Sassie2608

If you weren’t connected to the correct Twitter tubes this weekend, there’s a chance you may not have spent every waking moment playing GeoGuessr. So let’s put that right now.

Anton Wallén’s clever repurposing of Google’s Street View magics dumps you in the middle of somewhere, and you have to try to figure out where that is. You can move around in Street View as you might expect, but obviously you can’t zoom out to see the map you’re in. Once you’ve wandered about, hunted down clues to a location, and feel pretty sure of where you are, you drop a pin somewhere in the world on the map top right, and you score points based on how close you were. And then you keep doing that until you’ve forgotten to go to bed tomorrow night.

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[x]

There’s a weird tension to Gone Home. On the one hand it should be the most normal thing in the world: an American household. On the other, well, it’s unusual for games to try and tell stories about everyday lives. But that’s precisely what it does, and that’s just part of what makes it so beautifully weird.

I met Fullbright’s project lead, Steve Gaynor, and talked about that. This is how we got on.
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uinyan:

Source

3Dアートの描き方

Dedicated to Thomas, who’s celebrating his birthday today – happy birthday Thomas!

Also, happy anniversary to Michelle and Ed!

Here’s more fish.

awesomecharis:

I want this bed~!

トトロベッド

ナマケモノの子供

supermassiveasshole:

i was teaching my grandma to use computer so we can talk on skype and such but today she went kinda mad at me because “i didnt show her the knitting programme” and i was like what

and it comes out she accidentally opened ms excel and found out its a great way to create knitting patterns

my grandma is 82

Introduction
So I just finished Bioshock Infinite and I feel I need to write something about it. There is a lot that is really good about the game, but the way it all comes together seems like a wasted opportunity. This does not mean it is a bad game, far from it. I played the entire game in a couple of days, a rare thing for me, and had (mostly) fun doing so. What really stuck to me, though, is how it abuses its own premise. The capability for true greatness can be seen throughout, but is constantly hindered . This is also why it is so interesting to talk about it. By taking a closer look at Bioshock Infinite we can perhaps learn to harness its dormant potential.


Narrative
Before we get into it all, I need to clear up a concept. When I talk about the narrative in a game, I see it as the totality of the experience. It is not just cut-scenes and audio-logs that make up a narrative, it is also the shooting, jumping, and all other actions that I perform as a player.

While not that many talk about narrative in this way, I think it is really how most of us interpret our experiences. When we take part in interactive storytelling, what we really care about is our activities and the scenarios. While we of course are able to talk about the narrative in a separate, dual world-like, sense, it is not how we live through the experience. We do not absorb gameplay on a purely abstract basis, we connect it to the game's virtual world and incorporate it into our subjective narrative. The journey we take through the game becomes our narrative.

We want to play the story. I think this is true for anybody who has interest in a videogame storytelling. I see this as the gold standard for any work of interactive fiction, and it is through this lens that I will inspect Bioshock Infinite.


Combat Design
First up, I will go over the combat. I am not fond of combat in games, mostly because it is so overused, but when done well I have nothing against it. The grandfather of Bioshock Infinite, System Shock 2, is a great example of combat done right. Every enemy conveys an aspect of the story, the flow complements the overall mood and the tactics are connected with the progression of the protagonist. When fighting in System Shock 2 an engaging narrative is created; one that ties neatly in with the rest of the story elements.

On the other hand, Bioshock Infinite's combat has probably the worst narrative connection of recent memory. It is basically on the level of Smash TV; arena like battles where you need to kill all hostiles in order to progress. Enemies just run at you and attack, lacking any of the awareness-state nuances seen in previous Shock games. It all boils down to a hectic and often chaotic spectacle. While it can have some charm, it very rarely creates any sort of narrative experience. It is just a matter of clearing waves of enemies in order to move the story forward.

Worse still is that the elements of the battles have little to do with the story. Enemy fiction does not get any better than them being the henchmen of whichever bad guy happens to be your current antagonist. The same is true for your powers. The different magical spells acquired seem to be there simply because they were present in the previous game. They get mentioned on some billboards at the start, but serve no further narrative purpose. Like so many other things in the game they are there just to comply with the predefined combat mechanics.

The game also features looting and vending machines, elements that seem to belong in neither in combat or the story. Yet again these elements are there because they were in the previous game. Possibly also for fear that the player might get bored. To me the overall impression is just one of disconnect. It is a clear example of how much the little touches in earlier games mattered. Combat in System Shock 2 is probably a lot less complex than that in Bioshock Infinite, but because it ties neatly into its fiction, the emergent narrative is so much more engaging.

