This is what I’ve been playing since I last wrote in this blog. As you can see, I’ve managed to stay quite busy. This is typical of my game playing habits; I tend to play in spurts. Right now, things have cooled down for me as far as gaming goes, so I’ve decided to go back and replay Elder Scrolls: Oblivion to tide me over as I await the release of Fable 2. I’ve taken the time to write out some quick reviews of the games I’ve been playing since June – have a look:


Metal Gear Solid 4 10.0

What’s Cool:

Tons of items, weapons, camo, and other pickups add replay value and diversity to the gameplay. Nice mix of different outdoor and indoor environments. Unique bosses that were both challenging and fun. Tight controls which really compliment the Dual Shock controller. The player animations have that “Japanese feel,” almost ninja-like. Using OctoCamo and Solid Eye is supremely fun. The game drips with polish and feels extremely well designed. Very satisfying ending.

What’s Wack:

Cryptic back-story with overly long and confusing cinemas. It was masochistic to force myself to sit through some of those cutscenes, but out of respect for Hideo Kojima I did my best to follow along, and I never once skipped one. The first level might be too challenging for new players. You will have to spend time simply learning all the controls and won’t get the most out of the game until you get a handle on all the different mechanics like Close Quarters Combat and Mark II

Bottom Line:

Metal Gear Solid 4 is the result of what happens when you give 50 million dollars to a supremely talented studio and let them make the best game they possibly can. Even when I wasn’t playing, I would often catch myself thinking about it, anxious to jump back in. MGS4 is probably the best game I’ve ever played on a console system.


Uncharted: Drake's Fortune 8.9

What’s Cool:

Gorgeous jungle visuals, with very neat water effects and smooth animations. Very satisfying platforming sequences. Treasure hunting is fun, even if it’s limited to finding blinking stars scattered throughout the map. The graphics, audio, and overall presentation of this game is very good. Longer than most next-gen action games which is both a good thing and a bad thing, depending on the type of player you are.

What’s Wack:

Sub-par shooting combat; the gunplay feels like a spaghetti western and lacks weight. Limited weapon types with minimal differences between them. Cover system works well but feels over-done at this point. The animation blending is cool, but it can look awkward at times to see guys over-animate and stumble around too much. NPCs can overact and the game’s story as a whole feels like a forgettable summer action flick. Not groundbreaking; the game borrows heavily from Tomb Raider and Indiana Jones. Too long; gets repetitive.

Bottom Line:

Drake’s is good game that is worth picking up if you already own a Playstation 3. It’s a really good game, but not a great game; there is nothing in this game that you can’t get out of others like Assassins’ Creed, Tomb Raider, or Gears of War. But Drake’s does a good job of combining tried-and-true mechanics like cover systems, platforming, and driving into a package that is well-presented and entertaining. With all of the achievements, unlockables, and treasure hunting, there is enough in this game to keep you busy having fun for a number of hours.


Indigo Prophecy 8.4

What’s Cool:

An interesting adventure game designed for the consoles is not a frequent occurrence, so this game feels like a breath of fresh air when compared to the usual fare typically seen on the Playstation 2. Tons of unique animations and gameplay sequences make for a game that plays out more like a movie than like a video game. Even the game’s menu system is presented in such as way as to mimic a DVD. Playing as multiple characters with storylines that intersect with each other is cool, solving puzzles can be challenging and rewarding, and doing things like simulating claustrophobia or reliving flashbacks will be something you’ve never done before in a game.

What’s Whack:

The voice acting can be pretty funny; was the black dude voiced by a white guy? The controls are cumbersome; simply turning and walking can be a frustrating exercise which is compounded by the fact that this game requires lots of investigating. Indigo also badly suffers from a poor camera and way too many quick time events, so it can be discouraging to see such fundamental elements of a video game be overlooked by the developers.

Bottom Line:

Indigo Prophecy will be a unique gameplay experience for console owners, but long-time PC gamers will see this game as simply another pretty good adventure game. Fans of this game should look into Dreamfall, another adventure game which I played a while back but never finished (I bought a new PC and never went back and finished it. If you are willing to approach the game with an open mind and forgive its basic game functionality flaws (bad controls, bad camera), you’ll find an interesting and compelling game that is/was very unique for its time and platform. It took me about 15 hours to complete this game.


Lost Planet 8.0

What’s Cool:

Tight animations that have the signature, Japanese ninja style to them. Lots of bugs and robots to kill. Running/driving around in Mech suits is satisfying. Controls are tight. Lots of action.

What’s Whack:

Completely forgettable storyline. Overly repetitive environments. Can only equip two weapons and two grenades at a time (I’m not generally a fan of the Halo-style weapon limitations). Not much depth to the game at all.

Bottom Line:

Lost Planet ultimately does nothing new in terms of gameplay or narrative; there’s really not much here besides shooting robots and aliens. Think along the lines of Starship Troopers. However it is a Capcom game, and Capcom games are very well executed. What it does do, it does well. Animations are crisp, controls are tight, Mechs are fun to use, and exploding the alien bugs is satisfying. I completed the single player portion of the game in around 10 hours.


Braid 8.5

What’s Cool:

Beautiful, hand-painted artwork that is amazing to look at. Great soundtrack. Very fun to control time (rewind, fast-forward, pause). Nostalgic tributes to old-school platformers like Super Mario Brother and Donkey Kong. Thought-provoking themes. Interesting puzzle/platforming challenges that work parts of your brain other than your fast-twitch reflexes and aiming skills. One of the best titles available on Xbox Live Arcade.

What’s Wack:

Too hard, seemingly by design. Almost impossible to complete without enlisting the help of a walkthrough. Pretentious overtones. Because it is a platformer/puzzler, it will inherently limit the audience to fans of the genre.

Bottom Line:

Braid is an incredibly beautiful, old-school style platformer that mixes puzzle elements and a cool, time-control mechanic well. Ultimately this game wont be for everyone, but patient types would love the challenge this game presents, although it can be painfully difficult at times and it is certainly a game I would not have completed if not for the help of walkthroughs. On a side note, I’ve listened to designer Jonathan Blow give various interviews and lectures since the release of his game, and after hearing him speak, I’ve gone from being a fan of his to growing absolutely disgusted with his pretentious, holier-and-smarter-than-thou attitude.


Battlefield Bad Company 9.0

What’s Cool:

Awesomely destructible environments within huge maps. Great graphics that have some excellent post-process work throughout the environments. Excellently paced, especially considering the nature of Battlefield games. Fun collectible system adds replay value to the levels. Lots of different weapons that feel true to their ballistic characteristics. The writing is funny and entertaining, and the voice work is well done. The vehicles are fun to pilot, but it can also be just as fun to run around with a sniper rifle and shoot guys from hundreds of yards away. Cool secondary items like missile launchers, C4 explosives, satellite bomb strikes, mortar barrages, etc. Audio is great. Cool self-healing mechanic makes for some intense, near-death moments throughout the game. Clean, unobtrusive user interface. Excellent multiplayer.

What’s not:

The game has lots of minor bugs and glitches, especially in the audio. The game was designed to fight outdoor battles, so there are some AI issues when you get too close to enemies. You can’t jump through windows, something that personally bugged me. Sometimes the NPCs can be annoying to listen too.

Bottom Line:

EA and DICE finally got the Battlefield series to play well on the console; all it took was for them to stop trying to port the PC game to the consoles and actually specifically design a Battlefield game for the Xbox 360. The multiplayer will remind some of Call Of Duty 4, and that’s a good thing. The game has a cool style to it, and really simulated modern military combat in an East European setting well. There are some super intense moments in this game, and playing the game on Hard is going to be a heck of a challenge. But overall, this game is very fun and worth picking up if you are a fan of shooters. As a big Battlefield fan myself, I was more than pleasantly surprised to find Battlefield Bad Company play so well on the Xbox 360

Two days into Mass Effect:

So far, I am having fun with this game. At the same time, it’s hardly a game I can’t put down. More on that next time. For now, I’ll talk about the game in general after a couple days in:

From the get-to, this game exudes polish and really plays like a movie. You can tell the guys at Bioware are big movie fans and have done everything they could to make this game as cinematic as possible. It’s weird, but just loading up the game and getting to the “Press Any Button” screen had me satisfied that my 40 bucks was well worth the price of admission...even though I had yet to see the show. The presentation of it all really screams quality.

