All Content (c) Jake Simpson 1999 - Current. Except the pics of women, which
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The Ramblings of an old Games Developer...
"What I look forward to is continued immaturity followed by death."
- Dave Barry Posted 2008/06/20 10:51:48 by Jake Simpson
This site was last updated on March 28th 2010
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A new kind of Engineer?
I've noticed over the years that while specialization has been occurring in the games programming trade, it tends to be technology driven specialization, rather than specialization by game features.
For example, we get shader / renderer writers, we get AI coders, we get Sound guys, we get Physics guys, we get scripters and we get UI guys (to mention a few) - they are all broken up by technology inside the engine (mostly).
But I've started to notice a branch off of a new kind of programmer - two different types of the same thing. The Content Collator, or the Game Play programmer. Game play programmers have been around a while, but generally they aren't the same as what I am about to describe.
I see the current crop of game play engineers to be content collators - they take all the content and assets you get from the content creators and actually create the game around it, using scripting and front end tools. They basically don't even need to be programmers at all, except they do because of scripting and the need to build the tools that enables them to dump content in real fast. Instead of writing loads of code in C++ to make animations happen, they build a tool that enables them to string them together via a GUI and do it that way. Effectively they make the actual game (as apart from the engine) totally data driven. Obviously tools will need to be changed and extended as games go through iterations, but thats fine; thats what these guys *do*. The cool part is that not only do they write the tools but they also use them - so they are actually building the game play experience.
On The Sims these guys are called Object Engineers - they basically build all of the objects in the Sims which is what the game revolves around - all the behaviors that the Sims perform are actually part of the object. They build scripts, make the animations work, put in the sounds etc.
I see similarities in how level designers in FPS games work - really there are two disciplines at work there, basic architecture design and the actual creation of the game play experience through scripting, object placement and so on. The two work hand in hand, but usually aren't built by the same person, at least not recently anyway (it used to be that it was, which is why some games have such unbalanced levels, some of which were gorgeous but barren and others that were loaded with game play events but looked blah).
The second guy is the one that actually gives you the game play experience and it's the new discipline that I see as part engineer and part designer - the guy that actually crafts the experience you have as opposed to the person who crafts the engine it sits in, what it looks like and the environment you are in.
I think this position is really really hard to hire for, but when you get a good one he makes all the difference in the world. I have to believe that people like Valve and Infinity Ward are very cognizant of this kind of personnel requirement.
In terms of the second kind of engineer - it's kind of similar to the first only it's a more hard core coder that bashes out very fast prototypes and is used only for the prototyping part of the development process. They build fast and dirty prototypes that really requires them to be half bedroom hacker coder and half game designer, the same kinds of qualities that the afore mentioned programmer requires, except the production coder needs to be doing things with GUI's that get tested and can be used by everyone rather than writing low down dirty throw away system that are only there to prove a concept.
These guys are never intended to be part of a pure production group, so they don't have to worry about writing correct systems, only writing them fast to prove a point and move on.
I totally believe that as we move into the last part parts of the naughties, that this kind of engineering position will start to get recognized officially in terms of career paths and hiring requirements.
Food for thought.
Posted at 25/03/2008 08:33:27 PM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Game Development
Yeah, I know. Not video games related. I will have something tomorrow though - I've discovered that Guangzhou has a Video Game Wholesaler and I'm going to take a look. I'm expecting lots of accessories and lots of ripoffs - we shall see what we shall see.
In the mean time we've been busy - we've been on a river cruise, we've been to Knock Off Central to see copies (and not really very good copies) of prada bags, rolxes and all that. We've been to the Jade Market, done some clothing shopping and this morning we went to the toy wholesaler where I picked up some pretty awesome binoculars and also some LED badges, which are pure awesomeness.
We've also been hanging out with my brother and one of his friends, Wilson (who's been mega helpful, and who has a china doll for a wife and the cutest little boy apart from Cameron).
Tomorrow it's the first consulate appointment to present our petition to bring Cameron into the states as a new citizen.
