Scope of this Review

I think it’s important to realize that this is a culturally significant title on a platform never dreamed or intended to be on. There is much said on the game itself in the past sixteen years and I don’t think I have much to uniquely contribute from reviewing the iPhone version. What I intend to focus on is that nature of porting the title onto the iPhone and review the choices made. This review is about how this title works on the iPhone and less about the content.

As someone who claims himself as the resident Myst nerd, there isn’t much Cyan Worlds needed to do in order to buy the title. I own the Myst board game, so I can be counted as part of the base audience. My goals with this project is how this title can attract a new audience to the title. Stated different, how can the new platform revive the franchise. As I stated before, you can earn a one-to-one relationship between the desktop computer experience with a portable device. Success then is how closely the title can communicate the essence of the original experience.

Implementation

Basic Controls

The interface starts off naturally and as expected for an iPhone game. Touch the section of the screen in which to interact with or to move forward. The cinematography of the frame is the interface. Turning around in a node is done mostly with moving the finger across the screen. This is borrowing directly from the iPhone’s photo slideshow behavior.

What makes the iPhone different from other platforms is the lack of cursor. On the PC, your cursor changed based on the context of the area. If the cursor hand was pointing to the left, is showed you could turn left when clicking. With a direct finger input, a cursor would be too much UI and therefor not included. The problem that comes with this decision is communication to the user on what possible actions may be taken. Myst doesn’t allow you to look in every possible place as it’s not a 360 view point. When using a mouse, the cursor did a good job hiding the lack of viewing options. With the touch interface, not being able to go to the left may be either an action not allow, or the user did the behavior wrong. Or in some cases, the user doesn’t know they can look above or below them.

Myst was a unique example of the day by having a very limited inventory system with only pages of books and temporary limited inventory items. For example, the match in the shed.

While I won’t spoil much of what you need to do here and why, it took me 3 minutes to figure out how to obtain a match and then light it. All of which came around the hit areas of this match box. I had to hit the right side of the box to get a match, then strike it. Two minutes was spent on trying to obtain the #@*% match. In this case due to the size of the active area, dumbing down the actions may help with the interface. Let the whole match box be the area of action.

Device Orientation

While it’s very clear that Myst shouldn’t be played in portrait mode (Home button on the bottom), you are fixed to play the game with the Home button to your right and headphones on the left. It would be nice to pick which way the game would play and swap between the home button on left or the right. I can understand issues with accidentally flipping over the orientation on accident. Still, would a preference setting be that hard to implement?

Saving

The Auto save system is spot-on with the iPhone. While doing anything on the iPhone, the application must be ready to close at a moment’s notice for an incoming call. For a title that has a save progress, it’s extreamly important that the application pick up right where it left off. I’m happy to report that iPhone Myst does this very successfully without missing a beat. What I haven’t figured out is what happens when you’re in the middle of a Live-Action video sequence. In all, I don’t worry about loosing my progress all of the sudden.

You are also allowed up to four additional saves or ‘Bookmarks’ as the application calls them. I’ll go more into the specific UI aspects later in this post, but the limits of 4 save slots (in addition to the auto save) is a little frustrating for me, if only so I can make a save for each age. For the average user though, you get what you need from saving. Can’t go wrong with that!

Video

Myst made use of a lot of pre-rendered video due to technical limitations of 3D rendered graphics, rather than a purely artistic goal. While the use of actors for video is obvious, video was used more for animation of objects from switches to stairs appearing to lighting changes. While you will only see human actors in the Red/Blue/D’ni books and when meeting Atrus in person, the rest of the game used video for any animated sequence. Elevator movement, doors, paths/steps rising from water. Computers back then could only play video mixed with still images. Now it’s harder to make a game of all video than to pre-render. Yet with iPhone Myst, there doesn’t seem to be a concern to make these difficulties transparent for the player.

In the 1993 offering, the video appeared seamlessly with no loss of picture.

In the iPhone app, this is the common steps of display:

1. Activate event for movie clip.
2. The ‘loading’ circle appears in the middle of the screen.
3. Black screen for 1.5 to 2 seconds.
4. Play video at full screen, regardless of the effected area.
5. [Optional] Black screen for 1.5 to 2 seconds.
6. [Optional] ‘loading’ circle.
7. Resume rest state and resume interactivity.