The character creation system is deep and limited at the same time. You can change your first name, but you will always be Shepard. So if you want to be Barney Shepard, that’s fine, but you will be referred to as Shepard throughout the entire game. So what’s the point of choosing a first name at all, right? You can however, choose to be male or female, and what follows is a pretty powerful face creation mechanic. I'll be honest; I made my character look so close to how I look in real life that I had to make some changes so as to not be confused as a masochist during intense battle! However, a couple of gripes: Why can’t you rotate around the character as you mold his face? Seems like such a basic function. Mass Effect keeps the view locked so be careful not to protrude your facial features too much or you’ll look like an alien (the whole point of the game is that you are a Human commander, right?). After you contruct your face, you can then choose your class. Do you prefer mainly shooting weapons? Do you like to use magic? Do you want to be a hacker and have access technologies? Or would you like to be a mix? I choose the basic warrior, in part because my gaming habits these days don’t allow for thousands of hours invested into a character. At this point, I am content with getting a good gun, some good armor, and getting sent out into the field. Oh and you can also choose what I call an "outlook on life" - you know, the typical hate-the-world orphan type, or the follow-in-the-footsteps-of-your-proud-military-family type. I assume this choice has a direct impact on the dialogue system, and possibly what dialogue options you options you tend to be shown as default and so forth. So if you are a guy who hates the world, maybe most of your dialogue system leans towards negativity and intimidation.

The character management system is a bit cumbersome. This is something that RPG developers have forever battled with. All these values and such can be programmed fairly easily in Excel or whatver – this weapon give me +X to Shooting, -X to accuracy, and has the ability to be upgraded with X number of special attacks, and so forth. The problems come when designing an interface system that allows players to easily manage it all. So far, picking up items and managing them in your inventory is pretty confusing. Sometimes you automatically take all the items from a stash, and other times it’ll prompt you to pick and choose. Once you get these items, there is no inventory box where you can see and manage all of your gear. I guess the best way to describe it (please excuse the metaphor) is instead of looking at a map to get directions, you instead are given a geography book and have to come to your own conclusions as to which country connects to which. You are essentially flipping through pages of different inventory screens instead of seeing all the information in one or two views. There are some things that Mass Effect does in terms of character management user interface that is really straightforward. When you are in combat, you can press a button that freezes the action and allows you to issue commands to your squad (which, by the way, this game is a squad-based game. There won’t be much soloing, so you might as well learn how to manage your squad). You will have to spend character upgrade points, so if you want to get all detailed into how you and your squad levels up, you can do that. For now, I’ve been using the Auto-Level feature. In my gaming maturity, I don’t invest as much time and effort in leveling my offline characters the way I might in an Online RPG. Auto leveling helps me get back to what I bought the game for… the actual gameplay.

Speaking of which, the gameplay is really good. I was surprised as to how solid the combat is. There is a cover system in place (it is, after all, an Unreal Engine 3 game) and it works as you would expect it to. Movement speeds are pretty realistic, and you do have to control sprinting vs jogging. A couple of times, I found myself dying because I couldn't switch from walking to sprinting quickly enough. This is a perfect example as to why this game plays best with a controller. The almighty mouse/keyboad has established its home among real time strategy games and hardcore FPS games, but the third person titles usually work best with a gamepad. While Mass Effect is certainly playable with a mouse and keyboard, there are some very basic things that it screws up. One of which is that you cannot cycle the dialogue system with the arrow keys. I found this to be a disappointment and personal annoyance. The other oversight is the inability to bind functions to the mouse buttons 4, 5, and 6. I have a pretty standard mouse that has six buttons plus a scroll wheel. Mass Effect lets you use only three buttons and the scroll wheel. So instead of being able to treat my mouse as a pseudo controller by binding functions to it, I am now heavily relying on the keyboard which takes away from the gameplay experience. I can’t fault Bioware for this oversight, but I can fault the porting house Demiurge. C’mon guys! It’s a very real possibility that I will play this game with the Xbox360 controller. I had no problems whatsoever playing Oblivion with a mouse/keyboard, but it looks like Mass Effect is going to need a game pad…it was obviously designed for one.

I really enjoy the way in which the story is told; it’s very cinematic and the dialogue system flows really well. Unlike The Witcher, I haven’t found any instances where an NPC’s response to my inquiries is out of context or just doesn’t make sense. The voice acting is some of the best I have ever heard in a game. I would put it right up there with Half-Life 2 and The Elder Scrolls: Oblivion. So far I’ve recognized Seth Green’s voice acting, and that one black dude who plays lots of military roles in movies…I had to look him up but his name is Keith David. Dude has an awesome voice and I hope he does more video game work in the future.

The dialogue system is pretty straightforward…there is usually a passive, neutral, or aggressive response available to you. The default, or quick answer, if you will, may be tied to your character’s background…the one you choose during the character creation process. When you talk to people, there will be times when you will see a dialogue option that has been grayed out. This happens based on how you responded toward them previously. For example, if I started to bully a NPC to get information, I won’t be able to kindly ask him for help. The fact that the game shows you the consequences for your dialogue actions cause you to carefully choose your answers and questions. At the same time, it’s hard not to talk to someone like you would in real life. I don’t know about you, but when I play RPGs, I try my best to imagine myself in that world…I imagine how I would act. Some people like to take on totally different personas - either really benevolent or totally merciless - but for me it’s easier and more immersive to try to project my real self onto my character.

There is a persistent post process effect on the world that does a nice job of softening the scene. I guess I could describe it as a slight static effect, as if you are seeing the world through some kind of interplanetary transmission. The world is bright and vivid at times, but there is always a little softness which does a good job of selling the believability of it all. One of the problems of video games is that edges are perfectly straight, and colors never bleed into each other. But in real life, our eyes process so much information that its rare to see an edge that doesn’t have a certain softness to it…even if only because our eyes don’t naturally focus that way. So while some people may be turned off by a persistent post process effect, I find myself really appreciating it.

Getting back to the story; if you absolutely hate science fiction, you will probably hate this game. No matter how cool the mechanics are, if you cant at buy into at least some of what the characters are talking about, you won’t have any desire to play this game. I like science fiction as much as the next guy, but I’ve never been one to recite the origins of the different races in Star Wars. I can’t tell you which factions warred with which, and I don’t know the intricate details of the many languages of the galaxy. Right off the bat, I could tell that Mass Effect takes its lore very seriously and Bioware has obviously invested a ton of time and effort into building a lexicon. Sci fi fans will love Bioware for this, and it’s possible that a TV series is spun off at some point. There really is that much lore. But what is nice for me, is that like most modern RPGs, its not forced down your throat every five seconds. If you want to get into all the backstory, then go ahead and load up your journal and read to your hearts content. When you talk to NPCs, there is a very obvious option that is basically “Tell me more.” If you want to open up that whole section of the dialogue tree, you’ll be rewarded with more story and will probably get some bonus experience points out of it. So its there if you want it.

That’s all for now. I’ll continue to update this with additional notes and thoughts as I continue playing through Mass Effect. This idea of blogging while I play is pretty new for me but I think it’s a cool way to share my experiences with a game. One of the other things I’ll do is keep a running tally of my score for the game. Right now, I’d give Mass Effect an 8.8 out of 10. This score will change as I play, but based on what I’ve seen so far, I think that is an accurate score.

