firehose

"Don't read the comments, man."

The first time I heard that was from Rasmus Wedin at Boston Airport when we were preparing ourselves to get back to Valencia, Spain, after PAX East. We were reading what the press said about Gods Will Be Watching and found some unpleasant commenters on an article. It's one of the wisest pieces of advice I ever got in gamedev, and heard it again and again after that day. There's even a Twitter account that reminds you periodically to not read the comments.

But I did.

I've been reading every single comment about our work, and I can confirm that doing so is a guaranteed source of madness. I will never forget the day we released Gods Will Be Watching on Steam. Keeping track of Twitter, web reviews, Steam forums...

After several hours of reading wild and astonishingly creative insults, I just got out of my home and spent until 2 a.m. sitting under a streetlight watching people and traffic, just trying to figure out how to overcome that. The next day was even better: When I woke up I had 140 mails in my inbox. Half of them were bugs; the other half were insults and complaints. Figure out what a nice week it was, dealing with bugs in the game while getting your morale smashed and shattered by awesome comments like, "Congratulations, you just did a game that is the opposite of fun," or even better: "Was this game made by child with brain paralysis?"

I can tell you this is going to leave scars on me for the rest of my life.

But then the good vibes came. What we couldn't figure out at that time is that the people who were enjoying the game were simply playing it, not raging on the internet. So, after a week, a lot of positive feedback came telling us what an amazing experience Gods Will Be Watching was, how it made them feel, it was like something they never played before, and you could start to see a lot of positive reviews on Steam that held between 10 to 40 hours of play, instead of the 0.1 to 0.5 hours of play the negative reviews had. It was healing. But still, I wanted to understand why a lot of people didn't enjoy the game and why they were insulting us.

A lovely comment on Steam

We've all been there

I've sinned. And you probably did too. I can't remember how many times I've said "this music is pure shit" or "what a horrible movie, a complete waste of my time." But we would never say that directly to its authors. That's because we feel distant to those worlds, we don't see movies as someone's creation but just as something that simply exists. Shit, I don't even feel like Michael Bay exists.

I'm sure there's a lot of people who feel the same way about games. Before I started making games I could happily insult something I disliked, but now I'm really careful with my opinions because now I know there are human beings after every single creation.

This is going to leave scars on me for the rest of my life

What's the point of all this? Well, it never gets easier being insulted or simply reading harsh feedback, but I found it really useful to do so. If you learn how to read through the rage, and ask yourself, "Why did this person say that?" — even if a part of the reason is being an asshole — there's an opportunity to grow as a game developer. It's a useful exercise even with positive feedback: "Why did she like this?" "Why did he praise this exact thing?" And the most important question: Is there anything I can do to appeal to the players who are insulting me, and also make my games even more enjoyable to the ones who liked them?

Don't get angry at them. It's not worth your time and your health. For example, it made me really angry every time I read Gods Will Be Watching was not fair. That's simply not true. But only I know that for sure, because I designed it, and I know that even with the random factors there's always a winning strategy. There's even this great fan who did a couple of speedruns of the game in just 90 minutes just to prove this point. Thanks, mardi!

But the lesson here is that the truth is not relevant, at least not in video games; it's all about perception. If a lot of players feel that the game is unfair, it's because you (in this case, me), as a game designer, need to improve your communication skills. The player is never wrong, so the right answers are always within you — how can you avoid them "perceiving it wrong" next time?

The Mercy Update

A week after the release of the game, I couldn't just let things as they were. So I immediately started working on new game modes for Gods Will Be Watching that could meet the expectations of the players who felt mistreated by the game: Puzzle mode, which removed all the elements of chance from the game, and Narrative Mode, which basically was a extra-easy version for the ones who just wanted to experience the story.

The response was great over social networks and it got a lot of press coverage; some users even started to change their Steam reviews into positive ones! There's some insight on the Mercy Update in this great DICE talk from our friends at Devolver Digital.

Should I read the comments, then?

No.

Jordi de Paco is a designer at indie developer Deconstructeam, currently working on Gods Will Be Watching.

This weekend, I had the opportunity to check out the games made at GXDev, a game jam event hosted by the same folks who run GX, or GaymerX. [Disclosure: Both Matt Conn and Toni Rocca, the CEO and president of the organization, respectively, are personal acquaintances of mine, and I spoke briefly at the event.] It was a queer-friendly event where participants of all skill levels were invited to make a game in 24 hours. Some folks formed teams while others went it alone, and everyone was invited to present their game for a brief award ceremony after the jam proper.

One game that caught my eye during the presentation was Cosmic Endeerment, an "endless gardener" where the only limited resource is the player's own attention. Players control cute deer sprites and make new garden homes for their creatures, using their eyes (Tobii's eye-tracking technology was used in development). It's a game about polyamory, the practice of having romantic relationships with more than two partners — a topic rarely, if ever, seen in traditional games.

"The idea actually came to me Thursday morning prior to the jam's kickoff," Jesse Lee, the project's designer, told Polygon by email. "I was mulling over the lack of poly representation in games, specifically in visual novels and RPGs like Dragon Age in which pairing off with an NPC is a huge component to player investment. Rarely do you encounter an alternative relationship in popular media, but I could think of zero times I'd engaged with one in a video game," she said.

