Afterthoughts of Gaming

There is a tendency to simply port games to PC after or alongside their major console release. Often this is when a game is being pushed onto as many consoles as possible. Take the upcoming (and dare I say awesome-looking) Ghostbusters game for XBox 360, Playstation 3, Wii, Playstation 2, and PC. That’s a lot of resources to spread around, especially considering the unique art style of the Wii and PS2 versions (at least there is no DS or PSP version announced… yet). The issue is that console games HAVE to be game-killing-bug free and usually won’t be published if said bugs exist. PC games do not come with this restriction as they can be patched willy nilly. What ends up happening, then, is that if developers have to focus on putting their game on multiple platforms, the PC version ends up getting ignored in favor of patching it later.

Once in a while, though, we see the PC version of a game come out later instead of at the same time to make it all around compatible with every possible setup. Mirror’s Edge is a decent example of this, however there is the issue that single-player games tend to phase out of people’s minds after 2-3 months. Multiplayer and DLC keeps a game alive. Mirror’s Edge had no multiplayer, the DLC wasn’t out yet, the PC version came out 2 months after its console release, and besides the added bonus of PhysX, didn’t bring anything else to the table.

Then there’s Braid. It got off to a rough start with the Steam version being delayed by around 7 hours, but at least it finally came out and I’m having so much fun with it. To have waited this long for it to arrive on PC has been torture to say the least, as I do not own a 360 and only got the chance to fiddle around with it, not actually sit down and play it through. The PC version does come with a level editor, technically, but there is no documentation or easy way to load custom levels. Done correctly, a level editor can give a game an INCREDIBLY long lifespan as communities develop which are devoted entirely to creating custom content for the game, which is why Epic always ships their games with an editor.

A community devoted to creating Braid levels, new stories for Tim, and possibly even new time-shifting mechanics would be fantastic, although I do not personally know the capabilities of the editor. Should it be powerful enough, though, I would say there would need to be some easier way to access custom levels, either that we made or downloaded. The editor is there, we just need to know how to use it and we need to be able to access our content.

The Suspense is Killing Me

Hurry up already!

We Have Wasted the Wii

EA claims that the Wii Motion Plus is incredibly accurate, so accurate that they’ve had to tone down the controls of the character on screen. Am I the only one who can’t help but ask, why wasn’t this implemented in the original Wii Remote?

Over the last two years, the Wii library has been filled with party games that range in quality from terrible to mediocre and games that ripoff Wii Fit usually with bad results. As for games that more resemble what is on the PS3/360, i.e. third party titles, they range from mediocre to good, and it is only Nintendo’s first party titles that have ended up as masterpieces. It has gotten to the point where there is so much filler in the Wii library that it resembles the days of the Atari 2600/5200, with so little information on the individual titles, that the market has been flooded with shovelware and Gamespot/IGN refuse to review most of what comes out for Nintendo’s little-experimental-console-that-could.

So now the Wii Motion Plus is on the way. It promises true “one to one” movement, meaning whatever you do, your avatar on screen can do. No, for real, in all three dimensions. So theoretically, we could see more than an updated version of the Atari’s lightsaber battling game for the 2600, now named “Clone Wars: Lightsaber Battles.” Hell, maybe we’ll have the best Jedi simulation since “Jedi Outcast.” Will we though? No. “Force Unleashed” could have been that. So then will we see a realstic sword fighting mechanic in the next Zelda? Probably, but I would guess that Zelda will be on the next Nintendo console and not on the Wii. Improved swing mechanics for tennis games? Definitely, if EA has anything to say about it, though hardcore tennis games feel a bit like a niche market if you ask me.  Tighter aiming in first person shooters? Yet to be seen, though it’s possible.