So some pics.
Just off the plane from Chongqing.
At dinner - Cameron with one of his harem, the beautiful Catherine. Frankie is the other chick competing for his attention - what a place to be in eh?
Wilson, Myself and my brother Cris who's here in China on business.
My brother Cris with Amelia - she looks a touch chubby in that pic but that's just the way she is pushing herself against him.
Cris with Cameron - first relative to meet him!
One for my sister - yes, we are starting Cameron as he intends to go on, with crap diet :). He does LOVE the fries. But then so does Cathy and Amelia, so he's got his work cut out ripping them off.
Posted at 25/03/2008 06:23:03 AM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Life, Family
I'll add some pics to this when Cathy gets back with the camera!
Last night we had dinner with my brother Cris at a calypso / asian restaurant. We met with his friend Ben (who is pretty awesome) and his wife and child. It was an awesome dinner and evening, particularly so since we got some gifts from family back home (Thank you Bella for the "Don't blame me, blame the parents" T-Shirt for Cameron).
The whiskey went down a treat:)
Today is easter and the wife and kids (how weird it is to say that) are out at church - not my thing but they wanted to go so fine - and I get an hour to myself, which is most welcome.
So the story about our flying out here - basically we were due to fly out on Wednesday, from Phoenix to SF, connecting at SF to a flight to Tokyo and on from there to Guangzhou. Our flight from Phoenix was a united flight at 7:15 am, but booked through All Nippon Air (a new carrier) which then took us the rest of the way.
We booked Super Shuttle to take us the 15 miles to the airport (since we didn't want to leave our cars at long term and incur costs) and we informed them of when our flights were (we'd have to be at the airport at 6:30 at the latest - 45 mins before they fly) and they assured us we'd be there on time. They picked us up at 5am sharp and we thought it was all good. Turns out there were 3 other pickups, and the driver didn't know where any of them were, they were all in locked in conclaves and in the end we got dropped off at 6:40, too late to make our Phoenix-SF leg.
So we talked to United, who couldn't help because they didn't issue the ticket. We talked to our travel agent who did her best but couldn't find us a different flight - we'd already missed that days ANA flights to Tokyo / China - we'd have to go the next day. And here was the kicker - ANA wanted another $6300 for us to rebook the next day because "they had no seats and all they had was business class, which cost that much more". This is on top of the $5500 we'd already spent on tickets. They told me they literally had no economy seats leaving mainland USA for China at all until the following Monday, which was too late since we had to be in Feng Du to pick up Cameron by Sunday. Our Travel agent informed us it was the same with all the carriers - no seats anywhere.
Needless to say I wasn't having any of that. I got on the phone with ANA and pointed out to them that a) I didn't have that money extra lying around and b) the next day the LA Times could have one of two headlines on the opinion columns, one of which read "AZ couple fails to adopt child because of extra $6300 demand by ANA for seats for flight" or "ANA triumphs by getting AZ couple to China to adopt over difficult circumstances". I made the point that this was a highly media pathetic situation and they wouldn't come of looking good out of it, and if I failed to adopt a child because they wouldn't get me on a plane out to China that it would cost them in the long run. They had a point in that the fact that we missed our flights wasn't their fault, but as I pointed out, attempting to charge us an extra $6300 absolute was their problem.
In the end, after going up 3 levels of management to a VP I finally got someone to 'find' us some seats the next day.
In terms of Super Shuttle - well negotiations are still underway on that situation. I can't quite believe that a business who's entire focus is getting you to the airport on time can't do it, particularly when we are sitting in the back making nervous noises to the driver the whole time. What really pissed me off was he was totally aware that he'd completely failed to get us to the airport on time, but he just dropped us off and left without even saying sorry. Needless to say we won't be utilizing Super Shuttle again.
Eventually though, we made it out here and we have Cameron.
He's awesome. Here, take a gander at this pic from dinner last night:)
Thats my son - Tony Soprano II.
