Holy hell, you're a masochist.

I actually quite like Lady Million! Maybe 'Lady Million 1D,' to stress its uniqueness in a corny way?

That's still very interesting, so keep us updated.

That your grandmother performed better than your father is kind of mindblowing to me.

On that same page, instead, an effort could be made to populate Wikipedia with indie game knowledge?

[A game is a set of arbitrary, self-contained rules abstracted from the world.]

Melly said some interesting things. Here's my take.

A toy is an instrument for play. A game is a set of rules: it's a design for play. Videogames have avatars, enemies and levels; but all of these are only like chess pieces, they are not the game itself, they're the game's elements.

The reason for considering Sim City a toy rather than a game is that it lacks goals. Nevertheless, compared to a football, Sim City has rules, and I believe that this is the factor that puts it in a different category: it becomes a game. Thus my definition of game:

A game is a set of arbitrary, self-contained rules abstracted from the world. Objectives are optional, as they can emerge by themselves, or the game can simply be about enjoying the experience.

Regarding 0rel's appreciation that a special characteristic of Sim City is that you can lose but you can't win, then are most MMORPGs under the same category? They're certainly games, right?


On the original subject of interactivity and gameplay:

I think I know what gameplay is: gameplay is the experience of playing, as abstracted from aesthetic appreciations. This is why there can be ugly games with terrible music (unappealing or unappropriate aesthetic) that have great gameplay, and beautiful games with great narrative that have awful gameplay. In my opinion, Silent Hill 2 fits the latter perfectly, and it's a good example to illustrate the divide between gameplay and the rest of the elements that compose a videogame, precisely because of how divorced they are in it.

In that sense, it's not that farfetched to think that interactivity and gameplay are the same thing; I do not believe that there is an equivalent for novels or movies, and interactivity is the main factor that separates games from those. That said, I believe that the distinction exists, but is subtle: interactivity is the capacity of interacting with the game, while gameplay is experimenting the interaction. Interactivity is a quality inherent to the game: it can be neither good nor bad, it can simply exist or not. Gameplay is the relationship between the interactivity and the rules. Gameplay can be perceived as good or bad because we expect the reaction to our actions to follow certain patterns: if a car feels like a shopping cart, or if we try to do a hadouken but only succeed half of the time, we complain about the gameplay.

So I played your latest build, JP, which marks my first time playing your game (I didn't have the time before.) As I suspected, I was pretty confused. I can't figure out how to use the attacks effectively. I did manage to get on top of some high platforms with the aid of the bom and the spheer and a lot of trial and error, but not much other than that. I do like the general idea quite a bit, though.

Welcome back, Benzido! I'm a fan of your thread. I might give you something to work with in the future.

Otaku42, I just believe that you're approaching this the wrong way. Instead of shoving a game that you particularly like or find interesting, first ask yourself a few questions: Why do they not play videogames? Why would they want to play them? What would they find appealing in a game? The best approach is to give them something that they can relate to, instead of something immediately alien and unappealing to their non-gamer tastes.

Regarding the Wii, yeah, Nintendo sure is pulling a good one. This article has a lot to say on their strategy. It's long but a good read!

Regarding intuitivity, I think that Jef Raskin got it right: intuitive equals familiar. Gamers, with a vast background of learned control mechanics and gaming vocabulary, can approach a game like Portal and find it fairly straightforward, simplified in comparison to other games in the genre. But to someone who only plays, say, Tetris and Brain Training, it's a hell of a step to take. What this all means is that 'intuitivity' is highly relative, so it's no wonder your dad had no idea what to do.

I've often found that comparatively novice players tend to put game semantics (instructions, narrative) and gameplay at odds, and this would explain why your dad could not understand immediately that he was the character he could see in front, or simple instructions like having to press E to do something. They want to play, which is opposite to receiving and analyzing information. This sounds backwards to us, who perceive the medium as something that involves both, but inexperienced players approach every game as if it was Tetris.

"Arson!," a distant voice speaks in a howl. "What an ironically devised entryway to Hell.

"My fellow beasts, you know who your next target should be."

((Guys, it's still night.   ))

[NitroCrate]

I am left speechless. You realize, my friends, that this leaves me no better strategic choice, no option but to vote for NitroCrate (withdrawing my previous aimless vote for Xion,) if I so much as desire to see a new sunrise? This is, indeed, quite the witch-hunt. Do we crave the blood just as much as the beasts that stalk us at night?

All that being said, there is one odd thing that brings me to take this decision more logically, and not merely with the instinct to survive. I have a good memory, and I recall NitroCrate's words, at some point, to be the following:

I...I'm just a paper boy...
Nitro Crate begins to tear up.
...I'm not even supposed to be here.

