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October 12, 2005
The Auteur
Back in April or so, I went back and played through¹ The Fool's Errand, a game I had played on the Macintosh years and years ago, based on an article I had found on the fine website Tea Leaves. There isn't alot to say about the game that Tea Leaves hasn't said already, so I both commend them and recommend their article. Good reading.
Cliff Johnson is that relatively rare beast in gaming today, the lone auteur -- in our very collaborative development medium, he has largely worked on his puzzle games alone. And he has another Fool's game coming out soon, so you fans should head on over to his site to check it out, as well as a couple of other games by him you might have missed.
Not too long ago I posted an idea I had for making games more accessible to build by smaller teams. I have others, but that's a start. I was, of course, thinking primarily of games more or less as I play them now -- these big, triple-A titles with tons of assets and thousands and thousands of man-hours of work behind them.
There is, of course, another way. One other great area where games can still have single auteurs, and have something meaningful to offer, is in Interactive Fiction. This year's Interactive Fiction Competition has more than 30 games to give a try. There are probably very few people with time enough to play them all -- the voting closes in a little under a month -- but I'm willing to give a few of them a try. You can register on the site and even have it generate a random ordering of the games for you, so you don't need to feel like only the first few are getting a shot.
So, that's what I'll be doing in the near term, game-wise. In a time when I've been getting a little disillusioned by what the mainstream has to offer us as far as gaming experiences go, I'm willing to go back to where I started, in a crystal cavern. Because these days, the gaming mainstream often feels like the real maze of twisty little passages.
All alike.
¹It's worth noting that at the time, I only had 30 days in which to beat the game, or have it be lost to me forever. I used a walkthrough mostly at the end -- those final puzzles are far beyond my ability to do them quickly. Good stuff, though. Apparently the Windows emulator for Mac OS has been extended to run for the next 14 months or so, free of charge, so feel free to give it a whirl, you'll have more time with it than I did. (back)
Posted by Brett Douville at October 12, 2005 09:46 PM
Comments
I was planning a post on Fool's Errand -- you beat me to the punch! I think I could call this my favorite game ever, and I did, during my round of job interviews back in April. I've already pre-purchased the sequel, due out in November. Can't wait!
Posted by: Bears! eat the id! at October 24, 2005 12:35 PM