Interactive Game Design

Lately, I don't have much time to surf (hence the lack of news of any sort) but I stumbled upon this website that tackles the Foundations of Interactive Game Design. It includes a directory of games created by the students of the course and a podcast feed of the lectures. Be sure to check out the Games of Distinction--the top 8 games that arose from the project.

Various Bibliophile Tidbits

In an attempt to cut down on blog posts, here's some news in bullet points:

• Book industry professionals predict that booksellers will be gone in 50 years. Director of Frankfurt Book Fair claims that they're really a "Frankfurt Contents Fair".
• There's a new service that reads to the blind but is this really the ideal solution? (From Library Stuff)
• A survey shows there's a lot more older librarians than young ones. (From Library Stuff)
• Canadian librarians might go on strike.
• Here's a librarian's guide to creating 2.0 subject guides. (From Tame the Web)
• Here's a compilation of links to the The Future of Libraries Conference.
• Bokardo theorizes that in order to design good interface, one needs editors.
  

Everyone's a Designer

I was listening to the latest Sons of Kryos podcast and they were interviewing someone from the Ashcan Front (sorry, I forgot who). Anyone, the guy mentioned that everyone is a game designer and that statement reminded me of Matthew May's manifesto Elegant Solutions: Breakthrough Thinking the Toyota Way wherein he mentions that everyone is an innovator. Designers (not just game designers) and innovators both share one thing in common: they solve problems and attempt to make things better. And it's true, everyone is a designer or innovator in one way or another. In gaming for example, if you ever thought or implemented a house rule, that's game design! If you revamped or created a character sheet, that's also design. In the PC gaming community, the same goes for modders or even those who program 'bots. When you use (or invent) a variant rule for a board game, the same is true. Just tweaking your website and choosing what features to include and what not to include is a form of design. Professional designers are important but don't downplay your own contribution.

Comics and Design

UIE Brain Sparks has an interview with Kevin Cheng, co-creator of OK/Cancel. The interview talks about how comics can help you conceptualize your designs:

In the interview, we discuss the use of comics to express user experience ideas early in the brainstorming stage of a project. Comics show the team how a user will experience the design. This lightweight approach helps you iterate quickly without making major time and resource investments. You don’t need to be an artist to effectively employ comics in your UX processes. Kevin also discussed his presentation for the upcoming UI12 conference in November and gave a sneak-peak at what attendees can expect.

Publisher and Author Pages

Seth Godin's latest blog entry is promoting one of his projects, Squidoo, but he does make a good point: not all authors have blogs or personal websites and typically, publishers create web pages for them:

Authors hate to promote themselves. And lots of authors don't like the web so much, at least when it comes to promotion. It's not like traveling to an independent bookstore and having tea with the owner while you sign books, or being interviewed for the book section of the Times. Your favorite author probably doesn't have a blog, probably doesn't spend all her time online.

So, instead of a significant web presence that's author-driven, we end up with publishers building their own promo sites (this one has just 40 (!) authors and cost a fortune to build) or we get publishers insisting that all their authors build MySpace pages (just last week, in fact).

More Gleemax Musings

It shouldn't surprise me by now at how D&D fans right now seem to have forgotten about the Digital Initiative and are focusing on Gleemax.

Anyway, the difficult thing about making predictions is that you're basically doing a review of a product you haven't yet seen. Everything is speculation and only time will substantiate those claims.

Still, I can't help but ponder about Gleemax. Right now I'm thinking about rule #7 of The Common Pitfalls of Building Social Web Applications, namely an over-focus on social value. To sum it up, basically an application should have personal value to the user first and foremost before concentrating on its networking capabilities. And right now, Gleemax seems to be touting about its networking features. Sounds like an application designed for failure but it got me thinking, Wizards of the Coast should be building something stable and useful and not just another social site. What's making Gleemax useful to me as an individual user?

Right now, Gleemax is just bare bones and has three features online: a message board, a blog by Randy Buehler, and a podcast. The message board right now is okay. Not spectacular or as huge but it's doing okay (there's activity!). Message boards, in the end, are social value programs whose success depends on how many people are participating (or in the case of some industries, who's contributing to the message boards). The blog is okay. It's not for everybody but it's a good vehicle for building up the website. There's not much value in itself though. The third I'm actually digging. I like the regular D&D Podcasts which pops up once a month (or sometimes, twice a month) but the Gleemax Podcasts come out once every week. The only downside however is that the Gleemax Podcasts are less focused--it's not just about D&D but gaming in general. Which is fine by me but not necessarily fine with the D&D market. But as far as I'm concerned, the podcast is a personal incentive to visit the site at least once a week, making it useful to me irregardless of whether there's ten people logged on to Gleemax or there's a million.

As for the future features, it's a wait-and-see and whether they're actually implemented or turn out to be different babies altogether. Social networking site--depends on how many people sign up really. I wouldn't mind having a gaming MySpace page but if it's just me in the local area, it won't really do me much good. The online board games looks interesting but again, you need a big user base to make it useful (i.e. somebody to play with). The blogs, well, hopefully more interesting people sign up for the blogs, whether it's game designers, people in the business (say their marketing manager), etc. so that it'll provide some interesting reading.

