Stephanie

I've had this show and tell on hold for a long time now! Basically it's these guys who act out (usually classic) video games in public spaces and film them. It's pretty hilarious, but I think only if you know what they're referring to. The other random people in the movies at like, the stripmall or whatever, usually have no idea what's going on. It's interesting that people would target comedy to such a specific group of people...

http://www.mega64.com

I still don't know how to make a link to a site so, you'll have to type it in.

These are the biggest pictures ever. I don't know how to make them smaller. I don't really get the scanner. Also they got cut in half vertically...help?

My show and tell today is on a game that I got super addicted to recently...It's called Cooking Mama for the Nintendo DS. Basically it is a cooking simulation game that is a bunch of mini-games you complete to make recipes. I think it's interesting how so many games are coming out for the DS that aren't traditional video games, like puzzle games, drawing games, and titles like this one. They're definitely trying to reach a broader audience than hardcore gamers, which is cool because they're coming out with games like this one. However, I do find quotes like this slightly offensive:

"Cooking Mama is for the parents, grandparents and girlfriends of the Super Mario crowd, and the game never tries to be anything more than a simple bunch of mini-challenge tasks for the non-gaming population." -IGN.com

It's like they're saying video games are only for kids, specifically boys and immature men. Why would people assume that girls don't like bloody adventure games too?

ALso, this game was so popular that a Cooking Mama will be released for the Nintendo Wii early next year. Yay! It will be more Iron Chef style, where you can play against a second player or by yourself in the same way as the DS game. The Wii controller will be used like the touch screen on the DS so you can simulate actions of mashing, stirring, etc.

Here is a link to a couple of videos that demonstrate gameplay...
http://media.ds.ign.com/media/794/794729/vids_1.html

For my final project I was originally thinking that I would take one or more of the designs I did for the midterm and render them in 3D using 3D Game Studio...But as my progress with this program has been really slow, I think it would be a better idea for me to actually take one of those outfits and actually make it, put in on a model and photograph it, then bring it in to class. Plus I'll get to sew which I haven't been able to all semester, and have been really wanting to do it...

So I did a bunch of reading on game engines, and forgot to blog it like 2 weeks ago...awesome. Anyway, about game engines! From my understanding, a game engine is a program that is used sort of as a template upon which a new game is made. It seems like a good idea because it saves a ton of time and money on writing a new program for movement, environment, etc. Basically the game engine is the under-layer and the new graphics, environments and stuff are put into it. This isn't to say that there isn't a ton of programming left for the new game developer to do, but it can save some time on some component of the game. This is probably really important considering how competitive the gaming industry is and how quickly it moves. If a company spent a ton of time developing every single detail, their technology might be outdated by the time the game was actually done! Something that I thought was really interesting is that game engines allow a game to be played on many platforms without changes to the source code. I'd always wondered if they had to make 2 or 3 versions of the game to release on PS2, Gamecube, and PC and I thought it was probably a huge pain in the ass. Apparently, not so much.

For my show and tell this week I brought in another game for the Nintendo DS called "Touch Detective." It's a game in which you solve really strange crimes using the touch pad. You examine everything by touching it, to find clues and talk to people and even walk around. I think it's a really beautifully stylized game, and it's interesting how the DS is becoming a platform for such niche titles such as this. The DS is really expanding games to become more than just standard action/adventure, rpg, fighting game, etc. The company who makes this game, Atlus, has also made some other really interesting games, like Trauma Center, in which you play a surgeon who has to operate on people.