By having this detached fighting system, a very interesting question is exposed. Does Bioshock Infinite need combat at all? The problem is so obvious that many mainstream outlets have picked it up, something I have never seen before. But before this issue is dealt with, there are other things to discuss.


Basic Elements of Story
I will now go over the different ways in which Bioshock Infinite chooses to tell the story, and point out the many problems that it has with its story's basic constituents.

The first thing to note is how the combat design spread to and corrupt other parts of the game. When in combat mode most of the normal storytelling bits go away, but when leaving a combat arena many of the combat mechanics still remain. The most obvious of these is the looting. In System Shock 2 this made sense, but in later installations it has been simplified and lost much of its narrative connection. The problem peaks in Infinite, where it boils down to mindlessly searching and emptying any vessel in sight. Searching objects would be used to contextualize the backdrop, but it does the opposite here. Much of the scenery is turned into power-up containers. This cheapens exploration, giving it a mechanical and forced feel. All these problems get so much worse when the contents of the loot directly contradict the surrounding environment; for instance, starving children standing next to barrels of fruit. The insistence to place coins everywhere is a similarly damaging feature. Adrian Chmielarz has written a very revealing article of how these elements infest the very beginning of the game.

Vending machines that turn up in strange places and magic potions thrown about are all also hard to mold into any sort of narrative. But perhaps worse of all is how the combat ties into, and corrupts, a major character and theme of the game.

For most of the journey the player is followed by a young woman called Elizabeth. She comments on scenery and keeps the narrative going.The game shows how having a character that stays out of the way, and manages herself, makes her a lot easier to get attached to than one who is in constant need of attention. When not in combat she is a great companion who has her own personality, feels like a fluent part of the game and is of great narrative importance. It is really something to take notes from. But when in a fire fight, which is the bigger part of the game, she is reduced into a power-up dispenser and portable lock-pick. I guess the intention was that this would help the player bond, but because it happens so often it just dispels the illusion. As the game passes, she turns more and more into a gameplay device, and less of a living individual.

Another prominent feature of the games fiction is the existence of parallel worlds. Elizabeth is able to peek into these, opening tears that can let objects travel between dimensions. This is an intriguing concept and something that should be possible to explore in an interactive story. As it turns out, except for a few rare occasions,  the only real interaction with these tears is during combat. They are simply used to conjure up generic objects, all used for their mechanical gain only. Here we have a feature that could have had an almost limitless array of exploration opportunities, and it is used solely as a gimmicky combat tool.

While Bioshock Infinite paints a breathtakingly beautiful world, it is all on a "look, don't touch"-basis. The code governing the game's plentiful NPCs are on par with an old school JRPG. They are all static automatons waiting for the player to show up so they can deliver their one canned response. This is especially jarring in a detailed first person game where objects can examined so closely. I think that even the slightest AI improvement, such as moving out of the way, would help tremendously. The rest of the scenery follows the same formula. Apart from a few, and often rather boring assets, the world is static and void of interaction. It is evident that most code complexity has gone into the combat mechanics, instead of features that give rise to narrative.

Building from its pedigree, the game is of course loaded with audio-logs. The System Shock games handled this quite nicely and tried to fit them into the fiction. It has since been abused in many games, and I have to say Bioshock Infinite is one of the worst examples I have seen. The reasons for recording are dubious and, worse of all, the placement is awful. For instance, you can find personal recordings of the city's ruler lying on the table of  a crowded cafe.

After the game literally smashes a book about Quantum Mechanics in your face, you expect the technology to at least be somewhat justified. This would also make sense as the game has plot aspects that encourage thinking about similar topics. Older games in the series have at least tried to do this; making sure that creatures and contraptions form a coherent whole. But in Infinite, almost nothing is explained. I am not saying there needs to be an in-depth explanation, but it must at least seem plausible in the fiction. When the game is so dismissive with most of its story elements, it is hard to give anything a deeper consideration. This directly counteracts the intended deep themes of the game.

Also worth noting is how simplistically written the characters are. The game paints a backstory and world that could allow for really elaborate discussions. Instead we just end up with villains without much depth. The game simply points out that both sides can be evil, and that is it. It is a shame, as these kind of worlds are often great ways to explore many social issues; China Mieville's books being excellent examples.

What we arrive with is a game that does not seem to take its fiction seriously. It builds up this extraordinary backdrop but never makes any attempt to pull it all together or make any deeper explorations. It seems content with being shallow. It really is a shame.


Narrative Focus
I will now drop the specific details and talk about the narrative experience as whole. Here I think the flaws show up even more clearly. I can forgive that specific elements make little sense, but I find it much worse when a game lacks a clear ambition and focus in the way Bioshock Infinite does.

