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abstract

The idea began on a bus journey. I was playing a game called Warioware (Nintendo, 2003) on the Gameboy Advance. I’d already played each of the two hundred so-called microgames and completed the other modes. All that was left was to play the same microgames over again, competing against my own score. Since microgames are as simple as they are, I also had plenty of time to think about what I was doing. I realised that after exploring and unlocking every part of the game by now, it was no longer as fun as when I had first played it. The reason was because there were no surprises left to find which, when unlocked, each feels like a little reward for playing a new piece of game; the reward being a new challenge set and being new somehow recreates the exciting feeling of playing a game for the first time. (Well, you are playing that piece of game for the first time.) If only there was something left to unlock, although I would still be playing the same game, the possibility of a new discovery would give me more incentive, making the same experience more fun. If only there was more to unlock, if only it never ran out of freshness, then it would never run out of fun. It seemed a totally impossible idea, but it was so crazy that I thought it just might work. I was certain that, even if someone else had already thought of it before, in the modern state of the computer games industry, it’s an idea that sounds far too risky to even attempt, it’s an idea without proven success. Even so, it was an idea I became interested in trying out for myself, it contained the same excitement as playing Warioware did when I was trying to unlock a new level: the reward for taking the risk is the possibility of unlocking a brand new discovery.

EFowler.zip

randomware.zip

RandomwareReview.pdf

TheMakingOfRandomware.pdf

EFowler.zip

randomware.zip

RandomwareReview.pdf

TheMakingOfRandomware.pdf