This is hugely distracting! The viewer is pulled out of the narrative and reminded of the technology, not the narrative. I’d be concerned about the loading circle, but the black screens are completely uncalled for. I can’t imagine there isn’t a way to send a still image buffer to prevent a solid black screen. This isn’t limited to video that requires the full screen display. All the video in iPhone Myst is fullscreen video. The 1993 title compartmentalized video to only the parts that move. Apparently the iPhone can only do fullscreen video. This may be why the game is larger than the 1993 title; All the video is fullscreen.

I don’t know the background on making these technical decisions, but is there really no other way? This aspect alone makes the iPhone port go beyond being different due to the platform. This aspect ruins the essence of the title.

Settings Panel

The settings panel for the game which is always accessible in the lower-right of the screen during gameplay. While you’ll see the ‘i’ icon in the lower-right, you can turn it off with the ‘Options Icon’ setting, which I recommend you do. It’s not distracting, but once you know it’s there it’s good to turn off.

This is ugly. A mix of custom UI elements with the de-facto iPhone UI elements. I’m not saying the one or the other is a wrong choice, but the mix is a mess. The settings screen is apart of the title as it’s within the title. While you don’t get any part of the story from the settings, it must fit the mood of the piece so that transitioning to and from the actual content is a smooth delivery. Instead, this settings panel says: OH HAI! YOUR ON AN IPHONE PORT! I’d rather it say “You’re in Myst.”

Heaven help you if you hold down the info button too long. Otherwise that ‘Hints…’ button will trigger… into Safari. While the auto save system is top notch, you have to reload the game from the top once you get out of Safari. Same for ‘Help/Info…’ What gets me is with a game already a huge size, why not use an embedded hint/help/info messaging system? Or the in-app web browser API? This information doesn’t need to be dynamically changed, so there’s no fear of imbedded information. Instead the least path of resistance for developers was place; Call Safari.

And what content do you read? “Help/Info…” | “Hints”
I should note that the Hints page only works in Safari (both iPhone and desktop versions).

What really gets to me about this panel is my overall impressions with the iPhone port of Myst. Enough effort was put in to make the game function, but not for a quality experience. I don’t want to say they didn’t care, but I get the feeling that development resigned on so many aspects that efforts to improve the experience fell by the wayside.

Conclusion

I focused on the UI design and technical implementations of this title, but I want to make it clear that I love Myst for what it is. This title was significant for the period and did a lot of amazing things both technically for the time and for the art form. It’s why you have a optical disc drive in your computers. It showed that removing dependence on explicit UI elements can make for a more engrossing experience. I would even go far to say that the iPhone itself has to give acknowledgment to the 1993 Myst. The idea that interacting with the object in a natural manor is the key to UI design.

What I find with the iPhone experience is a lack of that acknolagement. I’m left with the feeling that the experience is attached with too many applogies for the work. I don’t regret the purchase on my iPhone, but I would hisitate giving the iPhone version to someone who hasn’t experienced Myst before in fear they will leave with the wrong impression.

Watchmen has finally made it to the sliver screen with much fanfare and service. The preamble has been enjoyable with posts from The New Frontiersman. An ingenious way of putting more use out of B-roll and props the film created.

This photo for example was the first put on the Flickr account, and the most important one. But there were a slue of other significant artifacts including this video “6 Minutes to Midnight”. Don’t want to dwell on this for the post, but I really wanted to illustrate that this was pre-release marking at it’s best. These things weren’t blatant and weak attempts, but strong pieces to help establish the narrative.

The format of the Media

The main point I want to make is how the format of the media can hinder or strengthen an adaptation. Watchmen is a 12 part story which also included ‘book excerpts’ for all but the 12th chapter. Even when you read the novel in the complete book form, there are 11 intermissions between each chapter; You can pause and take in the stories. Movies don’t allow for the audience to ‘digest’ the story before continuing. You have to go along for the ride until it is done. While you can pause a DVD, the fact that the movie doesn’t allow for these pauses by design.

