Form Follows Function – Oh really?
So form follows function .. does it? Really?
Well .. yes .. and no. Partly.
Anyone who’s read my earlier art diary posts will have noticed me mention functionality and its importance in wargame map design, often with a nod towards Redmond Simonsen. Being a regular lurker and one time fist waving contributor to the BGG’s board game art forums I’ve noticed a number of people bandying about the phrase “form follows function” like it was some kind of mantra. A golden rule. A statement of fact. And right now I’m going to terrify the rest of the team by telling you that most of the people throwing that around don’t have the first clue of what they’re talking about.
Let’s be perfectly clear from the start. It’s true. And it’s not true. It’s a partial truth.
Look, in simple terms we’re talking about …
Solitaire Team Play
Solitaire games can be played by more than one person, as a team.
For example, one player can be the supreme commander, and the others command subordinate formations. Or players can act as a “staff”, discussing possible moves and them developing a plan of action. This has the added advantage as everyone can win, or at least lose together. It also encourages social interaction which is always fun.
subject: discussion
author: Joe Miranda
Learning from Our Elders
Over the Christmas holiday we returned to our home city of Liverpool to catch up with relatives and friends. It is always a very important time for us as it is the only time we get to see most of them.
But this Christmas there was an additional chance meeting at a bus stop. My son and I were waiting for a bus to take us into town to spend his Christmas money in the sales and were joined by this nondescript looking old man. It was freezing cold, blowing a gale and raining and he made a comment to us about how he remembered the snow fall when he was de-mobbed and how he’d had to wade through 4 feet of it as he wandered over the farmers fields to get home (it is now a vast, sprawling housing estate).
…
RIP Adam Adamowicz
One of the unsung heroes has left us.
Not many of us can ever hope to match his ability or levels of output but this mans work alone should show you how important, inspirational and influential a good artist and, by all accounts, a wonderful person, can be.
Update: Bethesda have put up a page in his memory.
www.elderscrolls.com
subject: discussion
author: Pat Ward
Turn-based Games Support for iOS 5
In Apple’s presentation yesterday at their developer’s conference, they announced “support for turn-based games at the operating system level for iOS 5.” It was during the “Game Center” portion of the presentation and merited just a brief mention, but it is big news for us and for other game companies. What it means is that there will be a standard way to communicate “it’s your turn now” to your opponent once you’ve finished your turn. I’m sure it will have other features too. Turn-based games have already been huge hits on the iPad/iPhone – think “Words with Friends – but so far each company has had to implement the messaging system themselves; no longer. This is good news.
subject: discussion
author: Eric Smith
The Whizzing Sound…
…that this guy just heard is the sound of the point going straight over his head and missing him by a long mile.
A brief recap: the article, “Of Champions and Cowards”, talks about large organizations and the tendency they have towards paralysis. Part of the article is devoted to discussing the proliferation of decision points that takes place, and I think that portion of it is correct. The more people that have to “sign off” on a change or a new initiative, the less likely it is that you’ll get anything done in the first place. Having internal “champions” for new initiatives with the authority to get things done allows large companies to combine their larger resources with some of the dynamism of small companies, and that’s a Good Thing. So no arguments with the “Champions” part of the article.
Where …
In Praise of Friction: On Realism, Wargames, and Fog
Ever since Charles Roberts inaugurated the modern hobby of wargaming in the 1970s, one of the hallmarks of most game designs has been their emphasis on what I would call historical realism. Designers in days of yore famously spent days or weeks researching extensively detailed orders of battle and troop strengths, leading one gamer friend of mine to comment that for them altering the order of arrival for various regiments on the battlefield constituted a major change. Even today, many wargames with battle-specific scenarios have highly specific setup instructions, reinforcement schedules, and special rules designed to make sure events unfold just as they did in real life. Good examples of this are the Great Battles of the American Civil War series and GMT’s Barbarossa series. A classical wargame is a lot like a scientific experiment, with …
A Slice of Life
Eric: “Heidi [one of his two dogs] is pretty oblivious, but Emma [the other] is pretty smart.”
Jeff: “Yeah, except that she thinks I’m an ax murderer.” [Note: This is not an exaggeration. Every time I visit Eric, Emma barks up a storm for half an hour before deciding that I'm safe...this time.]
Eric: “She probably has a reason for that.”
*Pause*
Jeff: “Oh, come on. That was one time! Do I have to hear about it for the rest of my life?”
The industry’s finest, hard at their trade.
subject: discussion
author: Jeff Dougherty
On Interface and Design
Great comment over at Fortress Ameritrash, which recently published the press release announcing our existence. From user Sagrilarus:
It’s going to take more than an interesting list of titles. It’s going to take some exceptionally good human/computer interface decisions as well considering the square footage limitations of iPad screen. Pan and zoom isn’t going to work for these games — big picture is important to all but two of the titles they’ve announced. They’re going to need to find innovative ways to provide detail at the hex level while still presenting the big picture. I’m seeing DoW do it very well with Memoir Online, but the map size and level of detail required to be presented in that Memoir is exceptionally small. It’s really a good choice for automation. I play at 1920×1200 and can see the whole board.
subject: …
Of Mice and Metrics
Joost Van Dreunen has a great post about the use of analytics in today’s game space over at GamesBrief. The titles are a bit ridiculous (am I the only one who read “Tiger Analytics” and couldn’t stop thinking of Charlie Sheen?), but the thought there is good.
To some degree, the arguments he floats as being made against analytics make sense. It doesn’t matter how well you measure your users and marketing channels if your game sucks. On the other hand, as someone with a scientific background I’m often shocked by how little people know about their own products and how they’re performing, and how unmotivated they sometimes are to learn. It’s doing “fine”. Well, how fine? How many downloads? When you launched that ad campaign a month ago, did your sales actually go …
Success, Farming, and Mining
Great post today from Wil Shipley on two approaches to software development, entrepreneurship, and really, life. I especially like his comments at the end about the inherent worthlessness of “ideas”, so make sure you read the whole thing.
subject: discussion
author: Jeff Dougherty
And the quote of the day goes to:
Mr. Pete Belli, for this post on BoardGameGeek.
From Eric’s press release:
What does this mean for BGG users?
Pete:
Time to buy an iPad.
We couldn’t have said it better ourselves, Pete.
subject: discussion
author: Jeff Dougherty
