Too Long, Didn't Read

You Lose! Good Day, Sir.

2012-01-10T14:58:00.000-08:00

While books and film might strive for loftier goals, ultimately they are a method of entertainment. Videogames on the other hand, suffer a divide in nature that no other medium must carry. Videogames share their origins half with the entertainment industry, and half with being “games”. Games, be they played on screen or board or pitch or school ground, are not contained automated activities you can just sit back and relax in front of. They require input, attention and effort from their participants, most require the application of particular skills and strategy, and most strikingly, you can get better at them. You can actually be BAD at them. This inevitably divides the audience and demographics of games beyond mere taste in subject matter and style; some gamers are not as skilled as others, and the challenge of games can act as an insurmountable wall to many while simultaneously an attraction for others.

Because it is an offshoot of general gaming principles, videogame design is very carefully routed in risk and reward, the balance of challenge versus payoff. For most gamers, particularly those who grew up with the medium in the remorseless arcade days while it primarily focused on interaction and challenge, a game will quickly become stale and uninteresting as it becomes less demanding. This effect can be easily seen when cheats are enabled: with god mode (infinite health, ammo, all weapons etc) the player is entertained only briefly before the lack of challenge turns the experience mute and pointless. For a considerable percentage of the core gamer audience, challenge is why they enjoy videogames, and as games begin to feature less technical depth and opportunity for strategy, they aren't engaged and they get bored.

Unfortunately on the other hand, a lot of demographics are instantly reluctant to approach a medium which demands a certain level of skill in order to access and enjoy in the first place. This makes the accessibility of games a vital issue for designers. Outside of those who might be dissuaded from picking up the controller at all, are the gamers who simply get bored or stuck as the experience tightens and demands more and more from them. As budgets increase, the tragedy of 80% of gamers not even seeing the end of most games becomes more striking, and as videogames mature and become a stronger stage for art direction, technical expertise and narrative, it becomes more tragic how those aspects have to be under lock and key forever out of reach of many who might have found enjoyment in them.

Thus comes the argument of games as “an experience” alike films or books, more open and accessible to all audiences. Many gamers already admit they simply struggle through some games for the purposes of experiencing the full story, which could be seen as a strange feature for a form of entertainment to encourage and take pride in. As fellow Irish talky person Dara o'Briain once ribbed on stage, movies and books don't demand players answer a quiz to check they have been paying attention and then snap shut or turn off when they get an answer wrong.

In fact this idea of “losing” at a form of entertainment is mind-boggling to some, but traditional “games” always require fail/lose conditions, because as explained earlier, one of the core rewards you can expect from a game, is the feeling of “winning”. Much of the other addictive and/or positive emotions associated with games, even outside digital/video games, stem from the tension of possible failure, the drive to win and beat the system or the other players, so if you remove fail/lose conditions, much of what makes games so popular and engaging will be lost also.

Learning Curve: The Basics of Difficulty

Designers do have a variety of tools to ease players into an experience, and to compensate for the negative friction created by the obstacles it has to present. In an ideal world, the player must perceive an obstacle, but never quit before they overcome it. To start with;

Features and mechanics should be introduced in a basic form before being expanded upon so that players can gradually become more proficient at how they work and deal with them being presented within more complex scenarios.
Similarly, this is what is expected from game difficulty, the experience is easiest at the start and hardest towards the end.
A game should ideally provide mechanic sets that the average player can understand and use, but with the potential for deeper more technical application when in the hands of more skilled gamers.
Difficulty modes are an obvious way to tweak the experience for individual players, but interestingly, a good number of people feel uncomfortable choosing “easy” from a list as it's a lot like admitting a small defeat.

These are the classic and traditional methods of managing challenge in games, used extremely well in many titles, but... clearly it isn't enough. Why?

Accessibility versus challenge and player agency versus authorship was the very topic of my Masters course dissertation. And yes Pete, you are reading an edited version of it RIGHT NOW. (sorry) Partly for fun and mostly for padding my word count, I bit into this topic with an unusually casual freedom and rattled out a few outside-the-box pie-in-the-sky solutions. What's that? You want to hear them? Excellent. So let's talk about the ideas I had, as well as some other brave attempts at tackling this inherent issue.

They think it's all over: Hidden and Lasting Consequences

Some games have experimented with the removal of “game over” conditions; merely providing lower echelons of “winning” for less strategic or skilled play, so that the player can feel they have completed the game/experience, but leaving room for other players to desire higher levels of victory and completion. An example is Heavy Rain, which was experimental in many ways, notably avoiding situations where players could actual see a “game over”, which is the one clear and true fail/loss condition of videogames. If they “failed” the provided activity, the story would continue regardless. Occasionally there would be consequences that echoed through the rest of the experience, other times the consequences would merely be emotional, and sometimes there would be no real change to the future flow of the game. However, because the player wasn’t aware how serious the consequence would be, and because the natural inclination is to avoid failure, Heavy Rain still managed to be engaging for gamers.

FPS for Dummies: Teaching Tacit Knowledge

Many games, particularly franchises and “genre games” rely heavily on tacit knowledge; the installed instincts and expected patterns gamers recognize from throughout the medium. A true newcomer would not have any of that knowledge, which makes the introductions themselves too high a point on the curve for entry. Designers need to be aware of where the curve begins, and try to introduce those base knowledge bites without dragging tutorials on too long; something that frustrates the more experienced gamers. Cleverly, games like Gears of War include optional paths with those simpler introductions, so those ready to jump in don’t have to wait, and those who need to get to grips with the formula are given the time to do so.

One possible solution is for consoles and companies to try and provide a handful of simple introductory experiences/titles that act as a “first” FPS, platformer, adventurer etc. There are already games that could be recommended as simpler incarnations of larger genres; perhaps there should be effort on the part of larger systems like the console manufacturers and publishers to actively encourage newcomers towards those products as a gateway to the knowledge needed to enjoy “core” games.

Different Strokes: One man's win is another man's loss

Fable 2 removed game overs, and instead punished players with a loss of exp, and a scar on their character. For more casual gamers, these things weren’t much of concern, so there wasn’t much frustration to dissuade them from continuing to play. For core gamers, such things are felt more deeply, and scars are an attack on their pride within the competitive system of the game. In this way, the punishment can be the same, but felt differently by the two sides of the mediums audience. Bayonetta is actually quite generous with its checkpoints and quite accessible in terms of being completable. However, it puts a lot of value on not being hit and not dying through a rating system which psychologically abuses the slightest of mistakes. Core gamers will want to avoid the low ratings and the black marks awarded with each death (up to a maximum of five) because of personal pride and dedication to overcoming that as a kind of side-challenge, and because the “stone” award is the digital version of slapping a dunce cap on your head and asking you to sit at the front of the class. However, a gamer who didn’t care about ratings or challenge, only experience, could easily finish the title without such feelings of loss.

Auto-Pilot: Pass the controller

In 2008, Nintendo placed a patent on a new concept believed now to have the working title of “Demo Play”. This concept was leaked onto the internet and it’s controversial implications inspired strong responses from all corners of the industry and it’s characteristically vocal fan-base. Essentially Demo Play provides the option to have the game “play itself” using pre-recorded playthroughs from an online database. This would allow casual/low-skill gamers to fast-forward through tougher sections or see the solutions to more complex puzzles, and actually allow non-gamers to reduce the game to a bizarre version of a movie, simply “watching” it beginning to end so they can enjoy the story and world. Stand-alone incarnations of this idea have appeared in the 2008 Alone in the Dark, LA Noire and Super Mario Bros on Wii.

Initially the idea disgusted me, but I think that feeling came from a dark and elitist place. A friend recently started playing Uncharted 3 and loves everything about it.. except the shooting sections. Part of me knows he probably won't finish it because he won't suffer the innumerable and increasingly challenging shooting sections the game demands, and thus he'll never experience the puzzles, platforming, set-pieces and art which he'd probably love. I want him to see those things, so why shouldn't he have a fast-forward button on stand-by when he'd rather pass the controller to someone else? The only problem is the temptation for this feature to become a guilty pleasure of the many rather than the few, and in turn this option gradually erodes the principles of interaction that makes games special; interaction is our bread and butter, and the more we downplay that, the weaker our medium will become.

Difficulty Director: Balance behind the scenes

Try as we might to account for our demographics, all gamers are people and all people are different. For many mid-level gamers, the issue is that they need more time to climb the learning curve, and find themselves left behind as the game continues, unable to progress. Worse than that, some gamers may actually be incapable of completing the later tasks, but were led to believe the game was within their skill-level during the first half. Nintendo are suggesting the answer is to give players access to a “fast-forward” button, but I think there can be subtler ways to soften the experience when it becomes too intense, rather than simply skipping it.

Popular Valve title Left 4 Dead pioneered the use of an “AI Director” which actively monitored the players progress, health, equipment and previous experience in order to organically measure and react to their “stress” level; pacing the level with tension spots and action by controlling the placement of items and weapons, and the spawn points of enemies. The AI Director in L4D is designed to keep the experience constantly engaging and intense, but the concept could be re-purposed so that a constant AI director is employed to keep the experience smooth and achievable, learning from where the player struggles and what enemies they struggle with, what obstacles prove the most frustrating, and react accordingly. Of course, this would need to be optional so that players who want to overcome the “default” challenge had the opportunity to struggle through (something some masochistic gamers find enjoyable for the payoff of eventual success) but for gamers who might walk away before they get past being “stuck”; this would be a very subtle addition. Technically, they wouldn’t even be aware of what changes had been made for their benefit, so crucially they wouldn’t feel patronized or “babied”, which is what traditional difficulty systems sometimes do.

Rated H for Hard: Difficulty Ratings

Most gamers are actually adults, and as mentioned earlier, it’s demoralizing to have to play an “easy” mode. Most games are actually very completable on their lower modes; people getting stuck are doing so because they selected “normal” rather than accepting they might struggle above easy. People don’t like it to be obvious that they are struggling, it’s hard to ask for help in most aspects of life because it relates to personal pride and ability. They might as well have called it "Sissy Wuss" or "Less of a Man" mode. Names like "Rookie" and "Human" don't help. Nor does Ninja Gaiden's "Dog" option. Pulling no punches there, Ninja Team. Still, a possible solution to people getting an inaccurate interpretation of a games difficulty from it’s opening hours is to take a lesson from titles like Guitar Hero. Within Guitar Hero are multiple songs of varying challenge, subjective to the instrument used; because of this, songs are rated for difficulty with each instrument. As commercial products, videogames are already rated for subject matter, but as we’ve already established, videogames have another side, that of “games” requiring skill from the consumer. Perhaps videogames need to come with difficulty ratings also? Games are generally designed with the demographic the maturity rating implies, but it’s a consideration that sometimes steps outside adult material. A game could have soft graphics and child-like subject matter, and be extremely difficult. I mean what the hell Ubisoft, what were you thinking with Rayman Origins? E for Everyone indeed. F for F-sake.

Helping Hand: AI Companions and Advice

Hard as balls grimdark-em-up Demon Souls featured a unique online system which allowed the more experienced gamers to leave behind tips and help for the weaker gamers, similar to using a walkthrough but more organic, personal, intuitive and vitally, real-time. This idea could be expanded to an AI companion, who would act as an aide to players who are struggling. Alike the AI director, the companion would be catered to be present for players who need help, and only as effective as the player requires. For those struggling with a boss or enemies, the companion could help the player work out weak points and tactics, take out some of the threats and act as a distraction. For difficult puzzle sections, they could make suggestions or work out parts of the puzzle themselves to get players started. In platforming, they could perform the area before the player, to show them what timing and moves are needed. Obviously this would not work in all games, but in many it could be the ideal way to guide players and actively help them, and also make them feel supported and connected throughout the experience. Many games with “useful” escort characters already feature this feeling, Uncharted 2 and 3 uses the non-player characters extremely well. as they provide real-time assistance and contribution to the challenges.

Peter Molydeux might suggest a "mentor" system, where more experienced gamers could literally drop into a game to help out the rooks, and thus form lasting emotional connections and learn about trust and how it's ok to ask for help sometimes.

And to end, a poignant quote I think sums up everyone's mentality in life. Thanks for reading.

“ I thought you said you wanted a challenge!”

“Duh! ..A challenge I could do!”

-Bart and Lisa Simpson, from episode 178 of The Simpsons; “The Secret War of Lisa Simpson”.

TLDR Review: Duke Nukem Forever

2011-11-27T14:41:00.000-08:00

Hype is a valuable commodity in the entertainment industry. It gets people in the door, gets products off the shelves. short term benefits which are really the only objective a PR team has in the first place. But hype and high expectation is equally likely to poison and taint the mind against a product; hype can quickly turn to ash in your mouth and dilute even a genuinely good experience into a disappointment. A friend drops the notion that a recent film is a must-see life changer before you have a chance to get to the cinema yourself. You walk out numbly agree-ing that it's “alright, I guess”. Now imagine someone spent 12 YEARS telling you something was going to be great. Some people, in the press especially, might argue that if something is good it will be regarded as good, and vice versa with bad. Personally I'm not sure anything could stand up to the kind of anticipation Duke Nukem Forever built up over the past decade. To use Duke's own words: “What about the game, was it any good?” “After 12 fucking years, it should be!”

“I came here to kick ass and chew bubble-gum, and I'm all out of gum”

When it comes to videogames, 12 years of development time isn't the advantage the more naive among us might assume. Technology moves at light speed in this industry, and beneath that trends and genres shift like tectonic plates. If you'd asked me before I played the game, I'd probably have argued that Gearbox all but started from scratch when the license landed on their plate. Now though, I think it's more likely that Duke Nukem Forever was recovered from a time capsule circa 1998 during some sort of archeological dig. Duke really feels his age, he is a relic of another time and hasn't managed to keep up with the whirlwind of change around him over the past decade. The more contemporary mechanics such as regenerating “health” and dual weapon slots seem tacked on and ill-fitting, while the “rocket and strafe” 90s shooter framework is so quietly dated it feels lifeless and un-spirited, which is a shame considering that the presentation is trying so hard. This left the core shooting somewhere between mildly dull and enjoyably average; although occasionally the staging, level design or weapon selection did come together just right for a burst of legitimate 90s blast-em-up charm.

“I hate valve puzzles”

Possibly aware of the lacklustre core gameplay, Gearbox included several somewhat jarring diversions into other genres; with a handful of driving sections, some underwater areas, and surprisingly regular platforming and physics puzzles. Usually physics puzzles are the result of indulgent showboating from a company glowing with pride at the engine they have created. Thus the appearance of physics puzzles in Duke Nukem Forever is somewhat odd, as the games physics system is functional but hardly robust enough for them to spend so much time pointing the players attention in its direction. Moving barrels and pushing wheeled trolleys make a nice aside from the relentless grind of crosshairs and ammo, and in some cases get the brain cogs whirring just fast enough to inspire pleasure in solution.. but they still feel pretty damn out of place. Besides which, platforming in the first person has always been a clunky challenge at the best of times.

“Hail to the King Baby”

Setting the game in a world where Duke is already a celebrated icon and hero was probably the most potent masterstroke in Forever; it allowed the game to immerse itself in the infamy and imagery of the Duke Nukem brand, the games most vital selling point. Whole levels are set in the “Duke Dome”, “Duke Burger”, the game starts in the “Duke Museum” which is a building dedicated to Duke's accomplishments and trophies; the environment is decorated with promotional posters of Duke, golden statues of his babes, freely adorned with the classic “nuclear hazard” symbol. Aware that the years of nostalgia have distilled Duke's already considerable reputation for machismo and excess to ridiculous proportion, DNF regularly strives to meet the kind of over-the-top extremist payoff gamers were so apparently wanting this time around. Duke field kicks eyeballs, rabbit punches battlelords testicles, keeps a secret high-tech base accessible via a throne under the city, has a shoot-out in an old west town, rides a monster truck through the Hoover Dam, mans a wrecking ball, chugs steroids, downs beer, slaps alien tits and urinates on an enemies brain. Contributing to the silliness is the surreal inclusion of various interactive objects in the environment. Duke can flush toilets, run taps, throw faeces, draw on whiteboards, pump weights, admire himself in mirrors, peruse porn mags, use condom and cigarette machines and play pool and pinball. Some of these increase “health” by expanding Duke's ego-meter, but the majority seem to be there for the sake of it. I'd like to argue this is a satire on the increasingly pointless detail and realism of interactive worlds or an ironic nod at the idea a game in development for 12 years was going to allow gamers to experience unparalleled interaction with their environment, but seems more likely just another quirk of the fragmented development cycle.

“I've got balls of steel”

Satire and irony are unfortunately things Forever didn't quite manage. Duke's dated and childish approach to both story and gameplay is clearly stubborn loyalty to form, not clever inversion of cliché. Duke Nukem Forever doesn't poke fun at the vulgarity and immaturity of the genre, it simply IS a unrepentantly vulgar and immature genre piece. A quintessential man-child's wet dream, but not in a positive way. It's self-referential humor and in-jokes occasionally hit home, especially if you are a seasoned Duke fan or internet regular (light jabs at other games and devs such as Halo and Valve provoked a titter), but the “topical” jokes are uncomfortably late as well as non PC, like a stand-up comedian who is still doing jokes about Princess Di. Even the up-to-date jokes just feel like name-dropping, and it's all far too blunt and self-aware, with one eye always on the audience to check they are enjoying themselves. It reminds me of the sketch in 30 Rock where the cast pretend they can't finish their lines because they are laughing too much.

“I'm gonna rip your eye out and piss on your brain, you alien dirtbag!”

Meanwhile Gearbox' continuing quest to meeting the levels of “no-holds-barred” excess and overkill Duke's cult rep demanded led to the aforementioned well of booze, porn, cigarettes, drug abuse, swearing, sadism, bodily fluids, gore and sick finishers as badges of adult content, things which many found very offensive. It can't be disputed that Duke Nukem Forever is probably the most unbelievably sexist game to be released possibly ever. The “chicks” and “babes” are bubbly insecure nymphomaniac air-headed sex objects to the last, an endless stream of porn stereotypes fawning around Duke wherever he goes. The desensitized gaming male in me was able to overlook this (since most games are equally as guilty in reducing women to window dressing anyway, they just aren't as honest about it) but things took a disturbing turn in the “Hive” level, where various kidnapped babes suffer a fairly harrowing end. As they were already beyond rescue, the babes were even “legal” targets to be blown apart during fire fights, all the while crying and moaning to Duke for help. Duke himself was worryingly untroubled by all this horror, the most meaningful words of comfort he could offer to the stolen babes being “Looks like you're fucked”. In fact, Duke rarely elevates himself beyond the walking soundboard of 80s references he has been in pop culture for the past 10 years. He drifts through the games story seemingly only able to communicate by macho one-liners, treating the world like a ventrillo server he is trolling or in fact, a videogame that he is playing.

“My job is to kick ass, not make small talk”

Duke's detachment from reality and numb reactions to the death and misery of his allies lends him a disturbing sociopathic air. After a dying best friend chokes out a meaningful goodbye, Duke lightheartedly quips “I guess he won't be in the sequel”. To us, Duke meanders through his games with a monologue closer to our own detached “gaming” perspective, but I wonder how in the world he inhabits he isn't just seen as some kind of delusional and sadistic mad man. I might have liked to see Duke spend more time on his side of the 4th wall, with some actual personality to match the context of his surroundings. This said, the games cast, male as well as female, barely have enough brain cells between them to form coherent conversation as it is. Perhaps if we lived in such a commercialized world of morons, we'd be sociopaths as well. I know I am.

“I'm going to kill you old style”

One of the most interesting things about Forever is that the team behind it clearly was not crap. Gamers and critics have a tendency to tar an entire development team with failure and mediocrity when their product is found to be wanting. As a designer myself I noticed a lot of fundamental design tactics firmly in place throughout Duke Nukem Forever, things that other overall better games often miss. New mechanics were smoothly demonstrated to the player in order to foreshadow the later more complex puzzles, routes through the worlds occasionally cluttered environments were for the most part clearly signposted through simple use of lighting or view funneling, enemy weaknesses were telegraphed through individual encounters before the player was asked to deal with mixed groups; these are basic ways to train and guide players without jamming information down their throats like many hand-holding contemporary titles are want to do these days. This is perhaps another symptom of the “dated” approach, the 90s being a time this form of background guidance was more common and valued, but it's definitely a mark in the pro column.

“I'd buy that for a dollar”

Duke Nukem Forever's dedication to its archaic 90s shooter roots and to remorseless childish overkill hits the mark somewhere between mildly dull and enjoyably average, with genuine bursts of nostalgic charm mixed up in the relentless stream of vulgarity and banal humor. And it's all wrapped up in the heraldry of Duke himself, a videogame icon in the eyes of many. I got it for £5 on Steam, which is probably exactly what it's worth. Personally I think we can all be glad they got this one out of the way, so they can start work on Duke Nukem Forever and Ever.

Like A Boss

2011-08-23T17:01:00.000-07:00

Boss battles are among the oldest and most iconic of videogame traditions, so I was pretty excited when I was lucky enough to find a few among the level assignments of my latest project at work. These past few weeks I have taken myself on a crash course through the processes and demands of designing good boss battles, driven by the unforgettable nostalgia-coated highlights and disappointing lowlights of my own gaming memoirs. Late into the midnight oil it occurred to me this was just the kind of juicy clean-cut topic that I could happily return to my blog with, so here we are blowing off the cobwebs. And I mean literally, if my home keyboard was a limb it would have atrophied and fallen off by now.

Action and Reaction: Rock, Paper and Scissors

It seems like common sense, but anything the boss can do, the player has to be able to somehow anticipate, and subsequently defend against or dodge. This means two things. Firstly that any attack the boss can perform should come with a visual or audio cue for the player to see or hear (just like the enemies of my combat article), and that the bosses move list is ultimately determined by the move list of the player. If the player can jump, the boss could perform a shockwave which the player has to jump over. If the player can aim and shoot easily, the boss could fire projectiles that must be shot out of the air before they reach their target. If the player can already perform a block or dodge, well, this makes creating the boss move list considerably easier.. but at the very least the player can usually move around, which means the boss can perform attacks which affect a particular area of the environment, and require the player to run around/away. If you analyze the players move list first, you can then vary the boss' move list accordingly so that different attacks require the player to choose a different defensive attack from their repertoire, thus creating a nice rock/paper/scissors scenario. (Again taking a leaf out of my combat article.) The rock/paper/scissors scenario keeps the player thinking, and attentive to the boss' actions; they have to engage with the battle and learn/read the bosses visual and audio cues to survive and win, which is a pretty good starting point.

Find a Pattern: Boss Behavior

What goes on in a bosses brain? Most will remember how many old school bosses would simply run through a particular attack pattern which we would then memorize by spending a few hearts or continues, and use to predict the bosses actions in advance from then on. This is the easiest set up for a designer, but it does quickly reduce the boss from a believable organic nemesis to an unthinking clambering machine, stubbornly plodding through it's moves one at a time without any consideration of the context. This is alas one of my big boss bugbears. All bosses inevitably run on cold hard code and predetermined 1s and 0s the same as any other aspect of a videogame, but when possible we should do our best as designers to hide those limitations, particularly for a “boss” who is a living breathing adversary, not a automated environmental hazard.

The alternative is for the boss to act based on the immediate situation, and because the only agent of chaos constantly changing the situation is the player themselves; it's the player that makes the best controller for the boss. If the boss can read the players position and actions and factor them into it's decisions, a much more believable game of cat and mouse is created. At a most basic level, the boss could vary between ranged and close-up attacks depending on the distance from the player. In more advanced scenarios, the boss might read the tactics the player is employing and adapt to counter them by shifting what moves it prioritizes. It's up to play testing and the designers assumptions to prepare the boss for possible player strategies that might scupper the intended gameplay, whether the boss is using a pattern or a library of catered reactions.

Shields Up: Defence Mechanisms

As much as the player needs opportunities to defend and dodge against each of the enemies attacks, they need controlled opportunities to return the favor and deal some damage. The easiest (and thus not always the best) solutions are to keep the boss out of reach or in possession of a standard immunity to the players attacks, either for certain pre-set sections of the battle, or until the player succeeds in completing a pre-determined task or puzzle to lower that immunity/get in reach. It's my opinion that a boss battle is essentially a level, and thus should rely on the player applying the existing core mechanics to the situation in order to win. This is particularly true if you take the background puzzle/task route, but be careful because there is not many things in this world more frustrating than trying to achieve something while somebody consistently spams you with pokes and projectiles trying to get your attention. Either way, make the bosses weakness the players strength, and there will be a much greater sense of outsmarting and overcoming the boss. If the core mechanic is a grapple gun, grapple the bosses armor off, pull something down on it's head, zipline onto it's back, tangle it's legs, affix it to the walls.. use the tools that are available.

Hit the weak spot for massive damage!

Another classic defense mechanism for bosses is the “weakspot”. If this spot is only available at controlled intervals or after puzzles, it is basically the same as the out of reach/immunity approach, but some bosses wear their weakspots loud and proud the whole battle. The fact it is slightly trickier to hit the bullseye than the dartboard is sometimes just enough increased challenge to stop the player spamming out damage and draining the boss bar too quickly, particularly if that spot is hidden on the bosses back or lesser spotted areas. This system often links well with another design tactic in boss battles, that of the boss opening itself up to damage through some of its own attacks. Just as each boss attack must be designed so it can be avoided, certain moves may leave the bosses defenses down or “unintentionally” reveal that tell-tale weakspot. Ideally if this is the method you choose, more than one of the bosses moves should be open to reprisals, or the player will simply find themselves waiting for that move to come up, unable to take a pro-active approach to the battle and quickly recognizing the boss for the computerized flow chart sham that it is.