Unfortunately, the Wii has already left its mark as this generation’s base for shovelware. When Nintendo got rid of the Seal of Quality, they got rid of the one thing that separated them from the competition: a strive for quality over quantity. I guess quantity is key this time around. That, however, is not the point. The point is that when we saw the Wii remote for the first time, we thought it would be capable of true 3D movement at launch, and what nintendo delivered boiled down to a mouse in the air, capable of working on only one plane and just barely being able to detect if the infrared sensor was getting closer to the source. That’s not what we wanted, but we accepted the waggle with glee. Now the Wii is about to see a major overhaul in control design, which will hopefully improve such games as “SSX Blur,” which seemed to have been designed with the Wii Motion Plus in mind long before it was announced. But with the first announcement of the next generation of consoles only about a year away (based on 5 year cycles), is the Wii Motion Plus too late to make any difference in the quality of Wii games?

Shades of Silver TV

Starting sometime hopefully in the next couple of weeks, I plan to be doing video updates for Shades of Silver called Shades of Silver TV. I’m hoping to focus most of it on the independent gaming scene, everything from indie game reviews to indie game news, as well as what’s going on in the development of my games and, of course, a dedicated Hatemail portion of the show each time (Hatemail being a general term. It doesn’t all have to be hate mail. It could be good mail. I don’t know.) where I will answer your emails, respond to your Tweets, etc.

The question is, why am I doing this? Well, two answers. One, I am tired of recording videos on my regular camera. It’s a pain in the butt, and if you’ve been keeping up with the Absolution Development Blog, you’ll notice I tend to swivel about a lot. I’m just like that. So a webcam will come in handy to reduce seasickness. Secondly, I love updating this blog and the traffic has finally started picking up over here. Which means I have to keep people entertained somehow. Plus, a lot of times I have to get stuff off my chest, and there’s too much to say for a Twitter post and not enough to say for a full fledged blog post. Having the ability to put up videos will be a lifesaver.

The consistency of updates will depend on the traffic this generates, so if you want to see more, keep visiting the blog or start following me on Twitter.

False Claims

It’s no secret I love Audiosurf. It’s an indie game and it’s one of my all time favorites. It also happens to be a rhythm game for PC that came out last year. So why does Mevo and Grooveriders think it is the first rhythm game ever on PC?

Don’t get me wrong, the game is great, especially the music, and in a rhythm game that is what counts.  But I was shocked to see that the developers let slide “The first music rhythm game for PC” at the end of the demo. That’s hardly correct. Frets on Fire and Stepmania have been out for ages, Guitar Hero III and Guitar Praise are both on PC, Audiosurf is more than a year old…

So put simply, Red Rocket Games, you are wrong. Are you the first Rhythm Platformer on PC? Possibly, but don’t take my word for it.

A lesson I learned a while ago: If you are going to make a claim, please make sure it is true. If you take the time to do the research, you spare yourself the embarrassment of somebody calling you out on their blog.

Shut Your Mouth

Video games are an exciting medium. There’s no denying that. However, there is also no denying that video games designed by people who are not serious about designing video games usually don’t come out so well. Kind of like how movies made by people who don’t make movies are nearly unwatchable. I would never go up to a film director and say, “I have this great idea for a movie.” So why is it that people feel the need to come up to game designers and say, “I have this great idea for a game?”

People, please, for the love of God, keep your ideas to yourself. If you want to make a movie, go out, buy a camera, and make it. Similarly, if you want to make a game, go out, buy Flash, and make it. There is no need to get others involved. The quicker you get your mistake out of the way, the quicker you can move on.

The part that confuses me is what we are expected to do with your idea. If we even bother to listen to it in the first place, we are more than likely going to shoot it down. Why? Because as far as we can tell, you are all talk. Honestly, if you don’t already make games or actually want to make games for a living, what is the likelihood you’ll actually go out and make it, even with our approval?

The biggest issue I have seen with these so-called “game pitches” from people who don’t actually make games for a living is that they either end up being too narrow or too broad. The average gamer sees the big picture of the game, is not concerned with the minute details of the underlying design. What ends up happening is we hear you pitching not a full game, but maybe one feature of a game or one specific level, and usually there is nothing outside the box. Which means, of course, we don’t want to waste our time helping you expand it. We have enough to work on as it is.

