Ewww. Not quite what I meant. 

You did isolate the key point though: Video Games don't have anything unique to them as a medium of expression, besides computing power. Everything that games can do could be done in another medium, just not as well.

Video Games are the masters of the fields of interactivity and simulation. The Video Game medium is unique because of it.

like pandas

I don't like pandas. They remind me of fat comic book nerds. Unable to clean themselves, unable to get a mate, only eating things within close reach.

I would say that the core competency of "Computer/Video Games" is that they create interaction in a simulated environment.

Interaction can come from many forms. Board games, Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books and Sports are all examples of interactivity, but they aren't a simulated environment.

Examining board games closer though: they are also trying to simulate an environment through tokens, dice and play space and they are interactive. Take Magic the Gathering: It's interactive and it's simulating being a mage.

So what do Video Games that no other medium has?
The ability to simulate complex systems.

While some other mediums can simulate an environment and provide interaction, only video games can do it with the speed of calculation that the computer provides. Computers provide the ability to construct, simulate and render a complex environment very fast, allowing immersive and reactive settings. From the very beginning, the power of the computer was being able to input a command, then having the complex system running the game process the simulation then show the results. As video game programmers we've been doing this for so many years that we've forgotten that it's the core power of video games. It's become the air we breathe. It's what we first learn when we make a game. Input -> Process -> Render -> Output.

All that's happened since the beginning is that we can do it better. We have faster computers and better graphics cards, but the core competency of games is still the same. We can simulate complex 3d environments instead of the squares, lines and dots of the very first computers. We can network machines together from all around the world and share a simulated environment with others. We can run massive environments that stay online all the time.

And to what end? To play. To explore. To have fun. To experience. To challenge ourselves and overcome those challenges. To triumph and occasionally fail to. To broaden our thoughts and stimulate ourselves. TO interact with the game, ourselves and each other.

Why video games? Because the video game medium can achieve those goals in such a way that no other medium has access to.

ps. Sorry, I meant to answer your question directly, but went off on a side tangent. It's still on topic though! 

Mine is http://www.youtube.com/parthon

It rarely updates though.

Epic Thread needs Epic Spreadsheet. 

http://www.parthonsoftware.com/hybridgrid.xls

There were some that still need to be added, but were too unique and would cause too many rows in the grid. I left them out for now.

Plus: Holy moley. There's a lot of 'genres'. I almost went crazy. 

I'd take a stab and saaaaaaaay Megaman

[Match 3 + Rts]

Match 3 + Rts

Match gems to make units, use those units to attack your enemy's base and destroy it. Do you go for quick matching to get more units, or concentrate on your battle strategy? Tough question. Can you focus on both at the same? I don't think so. 

I used InitModule with a table of calls too. Just the table started getting long. It wasn't really a problem with python/c++, I think the problem was with my implimentation. I'd do it differently the next time around.

As for the missing data, I think everything got lost when the function returned back to c++ because it went out of scope. I'd need to learn more about Python to stop that from happening.

I didn't regret it, because I learnt a lot. The larger problem was that I found out that I didn't know enough about Python to actually impliment anything worthwhile. I'd have to learn Python from the ground up as well as making a new game as well as working with Python/C++ at the same time. It was chosen because it meant the game could be edited without having to recompile.

Recently I dropped the Python and went back to pure C++. I'll probably reinvestigate the use of Python in the future. It would be handy in a scripted game, but I never got that far. 

I managed to get Python embedded successfully through C++ a while ago.

Problems I found with it:

Every function in C++ that needs to be called from Python needs to be initialised. Eventually the script class that handles it gets a little complicated from all of the different types of calls.

The other thing I couldn't solve: I could call a function in Python, but then when it returned I'd lose all the data in Python. I solved this by just staying in Python the whole time and calling needed functions in C++ from Python. It ended up being like an extension, except the environment and engine set up in C++ before the Python was called make embedding better than extending. If the Python values were persistant then I wouldn't have to do it that way, but it worked.

Damn you Droqen and your ability to write posts that I must respond to.

This is an interesting topic actually. It's really an examination of what purpose items have in games. Some are weapons, for enhanced movement, or just for fun, but many are just to pass the next obstacle(boring). There's also a whole group of 'useless' items that aren't fun, good for weapons or a level key. Still, 'useless' items can provide flavour to the game, and so can level keys, they just don't tend to.