Fool Me Once: Shame on you

I absolutely loved Arkham Asylum, but it's a tragic irony that the thing that really got my hype bubbling in the first place was the idea of taking on Batmans gritty re-imagined rogues gallery. It turned out the showdowns with Gothams foulest were by far the weakest most disappointing aspect of the game; utterly tepid boss battle design that made every classical mistake. A sort of “How not to do boss battles 101”. I have talked previously about the “rule of 3” in games, but while repetition in level design is a misdemeanor, applying the rule in a boss battle is a design felony. What kind of high functioning evil-doer with half a brain would suffer a hefty beatdown thanks to the player performing a particular tactic or task or exploit, and then patiently allow them to do the same trick three more times without altering their own approach? I'm looking at you, Roid Rage Joker. Avoid this archaic mistep at all costs; it does save a lot of think-tank time and allow the player to get into a comfortable flow, but if it was any other level in the game, would you design a third of it and then just use that third two more times? Of course not. Let's try and drum this rule of thumb out of the medium. Also on my boss bugbear list (along with set attack patterns and the rule of 3) are simply including “artificial” windows where the player can attack, such as the boss stopping to chuckle maniacally or twiddle with a malfunctioning tool, or simply taunt the player out of sheer hubris. This is the evil twin of the “bosses own attack opens them to attack” approach, and is just a little too obvious. After the first chuckle cost them a few broken ribs, I think they'd start to take the battle more seriously.

Parry Time Excellent: Player Versus Boss

A good stress test for a boss design is what happens if the player throws all caution to the wind and simply bombards the boss with attacks. A lot of designs are not prepared for the player to ignore all obvious danger cues and atmosphere and simply slam the situation with brute force rather than strategy. This is why it's so much easier to control the time and place a bosses defenses are down, as it means consistent attacks are just the player pissing against the wind. This said, many bosses don't bother with immunities, or shields, or weakspots, or keeping their distance, they take the player on mano-o-mano with nothing but a heck load of health bars and a high resistance to incoming damage. These are the more challenging to implement due to the players ability to go “all-out” at the boss (particularly once you consider the boss having stun states), but in combination with aforementioned “catered reaction” method, it arguably makes for the more sophisticated endgame. What's important is to ensure the boss has something up it's sleeve to counter the players onslaughts. A clean solution is usually to add a “keep away” move to their library that kicks in after a certain amount of close-up damage. This can range from an auto-parry/implacable block that quickly stops the player in his tracks, a heavy attack wearing snazzy superarmour (during the attack the boss can still take damage but cannot be stopped or interrupted) to force the player to a distance, or simply make a swift movement (a dash or teleport) to somewhere the player isn't. Decent players will soon count the maximum amount of attacks they can get away with before this keep-away move kicks in, and not push their luck any further than that.

Lair Sweet Lair: Property Rights and Wrongs

Like I said before, boss battles are level designs, and the environment where a boss lives is thus an extension of the battle and boss itself. The environment can provide places for the boss to hide or retreat (particularly key to out-of-reach scenarios), it can provide the player cover or shelter that might be required as a defensive action against certain boss attacks, the boss may even use the environment in it's attack pattern; temporarily or permanently modifying the area to increase the threat and challenge, Robotnik style. Or perhaps it houses the “background” puzzle required to gain advantage over the boss, because as we know, a surprising number of self-respecting bosses decide to battle the player in the only place in a mile radius where their only weakness is immediately available to the player. See Resident Evil 5's ridiculously old school boss designs, such as the Uroboros, an almost indestructible creature only vulnerable to fire, that chooses to fight you in a furnace, and then beside a Flame Thrower refill station. As ridiculous as this practice is, and as preferable as it is to use existing mechanics than introduce environmental ones, this method does have it's nostaglic charms, and there are far worse mistakes to choose from.

Regardless of your approach (but I'm specifically looking at you, out-of-reach fans) ensure your boss isn't camera shy. There is little worse than a boss whose location you cannot readily keep track of being especially if they have ranged attacks AND the blind spots to use them. You can temporarily hide the boss to create tension, but as a rule think you should try to keep the slippery sods on screen, provide a quick way for the player to optionally check their location (lock on for example) or really polish up the timing of those audio cues. As a final minor boss bugbear, try not to include any moves which require artificial or infinite replication of the environment. For example “spawning” dropping rocks/debris from above or “ripping out” chunks of the ground to throw. Unless of course, it's a cartoony sort of a game where that sort of thing flies without comment.

Finale: Epic Staging and Sympathy

The setting of a boss battle of course has a secondary purpose; it is a key aspect of atmosphere and presentation. Outside the nuts and bolts of the design, a boss battle is a climactic showdown, a crescendo, the culmination of a rivalry, a final ultimate challenge; although it shouldn't bend or break the rest of the experience, staging and spectacle is important. If possible, push the environmental choice to a place fitting and sympathetic to the event at hand. More than other levels, a boss battle is a part of the story played in-game, it will be remembered and revered only if all elements come together as a cohesive whole and compliment each other.

Do!

Include audio and/or visual cues for all boss attacks
Vary the ways the boss' attacks have to be avoided to keep the player on their toes
Use the existing mechanics in creative ways to help take down the boss
Include ways for the boss to consider and react to player position/action
Control the player chances to deal damage or include a way for the boss to stop/avoid/counter constant player attack
Try and keep the boss on the screen
Where possible choose an exciting/fitting backdrop for the battle

Don't!

Trap the boss in a rigid attack pattern
Include “artificial” windows where the boss stops to laugh/taunt etc.
Use the rule of 3; no “do this twice more” design
Have the boss fall for the same trick over and over where it's unrealistic
Have the player wait for a particular attack to open an opportunity to respond
Use the environment in unrealistic/artificial ways

Thanks for reading! It was fun to get something new up here again.

-Steve

Mass Effecting: Branching Dialogue

2011-05-03T12:18:00.000-07:00

50 is such a nice number. The weeks have rolled by, and despite the occasional pang of guilt about neglecting this blog, the fact I left it on such a nice round number of posts (with such a strong piece about a subject I love at the top) has definitely eased my conscience on the matter. I have excuses, sure, water-logged carpets and corrupted CD drives, but mostly I've just been playing games instead of writing about them. In particular, I was consumed for nearly a month when I finally decided it was time to sit down with the Mass Effect series and see what all the fuss was about.

Me, ME and ME2: Long-term commitments
Being extremely late to Bioware's landmark RPG party I was able to play Mass Effect 1 and 2 (henceforth awkwardly acronym-ed as “ME1” and “ME2” ) back to back. It's doubtlessly a fantastic series, providing one of the most enthralling and rich universes (well, galaxies) I've seen in a game. I found myself completely immersed in the characters and choices, largely thanks to the tremendous feeling of freedom, responsibility and reputation that comes from being given your own ship and crew and having space laid open before you for exploration. The second installment was far more streamlined than the first, more traditionally “game-like” but eventually I grew to appreciate the extra polish and presentation it enjoyed over the first. The series' defining strength doesn't lie in it's presentation or vibrant characterization though, nor it's beautiful visuals, quality soundtrack, hybrid gameplay, or even in it's familiar yet fresh art direction and design; it sets itself apart by offering a series where for the first time your decisions echo into not just the games future, but yours as well.

For a lot of good reasons, it's rare enough that player choices can effect a game in a meaningful way; I wrote an article about just that back in the original TLDR before IGN butchered it into oblivion, but say even if a game managed to be flexible enough to let a player decide who lives and who dies, the decision is in nature temporary, the consequences fleeting. Even if the game was to last 20-40 hours, the consequences will never outreach that contained time period, they are bottled inside the script of that game. If I was to lose a character in ME1 or 2 however, they would still be dead in the third installment. ME3 will not be released for many months yet. That is MY future, the impact of my choices have the potential to over-spill the bottleneck of the game I am playing to situations I'd be dealing with months from then; which led me to genuinely give pause when confronted with the big issues. Future Steve would be the one dealing with the ramifications of my present actions, unpredictable ripples of chance that could come back to aid or haunt me later.

Unfortunately, it was relatively rare for ME1 or 2 to present situations that were truly “grey” in nature. Mass Effect fans can likely guess at the situations I refer to, but for the most part the game is divided into opportunities to be the good guy; chivalrous and honorable, or the bad guy; callous and aggressive. It was these disappointments that planted a desire in me to write this blog entry; because I think it's in all of us who harbor a design side to analyze the weaknesses in games that we play, even shining success stories like Mass Effect. Certainty for designers it's important to note what games do wrong as much as what they did right, whether great or terrible.

Shades of Grey: Ambiguous to the Touch
“Karma” systems were all the rage in the noughties; Lionhead led the charge with Fable and the aptly named Black and White; and while it's easier for designers (and on a philosophical level, people) to polarize life into black and white, good and bad, we all know real life is rarely so simple. We don't even prefer our fiction to be that simple. Audiences don't want easy answers and clean-cut characters, the conflicted and flawed will always be more compelling, more affecting. Speaking as a gamer myself, I want the hard choices, I want to have to dig a bit deeper to come up with my answer, and in the best of times I want to be unsure I made the right choice for a while thereafter. Unfortunately this classical polarization of choice has found it's way into the majority of ME1 and 2; worse still most conversations are divided into three options which are deliberately arranged top to bottom as “good” “neutral” “bad”. It is nice to be involved in aspects of the story that would usually be covered in cutscenes, but with turning conversation into interaction comes a desire to want to pour some of yourself into the character. The arrangement of replies in degrees of asshole-ery are all well and good for those roleplaying as Superman/The Punisher, but for gamers who want to “be themselves”, it's frustrating the options are generally not what you would like to say, but various ways to say the same thing.

Shepard himself is not quite the empty vessel you'd expect him to be, he seems to be stood at the needlepoint of a triangle, itching for you to push him towards being a clear hero or insensitive anti-hero. And seemingly he favors the latter. Mass Effect's dialogue options don't quite reflect the exact words Shep will choose, merely a condensed phrase intended to imply the thrust of the response. This would be well and good, except that the mood and tone of a response are everything during conversation, and Shepard has a tendency to take sincere liberties with the choices he is given. On one occasion I dared choose from the “bad” side of the spectrum, a seemingly innocuous warning of “you shouldn't have lied”. Shepard grabs the man by the neck and holds him off the ground, screaming “LYING IS WRONG!” in his face. Give him enough rope and Shepard would hang everyone in the room.

Master Conversationalist: Stats Versus Tactics
Most karma-based games make the mistake of reducing the “good” points when the “bad” points are rewarded, meaning that players showing kindness to friends and inflicting ruthless horrors on their enemies drag their spirit-level of a personality to a middling zero. Usually costing them the handsome rewards of being a shining white knight or grisly dark lord in the process. One of Bioware's more subtle masterstrokes with Mass Effect was keeping Paragon (good) and Renegade (bad) points separate from each other, so that a player could amass a fine collection of both and feel free to treat each situation on it's own merits without losing out too much in the long term. As an extra, players could unlock “charm” and “intimidation” options, and upgrade these personality traits as stats, alongside the usual experience bars like defense and pistol accuracy. Towards the end of the game though, these stats unlock new dialogue options glowing in blue or red alongside the good-bad gauge. Essentially, these options “win” at any conversation. Max charm or intimidation is like god mode for conversations, and as any gamer who has played Grand Theft Auto with infinite health and all weapons knows, god mode gets boring. It completely tore the challenge and tension out of the important conversations; those who have heard me talk of God of War before know how I loathe an “I win” button.

Ultimately I think what I wanted was the ability to tackle conversations intellectually, for them to demand mental acuity and tact the same way shoot-outs demand reflexes and tactical choice. I want talking my way out of a hostage situation to ask as much of me as landing a headshot on a moving target. There were many times in the ME series where I found myself in a very delicate situation that I felt might ask sincere thought and engagement on my part. These included speaking at a trial, talking down a suicidal victim, and chatting up my attractive lieutenant who is modeled after the girl out of Chuck. All these things turned out to be painting by the numbers, and all the extra tact I poured into the options I chose and the order I chose them, were irrelevant. The game doesn't ask much of you at all, in fact at the end of the game you can't talk to the female characters without having the option to bed them or tell them they are ugly.

Turning conversation into gameplay requires it to be considered in terms of interaction, reward and challenge the same as combat or stealth or platforming. It's thanks to my experiences with Mass Effect that I have started to see it this way, rather as merely an aspect of the ongoing “interactive narrative” debate. The potency of controlling your character within conversation goes beyond a chance to steer the story, it's in itself an activity that players can become engaged and involved in. The next step will be working out how to translate such a complex thing into a system within a game, but I think this could be a rich and untapped new element in games design, which alike combat or stealth or platforming, can be approached and interpreted into mechanics in many different ways.

Thanks for reading!
I had to write this one to get it out of my system.
Whatever, **** you guys.

Now if you excuse me, I'm in the middle of some calibrations.
-Steve

The Art of War II: Advanced Combat Mechanics

2011-03-28T06:57:00.000-07:00

The deeper I take this topic the more difficult it is to avoid the blog descending into a verbatim Prima strategy guide about Street Fighter IV or Devil May Cry. It's important for me to steer this feature away from being about a specific game, or franchise, or even genre; my goal is to keep it general enough to still be an informative guide to creating and improving videogame combat systems. You'll also remember in Part 1 I made it clear these notes are mostly about the topic of third person melee-orientated combat with AI enemies. Player versus player fighting games obviously require considerable extra focus on balancing both sides of the scale, whereas one-sided single player systems are about ensuring the enjoyment of just one side of the fisticuffs.

Single Input Expansion: Charge and Negative Edge
As I already said, I believe the secret to good combat lies in providing the player options, and it's important to find ways to do this even in simpler systems. Unfortunately, combat systems usually have to fit inside control systems which are already busy with the mechanics of other aspects of the game, such as platforming or shooting. When you have even two buttons, it's pretty easy to come up with a decent move list (light, light, heavy or light, heavy, light etc.) but if you are left with just a single combat button to play with, most of the obvious doors are closed. Ideally you should look for a modifier that when held or active essentially remaps the controls (a hard lock-on button is perfect) but it can be very messy to take the ability to activate combat mode away from the player and rely instead on enemy proximity or special scenes. Also, be careful how you remap the controls, It has to be intuitive, changes such as turning a jump into a punch clash with a players learned instincts.

Assuming you just have one button and no hard-lock to bring in direction inputs though, you still have “Charge” and “Negative Edge” mechanics.
Charge: This is pretty straight forward; traditional attacks are performed by tapping the button. If the player instead holds the button in for a short time before releasing, it can be used to either power up the basic attack, or to perform a completely different move. This is the basis of the “Flourish” mechanic seen in Fable II and the “Tame” property of the hand-to-hand weapons in Devil May Cry.
Negative Edge: This is the lack of anything being pressed counting as an input within the context of a combo string. For example: attack, attack, gap, attack. The player stops pressing attack briefly, and then starts doing so again, which takes the combo in a different direction as if they'd pressed another button. Who says you can't get something for nothing?

Sound the Alarm: Telegraphing and Audio Visual Cues
An important compliment to the defense systems talked about in Part 1 is that the player has a moments warning before an incoming attack, so they know when to initiate a block, counter or evasive move. This should be worked into the enemy AI, and can be audio, visual, or both. Once these cues are in place, it's less necessary for the enemy to repeat a pattern, as the player has been given the tools to predict them outside of their adhering to a precise routine.

Visual: This can be as simple as an enemy glowing a particular colour, raising a poised claw, or adopting a pounce stance. It is a few moments (or frames) that precede the part of the attack which actually hurts. Sometimes designers cheat and have a universal cue for all enemies attached to the player, such as a tingly spider sense around the protagonists head, or a button prompt that pops up somewhere on screen.
Audio: Cast your mind back over any boss AI pattern you have ever memorized and you'll find that those annoying things they kept saying or noises they kept making were actually paired with a specific attack. Essentially the enemy sounds off with a particular noise or phrase immediately before the attack, and the player can learn that this audio cue is attached to a particular action the enemy is about to perform and prepare accordingly. This is essential for any enemies who might come at the player from off-screen, where visual cues don't do anyone any good.

Frame for Frame: Mathematics of Advantage
If you continue researching and analyzing combat mechanics inevitably you will stumble into frame data. Even in 3D, each attack and move the player performs comes down to moments and seconds, to the frames. The frames of any attack can be firstly divided into 3 clear sections:
Start Up: How long the player character takes to get around to actually performing the attack. In terms of enemy AI, the start-up frames are essentially the visual cue that telegraphs the attack about to become active. Technically though, these are an actual part of the move/attack being performed eg. drawing back the hand
Active: This is the part of the attack which does damage, the business end of the move eg. the punch
Recovery: How long after the active part of the attack before the move is considered finished and the player can perform another action such as movement or another attack eg. retracting the arm after the impact

When an enemy is caught in the active frames of the attack, they enter what is known as Hit Stun; another vital mechanic in combat systems. Hit Stun is the amount of frames the enemy spends reacting to the attack, and thus the amount of time before they are free to move or attempt an attack of their own. In combo-based games and the fighting games that inspire them, the key to linking together moves into combos is ensuring enough frames advantage between the recovery time of the move they performed and the hit stun their enemy has entered. For example if the enemy goes into 8 frames of hit stun and the players move has 5 recovery frames, then they have a hit advantage of 3 frames in which to perform another attack and keep the combo going. Moves with a start-up longer than 3 would provide the enemy time to leave hit stun, recover and block.

Often combat systems feature various “stun states” which dictate both the length of hit stun and the position of the enemy following the attack; for example grounded, rising, crumpling, stumbling, aerial... which also influences what attacks can be used to follow up different attacks. I don't wish to delve into the topic here, but it comes down to the “Hit Box”, the hostile area created during the active frames of an attack, and the part of the enemy that must be inside that area to count as them being hit. On a basic level the designer has to be on the look-out to ensure eventually the recovery and start-up outnumbers the hit-stun, or the hit box becomes out of range due to the stun state. If not, you have a curly mustache on your hands. (Infinite combo)

Commitment Issues: Canceling
It can be very frustrating for players to become trapped in an attack once they perform the input. A lot can change during the start, active and recovery frames of a move, so to become locked-in through all stages of it often leaves the player open to unexpected reprisals. “Canceling” is therefore an advanced mechanic that allows the player to pull out of an attack before it finishes. It is important to maintain a risk/reward ratio (constantly central to good games design) by limiting the things players can cancel with and when. Usually players can only cancel during certain stages of a move; during the start and/or recovery frames for example, and often only with specific actions such as a defensive block/evade which allow the player to avoid damage, but not perform a new move immediately.

Nonetheless you can encourage tactical links by allowing certain moves to be canceled into other moves; skilled players will search out and discover these possibilities and use them to advantage when coming up with new combos. Taking into account the above notes though, skipping a moves recovery frames obviously does crazy things with the start-up/recovery/hit-stun math. On the bright side, canceling into other moves is usually difficult to perform due to the speed and precision needed, so in a way it “balances itself” or acts as a high-tier reward.

Commitment Issues II: Dial-a-combo
There is a lot of debate as to what the term “dial-a-combo” actually means. In some groups, they think it means any game with pre-determined combo chains, such as the aforementioned “light, light, heavy” input. I think this is too wide and pointless a definition, and prefer the terms other meaning. If you're playing a game and press a button or provide an input, the character of course performs the relevant action. But in a combo which requires multiple presses, what window does it consider the input pressed a second time or third time or fourth time? Dial-a-combo is whenever the game queues your inputs up, so if you press the attack button three times quickly, the player character essentially has three inputs dialed or “queued”, and the results play out on screen despite the player pressing nothing else. This has the same problems of systems without cancelling; the player becomes locked in whatever inputs they have lined up, and cannot react in the moment until those inputs play out. Thus, a dial-a-combo combat system with few or no cancel-able moves is an extremely strict and claustrophobic system, prone to trapping the player in actions for periods of time, during which they are unable to change tactics on-the-fly or react quickly to a changed condition or incoming threat.

A non-dial a combo system calls upon the rules of frame data once again. The same as how certain frames or stages of a move might be open to canceling, certain frames or stages of a move are open to a new input being considered. Usually, it's during the recovery frames that an attack opens to the players next input. So if the player was to press a button several times during the active frames, these inputs would be ignored, rather than queued, which is actually better as it requires and allows more precise performance of the games different inputs.

Finish Him: Grapples, Grabs and Throws
A last thing I wanted to cover in this part of the combat mechanics series is the recent fascination with finishing moves in the form of “grabs” or “grapples”. Throws are a classic part of the rock, paper, scissors tactics of fighting games; they essentially ignore a block stance, so that merely the act of effective blocking doesn't make players immune to attack. God of War splash landed into the action genre with a new take on the grab/throw however, by turning them into the opportunity for contextual finishing moves. "Quick-time-events" in other words; pre-canned animations/movies requiring little or no input from players. This is a symptom of a larger condition affecting the medium, in fact it's the topic of my Masters dissertation "Blockbuster versus mechanical design", the process and conclusions of which I might streamline and post up in the near future.

Within the immediate context however, I suppose the message I want to convey is that pre-canned flashy finishers probably shouldn't be avoided whole-sale, but relying on their spectacle to carry a combat system will dilute the players own interaction with the game and combat. Refer to the opening of Part 1; inevitably a large part of combat is pre-canned flash, but the designer has to consider what the player puts into the equation. Don't dumb the players role down to slapping enemies around until they are ripe for a button prompt finisher that the game handles for you. In fact, I'd like to see more games try and work these grabs into links, so that they aren't an inevitable C note to a combo chain, but that's for future games to consider.

Speaking of C notes, that's the end of Part II. I'm not actually sure if I have enough meaningful non-bespoke material left for a Part III, sans super amour, unique move properties and air game, but I'll have to leave that in the air for now. (Wey)
Hope some people out there found this informative! And yes, the "pro" club do actually have the ability to count frames. Or at least register key frame changes. They must see 1's and 0's instead of tris and pixels, like in The Matrix. Thanks for reading!

-Steve

Wings Review: Splinter Cell Conviction, A New Breed of Stealth

2011-03-25T13:16:00.000-07:00

If I had my way, you wouldn't be reading this review off your computer screen. It would be projected onto your walls in striking bold font by an ethereal spotlight. Splinter Cell Conviction is masterfully presented; as slick and vicious as a Bourne movie or a Daniel Craig Bond film, with all the gritty bite and blockbuster direction of cinemas best new-breed spy thrillers.

The organic projection of your objectives and other essential information onto the scenery is a clever concept aimed at taking the player away from the detachment of technical wizardry, computerized menu's and optical overlays; gently guiding them without stopping or impeding the minute to minute play. I wouldn't argue it as an attempt to increase realism or tension, but it does act as a strong and defining visual quirk which immediately catches your attention and sets Conviction apart from the throng of similar properties.

Rags to Gadgets: Reboot or Sequel?
Ubisoft's marketing and press releases might have you believe this latest entry to the franchise is a notable departure from the previous Splinter Cell games. Admittedly the game does start grittier and more lo-fi, with a grizzly Fisher adapting a broken car mirror as an early “gadget” to see under doors, but that doesn't last long. His quest for revenge is quickly financed and enabled by a shady double agent recognizable to series fans, and it is not long at all before Sam has access to some of the shiniest toys yet to come out of Q's workshop. Sticky cameras, remote bombs, portable EMP, they all end up as part of Fisher's armory before the halfway point, and by the end of the game, he even has his trademark tri-vision goggles back. Although, they serve a slightly different purpose.

Pitch Black: Lights and Shadows
There is the same focus on the series' principles; most centrally the importance of light and darkness in moving around unseen by enemies. The delicate light meter of old has been replaced by a much more stark system, the screen drenched in a black and white filter to inform the player when they are “in shadow”. While at first this simplification seems intuitive and clean, the lack of distinction between pitch blackness, slight shade and dim light leads to confusion during the games tenser moments. Years of using his goggles and munching carrots have seemingly gifted Fisher the eyes of Riddick, and he can see perfectly in darkness so bleak that it confuses and befuddles his victims. To avoid sharp swaps from colour to B/W however, from the players perspective “pitch blackness” is never very dark, and instead very hard to designate beyond “anywhere and anything that casts a shadow, usually” and the rest of the room. Even in B/W it's hard to tell where the black ends and the light starts, except in extreme cases. The game also suggests you dedicate time to shooting out lights and turning them off, but during my playthrough this seemed a complete waste of time. The only time I had access or time to notice a light switch was when I had already cleared a room, and most rooms had multiple light sources, making shooting them a long winded task that often led to alerting the enemies.

Marked for Death: Mark and Execute Mechanic
The true masterstroke of the Conviction playbook is new mechanic “Mark and Execute”. Sam has to earn the right to use this ability through a good honest hand to hand kill, but once he has it, he can mark several enemies (the number depends on the weapon, ranging from 2-4), and then at the press of a button, eliminate them all in a swift and satisfying moment, punctuated by slow motion close ups. There has been some ill-informed criticism of this concept as overpowered thanks to it “playing the game for you”, or conversely, for being “arbitrarily limited”. Mark and Execute is both those things and yet neither of them, completely essential to crafting the experience Conviction hopes to be.

Violent Dominoes: New Breed of Stealth
Ubisoft set out to create an angrier more aggressive stealth game; SCC is not about waiting out patrol cycles and slinking past guards through ventilation systems. It uses stealth as a precursor to the split second explosion of slick stylish violence that defines the Bourne trilogies action sequences, mechanics new and old combining with the range of weapons and gadgets to form a diverse toolbox of tricks and abilities. Players use these tools to place and plan their approach in the shadows, setting up the events like a game of dominoes; before letting them dramatically fall in a spectacular display of engineered brutality. Mark and Execute is symbolic of this approach as a whole, as it allows players to exploit their hiding spots and gadgets to note the position of enemies and place their marks, a vital compliment to the usefulness of the other mechanics. Using the darkness to choose your targets in preparation for the ultimate reward of the payoff is exactly what the game is about, and the satisfaction of a cleanly orchestrated and executed plan is immense. I treasured several of those moments hours after the console was off.

