I was skimming through game review articles and looking through some of the latest Modern Warfare 2 videos and screenshots. Holy schmoly that's Hollywood-realistic! Then the term 'the graphics plateau' struck my mind and I decided to Google it to see if anyone's written anything about the apex of real-time computer graphics (I just Googled for Graphics Plateau).

I came across this pretty interesting article on Gamasutra and it brought up a lot of valid points about the current state of the gaming industry. The Blu-ray format provides up to an astonishing 50GB of storage space for high-definition movies and games. Crysis is the perfect example that games can look awesome. But honestly, how much do we really care for how realistic the game looks? I found Crysis increasingly dull as I progressed and didn't feel compelled to even complete (let alone replay it and try different attack points).

In fact, most of my memorable game experiences come from games which don't sport super-high-definition-uberleet graphics but from simpler games that dared to step off the edge of market-safety. These games innovated.

Now, when I speak of innovation, not just about the gameplay. When I completed the various Space Quest games, I was so thoroughly entertained by the humour Mark Crowe and Scott Murphy injected into the characters and dialogue. Not forgetting Al Lowe's hilarious Freddy Pharkas - Frontier Pharmacist and Leisure Suit Larry (not the uninteresting crappy new games, mind you). When I played Herzog Zwei, the action-strategy elements were thrilling as hell. I still regard it as one of the best strategy games I've ever played.

The older games were made in a time when there were no statistics about 'your market audience' or any supposed rules for making your game fun (there still aren't any!). It was a time when developers focused on the most important element: Fun.

Fun is not to be mistaken with that bogus farce that developers with heads up their asses talk about when they try to promote their ideals. I'm referring to that tingling sensation at the back of your head you feel when you pull off the perfect headshot. It's that 'one more turn' effect after 5 hours of Civilization. It's that 'oomph' sensation while smacking up the bad guys in Batman. It's that calming aura that envelopes you as you control the wind in Flower. It's that evil glee you get when you blow up the scientists in 'Splosion Man. It's that tiny laughter in your head  when you stick a giant earpick into a monkey's head in Monkey Island.

The big players in the industry are trying so hard to find the 'effective formula' for award-winning games but fail to understand the missing human element in their flawed strategies. It's not about the graphics, accurate rag-doll physics (although it is fun to kick and throw bodies around), 100 different buttons for 'customizability', massive social networks or cutting edge micro-transaction models. It is the unpredictable experiences that intrigue us. Keep it fresh and simple, we'll keep coming back for more.

I'd like to leave you guys with a little ballad from Al Lowe, which he wrote and sang for Freddy Pharkas. How cool is it to be able to write and sing your own intro song?

Cables have been cut due to the Taiwan typhoon causing the internet to slow to a crawl.
This site's being hosted on a server in the US so updating took a little longer than expected.

In other news, the Chewable framework version 0.1.0 is complete and ready for use! Get it at the project page!
I will be spending the next few weeks working on a 2D game engine, tentatively called Tasty, using the Chewable framework as the base.
The engine will be used for my next semester's game project so expect some awesome games comin' up.

The Google code site will be updated soon as well... Hopefully including fancy graphics to attract all you aesthetic fanatics.

Speaking of which, I need to come up with a new logo for Chewable...
This was the original design for Chewable Studios:

And this was the planned revamped design, which never took off:

The past few days of my time have been focused on completing the Chewable framework.

A lot of features have gone in since my last blog update and it's a very usable framework in its current state so do check it out!
I will also be working on adding more content to the Google code project page (documentation, instructions etc).

On a side note, I've just started using Spotify which is probably the best desktop music player I have ever used
and it seems I'm not the only one with that opinion.
You can check out the infomercial here:

So I spent my day yesterday redesigning the site and putting everything together nicely.

My last semester's game project is now up on the projects page.
Gotta find another person to play with though... It's nice to watch the intro screen if nothing else heh.

My short 2 month+ internship is over! I had a great experience working with highly-talented and passionate folk over at Ubisoft! Nothing beats working in the industry and learning from the best :).

Now that I've got a month left to go before my next semester starts, I'll be spending this time to do some cleaning up and rewriting for the Blob framework. I've already created a Google Code project for it and renamed it to the Chewable Framework. It's licensed under the Apache 2.0 license so you can use it for whatever you want.

I'll be posting on this blog a little more often during this period so expect more regular updates. Oh, and I'll also finally get around to putting up my last semester's project! Stay tuned!