It seems obvious that the narrative has not been intended as the main source of engagement  During most of the game understanding and enjoying the story is not of importance. There is always an arrow telling you where to go, combat encounters are frequent and there is ever present loot to be found. The game never relies on you being caught up in the narrative, but makes sure that you are constantly exposed to the core gameplay loop. Despite this, the story is a very big part of the game, the world reeking with narrative elements. It seems like the game is not sure what it wants. It tries to do two very different things, and end up doing neither particularly effective.

It feels like an attempt to tell a serious story through a theme park ride. The game tugs you along these fantastic, but mostly lifeless settings; often stopping to engage you in some repetitive activity. It is hoping that the sheer spectacle of the ride and constant feeding of candy will make you forget all of its short comings. Because the game is such a straightforward ride, there is never any proper thematic exploration. There is a lot of things to discuss after a play session, but nothing of the sort happens during actual play. An engaging narrative never emerges, and the good things left are punctured by unrelated activities.

Because of the game's insecure nature I am forced to constantly doublethink. I need to neglect certain elements, forget what I have heard/seen and toggle my view of the world. When in smaller bursts, one can often see past this. For instance, it is possible to feel part of a play even though you know it is just actors on a stage. But when the conflicting elements are so interconnected and frequent it just gets harder and harder to ignore. In the end, the only way for me to go on was not lose myself in the fiction at all. I had to take it all in on a very superficial level. The doublethinking just became too much. It was still possible to enjoy the game, but all along it was evident that a lot was missing.

To me, Bioshock Infinite stands as a clear example of how a lack of focus lessens the emotional impact. Had the game just made sure to set a firm focus on telling a story, it could have been so much more. I am having the same kind of feelings I had after playing Dead Space 2; the feeling of unlocked potential, that the developers just did not dare to take the game were it should have gone. I hope that people playing Bioshock Infinite will see this and take note.

No combat?
Back to the question I asked earlier: is combat needed? This is something that has been uttered by many: that the violence is detracting from the story. This is response is awesome, and I cannot recall the issue being raised in this way before. But at the same time, I have not seen any good examples of what to have instead. This is what I will talk about here.

First of all, note that the combat does not need to be removed. It is possible to have a narrative focused game with a lot of fighting. System Shock 2, or whichever other immersive sim, can be checked to see how it can be done much better. That is not really that interesting though; it seems much more rewarding to see if we could do away with the core combat gameplay all together.

Before going into that, it is worth asking the question if it is worth it. Would the experience improve? If the goal is to have a game that is about relationship, revolution and parallel universes then I would say yes. Some quick reasons:

• Having any sort of cognitive demanding activity has been shown to decrease our capability to feel emotions.  Not having combat can heighten the sense of empathy and connection to the characters.
• Avoiding combat removes the tunnel vision that comes with it. Competitive fighting makes players focus on a very specific activity and make it easy to ignore other aspects of the game. The world's non-combat features come to a stronger focus if combat is dropped.
• As I have argued at length, the common combat design drastically decreases the set of actions we can let the player do in a game. If fighting is removed more actions can be added for the themes we want to explore, actions that will make the player think more deeply.

If we just use the current Bioshock Infinite as foundation, removing the fighting is fairly easy. The most trivial solution would simply involve taking away all of the combat sections. I have not checked this down to all the details, but I am pretty sure that Bioshock Infinite has such separate combat that you could just rip 99.9% of it out and the narrative would remain essentially intact. A slightly more interactive Dear Esther would emerge. Given almost all problems above come from some extension of the combat, I am fairly certain this simple change would make a much better game as well. (I wonder if it would be possible to mod and try and make it happen.)

This is of course not something a major studio would consider doing. The most obvious reason would be that it is hard to market and sell. This might be true, but I think there is another reason that lurk beneath. Many designers are simply dead afraid of the player getting bored. When a game is missing a "fun" core loop it gets extremely hard to test. Some experiences are only possible to be engaging to a fresh mind and cannot be easily evaluated by its creator. It is not possible to get simple objective feedback data. One has to rely on gut intuition and, dare I say it, create art.

But if one embraces the idea of doing away with the "fun" core, Bioshock can be taken beyond being a Dear Esther clone and go much further. The game already contains much of this in rudimentary form, and it just a matter of making these seeds blossom. Here are some quick suggestions:

• Adding more involvement from Elizabeth. Let the player choose what space to be explored and then let Elizabeth act out there. She can be a sort of extended interactive force. Early trailers had Elizabeth playing with masks for instance.
• Why not take more advantage of the tears. Let the exploration of tears be a main pull throughout the game. Since we are visiting worlds that are slightly similar to the one we are in, there are all sort of thought provoking things to add here. Again early trailers already showed some of this. 
• While we are at it, why not use tears instead of the audio logs. It would make a lot more sense.
• Add more direct interaction with the people and explore the themes through that. For instance, the player could find food but not enough to go around, if you give it to a kid his friends might jump on him and fight over it, etc.

