Yet More Intriguing Ideas

These will probably be the last new ideas I post for a while. Hope you enjoy them:

2009/07/14
A game where all magic is created by playing music. You have a flute that creates different magical effects depending on what note is playing as a drone in the background. Flutes in different keys would interact differently with the same drone. You can supply your own drone, but more powerful would be to use a drone that is already sounding in the background, like the electric hum of a generator, or the rushing sound of a waterfall. In a mechanical or steampunk world, droning sounds would be easy to find.

2009/03/30
A game about visual hierarchy, where you can create, modify, and arrange graphic elements in order to achieve certain goals about the way a viewer would look at the composition. Different elements might draw attention more strongly, or hold attention longer, or direct the flow of attention in different ways. It could make a good puzzle game. People could play it to learn graphic design.

2009/03/07
A game about software development, but abstracted, so you are building a system of interacting parts to accomplish some goal. You may add pieces to it, and you may factor out identical or similar components. These pieces would most likely be physical shapes that link together rather than actual code. You may also reorganize or refactor the system to make it possible to factor out more pieces. There is a tension between adding more, for short-term benefit, and refactoring, which is better in the long run.

2009/03/03
A game where you can snake around as if controlling one end of Noby Noby Boy. But you also want to come back to your center, your foundation, so that you can move your center instead of just getting caught up in your head and hands. There is a tension there between continuing to snake around and collect stuff and deal with stuff, and taking the time to come back to your center and move from there, to reset.

2009/03/01
A game where you are a small aquatic creature dwelling near the surface of a small pond, perhaps an artificial pond or pool in a garden.You spend your time close to the edges of the pond, as the open water in the center is more dangerous to you. The water is dark, but full not empty, and its depths are warm and reassuring. Sometimes it rains, rippling the surface and bringing colder water to the pond. It is always overcast. The surface colors are black and shiny gray, turning to orange and brown below and at the edges, the color of the soil and water. On land are the muted grays, browns, and greens of winter plants and stone.

Yay. Let me know if you have any thoughts to share about these ideas. :)

A Handful of Interesting Ideas

I keep an idea notebook, which I make sure to write in every day. Sometimes I come up with some interesting ideas for games. Here are a few I thought I'd share:

2009/07/03
A story or game about someone who is used to living lightly and is very self-sufficient, who finds a child or animal and chooses to care for it. That could result in some interesting tensions, where one's way of living has been optimized for solitary life, and then must suddenly change to accommodate another. It could be interesting as a minimal game like Passage or Gravitation. Another interesting twist could occur when for some reason it is time to give up the child, and discover what it's like to go back to solitude, or create a new lifestyle.

2009/06/29
A game about freedom and proactivity and breaking out of the control of the game itself, based on the idea that you should "vote with your money." It could be a shooter where you can buy upgrades and such, but the money you spend goes to whatever faction that is selling the item. Different factions control and deploy enemy ships, and the more money they have, the more powerful they are and the more the other factions seek to imitate them. It could be a genetic algorithm influenced by your spending choices. When you first start the game, it seems that you have no choices, where one wrong move means instant death. But you can slowly expand your circle of influence by spending your money wisely.

2009/06/26
An iPhone game to promote basic visual awareness, where you choose a color for the day, and try to notice all occurrences of that color as you go about your activities. When you see the color, you show it to the iPhone's camera to have it counted toward your score. The more the better. Difficulty could be varied by changing the threshold for detecting equivalent colors. The more precise you have to be, the harder it is.

2009/06/22
An audio-only game where there are objects positioned along a horizontal line, whose positions can be determined by the stereo sounds they make. You could move a turret left and right and shoot, like Space Invaders. Your turret and all projectiles would make sounds also, so you can track where they are and get a feel for how the sound and input map to the virtual space. Distance could be represented by volume. Maybe even pitch and texture and other things could play a role, in the background. It could be a full shooter in sound, without graphics. Maybe it could be made musical, to be like music with meaning. And when you upgrade your weapons or your turret, they would sound cooler than before!

