For years I’ve purported to be a game guy. I’ve been the chair of the IGDA Detroit chapter for several years, and I own my own company. But when folks ask what games I’ve made, I invariably respond that I’m more on the publishing/production end of things.

I’ve long been of the opinion that a good manager is able to get into the nuts and bolts of whatever his team is doing, because how else will he communicate with them otherwise? I think it holds true in any industry. And to that end I often dabble. I mean, I’ve made games, I make games, personally. But rarely do I actually invite anybody to play them. Generally they’re for the purpose of instruction, or understanding the available tools out there. So I’ve sat down and made stuff in Torque, in XNA, in C# and Unity, but never for distribution purposes.

Lately I’ve come to think that is perhaps a waste of energy and resources, to an extent. After all, why not start something if you’re not going to finish it? And if it’s fun, if people enjoy it, then well – that’s the reason I got into games in the first place. How foolish to have forgotten that!

So this past weekend was the annual Global Game Jam. I didn’t have the time to commit to actually going out to my local site and sitting down in a room with a bunch of folks for the weekend and making a game, but I wanted to participate at least in spirit, and I wanted something to refresh me from the commercial game my company is working on, plus one thing I never got my hands dirty with, I mean really dirty, not just making website interfaces with, is Actionscript.

Through this confluence of situations, I decided that in my spare time this past weekend, I’d make a Flash game.

I have to say I was pretty pleased with my results, by the end of the weekend I’d taught myself some basic Actionscript 2 and built a real basic game. Though it’s already been said in blogs all over in several languages already, it’s worth repeating at least one more time how smoothly things run, how easy it is to learn, and how quickly you can prototype – or even just straight up build – a game in Flash. That is to say, “very.”

In any event, I had a lot of fun doing it, and my batteries are indeed recharged. I didn’t want to leave the game in the basic state it was in, though, so I went back in over the last couple of days and rounded things out, making a more-or-less entire level with top score functionality and a few fun features that I personally have a blast with. Not bad for less than 24 hours worth of work.

In fact I’ve become a little enamored with it, such that I’m considering expanding it out into a full product. I think I’d enjoy it. More than that, I’m debating documenting the process of creating this thing, as I found more folks interested in good tutorials to make their own games in Flash than there were good tutorials. I figure, maybe I can help at least one aspiring developer out.

So like I said, I am changing my policy of keeping tooltests and development practice private as of today. I’d like to invite you readers to come play Northstar-G Flash edition. Keep in mind that it is a work in progress, but I hope you have fun with it!

Play Northstar-G Flash Edition

The first thing to consider whenever talking about any law regarding the regulation of games is the medium’s First Amendment protection. This was first called into question back in 2002 when a U.S. District Court judge, Stephen Limbaugh, ruled that they did not in fact, deserve such protections. This was overturned in 2003 when the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals disagreed, citing other unusual works and their First Amendment protections, and the simple fact that video games are a “novel medium” does not negate the right to First Amendment protection.

So fast forward seven years to today. Since that time, several states have tried to pass legislation to restrict the sale of violent games to children, and spending hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars to do so, and each time these states have failed to make it stick. Why is that?

Well, it goes back to the very first thing to consider – games as protected speech under the first amendment. We may not like gory, schlocky, ham-fisted violence carnivals, but we as citizens have every right to produce them. To stop this would require the United States to create an exception in the First Amendment for games, which to date has only been done for porn, which one would be hard-pressed to equate games to porn. After all, if there are no Federal regulations on films, or books, why should games get set up for a metaphorical headshot?

Of course, no law as presented tries to restrict this: That’s true enough, but here is the sticker. Under the Fourteenth Amendment, we are guaranteed that no state may make a law that deprives citizens of our general rights, which we can interpret to include our entrepreneurial freedoms and freedom of enterprise. So logically, no state may enact a law that stops a store from selling unregulated material to whomever they want.

Further, to this point every law proposed suggests that government regulate these sales based on the Entertainment Software Ratings Board’s E through AO rating system. This goes against the Federal code of ethics, in which the government may not endorse a private enterprise. So that’s right out.

With the legal status of the laws or potential laws established, let’s look at the practical side of things.

One wonders how states or districts would enforce such laws, with many police departments stretched thin already, especially here in Detroit. Things aren’t as cushy as they look on Detroit 1-8-7. It’d be a waste of time and resources.

