Linkage

I usually try to avoid singling out specific blogs or websites for praise and recommendation, as it's a little like choosing your favourite from a litter of bastard step-children who each have their own charms and harvestable organs, but as I have been asked on occasion to write more about Japanese indie and amateur games, of which I confess I know too little, I thought Engrish Games deserved some extra attention.

Written by a guy calling himself Dong (don't laugh) and possibly some translation software, this site lists various indie developers and their games, which of them have English sites and releases and, if they don't, instructions on how to play them. Needless to say, I am not the first website to point out this blog, but I thought it was such a worthwhile service that at least I could try and send more enthusiasts his way.

If you want to see what is happening in one section of the indie/amateur game development niche I think you'll find some excellent or at least interesting projects being worked on my some enthusiast somewhere. Specifically the schmup seems to live on in these circles, which is, if you ask me, a godsend. Do yourself a favour and check it out!

Secondly, Andrea Rubenstein of the Iris blog has finally started her game design course at HAL and has begun writing about her experiences. My first impression is that it seems very old-fashioned and traditional, in the way they start and end classes, which may prepare her for working life in the bigger, more traditional gaming corporations. I hope she can, and is allowed to, write a little bit about the syllabus, as I'm very curious about that. Having worked with a handful of game school graduates here in Japan, and looking at my own experiences, I still believe the only real way to learn the skills you need is on the job, but game development education has come a long way in just a short time, so this might not be the case these days. Also, having just hired a small smattering of (regular) graduates, I'd be interested to know if she is planning to go through those Hellish graduate recruitment drives that Japan enjoys every March/April, though this is still years in the future. This is definitely a blog worth keeping an eye on if you're inexperienced and have the urge to work in the Japanese industry.

Lastly, I have to point out to a charming new feature started in the Thwomp Factory blog, where one of its contributors tries to cook recipes featured in games in the same way they are made in those particular titles. The first comes from one of my favourite games, Harvest Moon: Magical Melodies, so it caught my attention. With so many industry pundits writing about the same old issues, it's great to see these fun and novel ways of enjoying games and writing about them cropping up on blogs like these; they remind me that games are fun, to be enjoyed.

These sites have been added to the sidebar for future reference.

Ikariam revisited

Since posting about it previously, addiction has set in something rotten and every spare minute I could muster has been poured into my Ikariam Empire, which is now a commendable size, with two colonies and a growing alliance of friends and colleagues. But some glaring issues with the game’s design have also become apparent, beyond the fact it isn’t finished yet in itself. Here are some issues I’ve come across that would be worth considering for any web-based developers.

No Invite
I am shocked and appalled there is no “invite friends” button on the site. I have to tell my friends via email to try it out and to make sure they join the same server as me, whereas this would have been much better done with a single button and standard invitation email. This would also allow for friends who join using the invitation to have an island somewhere in the rough vicinity as your own on the same server, and not, as is the case now, spread across the map at several days’ distance from each other. When I create an alliance I want it to be with the people I know, preferably, but that is only useful if we’re all in the same sector. An invitation process could easily bring new players to the game and make sure they are clustered fairly close together, for added fun.

Warmongering
If you have the misfortune to be neighbours with an aggressor who is more powerful than you, the game is, for all intents and purposes, finished. There is no way for the victim to build defense or an army large enough to combat the invader if the latter keeps hammering you. The only option is to research to a certain level and build enough to be able to join an alliance and hope they can sort things out for you, but if you’re a real low level player, even this could be problematic or at least very time consuming.
They do limit the number of attacks a person can unleash on any single village by 6 per day, which is still a lot and leaves the victim with absolutely no recourse to defend or rebuild. A better tactic would have been to limit an attack to one per every few days, giving the victim time to slowly, very slowly, build towards a defense, in either building or joining an alliance, and will force the warmonger to attack other villages while he waits for another chance, thus angering more players, increasing the chances of a joint retaliation and so making the risk of warmongering commensurate with the possible rewards. Alternatively, set up a mercenaries system, where big Alliances can be paid, maybe deferred, to help out a small starter village by pummeling someone who deserves it.

Obtuse rules
Apart from the constant attacking, which is called “bashing”, there is another rule called “pushing” where lower level players may not send huge amounts of resources to higher players. This last one seems a little odd but I guess it came from friends artificially strengthening each other’s villages or aggressive players demanding obscene amounts of “tribute” under the threat of invasion.
Though the rules are basically sound, if they are so problematic, why allow the player to do these things in the first place? If you want the number of attacks on a village to be capped at 6 per 24 hour period, a bad decision as I explained above, why not stop the player from being able to do so by having a counter which limits the number of attacks in this way? Why wait for the aggrieved player to report the aggressor to the moderators first? If players are finding ways to exploit the system it means the system is broken, and punishing the players may, in the short term, appease the victims, it doesn’t help build a friendly community. Build these rules into the game design and don’t rely on forums and “verbal” agreements.

Resources
It is undeniable there is a balancing issue with players who start on an island with the marble resource having a distinct advantage in the early and mid games. As pretty much all important buildings require marble to upgrade you can witness a seller’s market in your trading post with certain cheeky players demanding a king’s ransom for a tiny amount of the material. Of course, if you’re lucky, as I was, your neighbours are decent traders, so I was never in such a position, but it does happen. What is the point of being a tiny, defenseless village with a lot of research because the crystal resource was only good for upgrading your academy? A better balancing of buildings and upgrades and the resources they need could prevent this.

Upgrading
A problem in the mid game, continuing on into the long game are not so much the number of resources you need for upgrades, which do become immense, but the time it takes. Part of this is the fun of the game, where you set your tasks and let the game play it out for a while, but later on certain timeframes run into the days, rather than hours. An option to take workers away from mining and research and pour them into construction to marginally speed up upgrading would have been very welcome and adds a new level of tactical depth.

Mechanics
Part of the fun of this game, so far, is finding out together how things work. I’ve had long email conversations and witnessed long threads of forums about the game where a lot of the information is shared. “Did you know that when…” or “Oh, you need a …” type conversations are common and this sense of exploration of the game’s rules is actually a lot of fun, especially in a friendly community.
However, it is also a sign that your documentation or help system isn’t working. I think I have finally gotten to grips with the building and upgrade structure, what I need and when, how to split my populous between mining and making money and how to keep the plebs happy (wine!), but as for military actions…I am in the dark. What makes a good defense force? What do I need for an all out attack? When am I spending too much money on overkill when just a few ships would suffice? What are the real effects of spending huge amounts of cash and resources into upgrading my units? These kinds of things are costly to explore in the game itself, as an attack can anger other players and, if you’re unprepared, could cause devastating revenge. Beyond this too, what happens exactly when I upgrade my town hall? What effect does corruption have on my colonies? Too many questions are left unanswered for the average player.
Trawling the game’s forums is a good source of information, but, with the massive signature picks and the many, many subsections it’s not fun. A decent wiki or on-line guide, explaining in minute detail the ins and outs of all aspects of the game is necessary. Instead we rely on fan-made wikis and information, rather than a fully integrated and in-depth manual that delves deeper than what is currently there.

