TIGJam Midwest is next weekend, June 4th-6th, 2010, at Foundry Coworking. If you’re interested, RSVP here at Eventbrite: http://tigjammidwest.eventbrite.com

Here’s the official info:

TIGJam Midwest is an indie game jam where creatives – programmers, hackers, designers, artists, or musicians – get together and make videogames in a weekend. For those who aren’t familiar with game jams, they’re similar to events like the 48 Hour Film Project or Startup Weekend. It’s called TIGJam because our group is part of the TIGSource community, which is a developer community for indie games.

Our game jams usually have a theme, and TIGJam Midwest’s theme this year is “proverbs,” proposed by Mark Doeden of 8monkey Labs.  Participants will form teams, choose a specific proverb from a culture of their choice, and develop a game based on it. There could be games based on Chinese Buddhist, Muslim, Hindu, Christian proverbs, or more obscure cultures or religions.

The local community is encouraged to attend the show & tell at Impromptu Studio at 3pm-8pm on Sunday, where they will experience the games and meet local game developers. These won’t be your usual space marine shooters; expect raw and barely-finished games that explore satirical, brand new, or meaningful territory.

A couple other exciting things are in the works.  Alec Holowka of Aquaria fame will be giving a keynote Friday at 7pm.  Venom is providing free energy drinks, there could be a visit from Senator Jack Hatch to express his support of creative endeavors like this, and there are rumors of drink specials next door at the Des Moines Social Club.  Finally, barring some catastrophy, there should be free catered food the whole weekend.  Expect one or two other exciting things to get finalized closer to the event.

All this free stuff is thanks to the generous sponsorship of the Iowa Department of Economic Development and the Technology Association of Iowa.  It’s exciting to think that these organizations are supporting a culture of game development here in Iowa!

This post is part of a series: “unfinished posts I wrote a year ago that are collecting dust on my hard drive.” Most of them are about videogames and/or storytelling from an artistic perspective. I’ve been waiting for certain points where I’d be inspired enough to dig them up, and a recent article by Ian Bogost about Heavy Rain and how it relates to cinema inspired me to dig this one up. You should check out his article. Also, I realized something new while writing this, so I’m happy to have made some progress.

In my dusty post, I was writing about storytelling, and I tried to think of artistic mediums. I realized that in the context of making art or telling a story, it would be very helpful to define them by what made them distinct. I’m probably not doing any of this incomplete list the justice it deserves, but hopefully this will make the point.

• Oral tradition – dynamic, three-dimensional, using language spoken orally
• Music – dynamic, three-dimensional, using the sound generated from the structured series of contacts of objects
• Live-action role-playing – dynamic, three-dimensional, using live actors playing roles in a defined space
• Token-based role-playing – dynamic, three-dimensional, using tokens playing roles in a defined space
• Light painting – static, two-dimensional, using a single image represented by the placement of light on a surface
  
• Painting – static, two-dimensional, using a single image represented by the placement of colored pigments on a surface
• Literature – static, two-dimensional, using written or printed language arranged on sheets of a semi-permanent surface
• Photography – static, two-dimensional, using a single image of a real-life scene captured by a camera obscura and transferred to light-sensitive paper
• Film – dynamic, two-dimensional, using a sequence of images and audio of a real-life scene captured by a camera obscura, cut into a linear series of arranged segments, and presented on a screen
• Animation – dynamic, two-dimensional, using a sequence of images represented by the placement of colored pigments on surfaces, cut into a linear series of arranged segments, and presented on a screen
• Software art?? – dynamic, two-dimensional, using a sequence of images and audio stored on a computer, programmed into an interactive system, presented on a screen

As you can see, artistic mediums are technological in nature in the sense that the technology being used (or not used) makes one medium distinct from another. For each of these, you will want to artistically use one of those properties in order to create an artistic experience through that medium. With literature, you’ll want to use language, arrange the language, or use the surface in some artistic way. With film, you’ll want the scene, the capturing of the scene, the arrangement of the segments, or the presenting of the images on a screen to be artistic.

