Errata for chris crawford on game design
by Zube (zube@stat.colostate.edu)
Created:  Apr 26, 2004
Updated:  Jun  3, 2009
http://www.stat.colostate.edu/~zube/crawford.txt

Updates:  

Oct 27, 2005, p. 151.
Jun  3, 2009, links to Williams article and Space Monster picture.

**

The entries fall into four categories:

* factual errors
* stylistic or typographical errors 
* my own biased opinions
* additional information

As always, YMMV.

Preface
-------

On page 170, Mr. Crawford writes:

"I would abandon a discredited idea with ruthless disloyalty, and I assault
faulty ideas with barbaric ferocity."  

So I assume he will be most pleased with this errata.  :)

Errata
------

p. 11 -- "If you want to write novels, you've got to read lots of novels."

As a general point, I agree with this.  However, it might be noted that
much of the truly revolutionary work that occurs in other fields is done
by young people who have almost certainly not followed this principle.  
Mozart comes to mind.  Another is Godel, whose proof of the Incompleteness 
Theorem before age 26 is perhaps another counterexample. 

p. 15 -- "Space Invaders, half its [Diplomacy's] age, is utterly obsolete."

On page 18, Mr. Crawford calls Space Invaders a milestone game, considers
it a must-play for all game designers and on page 30 gushes about the
metaphor it presents.  Surely such a game cannot be utterly obsolete.

p. 18 -- "As far as I know, the game [Space Invaders] had no obvious
predecessors; it was an original creation."

This is actually one of the great unanswered questions.  Kevin Williams,
in this article:

http://classicgaming.gamespy.com/View.php?view=Articles.Detail&id=223

claims that Space Invaders was actually inspired by a '70s Taito shooting 
game called Space Monster.  Here's a pic of the cabinet:

http://pnmedia.gamespy.com/classicgaming.gamespy.com/images/oldsite/clusterimages/spacemonster.jpg

On the other hand, Toshihiro Nishikado, the designer of Space Invaders,
gave an interview in the November 2001 Electronic Gaming Monthly and he
makes no mention of the game.  David S. J. Hodgson, who interviewed
Mr.  Nishikado, states that he was "IN NO WAY" (Hodgson's words)
influenced by the game. 

p. 19 -- [Space Panic] "When anybody stepped into a hole, they would fall
through and be destroyed upon hitting the next floor."

Not quite.  Our hero dug holes.  It took three digs (three button presses or 
holding the button for a short time) to dig a hole.  When a baddie fell in a 
hole, our hero had to "bury" him with three more button presses.  The baddie 
fell and was destroyed (as were any baddies unlucky to be in the wrong 
position on the floor below).  One could also dig holes on many floors and 
if they were lined up correctly, one could "bury" the baddie down multiple 
levels scoring additional points.  Indeed, some enemies could be destroyed 
only by a multi-floor fall.

If a baddie fell in a hole, it made a rather angry buzzing noise.  But
this was nothing compared to the ugly crunching sound it made coming
out of the hole or the serious "You are very dead" noise if one got
you.

p. 20 -- The Donkey Kong entry is far too simplistic.  DK not only had
4 different screens (and therefore 4 different strategies) but to say
that "the development of the genre consisted of little more than adding
more doo-dads and gew-gaws" is a sure sign of never having played Donkey
Kong Junior.  I mention this game because I believe it to be an excellent
example of what happens when a creative someone makes a creative sequel,
but does it so well that it could easily stand on its own.  

p. 21 -- "I take some pride in being the only person in the universe (?) to
dismiss the game [Dragon's Lair] as a technological flash in the pan.  
Everybody else laughed at me, rushed to build their own laserdisc games,
and lost their shirts."

This is hyperbole.  I agree that laserdisc games were not as robust 
as traditional games.  However, one must remember that there were two types 
of laserdisc games:  those like Dragon's Lair, Space Ace, Cliff Hanger and
Cobra Command, where one had to face "binary challenges" and those that 
used the disc for backgrounds and instead generated computer graphics 
on top of the eye candy.  I don't think one of the first of these games, 
MACH 3 by Mylstar, caused the company to "lose their shirts."  

Indeed, one company, American Laser Games, stayed around for a while, so
if it was a flash in the pan, it was a fairly long flash.  I won't comment
on the quality of the games, however.  Also, Dragon's Lair II was released
in the early 90's by Leland after sitting in the vault for years, so again,
the flash is either a long one or it is many flashes.

p. 22 -- "Just like The 7th Guest, the sequel [to Myst] sold reasonably
well, and that was the end of the series.

Incorrect.  Mr. Crawford mentions the third in the series, Exile, on page 83.

p. 39 -- "It's easy to ruin a good challenge by exploiting loopholes in
the rules."

Indeed and it not only ruins the designer's vision, but also the player's
spirit.  Try 2600 Q*bert sometime.  I wanted to roll the score but could
never do so as it was a very difficult game.  Then one day I found
I could play indefinitely by not moving from the top cube, waiting until the
snake was about to pounce on me and then jumping off the pyramid into the
void.  I received the points for killing the snake but the game did not 
take away a life for this action.  I was instantly put off and never came 
back to it.

p. 62 -- " ... wrap themselves in the First Amendment ...."