Into The Wild caught me by surprise. I knew it was something I wanted to rent almost entirely of because what I assumed the thematic premise was. I was excited to find a single copy available at Blockbuster and went home to watch it. Honestly, it was a classic case of judging a book by it's cover. Soon into watching this movie I beginning to have my doubts. There is something annoying about the lead actor, I think to myself. Its like the director purposefully went out to find a Leonardo DiCaprio look alike or something. But I continued watching and the movie continued to grow on me. There were some nice surprises in the cast for me; I had no idea William Hurt and freaking Vince Vaughn were in it. And Kristen Stewart is a stunning young actress who is now definitely on my radar. Its rare in today's internet age that you don't already know everything about a movie before it even premieres. The same is true for video games as well, with their overbearing advertising blitzes and screenshot mega-galleries. Sean Penn did a wonderful job directing this film and is the latest example of a world class actor making a successful transition into the director's chair. I have to say that Into The Wild was bit of a breath of fresh air for me and definitely worth the rental. Who knows, I may even read the book...

I'm in love with nature, I'm a huge fan of music that inspires contemplation and self-reflection, and psychotropic/metaphysical science and philosophy is very interesting to me. Stuff like this is totally up my alley and is really inspiring:


Shlino lake sunset from Timelapser on Vimeo.


Black sea sunset time lapse from Timelapser on Vimeo.

One of the best things I have ever read; The Hypermodern Muse by Marc Laidlaw, writer of Half-Life & Half-Life 2.

There are so many golden quotes in this keynote its ridiculous.

After a couple of months playing around with the Unreal Editor which shipped with Gears Of War (PC), I finally sat down and completed a basic map. Well, I guess 'completed' is a relative term. I made it easy on myself and created a symmetrical deathmatch map. The geometry is all there, and I did nothing fancy in terms of scripting. I just wanted to have something finished that I could run around in and maybe spawn a few AI to fight. I created a couple of basic textures to differentiate between the floor and the walls. These were simple grid materials that wouldn't slow down the map's build process. All in all, i'm guessing this map took me about 7-8 hours to complete:




Some lessons/concepts learned along the way:

* There are many steps to making a great map, and geometry is only one of them. I spent close to eight hours on the geometry alone and still have to go in and light the map and place cover everywhere. Weapon placements are going to need to be sprinkled in, and props will be added to bring character to the map.

* A cool space is worthless if its not fun to play in. I found myself constantly spawning into the map to see how it played. Everything from making sure the ceiling wasn't too low that it affected the camera to making sure there were good lines of sight between two areas.

* Cover is a critical mechanic to Gears Of War so it was important to me that I would be able to swing from cover to cover without any awkwardness. This means not placing cover links too close to eachother that the animations look silly and not too far apart so that there wouldn't be too much running outside of cover.

* Clever use of geometry to establish or close off lines of sight. Sometimes you want a line of sigh to be available on an X and Y axis but you do not want a line of sight along the Z axis. Instead of dropping in a whole wall to block that line off, you can do things like arches and bridges. That way, two players on the ground floor can still shoot each other without having to worry about a third player on higher ground getting an unfair drop on them.

* It took me a few tries to find good ways in which to control the flow of the map so that players would constantly be engaging each other. There are some tricks a level designer can do to funnel the players toward each other to create epic battles.

* Finally, now that I have a completed map geometry-wise, I can use any or all of it as a template for new maps. Thats the next step for me: take the work I have done (and the lessons I've learned) and expand on it to create a far more interesting and fun map!

THE CHALLENGE OF DIFFICULTY

When it comes to difficulty levels, almost universally among action games the difference between the Easy setting and the Hard setting comes down to amount of damage the player can deal, the amount of damage his opponents can take, and the amount of auxiliary items available to the player (Gears of War, Doom 3, Bioshock, etc.). Occasionally you'll find games that adjust the amount of helpful information available to the player, whether its HUD information (Crysis), navigation markers, or statistical information such as health and ammo status. Some games go so far as to limit the player's ability to save his or her game (Tomb Raider, Resident Evil, Dead Rising). The simple way game developers implement difficulty settings seems to be varying degrees in which to cripple the player while simultaneously strengthening his opponents. I suppose this ancient methodology provides a certain type of challenge for players, but is it really all that fun?

Companies such as Nintendo have made massive inroads in expanding the market to include new, non-hardcore (casual) game players and yet developers continue to make action games with only the hardcore gamers in mind. For someone like my father who loves great action movies like Saving Private Ryan and Black Hawk Down, there is no question that the themes and gameplay elements in a game like Call Of Duty 4 would greatly appeal to him. But since my dad would barely qualify as a casual gamer, COD4 would be completely inaccessible to him. As a casual gamer, his options are limited to games like Tetris, Brain Age, and Sudoku. See the problem here?

So what can game developers do to bridge the gap between the non-gaming 40 year olds and the hardcore 20 year olds? How can we make our games accessible so that more people can enjoy our products? I'd like to purpose a solution that addresses the problem with traditional difficulty settings as well as helps make it easier for guys like my dad to pick up and enjoy Call Of Duty 4 or Madden NFL Football just as easily as Nintendo makes it for people to quickly have fun with something like Wii Sports.


THREE GAMES IN ONE

It is my contention that video games should have adapting rule sets and complexity, based on the type of player interacting with the game. Would you expect a 12 year old kid to memorize an NFL-sized playbook for his Pop Warner team? Would you expect his team to play on a NFL-sized football field of 100 yards by 50 yards? Of course not; those are unrealistic expectations that do not match the skills and abilities of the players. 12 year olds have simple plays that they run, they play on fields of reduced size, and teams are formed based on age and weight. These regulations maximize the fairness of the game and helps foster intensely fun competition. Why is it that video games do not have similar structures to the amateur and professional sports models? Why do so many video games require you to be an expert player in order to have fun completing it?

If I may use the classic Metal Gear Solid as a model for my argument, I’d like to demonstrate a way in which developers can create three very different levels of difficulty in their games while at the same time making their game accessible to both the basic player as well as the expert player.

EASY:

In the first example, the Player (represented as the green triangle) must make his way past the patrolling Guard (red circle with yellow vision cone) in order to reach the Exit (blue arrow). In this, the easiest of settings, the guard would patrol the room in a very predictable and easily-timed clockwise route. The player, after making his way down the hallway and into the large room, will have learned the simple navigation mechanics of running, and turning. By the time he reaches the section where the guard patrols, he should have no major problems timing his escape (at least from a mechanics and difficulty of challenge standpoint).

MEDIUM:

On the Medium difficulty, a slight twist on the same scenario is available to the player. A new navigation speed would be introduced to the player; walking. In addition to his ability to run and turn, the player can now walk which, while slower than run, is also quieter. This ability to walk is important because along with the same patrolling guard from before, there is also a sleeping guard who will awaken if he hears the loud sound of running footsteps. Now the player must factor in the slower speed of walking into his timed escape, raising the difficulty of the scenario based on an increased challenge and slightly more complex game mechanics.



HARD:

Finally, the Hard setting would not only include the Medium setting’s challenge, but it would also add an additional room and hallway before the exit. And in this new section would be a third guard who patrol route is a more complex figure-eight pattern. The challenge is heightened because the player must be much more precise in the timing of his escape. The third guard is the most difficult to sneak past.



Hardcore, expert gamers typically welcome extended play sessions, whereas the more casual gamers prefer to consume their video games in smaller doses. On the Hard setting, there is an opportunity to make the game longer by adding in additional challenges. The complexity of the game’s mechanics is also increased – another welcomed addition by hardcore gamers. The Easy setting allows the more casual gamer to get the satisfaction of accomplishment in a shorter amount of time, without the burden of having overly complex game mechanics and grueling play sessions.