None of these mediums have any mention of storytelling or games because both of these things are completely abstract structures for meaning. They don’t rely on technology at all; they’re basically systems created by thought. Therefore, in order to be expressed in a way that can be artistic, a story or a game must be presented through a medium. Storytelling presented through live-action role-playing gives you theatre. Storytelling presented through light painting gives you shadow puppeteering. Games presented through token-based role-playing gives you board games. Storytelling presented through painting gives you graphic novels.

That means videogames are games that are presented through the last medium. And what makes them distinct is that medium. It’s based on an interactive system that is virtual (computer-based) and fictional (artistic, not functional). EA probably put it most concisely in the manifesto promoting their indie game collective, calling it “software art.”

To bring it back around to Ian’s article, he was suggesting that in the same way film has editing at its core, videogames might have extension or prolonging at its core, which is basically the opposite of film. And after looking at what makes videogames unique, I can see how that could be true in part. Because videogames have at their core a computer, and computers are good at simulating, so they could be more about continuity than the breaking up of continuity.

However, I think a better way to put it might be that the use of editing is at the core of film, as opposed to the use of fast editing. In the same way, the use of simulations would be at the core of videogames, as opposed to the use of continuous simulations.

That means good artists in film would use editing (among other things) to provide meaning, whether it was fast or slow.  In videogames, good artists would use simulation (among other things) to provide meaning.  In the case of Heavy Rain, that simulation was used for everyday actions, which gave the experience a distinct feel.

What is Interactive Visual Worship?

Interactive visual worship is a form of worship where people can use videogame technology to worship visually along with a band that’s playing music. It can be hard to understand at first if you’re not very familiar with forms of both Christian worship media and videogame media. I don’t blame you, so I’ll try to elaborate on both!

Christian Worship Media

During a modern Christian church worship service, on the surface level you will see a band playing music on a stage in front of the congregation, and the congregation sings along to the music. These days people know what to sing by looking at white words on black projected onto screens above or to the side of the band. Some churches have also begun using abstract animated backgrounds behind the words (or on different screens altogether), referred to as “motion backs.” Other churches even try to include less abstract animations, such as video clips of nature or people interacting in a meaningful way. In terms of the media that’s going on, it’s similar to live visuals at a rock concert.

So the goal is to express some faith-based message through film/animation during the musical part of worship – this is visual worship, or rather a specific form of visual worship. Since it is about expression, artists are needed to express that message. They choose the clips and fade between them live to the music in order to create meaning, similar to how a DJ works with turntables. Therefore, these people are referred to as worship VJs. So you could say that these worship VJs are worshipping visually by creating meaning from video clips in sync with a worship band playing music. Again, like VJs would at a rock concert/club. And there’s almost always only one worship VJ doing visuals, just like you usually have one DJ playing in a band or at a club.

Videogame Media

Interactive visual worship takes that idea, combines it with videogame technology and media, and allows a group of people to worship visually at the same time. Now when I use the word videogames, you might think of Tetris or Doom or Halo or Peggle, but that’s not quite what I’m talking about. I think of videogames as a mixture of two unique mediums – a specific medium that doesn’t really have a name yet, and games. At the heart of this unnamed medium is a virtual, fictional, interactive system running on a computer.

This system takes input, computes it, and displays an output that changes based on the input given. It’s fictional in the sense that the system represents something artistic; it’s not tax software, but a virtual world created by an artist that you can explore and learn from. It’s a world that speaks to you on a very human level, but because it’s interactive, some videogame designers describe it as a world that you can have a conversation with.

Interactive visual worship uses this unnamed medium. Keep in mind that it’s a unique medium that’s distinct from games, so it does not include winning & losing, game-like challenges, or points. But it still uses interactive systems or environments. These could be made up of a series of scribbles that move around, geometric shapes that appear to be alive, or an earthly world that looks like a painting or photograph.

What is it Like in Practice?

In the real world, where culture exists, this takes the form of using wireless devices like a Wii remote to interact with videogame-like environments during a church service. And the visuals appear on a screen for the congregation to see, just like existing visual worship media.

I can hear it now…”What?!  Playing videogames during church?!” Well, kind of. Though it’s not that different than mixing beats during church or painting during church. It’s a medium, just like other things that are experienced on Sunday morning. For interactive visual worship, it’s designed to be a communal activity for at least 6 people, like adding a visual band to the music one.