Fool Me Once, Shame on You: Being Loud, Last Known Position and Enemy AI
Unfortunately, Sam himself seems to miss the good old days when he was an unknown ghost moving only in darkness, and although there is no ranking system to chastise you for letting slip your presence or to remind you how close you came to being a bullet ridden mess; Mr Fisher will make gruff disappointed note of whenever you earn any form of alert from enemies, even during the “end-game” of your best laid plans. This is a little hypocritical as a design decision, seeing as the game pushes you to use occasional tactics of loud misdirection in order to distract and flank enemies. There is even a central mechanic on this theme, entitled “Last Known Position”. This basically leaves a ghostly representation of Sam where the enemies last spotted him, so the player can use that information against them. They make it rather easy, by being utterly and remorselessly dedicated to that ghostly Sam, as if they can see it themselves. They seem to assume Sam is some kind of bizarro world Dr Who villain or reverse Boo ghost who turns to stone whenever they can't see him. Absolutely no chance at all he might have moved left or right behind that wall?... nope, impossible. Ironic, considering the henchmen continuously shout abuse at Sam and assert how “aware of his tricks” they are.

The enemy AI is actually painfully UNaware of Sam's tricks; falling for them again and again with a disappointing predictability that allows players to run the same gag over and over again and expect similar success each time. Enemies don't even seem perturbed by the mounting corpses, somehow they must think they are the exception that proves the rule. They will also dutifully investigate windows where Sam has shed his ghostly skin, a place where Sam can quite easily perform an instant kill.

Shush Shush Bang Bang: Weapons and Upgrades
Returning to the topic of being loud; there is a wide range of weapons in the game, with regular access to the full selection provided by serendipitously placed “weapon stashes”. But only a small percentage of that selection can be silenced or suppressed, with all other guns giving away your position as soon as you use them. This is fine in a way, lending itself to a slightly different form of “stealth” gameplay reliant on constantly moving and using your ghostly self to keep the enemies confused and misdirected. Even with silenced weapons, I had used similar tactics by revealing myself just long enough to make enemies follow me into a trap or away from another entrance. Alas, Sam just cannot discern the difference between this tactic and accidentally stumbling into a room of armed guards. Using unsuppressed weapons is a surefire way to arise his displeasure; the games way of implying you have done something wrong. You'll end up upgrading all the guns anyway, loud or not, just because you earn points for nearly everything you do, and the upgrades are cheap and only 3 to a weapon. Despite this, a game that offers me a desert eagle it knows I shouldn't use is a cruel, capricious game.

Short of Greatness?: Problems and Annoyances
While I'm complaining, it seems a good time to cast a knowing light on Convictions other niggling flaws and limitations. The minimalist HUD is pleasantly clear and clean, but because commands are projected flat on objects, some of which have multiple possible actions, all of which are tied to the same context sensitive action button, it's really not hard to smash a window instead of open it, or open a door instead of peek under it, or jump a box instead of use a light switch... You can't stealth kill over or around cover, which is a glaring omission to your repertoire of stealth kills, and although the game features some use of Sam's agility in platforming, the paths are extremely linear and not at all freeform. Particularly during a laboratory level which is a veritable web of pipes and cables, it was ridiculous how Sam was confined to bespoke drainpipes and only certain ledges and surfaces. He also lacked the ability to jump from one ledge/pipe/surface to another behind him, an equally frustrating hole in his skill-set. The unpleasant realization of these arbitrary methods of constraining the player reveal where the “walls” really are and jolt the gamer back to the controller in hand. Finally, the game teeters on the border of several other genres, and at times lurches uncomfortably into open combat, something the controls and weapons aren't designed to handle. Thankfully, this is a rare occurrence.

Revenge, Lies, Lies and Videotape: Narrative
So what is the story driving angry Sam Fisher from place to place? Following some unpleasantness with previous employer Third Echelon; our returning hero has decided he wants nothing more to do with the spy game. Lacking hobbies, he decides to start looking for the hit-and-run driver who killed his daughter. Small fry for Sam Fisher you would think, who is basically an amalgamation of the aforementioned Bourne and Bond archetypes, with a touch of Bauer thrown in for good measure and further alliterative purposes. Locate and kill an everyday drunk driver, violence has solved everything once again, take up fishing, the end. But as “luck” would have it, his daughters seemingly random pedestrian death was not as it seemed, and a slightly larger game is afoot. The storyline would remind you of a particularly preposterous episode of 24, skirting on the very edge of believability while still involving a web of political intrigue and betrayal and lies. Lot's of lies.

Essentially Conviction could be seen as a “revenge” story for most of the game, with Fisher on a mission to eliminate everyone connected to whatever it is actually happened to his daughter; but whereas Liam Nielson might have a clean run at the precise perpetrators, Sam has the misfortune of bouncing from target to target, constantly misled, manipulated and betrayed from all angles. Eventually the “projection” method of delivery is used during narrative scenes to reflect the inner processes of Sam's addled mind, splashing snapshots of his thoughts and emotions into the background. Unfortunately, the ultimate execution is far too shallow and overt to be as provocative and ground-breaking as it might sound on paper. During one cutscene, it got so blunt they were just throwing relevant words like “DISTRUST” and “ANGER” at the walls. Laughable. They might as well have spotlighted “SAD FACE” onto the ceiling. The writing is unwieldy and bland, unable to keep up with the quality of the excellent cinematic directing and explosive set pieces. This is painfully obvious when the game tries to employ Tarantino-esque non-linear story telling, but fails to exploit the technique enough to bring the future twists any extra weight or meaning. Or even surprise.

Context and Connection: Narrative and Gameplay, together again
At times however, Conviction achieves an almost Uncharted 2 level of cohesion between the narrative and gameplay; subtle design playing out to affect the players connection to characters and situations, or allowing them to absorb information in a delightfully unexpected way. An easy example is a clever section from the fantastic introduction, which features flashbacks to Sam's somewhat dubious parenting techniques as a way to explain the basics of a core mechanic. Later there is a flashback to Sam's time in the war, which establishes trust in a character using a twist that could only be born from a tried and tested knowledge of gamer psychology. A curious addition is the inclusion of several open populated areas buzzing with civilian life, walking, talking and going about their business. Sam moves through the crowded streets of a city during a festival, throngs of lively tourists at a fairground, past swarms of journalists and construction workers at a monument. So much work has gone into these lively backdrops it seems almost wasted for all you would see of it in a casual playthrough, but it actually goes a long way to establishing a strong contemporary footing for the narrative. Many games completely forget to remind the player they are in a real world; they deliberately place the player in abandoned cities, evacuated buildings, behind hostile enemy lines where everyone has a gun and a scowl. Linking back to it's roots in spy thrillers, letting Sam move through these areas lends the experience a reality and context perhaps missing from the medium.

Despite this occasional cohesion between reluctant blood brothers gameplay and narrative, it is in no way a universal rule of Conviction. The “torture” scenes, one of the trinity of features Ubisoft boasted most highly of in the media, are ultimately as shallow in action as the projection concept. In an ideal world the torture scenes would be an intelligent way to avoid pulling the player out of gameplay for further story exposition. Alas, they play like unskippable cutscenes which pause every few seconds and require a button press to stir them onwards. You have the pleasure and sporadic enjoyment of dragging the victim to the environmental feature of your choice, but Sam rarely does anything more creative than bash their face off it.

Trial and Error: Difficulty and Replayability
Conviction is a pretty easy game; a layman could likely fumble through the majority of the game on all but the highest mode, and most of the gadgets are plentiful enough to be abused; particularly the portable EMP, which is a quick and easy dues-ex-mechana way of escaping pretty much any dangerous scenario unscathed. For those with a little more stubborn pride, replaying a sequence a few times should give way to a handful of suitable solutions; allowing even the challenging rooms to be beaten thanks to trial and error. The checkpoints vary in reliability, but generally won't leave you more than a room behind your last failure. Clocking in at a mere 8 hours though, SCC is alike many “blockbuster” AAA games; short and sweet. In burns brightly or a while, but the campaign can be beaten in just a few days. Deniable Op's picks up the torch at this point, but sorely lacks the staging and context of the story mode; it's just rooms of enemies. In fact, Deniable Op's is a much dryer traditional Spinter Cell experience, harshly punishing any form of alert, and putting gamers back in the goggled leathers. Deniable Op's is immune to the trial and error problem/approach however, randomly generating the AI placement and pathing each time you retry it; play with a friend and this extra mode might just get you your monies worth from the purchase.

Flash and Bang: Visuals
All things considered it's a beautiful game, stylish, confident and polished, with a varied palette of light and darkness, daylight and moonlight. I'm not much of a graphical nut, but for those looking to nit pick; the games brave sweeping shots and close ups are prone to revealing gritty, grainy textures and the fuzzy edges of alpha layer shadows. Meanwhile the facial animation is woefully out of synch with the dialogue, the mouth movements strained as if the characters are all fresh from a mugful of Novocaine. At worst, their gibbering mouths make them look like badly animated puppets. Still, the expansive populated environments and distinctive Unreal engine shading are potent ticks in the “pro” column.

Conclusion:
For long-term fans of the franchise and hardcore stealth nuts Conviction might feel over-simplified or action-orientated, but speaking as someone who has often found the dragging pace of the stealth genre to be frustrating and off-putting, I am perhaps playing the role of the hated “new audience” in this story. I embrace the games sleek presentation and aggressive accessibility with open arms. Conviction is to the stealth genre what Dawn of War is to RTS; stripped down and streamlined, with a refreshing new angle on the Splinter Cell formula. To veteran fans of the franchise, the game might look like a skeleton short of it's meat, but I prefer to think of it has a rough diamond; cut, polished and refined. The presentation is nearly flawless, the gameplay is tight and engaging, while a variety of dynamic set pieces and one-shot scenes - including a thrilling daylight foot chase - bring a pleasantly unexpected diversity to the experience. My complaints are minor and easily forgotten whenever the gameplay hits it's stride, and for those into wish-fulfillment, you won't get much closer to feeling like a Bourne, Bauer or Bond than in those moments.
It's admittedly too short, but that complaint can be lobbied at some of this generations best. An exclusive club where, come to think of it, Splinter Cell Conviction wouldn't look entirely out of place.

[Review originally written/posted April 20th 2010]

.. Stealth has been a bit of a hot topic amongst my friends and followers recently, as well as a recurring talking point in the comment sections of my last few review re-posts. Since I found Convictions unique take on the genre fascinating, I thought it was a good time to archive this review at TLDR. Conviction is also notable for being my first assigned review at If Men Had Wings.

The Art of War: Combat Systems in Videogames

2011-03-23T16:03:00.000-07:00

There is a lesser known sub-genre of videogames whose small but dedicated fanbase lovingly refer to as “Pure Action”, or to use the terminology of the genres progenitor and greatest pioneer, Hideki Kamiya: “Stylish Action”. It's my favorite genre.

Devil May Cry, Ninja Gaiden and most recently Bayonetta, are all proud card-carrying members of this exclusive Pure Action club, united by a focus on deep rewarding freeform combat systems that are constantly and tragically misunderstood by the mainstream. Insulted as “repetitive” and “shallow” by unimpressed critics at worst, branded “hack and slash” even by some of its fans. So far-reaching are the misinterpretations and ignorance of the genres values, that Pure Action now lies weak and dying, it's most iconic franchises tainted and befouled by the usual callous attempts at increased market appeal and accessibility, at the cost of depth and content. To myself and many of my readers, the technical subtleties that set bad combat apart from good combat, and perhaps more vitally, good combat from great combat, are obvious. However there remains a majority that “don't get it”.

This post isn't about Pure Action however, which is as niche a topic to this blogs reader-base as the genre itself is to the medium. Instead, it is about the core aspect of that genre, about one of the cornerstones of modern games design; Combat. Specifically, it's about third person primarily melee orientated combat, which is an extremely common aspect people try to bring to their game ideas, or more commonly, find their game ideas require. It's not enough to be aware that during your game the heroic knight will be battling demonic trolls.. the minute this is a fact of your idea, combat has become a huge part of your core games design, and you need to decide how the combat system will work to engage and entertain the player. This post will discuss a “beginners guide” to combat systems in games, an aspect I feel is as misunderstood and under-rated by some designers as Pure Action is by audiences. But perhaps with an appreciation of the balance and complexity of the mechanics and varieties of combat systems in videogames, can come a glimmer of appreciation for the mastery which the Pure Action VIP club demonstrate in this field.

Lights, Camera, Pure Action: Combo Chains versus Exploiting Weakness
There are several key types of combat system prevalent in the industry, but it seems to me the key aspect is always player input; the process and choices that players have to make in the moments of combat. There is a lot of inevitable flash and “looking cool” related to combat, but most of this will be pre-canned animation the player has no control over. The trick is working out what the player puts into the equation, so they know they are responsible for their successes, rewarded for their skill, and never finding themselves with nothing to do but hammer the button some more or spam the same move a few more times. The moment the gamer has nothing to put into their own experience or run out of options, there is a dis-engagement and disconnect. Thus, I have always thought the secret of good combat is providing the player choices.

Combo Based: This method keeps the player engaged by the challenge of chaining together attacks and keeping up flow from move to move or enemy to enemy. In these systems, the enemies are usually punching bags that don't pose much threat individually, because the players mind is on how to connect their current action to the next and rank up the highest combo count without breaking stride, not how to simply "win". While famously associated with "hardcore" games like Devil May Cry, ironically this system can be the most accessible, because the “fail state” doesn't have to be death. Rather, fights might be easy to complete, but dedicated gamers will be driven to compete the fights stylishly and impressively for the sake of pride, and see the loss of a streak or wayward hit as punishment in itself. This said, the system is usually reinforced with increased internal rewards, usually meaning the player will earn more experience/currency from enemies while the combo counter is higher.

The Devil May Cry franchise is easily the most iconic combo-based game, rewarding players for not just longer combo streaks but also for variety, through a style meter that drained when the player hugged the same moves too much. SSStylish.

Weakness Based: This is a rock/paper/scissors arrangement, based on strengths and weaknesses, which influence player tactics during battle. The player needs a small range of basic moves or types of attack; easy example from many titles is a fast/light attack and slower strong attack. You then get enemies who are particularly or only vulnerable to one type of attack, forcing the player to tactically choose/mix the moves they use in what situation. e.g. Strong attack to break through an armored enemies shields. Usually this also links into the players own defense choices, because certain enemies require a particular kind of reaction from the player if they wish to avoid damage, again putting input in the players hands. Each attack and enemy is a question requiring a swift answer.

The third person Lord of the Rings games had two attack buttons, a swift/light attack and strong/heavy attack; the aforementioned classic example. Once you have those two buttons you can also mix them up to perform different combos e.g. light, light, heavy.

Self Defense Classes: Block versus Dodge
Speaking of defense, this is another distinction in combat systems, and the next thing to consider after the core approach. If an enemy is attacking the player, they need a method to not get hurt. Either..

Block/Counter: The player has a block ability that can absorb or deflect incoming attacks. This is usually used in slower more tactical combat systems such as the weakness-based ones. However, it can become a lot faster and more technical when a block timed directly before the attack makes contact awards the player a snazzy parry or counter move to return damage on the attacker.

While Ninja Gaiden does feature evasive moves, it also includes a reliable block which the player can retreat to, as pictured. The NG series values precision timing and weakness tactics; most of the enemies are definitely not punch bags...

Evasion: The player has a dodge, strafe or dash, that moves them out of the way of the incoming attack. Most Combo-based combat systems are evasion based, because block systems allow/require the player to “turtle” aka hold position and just let attacks bounce off them.. this breaks combat flow and pacing, this it isn't as cool or stylish, and will stop a combo counter in it's tracks.

Bayonetta is notable for introducing a counter-style reward for a last minute dodge, in the form of slowing down time for a few seconds. Bayonetta also invented a clever mechanic known as "dodge offset" which allows players to pick up combos where they stopped them to evade an attack.

Lock Stock: Hard versus Soft Lock
One of the final key distinctions between combat systems is the lock-on system.

Hard Lock: This requires a devoted lock-on button that acts as a modifier. While held, the player auto-locks onto a single target, always facing their direction, essentially locking them on a fixed “2D” plane inside the 3D world. Because of this, it becomes possible to use the directional controls inside inputs (like in a fighting game) for example you can use “attack plus back” or “attack plus forward” to perform special attacks. This system links well to the combo-based systems, because it allows focused attack and expands the possible move-list inputs.

Again Devil May Cry is the most iconic example here, it's brutal air juggling/combo-ing of singular targets and fondness for directional inputs/modifiers making clear reference to the fighting game genre.

Soft Lock: Soft lock means the player character auto aims towards the nearest or most suitable enemy, but can be urged towards another simply by leaning on their direction with the next input. This is a crowd control based system, and should be used for games where players are intended to fight between multiple enemies rather than focus on one at a time. Traditionally, this method is poison for combo-based games, as it lessens the players control over their next action, and combo-based systems demand players have utmost ability over their moment to moment choices.

God of War often finds itself alongside the big action names, although many feel it doesn't deserve such accolades. Regardless, it's a clean clear example of soft lock; Kratos commonly slaps around multiple enemies at a time with the wide arcing range of his Blades of Chaos/Exile/Athena. Crowd control is the name of his game.

Hybrid Breed: A Case Study of Compromise
The first things to decide when thinking about combat are these distinctions, which will eventually define what kind of combat system your videogame will need. Of course, there is a vast possibility for hybrids between these types of system once you are aware of the rules and goals. Interestingly, Batman Arkham Asylum, which is my most chronologically recent review post, defies classification; cleanly mixing the principles of weakness-based combat into combo-based by making the consideration of an enemies weaknesses as part of the maintenance of combo chains. It also uses counter, from the block spectrum, as the primary method of evasion with an evasive based system, and utilizes soft lock within combo-based, by focusing on chaining between different enemies rather than on a single enemy. In this way, it's deviously sophisticated beyond initial knee-jerk judgment of its apparent “simplicity”.

In my continuing attempts to be succinct and invalidate my blogs namesake, we'll call that the end of the lesson for today. Combat systems are however one of my favorite topics to discuss and analyze, so perhaps I will someday post a more advanced sequel to this entry dealing with higher tier combat principles such as canceling, launching/juggling, on-the-fly swapping, dial-a-combo complaints, and the argument for and against “grapples” and finishing moves, which these days are so often quick-time-events.

I dedicate this entry to Pete Bottomely, my blogs most steadfast supporter, as it was his birthday recently. Even though he hates this genre. Happy Birthday Pete! ;D You can find his blog: here.

As always, thanks for reading. Which goes for everyone not just Pete. Mostly Pete though.

-Steve

Greatest Hits: Batman Arkham Asylum, Review

2011-03-14T14:51:00.000-07:00

It’s an unfortunate truth of journalism that harsh criticism and general negativity is the bread and butter of public interest, and that a witty jab at a title’s insecurities will always be a more effective hook than an overt thumbs up. Certainly our beloved Yahtzee constructed his throne of popularity almost entirely on being difficult to please. But this time I cannot bring myself to engage in such arbitrary attention grabbing; I hope that you will all instead join me in celebrating what some would call a miracle. Lo and behold, the definitive Batman experience. Arkham Asylum is more than a licensed game that does its subject matter justice, more than a high-concept title that pays off on its potential, more than a long-anticipated release that lives up to the hype, more than a Batman game that doesn’t suck; Arkham Asylum is ALL of the above.

Welcome to the Mad House: Mantle of the Bat
Unlike previous titles Arkham Asylum does not recoil at the Dark Knight’s complexity. It embraces each one of his talents, providing the first genuine opportunity for gamers to step into those armour-plated boots and become the Batman. Whereas the adaptation of Begins forced players to walk a cowardly and melee impotent Batman through hopelessly linear stealth sequences, and dozens of early 2D titles conversely reduced him to a brainless brawl machine sifting through endless minions; Asylum indulges every side of the character equally. Unarmed thugs are fodder for Batman’s flawless martial prowess, whereas a room of armed baddies will move players to adopt a much more stealthly approach. And unlike most mediums in which he has been portrayed, Asylum doesn’t forget that Batman was originally introduced on the back of being the “greatest detective who ever lived”. Players have access to a range of ingenious gadgetry to aid them throughout the game, and can swap to the constantly useful “Detective” mode at any time, which will reveal enemy locations and numbers, scan “crime scenes” and vitally highlight any interactive scenery in the area.

Black Cape, Black Belt: Combat, Counters and Considerations
Hot off the top of that juicy list was the games combat, which brings just the right amount of effort to effortlessly dismantling a room of henchmen. Utilising a 360 degree free flowing combat system (something valiantly pioneered by many an ultimately average title) Batman is able to glide from enemy to enemy with a brutal grace, easily taking apart entire rooms of men. The animations are perfection, the ideal combination of flowing martial style, grim practicality and decisive bone shattering force; exactly what you expect from a character who has honed his knowledge of a dozen martial arts into a single focused weapon against Gotham’s worst. You begin with one attack button and the ability to counter any incoming attack if you are quick enough, and then gradually the game layers on new considerations and challenges. As enemies take up knives you must employ a cape stun to drop their guard, as some get hold of stun batons you have to remember to flip over them before you lay down the hurt, as some become sneaky enough to throw debris from a distance you must be sharp enough to evade out of sequence... employing your knowledge of how each enemy must be dealt with, prioritising upcoming threats, and always striving for longer flawless combos against ever increasing numbers of men, this beautiful mix provides players just enough to think about to make them feel worthy of the intense spectacle that unfolds on screen. Batman is so talented at dispatching enemies that it would have been easy for Rocksteady to fall into the trap of the combat feeling automatic or detached from the admittedly simplistic inputs that inspire the on-screen carnage, but instead I rejoiced at each new room of scum the Asylum presented, and as my digital proxy swiftly resumed an unperturbed neutral stance in the midst of half a dozen freshly beaten crims, I felt like the goddamn Batman.

Invisible Predator: Shadows, Stealth and Suicide Collars
But as I lamented above, Batman is more than a brawler; to the underworld he is like a formless wraith stalking from the shadows, striking fear into his enemies. Handily, Arkham’s interior designers had the peculiar quirk of installing gargoyles on the INSIDE of the (unnecessarily high) walls, providing Bats somewhere to skulk and eye up his targets. At first it is easy to skim these stealth sections with your combat-relevant tools and notice all the environmental elements you were intended to use after the fact, but once the Joker craftily outfits his armed patrols with “suicide collars” that alert all hostiles in the room the minute the heart rate of one of their partners in crime drops below expected levels, players will have to up their game considerably; engineering elaborate traps to distract and confuse the enemies, or go for the holy grail, and eliminate all of them in one fell swoop. Luckily, there is no small number of ways to deal with these scenarios when you embrace Batmans arsenal of gadgets, and patient players could no-doubt spend countless hours crafting detailed games of human-dominoes. When it all comes together just right, Batman will be swooping in and out of the shadows, hanging Joker’s men from gargoyles, dragging them into underground vents, blowing out the walls and ceiling around them with his explosives, or pulling them off their feet with his grappling gun. Although the stealth sections are tougher to milk joy from (at least for an impatient berserker like me), the satisfaction of a plan coming together is immense.

Utility Belt: Gadgets and Platforming
As we all know, Batman relies heavily on his bespoke Bat-gadgetry in order to compensate for his lack of actual super powers, and fittingly Bats’ handy gadgets find themselves central to the experience of almost any part of the game. Finding, building or unlocking new gadgets is key to progression through the free roaming world of Arkham Asylum, and they will inevitably be employed during combat, stealth and all the platforming involved in between. Not wishing to reveal all the goodies that will be lining your utility belt by the conclusion, one of the most vital is Bruce’s infamous grapple gun, which is mercifully unrestrained. Whereas in the demo it was attuned only to the interior gargoyles, in the full game it will willingly latch onto any ledge or surface it deems sturdy enough (don’t worry, this is most of them) and allows Batman to scale buildings with the expected ease. The explosive gel and Batclaw can both be used to take out enemies and knock down those classic cracked videogame walls, but that isn’t the tool you will find yourself reaching for the most often. Whether it is a reliable default Batarang flung to pop a poisonous spore, disarm an armed thug, distract a behemoth or smash a pair of chattering nashers, or it is an upgraded model used to curve around corners, overload suicide collars or stun multiple targets, this truly is the Bat-gadget of a thousand uses. A veritable pair of rubber lips. A testament to the developer’s devotion to diversity, new gadgets or new uses for old gadgets are always on the horizon, expanding the experience and tailoring progress through the Island.

The World’s Greatest Detective: Crime Scenes and Bio-Scans
And at the heart of Batman’s technological arsenal is one of Wayne Tech’s true crowning achievements, “Detective mode”. Once activated, it pools information from the environment, painting the world blue so that all points of interest are helpfully revealed in red. At some points in the game detective mode must be employed to investigate marked areas tagged as “crime scenes” for a trace source Batman can subsequently track through the Asylum. These range from fingerprints to pheromones and perfumes, and it is a huge credit to Rocksteady the detail that goes into even this comparatively minor part of the game. For example, when Batman scans the fingerprints of his target, prints are highlighted everywhere in the room, he then reconfigures his criteria a moment later to match only recent prints, and the majority fall away to reveal the relevant path. It would have been so easy to not bother including the extra prints during that dialogue sequence, or skipping the concept altogether, and it warms the soul that neither shortcut was taken.

Batman Meets Bioshock: Freedom and Limitation
As name dropping goes, Bioshock will always be synonymous with state of the art immersion and atmosphere. On a personal level Rapture always reminds me of how you can achieve the illusion of total freedom in even the most classically linear claustrophobic environment, merely by ensuring any limitations put on the player are believable and realistic. It is clear why Rocksteady chose Arkham Island; it provides the perfect backdrop for this gritty re-imagining of the comic book mythos and places restrictions on the player’s movement which they will accept and understand without question. Batman is a difficult character to contain, but at no time did it feel I was being unceremoniously funnelled or unfairly blocked by contrived invisible walls or impassable knee high fences.

