copied from evajolli's blog at http://evelynjolli.blogspot.com/2009/11/how-to-make-better-game.html

"
the gold
what makes your game fun, is it gold? maybe... you wish your games were made out of gold... but they're not. so i'll list some things that i find fun in games i play. i suggest you list some too, in the comments, or have your own list for personal use...

-shooting things
-shooting things that break
-shooting things that bleed
-shooting things that... explode!
-powerful guns!
-stealth kills...!
-fast vehicles!
-flying vehicles!
-fast flying vehicles!
-building things!
-building things then destroying them!
-building things then destroying them then building more things!
-level/map creation/editing
-eating things! yum...
-finding cool things! (example of cool: audio logs, example of not cool: keys)
-gaining money or points or score or rank... or things!
-unlocking things! (achievements, special features, characters...

those things are pretty generic... but why don't your games have them??? what a fucking genius you are, start making games you like!
"

i don't like the list but i like the idea (make a list of a lot of things you like to do, then make a game where you can do those things). so here's my list of things i find fun:

- talking to people i like
- drinking tea
- making friends
- exercising
- making games
- selling games
- playing games
- buying stuff
- meditating
- fantasizing
- making food, eating the food that i made
- researching things

so the best game for me would be a game where you can do all those things. the ones that come closest would be koei's simulation games, like romance of the three kingdoms, nobunaga's ambition, genghis khan 2, etc. -- those have at least 90% of the stuff above in some way or another. alpha centauri and civilization also come close.

today i played jet set willy online with evajolli, mrpodunkian (maker of 'the underside'), nyarla, and two other people i forgot the names of (quenten may have been one of them). it's based on an old zx spectrum game.

mrpodunkian cited it as the best 'exploration game'. it's pretty good, but i think it lacks a lot of things normal for exploration games: it doesn't have items which expand your abilities (but then again, neither did seiklus or small worlds), and it has lives, and you start at the beginning when you lose them all.

it also has an online mode, and online multiplayer exploration games (the goal was to explore more of the map than the other players) are rare; if i were able to i'd make SD multiplayer, but it'd make no sense story-wise and it'd be hard to code anyway

anyway the game is pretty great: http://jsw.ovine.net/

uploaded a glum buster playthrough by ortoslon for him due to the 10min limit. watch, it's a great free game by cosmind; better, play it first, then watch: http://glumbuster.com

funny question i found on the FAQ of an indie game:

"

http://www.teudogar.com/teudogar_faq.htm#REF0023

How do I get to have sex in Teudogar?

You may have to change your censorship level settings to allow this. Press "O" to go to Options Menu, select Control, and set censorship to "none". (Because I assumed that with some people in the U.S., there might perhaps be some cultural sensitivities concerning nudity and sexual topics, the default setting for pcs with a U.S. country code currently is "no sex/nudity".)

First of all, you'll need a partner who loves you or whom you've seduced, or whom you've paid, or who is your property. Consider your slave maid, for example. Otherwise, the easiest way to find someone would be to try to win over other people's slave girls by giving expensive gifts to them (this won't work when they're already in a relationship, or when their master is your enemy).

Anyway, that's all: Wait until your girl is in bed; then in order to join her, simply double-click on her. If she doesn't want you / belongs to someone else / isn't _your_ slave and therefore isn't obligated to sleep with you etc, you'll just get a "no response".

However, you can't really have sex with anyone in Teudogar; the maximum you get is to share a bed with some woman; sex is just implied. I didn't consider this to be a serious game feature; but looking at the level of interest this gets, maybe I actually ought to add some more details as well as perhaps some animations...