I’m working on a demo video that I’ll post soon; hopefully it will be provide some clearer idea of what this is all about. Basically at this point I have a few environments that I can switch between. It’s a polished prototype. More info to come.

I found this comment to be particularly poignant:

For a society that seems to love tolerance, we sure seem to hate Christians a lot.

The Left Behind games obviously aren’t helping things.  I’ve never played one, but based on my research, they seem to be poorly crafted and a little mixed-up theologically.  This, of course, is based on the theology of the Left Behind books themselves, the first of which is dissected in incredible – though often over-the-top – detail at the Slacktivist blog.

If I were to unfairly distill Fred Clark’s analyses of the books down to a statement, it would be that the Left Behind series represents an anti-Anti-Christ perspective of the world which is not always pro-Christ.

I was having a recent conversation at my bible study lately involving the fire-and-brimstone preaching that you would hear on the street corner (or at the Des Moines Farmer’s Market).  To be clear, we didn’t agree with that behavior and concluded that neither would Deitrick Bonhoeffer, author of Life Together, which we’re currently studying.  I often wonder if this is what the Jewish authorities of Jesus’s day were like.  You know, the ones he had the most trouble with.  The ones that conspired to have him executed.  Not that what’s being preached on the corner is never true.  I think it can be, but so can swinging at a stranger’s head with a baseball bat in order to smash a fly that had landed there be technically “true.”

Nevertheless, I’m encouraged to see Walmart’s willingness to be open to more Christian games.

I still long for the day when I can play a game that is actually meaningful and says something about my faith.  Something real that actually represents the message of Jesus; “the last will be first,” “whatever you do to the least of these,” “love you neighbor as yourself,” and so on.  I guess that makes me just another game developer that is trying to make the kind of games I want to play.

For the past year, I’ve been working on my own interactive projects that don’t involve game mechanics, so it was very relieving to find out there are others out there wanting to do things that are like games, but not quite games. And when ToT invited developers to join them, I saw an opportunity to be part of a like-minded community.

If the essence of what I loved about The Dig wasn’t the puzzles, why have them? Why not have only the essence of what I loved?

I’m not 100% convinced that videogames proper are holding back the full potential for expression, but I have the same gut feeling as Tale of Tales that in many cases they are.

I suppose this comes from evidence that some of my favorite “games” lately have been things that actually have very minimal game elements to them. It took some dissection of Small Worlds, Today I Die, The Majesty of Colors, and others on the notgames forum in order to come to an official conclusion on that. But if I follow the trend forward, it could be possible that by having no elements at all, the experience would be even more expressive as a creator and enjoyable as a player.

An even larger amount of evidence comes when I stop to consider the unique elements of art forms (or media if you prefer), and how videogames don’t really offer anything truly unique.  This point is part of a very long-winded essay I have yet to publish, but the short story is that the “games” part of videogames isn’t unique to videogames, and the “video” part of videogames isn’t unique to videogames.

The “video” part I’m referring to – what I like to call a virtual, fictional interactive system – is what I love most about videogames. Basically it would be fictional media that fully utilizes the computer, including its input, computation, and output. Games would be a fine addition, but from my experience playing and creating them, they often create various forms of dissonance, especially when it comes to the more artistic/story-driven ones. A game system integrated with an artistic interactive experience usually feels duct-taped on top to me.

For example, the fact that I never finished The Dig because the puzzles were hard and I got tired of them really frustrates me. The puzzles are not why I loved The Dig, although they were interesting in their own right for a little while.  To me, it begs this question: If the essence of what I loved about The Dig wasn’t the puzzles, why have them? Why not have only the essence of what I loved?

Thus, my conclusion is that it’s well worth my time to answer this fundamental question of my experience with games by doing. I will create The Dig minus its puzzles, or more specific to the game I have in mind: “Myst minus the puzzles.”

EDIT: This sounds a little misleading. I sort of got “microwaved” with a vision – a specific story idea – almost a year ago at a game jam. Since then, I’ve come up with a game idea for it, and after explaining the idea to Ted Martens, he told me what I was describing was basically Myst but without the puzzles. I realized the connection to my frustrations with The Dig after the fact.

As a final note, one of my goals as a developer is to make games (and notgames) for a variety of people, including those that are intimidated by or apathetic about games. I found this information graphic to be great motivation toward my goal, pulled from the notgames manifesto:

Make love, notgames.

