"I'll be forever thankful for the opportunity the PA Scholarship has given me to attend USC, one of the world's best game design curriculums," said Gorman. "I've already been able work on several trial games including a board game called Spacewolves that I designed with some friends. Look out gamer community, I'm coming up!"

While at Hamilton College, Gorman was a computer science major and creative writing minor. Her biggest interests seem to be in the intersection of story telling and game design.

The annual PA scholarship, established in 2006, is available to college students interested in pursuing a career in the game industry. The winner is selected based on service, leadership, character, financial need and the potential to make a positive impact on the game industry.

"We're grateful at how much the community has supported us over the years and being able to assist bright new talents like Kyla is one of the ways we try to give a little back," said Robert Khoo of Penny Arcade. "Kyla shows the kind of passion and excitement for creating games that ensures the rest of us will have innovative titles to play in the future."

Application information for the 2010 scholarship will be available in spring 2010.

Last year's "Unlock Xbox" winner, Doritos Dash of Destruction, was downloaded nearly a million times, so while we endlessly poke fun at the contest, it is a way to get your skills recognized by a large chunk of the gaming community. Those who feel they have a game concept that merges cheese-flavored corn chip and interactive entertainment in a way never-before-seen can visit www.unlockxbox.com from now until October 4th to submit a video of their idea. Ten quarter-finalists will be chosen to make their games reality. Two finalists will have their titles made into 2010 Xbox Live Arcade games, with one grand prize winner scoring a $50,000 gaming consultant project from Doritos.

"We are always looking for new ways to connect with fans and give them unique opportunities to express their creativity in a way only Doritos and our partners can deliver," said Ann Mukherjee, group vice president, marketing, Frito-Lay. "Many of the people who love Doritos also love gaming, and this innovative program gives our fans a chance to live their dreams."

You heard the woman. Live your dreams.

The feature, Dramatic Play, analyzes the intersection of interactive media, drama and games as well as the classic tenants of play and storytelling that make or break a video game. Dinehart says that Aristotle's original notion of dramatic play — that's interactive drama where you experience a story instead of just hearing about it — has bled into games like World of Warcraft, Dead Space and his own Company of Heroes.

These games seek to immerse the player in a dramatic role play, whereby they assume the role of character in a different time and place, and whose actions and presence having meaning in the world as designed.

Dramatic play is the new niche these games expound upon, a paradigm that is the focus of interactive narrative design, a craft that meets at the apex of ludology and narratology and conjoins the theories into functional video game development methodologies.

Heavy stuff, but very interesting — the kind of thing that would make an awesome dissertation topic in a Rhetoric Department at some research university. I mean if we're all on the same page that games are interesting and important and worthy of respect, we have got to get more academics on the case. That, or clone people like Ian Bogost.

Dramatic Play [Gamasutra]

Contestants have to use Wild Pockets' 3D web-based game engine and the fine print on the contest rules specifies that this is a team event and every team must have at least one programmer on it. The grand price is $2,500 and to top it all off, contestants get to keep the IP (but not absolute distribution rights).

But the real draw, especially for the peanut gallery members of the gaming press is a Saturday night concert featuring the OneUps and Megas. I think this will be the "Jam" portion of the weekend.

Check out event details here.

The in-depth look at a variety of puzzle forms moves from the premise that puzzles are so integral to adventure games, bad ones can easily ruin a game:

Adventure games are different—in that the core features of gameplay cannot be effectively evaluated without actually playing it or giving so many details away as to detract from the experience of playing the game. In many respects, the quality of an adventure game depends upon the quality of its puzzles, whether they are ingenious and rewarding or just frustratingly illogical. Having been told an explanation to how a puzzle works means you will never be able to play it as intended, since a big part of the experience is the enjoyment of figuring it out for yourself. You can evaluate the art, voice acting, and even the story or humor present in an adventure game to a certain extent without diving too deep into it, but an adventure game with terrible puzzles can make all those other elements irrelevant, since you likely will never have the patience to finish the game in the first place.

In this article, I will be taking a closer look at the various types of adventure game puzzles, how they relate to the gameplay, and even how some of these basic forms relate to other game genres.

From two basic classifications ('self-contained' and 'key'), a wide variety of puzzle types appear; the analysis is interesting and the article is worth plowing through if you're interested in the nitty gritty of game design.

