Midyear of 2012 Updates Summary!

Well, it’s almost summer. Almost. It’s technically still spring, though my “summer” semester started recently. From what I can tell so far, it’s going to be a busy one. *Gulp.*

My “Arts and Ideas” class started on May 29th, and it will end on July 24th. What worries me is that my Japanese 3 class starts on June 25th and ends on August 19th (a mere few days before my 22nd birthday!). That means that from the end of June to the end of July — almost exactly four weeks — I’ll be swamped with two classes that move at roughly twice the speed of regular ones. Taking two double-speed classes is basically the equivalent of being in four regular-speed ones. Though, actually, when you’re learning a level 4 language like Japanese (and are taking the third level, at that), you have to dedicate even more time to studying, assignments, quizzes, exams, speech practice, etc., so it’s even more work-intensive than that. I have to take my studying seriously, because I need to learn the language.

Of course, I’m not trying to complain. I willingly signed up for two summer courses, because I don’t want to have yet another semester with five courses (four of which would be regular-speed, along with the last and most advanced level of Japanese that UMUC offers at double-speed). My Japanese class was cancelled, so I’m going to try to take Japanese 3 and 4 this fall. I’m working hard to graduate by this fall. I already resent the fact that I’m behind those who graduated in spring 2012. When I see my fellow 2008 high school graduates posting pictures of their recent graduations, I can’t help but feel bad. I don’t want to drag out my graduation even further.

Also, I will also be using my final semester to start job-hunting. My internship and part-time job were great, but I need to start preparing for the real deal. I’m both anxious and excited to finally be able to have a full-time job in game development.

I have some very elaborate articles I want to post, but, due to the overlap of my two summer courses, don’t expect many (if any) updates during July. Hopefully, any of you who are reading this will be off doing other things as I slave away at writing about western philosophy and learning more verb conjugations (I kid, I kid! I like those things!).

Anyway, here are some recent major updates I’ve done recently:

• An augmented reality project in the School Projects section.
• A game pitch document in the School Projects section.
• An interactive art project in the School Projects section.
• A 3D modeling project in the School Projects section.
• Updated job descriptions in the Red Aphid Employment section.

Thanks to all of you who have been reading my site. Please consider following it and/or giving me a “Like” on the Punch, Kick, Game Facebook page (you can do this by going to the aforementioned link or by clicking the “Like” button on the right-hand side of this page).

Have a great summer!

-Arielle

A Parody of Pretentiousness

I don’t play games on Kongregate all that often, but I probably should. There are clearly some top-notch developers there. When I got an email in my inbox and skimmed over the new top games, I noticed one called “Pretentious Game.” Based on that name alone, I knew I had to try it out. Keybol is the developer of the game, which can be played here.

The entire game, from first objective to last, is 18 screens (though counting the last screen as an “objective” may be a bit of a stretch). I didn’t time my first playthrough, but it probably took me less than five minutes to get from start to finish.

I’ll be providing screenshots to explain my thoughts on the game, so avoid them if you want to try it out for yourself first. You have been warned.

From the very beginning, Pretentious Game is, well…you know. Even the title screen is stereotypically minimalistic. It also has relaxing piano music that starts here and loops through the rest of the game.

Right after the title screen, the player is introduced to the basic concept of moving the blue block toward the pink block until one touches the other. The left and right arrows indicate that the player can and should move horizontally. It also serves to set up the story of the blue block’s apparent dedication to the pink block.

As the player progresses, the story continues to unfold. In addition to moving left and right, the player learns that the blue block can jump by taking note of the upward-pointing arrow.

On screen 3, the player is provided with a green block that can be pushed and used to reach a taller platform. The text both hints at the solution to this puzzle and gives a little more detail as to what’s going on. It also becomes evident that the pink block will act as the blue block’s goal for the rest of the game, as the pink block is always reset at the right side of the screen, waiting to be reached and reclaimed time and time again.

