There is a new Episode of the Monster Hunter Podcast up. This time we discuss some useful items and how obtain them. Also, we finally get back to listener mail!
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Many people found this site due to my epic ramblings about UI and Information Design faux-pas. I haven’t been saying NICE things about UIs often enough. Here is an attempt to make up for it. It’s an interactive info-graphic that compares countries with each other
Click Here to visit the Site. It’s Flash so it might not work with devices like your mum’s microwave, stopwatches and the iPad.
It’s a gloriously detailed and highly multi-faceted database of all countries in the world. In the middle you see 5 rows of dots. Each dot is a country. Each row represents a different category of evaluation. The vertical position of a dot represents the score a particular country received. Each of the rows is sorted individually by value. If you hover with your mouse over the dots, lines will connect all the dots in all rows that represent the same country. The shape of the line illustrates this country’s “profile”.
On the left there is a simple list of all the countries. Clicking or hovering over the names will highlight that country in the graphic. You can chose to sort that list by overall rank or alphabetically.
No matter where you click, you can select a country. Clicking once more will select a second country. The two selected countries are color-coded throughout the application. Pop-up labels will highlight the specific score of the most recent selected country. On the right you can compare the two selected countries to each other. There are tabs for each category of evaluation. Each category has different values that contribute to the overall score. There are even pop-up labels that explain each value.
Finally you can narrow down the selection at the top. For example, you can highlight only the EU countries or only the high-income countries etc…
Of course I couldn’t let this one go without poking at it:
No Geography: There is no visual representation of where all those countries are. Including that could have helped identifying geographic trends. We all can’t have enough geography anyway. On the other hand, it would have introduced a lot more complexity and the app works surprisingly well without it.
Diminishing Identity: Boiling down everything to a score has a tendency to compare apple to oranges. For example, Germany is right below United States on this chart while France is 4 places below Germany. However, if you look at the profile you will see that the United States has a fundamentally different profile from Germany while France’s profile is almost identical to Germany’s. It’s just a pure accident that the United States has a score so close to Germany. It achieved the score by very different means.
Insufficient Sources?: Some scores are derived from few values. The score for Health is derived only from life expectancy. I’m just wondering if this is really the only way to measure the health-care system. I’m not an expert in this area though.
But all in all it’s a great example of very competent UI. It shows a lot of data in an effective way. There are plenty of different ways you can get information from it. You can use it to gain some pretty cool insights. And on top if it: it looks and feels awesome! Imagine an RPG that uses this kind of interface to let you data-mine your stats.
Just a short news item today. I will be doing a presentation at the upcoming FROG conference in Vienna this weekend. The topic is called “Frankenstein Game Design” and it will be about the game design process of TRAUMA. I will also do a short demo.
As you might have noticed my spirit is not exactly in the best condition right now. I’m struggling with the presentation a bit. I had some great ideas initially but I lost the Mojo along the way. It could be that I haven’t been doing any gaming recently. I shall test this theory!
In any case I am looking forward to see the conference and the city. I’ve never been to Vienna so far and I heard it’s beautiful! I will arrive Saturday morning which is also the day my presentation is scheduled. I will leave Sunday morning. So if you want to meet up with me just throw me an E-Mail or a Tweet and we can surely grab a beer Saturday evening.
I’ve been working on TRAUMA way too long now. It’s not a healthy condition. It means that I may be wasting ideas and energy because I can’t move on as long as I’m working on the current game. There are also some nasty side-effect. I would call one of them Long Game Development Paranoia. The symptom is that EVERY TIME you read something even closely related to game design or innovation, you hear a faint but persistent voice inside your head asking the same question over and over again:
OMG! Does Long Game Paranoia mean that my game sucks?
Survival tips for indie game developers? You expect having done something wrong which would prove your game sucks. A presentation on YouTube by an know developer? You expect him to bring up a new point which proves your game sucks. A podcast on creative writing? You expect the guys be much smarter and more hard-working than you are… which is why your game sucks. Eating a brownie? You are getting fat and unhealthy… which is why your game sucks.
The real torture is that it’s always just an premonition and none of the articles and podcasts actually manages to produce conclusive evidence against your game. You are not even granted the catharsis of confirmation. And it’s completely irrational too. TRAUMA has been nominated for two indie games festivals. There is no denial that there is some merit to the game. Yet the little voice never goes away and it’s always spoiling everything I consume about creative work.