Posted at 22/03/2008 09:08:56 PM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Life, Rants, Family
Just wanted to update on yesterdays blog post - I think my basic point was to say that the original writer was quite correct if you use a traditional writer and try and inject them into video game writing - particularly someone who doesn't play games.
My point was that writers who are aware of video game idoms can be of value.
Writing for it's own sake can't make a mechanic fun (as was postulated) - Something I agree with. But it can make all the stuff surrounding the mechanic fun and imbue it with more meaning. And that's definitely of value.
Just like every great movie camera man is a frustrated director, every good video game writer is a frustrated designer. And every good video game gameplay programmer is a frustrated designer too.
By definition there needs to be bleed over in disciplines to get the best out of all of them, and writing is no different. Providing you get that and get a writer who groks that then writers most assuredly *can* make a difference to your product. Assuming it needs one..
Posted at 22/03/2008 08:50:44 PM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Game Development
The basic premise is that video game writers aren't designers and because they aren't they aren't worth being on a team, since what they do overlaps design by such a large margin.
I dunno. I see what is being said but I think the logic stops short of the ultimate conclusion.
I get what the guy is saying - writing a story isn't creating game mechanics, and his premise is that in order for the story to be good it has to be story driven, not mechanic drive. If it is mechanic driven then the story ceases to be good since it's about justifying the next bit of action you undertake - the COD games are classic in this regard - the story is just there to string the action sequences together.
His point is that really all you need is justification, not a story line that involves plot development or character development, and if you employ a true writer thats what you are going to get.
And he's right - in that one example. On soldier of Fortune Raven employed a movie writer and the results were a disaster - the guy wrote an extended cinematic, not a video game.
What he's not taking into account are writers who are gamers. There are plenty out there - Rhianna Pratchett is a shining example (she wrote the story and dialog for Overlord for example, as well as the story for Heavenly Sword). There are other writing groups who also specialise in video games and understand what their place is, and how they can bend their skills to our unique requirements.
Just like there are programmers who can turn their hands to design (and these people are worth their weight in gold) there are writers who can also visualise design - they are out there and you just have to go out and find them. Obviously a traditional writer won't work very well in a video game environment but then Hollywood worked that out when they tried to get novel authors to write screen plays back in the 30's.
The other point I take umbrage with is the statement that good writing doesn't make the game better - thats just not true. Caring about the characters and situations make the game playing experience that much stronger because your immersion is deeper and you care. The moment we make a player care about the characters and situations we've got him by the balls because he'll play and replay to get past given challenges.
Good writing aids the immersiveness in video games in exactly the same way it does in movies and TV - it's not the principle aspect (as it is in TV and movies) and narrative is the enemy of interaction (since setting up set situations and then resolving them is what narrative is all about, and we are by definition a dynamic genre) but it's entirely possible to make good story based games, and you will need a professional writer to pull that off because god knows most of the dialog and stories we have currently appear to come from Die Hard or The Evil Dead. Its one of the things that we as an industry dearly need to work on.
In terms of the Half Life comparison (which others have made, saying that it provides the perfect example of who to write a story into an interactive FPS game) I'd have to say that Half Life does what it does very well, but it's very limited in how they can progress a story since they can't do a cut scene, or a scene from a view that isn't Gordon Freeman, and that really does curtail some of what they can do.
It's a good example but it's only one example of whats possible.
Posted at 21/03/2008 11:46:54 PM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Game Development
A more incorrect and strange bit of reasoning I have rarely come across.
The message is that the more systems your game can play on and the easier it is to play, the less piracy matters.
I'd love the author of this article to chat with the Sports Interactive guys who just cancelled their EastSide Hockey franchise because it got pirated up the wazoo.
I'd also make the point that the reason Steam exists as a delivery mechanism is because 2 million people in Korea were playing CounterStrike, yet Valve hadn't had one sale there.
The bottom line is the more mainstream your game is, and the easier it is to play, the more it will get pirated.