In Closing
In one way it felt weird and annoying to play Bioshock Infinite. There was a constant bombardment of things that I found obviously wrong. Despite this the game was given perfect scores all over, the many imperfections swept under the rug. But then I saw the articles that followed, discussing aspects of a game I have never seen in the mainstream before. This makes me hopeful that we are onto something here. I am unsure if any larger studios will change, but I think the game has opened eyes of many. This might also be where all those high grades are coming from; the sight of this enormous potential; the thought of what videogames could be. That is at least my sincere hope.

Chacun réfléchit à l'avenir de la librairie et à la diversification de ses modèles économiques. Par exemple, l'un des acteurs pour l'heure exclusivement centré sur le marché professionnel, Dilicom, envisage « la faisabilité d'un nouveau projet appelé DILIdom, service de livraison directe à domicile ».

 

 

 

 

Rappelant que l'an passé, ce sont 705.324 titres qui ont été vendus en France, Dilicom considère qu'il est souhaitable pour les libraires en ville, disposant d'une surface d'exposition limitée, qu'elles puissent exposer toute l'offre éditoriale, tout en disposant d'un système de livraison performant. DILIdom serait cet outil. 

 

Grâce à DILIdom, vous pourrez proposer une livraison directe aux clients qui souhaitent recevoir les livres à leur domicile ou à toute autre adresse de leur choix en les faisant acheminer directement par les distributeurs. Vous pourrez réaliser ainsi des économies en supprimant les frais de réception, de manutention, de stockage et proposer un service à forte valeur ajoutée à vos clients.

 

Ce projet, encore à l'étude, permettrait aux libraires, depuis un ou plusieurs postes (site de Dilicom, du distributeur, logiciel librairie) servirait entre autres à optimiser les livraisons réalisées depuis des commandes d'ouvrages sur le site du libraire. Un outil qui s'inscrirait alors dans la fidélisation des clients, en offrant une valeur ajoutée plus intéressante. 

 

Il est intéressant de noter les approches que Dilicom envisage avec cet outil, en consultant la liste des conditions d'utilisation qui est envisagée

• Seule l'adresse postale de mon client est communiquée au distributeur
• Disposer d'un système de suivi des expéditions pour savoir quand le client a été livré
• Le délai de livraison ne dépasse pas 48 heures en France métropolitaine
• Le client est prévenu automatiquement via mon système de gestion dès que la commande est prête à être expédiée
• Le client est prévenu automatiquement par DILICOM, par email ou par SMS, dès que la commande est prête à être expédiée. (dans le cas où le logiciel de gestion n'assure pas ce service)
• Pouvoir choisir entre expédition simple et expédition suivie (signature du client à réception)
• Le client peut retourner le colis directement au distributeur (grâce à une enveloppe T par exemple)
• Le niveau de qualité est garanti par un contrat de services

 

Approche d'un nouveau service et d'une tentative pour faire entrer la librairie un peu plus dans la vente par internet ?

 

Developer Stuart Madafiglio, author of the excellent Stranger than Fiction, has released a new game and it's a corker. No-One Has to Die is a puzzle game with moral choices, branching paths, and a fascinating mystery to unravel.

You find yourself in the wrong place at the wrong time when you are delivering a package and end up dealing with the aftermath of murder and sabotage. The building is on fire, four people are still alive but trapped, and you are in a position to guide (some) of them to safety. From a control room, you use mouse clicks to shut fire doors and issue orders to the survivors. Between conversations on the company's instant messaging system, you conduct computer simulations and choose who gets to live and who has to die.

The turn-based puzzles consist of choosing a fire door to shut, then moving survivors and having them operate water valves. Fire spreads every turn, and so does water once it's turned on. Closed doors and water will contain the conflagration, and you must halt its spread for two turns in a row in order to pass the level. Both fire and water will kill your survivors, and remember that not everyone can make it out alive.

To truly complete this game, almost everyone has to die. After your first playthrough, you'll find that you only know part of the story. Using a handy flowchart, you can go back and replay each puzzle, making a different choice as to who survives. You have to explore each possibility to reveal the entire narrative, and I highly recommend that you do so.

No-One Has to Die is Stuart Madafiglio's entry in the clay.io Got Game? HTML5 Game Development Competition.

Voici, pour vous aider à préparer un futur voyage, plein de petites idées, astuces et bonnes adresses en vrac. C’est tout mélangé et j’oublie certainement plein de choses, mais vous avez déjà de quoi faire. (La prochaine fois, on parlera des aurores boréales, LE sujet qui me passionne)(je frémis de plaisir à la seule idée [...]

