Category Archives: Philosophy

Game production doesn’t mean just experience, technology and skills – there’s also philosophical way into games production. For example, A stress free philosophy of zen can be very practical in games production.

What Should I Do With The Xmas Game Submissions…?

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I don’t mean to rush anyone, and I was about to close the submission possibility now. There’s so many games that in the following days there’s definitely more than 1 game per day to appear in the xmas site.

My idea is that… I would allow submissions, but only the ones that have been submitted so far would be shown in the site before 24th day. And… on the 24th day there would be a big icon list of ALL games that were submitted. This icon list would stay there for people to test.

I think this could be a nice compromise, as I would hate to close the submissions possibility as you guys clearly are putting new games there.

Hmm. It’s good to think out loud. In the beginning of this blog post (as you can guess from the title) I wasn’t sure how to deal with the submissions but by the end of this blog post (as you can probably guess if you’ve read this far) I now know what to do.

Thanks for your help!

This wasn’t the first time something like this happens. I talk with a collegue, ask out loud what to do with thing A and feature Y and continue talking… and finally I have the decision made before the other guy has even said anything. I’m sure you’ve experienced the same. This was probably the first time this occurred during writing a blog post though.

The Guide On How to Approach People

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Words are important. Words and how one expresses himself have a big meaning. For example, whether I use a word “I”, “you”, or “one” it gives a different feeling to what I’m saying.

For example, whether you use a word “I”, “you”, or “one” it gives a different feeling to what you are saying.

For example, whether one uses a word “I”, “you”, or “one” it gives a different feeling to what one is saying.

I’ve noticed that when sharing your experiences (through a blog for example), it’s quite safe to use the word “I”. I tell what happens to me. If I’ve done something, it’s my experience and I can tell about it. No preaching, no teaching. Just sharing my experience. No big deal.

Preaching and teaching
Whenever I use the word “you”, the tone of my blog might change to preaching/teaching. You have to be careful with words.

See, there it goes again – who am I to tell to you that you should be careful with words? I can only speak about myself.

And if I use the word “one”, I go into a bit more neutral zone. There one can wander quite safely. (As you can see). One has to be careful though, this form might sound little… odd. At least to my ear.

How do you approach people? Do you preach/teach and point out how the other needs to do something. Or do you express yourself differently – by using yourself as an example, leaving the other to decide whether he will accept your thinking?

Is it about “you” or “me”?
Think of the following examples, which one are you using when you are delegating a task to somebody else:

  • 1) “… and this final graph here shows the flow of the actions, and the end result needs to produce a gadget X. Do you understand the task?”
  • 2) “… and this final graph here shows the flow of the actions, and the end result needs to produce a gadget X. Have I expressed the task understandably here?”

The first one is probably okay, but there’s a slight challenge in the air: by asking whether the other guy understands the tasks, you might be automatically suggesting that “if the other guy is not understanding the task, it’s his fault”. This doesn’t necessarily leave room for the thought that there might be (A) something wrong with the task description, (B) or something wrong in how you’ve explained the task description. In some workplaces (I’d guess) this might be even offending. The guy could say that “yes, he understand the tasks” just for the sake of defending himself – he understands everything.

The second point removes the “do you understand” part, and this means that even if the other guy doesn’t get the task, his professionalism isn’t in any way questioned. You have removed the threat and there’s no need for defense. The other guy can then more willingly say that there’s some unclear point. He has no need to defense himself.

I’m exaggerating here a bit you know, I’m not saying that using words as in example #1 would automatically mean questioning the other. This might not be a big deal. People might not even notice this. In some workplaces… this might be an issue. Or maybe people would see you in a different light if you’d approach them differently. (I dunno. Maybe.)

This might not be a big deal
I’m not trying to say here that you’d need to be a wimp and be careful that the people will shatter to pieces from anything.

Just a thought on something that might be useful.

GP Xmas Calendar 2009 – Door 8 (The Indie Secret)

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I’ve touched the subject of “why do games” in the past. I’ve written about what reasons I have, and pondered reasons what others might have. I happened to trespass in the fine site of gapingvoid and saw a cartoon pic that kind of summarized why some (hopefully many) indies make their games.

