Ideally, games should communicate emotionally with the player, but currently we mostly have games that “talk” emotionally at the player (by trying to evoke emotions in the player) but do not “listen” emotionally to the player (respond to player choice of emotion), especially for narrative-based games. Games that respond emotionally to players will create a [...]

Hey everybody! Today marks the release date of RCF2:A Crack in Time! As many of you know, I interned at Insomniac last semester and worked on this fantastic game. And it was given a 9 by IGN :^) Go to the PlayStation Store and check out the demo if you want to give it a try! [...]

As requested by Mr. Mark Bolas, here be my blogerrific post, re: Thesis Demo as demonstrated last night of October 21st in the year 2009 (addendum: some UI edits as requested to facilitate playability). (may be slow to load, and there is no sound ) http://interactive.usc.edu/membersmedia/bwilcox/thesis/prototypes/AlphaDemo/alpha_crimsonnight.swf Instructions: Click to show actions. Blue is walk-to, Green is [...]

It occurs to me I never posted a picture from the scene of the diorama we were supposed to make for class on October 29, 2008. So here it is! Click on it for a full size image. Sagi, the elephant and kind of a social worker under Gaia, fell asleep while planting trees. Gaia is [...]

Here is the quintessential corny postcard that gets the point across :^) Click on it to pop up the full-sized image. (For people not in the class, we were supposed to make a postcard from our world. And similarly to people not in the class, my world changed from Alien Extradition to A Dusty River, a [...]

Extraterrestrial Extradition Circulation Study Inhabitants of the space station are free to travel wherever they can (i.e., where they can breathe, gravity they can withstand, etc) save for the Administration areas (save for the reception area or if the inhabitant has an appointment), the Bridge (unless for a sanctioned tour). As a form of politeness, they should [...]

Extraterrestrial Extradition Schedule:     While I would like to make the actual game, I need to be realistic in my goals. If I manage to do it anyway, then hurray, but let’s not put it on paper as I don’t want to be held accountable :^)     The main thing that I would like to do is the actual [...]

Extraterrestrial Extradition Player Experience Goals: My goals for the player is to have a sense of wonderment about alien societies and the possibilities of alien life. I don’t know if I can pull that off though :^) As long as they start thinking about aliens as something beyond blue-skinned humans (or worse… ST:ToS Klingons… gawd, what were [...]

A new MacArthur study has shown that most teens play games and this can actually help social interaction and promote civic engagement. Although I like how they phrased this statistic:

99% of boys say they are gamers and 94% of girls report that they play games.

So, the girls don’t consider themselves gamers I presume. [...]

Sorry for the late post! Anyway, here is a little YouTube video about a guy, Johnny Chung Lee from Carnegie Mellon, who MacGyvered a Minority Report point-based interface system with a Wii Remote (I have got to get me a Wii Remote – it works with Flash ;^) ). Tracking fingers with the Wii Remote By [...]

I found this article that talks about the different types of immersion. Although very, very briefly. But with all this talk of Immersion, I thought it would be good to post this incredibly short article up. http://www.designersnotebook.com/Columns/063_Postmodernism/063_postmodernism.htm It is specifically addressing how Postmodernism (meaning, in this case, self-referencing to declare what you are playing is, in [...]

This is a continuation from my last post about Mr. World. Just more in depth and paying particular attention to the boundaries. There is even more awesome sketches! External Boundaries Well, the world is a space station in – get this – outer space! Okay, okay. Specifics, right? Going off of my idea from last week, I [...]

I found this interesting article on the USC School of Engineering ‘illumin’ (‘A Review of Engineering in Everyday Life’) website. It is, happily enough, talking about Immersion in Video Games. He takes an interesting slant to determining immersion in games – namely the Turing Test. He says “if a system can conjure up behaviors that [...]

First of all, I just want to mention that this weekly-posting assignment for Seminar is likely just an Evil Plot to get us non-bloggers visible and writing. While I am resistant to blogging (… sigh, last non-HW post in April) I’ll do my best to find some interesting things to share. We saw a clip [...]

Doesn’t that title just explain everything? No? Well, this is in response to http://interactive.usc.edu/membersmedia/peggy/archives/009258.html. Title: Extraterrestrial Extradition (working title) Brief Desc: The player is brought to an alien space station (akin to the UN) to be brought up on unknown (because the player doesn’t understand the language) charges. Under their laws, the player can not be tried until [...]

(This is a response to the CTIN 532 Inventory Homework assignment, http://interactive.usc.edu/membersmedia/peggy/archives/009175.html) Seeing as this is a blog post, it is going to be more ‘bloggy’ than my actual presentation. First off, I think it is silly to assume you can get a complete picture of a society by the items one person carries on [...]

For anyone else like me who waited until Portal was sold stand-alone style, Circuit City is selling it for $10. Don’t know how long the rebate will last (normally $20), so get it while you can! I got mine today :^) You can buy it online or at the store for this price, fyi. EDIT: [...]

I showed ‘Lifeline’ during Thursday’s (9/20/2007) class of Survey of Interactive Media (CTCS 505), and I said that it was the first commercial use of Voice Control I had seen and Steve Anderson, Professor of said class, asked what came after? I paused and said ‘Nothing.’ Nothing I know of used voice control after Lifeline [...]

Well, I don’t know about you, but I am sick of the Mexican Standoff. Whether it be in film, tv, books, or games, it’s just stupid. Clichéd and stupid. How many times do these forms of media use this device to increase tension? Too many to count, let me assure you. Not that it works, [...]

I am confused about how Experimental Films classify as Interactive Media – I am sure they do, I just don’t see it. I understand they are trying to elicit a response in the audience, but so do many Hollywood films. And to be truly interactive, their response should have an effect on the film. Any [...]