Monthly Archives: February 2011

The Escapist’s Vision of Computer Gaming

Gaming & Modding

The Escapist Magazine’s “Extra Credits” section published a very interesting video opinion piece yesterday. Although pitched in the form of “An Open Letter to EA Marketing,” it indicates a wider issue that goes beyond any particular company or its marketing. Rather, it goes to the heart of how most games are made today, and how that is too often driven by increasingly obsolete and inside-the-box assumptions about customer demographics. Over the top marketing campaigns are just the most obvious symptom of  that phenomenon.

Speaking personally, I very much share the vision expressed in the video (and apparently, at least at one time, by EA as well). Indeed, the reason why I became interested in game development in the first place was to learn how to help bring it into existence. Gaming qua interactive art has enormous potential, but it’s still to a great extent in its infancy (pun intended).

WordPress Update

General

Sigh… The latest WordPress update seems to have messed up the site’s formatting. Fortunately it looks like the only real issues have to do with the formatting of images with video links behind them increasing in size and over-extending into the link bar on the right. I should be able to fix that up over the weekend, but so please bear with the appearance for the time being. 🙂

The Sky Over Rayche

3 - Mission to Rayche

Here’s a screenshot and video clip showcasing Sanctum 3’s unique flying system. These use the Sanctum Flying Skyscape tileset, custom developed for the series by the very talented Estelindis.

Essentially, there will be two ways to travel in the module. One that should already be familiar to players is journeying overland, using linked areas along the roads on the map that I posted recently. The other, faster and more dramatic method, though, will be by flying through the “Sky Over Rayche,” which the player can ascend to and descend from at designated locations across the land. The video clip (about 75 meg) illustrates this latter method.