Gloriously Gothic: Visuals and Art Direction
This actually marks the first game I have played entirely in HD, which if visuals were ice cream, is a bit like adding rainbow sprinkles and a flake. Beautifully rendered, Arkham Asylums environmental design is utterly gorgeous, and although it might not have the visual range of Rapture, no expense has been spared in bringing each corner of it to life. Given that most of the game is spent in dank corridors and cell blocks, it would have been all too easy to re-use and repeat the same brick and rock textures and props ad infinitum like the recurring wall of some low budget animation. Instead Rocksteady again impress with a level of detail and polish too rare in this industry, creating a truly genuine slice of Batman’s grim gothic universe for gamers to explore. So confident in their character design and unflinching devotion to detail, players can even unlock turntables of the character models called “trophy’s”, where they can poke and prod at each nook and cranny and zoom in on every normal mapped wrinkle and crease. The only exception to the games visual quality is the guns, which for some reason look like malformed lumps of plastic up close. And as is typical of the Unreal Engine, the whole game is enveloped in a constant plastic sheen and glittering with bloom, which may be off putting to some, but not I, who appreciated the feel of the gloomy moonlight kissing the gothic architecture.

To be really Critical: AI, Maps and Backtracking
Unfortunately, even if I was still doing numerical values, Arkham Asylum would not quite be a perfect 10. Attempting to be a jack of all trades usually results in being a master of none, so while it is still a remarkable achievement that each side of Asylums gameplay could stand proudly beside the majority of even its more specialised peers without losing much of its lustre, I would be turning a blind critical eye if I didn’t highlight the minor irritations that scuff if not dent the Batman experience. Although the stealth-orientated rooms are pitch perfect in many regards, the accessibility of those sections are enabled primarily by notoriously dense and predictable AI, who apparently suffer from debilitating cases of selective blindness, short term memory loss and hearing difficulties. I feel this was a necessary evil to grease the stealthly wheels and prevent frustration, but venturing onto such an uneven playing field occasionally feels unfairly easy. Similarly Batman’s 360 degree prowess is made possible by an almost supernatural ability to move across the room to distant enemies in any direction. Although there are long range animations in place, occasionally Bruce will still unnaturally glide across the floor in order to connect with your chosen target, a rare departure from the otherwise superlative choreography of the combat system. And while Arkham Asylum provides a magnificent stage, the sprawling corridors of the Asylums interiors; all automatic doors, vent systems, multiple floors and staircases, can often be confusing to traverse. This confusion was notably aggravated by the map only being available in the pause menu, forcing me to regularly swap back and forth to check my orientation lest I find myself a dozen rooms shy of my intended destination, backtracking accidentally through huge chunks of a previous area. This is by far the games most grating oversight.

Rogues Gallery: Patient Tapes, Profiles and Psychosis
The early spin was that the setting of Arkham Asylum would be used to explore the hearts and minds of Batman’s rogues gallery, delving into the darkness of their psyche’s (and Batman’s) as players themselves delved into the bowels of the Asylum. This lofty goal was perhaps always out of reach of a game already so far stretched, but the patient tapes (Another feather borrowed from Bioshocks cap) do at least provide further insight into how deep the well of madness and hatred runs for some of Gothams foulest, while the unlockable character profiles and environmental Easter eggs pay numerous nods to the regular patients there just wasn’t time to address in full. Look out for a certain sub zero cell in the extreme incarceration area, a cameo by a disturbingly short wooden gangster and an impossibly changeable figure behind smeared glass. Each villain has been tweaked, either subtly or overtly, to be far darker, more monstrous and more definitively terrifying than previous incarnations, ensuring that despite the basis in comic book lore, the universe has grown up with its audience. The grim intent and merciless nature below the coloured capes and elaborate schemes crackle and bubble on the edge of outright horror. Perhaps most striking is their interpretation of the Riddler; his trademark condescending arrogance and elitism exaggerated to create a truly dark and obsessive character with echoes of Jigsaw.

It's a tragedy however, that the boss battles with these re-imagined villains are ultimately mundane repetitive affairs reeking of old videogame cliche's and tired tropes. Your showdown with Bane sees you evade his charge at the last moment so he smacks his head on a wall and gets dizzy. Yeah, do that 3 more times. It's not games design befitting such a polished clever title, and will be a key aspect ripe for Rocksteady to improve on in the sequel.

Breaking the Batman: Joker’s laughter and Scarecrow’s nightmares
The voice talent in the game is provided primarily by alumni of the original animated series, chief among them Mark Hamill and Kevin Conroy. Hamill’s vocal range is nothing short of stunning, capable of reaching anything from the highs of Joker’s shrill laughter, mad giggling and deranged joy, the crackling darkness under the surface of a sick joke, to the depths of his screaming unrestrained rage. As is fitting of his splintered personality, Asylum’s Joker can be jovial and fun-loving one moment, mercilessly brutal the next. Sometimes this dichotomy is uncomfortably stark, but when the balance is right there is no denying the potency of Hamill’s performance. The Joker’s overarching goal in the game is to put Batman through the worst night of his life, to finally “break” the Batman, reflected in Bats’ increasingly torn and battered armour and gradual stubble as the game wears on. For that psychological toll to hit home with players though, I feel the experience would have had to be more of a harrowing task for the gamers themselves and instead, the game is of course an absolute blast. The most effective weapon in Rocksteady’s psychological arsenal is Scarecrow’s fear gas, which transports Batman into a nightmare universe where he must face his worst memories and darkest thoughts. At first intriguing, this part of the game later becomes an opportunity for some games design so experimental and 4th wall defying that Kojima himself would be proud.

Conclusion: The definitive Batman experience
Arkham Asylum is a borderline masterpiece. Drawing all the best elements from the comic books, movies, animated series and other mediums, it paints a familiar but unique portrayal of the Batman universe. Dark and believable but still rich in the vibrancy of the original material. The gritty atmosphere of Arkham Island and its gothic visuals is close to flawless, and the gameplay is top notch to match, capably addressing every aspect of Batman’s considerable arsenal of talents, and always layering on new enemy types, new gadgets, new mechanics, new set pieces, new boss battles and new paths to explore, ensuring a truly diverse experience that never grows tired or tepid. The combat is a brutally satisfying spectacle, the stealth sections are open ended and true to character, the gadgets are suitably ingenious and the investigation elements are a welcome aside, but as an ensemble Arkham Asylum is even stronger than the sum of its parts.

And in the midst of all this, the designers still find room to experiment with delivery and form; watch out for the first person sequence towards the games conclusion and the aforementioned Scarecrow segments. The level of visual and creative polish, the attention to detail, the devotion to diversity, the inspired control system and unquestionably high-end production values all make this one of the best games of the year, and hot off the heels of The Dark Knight, it certainly seems to be a good time to be wearing a black cape. Perhaps the greatest disappointment was that the game ended at all. I wanted more villains, more gadgets, more rooms of enemies to defeat, I wanted to escape the confines of Arkham and explore Gotham; foil Two Face’s bank robberies and beyond. I can only pray for a sequel, as the tasty slice of Batman’s universe Arkham Asylum generously provides makes me hungry for the world beyond the Islands walls. Must Play for anyone who is a fan of Batman or top quality action games.

[Review originally written/posted September 1st 2009]
.. I chose to re-post this one in anticipation of the confirmed sequel: Arkham City. My most wanted title of the moment!

Intellectual Property

2011-03-10T13:46:00.001-08:00

I honestly can't remember a time when I was still nursing the fragile delusion of working on “my own ideas” within the first 5-10 years of a job in the games industry. If ever. I shouldn't have to tell anyone that videogames are big business; even large studios often live and breathe on the success of each project, which means they have to play it safe for the sake of their employees. What game a studio makes next will rarely be decided by the vision of a singular designer, or even a room of like-minded designers. It will be by the rise and fall and flow of the fickle market-place and it's callous shifting demographics. Existing brands and licenses are the wind beneath the wings of most green-lit projects, and even truly "new" IPs are often spiritual sequels, or designed to catch the coat-tails of a recent success story. You don't pick your projects, at least not out of thin air.

Limit Break:
Honestly though, I don't really have a problem with the situation. Working in a large company I am safe in the knowledge my ideas and influence, though perhaps not industry or genre-defining, are reaching an incredible audience. As I gradually progress up the ladder and the years roll by, that influence will hopefully increase. Just because the project and idea is chosen for you, doesn't mean there isn't a lot of scope for making that project and idea your own from that provided starting point. It's just one more variation of being creative within limitations, a mantra that I think defines most creative industry's from ground level up to the tip of each ivory tower. Resources might be limited, time might be short, there might be a client or publisher making particular demands, the market-place might change; it's under those pressures that design becomes design. After all, design is problem-solving. How can you design without first encountering some problems? I can tell already that I'll find plenty of challenge and excitement in my day job, working within the realistic expectations of the industry. As I said, I never expected to be suggesting the next Gears of War to a meeting room of financiers (I think we have plenty of those already anyway) and I certainty don't expect to be bored because of it.

Feasibility Smeasibility:
Nonetheless, I definitely can't go cold turkey on what I like to call "pie-in-the-sky" or "blank page" designing. For over 10 years parts of my brain have operated outside the realms of market-pandering and general feasibility, designing game ideas and mechanics without worrying much or at all about the opinions of a stuffy no nonsense publisher down-the-line. There is a dose of reality in most of them, but when my day job demands constant grounded realism and understanding of an actual studio's time, and resources, and budget, I still need an outlet for the wild and wonderful and hey, stupid. I think it's healthy, and will provide my remorselessly creative side room to breathe and conceptualise, while I learn the focused tactics and approaches related to genuine implementation in the day-time. It's a fine balance I intend to maintain. At first I'll be posting some un-explored game ideas from my University backlog (with fresh communicative art to keep the dust off my Wacom tab) but already some people are asking me about the indie market..

Indie Hard:
Of course I have an interest in working on an independent game! I don't think many designers would claim otherwise. Having escaped from under the weight and distraction of crunch, I am in possession of a once-rare commodity: free time. Some of which I have admittedly sacrificed by setting up the new format of this blog.. but, I think indie games, like the writing of a novel, are exciting interests that can (at least at first) be comfortably pursued alongside a 9-5 commitment. I never wanted to "go indie", I prioritised the security and reach of a larger company over the struggles and growing pains of trying to go it alone; I also have little interest in the business and marketing side of the coin. Nonetheless, having settled into TT Fusion and finishing with education, gathering a small team and creating something of my own design for the app store or Steam is an attractive concept I WILL eventually look into. Ideally though, I want to first test the water by contributing myself to the indie/personal projects of other designers, get an idea of the challenges and necessary tools for such undertakings. Also, I need to make a code-savvy friend. Enthusiastic, reliable programmers (that you don't pay) are gold-dust. Still, let it be known that I'm this very moment mentally adding "research starting an indie project" on my 2012 end-of-the-world bucket list. Watch this space, you'll be the first to know.

In other news, production has completed on Lego Pirates of the Caribbean, the second TT-Fusion title where I hold a Design credit. Check it out, coming soon to DS, PSP and 3DS. And also some consoles, probably.

Thanks for reading!
-Steve

Wings Review: Metro 2033, Life is hard in the Metro

2011-03-10T11:29:00.000-08:00

The year is 2033 and once again, humanity finds itself in a post-apocalyptic nightmare of it's own creation. A devastating nuclear war has reduced the surface to an inhospitable wasteland of radiation and toxic gas, so in Moscow, the survivors have retreated into the labyrinthine underground Metro system, forming a makeshift civilization of station-cities that struggle for survival against hordes of slavering mutants. Yes, life is indeed hard in the Metro.

I think for most of us, it's a rare treat to walk into a movie theater completely unencumbered by preconception. We'll have seen a trailer, heard a verbal review, read a synopsis. By the same token, I'll generally have a pretty firm grasp on what a game is about before I crack open it's case; it's almost unheard of for me to put finger to keyboard or control pad without fore-knowledge of a title. I was lucky enough to do that here with Metro 2033. I let it do it's own talking, and it drew me into a bleak and unforgiving universe of suffocating darkness and despair, just as promised on the back of the box.

Last Ring Syndrome: Survival Horror and Difficulty
Metro 2033 is old school hardcore survival horror. Don't expect any hand holding or molly coddling here, because as bleak and unforgiving as the universe itself is, the gameplay is eager to match. The weapons don't lack impact, but are clunky and unreliable. Ammunition is extremely scarce, and the enemies are viciously fast. This isn't a softcore console horror like Bioshock, you won't find yourself tripping over health and ammo with every second step. Instead, cautious rationing and resource management is vital. And it isn't just health and ammo you will have to juggle. The air on the surface and certain deeps of the Metro is toxic, requiring you to maintain a gas mask and filter attachments for it. Horrifyingly, despite the rarity of decent ammo, most enemies won't drop easily and it can take as much as two shotgun shells at point blank to keep them down. This is not helped by the majority of the mutant enemies being short beastly creatures with a tendency to mill around your feet and waist, battering at you with tooth and claw as you struggle to turn to catch them.

In those moments, the controls seem overladen with commands, and you have no choice but to swap from weapon to weapon, scrambling for a gun with a bullet in it like a scared cheerleader fumbling her keys in a slasher movie. I actually felt unrealistically helpless during such situations, impotently brandishing my empty, useless revolver while I was shredded to death. My kingdom for a blunt melee attack. A push, a kick, some last ditch “get'er off me!” movement. Such a thing was noticeable in it's absence, and sorely missed. But, the awareness of just how frail and human your character is, of your inability to properly defend yourself and how precious every shot in your pistol is, led to a palpable sense of desperation and dread. Yes, the games atmosphere is grim and oppressive, haunting and eerie, but that merely sets the stage. There is something far more potent at work here; gamer fear. Metro 2033 is like playing Sonic and being on your last ring. All. The. Time. Relentlessly intense, punishingly challenging, but in its cruelty, it manages to put the player right in the shoes of its protagonist, lost and desperate in the darkness.

Abandon All Hope: Looter and Lonely
For much of the game, you will actually have a range of AI comrades to help you find your way between the safe zones. Although seemingly a kindness, this design choice is in itself quite devious, because almost just as often, that help will be taken away. Your ally will be killed, indisposed or separated from you. And when that happens, you suddenly become very aware of how alone you are in those tunnels, without anyone to watch your back. Interestingly, all items are worn visibly on the belts, jackets and backpacks of both allies and enemies, and all must be picked up individually, a subtle addition that lends itself to the feeling of “scavenging” for your supplies. Stealing what remains of your enemies ammo and air filters is a necessity when facing other humans, but grave robbing is much more common, and you'll find yourself scanning the area for corpses and lockers, just to check for that vital next round or fresh gas mask. In this dystopian future, it's looters keepers.

Waste not, Want not: Currency and Shops
As you might expect, nuclear war has caused mankind to re-arrange its priorities, and traditional currency has lost it's value. Instead, “military-grade” ammunition has become the prize of the economy. The majority of the shells you spend on enemies is in fact low caliber “dirty” ammo (which goes some distance to explaining why it seems so weak and ineffective) while contemporary high-quality ammo can be exchanged for goods and services. In a particularly tight spot, you can actually hold the reload key to swap the shinier ammo into your weapon, but the thought of losing my currency at 1 credit a second seemed more horrifying than the game over screen. Despite this, I feel I must have done it on a few occasions by accident, as every time I visited a weapon trader I was embarrassingly beggar-poor, with nothing but moths in my wallet. This actually led to one of my major gripes with Metro 2033.

During the first half of the game, you visit regular safe zones, each with shops just full of wonderful things you couldn't possibly afford. At the time, I assumed from the prominence of the Metro map that perhaps I'd eventually be allowed to wander the system open world style, or would be backtracking through these areas again as a hardened metaphorically “higher level” hero. But, no. Not only did I never return to those shops, but by the time I was hoarding enough military-grade ammo to buy the equipment I so coveted, traditional shops were few and far between. More often, I was given access to pick-and-mix armories and weapon stashes; mostly stacked with guns similar in quality to what I had already stolen from particularly generous corpses. In fact, the things that made the equipment so expensive and attractive were the advanced scopes and silenced attachments, things that are only useful against human enemies. By the time I could afford those items, I was almost purely facing mutants, who are on you so fast that neither scope nor silencer is going to make a difference. And thus, the game comes to a sudden conclusion before you have time to spend your numerous “coin” or find use for that super sweet sniper rifle.

Under Cover of Darkness: Stealth and AI
I've mentioned human enemies a few times now. Yes, apparently not even nuclear war or imminent extinction by mutant army is going to unite our unfortunate and bitter species under a single banner. Several factions have emerged within the Metro, most notably the fascist Nazi movement and Marxist “Red's”, along with ragtag groups of bandits, who have set up camp in some of the less popular tunnels between the station cities. Unlike the clawed uglies you spend the rest of the game battling, humans are heavily armored and often heavily armed, turning these encounters into extremely challenging stealth sections. I reviewed Splinter Cell Conviction last month, but Metro 2033 still makes me feel like I haven't played a stealth game in years.

Don't think that when the threat is homo-sapien the game will be any less intense. The crippling tension merely changes footing, forcing players to watch every choice and step they make, holding their breath as sentries pass inches from their hiding place. Brushing against objects causes them to creak and clatter, and the hostile camps are scattered with fatal traps, stringed paint cans, and patches of broken glass that crunch loudly underfoot; each sure to automatically alert everyone in a mile radius. Like most stealth sections in non-stealth games, the results are not ideal. A lot of play time has to spent waiting out patrol cycles, trying to spot an intended window to progress or get a sneaky kill, snuffing out torches to make areas darker, all the stuff I was pleased I wasn't doing in Conviction. The AI really isn't equipped for stealth and is jarringly eagle-eyed or laughably oblivious depending solely on a light-meter on the characters watch. The watch has 3 lights, explaining how “visible” the player is to enemies currently, another reminder of Splinter Cell. At the third light, you may as well have a foghorn and a lighthouse on your head. My main issue with this organic HUD aspect is how the watch is off screen when holding the most stealthy weapon of all, the throwing daggers. Plus, if you run out of daggers or for whatever reason can't retrieve one you have thrown, then you're outta luck, son. That's the only non-silenced weapon in your arsenal capable of a “stealth” kill. Even the machete tends to inspire a last minute scream. I never did find a bow weapon to use those damned arrow heads.

Mutant X: Enemy Design and Nosalis
Hostile humans tend to wear the same grimy leathers and woolen ruskie vests that you and your allies do, but I was hoping for something a little more creative from the disappointingly generic “Nosalis” mutants. Although there are exceptions, the aforementioned waist-high beasts are merely goblin-esque, which doesn't quite tickle my fear center. The “lurkers” are more disturbing; emaciated rat-dogs with human faces, who sporadically stretch up on their hind legs to wail eerily. The “librarians” were meanwhile a considerably missed opportunity. When my companion explained that I had to maintain eye contact and never turn my back on them, I was hyped for a truly unique and terrifying monster... that turned out to be a kind of ape with a lions mane. Instead of the piercing eyes I expected, they wore a quizzical, almost comical expression. A tragic waste. There is a higher echelon of mutation however; an evolved form of humanity the survivors know as “the dark ones”. These lanky stalking humanoids bring the tunnels of the Metro an entirely different kind of horror. One deeper and more supernatural, inflicting the protagonist with abstract hallucinations and stirring lost spirits to wander the darkness.

Rat got your tongue?: Narrative and Protagonist
The story itself was entertaining, but it's delivery was conflicted. During gameplay, protagonist “Artyom” plays the role of the classic mute FPS character, never uttering a word to anyone around him. The goal of the mute character archetype in a videogame is to create a blank slate for the player to imprint their own personality onto, yet Artyom is not an empty vessel. Between levels, there is a loading screen wherein he dryly narrates coming events in the past tense, offering his perspective, and revealing an existing personality. You can't have it both ways 4A. The disparity is all the more glaring when characters desperately try to communicate with Artyom through his radio, and comically, receive no attempt at response. Come in? The guy doesn't talk! Despite this, Artyom is apparently extremely likable, with everyone he meets leaving with the impression he is a stand-up guy, or greeting him with a warm smile of recognition. I can only assume this is a similar phenomenon to that guy who hangs out with a group of friends and never speaks, yet finds himself an esteemed member of the group simply because he never rocks the boat by saying something negative.

I must admit I didn't like the game being divided by those narrated loading screens. I hate textual exposition in games, particularly games of this production quality, and considering the next area loaded in less than 3 seconds, the screen was almost as useless as most of what Artyom rambles on about. At best, his pre-chapter past-tense narration would spoil an upcoming twist.

The Lighting Fantastic: Visuals and Graphics
After many years of “making do”, I finally have a PC and screen to do games like Metro 2033 justice; so was able to witness the game at it's most attractive and highest setting. The art direction and atmosphere is close to perfection; crafting a desolate and decaying world both terrible and beautiful. Considering the majority of the game is spent in endless dimly-lit grungy tunnels, it's impressive how Metro's environmental design remains compelling and internally varied, never bland or empty. The Metro itself is a harrowing maze of rotted wood and brick, rust-stained metal pipes and machinery, peeling paint and forgotten socialist architecture, the surface a wasteland of ashen skies, frozen buildings and scarred earth. The tunnels are suitably claustrophobic and cluttered with bodies and scrap, the textures are gritty and intricate, but the real feather in Metro 2033's technical cap is it's lighting and particle effects. Warm reds, cold blues, eerie greens and dim yellows splash up the dark walls and stream realistically through cracks and doorways, while wisps of smoke, mist and smog cling to the air. On the grim canvas of the Metro, these effects are all the more powerful.

Sound of Silence: Sound Effects and Dialogue
As this is a survival horror game, playing on all the players senses is vital to the experience, and sound is a potent weapon that 4A wields skillfully. Artyoms ragged breath and beating heart thumping in your ears is enough to lay the foundations of claustrophobic panic, while somewhere off screen, chains rattle, metal grinds, pipes groan and creatures growl and scream and cackle horribly, tightening your mental grip on your rifle. The characters all speak in slurred Hollywood Russian drawls, so that you know you are in Russia, but don't technically need subtitles. The hybrid accents range from acceptable to embarrassing, with Artyom's own narration being detached and articulate, yet faintly uncomfortable. Like a high-school student reciting prose in a class play. After I finished the game someone recommended I swap to full Russian in conjunction with English sub-titles, for a more authentic experience. I might recommend anyone intending to their own play through does the same.

Unfortunately, I personally encountered what I can only assume is a glitch; which led to all sound effects and dialogue clips playing at full volume once activated. This was not an issue in the tunnels, (save for robbing me of the ability to tell how far away the source of the noise was) but in the crowded populated station-cities, the throng of voices and conversations bellowing out of my headphones was maddening. I felt like a fledgling psychic unable to shut out the thoughts of the people around me. Alas, I've been unable to verify if this issue is universal or specific to my machine.

Conclusion:
Metro 2033 is a gritty hardcore survival horror FPS; relentlessly punishing and furiously intense. Not a game for the faint of heart or weak of wrist, nor short of patience. The atmosphere is heavy with tension and dread, resources are scarce and demand careful rationing. Ammunition is perhaps scarcest of all, and there is horror around every corner. Depending on the type of gamer you are, this will make Metro 2033 a superbly involving and immersive experience, or a frustrating nightmare. It's certainly not a run and gun shooter, but for the right kind of player, it's an extremely sophisticated and engrossing title.

[Review originally written/posted May 28th 2010]

Too Long, Didn't Read

2011-03-08T18:21:00.000-08:00

Hello and welcome to the Blog formerly known as Dexter's Blab. As you can see, it's all change here at the blogspot; new name, new header, new bio, and new topics of discussion. I'm not commonly one for self-reflection, but having finished the Masters, and thus University and education as a whole, while having very recently completed a project at work (bringing to an end the unforgiving crunch marathon I've been running since November) this is doubtless the end of an era. In fact without a weekly trip to University keeping the rear-view mirror in focus, I can't help but feel this is the start of a new, fresh chapter for me. The perfect time for a blog re-imagining.

As the unnecessarily regular and lengthly updates imply, I really enjoyed writing and maintaining Dexter's Blab, but it's guiding purpose has always been to act as a Reflective Diary, a mandated submission requirement of my course. I could simply leave it behind as a relic of those days and that work, but instead, I've decided it's a much better idea to re-invent it as something, sort of new. Most of you probably aren't aware, but prior to Dexter's Blab I maintained a page on IGN's frenzied blogosphere where I posted reviews and opinion-pieces, purely for my own enjoyment and personal musings. I had a meager yet dedicated following that enjoyed growth spurts during the rare times I posted more than twice a month, and in my surprise and appreciation for those who dared delve into my three to five thousand word essays-posing-as-reviews, I lovingly re-named the blog “Too Long, Didn't Read”. It's under that dubious flag that this blog will now rest, TLDR re-incarnated.

With no coursework to report back on, and my day job being too sensitive a topic to approach while under the foreboding shadow of an NDA, TLDR 2.0 will be home to a few different forms of post. I'll be tagging each of them via a clever “pinned” link bar, which you can now hopefully see above. Credit for this stroke of inspiration goes to Miss Hannah Jones.

TLDR Reviews:
The new and improved TLDR will again feature both videogame and movie reviews. I've long nurtured more than a passing interest in journalistic writing. If the worst had happened and my Games Design aspirations had crashed and burned, writing is likely the only career path even close to a back-up profession that I might have entertained, save a recent taste for tutoring. I've been a dabbler and a part-timer though, never wanting to divide my attentions too much away from my main goals in work and education, but with the dream job achieved, I now have a lot more time to explore writing. I think I'll start with trying to be more succinct ;) ..and not relying on emoticons to achieve tone. It's also about time I started playing games properly again anyway.

Brain Storm:
These will be thoughtful articles and opinion-pieces where I provide a perspective on topical discussions, games design principles and practice, issues facing the contemporary games industry, general entertainment, and occasionally, random off-the-wall things. But never live-journal-esque self indulgence, I hate blogs about that stuff. I may even submit the popular favorites from this label to other related websites for publishing.