"

every day i play new games, yet don't often report them here. most of the time freeware. it's mainly as research. perhaps i should get into the habit of writing about each new one i try out. today i played 'love' and 'knytt stories online' (an online version of knytt stories) for the first time.

i was totally confused by love and couldn't figure out what to do, but that's my fault for not reading the manual. the person who lent me his account to try it out says that he was literally vomiting from motion sickness today, even though he loves the game. that's kinda bad. i didn't get motion sickness but i only played it for about 5 minutes. i died instantly when i spawned, some other played killed me without warning, so when i revived i ran away into nowhere-land and wandered around aimlessly, then died by falling into something that i couldn't understand what it was. will try it again after i figure out what does what or what i'm supposed to be doing in it. it is *very* pretty though.

knytt stories online lacked dead reckoning and a lot of other features, but is a good 'first draft' at making the game online. i'm surprised it's so rough though, i've heard they've been working on it for like a year. everything about it needs polish, but it's still very fun to play knytt stories with other people. has potential, would like to see it finished.

found an image of how the zelda1 dungeons were actually arranged in the rom's memory:

http://ian-albert.com/misc/gamemaps/zelda/full/zelda-dungeons.gif (big image)

if you notice, it's exactly twice as large as the game's overworld map:

http://ian-albert.com/misc/gamemaps/zelda/full/zelda-overworld.gif (also big image)

i didn't really realize it, but more than half (two-thirds) of zelda1 took place in the dungeons, not the overworld.

btw, since ortoslon wants me to let people know about him:

http://www.youtube.com/ortoslon

he makes videos of a bunch of indie games, mainly challenges like speedruns and high scores and such. he's pretty good at indie games, maybe almost as good as timw. i particularly like his muon high score video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsMlMoyRWRA

(19:30:51) RinkuHero: http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/RodainJoubert/20090930/3232/Minimised_game_design_for_indies_yes_or_no.php
(19:30:56) RinkuHero: remember that guy who posted in tigsource
(19:31:01) RinkuHero: asking thoughts on minimalism in game design
(19:31:05) RinkuHero: that's his article
(19:31:10) RinkuHero: it quotes a lot of people in that thread
(19:32:31) RinkuHero: also
(19:32:35) RinkuHero: that guy quoted me wrong
(19:32:45) RinkuHero: he changed 'necessarily' to 'unnecessarily' D:
(19:32:49) RinkuHero: guess he thought i meant that
(19:32:54) RinkuHero: but i really did mean necessarily

here's a list of all the indie games on kickstarter that i could find

( Read more... )

this is a trailer i found of the persona 2 innocent sin fan translation, it's pretty good

and yes, hitler is actually a villain of the game. someone created a rumor that he was still alive, with a secret army and a spear powered by jesus's blood, and like all rumors in that game, the rumor became real. that plotline was part of the reason the game wasn't brought to the US.

CLYSM: Well, I forgot to mention what was probably my biggest influence, which is David Crane, who did Pitfall and A Boy and His Blob. Specifically A Boy and His Blob.

TOUPS: I played the NES version of that...

CLYSM: That’s actually the only version that there is. But if you look at screenshots of it...

TOUPS: Yeah, I can see that. I remember playing it when I was very young, and I was very, very confused by it.

CLYSM: That’s one of my favorite games, cause... That’s partly where I got the thing about not knowing what to do, cause it didn’t explain anything.


from an interview in the gamer's quarter which i just read; he was talking about seiklus. the only thing about seiklus i don't like is that i wish there were more of it: more areas, a bigger world. but besides that it's perfect (probably even better than a boy and his blob, although i also liked that game)

http://imgur.com/bFIdo.jpg -- this is true

i was talking in tigirc about a related subject: how i prefer zelda1 over all the other zelda games not only for the non-lineary of it (you can finish the dungeons in pretty much any order, there's much more freedom to explore the world in), but also because of its sense of desolation. i feel that towns took more away than they added. there were no towns in z1, just random people hidden away in caves, hiding from a world of monsters. an odd store or two, hidden away under a rock. an old man hidden in a tree. a crazy old lady behind a waterfall. but that's it. it was very desolate, you felt very lonely, like the only one in the world.

in every zelda game after the first, there instead were a bunch of people yapping at you in towns, and telling you what to do and how to do it. and the trading quests. hyrule became a much more homey, friendly place. it felt like civilization, like people lived there. it's not easy to pinpoint why, but i think a lot was lost when they added towns. some of the desolation still could be found, such as on the oceans of wind waker, but the world still had safe friendly places you could go to heal and rest up and play with kids and throw chickens around and shop.

saturated dreamers is / will be a lot like the first zelda game in those respects: there's just your ship, the people on it (which never exceed five), some random broken-down robots scattered around the world, and that's it. everything else is strange and unfamiliar, nothing else is a part of civilization. a large world to explore, but not a civilized world; a wild world. the closest thing to "towns" will be large collections of creatures. and they don't talk to you.