Personally, I would love to see a model similar to the one I suggested here be applied to future games. The industry needs to continue to look for ways in which we can make our game adapt to the player, and not force the player to adapt to the game. We are a unique medium in that we an interactive one, and as such we have the opportunity to allow our users to tailor their experience in a way that best suits them.

I decided to try my hand at designing some of those ever-popular 'achievements.'

Microsoft may have introduced them as part of it's Xbox LIVE! service, but Valve is also getting in on that action with built-in achievements for their recently released Orange Box game.

Not wanting to simply copy the Microsoft or Valve format I decided to take another passion of mine, Chargers football, and found a creative way to apply achievements. In my example, I have an awards system based off of big plays that happen during the course of a football game. After the game is completed, I'll go through the box score and award players who have particularly I'm press stat totals.

These five are the achievements that were 'unlocked' during last week's game between the San Diego Chargers and the Houston Texans:



When the Chargers play again this weekend, I'll review the box score at the end of the game and see what new achievements have been unlocked.

I am approaching a point in my career where I am will soon find myself at a crossroad.

After graduating from high school, I jumped immediately into the game industry – games had been a passion for me my whole life, and when the opportunity presented itself I ran with it (choosing video games over pursuing a university education certainly didn’t sit well with my parents). At 23 years old, I am not your typical veteran of the industry. Yet, five years in, I have been exposed to just about every aspect of video game development.

My journey started in the trenches of QA farm at a major 3rd party publisher (with all it’s stereotypical locker room environment) which led me to a brief stint (a cup of coffee really) with a first party publisher. From there I took a temporary QA position at an independent developer and experienced the excitement of unique IP. After successfully passing certification during my temp stay, I bought into the mobile phone games ‘revolution’ (will cell phone games ever take off? Too early to tell I guess...). I took a position at a startup mobile software developer testing Java MIDlets on handsets of varying capabilities. After about a year of that, I realized that my true passion was in next-generation games. Not that there was anything wrong with working on games weighing in at around the 40-60 KB mark (and certainly John Carmack has been successful at both ends of the spectrum). But the arrival of the next-generation game consoles inspired me immensely and when an opening became available to me back at that independent developer, (who were no longer independent...major publishers had since realized the caliber of this place and lined up their bids) needless to say I hesitated not in rejoining their family.

And here I am, working as an embedded project analyst working on next gen games - supporting all phases of development in any way I can. This is in many ways the apex of game testing. I have full access to all development tools and among my various tasks are building whitebox levels that get handed off to the programmers for debugging.

Having reached the peak of the testing mountain, there is an amazing feeling of accomplishment mixed with the desire to take on another challenge; the passion to climb another mountain.

I have seen the industry explode with growth and there are infinitely more opportunities available to someone who desires a career in the games industry. You can get paid to manage social communities, to write scripts for games, or even to be a motion capture actor. As I look around, I find myself in the rare position to have a number of fields within the industry to choose from. And while it is a blessing, it can also be somewhat of a curse for a person like me. Here’s why:

I have always been someone who appreciates the ability to be creative. In fact, graphic/multimedia design was the original career field I wanted to pursue in my early years (the idea that someone could pursue a legitimate career in video games never occurred to me until my senior year in high school). In a multimedia setting, having various skills and abilities is highly desirable. If you can design a website’s layout, then go in and code it all, that’s good. If you can create animations and sound effects for that website even better! If you could also record video interviews, edit and compress them and then create original intro music and burn that all onto a disc, you were golden!

But in the games industry, being a jack of all trades isn’t necessarily desirable by developers. Studios would much rather people specialize in a specific field; do one thing and do it well. The amazing thing about creating video games is that you work with talented people in so many different disciplines. Combining the talents of all these creative and technical people makes for some of the most incredible entertainment experiences you can find. Which is why leading a team sounds so appealing to me.

Ultimately my goal would be to have the creative control that studio directors such as Hideo Kojima, Warren Spector, Cliffy B, and David Jaffe have. I want to guide the development of games from concept, to production, and even on to the marketing.

Reaching the level that those guys have attained is no easy task. And each one of those people went about it differently. I suppose working up the corporate ladder is one way to go about advancing my career. The only problem now is deciding which ladder (or mountain) to start climbing. Another avenue available is to go about independently creating games. And that is something I am certainly exploring in my spare time. Independent game development is a place where being a jack-of-all-trades has value, and maybe that’s a place where I can fully express all of my creative abilities?

Either way, I really enjoy where I work and what I do. It’s simply a matter of time before my next step is realized. However, I am not the most patient individual and will most likely pursue independent game development as a creative outlet for myself. And hopefully this will give me a better understanding of the direction I want to take in my career.

The Escapist is absolutely one of the most polished and intelligent webzines around. The contributors to The Escapist have some really excellent opinions and advice. Its a great resource for game developers and fans of gaming alike. I have been diligently consuming their offerings for the past couple of days and found some gems:

Ryan Shwayder of 38 Studios (the same 38 Studios that was founded by baseball great Curt Schilling)has an excellent piece which is bluntly titled: How to Become a Game Designer

Now that you have that first industry job, you are well on your way. All you have to do now is prove you are better than the 50-plus other people who want that same design position, and they've all been at the company longer than you. But don't despair.

All you really need to know are a few things: Get over yourself. Work your ass off. Don't complain.

You aren't a better designer than the designers on the project you're testing. You aren't more knowledgeable about games than everyone else at the company. You aren't the only person being underpaid and overworked. You don't deserve that coveted game design position more than the next guy.

Those first three points are really the most important. You need to work extremely hard at whatever job you managed to pick up. Try hard, don't slack off and focus on quality. If you're writing bug reports, make sure they're concise and detailed. If you think something sucks, send along a suggestion about how it might be even better. But, remember, get over yourself. Never speak in a negative tone about someone else's work. Always be constructive. Don't patronize.

There is another article that I found interesting and inspiring titled, Three Under 30:

The game industry is widely perceived as young. And, in a sense, it is: The "old masters," developers like Garriott, Meier and Miyamoto, are still in their prime, still young; and the game development studios are chock full of fresh blood itching to make the Next Big Thing.

But the industry's relative youth is as much a curse as a blessing. While Shigeru Miyamoto is still making games, no rising star can claim to be the new Miyamoto. And no one can claim to be the successor to Sid Meier's turn-based strategy legacy while Sid Meier is still making really great turn-based strategy games. Compounding the problem is the ever-increasing cost and complexity of game development. Fewer and fewer publishers are willing to risk development capital on green crews and bright ideas, and production values have risen so high that something like Garriott's Akalabeth seems impossible today. As a result, the vast majority of the industry's young developers are still working at junior-level positions in their seniors' studios.

The vast majority - but not all. Like film and television, gaming has its wunderkinds, young stars that shatter expectations of accomplishment. I've assembled profiles of three of the best and brightest of these gamemakers, our industry's future game gods. One is an independent publisher, the second a revolutionary risk-taker, the third a graphical prodigy. Each is under 30 years old. Here, then, are three under-30 next generation gamemakers to watch.

And finally, there is discussion of the importance and emergence of script writers in the game industry in Spanner's Scriptoria:

We're happy to be labeled as "gamers" (and, as opposed to viewers, readers or listeners, it most accurately describes our participation in the experience), yet the person on the end of the controller is still considered a gamer in something of an outdated sense of the matter. Gamers were once a tool of the system; a necessary component to make the program operate as designed and fulfill its purpose as an enjoyable onscreen diversion. But today's gamer, despite his unambiguous categorization, must be regarded as something more than a joystick operator; gamers are an audience, every bit as much as a moviegoer or concert crowd, and demand the same level of consideration.

I’ve begun production on my very first video game, Box Blast. Right now I’m creating all of the art, and then I’ll be moving the art assets into Flash where I’ll use ActionScript to program the game. It'll be a good exercise not only in game design, but it'll also allow me to practice scripting as well as refreshing my skills in interactive user interface design.


