Column: 'Blogged Out: Tears In Vienna'

In today's edition of 'Blogged Out,' Gamasutra's examination of developer blogging and the conversations being had with the community at large, regular columnist Jim Rossignol focuses on developer prototyping, whether games should provide an emotional bond, and the demise of Rockstar Vienna. In this extract, Jay 'Rampant Coyote' Barnson has posted a useful thought-piece on what developers need to think about in the initial stages of creating a game, also noting: "Twisted Metal was a game I worked on which actually created a (small) category. The 'Vehicular Shooter,' I guess. Several people working on it had different ideas of what it would be. From my background, I immediately put it in the box I was most familiar with, the 'sim' game. I was thinking of the Car Wars tabletop game and sci-fi 'simulators.' Some of the guys working on it were thinking first-person shooters in cars. Sony's producer on the project, Dave Jaffe, was thinking Fighting Games, of all things! Street Fighter in cars. The monstrosity we ended up with turned out to be none of these things, but it also turned out pretty cool, and was a signature series for the Playstation. It also spawned some pretty cool imitators, thus becoming a mini-category of its own." You can read the full Gamasutra column for more intriguing feedback from the world of developer weblogs (no registration required, please feel free to link to this column from external web sites).