The only good thing is that because the total percentage of players is greater that your profits will be because even if 50% of the people out there pirate it, the 50% that don't cover the 50% that do. The actual numbers means that the 50% you do get paying is more than you would get if you did put in some copy protection. Which is rubbish of course - lots of people who would pay will now not (granted not all will - it's a fallacy to believe that every pirated copy is a lost sale), but in real dollar terms it may well be enough to cover development and keep the lights on for the next game.
Of course 50% sales of a total usage base for an unprotected game is rubbish as well. More like 15-20%, if that. In fact the more popular your game is, the less that actual value will be.
Ignoring pirates is just an incredibly short term and, well, stupid idea to espouse. Look what it's done for CD sales (Granted, I'm not advocating what the music lobby has done to try and stop piracy, but the fact that piracy does have an impact is a dumb thing to ignore).
It's one thing to say that piracy is free publicity - there may be some validity to that - but to just ignore the problem means you just can't think of a creative way around it.
Posted at 21/03/2008 05:18:38 AM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Game Development
Ok, I promise to resume normal video game development blogs soon, but not until we've completed this adoption next week.
So whats been happening? Well, lets see. We went to the Zoo, saw some Panda's -
which was cute.
We went out for dinner with our group and got served things with suckers and faces (on the plate) which didn't do a lot for my digestion.
We got the crap scared out of us at 12:30 last night when the hotel was hit by lightening - I thought a bomb had gone off it was so loud. Cameron didn't sleep for 20 mins after that exciting episode.
We went to old Chongqing yesterday which was pretty cool - a bit of a tourist trap but a pretty awesome time.
So I should talk a little bit about the other couples we are travelling with - Wendy and John Norris who are firefighters from Houston. Awesome people - the first religious people I've met that don't attempt to push their beliefs down your throat. It's nice to meet people like this; it restores my faith in humanity that it's not just about Me Me Me. Just all round good people.
Then there's Cody and Robyn Coden. Cody runs a summer camp and Robyn shops for a living (well actually she runs a marketing company but the way she power shops here you'd think she was professional) - she and Cathy are soul mates in that regard. Cody and I both agree our credit cards will never be the same again. But again, awesome people.
It's very cool to be here with people we get on with as we do with these guys.
The girls - Wendy, Robyn and Cathy.
Wendy and Robyn have gone out of their way to include Mila and be girlfriends - Robyn in particular. Although I don't think Mila has repaid her very nicely - last night she left a rubber snake in Robyns bed in their room. I'm sure we'll hear about that today. :)
The guys - Cody, John and Me.
Last day in Chongqing today - we get the kids passports and are off back to Guanghzhou to finish up the immigration aspect of our adoption. I can't wait for that cramped flight in a Chongqing Airlines plane. Last time we got the end row which doesn't recline, and these planes have far less space between the chairs than most flights do. What a delight this is going to be. Ah well, once done it IS done.
Chongqing at night. All lit up like Times Square.
By the way, for those following PoppyGate, Cameron has a poopy diaper this morning. I'm sure you- like Cameron -, are relieved. I know Cathy is - she's never been so pleased to see a poppy diaper.
Posted at 20/03/2008 05:19:49 PM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Life, Family
Hi Jay Cathy & Mila and welcome to Cameron. I am looking forward to seeing you guys on Saturday. Who would have thought you could come so far and still bump in to some famaly! Cameron looks a bundel of fun I will be honoured to be the first 'Uncle' to meet him and give him a cuddel. see you Saturday . Cris
Posted at 21/03/2008 05:36:37 AM PST by Cris Simpson
Our Adoption, part 2
Yeah, I know, this is supposed to be gaming blog but I'm in China adopting and so you'll just have to bear with me talking about that for a bit.
So we are still in Chongqing, just coming to terms with having a new little one to cope with. He's been great except for the fact that he just won't dump! I mean normally that's a cause for celebration since I certainly don't want to deal with the contents of diapers and nappies, but him not having passed anything for 3 days is some what of a concern. We are giving him laxatives and crossing our fingers! As I type this Cathy has Cameron on her lap and is bumping him up and down and saying "Where's that poop?". Yeah, probably TMI but what the hell...