Cash
So far the tactic to charge players real money for certain types of incentives seems, well, flawed. There is simply no compelling reason to pay money for a few of these temporary perks, certainly not later in the game when you have resources growing out of your backside. Maybe one off payments for an instant but limited boost to certain resources for the beleaguered attack victim, or certain units which are strong but expensive and can only be purchased through the premium system. There are many opportunities here, but a small percentage boost to resource mining for a few days…just doesn’t seem worth it. Also, with the game still very much in development, players might not want to spend money on it yet, as too many things can change, including these premium elements.

So in my inexperienced opinion developers of on-line games should be aware of the following rules:
1. Don’t punish players for exploiting loopholes in your design. Make the game play as it is intended to play and don’t rely on the honour system. If you want players to stick by certain rules make sure there are systems in place to prevent the players from doing these actions.
2. If you’re relying on word of mouth and, especially, if you have a community aspect to the game, allow “invite friends” options and provide for, in the case of Ikariam, the close proximity spawning of invited players.
3. If you are going to rely on added content to bring in revenue, make sure the added content is worthwhile, and that you don’t offer it before the game is at least basically complete.
4. RTFM, and make sure this is an M available. A detailed Wiki allows players to skim through the basics but also to delve deeper into specifics. Exploring game rules can be fun, but it shouldn’t have to be a crapshoot.

However addictive Ikariam is, it is not perfect and it certainly isn’t quite finished yet (it’s a good thing I haven’t forgotten all my German!). That said, I still highly recommend the game, but the developers need to rethink certain issues and design elements before it grows from “great” to “excellent”.

Weekending

"Twas like where you're from weren't never there. Where you're going doesn't matter. And where you are ain't no good unless you can get away from it! " – Hazel, Wise Blood

I consider myself a city boy, but that doesn't mean I don't need to escape it once in a while to avoid turning into a raving, homicidal maniac under the pressures of work, life and my commute. I did this when I was a Londoner too; escape the hustle and bustle, even if only for a couple of days, and drink in some green nature and relatively fresh air. This weekend I took a whirlwind trip down south again for a dip in the onsen, in a small hotel in Ito in the Shizuoka prefecture.

The weekend didn’t start well, with, thanks to the schizophrenic weather conditions this spring and my lovely colleagues, I developed a stonking bad cold on Friday. But come Saturday morning, I dragged myself out of bed with a fever, headache, clogged nose, bad cough and aching eyeballs to make the three hour trip by local trains, passing through Tsurumaki Onsen station, apparently the inspiration for the locale in Ghibli’s Spirited Away. Part of the way we had the pleasure of sharing a carriage with a gang of rowdy, drunk octogenarians. It’s heartening to know that at that age, in Japan, one is still expected to misbehave and be a loud drunk. I could easily grow old in this country.

The stretch from Atami to Ito and beyond is always a little sad. With boulevards and palm trees as well as the occasional seafront hotel it’s easy to imagine it was once the Japanese Riviera, where young couple in 1950s clothes and cars came to holiday. These days it all looks a little run down and, especially off-season, empty. And because these areas are basically regular Japanese villages with the occasional hotel, you can’t much get the “holiday” vibe. But the important things are the volcanic springs; this is the reason to go!

As it’s the off-season right now, just weeks before Golden Week, the national springtime holiday time, we had no problems booking the hotel, though there were several other couples and families there. What I enjoy most about these things is the tatami. As we opted to rip the tatami out of our apartment when we moved in, as they can be a bitch to keep clean and in good nick, I do enjoy occasionally loafing about in a yukata and lying around on the floor in traditional Japanese settings. The view from our surprisingly large room consisted of the mountains, the village below and the bay off to the east. We had chosen the room specifically because it had an onsen bath in the room, but as this turned out to be a regular plastic bathtub with lukewarm onsen water on tap, even though the large window did overlook a very nice view, we decided to go to the hotel’s larger, public onsen instead.

I fully expect to be contacted by the British Embassy soon to return my passport and forcibly denounce my citizenship as I have become far too adept at suppressing the feeling of shame and embarrassment of exposing myself in public. On my first dip the onsen was positively crowded with three other, Japanese patrons. Disrobing and walking to the showers as nature intended before slipping into a shared bathing experience went a lot smoother than before, I’m afraid to say. Don’t ask me if it’s true what they say about the Japanese, because I didn’t stare. At the end of my second dip I had a brief moment of solitude as one guy was just leaving and another was apparently shocked by my foreignness, though that did little to soothe the natural disgust I have of seeing my own flabby body in the altogether. Nevertheless, a piping hot spring water bath acts as a steam bath for my nostrils and for brief moments I could forget I had a crippling cold.

Dinner was served in the room, as is the custom, and consisted of the usual platter of Japanese dishes, beautiful and tasty. Ill or not, a dip in the onsen dictates a booze session, for which I had purchased several large cans of Asahi, as we sat and watched the television. It is strange how being dizzy from the hot bath, delirious from your cold and tipsy from the beer all work together to somehow make Japanese television more palatable. Before long I sank in a mouth-breathing slumber on a wonderfully soft futon. Sleeping the Japanese way can be very nice.

The next morning’s breakfast in the communal dining area was a bit of an ordeal for me. In the same way you could stumble across a one night stand as she’s out walking with her husband, and all you can think is “I’ve seen you naked”, in the same way was I acutely aware of the fact I had seen the flabby arses of every guy in the room. They apparently had no problem with this all, but then they are not British. It certainly didn’t make me any more comfortable thanks to the continuing nose-dripping and debilitating coughing fits. After breakfast we checked out, bought our usual omiyage, presents for the family in law, in the town and made our long way back.

And you may ask if it’s worth traveling three hours each way with a bad cold for a single night in a hotel in the countryside and a dip in a pool, and I say it absolutely is. Having a brief walk through nicely wooded areas, away from the crowds, is wonderfully calming, even with a pocket full of used tissues. My skin feels smooth and my body somewhat soothed thanks to the session in the volcanically heated spring water; it is absolutely wonderful to experience, despite the coughing. For anyone willing to build a new life in a major city like Tokyo, the occasional escape makes life, in general, somewhat easier to cope with. And with Japan’s countryside as beautiful as it is, I highly recommend a trip to the onsen for even the temporary visitor.

