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[playistic]

Samsung goes beyond hardware to invest in VR software

Samsung is all-in on virtual reality, as if it were the next smartphone.  The latest estimates from global market research firm TrendForce show the virtual reality market growing from under $7 billion today to $70 billion in 2020. In the next ten years, it’s estimated that there will be 135 million VR headsets in America alone. […] http://goo.gl/1JuHi6 #Playistic

[urbanchristiannews]

Urban Archeology Corps Helps Teens Dig Into African-American History

Kalen Gilliam (left) and Justis Jackson take measurements at the Urban Archaeology Corps excavation site about 10 miles outside of Richmond, Va. (Catherine Cozzi/Groundwork RVA) In a dense, wooded lot, 17-year-old Justis Jackson lies on a mound of dirt. He doesn’t seem to mind the sticky heat or buzzing mosquitoes. Jackson’s attention is fixed on a buried object at the bottom of a neatly dug…

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[chadliddell]

Phew.... The Disney Infinity announce event is in the books.  The Avalanche Software crew got back this afternoon.  After going into the office for a few hours I headed home and crashed.  I had a couple of quick thoughts to float out there before I hit the sack.

The event was HUGE!  I was blown away at both the scope of the production as well as just how much work it is to pull something like that off.  Disney and the good folks at El Capitan have some amazing professionals that really know their stuff and work their tails off.

The very first thing that blew my mind was seeing the giant cutouts of the game figurines.  They used my photos to create them!  I had no idea all my shots would be used.  Everywhere I turned I saw one of my photographs and I have to admit, it gave me a nice warm fuzzy feeling:)

The event itself went so fast it was a blur.  I was on stage demoing Toy Box for a good chunk of the afternoon.  At one point I heard someone say we had 15 more minutes and I thought I must have heard wrong.  It felt like I had been up there for a very short while.  As a side note, I have to say, I absolutely love showing people the Toy Box and specifically I love talking to the media.  I have had limited exposure to them and I always expected them to be surly, hardcore, venomous monsters who are more interrogators than interviewers.  My fears were allayed and I have to say, they are pretty awesome people.  I particularly loved talking to the bloggers such as the great guys at sites like Pixar Times and Stitch Kingdom.  They are every bit as professional of journalists as the folks at the big outlets.  Kudos to them for their passion and commitment to excellence.

I have just barely started to read about the response to the game.  I'm stoked by the generally positive vibe.  I'm also a bit shocked at how many inaccuracies I'm seeing.  I haven't read a ton, but in addition to the above two blog links I would recommend reading the below for an accurate description of the game.

http://www.polygon.com/2013/1/15/3879612/disney-infinity

http://www.digitaltrends.com/gaming/disney-infinity-the-challenges-of-straddling-the-line-between-physical-and-virtual-play/

The Digital Trends article is particularly good.  I really like that they quote John Blackburn as much as they do.  Remember his name.  I have worked with some very big game industry personalities, such as David Jaffe, and John is a standout.  He is going to be a big mover in the years to come.

Anyway, a few misconceptions that I really hope someone helps points out-

Infinity is a COMPLETELY different game than Skylanders.  While I fully understand why the comparisons exist, people should stop making them;)  Yes, they share the use of physical toys, but in my mind comparing them is like saying Borderlands 2 and Madden Football are similar because they both use the exact same controller.  There is a rich history of crossing over toys into video games.  When we started working on Infinity my kids were absolutely enamored with Webkinz.  I think there is a pretty identifiable evolution of the use of toys in games in recent memory.  Littlest Pet Shop -> Webkinz -> U.B. Funkeys -> Skylanders, and now Inifinity.  U.B. Funkeys added the reader concept and in-game representation of the toy avatar to the previous code input system.  Skylanders added the convenience of RFID, and we have added Play Set pieces and the collectivity of Power Discs as well as greatly scaled down the bulk the RFID reader.  On the software side there are ZERO similarities.

Minor thing, but toys in the Toy Box come both from Play Sets and from the Toy Maker, which resides in the Toy Box.  The basic concept of the Toy Maker is it is skill based slot machine type mini-game that yields toys.  As you level up your figurines, complete challenges throughout the game, and complete adventures you will earn spins at the Toy Maker.  And those toys will result in a more expansive Toy Box experience.

Play sets are NOT levels.  They are full games who's scale compares favorably with more than a few full price stand alone sand box style games.  Think Grand Theft Pirates, (but family friendly of course.)  For people who played Toy Story 3 Western Town would be considered a play set if it were in Infinity.

Infinity is not a kids game.  This is my own personal view on this, (note, possibly not Disney's...)  As one of the primary creatives behind Toy Box my goal was to create an experience for families.  By this I don't mean the typical, "family," game where dad, and maybe mom, will occasionally play the game with their kids and hopefully tolerate it.  This is an experience designed from the ground up so that moms, dads, sons, and daughters will all love the game, regardless of how "hard core" they are even if they are playing alone.  There is an almost insane amount of depth in the Toy Box.  For example, the logic system has full on behavior and property modification and supports some pretty beefy almost programmer like concepts like data flow supporting functions such as AND and OR.  (Try coming up with a non-nerd name for those btw...)  For the younger kids we have gone to pretty major lengths to scale the experience for how advanced a player is.  You may have noted that the Toy Box editing interface uses a ribbon interface plus categories.  It allows a very young child to spawn and play with toys.  If they can press the back button and the right trigger they can select and play with toys.  But an older player will be able to take advantage of category hot switching, and other short cuts to jump around and quickly find the toy they are looking for.  These little scaling touches are pervasive throughout the Infinity platform.  The end result is I can confidently say this game is for you.

As I read more previews I'll probably have more to say.  If you have any questions please feel free to ping me and if I can, I will try and answer your questions.

And last thing for tonight- I took the above photo for John Lasseter's portion of the Infinity announcement.  I particularly like this photo because it shows a prototype figurine without paint.  It really shows off the insane amount of relief detail that exists in the toys.  With most toys, if you take away the paint there really isn't much there beyond the macro form.  As a fan of high quality toys I'm giddy at what they accomplished.