Screen 4 employs the same gameplay mechanics as 2 and 3 by having the player jump (or “leap cliffs,” if you’d prefer to take the metaphor literally). It becomes even more clear that the blue block is willing to go to great lengths to reach the pink block. Also, for simplicity’s sake, I will hereby refer to the blue block as “Blue” and the pink block as “Pink.” I will not, however, use gender-specific pronouns. Cultural bias would tell us that blue = boy and pink = girl, but I try to avoid gender constructs. Also, pink used to be for boys and blue used to be for girls up until the mid-19th century, and we have no way of knowing when or where this story takes place. So let’s avoid assumptions, shall we?

On the 5th screen, the player is introduced to a new concept: fire. The fire is represented by a red triangle, and it quickly becomes obvious that it is to be avoided.

At first glance, this screen is confusing — that is, until the player rationalizes that there’s a reason fire would prevent Blue from leaping across the gap. Instead, the player must have Blue run across the first set of gaps, jump across the middle set, and run again across the second set of gaps. This is accomplished by continuously holding down the right arrow when traversing across the outer set of gaps.

As with the third screen, the text here serves as a clue. In this case, Blue takes an alternate path by going through the gray tunnels.

This is one of the few screens to use the mouse as a set of controls. Here, the player must click the brown blocks to remove the barriers and allow Blue to pass through.

This is one of the cleverest screens. Once again, the mouse must be used, and the text gives the player a hint that Blue must be clicked and dragged to Pink. Without the text, the player would be totally lost. Also, the words make it apparent that Blue is willing to get “dragged” around to reach Pink.

This screen seems to indicate that reaching Pink is impossible. However, instead of using traditional “I-must-avoid-pitfalls” logic, the player must instead allow Blue to drop down in a symbolic leap of faith. One the player hits the ground, he or she will found out that it’s solid and can be safely walked across.

This screen outright defies the rules that the game had previously set in place. Blue can now stand on top of the fire to reach Pink.

This is one of the oddest screens yet. The player must allow Blue to simply stand in place. Eventually, Pink will float directly across to the left side. This is the only time Pink actively pursues Blue. Wheras Blue sometimes had to risk life and limb, Pink manages to reach Blue effortlessly and is even able to float right through solid walls.

On this screen, the player finds out that Blue cannot jump; instead, the player must allow Blue to fall onto the purple blocks, which act as bouncy, trampoline-like objects that give Blue the necessary lift to get to the other side.

The player will quickly learn that, just as the text says, the world is “crumbling.” Thus, Blue must jump across the blocks, which fall shortly after they are stood on. This is a traditional level design technique that can be seen in many platform games.

I found this to be the only remotely challenging screen. Blue has to leap blindly across platform to platform, only the platforms are invisible. Occasionally, the screen will briefly flash and give away the location of the platforms.

Once again, the purple blocks act as trampolines. In order to reach the purple blocks, the player must align Blue at the edge of the first platform before jumping.

Here, whenever the player presses up, Blue will get an upward boost through the air. So Blue must be daring and fly to the platform Pink is standing on.

Philosophize all you want, but Keybol clearly states the game’s intentional pretentiousness.

When the player moves Blue closer to the edge, more words appear. The game’s ending is purposely made ambiguous, as to mock the trope of developers who insist that the player come up with his or her own interpretation of the story based on the clues — or lack thereof — given. Braid and Limbo are two well-known examples of this trend.

Pretentious Game even takes a stab at achievement points. You can obtain your own 5-point “Forever Alone Badge” by “[Completing] your pretentious adventure.”

Pretentious Game is not to be taken seriously; it’s clearly meant to be a parody and critique of the contrived nature of certain “high art” games. Personally, I think Keybol does an excellent job at expressing this message. However, I also try to stay open-minded. While pretentiousness in art can be off-putting, it also has just as much right to exist as any other kind of art. I mentioned this in the “Evolution of Video Games — The Future” section of my article, “My Time at The Art of Video Games,” in which Kellee Santiago was asked about “pretentious” games.