He seemed quite scared at the time, and I shaked the uneasy feeling. But indeed, if we are to suspect people on anything at all... Can you really believe this person that he was not meant to be here just as the rest of us? Can really a miscalculation be had for Melly's dark plans? If not --I indeed credit our captor for his cunning mind,-- then this person is lying, and he was the same as everyone else here, called specifically by Melly. Why would someone lie in such a manner if not to cover their perverted intentions, to seem the most innocent among the innocent?

[Xion]

I'm not very keen on your methods, Xion, but I cannot, for the life of me, find a better way to solve this riddle. What would you say if I voted against you? With these words I put Xion himself against the ropes.

Being locked again, I have surely lost my mind and gone insane! Not only are werewolves a possibility, but there's a murderer among the calm people I've met here the past day? Is this still some manner of charade?

I reckon some action must be taken, lest those of us that sleep not well at night will face a slaughterous demise. Other than lock every door in town past curfew, I fear we might have a need to start taking the votes. May the one with the clearest head speak his mind first.

It's nearing night already. Seems you all have been having a jolly good time; too bad that you seem to have forgotten that we're all trapped here.

I've done my homework, so to speak. I've rounded the area and I have collected some information that is of utmost value, especially to those who have wasted their time today with silly talk, needlesly extended introductions and games. What I have to share is that this isolated town of unhealthy minds is not home to any life, save for the damned few that find themselves here in the square. There are no giraffes of those some of you have spoken, nor any mystical seals. There are no fresh vegetables, all the rations that have been prepared for us are canned and in storage. They will last us, as the madman who's behind this suggested, a few weeks... that is, unless our numbers start dwindling, in which case it should last longer. I'm not prepared to consider that possibility just yet.

Very well. If so we must, then so I shall. My name is Armand G.J., otherwise known as agj. I am a man of no past, with the vain hope to build a future. I trust this is enough to keep us from making enemies of each other, my dear friend? Let us drown the uneasiness with the aid of your drinks! Cheers!

A secluded town?! Werewolves?! Madness!

I fear that, indeed, our worst enemy from this day onwards is not the despicable beast-men of legends (who could, in fact, trust such preposterous machinations by a man who fooled us all?,) but the insanity that will surely take hold of our minds. I, myself, feel unfit to rational judgement today, and I shall not stain my hands of innocent blood, nor will I point my finger until I see convincing proof that such hell-spawned creatures exist!

[Armand G.J.]

If you, fine folk, don't mind a new and barely acquainted individual to join, who, on top, has not been involved in a Werewolf game so far, then: Armand G.J.

I'll do my best.

As mentioned by Tatsu, gamedev.net has a lot of resources, even a list of relevant books, though, as he also warned, most are very subjective, so you won't find a book that covers everything, and you should not read them like they're the law.

Also some good blogs:

http://onlyagame.typepad.com/
http://www.raphkoster.com/
http://www.gameology.org/

If you told me something specific you're looking for, muku, I could recommend something specific for you too.

That's honestly a very good idea. Sadly, I don't think that there's any incentive for anyone to undertake such venture if it's all for free. Games for Windows is the closest we'll get to that in the foreseeable future.

A distinction needs to be made between stimulating creativity and functioning as a space for creativity to emerge. Movies in general do not invoke creativity: the viewer is passive, they are not creating, but they might be stimulated mentally to act creatively at a later time. This happens in certain games too (I'll get to that in a bit.) Some games, on the other hand, can be canvases for creativity, where the player can be actively creative.

I've thought about this before, and I posit that games can be divided into two diffuse groups, or between two poles of an axis: games can be creative or they can be reactive, the latter of which is what I call where the player is asked by the game to overcome obstacles, clear goals and in general just respond to the stimuli delivered by the game. In creative games, it's the player who is the more active part in the feedback back-and-forth: it is them who add, substract, create, modify, strategize, etc. So games like Super Mario are mainly reactive, and games like SimCity mainly creative.

Clearly, if the premise and the execution are imaginative, even a very reactive game can stimulate the player's creativity; conversely, a very dry creative game might not encourage the player to act creatively at all.

(Big lab experiment.)

OR you could test kids of roughly the same age for their creative capability; a gamer group and a group that rarely plays games. There ARE tests for creativity; their validity is a matter for another discussion.

why is "creativity" even a goal? It's not an end in itself?

Creativity is a value. Stimulating it is relevant. Abraham Maslow (psychologist) claimed that it was necessary for today's society, for adaptability; Howard Gardner (also a psychologist) believes that there is no intelligence without creativity.