I'm sure Cameron will enjoy this entry when he googles his name years from now:)
Here he is, sitting on my shoulders. He wasn't too sure of this, but I held tight and I think he was ok.
So the actual adoption moment where we got him from the orphanage was very quick - a 2 hour flight from Guangzhou (which was the bumpiest flight I've been on - all perpetration for the drive later) and then a 3 hour drive to the Feng Du orphanage - which was the bumpiest ride through some of the most depressing and dreary landscape I've ever seen in terms of human habitation - then literally 1/2 hour there to grab him and be off again for the ride back to Chongqing and civilisation. I can't stress how sad it was to see the environment he came from - very run down and as Mila put it, Droopy. I feel very good about getting him out of that potential situation and into something better.
So now we are in a 5 star hotel in Chongqing and we got the actual adoption paperwork done yesterday - we are now officially Feng Fu Zhuang (now Cameron Simpson)'s parents!
Now we have to wait a few days to get his Chinese passport and then it's back to Guangzhou to deal with the American Consulate.
Next time I'll tell you all about All Nippon Air and how they wanted to take another $6300 from us on top of the $5500 we'd already paid for seats on plane, just to get us to China. And how Super Shuttle apparently can't get people to the airport on time even when it's their core business.
In the mean time, here's the view from our hotel window on the 21st floor.
Posted at 18/03/2008 03:46:11 AM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Life, Family
Well, here we in China, in Chongqing - one of the 4 largest cities in China. The hotel we are staying at - the Harbor Plaza - is right in the center of town right off what would be the Chonqqing version of Picadilly Circus or Times Square. Lots of neon and people selling stuff.
So we have our son - after a 6 our drive to the orphange in Feng Du (which will make me never complain about roads anywhere else ever again) we picked him up, along with the other couples who got their girls.
We've named our boy Cameron Elliot Zhuang Simpson - Zhuang means strong in Chinese , and Elliot was my best friend from the age of about 2 who died when he was 19.
Here are are some pics, since I know family will want to see them.
Me and my boy.
Amelia being a big sister.
Cathy being Mommy for a second time.
Our new boy. Welcome to the family Cameron.
Posted at 16/03/2008 04:06:47 PM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Life, Family
I have this buddy - Dave Taylor. He's an ex Id, ex Transmeta, ex, well, almost everything guy.
He's really well connected, he's extremely funny and he knows his shit when it comes to the video game business.
In fact, I had drinks with him just the other night as I was visiting LA.
Anyway, there's also a show on G4 looking for a video games correspondent. Dave is the man for the job, without any question.
A quick glance at his reel will tell you that.
It works by people basically voting - so I need you to zip over to this link here, make a real fast account (no email sending required, it's a quick and dirty account) and vote for him.
The votes reset daily in terms of you being able to vote more than once - so I'm asking for a little bit of help for my friend Dave.
In fact, while you are there, check out the other reels, you'll see what I mean in terms of Dave being the man when you watch the others.
He needs our help - lets get a real game insider on G4!
Thanks
Also, I'll be going dark for a while next week since I am off to China to adopt a little boy (assuming I can find the extra $10k I need to finish this since everything went up).
Wish me luck!
Posted at 07/03/2008 11:28:27 PM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Game Development, Life, Family
So regular readers will remember my rant on Microsoft changing the default 70/30 royalty to 35/65 for indie developers. Basically I ragged on this as The Wrong Thing To Do in almost every possible sense.
Well, Apple just announced their own iPhone developer system, and they are doing the same - all indie developed apps offered over Itunes will do a 70/30 split. Very nice.
The hypocrisy comes in inside of Steve Balmers response to this.
Now the crucial part is this.. He also noted that Apple might be taking too large a slice, grabbing "30 percent of every bit of revenue."