Wings Review:
Some of you might remember that towards the end of last year I was working part-time as a staff writer for a small games site called “If Men Had Wings”. I eventually admitted I was juggling too much and retired my digital quill, and soon after, the site shut down. Probably no connection. Regardless, the sites closing down means all online record of my Wings exclusive reviews have been deleted, and I'd like for them to rest somewhere, as I honestly feel they were some of my best most professional attempts at journalistic writing. Hopefully no one has a problem with me gradually re-posting them here, for the sake of internet-clad posterity.

TLDR Greatest Hits:
In a similar vein, I'll be brushing the cobwebs off some of my entries in the original TLDR. The chosen few will earn brief exhumation from the archives so they can enjoy the feel of a fresh set of eyes and a fresh dose of sunshine. Originally I'd hoped these would merely be collections of links to the still happy and hosted content over at IGN. Alas not, IGN has butchered it's mark-up of late, and my old reviews/articles got mauled in the process. I still harbor some pride about a handful of those pieces, and although they got plenty of feedback during first-posting, I have many new followers who might appreciate them anew.

Intellectual Property:
As I settled more into the job, University became more and more important as an outlet for excess creative energy; it's a place where sensible realistic limits like resource-management, time-constraints, publisher demands and approval, even general feasibility, can become irrelevant. The course is finished now, but the no-holds-barred pie-in-the-sky design method is too refreshing and freeing to give up completely. I know I'll never stop thinking of new game concepts and mechanics, scribbling them in notebooks and on the back of my eyelids while I try to sleep, and so Intellectual Property will be devoted to short descriptions of ideas for games and gameplay that will likely never go anywhere. But that's not the point, is it? ..I will discuss other future directions for “Intellectual Property”, including possibilities of personal projects and independent games, in an upcoming post.

Dexter's Blab:
There won't be any more of these, but this is the label under which all my previous MA- diary related posts up to now will be safely filed.

..and that's the new set up here at Too Long, Didn't Read. I have several other interests that might creep into the blog, my progress and experiences in the industry being likely candidates should I find the right NDA-friendly words, but I hope most of you stick around for the blogspots new direction regardless.

As ever, thanks for reading. That at least, will always be the same.

-Steve

Semesters End III

2011-03-01T09:24:00.000-08:00

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? A season has almost come and gone since my last post. Back in November, the time of my last blog posting, 2011 was a coveted utopian future just slightly out of reach, and now it is here. It’s pretty much as good as advertised.

Happy New Year, 2011
Indulge me the delay in this 2011 celebration, for due to project extensions at University and Fusion, January found itself filed under 2010 clean-up rather than as a true blue entry in 2011, like the first episode of a TV series devoted to cutting off the lingering plot threads of the last seasons cliffhangers. I knew this going in, and don’t really begrudge those extra weeks, heck knows I needed the time, especially when it comes to the Masters. Josh "Dad Joke Historian" Taylor cleverly rejigged the MA show as our official submission, granting a stay of execution, a grace period between Christmas and New Year where we could polish past the rushed hand-ins some of us were nursing. It was appreciated and used to advantage; even if I still harbor a sincere dislike for my semester 3 submission, and will likely regret it’s nature and quality until the day I die… it turns out they gave me the distinction anyway! BOOM. Masters with Distinction. Unleash the ticker-tape and balloons, re-release whatever doves survived my job-getting celebration. It appears I actually did it all. I got the job, I got the distinction, I even paid off my career development loan last week. Happy New Year indeed.

Masters of the Universe
It's perhaps poor form on my part to skip to the happy ending without detailing the grind and struggle of the hapless hero beforehand. Messes up the flow, squanders any hope of tension or emotional investment, and lord knows you won't see any character development.. So, let's try this again: Firstly I spent what was probably too long on the Dissertation module. I had planned to knock it out of the park in a week flat, confident in my ability to ramble my way through something as simple as a glorified essay. As it turns out however, I have always spent my wad by around 3000 words. Under any normal circumstances this is way too much, but here was a project suggesting 8000 as a guideline… Although this forced some minor padding of my core points, I was and am very proud of my finished dissertation. Unlike the rest of my hand-in, I feel it is becoming of a final year MA student, and I truly enjoyed it in the writing. It earned me what is to my recollection, my highest mark on record, bursting out of the 80s to the high 90s. I may polish and post it somewhere, someday.

The rest of my efforts were less to my liking, and I (to my regret) struggled and moaned my way to the finish line. If my install-base here at blogspot recalls, my practical project was to be an instructional video detailing my “process” when designing a game. It would be intended to act as a guideline for beginning designers on the course, specifically the steer them away from the pitfalls of story or setting to valuing genre-defining mechanics, finding a “hook” as an anchor (if I’m to mix my metaphors) for new ideas. The visuals of this video were then to be simple humorous analogies of my words to the wise. Alas, the road to a very mediocre submission is seemingly paved with good intentions. I despise the simplicity of the videos slides, and I don’t know how many of you have edited videos in the past and are aware of the declining fondness for whatever audio you are synching to the imagery, but I was editing with my own voice, and I got very sick of it. Contrary to popular opinion, I do NOT like the sound of my own voice. It seems I am hard to understand and I talk way too quickly, dare I say I think faster than my lips can move, and I am SO Irish, god. My condolences to my friends and girlfriend who hear it week to week. Such is my frustration at my ineptitude for mic recording that I am officially listing “develop a proper radio voice” as a short-term life goal. I wish I was this guy. ..apart from the drug addiction and homelessness that is. For the moment I don’t intend to post the final video here or on youtube out of shame, but I did discover a fantastic little web series on The Escapist called “Extra Credits”, which is basically exactly what I was trying to achieve; produced by much more veteran practiced industry personalities, that are actually audible without reduction to 50% speed. Cheers to Mr Thom Rosell of third year for the nudge towards this series. Wish I’d seen it sooner, I would’t have bothered.

As I read back that paragraph though I burn with hypocrisy, as I am constantly telling the undergrad students how blogs like these should be shiny happy optimistic places. Remember kids, "pointing out your mistakes is someone else's job". To be honest, most everyone else seemed to either forgive this blip on my otherwise quality radar, humor me, or genuinely like the video on its instructional merits. Perhaps I was just too close to it, and squinted too hard through my magnifying glass of perfectionism. Jim "Acting's short for Actually" Thompson even wants to use it as a teaching aide, much to my chagrin. Now I HAVE to go back and make it pride-worthy, tsk.

End of an Era
Despite it all turning out smiles, as you know, I was at the time unsure of the strength of my core practice exercise (the video) and I decided my final submission and accompanying show needed some extra flash and dazzle. I was concerned it wasn't "enough" for a semester 3 MA student, but as I looked over all the documentation, research, concept art and theory I'd done over the months, my confidence steadied and I had a fresh brainwave. Genre, Hook, Setting. That IS my process, and I'd been doing it all along, even before I'd phrased it in 3-stage life-coach terminology. And this wasn't just the end of my Masters, it was the end of University, a major chapter in my life and road to a career, this was the FINALE. So, I padded my presentation with visual boards made up of my older favorite and successful projects, framed to show how Genre, Hook and Setting had been my guiding philosophy from 1st year BA to Masters level. Alongside these was, at the tutors request, a Clone Wars "coming soon" poster, "subtly" implying an apology for my divided attentions that year. Those poster boards are dotted throughout this entry.

Thoughts on the Masters, in retrospect? It's cheesy, but I am used to putting 100% into everything I do, which turns out to be only possible when you are doing one thing. You can’t actually have more than 100%, so the more I poured into my work at Fusion, and the more crunch Lego Clone Wars demanded, the more the scales tipped in favor of career over further academic ribbons. During the undergraduate years and those golden weeks in semester one (when this blog started) I didn’t even pursue a part-time job at Game or Tesco something; social fun-times aside (and my life is hardly Skins) I pretty much hammered through coursework with my every waking minute. Thus, I knew it was the best I could possibly do, and thus I was proud. It was sobering that in what should have been my last defining University hurrah, I was handing in work that was not actually my best. For the first time since I started Games Design, it was the best I could manage in the time I had, but not my best.. But you know what, it wasn't half bad, and there's a Distinction at the end of this story.

Congratulations to everyone in my MA class on their sterling presentations that put me to shame in the eleventh hour: Ben, Joe and Pete with their stunning playable levels and editor know-how, John with his realization of the fabled storyboard playburst, gloriously dark indie visuals and all, Scott with his super shiny banners and badass resin bots. Well done, chaps. I hope I see you all again more than once, and you go on to be stupid successful. May even see some of you at Fusion before the year is out.

What now?..
This happy new year and farewell to University post dragged on a bit longer than intended, so I'll save discussion of the next stage in this blogs life to another day. Although work is crushingly busying, I feel I do want to keep writing.. Tune in next time for some very big changes around the Blab. Frankly, I'm even thinking of changing the name.

As ever, thanks for reading.
-Steve

Forgeworld

2010-11-01T16:36:00.000-07:00

When you are describing an idea to someone for the first time, you should always remember that they WANT to understand. Their brain will be desperate for any and all information you can provide, automatically using a mix of foreknowledge and deductive logic to fill the inevitable blanks, doing whatever it can to form a complete and coherent image of the concepts being presented to it. Your audience is a blank canvas until you make your first brush stroke, and thus the trick is largely in what form and order you provide the information.

Open with broad familiar ideas, develop a comfortable context in order to prepare the minds eye to see what you want it to see. At the start of your explanation their mental palace is so empty that any first details you provide will fill the entire space, and all future information will be arranged around those first key moments. If you say something that exists and has powerful connotations already, like “Silent Hill”; then all new information will be placed within the context of an eerie horrific environment. If you say “Mario”, the mental canvas is already seeing floating pixel clouds on sky blue. The effect is however just as potent with less defined information, such as adjectives like “dark” or “manic” or “cartoony”. For most audiences, this whole effort of process is largely subconscious, which is why subtleties like aesthetics and semantics are so valued amongst the academic elite.

Personally, I tend to open a written game premise by stating the name, and the genre. The genre sets the stage early, but ironically I don't immediately jump to mechanics like I did in the conceptualization. I open with the setting and story. This is simply so that I can introduce the game worlds specific terminology early (character and ability names etc), and then use that custom vocabulary in the gameplay description. It also means that by the time they are processing and imagining the gameplay, it is within the context of the games universe and style.. rather than having to double back on themselves in order to put the two aspects together later. I would drop names of existing properties only after I make my own attempt at establishing a mental image, so that the referenced property merely acts as a safety net to fill any blanks, rather than the context in which my own ideas are being considered. Essentially it's the cement to my bricks. Anyway, as a Californian governor so eloquently once said, ENOUGH TALK!

Working Title: Forgeworld
Genre: Platformer

Setting:
Set in a far-off alternative future, humanity is long extinct and the planet has been left in the care of machines. Centuries of pollution and scavenging of resources followed by a further century of careless war has left Earth deeply ravaged. In order to guarantee their own survival, the machines have harvested and maintained what remains of the planet as best they can, and supplemented the natural ecosystem with various bio-mechanical alternatives; this leaves much of the planets surface covered with a combination of machine systems, semi-robotic plant-life and rare protected reserves... an organic world with a metal skin.

The player takes the role of 1-Zero, one of the many specialized AI units charged with maintaining this complex bio-mech eco-system; fixing faults, collecting information, analyzing anomalies; but his usual work is interrupted by the seeming invasion of a race of bizarre organic life forms; who are corrupting the system by planting their alien seeds and spreading floral roots through the circuitry and wires of the worlds new surface. It eventually becomes clear that this is not an invading alien race at all, but an aggressive defense mechanism from within the planet itself... evolved in response to the machines own corruption of Earths organic infrastructure. The machines find themselves in a desperate battle to adapt and contain a threat from Earth itself.

Core Gameplay:
1-Zero is a relatively simple and lightweight AI unit designed for navigating the various platforms, ducts, belts, loops and tunnels of the planets complex bio-stations. Genetic profiles of extinct ape species such as chimps and spider-monkeys were used as a basic blueprint to create an ideally agile and limber climber. As such, 1-Zero is a perfect platforming protagonist and is capable of all the genres contemporary core actions... jumping, pole swinging, tight-rope walking, sliding, ledge shimmying, grinding, short wall runs and quick wall rebounds/jumps, hang-climbing... he also has three other NEW mechanics related to platforming:

Magnet: Essentially 1-Zero has magnetic palms, so he can “snap” to specialized magnetic pads throughout the bio-stations. This allows him to hang on certain spots of walls and ceilings between platforming, providing an island between actual platforms.

Boost: The player can charge up a boost by holding a button, and then release during an action to add a little extra potency to that action. This can be used to increase a jumps height or distance, to stretch the reach of a wall run, the speed of a run or grind... it can also be used in combat, which will be covered later. Because boost can be held and released, it can be tactically spent several times during certain complex platforming challenges.

Anchor: Utilizing a similar tactic to rock-climbers and spelunkers, 1-Zero carries a limited supply of “Anchors”; short-range teleportation devices which he can tag on any wall or surface. The player can then return to their last anchor at any time with the press of a button. Consider this an alternative to the “Rewind” mechanic from PoP with the same goal; minimizing the frustration of death within a genre which often requires “trial and error” approach and generally requires actions whose consequences must be instant failure. If the player misses a jump, 1-Zero can be ported back to the last anchor, rather than the last proper checkpoint. He can only carry 3 max, and refreshes his supply at special terminals which also act as save points.

Hack Panels:
The central mechanic of the game is being able to control and change aspects of the environment. There are numerous control panels/terminals throughout the stations which provide various types of control over nearby environmental features such as moving gears, pistons, elevators, platforms, electrical currents, bio-mech plants... by accessing and/or hacking these panels, 1-Zero can assign up to 4 of their functions to a control panel in his arm, and take them with him so he can peform them remotely on the fly. For example, a panel might feature the ability to rotate a wheel clockwise, rotate it anti-clockwise, extend a platform, raise the platform, and start/stop the wheel. While at the panel the player could take up to 4 of those actions along with him/her, so must strategically plan which is needed to progress while at the panel. This lends itself immediately to clever puzzle aspects and emergent freeform solutions also.

Nano Seeds:
1-Zero can also find different kinds of “seeds” which can be used in specialized areas known as “basins” throughout the levels. Each seed type allows 1-Zero to create a new environmental feature inside a basin, ranging from.. creeper vines which crawl up walls to create climbable surfaces, a grav-shroom which acts like a bounce/spring pad, a power-cell tree to provide infinite power cells (batteries useful for powering up some panels/areas), a pole-plant which extends pole swings in various directions, and even some defensive features like gun emplacements and mine-flowers, who spawn proximity mines. The feature in a used basin can also be deleted instantly for replacing, but 1-Zero will have to restock his seeds, as he won't get them back if he uses them and later deletes the result.

Exo-Suits:
1-Zero might be a light model, but he is also designed so that he can interface with custom “exo-suits” throughout the stations. Usually these suits are designed and used for his maintenance tasks, but in the wake of the new natural dangers of mutant plant-life, many have been re-purposed with military equipment. Outside the suits 1-Zero would be helpless, in one he has access to a wide range of attacks that mix boxer-style melee with the reach of fire-arms. The player only has to hold down a punch to extend the damage with a mounted fire-arm. Each melee move has a different fire-arm extension, allowing exciting potential for freeform combos.

..and that is the game idea.

From Magic Legs to Monkeys:
I was half-invested in a future post about the development of the characters design and how my idea for the story and setting subtly evolved as a reaction to that design, but I think the chicken-scratch I call conceptual sketches mostly speak for themselves in that regard. Originally I was pitching a human character in a robotic suit; actually a cripple whose suit was partially a prosthesis. Josh however argued that this was the most obvious, shallow answer. And he was right. My designs were largely heavy badass armour, which was just ASKING for a fight, I got caught up in my vision of the combat. The change to a non-human robotic character sent shock-waves through my intended plot, which was to see humans and machines sharing the planet. I didn't think gamers could empathize and connect with the machines if there was a human side going unexplored, so I cut the human element for a more aloof plot. My first redesigns were of a light humanoid robot, but Josh pushed me yet further, suggesting the machines wouldn't base a robot built for this role on a human, and so on and so on. I'm pleased with the eventual result of a rigorous day of reimaginings; the final 1-Zero is unique and distinctive in the genre, and should also be less of a chore to render frame after frame when I start the motion comic. I must say though, first Grease Monkey and now this, I hope I don't get typecast as the “monkey game” guy...

HELLO NOVEMBER! With a project at work nearing a crunchy crescendo and my home machine out-of-action, I promised myself that while October might not be ideal for tackling the meat of my workload, it would be committed to planning and preparation, getting all the thinking out of the way, so that all that remained from the crack of November 1st to the final deadline in December would be meaningful action. The How To Design series has provided a basic outline for my eventual video commentary as well as fulfilling almost all my research and reflection requirements for the practical, while rounding out a full game idea I need now only prepare proper art for. In that regard, October was a success, but it worries me how short November might turn out to be.

Luckily this semester beast has 2 heads, and I'll feel much better when I cut one off. Lock and load, it's dissertation time.

-Steve

Design For Dummies III: The Setting

2010-10-28T17:38:00.001-07:00

It always surprises me how many want-to-be designers get obsessed over their setting and story the minute they put pen to paper. I definitely don't underestimate how vital these elements are in defining and shaping a game idea, my second semester project proved how you can make an almost completely different game from the same core concept if you approach it differently in terms of narrative, presentation, setting and art direction. But, it equally proved that ultimately these aspects can often be changed without losing the “idea” itself.

For me, the trick is finding the right package in which to present your idea, the setting and story that will provide your idea the most opportunity to live up to it's potential and provide you the most breathing space as a designer. Hence for me it comes after, not long after, but after, the genre and the hook; which are the foundation and skeleton to the brick and meat of the rest. To recap...
The Genre: Platformer
The Hook: The player can move and alter the environment

Environ-Mental
Sometimes it takes a long time for me to decide on the right setting for a project, other times it is just immediately evident where I have to go from the idea itself. In this case, I only really explored three possible avenues. My first thought was that the environment would “of course” have to be organic in nature; malleable and “alive” so that it could move and change like the living levels of SoTC. I thought of a character who had control over nature, who could cause plants to sprout, trees to grow, branches to bend, roots to wrap and form bridges, flowers to blossom; all in a vast and organic world, rich in forest, vegetation and plant-life. I then thought that perhaps the character need not be limited by control of fauna, why not the power to crack and shape the earth, or to command water to become ice, fire to become a weapon?

This brought the player quite close to godlike control over the world around them, and it wasn't much of a jump from there to dropping the natural environment for a contemporary one. Shadows of Christopher Nolan's recent dreamy high-concept blockbuster Inception and reality-bending ancestor "Dark City" crept over my mind; painting pictures of a character who could wrap streets around the sky and warp the surface of buildings, re-write gravity., re-make physics.. Ultimately though, the contemporary route didn't feel right for this project. I wanted something a little more fantastical, and such godlike powers risked too ambitious and pipe-dream-esque a project to hold up as an example of genuinely good games design.

I went back to basics; ways that a character might affect the game world. An answer far more obvious can be found in a TV remote, or garage door opener. Humans can control machines from afar without need for magic or telekinesis; what if the world was mechanical, composed of various technological aspects the player had a “remote” for? Needless to say I quickly spiraled into a spider-web of sub-concepts related to this realization. The idea of a character “hacking” into parts of a mechanical environment to move, control, and organize machines for platforming was attractive, but I still liked the opportunities and atmosphere provided by my original organic world; the idea you could “grow” new environment features in a living setting. Sometimes, a compromise can lead to the best of both worlds...

But I don't want to spoil everything. Next time: I post actual work instead of pointless collections of topical images for the sake of splashing color between words. I know, about time.

Design For Dummies II: The Hook

2010-10-28T14:45:00.000-07:00

To be honest I'm not entirely sure where I first heard the term used, but in recent years “the hook” has become a regular guest in my day-to-day vocabulary, particularly in the games design studio. I'm not sure how often I say it, but now that I think about it, it must be a lot. During my brief stint as an associate lecture at the Uni in particular, I spent a good 30% of my day drumming the concept into cheerfully bemused skulls; so much so that I heard recently that “the hook” has become a mandatory submission requirement of several design-focused projects. As partial legacy's go, I'm pretty pleased about that, because I honesty do believe that “the hook” is a completely vital aspect of games design. So, obvious question from the audience, what is a hook?

Hook, Line and Sinker
The idea of a hook inevitably appears in all commercial industry's. In television and movies, the hook is often known as a single succinct sentence that instantly explains why your product deserves to exist. I don't really believe you can sum up every great show and movie in one magic line, but the sentiments of the practice are the same. What sets your product apart? What is the tangible feature unique to your idea that you can point to and say “that, that's why I am different, that is what sets me apart from the competition, and that is why you should care”. I have said this time and time again, but once more for luck: Your hook should not be story or setting based. You are making a game, so you need a mechanical gameplay-focused hook for it to be effective. As discussed in the last entry and the one before it, you need that gameplay hook in order to provide yourself the tools for competent and exciting level design later in the project... and also so that you can tackle the question “so what do you actually do in this game?” without crisis. This is particularly true in the University sense, because academic projects can't survive on presentation and story to carry the final experience like a product on a shelf might. When people ask what the game is and you describe a game they have already played “but with robot zombies!” you'll quickly recognize the mistake you have made. Well, hopefully you would. I mean, robots can't die so can't achieve undead status. Duh. Unless you mean robots programmed to act like zombies, in which case: don't be silly.

The hook comes into the equation very quickly after you take a glance over your chosen genre. If you open your eyes to it, you'll realize that most if not all of the successful games in your chosen genre (released since the foundation of the genres core framework) will sport their own unique hook, even if sometimes it's hidden amidst a smorgasbord of other USP's. Essentially, the hook is the king of your USP's.
Sonic the Hedgehog: Momentum physics and speed
Prince of Persia: Rewind time to undo mistakes
Ratchet and Clank: Weapon and equipment customization/purchase
Mario Galaxy: Gravitational surfaces
Crush: Swap between dimensions to flatten environment
'Splosion Man: Being able to explode ...

Although the hook is automatically the flagship of your USP fleet, by the time you are bringing your tome to the Print Shop for final binding, hooks can (and sometimes should) ultimately end up just one of a number of clever mechanics you have brought to the genre table. Still, I knew for this project that I needed a mechanic that would truly stand head and shoulders above the rest, and really ring out as an example of a meaningful hook. If you aren't careful a limp tepid, blunted hook can devolve into the hook's evil twin: the gimmick, which is a nightmare scenario. To this end, I very briefly juggled and discarded several somewhat lame “hooks”. The power to swap objects between solid, liquid and gaseous forms, the power to conduct electricity and hold/transfer hot and cold temperatures between locations, the ability to adjust your size to affect the environment at different levels, limited teleportation or being able to flip the world upside down.. lame stuff.

It is not a rule that the “hook” be a power or ability, it's just a common scenario because the hook will inevitably be something that is present for the majority of the game experience; a constant. This means that either the hook is connected to the rules of the universe/location the game takes place, in which case it affects not only the player but all other game characters in the same or similar ways (and the player has no direct control over it), or the hook is connected to the player character(s)/protagonist(s) and they carry it around with them through different locations. In either case, new locations can often affect or change how the core mechanics (and therefore the hook) behaves, introducing new environment-specific rules/mechanics to provide variety without actually changing the games existing rule set.

If you are struggling, a good way to find a hook is simply to put away your pretentious designer beret an put on your gamer cap instead. Ask yourself what you wish you could do within an existing genre, but can't yet. I think we have all played a game and hit the 4th wall with an unfortunate bump. “Damn, I thought I would have been able to-” whatever. A surprising number of my game concepts have been the ironic product of misconception. In this case though, I just cast my mind back to my second semester projects, where I took the core mechanic of an existing game and used them to create something new. Specifically, I was thinking of how I took the Shadow of the Colossus “climbing creatures” mechanic, and went on to create the rather well-received “Grease Monkey” pitch. From that springboard, I just started asking myself the right questions.

In Shadow of the Colossus and Grease Monkey the level is alive and organically moving under you, but what if you had the power to move the level yourself? If your player character had the ability to alter or add to the environment? Now THAT is a mechanic worth building a game around. Finally, this is a game idea.

...This post dedicated to Andrea. I couldn't have done it without her. Well, I could have, and it would have probably got done sooner. But I wouldn't have laughed at paedo-poseidon along the way.

As ever, thanks for reading. ...I was SO sure that teleportation was a word.

Design For Dummies I: The Genre

2010-10-26T17:35:00.000-07:00

It's been a while. Quite irresponsibly, the captain of my PC's brain ship, the SS C Drive, seems to have fallen asleep at the wheel. By this I mean that the HDD controller in my motherboard has apparently gone faulty. By which I mean that my computer was broken so I couldn't do my homework, sorry miss. Dog ate my dongle.

In actual fact, although there have been times when the absence of a beast machine at the homestead would have been as a gaping hole in my very soul, I've been so busy getting' crunchy at work that it's barely been an irritation. Of course, I can't do Uni stuff at worky-work where I make the Lego's do crazy fun things, so I instead had to be extremely tactical with my time; ensuring that while I waited for my temporary ringer-PC to arrive I got ALL planning and foundation work out of the way. And I pretty much have. This first return post will be following through the first stage of my “How To Design Games” guide, picking a genre.

Genre Flick
Perhaps fittingly, I really had to writhe my way free of several existing game premises I had resting in the mind-bank in order to truly start from scratch. There is a lot of games I'd LOVE to design this semester, but if I'm to be loyal to the goal of my practice project, I need a clean sheet. Further, I knew I'd be better picking a common genre people are more familiar with, than a ridiculous-awesome sub-genre like, say, Pure Action. Which I love and would have made super ridiculous-awesomer. Alas. I've already done 2 FPS games at Uni, and 3 TPS games, my dice therefore had barely 2 sides (making it more of a coin I guess) and landed on the erstwhile pillar of gaming which is, the Platformer.

