Across the hall…

10:30am- Abusing Your Players Just For Fun (summary)
This speaker was cool. One of these “hipster indies” that seems more interested in games that are art/expression than … well, fun. I guess.

His slide show featured jarring strobe graphics. He talked about the way in which we enjoy David Lynch movies, and played a clip of the “call me, I’m at your house right now” scene from Lost Highway. Then he pondered what a video game equivalent would be like (Killer7 is basically where he started, though he journeyed off into zillions-of-weird-examples land).

Notes to self :
– seek out “LSD” a ps1 game that looks bizarre and is supposedly awesome.
– he recommended that anyone can whip up quick games using “klik&play” or “game maker” (which he uses).
– shows an example (by Mark Essen?) of a platforming game where screen randomly turns and controls swap. looks charmingly impossible to play.
– shows his own game, where if you “follow the arrows” you’ll just go round and round in a circle. But as soon as you turn around and go against the “directions” you’ll discover a secret door. Some ranting about the appeal of challenging the conventions we’re all used to, just as David Lynch challenges our inherent knowledge of how a film should work.
– shows a cut 8bit platforming game where you run past a beefy guy and jump some spikes. Then you encounter rabbits who jump when you jump. It’s impossible to get past them. If you go back and die in front of the beefy guy, he’ll run ahead and punch out those bunnies for you.

… And again I decided to cut out early. While he was showing interesting examples he really wasn’t explaining much. Hope to check back and see if the end of the speech had any profound philosophical bombshells.
(but I wanted to get in line for the free Google phone, as supplies were purportedly limited).

footnotes:
interesting interview with this guy
Also a good read/overview
His Official Site