Reciprocal Love

You may well and rightfully ask what a grown man does calling himself a “Nintendo fanboy”, as I somewhat ashamedly do. Is it the quality of the games, the general fun-factor or the IPs? Well, yes, it’s all of those. But what delivers the icing on the cake is that Nintendo of Japan knows how to treat its loyal fans.

I am under no misconception that Nintendo is a massive corporation with a single aim: to make money. And boy, do they make money. But since hard-edged Yamauchi made way for lovable, cuddly Iwata as the reigning head of the company, since the launch of the family hit console Wii and the proliferation of fun, often highly polished titles Nintendo more than ever comes across as your best friend (unless you’re one of these uber-hardcore types). Never moreso than this evening when I, as a platinum Club Nintendo member, was presented by mail with this year’s special free gift that they send out around each spring. Last year it was a special calendar and the interim gift of a golden Mario statuette, which, considering it was totally gratis and unasked for, is much better than a slap in the face. This year it was, good golly, a Wii Classic Controller shaped exactly like a classic SNES pad (pictured above). Oh my! And remember, the only thing I had to do for this was to register my special codes that come with the many software purchases I make over the year, which gives me points which I can still, above and beyond this gift, spend on other free items.

Sony too have their little odes to its fans, though in a different way. They usually produce limited edition themed items, for sale, to the hardcore fans. Be it special editions of consoles or game-themed peripherals, it’s not quite in the same generous league as Nintendo, but still.

The real villains in this picture are of course Microsoft, with their inability to break through in the Japanese market in any significant way. What did they give me after they fixed my unreliable console? A free month’s subscription to a service I would rather not pay for at all in the first place. Aside from that? They offer their tiny band of crazy loyal fans with absolutely nothing special. If they want to understand the inscrutable Japanese gamer, free gifts and fan service is a very big deal here.

I am well aware that the global score of Nintendo’s fan service brings the average down somewhat. Just remember that the regional offices operate fairly autonomously so it doesn’t prove Nintendo loves Japan more, but merely that Nintendo of Europe doesn’t like Europeans all that much.

I can’t wait to try out my new controller, but it will have to wait till after I finish Metroid Prime 3, which, thanks to the surprisingly effective Freeloader I can now enjoy without the aid of a dictionary. Hurrah!

Emotional Design

I think the generally held opinion is that Japanese games have a more interesting visual style than those in the West, where they suffer from uninspired realism. This is of course not true, as there are plenty of Western games with their own distinctive style, say Team Fortress 2, Alien Hominid, Geometry Wars, and many others, but the initial gut reaction of many is that the Japanese have a knack. And it’s certainly something I believe myself. When it comes to interesting, inspired or downright crazy art styles the Japanese certainly seem to have a talent, which is probably, amongst other things, why Japanese games are still, to this day, much loved by Western audiences.

The Western industry thrives on buzzwords and the most recent one is “emotion”. Ridiculous speeches and opinion pieces by punters and industry insiders talk about how video games need to be infused with "more emotion", how they need to engage the player on a whole new level, to make them, Lord forbid, cry. The reason this trend is so prolific at the moment is possibly because a lot of titles focus mainly on technology, especially in these “next-gen” days. If a game plays a lot like a tech demo it’s probably because it is one, because developers know good technology can be licensed out for extra income. There are certain tricks of technology that everybody wants to show off, hence the sudden focus on realistic water, real-time occlusion shadowing and a massive increase in on-screen polygons and physics. Art teams have a wealth of possibilities and are often made to use each and every one of them because technology drives the industry.

But does it drive the market? I guess it does, to an extent. For certain titles the more real the graphics, AI and physics the better, obviously. A racing simulator with cartoony graphics won’t be as successful as one which looks hyper-real, nor would a flight simulator. First-Person perspective games are all about putting the player in the middle of the action, so suspending disbelief with realism seems natural. Sales and marketing will push he realism angle, because they believe it’s important. Programmers dictate what is possible and managers will want to milk that to the fullest, whether it is all appropriate or not. And don’t get me wrong, this trend has brought us some astounding games, both in gameplay and visual splendor. It’s a Good Thing™ generally.

In Japan, however, the industry is behind technically. And whether it is because of this or due to some cultural bent, visual design is approached rather differently here. In meetings and design sessions the focus is not on beauty and realism, in the technical sense of the word, but much more about the feelings it should evoke in the player.

Words like “kimochii”, “ureshii”, “kawaii” are often bandied about in these meetings. And though they are easy to translate their true meaning in these contexts is less so. Imagine a beer commercial, of which Japan has many. A guy picks up a dripping wet, cold pint of golden wonder, takes a few deep, audible gulps, wipes is mouth and goes “AHHHH”. That is often the feeling Japanese developers want to invoke. A kind of satisfied pleasure, a calming or soothing of the spirit, an elation. Imagine the player on his sofa, playing the game with a joyous grin or a satisfied smile. And this is not to say the Japanese are more “spiritual”, whatever that means, because they’re not really, but it does show a slight difference in approaches when it comes to design, and visual design in particular.

Sometimes visual design is luckily limited by the technical boundaries Japanese programmers can’t seem to master yet. With a more limited palette the artist can be forced to be more creative and investigate alternative styles to get the most out of the engine. A hyper-realistic Legend of Zelda game could, I suppose, be pretty cool, but the hardware on which it’s made simply can’t handle that right now. The Wind Waker’s scenes on the boat, as Link travelled on open seas, were immensely powerful in a way it couldn’t have been had they pushed the engine to beyond its capacity by rendering realistic water and skies. The Loco Roco game on PSP would in no way be better if they had managed to include real-time occlusion shading and nicely rendered 3D blobs with fluffy shaders. With a limited palette, either by necessity or choice, the artist is, paradoxically, more free to excel. In the West the artists have a set of shaders the publisher wants used, to show of how gorgeous the tech is, which is why we see so much glare, bloom, shiny metal surfaces and why so many, though not all, games that use the Unreal Engine suffer from that similar rusty look. More often than not, less is more. And great art direction will, at least critically, always triumph over well-crafted realism.

In the West the approach can often leave the intended player out of the loop. I’ve seen pretty cool characters changed, under publisher pressure, to more mediocre, bland ones. Visual design is often more along the lines of “make it more realistic” than anything else. And I reiterate, this is not always the case, obviously, but it feels as if the majority of high profile titles work on this principle. I think the West can learn a lot from the Japanese approach, where much is dictated not by the player experience, but by the player’s emotional reaction, however superficial, when confronted with the game. We don’t need to make players cry with heavy-handed emotionally charged scenes, nor do we need to push the envelope with deep moral questions; a simple courtesy nod towards what the player feels on a minute by minute basis should suffice to elevate the current gen into something deeply special for a lot of people.