“Generally I always begin by consciously acknowledging what genre I want to work with. Genres are really just established sets of rules and mechanics that have already been proven to work and function commercially; they act as a sturdy framework to build upon, a foundation. You need to know what you are going to do inside or on top of that foundation in order to know if your idea is worthwhile.”
Me, circa last blog post

Ideas for a clever story, or setting, or character background, are not ideas for a game. These are things that can be explored in any medium and thus don't make a good starting point for game concepts, especially not for beginner-level designers. It can get you dangerously far, but eventually someone is going to ask you “so what do you actually do in this game?” and the whole house of cards will crash down on your head. You can't forget the vital interactive element, THAT is what has to be new and exciting. David Jaffe, creator of the God Of War series, admits that he is a “B Class” designer, because he starts with an image in his mind of a scenario or setting, and then he builds a game around it. “A Class” design is closer to what Kojima did with Metal Gear, for example; he wanted to create a certain game experience, one where gamers would use stealth and espionage tactics instead of brute force. He then built the story and setting around that mechanical idea, that “hook”. While God of War proves that you CAN do it the other way, God of War is also a game that relies constantly and heavily on flash and staging and budget, with ultimately bland core gameplay that needs regular fun transfusions from gimmicks and one-shot events to stay enjoyable 'til the credits. I personally always strive for A Class design, and so should you.

The easiest way to stop yourself ending up with a game idea that, woops, lacks the actual “game” part, is to know your genre. The minute you assign your game into a genre, it has a context, it has a framework, a blueprint for gameplay. As a starting point, it also lets you highlight a unique “hook” for your property through an understanding and awareness of what already exists in the same category. So, before moving on to stage 2, I immersed myself within the genre of my choice, the Platformer, to see what had gone before. [Third years who may be reading, this is the equivalent of back-casting and state-of-the-art analysis.]

Because of how neatly it worked in two dimensions, the Platformer used to be the natural habitat of the industry's most iconic mascots; Mario, Sonic, Donkey Kong, Rayman, Megaman (plus several wannabes like Gex, Croc and Blinx) and when a whole new dimension opened, it was these heroes, alongside new frenemies like Crash the Bandicoot and Banjo/Kazooie, which stepped forward to explore it; evolving their mechanics to suit 3D exploration. People forget sometimes, the Platformer was the main battleground on which console supremacy was fought before Halo came along and made FPS the stomping ground of choice. Even in 3D though, our timeless heroes tended to stick closely to basic jumping between “platforms”, the classic definition. Cracks started to show when another infamous icon, Miss Lara Croft, arrived on the scene, introducing ledge grabbing and shimmying and other basic acrobatics; minor cracks which would explode into a true divide whenever the Prince of Persia wall ran his way into the third dimension, pioneering a new brand of choreographed graceful platforming.

This side of the genre blossomed in popularity thanks to the world becoming mesmerized in following years by the underground sport of free-running, or Parkour, a key influence for the platforming aspects of future games like Assassins Creed, Infamous and Prototype...while the Tomb Raider/PoP brand of platforming provided half the content-meat in games like Enslaved and Uncharted. This newer kind of platforming is usually more about climbing than jumping, and in high-concept is about stylishly connecting a series of acrobatic feats together in order to reach your goal, utilizing aspects of the environment to get from place to place. In this way, it's not unlike some old school Sonic levels, which saw the player attempting to gather momentum within the level design to explore new paths through each Zone.

While the original form of mascot-driven Platformer is not dead, kept alive by the injection of heavy TPS aspects into franchises like Ratchet and Clank and Jak and Daxter, the second form of Platformer is immediately more appealing to me because of how it doesn't hold back in what the player can do. If I was designing a game where you had to navigate around a level, or platforms, even, I couldn't say “you can't ledge grab” “you can't shimmy” “you can't climb along that pole” just to maintain a false sense of purity. I want to go as far as has been gone already, as that is the only way I know I'll be able to go even further. There is always the danger of over-egging the genre pie and “feature-creep”, but I think the PoP framework is both streamlined and established enough to dodge those pitfalls.

So, I have my genre, and following a brief analysis of it's past and present, I understand that genre. Next time:

'Aar. And also RUFIO, RUFIO, RUFIO... Thanks for reading.
-Steve

Games Design for Dummies

2010-09-27T14:16:00.000-07:00

They say there are only 7 stories ever written or told. If that's true, it seems like these days there are only ever 3 games developed and released. And those games are Modern Warfare, Gears of War and God of War, by the way. This is an important entry in my MA diary blog, because it will finally establish my goals and project outlines for the third and final semester. Firstly, I have settled on a design exercise that will act as my Practice module:

At Tuesday's MA roundtable think-tank, Josh “Hairy Balls I” Taylor and myself discussed, raised and dropped a number of different project ideas, but eventually settled on what was originally an obscure whim that I'd toyed with during the recent summer months. “How to Design a Game”. It's a topic I have been inevitably circling for the entire Masters course, in every design/practice exercise I've done thus far, in all 3 years of the undergraduate course, in my job at Fusion, in my articles on my personal blog and at IMHW, and of course in my tutoring of the Proposal module, and soon in some lectures which I'll be writing... how do you design good games? Conceptualization, idea-generation, process, execution, balance, presentation, all subcategories of how I am constantly analyzing and attempting to explain what makes good games, so that I myself can learn the answers.

More what you'd call Guidelines than actual “Rules” anyway..
So that will be my project. I'm going to formally (as formal as this blog ever manages to be anyway) summarize my default “design process” into an actual guide that will explain what I personally hope is an extremely strong and accessible method of developing strong and accessible game ideas. I'm not proclaiming myself to be some sort of omniscient design messiah, or even claiming that I've “cracked the nut” and found the perfect end-all method of design, far from it. Design is a creative process, which means it can (and often should) be different for every person. Nonetheless, I'm hoping that through this project I'll not only be helping beginning designers (and perhaps future students) to find their feet on a stable foundation, but I'll continue to develop and refine my own approach to the subject. To call on the enigmatic and anonymous “they” once again: they say that the quickest way to learn is to teach. And I have a lot more to learn, things that I'll only learn by heading down the road I'm on, through experience and making mistakes. Whatever happens, it should be a fitting finale to my University life and career, a real full-stop to the final chapter. ..A lot of F related alliteration there. Sweet.

The Leg Bone is Connected to the Knee Bone..
So, what IS my process? I'm going to summarize my eventual summary now, so stand back while I make a brave attempt at brevity. Generally I always begin by consciously acknowledging what genre I want to work with. Genres are really just established sets of rules and mechanics (mechanics are actually rules so clever folk know I just said, rules and rules. Please don't tell the dumber folk. -ed) that have already been proven to work and function commercially; they act as a sturdy framework to build upon, a foundation. You need to know what you are going to do inside or on top of that foundation in order to know if your idea is worthwhile. I'll cover this in a lot more detail later, but ideas for story and setting are not GAME ideas, Games Design is about new mechanics or new ways for mechanics to interact.. if you aren't yet a confident AAA designer, or are working toward academic recognition, you want your idea to have a tangible feature you can point to and say “that, that's what makes my idea different and special”. “That's why you should care.” I call it the “hook”.

Once you have the hook, THEN is the best time to polish your intended setting and story. Sometimes the genre, hook and story all strike at once, overlapping and inherently connected, but otherwise, you have the gameplay you want, and remain unsure what world it would best fit. Even if you have a setting in mind, now is a good time to decide on your games personality; it's “look and feel”. Successful franchises almost always establish a particular personality in their visuals and presentation. It's a good idea to know early what your ideas personality is. Once you know those first 3 things, you can bounce between them to polish and refine your idea. This is not completely detached from the “Window Dressing” exercise I dabbled in the entry before last: A “hookshot” is different in Devil May Cry (Devil Bringer) than Mortal Kombat. (Get Over Here!) ..and that's enough of a preview for now I think.

Rules were made to be broken..
I'm not just going to write this stuff out, obviously, that's not a “Practice” exercise. I'm going to do as I threatened earlier this month, I'm going to design a game. As I walk-through my design process steps, I'll follow them, and by the end, I'll hopefully have created a solid concept that proves my method. And after that.. well, let's face it, anything that might boil down to “concept with commentary” isn't semester worthy. I intend there to be a second phase to this experiment.

Often I get excited about the premise of an article or project, only to realize as I dig my teeth into it, that the answers come too easily or taste too dry to even make the questions worth asking. Other times, I hit a wall that says my hypothesis may actually be incorrect, or at least incomplete. In these cases the opposite is true, the topic begs that I ask MORE questions. As I looked around for commercial examples of my “hook and genre foundation” method, I was shocked and a little worried to find myself struggling for contemporary case studies that didn't lead to appearances by the “hook”'s retarded cousin, the “gimmick”. In fact, a depressing number of current releases don't rely on this method of design at all, but on the B class “story/setting” design I have always recommended against. Most of them are sequels relying on the foundations of their predecessors, and almost ALL the rest are cookie-cutter template stamps of whatever has been successful recently. Refer to my opening. So, the second phase will involve the deconstruction of my method; I'll try to break my rules and examine what place the commercial industry seems to be “designing” from currently if they are getting these results. Then I'll do that. A fitting continuation of my “genre analysis” exercise in my first semester, as well.

Moving Pictures
I don't want to present this project in my usual way; printed stuff stuck on walls. But, I also don't particularly want to crawl through the broken glass strewn ventilation shaft that is 3D modeling and animation. The minute the idea of a “How To” project occurred to me I had my eye on a hybrid between still images and animation, a method I'd seen explored in the MGS PSP comic, and in the graphic-novel emulating cut-scenes of Infamous. A little research revealed this method does actually have a name, and is less rare that I'd thought. It's called a “Motion Comic”. Examples follow;
MGS Digital Comic
Batman: Dark Knight Motion Comic

It seems pretty obviously layer-based, so I'll set up my HQ in Photoshop Central, with aspirations of establishing a future safehouse in the scary unknown world of AfterEffects. I don't expect to hit the same pace, polish and excitement of the linked examples, but something between them and the organic slideshow visuals seen in popular videogame-critique series “Zero Punctuation” would suffice. I just want to do something unique and eye-catching that can present these ideas without me, and without people having to actually read. Because nobody wants to read. …

Oh, and “secondly”, if I have any right to use such a prefix 8 paragraphs later, I did choose my dissertation question. It's question#1 ladies and gentlemen.
“Is the industry's newfound focus on big-budget cinematic staging causing a decline in good solid “mechanical” games design?”

If my weekend experience with the stunningly polished and beautifully staged but shockingly automated Enslaved demo wasn't enough, my glance around the industry shelves during my research for the former project clinched the deal. Now I have my projects, I know what I have to do. Let's begin.

-Steve

The Answer is 42

2010-09-23T16:15:00.000-07:00

But what is the question? Well, “What is the question?” in this case actually IS the question. The answers will come easily, once I find the right question. My second project this semester is to submit a “post-graduate dissertation” about a topic of significance to my chosen field. The traditional expectation is for this project to take the form of a long-winded written essay, but students in practice focused courses are sometimes encouraged to approach the submission requirements of this module from an “alternative” perspective. Most recently, an MA student from Games Design provided her dissertation as a playable level in which you had to engage in dialogue with characters in order to hear her discussion of the subject matter. As you can imagine, this totally stumped most academic assessors, and left them scratching their bald spots in technophobic confusion.

Answer me these Questions 3: Dissertation Dilemma
Believe me, I had intended to be just as unique, imaginative and deliberately awkward when I came to tackle to task. But alas I have more responsibilities now. Working 4 days a week at TT Fusion and only scraping one contact day at Uni a week, it seems like it may be wiser for me to just stick to the dry written word like “the man” wants. As this blog attests, I can write 1000 words in my sleep. I write 3000 word articles about Games Design for fun. I just need to decide on a suitably juicy, pretentiously academic topic for this particular “article”.. frame that topic in the form of a question.. apply a brew alongside relaxing jazz fusion (rjd2 should suffice).. and I'm golden. And so, after a quick run down memory lane at Too Long Didn't Read, I have narrowed myself down to 3 main dissertation topic ideas.

Question#1: Is the industry's newfound focus on big-budget cinematic staging causing a decline in good solid “mechanical” games design?
Topic: Blockbuster V Mechanical Design

I find it strange that no-one has yet called particular attention to this increasingly pervasive and potentially dangerous trend. More and more, the medium is shifting to focus on superficial “wow-moments” to grab and hold the attention of audiences. These moments range from contextual actions and “Quick-time-events” to set pieces and flashy backdrops; providing gamers with pre-choreographed superlative one-shot experiences that live outside the core-gameplay. These moments are deliberately there to distract players, to keep the gameplay fresher longer without providing actual technical depth or advancing the game mechanically. Look no further than Uncharted 2: At first glance the best game of it's release year.. yet it doesn't even have that defining “hook” that good games design should demand. The gameplay is solid, but completely borrowed and mediocre. All these “tricks” are one-shot one-time-wonder surprises; superficial frills. And worst of all, completely linear; it's MOVIE design, players “watch” these events, they don't participate.. and without interaction, videogames will lose what it is to BE a videogame.

Unfortunately, “oi, stop that” isn't good enough an answer. Block-buster presentation and “wow-moments” are not without their advantages.. Because they are completely pre-choreographed animations/events, the author has complete control over how they play out, allowing them to maximize impact and quality. Because they are contained and separate from gameplay, they can do things the normal gameplay cannot, providing infinite possibilities for variety. Uncharted 2 was a BLAST to play, and I loved it. The real question, is how do we find a balance? Can deep, rewarding design play out on a block-buster canvas? Surely we want the best of both worlds?

Question#2: How can interaction be used to strengthen emotional and psychological connection to a narrative or experience?
Topic: Emotion and Immersion in Games

This is a pretty common talking-point around the global water-cooler. I'd be using this question to explore how the interactive aspect of videogames is both beneficial and detrimental to how the audience views, interacts and connects with the setting and characters within a story. I think that while the lack of “real people” (even actors) provides an almost immediate disconnect for many; being personally responsible for your choices within the game world gifts this medium the potential to become a unique and extremely potent method of story-telling. It's more complicated than making a movie or writing a book though.. because the topic bleeds into another major talking-point; That of linear choreographed design versus open-ended sandbox play. The more freedom you give the player, the less control you have over their experience, and the less able you are to ensure that experience is rewarding. How much control do you sacrifice? It's about creating an illusion. The illusion of freedom.

When it comes to developing connection and making emotional impact, I already have what I believe is a sturdy hypothesis to use as a starting point. I believe that gameplay value breeds narrative value. If a character or aspect of the game world has a meaningful affect on the players actual skills, health, or ability to progress, the player will immediately begin to recognize them as valuable in a larger sense, and there will be a much greater sense of loss and anxiety if those characters/aspects are threatened. I've covered this theory previously, during my “Companionship” research. A powerful example of this in my eyes is the Companion Cube from Portal. An inanimate object without personality or opinion, it's vital role in the games next few puzzles built up a bizarre and obscure, yet powerful, bond. So much so, that there is a tangible pull of regret (for most gamers. With hearts.) when you have to destroy “it” to progress. This doubles as an example of how responsibility strengthens the connection. The knowledge that what happened was your doing, the result of your actions. This is something movies can never provide. See: Heavy Rain, Mass Effect 2.

Question#3: Is a “Game Over” and “Return to Checkpoint?” really the best way to punish players for failure?
Topic: Death and Failure States

This topic is arguably not as strong and broad as the first two, but it's one that I have been itching to address for a while now. Generally when a gamer fails, they are punished by being thrown back to a previous point of the game. They then have to replay back to where-ever they were to try again. This is a punishment. A punishment for not being good enough at a method of entertainment. But, without that known consequence, players wouldn't fear failure, it would break almost all “feedback loops” within the games design. It's essential gamers care if they are about to die, as that's part of the game, part of the experience, and necessary for immersion. The reason this method is so ingrained is obvious. But are there alternatives?

Straight-up answer is yes. Just not any truly good ones, yet. Various games have dabbled with creative and abstract alternatives to the soul-crushing darkness of the “Game Over” screen. Fable 2 is probably the most vocal attempt at addressing the issue. It's PR mentioned a “choice”. You could slip back to the last checkpoint as is traditional, or respawn in the spot that you died for the price of some experience orbs and a disfiguring scar somewhere on your body. Too Human trades off by forcing you to watch a ridiculously frustrating “resurrection” animation, that seems to last 100 hours by the 2nd time you see it. Heavy Rain has the most potent answer of all. If you die, you are dead. That character's story ends in that moment. Obviously all games can't do that. Most games can't. It's all related to death and consequence. Failure states. The balance between punishment and frustration, challenge and entertainment, a question I have been dying to answer. Sorry.

Conclusion:
Before finishing this blog post, I had all but decided on Question#2 as my topic. However in the final typing, Question#1 has become a contender again. It would appear that I'm still somewhat torn on the subject... Regardless, any one of these written sections above can likely serve as the basis of my first vital submission: the “Dissertation Synopsis”. I shall ponder this decision further, and reveal my choice in my next post. Until then, thanks for reading!

-Steve

Practice Makes Perfect

2010-09-21T16:37:00.000-07:00

From the very beginning, I've had some pretty firm ideas about what I wanted to cover in my final semester. Essentially, returning for the Masters was about jumping the apathy-chasm between idea-generation and implementation. I wanted to increase my aptitude and confidence within game editors and engines, feeling that “editor experience” was a vital feather missing from my cap. But things have changed since September 2009...

Get the party-poppers popping, signal the sky writer and release the doves. After over 10 years dreaming and wishing (and sometimes working), I am officially a Games Designer. *toot* My temporary contract with TT Fusion has been upgraded to permanent, and I've been working on Lego Clone Wars DS/PSP as a fully fledged designer-man for over 3 months now. Living the dream.

As I say, things have changed since September 2009. Working in the Fusion game editor 8 hours a day, I have already achieved the confidence and aptitude for implementation and scripting within an engine that I was looking for. Further, I don't have to worry so much about desperately catering myself towards forging precious portfolio gems with which to barter survival and advancement in the cruel nuclear winter of the recession. In fact, my priorities have changed from being ruthlessly practical, to undertaking an activity a little on the wild side. In the industry I have to be resource-efficient, feasible, commercially-viable. As my last semester of University, this is my last chance to do something crazy. ...I might even design a game!

Window Dressing: Genre-shifting Mechanics
As a starter activity and possible project-focus however, Josh suggested an intriguing little exercise wherein I would take a mechanic (or a set of mechanics) from a game, and explore how it might function if the theme, setting or genre of that game was completely changed. I'm not sure yet if this activity has the depth or meat necessary to keep me challenged and working throughout the semester, but I took some time this weekend to mull it over and chew through some experimental bites.

The Game: Legend Of Zelda
The Mechanic: Hookshot

“Grapple” equipment is a pretty broad, strong mechanic to use as a first subject and example. It actually popped into my head because a million (or 3) years ago, this was the mechanic first-years were given to play with during their first-ever level design projects. In LoZ, the Hookshot is primarily used to allow Link to zipline up to specialized hook spots sprinkled throughout certain dungeons (across dangers or up to higher areas), but can also be used to retrieve out of reach items as a makeshift “extendo-grabber” tool. Variants of the “hookshot” also appear in a variety of thematically darker/more-mature games including Arkham Asylum and Darksiders, while many chained weapons double as grapple-swing apparatus in games like God of War and upcoming Castlevania Lords of Shadow.

Traditionally, the application of a hookshot might also be expanded by an enterprising young designer to include: pulling down obstacles like tree's or statues to forge makeshift bridges or smash things below, to open/fold-out hinged mechanisms, to “crank-start” machines lawn-mower style, to drag objects from distance (to avoid physical contact perhaps: “that push block is ON FIRE!”), to swing around corners, or to rip the coverings off things. These are all platforming/puzzling/adventuring applications... in a pure action game, a hookshot might be used to yank enemies into your melee range; similar to the defining “Snatch” mechanic from Devil May Cry 4. This is very useful in extending any combos which might be scuppered by the knockback effects of stronger moves. Once an enemy is grappled, they could also be spun, swung or thrown, perhaps at other enemies.

Thematically, there is quite a visceral difference to “grappling” enemies, and “impaling” them with a grapple weapon or chained implement. In a fighting game, this would be the equivalent of Scorpions iconic “Get Over Here!” special in MK. Bet you never associated THAT and the LoZ hookshot before... but in many ways, the mechanic is not too different. Equally, in a boss battle or against larger enemies, the Hookshot could pull the player up to the enemy, or tear off chunks of their defensive armor. Or perhaps in a darker more horror-orientated title, it could actually be used to grapple-rend off limbs and dismember your foes. In an arcade racing title, a hookshot might tether your vehicle to that of a leading car, slowing them down and/or pulling you forward in a whiplash motion. It might be used as a skill in an RPG which ties down a target and ensures all incoming attacks land rather than “miss”. Or in a soft cartoon way, used to “lasso” and collect wild creatures ala Pokemon and it's ilk.

Some mechanics are already used in a variety of different genres, and often it's merely subtleties like presentation that make them seem vastly different. In the end, the setting, the theme, often the genre, it's just “window dressing”, swapped as easily as the skins of a blockmap. I'll explain this early dabble with the exercise to Josh on the morn, and see where the discussion takes me next. I do however worry that considering the various overlaps between genres and their mechanics in todays industry, changing the theme and approach will in many cases only reap equally subtle alterations to the mechanics themselves. Be it Legend of Zelda, Tenchu or Arkham Asylum, a grapple is still useful for reaching higher areas, be it God of War or Lego Star Wars, a grapple is still useful for swinging across gaps.

-Steve

Team America Versus the 3D Sun: Initial Meeting

2010-09-19T08:23:00.000-07:00

Aaand we're back. September 19th, and the Masters has begun anew. Due to the program's unusual “year and a bit” nature, myself and the Masters class of '09 have one semester left, while the class of the Noughty 10's have arrived to begin their first classes. As a warm-up project to dust the summer cobwebs off both the post-grad generations; Mr Jim “out-of-office” Thompson has thrown down one of my top 10 ultimate gauntlets: “Make learning fun!”

No Sun of Mine: The Brief
By way of NASA and the “Solar Dynamics Observatory” (SDO) the University, or someone the University knows, has got access to a pile of super-cool high-def Sun photography and media. And by Sun I mean the swirling ball of fire in the sky. The issue is what to do with it. There is already a free app which features a gallery and news feed, but can that information become a “game”? The automatic demographic I can see this kind of thing appealing too is hopelessly techy astro-nerds, but if it's going to be interactive, I suppose the next best thing is the blight on our race that is “edutainment”.

For this project we have been thrown into groups of random number, a mix of the new and returning Masters classes. In my team, the erroneously and very UNofficially titled “Team America” is.. myself, Kaile Walker, Si Melton, Barry Solo, Katy Clague, Jen Wood, Dan Startin, Harry Prestige, and one other person who I am VERY sorry too, because I never found out their name. We all had a look at the current 3D Sun app on the shiny sexy beautiful paper-weight that is the Apple ipad and discussed our escape from within the box that has “this is a bunch of pictures and words not a game” written on it. After a while, I attempted to correlate some of the best ideas and perspectives I was hearing into 3 clear compromises/combinations, that I felt/feel could actually pass as a work-able approach to this brief.

Concept #1: Where's Wally (On the Sun)
One of the things that immediately jumped out at me was the rainbow of colour available in the gallery. The Sun might be classically (blinding) yellow/orange to the naked eye, but the SDO media has been recorded in a variety of different “wavelengths” in order to catch particular kinds of events, which provides a far more diverse visual treat. The “3D Sun” app wraps a recent photograph of the Suns surface around a sphere, allowing you to turn, roll and examine different areas of the Sun. It also provides the ability to swap through those aforementioned wavelengths to see the sun in different ways. “How about Where's Wally, but on the surface of the Sun?” I joked. In actual fact, the notion is not completely ridiculous.

The SDO's mission statement is all about understanding the cause and effect of phenomena on the sun; how events build, develop, climax, and reach out into space. To this end they have an existing library of cause-and-effect events, which I hope could theoretically be played out on the “3D Sun” app itself. Players would be given an “event”, and then have to rotate around the sun and swap through the available wavelengths in order to locate it. Once they did, they would be rewarded with the existing footage/imagery of that event, and be provided another event from the database to “find”. In playing, the app-ers would vicariously learn what events play out on what wavelengths, and how those events develop. This could be expanded upon, if the recorded information was sophisticated enough to play out the “precursors” to the events, and allow players to track the development of an event across the Suns surface using multiple wavelengths, eventually witnessing the event itself.

Concept #2: Arcade Sun/SuperNova
Although the subject matter itself seemed to rebel against the notion, many people in the group wanted to push towards a more traditional “game” experience, which generally involved overlaying some fun and simple arcade gameplay on top of the 3D Suns backdrop of scientific information. After Concept#1 was on the table, it was suggested the activity would become a lot more intense and engaging if it was available in multiplayer. Gamers “racing” to catch these events before their friends. This was combined with a suggestion similar to a “spherical” Space Invaders. You took the role of one of the SDO satellites (pictured with in the 3D Sun app) and the recorded library of real Sun events played out upon the surface in rapid succession.

The gamer would have to fly around the circumference of the Sun, “quelling” these events before they reached out into space and caused catastrophic consequences for neighboring planets. (It had come up in discussion that perhaps a little narrative spice would liven up the activity) The are two variants of the Arcade Sun concept: Either you can rotate around the sun in full 3D, much like a very fast version of concept#1, or the Sun would rotate for you to provide the events, and you'd be kept in a firmly 2D perspective, rotating your ship around the outside of the Sun which is at the center of the screen. The goal is quashing solar events before they escape the surface fully; much like the scene in Spiderman 2 where Doc Ock uses his tentacles to settle spikes of energy from his miniature Sun experiment.

This and Concept#1 can both be alternatively framed in the narrative that you are “collecting” information from these events, which is why you are attempting to be present for them at the moment of occurrence. Applied to this concept, that would make it less a “stop the events to avoid tragedy” premise, and more a time-limited score-attack game: another viable variant.