Check here to open Door 8.

(The thing is expressed quite strongly in that pic I must say, but I can think of all that in a very positive way. Being totally in control and deciding what you do.)

Joke In a Bush Is Better Than Two In the Hand

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Yesterday’s post got some comments that got me thinking about joking and how jokes affect people.

Years ago I used “offensive” jokes much more often than I do today. Offensive, as in the meaning that “they could offend”. I didn’t mean to offend anyone with those jokes, but by looking back I can see that clearly they could be taken offensively. I guess it was pretty okay since the same people joked back at me the same way and were my best friends anyway. (Anyone seen Gran Torino? Where Clint was speaking in that movie shouting very harshly to others. That wasn’t how we joked, ours speech were much milder).

I’m the kind of person who makes jokes about myself, and also jokes among friends and people I know. I’m no comedian (those aren’t funny anyway), but I do like “intelligent” humor where the words are more important than how loud they are said (think of British tv comedy over American tv comedy – very generally speaking, there’s gems in American tv as well). This wasn’t a joke so, it can’t be taken offensive. Right?

Anyway.

There isn’t really a safe spot when it comes to joking. Joking only about yourself is a good start, but even then there’s dangers if you move to the areas like “my religion” or “my favourite politician” or “my handicap” or whatever. You might also use harsh language or use jokes related to sex – it all can be too much to some people.

Let’s take a few examples:

  • Is it okay to make jokes about handicapped people? Some people would say “no, it’s not okay” while some people – including those with a handicap – might say “yes, sure – it’s okay”.
  • What about South Park – is it too much? Some people dislike it a lot, some people think it’s just fine.
  • Monthy Python? They joked about very many things (mainly British…)
  • Or take Ali G / Borat / Brüno – do you think this guy has bad humor?
  • Joking about British tv comedy over American tv comedy? Some people will not tolerate if somebody jokes about comedy shown in American tv (especially when shown in comparison to British tv – even when this is merely an opinion of one person who prefers one after another).

My guideline (where I aim to), is to minimize insulting people/peoples/genres/age/sex/stuff with my speech (it’s been greatly reduced compared to what it was years ago, but still need to work with this area), and to keep joking about myself and voices in my head.

Joking is a very serious issue. The jokes and humor is important. Joking affects people around you. It’s way to handle difficult things. It’s way to build team spirit and connect people. It’s way to sell games.

It’s (hopefully) fun too.

What you think about jokes & humor?

What’s the Color of Your Tongue? Brown?

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Do you say different things about your boss in these situations:
1) In front of boss (will you honestly say what you think when your boss hears you? Do you laugh at his jokes and nod like an idiot on any of his suggestions?)
2) Somewhere else (do you complain about your boss in behind his back, and talk about things you wouldn’t say in front of him?)

Why? Why not?

The Reason Why I Love The Game Braid

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I have this love-hate relationship with Braid game.

I pointed out earlier that (the hate/ignore part):

  • I don’t care about platformers, which means I don’t like Braid.
  • Even if I don’t like platformers, that doesn’t mean everybody else would think the same.

And then the love part:

  • The Braid developer has done an awesome job with his game.

I just love what they’ve done with the game (even though I hate it).

(In the next blog post, I promise to write something that makes sense. Something not about Braid.)

The Reason Why I Hate (Ignore) The Game Braid

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Before serving the meat of this topic, here’s a little background…

You know what happens if you are afraid to promote your game?

You would be quite screwed, since nobody will promote your game for you.

Here’s one guideline I follow:

  • “Be darn proud of the stuff you do.”

When I talk to some indie developers (developers who have far more experience than I do – my company is just an infant at the time of writing this post) and ask about their game I sometimes get shy replies where people wonder “if their game is good enough” or “if others have done better games” or whatever. It’s natural to think that way. After all, developing the game is not that easy thing to do – finishing a game is even harder (I’ve finished 3 games that have generated any revenue, and now doing my 4th one which is a much bigger project).

Here’s how I think about this:

Pieces of shit
Games are not “shitty!” even when somebody says so. If somebody comments a game saying “shit” that just means what goes between his ears. Shit. Or shitty thoughts. Or to be more exact: he just doesn’t like your game.