Or maybe it’s just me? Maybe I’m crazy? And if it was just me, would that mean that my game sucks?
Recently at Cologne Game Lab, we got ourselves a 3D flat-screen. We weren’t actually specifically interested in 3D. We had to buy some flat-screens for our students and simply decided to go with something that would be 3D compatible just in case. But it gave me the opportunity to re-evaluate the status quo on stereoscopic 3D technology for games.
Off the bat, the problem I had previously with the screen being darker wasn’t as prominent on our TV. So I presume that’s something that depends on the specific model you use. What I noticed were two other problems.
Excessive Flickering: The environment at GamesCom was generally quite dark so I haven’t noticed it at that time. But at the office during the day the shutter glasses did produce some quite unpleasant flickering. Especially when looking at bright surfaces (walls) next to the screen. The eyes got used to it after a couple of minutes but it summoned up memories of bad CRT monitors in the 90ies. Remember those?
The Toy Effect: Yet more worrisome was a completely different effect. We were playing the Motorstorm demo. One thing that immediately becomes apparent is that everything looks like a miniature toy model. The cars don’t look like real cars but like tiny RC cars. I was wondering why for a while and then I realized the problem.
You see, stereoscopic 3D depends very much on the DIFFERENCES between the two images your two eyes receive. Those differences are more prominent on objects nearby and less prominent on objects far away. Doing some research I read somewhere that actually, stereoscopic 3D ceases to make any difference for objects further away than 20m. At this distance, there is too little difference between the two images for your brain to pick up.
This renders realistic stereoscopic 3D practically useless in a many cases. It’s especially useless for establishing shots and the depiction of large, open areas. But there is a workaround. You can artificially increase the distance between the two virtual cameras that capture the scene. In realistic shot they should be as far apart as the eyes of a human. But if you increase the distance between them you can extend depth perception to objects much further away than 20m. There is one drawback: everything will feel smaller.
That’s exactly the effect we’ve seen in Motorstorm. So it seems like we might be looking at playing with a lot of very, very tiny soldiers, cars and spaceships in the future.
Again, I’m not sure how much this result is depends on the hardware I’m using or simply a not yet finished demo. However I’m still yet to see a flawless and convincing example of the implementation of stereoscopic 3D in a modern game. Have you tried 3D yet? What where your thoughts?
Some time ago there has been some outrage in the US about the upcoming Medal of Honor game and how it portrays the war in Iraq. On a weird hypocritical note, the specific problem was that players would be able to play as virtual Taliban and shoot at virtual US Soldiers.
I wonder, why are those people so incredibly sensitive to their soldiers dying? It’s a war, what kind of outcome did they expect? Isn’t soldiers dying a completely plausible, almost likely result? And even if they survive, wouldn’t they end doing the very same to the soldiers of the opposing side, who presumably also have a family? How is a game where you are just gunning down Taliban a more acceptable form of entertainment? Maybe there is something wrong about me. I guess I can’t really put myself into somebody who would support a war. It’s just people dying for some really unrelated reasons.
I also find it weird that it seems like one of the reasons why Medal of Honor was a problem is because the war it is representing is so recent. So a game about the a recent war is mockery but if the war happened a while ago it’s ok? Does morality have an expiration date? What is the statute of limitations for trivializing the death of people?
There is even a tricker problem in Germany. There are a TON of World War 2 games out there where Germans are the bad guys. Of course it’s easy to antagonize members of the Nazi party as villains but the sad truth is that in World War 2, most of the soldiers fighting for Hitler weren’t politically motivated. They were just at the wrong time in the wrong place. That didn’t prevent them from doing some horrible things but again – that’s the whole point in war. The allied troops weren’t just distributing flowers either. It gets even more awkward when you actually meet people, who faught for Germany in World War 2. Some of them may even turn out to be part of your family: “Grandpa, were you dressed like the German soldiers I’m killing right now in this game?”. So when you are served one game after another where Allied heroes are liberating the world by slaughtering German troops left and right, there is this weird emotional disconnect. Of course you don’t want to be rooting for the Nazis. But you know that it just isn’t as simple as the game makes you want to believe. In such cases, you actually welcome modes where you can play on both sides. It separates the moral dilemma from the gameplay.
