Posted by Derek Yu
Wed, 12 Mar 2008 15:30:00 GMT
David Hellman, the fantastic artist behind both A Lesson is Learned But the Damage is Irreversible and, of course, Braid, has a new blog wherein he discusses his art.
The latest entry, part II of his “Art of Braid” series, shows the progression from Jon Blow’s programmer art (which is quite fun!) to what you see today. I love this kind of thing! There’s some good exposition on his creative/development process, too.
Part I of the series reveals Braid Art’s abstract beginnings.
Posted in Games and Art, Community, Developers | Tags DavidHellman, JonathanBlow | 25 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Fri, 22 Feb 2008 12:53:00 GMT
Braid, by Jonathan Blow, is slated for a Spring release.
Penny Arcade Adventures: On the Rain-Slick Precipice of Darkness, by Hothead Studios, is slated for a Spring release. Be sure to check out the three gameplay trailers from January, if you haven’t already.
Castle Crashers, by The Behemoth, is slated for a Summer release.
This information was revealed in a Microsoft press release following their keynote. It’s really more of an excuse to post more screenshots. I want to play all of these games very badly.
(Sources: Kotaku, IndieGames.com Blog)
Posted in XBox Live Arcade / XNA, Community, Previews | Tags HotheadGames, JonathanBlow, TheBehemoth | 11 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Sun, 17 Feb 2008 21:00:00 GMT
The almighty Jeff Lindsay, web god and Guardian of the Tiger Sauce, interviewed Jonathan Blow for Game Helper:
Making money is hard sometimes, and if you convince yourself that you need to make money (in order to eat, or fund the next game, or whatever), then you are automatically on a slippery slope and will start justifying all sorts of things, and eventually you are far from your original ideals but that doesn’t seem too bad because you “just had to be realistic”.
Well, fuck that. I’ve seen a lot of developers go that way, and none of them are now in situations that I would be happy in.
(Photo Source: Sklathill’s GDC 2007 Flickr Set)
Posted in Community, Developers, Interviews | Tags JonathanBlow | 31 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Thu, 14 Feb 2008 18:28:00 GMT
Jonathan Blow has a couple of new lectures up, available for download in mp3 format. They come with the power points he used during the talks.
The first one is from a lecture he gave at Game Focus Germany on January 24th. In it, he talks about design and production, and why he develops games as an indie. Really insightful look into independent game dev. Also some very sobering realities. 3-year games? Bug reports from Microsoft with hundreds of entries?
The second lecture was given at the Nordic Game Jam in Copenhagen on February 1st. I haven’t listened to this one yet, but the focus, I believe, is more on the actual physical labor of creating a game – namely, “design, programming, and art.” (EDIT: Apparently it isn’t like that at all.)
The hardest part of listening to the first lecture was hearing Jon play Braid but not being able to see or play it myself! But if you’re wondering how it’s looking, check out this post which has a bunch of HUGE screens. Props to the artist, David Hellman! Looks fantastic.
Jon is also running an interesting-sounding session at GDC next week, called “Nuances of Design.”
(Valentine’s Card Image Source: Marzy Blahs)
Posted in Community, Developers, IGF / GDC | Tags DavidHellman, JonathanBlow | 6 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Tue, 18 Dec 2007 11:19:00 GMT
Jonathan Blow has called out for submissions for the Experimental Gameplay Workshop in 2008. The EGW is a series of live presentations about innovative or interesting game designs (both WIP and finished). It’s part of the Game Developer’s Conference that takes place in February.
Past games have included Katamari Damacy, Ragdoll Kung Fu, early versions of Braid and Everyday Shooter, Jim McGinley’s Jugglin’, Kyle Gabler’s Experimental Gameplay Project, and Masaya Matsuura’s visual-rhythm game Mojibribbon (depicted left).
Participants are expected to give a 10-15 minute live presentation about their game, including slides, and answer questions at the end of their presentation. The deadline for submissions is January 15th.
