Monthly Archives: March 2009

Voting has opened for the independent game festival audience award for the best indie game of the year. It’s where you, people of the internet, get to vote for what you think is the best indie game to come out in 2008. It’s super easy, just go here to vote.

Me? Well, I’m probably going to vote for CarneyVale: Showtime. Granted I have a bit of a bias, but honestly the game is awesome and deserves to win (if you haven’t yet try it out on the XBox community channel!) I also like The Maw, Incredibots, Between, and Dyson, but those are just the ones I’ve played. I don’t think You Have to Burn the Rope should be on there – while it’s certainly amusing, the game is definitely not in the same league as the other titles.

I’m totally obsessed with Watchmen. I think it is one of the most amazing works of fiction ever created, and would certainly put it in the same tier as classics like The Lord of the Rings and Catch-22. Now that the movie and the game is out (Watchmen: The end is Nigh) the movie has been thrust into the mainstream, is there any way that they can gather the same acclaim as the original?

I suspect not, and I believe it has to do with the media involved (disclaimer: I have not played the game or seen the movie yet, will do so this following week). Continue reading →

Last night I attended the 7th annual Hamentashen vs Latke Debate, in which world-renowned MIT professors in various fields of study discuss the socio-economic, scientific, historical and philosophical implications of triangular and circular foods. As the artist and sole non-MIT graduate here at Fire Hose, I am regularly amazed at the sense of play that pervades this dev team and the school from which they graduated.

A Biology prof offered a defense of Latkes (potato pancakes fried in oil) that transected the history of Tuberculosis immunology, recent Boston activity by the Center for Disease Control, and pre-WWII immigration. A mathematics professor on the side of Hamentashen (triangular cookies) explained with Photoshop and geometric trickery a solution to world hunger through the careful management of the sex lives of pastry. The entire event caused me to wonder what kind of video game could possibly bring to bear the intellectual passions of such diverse people. What games have been created with the creative flexibility to allow anyone, from any field of interest, to bring the best of themselves into the equation of play?

Games located in social networking sites would seem to offer a platform for such interactions, but they tend to narrow the communities involved rather than expand them. MIT takes advantage of the multi-disciplinary nature of a college campus to offer the diversity of this annual game. The closest community I can think of on the web, where varied peoples produce and consume diverse content that expresses the best of their creative process is the t-shirt website Threadless.com, where arguably the regular competitions work as a game.

How would you apply this to a console game?

Hamentahsen vs Latke, yo

7th Annual Hamentashen vs Latke Debate, MIT 4/4/09

Ever feel like the world is just crashing down around you? Like you can’t seem to get ahead of impending deadlines? Like you’re in a race with other losers who do nothing but slow you down and keep you from reaching your goals? Like the tar pit is too far to jump and you wish you had a pterodactyl to help you clear it?

Well then do we have a game for you! Dino Run is a phenomenal game about outrunning your doom made by the talented guys over at PixelJam. In it you play a small dinosaur who is just minding his own business when all of a sudden, BAM, an asteroid hits and it’s the end of the world. The game is beautifully done with 8 bit style graphics, and features an amazingly high amount of replay value as you can play against friends online, unlock acheivements, and evolve your dinosaur (though why would you bother evolving if it is the end of the world?) You can even get hats for your thunder lizard if you donate, which you should do!

Continue reading →

The Independent Game Conference East is going to be held right here in Boston this May 7th and 8th. It’s going to be a fun conference where small indie gamers can get together, learn tricks and tips for making games with real impact, and meet their peers. A lot of our friends are going to be there giving talks, including Ravi Mehta (Viximo), Darius Kazemi (Orbus), and Scott MacMillian (Macguffin Games). You can see a full list of speakers here.

But there not the only ones! Ethan Fenn and I are going to be giving a talk as well, titled “Rapid and Iterative Prototyping, or How to Rip Off Dinosaur Comics”. We’re basically going to talk all about the super sneaky ninja techniques you can use to make games quickly before you work out every detail of a game. It’s going to be really fun, and yes, we really are going to talk about how we used Dinosaur Comics. Follow the link for the full talk synopsis – Continue reading →