Recap: Bennett Foddy at NYU Game Center

Last night at NYU Game Center, indie developer and ex-Cut Copy bassist Bennett Foddy gave a presentation wherein he detailed several core principles he strives for when creating games.  If somehow you've never played any of Foddy's games, do yourself a favor and head over to his website where you can play them all for free.  Foddy is most known for QWOP, the game where you use four keyboard buttons in rhythm to propel an Oympic runner 100 meters.  Or at least that's the premise.  You'll probably spend most of your time banging the runner's head against the ground trying to take your first step.  The results are quite hilarious as limbs fly all over the place, but there's always a modicum of understanding that you're figuring out how the system works and could maybe, actually get the runner to, well, run.

QWOP has gained a high enough profile to be visible in mainstream pop culture (making a cameo in this year's season premiere of NBC's The Office, for one), but Foddy's other games operate in similar fashion, enlightening players of the physical actions needed to control the characters in the games.  The immediacy of these games, one of the subjects Foddy's lecture focused on, allows for even a simple button press to result in a satisfying in-game consequence.  In CLOP, a QWOP-like game with a unicorn, each of the four control buttons kicks out one of the unicorn's corresponding four legs.  The animation of even one leg kicking out is so unlike anything that a real horse would do that I can't help but crack up at the mere sight of it, not to mention once you really get the beast "going."  I found it interesting that Foddy didn't directly mention humor in his discussion, since I find it to be part of the prominent appeal of his titles.

Foddy's outlook on game design shares much in common with contemporary art practice, conjuring the notion that there is a rich middleground between the two that takes into account player interactivity and artistic practice in corollary measure.  In games, designers have to choose their controller/platform.  In art, artists select their medium, which for the past half century could acceptably be pretty much anything.  Only recently have game designers been fiddling with new ways of using traditional and standardized controllers in new and exciting ways (see Johan Sebastian Joust).  Yet, art has often struggled to stretch out of the austere, institutional art/viewer relationship by limiting patrons to actions like "standing," "looking," and "walking around,"  A game/artwork that bridges the gap between the two would likely also confront these issues from both sides.  Foddy seems to be on this track as he's been hanging out with some of the JS Joust creators, developing some kind of trampoline-powered Move controller game.

The principles Foddy presented weren't without their own self-conflict though, making them more aspirations than hard and fast rules. For example, if a designer is creating a game that asks players to hold DualShock controllers backwards, a prompt to inform them of how this is supposed to work might be needed, but that would sacrifice some degree of immediacy.  A minor criticism of Journey was that an outline of a controller with some arrows is displayed at the beginning of the game to let players know that they can tilt the controller to rotate the camera.  The necessity of these sorts of prompts is debatable; the point being that there is no one correct solution.  However, I think Foddy would argue that it's best to attempt the game that adheres to principles of immediacy and fully-integrated worlds, and only make concessions when there don't seem to be any better options.

Foddy came off as a game designer on the bleeding edge of the medium, in terms of his games as well as his production practice.  He said that he hopes to show the trampoline game at Indiecade, so keep an eye out for that. In the meantime you can always try and get to the top of this wall.  Um, good luck?

Photo by Finn Taylor for Wired

Microgenre Moment: Florida Breaks

Ever wanted to throw down some obscure music knowledge to impress friends and strangers alike?  In Microgenre Moment I try my best pass along some basic Wikipedia overviews and links to relevant videos to get you up to speed on a specific sub-sub-genre of music.  I guarantee these posts will grant you the intellectual high ground in your next music-centered conversation.

"Florida breaks, also referred to as Florida breakbeat, is a genre of breakbeat music which, as the name suggests, is most popular in the areas around the US state of Florida but is recognized as a unique sound around the world. Florida breaks became popular in the club culture of the southeast United States during the mid and late 90s. Its sound at that time was described as 'funky' and often included recognizable samples from 80s pop, funk, and hip hop. Its current sound has a lot in common with nu skool breaks although it is also influenced by other music popular in the same area such as freestyle, electro and Miami bass. Its largest influence was in the clubs of Tampa as the more popular DJs in this genre hail from that city. More recently, Floridians have taken to calling the genre electro breaks despite the lack of electro characteristics included in the tracks, but this is most likely due to the parallel electronic dance music sub-genre of electro bass being billed at many of the same events as Florida breaks."