I suggest giving Pretentious Game a try. It only takes a few minutes to go through, and I’d like to hear everyone’s take on it. So please post your responses in the comments section!

My Time at The Art of Video Games

I’m terribly sorry my Art of Video Games follow-up ended up being posted so late (it’s been close to 3 or 4 weeks, I believe). Between school and my part-time job, it’s been difficult to find the time and motivation to edit the video I promised to show. You see, I wanted to put up the video at the same time as everything else, but I don’t think that’s going to happen now. Thus, instead of holding off any longer, I think I’ll just post it separately. I’ll also be posting the interview I promised once I can get a hold of the interviewee again.

Anyway, I’m just going to give some descriptions and show some photos of my time at The Art of Video Games at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C. The semi-embarrassing totally radical video of me doing a live reenactment of a video game will come later. The reason for this is because I’m working on the translation (I’ll be adding Japanese captions), and I need to take some time to make sure the words are accurate. I’m also going to have one of my Japanese pen pals check it (though he’s super-busy, so I’m waiting for a better time to contact him about it). Please be patient, and I’ll have the video uploaded as soon as possible.

By the way, there are going to be two panels on May 4th: “Beyond Play – Video Games at Work” (Ben Sawyer, Asi Burak, J. C. Herz, Brian Crecente, James Paul Gee, and moderator Constance Steinkuehler Squire), and “Beyond Play – Game Change: Society and Culture” (Eric Zimmerman, Richard Lemarchand, Robin Hunicke, and moderator Colleen Macklin). If you’re in the area, check them out! If you can’t make it there in person, you can also watch the live streams.

So, what did I do at TAoVG? Well, on Friday, I checked out the exhibit with my friend. It was rather small and didn’t have any handheld systems (only console and computer), but it was well-organized and had some of the most important games on display. Also, it was great to see that super-long line on Saturday; it shows that, yes, games do have a place in society, and an important one at that. I was so glad I checked the exhibit out the day before, because otherwise, I would’ve had to wait in that line! You can check out some photos of the exhibit here.

Evolution of Video Games – Pioneers

My friend and I arrived a bit late to this, which was the first one. Apparently, we got some of the last tickets. Lucky us! The panel had Don Daglow, RJ Mical, Mike Mika, Rand Miller, and Keith Robinson. We missed a chunk of the first part, but we still got to hear a lot of it. Hearing pioneers discuss how the times have been a-changin’ is always interesting.

Evolution of Video Games – The Future

This panel had Paul Barnett, Mark DeLoura, Ken Levine, and Kellee Santiago. During the Q & A part (when audience members could go up to the microphone to ask questions), there was one particular question and answer that got me thinking. A young man came up to the microphone and asked about some games being overly-pretentious. Kellee Santiago made an excellent rebuttal; she said that just because a game doesn’t please a certain person or audience doesn’t mean it shouldn’t have the right to exist. Even the most pretentious game ever could strike a chord someone, so we shouldn’t discredit it. Since games are art, we should be embracing experimentation and new ideas, even if it means coming across games that are way too “artsy-fartsy.”

Nolan Bushnell: Video Games in Retrospect

This was the last panel on Friday, and fortunately, I had reserved tickets for it. My friend and I managed to get front-row seats, so I talked to Nolan Bushnell and Keith Robinson for a little while. Keith Robinson asked me what games I liked, and I said action-adventure was my favorite genre, so he introduced me to David Crane, who created Pitfall! I sat next to David for a bit and talked to him about me being a game design student and him being, well, the creator of Pitfall! It was quite the magical experience. As for the actual panel, Nolan did a great job engaging the audience. My friend enjoyed his discussion a lot, too, because he talked about some of the engineering aspects of game development (my friend is an electrical engineering student).

