"One of the things that I'm personally really passionate about -- the reason I'm in this industry -- is that I want to see our medium be more than it is already," Double Fine's Nathan Martz, and project lead on Once Upon a Monster, confided in me at a Microsoft press event yesterday. "Our human experience is so broad and yet our industry deals with such a narrow slice of it."

Martz explained that the project was conceived with the express purpose of generating joy. "I wanted to explore emotions," Martz said of his goal going into development. "For me, the best one is joy. The early example of this is a girl I was dating at the time. She asked me if I had a 'happy' song, a song that you hear and it just makes you feel great. Everybody has a happy song, and that was originally the name of this project: 'Happy Song.'"

I'll admit it: Playing a bit of Once Upon a Monster was a happy experience, one I think would be even more so for families and kids a little younger than myself.