Postmortem: Norwegian Wood
First things first, No Fun Games, a small group of people who decided to spend their summer making a game, recently released Norwegian Wood. What with Beatles: Rockband now on shelves, this is another type of Beatles rhythm game. You are a disembodied head of John Lennon avoiding the notes put forth by the four instruments during the song's length, racking up score multipliers the longer you dodge about the field.
Matthew Gallant, one of the designers/programmers of the title, wrote up a postmortem, Gamasutra style, to explain the process. This is a fairly simple game, and yet the post shows just how much work and rework had to be done. The original concept was completely altered, and what emerged was largely due to playing to strengths and recognizing weak areas.
In the what went right section, he includes how a last minute afterthought gave the game much more traction than he could have thought:
The online high score table was a minor last-minute addition to the game. However, as Eric Swain pointed out in his insightful Indie Spotlight, it added a ton of value in terms of competition and replayability. "Even after all these years and innovations it is still a huge motivation to play. [...] It isn't all about competition, but the close knit community that get formed in that competition."
If you have your own Beatles Norwegian Wood MP3 and feel like tinkering about, you might see about breaking into the high scores yourself.
VorpalBunny
Posted to Video Games on 13 October 2009
Other stuff like this: beatles, indie games, no fun games, norwegian wood, postmortem
