Boston Anime Con
What did you do this weekend? Maybe you dressed up like your favorite Anime/Video game character? A lot of people did in Boston. Test your geek knowledge by naming the video game characters below:
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Can you name them all? Mouse over for the answers! You can also follow the jump for two bonus characters. (more…)
May 26, 2009 | | Comments (3)
Category: Random
Tags: anime, cosplay, costume
Using Mojo for Games
Our fearless leader was interviewed recently by Play As Life, discussing his role as founder of Fire Hose Games, his ideas about video games (and space), and he even got hockey in there. Eitan discussed his ideas for games, especially accessibility, learning, and having fun. He used these ideals for examples of how video games can have an impact and the obligation he, and Fire Hose, feel as developers to aspire to having this kind of impact through video games.
Random trivia – did you know Eitan bought his first game console with money earned from his paper route in 6th grade?
You can find the full text of the article here. Enjoy!
May 22, 2009 | | Comments (2)
Category: News
Tags: audiodyssey, GAMBIT, immuneattack, MIT, Play As Life
What we could learn from Star Trek
I just saw the new Star Trek movie a few days ago, and I have to say that it was pretty fun! Sure there were some ridiculous plot holes, and Kirk manages to get choked to near-death 3 times in one day and is still running around, but that’s not important. What is important is that the movie is fun, and makes Star Trek feel new and exciting again.
But how? One of Star Trek’s biggest problems is that it is mired in this crap canon built up from decades of series. The entire goddamn Star Trek universe history is laid out for some 200+ years, and between the books, tv shows, and movies it is almost impossible to write new material in this universe without either contradicting canon or making the story especially lame. The film does a great job of bypassing all this by inserting some useful time travel and effectively declaring that we are now in a new Star Trek universe, which while similar to what you’re used to, is an entirely different entity and capable of new, original story lines. Bravo, writers!
So what could video games learn from this? We’ve got a bunch of brands (Zelda, Metroid, Warcraft, Metal Gear, Final Fantasy/Dragon Quest, etc.) which are now long running series with largely derivative sequels due to built up expectations for what the game should be. This is the game equivalent of canon, IMO. What if the new versions in these series bucked these expectations through some smart twist (perhaps time travel?) and clearly stated that we are in a new universe where there are new rules for the series? It could make an old series really exciting, and allow it to actually innovate. I’m not holding my breath on the big names though…
*Update: Sharat has pointed out that the Zelda series is probably not the best example, as it tried to reboot with Majora’s Mask and didn’t really succeed so well.
May 20, 2009 | | Comments (1)
Category: Random, Rant
Tags: film, lesson, media, movie, reboot, star, trek
I hate Twitter (except when Google is down)
Google exploded a few days ago. You probably noticed when your internet stopped working. At Fire Hose we wanted to find out news about the outage, but where does one look for information when google is down. Yahoo? Too 90’s. Ask.com? Too lame after they dropped Jeeves.
But what about Twitter? Personally, I think it is a collection of neurotic clowns who feel the need to post their innermost moronic rambling to complete strangers – so surely it’s the perfect place to go to when it’s the end of the internet as we know it!
We were cracking up as we read the posts on Twitter throughout the day. It was also telling what you could search for. For instance, “Google down apocalypse” turned up over 60 results just a few minutes after the outage. “Google down zombies” turned up even fewer hits, with only 3 about a half hour in. Then again, that’s what the zombies would want, disrupting communcation will make the pandemic spread that much faster.
By the way, Fire Hose now has a Twitter account unimaginatively named “Fire Hose Games”. We have no plans to post there, but you’re welcome to add us anyway.
May 16, 2009 | | Comments Off
Category: Random
Tags: apocalypse, google, silly, stupid, twitter, zombies
Digital distribution comparison
There aren’t that many statistics on WiiWare, PSN, and XBLA sales out there, and it is very hard to draw a straight comparison between the different platforms. Simon Carless gave a great talk at GDC where he summed up his findings on the state of sales, but we wanted something a little easier to read at a glance.
Enter Dave Nelson, our resident Sloanie (MIT MBA) who took the time to dig up some sales stats on all three platfroms. For good measure Dave threw in some figures on Steam and iPhone sales too, just for comparison’s sake. The work is great, so we thought we’d post it here. Great job Dave!
Full chart is available here, after the jump. (more…)
May 12, 2009 | | Comments (1)
Category: Numbers
Tags: carless, david, digital, distribution, iphone, nelson, psn, sales, simon, statistics, steam, wiiware, xbla
IGC East Powerpoint Available Here!
Today at the IGC East Ethan and I gave a talk called “Rapid, Iterative Prototyping, or How to Rip Off Dinosaur Comics”. A lot of people were asking, so here’s the slideshow from the talk. Enjoy! I’ll gladly answer any questions in the commnets section.
May 7, 2009 | | Comments (1)
Category: Events, Words of Wisdom
Tags: comics, conference, dinosaur, east, Eitan, Ethan, Fenn, IGC, iterative, prototyping, rapid, talk
What We’re Playing: Facade
If you come visit us at Fire Hose (and you should!) on any given day you will hear many bizarre comments, like “Always the joker! Ha ha…” , “Ahem…. hem…”, and “We’ll be fine, just GO”. At this point you’d probably think that we’re totally bonkers and/or completely awkward, but in reality you’d be only half right – we’re really referencing Facade, a terrific if not strange game by Michael Mateas and Andrew Stern.
Facade is a very weird 2005 title in which you are invited to a dinner party by a pair of old friends, Trip and Grace. During the course of the evening the happy couple reveals that they are kinda miserable, and their marriage disintegrates in front of your eyes. Personally, I like to see how quickly I can get thrown out by being a jerk; Ethan has managed to get booted before even setting foot in the door. The really interesting part is that the game does natural language parsing (albeit poorly) and you interact with Trip and Grace by typing with the keyboard.
This game pushes the boundaries so much it’s terrific. It’s free too, so go download it now.