Constituer une bibliothèque assez fournie pour satisfaire tous les lecteurs invétérés de la famille peut parfois coûter une petite fortune, mais Internet offre diverses opportunités permettant de se procurer des titres gratuitement. Quelque soit le support de lecture, que ce soit par le biais des plateformes d'Amazon ou Barnes & Noble comme via les services de prêt, le tout est de savoir où chercher.

 

 

 

 

Sur Amazon, il existe un large éventail de titres gratuits, qu'il s'agisse d'oeuvres du domaine public ou autres. Ainsi retrouve-t-on par exemple The Adventures of Tom Sawyer.

 

Mais ces livres ne sont pas toujours aisés à trouver sans passer par un outil de recherche, par exemple Freebook Sifter, ou encore FreeReadFeed. Tandis que l'on retrouve près de 600 gratuits pour les enfants sur le premier, le second offre plus de 7000 livres pour tous les âges.

 

Sur le site de Barnes&Noble, le moyen le plus simple de trouver des lectures gratuites pour Nook consiste à faire sa recherche dans la section des ouvrages Jeunesse, en cochant simplement la mention « gratuit ». On peut notamment acquérir de cette manière le livre The Elephant's Child.

 

En outre, devrait également finir par se développer tôt où tard l'offre de prêt, malgré les réticences des éditeurs et le retard français en matière de pénétration du numérique en bibliothèques.

 

 

 

«Anthropocene» est le dernier projet de l’artiste irlandais David Thomas Smith. Composées à partir de nombreuses images satellites, ces photographies à l’apparence kaléidoscopique reflètent l’immensité et la multiplicité des structures architecturales, amplifié par la symétrie en miroir. A découvrir.

David Thomas Smith website

Some anti-slut shaming by Kat Dennings to start your day

TF1 a annoncé l'arrêt définitif de la série Julie Lescaut, après 21 ans de bons et loyaux services. Bien entendu, on se doute que les déclarations douteuses de Véronique Genest ces derniers temps ont poussé prématurément la série vers la porte de sortie (même si elle s'en défend). Mais la fin de Julie Lescaut marque surtout le passage symbolique dans une nouvelle ère audiovisuelle: aujourd'hui,

gastrogirl:

wine and cheese grilled cheese.

« L’âme est très exactement cela en nous qui se rétracte lorsqu’on entend parler de séries algébriques. » Robert Musil dans L’homme sans qualités

I might no agree with what she said 100% but this shit is on point.

Végétarienne tendance végane (qui espère un jour devenir végétalienne), boycotteuse d’huile de palme, de gluten, de produits testés sur les animaux, de médocs, de (presque tous) les produits laitiers ; je fais attention, sans cesse, à tout ce que je consomme, ce que je jette, ce que j’achète, ce que j’utilise. Lire les étiquettes est devenu un réflexe. Si je ne sais pas ce qu’il y a dans le produit qui m’est proposé, je n’achète pas. Je tente au maximum de faire de la récup, d’innover avec mes déchets et les déchets des autres. Toujours. Quand je ne le fais pas, j’ai une alarme intérieure qui hurle.

Vous l’aurez compris, faire attention à ma manière de vivre, aujourd’hui, c’est la norme pour moi. Je sais ce que j’achète et pourquoi. Les achats que je fais sont réfléchis, et la manière de me débarrasser de ce qui m’encombre l’est aussi. Je fais attention à mes moyens de transport que j’analyse régulièrement. Bref, je suis ce qui énerve (bizarrement) beaucoup de gens : une consommatrice et une citoyenne responsable.
Soit on m’admire, soit on me méprise : il y a rarement de demi mesure. J’ai tout entendu : ce que tu fais sert à rien, c’est vain, c’est stupide, pourquoi se priver quand personne ne le fait ? Tu pourras pas tout faire, alors autant se laisser aller, tu ne fais pas les choses comme il faut, fais plutôt comme ça etc. C’est vrai : être un consommateur parfait est impossible. Quiconque essaye de l’être sera forcément malheureux parce qu’insatisfait.