About the game:

Box blast is a timing based game that has some strategic elements to it. The object of the game is to place hitboxes on the board in order to blast the target as it moves across the board. Blasting the target is a timing challenge; the player must press the correct button at the moment the target enters the hitbox.

Early prototype screenshot:



Notes on scoring and difficulty progression:

Multipliers for consecutive ‘blasts’

Multipliers for based on the proximity of the hitboxes to one another. The idea is that spreading out the hitboxes across the board is easier for the player, but placing the hitboxes adjacent to each other increases the difficulty. A 1x multiplier would be the default, and that multiplier could increase to maybe 10x if two boxes are placed next to each other

As the player advances levels, the target moves faster and faster. There will be a level/stage-based multiplier to reward players who progress further and further.

Difficult stages would have the target spawn in at a random corner of the board.

Difficult stages would have increased hitboxes.

Negative points for a missed blasts.

Alexander Brandon, of Obsidian Entertainment, has some interesting ideas on how Audio Departments can use in-house Quality Assurance teams as an extra set of hands assisting with parallel tasks. Brandon lists many benefits to using QA as support and goes into detail on how QA can help in the following areas.
Simple VO Edits

• File Processing / Batch Conversion
• File Management And Testing
• Scheduling
• Audio Testing

One potential benefit of utilizing the QA staff in assisting the Audio Deptparment is that there is also a willing group of people who can provide voice over placeholders!

Read the entire article here on Gamasutra:

Using Untapped Resources For Game Audio: How Testers, Producers Can Help

Quality Control
by Chris Ambler, EA

EA UK's head of testing says QA needs to be taken more seriously

September 19, 2007

It’s safe to say that making quality software has always been a paramount priority for the games industry.

Having been involved in testing many things in many industries, games are certainly the hardest I have come across. But what’s most obvious to me is that when it comes to QA we need to make sure that both the overall ‘quality’ of the game and the usual process of debugging via ‘assurance’ is dealt with. Assurance shouldn’t be about ‘bug detection’ but more about ‘bug prevention’.

To some, quality is about removing bugs and to others it is about gameplay experience. As a QA function, we need to support both. We shouldn’t lose focus in bug finding and smart testing processes and obviously need to stay on top of the certification needs of the platforms, but as we get better at this, games teams will be keen to utilise us more around the qualitative side of the products.

However, QA still has – and this is in any organisation, in any industry – a bit of a ‘perception’ problem, often seen as the bottom of the pile. Traditionally in the games industry, the mix of people in QA consists of some career testing folk, some people looking for temporary work and a large amount of ‘industry hopefuls’ who are looking for a way on up to the wider development and production world. This does foster a perception that QA is not important and is full of people who don’t know what they are talking about; just providing a games coverage service and putting a tick in a box.

And this has a habit of becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy – why hire the best designers in the industry, develop the best code, use the cream of the development industry and the latest production techniques and practices, but then Quality Assure the products using students and temporary staff?

TESTING TIMES

Instead, designers should stop looking at testing as their poor cousin. Quality is an important facet of our products and needs to be taken seriously throughout the whole design, development and production lifecycle. QA can offer lots of skills and understanding in these areas, as testers tend to be gamers with a wide repertoire of experiences, as well as having bug finding skills. Having people ‘focused’ on quality (both qualitative and quantitative) from the start allows the creative people to concentrate on being creative, knowing that someone is ‘watching their backs’ from a quality perspective.

We mustn’t lose sight of the fact that quality is everyone’s responsibility, and one of the major roles of a good QA department is to keep re-enforcing that message. A QA department may have up to 1,000 years worth of cumulative games experience, and most testers understand what works and what doesn’t. I realise it’s not feasible for producers to listen to individuals about detail, but there are ways to capitalise on the collective experience of the testing department. It is our job as QA professionals to make ourselves heard.

At the same time, there is much to be done to improve QA practices across the industry. We can work both as individual departments and as an industry to create a professional career for the people within QA. Also, standardising our processes (as much as we can – staying away from the competitive edge) would help us all to develop stronger product and allow us to create standards for which we can train our people to create a world class QA industry.

Bringing some rigour to what we do, and benchmarking our skills and abilities utilising an industry group, would benefit both the people within testing and the games teams we support. I am currently working on this concept with other industry QA leaders and intend to launch a group by the end of this year. It is imperative though that these initiatives are supported (and funded) by the studio leaders and the games teams who should rely on our support.

QUALITY STREET

I am a pragmatist and I know that the road ahead for QA to face these issues will be tough. Developing these ideas has been done before. In my past experiences in the more ‘traditional’ testing arenas like banking and telecoms we faced the same challenges ten to 15 years ago and to a certain extent conquered them. We should learn from those experiences and not go through the same pain again.

Chris Ambler has been in the testing industry for over 20 years, and is currently QA director of Electronic Arts Europe and a member of the EA World Wide QA Council. In his previous roles Chris has managed and consulted on many testing projects across fields as diverse as defence, finance, telecoms and government.

http://www.developmag.com/interviews/79/Quality-Control

San Diego based research firm Electronic Entertainment Design and Research (EEDAR) has recently released findings from their examination of the big three consoles; Sony Playstation 3, Nintendo Wii, and Microsoft Xbox 360. Part of their research includes some fascinating data such as the connection between high review scores and grossed sales of video games:

After analyzing the 219 retail and 187 downloadable games made available on these new platforms for factors such as genre, ESRB rating, gross sales in the United States, Metacritic scores, online functionalities, multiplayer capability and other core game features, the report contains a comprehensive and eye-opening account of current market conditions.

Sample findings include:

* Despite online connectivity being a big marketing aspect for these new consoles, 45% of retail games are not utilizing it in any way. 98% of Nintendo Wii games have no online functionality at all.
* Mature rated titles, comprising 10% of all US retail games examined, have both the highest average Metacritic scores and the highest average gross sales in the United States. This is despite not being offered for sale at some major retailers.
* Games which achieved a Metacritic score above 90 grossed sales up to 531% more than the industry average, but were less than 2% of all titles released.
* The Action genre is the most prevalent in the market at 24% of all available titles, through the Shooter genre has the highest gross sales.
* The Nintendo Wii released more than twice the number of retail and downloadable game titles than either the PlayStation 3 or Xbox 360 during the first 7 months each platform’s launch.

The comprehensive report also includes a full listing of all retail and downloadable games for the period, along with an industry summary and detailed analysis of each console and its available game titles, performance metrics and market position.

Interesting stuff, albeit some of it is kind of obvious. If you have a spare four grand or so, you can purchase their report: Console Intelligence Brief 2007

Warren Spector is one of my all-time favorite designers. I especially appreciate what he has done to drive progress and innovation in the sometimes stagnant First Person Shooter genre. When Warren sets out to design a new game, he asks himself a series of questions to determine whether or not the game is worth investing time and energy into. Here are his questions:

1. What are we trying to do? What’s the core idea?

2. What’s the potential? Why do this game over all the others we could do?

3. What are the development challenges? Really hard stuff is fine — impossible or unfundable? Not so good…

4. Has anyone done this before? If so, what can we learn from them? If not, what does that tell us?

5. How well-suited to games is the idea? There are some things we’re just not good at and shouldn’t even attempt. A love story, for example!

6. What’s the player fantasy and does that lead to good player goals? If the fantasy and the goals aren’t there, it’s a bad idea.

7. What does the player do? What are the “verbs” of the game?

You can read more musings on game design and process from Mr. Spector's personal blog.

Probably the most fascinating piece on game design I have read in some time, Halo 3: How Microsoft Labs Invented a New Science of Play (Wired Magazine) takes us into Bungie Studios' industry-leading test lab where they use tools and technologies to analyze hundreds of hours of gameplay sessions to tweak and improve their upcoming mega-shooter, Halo 3.

