Nonsequiter Project
I met up with my friend Ben Durbin at Buzz9 about in the middle of the evenings festivities after the IGDA meeting on Wednesday. I only managed a single Guinness on the IGDA tab before we were talking shop. As you may recall, Nonsequiter is a small group of game newbies that has been getting together with the intention of sharing our experiences in the game biz, and more importantly, to make some games. The conversation turned towards SS3 for a little while, but were now of the opinion that we should start smaller.
Ben suggested that we just start by becoming familiar with the basic technologies in DirectX and see whats easy to build. Then, we can take inventory of our paint brushes and canvas, if you will, so we know what is available to us out-of-the-box and what we would have to spend more time to build. I think we were both of a mind to focus more on innovative gameplay ideas rather than innovative visual effects, so well be spending more time on game design, trying to stay within the sweet spot for easy development on the engine we choose. Sorta like what Jordan does.
I rambled on a bit towards the endabout the potential for games to transcend entertainment and eventually become art like some films have. Or to educate at least as effectively, if not more effectively than film or TV even when the point of the game is to be fun (so the player learns on accident). There was even a bit about how MMPORPGs are going to have to evolve their own, unique gameplay rather than trying to strap pen-and-paper onto a technology medium that has radically different strengths (yet to really be discovered). And I only had one beer! :) With that, it was time to dodge between raindrops for a few blocks, hop on the BART, and get ready to do some serious blogging in the morning.