On fait tous des erreurs, des bévues et on a tous des plaisirs « coupables ». Le mien par exemple, c’est de me gaver de fromage. Même pas bio. J’adore ça. Je sais que c’est pas écolo, que c’est mauvais pour ma santé et que c’est irrespectueux des animaux qui l’ont produit, mais j’arrive pas à m’en empêcher. C’est le seul plaisir coupable que j’ai et un jour, j’aimerais pouvoir l’arrêter pour ne plus consommer de produits laitiers du tout. Pour le moment, j’assimile mes nouvelles habitudes de végétarienne qui consomme pas d’huile de palme et limite sa consommation de lait (et ses dérivés) au maximum. Et c’est pas toujours facile. Mais je suis convaincue que ça en vaut la peine. Peu importe que ça ne serve à rien, à vrai dire je m’en fiche. Je suis en accord avec mes convictions et c’est pour moi bien plus important que de charmer mes papilles gustatives avec de la barbaque ou des gâteaux industriels. C’est pas facile tous les jours, je l’admets : des fois je rêve d’un simple sandwich jambon beurre. Et puis je me rappelle d’où vient ce jambon et ce beurre, et finalement, l’envie passe.

Finalement, cuisiner et manger sans viande, ne pas se gaver de gâteaux de super marché, c’est bien plus facile que ce que je pensais. Pourtant, des fois… Et ben je craque. J’ai pas encore craqué pour la viande, mais j’imagine qu’un jour ça pourrait arriver. Par contre, des fois, je pète un plomb et je vais m’acheter mon lot de mal-bouffe. C’est arrivé deux fois depuis que j’ai commencé mon régime particulier. Est-ce que je culpabilise quand je craque ? Non. Pour moi, le fait de craquer est normal : je suis humaine. Sans cesse sollicitée par des trucs que j’ai aimé acheter avant, le souvenir du plaisir que ça procure est souvent là, quand je passe devant, quand j’en entends parler ou quand je vois d’autres personnes en consommer. Mes convictions sont présentes, fortes, mais elles ne sont pas inébranlables et je l’accepte. J’ai conscience que mes convictions vont à contre courant. Je vis dans un monde dans lequel la tentation est le maître mot. Les pubs, la télé, la radio, les magasins… Tout essaye de me faire consommer, acheter, dépenser au delà même de l’argent que j’ai. Emprunte, consomme, achète, ne t’arrête jamais ! Désire ce qui coûte de l’argent. Le système est ainsi fait. Et moi, je suis en plein dedans.

Au jour le jour je dois donc lutter contre cette pression permanente. J’y suis habituée. Et quand des fois je craque, je le fais en connaissance de cause : je sais ce que j’ingère, ce que je fais à mon corps, je sais ce que je fais à l’environnement etc. Mais je sais aussi que le fait de craquer une fois de temps en temps n’invalide pas tous les efforts que j’ai pu faire avant et tous ceux que je ferai après. L’important c’est que je lutte pour ce qui me paraît juste, et que je le fasse la majeur partie de mon temps, que ma conscience soit éveillée et que je ne sois pas une sorte de zombi consommateur qui ne s’interroge pas.

Je pense qu’il est bien plus important et louable d’agir ainsi que de se laisser aller à la politique du tout ou rien ; celle où le fatalisme justifiera le je-m’en-foutisme. Je suis bien plus admirative devant une personne qui essaye de faire attention à ce qu’elle consomme que devant une personne qui décide de s’en foutre parce qu’elle considère qu’elle ne pourra jamais faire assez bien. Nous ne sommes pas parfaits, mais nous pouvons essayer de faire mieux. Essayer tout au long de sa vie d’être responsable, toujours un peu plus. Et changer ses habitudes petit à petit, même si ça doit prendre une vie entière.

Depuis 2009, le studio néerlandais Crimson Owl développe son premier jeu, Caromble ! , un casse-brique au style visuel très industriel. Encore au stade de pré-alpha, le jeu se voit tout de même offrir un trailer alléchant et ça n’a pas l’air de rester sagement dans le classique.

Déjà séduisant graphiquement, Caromble ! respecte les fondamentaux du genre -avec des power-ups comme l’agrandissement de la palette, des vies supplémentaires ou l’ajout de billes- mais s’enrichit aussi d’une 3D dont l’objectif n’est pas uniquement de flatter l’oeil du joueur. Ici, c’est également un élément du gameplay ! Votre bille pourra sauter des tremplins, faire tomber des objets, etc. Avec ça, le (trop) classique casse-brique pourra tirer avantage de la puissance de nos machines. C’est donc en assumant la tradition tout en innovant que le studio veut se faire une place au soleil.

Pour le moment, Crimson Owl annonce aussi vingt-quatre niveaux à la difficulté grandissante et variant du puzzle à la frénésie de l’arcade (la communauté pourra en créer aussi), le contrôle simultané de plusieurs palettes et l’agrandissement de la surface de jeu au fil des niveaux. Encore de quoi se réjouir !

Les niveaux cassent avec les rectangles monotones auxquels nous étions habitués.

Caromble ! est en développement pour PC, Mac et Linux, ce qui est encore plus notable quand on sait que tout le développement du jeu est fait sur le temps libre de l’équipe et sans aucun financement extérieur ! Il devrait sortir en 2013.