*

relatedly, i feel that indie game developers tend to be in any of three groups:

the first is the group that likes games and want to break into the industry. they tend to make games which echo mainstream titles: often fps games, often 3d. they tend to be primarily programmers, and to focus on 'the engine' above all else.

the second is the group that liked the games of old but don't like the current generation of games. they tend to make games which play like old games -- adventure games, 2d platformers, interactive fiction, shmups, and so on. but they're often hostile to story-based games, since they remember when games were just challenges and not experiences.

the third is the group that didn't like old games, doesn't like mainstream games either, and wants to make games they'd like to play, because none exist. they tend to make experimental/artsy games that try new things. or very casual games that appeal to people who don't normally play games.

i think that my group is somewhere in between the second and third groups -- i'm making SD both as a throwback to games which no longer are made in the mainstream (a non-linear exploration-heavy game in a strange desolate world, like zelda1 or metroid1), but also am doing things which old games never really did, such as make the world persistent (when you leave a room and come back everything is in the same position), making the goal to avoid killing the creatures rather than to make killing them essential, dealing with stories that appeal more to adults than to kids and adolescents, and so on. so it's a mix of retro and experimental goals.

http://www.gametrailers.com/users/Aerobalance/?action=viewblog&id=452529

i've a google alert for immortal defense and immortal defence (variant spelling), and this came up today (among the usual torrent sites that always come up daily it seems) -- it's a blog article on immersion which mentions ID like four times as an example of different ways to create immersion

tigsource has a 'pick your favorite games, distribute 210 points to them' so i just picked 210 games and gave them each 1 point:

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=8159.msg258597#msg258597

go there if you're curious about what games i've played/liked. that doesn't necessarily mean i'd recommend these games. but it is a list of 210 of the games that i like the best. i didn't include any of my games or any games i worked on, even if i only worked on it as a playtester/proofreader (as with missing, for instance)

( copied and pasted here for posterity )

i realize a lot of my entries lately have been quite shallow; devlog updates and the like. this is a change of pace, a return more to how i used to write in this journal years ago, so i hope you guys used to the new type of entries won't mind this type this once

( Read more... )

on the plus side, that 100 game maker games in 10 minutes video i made has like 100,000 views, is a fun video to watch, and is a good thing to show people when they look down on game maker

on the negative side, because people are too unobservant to read the sidebar info, it attracts many inane comments and personal messages, many of which think i personally made all 100 of those games, and many of which ask which game is which even though there's a list in the info. here's a pm i just got:

"
Please Help

Awesome stuff, man.

With your experience in Game Maker, I wonder if you could help me with a simple problem. This is what I want to do:

My default sprite is standing with his cape blowing in the wind. By pushing one key command , this character is meant to hit the ground with his fist (POWER-UP SPRITE) then immediately lift into the air and remain floating (FLOATING SPRITE). The reason I have a second sprite is so that he doesn't repeat the cycle of hitting the ground.

Would you mind taking my simplified Game Maker file and doing the "drag and drop" for me so that I can learn from it? I have removed everything in the file exept the 3 sprites and the background.

Here is the file link: [link removed]

Thanks so much,

[personal name removed]
"

i replied that i'm not his personal game maker tutor and that he's best asking such things on the game maker forums. i imagine i'll keep getting these types of things though for years and years. it's the tragedy of doing anything that it leads to results you didn't expect

you know indie games are becoming more popular when there's a blog that reviews indie games on suicide girls: http://suicidegirls.com/members/PixelVixen707/news/

her review of planescape torment felt a bit off to me though -- for instance she said there was only one ending, when there are like four (although they all use the same FMV at the end)

of course, that blog isn't a real person, but a fake -- a made up identity. as mentioned here: http://www.gamesetwatch.com/2008/11/on_pixelvixen707_brinkvale_ins.php

this game looks pretty good, too bad i don't have an xbox360

something i wrote in tigsource where someone requested each person's 'bullet point game design philosophy'