Greg just wrote about Why do we do what we do? and eloquently summed up the hard-to-define reason for why we at Intuition create art:

These are all things that fester inside me and I desperately want to expel them.  Not that they’re demons of any shape, but it’s this compulsion to create that drives me.

I really like how he put this because it can be difficult to put into words.  He makes it look easy.  The only other thing I can compare this to is something from Judeo-Christian culture – the psalm.  This compulsion is why I created MEHC.  It’s not the kind of game I like to play, but I just needed to make it somehow.

Alec Holowka was kind enough to respond to Greg’s post and suggested we check out his recent post Why Art?.  I was inspired enough by both of them that my comment to both of their posts turned into this.  Check them out if you haven’t yet.

In Response To “Why Art?”

I’m very comforted and honored to be amongst such final gentlemen who can present a rational argument.  Alec makes a good point that anger about discussing art often comes from fear or misunderstanding.  I especially like the video he posted – that says as much about his point as the words that follow it.  We’re just a part of the continuum, communicating something about humanity to each other through time.  And because we are unique, the message will be different for each person.  I like that attitude.

What I got from his argument about why games are art specifically seems to be that art gives him something about life to relate to, and because games also give him something to relate to, that makes them art.  I would go even further and say that art is created (it doesn’t just happen), communicates something human (a story/idea/emotion), and is otherwise “non-functional.”  By that, I mean that the thing in question has no function other than the act of communication itself (thus separating the word from design).  And because video games have these properties, they are art, too.

I was a little confused by the statement about art being subjective, though.  Did he mean that the experience of art is subjective?  Or the work of art itself is subjective?  There is a distinction to make here, and it partially forms the basis to my answer of “Why art?”.

I believe that art can be perceived in a subjective way.  But isn’t the work of art itself – the video game in this case – an object?  It is a collection of code and binary data running on a computer of some sort with input and output.  That makes it material, existing in reality, which is objective by definition.

Furthermore, because art “speaks to us,” that seems to make it objective, too.  Something is doing the speaking, and I think the thing that speaks doesn’t really change.  It is we who change and hear different things.

Therefore, I’d say that a more specific argument would state that the perception of art is subjective, based on each of our life experiences and unique brains, while the work itself is objective.  That can explain why we can look at a film several years later and see or learn something different.  The film itself remains unchanged, but our perception of it changes.  It communicates something about humanity in a different way than before, because we understand humanity in a different way than before.

I think this distinction is important because it suggests that a work of art is unchanging, yet communicates on a level higher than normal understanding.  The fact that we can return to an object and subjectively learn something new suggests that we can’t fully comprehend the work all at once.

To me, that gives art a magical quality (in the emotional sense).  That is one of the reasons why I think it’s important to call games art.

Saving the World

In the comments of Greg’s post, Alex and Greg were discussing saving the world with art.  The notion may seem impossible to some, but I’d argue that we are living proof that it can work.  Inspiring people through creation seems to be one of the simplest (though still very hard!) ways to change the world with art.  Saving it is just a few steps away.

By making something of incredible quality that communicates to people and inspires them in a lasting way, you can inspire them to either change or to create themselves.  And them creating will often lead to change later.  Here’s a quote from Eva Zeisel to illustrate my point:

It’s very difficult to know exactly whether to live for an ideology or even to live for doing good.  But there cannot be anything wrong in making a pot, I’ll tell you.  When making a pot you can’t bring any evil into the world.

Just think about the games we’ve played that have inspired us to make games ourselves.  Those games have done good things because they have inspired us to create, and those acts of creation have changed us.  Those games have changed the world.  Saving it is just a few steps away.

In gamer lingo, it’s a 3d, physics-y, psuedo-pixel-art cannon-shooting game with a strategic probability management element.  Based on tester feedback, it seems to be pretty addictive, too.  Here’s the “official” description:

As a producer for the Japanese game show Megabank Executive Humiliation Challenge (MEHC), the nation is counting on you to keep them entertained by humiliating the best of the best in Western banking executives. Balance money-making obstacles and hire better executives to make the most profit you can in one season. Don’t let your nation down!