Vous pouvez déjà soutenir le projet en votant sur la page Greenlight. C’est un projet à surveiller de près !

The last time I mentioned Jiri Barta’s extraordinary animation of the Pied Piper story there were only short clips on YouTube. That was several years ago, in which time the 53-minute film has been posted in its entirety. Barta pulls the tale away from its sanitised derivations back to its darker origins in the folk mythology of Central Europe; he also gives the end of the story a twist which I won’t reveal here. The characters are almost all angular wooden figures, while their rat-infested town is constructed from the disjunctive perspectives of German Expressionism. The whole effect is so successful it makes you wish even more that Barta might have completed his feature-length version of the Golem story.

Previously on { feuilleton }
• Gloves
• More Golems
• Barta’s Golem

In many video games, you must kill stuff all the time, and quite frequently. Killing becomes the environment. It is so pervasive that killing becomes the context for something else -- clicking on a soldier's face rapidly enough to demonstrate mouse dexterity, or chaining together different button presses to make combos, or optimizing your stats to make a big number even bigger, or carefully managing various bars before they deplete. The killing is rarely about the killing. (Which makes you wonder why we need to wrap it in the narrative of killing.)

During an Elder Scrolls game, you will likely kill thousands of things. However, all of those killings are sanctioned by the NPCs in the game: you are killing monsters outside of cities and villages. Their deaths don't matter -- more will respawn to take their place, or maybe the game will delete them to free-up memory when you wander away far enough. They exist only to be killed. They are domesticated and farmed.

The Dark Brotherhood questlines in Elder Scrolls games, then, are one of the few instances in games that really focus on killing as killing. Specifically, it frames murder as a deeply anti-societal, anti-social, transgressive act, and explores the philosophy required to justify it. At it's best, it's also deeply systemic.


When I first started Oblivion, I left the tutorial dungeon and entered a random dungeon somewhere. After some rat-stomping, I saw a strange silhouette in the distance -- a heavily armored orc. I aimed my bow at its foggy 10 pixel-large head-like thing, and shot it in its probable face. It died. That's when Oblivion told me: "Your killing has been observed by forces unknown..."

WHAT. But why this killing as opposed to the countless other killings I've already committed? Huh?

I check the corpse (an orc, so probably a monster, right?) and the tooltip says "Adventurer." I just murdered a friendly NPC under a racist pretense. It wasn't fair! The game never told me that it'd randomly spawn friendly NPCs in dungeons! Then I thought, okay, no one saw me do it, I'll hide the corpse and take its boots... but "forces unknown" saw me! Ah!

A few minutes later, the game told me I had gained a level, but I needed to sleep to spend the skill points. So I went to sleep. Maybe I'll sleep off the guilt...

But then the game woke me up. It woke me up to a creepy crazy man's face, extremely zoomed-in, telling me he knew what I did.


(The camera transitions in Oblivion are sudden and extreme; it's a horrible piece of interface tuning that, unfortunately, works beautifully for moments like this. I fell out of my chair in utter shock / horror. It's like their horrible vaguely human-like face-appendages are bursting out of the monitor to devour your eyelids.)

The implication is that this creepy cloaked talking doll could've murdered you in your sleep, much like how you possibly murdered someone else in their sleep, but he chose not to. Of course in reality, the world is totally stacked in your favor, and NPCs are not allowed to attack you whether you're sleeping or "fast forwarding" in the same place for 10 hours at a time, but the menace and creepiness comes across anyway.

From then on in Oblivion, you are recruited as an assassin for the Dark Brotherhood. And the same thing happens in Skyrim, more or less. (It doesn't really happen in Morrowind because murder is sanctioned as a legal business in that society, so it doesn't have to operate in the dark.)


The rabbit hole hooks into various systems, both mechanically and psychologically:

• Did you kill ANY friendly NPC? (hook into combat / social system)
• Where did you murder? Did you have to run? (hook into social NPC / crime system)
• Was the killing an accident? Someone innocent? Even better. (hook into player psychology / intent)
• When did you go to sleep? (hook into level-up / rest system)
• Where did you go to sleep? (in your own house? in some ancient ruins? in an inn? in a forest?)

A lot of those concerns quickly fall away once you start doing murder quests, and murder embodies a more predictable dynamic between these different systems. Generally, the worst thing that can happen during murder quests is another humanoid NPC seeing you do it, which adds to your bounty unless you murder the witness too. (Things escalate quickly.) So murder, then, has these systemic qualities:

• A murder is "hard" if there are many possible witnesses, or if the target could run and get help. >> Most murder quests take place in cities.
• The witness procedure is recursive: killing witnesses may create more witnesses, whom you must murder as well.
• Killing NPCs in a city can destabilize NPC scripting / quest chains. >> You might be breaking the game / making your game worse / cutting yourself off from content. (Want to buy some potions? Too bad, you murdered the potion merchant.)

