Give me the real incredible machine thanks. This is a poor "console/tutorial generation" imitation of a challenge I remember so clearly!

Oh yeah…did they actually test the interface of this game? It's horrible. Especially the rotatting and trying to move an object back in the bottom space.

My advice: Buy Casey's Contraptions, FAR better value for money!

Please be adviced:

• Step 1: Get inspiration -  Select which game concept to rip off - remember to choose wisely and not choose something which is funny.
• Step 2 - Select awesome developer - An essential part of selecting the right developer is to make sure they've never done a game before. In this way you're sure that your own ideas are heard and implemented - after all, who knows your brand better than you?
• Step 3: Creating the game - Drop everything interesting about the already boring game concept you're ripping off, and do a badly implemented, featureless, flawed version instead.
  • Step 3a: Amazing controls - Remember to make the controls as bad as possible! Nobody wants nice controls in a marketing game, and if you did your research you should know that this is what all the other marketing games did, so you should do the same.
  • Step 3b: Epic feedback - Remember to ignore feedback mechanisms both visually and auditively. Nobody wants feedback, they want to know about your brand and buy stuff from your company based on how epic your game is.
  • Step 3c: Real graphics - Throw in badly done graphics. Nobody likes graphics, they want moving pictures instead...like that nice tv marketing in which you trust.
• Step 4: WAUW contests - Remember to include an irrelevant contest, everybody loves contests and would do whatever it takes to win...no matter the size of the prize or how bad the game is.
• Step 5: Social vibes - Make sure the game in no way utilizes social networks. It is very bad if the gamers should be able to communicate, share highscores or in any way be able to interact with each other. This would only lead to bad comments about your company and your brand, and people who comment stuff should be muted...not heard!
• Step 6: Go viral - Remember to make the game go viral by making your employees write favourable reviews and share it with their family - it's a sure win!

Comments are welcome to this awesome guide.

Heavy Rain - Hold-up scene

So I've been playing Heavy Rain heavily this week and, although I'm not done yet, it's already the best movie I ever starred in (thanks Brian, you know what I mean). It starts of amazingly slowly....actually so slowly, that it killed my desire to play for nearly half a year. Then all of a sudden, one day with too much time...I took it back up, and I haven't look back.

It's funny that I like it, because the game isn't fun at all. It's got bad controls (moving and camera I mean), it has frustratingly slow animations (when you do them the third time because you forgot which thing to take from the medicine closet) and it's action sequences are based on quick time events. So why is it that I'm compelled to get up at 6.30 in the morning to squeze in an hours play before work? The answer is that this is a movie, not a game. I'm directing, starring and producing my own movie...and it's epic FUN!

I'm trying to play out the movie as I would "in real life"...like that time when I had to decide wether or not to crawl through a tunnel full of glass to save my kidnapped son...and yeah, I would do it you know! Espcially if Madison would come by and heal my wounds with bandages and pills - win! Anyway; Heavy Rain is thick with athmosphere and interesting choices...often these choices are taken on pure intuition in the spur of the moment, which is the thing that makes them interesting. Often I'm left with a sense of "hey wow wait what" after a scene, why did I make that choice? Any rational human being would have done the opposite...but that's the fun part, you're not allowed to take well founded intellectual choices, you take choices based on pure instinct.

Like in real life you just react, you just answer the questions and you just DO. I'm amazed at how well Heavy Rain simulates this. Yes the controls are bad, yes the gameplay is sometimes slow as hell and yes it's based on quick time events, but the decision-making is wonderful, intriguing and very enjoyable indeed.

You should play it...just to check up on yourself - how would you react with a gun in your head and adrenaline pumping? It's not real life I know, but it's equally fun none the less...and there's no risk of you or your family dying, which is a good thing.

This raises two questions:

1. Why are the games hidden far away from public sight?
2. Why are the games so bad?

The first question I don't really have an answer for, maybe they just have too much money on their hands? The campaign is a succes no doubt - but why are the games so crappy?

I mean, games are the most amazing transmitters of information  you could ever imagine...teaching everything from advanced game rules to the history of the babylonians (go Civ 1, my first and best history teacher), so why shouldn't they be the best at transferring marketing messages too? Nestle is on the right track but as so many did before...they fail epically at understanding the basic rule of games: It has to be entertaining! So who is to blame here? I blame the marketing agencies that convince the companies that games are a good marketing investment, but fail to tell them that they're not actually capable of creating a compelling game themselves. How come no one is actually combining the fields of good game design with marketing?

So...is it actually possible to do a good marketing game? Or would the evil soul of the word "marketing" kill all fun even before the game begins? I believe it is possible...and I intend on doing it better than Nestlé when I get the chance. Games are inherently fun, so why shouldn't marketing games be too?

Hopefully the company will be official in the end of next week.

Just stumbled over this website, you can play retro handheld games in your browser. It's awesome and made me feel quite...old! :-/ I remember playing Search Light (http://www.pica-pic.com/#/search_light/) for hours and hours...

...time gone by and this friday I'm launching my own gaming company. Anders 1 - Life 0.

Link: http://www.pica-pic.com/

I've been wanting to do something new here for a while. This is new. Funday Factory is new. Contact me if you're ever in need of a game, I'm sure we can do it for you.

Cheers
Anders