Ikariam

I'm going to, with your permission, go outside of my remit here and comment on a game which is neither video nor has anything to do with Japan but is, nevertheless, eating away my time in tiny increments. I am talking of Ikariam, an on-line "Civilization Lite" that is played in your browser and has, despite my initial resistance, managed to suck me in.

At its base the game plays somewhat like Settlers meets Civilization for a nice cup of coffee. You sign up for free, pick a world and start a town. You upgrade buildings, build new buildings, research technologies and harvest wood and whatever natural bounty your island has on offer. The twist is, apart from being free and instant-play browser based, that the game is always on and actions take time. I come into work in the morning, check on my village, make some decisions, set an upgrade going and am then told it takes 3 or 4 hours. So I shut down my browser and get to work. When I check back at lunchtime the upgrade is finished and new orders can be issued. Don't expect to be playing this game intensively for hours on end, it doesn't work that way, which I think is where its genius lies.

What Ikariam is doing right:
- instant, browser-based play
You start up Firefox (or Explorer if you're not security or usability literate), type in the URL, sign up and within seconds you're playing a game. No intro logos, no downloads and installs, no driver updates and reboots, it's right there.
- totally free
You pay exactly nothing to play this game. There is a mass of functionality and gameplay right there without having to whip out your credit card. However, should you want to get a little more out of it you can, with smaller payments for extra items and systems that could give you an advantage. There is no going to the shops to pay an obscene amount of money for a product which may or may not hold your attention for, say, 10 hours worth of enjoyment. If you don't like it, then don't play it. If you do, play it. If you love it, pay some extra money. How can you, as a consumer, not like this business model?
- time investment / always on
This game does not require you to sit at your monitor for hours on end. You play it in short bursts of a few minutes spread over a day. When you have the time you check out what's going on, when you don't the game plays out in your absence. This is a great way to play games, if you ask me. It's great setting up some tasks and coming back a few hours later to see how things have progressed.
- other people
I am personally not a big fan of multiplayer gaming. You usually end up having to play with strangers or go through a tiresome process of organising all your friends to all play at a certain time and date. Ikariam does offer some scope for griefing, obviously, but generally I get a great sense of community. One aspect of this is the communal upgrading of your island's natural resources. By donating an amount of, say, wood to the forest it can be upgraded. The game keeps track of who donated how much and if you all band together you can upgrade your resources for the whole island's benefit. Seeing someone donating more than three times you have really makes you feel guilty and dig into your pockets a little more.

Is this the future, though? Maybe people have beardstroked about the browser game as being the perihelion of the video game future. It certainly has many benefits, both for the developer and the customer. For the developer it removes the need of publishers and thus a certain necessary loss of creative control in favour of the terror of our current business model's financial realities. This can of course lead to cheaper development and more risk taking but in the end even developers need to make money, so this may be an argument too far. Updates and patches are never sent out to the users as the game is played on-line, which makes the transition from beta to final product a little easier and also allows for easy expansion. Piracy is also, obviously, useless in browser games, as it's technically impossible for now and utterly useless for a free to play game. Micropayments for extra stuff could be a very lucrative system, if Korea is anything to go by, though you'd need a certain level of popularity to be able to retire on the proceeds, I'm sure.

For the customer too it's ideal. No need to buy extra hardware nor upgrade your PC, in the state things are now at least. There is no need to lug around a memory card as you can log in from any computer and pick up where you left off. And it's free, for as much as you'd like it to be. Ikariam seems to work on a system where buying some extra items with real money adds temporary boosts and bonuses, which can help you progress further faster. If Ikariam will earn a huge profit from this is unknown to me, but it certainly seems a sound way to go about it. Some Korean free MMOs have, reportedly, only a free to micropayment pick-up rate of less than 1%, which is still enough to make money, apparently. Adding advertising revenue to this model can also help. Either way, the customer can play the game and enjoy it while never having to pay a single dime/yen/penny for it, unless they really like it a lot, in which case a few dimes/yen/pennies can add to their enjoyment.

I hope Ikariam will grow into the massive success it deserves to be, especially once they deal with a few of the balancing issues where newcomers may be overwhelmed by long playing veterans. I'm also keeping an eye open on EA's efforts in this field and the many other publishers dipping their toes in. As consumers we will hopefully experience a rise in great quality, free games soon, and as developers we'll find new opportunities for businesses away from today's rather cripplingly expensive hardware-led boxed models.

Players can try to find me and shower me with free marble, if they are so inclined, on the IOTA server on sunny Houlios [23:82] > Shanksville. Seriously, send marble.

Trainmanship – surviving the Leicester Elbow

Aficionados and practitioners of the gentle art of gamesmanship may be jubilant to note that per pro yours truly the art of survival in the busiest of public transport systems has officially been accepted recently and named “trainmanship” by the Greater Tokyo Old Rotters and Gentlemen Club as a subset of Japanmanship due to the increasingly huge, as yet unpublished, amount of research on the subject, quod erat faciendum. A feat worthy of celebration, I think you’ll agree.

* * *

Recently I was in yet another altercation involving the Leicester Elbow. In the same way London’s Leicester Square somehow attracts tourists to flock to it despite any obvious charms or worthwhile attractions, so does an elevated elbow, say one in the middle of an arm holding a suspended strap for support, attract the heads of those around it for no discernable or comprehensible reason, hence the “Leicester Elbow”. (see figure A)

Fig. A The Leicester Elbow

In my most recent case a demure and possibly drunk old salaryman had decided to wage war on my elbow by, eventually, doing backwards head buts with such force the crack of bone on bone was audible through even my earphones. I felt no pain, of course, but was irritated enough to not make any more space for the belligerent lollygagger as all he had to do was take a single step forward, back to the space he had previously occupied, for my elbow to no longer be an obstacle. This, in turn, prompted the man to turn around to have a word with me.

After having sampled and tested all manner of offensive and defensive measures it would seem ignoring the perpetrator is by far the most effective, but only if you can communicate that you are, in fact, ignoring him. This requires a passive aggressive non-activity which can be hard to convey, but the Leicester Elbow forms a unique natural solution, which I had cause in this instance to test with astounding results.

In turning to me the perpetrator sought eye contact which I was unwilling to lend him, as it would invariably lead to a cul-de-sac of verbal abuse. Instead I continued to stare at my mobile phone and moved my elbow ever so slightly as to make it occupy the space in between our heads through which the conversation was to be conducted. Not deterred the drunk merely tilted his head sideways to peek past my elbow and to reinitiate possible eye contact. To answer this move, I merely shifted my elbow ever so slightly back and again successfully blocked him from my view, never once looking up. (see figure 2) The dance can theoretically be perpetrated ad infinitum but in this instance it was repeated four times before the man got the message and meekly turned to move to a different space, far removed from this aggressively unwilling victim.