Going back to Medal of Honor – I think the problem is something entirely different. It’s not the fact that a game deals with a recent conflict or that it shows the conflict from the “other” side. It’s the fact that the purpose of the game is to entertain. Players play the game to engage in pleasurably exciting, simulated combat. The game doesn’t address the emotional, moral and political reality of war. Reality in those games ends with the visual representation. This makes it worse. Realistic representation creates expectations of realistic content. It’s an uncanny valley of substance. The entire meaning of the war is simply not being discussed, especially in the multi-player mode.
So it’s no wonder when people, who experienced the real war and it’s impact on human lives find it so outrageous when they find out the very same war is used as a backdrop for shallow entertainment. If games actually addressed the nature of war in a descent and thoughtful way, we wouldn’t have this kind of discussion. And no, displaying anti-war quotes on the game over screen is not nearly enough, Modern Warfare.
Speaking of Modern Warfare – the series went downhill with part 2 but the original Modern Warfare did have some moments that could have been expanded upon to create a meaningful discussion of war. Imagine a game that consists entirely of scenes like the execution scene or the helicopter crash scene from Call of Duty 4. Imagine a game about war where you don’t have a gun and where your goal isn’t to kill anybody. As long as we don’t have such games, we will have these discussions over and over again. And it won’t be just about war either.
And now to something completely different. I recently bough and read two The Adventures of Tintin comics. The big fat space geek I am, they are of course the two comics about Tintin’s trip to the moon. I think I read a Tintin comic when I was young but I could hardly remember it. I wanted to use this opportunity to re-discover this classic series.
However, my first impression of the book wasn’t that great. The second book came out in 1954 and it really shows. For a modern reader like me, the storytelling seemed all over the place. The tone of the story constantly switches between a semi-realistic political espionage thriller and the most banal slapstick. After pages and pages of characters slipping on bananas, banging their head against on low ceilings and falling down manholes suddenly one of them commits suicide because of the guilt he grudges for being a spy – WTF?!?! There is very little time spend on characterization. After reading the two comics I know hardly anything about them. It isn’t even really explained why the characters go to the Moon. It certainly doesn’t make much sense. From their goofy behavior they seem to be the worst-possible candidates.
The cast is neither especially likable nor diverse. It struck me that there isn’t even one single female in neither of the two books – not even as an extra. It’s all just grumpy middle-aged men. Against that the bland Tintin and his dog suddenly really stand out. Additionally, some of the character’s habits are quite odd from a modern standpoint. The captain smuggles a few bottles of whiskey on the spaceship and during the only 3 hours long spaceflight, he proceeds to get himself plastered. Alone. Behavior like this would qualify as a critical case of alcoholism nowadays.
Generally, the story arc is not really well fleshed out. The dramaturgy of the entire story is mostly trivial. The plot seems to randomly advance from one over-indulged slapstick sequence to another.
And yet around the middle of the second book I started to recognize why so many people enjoy the series so much. The unique visual style of the comic is incredibly attractive even today. The attention do detail is tremendous, the execution is flawless. There seems to be not even one panel where the Author did a short-cut. Because of the minimalist approach the colors appear incredibly vibrant. Some designs are certainly iconic. One cannot deny the appeal of the red rocket they use to travel to the moon. It’s the archetype of what we understand as a rocket.
And once you get into a Tintin mindset, there seems to be a weird system to the storytelling. There is constantly something new happening to the characters. If you don’t like a particular scene, something completely different might be just around the corner.
But what really blew me away is the scientific accuracy. Keep in mind the second comic is from 1954 so it’s from 15 years (!!) before the first moon landing. Yet so many details seem to be spot-on. The space-suits look convincing, the effects of low gravity and the vacuum are accurate. The flight profile differs significantly from the Apollo mission, yet it’s internally consistent and completely plausible. I can’t wrap my head around how they got the landscapes of the Moon so well. The first real images from the surface were shot by unmanned space probes in 1966, 10 years after the comic. Sure there are subtle differences to the real Moon: the Tintin Moon is slightly too jagged and not quite dusty enough. But at first sight it’s a convincing representation of the surface, even for today’s standards. Even the biggest discovery they make on the Moon is well chosen. They find frozen ice in a cave – something scientists are eagerly looking for even today! In fact, the comic is more scientifically accurate than most modern Sci-Fi movies. It just shows that reality doesn’t need to get in the way of entertainment.
After finishing the second book I still had my reservations on the characters and the overall plot. The age of the book requires some period of adjustment. Yet, I cannot deny that the comics are a unique and quite extraordinary piece of work. They certainly deserve the attention they receive.
