[...] was passendes zum Sonntag Nachmittag: Zen Bondage von Moppi Productions Adrean Bird von Raph Koster (Neueste Version) Kennt jemand mehr in der [...]

[...] was passendes zum Sonntag Nachmittag: Zen Bondage von Moppi Productions Adrean Bird von Raph Koster (Neueste Version) Kennt jemand mehr in der [...]

[...] at the session were Rod Humble’s A Walk in the Max and The Marriage, Raph Koster’s Andean Bird, Chaim Gingold’s top secret Spore control prototype, and Jonathan Blow’s GDC [...]

[...] whether you’re under or over it (and need to climb or dive). You can download this game from here (10 MB zipped Windows executable). Unfortunately it seems quite unfinished, but it doesn’t look [...]

[...] suspect this means that I will get to watch an entire room of people unable to flap their wings in Andean Bird. I have a new version with nicer graphics, somewhat easier flight, a bit more polish… I was [...]

[...] I was reading Raph Koster’s “Influences” speech at the Project Horseshoe, where he showed his Andean Bird Demo, a sort of Jonathan Livingston Seagull game. He explained that he wanted to make a game about flapping. Not a simulator, fighting, strategy or any kind of challenge. [...]

[...] Are these all strategies for luring people in? The theory of fun says that not everyone will be wanting or needing the same cognitive stimuli in order to have fun. So sure, you can and should be mixing and matching here. You may not end up with what someone calls a game, but who cares? If your goal is fun as opposed to game, you have a much wider palette. This is precisely the stage we reached with the last version of the Andean bird project; by making it a game, we actually robbed it of some fun. Fun is not confined to games. [...]

I’d also like to suggest that maybe Andean Bird was never meant to be a game, maybe it’s supposed to be a toy.

I wasn’t persuaded by your argument, Raph, that mouse-driven flight would somehow ruin the experience. If that were true, vehicle racing games simply wouldn’t sell. When I play Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas, I play mostly to drive around in vehicles and do crazy things. Aside from being required for progression, the missions are unimportant to me. I am, in fact, at a mission that involves learning to fly a plane; unfortunately, the flight controls are so horrible that flight is a chore. I haven’t played the game in a month since encountering that mission.

I think the gameplay of Andean Bird should not be focused on the mechanics of avian flight — flapping; instead, I think the gameplay of Andean Bird should be focused on providing a fun and intuitive avian experience.