frans goes blog

After doing some overtime again with a load of student papers, DiGRA conference reviews and some book project reviews, and so on and so forth, I find myself in bed with a flu – just as the sun and temperature outside tell that summer really is approaching also these sub-arctic regions. Well, good time to eat piles of garlic and travel around the blogosphere.

There are the stars of Finnish game design, guys from Remedy Entertainment reappearing to show off their forthcoming “psychological action thriller” Alan Wake; see link and an interview in Gamecloud; link. The emphasis seems to be on atmospheric visual design, and it surely seems pretty – but it is too early to say much more.

E3 news are all over the place and they appear to be mostly about new tech, consoles, tie-ins, sequels, the usual suspects. The word “Revolution” seems to mean just the name of Nintendo next-gen console these days rather than any forward step in actual games design (let alone some social or cultural transformations, god forbid). (On wildly jamesjoycean gesture of associative thought, this brings to my mind that there is now an EA website for Spore, the game concept Will Wright hyped in GDC and E3, as explained in this GameSpy report.) In the Guardian Gamesblog, Aleks Krotoski speculates on a line of Nintendo press release about the option that Revolution will be open also for indie games designers and bedroom coders. This would indeed be an exciting option and this kind of window of opportunity for alternative games content entire industry and games culture needs right now. But wait and be disappointed? Gizmodo link shows why you probably will be. (Links: Guardian link (based on note by Boing Boing, followed by the Gizmodo cold shower: link). But then, there is also the good press Nintendo is getting from making Revolution to run the entire history of Nintendo console games, see link. Promising or not?