Concept #3: SunSpotter
This is a real-time adaptation of Concept#1 with aspects of the competition and collection approach that Concept#2 inspired. Rather than track events from the history of the SDO database, this concept involves the app's news feed informing the player of developing and predicted Sun events, allowing them to be informed of dates and times various kinds of Sun events will occur. The “player” then attempts to be present for those events (within, say, an hour of their occurrence), in order to “collect” them. The events would be divided into their various types: solar flares, sunspots, magnetic waves, or “unique” one-off happenings, so attempting to amass a collection of them is akin to hobbies like bird watching or trainspotting. Or Pokemon cards. You nerds.

Again, such a concept would lead to vicarious understanding of how the events build and play out on the surface, and what wavelengths apply to what events. The 3D Sun app and SDO tech is not so advanced that it allows the app-er to actually witness the events in real-time, but that could be balanced either through rewards; such as early/VIP access to images from that event, or; by having the news feed be deliberately a day or 2 behind. This would allow the predicted events to be more accurate, and allow the app to instantly reward the Sunspotter with imagery and media upon collection.. The increased stability/feasibility would hopefully contemplate for the loss of full real-time. If nothing else, I feel that this kind of subtle part-time activity would be attractive to the core demographic of the app. There could be “leaderboards” which chart whom in the world was the first to collect each event, providing yet more geeky incentive and obscure placebo-esque satisfaction for “collectors”.

Not bad for a preliminary discussion I think. In coming weeks, I'll press Jim “Rudely-favors-the-other-side-of-the-table” Thompson for more details about what he's expecting in terms of outcome from this introductory idea-generation exercise. With 3 supposed weeks to spend on this 3D Sun challenge, I can only assume he wants us to go beyond mere good intentions... Here's a final question for everybody: If there is no oxygen in space, how does the sun burn? Take that, science.

-Steve

Semesters End II: Epilogue

2010-05-03T13:09:00.000-07:00

Hello and congratulations fellow Games Design students, on the successful completion of another semester. Or year, in the case of the undergraduates! Although my reflective diary requirements for the semester have been met, I'm the type who likes to put a proper full stop at the end of things, so I just wouldn't have felt right without crafting a final post to wrap up and conclude before the summer truly starts. Plus, my dedication has been awarded with a coincidental 5 day weekend, and I barely know what to do with myself. Freedom, glorious horrible freedom.

Get Unreal IV: Smog Final
So I of course finished my UDK level, “Smog” for the deadline. I was directed towards a beautiful site called http://www.hourences.com/ in the eleventh hour, a treasure trove of tutorials which I was able to use as a spring board to answer all questions and solve all lingering problems. I even got the fog working the proper way, using a constant fog density actor rather than a dozen fog volume actors. Pete “UDK Guru” Bottomely went on to answer what I assumed were the remaining “advanced” queries with shocking ease, revealing just how malleable the UDK can be once you hold the right keys to it's various mechanical doors. Toxic gas volumes with surrounding “Geiger counter” sound cues, check. Use triggers activating touch trigger volumes, check. Contrary to what the final submission might imply, I actually got the custom HUD working, the official name apparently being “Custom UI”. But, I didn't like how two-dimensional and flat it looked in comparison to the normal mapped corridors I had created. An excellent example of how design must be flexible during implementation, perhaps. I then explored a neat UDK feature called “Decal materials” which allowed me to project or graffiti stuff on the assets I had placed. I used it to tag the names of the UDK features I had learned in the relevant places, which I thought might be a neat finishing touch which revealed the true reason for the design and creation of the level.

Enough blabber, the finished project can be seen now on youtube, albiet having gone through the quality filtering of both Vegas' rendering grinder and youtube's gritty uploader, it seems far murkier than it actually is when you play it. Oh well, squint and you can see the decals. LINK.

Got Wings
Although many would think I'd have tapped myself out with my existing responsibilities, I have stubbornly decided to take on another. I've always had an interest in the journalistic side of video-gaming... or perhaps journalism as a whole. I know I like to write, to delve in and discuss, particularly about things I like such as games and movies. As you probably know I've maintained a blog on IGN for many years (Too Long Didn't Read, see links) which features reviews, previews, and opinion pieces, and have twice appeared in GamesTM's “Readers View” pages, in addition to several comment cameos across several other issues. I've actually looked upon writing as a last-ditch plan B, should I suffer the desperate horror of my video-game design career falling through the cracks of chance. But I've never had much time or opportunity to advance that interest while working hard at University. That changed this week.

I am now a contributing writer for new and upcoming gamer news site; www.ifmenhadwings.com. No, I have no idea where the unusual site name comes from, but don't let it put you off. This isn't a Red Bull fansite or genetics splicing interest page. IMHW puts an emphasis on the personal touch, with staff writers encouraged to include a measured taste of the informal truth in it's reports. Perfect for me, who definitely doesn't believe in money-hatted exclusives or pandering to the suits. I'm too young to sell my soul to “the man”. Maybe next year.

Eager fans of gaming or my modest writing stylings can feel free to bookmark it and pop by semi-regularly, I'll be reporting the latest gaming news on a daily basis (three times daily at the weekend) and hopefully working my way up to reviews, previews and editorials. Does it pay you ask? No, but it's official enough for me to reap a few perks; preview codes, free copies of stuff to review, invites to semi-exclusive game events. Which all sound like great things to have.

Latest reports (by me) include;
Lost In Dead Space 2: A round-up of all the information on Visceral's horror sequel “Dead Space 2”, inspired by the release of the first official trailer.
And Our Red Hot Guitar Hero Survey Says: Rumors point to another band-centric Guitar Hero spin off. Can you name all the red hot references?
Devil May Cry At Ninja Theory?: More from the rumor mill, as loose talk claims Capcom may have passed the stylish action torch to a third party UK company
Small World of Warcraft Isn't It?: Dave Perry is playing WoW on an ipad, via the magic of his latest venture, “Gaikai Streaming Worlds”. Beastly gaming machines obsolete?...
Eye of the Bulletstorm: Preview information and screens from “Bulletstorm”, a manic and sadistic new FPS from the collaborative efforts of Epic and “People Can Fly”

There, plugged. ;D

I have absolutely no idea what I'm going to do next semester, so I'll leave that to my post-summer return post. I will however say I am tinkering around in a new game editor, which may or may not involve zombies... Not saying that will go anywhere, it's just where my head is at right now. I'm exploring my options.

Thanks for reading everybody, have a great summer.
-Steve

Semesters End II

2010-04-19T13:32:00.000-07:00

Considering how suddenly it is upon me, it feels like this semesters deadline could out-sneak both Solid Snake and Sam Fisher. Working at TT Fusion I almost feel detached from traditional student life and concerns like deadlines, which is no good thing with less than a week left to pull together a distinction worthy submission. Luckily, I have kept absent-mindedly chipping away at my workload over Easter, and am not out for the count just yet. I have finished the Tin Robot project, composed the first 2 parts of the Contextual module document, written the first half of my Semester Report, organized my digital files for disk burning, and am comfortable at the stage my UDK level has reached. If we flashback to last weeks lists, the current tally looks a bit like this;

Practice Module

~~-Tin Robot~~

-UDK Level

-Semester Report

-Printed Reflective Diary (Semester 2 entries)

Contextual Module (2,500)

~~-Placement Report; Industry practice, adaptation etc. (1,000)~~

~~-Lecture Reviews (1,000)~~

-Reflective Conclusion (500)

...with the Semester Report and Printed Reflective Diary teetering on the edge of that gloriously satisfying strike-through. In fact, the reason this is to be the end of my semester 2 entries is to provide the closing section to the latter, just in time for printing on Tuesday; ideally missing the mad rush sure to ensue on Friday when the Masters students and second years clash at the Print Shop. (A heads up to everyone intending to attend this event, I would advise against it) Reflective Conclusion I can complete at my leisure between Friday 23^rd and Friday 30^th. 7 days, 500 words? Puh-leeze.

Pushing Tin II (Finally)
So when last we left our little tin hero, he was in sincere conceptual flux. I had rubber banded from sharp to round, from circle to square, from villainous to adorable. Eventually I realized I was being far too precious with the lil' fella, and just went on instinct; picked some parts I definitely wanted in (slot machine reels, visor, clamps, a little cape) and jumped in Maya. I wanted him to be likable at a glance, so used the knowledge I had gathered of how proportions relate to personality and ensured his limbs and body were smaller than his head (an easy way to accentuate the “cute” factor), but when it came to his eyes I didn't want them to instantly imply any particular personality type, I wanted him to have a sense of mystery that kept him a little alien. This way, all it would take is a colour scheme to turn him from miniature hero to pint-size danger to Will Robinson. Hence, the visor, which transmits no specific emotion or character by itself.

The colour scheme I chose for the hand in was inspired by my research into the material of tin. I knew I wanted to portray him as a little scratched and warn, paint chipped off to reveal the shiny tin surface underneath, and then the duller layers below that, like he had been discarded in a toy chest for a decade before finding a home on a charity shelf. I found an image of a little tin car which had the perfect chipped paint look, and it was a nice baby blue. After that, it just seemed natural for the cape to be red, I guess partially referencing Superman. It's a strong combination that catches the eye, and it's thus far been the most complimented part of the model, so I'm confident it was a good choice.

If I had time, I was going to do contrasting “Captain America” and “Red Star” version of him, just to demonstrate how much changing his colour palette could change his implied personality, as well as imply a kind of vintage cold war toy-line internal narrative... but I had another project to be getting on with!

Get Unreal III: Smog
Having decided to use the existing meshes and materials that came with the editor, the first logical move was taking a look through the UDK package library to see what kind of locales I could create without getting involved in the asset creation. I quickly realized that I was either going gloomy and rustic or gothic and elaborate, and that I'd be relying on atmosphere a lot, given I couldn't mess much with mechanics. Seeing a lot of pipes and gas tanks, I began to envisage an underground environment, reminding me of one of the many concepts lying in my idea bin.... “Smog”.
A year before, a standalone image from my friend and course mate Moh's portfolio really stuck in my head. It was of a Isacc Clarke-esque character in a city consumed by a toxic green fog; and for me it just seemed like an ideal setting for a survival horror game, the poisoned air providing environmental danger, themes of isolation and dystopia, limited visibility and spacial awareness... “Smog” was the working title for this loose premise, which I neatly added to my stack of other as yet un-used loose premises. Although I couldn't explore everything I related to that idea in the UDK, it went down as a possible theme for the level I was to create, eventually beating out my other contending idea, which was a technological “Heaven” utilizing a lot of the warp and teleporter mechanics in combination with the semi-angelic Babylonian assets.

And in a shocking twist, I've actually found the UDK quite a pleasant program to use. It's far more straight forward and intuitive than it's predecessors, and I have picked up the basics far quicker than I expected. I can now block out the foundations of a level using BSPs, apply materials, set and control lights, use Trigger Volumes and Trigger Switches, place and set the key's of InterpActors (the new and improved “movers”) and even implant cinematic cuts. (what used to be called “matinee” sequences) Meanwhile at TT Fusion, I have spent the last few weeks working in their own in-house editor, which I have also found relatively easy to pick up after a few short tutorials... The combination of these experiences has led me to the conclusion I already have enough of an aptitude for this kind of software to learn how to use them when necessary. All I need is a little guidance beforehand, and I am able to remember and recreate the correct workflow.
Therein lies the problem though, when left to my own devices, I have found it notoriously difficult to decode the correct path through the UDK's options. These kind of programs do so much, that it's very easy to lose yourself in exactly the wrong menu's, shelves or actor classes, and in the UDK's case, it's nearly impossible to find any help online that doesn't involve breaking out your debit card. Because of this internet blackout on goodwill driven UDK advice, I struggled for several days just getting my fog volumes to work. The fog texture seems determined to stripe out and cut through geometry, looking horribly fake. I remain aware I'm probably missing something really minor but completely central to correct use of the volumes, but for now I'm just jamming in a dozen in one space at different heights to smooth over the noticeable lines...

The level is technically working and submittable in it's current state, purely as evidence I have achieved the basic knowledge I had set my sights on at the start of the year... but I intend to continue wrestling with it right up until Thursday night, trying to get some or all of the below working;

Pockets of gas that erode the characters armor and health, designated by some form of sound cue (ticking or crackling), forcing the player to carefully chart their way through each room, around the dangerous areas. Probably achieved using a form of volume I haven't discovered yet.
Having the elevator's trigger volume activated by a use-trigger... as yet I can't find the correct connection in kismet...
A custom heads up display along the lines of a gas mask. I have not yet begun to struggle with this one... it's a final superficiality I'd like to implement.

Ideally, this short experiment could become a minor portfolio piece, being an example of not only engine experience, but creating gameplay from a limited tool set.

Thanks for reading! Have a good summer everyone, and good luck with your own projects, not necessarily in that order. :D

-Steve

Best Laid Plans

2010-03-19T18:12:00.000-07:00

Well. This is embarrassing. As it turns out, TT Fusion have asked me to come back for another 4 months contracted work, and I have of course accepted, so you can basically ignore a good chunk of what I said in my last post :S Regular readers who remember my similar U-turn from the start of the year, I would much prefer if you saw me as less unpredictable/unreliable, and more flexible/adaptable. Clearly it's too good an opportunity to miss, and I'm excited to see what I'll be doing, since the “paper” based stage is almost definitely completed by now. It's actually not made much of a change to the plans I outlined at the start of the week either, as for the moment, I intend to do it all.

When Bev offered to hold the tutoring job for me, I promised to make myself available to do it regardless of other responsibilities, and it would be unprofessional as well as rude to break that agreement now. So, I explained my existing commitment to the boss at Fusion (who I shan't name, but is a really nice guy) and thankfully, he was fine with it. I'll be working 3 days a week for a little while; tutoring the third years on Tuesday, attending contextual lectures on Friday, and then whenever the lectures end, I can go back to 4 days a week, making up any difference by working 5 days during Easter and the Summer, if required. I really appreciate them letting me do this as well, because normally I HATE asking for special treatment or being in any way difficult when it comes to jobs I value getting.

Sticky Notes

Now that I'll be spending a good lot of my week at Fusion, I really need to knuckle down and use my time wisely. As such I spent some of today undertaking the only useful form of procrastination; list making. The deadline for MA Semester 2 practice module is seemingly April 23^rd, with the contextual module due soon after on April 30^th. Remaining tasks;

Practice Module

-Tin Robot

-UDK Level

-Semester Report

-Printed Reflective Diary (Semester 2 entries)

Contextual Module (2,500 words)

-Placement Report; Industry practice, adaptation etc. (1,000)

-Lecture Reviews (1,000)

-Reflective Conclusion (500)

Hopefully you will see me gradually tick these things off in the next few weeks, starting with that pesky Tin Robot. I don't know why I am so adverse to getting back to it, as it's actually a very light, fun little project. And I could REALLY do with getting back into Maya... while the idea of my meager talent in the program “atrophying and falling off like an unused limb” was originally a joke, it's becoming a very real possibility. I tried to use it on Thursday, and it was cringe worthy for all concerned.

And so, for the next 7 weeks, I will be working 3 jobs while doing the Masters. Disregard January's blog post. I AM Superman.

(Or a moron)

Lecture Review #8: Candy Guard, Animation

I was actually surprised to recognize some of Candy's work which had appeared on television, such as the Ski yoghurt and Clear Blue adverts. Her work had a very independent low budget feel which I think she valued, and I found many of her comments about her process and personal workflow to be quite an intriguing insight into her approach. She preferred working by hand, because she felt the ease with which computers allowed her to edit and experiment was too tempting, and led her to get lost in the choice. Working by hand, she knew that if she decided to undertake the task of changing something, it was meaningful, simply because if it wasn't she wouldn't have taken the time to do it. This makes everything she does a commitment, which reminds me of things the other animation lecturer, Barry Purves, said about stop motion.

The strength of her animations were in how despite their abstract cartoony appearance, they were based heavily in observational material from the mundanities of real life, which people could relate to. She herself said that she couldn't fathom working without a frame of reference for the narrative. She also lent towards comedy, because it allowed her to tell if the animation had succeeded simply by the audiences reaction. If they laughed it was good, if they didn't it seemingly wasn't, whereas how people are taking serious material can be harder to discern. Although her work flow isn't necessarily suited to me or my subject, I think what I can take away from it is that she chose the approach and techniques that worked for her, and found the way she could arrive at the outcome she wanted. Throughout the past few years, and especially now in the MA, I think that is something I am in the process of finding for myself.

Just one more lecture to go?

-Steve

Everything Else

2010-03-15T05:30:00.000-07:00

My 2 month placement at TT Fusion is now finished, which has left me feeling all “new chapter ish” this weekend. It was an extremely rewarding and enjoyable experience being there in the studio; I loved the community atmosphere, the work flow, the talent and passion of the team; Fusion is exactly the kind of place I would want to work, and I have no doubt I'll be applying for a real job there in the future. With that said, I won't miss the 6am starts nor the 3 hour morning commute, and wow do I appreciate having my week back. Although we were hoping for an extension of our contract originally, I think it's a blessing in a not-very-convincing disguise that we have the final month of the semester free to get our contextual projects together and tidy up any other loose ends before May. For me, it means time for all the stuff I've been juggling in reserve while at TT, which is why this blog post is all about, everything else.

Moonlighting

One big advantage of our placement at Fusion ending as scheduled is that I was able to accept a job tutoring at the University alongside Scott “BST” Taylor, something you might remember I was very disappointed to give up at the start of the semester. I'm very much looking forward to Tuesday, and suitably pleased that in the end I managed to find time for both the internship and the tutoring. It's all coming up Milhouse. Speaking of other jobs, I have continued to work a flexible internship under the Black Bull/Globigames umbrella over the past few months, developing games for the iphone. While at first I was mainly tasked with providing graphics and design advice, I have since moved on to be involved in both marketing and management of several key projects, creating promotional material, editing and composing press releases, collecting and fostering media contacts, helping with web design, communicating with programmers and artists, and have even had the chance to pass opportunities onto other students in the course, which has been beneficial for everyone involved I think.

Very soon I'll be correlating all this into some form of document which can be submitted as part of my semester work (along with a report of my placement at Fusion) and everything should fall into place nicely. I find it really refreshing how the course has adapted to not only allow me to perform in these internships, but is able to reward me for it. For once industry and academia isn't pulling me in two different directions.

Get Unreal II: Return of the Project

Before the placement was confirmed, I had intended this semester to be all about the Unreal engine. It would be all too easy to rest on my laurels and pass the semester based on my internships, but instead I have decided to go that extra mile and use what time I have left to delve into the UDK as originally planned. Squeezing everything I wanted to learn in a semester into a handful of weeks simply wouldn't be possible without the help of fellow Fusion intern Pete “Birthday Boy” Bottomley, Unreal Guru, so massive thanks to him for taking some time out of his day to walk me through the essential how-to's of the UDK.

Obviously there is no longer time for the multi-stage multiple level based submission I laid out in January, but thus far I've been able to dabble in BSP's, basic triggers (and as such basic kismet) and even basic camera sequences. (What UT2K4 called “matinees”) I have to affirm my grip on these things through practice and implementation of a final scene, but thanks to Pete, I'm now confident I can end this semester with some knowledge of the UDK, and if I'm lucky, some kind of example level to submit as evidence of that knowledge. BSP brushing was a lot simpler and quicker than I expected, and although kismet is outwardly complex in comparison, the system and interface itself seems very organic and intuitive; I've no doubt I'll be able to memorize the work flow through repetition. Ideally I'll find some time this week to iron out my existing know-how, do some solo experiments with triggers and blocking, and then next on the list of things to learn will be texturing. If all goes as planned, I'll be exploring custom meshes and materials by the summer... but let's walk before we can run.

Severance Package

To celebrate my freedom, I decided to do something completely just for fun (Well, and a possible prize) by following John “sorry we have no copies left” Appleby's example and entering this sweet Dead Space 2 competition. If you haven't seen John's blog yet, the basic idea is that you design a kill/finishing move for the unfortunate everyman hero, Isaac Clarke, to perform on one of the gruesome Necromorphs that stalk him during the game. A lot of the entries involved quite superlative martial arts manoeuvrings, which I felt were a bit out of place, even if Isaac IS intended to be a little more experienced and hard bitten than in the first game. We'll call it “Leon Kennedy” syndrome. I wanted something a little more visceral (pun) and brutal than elaborate. Plus, I made sure to include dismemberment, which is the only way you can actually kill a Necromorph, as well as a main theme of the Dead Space franchise. Visually, I started with a quite loose and painterly conceptual style... But after a while I decided it just wasn't working like I had imagined, so swapped to a tighter two-tone under-the-line style, intended to reference the Dead Space anime “Downfall”. After taking a minute to indulge in the fact I was finally learning to cut my losses and discard an hours work when it would benefit me in the long run (fist pump) I created and submitted a storyboard. In retrospect, I hope the controversial title doesn't affect my chances at being chosen for the semi-finals.. but then again if they design a game with mutated baby corpses in, then I think that thing about glass houses probably applies.

The kill was to be performed on one of three Necromorphs, the Leaper, Lurker or Slasher, and although I only did the full storyboard for the Lurker. I planned a kill for the other two, described below.

Slasher: Ground Pound

Isacc lunges into the Slasher, knocking it to the ground with him on top. He then bats away the claws and proceeds to ferociously bash the Necro's head in until it's skull smashes. It tries to catch him with a free claw but he leans back and catches it, bracing his knee on the torso and rending the claw arm out of it's socket, before plunging it back into the creatures chest.

Leaper: Whiplash

Sidestepping an attempted leap, Isacc catches the creatures tail and swings it over himself, slamming it into the ground with a splutch. He then braces his foot on the creatures torso and rends it's tail off, along with the creatures spine.

Thanks for the heads up John! ;D

A Tale of Two Davids

I was so pleased with my “Rule of Three” blog entry I was reluctant to push it down just to post a drab lecture review, so I am now 2 weeks behind with the 'ole Friday write-ups. You lucky people, it's a double whammy of contextual goodness.

Lecture #6: David Knight, Design Culture (but actually Fashion)

Usually I follow up my serious lecture review bit with a brief slice of off-the-record radical (offensive) honesty which will be forgotten when I stitch together my final contextual hand-in. In this case, that slice is being served a tad early, with a side of controversy. Race is a prickly issue amongst those who don't have a black friend to point at or name drop when they say things they shouldn't, but I am really not a fan of people who choose to define themselves by their nationality or skin color. When David Knight began his lecture, the fact he was black didn't lead me to assume his lecture was about being black, yet he'd framed his entire presentation, and indeed, career, around just that. It led a lot of his hour being wasted on generic personal agenda, which was a shame, as he was clearly a talented artist. Even if he did refer to photoshop like it was some form of rare magic. You're talking to a room of Masters level art students David, we know “it's amazing what computers can do these days”. Ok, now the PG-13 version that won't get me in more trouble than when Capcom decided that most of the people in Africa were probably black. -Ed

Last semester we had a lecture from another fashion designer, and what stuck in my memory was the realization that because we tend to choose our clothes ourselves, what someone wears is an immediate reflection of their personal identity; their very interpretation of themselves and how they want to be perceived by others. Fashion implies membership of groups and organizations, it can put forward your interests and personality. Character designers choose the clothes of their fictional creations, but we design ourselves every morning in a similar way. David started with a similar observation, linking it with concepts of cultural norms and the underlying values of society. Mainly he was concerned in exploring his own cultural heritage and reacting to what he interpreted as “the mainstream”. He had actually chosen fashion as the best medium to do this after much experimentation in other disciplines, showing that for David, the message was more important than how it was put across. Perhaps why he began his lecture under the heading of design culture rather than fashion, not wishing to be so easily defined.

Alike previous lecturers, David had a clear theme running throughout his work; in his case the “Reggae Dance Hall” which he felt contained the color, drama and life of his message. He reveled in African design, wanting to provoke audiences by bringing the rules and values of another culture to clash with their accepted beliefs. I really liked his conceptual illustrations, bold and strong in his choice of color palette, and was intrigued by the creativity of his “adjustable” clothes. At the lectures end, he approached another common topic, the difference between designers and artists. David said that designers work outside themselves, while artists follow their internal desires, thus far one of the most apt definitions I have heard.

Lecture #7: David Binns, Ceramics

This actually proved to be one of my favorite lectures, with David Binns cleverly tackling the issue of “Professional Practice versus Academic Research” as a way to both explore his personal work and make constant relevant connections back to the demands of the contextual module and the inherent dichotomy of University students preparing to make the move from education to work. Out of all the lecturers thus far, he was probably the first to make a conscious attempt to make it as relevant and applicable as possible, and as a result much of what he said had greater impact. Since undergrad study I have felt torn between the demands of the University and the industry, nothing compared to David's own experiences, but I easily identified with how he emphasized the balance of building a portfolio and profile while satisfying the requirements of academic study. The latter concerned almost completely with process, the former concerned solely with outcome.

By this time, there are some clear themes emerging in the Friday lectures, and David contributed knowingly to several. Alike many others, he had realized several threads, lines of thought, running throughout his work over the years. His original love of woodwork had led to a fondness for heavy designs and a process involving wooden casts, an appreciation of the Japanese “zen” aesthetic and tranquility was of constant inspiration, and he was always concerned with conveying emotion and feeling in his pieces, if not a full narrative. It was very interesting to see how he had evolved throughout the years as a practitioner, adapting and integrating new techniques or interests. The concept of “tacit knowledge” struck a chord in me, putting a name to something I always knew to exist. Tacit Knowledge, knowledge which is instinctual and essential, but nearly impossible to communicate. Much of Games Design is built on tacit knowledge, a kind of uncommon sense common to those who have immersed themselves in their medium.

Those of you who were paying attention, David (Binns) was basically telling you how to write your lecturer report and link the contextual information back to your own discipline.

Alright, that should do it for tonight! Thanks for reading, if you did ;D Someday soon, Tin Robot.

