Digital Cream

I recently got Dungeons and Dragons version 4. D&D is a tabletop RPG with real dice and real people around a real table. It uses this fancy new nanotechnology called “atoms” to render its images. Version 4 is the radical replacement for the previous version 3 (which upgraded to a minor 3.5). Version 3 was itself a huge rebirth of D&D done in the early 2000s after “Advanced D&D” collapsed under its own weight decades ago. V3 and V4 are made by Wizards of the Coast, who makes the card game Magic the Gathering.

Having played it a bit and read it all, I am very positive on v4. I would regard it as a pretty much new game system, and 3.5 still a good valid system. Sort of like playing Shadowrun and D&D—you may be in the mood for either. For easily distracted kids, new players, and a lower-hassle gameplay experience, I’d say v4 is well worth it. (continued »)

I posted to an IGDA discussion group something about video game addiction, its relationship to drug addiction and the use of the term “addictive” in the game industry. In the course of this I rabbited on a bit about drug law and treatment. I think it’s worth sharing, as the discussion led me to more nuanced opinions and a lot of new things to think about. (continued »)

It’s unlike me, multiplayer enthusiast that I am, to play a solo game. But Oblivion (to which I am at long last getting) is a delightful change. For one thing, it’s a beautiful game, with some genuinely artful visual compositions and decent attempts at an epic story full of moral questions. But it also makes me think about how my sense of being heroic in Oblivion is a nice change from the MMOs I usually go for.

There are some great things you can do and feel in a world that revolves around *you* that you can’t do in a multiplayer-oriented world, no matter how much the latter tries to make you feel like The Hero. I wonder if there will be a bit of a pendulum swing the other way now that so many gamers are so heavily into World of Warcraft, that within a few years there will be a big hunger for a game that makes the individual player feel central and unique and big and strong.

In design as well, I astonish myself by sometimes thinking of game ideas which are solo in nature. Most of my ideas remain multiplayer focused, sometimes in an asynchronous and casual way where I think some real gold waits to be discovered, but I do get the odd solo-oriented idea now.