And further, the gaming industry does everything it can to make families aware of the content in the games they buy for their children. The ESRB has websites, pamphlets, point-of-sale documentation, shelf liners, all of which they distribute and are placed in stores to help parents make good decisions for their kids. It doesn’t take a whole lot of time or energy to take a look at what one’s son or daughter is asking after and determine whether it does or if it doesn’t have a place in the home. Of course, if one DID take more time on the subject, it could be a great jumping off point for some rather potent discussions between parent and child, and provide some great opportunities for parents to get involved and create some learning opportunities for kids. Everybody wins in that situation.

The fact of the matter is that legislating against games, whether they be violent or otherwise, is not possible from a legal standpoint. The furor that arises from this issue is the same that showed up when rock music first appeared, or TV and movies actually depicted couples kissing and Rhett Butler told Scarlett that he didn’t give a damn. It’s the same threat to our nation’s “family values” that was posed by Gangster Rap, and that “dilemma” was solved with a sticker.

Certainly there are games out there that kids should – perhaps even must – not be allowed to play. However, the answer to the problem does not lay within creating new laws, and new restrictions on our Constitutionally-declared freedoms. The answer lies in education, and a little bit of dedication and interest on the part of our families. Retailers as well, could do better in observing the ratings suggestions and in many cases – following their own corporate policies by keeping sales within those guidelines. Our legislators however, and our judges, need to keep out of it. They’ve got bigger and better fish to fry.

Even now as the console approaches its second birthday, supplies for the units are scare and hard to come by. Nintendo of America CEO and President Reggie Fils-Aime has stated that during this holiday season, Wii consoles will likely still be somewhat rare. In other words, if you see one grab one, because you’ll be out of luck later. Though this leads to speculation that Nintendo is creating a demand for the system by creating an artificial scarcity – after all, how is it that two years after launch a multinational, profitable corporation cannot get their manufacturing lines up to speed – the fact remains that the company has struck digital gold with their latest device.

But technology continues to progress, our thoughts – and Nintendo’s R&D directives – will inevitably turn to what’s next. In an interview with the UK’s Channel 4, Shigeru Miyamoto – Senior Managing Director of Nintendo Co. Ltd., the Japanese parent company – made clear that Nintendo’s mission is to “improve and to take advantage of cheap technology to create reasonable and affordable entertainment.” Indeed, the Wii is a step in this direction, with Nintendo execs refusing to even attempt to compete with market contemporaries Sony and Microsoft on any level of technological supremacy. The Wii is a console that is made purposefully weaker, but on the other hand is comparatively inexpensive to manufacture. Indeed, Nintendo is the only company in the industry that actually makes money on their game systems, instead of treating them as a loss leader.

So what does this mean for the future of the Wii, and indeed, the game industry? As one of its biggest players attempts to create a new dialogue focusing on unique input methodology and design specifications, we face a potential deeper splitting of the market, deeper than we have seen in this generation as Nintendo expands on the concepts they’ve introduced.

For one thing, cheaper hardware can mean more frequent iterations. According to former 1UP.com editorial director John Davison, it’s possible we’ll see a new Wii by 2011. R&D spending at Nintendo has tripled since the Wii’s launch in 2006, and it is wholly plausible that the next-generation is already around the corner. It stands to reason that a number of the improvements that are appearing on the Wii will be present in the next version, namely its 1:1 motion tracking technology MotionPlus, and with any luck Nintendo will learn from its mistakes and provide improved storage and Internet solutions as well. Technology that is cheap now, will only be cheaper in the next go-round, and at that point we should also expect to see things like HD output and RF connectivity, instead of the Bluetooth that is in place now. Indeed, recent announcements from Nintendo have noted that their production costs have been cut by half since the Wii’s launch.

Past this point, as developers get used to the idea of developing with the unique input system that the Wii and its inevitable progeny will feature, different modes and methods of gameplay will certainly result.

What remains to be seen is whether the company will learn from its mistakes in this recent generation of hardware when it comes to its online presence, which is, in a word, terrible. Though it has been demonstrated that it is not the system with the best online capability is the one that achieves market dominance, it will certainly be a welcome addition to a machine that will surely be looked at closely, as the next round of technology dawns.

Indeed, ‘Six Days’ is being billed as a true-to-life depiction of Operation Phantom Fury during the second battle of Fallujah. While other games have been released by other groups, including MTVu/Viacom and Gamelab, to bring up social issues, Atomic Games dismisses those other games as ‘historical fiction.’