"The concepts behind polyamory can be a little difficult to digest, so I wanted to abstract them in a way that would be accessible to everyone. In polyamory, love is treated as an infinite resource, something that isn't lessened when it's given, but instead grows."

Cosmic Endeerment is a really sweet, cute game. All you need to do to play it is look at your deer as they frolic and make new friends. You pay attention to play well. But that simple concept is deeply symbolic here.

"In most resource management games like FarmVille, you can tap, harvest, tap, plant and forget. It's all set to a timer, so it's easy to disengage," said Lee. "With Cosmic Endeerment, your attention is the resource, so you can't really afford to 'set it and forget it.' You have to keep actively engaged with all your gardens to ensure they stay healthy and prosperous."

Lee hopes that Cosmic Endeerment expresses a healthy depiction of poly relationships, and shows them for what they are — just another way for people to express love and connect to one another. "They require a lot of attention, but are also very rewarding." she said. "Sometimes people get into polyamory to try and fix a broken relationship, but that rarely works. Attending to the needs of one lover is challenging on its own."

"Add to that a second," she continued. "Maybe a third, or maybe one of your lovers has a lover — it takes time, strength, patience, and trust. If you're willing to open yourself to that kind of love, and let go of traditional limitations, there's this boundless world of reciprocal joy that only grows — like an infinite space garden!"

A game was the perfect format to explore the idea.

"Games are a great medium for inserting oneself into another person's life experience, and gamers are already acquainted with balancing multiple components. Think of RTS games like StarCraft. If games can challenge higher-level logic, why not also push the boundaries of higher-level emotion?"

"Plus," she added, "I can't be the only player who wanted to woo Garrus and Thane, can I?"

You can play Cosmic Endeerment for free on the game's itch.io page.

Empathy seems to be in short supply these days, especially on the internet. But there's an easy solution, according to a new study published yesterday in the journal Current Biology: Just play some Rock Band.

Previous research has established that lower mammals such as mice, in addition to humans, are capable of empathy. This particular study, led by McGill University psychology professor Jeffrey Mogil, compared reactions of undergraduate college students to a painful stimulus delivered by a different kind of ice bucket challenge — submerging an arm in ice water. The researchers measured pain reactions from people who were alone; with a friend; with a stranger; with a stranger when both had been given a stress-blocking drug; and with a stranger when both of them had just played Rock Band together.

It turned out that the pain reactions didn't differ for people who were alone or with a stranger. But when a subject was sitting across from a friend, they actually felt more pain.

"It would seem like more pain in the presence of a friend would be bad news, but it's in fact a sign that there is strong empathy between individuals — they are indeed feeling each other's pain," said Mogil.

The researchers saw the same heightened reaction in people who had been given metyrapone, a drug that suppresses the "fight-or-flight" stress response. The findings indicate that "social stress," such as the stress felt between two people who are strangers, presents a barrier to feeling empathy.

The final group of students played Rock Band with strangers prior to the ice water challenge. It took 15 minutes of playing together for the strangers to exhibit empathy toward each other during the experiment. On the other hand, playing Rock Band alone didn't increase empathy.

"It turns out that even a shared experience that is as superficial as playing a video game together can move people from the 'stranger zone' to the 'friend zone' and generate meaningful levels of empathy," said Mogil.

Rock Band developer Harmonix Music Systems posted a survey online today, hinting at a potential future entry in the franchise on current-generation consoles. The most recent Rock Band game was 2012's Rock Band Blitz.

criminalwolfs:

a-night-in-wonderland:

One size fits all….

One of the best parts about the article (x) was the comments they all made trying on the clothing.

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Björk has revealed the first details of her upcoming ninth studio album. Vulnicura will be released in March, and features the following nine tracks:

• Stonemilker
• Lionsong
• History of Touches
• Black Lake
• Family
• Notget
• Atom Dance
• Mouth Mantra
• Quicksand

Arca, a Venezuelan producer who has recently worked on Kanye West's Yeezus and with FKA Twigs on her LP1, has co-produced seven of the songs on Vulnicura with Björk, one of which also involved British producer The Haxan Cloak. Björk has the sole producing credit on the two remaining tracks.

Björk announced Vulnicura's release via her Twitter account and Facebook page. So far we haven't seen or heard any media related to the new record; the Icelandic artist's last album, 2011's Biophilia, was also released in app form and birthed some amazing visuals for songs like "Mutual Core."

Last month, Markus "Notch" Persson set a new record for the highest price ever paid for a home in Beverly Hills. The man behind Minecraft dropped $70 million to snatch the 23,000-square-foot home away from Jay-Z and Beyonce in a bidding war.

This past weekend, Notch flew into town to christen his new home away from home with the mother of all housewarming parties.

And judging by the pictures, it was a big hit. Among the attendees were John and Brenda Romero, Tim Schafer, Respawn's Vince Zampella and former Blizzard chief creative officer Rob Pardo. And it wasn't just a party packed with gamers, quite a few celebs showed up as well, including Selena Gomez and producer Zedd.

Notch's plans for the future? Dungeon crawlers, friends and Vegas, he wrote on Twitter.

Check out some of the shots from the party below (including ones of the two most important rooms in the house) and then head over to Rukes.com for the full gallery.

Minecraft, Scrolls, 0x10c: The past, present and future of Mojang as seen through Notch's eyes