GDC 2012: A few words with Minecraft’s Markus ‘Notch’ Persson
Here is a article featured on IndieGames.com about Markus “Notch” Persson creator of the IndieGame Minecraft. He reflects on a variety of topics including his career, creation of Minecraft, piracy and other stuff. If you don’t know about the game, please do check it out. Persson’s success with this game is a great example where mechanics is focused on a basic level to provoke intuitive play and fun.
Excerpt from the article:
Building on mechanical design, Persson believes that it’s important to settle on a consistent theme or setting to create a cohesive overall experience. Minecraft’s primitive, outdoor theme, for instance, makes chopping down trees and gathering materials appropriate and satisfying. It also helps prime the player for what he or she may encounter.
“The [game’s] theme sets the expectations for the player,” he said. “If you’re playing a fantasy game, you’d want a sword, a horse — which we don’t have in Minecraft — and that affects the game mechanics. That’s why you don’t have a laser or something,” he said.
Source: indiegames.com
Cyberspace Friday Links: Interactive Elements with Archival Artifacts
- Slice and Dice your Mp3 collection and if you want, submit to “Supercuts Supercut”. Download this software that will automatically cut a music playlist of your choice into Gysin-sized amounts. This Sunday is the cutoff to send your results (contact info’s in the software) and the best submissions will be published and distributed to FMU’s generous donors. [WFMU Beware of the Blog]
- Poet-programmer Jhave Johnston recently launched MPUS a prototype mashup machine that pulls in overlays of poet’s sounds from PennSound’s 1,260 files of poetry archives. “I always figured,” says Charles Bernstein, co-director at PennSound, “that once we had a substantial archive of sound files, the next phase would be for people to use them in novel ways.” [PennSound]
- Code {poems} is just another extension of this new ‘archive folk art’ movement (which will be explained on this site later on). The project aims to compile a variety of code poems. What does that mean to you? There is potential in code, weather its interactive and launched or uses Sumltron as a gui to write words within its ambiguous space. Vist any site and view someone’s code, something so simple as html can be have this individuality from that creator, hints code poem.
- Create your own interactive stories with Twine, simple with a think visually interface. View the Twee API and see technical information archived to explain how this engine works. (ah,ha code poem)
A Ted Talk featured theme: The Rise of Collaboration
Check out these conversations embodying the open-source movement in the spirit of collaboration.
Source: ted.com
Cyberspace Friday Links : We all need to learn Programming
Here is the first implementation of featured cyberspace links. Get a weeks worth of highlights on networking, programming, DIY, technology… etc.
- John Polson writes an article on video game Code Hero, an ambitious approach to teach players how to code. [Indie Games]
- Looks like NASA is recognizing videogames, apps and social media culture as a great opportunity for public outreach. [Gamasutra]
- Does it concern you that a majority of people, maybe including yourself, don’t know how to program their own computers? Program or Be Programmed : Ten Commands for a Digital age by Douglas Rushkoff, including original illustrations from comic artist Leland Purvis.
- The Video Game Revolution: History of Gaming, 30 years of interactive video history impacting our culture in such a short period of time. [PBS]
- Here is a great discussion between videogame designers Jason Rohrer and Chris Crawford discussing the history of indie games. Into the Night with Jason Rohrer and Chris Crawford
- Global communities of all sorts have been around for a while, well Marcin Jakubowski presented on TED talks with a great outlook on building the Global Village Construction Set with Open Source Ecology; a self-sustaining village. Here is OSE wiki with all the blueprints.
- Last but not least, a link for the theme. Learn to code. Douglas RushKoff posted in his blog, New York’s Mayor Michael Bloomberg tweeted his intent to learn computer code as a new years resolution. Check out Codecademy, its free!
Graffiti Scores
Ever thought to do a TV dinner with a friend, sit down then mute the volume and hear what kind of sounds would produce from the pure nature of a moving picture? I’m imagining what a Curb Your Enthusiasm episode would be like, having Larry David muted during a freak out scene. The sounds would probably still emulate nerve wrecking tension, but it might be the opposite since the set of the show is very dull. It might actually make me less nervous to watch his show!
Well, Benjamin Gaulon aka RECYLISM has created a mechanism using Audrino to give light sound. Light to Sound Device | Sonic Graffiti, a simple hack that converts displayed light to sound waves. Here Gaulon uses the device in a metropolitan city which has an abundance of advertisements displayed on LCD screens. Visual culture meets commodity.
Source: recyclism.com
Mosi’s Yes Team’s First Robotics Competition, No really it’s their first!
Last weekend the Yes team continued to make progress with their fantastic robot for the FRC competition taking place in about six weeks. Celine, Giona and Sam all in high school stuck around through the afternoon working hard installing bumpers to cushion their robot. Even though they may consider themselves rookies being new to the whole process constructing a robot and entering the FRC competition, they are still extremely optimistic with whatever outcome. One of their main goals for these next six weeks is to get the arm constructed and configured to the program running the robot. They still haven’t found a suitable name for the little guy, but are sure it will come once everything is complete. Watch the video below for a quick glimpse of the robots basketball rules. Also check out the FRC main website to get more details http://www.usfirst.org/roboticsprograms/frc
This great opportunity is proudly sponsored by JCPenny!
Happy Valentines Day
This last weekend Idea Zone set up a Valentines station where anyone could make a thoughtful gift for a special someone, parent or grandparent…etc. There were options to create a scent from the purest essential oils or an assortment of little cartoon wood cuts that could be a magnet or coasters. Complemented with a Valentines theme baggie. Ohhh! The endless possibilities creating a gift from the heart to a loved one.