Really Steve? Given that your own XLA division used to do this, was that too much? What about the 65% they are taking now? Think that's too much? I do too - What are you going to do about it?
Well the answer is obvious - nothing. This is just political posturing for the sake of it. MS wouldn't do a 70/30 split, obviously. They'd do 50/50 at best.
Posted at 07/03/2008 12:56:20 PM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Game Development
So I've talked in the past about being an indie, and one of the things that indies have to do is to get awareness of their game out there, particularly if you are self publishing.
Even if you aren't, relying on your publisher to do this will a) result in heartbreak when they don't do a very good job (remember, if you are self funding then the amount that the publisher will be able to claw back is lower, therefore their investment in seeing this game lauded is lower) and b) result in heartbreak when they present you the bill for what little they do do. If you have a cross genre game - ie one that they aren't experienced in selling, then god help you.
I remember moaning to Activision's Marketing department about their spectacular failure to market Heretic II, and was told "Oh, you mean that cross genre game that no one had a clue how to actually push?". There you have it.
Anyway, as Raven experienced on Soldier of Fortune (a game ATVI had decided they didn't think would sell, so Raven was given carte blanch to push themselves), it is entirely possible to push and get the message out there, build some anticipation and interest, and do it without an expensive PR / Marketing department behind you.
So how do you do it? Here's a few ideas.
1) Ensure you have a you tube video of your game play - make sure it's game play. You don't need a mega trailer, you need actual gameplay and make sure you link it with every online interview you do. 30 seconds to 1 minute is quite enough.
2) Spam the crap out of every website editor you can find with offers of interviews / screen shots. They are all looking for content and the idea that you can help them out will be fine with them.
3) If you do an interview, always add one extra question you generate on the end of the interview - this allows you to push the question so you can reveal something you specifically want to say. Interviews are by and large fine with this - you make them look good for asking specifics they had no idea about.
4) If you do send out screen shots, ensure they are unique for each website you do this to. They love that; it works even better if you do specific features for specific websites.
5) Have a sense of humor when you do interviews. Dry interviews may be what PR companies like best, but the public like a personality.
6) Don't diss other companies products. You have to be _very_ secure with yourself to piss off all of the Infinity Ward developers because you call their game "limited". It's better to be praising than damning. By all means use other people and their games as inspiration and mention that, but _never_ run anyone down.
7) In any interview, give away something new about the product that you've never told anyone before. It gives people a reason to read your interview because they'll find out something they didn't already know
8) Have a development blog - update it regularly (2 or 3 times a week) and ensure that you talk about the day to day development. The great unwashed love that for some reason, I've no idea why.
9) Have a community forum on your companies website that allows people to talk about the game and their idea's. Often your most vocal advocates will be the people who frequent these boards.
10) Send out free copies of the game to everyone, and include weird and wonderful places like Playboy, Maxim (and other magazines of this ilk), Conan O'Brien, Stephen Colbert, The Today Show - you name it you send them a copy. It only takes a couple to talk about it and you've just made a ton of eyeball time.
11) Call your local newspaper / TV Station and see if they are willing to do a local story on you as a local developer made good over the release of your game. Yes, it's only local and exposure is local, but another thing you can do is take that video / clippings and send them to you home town, who may well be prompted to do a "local boy makes good" story on you too. If nothing else it'll make your mother proud. Yeah, it's a bit small time but every little bit helps and it costs you nothing.
12) Do talks at GDC or other conferences. This costs money but it raises your profile extensively and can work wonders when other gaming journalists hear your name and say "Oh yeah, I remember him!".
13) Give copies of the game away for online based competitions or well wisher programs - being seen to give away a few copies of New 3Rd Person Action Killer via the Penny Arcade toys for hospitals program is not a bad thing and gets you associated as a company run by human beings.
All of these things are small, but added up they can mean the difference between 10k sales and 100k sales.
Good luck.