-Steve

The Rule of Three

2010-02-26T17:11:00.000-08:00

Because twice isn’t enough and four times is just too much. Thank god I have gathered enough subject matter for another blog entry, as my total posts were teetering on the very cusp of a wonderfully round 30, and it was beginning to make my obsessive compulsive side twitch with every look at my dashboard. Over at TT Fusion, LSW3CW (Jeez) is moving forward to a new development stage, and subsequently the leads are struggling to find us relevant tasks to perform... making me feel a little bit more like a burden than an asset (unpleasant) but we did at least get another level review each, providing yet more insight into the industry process and what direction we should be thinking for future documents and designs. I think that makes this as good a time as any to reflect on what I have learned about working in the industry in the past 2 months.

Version 2.0

Nothing is ever really finished. While you may not savour making tiny tweaks to your work which actually involve massive revisits to now-confusing PSD documents or Maya project files you triumphantly closed the book on, you’d best not get too attached to the idea of anything being final until the game is on the shelves. Generally, this isn’t too hard for me if I leave a week or two between the original “completion” of a task and returning to it. That’s about how long it takes from warm attachment to turn to cold disgust. Then after a year and beyond, that disgust crystallises into shame, and you hope no one ever thinks to look at anything you did before the exact moment you are talking to them. I know Kaile empathises.

Getting attached to an idea and hanging on to it for dear life has always been a problem of mine, one I’ve managed to shake from my conceptualising stage over the last few years. Now I just need to become the kind of designer/artist who can start from scratch and forget the past when he needs to. I saw my good buddy Christian “too tall for China” Fell do it many times, scrap a piece of art I’d give a nut to produce without a second thought. And if a meagre intern like me can find letting go this hard, being a professional concept artist on a AAA blockbuster like Uncharted, binning a dozen watercolours worthy of a framing just because the scene was cut at the last minute.... Just be ready to tweak and change and replace, is the lesson. This isn’t a University project; you don’t decide when it is done.

Pushing the Limit

At University there aren’t really any limitations. Although I generally tried to keep myself grounded and realistic even at Uni, in the industry, particularly for portable platforms, the limitations aren’t always what you would expect. Sure, there are the obvious rules about how much you put on screen at once, and what objects can co-exist where, but there are also finicky little details that bite you in the ass out of nowhere. The camera has been a surprisingly big one for us during our stay at Fusion. Luckily, it is my belief that working within limitations breeds further creativity, and takes you to ideas you’d never have arrived at without hitting a few walls. (Spoilers! This is also the conclusion of my as yet unwritten contextual essay about the Friday lectures. Yes, I think that far ahead.) A related lesson reinforced by the internship is resource efficiency.

A blunt thinker might just add add add new content with every inch of each level design, but good design is about using the same things in new ways and not relying on new content to keep the player interested. Also, if you save up your metaphorical resource points, you can spend them on something REALLY extra cool. ...Which will get turned down when the programmers catch wind of it. This brings me to another lesson; time restrictions. It took only one trip to a game studio two summers ago to realise how big a factor time is to a project. Gamers tend to assume “bad games” are the product of “bad designers”. Fact is, deadlines in the industry are brutal, and despite the immense talent of the creative team, production has to be realistic, and many dreams are just too big. It’s disappointing, but I’ve always understood this to be the case. This isn’t a reflection on TT Fusion though, who do amazing things in time periods waaaay shorter than you would expect.

Bad Habits Die Hard

Our latest document review was conducted by a real veteran of the Lego franchise, who knew all the little quirks of the engine, and could predict problems others might miss, thanks to his experience wading through them year after year. He and I shared a lot of pet hates, mostly related to antiquated retro design philosophy. This ultimately proved ironic however, because being that I view the Lego titles as quite old school action platformers, I had deliberately let myself indulge nearly every antiquated design quirk I normally try to avoid when designing levels. It’s common knowledge that “Videogame logic” can often lead to the creation of rooms which outside of gameplay would be utterly ridiculous. Rather than using surreal and abstract layouts where there are bits sticking out of the wall just because you need somewhere for the character to jump, the goal would be to think of a reason something would be sticking out of the wall there; have the character appear to be repurposing an existing feature of the area to their needs, rather than entering an area pre-prepared to offer them colourful arbitrary challenges. Uncharted 2 is a beautiful example of this, where everything Drake does seems to be a bit of charactful improvisation. Its busty ancestor Tomb Raider is perhaps an example of how not to do it, unless you assume the Aztecs designed their tombs for access by skilled gymnasts only. I am all for killing the “surreal” type of level design in serious titles, but I did not think to apply it to my cute and fun Lego levels. Live and learn.

And so back to the rule of three from the opening. This was something else our Lego veteran brought up during our latest document review that really clicked with me for some reason. When designing challenges, particularly boss battles, designers subconsciously refer to a “rule of three”. In hindsight, I was very aware of how magic the number three was to videogames, but I was stunned to discover how often I myself had relied on this rule during my levels. A common tactic of mine is to introduce a mechanic in its simplest form. When I know the player understands the basic rules of it, I can bring it back with a slight twist. Then, I use it again with a new twist or an extra layer of complexity, bringing the mechanic to its own internal “finale”. Tragically, this 3-step system could be misconstrued as repetition, when in fact I’m only trying to lay the groundwork for the mechanic in its cleverest form. Boss battles were a primary victim of the rule, and I can tell you now that I personally HATE when a boss is so stuck in a mindless pattern they allow the player to exploit the same trick or tactic again and again without changing their routine. Arkham Asylum is a massive sufferer of this issue, the final boss battle reduced to nonsense by ill-advised application of the “rule of three”. But in another act of irony, I had designed several boss fights for the game already, and two of them involved repeating an action, or progressing through stages. How many times? 3 times. How many stages? 3 stages. Again, I was designing deliberately retro, deliberately “old school”. The main problem with the repetition of a tactic against bosses is afterall how it breaks immersion, and Lego isn’t all that big on immersion. Despite that, I am making a personal note to distance myself from working in threes from now on. Something to keep in mind, fellow designers.

Lecture #5: Joanna Mowbray, Sculpture

Joanna’s lecture had many recurring themes; primarily it was about personal progression as an artist. How over the years your approach and perspective changes and your portfolio evolves, yet everything is ultimately circular, and often you revisit old ideas and projects with a fresh eye, or discover a line of thought that unites your work. In Joanna’s case, that line of thought was clearly her interest in manipulation of space and shadow. Interestingly she began outdoors, simply re-arranging natural materials in new shapes. Then she decided she had to go indoors and use more artificial materials, which eventually led her to bring man-made materials and place them in natural environments, trying to turn the natural unnatural, just as she had done by re-arranging branches and rocks.

At first I thought she worked in lighter materials like paper and cloth during personal projects while using heavier ones like metal and wood for commissions, but she explained she experiments and “sketches” in light malleable materials like paper, but her finished concepts are always created in the sturdier elements. I was also intrigued by the different ways she was able to present her sculptures to audiences; collaborations between sculptors and contemporary dance studios were something I hadn’t expected to exist. Discussions following the lecture raised the topic of design versus art again, with Joanna clearly being an artist. She said having an application/end product in mind corrupted the creative process, which she preferred to be extremely free flowing and open-ended. Although as a designer I will almost always have a goal in mind when I start a project, if I can learn anything from the “artistic” approach, it is to allow myself freedom during the first stages of conceptualisation and not be afraid to explore my interests when I get the chance.

http://www.eichgallery.org/jmowbray/index.html

Fun fact: I hate contempoary art.

Thanks for reading, if you did.

-Steve

Public Announcement

2010-02-12T16:03:00.000-08:00

Grand Moff Tarkin. It was suggested to me years earlier that there is a test, to assess the severity of your Star Wars nerd-dom. If you are a real honest bona-fide Lucas nut, you’ll know the name of the commanding officer on the Death Star. And thanks to the last month at TT Fusion, I even know that his first name is Wilhuff. Luckily, Scott “Jedi Master” Taylor assured me today that I wasn’t too bad after all, as I didn’t know who "Bossk" was. Big news! The unannounced title I have been working on at Fusion was announced this week! Coming soon to DS and PSP (and some consoles or something) "Lego Star Wars 3: The Clone Wars"

Build Me Up Buttercup

The announcement opens up a lot of doors for me, stuff I wanted to say earlier but couldn’t because of, you know, the line. Any of you who dedicated thought to it probably guessed the project was Lego related, but now that I can confirm it, I can talk about my feelings about the franchise and working on it. Two years ago when I was a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed undergrad researching the Lego titles as preparation for my very first placement, my initial impressions were recorded as follows;

“I was actually surprised at how enjoyable they were, and for the simplest of reasons. Playing like a throwback to really old school traditional gaming, the Lego titles mix basic platforming and combat with simplistic puzzle solving to quite potent effect, and although the 3+ age rating means that for the average person (and especially the average gamer) the gameplay is a tad too easy at times and the puzzles basically solve themselves, the design mantra is very satisfying; when confronted with a problem you build something or break something. The formula brings the sandbox joy of the Lego brand to the participating franchise, and means players will generally find large visual rewards in the completion of the simplest puzzles. By nailing the overtly complex colours of series’ like Star Wars to the mast of basic platforming and Lego build/break gameplay, licenses once unwieldly become much more manageable and workable in game form, yet still retain the same aesthetic, style and flavour of their universe.”

-Me, Too Long Didn’t Read, June 29 2008

Not bad, past Me. Of course all that groundwork was a waste, seeing as I spent barely a week play testing Lego Batman during my first placement before being moved to a completely un-Lego project in the form of Guinness World Records. I prepared all over again a year later, but that summer the Lego game I was working on turned out to be Rock Band, a Lego game without Lego gameplay. In the final irony, I didn’t undertake the Lego DS dabbling this time around and lo and behold I arrive right in the midst of a true Lego title, real design work and all. I kicked myself, just the once. Regardless, I think a lot of people turn their noses up at the Lego games for being overly simplistic just because they are by definition aimed at children. As a designer, it’s actually really refreshing to go back to “basics”. As past me muses, Lego games are all about reward. It doesn’t matter if you are showering the player in the Lego currency of studs, presenting them with a minikit or merely treating them to a visual spectacle of crashing bricks and explosions; it’s all about a sense of achievement and direction. Really, that’s the bare bones of good game and level design, keeping the player entertained and engaged. As such, I have found the internship really enjoyable thus far; the purity of the franchises’ design formula makes it a great introduction to industry-standard level design.

I have a good feeling about this...

Can’t forget about the other side of that chunky franchise crossover coin though. As usual Lego has teamed up with an existing intellectual property; this particular title being a surprise return to the series’ roots. The now ridiculously successful Lego videogame brand was built on the back of Star Wars, but seeing as they ran out of movies I didn’t expect any immediate sequels on the horizon. What I hadn’t heard about was a CG animation series “The Clone Wars”, which is apparently gaining some genuine momentum with audiences. I’d never seen it, which in combination with it being a year since I last touched a DS (never mind the DS version of a Lego game) left me feeling a bit “fish out of water” for a good portion of the first day.

I resolved to shake that feeling with aggressive haste, marathoning my through the first season box set, and what scraps we could get of season 2. LucasArts keep the unaired episodes under lock and key like it’s the script for the last episode of Lost, but regardless I had more than enough material to prepare myself a hefty knowledge sandwich to gulp down; a series and a half I burned into my memory like I was revising for an exam, wrapped in five dozen Wookipedia articles and drizzled with the delicious 2D Clone Wars series which preceded the current CG one. I have been living and breathing Star Wars for over a month at this point. If you cut me right now, I’d bleed midichlorians. I’ve started to find my conversations with people drifting to Star Wars references and in-jokes without provocation. Such things, they shouldn’t happen. This said, the immense intricate detail an army of writers have provided for the universe is mind-blowing. Every vehicle’s engine has a serial code and manufacturing company, every seemingly throwaway red-shirt character has a surname and a family. While an encyclopaedic knowledge of the universe isn’t a necessity, and unflinching loyalty to the purity of the Star Wars cosmology isn’t as big a deal in a Lego title (where the slapstick humour and fun formula are projected as the face of the universe) as they would be in a full-fledged IP adaptation, I’m the kind of guy who wants to know everything there is to know about what he is doing, and I think it’s important to appreciate and support the spirit of a property if you are working with it. As a fan of properties which have been blundered before, I always swore if I was on an IP project, I’d represent for that IP and its fanbase.

Still, before now I was never a massive Star Wars fan, and I have a problem with the Clone Wars series in that it is by necessity filler; the characters fates are already set in stone, and they can only develop as far as their first scene in Revenge of the Sith. Despite that I really like elements of the art direction in terms of lighting and rendering, and in the end the series is just a bit of good fun. Swashbuckling and adventure, with occasional high-spec politics and military tactics mixed in. You know, for kids. Arguably the characters lives were better during the war than after it, where everything turned to crap and everyone died or betrayed everyone else. Complaints aside, Star Wars is hardly the worst IP to end up on. Lightsabers, Jedi’s, explosions, space combat, lightsabers, there is a nerdy glee in it whichever way you slice it. SLICE IT WITH YOUR LIGHTSABER. Plus, it’s perfect material for the Lego franchise. The episodic nature of the show couldn’t work better with the Lego formula, and in the end, all a new Lego Star Wars game needed to function was new names and places to base levels around.

I’m going to finish my third level design document soon, so it will be interesting to see what the future holds after that.

Lecture #4: Barry JC Purves, Animation

This was by far the best lecture of the year thus far; delivered with passion and energy by someone of incredible experience and reputation within his medium. Animation connects strongly to television and movies as well as videogames themselves (which even got a mention during the lecture) striking a much stronger more relevant chord with me than previous lectures, due to these being entertainment media as much as an art form, alike games themselves. Barry revealed he wanted to be an actor originally, which for a moment seemed strange, but as I thought about it, made perfect sense seeing as animation is basically about “acting” through a puppet; be it digital, 3D or 2D or a physical stop motion model. It’s about storytelling and emotion. I was surprised I hadn’t made the connection before.

Barry was very interested in being provocative and pushing people’s emotions with his work, self-admittedly clashing with the “family friendly” image stop-motion animation has. He went to lengths during the lecture to demonstrate the power of his medium and how it could address mature topics in a sophisticated adult way, showing us footage of the arthouse masterpiece “Mary and Max” , “Next” a wordless retelling of all Shakespeare’s great plays, and “Screen Play”, a beautifully animated Kibuki theatre fairytale with a disturbing surprise ending. I hadn’t intended to bring the topic of creative control into this lecture, but Barry himself addressed it heavily, continuing it as a theme across the lectures each week. Barry explained that while frustrated by the seemingly arbitrary silly decisions of focus groups and worried execs, he believed in being creative within limitations; and I find it re-assuring that amongst commercial projects he found time for personal indulgence and provocative exploration in films like Screen Play.

The one take one shot nature of stop motion is fascinating. The character is moved one frame at a time, and once you move forward or begin a motion, you can never go back, you have to run with the model in front of you. This often creates unique quirks you could never have planned for, providing echoes of the second lecture about Enameling. I myself have always felt animation has the potential to acheive more emotional intricacy and detail than live action, because every miniscule movement of every character and object in a scene is conciously decided a frame at a time. Every blink of an eye, every gesture, has to be planned a second at a time. This is one reason why animation I think, can always add another layer to a story.

http://www.barrypurves.com/

I’m not kidding around when I say this was the best lecture yet. The best presented, the most relevant, the most interesting visual aids. Ran over considerably though, someone should tell the lecturers that once the clock strikes 11, we all start itching to leave. I’d have been happy to stay the extra hour, and beyond, if there had been a recess or I’d been informed in advance and prepared accordingly, but there is something very distracting knowing a lecture could end at any second. Until next time, loyal readers.

Oh, and Bossk was a reptilian bounty hunter. "Manners are their own reward gentlemen!"

-Steve

Walk the Line

2010-01-30T15:01:00.000-08:00

I changed my mind. Despite my initial reservations, I’m going to fulfil all my reflective responsibilities at Dexter’s Blab as originally intended. This isn’t due to any particular epiphany or realisation; my current sleep schedule apparently just makes my mood somewhat changeable, and this week I have started to feel that I can discuss what I am learning and how I feel about my work at TT without tripping over the mention of any nitty gritty details about the project itself. Alike Johnny Cash, I can walk the line. That is of course where the similarities between myself and Johnny Cash end. Except the black clothes and the ring of fire thing. I once fell into a ring of fire.

Workin’ Hard or Hardly Workin’?

I have been on placement at Fusion twice before, and both times it had taken the first few days for them to find us a corner of the office, set up our machines, and assign us a task; thus I curbed my enthusiasm and was prepared for a similar wait this time around. But on arrival I was pleasantly surprised to find they were more than prepared for us, and within five minutes we had a computer station to call home and a trio of documents about the game we’d be working on to read through. Not only that, but the past two summers all the projects were already at crunch stage, leaving only QA (Quality Assurance/Game Testing) and technical tweaking for us to do. While I don’t turn my nose up at those jobs at all, the former being a vital part of game development (you wouldn’t believe how many bugs can appear in even the simplest game, I know I didn’t) and the latter providing my first chance to contribute content to a final product I could recognise as my own AND gain experience in a new game engine, I think most designers can identify with the feeling that those parts of the job are far more satisfying when you’ve been involved at the beginning, during the fully fledged whizz-bang “this should do this and be like this” part of the process. The best part. The part we’re finally in time for!

Because we are not fully integrated into the studio nor have we been drafted through normal means, the lead designers can’t be sure we aren’t, well, rubbish, and have to drip feed us work at a speed they can check over it. Games design isn’t common sense to everyone, and until our immediate superiors have the time to really sit down with each of us and discuss the work we are doing, we have to report regularly to check we are on the right track. This doesn’t bother me, but it does lead to gaps in the day’s workload, and eager to impress, I tend to throw myself into each job in an attempt to complete it both quickly and efficiently, and then subsequently loathe to be at a loose end while I am in the studio. It’s this stopping and starting, in combination with the particular tasks I am moving between, which informs the rollercoaster metaphor from the previous entry. Hopefully in the near future we will get to a stage where we have a stack of jobs to be getting on with, and I can really knuckle-down and get a consistent workflow going.

In terms of the actual work we are doing, Level design is the name of the game. Well, no it isn’t, but I can’t tell you the name of the game. /wordplay. As the project is so new, the design is pulling in two directions. In some ways, there is a lot of freedom, and we are actively encouraged to be exciting and innovative at every opportunity. Considerable chunks of the game are still in flux and there is plenty of time for whatever artistic assets we might decide we need to be planned and finished. As I stated clearly last semester however, we all have to come down out of the clouds eventually. I think most aspiring designers let themselves run fast and loose at University, and rightly so, but when it comes to the industry; real products with real deadlines, you have to be realistic. There are many considerations to juggle; primarily being resource efficient and the capabilities of the platform, which in this case (if I am to walk dangerously close to the edge of the line) can appear very limiting at times. It’s the simplest mundane things that can trip up a game engine; it is not as if I asked if the character could develop the ability to fly and shoot rockets from his eyes for a few minutes; something as seemingly straightforward as “and then they pass through a tunnel” can lead to you going back to your drawing board in shame.

But, as my lecture series should be making ever more obvious, I have long considered being creative within set boundaries as the true test of a designer; problem-solving, overcoming obstacles, that’s what design is all about! I am extremely excited to be working the whizz-bang “this should do this and be like this” part of a project, and as of this moment, will no longer be complaining about the harshness of the commute. At least not through digital means. Besides, I have come to genuinely look forward to my good morning hot chocolate with a dash of orange or hazelnut.

Lecture #3: Claire Norcross, Light Designer

Claire was able to turn materials as mundane as envelopes and cable ties into works of art. I was impressed by how she worked with basically anything she had access to, and genuinely liked how her designs manipulated the colour and shape of the light they contained or projected. A few common threads are beginning to appear in the lectures, most notably the arguments for and against artists/designers conforming to the demands of an audience or employer versus exploring their creativity independently. As a designer, Claire’s work was by definition focused on satisfying a practical demand, but interestingly, she had also changed employer regularly, so as to facilitate her needs as an artist. Another common factor was that of inspiration, the topic my first semester focused on. Although arguably more a designer than the first two lecturers, Claire was still inspired by what she saw and the places she went, instinctually saving up her experiences and utilising them in projects were the themes would fit; such as her experimenting in fashion via an “amphibious” theme inspired by her trip to Sydney.

www.clairenorcross.co.uk

All that Scott and I could think about for the majority of the lecture was “I LOVE LAMP”. Thanks for reading.

-Steve

Pushing Tin

2010-01-29T15:59:00.000-08:00

Surprise project! Josh gave us a fun little vaguely optional task last Friday; simply design and create a low poly “Tin Robot” and present it top notch degree show style. Although this project is most likely intended to teach basic modelling and presentation skills to the newer folks, a little practice never hurt anybody. If I don’t get back into Maya soon, what rudimentary abilities I have will atrophy and fall off. It’s kind of relaxing to be doing a clean cut bite-size University project actually. It’s been a long time since the relative simplicity of second year.

Bubble Boy

My starting point is merely “Tin Robot”, but I like to take into account all elements of a brief. In this case, the goal is simple clean modelling, and good strong presentation. It’s partially a character design, so the old rules of silhouette and colour palette apply, particularly in this case, with Josh specifically mentioning cohesive presentation through reflection of colour and symbology in model and board layouts. It’s something I am familiar with of course, as I consider constructing a personality for each of my projects as a vital part of the process.

That afternoon, the brainstorming started with colour palette, which for a character like a robot can mean everything. I also had it in my head to design the robot using basic shapes, both to facilitate the “purity” Josh wants, and to ease me back into the modelling and texturing process. In class, I tentatively landed on yellow/black for the colours; yellow/black being a stark and stylish contrast which says “danger” when combined with stripes. For shapes I crash landed on triangles, because it’s the least obvious of the shapes, and I always strive to distance my responses from the obvious. This would create a very sharp aggressive personality for my robot; which combined with comical proportion could form a memorable little character.

Unfortunately, when I got home I realised I had been designing in a bubble. Now that I was in front of my PC I had Google to consider. Otherwise known as hundreds of pages of reference stretching into infinity. A cursory search for tin robots led me to realise my concept would radically change in the next few days. While designing freshly from your head is a fine practice, any tutor will tell you that you should start with reference, gather sources of inspiration. Your design always ends up stronger when you perform a decent research activity beforehand.

“I see you learned to work the google on the internet machine”

So thus far I had a pretty brutal looking sharp-headed danger-striped robot design on paper. The tin robots I was finding online were however of a much more retro, vintage design. The most classic archetypical robot designs you could imagine, really. Most had a quite potent 50’s science fiction/B Movie vibe, all rubbery arms, boxy heads, lights and switches and antennae. I made note of a variety of common denominators across the various types of tin robot; the grill as a mouth, the arcade slot machine chest, the control panel waist, the clamps for hands. The mechanical parts masquerading for faces and limbs gave way to a realisation about how the personality of these automatons was projected. The grilled mouth vents gave the robots a vacant distinctly inhuman quality while fins transmitted a message of aggression and rebellion. Villainous bots were generally faceless or missing features in order to separate them even further from being perceived as human. Alternatively, if the goal was to make the robot likable or relatable, the key turned out to be in accentuating the eyes. When trying to make a character cute or attractive, big sparkling puppy dog eyes is always a strong move in the right direction, so I suppose it should be no surprise it’s the same with robotic characters. Look at nearly any likable robot character, and they have big eyes.

I first explored the soulless callous villainous droid archetype. I had this image in my head of a really retro 50’s B Movie robot sporting a flowing cape that would give him a sense of status and um, “dark-lordery”. Reference for this included the spikier machines from Robot Wars, and Emperor Zurg from Toy Story, an under-rated character I had long thought was awesome in the movies albeit apparently camp in the Buzz Lightyear series I didn’t watch. But, I began to consider how a friendlier, “cuter” robot might better reflect the purity of the project and the goal of simplicity and design. I now knew eyes were the key, so big round eyes were on the menu.

I tried big round eyes on a square head, and it was basically “Bad Robot”, the mascot of the titular production company.

I tried round eyes and a spherical head, and it was Clank from Ratchet and Clank.

I tried round eyes and a half spherical head, and it was the little critters from Batteries not Included.

Frustrated, I did eyes on stalks, no head. It was Wall E. With a dash of Johnny 5.

I did various experiments with body types also, finding that if the character was to be considered cute, he’d clearly need a body thinner than his head. Anything else made the character come across as bulky (aggressive) or fat (nobody likes fat people), tainting the characters unspoken personality and aesthetic. Nonetheless I am now armed with a considerable amount of imagery and conceptual scribbling, which any moment will no doubt dramatically interweave and splash together into an idea for a completely unique and original Tin Robot. Any moment now...

Pages of my scribbles;

Lecture #2: Ruth Ball, Enameller

Ruth’s work was extremely intricate, and as the lecture continued I was very impressed by the versatility of her portfolio and the mix of delicate skill and patience her medium required. While Ruth’s work still allowed her to pursue hidden meaning and personal agenda, it was still alluring visually; vibrant and colourful, and often with a practical application in mind. Personally, I am much quicker to support art which can be meaningful AND attractive, rather than just one or the other. During the QA session after the lecture, I asked Ruth what she felt about the last lecturer’s suggestion that working for employers was limiting to the creative process. Ruth suggested that if you have a passion and talent for a subject, you can still be meaningful and creative within the boundaries you are given, which has always been my own perspective as well. In fact I often find working within existing boundaries focuses my problem-solving skills, resulting in conclusions I’d never have reached on a blank page.

As a final point, I have always been somewhat fascinated by the mediums which utilise “firing” to finish a piece. As Ruth pointed out during the lecture, this process is often unpredictable and can completely destroy your work if you do it wrong. To have to risk so much right at the end of the creative process must be nerve-wracking.

www.ruthballenameldesign.com

Closer to 100 words this time. I’m getting better. PS: Was I the only one who had never heard of “enamelling” before?

-Steve