This was the inherent problem for me with adapting Watchmen for the silver screen specifically. Even if there was a ‘part 1/2′ of the film, it still wouldn’t be enough to digest the narrative parts. I don’t claim that this film shouldn’t have been done because of this; I have to embrace the fact that we can never be satisfied with a film that can’t be broken into it’s parts.

But what form of media do we have that can be separated into parts but still yield the high production value required for the film? TV has the ability to separate into parts, but not the kind of production value to supply the demand. The movie industry can provide the funding, but the format limits. The Internet in general can do this, but not enough capital can be made to fund the production.

The Changed Ending

My LA collogues already warned me that the ending was different than the novels, but made sense and worked. When I saw the movie, I agreed that this change made a nice take. Though I would have loved to see a large squid…

What I find interesting is what kind of ‘other’ that left the society with each ending. For the novel, the ‘other’ is an alien race. This leaves the society to think to the stars and to not feel alone in the universe. Though hostile, there were other sentient beings in the universe. With the movie, the ‘other’ is Dr. Manhattan. Since he’s simply indestructible, the best path is to avoid him at all costs. Thus society is closed off from the rest of the world.

Personally, I’d rather have a world of a giant squid than Dr. Manhattan as the enemy. At least we’d be looking towards the stars more.

The Soundtrack

Being a period piece, using licensed songs can do a good job taken in the mood of an era. 99 Luftballons was welcomed both for the choice of the german version and that it’s a cold war protest song. Then it got weird.

While I can’t recall the specific songs and scenes, what stuck out was how simply inappropriate these songs were. I felt like I was back at Emerson where a professor would play a scene of Triumph of the Will (1935) and play the Yakety Sax song as the soundtrack. It ruined the mood and was simply awkward in a couple of scenes. ESPECIALLY with the sex scenes.

This is the only aspect of the film that was a completely wrong choice.

Random other thoughts

Jupiter / Silk Speckter II: Didn’t smoke. Was only apparently missing with the Mars scene.

Night Owl I: Completely skipped his death which was an extremely key aspect to Night Owl. Obviosuly we’ll be getting it with the 20-hour DVD version, but the situation around Rorschach’s death (the 2nd friend he looses in a day) really explains the crushing weight of the situation.

Rorschach: Jackie Earle Haley needs to be nominated (again) for best actor due to his performance in this movie. I can’t put it plainer than that.

I can’t begin without mentioning the various references to Michigan though out the movie. The family is from Pontiac, MI and moved to Oregon. The real father wears a Michigan State sweater. A key prop is a snow globe of the Horace Rackham Memorial Fountain. Both of which is funny because Rackham donated heavily to U of M. Not that it needed help, but I found myself warming up to the movie for these references.

As for the film’s content, I found myself needing to supplement some of the short comings of the film in order to make some of the choices Coraline makes more meaningful. Particularly, I found the real mother portrayed in the film as extremely vicious with no redeeming quality. While the real mother needs to give push back in order to stimulate Coraline’s desire fulfillment in the Other world, the real mother doesn’t show any real love for Coraline. There’s no subtext communicated for the Real mother, which leaves Coraline making the choice to not to live in the other mother’s world, rather than to live with her real parents. While I haven’t read the book, I feel that this may be more of a problem with Selick cutting that depth for the film. While I am fully aware that you can never communicate in a film like a book, there doesn’t seem to be an effort to make the real mother have any love for Coraline. The connection is too assumed with no context.

The voice casting was great as I didn’t find myself having any issue. What did stand out for me is the ‘stunt voice’ casting with the Father. John Hodgman was the voice of the father which certainly brought a smile to my face. A former literary agent voicing a writer is not lost on me. What stood out for me in casting is the “Other Father Song” about Coraline, sung by non other than one of the Johns of They Might Be Giants. What struck me is how well the singing voice matched Hodgman’s voice. Hopefully there’s another film which Hodgman’s character needs to sing and TMBG are brought in.

At once point in the film, there is a musical number with the characters Miss Forcible and Miss Spink. While sitting in an audience with a fair mix of 20-somethings and families with kids, the point where a psydo-bursleque act created a bit of an unease in the audience of “Oh wow, they went there.” Not really that risque, but enough to give an eyebrow raising moment. Which brings me to the next point…

I’m just going to come out and say this. All old ladies in this film have very enormous breasts. There. It has to be said. And come to think of it, that pattern of stop-motion animation characters where old ladies have enormous breasts leads me to wonder why such a pattern. Even Corpse Bride had this. In Coraline, even the saleswoman in the uniform shop had very large breasts. What’s going on here? Is this the Wilhelm scream for art direction in stop-motion animation?

