[IxDA Discuss] Game Master

[Christine Boese]

This is a great article. I blogged a small thing on it last week. I got the
tip off the On the Media podcast, which has an interview with Will Wright,
if you don't have time to read the whole long article.

My blog post is here too, little excerpts: www.serendipit-e.com/blog.

But definitely go listen to the On the Media podcast. That was what sent me
off looking for the article. It's a really neat piece. I'd send the link,
but I get it through iTunes, and I'm a lazy ass and my dinner is ready. <G>
Just Google On the Media, it's from late last week.

Chris

On 11/8/06, Dan Saffer <dan at odannyboy.com> wrote:
>
> New Yorker article on Will Wright ("The Sims" and the upcoming
> "Spore"). Some cool bits on games, gaming, and (not by name)
> interaction design:
>
> "By the time Super Mario appeared, the syntax for game play was
> firmly established; it remains the standard grammar today. The player
> progresses through the game by defeating antagonists, restoring his
> energy with "power-ups" he finds along the way, accumulating bonus
> points to rise to progressively harder levels, many of which feature
> a "boss" who must be defeated in order to earn a "save game" and not
> have to repeat the level. Although Super Mario, which débuted in the
> United States in 1985, had a goal (to rescue Princess Peach from a
> giant reptile named Bowser), it also encouraged exploration for its
> own sake; in this regard, it was less like a competitive game than a
> "software toy"—a concept that influenced Will Wright's notion of
> possibility space."
>
> http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/061106fa_fact
>
>
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-- 
christine boese
www.serendipit-e.com