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Randy Smith

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Randy Smith's Recent Blog Entries

  • Making Stuff Up

    In another act of shameless self-promotion, Randy Smith looks at his game, Spider, and how successfully it tells its story.

    If you don’t know the editors of this magazine, I can tell you that they are a cabal of frightening tyrants*. Do they care that I have visions of Caribbean beaches gleaming behind my eyes? No, they only care that I hand in my column before the magazine goes to print. Do they enjoy my favourite game to play with them, that of cramming as much unprintable profanity and obscure American slang into my writing as possible to see how they’ll choose to replace it?

    October 19, 2009
  • Redesigning Casablanca

    Randy Smith watches the classics and realises that films have no easier a time telling stories than games do.

    I used to think that film had it easy when it came to conveying story. Then I thought about why I generally don’t like older movies: the information design is too often clumsy. Casablanca, supposedly the best screenplay of all time, has a confusing first five minutes, packed to the gills with a telegraph reporting murders, a police roundup of normallooking guys in suits, planes taking off, a pickpocket, a shooting of a guy carrying posters, and the arrival of a German officer. What was I actually supposed to take from all of that?

    September 22, 2009
  • The Elegant Dodge

    Randy Smith post-mortems his new iPhone game, Spider, and reveals the truth behind grand theory and pragmatic practice.

    Say you’re a videogame designer of some minor renown who’s had the good fortune to write for your favourite gaming magazine, in which you rhapsodise about games as a unique art form and how the industry should be bolder and less degenerate.

    August 12, 2009

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aryshirazi's picture
from aryshirazi

Hi Randy, my name is Ary Shirazi, i am a recent game design graduate and i've been working on my own brand of "interactive animation" (i.e a 'game' story) for the past 2 to 3 years.

Altho there hasn't really been any info on LMNO....it sounded like it's a game returning to the LucasArts days of progessing a story being the whole point of the gameplay... in any case im glad that people are working on such a mysterious project.

I've only recently bumped into your blog on the edge-online website, but have read a few of the coloumns you've written in the back of the magazine... the things you are discussing struck me, as ive been writing and preaching similar thoughts during my time at art college 4 years ago and during my degree.

I'm also drawn towards Steven Poole's views of the medium as well as Ernest Adams (if you havent read his article Where's Our Merchant Ivory? on gamasutra i highly suggest it)

However, id like to suggest you read through my dissertation which talks about the unique properties of game time and game space, interactivity, immersion and flow (with research into mihail czk ... you know who i mean) the outdated narrative design (or screenwriting) in games today... and how the young generation of game designers graduating now is reminisant of the first film students coming out film school pushing the medium to a true art form..(i'm not sure how to "attach" a document here as this isnt an email, i will send you the document if you wish to read it)

We aren't designers that sit behind desks.... we're a new kind of artist.. artists of the globalised 21st century!

Any sort of feedback would be highly appreciated - The dissertation is linked to my interactive animation project (my attempt at gamings equivalent of the 2 hour movie).. i think its possible.. and in fact, id love to see a video game story win an Oscar in my lifetime.

Cheers

Ary Shirazi

April 29, 2009
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