It’s an experiment in many ways, including emotional, commercial, and production..al, but not so much in gameplay. It’s kind of weird to look back at your baby after you’ve given birth. Sometimes you didn’t see yourself making that kind of game, and I can say that about this game.  However, I’m happy with the work I’ve done.  It’s quite a fun game.  I’d also like to thank the Gratton brothers from the Napkin Sketch collective for doing the sound.

Even though I didn’t originally see myself making this kind of game, I think in some ways I needed to make it, at least to just express my frustration with my current feelings on the nation’s economy and moreso on capitalism in general. I’ve grown increasingly dissatisfied with it as a system lately.  And maybe I needed a break from taking game design so seriously, too.

I’m hoping to find a sponsor for it by the end of the year.  And it should end up on FGL in some form or another soon for auction.  The sponsorship space seems pretty barren when it comes to Unity games, so who knows what will happen…

Hopefully this will be a big success, since we as developers really need more Unity portals out there.  I’ve been working on a couple small Unity games myself and have been a little uncertain if I would be able to shop my games around much.

I even considered e-mailing the guys at Blurst to propose putting something on their site, but it looks like they’ve already done the work required to set something like this up.

More and more, it seems like Matthew Wegner and Steve Swink at Flashbang are becoming the father figures of the indie games scene.  The IGF, the IGS, an indie games portal… What’s next, indie games philanthropy?  An indie games school?  At any rate, I salute the fine gentlemen of Flashbang for their work at building the indie community up.  A Blurst portal is simply the next step for them.

Here’s a description of Spelunky from Spelunky World:

Spelunky is a cave exploration / treasure-hunting game inspired by classic platform games and roguelikes, where the goal is to grab as much treasure from the cave as possible. Every time you play the cave’s layout will be different. Use your wits, your reflexes, and the items available to you to survive and go ever deeper! Perhaps at the end you may find what you’re looking for…

Don’t be afraid to die! But also don’t be afraid to live! Happy Spelunky-ing!

The game has received a lot of buzz for being a great game and doing such a good job of using procedural algorithms for replayability.  Taking a look at the TIGSource forums, the feedback thread has dwarfed all other threads in terms of views by more than an order of magnitude – nearly 490,000 views (as of now).  So I’m assuming there are a sizable amount of gamers that are interested in trying to run Spelunky in OS X.  Those gamers can now rejoice.

Before I get started, I have an important disclaimer:

Skip step #6 if you’re on Snow Leopard, and try the game first in step #5 before moving to step #6 if you’re on Leopard. Step 6 requires special care, so perform it at your own risk.

Overview of How to Run Spelunky in OS X

Here’s a short rundown of the steps needed to get Spelunky running:

1. Download Spelunky
2. Download and install CrossOver Games (8 or higher)
3. Set up CrossOver Games
4. Run the Spelunky config
5. Set the Spelunky settings config file values to 1,1,0,0,1,15, and 15
6. Download and install X11 2.4.0 (skip for Snow Leopard, and try running the game first)
7. Play Spelunky using CrossOver Games

Detailed Instructions

First of all, in order to run the game, you’ll need an Intel Mac. More info after the jump.

Get Spelunky

Download Spelunky and unzip it to a convenient location.

Get CrossOver Games

Download CrossOver Games (8 or higher). Double-click the DMG and drag the CrossOver app to the Apps folder (or wherever).

Set up CrossOver Games

Launch CrossOver Games.  You need to create a Windows bottle first in order to run applications. Choose the menu option Configure > Manage Bottles. Then click the + (plus) button in the lower left corner above the ? icon. Name your bottle and choose a type – I chose WinXP, but feel free to try something else and let me know if it works.  Click Create and CrossOver will take a minute or two to create a new bottle for you.

Select the Control Panel tab in the top right of the window and then select winecfg from the list.  Click the Launch selected item button under the list. Select the Graphics tab and check Emulate a virtual desktop (it will likely be unchecked). The Desktop size field will be enabled, so set a resolution that is less than your desktop, and preferably a standard resolution for compatibility with other games.  I chose 1024×768 since my laptop screen is only 900 tall. Then click OK.

