I was more mad at proffesional game critics TM than I was at souljaboy and his niggas just playing vidya and having fun…

“Der be no point to dis gaem, man! u just mario with red hair and the lil nigga neva runs out of teh tiem potion” “look i dead, ohh no niggaz i don’t. Look! Psych ohh no I didnt!1!!! “XDD lolzzz 2FUNNY

capcha: designs, ngoiansa

This comes across a little wrong in the movie. Soulja Boy and friends were totally high and making a quick video about a game they had just found on XBLA. Expecting them to be some kind of deep thinkers about the game in that circumstance would be silly.

he main thing I am talking about in the movie is the reaction of “critics”. People innocently playing the game and having reactions, that’s a totally different thing.

Soulja Boi’s comments on Braid were ridiculously unintelligible and obnoxious. He had clearly put no effort into the game, or even trying to experience what Jonathan had created. It was ultimately insulting to Jonathan for someone to take his creation and say that “there’s no point to the game”. After all his effort in creating a unique playing experience, only to have it so quickly disregarded, would be utterly heartbreaking.

Sure, the rap artist’s comments were “funny” I suppose, but they were also insulting, and as an artist myself, I can vouch for Jonathan in saying that it would be an incredibly depressing experience to find someone percieving my work as little more than “pointless”.

I think you need to turn down the AC :(

Heh, well, it’s been a huge help to me and my teams to think of game dev in terms of theatre production – we’ve been making small games in the same way that a troupe would improvise and try out different scripts before finding the one that feels right and worth developing further. In 5 months we’ve made 17 games, of those we found 3 that felt “right” (ie: satisfying for us to work on and satisfying for others to play).

Rehearsals = iterative development. Dress rehearsals = Alpha. Opening night = Beta. Then there’s going on tour, taking a break, evaluating where you’re at and planning for the next season of production!

Creating magic within the structure of a seasonal theatre production translates surprisingly well to creating magic in a digital space of play.

As much as I would love to say what’s worked for me and my teams would work for everyone – you’re going to find your own incite based in your own unique skills, interests and history.
And the more games you make, the more of an instinct you’ll develop for making great games.

There’s a ton of tools out there for getting started (gamemaker and kodu if you’re new to scripting for example).

Make games. Make lots of them. Make games no one else is making.

Looking forward to seeing what you do Eric!

I spent most of my young and early adult years in the theatre! Hopefully, your incite is valid. :)

I hope you’re not talking about the soulja boy deal… I thought that was soo cool!

I hope when The Witnes comes out someone personally contacts soulja boy and give him a the game to review, and tyen he will play it and review the game and it becomes a trend for all of Jonathans games… I can dream, yeah!

But seriously maybe some of his fans can get him the game and convince him to play and then make a video about it!

I was surprised at the choice of the video shawn into the movie. Right, it was quite representative of all the terrible things you can see/hear on the Internet. People in the video just looked like art ignorant laughing at a painting without trying to understand it.

But I think this isn’t the way most people reacted to the game.
The thing is, gold in Braid is suggested and requires to the player to pay attention, to think twice about what he sees.
I’m not saying that it’s bad, it’s awersome ! I’m just saying that it could explains all thoses superficial approaches to Braid.

There’s a lot of information on the Internet, but it needs to be sorted before being assimilated.
Seems like you didn’t turn your back completely to the Web though since you are answering to your fans in places like this one.

Keep up with the awersome work, there are discreet people out there that really love it.
(since i’m French, i don’t guarantee the 100% correct english writing, but i hope this is at least understandable)

If you make games, the internet is basically horrible. What I try to do is just to remember that the voice I hear from the internet is not representative of the real audience out there. (If it were, I would quit making games and go do something better with life).

The problem is that this is an intellectual thing and not an emotional thing, so your emotional mind still gets beaten up even though you rationalize about why it shouldn’t. I do not have a solution for this except to toughen up and/or ignore the internet. Since too much of the former is unhealthy, the latter is recommended.

