Category: Games

Tadhg Kelly writes:

Asynchronous gameplay is a popular phrase for describing various forms of online games that connect players but don’t require simultaneous play. Many eminent commentators have talked about the possibilities for this kind of gameplay, and how it might be the future for games.
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In the debate on Gamasutra, I suggested that the casual definition of synchronous or asynchronous is actually describing a different property to synchrony. I labelled it temporany. The definition of temporany is:

If the play of the game contains the simultaneous presence of two or more players, it is contemporal. If not, it is atemporal.

Synchrony and temporany form a grid. There is contemporal synchrony, contemporal asynchrony, atemporal synchrony and atemporal asynchrony. More conventionally, although less accurately, you might call them: multi-play, parallel-play, turn-based-play and single-play. Quake, World of Warcraft, WeeWar, Portal 2.

There’s too much tongue play going on here.

Synchronous definition, occurring at the same time; coinciding in time; contemporaneous; simultaneous.

There’s too much similarity in the terms so discussion becomes meaningless. Also, games which are single-player only are somewhat removed from the scope. I would claim there is:

• contemporal – at the same time, simultaneously. Like players who are in a FPS or strategy game. Even if playing a turn-based game.
• cospatial – in the same space (real or virtual). I don’t think it matters which.
• connected – linked through event protocols with a reciprocity and a reason for the connection.

Games can be contemporal, cospatial and connected all at the same time or they can have components of each. e.g

Left4Dead is contemporal (the 4-8 players are there at the same time), cospatial (are in the same virtual arena) an connected (the actions of players directly affect the actions of others). Games like Dogfighter and Galcon, though they have different gameplay, have the same qualities. You might also point at Monopoly or Connect4.

While this is fun for discussion, the impact on game design is to think of interpretations of games which are not commonly found by excluding components from this description.

How about a Location-based game which is cospatial and connected? I’d say this is FourSquare. The timing is irrelevant but the physical locations are important and the passing of events between players (I’m the Mayor!) is also important.

What about contemporal and connected? These are the components of leaderboard games. You’re passing events and playing at the same time but you’re not necessarily occupying the same place, playing the same game.

Cotemporal and cospatial but not connected? I would look at many MMO open world games. In the same (virtual) space and time but not necessarily interacting. But you can interact – making the gameplay connected as well. The point being you don’t have to.

This isn’t meant to be canonical – just a way of thinking about games.

Epic Games’ president Mike Capps opined in an interview with IndustryGamers:

“Your iPhone 8 will probably plug into your TV, or better yet, wirelessly connect to your television set to give you that big screen gaming experience with good sound,” Capps explained. “So really, what’s the point of those next-gen consoles? It’s a very interesting situation to be looking at. That’s what we’re starting to think about more… not how do we scale from some Nintendo platform to some other future console.”

Thing is, Mike, with the addition of an Apple TV, we can already do this. And this sort of talk lends some credibility to the notion that Apple might get in bed with television manufacturers or maybe even make their own.

If we can do this with iPhone 4 (and arguably with the 3GS), then what might the iPhone 8 bring – considering that it’s due to hit in around 2014-2015, it’s an interesting question.

If dedicated under-set consoles are already pumping out high def graphics, then where will the technology go next? I’m looking at pico projectors to accompany my iPhone and iPad so that I’m completely mobile – though I note that there’s still an issue with decent sound.

I remember watching a NORTEL show reel about how they saw the future and it had us all running around with touch screen phones and placing them in cradles in our homes and cars and accessing everything from these tiny devices. I reckon the NORTEL visioneers would have been thinking about personal jet packs and a removal of balkanisation of states when they penned that vision but we can do this pretty much now. Wirelessly.

The future of consoles is mobile.

(There’s not really a blog post here, I’m just musing about my recent enjoyment of games which have been, for the most part, strangely non-violent.)

I’m a little struck about how much fun Portal was. I know everyone on Windows with Steam got very bored with Portal when they completed it in 2007 but it’s new to us Mac-heads and even though I bought it as part of the Orange box 18 months ago, I’d never played it because I was too busy shooting Zombs in Left4Dead).

I’m also, as you may have guessed, a little struck on Mirror’s Edge (on iPad as opposed to other platforms). And I think part of that is that it reminds me of Oni which (despite being a smorgasbord of violent action) was a great TPS/Fighter from, you guessed it, Bungie. Oni sadly was a casualty of the financial problems Bungie had with the Windows install bug in Myth 2.

Mirror’s Edge is little different from Super Mario Bros on the face of it – it’s all about jumping over obstacles, using the environment, discovering the easter eggs, collecting things and either slide-tackling or jumping on enemies (who later recover). The only thing really missing are the pipes – which are ably supplied by Portal.

So I find myself wishing for a game to be developed that doesn’t exist without anyone planning to make it.