A friend of mine is newly single, and not exactly by his choosing. He seemed to want to talk about it.

“I was thinking,” my friend said, “Since I don’t gave a girlfriend anymore, I might as well get that new Star Wars MMO.”

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Words With Friends

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Harold sent me an Amazon link to Wisegal, a casual game he produced, because it’s gotten a pretty stunning player review:

This game is very fun. It is not an easy game nor is it very hard. It is perfect. If you like hidden object games with a good story behind it, this game is for you!

I’m completely impressed with the review. Many outlets for player feedback are skewed towards complaints over commendations, if you know what I mean, which makes a thoroughly positive response like that one a real delight. And we journalists try to stay away from all-caps fanboy style reactions, we try so hard to be unbiased and thorough that it’s quite rare to write a review that’s so unequivocally positive (even for games I’ve really enjoyed).

I couldn’t be more impressed, but after telling Harold this, I can’t resist pointing out that listed under What Do Customers Buy After Viewing This Item?, is Tiger Eye, a game I’d worked on.

In a totally unrelated news, never ever look at how many used copies of your product are available on Amazon, or how inexpensive they are. Nothing good comes of that.

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Amazon Jungle

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Bring Me The MacGuffin

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Caitlin, our brilliant QA lead, is testing one of the quests I wrote. Working in games has been my dream for a long time, but having a mission I designed currently in testing is sort of like the ego-bruising of an editor critique mixed with the frustration of locating all the usual options in a brand-new software version.

A couple hours into our shared rather unpleasant grind of sorting out what’s broken because of me, what’s the platform, what’s me, what’s programming, and what’s me, Caitlin stopped by my desk.

“It’s pretty smart,” she said, “how the end of the mission gives players *interactive item* that will prompt them to engage *overall game goal*!”

“Don’t sound so shocked!” I said, “There was actually some thought involved!”

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Some Thought Involved

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Things I Have Learned About Games

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Games, Life, Whatever

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Man, it’s like even my social games are telling me to get back to work.

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Write Flavor Text On Computer

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For questwriting at work today, I needed a map of the Next Island tropical continent. We don’t have a giant printer, so I printed out pages of map sections. Then, I looked at the unlabeled squares of terrain that I needed to reassemble into a useful game map.

All my years of casual gaming were just preparation for this moment.

(If you ever need someone to unlock a door with a slider puzzle, or arrange things in threes, I’m your girl.)

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Casual Success

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A few weeks ago, I went to the NYGaming June meeting. I wrote on Socks, Inc. over at Indie Game Mag, and on Cloud Assassin over at I Heart Chaos. I also really enjoyed the Herograph demo, I’ll have more to say about that soon!
The best part of the evening was during the Cloud Assassin demo, when someone asked how they planned to monetize the game. See, in my work for Next Island and as a journalist, I often find myself hearing about how to make a game more viral or how to monetize on Facebook, and I have to admit it saddens me. As a gamergirl, I imagined the industry bubbling over with groundbreaking ideas, of developers bringing interactive stories to players, and coming up with exciting new game mechanics, and it breaks my idealistic heart when I find instead checklists of success metrics, ARPU, MAU, and the buzzworded “fun factor” slipped in as an afterthought. (Oh hey, friends, the next time I’m complaining about being broke, would someone please point out the direct correllation between being broke and avoiding every part of my industry that involves making money?)

Anyway, the developers were asked how they planned to monetize, and one guy paused for a moment and then said they weren’t interested in monetization as much as they had a great idea to make the game they wanted to play.

And the entire room applauded.

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NYGaming June Roundup

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The other night, I was having a drink with Harold and the awesome Francesco Marconi from Herograph when we got talking about gamification. I was at a total loss for why hearing “gamification” sometimes makes me want to kick people in the shins.

I believe in the tenets of gamification. I believe that rewards and success achievements are huge motivators, and I’m happy that this marketing buzzword means educational games are being taken more seriously. When I watch (and rewatch, since I’m trying to make everyone I know see it) Jane McGonigal’s TED talk about games saving the world, I want to cheer. Games do change our behavior. There’s more to games than slacking off.

Why, then, do I have this nagging worry that gamification only means advergames and unfun branded titles? Is it just my elitist hipster belief that my hobbies are too good for the plebs?

I’ve not been able to clearly articulate why gamification often annoys me, but Wise Guys  (the guys behind Twistianapolis 500) recently summed it up:

I’m not the first to say it, and I won’t be the last, but adding points and badges don’t make a game. A game is supposed to be fun, bottom line. If there are points and badges, that’s one way to measure progress, but nobody ever said, “Hey what’s that game with all the badges and points? Let’s play that one!

Via Boss Battle: Gameification on Wise Guys Events

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Gamification

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