Compass Reading

This week will be punctuated by a trip to London on Wednesday... I can't say anything about the project involved yet, but it's one of our concept designs coming home to roost. I'll say more when I'm in a position to do so. Anyway, blogging will be disrupted.

Still waiting for the new Fireball build. It's close - I can feel it - but just out of reach. Will post on the state of the project once we have it.

Also expected any day now, the copyedited manuscript for Game Writing : Narrative Skills for Videogames. I'm keen to get this book completed and out the door.

I'm now in a position to write my analysis of Shadow of the Colossus if I want to. Still only a quarter of the way into the game, but I don't believe the design has any surprises now; it's quite tightly constructed. This means I have to make a firm terminological decision. Previously we talked of 'keywords of design' versus 'lexical analysis'... I'm also considering 'playwords' and 'play specification'. I'm leaning towards 'Play Specification' - after all, the technique can be used to examine the play of an existing game, or to specify the play of a new game. Still thinking...

Been thinking about revisions, and whether to revise old posts, especially those that are part of a set. For instance, that ilinx piece is very out of date now.

Oh, and we have some new data. Yes, quite exciting this... It needs processing, but I should be able to provide some generalised player profiles for specific games in the next month or so. Don't know if we have enough data to make a DGD2 model and move onto DGD3, but it's certainly possible.

Anybody 'waiting' for anything, or wanting more on a topic touched in passing, just let me know. No promises, but I'm maleable.

Alright, duty calls.

Comments

[Patrick Dugan]

Definetly finish shadow before you post about it. Its psychosexual apotheosis can't be really appreciated in light of its fatalistic word game (the killing of the collosi) unless you see the ending.

[Jack Monahan]

Yes. As they say, spoilers. Teehee.

[Chris]

But I'm not really concerned about it's narrative content in analysing its play. Certainly with Ico I was well equipped to analyse it at an equivalent point, and the ending, while notable in narrative terms, would have had no effect on the analysis. *Shrugs*

Well, I don't really mind either way. But it'll be a long time coming if I have to finish it first. :)

[Ben]

Another vote to finish it- there's a few strange gameplay bits thrown in at the end that might add to your analysis. Plus, it's damn awesome!

[Chris]

Fair enough. But my 'I told you so' crossbow is now loaded... will I fire it at you, or will you fire it at me? :)