Fig. 2 The Sandwich Waltz

The lesson learnt is that simply ignoring the wrongdoer will yield no reasonable results so actively ignoring him while communicating loudly you are doing so, as with the Sandwich Waltz, is proven to be effective.

As a side note, the tactic did eventually lead to the man changing his position to near where another passenger would give up his seat at the following stop, allowing for the aggressor to sit in comfort for the rest of the trip while yours truly remained standing. So maybe it was not a victory in comfort, if it was one in the moral sphere of commuter survival.

Random Tragedies

Though certain random acts of violence from around the world get more media attention than others, e.g. the many school shootings that blight America or the many bombings in the Middle East, Japan's spate of vicious random attacks remain largely unreported globally, until, that is, video games are involved and websites and blogs jump to the defense of the medium.

Troublingly Japan has a fair amount of random violence. It's not so much the quantity as the viciousness of these attacks that is so shocking. Crime that is reported on Japanese news mostly revolves around foreigners, as that is juicy reporting, but the other type is the freak-out violence. From a young Japanese man who strangled a foreign English teacher and buried her body in a disused bathtub on his balcony, the young teenager who brutally stabbed his sister to the man who grabbed a knife in a department store and stabbed a random baby in a pram, the kinds of crimes are truly shocking but remain unexamined, mostly. My own armchair psychologist's view is that it probably has something to do with the enormous pressures your average Japanese person experiences in daily life, socially and professionally, and the lack of any decent care for stress. All too often people take short "holidays" to mental institutions and, I guess, that is supposed to fix the problem.

Don't get me wrong, I in no way condone or excuse these terrible acts of violence and murder, but I am disappointed there is so little psychological research and introspection being engaged in by the Japanese, or seemingly so anyway. If the extreme readiness to be violent and confrontational on busy trains is anything to go by I wouldn't be surprised if a lot more Japanese are far more highly strung than we may believe. It's a social problem that is simply not being addressed. It's not easy being Japanese I shouldn't wonder.

And then a young man in Ibaraki stabs eight people, killing one of them, is reported to have played Ninja Gaiden on the DS and the Japanese media, following in its Western brethrens' footsteps, happily reports a game related spree of violence. Team Ninja's Yosuke Hayashi steps off a place and is immediately quizzed by the media as to his reaction, as if the link is a foregone conclusion. His reaction was admirably non-committal and made what should be considered the final word in reaction to media reporting on video game "related" violence when he said

"The media should not be the ones answering the questions or defining the reasons why this incident happened."

A sentiment I wholly agree with.

As if my views carry any kind of weight whatsoever I do feel the need to explain to my readers my own view on violent video games. As a Liberal lefty freedom of speech and artistic expression are dear to me, but I am often frustrated by people who fail to understand this also carries with it a certain responsibility. One can't just throw any old material into the public sphere and deny any responsibility when that causes a reaction or other consequences. Then again, I believe video games should be a free and uncensored medium in the same way literature and film and others are and not be blamed specifically if a mentally deranged person uses it as a trigger for his or her violence. Despite Mark Chapman and John W. Hinckley Jr. literature and film have not, despite some groups' claims, been responsible for the moral decline of our society (per se), and continue to thrive as respected forms of art and entertainment. I'm sure video games too will reach this point in time.

Video games should not be singled out by self-aggrandizing shysters and vote-whoring politicians, who so betray their utter ignorance, for censorship and extreme control, in the same way this doesn't happen for literature, films and art. There are systems in place which work as long as ignorant parents get educated and stop buying mature-rated games for their young offspring. That said, I am a little tired of publishers pushing out gore and bloodfests and then complain when the public reacts with distaste (just before they go out and buy the product anyway). When defending freedom of speech one so often is forced to defend terrible products, but that is the nature of the debate, I'm afraid. But personally I find utter gore-fests and extreme, bloody violence a little distasteful. Sure, I sometimes indulge but not exclusively so.

Personally, as a developer and gamer, I am not interested in violent games. Of course I play them, but the marketing blurb that a certain game features an X number of ways to kill people or that the engine supports bodies being blown up in realistic chunks or features realistic blood fountains simply does not excite me in the slightest. I am proud to say that my resume contains mostly non-violent titles. I have been very fortunate to have been able to choose this direction. At a previous company the bad pay was starting to grate but being put to work on a cynically and overly sexist game was the last straw and I handed in my notice to be able to work on more family-friendly titles. Not many developers have this luxury so I know I've been lucky, but I have made concerted efforts in this way.

And after all this chin-stroking, outrage and moral high ground inhabiting I must humbly return to Yosuke Hayashi's words that it's not up to the media who should realise, as we should, they are no longer the "voice of the people" and should not take the position of moral guardians and purveyors of outrage to suit their own political agendas. These random attacks are human tragedies and should be examined as such, and not be political platforms for the lowest form of human being to use as soapboxes.

There are too many unanswered and unexamined questions but one thing is for sure: the only thing violence in video games can consistently and demonstrably be blamed for is the preening hot air of the indignant ignoramus.

Bless you!

Spring has arrived, even though it's still a little psychotic. For every warm, sunny day we have several with cold winds and enormous downpour. Nevertheless, the cherry blossoms are blooming, dotting the city with little bright pockets of pink again for the next couple of weeks and it heralds the annual season of people asking me if I'm okay with pollen or how my hay fever is.

The thing is, I have no hay fever and that, apparently, sets me apart from 25 out of every 10 Tokyo residents who, around this time of year, go through a period of massive mucus generation and sore eyes. I'm not quite sure what it is, possibly a lifetime in a smoggy major city, or if it's that the Japanese are genetically more indisposed towards it, but all of them show surprise when I tell them I'm perfectly fine and that, in fact, I recon in Europe hay fever sufferers are the exception rather than the rule. I have no idea if this is true but I know I am only acquainted with a handful of sufferers back home as opposed to being surrounded by the bastards in Japan.

The word used here is the wonderfully, if accidentally, onomatopoeic "kahunshou". You'll learn this word easily once you live here, as you will be asked about it all through March, April and May. It still surprises me that blowing your nose is a taboo in Japan. A quick, loud blow into a handkerchief, though briefly disrupting and not really disgusting, is considered rude, while incessant, wet sniffing can last all day and is hugely nauseating but acceptable. My workdays are spent in an environment that sounds as if it's inhabited by dozens of people desperately trying to suck those last few drops off the bottom of a thick milkshake.