Posted at 06/03/2008 03:16:45 PM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Game Development
I did some demo downloading for XBLA last night before launching into Bioshock in an effort to finally finish it (Wow, does that game ever end??).
I've heard a lot about N+, so I thought I'd give that a go first.
This is interesting to say the least.
The mechanic seems deceptively simply - it reminds me of a sort of Manic Miner on Steroids. It feels like a mixture of Manic Miner in the minimalism art and what the game is about, and Thrust in terms of physics and control.
There appears to be something not quite right with the instant response of jumping - you have to prejudge when the jump should happen because it takes a finite amount of time to actually hit - a fact it took me a while to get right because of training from other platformers which require pixel accuracy usually on the edge of the platform.
Being able to change your direction of flight in mid air is very cool.
Love the tutorial aspect of showing the button and the stick. I first saw that done on Sims Next Gen where they put the controller on the screen and showed buttons and joysticks moving as the action went along. I've been desperately looking for a 2d 360 controller image (with animations for the sticks) myself to do the same thing.
One thing that the tutorial doesn't cover is the fact that the length of time you hold the jump button down matters to the height of the jump. Took me about 10 goes on the last tutorial level till I gathered whats going on. You just look at when the buttons are pressed on the little image in screen, not how long they are pressed.
Restarting at the beginning of the level when you die is too much punishment - I hope you have restart positions on later levels (I'm just going to buy this).
Tom is right in that the wall jumping when you want to stay on the same wall is too hard.
Love the music.
Overall, this feels like a very finessed but a real pixel perfect kind of game - the skill is in judging the exact moment to let go of the joystick and press jump and it isn't quite tied up with whats happening on screen, in fact you have to actively ignore the reality of "I should be hitting jump now!" and do it just the tiniest bit earlier. It's kinda binary in that situation - you either get it right or you don't.
Its the ultimate platformer thats for sure.
Then I had a go on Fall of Liberty - I love alternate universe stuff and I think Spark (the guys behind this) have some good work in front of them, so I went in with relatively high expectations.
Generally I thought it was fairly polished and very exciting with some real "what?" moments.
The AI seems ok but damn there's a lot of popping in their animations - that better get fixed before ship.
I don't crouch enough to make use of cover. I am totally feeling the lack of love on that since I've been playing gears and I expect cover to actually give me cover. If the bad guys are only shooting at my head then there's little point in crouching and leaving it uncovered, might as well not bother.
Love love love the situations in this demo. Love the initial attack from the jet stukas and the air ships. I wasn't even aware the game had started, I was just watching the battle. Love the ideas and set pieces.
Not entirely sure about the lighting - seems a little too crisp to me. Not enough diffusion on the lighting model I think.
Some seriously weird stuff happens with the shot decals when you rotate the camera around. They pop in and out a lot.
The accuracy of the weapons needs to be upped just a touch.
Why can I run over guns and automatically pick them up but not grenades? Why do I have to press X to get the first set of sticky bombs (and there's 4 and yet I can only pick one up?) then when I run over another one on the ground, it just automatically picks them up?
The movement doesn't feel quite right. It just doesn't feel as fluid as it should do. I'm not sure exactly what it is that doesn't feel right, but something doesn't.
3rd person as a view when 'doing stuff'? Not sure about that. The hand over hand stuff reminds me of FAKK 2 - they did all that there and it was a complete waste since no one wanted to use it. Nice to see your feet when you look down though. I didn't notice - do you see your own shadow (assuming it's cast correctly)?
Sounds are great. Even the screams when you are in the elevator shaft are great - very immersive.
I think on reflection on the entire experience, well it needs just the right amount of dirtying up and attention to motion.
This is probably way too late now but what the hell, thought I'd say it anyway.
Assuming the AI glitching is fixed, I want to play some more.
So there you go, take that for what you will.
Posted at 04/03/2008 10:17:21 AM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Game Development
I got a really thought provoking email the other day talking about languages people use for their casual home projects, and the whole approach to making smaller games.
