This is an annual event where there is a wacky game design request (a Love Story, Emily Dickinson, Nobel Peace Prize) and famed designers need to come up with a game based on that idea. The audience votes on the best game, and a winner is crowned. I’d heard how awesome it was in the past, and had regretted that I hadn’t made it to it in the past. So this year I was determined to go, even though both the theme and the designers entered into the competition weren’t quite as known to me as others from previous years. Unfortunately, it didn’t really live up to my expectations.
I think that perhaps the moderator of the Game Design Challenge, Eric Zimmerman is getting a little caught up in being clever. I poked around his website and it looks like he’s received a lot of accolades on the work he’s doing, but I’ve never heard of any of it. The idea for this year’s challenge was clearly trying to be a riff on the Wii controller - alternate and crazy control mechanisms lead to the Needle and Thread interface. I think this theme really was what killed the session. The idea was that you had a piece of 2 foot by 2 foot fabric (up to 8, actually), and various needles and thread to connect up to your console for control. What the hell?
The three designers really tried their best, but what can you do with such a ludicrous premise? The past ideas were at least possible as games. This is just not at all.
First up was David Jaffe, of God of War fame. He had what was, in my opinion, the most fun of the entries. He stretched the controller definition a bit, which is why his idea was at all possible. He found this fabric online that was more like paper and could be folded. He called his version “Playper” which is just funny for some reason. Oh, but first he talked about a totally strange idea he had first which was for a Journey (the band!) game where singer Steve Perry was captured by Styx and trying to escape. Whoa. I don’t know what that had to do with a needle and thread, but it was hilarious. But back to his actual “game” - you could build special courses to fly your planes and fly them around. You could buy addons and sew them on. Not much of a game, but amusing and clever.
Next was Alexey Pajitnov, designer of Tetris. He actually tried to use the sewing idea more than anyone else. It was a simple sort of combat puzzle game where you were sewing your way across the board and trying to sew over your opponent’s stitch to make them have to restart. It was well thought out, had actual rules, and made use of the controller. Which is why he won the challenge. But he wasn’t as funny as David Jaffe, so I wasn’t as amused.
Last, Harvey Smith, the reigning champion, presented his game. This was a thought out, well researched adventure game with overt political commentary (anti-Iraq war). But he was really using the needle and thread as a stylus, poking the fabric like screen taps (or mouse taps). I felt like he was trying to do and say too much with something that was really rather simple - political commentary, inventing a new controller type - I don’t know, it just didn’t do much for me.
I know Eric Zimmerman works on more experimental games, and that’s definitely something the game industry needs. But there’s a point at which things are so out there and strange that they’re just experiments for the sake of being different, not trying to make something actually useful or fun. I hope that next year’s challenge goes back to being less of a statement and more of a fun opportunity for our top designers to show us their stuff.
If you’d like to read more, looks like there’s a write up at Wired that gives a bit more details on each of the games.