Creating a Golden Goose

My newest ARIS game, Golden Goose could not be simpler. Give it a try right now if you’ve got ARIS.

You launch it. If you get a Golden Goose, she lays you a Golden Egg. If not, better luck next time. There’s a global leaderboard so you can see how many eggs any other players have and try to become the one with the most. A few players have been reminded of Ian Bogost’s Cow Clicker.

This game has a big difference from Cow Clicker though. Only one Golden Goose can spawn anywhere within a 10,000 second period. So for everyone playing Golden Goose, the supply of Golden Eggs is very tightly constrained.

So why make such a simple game? Golden Goose is a game that tests a few things:

• Long-term spawning behavior in ARIS games
• Franchising the leaderboard concept begun in Rupee Collector
• The dynamics of global, competitive play
• Micro-attention gameplay

I also was at the annual AERA meeting in San Francisco and wanted to make good on my recent trend of making games at conferences. I made a second game too, and will write about it shortly.

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Resolana reviewed by V.B. Price

At New Mexico Mercury.

From dialogue emerges el oro del barrio, the “collective wisdom” of the village. “These ideas make possible the development of a ‘learning society,’ in which learning and knowledge building in everyday life can develop the policy priorities for a postindustrial society.”

Though this is from a book review, it rings true with my ideas about what Local Games is about as an idea. Though most of what I talk about ends up being technical, this is close to why I bother, and why I think it might be worth others’ time too. Looks like my summer reading list just got a little longer and I have a few more people to meet.