That last consequence is the reason why the procedurally-generated murder quests, in Skyrim, are so pointless -- there, the game generates an NPC target for you to murder. There's no danger or risk in that destabilizing the game. There's no serious transgression. This NPC exists only to be murdered! Again, it becomes an act of farming instead of murdering.

But the authored murder quests focus on exploiting your pre-existing relationships to cities and NPCs. Murder transforms killing from a pervasive context to a singular act with dramatic preparation and build-up.

Savvy players immediately intuit a few heuristics for limiting possible witnesses:

• Wait until nightfall, when most people are at home or asleep.
• Observe guards' patrol patterns. Some cities have a "changing of the guard" that leaves the streets defenseless for a brief time.
• Break into a person's home, hide, and wait for them. Kill them in their sleep.
• Enrage / frenzy them into attacking some guards or monsters, and getting themselves killed.
• (Oblivion) Leave poisoned apples in their kitchen, remove all other food items.

To me, this is what makes murder fascinating in Elder Scrolls games: it is rarely framed as ethical, it often requires manipulating people / observing the pre-existing system, and it hooks into so many systems. Comparatively, murder in Assassin's Creed means flicking a knife and sitting on a bench, and most of the murder in Dishonored takes place in a deserted city where almost all the NPCs "deserve to die," and Hitman missions are in small separate isolated sandboxes.

But in Elder Scrolls games, murder is about killing people in inconvenient situations -- people who cannot respawn and who probably don't deserve to die -- and their deaths might have far-reaching consequences that threaten to destabilize the entire game.

Like, if you depopulate a town, the system begins ignoring itself. Merchants cannot buy or sell anything because they're dead. Questlines cannot progress because the quest givers are dead. The game, essentially, loses its interactions -- when you kill these NPCs, the game dies too.

And really, that's the only real threat that a game can use against a player: given your choices, the game will let you murder the game, or maybe the game is killing itself?

C’est plutôt joli, vous ne trouvez pas ?

Lionel Gallat, alias Seith, ancien superviseur d’animation chez Dreamworks, puis directeur d’animation pour Universal Studios (« Moi, moche et méchant » et « Le Lorax« ) s’est lancé seul dans la création d’un jeu qui retiendra sans doute votre attention.

Ghost of a Tale, puisqu’il est ainsi nommé, vous plongera dans la peau d’une petite souris perdue sur l’île de Periclave. Cette île, ancien avant-poste de l’Armée des Rats, est aujourd’hui abandonnée. On dit qu’elle est hantée, mais les légendes parlent aussi de trésors inestimables, perchés au sommet de la grande Tour de Periclave. Seul un fou ou un inconscient se lancerait dans cette quête…

Ta da da daaaaaa !

Nous y voilà, fou (ou inconscient) comme vous êtes, vous vous lancerez dans cette quête. Inspiré des grands noms du genre comme Zelda, Ico, la série Gothic ou encore Dark Souls, Ghost of a Tale se veut tout de même moins profond que ses références en terme de gameplay.

Seith étant seul sur ce projet, il mise beaucoup sur ce qu’il sait faire de mieux : le style graphique et l’animation. Et de ce côté là, on peut imaginer qu’on va être allègrement servis. Et les premières images nous le montrent très bien.

La baston ne sera pas au cœur du jeu, mais bien présente.

Un première vidéo de l’alpha est venue introduire la campagne Indiegogo. Si vous êtes tombé sous le charme de cette jolie petite souris, allez donc soutenir son talentueux créateur. Le jeu sera a vous pour 20€, et la sortie est espérée pour 2014.

En attendant, vous pouvez suivre le développement du jeu sur le blog de Seith.

Curved Cat Games (Tales of Pocoro) and Pakarico Games have teamed up and released the above teaser trailer for action RPG Survival Horror Story: Catequesis, scheduled to release on PC, Mac, Linux, and Android this fall. The game is about a religious ritual gone bad, all in the attempt to rid the player's girlfriend's father of an incurable disease.

The developers blog that "the story of Catequesis has been inspired by 8-bit and 16-bit mid-nineties video games, taking elements from Japanese terror, Catholic religion and so dissimilar authors' styles as Lovecraft, David Lynch or David Cronenberg." Additionally, "the game shows the ambience of the first Resident Evil and Silent Hill and provides the playability of the early Legend of Zelda, which means a simple and agile way of playing, suitable for any kind of platform (keyboard, touch screen, control pad)."

For more info, check out the game's blog.