I'm not dead, just full of work.

I will be back when I'll have a good update or some news.

In the meanwhile, try these:

http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2007/07/sound-energy.html http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2007/05/crayon-physics.html http://indygamer.blogspot.com/2007/03/gesundheit.html

Seems like someone have noticed my article...

Let's start with GameSetWatch:

An interesting piece over at our education sister site Game Career Guide today, dealing with the idea of creating a visual language flow for video games, with a view to understanding them better.

Very serious comment about my article on Grand Text Auto. The author makes very good criticism, that's the kind of things I'm searching for:

I’m not sure why the token layer gets a special layer above it for properties and the other layers don’t - surely game dynamics, goals, meta elements, and psychological responses all have properties, too. And, I’m not sure that all of these are layers the way that the OSI layers of the networking model are. Are the “psycho” responses really based directly on what is in the “meta” layer right beneath it, or are all of these aspects of game experience more interrelated?

Good critics also on Raph Koster's website.

This one aims at really looking at core elements: Gameplay Deconstruction: Elements and Layers. It’s interesting, IMHO, mostly for asessing what core verbs, tokens and actions you have, and how tweaking them could result in major differences.

Towards the top of the diagrams it gets a bit fuzzy, in that it isn’t quantitative — one of the nice things about the way game grammar is starting to evolve is how quantitative it is getting — the Scottish effort in particular (something I should write about from GDC!).

So it seems I have to find out that quantitative thingy... well, I'll work on it

What to do next?

I'm building a couple of new diagrams of:

• NaaC, a 2d arena shooter I developed.


• Monkey Island, along with some thoughts about the deconstruction of games based upon narration.


• Do you have any request or proposal?

"Paolo Tajè, co-founder of the independent game developer Bloody Monkey, outlines a method for analyzing gameplay and game dynamics using a visual diagram he has titled GD:EL."

GD:EL on GameCareerGuide.com

For any kind of feedback, please leave a comment on this post

First update to Pac-Man diagram...

Click for 1.0 version

1 - Slow Down

An important property of white dots is their capability to slow Pac-man down when he eats them. This PROP passes often unnoticed; in result of this, very few Pac-Man clones present it. Still, it is relevant because players are put in front of a choice, when a ghost chases them: better to follow a fast, empty route or to continue to slowly eat dots?

2 - Different Behaviours

Temporary element, just a reminder: different ghosts have different behaviours. To expand in some ways.

3 - Destroy All --> Score

The Destroy All GOAL is aimed mainly at Score purposes, and not just for Relief.

[REMINDER: if you want to modify this or the others diagram, just drop a comment in this post]