Why I hate Braid
It would be foolish to assume that everybody would like all games. For example, there’s this game called Braid that’s been praised and said how good it is and all that. I hated every moment playing it.

Does that mean Braid is a bad game, or that Braid sucks, or that Braid isn’t innovative. Nope – it just means that I don’t like Braid (and that type of games). Simple as that. I can honestly say that I won’t spend any more time playing Braid, but I do have a huge respect for how successful the game has been. It’s sold a lot and everybody is talking about it – so respect. I hate the game, but praise the developer.

For the record: I must say that I simply don’t like platformer games where you jump over things. Even if they have the go-back-in-time-and-do-stuff feature, to me they are still platformer games where you jump over things. It’s not Braid that I really hate. It’s any game that’s platformer game. I just don’t like them.

So, why I really don’t hate Braid and what people should do
But, anyway. So, in reality I don’t hate Braid – the truth is that I don’t like platformer games. To me they are just not fun. In reality, I don’t much care about Braid or platformers, and I think the crucial thing here to realize is:

  • Your game is not about you
  • Your game will be hated by many
  • Your game will be disliked by very many

But luckily:

  • Your game will be liked and loved by some

And that’s where the Holy Grail is. That’s where we gotta aim. It’s no use to try to get everybody to like your game (or you end up having this massively-multiplayer-singleplayer-cooperative-team-deathmatch-captureflag-roleplaying-strategy-action-racing-hiddenobject-casual game for hardcore gamers). Nobody would care (and you’d run out of budget faster than winter comes in Finland – and believe me, that’s fast).

What we can do is to pick our audience… pick the right audience and get those selected members who like our game. Then cater more for that audience.

I won’t buy Braid nor any other platformer where you jump, jump, jump. But that doesn’t make those games bad. They just aren’t for me. Maybe they are for somebody else, but not for me.

(Now, go buy that Braid – even if I don’t like it, it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t at least check this game what many other people praise.

And if you read this far, go check out the next post: Why I love Braid game)

I Have This Crazy I-Might-Drop-Car-Keys-Down-to-Sewers Fear

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Not sure if I have mentioned this (and definitely not sure if I should), but here we go (again).

I have this weird “I might drop my car keys to sewers” fear. Whenever I go get some gasoline to our car, I look for those sewer things (plug holes?) that might be located near the gas pump. If I see a one, I immediately start to think how my car keys could accidentally drop… way down to the sewers. Where they would never be found again.

What this has to do with anything? Especially about game development?

I’m making a point here that even “rational game developers” like me (and even those genius C++ experts who know loads of 3 letter acronyms) have some weird ideas and thoughts stuffed in their brain.

I know that this fear is (somewhat) irrational. I hold my car keys tight enough or keep them in my pocket, so the chances for the keys to drop are close to me same as the odds for me winning in a lottery (and I don’t even play lottery).

I’m a pretty rational guy. I make all sort of calculations. I liked math, physics (but also arts) in school. I try to make “rational decisions” and think “will buying this shit make my game sell more copies – or help me get it done faster” before I do something. I keep my papers pretty organized, and desktop in ok shape. Overall I keep thinking that I’m sort of a rational guy.

Yet… with all said and done.

I keep fearing that one day I’ll drop my car keys to sewers. (At least it’s not as weird as one famous Finnish astronomy-professor-guy has: he is afraid of dark)

What weird fears your have?

We Game Developers Are Whine Masters (Free Business Tip About Dealing With Portals)

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Here’s a fun experiment to do:

    Go to your favourite game development forum

  • Search something about “portal”
  • Count all the posts where people whine about portals (favourite topics including stuff such as “they’re evil”, “they pay shitty”, “prices are too low”, “piracy is overwhelming”)
  • Join the fun and become a master whiner. I’m sure within no time, practically anyone can become a master portal-whiner.

(I’m no better either. In case you didn’t notice: I just whined about whining…)

Or alternatively here’s a 100% free tip for those of us who complain about portals:

if portals are such a bad idea, then like… stop working with them.

Okay?