* gameplay is a myth: what exists is challenge, balance, and so on, and it's better to think of it in those specific terms
* the experience is everything, without a that, it's hard to care about the game, since there'd be no motivation or purpose to it, it'd be like an academic quiz, all challenge and no utility; only through an interesting world to experience and interesting characters to interact with does a game become special
* story is more than plot; you don't have to have a plot, but you have to have a setting and characters
* the most important things to focus on are the things the player sees the most of or does the most of: if simply moving around the screen isn't fun, the game won't be fun, simple things like movement are the most important to get right
* graphics, sound, polish, etc., add more to the fun of a game than those who are bad at those things believe
* good graphics means good visual style and color balance, not pixel shaders or a lot of polygons; starcraft has better graphics than starcraft 2 in this way for instance; likewise earthbound had better graphics than oblivion
* at its core, a game should be about delivering an experience that could not exist in real life in as pure a way; the variety of these possible experiences is infinite
* the best way to become better at making games is to watch AVGN and to play bad games and avoid those mistakes; until recognizing and avoiding things like those mistakes is second nature, good games won't come out
* like cactus said, games don't have to be fun, and also like cactus said, creating a game is like pregnancy and giving birth (it is more than an analogy)

EDIT:

* serve people who like your games, not those who don't like them -- i.e. don't try to adjust the game according to the suggestions of people who already don't like it, instead adjust it so that those who already do like it will like it better. better to make 10% of people very happy with a game than to make 90% of people like it okay.

http://www.psphyper.com/psp/persona-3-portable-debut-trailer-screens/

persona 3 is being remade for the psp, with the option of selecting a female main character in addition to the male one. looks good, though i don't own a psp.

there also seems to be an anime series in japan which is a sequel to the persona 3 game:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persona_-trinity_soul-

although reportedly the anime's story isn't as good as the game's (which is an interesting reversal in roles)

also, i found the opening movie of the psp remake of persona 1. i prefer the original persona 1 opening (with the butterfly and such) but this one isn't horrible, atlus game openings are always very stylistic and fun to watch:

(17:36:52) Paul: i got a hilarious pm in youtube a few days ago
(17:37:27) Paul: someone said 'my son has to finish a game maker game for school. he has 1 week left. he's missed 2/3 of his classes for that class. neither he nor i know how to use game maker. can you walk us through how to make a game?'
(17:38:16) iamthevoid242: ....
(17:38:18) iamthevoid242: ....
(17:38:23) iamthevoid242: I dont know where to begin

i watched the firefly tv show on hulu.com recently -- it's a site that lets you watch some tv shows w/ commercials, just like they do on tv. the commercials tend to be shorter than what's on tv -- 15-30 sec instead of several minutes. i had seen the firefly movie (serenity) but not the tv show yet, so it was nice to learn all the background. and it was a fun show, well-written

one thing i noticed is that there's a big difference between a season of shows and a movie in terms of getting to know characters / characterization. you know them a lot better if you see people for 10 or 20 hours than if you see people for 2. knowing that, why are movies usually considered the higher form of storytelling than television series? television series seems like they have more room to tell you a story. perhaps it's more that people spend less effort (usually) on television than movies, due to less money being involved

i also again wonder why episodic games aren't very common. there have been a lot of games which tried it (including orchard's game fedora spade which i coded), but it's still pretty rare, even though it seems like there's a lot to gain from it. perhaps it's the hit and miss nature of games: because you can never be sure if people will like a game or not, you can't really plan it as a long series of short games, and tend to wrap everything up in one game

speedrun of when pig's fly -- this guy has great skills, i just kept dying

pretty

watching these, i think 2d ages better than 3d. for best results, play them simultaneously

my new twitter background -- thought i'd post it here too, since it took a bit of copying and pasting from different screenshots of our games



unfortunately the ID part of the pic one doesn't look as good resized

that last image is from an unannounced project of orchard-l's (it's a secret)

(21:15:00) chikenatemydonut: How many storyline writers do you know?
(21:15:11) RinkuHero: hard to count
(21:15:16) RinkuHero: like, do you mean published writers
(21:15:21) RinkuHero: or should i include people who
(21:15:23) RinkuHero: have written fanfics
(21:15:28) chikenatemydonut: Uh
(21:15:33) chikenatemydonut: ...I.. don't know.

