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Gamescom Advice, No Advice

Sometime ago I, like many people in this industry, found myself in Cologne. For gamescom. We, like many people in this industry, were there to see if our upcoming title would track any interest. We’re happy with the results. So, here I am, finding an angle to write about on what it means for an indie developer. However, the muddling that happens in one’s brain during a week of hectic expo life is something that seems to prevent me from creating a beautiful post mortem. So it’s your choice at this point to decide if you’re going to get anything useful out of what I’m sure are going to be ramblings that may or may not have a point to them.

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Games and Gaming – Why Is There a Difference?

I had the surprising pleasure to visit London and see the latest up and coming trends in the gaming industry at ICE 2016. Not the game industry – gaming industry. This means betting, slot machines and the like. Now, games and gaming are very close to each other as terms, so I’ll try to keep my wits about the distinction when discussing how the two do relate and could relate. Because the two can be easily considered as cousins and both can benefit from each other in many ways, I chose stories & skills and social gaming as my main points to avoid this post from turning into an essay.

Coming from the game industry it was fun to recognise familiar brands, like Frogger, turned into slot machines and pay notice to how the Walking Dead brand (comic book turned TV series turned games) conquers in all aspects of games and gaming from the amazing Telltale series to the NextGames mobile game and into slot machines with a special Michonne bonus that made me smile. With the gaming industry and the game industry intertwined so closely in regards of brands and the purpose to entertain, it is amazing that the actual game content of the two are not more closely linked. Naturally there are some limitations, like the nature of luck and odds in gaming and the strong element of story and skills in games. Read More »Games and Gaming – Why Is There a Difference?

Games at Tromsø Film Festival Thoughts on Design and Play

This year at the 26th Tromsø International Film Festival (TIFF) digital games were present in a form of a seminar called Film 2.0 – Games People Play. I had the honor to speak at the seminar. I arrived to Tromsø on the last day of polar night and left a few days later with many experiences richer. It became clear to me, once again, that play is the key to successful design.

The first night there I came across with a performance of improvised piano music. The music was played on top of silent movies played from YouTube and picked randomly by the audience. Right away when the first image came to view the performer was playing tunes. He improvised his playing as the movie unfolded. The audience could shout stop whenever they liked. He would then stop playing and a new topic would be chosen. This was an interesting way to bring play into a performance. A second example of play molding performance and content was soon to follow.

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