I wanted to make a game about how regret feels, but not necessarily about how to overcome regret. We both agreed that we should avoid the Deepak Chopra self-help angle.

My initial design ideas used 2-D platform mechanics as a foundation. Imagine making a mistake like missing a jump, but not dying from that mistake. Instead, imagine that mistake coming back to haunt you, forcing you to replay that jump again in the future. Imagine a level that becomes longer and longer as the regrettable past portions of the level are injected ahead of you - a future populated by past mistakes that you must replay.

Using familiar mechanics as a foundation can work, but I'm more interested in devising new mechanics that are the best possible fit for the topic at hand. I cast the net a bit wider and came up with the design that involves feeding animals. Oh, and killing them, too.

Worth a look this weekend if you've got the time — I didn't have much time to play around with it, maybe after I'm safely ensconced in LA for our E3 get together. Here's hoping traffic doesn't suck.

Game Design Sketchbook: Regret [The Escapist]

We've mentioned Jason Rohrer's weird little works before, in the form of Passage and Gravitation; now with his 'Game Design Sketchbook' column at the Escapist, he puts up new little games monthly. This month features the theme of life, death, and immortality (appropriately called Immortality):

We generally assume that immortality is good, just as we assume that death is bad. Of course, universal immortality (all six billion of us) would be physically impractical. But what about individual immortality? What about for you? If you could become immortal, would you?

Immortality is a game about that question, and it's also about the converse of that question: Does death have some fundamental value that we usually ignore?

Immortality [The Escapist]

I think it's just too easy for us. And, also, if I just want to make violent games or fun games... It's not to say that fun games are bad, but I could just go to work for Blizzard, or go to work for Maxis. And they make fun games, they make creative games. I could get a lot higher pay, and a much more stable job. Why not?

Why would I start a company just to make the same kind of game which I can get a much better life in another company? You know, the reason we started this company is because nobody is making this kind of game, and to expand that emotional spectrum of video games — having more people be able to enjoy video games. The only way to do it is to just do it yourself.

The interview touches on a lot of issues — from Sony to Passage to Spore — and worth a read through.

Finding A New Way: Jenova Chen And Thatgamecompany [Gamasutra]

The trap of perfectionism is particularly treacherous for computer programmers, since we're saddled atop of Turing-complete programming languages that are capable of doing almost anything. Every bug is fixable. Every behavioral rough spot can be smoothed over with just a bit more coding, a smidgen of extra special-case logic. Programming isn't like carving something out of marble, where if your sculpture's nose is too small, you must either live with it or start over with a fresh block of marble. Our code bases can be massaged indefinitely.

In designing a game to explore this issue, I thought about players tweaking some set of game objects toward a goal, but forcing them to decide how far toward the goal they needed to go. If we give the players multiple sets of game objects and goals, and force them to divide their limited time among these "subprojects," they will need to make interesting decisions about which projects to polish, which to leave flawed, in which to skip completely. This is quite different from traditional level-based game designs, where players must finish a given level before moving on to a subsequent level.

It's an interesting read and it's nice to actually be able to play a prototype of exactly what's being discussed in the article.

Game Design Sketchbook: Perfectionism [The Escapist]

And I'm still trying to grasp some of the criticisms of Portal. The storyline, with its innovative delivery and interesting topic-letting what is essentially a character piece for GLaDOS take center stage-is reduced to "not philosphy-ish." The game is criticized for trying to sell copies-this is basically turning what should be praise (the game tries to appeal to people) into an empty, backhanded insult. How does the commercialization compromise Portal as a game? Detail that, instead of appealing to elitism.

... What [Passage] reminded me most of is a tricolour Mondrian: an exercise in laying bare the simplest semiotic structures of the journey through life. As a result, it can never tell us anything we don't already know: just like a Mondrian, it's a cold aesthetic exercise in the proportional relationships of reduced entities. There is no confusion, no chaos, ultimately little value as a critical text.

And to be honest, if you're looking for some deep meaning, you're missing the point of the work. Far be it from me to say you can't find such things in a game like portal. I am simply saying that's not it's purpose, and to look for deeper meaning is almost a pointless exercise. People can find deeper meaning in anything they want, even the intangible or completely non-existent. Existential is a made up word that usually acts as a sign that someone has gone beyond the original point, is currently B.S.ing, and you can stop listening to them. My pants are existential. If you ask me to defend that, I will gladly do so, from the top of my head, because I took a high school literature class, and no one could tell when I was lying, being honest, or just B.S.ing.

I don't agree with Montfort's original assertion, but the discussion in the comments below is pretty interesting — I'm not sure why we feel compelled to poke sticks at titles that may (gasp!) make money, and apparently a lot of other people don't, either. But this is why game criticism can be a good thing — it gets people thinking and discussing in a way that your average review won't.

PvP: Portal versus Passage [Grand Text Auto]

I'm not going to provide an in-depth explanation for Gravitation. I'm hoping that most people will understand it as it stands. However, it involves more complex game mechanics than Passage, and it is trying to express something much more subtle .... The mechanics themselves are relatively simple, but the emergent behavior harbors a lot of texture. Know that there are no "accidents" in this game design. Everything you notice about the game, and every subtle interaction that you experience, is intentionally packed with meaning. Gravitation explores how a particular corner of my life feels, as only a game can.

It's definitely worth a quick play through; Windows, Mac OSX, and Linux versions are available.

Gravitation: a video game by Jason Rohrer