Ownership

So we have a new game coming out this week that I think will do really well. It is solidly programmed and intelligently designed. And so far I have had very little to do with it.

In my roll of producer I very often have to work very hard to craft the games that we produce by pushing the developers to refine the look and feels of the games we have commissioned. It can be a sometimes irksome process, other times rewarding but I always walk away feeling like I left my mark. I can say I worked on it.

Other times a developer just hands me something that is perfect. It’s great as is and I have nothing but praise for it. While this makes my life much, much easier it also makes me feel like I can’t put any stamp of ownership on it. My hands haven’t really touched it so I don’t feel like I can point to it and say “I worked on that.” And yet these are the ones I should point out because they are the best, so I should be trying to tell everyone it’s mine until I am blue in the face.

But it feels wrong to do so because what did I really do for it other than stamp “inspected by #47″ on it.

Update:  So the game I was talking about that I thought was finished right from the start completely tanked on us.  Shows what I know.

Indecision 2008: Dont Get Hurt

We released some new games this week dealing with the health care crisis in America. Collectively, in my life, I have probably spent about a year an a half without health insurance. That experience is very much a game in itself.

“Don’t Get Hurt” is simple and light, I don’t have a lot to say about it. I value it more for being an interactive joke than a full game. About the only thing I would like to do it is put the player in other situations like skiing or playing contact sports… activities that usually require a good doctor.

Rock Out With Your Mouse Out

So since I talk about a lot of games on this site I should probably talk about one of my own eventually. One of our recent releases is Lil’ Bush: Iraq Hero. Ultimately I think this game didn’t quite hit the mark but it is still interesting to me.

As a little background I should begin by saying that I can’t stand the Lil’ Bush show. My politics being what they are I can’t even bring myself to watch a caricature of W for longer than 5 minutes without getting angry. But given the opportunity to lampoon the man I was eager to make a game using the property. Originally it was proposed that we would make a game about trying to eject him from the White House, but then the producers of the show said they wanted a game like guitar hero that would show case the songs in the show. Ok fine, not as funny but still challenging.

Each game we make is made in about five weeks. Five. One less than six kind of five.

The first thought was why not make the game exactly like a web version of guitar hero. But I initially pushed against this idea because it takes a lot of dexterity that most casual game players don’t have. So we went with notes that would appear around the screen that you could click on.

The notes in Iraq Hero never quite feel tied into the game. There is still a disconnect between the action of clicking the notes and the music. If we have more time I think we could have improved it (classic developers lament). There is something about sliding the notes in a direction consistently rather than a count down clock that seems easier for people to time. The problem in our game is that the notes are still a little to hard to predict.

Interestingly when we had fewer notes in the game it was harder but when we put more in it got easier. I believe this has something to do with the notes seeming to keep the rhythm a bit better.

As I said this game is not all it could have been but I’m interested in trying a rhythm-action game again at some point.

I destory America’s productivity one game at a time…

March was better than February. For the second month in a row Comedy Central Games had its best month ever. The top three are all games that I have produced. I would love to take full credit for the bump in traffic but it is most likely a combination of the new Daily Show/Colbert/South Park content bringing more people to CC.com mixed with us having a lot of new fun games.

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Edit: Probably shouldn’t have the stats up.

Top 5 Game Titles:

1. AG: Indecision 2008 : Border Security
2. AG: RENO 911! Excessive Force
3. AG: Lil’ Bush: Iraq Hero
4. South Park: Asskicker
5. South Park: Big Wheel Death Rally

Numbers go up, people are happy

Some games I produced for work are pulling in a lot of traffic.

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EDIT: Probably shouldn’t have the stats up.

Top 5 Game Titles:
1. RENO 911! Excessive Force
2. Indecision 2008 : Border Security
3. South Park: Asskicker
4. South Park: Big Wheel Death Rally
5. RENO 911! Excessive Force