(21:16:02) chikenatemydonut: I'm looking for someone who could write a decent length (10-20 page) storyline to an idea
(21:16:07) chikenatemydonut: someone that can build upon a basic idea.
(21:16:13) RinkuHero: for what
(21:16:19) chikenatemydonut: A game I am making.
(21:16:23) RinkuHero: ah
(21:16:31) chikenatemydonut: It's a quad co-op survival game
(21:16:34) chikenatemydonut: [/l4d]
(21:16:59) chikenatemydonut: based on a nuclear explosion and caused a massive fallout
(21:17:43) chikenatemydonut: and the chinese government.

(21:18:25) chikenatemydonut: I have a good bit of the engine done
(21:18:31) chikenatemydonut: by a good bit I mean everything pretty much.
(21:18:35) RinkuHero: ah
(21:18:46) chikenatemydonut: I need a graphics designer and a storyline
(21:18:53) chikenatemydonut: i made my own menu, imo its badass
(21:19:56) chikenatemydonut: It needs somethign else though, but I cant put my finger on it

(21:23:19) RinkuHero: anyway, i'll ask if anyone is interested in writing the story on my livejournal, though
(21:23:24) RinkuHero: if you have a screenshot or something
(21:23:31) RinkuHero: that'd probably help its chances
(21:23:34) chikenatemydonut: The screenshots look terrible, they are all temp graphics.
(21:23:37) RinkuHero: ah
(21:23:44) chikenatemydonut: b/w circles and squares

if anyone is interested reply here. he's the author of this game: http://www.indiegames.com/blog/2007/03/gems.html

this guy's indie games are overlooked, but they're great

http://forums.tigsource.com/index.php?topic=7081.0

if you play indie games, go vote for the indie games you're most looking forward to. currently fez and the undersize are in the lead

something i miss about old jRPGs -- in the old days, you had to "talk to everyone!" in order to figure out where to go or what to do next: today, they just tell you in cutscenes, and sometimes even provide a big arrow pointing which way to go (like in Final Fantasy X) -- pleasantly, at least atlus games retain some of the "talk to everyone!" mechanic, even if no other jRPGs do

Haha: "NOBODY likes Iji. People may think they do, but it's not a fun game." -Overman on the Game Maker Community forums

the best let's play ever; clysm linked me to it

jason rohrer and chris crawford documentary trailer

too much game design power in one room

i'm going to sleep now but just had a sadistic idea: you know how faqs and walkthroughs ruin games? how it's not as fun as figuring stuff out yourself before the age of the internet where you could just look a puzzle up to solve it? imagine if the game itself had algorithms to detect when you seem like you know exactly what to do without having to experiment or figure stuff out, and then punish the player for it? (or even just say: you used a faq to solve this, right? try experimenting next time ;_;) haha

reminds me of my idea to detect when the player is skipping textboxes too quickly without reading them and punish them for not paying attention to the story

of course, i don't really think serious games should do these things, but it'd be fun for joke / experimental games

copied from a tigsource thread, this is the list of games i've worked on and whether i finished them or not, so far

01 gobbler [1995] [finished]
02 ____'s kingdom [1995] [unfinished]
03 seeker [1995] [mostly done but unfinished]
04 2nd seeker [1996] [mostly done but unfinished]
05 untitled egypt rpg [1997] [unfinished]
06 nhnt 1/5 [1998] [unfinished]
07 wingedmene [1999] [not finished but released and ~15 hours of gameplay]
08 and [2000] [finished]
09 harlock and rinku's game which includes the game never go west [2001] [finished]
10 rulers of the seven wonders [2001] [finished]
11 ziggurats for red turtle [2002] [unfinished]
12 knight of the ages [2003] [finished]
13 kinder der alter / alterpoint [2004] [unfinished]
14 troublespot [2005] [unfinished]
15 alphasix [2006] [finished]
16 immortal defense [2007] [finished]
17 fedora spade series [2007-2008] [finished]
18 saturated dreamers [2007] [currently in progress]
19 new detail [2008] [unfinished]
20 valentine's contest game [2009] [finished]
21 rainshine [2009] [currently in progress]