Tharky

Eric, there are so many brilliant classical artists out there who want to be able to use the skills they’ve spent most of their life mastering – and there are less and less jobs for them in traditional industries. They don’t want to be sucked up into the corporate advertising machine anymore than we do! Check Meetup.com for groups in your area?

The best game artists I’ve worked with were classically trained from traditional disciplines. I can teach a classic artist or architect to work in 3D – I can’t teach a 3D techie to think and see like an artist :P

And the best game designer I’ve worked with came from a theatre background and would recommend The Dramatic Imagination (written by a brilliant set designer of the 1930’s and 40’s) before he’d ever recommend something by today’s popular design authors.

Love what you’re doing Jonathan!

I can’t wait to see what happens when more game developers get inspired by this and bring more traditional artists and scientists into Play :)

Yes, the plan is that it will be on Steam. Of course something unexpected can always happen, but that is the current plan.

Well, it’s just that video game modelers/texturers are not domain experts about buildings or landscape, and it would be asking a lot to expect them to be. So if you want to do a good job of designing those things, it makes sense to consult domain experts. It’s not exactly rocket science but it took me a little too long to come to that conclusion.

No.

Which visuals where? There are hardly any shown in this post.

At the current time, we have first-pass structures done for many areas in the island, with only a couple of areas at anything approaching final texturing. With some categories, like landscape, we have not done very much yet but are going to be pushing on that in the near future.

:)

The main character goes on a quest that would be on par with Braid. I can think of few people capable of pulling it off, but what a fascinating idea.

I’m truly excited for The Witness.

Obviously, this approach you are taking is out of the conventional workflow of games – at some point (or many) you felt general game environment artists were lacking in the area of constructing architecturally correct structures. Although in game worlds, the geometry is floating within its virtual coordinates and do not follow the real world laws of gravity.

My question is when you were looking to contract these architects, what specific skill set were you looking for? Were they able to pick up this type of workflow, where polygons are limited, while still retaining the essence of their designs?

As a game designer and world artist – how could I implement these philosophies?

anyway, i remember that it all took place inside a house. you could walk around the house, even in the parts where there were seemingly no puzzles. the design of the rooms that contained puzzles strongly reflected the puzzles. i think it was a cool game, but as i mentioned, too hard for a little kid.

You start by making something small and interesting. Then you take what you learned and make something bigger. etc. That is really all there is to it.

I am a fan of your work and the principles with which you design games, respecting the player. As a fellow programmer, I’m curious to know what you’d recommend as an entry way into creating games. I’m a computer science major in college and have experience with Python and C++. Where do I start?

Best,
Sev

Also, I got the new iPad 3 yesterday and the only thing I could think of was The Witness, super excited to see how it ends up looking and feeling in the pad and now that I have one I can’t wait for the pad port aswell!

Good luck to the whole team, send them my best!

Yeah, it is pretty hard to say meaningful stuff about the spaces at this time that would not be mega-spoilers, so I want to stay away from that.

Mostly my question was along what dimension you thought they were terrible. I am interested in how you are thinking about the spaces. It is a very different approach and illuminates design goals which are orthogonal to those of most game environments.

I understand everything is very hush-hush for now. But when you and the team finish the game, I would be very interested in hearing some of your reasoning.

Although you perhaps don’t like to direct the conversation about the work that much.

This would be only relevant for the interior areas but I was wondering if it was something you looked into. I know that point and spotlights calculate much faster in terms of dynamic lighting. I’ve used them in Mental Ray but I have no idea how fast they would calculate in real time. I was curious if it is something the architects ever brought up since they are used a lot in visualizations.

Of course their expertise brings things that will be noticeable to the average player. Most buildings / landscapes / etc in games are terrible.

Do you think that their expertise brings something to the game that will be noticeable to the average player? Is it simply an experiment on your part to see how grounded in reality you can make the world?

It is quite curious, although I certainly can appreciate the attention to detail.