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.

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.