Lovebutter Links

Wayne Barlowe & Dougal Dixon - Realistic Images of Fantasy

2009-12-06T12:40:00.000-08:00

Wayne Barlowe - Barlowe's Guide to Extraterrestrials, Inferno

http://www.waynebarlowe.com/index.htm

After Man - Dougal Dixon

Man After Man: An Anthropology of the Future - Dougal Dixon

http://www.dougal-dixon.co.uk/

Game Journalism and Criticism

2009-12-03T08:06:00.000-08:00

Because I am apparently an idiot, and unaware of things going on around me, it turns out that there are some interesting game reviewers and critics, and Gamasutra news has been aggregating them for me.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/news/26327/This_Week_In_Video_Game_Criticism_A_Far_Cry_From_Burnout.php

And here's the original source:

http://www.critical-distance.com/

In this aggregation, for example, two interesting articles on the social structures of the world of Dragon Age...

http://mwclarkson.blogspot.com/2009/11/out-of-sight-out-of-mind.html

http://mwclarkson.blogspot.com/2009/11/chosen-at-birth.html

And a great example of something I've mentioned upstream about dame diaries... players recording their experience of a game as it's actually played, with charm AND insight...
http://www.polycat.net/1934/awakened-in-africa/

And some other interesting observations on game journalism...

http://videosgames.wordpress.com/2009/11/07/games-journalism-what-not-to-say/

http://videosgames.wordpress.com/2009/11/14/games-journalism-what-not-to-say-pt-2/

http://videosgames.wordpress.com/2009/11/20/games-journalism-what-not-to-say-pt-3/

http://videosgames.wordpress.com/2009/11/26/games-journalism-what-not-to-say-pt-4/

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fan content site

2009-12-01T12:40:00.000-08:00

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay fan content site

http://www.liberfanatica.net/index.html

When naming your vast setting...

2009-11-23T10:53:00.000-08:00

Naming a universe is a lot of work.

A place to start...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fantasy_worlds

More references...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_role-playing_games_by_genre

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_fantasy_novels

Susan O'Connor article & Brenda Brathewaite blog

2009-11-23T06:57:00.000-08:00

Susan is my role model for game narrative... the writing part of narrative game design. She is always smart and articulate about the craft, and here's an interesting interview.

http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/4196/upping_the_craft_susan_oconnor_.php

Brenda Brathewaite is also my role model, for various reasons, including her work of the Wizardry RPGs and her gold-standard work as an game development academician.

I'm eager to get the slides or a recording of her fabulous “How I Dumped Electricity and Learned to Love Design” talk that I heard at Montreal Game Summit, and which she's given elsewhere in the past, but I somehow missed.

But until I find that link to share, here's her blog.

http://brendabrathwaite.com/

So. Now I realize I'm going to have to use this site myself as an archive of my narrative game design tools links. How peculiar. Giving a talk on tools teaches me I need to develop better systems for organizing access to my own tools. Live and learn.

For Game Writers...

2009-11-19T10:29:00.000-08:00

Came across this by accident...

IGDA Game Writer's SIG Newsletter archive

http://www.creoludus.com/IGDA/

Only had a few issues, but interesting reading from professional game writers. Sure wish we game writers had something like Writer's Digest [for writers] or Creative Screenwriter [for screenwriters].

Also recommended for game writers: Susan O'Connor's site:
http://www.storiesforgames.com/index.html

See her 'about' page:
http://www.storiesforgames.com/about.html

check out the slides for her talks...
http://www.storiesforgames.com/talks.html

She also has a number of articles for Gamasutra that I have archived. She's smart, experienced, articulate, and has worked hard to explain concisely what she'd learned from her game writing experience.

Links to talk slides and Steamfitters Song

2009-11-19T07:26:00.000-08:00

Here's a link to a pdf of the slides from the talk. [There's one TINY blemish -- a missing cedilla in 'Constantin-Francois Chasseboeuf' on one page... which I suppose casts my globalization skills in doubt. But the pdf is a smaller file, and pretty much universally accessible, unlike Powerpoint files, and therefore Good.]

http://cid-c9da5fea1db05ed7.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/MIGS%202009%20-%20Tools/rolston17.pdf

And for your further Enjoyment and Edification, I also attach a link to an mp3 performance of 'The Steamfitters Song', sung by yours truly, and his lovely wife, Pat Rolston, who sings the melody here, and my pal, Henry Nerenberg, singing harmony, at a folk festival in our incarnation as the folk music group, 'We Still Ain't Got No Band supper Club and Living Room Music Emporium', or as we are familiarly known, 'WSAG', which is short for 'WSAGNBSCALRME', which looks pretty much like Welsh to me.

http://cid-c9da5fea1db05ed7.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/.Public/MIGS%202009%20-%20Tools/Steamfitters%20-%20Festival.mp3

Igor Krucko shares the Cooliris tool.

2009-11-18T06:09:00.000-08:00

Igor Krucko shared the following cool tool as I went to collect my lunch box at MIGS.

http://www.cooliris.com/

It is a plugin, for either explorer, firefox, or Safari web browsers.

Great tool for searching pictures !

Steamfitters' Song

2009-11-16T04:42:00.000-08:00

Come on lads and bring your tool bags
Keep your eyes clear, use your head.
Bring your footpins, spanners, chisels,
From now on they'll earn your bread.
Keep your eyes on the older fitters
They're the boys who know their stuff.
One day you will do their job
If you're smart and keen enough.

Personal Favorites – Rongorongo

2009-11-06T13:23:00.000-08:00

The Easter Island Tablets
http://www.netaxs.com/~trance/rongo2.html

The Twelve Pages of the Jaussen List
http://www.netaxs.com/~trance/frame.html

Personal Favorites – Folger Library

2009-11-06T13:21:00.000-08:00

Mapping Early Modern Worlds - remarkable collections of old maps
http://www.folger.edu/Content/Whats-On/Folger-Exhibitions/Past-Exhibitions/Mapping-Early-Modern-Worlds/

Yesterday's News - equivalents of early newspapers
http://www.folger.edu/Content/Whats-On/Folger-Exhibitions/Past-Exhibitions/Yesterdays-News.cfm

Personal Favorites – Xu Bing

2009-11-06T13:20:00.000-08:00

Book from the Sky
http://www.xubing.com/index.php/site/projects/year/1987/book_from_the_sky

New English Calligraphy – “Square Word”
http://www.ceas.ku.edu/uploads/Acacia%20Moore-%20Xu%20Bing.ppt

Personal Reference Image Archives

2009-11-06T13:18:00.000-08:00

http://www.fotopedia.com/ - A Wikipedia-like project for photos. Try a search for ‘Cappadocia’ or ‘badlands’

http://www.lastrefuge.co.uk/photolibrary/sp_tepuis_all.htm
spectacular Venezuelan landscapes

http://www.speleogenesis.info/archive/publication.php?PubID=3291&Type=publication&keyword=tiankeng
‘Tiankeng’ – spectacular limestone karst cavern collapse formations

Online Image Archives

2009-11-06T13:16:00.000-08:00

archives.org – eg, Ephemeral Films, gaming speed runs, vintage commercials, vintage instructional films
http://www.archive.org/details/ephemera
http://www.archive.org/details/Experime1940 - Experiments in the Revival of Organisms (1940) - records the successful experiments in the resuscitation of life to dead animals (dogs) in the USSR

NYPL [New York Public Library] Digital Gallery
http://digitalgallery.nypl.org/nypldigital/explore/dgexplore.cfm?topic=all

Fantasy portraits
http://www.sorcerers.net/Games/BG2/index_portraits.php

Medieval Woodcuts
http://www.godecookery.com/clipart/clart.htm

Models of Storytelling and Poetry

2009-11-06T13:13:00.000-08:00

George Ade: Fables in Slang - http://www.archive.org/details/fablesinslang00adeg

Mrs. Mortimer [venomous, racist, foreigner-slurring Victorian writer of travel books; model for Oblivion’s town guides]
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4698196

Project Gutenberg - http://www.gutenberg.org/wiki/Main_Page
- Anglo-Saxon Chronicles
- Confessions of an Opium Eater

Latin Mottoes - 16th-century:
http://www.shipbrook.com/jeff/mottoes.html
Bene agendo nunquam defessus.
Never weary of doing good.

Twists, Slugs and Roscoes: A Glossary of Hardboiled Slang
http://www.miskatonic.org/slang.html

Thieves Cant
http://webspace.webring.com/people/bm/mbertoll/charts/lexicon.txt

riddles
http://www2.kenyon.edu/AngloSaxonRiddles/texts.htm
http://strolen.com/netbooks/riddles2.txt

Archiving Tools

2009-11-06T13:12:00.000-08:00

Xmarks - bookmark sync among your browsers everywhere
http://www.xmarks.com/

Add Bookmark Here ² - manage and organize bookmarks
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/3880

Web site archiving – save that web page before it dies.
http://www.httrack.com/

Wayback Machine – archives the Web. Really.
http://www.archive.org/web/web.php

Search Everything – searches your hard drive for file names instantly
http://www.voidtools.com/

Google Desktop – search inside all files on all your web-connected computers for a string
http://desktop.google.com/

Papers, Presentations, and Manifestos

2009-11-06T13:08:00.000-08:00

Gordon Walton - 10 Things Great Designers Exhibit
http://www.gdcvault.com/free/category - search for 'gordon walton‘

Do, Don't Show - Patrick Redding
http://holesinteeth.typepad.com/blogginess/2008/03/gdc-2008-slides.html

Richard Rouse/ Marty Stoltz – Cinematic Game Design
http://www.paranoidproductions.com/writings.html

I Have No Words & I Must Design - Greg Costikyan
http://www.costik.com/nowords.html

SMU Guildhall - student portfolios
http://guildhall.smu.edu/Student-Portfolios.37.0.html

Game Design Course – models and syllabi
http://www.alanemrich.com/

BeerOverIP – delivery of beer via internet protocol
http://www.costik.com/weblog/

RSS Readers & RSS feeds

2009-11-06T13:07:00.000-08:00

Gamasutra articles
http://feeds.feedburner.com/GamasutraFeatureArticles/
Example: Designing Dialog Systems: handy survey of game dialog systems
http://www.gamasutra.com/view/feature/3719/defining_dialogue_systems.php?page=1

Tom Chick – smart and funny
http://fidgit.com/rss.xml

Shacknews – fewer posts, better scanning
http://feed.shacknews.com/shackfeed.xml

Kotaku – when you’ve got days to kill
http://feeds.gawker.com/kotaku/full

Games Archives

2009-11-06T13:04:00.000-08:00

- save games
- personal gameplay clips
FRAPS - http://www.fraps.com/
AutoGK - http://www.autogk.me.uk/
- trailers
- hint books, FAQs, and websites
- reviews
- sell sheets, box backs, feature lists, websites
- walkthroughs from youtube [tools to save and archive them]
http://www.youtubedownloaderhd.com/
personal game diaries - Withershyn in Morrowind – delicious travel diary, charming voice, ironic tone, and well-illustrated [site defunct; from Wayback]
http://web.archive.org/web/20051112010106/http://mw.downbeach.net/
Gametap [runs old games like Betrayal at Krondor]

Cinematic Archives

2009-11-06T13:03:00.000-08:00

Film and TV Screenplays – models of form, structure, and dialog
http://www.simplyscripts.com/

Subtitles – when you can’t find a screenplay or want the exact film dialog
http://lx.divxstation.com/subtitles.asp

Screen Captures
http://screencapheaven.com/testcoppermine/index.php?cat=4

Hal Barwood's screenplay for Dragonslayer
http://www.weeklyscript.com/Dragonslayer.txt

2009-11-06T13:02:00.000-08:00

Ebook, pdf, and hardcopy game guides can be excellent overviews for game developers, well-organized to reveal structure, and lavishly illustrated.

Betrayal at Krondor Help Web
http://www3.hi.is/~eybjorn/krondor/krondor.html

Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages
http://www.uesp.net/wiki/Main_Page

Game Guide for Might and Magic IV: Mandate of Heaven at The Spoiler
- inspiration for Morrowind region guides
- a landscape region grid; click a region... go to a region detail map with numbered sites and a detailed map key with site descriptions
http://www.the-spoiler.com/RPG/New.World.Computing/might.and.magic6.3/mm6.htm#ns

Game Development Tools

2009-11-06T12:59:00.000-08:00

Morrowind & Oblivion: The Elder Scrolls Construction Set Wiki
http://cs.bethsoft.com/constwiki/index.php/Main_Page

Fallout 3: GECK: Garden of Eden Creation Kit™
http://geck.bethsoft.com/index.php/Main_Page

Document Models

2009-11-06T12:57:00.000-08:00

Tanya Short – Oblivion – Guild Hall student project - Noble Intentions Level Design Doc… great model of student/design candidate portfolio site… but attachments gone now :(
http://guildhall.smu.edu/Individual-Student-Portfolio-T.144.0.html?&tx_guildhallstudentportfolios_pi1[user]=561

Jeremy Sera – Oblivion – Town of Bartholm mod with design doc
http://jsera.fortinbras.net/
http://jsera.fortinbras.net/bartholm_design.html

Chris Taylor [game design doc template]
http://www.runawaystudios.com/articles/chris_taylor_gdd.asp

By the way, Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion Game of the Year (eGuide) reflects extensive access to internal game docs.
http://www.primagames.com/guides/display.php?isbn=9780307466662

Lists

2009-11-06T12:56:00.001-08:00

The 400 Project – rules of good game design
http://www.theinspiracy.com/Current%20Rules%20Master%20List.htm

What Makes A Good Game -- Nineteen Good Game Features
http://web.archive.org/web/19981206034205/http://headline.gamespot.com/news/98_08/04_wizards/index.html

Names and Languages

2009-11-06T12:55:00.000-08:00

Onomastikon - archive this... it comes and goes
http://www.gaminggeeks.org/Resources/KateMonk/

Everchanging Book of Names (a.k.a. EBoN)
http://ebon.pyorre.net/

Omniglot: writing systems and languages of the world
http://www.omniglot.com/index.htm

English - Tlingit Dictionary
http://www.alaskool.org/language/dictionaries/akn/tlingit/information/Index_TND.html

LARPs

2009-11-06T12:54:00.001-08:00

http://www.rpg.net/larp/scenario.html#general
Download materials for "A Family Matter" - A Call of Cthulhu live roleplay scenario for 25 characters by Nick Huggins. Design documentation and presentation materials.

http://www.etyries.com/moonson/index.htm
Character sheets and background sheets for a major Gloranthan LARP.
http://www.etyries.com/moonson/yolanela.htm
A sample character for the 'Life of Moonson' LARP with a public and a hidden identity, with 'Objectives', 'Who You Know', 'Other Knowledge', 'Secrets', and 'Special Items'.

http://www.interactiveliterature.org/J/Schedule.php?action=23
Future scheduled LARPS with descriptions. For those who heard Brenda's talk, see, for example, 'Darfur Bingo'.

Grey Ranks

2009-11-06T11:15:00.000-08:00

Roleplay Resistance teens in Poland.

FRPs do heroic escapism. Rarely do they do tragedy.

http://www.bullypulpitgames.com/games/index.php?game=grey_ranks

review by Greg Costikyan
http://playthisthing.com/grey-ranks

Call of Cthulhu

2009-11-06T11:14:00.000-08:00

Masks of Nyarlathotep…
classic campaign presentation
http://catalog.chaosium.com/product_info.php?products_id=1291

Cthulhu Lives…
Free, brilliant artifact props
http://www.cthulhulives.org/toybox/PROPDOCS/FreeProps.html

King ArthurPendragon

2009-11-06T11:12:00.000-08:00

Out of print, but pdf version available…
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=3163&it=1

“How to play…” summary and more…
http://www.angelfire.com/rpg2/dnd3e/pendragon.htm

Pendragon family tree generator
http://www.mystyldyne.com/wiki2/index.php?title=Home

The Grey Knight – trait and moral-choice based campaign by Larry Ditillio, executive story editor of Babylon 5

Glorantha

2009-11-06T11:11:00.000-08:00

RuneQuest [Mongoose]
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=27823&it=1

HeroQuest [Issaries]
http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=12429&it=1

King of Dragon Pass
http://a-sharp.com/buy/ [download one-year demo]

Glorantha ["A Personal View: What My Father Told Me"]
http://www.btinternet.com/~Nick_Brooke/voices/ISS3001.HQVoices-300.pdf

[See also Nick Brooke Gloranthan LARP in the LARP section.]

The Ruin - 8th C Anglo Saxon poem

2009-11-06T11:10:00.001-08:00

Well wrought this wall:
Weirds broke it.
The stronghold burst . . .
Snapped rooftrees, towers fallen,
the work of the Giants, the stonesmiths, mouldereth.
-The Ruin - 8th C Anglo Saxon poem

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ruin

Artifact Presentation

2009-11-06T11:08:00.000-08:00

Fonts
http://www.shipbrook.com/jeff/typograf.html
Get fonts “JSL Ancient” and “JSL Ancient Italic”, and JSL Font Converter, a utility that processes text to add obsolete 17th C. characters and ligatures.

Facsimiles
“The Ruins: or a Survery of the Revolutions of Empires”, by
Constantin-François Chasseboeuf, marquis de Volney [1789]
http://oll.libertyfund.org/index.php?option=com_staticxt&staticfile=show.php%3Ftitle=1706&Itemid=27

Restoration Print Culture - sample facsimiles of period literature
http://cogweb.ucla.edu/Restoration/index.html

Font links

2009-11-06T11:03:00.001-08:00

Dafont – browse themes like: foreign, ancient, runes, fantastic
http://www.dafont.com/

The Scriptorium
http://www.fontcraft.com/fontcraft/?p=528

A Narrative Designer's Toolkit - Links

2009-11-04T06:48:00.000-08:00

Internationally Celebrated Game Designer Ken Rolston is giving a talk - 'A Narrative Designer's Toolkit'.

And for Your Convenience, here's where he'll stick all the handy web links to resources he'll mention in his talk.

[You're welcome.]

Where?

Montreal International Game Summit 2009
November 16 & 17

What's the talk?

A Narrative Designer's Toolkit

The road to success as a narrative designer is long and arduous. But you don't want to hear that. So Ken Rolston, Internationally Celebrated Lead Designer of Oblivion, Morrowind, and other light classics, will reveal the carefully hoarded treasury of cheap tricks and short cuts that enable him to avoid Real Work. In this fast-paced and charming presentation, Rolston delivers the box of tools, lavishly illustrates their use in the production of Rolston's Great Works, and teaches you how to project a shallow but persuasive mastery of the craft of narrative game design.

Web links?

Here's a sample of the sorts of links Ken references in the talk...

for Names & Languages...

Onomastikon
http://www.gaminggeeks.org/Resources/KateMonk/
archive this... it comes and goes

Everchanging Book of Names (a.k.a. EBoN)
http://ebon.pyorre.net/

Omniglot: writing systems and languages of the world
http://www.omniglot.com/index.htm

English - Tlingit Dictionary
http://www.alaskool.org/language/dictionaries/akn/tlingit/information/Index_TND.html