A Conversation with Hideo Kojima

Saturday was a stressful day. We had to wait in line to try to get tickets for the Hideo Kojima panel. Fortunately, we got in. What I liked and admired most about Kojima was how he praised curiosity and exploration. To be honest, as much as I really want to go to Japan (and work there!), I’m also terrified. I think it’s also interesting how Kojima wanted to be like those crime scene police on those American drama shows. It’s funny how many non-Japanese people love Japanese culture, whereas Japanese people think other cultures are the epitome of cool. Oh, and did I mention I talked to Kojima in Japanese? Well, it was only “はじめまして” and “ありがとう” (“nice to meet you” and “thanks,” respectively). One of my other friends who was nearby told me he seemed surprised and happy. I guess it’s not every day that you encounter an American who speaks Japanese!

It’s All in the Design with Robin Hunicke

This was the last panel of the event. Robin Hunicke is a really funny, charming person — an absolute delight to listen to. As a game design student, I benefited from hearing about the development of games like Boom Blox, Journey, and MySims. The Boom Blox part was a bit reminiscent of the “Designing for Humans” class I took in my fall 2011 class at The University of Baltimore, because she discussed the gap between younger players and older players.

Additionally, during the open-mic Q & A session, a UB professor mentioned that there were often only a couple of women in her classes and how she wanted to get more girls and women into development. She also said that being a minority in a majority group can make people feel like they don’t belong. From what I can currently recall, Hunicke agreed and thought we should encourage diversity. I was glad the professor brought this up. I considered asking Santiago or Hunicke about it during one of the panels, but I was too afraid of being judged; in some circles, it can be taboo to bring up the topic of women in game development. I’m not going to delve all that deep into the topic right now, but I have an article planned for it later.

If you’re interested in watching any of the panels, please visit these links:

• A Conversation with Hideo Kojima (3/17/2012)
• It’s All in the Design with Robin Hunicke (3/17/2012)
• Evolution of Video Games – Pioneers (3/16/2012)
• Evolution of Video Games – The Future (3/16/2012)
• Nolan Bushnell: Video Games in Retrospect (3/16/2012)

Some Photos I Took

While the professional photographers’ photos from the AoVG Flickr album are probably much better than the ones I took with my crappy little camera, I’d still like to share some of what I managed to capture. I apologize in advance for the blurriness in some of these photos.

This big screen with videos of games is the first thing you will see if you go to the exhibit. This is evidence that such a magnificent display of art brings people together.

There was an area with lots of concept art. This is concept art of the Dreamcast-era Sonic the Hedgehog.

Here's another piece of concept art of Sonic the Hedgehog. It's titled "Interior of a blimp."

There were games that people could play on the big screens, most with special control systems. This picture shows the directions for Super Mario Bros. for the NES before the player begins.

Don't you wish you could play The Secret of Monkey Island on a gigantic monitor like this one?

The Atari 2600 was one of the oldest consoles the exhibit had on display.

The Nintendo Wii was one of the newest consoles the exhibit had on display.

The exhibit had these viewing devices with buttons you could push to watch a particular video. Pretty neat, huh?

Some areas had these towers that displayed various videos. On the bottom, you can see that someone proclaimed their love for The Art of Videos games by building a tribute in Minecraft.

The exhibit had some quotes from industry veterans on the walls. This was one of my favorites.

This is another one of my favorite quotes. One of the best things about games is the freedom they provide and the fantasies they allow us to explore.

I sat in-between Keith Robinson and Nolan Bushnell on the stage. I was giddier than a schoolgirl on a Friday!

I sat next to and talked to David Crane, creator of Pitfall! The exclamation point is both because I was excited (and nervous) and because the title actually has an exclamation point after it.

Another famous figure I met was...Pac-Man! As always, he's smiling.

The courtyard had lots of TVs and game consoles set up. The console here is the Sega Genesis, complete with the Sega CD and 32X add-ons. The game being played is Sonic CD.