success rate (only counting 'finished' and counting everything else as unfinished): 9/21 or 43%

commercial for derek yu's new iphone game

more indie games need commercials

what's sad is that as hilarious as this design for a game is, it's a better design than most i see

why does game design seem to attract the most terribly polluted people; or is it just that u.g. is right about the pollution being so pervasive

to point out a few things i dislike about that design (even though i don't have to since it's obvious from reading it):
- the writing speaks for itself ("breaking the line between logic bound decisions and emotionally incentivized choices")
- the domination of thought over sensation
- telling people that the game will be great ("heart-stopping")
- intending to change the player ("events that not only challenges the player’s own modern perception of life, but also the player’s own morality, fortitude, endurance, loyalty, diligence, and problem solving skills")
- generic 'newsflash: morality is subjective, fools!' message ("For many reasons, VHEL was meant to serve as a game with an indiscreet point of view about good or bad, saintly or demonic, morality or logic, etc.. People, in truth, aren’t branded as pure evil or never being the type to do bad things")

on the other hand, what i liked about the design:
- "using alien tactics and strategies unique to this world alone."
- that at least the designer is taking design somewhat seriously, putting some attention onto it
- "Trade and Value, as mentioned, is a dynamic system that changes as the player does from each, in-game day. For example: if the player is more inclined to use one item regularly, then the odds of finding or trading for said item increases in general value. This makes it tougher to spam a general tactic and encourages frequent item allocation for accessibility reasons, later down the line."

today one of the featured videos on youtube was this video. i think this is the first time an indie game has ever gotten a featured video spot on youtube. the guy who created the first version of this game used game maker, although he later remade it in flash with new levels. the idea is that the goal of each level is to figure out how to kill yourself (which gets increasingly harder and trickier as you go through the game).

btw, for those who don't read tigsource regularly, i've been reviewing classic indie games for it for 'classics week'

http://www.tigsource.com/

my reviews include tower of the sorcerer, the way, the exile trilogy / blades of exile, photopia, and zeldarius. derek yu and a few guest reviewers also reviewed a bunch of classic indie games.

so let's say that games can be grouped into two types, games that appeal to hunting instincts (male ones), and games that appeal to caretaking instincts (female ones) -- (and yes i know this is a terrible simplification blah blah but just grant it)

hunting often involves aiming, throwing/shooting, following things (often dangerous things), sometimes sneaking carefully so they can't detect you, working together, forming strategies, and similar stuff. fps games, platformers, shmups, strategy wargames, and so on are all games that appeal to the hunting instincts

games that appeal to caretaking instincts are rarer but still popular -- the sims, neopets, harvest moon, and so on -- games where you take care of something or cultivate something, nurturing it as it grows

if this is true, are games forever doomed to be either female games or male games? or can a game do both?

one game that i think does both is the rpg genre -- you both cultivate something (carefully building up a party and taking care of it, equipping it right, keeping it healed) and use it to hunt (kill monsters, go in dungeons in search of treasure or other goals). this may explain why rpgs seem to be the genre most popular with females but also not a genre that males overly avoid.

this comes with a stuffed animal. atlas is only making a limited number of copies of this game (perhaps to increase demand?). nice style.

looks good. it's the third ico game

this is my favorite atari 2600 game again, fathom. found a video of it on youtube. first gameplay video i've ever found of it. they finish the first level.

the box cover of guardian legend, japanese version

background: that's ed mcmillen (an indie game designer)

http://tigsource.com/articles/2009/01/13/caster#comments

so there was this indie game a guy spent 5 years making, and it's about feeling powerful and shooting stuff, and the dev was a mormon who wrote a blog post supporting prop 8 in california (which changed the state constitution to define marriage as between a male and female) -- reading the comments there was entertaining. both sides are pretty virulent. some were saying you shouldn't buy the game cause of his politics, etc.

