takeshi Kitano. The game was released in 1986 for the Nintendo Famicom and never made it to the west, as the inferior NES never featured a Karaoke capable microphone in its second controller. Unlike the game itself though, its notoriety reached us. Here's agent Wikipedia's report:
Decker, a game mostly unrelated to Decker's Delight Links, definitely isn't a winner in the looks department. Or the sound department. But it's great. Thus, promptly ignoring its technical shortcomings is the obvious -nay, the wise- choice for both the enlightened reader and the mature gamer. For, you see dear gaming readers (or reading gamers), this game has dollops of gameplay, sports a lovely cyberpunk atmosphere, is very addictive and highly playable, while simultaneously offering a rare (and -unlike the forthcoming FPS stinker- proper) Shadowrun RPG experience. Graphics? Pah! William Gibson didn't need no stinking graphics.
System Shock 2 is better than Deus EX, more elaborate than any of the Thief games, scarier then Resident Evil and quite frankly more engrossing than the whole porn DVD collection of planet Earth. In short, it's a fantastic game. A brilliant one too. I mean, it's even got itself a Gamespot retrospective. Unfortunately though, what with being almost retro, its graphics have started to age and their late nineties 3D engine simply doesn't look that scary anymore. Oh, and WinXP, minor gameplay and sound problems have also managed to creep up.
A Rebirth high-poly model
The SHTUP effect