Time will tell if prolonged exposure to the Tokyo biosphere will harm my olfactory passages enough to become a sniffer too. I hope not. It's almost impossible to blow your nose and keep your ears closed to drown out the sound of soppy nasal inhaling at the same time. Needless to say, during the springtime I usually avoid bringing lunchboxes to work to eat at my desk. Even on an empty stomach it's difficult to suppress the gag reflexes.

The state of indie in Japan (Jindie?)

Apologies for the recent dip in output. Life has a tendency to crop up on you sometimes, and the little time I have been able to devote to writing was done so in response to a request for an opinion piece for Gamasutra regarding the state of amateur and indie game development in Japan.

[Nikkei reporter Shin Kiyoshi] points out that the burgeoning amateur and indie development scene is helping push the creativity and competitive edge of the U.S. market to an extent that pushes Japan's own industry even further behind the curve. And Kiyoshi is certainly not the only one to have noticed this; more and more Japanese pundits and developers are, sometimes with only basic grumbling acceptance, noticing the growing gap between the two cultures.

And though there is some amateur game development in Japan, it is almost negligible: it certainly isn't allowed to encroach upon the established industry thinking that once made Japan a great nation of video gaming but is increasingly turning it towards mediocrity and obsolescence, save for a single digit number of exceptions.

Read the full article here on Gamasutra or here on GameSetWatch.

Games what I have played too much

I wonder how many gamers out there are like me, when sometimes a challenge is fine, as long as it's not too taxing, but often just going through the motions is enough. I like spending time in my own brain, as someone who likes splatter horror, and I often lose myself in thought while grinding through match-three casual games on the PC, or replay simple games I could finish with my eyes closed. Often doing this is much more relaxing and fun than that sweaty, brain-aching I get from challenging new games. There are a handful of games I have played and finished over and over and over and I still sometimes get the urge to pick them up and replay them for the umpteenth time, not only because they games are great, but mostly because I know what to do and there isn't a single challenge left in the product; I'm just going through the motions enjoying it immensely. I sometimes feel developers and publishers go the wrong way trying to produce challenges rather than experiences and though I understand the market is very wide and diverse and that there are people out there who enjoy throwing their controllers at the wall in frustration, I simply want more games I can play without dying, getting stuck or having to think too much.

Here are three titles I have misspent my youth and adulthood on. Occasionally I dig them up again or, as is more often the case, I buy the title yet again when it's ported to a new format. I know the ins and outs, the nooks and crannies, the secrets, the shortcuts. And yet, every time I play them I am still having a whale of a time.

The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
The reason Nintendo keeps on porting and rereleasing old games is because of idiots like me, sorry. Every time you see yet another version of certain classic games and think to yourself "no way am I going to pay for that game AGAIN", I will already have done so. I have bought LttP about as many times as I've played it (not quite) and never regretted it. It is, by far, the best Zelda ever created and if you disagree you are wrong, it's that simple.
So much time have I invested in this incredible world, its shortcuts, its links to the dark world, where all the teleports lead, where all the heart pieces are that any time I replay it it feels a little like a homecoming. Starting from my...um, Link's uncle's little cottage suspiciously located in the middle of the map, in the rain, to the sequence breaking secret items that are hidden, to the dwarf blacksmiths, the bottles...the everything. I know it by heart and replaying my quest is like sightseeing through my youth.
When the GBA version was released with an extra move and dungeon I browbeated a colleague into playing the Four Swords quests with me just to unlock them. They added too little to the game, but secretly I was happy with that; the original still stands, as is.

Played on: SNES, GBA, Wii, PC (ahem)
Times finished: Pfff...quite a few. A dozen orso, at least, if not more. Probably more.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
This game out-Metroids Metroid, and though the subsequent GBA and DS releases were also little gems of pure excellence in their own rights, and have received their fair share of my attention and time, none of these, nor any of the precedents (sorry retro-fans) can match this game for pure, bloody minded, amazing topness and bad voice acting.
I had bought the special, limited edition of this title at first but then, stupidly, in a fit of ignorance, got rid of it when I moved to Japan. I then managed to score a Chinese original copy of the game, via a benevolent industry acquaintance, which I still cherish to this day. In fact, the first thing I did when I bought my too-big, shiny new high definition television was plug in my PSOne to play this game. And it was wonderful. Who needs crisp, sharp graphics when you can have great old graphics but bigger? What is a man? A miserable pile of secrets! Ahhh....
When the XBLA version was released it turned out to be the first game, and eventually one of only two, for which I got all achievements, within a very short period of time. I knew the map layout, the location of the relics, the weaknesses of the bosses, which items to equip to make the challenging parts easy as piss and where all the secret rooms were. And I still enjoyed this game more than many others, simply because I could play it without learning its ins and outs.

Played on: PSOne, XBLA - considering purchasing a PSP just for the chance of playing it again
Times finished: Again, I didn't keep track, but at least 10 orso times, not counting the Richter and Axearmor playthroughs.

Final Fantasy Tactics Advance
I know there are other and earlier tactics games out there worthy of praise, and I have indeed played a few of them. I was on the brink of buying Disgaia 3 for the PS3 until I heard a US version was planned. But something about FFTA hits all my sweet spots. The sprite-tastic graphics, the jobs, the everything, but mostly the graphics, yeah. I like 'em 2D and FFTA is just the sweetest, juiciest fruit right after Metal Slug in terms of pixelly awesomenicity.
Playing through it the first time it slowly dawned on me how I wasn't quite 100% efficient in the jobs and skills learning curve, and though I was on the brink of beating the final boss, after a good 40 hours of time investment, without hesitation I deleted my save and started again. Since then I have finished it several times, with each go trying out different team structures, job skills and characters. One thing I have never done was finish all the quests, as the grinding skills and job system was for me always far more interesting than the quests or even battles themselves. Just writing about it now makes me want to start a new game, if it wasn't for that tedious, unskippable tutorial intro.
After I purchased the game it didn't leave my GBA slot until I bought the GBA Player for the Gamecube, after which it didn't leave that slot for a good long while. I bought a special classic-style controller just for this game and have poured more hours into it than studying Japanese, consuming alcohol or living life.
I fear, with childish excitement, the release of the localised version of Final Fantasy Tactics Advance 2.

Played on: GBA and the Gamecube's GBA Player
Times finished: Not that many, maybe 5, but in overall number of hours wasted, incalculable.

* * *

Of course these games listed are fantastic masterpieces in their own right, so they deserve replays, but simply the fact I know them inside out makes them more fun for me. I don't have to think anymore, I can just do. And more than other, newer games, this is the kind of relaxation I have come to expect from my hobby. Long replays, instant deaths, boss battles that require luck and finding the one weak spot...I've done that. I don't need to go through that again. It's not that much fun, actually. At least with LttP I know exactly where to hit the bosses, in SotN I know exactly where to go first to get that poison gas cloud relic and in FFTA I know what skills and items my main character needs for that series of battles where he's on his own. Arguably they are more fun now than they were the first time. I don't know, maybe I'm just odd and lazy, but I don't find challenging games fun anymore.

