The latest issue of The Escapist has been digitally published. In this unlucky issue 13, The Escapist explores the magic of gaming, or rather, lack thereof. And why am I not surprised the breadth of the “Letters to the Editor” section entirely consists of anti-advertising drivel? If you remember, I recently mentioned one man’s distress over the inclusion of ads in The Escapist. Seems he’s not the only one. And this is precisely why I removed the Google ads ten minutes after putting them up. (Go look. They’re still in the source, commented out.)

There is currently a discussion on the Indiegamer forums about themes and their place in selling games:

Why is Water Bugs selling better than cosmo bots, Bricks of Atlantis selling better than Bricks of Camelot and Big Kahna Reef selling well?

I believe it’s not only because of the underwater theme i.e. rising bubbles, little fish swimming back and forth, coral reef etc, but the colour BLUE.

First, you can make many themes relaxing — a snowy bluff, a Carribean island, even space nebulae — so don’t make the mistake of writing up “underwater” as the universal relaxing theme. And blue does have a relaxing effect on the psyche. But does a relaxing, underwater theme sell a game? Zuma and Luxor were huge hits; both had highly energetic Egyptian themes. And those outsold all the examples by magnitudes. What about Bejeweled’s quasi-space theme? Sci-fi and techno, but it’s still a huge seller. I think theme is a very narrow scope to be analyzing, especially if you think that’s what’s selling the game.

And that’s a hole that I think many developers fall into — they see an Egyptian themed game that sells tons and make an Egyptian themed game themselves. Sure, it must help with initial player recognition, but that’ll only help it get kicked off to a quick start. Once it’s on the Top 10, you can bet the vast majority of players will be checking out that game, theme aside.

I think, instead, the water flows in the opposite direction. Players may be slightly turned on by a theme, and only initially, but at the same time may avoid other themes like the plague. You need only to look at the people around you for a good “don’t do this” template. Girls generally don’t like space themes. Boys generally don’t like cartoon themes. Old people don’t like “cool” themes. Young people don’t like rigid, literary themes.

To chalk a game’s success up to a theme is ludicrous. Sure, the theme has a part in the equation — just like gameplay, polish, and value do. Don’t try to oversimplify the problem.

Instead, focus all elements of your game on your target audience. If you want to reach women getting off work and wanting to relax, then make the theme relaxed; a beautiful twilight field, perhaps. Make the gameplay relaxed. (Read: easy.) Make every moment of that woman’s experience with the game a relaxing experience. But don’t put in an underwater theme thinking that is the single element you need to win that customer.

And, yes — colors have psychological impact upon their viewer. A little study in color theory will go a long way. But that is only one element (color) of only one element (theme). The rest is up to the rest.

If you’re familiar with Chronic Logic’s award winning independent title, Gish, then you may be able to find more than a couple similarities in Sony’s upcoming title, Loco Roco — the two physics-heavy games feature little gelatinous blobs as their main characters. To be released for the PSP in 2006, Loco Roco appears to be everything Gish should have been: cute, expansive, and portable. Sony has launched the official Loco Roco website where you can find a gameplay video as well as official news. (Provided, of course, you can read Japanese!)

What is it about the digital medium that people expect web content to be free? I mean, we’re totally okay paging through magazines half-full of ads, but when that content is translated to bits and bytes, those ads have to go? Apparently, that’s what Brant over at Control+V seems to think about The Escapist’s new ad run. From Brant’s post:

…I feel betrayed to find that an online publication I have held dear to me since its very first issue has “sold out”…Beer and tits? Who the hell do they think we are?

In all fairness, Brant has retracted his remarks due to a response from Alexander Macris, publisher of The Escapist.

If you need to take a break from your tube to do some development on the computer, keep company with the Prince in Namco’s Katamari Desktop Buddy. Watch the Prince traipse across your computer screen pushing that big ball of delight we all know and love. And if that music starts piquing your nerves, shut it off — but be warned, the sound effects are untouchable, so the little Prince gets quite annoying after only a cursory stay on your desktop. The site requires free and quick registration. Get the little guy here.

[UPDATE: Looks like the sound effects can now be shut off. Oh, the rapture!]

A game, about maing games. This very clever card game was created by Aki Järvinen. GameGame has its own blog at http://gamegame.blogs.com/, and you can read the release announcement, as well as download the rulebook and cards in PDF format here.

Following up on yesterday’s announcement about writer and game designer Greg Costikyan forming the independent publishing company, Manifest Games, CEO Greg Costikyan and Johnny Wilson are interviewed by Gamecloud and Next Generation.

When asked about the financial model, Costikyan states, “Broadly, we will pass on a high proportion of sale revenue to developers, price figure to be negotiated, of course, but in general, a high proportion. There will be an additional clause that allows Manifesto to keep a slightly higher proportion if we can document that we’ve paid that much specifically on promoting the game, that is, with invoices to show it.”

Later, Costikyan talks about their involvement with developers. “Initially, we will not be funding game development so we won’t be looking for exclusive distribution arrangements.”

Take a royalty, deduct advertising costs, and don’t fund the development. Sounds like winner to me.

You can read the Next Generation interview here, and the Gamecloud interview here.

Ethereal Darkness Interactive have launched with their first release, Morning’s Wrath. Three years in the making, Morning’s Wrath is a hack-n-slash action-RPG in the spirit of Diablo and Diablo II. At the official Morning’s Wrath website are a variety of downloads, including production artwork, original music, wallpapers, and of course, the demo. The demo weights in at around 79 megabytes, so make sure you’ve got a broadband connection or a hefty chunk of time.

Greg Costikyan (right) and Johnny Wilson form Manifesto Games, an independent publishing house with an eye for Internet distribution. The reason? In this Edge Online article, Costikyan states, “…historically, the major hits, the titles that have expanded the industry to new markets and created new audiences have been highly innovative. It is time for us to find a way to foster innovation, because it’s not going to happen if we leave it to the large publishers.”

Those of you who already recognize the Internet as a viable publishing platform with casual games may be surprised at Costikyan’s thoughts on the existing market. He says that current on-line distribution leaders are missing the mark by distributing casual and backlog titles, claiming on-line publishers like RealArcade and Yahoo! Games are selling games to people who don’t really want them. “We’d rather try to sell games to people who already buy them…fans of offbeat and niche games…that the retail channel doesn’t think are worth carrying”

Surprisingly unprepared, Costikyan writes in his blog, “At this point, I have no funding, other than a little money myself; nothing ready to launch, either. But I do have a partner, the offered support of some other companies, a clear sense of what I need to accomplish in the next few months, and a draft (not a final one) of a business plan and financials.”

Manifesto Games CEO Greg Costikyan is a writer and game designer. Johnny Wilson is also a writer with a background as an editorial director at Computer Gaming World and has written nine books about games.

Gamasutra follows Mind Control Software as they struggle to meet deadlines to submit no less than five games to the 2006 Independent Games Festival. While the race was certainly exciting, I can’t help but wonder what they were thinking. They took all five titles from prototype to beta in the space of only weeks — an impressive feat. However, the rush to submit so many titles seems both out of spirit and a wee bit desperate. Five lottery tickets may have a better chance of winning than one, but the IGF isn’t a lottery; there’s a lot more than quantity to take into account. And I’m not convinced rushing five titles is enough to push the limit. Time will tell. Mind Control Software took home IGF 2004’s Innovation in Game Design award.