Posts tagged with “USC”

Yesterday Flower came out on PSN, the second title by thatgamecompany. The game looks absolutely beautiful, featuring some of the most stunning graphics I’ve ever seen with its fantastic grass/environment engine. In the game you control the wind and try to pick up flower petals in the breeze, and the experience is centered around relaxation and exploration more than fighting bad guys or beating levels. A highly innovative offering, I strongly recommend checking it out if you have a PS3, as does everyone else.

The game is especially interesting because it comes from a super talented team coming out of USC’s game pipe lab EA Game Innovation Lab. It’s something of a spiritual sequel to Cloud, a project that Jenova Chen and Kellee Santiago (among others) worked on while pursing their masters. Congrats on the amazing title guys!

Serious games are a category of games which, in my opinion, tend to get a bad rap. People hear the terms “serious” or “educational” and run in the other direction screaming, and frequently for good reason! Serious games tend to be less fun, as they frequently sacrifice bits of fun in the name of getting their point across.

Not so with the Redistricting Game, a great title that came out of USC a few years back and was developed in part by Chris Swain. In the game you take the role of a congressional gerrymandering panel, trying to carve up states in an effort to get the most votes for your congressman. The game is really fun, I suggest giving it a shot!

Follow the jump for a bit more analysis as to why I think the game succeeds. Continue reading →

Last night Chris Swain, assistant Professor at USC and the co-founder of the EA game innovation lab, visited MIT to give an interesting talk on all things games. Touching on myriad subjects, Chris hopped from how we came to our current state of game development, what areas/genres of game development are still ripe for exploration, and what trends he has been observing in the games industry. He ended with a quick piece on how he believes development will change over the next few years to remain sustainable.

Chris also made some controversial claims about how games will be the dominant form of media in this century, which while I happen to agree with him I don’t think I’d make the statement so strongly, and I wouldn’t count out less interactive media like film. Overall the talk was really enjoyable; Chris really knows his stuff, and has the development chops to back it up (full disclosure: I worked with Chris on Immune Attack).

Follow this fantastic link for more details on the talk – Continue reading →