i wonder what it'd do to the sales of my game if my controversial opinions were known? i mean, i believe (for instance):

- sensory reality exists, and it is all that exists; other things exist only by analogy, extension, invention, extrapolation, imagination, or illusion, all of which are less reliable than the senses

- governments and the police and jails are harmful, a scaled-up equivalent of the mafia (although organized crime is actually far less harmful), even though they are unavoidable and will be unavoidable for the foreseeable future (see voluntaryism for more on this)

- the fda and the drug industry are harmful and preventing the cures for many diseases by creating a small monopoly of people who are allowed to treat disease; and the cause of most disease are the types of food we eat, our lifestyle choices, or the toxins we are exposed to, and most disease is preventable (see life extension magazine editorials for more on this)

- public schools are harmful, and people would be more intelligent without them (see john taylor gatto for more on this)

- psychoactive prescription drugs are harmful and we'd be better off dealing with such problems without drugs most of the time (see anti-psychiatry for more on this)

- thought, concepts, categorization, and mental effort in general is harmful, and takes people away from their natural mode of being. most ideation (from religion to science to theories or ideas of any kind) are harmful to believe in and should be used only with restraint and care, like heavy construction equipment (see u.g. krishnamurti's writings for more on this)

- art in excess is harmful, since it creates a hyperreality; and yes it's kind of ironic that i believe this and am a game designer, but the key word is in excess, in minor doses as a rare treat art can be okay, much like candy; listening to music too much or watching movies too much (etc.) is not only unhealthy but dangerous and a tragedy since it moves attention from sensations of natural reality to sensations of artificial reality: there is no clear distinction between art and mind control, and plato may have been onto something when he wanted to exile all artists to the wastes (see hyperreality on wikipedia for more on this)

- that most beliefs about reality are based on thought or on art, neither of which often holds up against reality. there are an unending barrage of false beliefs people hold about reality due to those two factors, i'd say that almost everything anyone believes about reality (including me) is completely false just due to the ill-effects of the almost inherent irrationality of thought and of false sensation (i.e. art)

- telling the truth is the primary virtue, lying (even if it's just white lies) is worse than torture and killing, because if you torture a person to death that's just a crime against humanity, but to lie is a crime against reality itself (see the radical honesty books for more on this)

- determinism (in the sense of all actions being caused by other actions and proceeding the way they do due to natural law) is not just real, but obvious: to believe in free choice is no different to me than to believe in the afterlife or reincarnation, and it's only those who do not believe in choice who can truly act ethically, since the basis of morality is acceptance

- eliminating cancer, heart disease, and aging all would be possible to achieve in about ten years if we had a manhattan project for each and spent as much money on them as we spend on things like the iraq war. and that it would be a good thing to extend human lifespan as much as possible.

- overpopulation is a myth: humans are underpopulated; the world could easily support a hundred billion people if it had to; there is an illusion of overpopulation because certain resources (oil in particular) are limited, but if we switched to renewable resources like solar and wind etc. there'd be no limit to the number of people which could exist; and that filling the universe with as much life (as many people) as possible is not only a positive thing but should be humanity's primary goal, it is the goal of all life, and can't be fought and there's no reason to fight it so it should be embraced

okay, i think that's about it for now. hopefully i've included enough points so that anyone reading it will find at least one thing that make them think "he's crazy!" -- but that was the point, everyone has some belief that'll make other people not want to buy their games, so even though i think it's a stupid belief for that guy who want to use the force of law to define marriage as between a man and a woman, it's his crazy belief, everyone has a crazy belief here and there, and we shouldn't hold it against his game or even against him as a person.

this game won the tigsource cockpit contest, it is pretty funny, though i think the bear doesn't actually look much like a bear

http://www.kiva.org/community/viewTeam/?team_id=2450

$4000 loaned now by the indie game dev team

$475 of that is me

but that's not as much as some guy named maupin, who has loaned at least $1225

other people who loan a lot are clysm, cliffski, jeff of wolffire games, and a few others who i don't know who they are

cactus's presentation at the GDC (multiple parts, this is part 1)

Yay cactus!