This is the first time I played a game on the Atari Jaguar. I played Tempest, which was a pretty fun arcade-style game.

I watched one of my friends play a really strange game on the PC Engine Duo. I don't know what the game was, but it had lots of extremely grainy FMV (full-motion video) and didn't even get to the actual gameplay until several minutes in. Once that part came up, well...let's just say it involved back-flipping and shooting giant ants...or something.

Walter Day of Twin Galaxies and Billy Mitchell of The King of Kong: A Fistful of Quarters also made an appearance during Bushnell's talk. He received some nice awards!

Some people decided to take a journey (see what I did there?) to The Art of Video Games in cosplay gear.

Chun-Li took some time out of her busy fighting schedule to pose for the camera at The Art of Video Games.

Some members of the Final Fantasy cast appeared in the gift shop! Too bad they didn't have enough Gil to buy anything...

...Zelda, however, brought enough Rupees to buy whatever she wanted. Maybe she got a souvenir for Link, too.

Thanks again to everyone for their patience. Once more, I apologize about this taking so long. Between my schoolwork and job, it’s been hard getting myself motivated enough to keep up with this site. However, my semester will be over in May, so I’m going to try to work on updating more often. I have a lot of ideas in the pipeline; I just need to actually take the time to write them up.

Coming Soon: My Time at The Art of Video Games at the Smithsonian American Art Museum

Yesterday was the last day of opening weekend at The Art of Video Games at the Smithsonian American Art Museum. I went on all three days: March 16th, 17th, and 18th. I had an absolutely amazing time! I took photos, participated in a live-action video game (which I’ll be posting the video of), played some slightly more obscure systems (such as the Jaguar and 3DO), listened to some live music performances (8 Bit Weapon, ComputeHer, and the Triforce Quartet), and checked out the exhibit (fortunately, I did this on Friday, as Saturday was extremely crowded and had an insane waiting line).

I even spoke with and/or listened to the following famous game pioneers and developers: Nolan Bushnell, Hideo Kojima, David Crane, Don Daglow, RJ Mical, Mike Mika, Rand Miller, Keith Robinson, Paul Barnett, Mark DeLoura, Ken Levine, Kellee Santiago, and Robin Hunicke!

It was seriously one of the most amazing weekends of my entire life. I will never, ever forget it. This is a visual representation of how I feel:

I am literally jumping for joy.

Anyway, I’m posting this notice as a heads-up; I know I haven’t posted anything new in a while, because I was super-busy with five classes (especially the second level of Japanese). Right now, I only have four classes, since I finished my Japanese final exam on Sunday of last week. However, I have some assignments for my classes that are due next week, I just got assigned the task of reviewing five teams for my job, and I have a contest entry due tomorrow (which is video game and art-related). But do not fret, for I will try to have some AoVG uploads within the next few days!

Oh, and in the next couple of weeks or so, I’ll be doing an interview with a certain pioneer/developer that I was introduced to. Stick around to see who this mysterious person will be!

(Also, thanks to my friends, Omar and John, for attending the event with me and helping me take such great videos and photos!)

Major Year-End Updates!

I made some huge updates so far! As you can see, I’ve tagged this post as a notice, as well as giving it the tag of “art.” The “art” refers to one of my most major updates in quite some time.

First of all, check my “About Me” page. Some of you may have already seen the new design, but I’m going to mention it again for those of you who don’t see my Facebook wall. I may alter the text in the future, but I like the way the design came out.

Also, just like I promised in my last post, I added a new game for y’all to play in my “School Projects” section. You can download the .zip, which includes the game, the GDD, and a postmortem (which is something used after development to discuss what went right and what went wrong). It’s certainly not the most impressive game ever, but I did what I could with the limited amount of programming knowledge I had/have (the game was made in C#, which I had a mere semester to learn).