On The Harry Potter Book 7 Launches

The upcoming release of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows is another example of effective social design at work. Book launches are nothing new--publishers use it as a vehicle to promote the book. What's different about Harry Potter however is the fact that it's a worldwide phenomenon, with big, simultaneous book launches occurring. If this were a simultaneous movie release, we wouldn't make such a big fuss about it (or maybe we will, just not as big) but this is a book we're talking about.

Of course I don't think this would have been possible say, fifteen years ago. Best-selling children's books are nothing new. Actually, best-selling books are nothing new. C.S. Lewis did it. Terry Pratchett did it. Stephen King did it. Yet what's starkly different in the past few years is a combination of globalization (wherein news travels almost instantaneously), the Internet (which not only connects fandom to teach other but builds up on the hype), and perhaps what one might call a fluke or luck (J.K. Rowling isn't the only best-selling author out there yet why is it only her books that have caused this much commotion?). The fact that it's the last book in the series (of which she promises to never write another novel featuring Harry Potter) is merely icing on the cake.

Here in the Philippines, nearly every bookstore is having a book launch of their own. It's not just a marketing ploy to sell books but I think a good public relations move. It shows that the bookstores are interested in the communities (and building them) and not just impersonal merchants. Fans, on the other hand, get to meet other fans, thus reinforcing the following the series has.

It's interesting to see how it'll turn out however. I mean this is supposedly the last book in the series, which means no more Harry Potter book launches in the future (barring perhaps a collector's edition or some such omnibus). And it's not a phenomenon that can easily be replicated, at least here in the Philippines. The closest thing would probably be the second coming of Neil Gaiman and he's going to promote a new book but the problem with that is people are more attracted to the person himself rather than just the book. No Neil Gaiman, no cult following. And it's not like fans of other books have tried. I remember a few years ago, Wheel of Time fans gathered for the release of Robert Jordan's 11th book. I didn't attend the event (although I was tempted) but honestly, it's neither as big nor as publicized as Harry Potter. I love Wheel of Time (or rather used to love) but at this point in time, it's simply not going to be that big, at least in this country (but thankfully it's faring better than other titles as the latest releases do make it to our bookstores on time).

Anyway, this Saturday might be the biggest book launch of the decade. And then once Harry Potter and the Deathly Hollows is released, there's just going to be this void and people will be touting and using phrases like "the next Harry Potter!" to describe all children's books published from this point onward (actually, it's already happening, isn't it?). So at the end of the day, it's not just fans who'll be mourning the end but the bookstores and the media as well. For quite some time, Harry Potter has been the herald of all that is good in reading and literacy. The question on everyone else's mind is what's next?

Simpsons Movie Design

This is me channeling Joshua Porter. For me, the most interesting phenomenon in the upcoming Simpsons Movie is how their website is truly interactive. I'm really talking about one feature, the ability to create your own avatar, and it's something everyone is getting into.

I think this is a sign of good design. I mean most movie websites simply give you the typical features: trailers, wallpapers, images, etc. The avatar feature adds a new dimension and it's not something every movie can replicate (because a) Simpsons is an animated feature and b) it's part of our shared pop culture consciousness).

It's the "x-factor" that's present in a lot of social design sites such as Friendster, Multiply, Facebook, Livejournal, Blogger, Del.icio.us, Twitter, etc. You never thought it'd have that big an impact, yet it does. That's why personalized Simpsons avatars are making its way to various blogs and indirectly promoting the movie (and it's honestly one feature I imagine that will outlive the movie itself).

Computer Interface

Lately, friends and acquaintances have been inquiring on buying a new laptop, and they're asking what model to get. Eventually, I'll suggest a Mac (although I won't make the same recommendation for desktop PCs unless money is no object to them) and honestly, the biggest hurdle in getting people to try out Macs is the Operating System since that's how they interact with the computer. The specs don't matter--hardware is the same for all computers. (And never mind the fact that you can conceivably install Windows on a Mac and OS X on a PC.) So to most people (i.e. the non-techies), the Operating System is a big factor when making a purchase.

This, I think, tells us as lot about designing for humans. Even as we're creatures of change, we resist change. I think that's the reason why people who bought Windows before will buy Windows again when it's time to upgrade their Operating System, just as OS users will upgrade to OS when the time comes. Getting these guys to switch is difficult because they're afraid (sometimes rightly so, sometimes not) of trying out a new interface.

These days, however, I think we're doing better. I mean whether it's Windows or OS X or -gasp- Linux, computer interface is pretty much the same. It's still point, click and drag. And most things have a label that we'll eventually find it if it's readily evident. Switching Operating Systems isn't like switching from a bike to car--it's more like switching from a manual to an automatic: same principles, different applications. (When switching to OS X, I just keep in mind that instead of pressing CTRL for keyboard shortcuts, I'll just use the Apple button instead, which is where the ALT button would be on a regular keyboard.)

Of course if this was happening two decades before, it would be completely different. As stable as DOS is (anyone still remember DOS?), it's not user-friendly. There's no mouse and worse, communicating with the computer seems arcane (how are we supposed to know that CD stands for Change Directory?).

At the end of the day, I have to congratulate Microsoft. Most PC (and I'm using this in a term that includes Mac's, none of that "I'm a PC, I'm a Mac" mudslinging division) users still use Windows as their Operating System. A Mac might be prettier aesthetically speaking, but more often than not, that's not enough motivation for people to convert. Microsoft's biggest ace in the hole is people's fear of change and the results can't be denied.