PLANTS VS ZOMBIES

Not sure if I ever mentioned, but whenever I finished a pirated game I buy it. Since the only pirated console I have is the DS, practically all games I finished on that platform have gone through that process.

The latest is Plants vs Zombies. I was unable to buy it yet since it has not been released in Spain, but I sure had fun playing it. As the matter a fact I've finished adventure mode twice, and also finished all minigames. I'm currently trying to complete some achievements. Anyway it's a brilliant concept, the first tower defense game that pops into mainstream, as far as I know. Simple, fun and adapted to all audiences. A great game.

And the final video is really awesome!

ACTIVISION GO TO HELL

The first videogame I ever owned was an Activision one: River Raid, for the MSX. With the years, Activision has transformed into hell for developers. It has recently closed several studios they owned. But why?

I've seen that before, like in Telecinco: The CEOs are fully focused on getting profits for the stockholders, so they exploit annually their studios and IPs until they are exhausted. Then they fire the people working on those IPs and buy new studios. The CEO gets outstanding results and when he sees things going wrong he quits and gets a better job. Remarkable.

However, things indeed will go wrong. Ask EA, they've been there, done that. When you over-exploit IPs you eventually run out of them. Developers are not eager to work for you and instead they prefer to go someplace else. Even the public (or at least the most informed of it) will know that company treats people like shit, and sales will start to go down.

From my side, I recommend to start a Boicot on any Activision product. Funny thing, it turns out I've been boicotting them (for other reasons) for almost 2 years. The last Activision game I bought was Call of Duty Modern Warfare 2. I haven't bought any Guitar Hero or even Blizzard games lately. And I won't until that sucky Kotick leaves office.

UNCHARTED 2: AMONG THIEVES

I need to get rid of all the games I bought and never completed. I have like 12 of them waiting. That's why I've pushed for finishing Uncharted 2 in the last weeks, and I finally completed it this morning.

To be honest, I'm impressed with the level of visual quality and master crafting of the development team. The game is excellent in many ways. However I don't feel it deserves the 96 it currently has in Metacritics. The users score (8.9) looks more accurate to me in this case. It's not that I didn't like the game, it's just that I value design innovation above anything else, and Uncharted 2 barely has some. I've seen all his game mechanics in other games, sometimes even better implemented. The game features them nicely, well polished and perfectly integrated, which is remarkable but it's the type of thing you expect from an experienced team like Naughty Dog.

I'd say the best of the game is the effort they made to make it look and feel like a movie. Good visuals, sidekicks to exchange witty comments, the lack of HUD and many other details help the game feeling like a Hollywood flick. No wonder some moviemakers bought the rights and are currently on pre-production. However, IMHO, the plot is not good enough not even for a B-movie. It's really nice for a game because it supports many level design decisions, but for a movie you need some more both from the plot and the characters. Let's see what happens.

LIFTING THE DESIGNER'S CURSE

Here you can find an interesting article about the areas of expertise that designers generally move into, aiming to categorize them and help people to undestand what we do :D

PUBLISHED CONFERENCE

Well, the people who organized the Congreso Internacional de Videojuegos in the Complutense University have published the conferences we gave into a book. In case you're interested in the theme you can buy it in Bubok.

Also, I may be wrong but I think it's the first time I'm published, which is always nice. Let's see what the people in Don Benito do with my short tale that won that contest.

TREASURE HUNT

Every December my father's family gather here, at my parent's. It's kind of a tradition and my mother asked me to organize a Treasure Hunt for the little kids. It was an interesting exercise of game design for children (between 4 and 9 years old), and these were the lessons I learned:

• Although there were 10 kids, the ‘alpha’ members (older kids, all of them girls) lead the way. As a consequence, only 5-6 really committed with the game and some of the little kids were left behind.
• The clues I wrote (in semi-poetry) were understood, but since some of the smaller kids could not read properly they felt left aside.
• Most of the little kids followed blindly the older ones in the search, I guess just because they saw the Treasure Hunt as a social activity.
• Some of the clues were hidden in the environment, some others were kept by individuals (my sister and one of my uncles). The kids found those hidden in the environment more difficult to find.
• Ergonomics were important. One of the clues was hidden over the roof of a doghouse, but still to high for 8 year old kids.
• Kids tended to look in the obvious places and if they couldn’t find the clue, they’d come back to the adults for help. They showed little creativity when searching.
• The attention span of little kids is limited. After 4-5 minutes if they couldn’t find the clue they get bored and lose interest.
• I suspect the kids could have found all clues without help, but older women around were eager to solve any problem they may find, which made the game too short.
• At the beginning of the game I asked them to memorize the key word “Fuentealvilla”. After all the clues and in order to get the prize, the first one to find me and say the key word would be the winner. However, the first girl who found me failed to remember the word. It was the third to arrive the one said the word correctly (but only because she suspected the game was almost over and so the key word was near to be used, so she asked her mother to remember her the word).
• Since all of them got a small present, they all felt it was a nice game. And the girl who won was delighted with her additional 20 euros.

SPACE QUEST

Well, I've just completed Space Quest 1... 24 years later.

The game was originally released for PC on 1986, but it felt into my hands like 3-4 years later, when my cousin Pedro gave me his old computer with the game already installed.

I remember I spent hours and hours mapping the fucking game, making lists of actions that awarded points and things to avoid. And all for nothing since the computer was infected by a virus (we suspect it was my computer teacher, since all my friends got also infected) and I was never able to complete the game. Well, it was that and also that there was no internet or walkthroughs at the time, and I was blocked over and over.

I downloaded it recently from an abandonware site and yes, I've just completed it using a walkthrough. And even with that I've died 15-20 times. That gives you an idea about how unforgiving the game is. But hey, I finally made it!