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Just wondering…
We now have a budding Irish game development community thanks to this site. Nobody here can dispute that this was needed, particularly from an industrial/business point of view — i.e. to get some money into this industry which we all seem very agreeable about containing in this country.
So the existance of this site and the enthusiasm with which everyone responded to it seems to suggest that we have a national identity we’re quite proud to wear when we go to work in the global marketplace. That may or may not be true and in any case it’s not the point I’m getting to — it just prompted me to ask this question:
How important is being Irish to the actual games we create? Is it something we’d like to heavily integrate into our games — to give them an “Irish” flavour in the sense of say, an Irish film? I think it was quite important to us in Kapooki when we were doing Lorgaine, but the lads may disagree (I no longer work there).
You can easily pick out a French game from a Japanese game or an American game. I’m wondering if time will leave us with distinctively Irish games or will we just blend in with the other cultures around the world. What do you all think?
Shane
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Howdy Eggman,
I believe we can easily blend in with other cultures games, after all we’ve been playing “their” games like forever and those games are the reason a lot of us got involved in the industry in the first place. Sure, we can churn out Half-Lifes, or Metal Gear Solids or whatever but I do think it would be a shame not to draw on some of the heroes and legends from Irish mythology. Some of those stories are absolutely amazing and beg to incorporated into games, I just hope that it is Irish companies that do it and treat them with the respect that these stories deserve, and not Hollywoodise them with ropey oirish accents. An FPS based on Angela’s Ashes anyone? You have to fry her with a railgun and ultimately destroy a dangerous AI that causes human misery with incessant rain…… -
I’m not even all that concerned with keeping everything ancient and Celtic, though we do have an enormous pool of myth and legend in our culture to draw from. What I’m interested in is the possibility that a contemporary-styled game in any genre and about any subject would feel Irish somehow.
In Irish cinema, the maternal figure often has a pivotal role in our films. Nobody sat down and decided this at a forum — it just happened that way. If there was an Irish science fiction film done that wasn’t a farce, but told a serious story, I wonder would the same emphasis be placed on the Mammy. It’s possible. It’d be weird though.
Alone in the Dark was based on the stories of HP Lovecraft and kept the same New England American setting as his books but somehow had a distinctively French flavour all the same.
Lemmings, Worms, Giants and Black and White all have a feeling of British humour about them and they all play quite differently and are about different subjects. However, they all have that certain same something that seems to be intrinsic to many UK games.
Without being limited to Celtic myth or history, which only leaves us with relatively superficial subject matter (characters, dates, eras, locations) I wonder what our “certain Irish something” will be. Will it be in the humour or the action, or will it be in the way the rules are balanced or simply the presentation or interface of the game? Will a game be distinctively Irish if it leaves the player thinking/feeling a particular way, and if so what feelings/thoughts do you think they’d be?
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Look to Jordon in Formula 1 racing. They are the typical Irish team. They compete with the best, but everyone wants to be with them in the paddock because they are the most fun team. I reckon this could be the irish trademark. The outlandish humour and sense of fun.
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Hmm, let me see. A Quakeque Northside-Southside FPS?
Or a RTS with the people’s republic of cork?
To be honest with you, anything too Irish would be overmade to get the US market, and that would bring the Oirishness around.
Mind you, with Irish humour we could do a great version of a comedy type game, or I’m sure an Irish version of The Getaway might go down well, booting it down Grafton St. and crashing into the spike
Jamie
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Charlie Haughey could be the main character in The Getaway…
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Ahh no, seriously now.
Get Conrad Gallagher legging it away with all those paintings under his apron through the streets of Dublin on the way to Dublin airport. Speeding on a motorway with a 30mph speed limit, crashing through the port tunnel and getting stuck in traffic. All with some garda cars behind them, gripping stuff.
Jamie
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Guybrush Threepweed meets the Irish….oh the comic possibilities….
Nic Ryan
*guybrush is the monkey’s island “hero”* -
How about a Sim style game based on Irish politics, and its various wheelings and dealings.
The scope for humour would be massive. :)
xunil
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Now you’re talking. How do you manifest all that begrudgery, avarice and short-sightedness in one game?
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I was thinking that all that would manifest itself somehow through gameplay bugs, for once developers would not have to fix bugs :)
Hmm the ‘Brown Envelope’ currency, I can see it now.
A ‘Tribunal’ Expansion pack could be brought out to keep your city in tact.
Theres endless possiblities….. ;)
xunil
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No. I only mentioned films because it’s a similar medium in that it tells stories using both audio and video. That’s about it for technical similarities. I don’t think we should imitate another industry for any reason — whether it has successes or not — because that degenerates all the thinking behind it into placing money as the only priority (see the Hollywood IP problem in American games).
The Irish film (or indeed any culture’s film) comparison was because there are certain storytelling characteristics that have arisen over the years that are common to most Irish films. This was completely accidental and only happened as a result of culture, not business.
If we concentrate on gameplay, storytelling, etc., will there be such a thing as the stereotypical Irish game, do you think?
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Sorry, that came out wrong. By “stereotypical Irish game” I didn’t mean “stereotypically Irish” in the current sense, and all the negative and condescending connotations it carries with it.
I actually meant what you sound like you’re hoping for in your post, Jamie. I meant that I was wondering if we’ll create a new stereotype just within the games industry. If a national cultural identity can also be a genre then that’s what I’m talking about, I suppose — a new Irish genre.
