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Interactive panel wrap-ups
Warren Spector, Austin game designer at Junction Point Studios, is an incredibly affable guy and anything he says about the gaming industry should be listened to, intently, if only because of his incredible track record. This is Warren “Deus Ex” Spector, after all. Warren “System Shock” Spector. Warren
In his talk on next-generation storytelling, Spector outlined the ways in which games tell stories (usually badly) and the ways in which he pacing, characters and subtext can influence game design.
Most interesting were his ideas on player restraint (unlimited freedom usually means terrible game design) and the ways in which games like “Deus Ex” introduce moral dilemmas.
The chat dovetailed nicely with Tuesday’s Will Wright keynote. Spector and Wright are on the same page about a lot of storytelling concepts. While Wright’s was a mile-a-second race through his brain, Spector’s was a thoughtful discussion on the kinds of concepts the most talented and ambitious game designers struggle with.
The Future of books was a panel I only caught a whiff of, but I liked what I smelled. Companies like blurb.com are trying to democratize the book publishing process, giving artists and writers the tools to not only publish their work, but also the tools to do book design using their free software.
The results can be beautiful: one example of a musician’s book (with a CD enclosed) showed how artists who are selling their music online can still create tactile products for fans willing to pay a little extra to have something in their hands.
Publishing, one panelist said, is like venture capital for authors. Unfortunately, one local writer who has had a book published before and now wants to put out her magazine articles in book form was told she’s got an incredibly tough road ahead as the most tough area of book publishing is for writers who aren’t indie but aren’t bestsellers. Beware the middle-road.
A panel on writing about dating had an engaging set of panelists with varying experiences writing online and for magazines about their personal lives. Most said they try not write about current relationships, but that ones that crashed and burned are fair games. All agreed that there can be serious consequences for writing about your personal life, and all the writers were sensitive to what readers and online commenters have to say about their work — oftentimes the writers are criticized on a personal level for their work, which makes it that much harder to be personal and to be real.
The Future of TV panel Sarah Lindner mentioned was mind blowing to me. The interface shown off by David Merkoski of San Francisco’s Frog Design, was so slick and instantly desirable, it made me scream in my head, “I want that! Right NOW!” Unfortunately, it’s at least a year away.
Think TiVo, but without all the nested menus. Using a simple directional control brings up picture-in-picture views of live channels, recommendations, time-shifted views of the current show you’re watching and recorded programming.
While I was dubious of Merkoski the moment he said he doesn’t watch TV, the “Mondrian” interface being worked on for OpenTV is pretty mind-blowing, taking the linear approach out of TV watching. While it will be scary to use at first for some general users who live and die by TV grids, it’s nice to see a TV-viewing interface that may actually be the successor to TiVo.
I only got to see a tiny bit of Will Leitch’s panel about Deadspin.com before running into an old colleague I wanted to catch up with. Leitch is a funny guy running a very funny site and I think he underestimates his own influence. I predict lots of mainstream sports sites (espn.com included) are going to offer imitations of his writing style, which is looser and more fun than a lot of what you get about sports online.
The trade show was dominated by film/TV production-related booths. I thought I was going to spent half an afternoon there, but after a mere 15 minutes walking around, I was already bored. Sorry, trade show.
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