It crystallized my thinking about certain aspects of starting your own company to do smaller games and I thought I'd present some of that thinking here, cos I'd love to hear what the great unwashed thinks about it.
So when the Xbox Live was first announced and Geometry Wars burst on the scene, the whole XLA thing was hailed as the new vanguard of bedroom coders - you could bash out an XLA game and be home in time for tea so to speak. Many many veteran developers saw this as a way to do their own thing without having to be on a 200 team of people to make Godfather part 3: Electric Boogaloo - a way to produce smaller games and be masters of their own destiny. Certainly thats the way this developer felt.
The whole crux of the idea revolved around a) the new distribution methodology where you might even have made some $ on the XLA version because the terms were so good and b) the fact that you own your IP and that MS weren't fussy about if you released a PC/Mac version of the game. Given also that the PC / 360 codebases aren't that far apart in terms of implementation (a couple more threads on the 360 version and you were pretty much there), it made total sense to do a PC version of your game, make some money there but make the bulk of it on console.
When you factor in the fact that many developers wanted to use the XLA service to gain experience in the console development area and then bootstrap themselves into making larger games, you can see how attractive it is.
Fast forward two years and lets see what the dream is like now.
Well, it's not as good, that's for sure. Microsoft has poisoned the well in terms of actually making a buck from XLA - sure, they've removed some of the initial "get to market" costs, like Cert and QA (and that was a good sum too - $15k for cert - per submission - and $15k insurance bond for the slot) which is good for the casual developer, but they've taken way more than that from the back end, which is not. Even though you still own your own IP (which is also good), the amount of money you can make from XLA has been seriously impaired.
Effectively you cannot make XLA your primary focus for development any more - you can't make a business around it any more because the risk is now just too great. So ok then, lets go back to the PC and make that our focus and make an XLA game as a side port idea - since the codebases are so close it makes sense to cover XLA anyway right? Whatever you make from it will be extra $.
However PC gaming right now is so fraught with piracy that you can't make that a focus either. Games franchises are literally being canceled on the PC because of piracy. If you have a standalone game (ie an application that plays by itself in single player mode - it never needs to connect to anything else), if the game is any fun you will be pirated to death. It's just that simple. You will loose probably on the order of 50-60% of your sales to people pirating the game. There are way enough clever people to figure out how to do it, and we live in a world where the current generation of teenages feel that stuff should just be for free because they've been downloading each others MP3 collections since they could first use a computer.
Without some form of online server authentication or online game play proviso (ie being required to log into a server to play, since the server itself provides the game play - without logging into the server there is nothing in the game executable to actually play the game per se - nothing to hack so to speak) you are just going to be pirated to death.
There are a couple of ways to do this - make it a flash game which requires a browswer and you to log in to play - or make it a client/server game where you host some of the server to play on, ala most MMO's or some kind of Quake style game.
The trouble with that approach is two fold - one is that you've just blown your XLA port, since you can't be running your own servers for an XLA game, and they aren't interested in simple flash ports, and secondly you have to host your own bandwidth / servers to actually let anyone play. There's a whole host of infrastructure that goes behind this approach that is not non trivial.
So what do you do? Well, there is the PSN network which is looking more attractive by the minute to be honest, however I do believe MS will have reservations about you making an XLA game that will also come out on the PSN at the same time, which limits you a bit.
Plus there's the whole Wood for the Trees thing in terms of understanding that sure, while the PSN network looks nice now, it's not a long term proposition. Much like the XLA was two years ago, this is a shifting market and one ultimately controlled by the gate keeper, not you. If Sony decide to suddenly halve their royalty streams like Microsoft just did, what does the causal developer do? Where else do they go? Their entire business case rests on the particular situations of today and if they change tomorrow then you are well and truly stuffed.
Besides investing early in the infrastructure that allows them to build casual games that are a pig to pirate, I'm not entirely sure what the answer is. But I'm thinking about it.
What do you think?
Posted at 02/03/2008 08:03:50 AM PST by Jake Simpson Groups : Game Development
