joe randel's art dump

So I’m talking with my producer today regarding my favorite topic in game design: spoon feeding.  Let me explain.

In every studio I’ve worked in (and just watching the game industry mostly) I’m constantly seeing game design get dumbed down because studio’s are afraid that if games are too hard then players won’t like them.  It’s a constant trend of keeping games from being actually challenging by giving items and level ups to fake a sense of accomplishment for the player.  We’re not really seeing to often a game where the player really has to push to succeed.  What if the player can’t succeed?  Then that’s bad.  The player might go find something else to do.  So dumb it down and let the player do cool things so they thing they’re all bad ass.

I can’t stand it.

Remember back in the day where you would rent a game for your NES, Genesis, SNES or what have you and you where actually challenged by it?  You would have to rent it a second time to beat it probably because you wanted to beat it so badly.  And it wasn’t due to the fact the game had 80 kajillion hours of game play it was because it was designed to actually challenge the player?  Where are those games now?

Gamers of today aren’t being challenged by what they buy.  The games are more of an game experience… like a movie.  You’ll get to the end of the game eventually, just like a movie.  That’s what the makers want.  They don’t want to make you think to hard about the game you’re playing and to me is an insult of what they think of me.

I want challenge, I want to think about game play.  I don’t want to be spoon feed my games.

I only have so much pull on the titles I work on being a art guy but I always make sure that the design decisions will lean towards accomplishment and rewards for the player.  It’s a formula that works.  Make the player work for things.  Give them a sense of pride when they figure something out.

They paid for it after all.

Spring is here and you know what that means?  Allergies.  Do you have them?  I do.  I’m allergic to just about everything outside it would seem.  Spring time isn’t my worst time though.  It’s almost like a sample of what’s to come later.  Fall is when I’m the worst and I pray for death and wonder why my body hates me.  I hate allergies.

Before I moved I was going to go get allergy shots.  My wife has been at me to get them for… umm… about as long as I’ve known her I’d say.  But I’m lazy and stubborn and so I’ve been putting it off and suffering all the while.  But last year I decided I was being stupid and went to get these allergy shots.  But then I applied for a new job and moved so out the window went that idea.

Now I should get a new family doctor so I can get in line for allergy shots again.  I really should since I don’t know anyone that has seasonal worse then I do.  I suffer a lot and I’m easily the most disgusting person on the bus.  I even carry a whole box of kleenex with me when I go out.

You know what’s a crazy side effect of the sneeze attacks I get during allergy season?  I get feverishly hungry.  Crazy hungry!  I mean, after a sneeze attack I could sit and rip though vast quantities of food.  Very bazaar @_@

Man I hate allergies… is it winter yet?

Man… today I had such a killer headache.  Not one of the ones that you can just take a few  Tylenol for, one of the ones where it crazy hurts… like you brain is going to bust out of your skull in the most painful way possible.  Yeah.. one of those ones.  It sucked too.  I had to go out and buy some drugs for my brain in a bad way (which means it’s bad since I never take anything for my aches and pains… I just suffer), but when I got to the drug store I found that I could buy some Tylenol for sinus pain, flu, colds.  Tylenol for daytime or for night time.  Advil was no better ether.  Man, my head was going to explode all over Shoppers Drugmart if I didn’t get some regular freakn pain reliever!

I finally went to the cash and bought one of the travel sized Tylenol and left.  I can’t help but feel like these drug companies are missing the point by supplying us with every kind drug for any kind of aliment you can think of.  We just need a general pain drug.  Or at least I do.

My head is fine now but my headache lasted the rest of the work day and I spent it on the futon in the games room.  I’m not sure if that counts as a sick day or not since I was at work… I just wasn’t working ^_^

I DO!!!

WOoooooOOO!!!!!11one

I do loves me some Mario Kart ^_^

I haven’t played much to be honest. Did two 50cc cups (shroom and flower) and some WiFi against some random North American people, but I must say that I like it very much. ^_^ It really doesn’t change much from the standard dish of Mario Kart that we’ve had before and if that’s what you like then dig in ^_^. But if you’re one of those people that NEED to have something new in the game then you might want to pass. The WiFi is a great addition though and the jump+trick thing totally feels normal. No worries there… phew ^_^;

The Wii wheel took a little bit to get used to but that was expected. I still need to practice my power slides though. I’ll master it eventually.

So yeah, I’m totally happy with my purchase. I still don’t have Brawl yet, and I doubt I’ll pick it up and I don’t feel like I’m missing out. Melee was fun but I just can’t get the proper hang of the game. Street Fighter 3 is more my bag when it comes to fighting.

Don’t forget about Joe’s auctions.

Okay, here’s some test auctions to see if this “selling my art” thing is going to work.

Joe’s Auction RIGHT HERE!

There’s three of them to start so get out there are bid ^_^  Good luck.  I also have just about every parody art that I’ve ever done as well if people are interested for purchase or maybe a game trade.  What I offer is this… a rough drawing done in colerase, the clean up done in pencil and a nice 8.5×11 glossy print. The drawings are all done on animation paper which is 10.5″ x 12.5″ as well.

Other then that… not much happened today.  Oh I cleaned up my shed since I moved back in September.  I found a box of CDs which where stashed away and had things like old computer back ups, Wedding Bells mag ads that I designed back when I was between jobs and… gasp!  My collection of naughty Sailor Moon pics!  ~swoon!  I think I had collected something like 400 or 500 pics.  Yeah, I had a small obsession ^_^  And it was all for Usagi/Serena too.  The other senshi where okay but Moon was the tops in my books ^_^  I haven’t checked to see if the CD still works though.  I even had some pretty rare animated gifs from a game called Axis2 (I think) if Venus and Moon making out and some crappy AVI’s of some naughty animated stuff too.  Yeah… I’m a sad, sad person…

*hugs CD*

^_^

Oh man do I love Pocky ^_^

What’s Pocky you ask?  *FACE!*

It’s a cookie stick (sort of like an Arrowroot cookie) dipped with some flavor of frosting.  That’s it.  It’s pretty simple really but man, you eat one and you just can’t stop.  I’m serious.  It’s good stuff.  I’ve made a picture on my blog of all the Pocky types I’ve had.  I’ve actually had more then this but I never thought to take their pictures at that time.  Every time I wander past a Asian or Japanese food store I wander in and see what kinds there are.  It’s so exciting to come across a new flavor ^_^ even my wife keeps an eye out for new flavors for me to try.

I know I’ll probably never get to try them all but I’ll try all I can.  I really go for the crazy flavors too, like Green Tea (yum!) ^_^

That’s pretty much all for this post.  Just wanted to share my love of Pocky with the world.

^_^

Pocky

Pocky Flavors