I abhor politics as it tends to divide people and I agree with the sentiment
expressed by Mr. Crawford:  that the games industry does not face the problem
of video game violence with anything resembling a reasonable response.
However, the phrase bothers me.  It implies that there is something 
less than above-board with asserting a right given by the Constitution. 

p. 62 -- "Game designers cling to violence because they cannot imagine
other forms of conflict."

I would have guessed it was simpler than that: violence sells games and
(in the US anyway) it is many times more palatable than any mention of sex.

p. 62 -- "... recall Mortal Kombat's crowning moment, when the player has
overcome his opponent, and the words "Finish him!" appear on the screen,
at which point the player rips out his opponent's head and spine."

This is a bit inaccurate.  While it is true that there were fatalities in
Mortal Kombat, the spine rip one was due only to Sub-Zero.  The other 
characters had other, no less gruesome end moves, but they were not all
of this type.  Also, it must be noted that it was not compulsory to kill
your opponent and that certain conditions had to be met for the kill to
work (some had to be done at some distance, all had special and different
button/joystick moves for it to happen).  Admittedly, it was encouraged,
but it was not required.  

MK II added friendships to the mix, so that a different button press at 
the end of the fight would not result in death, but instead (for example) 
a rainbow and the word "FRIENDSHIP."

The worst of the games was arguably Time Killers, a poor fighting game
that featured dismemberment during the match.

p. 99 -- "And the Internet contains very little of intellectual substance.
The grand total of all the information that I can find on the Internet about
any given topic of real intellectual interest is less that [sic] what I can
get in a single good book."

This is extreme hyperbole.  Certainly, one can find uninformed opinion
and trash on the Net, but one can also find much that is interesting and 
intellectually stimulating.  Like a library, one can also find books
there:

http://www.gutenberg.org

I believe the author is attempting to make a point: that a summary 
written by Joe Person is not a substitute for the deep understanding 
obtained by the careful reading of an expert's words.  Still the
dichotomy of "Net shallow and bad" v. "books deep and good" is
too much.

There is much that isn't available via the Net.  It would not surprise
me that the author has eclectic tastes and that much of what interests
him isn't there.  Still, to say that the Internet constains very little
intellectual substance is to dismiss, for example, every university 
department that makes papers and tech reports freely available, meaning 
virtually all of them.  A statement that throws out almost all university 
research in one fell swoop is one that needs revision.

The Net is a tool.  Like other tools, it will be very useful in some areas
and less useful in others.  If a carpenter uses a screwdriver to hammer
nails, the problem is not that the screwdriver isn't a good tool.  The 
problem is with the carpenter's judgment.

p. 102 -- "The moral of this story, in regards to software, is that we
accommodate ourselves so willing to poorly designed software that we
start to think that the software itself is good and that we are cripples."

I like this story, but there is a flip-side as well.  We might call
it the _Clifford Stoll Manual Typewriter Cognitive Dissonance Effect_, or
perhaps _E=Emc^2_.  In this story, Clifford Stoll has been working for
years on a typewriter.  He is happy with the way it functions.  But he
is curious about this new thing called a computer.  Each time he is
shown how to do X on it, he complains that it is different from how he
performs the same function on a typewriter.  To wit:

"The margins are *so* much easier to set on a typewriter."

"My typewriter doesn't crash."

"The manual for my typewriter is easier to understand than unix is."

... ad nauseum.  Of course, he won't give up the computer because it 
can do so much more than a typewriter.  Indeed, he wants all the benefits
of a computer and none of the drawbacks, including *learning.*
He has no responsibility in this scenario; just plop him down in front of 
it and if it doesn't work like a typewriter, well, the problem isn't his. 

I suppose the true flip-side of the suit story is a tailor who makes a 
perfect suit, but the customer continually complains that he can't jog in it, 
he can't throw it in the washer to clean it and doesn't last as long as
his jeans do when he wears it to his construction job.  

There must be some middle ground here somewhere, eh?

p. 106 -- "It's probably best to keep your head down and work on a sequel."

Now, why would I do that?  According to Lesson 47 on page 282, "Sequels are
for entertainment; they have no artistic content."  

Frankly, the comment on page 282 seems terribly off the mark.  Ever play
Donkey Kong Junior? BTW, did Balance of Power not have any artistic content?

p. 112 -- "Consider, for example, the classic cartoon scene in which 
Character A foists a stick of dynamite with burning fuse onto unwitting 
Character B.  The dynamite explodes, and when the smoke clears, Character B
is revealed to be singed but unhurt.  "Ooo, that smarts!" exclaims 
Character B.  Now if this scene were played out in full graphic realism,
with a real human being and real explosion, it wouldn't entertain.  
It wouldn't be funny, it wouldn't be exciting, it wouldn't be dramatic; 
it would be confusing and stupid."