Using a wide-variety of systems by which they can track how different players are playing their game, and comparing that against the way in which designers intended them to play. They are using the data they gather to precisely determine places in the map that have unbalanced difficulty, are uninteresting or not straightforward enough, and whether elements such as ammo and enemy placement need to be tuned to make for a better game experience; all in an effort to make Halo 3 as fun a game as it possible can be.

This is where Pagulayan and two assistant Bungie researchers step in. Every other week, beginning in the fall of 2006 — when the first builds of Halo 3 were available for testing — Pagulayan and his team have recruited about 20 people to come into the lab and play the game. Some tests include a pop-up box that interrupts the player every few minutes, asking them to rate how engaged, interested, or frustrated they are. Pagulayan also has gamers talk out loud about what they're experiencing, providing a stream-of-consciousness record of their thought process as they play. Over time, he's gathered voluminous stats on player locations, weapons, and vehicles.

After each session Pagulayan analyzes the data for patterns that he can report to Bungie. For example, he produces snapshots of where players are located in the game at various points in time — five minutes in, one hour in, eight hours in — to show how they are advancing. If they're going too fast, the game might be too easy; too slow, and it might be too hard. He can also generate a map showing where people are dying, to identify any topographical features that might be making a battle onerous. And he can produce charts that detail how players died, which might indicate that a particular alien or gun is proving unexpectedly lethal or wankishly impotent.

The lab also records video footage of every testing session and hyperlinks these clips to the individual progress reports. If the design team wonders why players are having trouble in a particular area, they can just pull up a few test games to see what's going wrong. Take what happened last March: A report noted an unusual number of "suicides" among players piloting the alien Wraith tank in an upper level. After watching dozens of archived test games, Griesemer spotted the problem. The players were firing the tank's gun when its turret was pointed toward the ground, attempting to wipe out nearby attackers. But the explosion ended up also killing (and frustrating) the player. To prevent this, Griesemer reprogrammed the tank so that the turret couldn't be lowered beyond a certain point. The Wraith suicides stopped.

The critical acclaim and dominating success in the marketplace that Bungie enjoys makes them the standard for which every game studio strives to be. I think that their approach to analyzing player data to make better games is nothing short of amazing and it is this very concept that will allow for games to reach even greater heights as they become even more accessible to a wider audience.

Valve Software is renown for supporting the MOD community within Half-Life and Half-Life 2. Many of Valve's commercial offerings came from the MOD community, not the least of which is Counter-Strike. In addition to acquiring the rights to Counter-Strike, Valve also has bought and integrated the Team Fortress team, the Day of Defeat team, and the Portal team into Valve itself and continues to produce updated versions of these once mods, now games.

The Source SDK is a powerful tool that is available to anyone who owns Half-Life 2 or certain other Valve products. It contains, among other things, an excellent map editor and is generally well supported by Valve.

Valve even goes so far as to provide an in-depth Wiki on how to develop for the Source editor, in hopes of continuing to support the MOD community as we enter into the next generation of games.

This is taken from the Valve Developer Community, but the lessons and advice apply to anyone using any modern editor to develop a game MOD:

Mod design

As a mod author, the most useful question you can ask yourself is "Why should someone play my mod?" It's a hard question to answer truthfully, but if you can answer it well, you're on the right track. Think about what other mods are out there, and what they offer. Does your mod offer something new to the players? Is what you offer enough to entice players who are busy playing other mods? Even if you can't answer this question, just thinking about it will probably help your mod.

Compete with gameplay

You have power commercial developers don't: You don't have to worry about the commercial viability of new gameplay styles. Commercial developers have to worry about appealing to retail, breaking even, and other nasty things, which is why most games are slight modifications on already proven gameplay. But you don't. You can try out truly new gameplay ideas that just might become the Next Big Thing. This is your edge over commercial developers. Make your job easier by concentrating on this edge, and don't spend your time trying to compete in the areas that commercial products are strong in. Most mods can't compete on a content level (maps, models, sounds, etc) with commercial products. They've got teams of artists with years of experience. Beat them with your gameplay. Players will play a mod that has very little in the way of new content, but has really fun gameplay. Something many people don't realize is that Team Fortress 1 had almost no new art for a year after it was first released.

Release soon, release often

You have another power over commercial developers. You can release much, much faster and more often than they can. We've summarized this mod development philosophy with the phrase, "Release soon, Release often." Commercial developers work for 2-3 years, release their game, and hope to god people like it. You don't have to make that leap of faith. You can design your whole mod, write 25% of it and polish it to a playable state, then release it and begin getting feedback immediately. Then you can start adding the rest of your design piece by piece, at the same time rolling in the player's feedback to the first version, and continue releasing every month or two. You're in touch with your players at all times, so you'll never be in the situation where you've spent a lot of time on something you're not sure your players will like. The trick is to cut your mod up into slices. The initial version needs to be fun and playable, but doesn't need every cool feature you've thought of.

Be careful. "Release soon" doesn't mean releasing bad quality stuff, it just means doing your mod in small, polished increments. The first version of Counter-Strike didn't have half of the features they have now. The CS team released a high quality, but not big mod. Over the past year, they've been regularly adding more and more features and, in response, their player base has just continued to grow and grow.

Different is not always better

When thinking about your game design, don't fall into the trap of believing that "Different is Better." There's no reason to rewrite the shotgun code and have a new shotgun model if it doesn't impact your game in any interesting way. Keep in mind the first question, "Why should someone play my mod?" The answer, "My mod has a new combat system, and a new movement system," isn't necessarily a good answer. So your combat system is different that Half-Life's. OK... but is it better? Does it make your mod more fun to play? Does a new movement system make the game more fun? Player's are used to existing systems, and making them learn another one needs to be worth it for them. So before you think about changing something, make sure you know you're changing it for the better, and that it'll make your mod more fun. Don't be afraid to just leave something the same as it was in Half-Life.

Realistic goals

Create realistic goals for yourself. Think about how long it takes a commercial developer to make an FPS shooter with 10 weapons. If your mod is going to have 40 weapons, you're making life really hard for yourself. The thing to keep in mind here is "Quality over Quantity." Players would far prefer to have 10 unique, well balanced, and fun to use weapons than 40 unbalanced weapons, some of which are slightly tweaked versions of others.

Don't be afraid to cut content and features. If the mod looks like it's never going to be finished, or there's some content that you don't think meets the quality of the rest of the mod, then start cutting. During the development of HL at least 30% of the original features in the design were cut because it became obvious they were unattainable in our timeline, or because we decided they weren't worth their development time. As we said above, "Quality over Quantity." Players would prefer having 3 really good, well play-tested maps over 10 untested ones, and it'll give your mod a reputation for quality content. Don't let the world see your worst stuff.

Understand the engine

You really should read the documentation included in the SDK. The thing you'll learn most by doing so isn't whether you can do X with the engine, but rather how X should be done so it works well. You can make a gun that fires 50 rockets, but if you don't understand the way the engine works, you might do it in a way that significantly increases the network traffic your mod uses. This is important for everyone in your mod. If your mapmakers don't understand the engine, they'll make huge maps without any thought for how much network data will be sent to the players in them, and everyone will blame your code for being too network intensive. If you're a programmer, it's a good idea to join to HL Coders mailing list, where you'll be able to talk to many other mod programmers, and a few Valve employees as well. The mailing list has archives going back a long way, which contain a lot of useful solutions to common mod problems.

This was an awesome letter sent in to the PC Gamer podcast. Perfectly sums up the frustration that gamers have when they are waiting all year long for great games, only to be flooded with them in a small release window during the holidays.