Run the Spelunky config

Select the menu option Programs > Run Command. If that’s not an option, don’t worry! Select the menu option Configure > Refresh Programs Menu first. Select Run Command and it will pop up a window. In that window, click Browse and then select the config exe in the folder that was created when you unzipped Spelunky. Click Open, then click Run in the lower right of the window. You should see a window with a black background that’s the size of the resolution you set earlier. Then most likely you won’t be able to do anything.  So close the large window, which will bring up some error dialogs, prompting you to Terminate Process or otherwise click OK a lot. You should come back to the Run Command window.

Set the Spelunky config settings file values

Running the config app will have created a settings.cfg file in the same folder as config and Spelunky. Just like on Linux, you’ll want to change the values in this file.  Open settings.cfg in a text editor. There will be one value per line, most likely 1,1,0,0,3,15,15 right now.  You want to change the 3 to a 1 such that the values are now 1,1,0,0,1,15,15. Save and close the file.

I installed a newer version of X11 before double-checking that Spelunky works after this point, so feel free to try running Spelunky.  Click Browse in the Run Command window and select the Spelunky exe and Open it. Click Run and see if it works.  It will most likely run, but only show part of the screen.

Make sure to let me know if this works without X11 2.4.0 or with Snow Leopard!

Download and install X11 2.4.0 (or higher)

Assuming only changing the settings file didn’t work for you, you’re most likely in the same situation I was.  You want to download X11 2.4.0 and install it following the instructions. Keep in mind that 2.4.0 does not work in Snow Leopard. If you upgrade to Snow Leopard in the future, you’ll want to make sure X11 is installed correctly by the upgrade disc.

Play Spelunky using CrossOver Games

You should now have everything you need to play Spelunky.  You can double-click the exe in the finder, or run the game from the Run Command window.

If you want to play Spelunky in sexy zoom mode, load the System Preferences app and then click on Universal Access. Then turn the second feature Zoom on, then click Options to the right. I’ve found the best settings are to set Maximum Zoom (at the top) to 3 and Minimum Zoom to 2. Uncheck Smooth images halfway down the dialog. Toward the bottom of the dialog under When zoomed in, select the second option Only when the pointer reaches an edge. Click Done.

Now you’ll be able to zoom in using Option-Command-[=] (equals) and out using Option-Command-[-] (minus). It should zoom between 2x and 3x magnification and not using smoothing.  If smoothing is turned on anyway, just press Option-Command-[\] (the slash above the return key) to disable it.

One last note: I’ve noticed that the game runs very slowly when text is being displayed on the screen.  The game seems to run fine otherwise (so far). Have fun!

I’ve taken a few minutes here and there in the past few days to play Star Guard by Vacuum Flowers, after being introduced to it by my partner Mike via twitter. It just got frontpaged on TIGSource. Here’s an excerpt where Xander mentions his one qualm about the game:

Where as typically mines/traps would require caution and dexterity, these will simply not respawn so even if you die you can just get through the section without worrying about the consequences.

One of my favorite things about the game is Xander’s problem – i.e. it’s not a big deal at all when you die. To me, that made dying in the game fun in itself. I reveled in the fact that I could carelessly blast forward with glee, knowing that if I would die, I’d come back to the same spot in a matter of a couple seconds.

The character design is amazing, considering they’re expressed in just a few pixels.  The player has a surprising amount of life through the animations, and the Zomboid and charging rhino characters have a very distinctive personality.

Also, the game’s sound design is superb. I’m not saying that just because it’s created with SFXR, but because the sound choices made within that 8-bit limitation were very tasteful. Jumping is noticable, yet not obnoxious. The explosions are just right, the lava sounds are charming, and timer-based platforms give you a perfect feeling of urgency before they blow up.

The character design, sound design, and effects combine to form a polished feel from an otherwise minimal, low-budget aesthetic. For the past few months, I’ve been trying to take the same perspective on art direction. Vacuum Flowers has nailed it and made it look easy.

The story is presented in a minimal and pleasing way. As the image above suggests, it is simply displayed in the background of the level. There’s rarely more than 12 words to read. And the level design usually suggests what the words of the story are trying to express. It works so well that I’m sure we’ll see more of that in the future.

It’s an excellent game all around, with solid tuning to the platforming. I just wish I could get to the 8th and 9th level since there’s a random level-loading bug with the OS X version.