Adventure game puzzles: unlocking the secrets of puzzle design [Adventure Classic Gaming via GameSetWatch]

While GameStop (the main player in the used game market) management declined to comment, but several industry types (like David Braben of Frontier) put in their two cents. On how the used game market is bad!!!!!! for the industry at large, Braben had this to say:

"... [We] don't see anything from the used-game sales, which is one reason why the price of new games throughout the industry remains artificially high," he says. "I mean, the industry has to make all its money from the first sale since we don't get a penny from the subsequent dozen or so sales of that same game."

The used-game market may also be negatively affecting the quality of games, he notes. "Five years ago, a great game would have sold for a longer period of time than for a bad game — which was essentially our incentive to make great games."

"But no longer. Now publishers and developers just see revenue the initial few weeks regardless of the game's quality and then gamers start buying used copies which generates money that goes into GameStop's pocket, nobody else's."

It does sound pretty whiny (as one analyst notes, "... publishers want their cake and eat it too. They want the used games business."), and as many people note, the used car that gets trotted out isn't particularly apt. Being a fan of good used bookstores, I wonder what book publishers think about that particular resale market (since this is hardly exclusive to the game industry).

As Recession Deepens, Used Games Get More Painful [Gamasutra]

In slightly more serious news, the Rock, Paper, Shotgun guys also sat down to talk with Flashbang's Steve Swink about a variety of issues, including how games such as MCS, Off-Road Velociraptor Safari and Jetpack Brontosaurus come into being:

RPS: Which comes first - the name for the game, or the idea behind it? It’s really tempting to believe that someone said, “Jetpack Brontosaurus”, and someone else said, “Okay!”

SS: That’s very nearly how it went down! Jetpack Brontosaurus came from a single whiteboard sketch by our art director, Ben Ruiz. He was doodling one day on one of our ubiquitous wall-mounted whiteboards. What started as a humble Brontosaurus quickly grew to include turbines and safety helmet. It hung there for weeks as we finished up Raptor Safari, jet-setting its way into our collective hearts and subconscious. When the question was asked “so, chaps, what next?” all eyes turned immediately to Messeurs Jetpack and Brontosaurus upon the wall. It was a toss-up between Jetpack Brontosaurus and Stegosaurus Swiftboat. No contest.

It's all worth a look on an overcast Saturday, that's for sure.

Minotaur China Shop Is Live, We Talk To Flashbang & Minotaur Diary, Page 17 [Rock, Paper, Shotgun]

The contention here isn't that people have never cried while playing games, but either that it's an irrelevant question or that it wasn't the actual game part that made you cry — it was the narrative elements, which are not exclusive to games. I'm not at all convinced I agree with his argument entirely, but it's an interesting proposition:

This is the nub of the issue here: a story can make you cry by empathising with the protagonist (or another character), but a game (when viewed as a formal system) cannot do this. It follows that the only way that a videogame can make you cry is by using narrative tools that have nothing to do with games as formal systems whatsoever. So even though, for instance, many people report that they cried when they played Final Fantasy VII at the fateful scene (and indeed, several other cRPGs also show up in player studies as having provoked tears) the moment that actually brought the player to tears was a non-interactive cut scene. It wasn't the game (in the systems view) that made them cry – it was the story – and there never was a question as to whether stories could make you cry.

As usual with these types of articles, the comments are just as interesting as the article. As Bateman notes in the comments section, he intentionally pushed the 'games as play' and 'games as systems' arguments to their most extreme ends, hoping it 'would make for more lively debate.'

A Game Has Never Made You Cry [ihobo]

To commence next fall, NYU will be offering "long-term undergraduate and graduate degrees in the research, design and development of digital games". Sorry board game fans. That's digital only.

Don't go flooding the college's phone lines with enquiries just yet, though, as NYU are taking baby steps with this one. Only 10-12 students will be offered positions next year, with plans to establish a two-year masters course the year after.

NYU Launching Videogame Degree Next Fall [Shacknews]

Unsurprisingly, multiplayer gaming is a big trend — big enough to get a whole essay devoted to it. Luben looks at a number of issues and (future?) developments in the multiplayer arena. Of particular interest was his discussion of how to create a satisfying experience for veterans and newcomers alike:

Online gaming is sometimes like a jungle. Anonymity, coupled with an absence of regulation or any real consequences, tends to encourage all of the excesses of behavior characteristic of humanity. If multiplayer gaming is to become a mode of play accepted by all, it will have to become more civilized in the process.