Now for some lists, c/o LoZelda.

Fun Mechanics:
Sword! Woo! Slash, cut, swing, chop, kill.
Bottles: potions and fairies.

Level Keys:
Keys, literally.
Bombs: as above.
Silver/Golden Gauntlets.
Triforce/Amulets/Tokens/Etc.
Almost all current dungeon items.

Halfways:
Bow and arrow: Can shoot enemies *and* eyes and things far away. Enemy resistances to arrows makes it less and less useful. (WHY?!?)
Boomerang: Activate boomerang-y things and pick up items from a long way *and* stun enemies. Not as useful as it sounds, but can be handy.
Hookshot: *badink*clankclankclankclankclankclank*wheeeeee*. Yes it's mainly for crossing broken bridges, but who hasn't tried to shoot everything with it?
...Way too many.

Useless/Flavour:
Deku Nut: Wtf?

Conclusion: Zelda has very few pure-fun items, because almost everything picked up is a level key in some way.


As for other games: most weapons are pure fun items. Most pickups in exploration platformers are level keys in some way. Same goes for action rpgs.

What would the rope be in Spelunky?

My own opinion is that if you have to put a level key in, find a way to make it fun as well. Have it open secrets, kill enemies, allow the player to get to areas they normally wouldn't able to get to or do silly things.

The other thing that could be done, remove the level key part from all items. Allow the game to be finished naked and itemless if the player is so inclined. It might be much much harder for them, and for you as a designer, but having all the items in a game optional would make the game even more interesting.

Jason: post it as a new topic in the design forum.

I'd probably keep it, just greatly lower the importance of it. I'd have it as an annoying interrupt rather than the core gameplay. Block matching really isn't that exciting. Perhaps you could invent a new way to match blocks rather than all the usual ways that have been done.

I dunno, it's competing with

for gayest techno. But Pizzazz is also cringeworthy-lame at the same time. Erasure is just awesome.

This is where I'm up to. Rooms + minimap + moving + jumping.

The only problem I forsee with this is that games have goals for a reason: because without goals they would be boring.

Even if you take a sim-game like Sim City or Dwarf Fortress, there's still the under-goal of 'not failing' in the background. Whatever goal the player creates and lays on top of the simulation has to exist inside of that goal, or specifically outside it in certain examples, like killing people in The Sims.

Those few 'games' that have no win condition and no failure condition end up being toys instead of games. Certainly the player can also lay a goal condition on what they are trying to do with the toy, but there's no satisfaction in 'breating' the toy because there's nothing to beat. It's not to say it's not fun, just it's a different kind of fun.

So what's the purpose of all this? Do we make more games that have specific goals in order to give the player something to challenge themselves against? Do we make more games with loose goals but failure conditions, encouraging the player to create their own goals? Or do we make more toys, that have no failures or goals aside from what the player themselves create?

I say that each one has it's purpose depending on what the game wants to be. All three are fun in different ways and the variety of games would be weaker without any one of them.

As a side note: Crayon Physics Deluxe could have just been a toy, but it was infinitely better with a goal.

 
Awesome post Dan!

I've been playing 'indie' games for almost a decade. One thing I've noticed is that the community is obscure. There are a few portal sites like game tunnel and indie games blog as well as tigsource, but otherwise indie games aren't that visible.

I like this thread, attempting to look at where to go next, instead of where we've come from. There's an opportunity to do something that's never been done before on the level of indie community. I, for one, am looking forward to it.

Awesome game!

But I think I'm at least 8% more gay than before. 

I think it's going to be mainly shooting enemies and jumping gaps.

That's definately the plan in the long run. The current format for generating the level doesn't nicely allow single square rooms in the sequence, but that will change. Right now it's a 'attach new room to existing room randomly' type system. The next iteration will be more path and zone based with save points, powerups and similar.

But tomorrow is making the world -> room generator and creating the physics engine for the player to run, jump and shoot stuff in.

Once it's playable, I'll start a devlog and release an exe.

It's beautiful.



Tomorrow: Stuff.

I faked my own death on April Fools Day and had about 30 people believe it.

I met one of the state news anchors because I scored ultra-high in a science competition.

I've been running an online casino for 10 years.