Developers and publishers, quit releasing your games in the big holiday season; you know, the time we should be spending with our families? All summer long, us gamers sit with movie license crap with maybe one or two decent games. I don’t know if you’re aware, but your audience doesn’t have to ask mommy and daddy for allowance anymore. I do have disposable income all year long. You’re making it harder for me to give you my money when you release your games when there are seven other ones I’d like to play. Your audience has grown up with the times. Are you still stuck in the eighties? If I was thirsty and asked you for some water would you spray me in the face with a fire hose? Because essentially, that’s what you’re doing each holiday season. If you still think us gamers are still kids getting your games for Christmas, then get a shirt that says “On a twenty year tape delay” and come over to my house and I’ll break out Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” on cassette single.

-Aaron from Tennessee

awesome.

I am a huge proponent of tracking user data to improve products. We have seen the web applications world use anywhere from sophisticated to bitterly simple methods to track their audience and target services & advertisements directly to them. Raph Koster talks a lot about integrating web practices into game development and at GDC 2007, presented Where Game Meets Web. Highly enlightening, Koster discusses how by using data tracked from their users, web developers are able to iterate and improve on their code much quicker than game developers can - and as a result are able to improve their products more rapidly and for far less money.

Philip DeRose, Director of Quality Assurance at BioWare, recently contributed an excellent article to Gamasutra called Tracking Player Feedback To Improve Game Design. He describes how BioWare has developed tools that provide them with reports that make focus testing far more informative than traditional methods can be. By using non-intrusive methods, they are able to not only get a person’s opinion on their games, but also track the exact way in which that person played their games.

Playing games may be seen as trivial but making great commercially successful games isn’t. To summarize this in a few bullet points:

* Involve the customer early and throughout the development process to gather player experience feedback both passively and through surveys to get valuable insights on product quality.
* Develop a process and set of tools that allow for effective and efficient gathering and analysis.
* Need good ideas and good people.
* It’s cheaper and easier to identify and fix issues earlier (an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure). I will continue to repeat this mantra in all my articles.
* Use a variety of tools, techniques and experts in addition to a system like this.
* As Thomas Edison said, “There is a way to do it better, find it!” Be on the lookout for best practices inside and outside the industry.
* Invest time and money in building tools that improve you capability and capacity to measure product quality.
* Do see your QA team as a valuable asset by supporting them, including them, being open minded and you’ll be surprised at the results you’ll get. Now go and give them a hug.

A few years back I was working for Midway in QA. It was 2003 and John Romero had recently joined the Midway San Diego internal development studio to direct the new Gauntlet game. During Romero's brief stint with Midway San Diego, there was an effort made between the QA and production staff to bridge the divide a bit and help integrate the two teams a little bit. John was asked to give a one-day class to the QA staff (and anyone interested) on how one might pursue a path into Game Design.

Personally, I found Romero's presentation fascinating and enlightening. Coming from Romero's background of first-person shooters, the class had a definite slant towards FPS; fine by me, as that is certainly my favorite perspective from which to interact with game worlds. However, his lessons were broad enough to be applied to any game on an industry-wide level.

Below is a brief transcript of his lecture:

I am often asked the question, “What do I need to do to become a game designer,” so I asked most of the game designers I know “How to become a game designer.”

Here is a summary of their responses:

Deal breakers:

• Actually like video games. You'll be surprised how many 'designers' I've come across who really don't care for games and are not excited about the 'next' release.

• If you don't currently play games what the hell do you want to be a designer for?

• Play and know every game possible. If you can't afford purchasing, rent. There are a ton of places that offer rentals of the latest releases. Also look into emulators for older systems.

Start with pen and paper:

• Make a game. Make any game. Card, board, dice, etc.

• Have them lay out a plan on paper and execute it in their chosen editor.

• Have them write up detailed level walk-throughs; Setups, big moments, story elements, sound elements, visual effect call outs...

• Have them create detailed paper maps including, enemy placement and movements, triggers, large "key" setups.

• Write a paper or two deconstructing their favorite game, basically figuring out the mechanics of the game (forget the story!)

• Practice writing clear design documents. To do this take a finished title and write the design for it. For instance, write a design doc for Tetris. Make sure what you write can be taken and directly made into a game without ANY questions. This experience will show you in reverse how to describe systems and will give you a different view on games. Or, write a design document that involves taking a game you enjoyed and adding GTA to it.

Add to your favorite game:

• Have them start using UnrealEd, WarCraft editor, WorldCraft, or other "free" editors. Have them read through the help docs and get a feel for scripting.

• Grab a popular game with an editor and make some content. Serious Sam is a great, cheap starter package.

• Get an FPS and use the level editor packaged with it to make levels. Find a MUD that is looking for help on their title and help out (there are a ton of non-commercial MUDs out there.

• Screw around with making mods in Quake, Half-Life, or Unreal

Left brain stuff

• Creative and business writing courses

• Learning how to "code / script" would also be useful.

• Maybe a book on Beginning C so they can understand how code works and what ifs, else's, switches mean.

• Learn a scripting language like JavaScript, Python, Lua, UnrealScript, or QuakeC.

Right brain stuff

• Learn Max or Maya...at least to a degree where you can create simple meshes, manipulate cameras, and all the basic stuff

• 3D Studio, Maya - understanding, implementing and editing rough layout Adobe Photo / Illustrator - opening art files Microsoft Word - generating design docs Microsoft Visio - generating maps for layout

• Have them take classes in 3d modeling with Max and Maya. Or at least get copies and fiddle with them (Maya has a FREE version for students on their website, link below), try modeling things like telephones, cars, and as they start to learn more, houses, neighborhoods, etc... Knowledge of these tools can only help.

• Keep all of the above knowledge in a portfolio of sorts (hard copy or soft)

Professionalism:

• In their current jobs they should be really "proactive", friendly, and professional. And constantly apply for open design positions. Get letters of recommendations from their superiors. It can only help. Work hard in QA, and get noticed.

• If the company they are working for doesn't have any open design positions, apply elsewhere. The more they interview the more they will feel comfortable with the position their applying for. Interviewing is a skill, and practice can only help for future interviews.

• Communication skills are a must. Management classes and possibly Public speaking classes if you’re shy.

• Be an adult: LISTEN to your team mates’ opinions and ideas (they may actually be good!), be able to compromise on your vision and always apologize when you throw someone out a window.

Words of inspiration:

• Abandon all original thoughts and innovative ideas. Don’t get too attached to any idea.

• DON'T wait to get noticed as someone with potential to get trained up as the next greatest designer. Nobody wants to or cares to do that. Prove you have some worth yourself.

• The best way to get in as a designer is to make your self one with experience. Whatever game you make, make it a small one. DO NOT make your first game an electronic game even if you can code it yourself.

• Grab a book or two on games theory. Read it… Then forget it.

• Have a production talent: It REALLY helps to have an understanding or talent in a particular discipline be it programming or art (aside from design). It will give you a little insight into your team mates approach and process - as well as a little empathy. So... art classes (analog and digital) if you’re Right brained, programming or even management if you’re Left inclined.

• One thing you can do to learn a lot is watch others play games. Playing games yourself is good but you are only learning how you play games. Watching others shows you how people play, how they figure out puzzles or miss things you think are obvious. Different people will play the same game very differently and learning these differences will help in designing games all players can enjoy. Also when you watch players play don’t tell them how to play just watch. And also a good thing to remember is designers make games for the players not for themselves.

Miscellaneous sarcastic, but honest, remarks:

• Go to college under the pretenses of majoring in something and get financial aid. Play computer games and be involved in at least three pen and paper sessions per week. Graduate with a 2.3 GPA Profit.

That's my recipe for success.

• Go to college with psychology in mind. Play a boat load of games... computer, console, board, card, you name it and hook up with a pen and paper group. If the group has designers in it, even better... pick their brains about everything.

Read.

Watch forms of media that contain creativity you enjoy, thereby cultivating your ideas and forming new ones.

Write.

Preheat to 350.

Bake for 30 minutes.

Let cool for an hour.

Designer best served sliced.