Design solutions to such behavior problems are not so obvious. On Xbox Live, Microsoft allows players to rate each other, but this is effective only against the most blatant kinds of abuse. Another possibility lies in developing games that are reliant on cooperation, rather than on having the players confront one another.

Lastly, games should feature ranking systems only if they target hardcore gamers. Only these players really care about leaderboards. Experience has shown that ranking mechanisms tend to incite the most aggressive and least honest of players to cheat and take advantage of all of the exploitable quirks present in a game.

I'm looking forward to his next installment of the megatrends series, but until that comes out, part three is worth a read if you're interested in some of the issues facing multiplayer gaming — both now and in the future. Luben has some nice observations about the state of things currently and some potential solutions to the problematic elements.

The Megatrends of Game Design, Part 3 [Gamasutra]

Abbott's contention is that we quite possibly need more dissonance in our games, not less — the all important suspension of belief, 'seamless immersion' need not be the only option for games. Dissonance can be good for you!:

... Fallout 3 is loaded with dissonance, and the only reason that's a problem is because Fallout 3 tries so incredibly hard to convince us otherwise.

There's a handy solution to all this, and it's our old friend "suspension of disbelief." We're willing to overlook miles of dissonance if the thing provoking us is sufficiently engaging or entertaining. Once I accept the idea that my avatar miraculously transforms her gate from a Quasimodo limp to a sturdy run by dropping one small item in her enormous inventory, I'm good to go. I needn't worry about it anymore. Give in. Let go. Have fun. There's so much game to dig into, why quibble about dissonant moments?

Which leads me back to my thesis. If our old pal "suspension of disbelief" is such a resourceful friend, couldn't he help us accept even more dissonance? In fact, if the game makes it worth doing, might we even choose to embrace dissonance? I say yes...and so does Aristotle, by the way. We are capable of tremendous leaps of faith, even when the mechanics of what we are being asked to ignore are laid bare before us. And sometimes the mechanics are just as interesting as the story itself.

I'd agree that 'seamless immersion' doesn't have to be the be all, end all goal for games — and the issue is often trying to convince us (unsuccessfully) that dissonance doesn't exist. A commenter notes that perhaps 'abstraction' — being at one with incongruities instead of trying to paint over them — is perhaps a better word for this than 'dissonance.' Semantics, semantics ...

Dissonance [The Brainy Gamer]

Weir takes a reasonably detailed look at how designers successfully married RPG and match 3 elements, and why Puzzle Quest is the best example of a well deployed hybrid design. He offers the following words for designers:

When creating genre-spanning games, developers should follow Puzzle Quest's example. They should choose genres that can interact well with each other, and look at places where the tropes of one genre can be exploited, as with Puzzle Quest's use of puzzle gameplay as a battle system.

Additionally, developers should not fall into the trap of believing that the novelty of genre fusion will make players forgive a shoddy implementation of the individual genres. An FPS/RPG hybrid need not be the best FPS or the best RPG, but it should present each genre in a way that it could at least hold its own against single-genre games. Combining shoddy implementations of two genres does not lead to a single good game, but a sort of shambling Frankenstein's monster. Puzzle Quest, on the other hand, is a true hybrid, taking two well-executed genre games and combining them into an even better whole.

Anyways, nice quick read on a nice game — Weir has some interesting points on the implementation of various design elements.

'The Interactive Palette' - Puzzle Quest and the Best of Both Worlds [GameSetWatch]

The interview touches on a number of subjects, from how the idea for Patapon came into being and the actual development process; it's a fairly quick read at a mere four pages. On the simple versus deep conundrum, Kotani has this to say:

There's been a belief that a simple game can't be deep, and I think that a simple game can be deep; and, conversely, I think that a complicated game might be a shallow game, from a gameplay perspective — it just has a lot of complication. So, how do you see that issue, within development?

HK: The way I came up with a solution is to divide the game into two different layers. One is the very simple game, so that a player can clear the goal with just three commands. But for those users who want to play a deeper game, they can use weapons; they can collect equipment and weapons, to try to clear different missions, with different goals.