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Have you seen the stuff Torc are doing?? http://www.torcinteractive.com
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Eggman, don’t worry about it >:)
Anyway, stranger things have happened than creating new genres, and it will probably happen in a stereotypical way anyway, on the back of a beermat in a drunken haze down at the local, which is never a bad thing because plenty of my own good ideas for other things have turned up in my wallet with no recollection of how they got there except that I could just about read my own scrawl.
Pete, cheers for letting us know, i’ve checked out the site and it’s looking good. Maybe they’ll be looking for some marketing people up in Muff next year around when my placement is due.
Well that now has two companies working on pc development that I know of, Kapooki and Torc, and I saw one of Torc’s older (I think their 3rd) engines in action and it was pretty funky.
Jamie
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> Well the only one that pops to mind is something like Leppy the > Lepracaun and his pot of gold.
TOO LATE!!! ( by about 20 years!!! ) ;)
http://www.mame.dk/gameinfo/leprechn/
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Stereotypical Irish games, hmm.
Well the only one that pops to mind is something like Leppy the Lepracaun and his pot of gold. And if anyone does attempt it, they’ll have the hitmen around their doors
[/quote:6ccc9bbd74]
Please don’t kill me, I made that Leppy game as a Paddy’s day card for my mates! :D
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Is that a stealth bomber in the backgound of the Lepracaun game?! :confused:
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Yeah, it’s a miniature B2 bomber that got lost on it’s way to Iraq.
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Could be Ryanair delivering my luggage to Stansted…
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So when are EA gonna to an “EA Irish Hurling 2003” for PS2 then :) With all the proper players and teams of course…
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Or Medal of Honour: Operation 1916 Uprising
I wanna do the GPO level, it would rule :)
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I think someone did that in the 80s. I think there was a text adventure with a graphic inventory or something. I’m sure I saw it on MAME or an emulator site…
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Do you speak of this game released By Martech on Commodore 64 (and Spectrum maybe as well) ? Think it was in 86/87…
It was a text adventure and the command system was very odd: the different actions were appearing and moving in a window, then left the window. You had to grab them with a cursor which was a skeleton hand…Very odd, but had a good music.
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LOL@ this thread…:D
I bet the clergy will have as much power in any Oirish game as they do in Age of Empires…:eek: -
I dunno about what other people think, but a possibility for ‘Irish’ themes in gaming could be something based around reality but skewed and with humour and sarcasm. Sort of exceptional normal circumstances. You could take this into satirising or playing around with established game concepts.
Of course, the reality could just be Mid-Atlantic imitation, so it’s probavly worth developing an Irish voice and style.
From the suggestions posted, everyone seems to want to do satire.
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I think the Irish games industry has a lot more things to deal with in getting off the ground without being tarred with the same brush as the Irish Film industry, or should I say the lack there of!
What we should be concerned about is our biggest export…our talent. That for me would begin to extablish an Irish ‘feel’ to games…quality, raw talent, storytelling and dare I say innovation (living in fear Dave Kearny sees this). You can’t have an Irish feel to anything if there’s no exposure, all good things to those who have the staying power to dig our heals in and work for this illusive ‘ideal’. Not to knock the ‘involving our pass/stories/legends idea once in a while but could we please move on and consentrate on doing what were good at instead of what the world thinks will look Oirish. -
without being tarred with the same brush as the Irish Film industry[/quote:ce4dbd4b98]
we could do with some of their tax breaks though!What we should be concerned about is our biggest export…our talent[/quote:ce4dbd4b98]
I second that emotion -
On an Irish note, did anyone ever see that Power Rangers style show “Knights of Tir na Nog” or something like that ? (praise the Lord I’m not on the dole any more)…
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Yeah, I feel that our Irishness shouldn’t be something we’re force into our games, but more something tha comes out as a product of our dedication, effort, goals and ideals that we have in creating a game we want. I think Omen’s right, outlandish humour and sense of fun will be something that will be noticable in our games, but it should come out because because it’s a natural product of what we want to make our games to be like and how we express ourselves, not because we decided in a board meeting that such a feature was compatible to our key demographic.
Personally, I think that the best way for us to create truely Irish games is to focus on us, what WE want in a game and on what sort of vision WE want. We can’t fall into the trap of simply cloning other games, or even just settling for making a marketable game based on research of demographics and what is popular and hence produceing what is simply a product. If we think about ourselves, what we can put into and make in a game, how we feel the game should be played and then, more importantly, put the effort in to move forward and create our vision, as opposed to some corporate goal list, then I believe our Irishness will follow as a matter of course.
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I think Omen’s right, outlandish humour and sense of fun will be something that will be noticable in our games[/quote:d02d1fd0b7] My god, I read that and couldn’t remember saying it, then i saw the date…been almost a year….this thread’s been around a while!
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Pete,
Yes I remember it. I hope it’s because of my kids watching it and not me but you never know!
Aphra,
I reckon you have something there. In mobile games it’s particularly important that you try to make the game bigger than the phone. I reckon Irish people are extremely good at being creative in the face of constraints, our appropriate use of silence being a good example, or the ease at which we use innuendo. Wouldn’t it be interesting to apply that creativity to a set of constraints, that the rest of the game developer community would ordinarily avoid, to come up with a uniquely ‘Oirish’ game.
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