The game actually tracks and relates their experiences, and is intended to be more of a ‘documentary’ than simply a piece of electronic entertainment. A game-amentary, as Atomic likes to put it. Peter Tamte, president of Atomic Games, related to the Wall Street Journal that ‘Six Days’ is intended to “replicate a specific and accurate timeline — we mean six days literally,” says Mr. Tamte. “We track several units through the process and you get to know what it was like from day to day.”

Sergeant Eddie Garcia, a Marine sergeant and Purple Heart recipient who was wounded during the first days of fighting in Fallujah, has been a consultant for Atomic Games from the beginning of the project. While many military-themed games make use of consultants to maintain accuracy in their presentation, Garcia’s experiences make their way into ‘Six Days’ with much more detail and clarity.

Aside from tweaking how soldiers communicate with their superiors, and walking developers through the battle tactics that marines used on the battlefield, Garcia provided Atomic Games with his diary – one similar to those that many soldiers kept while in the field, to detail notes about their positions and activities each day. In one instance, Garcia noted the exact time and place where he launched an illumination flare, which will later be incorporated into the game.

The team at Atomic even found it necessary to build a new game engine, to incorporate the Marines’ fighting style. Instead of barging in through the front door, Marines in Fallujah would choose to knock down the concrete and rebar buildings with bulldozers or by calling in air strikes. This heavy use of destructible environment is immediately apparent in-game. The quality, and the advances in this technology will also go toward creating new training simulators for the military.

The announcement of the game has drawn some criticism from industry professionals, pundits and military alike. The recent news that Atomic Games would be consulting with former insurgents in some manner during the production of the game has had some sitting up in their seats. Some say that it’s too soon, ‘Six Days’ will be the first game on the ongoing war in Iraq, and will also carry the distinction of being the first game based on a simultaneously occurring event.

Recently G4TV interviewed some currently active duty personnel in Army and Marines, and asked for their take on the game. Most common among interviewees were views expressed and shared by U.S. Army Sgt. Casey McGeorge, who said “As a combat veteran and as a gamer, I have no problem whatsoever with the game…As long as it’s made as realistically as possibly, I believe that this could be a good thing for both combat veterans and for the war in general.”

And perhaps McGeorge is correct in this regard – since the Vietnam Conflict, American military conflict has been portrayed in the media as something other than humanistic, that the actions taken during battle are somehow removed from the people involved. And perhaps, the interactive nature of the game, placing players right in the middle of the firefight in Fallujah, may give them a different understanding of the situation.

However, despite the documentary-style portrayal of the battle in Fallujah, ‘Six Days’ does lack one aspect of the documentary – and that is commentary.

“We’re not trying to make social commentary. We’re not pro-war. We’re not trying to make people feel uncomfortable. We just want to bring a compelling entertainment experience,” says Anthony Crouts, vice-president of marketing for Konami, the game’s publisher. “At the end of the day, it’s just a game.”

And as I – and gamers in my generation – get older, there just isn’t as much time during the day to devote to a huge scale gaming experience. I love Final Fantasy games, and I finally got my hands on the God of War sequel so I can see what happens next on that front, but I just don’t have the time to put into it like I used to. So it becomes ever more satisfying to find a great little game – more of a toy, really – on the web that I can pump a minute or three into when I’m able.

Off-Road Velociraptor Safari is a fantastic example of this, doubly so because not only is it short on time in a scope sense, but it even has a timer to enforce the whole get-back-to-work factor.

As a person who’s pretty fairly dedicated to gaming, I lament the lack of time I’m able to put into something I enjoy. I’m looking forward to Gears of War 2 next month, and Rock Band 2 when I’m able to pick it up. And even the longer Persona 4 in December is going to be an attractive proposition.Plus, as I get even older and start a family or something, time will become even more of a commodity.

But it’s nice to know that there’s still the 60-second game to scratch that itch as it crops up.

So my pal Dock, better known for his work on the fantastic Wiiware title Lost Winds, set out to make a quick game in the Unity engine, which is a pretty fantastic piece of technology.

Well, he put himself to the grindstone to finish it in time for the annual Unity Awards, which Unity Technologies puts on to promote development in their suite, but also of course, the developers who use their technology. It’s pretty cool what they’re doing, involving the community the way they do. I’ve met the engine’s developers and they’re a great group of fellows, though their talent in picking a bar for a meetup leaves a little to be desired.

Anyway, the game’s all finished, and it’s up for voting. You really should check it out, if you haven’t already. You can play it for free at tumbledrop.com, but do expect that it will require the (also free) Unity web plugin. When you’ve done that, stop by the Unity forums and register so you can give him a vote! (If you liked it, which I hope you will.) It’s a really excellent game and it deserves your attention.