In addition to that, the basic idea of this game is about rhythm, so you have to beat the rhythm in the accurate way — and even though you are giving the command by beating the rhythm, you are also singing a song with the Patapons.

And so, it's not just a simple game: it's like creating the music with the Patapons, and that's what makes the deeper aspect of this game.

There are a couple of gems regarding game design later in the interview. Well worth a quick read.

If you missed our video interview from TGS, that's worth a peek as well.

The Rhythm of Creation: Hiroyuki Kotani and Patapon [Gamasutra]

Taking a look at the Guardian piece, as well as Leigh Alexander's musings, an older piece responding to an earlier essay by Leigh, Croal argues that reviewers may not always get it right, but 'policing the discourse' won't do us any favors:

... We opine in order to point out that while our fellow critics Alexander, Fritz and Stuart are undoubtedly well-intentioned, we'd prefer that they simply make the case for the aspects of various titles they find worthy rather than attempt to police the discourse surrounding said games. Criticism isn't crucifixion. Championing is great—it's one of this generation's must-try titles; we urge anyone reading this to at least try the demo; and we suggest that EA at some point decouple the Time Trial demo from the exclusivity arrangements with various retailers—but praising the praiseworthy aspects and criticizing the failed ones is better. And Mirror's Edge isn't a masterpiece—it's laudable but profoundly flawed—nor would its equivalent be widely considered so in any other medium. Because for the discerning critic, regardless of the medium being critiqued, both execution and innovation matter. The fact that Mirror's Edge, by our lights, excels at innovation but falls short on execution does not and should not render it immune from the criticism it's received.

Everything is worth a read through, if you haven't gotten to it yet — part of me says that an attempt at 'policing the discourse' is just human nature, and is something that happens as formats get codified and standards crop up on 'how to do things.' Of course people aren't always going to agree, and while I think Leigh Alexander and others are the cat's meow, I can't really see them 'policing' the discourse so much as suggesting alternate avenues.

The Big Idea: Are Videogame Reviewers Missing the Forest for the Trees When It Comes to Assessing Important and Innovative Titles? [Level Up]

This week saw a thought-provoking post on the issue of escapism and games by Simon Ferrari — do games really qualify as escapist? What, exactly, are we escaping from? Compared to the classic example of big budget 1930s musical spectacles, which allowed audiences to 'escape' from daily life. But as Ferrari points out, this is not what most games wind up doing:

... Escapism works, quite literally, as an escape from real world ills. Video games don't necessarily do this. If we sought an escape from violence and terrorism, then we wouldn't have so many video games on the market focusing on just these two issues. Rather, many video games seek to provide catharsis for the mental ills that plague us all. We don't see games about Iraq, but there are plenty of games that attempt to deal with the same "forces of evil" that fearmongering pundits fill our heads with through metaphor or displacement.

Even Mario wages battle against the totalitarian, (literally) draconian Bowser.

It's not a very long essay but definitely worth a read — as are a lot of pieces on the new blog.

Model Propaganda [Georgia Tech Journalism & Games Project]

It's worth a read — a lot of issues readers raised are brought up, such as "What's wrong with games as simply entertainment? If you want intellectual stimulation, why not turn to something else?":

Nothing is wrong with viewing games as entertainment, but there is so much more that could be done! Games have the capability to be incredibly experiential because of their capability to provide interactivity.

As designer Dan Cook from Lost Garden wrote, it's the difference between hearing about the time someone decided not to pull the trigger, and deciding for yourself not to pull the trigger. Actually going through experiences yourself is much more compelling and personal than reading a story. The opportunities are too ripe not to pursue the possibilities.

Additionally, it's sad for someone who loved games while they were younger to have to turn away later in life because the days become busier. Other activities, sports for example, are still viewed as a worthwhile use of time, but only because of some other benefit in addition to being entertainment, such as exercise.

Video games also have the capability to provide the same kind of peripheral benefit. This doesn't mean entertainment should be shown the door, but I think even popularizing the idea that games could be something more is a good step.

He also appends a challenge at the end, a game design competition — it's pretty open-ended, and you can find more information at his blog.