This is why I think the PC casual niche has had such a marked effect on the market. Most of these games are very easy and are usually boiled down to simply repeating a single action over and over. It's something which is often lacking in console titles, where publishers and developers heap challenge upon challenge and obtuse puzzle onto badly designed racing sections. There is a market out there for the lazy gamer, he who doesn't want to think much or get his hands sweaty. It's called relaxation.

Watashi wa DJ, dawg!

I recently bought Burnout Paradise for the PS3, hoping that like so many others it would see my system settings were set to English and so ignore the localisation and play in God’s own language. No such luck, sadly, but at least I now know my Japanese is good enough to follow all audio instructions and menu screens, including the strangely morose and authoritative woman who introduces Paradise City. The game is a hoot, of course, and this is coming from someone who hates racing games. I just spent a lazy Sunday afternoon marveling at the crashes, finding signs to smash and zooming around the city, ignoring all those tiresome races and activities. But there is one snag…

I often hear about how localised versions of Japanese games are turned to Z-grade quality pulp by bad American voice acting. Believe me, it works the other way round too. As if DJ Atomica wasn’t enough of an annoying, odious intrusion to begin with, wait till you meet DeeDuyai Atomica, his Japanese twin brother. He follows in the proud tradition of a certain type of Japanese radio or television DJ, often an American-born Japanese or one of mixed parentage. They speak in fast Japanese but like to throw in Englishisms to sound cool. DeeDuyai Atomica too has his banter and likes to throw in the occasional “CHECKIDOUD” or “LESGO”. It is as incongruous as white middle-class kids calling each other “niggah”. It’s face-smashingly annoying.

Even though the game’s soundtrack is mediocre at best, at least they didn’t change it for the Japanese market. The only thing worse than modern rock beat combos is the Japanese version of the same, a bunch of cool hip youngsters trying very hard to be urban and “street” but singing in Japanese. I may be a bit of a Victor Meldrew in my old age, but inferior copies of inferior music is much worse than inferior originals. I’m sorry otaku, however much you enjoy ironically silly Japanese music, the joy will soon fade away once it’s the only thing you hear around you all day. If it wasn’t for foreign Japanophiles Ayumi Hamazaki would have disappeared into obscurity, where she belongs…but that’s besides the point.

The DJ and BGM have been turned down, the SFX up and I am enjoying the game as it is supposed to be enjoyed: badly! Boy, those crashes are something else…

An apple a day

If you live in Japan you must get yourself some health insurance. If you have health insurance you must get a yearly medical check-up. This works really well, if you ask me. I think in total I've been on all of two orso random medical examinations in my life before Japan, but since the move I've had about half a dozen of varying intensities.

The system is pretty rote, like a medical conveyor-belt. You get your forms and rules. No eating after such o'clock, no fags or booze so many hours before, no nothing, etc. Fill in your forms; "have you got any of these diseases?" or "how much do you drink?" You'll either get a vial to collect your morning urine in or even a paper net and vial-secured comb for fecal matter, though the former is often collected au naturelle at the clinic itself and the latter is usually only for the plus alpha checks.

There are two types of examination. The regular and, what I have termed above, the plus alpha. The former is most common but after you reach the tender age of 30 and every so many years thereafter with increasing regularity you'll get the plus alpha treatment. The regular check involves your urine, a finger-full of blood, blood pressure, eyesight and hearing, height and weight, probably a doctor's consultation, if you must, an X-Ray of the chest and one of those things where they check, I don't quite know, your wiring; they put plastic braces on your ankles and wrists and a set of rubber suction cups on your chests and then stare intensely at a monitor until they tell you to get up and move along. For the plus alpha you may receive an echo-scan of the guts, where you get a gelled scanner massage on your belly as if you were pregnant and most odious of all, as the Japanese say in hushed tones, the dreaded "Barium drink". This involves drinking some horribly chalky stomach medicine, followed by a Barium milkshake, a semi-tasteless, milky drink that is thick and heavy. You can pretty much feel it drop to your stomach. You're then put on a revolving table, pretty much like Goldfinger's, and shook around. You'll be asked to turn this way and that as the table does its fairground ride, all the while photos are being taken of the Barium as it sloshes about your body. Once a little robot arm even came out and prodded me just to get the Barium flowing. It's exhausting, time consuming and gives you that heavy feeling for the rest of the day. You'll be given a laxative to ingest should you be unable to pass the Barium naturally, but with the weight of gravity it is usually no real problem.

At these times my Japanese ability really gets a beating. Obviously medical terms are not used in daily conversation and are unlikely to pop up during your study or cigarette breaks. Who knows the Japanese for "blood pressure" for example? Though I suppose, as a game developer, that one would be handy to memorise.

This year the preliminary results on the day, ahead of the full report to be sent a few weeks hence, was not so much positive as unremarkable. As I am a prolific smoker, legendary drinker and consummate hypochondriac I trust these results not one bit. By now some horrible disease must have manifested itself yet of all the check-ups only once did I get a dangerously low score for my lungs. In retrospect it was probably a clinic-wide mandate to lower the score for anyone who ticks the "smoker" box on the initial questionnaire because during the doctor's consultation I mentioned it. He had a listen to my lungs with his ice-cold stethoscope, told me to breathe deeply and simply shook his head saying it was fine. When I first came to Japan and was still carrying around a little too much Western midriff, the weight/height nurse had trouble finding me on the graph. Her final opinion was then that I'd be too heavy if I had been a Japanese person of slightly smaller stature. All she needed to do was prod me in the gut to find out I needed to lose weight, which I did when I removed the daily intake of beer from my diet and replaced it with carbonated water...and wine. I'd still like to lose some, but hell, I'd like a solid gold Rolls Royce too. Never going to happen.

Though I have a slight, possibly racist, distrust of Japanese doctors and I don't quite believe the perennial all-clear reports of my obviously ailing body, it is a good system and should, if it works, be able to pinpoint problems before they get out of hand. That said, having to survive a whole morning without so much a drop of caffeine or a puff of nicotine was the most disastrous Hell I’ve ever been through and I’m very glad I won’t be having to do that again for another year.