These are some of my personal impressions of the accomplished designers I know:

• They are very professional, well-thought, and thorough. I was once asked to come up with some phrases for Roadsters Dreamcast, by the Japanese developer, who didn’t know English very well. They needed sayings for each driver as they passed other cars, crossed the finish line, lost, etc. Each driver had a paragraph background and storyboard, but that was about it. The designer I asked to help with this put together a comprehensive voice-list complete with slang phrases for each character in their native language. This is just one example of the kind of research they put into the smallest of details.

• They work on any project handed to them. I have seen designers have to pick up the pieces of a game left in shambles, having already burned through the schedule and budget. They assess quickly. Get the input from the team. And create a plan that can be realized in the time left. While these situations are never favorable, they still pull the complete design together and make something out of what appears to be nothing.

• They really do play absolutely everything. I know one who played every single Genesis game ever released (in the US and Japan) from start to finish. (Yes, he finished every one.) And there were a lot of crappy games for the Genesis. He started doing the same with the PS1, but there were too many games to keep up.

• They are very aware of all pop culture: movies, music, TV. They see every movie the day it comes out. They listen to everything from house to country. I was on the phone with a designer I used to work with, and he was listening to Earth, Wind, and Fire in the background. I stopped by another designer’s office and mentioned what I had just heard. His response was, “that sounds great!” And pulled The Best of Earth, Wind, and Fire out of a stack of CD’s on his desk and started listening to it.

• They are well read. While they all have varied literature interests, like cultural history, mystery, or science-fiction, they are all familiar with classic and contemporary authors.

It’s not about luck. You must be skilled in order to take advantage of any opportunity that comes along. Skill takes work, and the best designers I know work very hard.

Recommended Reading List:

In general, it’s always a good rule of thumb to pick up strategy guides for games. Strategy guides contain great maps, breakdowns of game mechanics, and character / story overviews. Invaluable reference.

• Understanding Comics by Scott McCloud

• Game Over by David Sheff

• AD&D Dungeon Master’s Guide

• AD&D Player’s Manual

• Drawing On The Right Side Of the Brain by Betty Edwards

• Metal Gear Solid VR Missions Strategy Guide by Steve Honeywell

• 1000 Game Heroes by David Choquet

• High Score by Rusel Demaria

• A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction - Christopher Alexander

• The Visual Display of Quantitative Information - Tufte

• Envisioning Information - Tufte

• Visual Explanations: Images and Quantities, Evidence and Narrative - Tufte

• The Third Chimpanzee: The Evolution and Future of the Human Animal - Jared M. Diamond

• Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies - Jared Diamond

• My Tiny Life: Crime and Passion in a Virtual World - Julian Dibbell

• The Hero with a Thousand Faces - Joseph Campbell

• Designing Virtual Worlds - Bartle

• Chris Crawford on Game Design by Chris Crawford (Some designers hate this book. He has a new one out that I haven't read, yet.)

• The Writer's Journey: Mythic Structure for Writers - Vogler

• Jean Piaget - hierarchy of needs and personality types. Look for white papers.

• Quentin Skinner - Operant behavior. This stuff is great for figuring out how often to provide rewards in games. Again, look for white papers.

• Abraham Maslow - Motivation and Personality. Maturation of newborns to adulthood. Look for white papers.

• Game Development and Production by Erik Bethke

These are production books that I have found useful:

• Rapid Development by Steve McConnell

• Code Complete by Steve McConnell

• The Deadline by Tom DeMarco

• Zapp!: The Lightning of Empowerment: How to Improve Productivity, Quality, and Employee Satisfaction by William C. Byham

• Built to Last by James Collins

• Project 50 by Tom Peters

• The Team Memory Jogger Pocket Guide

High Moon Studios is a rare company. While we are part of a large multi-national corporation, HMS still has the feel of a small studio where collaboration and feedback are welcome and encouraged. There is a willingness to promote from within; to encourage and foster the development of skills and talents, and to eventually move people up into positions of higher responsibility.

I am fortunate enough to be currently experiencing this process. In an effort to find potential game design talent, High Moon Studios is offering design classes to employees interested in game design as a career path. And as someone whose dream it has been to become a designer, I jumped on the opportunity.

In an exercise given to me by Senior Game Designer Rory McGuire (our instructor for these voluntary design courses), I was to examine the 'beats' of a game level's pacing. By taking an analytical look at a popular action game's level 'upbeats' and 'downbeats' I was learning about how to pace a level by highlighting the contrasting points of high intensity, action, and excitement with the points of simple exploration and story moments. Its the downbeats that really emphasize the upbeats of a level; in other words, what makes an action-packed scene so exciting is the calm moment just before it. Learning how to successfully balance the peaks with the valleys, and how to pace a level so as to provide the maximum amount of fun without being too overbearing and difficult is a skill that designers everywhere try to master.


For this exercise, I turned to my favorite game of all-time: Half-Life 2. More specifically, I decided to chart the first level of Half-Life 2: Episode One, called Undue Alarm. Here is a visual representation of my experience playing this level, relative to game beats:


As the saying goes; "If you are going to learn something, learn from the best." Valve has certainly established themselves in the gaming industry as leaders in game design, and Half-Life 2 is widely recognized as one of the greatest games of all time. There were some excellent lessons I learned from examining their game from a design perspective.

Something that really stands out to me playing Half-Life 2 is the masterful pacing of the game. HL2 never gets boring; just when you think the game is approaching a dull moment, something amazing happens that puts you right back onto the edge of your seat. There are scripted sequences every few moments, and even if seemingly minor, these sequences are designed to deepen the player's experience in the virtual world around them. Its small touches like these that ensure the player stays on their toes, and its what really drives the player to remain curious about what lies ahead.

Viewing the chart above shows exactly what I mean when I describe the excellent pacing the designers at Valve incorporate into their levels. From the very start of Undue Alarm, the player is in an interactive story. The opening sequence is heavily scripted, and designed to make the feel relatively safe, but at the same time keeps the player anticipating and eagerly awaiting the blend of story and gameplay that lies ahead of them. One of the first major 'reveals' of the game is Alyx - the character which the player will eventually come to care for, which is extremely important to the experience the player will have with the game. After seeing Alyx (an engaging and welcoming sight), the player's attention is immediately draw to the brooding citadel which looms in the distance and overpowers the screen. This again, is important to the experience of the game. Both the Citadel and Alyx act as pacing elements, both on a small scale and much larger scale, for the entire game.

The player is presented with a small challenge of navigating a treacherous cliff side, and this is important because it sets a small spike in the game, an 'upbeat.' Following this, the game comes back down during a moment where the player experiences a scripted moment of story progression where there is no gameplay. This is a 'downbeat' and it serves to bring the player's challenge level and excitement way down. As an intended 'downbeat', it sets up the player to experience one of the most exciting moments in the game - being launched across a chasm into the citadel where the player goes on a roller coaster ride through the inner-workings of an alien structure that is intense, yet extremely fun. Notice the difference in the chart where the player is experience a downbeat of about a 2, and then shoots all the way up to an upbeat of a 9. The contrast between the two points is what highlights and punctuates what an exciting moment being launched from a car, over a deadly drop, and then into an alien tower really is.

After this moment, the designers bring the player back down for a while, and then slowly build up and hold the player at a level of excitement and challenge as he plays through the real meat and potatoes of the level. There is then a second major upbeat that is reached, and the designers gradually bring the player back down from that point. A third spike, and then the level essentially wraps up and the player is on to the second level of Undue Alarm.

Playing through the level as a typical gamer, you'll notice that the gameplay is paced so well that it is almost impossible to stop playing in the middle of the level. Looking at the pacing from a designer's standpoint, you will see that the desire to progress through the challenges of the level is a result of carefully planning the player's experience of high and low moments, upbeats and downbeats. A valuable lesson to have learned, I now feel I have a strong idea as to the importance of upbeats and downbeats in an action game, and I will try to find the correct balance between lows and highs in levels that I work on in the future.