A Response to 'Outgrowing Games', With A Bonus Competition

Considering the creators describe it as "more like an explorable painting than an actual game," this is no mean feat. They cover all the typical stuff (what went wrong, what went right), as well as download statistics, appendices featuring the people behind the game, and a section on reviews:

Overall, the reactions to the game (gathered from the articles, their comments sections and personal messages), fall into three categories.

Of course there is the expected response of the typical gamers whose desire for zombies whenever they see a cemetery is apparently insatiable. They tended to describe The Graveyard as "boring". Of course.

A little bit up the ladder of human civilisation, we find the people who were turned on by the idea but turned off by the actual experience. They were "disappointed". From what we can see, this was either caused by a failure on our part to maximize the qualities of the game or by certain expectations coming from the player.

Despite the fact that games are supposed to be interactive, many gamers still seem to be incredibly passive when it comes to the meaning of their entertainment. They expect to be spoonfed and don't seem to have any experience with literature, modern theater or fine art (or even art films) which require active participation, not just of thumbs and index fingers but also of heart and brain.

A final type of response was the simply "delighted" one. These people really enjoyed the game. And/or they were happy to see the experimentation that we're doing with the medium.

Ok, they sound a touch bitter at times, but it's a really nice piece on an interesting game — and worth wading through to read.

Postmortem: Tale of Tales' The Graveyard [Gamasutra]

If I really know the song, I can score literally millions of points. I score three or four million points on some of these songs, and that's great for the person that is very confident in his vocal capabilities. But, for the person who might not be, or if you're just drunk, it's just like you don't even care.

But you just want to jam to the song, and you're [warbles incoherently], and it's all this crazy stuff. But, you're still getting a score, right? And that's really important, because at the end of the song, you're drunk and you're still saying, "Ha! I scored better than you!" or whatever, right?

And that is really enough to carry the experience. People don't even question it. [They don't say], "Oh, yeah! It's not ending prematurely." I would even say that a lot of people that don't normally play games even think about that. If anything, it's the reverse. "Why did the song end prematurely? I want to enjoy the song." That's what we're giving them.

I'm glad to know that the needs of drunken karaoke singers enters into design decisions. Nice interview on an interesting subject, from the perspective of a company that has worked exclusively on music titles since their founding.

More Than Just Lips: Keiichi Yano On Music Game Innovation [Gamasutra]

All in all, 2D is an underrated style that is often unfairly ignored as an old technology. Developers should not underestimate the advantages of avoiding the technical overhead of maintaining a bulky 3D engine and asset pipeline.

Furthermore, well-made 2D graphics never really go obsolete. Sulka Haro, lead designer of Habbo Hotel, likes to point out that their retro 2D style looks just as good today as when the game launched eight years ago. If they had used 3D, Habbo would probably be on its second or third engine by now.

Once a 2D engine is up and running, the artists can focus on simply improving the game's look piece by piece. If 2D helps clarify and communicate the underlying game mechanic, then all the better.

It's a relatively short piece that's worth a read — this is one piece of the design pie that doesn't come up too frequently, though we often hear about issues with 3D cameras and viewpoints.

Analysis: The Quandary Of 2D Vs. 3D [GameSetWatch]

In a way it is somewhat difficult to be really critical of a game which at least tries to implement a reasonably fleshed out moral system. Molyneux: “[In] Fable 2 there is much more colour to those choices: purity versus corruption, cruelty versus kindness, greed versus generosity. And then we play around with those moral choices. We want people to play as themselves rather than deciding to be good or evil.” The choices made are reflected in the player’s, the dog’s appearance, the world design and the way in which NPCs react to the main character. However, and this is my main problem with the game, it is not clear which ingame actions result in any of the world’s/NPC’s reactions .... Because there is a mix of major and minor moral decisions, it is not clear what the results of my actions are. My guess is that I took the game’s “good path”, because the city’s inhabitants seem to like me. But what made them like me? I don’t know. I raised prices 40 percent on all goods, I stole a lot of their stuff, I kicked a bunch of chickens all over the city square, and I married two women at the same time from the same town (one being a prostitute).

He goes on to offer three potential design decisions that would mitigate what he calls 'gamer guilt' — the desire to get through and really understand a game, without having to necessarily play through two campaigns. It's a nice analysis of the strengths and weaknesses of the morality system of Fable 2 and worth a read.

Morality and “Gamer Guilt” in Fable 2 [Valuable Games]