Any thoughts? I particularly like the "vote with your money" game and the audio-only shooter. Maybe I'll have a chance to make them sometime. Let me know if you want to use the ideas yourself - maybe we can collaborate!

More cool ideas on the way! :)

I'm Folding Proteins (Lyrics)

Foldit is a game I worked on, where you fold proteins to try to find the right shape for them. This game grew out of distributed computing projects like Rosetta@home, but instead of using excess computer processing power, Foldit attempts to use human brainpower. It's a very difficult design problem, making a fun game out of protein folding and teaching people how to play in the first place. I wrote a paper about the design considerations involved. Take a look if you haven't already.

There's been some exciting new updates for Foldit lately, most importantly protein design, where I think the real potential for this project will come through. Once you can design new proteins, you can do a lot of cool things, like create a vaccine for HIV. Yeah. Foldit is a project still in its early stages, with a lot of rough edges, but it's getting there. I'll be eager to see where it goes.

I'd also like to take this opportunity to announce, officially, that I am retiring from the Foldit development team. I was originally working on this project for research credit at school. After I graduated, the team didn't have the money to pay me to keep working on it, and so now I'm starting a new job with a new company, make another exciting new game that I can't really say much about at this point. But it will be very awesome. :)

I'm not entirely done with Foldit, however. :) I've just finished my lyrics for I'm Folding Proteins, a parody of the satirical rap song I'm on a Boat. Be warned - lots of swearing in this song.

Watch the music video if you haven't seen it already, and compare it with my version of the lyrics below. Changed words in bold. Someday I'll make I'm Folding Proteins into a real music video! :D



Aww s-, get your keyboards ready it's about to go down (shorty, yeah)
Everybody in the place type your f-ing name (shorty, yeah)
And enter your motherf-ing password
We running this, let's go

I'm folding proteins (I'm folding proteins)
I'm folding proteins (I'm folding proteins)
Everybody look at me 'cause I'm folding a protein (folding a protein)
I'm folding proteins (I'm folding proteins)
I'm folding proteins
Take a good hard look at the motherf-ing screen (screen, yeah)

I'm folding proteins motherf-er take a look at me
Straight folding into the lowest energy
Busting five points, ranks dropping under me
You can't stop me motherf-er cause the game is free

Take a screen shot (shot)
I'm folding proteins ('teins)
Rebuilding loops in a knot,
Cause it's so clean (clean)
I got my beta sheets
And my helices
I'm flipping sidechains, you on Tetris
Straight flipping pieces

I'm designing a protein, curing cancer and s-
My solution's climbing, beating everyone on the net
But this ain't RuneScape, this is real as it gets
I'm folding proteins, motherf-er, don't you ever forget

I'm on a team and
We kicking a- and
I got a biochem themed
Pashmina afghan
I'm saving the world
With my skills like Neo
If you got a low score,
Then you're sure not me-oh

Get the f- up, this game is REAL!

F- clothes, I'm folding proteins, motherf-er (motherf-er)
F- streets, I walk backbones, motherf-er (motherf-er)
I'm on the chat talking smack, motherf-er (yeah)
This protein got packed, motherf-er

Hey I'm folding for the human race (human race)
Hydrogen bonds across the interface (interface)
Gonna disrupt this reverse transcriptase (transcriptase)
With our brains in a net, anything is possible

Yeah, never thought I'd fold a protein
It's a big green thing on my screen (yeah)
I'm hiding
Hydrophobics (all hands online)

Never thought I'd see the day
A Nobel Prize coming my way
Believe me when I say
I disabled AIDS

I'm folding proteins
I'm folding proteins
Everybody look at me 'cause I'm folding a protein (woah)
I'm folding proteins
I'm folding proteins
Take a good hard look at the mothaf-in' screen (shorty, shorty, yeah)

Play Foldit.