I can't agree with this.  I would argue that many a silly gag and many a
farce would be snuffed out if this were not possible.  Let's spice up the
line though, maybe "You're only supposed to blow the bloody doors off"
or perhaps "Hey, that really *was* a speecy, spicy meatball."  

It appears that I may have misinterpreted this passage.  If "full graphic
realism" means "a spatter of blood and organs", i.e. a person *really* 
being blown up by dynamite, then the point is correct.   It isn't
funny.

p. 120 -- "Then came the second generation of high-level languages,
such as C, Forth and Pascal, that simply excluded GOTO."

Forth doesn't appear to have a GOTO, but both C and Pascal do.  Its use
is usually discouraged in programming courses, but the primitives exist.

p. 122 -- "You don't use a library in the same manner that you use a tool;
it's a different beast and obeys different laws of utilization.  None of
my comments in this section apply to software libraries."

I'll bite.  Why?  Without some kind of further explanation, this is proof
by assertion. 

p. 137 -- "Make friends of people you wouldn't normally make friends with:
fundamentalist Christians, ..., skinheads, leather-clad motorcyclists, ...."

The sentiment of such "social education" is fine, but the advice is
exceedingly short-sighted.  In the USA anyway, such advice could get you 
or your family and friends harassed, injured or if you are extremely unlucky, 
killed.  If you want safety along with the substance, I'd suggest 
reading about each of these types of people to understand how they think 
(the internet is a wonderful thing).

p. 151 -- "If we wish to be liberal with our definition of self-modification,
we could say that Pac-Man has a self-modifying element.  When the player eats
a power pill, the tables are turned on the ghosts, for now the player can
dispatch them by chasing them down.  For a short period of time, the roles
reverse.  This is a kind of rules change."

To paraphrase Eddie Izzard, we *could* if we wish say that Pac-Man has a
self-modifying element, but ... we would not.

I agree that it's a rules change.  I don't agree that it is self-modifying.
It implies that every power-up is a self-modification, which is a bit
too much for me.  In an extreme view, it implies that anything out of the 
ordinary is self-modifying, which is absurd.

p. 159 -- "The next logical step was to integrate some of those flashy
splash screens into the game.  Cinematronics was one of the early
perpetrators ...."

Cinematronics should probably be CinemaWare.  Cinematronics was an arcade
game company that produced Star Castle, Rip-Off and Armor Attack, among 
others. 

p. 185 -- "Nintendo reinforced this attitude ["games should provide happy,
clean fun"] with its early enforcement of "family values" in games for
its platform."

With the emphasis on "early."  By the time Mortal Kombat II arrived, it
was clear that, given a choice between market share and "family values",
Nintendo would choose the former. The first Mortal Kombat for the SNES was
toned down quite a bit: blood changed to sweat, some of the fatalities 
changed.  The Genesis version was also toned down, but there were codes 
to get the fatalities and blood back.  The market preferred the Genesis 
version by a long margin.  MK II was uncensored on the SNES.

p. 185 -- ".... Mortal Kombat, seemed to take special pleasure in gore,
concluding each victory with the yanking out of the loser's spine."

No.  As before, that was one character (Sub-Zero), it required that
certain conditions be met and it was optional.

p. 186 -- "As I write this, the newest sleaze game, BMX XXX ...."

While it was hyped initially, it was panned by reviews and gamers
alike.  In the end, a bad game with sexual overtones is still a bad game.

p. 186 -- "The only solution is to take a deep breath, devote a large 
amount of money to breaking out of this self-imposed pit, and pay the
price of developing a healthier marketplace."

Perhaps Mr. Crawford is correct, but it's unclear to me who will finance
this deep breath.

p. 197 -- spacing error (commandROTATE LEFT)

p. 198 -- In the example on page 196-197, the display and the text seem to
coincide and I understand it.  However, on page 198, the example states

"It has 8 rounds of ammunition left. It can currently see enemy Tank 8."

In the previous example on 196-197, the last column on the second row seemed
to specify the number of rounds of ammunition left.  How does the display
reflect that Tank #2 can see enemy Tank 8?

p. 219 -- "The VCS ... was not the first programmable home videogames 
machine -- Fairchild deserves the credit for that."

Actually, the original Odyssey accepted circuit boards (not carts) that
allowed the machine to play different games.  The technology was exceedingly
rudimentary, requiring overlays taped to the TV for "graphics," but 
there it is.

p. 239 -- "The game offered eight controllable devices:  four pumps (the
orange octagons), three valves (the orange X-shaped objects), and the
reactor core."

The black and white picture of Scram on page 238 confuses me.  I count 5
octagonal shapes and can't discern color from the picture.  Is one of the
octagonal shapes "the reactor core?"

p. 440 -- "Lesson 89:  If you don't fail at least 90 percent of the time,
you're not aiming high enough."

But ... but on page 428, Mr. Crawford concludes that his game career had a 
failure rate of 15%.  Does this mean that he did not aim high enough?