After my friends Jim and Liz saw the film, they told me the film is Psychonauts: The Movie. When the movie reached the point where Coraline discovers the ghost children and given the task to find the three eyes/souls, I couldn’t disagree. The story turned into a potential interactive storytelling (re: game) with clearly given and multiable tasks to the protagonist. While there is a game adaptation of the game, it’s a merchandise product of the film. Not an independent piece of art.

I’m not advocating that Coraline should have been a (well produced) game either. If anything, this observation is my feeble attempt to get Neil Gaiman to write a new story for interactive media. Course, not just with anyone as there aren’t very many studios that would be a good match. Such a studio would need the consultation and collaboration skills with Gaiman in order to deliver an interactive story which exploits the talents they would all posses. Also, I believe that something new would work out better artistically, rather than adapting a set linear storyline; Thus removing expectations.

As for Coraline, its a very strong initial feature film offering from Laika and I expect good things for them in the future. Well worth seeing and will tide you over till The Watchman opens.

Edit (2-22-2009): I made a mistake and said Plymouth instead of Pontiac. As a bonus, I added a YouTube link to the Other Father Song by TMBG.

I’m actually lucky to play though all of the WiiWare games today (except My Life as a King) today. Checking the competition, I realize that we don’t have competition. Not in the perspective of quality judgments, but for the fact that each of the titles released on WiiWare are very different from each other. There is something different for a lot of different people, which is about what one would hope from a service launch.

The Wired Game|Life Blog does a good job outlining all the launch titles, now with impressions of each title. But if you insist, here’s my quick review of the titles:

FFCC: My Life As a King
I abstain since this was the one title I did not play today.

Pop
I feel kinda torn with this title as I don’t hate it, but don’t think it’s worth $7. You pop bubbles, and it gets fun for a time being. It’s not that I didn’t enjoy it, but with Defend Your Castle at $5, Pop just seems too much for little return.

Defend Your Castle
While I hate to admit cost as a factor, the value of this title is tied to it’s price. The group play and pure loony of the title makes this a rewarding game. When set to normal, it starts out VERY slow just to make sure you have the mechanics and you rank up on points to spend. But once it gets insane… it’s fun. Well worth the $5 and great for one-player and multiplayer. It’s also very easy to add on players while you’re playing; The difficulty will adjust as more players join/leave.

LostWinds
This is simply a must-buy in my book. It looks and sounds beautiful, plays great with the wind mechanic, and leaves you feeling fully rewarded when playing. Don’t be put off by people saying it’s too short; This is a quality game and worth the $10. Frontier Developments, great job!

V.I.P. Casino: Blackjack

It’s Blackjack and that’s about it. Of all the launch titles, this is the simplest title (yes, more so than Pop). You play blackjack and that’s about it. If you really love blackjack and like to play it on your Wii, then by all means. It’s not worth $7 to me, but others may see it differently. I hope this was just the first step in seeing more WiiWare titles from High Voltage Studios. Considering that their website doesn’t even mention it on their games list, I’m thinking this was just a first-run WiiWare title with more in the future. At least I hope.

TV Show King

I agree with Chris Kohler of Wired that the Wii is surprisingly devoid of trivia titles, so it’s great to see Gameloft make the first attempt. If you have friends that come over and play with you on your Wii, this is a good game to get. While the game mechanics of the Wheel could have been better, the rest of the game is great with groups. It is $10, but if you plan on having friends over, it’s worth the purchase.

As an aside to TV Show King: There are people asking the questions about expansion packs to questions beyond the initial 3,000. I have no idea or any inside information at all, but I will say that Nintendo requires titles selling DLC content to notify up-front, which this title doesn’t. Assume you get only what you paid for now.

PS: I hope Jellyvision realizes they need to partner with a studio to make You Don’t Know Jack on WiiWare. Unless they have already and it’s too early to talk about it.