The Skeptical Game Developer

I am a skeptic. Or rather, I am an aggressively militant atheist with a rather snobbish outlook on any wishy-washy balderdash that isn’t scientifically sound; on my better days I could make Richard Dawkins sound like a tolerant apologist. As a consequence life in Japan can be quite irritating as they have their fair share of superstitions, religions, an extraordinary number of cults and no end of snake-oil quackery from laxatives marketed as slimming agents to old wise-women on television telling the young anything from how green tea can make you healthy to how soya beans can make you fly, or whatever rot passes for “knowledge from the past” these days.

Video games too, possibly because they have an ancestry in sci-fi fantasy and role-playing, are remarkably pseudoscientific, but because it is entertainment it can and usually is easily forgiven. I am not really a strong proponent of education through gaming, because entertainment is allowed to be nonsensical. It’s escapism, after all, so there is nothing wrong with superheroes and magic users. But still, I sometimes wonder how skeptical thought could be integrated into the game design.

Health Potions
A staple of every RPG is the, usually blue health potion. Wouldn't it be fun if you buy these potions, at a high price, only to find out they do nothing for you? You're in the heat of battle, almost dead, and take your herbal or homeopathic super health potion and..."HP +0" appears For the real medicine you'll need to go to the other shop where they sell antibiotics, bandages and vaccinations. Similarly Phoenix Down resurrection potions do exactly nothing.

Support
No raid party is complete without a druid, healer or magic user. Sadly the druid just wants to strip down to his socks and sandals and worship the Earth Goddess, the healer is just carrying a bunch of crystals and herbs and the magic user is only very adept at pointing out which one of a deck of cards you've picked. Don't you wish you had recruited that medical professional now or invested experience points in that surgery-class character?

Sham religions
Obviously, in my world-view, “sham religion” is a tautology. The closest gaming has come is probably Ultima 7’s dangerous and destructive Fellowship which appeared to be a social cohesive but was anything but. Sadly it did have a “real” supernatural character behind it with The Guardian, so it’s not quite skeptical enough for me.
Wouldn't it be fun if you were to travel the lands, follow your quests and fight your foes in aide of a supernatural power of Good to vanquish the supernatural power of Evil only to find out these don't exist. Well done on doing a good job, though, and you have indeed achieved a moral victory, but that goddess I told you about...doesn't exist, sorry.

Conspiracies
You are part of a secret black-ops style commando unit, lead by a grizzled charismatic ex-army colonel. You infiltrate the government and fight government troops for the safety of all of mankind and freedom. The government is building a super secret weapon that can enslave mankind so it must be stopped. Only, are they? I mean, really? You find out the government is just this bunch of pasty, greedy idiots and the whole theory was just the result of your mentally unstable colonel acting on intuition and bad information rather than proof.

Hauntings
You spend the night in an old mansion and are bombarded from every angle by malicious spirits. Your goal is to survive this Hell House and live to see another day. Except that other day is spent in a mental institution when the locals find you a raving, hallucinating idiot the next morning, waving shotguns at mirrors and cats.

Fortune
One NPC in the village is a fortune teller. For a small sum of gold she'll enlighten you and show you the correct path. You will meet a handsome stranger and there will be some money issues and maybe a friend in need will ask you for help. For extra gold she'll ask her spirit guide for more insights. Do you know someone whose name begins with an "R", no, maybe it's a "B", or a "W", no? A pet maybe?

Zodiac
Part of your character creation let's you pick a Zodiac sign for your avatar. Except, of course, whichever you choose hasn't the slightest effect on your overall character stats, but it does allow you to speak more easily to women in bars.


Though I don’t seriously expect skeptical thought to be integrated into our products, I do recommend any like-minded people to join their local skeptics’ society, listen to the many informative and entertaining skeptical podcasts and websites and rely a little more on common-sense rationality in their everyday lives. Amen!

DevBlog Matsuri

Bruce Everiss, industry Mark Williams lookalike, over at BruceOnGames saw fit to post an article listing some of his favourite game developer blogs, being kindly / uninformed enough to single mine out for special comment. He makes a good point in saying that if one wants to learn more about the game developer's life of the mind, game review sites and magazines are simply inadequate in the face of the rising tide of actual game developer blogs that are cropping up with increasing regularity.

It's true in my case that the blogs I frequent most often are those written by industry people, usually developers, the occasional indie developer with only one or two actual "journalism" sites. For news there is no better place than the industry-only Chaos Engine forum, and for press releases there is the Magic Box. The good thing about developer blogs is that even if they don't actually write about the development of their own titles, which is often protected under Non-Disclosure Agreements, their insights on games is usually of a much higher standard than even the professional game journalists'.

Here is the list as found on BruceOnGames, spellchecked and with my addendums at the bottom:

• Mainly About Games. Informative and well written it has a nice personal feel to it.
• Dopass.com. Short entries not just about gaming. Funny at times.
• A path through possibility. Irregular updating but well worth a read for some incisive commentary.
• Magical Wasteland. Refreshingly irreverent.
• Survival Horror. Does what it says on the tin.
• Gamedev.net. A big and serious site with a lot of good content.
• Seven Degrees of Freedom. Very nice diary style blog.
• Random Encounters in Imaginary Realms. Just cherry picks the good stuff.
• Cheeky. Sparse and interesting development diary.
• Peter Mackay’s projects and development diary. Quake on Gamecube.
• Life In The Rain. Often long interesting personal articles.
• T=Machine. Wide ranging blog with much that is happening at the sharp end online.
• Black Company Studios. Semi diary semi event driven articles. Nice.
• .mischief.mayhem.soap. A serious game developer’s blog.
• JakeWorld Blog. The life of a game developer.
• Gamefeil. Games, comics, diary.
• Scientific Ninja. Technical stuff here.
• Devbump. Aggregation of gaming articles.
• Nimblebit. Game development diary. Lots of technical stuff.
• It’s Bezness time. Bedroom developer diary.
• I love it, I feel like Sisyphus. On start-ups, game development and programming.

Personal favourites not yet listed are:

• The Grumpy Gamer – legend Ron Gilbert's on－line scrapbook and thought diary.
• Make it big in games - Jeff Tunnell and Josh Dallman aiming for the “most insightful and useful blog on the internet” award
• Reality Panic – IGDA head honcho Jason Della Rocca tells up what he’s up to.
• The Pickford Bros. blog – Old-skool development heroes doing new-skool cool stuff.
• Warren Spector’s blog – I’ve never heard of this guy but he has some nice ideas. He should be working in the games industry, if you ask me.

There are many more blogs and sites out there written by actual game developers from all different fields of our industry. I apologise if I’ve left anyone specific off the list, but the average internet user can easily find more of them with a little patience without having to resort to getting all their gaming information from a handful of major game journalist sites.

If you’re a developer with his own spiffy blog but you’re not listed on my blogroll, don’t be shy and drop me a line at japanmanship@gmail.com to inform me of my heinous remiss.