"While Kimball Collins and Dave Cannalte were promoting the sounds of progressive house and trance at the legendary Ahzz, DJ Stylus & D-Xtreme are considered the pioneers since it is they who inspired and introduced countless patrons of the Abyss to the genre of Breakbeat. Brad Smith and Huda Hudia were regular guest DJ's at the Abyss as they too were promoting and playing breakbeat at residencies in Tampa. The first production in Florida Breaks can be attributed to DJ Icee or now known as DJ Icey. His numerous labels and countless releases served as the pioneering sound of Florida Breaks, and he was the first to put Florida Breaks on the map globally. Later successful productions were followed by Brad Smith, Huda Hudia, & Dave London out of Tampa. It was the efforts of these first 6 artists that paved the way for other artists, who in their own right, successfully followed."

Interview at Other People's Pixels

The good folks over at Other People's Pixels (the web-hosting/template service for artists that I use for dansolberg.com) recently did an interview with me for their blog.  They asked me questions about my practice and the ideas behind some of my more recent pieces, and I, well, answered them.  New work out of my recently established Brooklyn studio is soon to follow, so check back soon!

Link to the interview: http://blog.otherpeoplespixels.com/otherpeoplespixels-interviews-dan-solberg

Recap: Soundplay Game Jam

Last night at the New Museum, Pitchfork and Kill Screen teamed up to offer an evening of free drinks, video games, and music.  The main impetus for the get together was an extension of the Soundplay project that commissions indie game talent to craft interactive experiences based on songs from indie musicians.  Yes, the whole thing was pretty "indie," but that's not a bad thing.  This particular event was structured around a game jam that happened over the two days prior.  Four teams had 48 hours to produce games based off of music from the band Passion Pit's new album Gossamer.  The night of the party was a chance for attendees to play all of the Soundplay titles, including the ones made during the jam, while also taking in a live performance by Chromatics and a DJ set by Oneohtrix Point Never.  Since you're the sort of person who would read a blog entry like this, that billing should all sound pretty great.

Neon sign at the entrance was a nice touch.

 I sat down to play all of the game jam titles, and though all four mostly matched the upbeat, candy-colored vibe of the band, each took markedly different gameplay approaches to the source material.  In the first one I played, you control some Katamari-looking dudes and press the spacebar to juggle approaching objects.  Higher scores are awarded for the more objects you keep off the ground until certain checkpoints in the song.  The next game had a flowery, psychedelic setting with a figure on a tightrope that walks towards you as you toggle the "left" and "right" keys for balance.  If you fall off, the song stops and you must start over.  Beside that game was one that told the story of a sad bunny that you cover with candy to make happy again.  Shelves of sweets are on both sides of the stationary rabbit, and you drag and drop them into place.  The candy blocks have physics programmed into them, so making a perfect stack that doesn't tip over was quite the challenge.  Music played in the background, but at climax points of the song, a quake strikes and probably undoes all your hard work.  Lastly, the fourth game was a forced-scrolling don't-hit-the-walls navigation exercise that seemed like it was supposed to be incorporating video from the computer's webcam in the background, but it wasn't working when I played it.

Attendees getting their hands on the Jam games, plus previous Soundplay entries.

While tonally these games kept in line with the vibe of Passion Pit music, they seemed more inclined to simply take inspiration from the music than to really incorporate it as a part of the mechanics.  The notion of games as promotional material for music in the vein of music videos is a concept in its early stages.  Should these games be "music games" as we understand them?  They could take inspiration from the likes of Guitar Hero and Rock Band and challenge players to replicate the songs they hear.  They could draw from Dance Dance Revolution and Dance Central and co-opt body movements that correspond to beats.  Recently, Soundshapes has further evolved concepts born out of games like Rez where playing a more traditional genre game, such as a platformer or shooter, generates music just by going about as usual.  But we're talking about game jam games here, and design docs that can be written and delivered quickly and completely are paramount.  I did really like it when the music triggered screen-shake in the rabbit game though.

Chromatics performing live

Nothing against the games, but I got the feeling from the crowd that the Chromatics performance was probably the main draw for most.  I can't really ague with that sentiment either since Johnny Jewel et al put on a moody, energetic show.  Readers of this blog can look forward to me gushing about Kill For Love come year-end list time as it's definitely one of the best albums of 2012.  I didn't stay for too much of Oneohtrix Point Never's set up on the gorgeous 7th floor sky view terrace, but stuck around long enough to hear "Ghost City" mixed into some hardcore Goa trance, which was pretty amazing.  The only thing that would have made the event better would have been the New Museum opening access to its Ghosts in the Machine exhibition, which would have been a nice pairing with all the games and electronic music happenings.

I'm told the game jam games will be available to play online hopefully by the end of the month along with a short documentary about their development process.  I'll be writing an in-depth piece on the existing Soundplay games in the near future.

:images 1 & 2 taken by me; Chromatics pic by Eriz Avissar for Pitchfork: