Loads of inspiration

Miguel Tanco



Andrey Gordeev

Sam Weber


Jillian Tamaki


Dave Prosser

Flying Pizza Kitty

Crappy Cat


Mark Verhaagen

Kyle Reed


and.... the most beautiful animation

The Little Ninja

I have been a fan of Ninjai: The Little Ninja for a long time. I think that the beautiful graphics add to the storybook feel of the series.

Technical Stuff

I found this great little article on making indie games for those with less technical know how.

In an equally cool find, this chart on the wild web of gaming from Wired is pretty interesting. I like how there appear to be "gateway" games that lead you into totally different realms of thought. Sort of like how Lost has lead me to several other dorky sci fi adventures.

An Inspiring Game: Blueberry Garden

I recently discovered the game Blueberry Garden. The game is really beautiful and whimsical. It is an artful game that has a hand drawn style that I truly appreciate.

In terms of how this relates to my project- I think that I am interested in the kind of navigation that it employs as well as style. Conceptually, I don't want my game to something of pure whimsy, I want it to have a true social message.

Concept for thesis

I am in the initial stages of coming up with a concept for my thesis.
Domains: games, informal education, illustration, animation,and the environment
Design Questions: - How can I create a simple interactive experience to explore the topic of maintaining virgin lands?
- How can I use a fictional narrative to investigate the issues of land preservation?
- How can I incorporate a "choose your own adventure" theme into a simple narrative?

Concept: My current concept is to create a flash point and click game in which the user is asked to help a character navigate through a fictional world using Rube Goldberg type logic. Initially the world is full of lush lands filled with an assortment of creatures, however as the player navigates through the world, based on their choices it becomes increasingly more industrialized and so the story becomes a quest to save the virgin land from extinction. The industrialized world boxes the player in and ultimately gives them less choices to make in terms of using the natural resources and the land.

Questions:
1. How do I create a complex multi-leveled narrative?
2. How do I make this game dynamic?
3. Should I try to make this multi-player?
4. Should I try to incorporate real time data?
5. Do I stick to creating a multi-tiered narrative?
6. I don't even want to think about the action scripting involved.

Precedents:
- The Polyphonic Spree: Quest for the Rest

- Myst

- Interactive Fiction

- Tree Fiction (choose your own adventure)
-Dystopia: 1984, Farenheit 451, Brave New World
- Memento
- Zirk I



Resources to Investigate:

-Complexity in Narrative (Stephen Johnson)
-Cave of Time (Edward Packard)
-The Throne of Zeus
-The 39 Clues
-House of Leaves
-Rashoman
-The Game
-Paris, Je T'aime