Posted in Community, IGF / GDC | Tags JimMcGinley, JonathanBlow, JonathanMak, KyleGabler, MarkHealey | 1 comment
Posted by Derek Yu
Thu, 29 Nov 2007 00:39:00 GMT
Some news from the Montreal International Games Summit (of which Gamma 256 is a part): Jon Blow apparently spoke there today, and, as one would expect, he had some insightful words to say about games.
He continued, “Games create a low-stakes subdomain that create a ‘meaning of life’… you know why you’re there, and you know what you’re trying to do.” For Blow, this created a shift in his viewpoint. “The meaning of life in this existence is something that I really care about – I think I’m not alone in this. This is part of why games are compelling to me.”
I think a lot of us, both players and developers, ask ourselves “why” – why do we play games, why do we make them? These are important questions and Jon has an uncanny ability to put them into perspective. If you ever get a chance to hear him speak, do so!
And regarding Braid, Jon announced a couple weeks ago that he’s planning to release some preview videos, but rather than just showing footage of the game in action, he’d like to tie them somehow to concepts of game design.
EDIT: Jon, whose comments are like delicious sweetmeats for our spam filter, posted suggesting that you download the
audio and slides from the talk, if you are interested.
Posted in Community, Developers | Tags JonathanBlow | 18 comments
Posted by Derek Yu
Sun, 30 Sep 2007 19:16:00 GMT
What better way to spend a quiet Sunday evening then to watch a panel from this year’s Independent Games Summit, featuring Jon Blow, Jon Mak, Jenova Chen, and Kyle Gabler! This panel was one of my favorites of the summit. Each of the panelists came from a different perspective… together they really got at what was exciting about indie games for me. The four P’s, yo: passion, personality, and potential. And Pinnovation.
But yeah, I can’t believe Steve dissed me so hard at the end. Unfortunately, I don’t remember my question. I think I was going to ask Jon Mak about what hair products he uses…
EDIT: Google Video page, downloadable version (.mov)
(Source: GameSetWatch)
Posted in Community, Videos, Developers, IGF / GDC | Tags 2DBoy, JonathanBlow, JonathanMak, thatgamecompany | 46 comments
Posted by ARelativelyHotGirl
Wed, 12 Sep 2007 14:26:00 GMT
Braid will be released on XBLA in early 2008!
Pictured: Sony vs. Microsoft!
Read about it here.
Definitely didn’t hear about it from Tim or anything.
You go, JB! <3
Posted in XBox Live Arcade / XNA, Community, Developers | Tags JonathanBlow, JonathanMak | 36 comments
Posted by Xander
Sun, 02 Sep 2007 11:22:00 GMT
In fact, the very Raspberry that you would’ve seen in the video below, and thanks go to Xagarath for the tip in the comment section. I’ll keep this brief because obviously it’s mentioned in some detail in the video.
There’s also an included tutorial, which like most Jonathan Blow explanations is both in-depth and interesting throughout, as it chronicles the entire prototype itself rather than the simple mechanics of how to play the game, in a sense that echoes the earlier interactive flash videos we had a while back on Understanding Gaming. It also features four modes of play, which seem roughly to be the prototype at different stages of complexity, with the first being the simplest and the last being the full prototype with music working alongside the gameplay and the SFX produced from either doing well or sucking completely.
It’s not uncommon to be able to play Works-in-progress, but to play around on a prototype with such indepth documentation is something not to be missed really. Be sure to check out the ‘Readme’ file for a some impressions of the prototype from various playtesters (usually responded to by Blow aswell), which includes a response from Mr. Mak of Everyday Shooter fame!
...considering how famous that game is now, you’d have thought we would’ve gotten a chance to play it. Oh well, enjoy!
Posted in Windows, Developers | Tags JonathanBlow | 6 comments
Posted by ARelativelyHotGirl
Sat, 01 Sep 2007 15:13:00 GMT
Another IGS (the Independent Games Summit of the GDC) video has been posted. This one features Jonathon Blow explaining prototyping for Braid.
The really cool part, is that we get to see Braid in action and hints on how the game actually plays. Impressive stuff!
Note: There’s also a higher res MP4 version.
(Source: Gamasutra)
Posted in Community, Developers, IGF / GDC | Tags JonathanBlow | 22 comments