My earliest class starts in mid-January (the 16th, if I recall correctly). I’ll be taking the second level of Japanese. I’m excited to get back to learning 日本語 (note: the aforementioned word is the Japanese word for “Japanese”). I had a lot of fun with it last time!

12/30/11 EDIT: I’ve just received word that I’ve been hired for a temporary, part-time job, in which I’ll be reviewing middle school and high school students’ Flash games. It’ll be great to be able to be a mentor to future game developers! Since this will be my second time working with Red Aphid, I’ve changed the name of the “Red Aphid Internship” page to “Red Aphid Employment.”

I’m not entirely sure when my next update will be, but I may take a break and get back to the site once it’s January. We’ll see what happens, though.

I hope everyone has a great holiday season and a fantastic New Year! Thanks for reading, and please return soon so I can share more of my writing, artwork, and games!

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Kirby will deliver you cake if you've been good this year.

What to Expect at PKG Before 2011 Ends

I’ve had a great time writing for Punch, Kick, Game this year. It’s still a fairly new site (and essentially in its baby stages), but it’s gotten a pretty good amount of attention. I’ve been trying my best to get my name and site out there, and it’s paid off. I’ll continue to promote it, and I’d appreciate it if you, the readers, would help me out. Please spread the word about my site by liking it via Facebook. You can do this by going to the official Facebook page or clicking the “Like” button on the right-hand side of the page (which is apparently only visible on the home page). I won’t ask you to advertise for me, but I would be highly grateful if you’d let your Facebook pals know that you like this site.

You'll see this on the right side on the home page. Please click "Like," and I'll be your co-op buddy forever!

Anyway, enough with the shameless self-promotion. The main reason I’m posting this is because I have some info to report. Generally, I avoid making notices; I don’t want to clog up the site with them when I could be using it for actual articles. However, this is pretty important, so I think it’s worth mentioning. Here are some additions I’ve made so far, in case you’ve missed them:

• New uploads in the School Projects section.
• New (and first) upload in the Personal Projects section.
• Minor changes/updates in the Experience and About Me sections.

Here’s what I’m aiming to do before 2011 is over:

• Q & A section, which will be like an FAQ to address questions people ask about me and the site.
• Switching from SendSpace to another file upload site.
• New game uploaded in the School Projects section.
• New site banner (the Zelda meme faces are awesome, but I need to go with something more consistent for my site’s image. Of course, the full photo will still be viewable in the Otakon ’09 Zelda cosplay article!).
• Somewhere between 1-3 new articles (I have a few drafts that are just about ready to be posted).
• At least one new sketch for the Personal Projects section.

I can’t guarantee all of this will be done by the end of 2011, but I’m going to try to do as much as I can. Currently, I’m focused on finishing my final projects (one of which is the game I’ll be uploading, so that’s pretty much guaranteed to be done this year).

As for 2012, I have a potential job offer on the table. Of course, I’ll still be in school, as well. As important as the site is to me, I must prioritize. That may mean less frequent posts, so don’t expect another 20-day Zelda event any time soon. After all, 20 days in a row of articles for one gal is hard work! Does that mean I won’t post anything anymore? Pfft, naw. I’m going to try to keep up with my goal of having at least one new article a month. I can’t promise this will happen, but I will try my best.

To keep an eye on the site, you may want to consider subscribing to the RSS or via email (or even just simply bookmarking the site). That way, you can see if I’ve updated or not.

Thank you for listening and for your continued support,

Arielle

Look, Ma! I’m on the Internet!

B-Mask, a member on ZeldaUniverse, was looking for volunteers to record themselves talking about Zelda. It took me a while to muster up the courage to make it (mostly because I look and sound totally horrible on webcam — crappy lighting is the biggest culprit — and this case seems to be no exception).

You’ll see me pop up just a bit after the 4:50 mark. In the video, I discuss the issue of people thinking the Zelda series is “stagnant” and why I agree and disagree. Here are the results: