Daily Archive for May 8th, 2007

The future of games - user created content

At work at Hursley there is an annual event organised called Hursley Techincal Exchange (HTX). It aims to inform the lab about some of the new technology being developed both inside IBM and in the rest of the world. I went to one talk today which was mostly about the Cell Processor and other “next gen” (well, current gen now) consoles. It gave some background on the hardware architecture of the top 3 consoles, but specifically looked at the PS3. At the end was a video from a demo of a new game being developed for the PS3, called Little Big Planet

The video below gives an idea what the game can do, but the basic idea is that all the objects and levels are easily user created. It is quite a demo of what the Cell processor can do as a complex physics engine

It also reminded me about Spore, which is also based around the idea of user created content. Not the levels, but the creatures within the game are all either randomly generated by the computer or pulled down via the internet from another players computer, giving some truly interesting characters. The big idea in Spore is that however your creature is designed it will develop a unique way of walking, using tools, eating etc. The videos give a better idea (The long demo will take a while to watch, but is definitely worth it!)

Conundrums

If you take an Oriental person and spin him around several times, does he become disoriented?

If people from Poland are called Poles, why aren’t people from Holland called Holes?

Do infants enjoy infancy as much as adults enjoy adultery?

If a pig loses its voice, is it disgruntled?

If love is blind, why is lingerie so popular?

Why is the man who invests all your money called a broker?

When cheese gets its picture taken, what does it say?

Why is a person who plays the piano called a pianist but a person who drives a race car not called a racist?

Why are a wise man and a wise guy opposites?

Why do overlook and oversee mean opposite things?

Why isn’t the number 11 pronounced onety one?

“I am” is reportedly the shortest sentence in the English language. Could it be that “I do” is the longest sentence?

If lawyers are disbarred and clergymen defrocked, doesn’t it follow that electricians can be delighted, musicians denoted, cowboys deranged, models deposed, tree surgeons debarked, and dry cleaners depressed?

What hair colour do they put on the driver’s licenses of bald men?

I thought about how mothers feed their babies with tiny little spoons and forks so I wondered what do Chinese mothers use? Toothpicks?

Why do they put pictures of criminals up in the Post Office? What are we supposed to do, write to them? Why don’t they just put their pictures on the postage stamps so the mailmen can look for them while they deliver the mail?

You never really learn to swear until you learn to drive.

No one ever says, “It’s only a game” when their team is winning.

Last night I played a blank tape at full blast. The mime next door went nuts.

If 4 out of 5 people suffer from diarrhoea. Does that mean that one out of five enjoys it?