Final Fantasy X-II

I have a cold so I have been at home playing Final Fantasy X-II. Spring is coming outside, but having fever and not being able to think straight I have put blanks on the windows, started the projector - i.e. pushed the button that turns off the world and turns on the game.

FFX-II will not become an FF favorite of mine, but I enjoy playing it. But I don’t plan to spend hundreds and hundreds of hours on it as I have with other games in the series… on the other hand one never really _plan_ an obsession…And it’s always so fun to try out the different version of the battle system that the developers keep varying in each version. My favorite of the FF battle systems is the version from FFVIII.

A noticeable detail is that parenthood is touched upon in FFXII. I have thought about the fact that this is seldom a relation that is pictured in story driven games from the parents point of view (main characters seldom have children that have active roles in the story). In FFX-II two of the main characters from FFX, Lulu and Wacka, are having a baby, and Wacka is thinking about how to act as a father. (Lulu’s approach to motherhood is not touched upon tho).

Conversations

The design process for the MMRO project is not over yet, but the design document has at least been delivered to the EU people, which is a relief. So I have been able to be less single minded, and talk to people about other things.
Annika Waern (who heads the whole IPERG project which MMRO is part of) came over to the island, and over dinner we had an interesting conversation about how design work relates to research work, and under what circumstances design work can bee seen as part of research, and what needs to be considered in these cases.
Another conversation that sticks to my mind was about reality games with Andreas (Leo) Nordvall, who has been staging games of that kind for some years. What does it mean when a game has it’s stance in reality, adding a fictional overlay? A whole different starting point for the diegesis. Now I am also a proud owner and user of a Money Stamp.

Balloons

IMG_1856,
originally uploaded by mimmi.

But of course.

Back after vacation in Chamonix

my brother and me,
originally uploaded by mimmi.


my dad

I'm back in Visby after having had a vacation in the french alps, skiing in Chamonix.
Right now im very curious about all that is happening at GDC, but I'm stuck here - the final delivery of the design document for MMRO must be done next tuesday.
... i got a little bit of work done while in transit at least, i reviewed papers for Game Studies. Really good ones, i was lucky.