Have you read any of the Tintin comics? Which ones and what were your thoughts?
We are back! There is a new Episode of the Monster Hunter Podcast up. This time we discuss what you can do in single-player mode to get better in multi-player. Unfortunately, we had some technical difficulties this time and the audio cuts out a couple of times. Also we were short on time so we had to skip listener mail this time. Apologies – We will do better next time.
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A couple of people were nice enough to suggest I check out this recent movie. I did and of course I’d like to share it with you as well. Space geekout!
(Protip: go HD)
So what are we seeing here? We see the position of known asteroids in our Solar System from 1980 – 2010 in extreme time-lapse. But we only see the asteroids that were know at that time. As new asteroids flash up as they are being discovered. As we approach 2010 it gets quite crowded. There are a couple of cool things to observe.
I like how you can see exactly the search pattern for asteroids. Asteroids are mostly discovered looking away from the sun. This is when asteroid will be lit like a full moon so it will be easier to spot. That’s why the flashes of newly found asteroids follow the earth like a shadow. From time to time there are larger groups of flashes. These are concentrated survey programs.
The video also shows a weird aspect of space exploration. We are used to geographical mapping. We imagine it somewhat like the the exploration in games like Civilization. We start out with “blank spots” on a map, then we actually travel there to see what’s there and to gradually fill in the blanks. Space doesn’t work this way. Space is generally blank and we never go anywhere. We just observe and gradually find more and more objects. The objects we discover first are the ones that are the easiest to spot. Those are mostly the biggest, brightest and nearest objects. We can never really be sure if the “blanks spots” on our maps of space have been filled because there is always the possibility of an object that is just difficult to spot.
Many people’s reaction to he video is “gosh, there are so many asteroids, we are doomed”. Well yes and no. Fist of all, the size of the asteroids and the size of the planets is obviously greatly exaggerated. Even Earth itself would appear as just a tiny, tiny fraction of a fraction of a pixel in this resolution. There are a lot of asteroids and they can be large but the space depicted is incredibly vast. Imagine tiny specs of dust suspended in a aircraft hangar. Also, keep in mind that this is 2D and space is 3D. Many of the Asteroids move up and down as they circle the Sun. So even if an asteroid would appear to “hit” the earth on this video, it could be moving hundreds of thousands of kilometers above or below it. And in the end, many asteroids are just too small to do any damage and would end up as shooting stars. In fact, two asteroids passed Earth awfully close just recently. There were even closer than the Moon! But nobody cared because they were tiny and didn’t even hit us.
*Cue the disappointed “Oooooh!” of a golf tournament audience*
That being said astronomers agree that it is only a matter of time until we are going to get hit by something big. It might be tomorrow. But if you take it rationally, it is more likely that we won’t be around when that happens. Still, it would be a very good idea to invest in a lot more in a solid sky watch program. As you can see there are still a lot of undiscovered asteroids. To give you an idea how underfunded those guys are: humans invested more in the movie Armageddon than in survey programs that look for real asteroids.
With the recent press release it is official! TRAUMA, the game I’m currently working on, has been chosen to be one of this year’s IndieCade Festival finalists!
I’m making a note here: “Huge Success!”
To say that I’m really excited would be a extreme understatement. IGF was a big thing but I almost had the impression it was just dumb luck. Especially since I walked away empty-handed. But having the game acknowledged by a SECOND major indie game festival has my confidence in the game reach entirely new levels. I never been to IndieCade either but from the looks of it they seem to be slightly more in tune with the indie community and the indie spirit. I like how there is a large number of nominations (32!) and how we are all nominated for all prizes.
I will make sure an up-to-date version will be playable at the festival. It so close to being finished right now that the version there will be almost indistinguishable from the final version.. or at least the indistinguishable beta which will launch soon.
Unfortunately, I can’t say if I will be able to go there. Flying all over the Atlantic is a big deal for me after all and at least with IGF I could do some cross-financing with my job due to GDC. It doesn’t help that the Cologne Game Lab really needs me at the moment. I will look for an opportunity though. Fingers crossed. I mean, Geordi La Forge is the host?! ZOMG!
Hey and even if I’m not there – you guys in the US have an opportunity for a quick peek of the game. Go for it!
P.S.: Sorry IndieCade guys for jumping the gun with that on Twitter. When I realized it was too late. 