People who do not design games do not realize you can make a game out of anything, that games do not have to all be about post-apocalyptic worlds, space marines, zombies, hookers, etc. One of my most recent creations is a simple game about hugs that you can play anywhere, any time. Another good example would be whoever invented The Game (you know, the one I just lost). That person is a genius and should have been awarded game of the year back in 2008. 

So kids, please, leave the game designing to the game designers and we’ll leave you to do whatever it is you do. Promise. If you do get the itch, though, pick up Theory of Fun by Raph Koster. I understand that there is a level of jealousy involved that makes everyone want to design games, and also that I can’t stop you if you do get that itch, but please remember that you don’t have to make a AAA game. You’re better off if you don’t. Make something indie or casual. Something that is less of a risk and possible detriment to your career elsewhere.

Social Networking Currency

Facebook is a bit of a weird thing. I got on it back when I was in high school. I’ve seen it go through a multitude of interface changes, and every single one has led to a community protest and eventual submission due to the fact that they are completely addicted to the site in whatever form it may take. The first time I’d ever seen people behind Facebook cave to the community – instead of the other way around – was recently with the User Agreement/copyright fiasco. Unfortunately, no matter which side of the fence you are on, while you are in college, Facebook exists for one thing only:

Social Networking Currency.

“Oh wow you have 600 friends? Awesome! I have 4,000 pictures! You’ve got 82,000 wall posts? Oh my gawd!”

The strangest part is that because of the way Facebook is set up – and it has always been like this – the people you have friended on Facebook, unless they are also friends/relations in real life, really are nothing more than Social Networking Currency. Just little trading cards you sift through on a daily basis. Each card has a name, stats, and a value that you’ve given it based on their number of friends, photos, videos, wall posts, and if you even know them.

In the past couple years, though, Facebook has started to take on whole new purposes than just a place for your friend cards. It’s a hub of games, with applications like Jetman, Parking Wars, Mob Wars, Bitefight, etc. Granted, a lot of the games have as much entertainment value as Email Chess, but I digress. Many people use Facebook for data storage for photos and videos. The space we are allotted for such media on Facebook is unlimited, and therefore it becomes an immediate, free alternative to paid or limited hosting. Sure, we could just as easily upload our videos to Youtube, but then our hundreds of friends wouldn’t get to immediately see our craziness from last night.

But now I am 5 days away from being on my way out of college. Granted, I’m not 5 days from graduation. Wish I were. However,  I have reached the point where – in terms of Facebook at least – I am no longer a college student and need to start taking a more professional approach to who is my “friend” and who isn’t. Granted, LinkedIn is for the actual professional connections and Facebook will always be more “friend” oriented. I do not, however, see the need for trading cards that have no value to me, and that value comes from if you and I have ever actually spoken.

Thus began what I thought would be the “Great Facebook Purge of 2009.” By the time I was done, however, I still had over 400 friends left. I suppose I could be more picky, like if I hadn’t talked to the person in the last year or two instead of in, well, ever, but there is always that lingering problem of going to a high school reunion and somebody being like, “Why did you defriend me on Facebook? I thought we were friends!” and me being like, “Oh yeah, not talking in five years. That’s friendship.” Sorry person, your card lost value. You became the Bidoof of my friends list.

So some cleansing this was. Sure I cleared out about 200 “friends” and 4 years worth of messages, but I still cannot help but ask who are these people? How many of them are actually friends and how many are just there to boost my ego?

The Unifying Icon

During the Renaissance, much art was devoted to Mary, the mother of Christ. However, until Mary was fully accepted as a Saint, her visage was much more rare than that of Christ himself. However, as soon as she began being portrayed more commonly, she becaming a unifying icon of all of Christianity – the loving, motherly saint.

The question was brought up at Applied Game Design that if Mary represented evidence of Christian influence on Italian Renaissance culture, what does the common use of guns in videogames say about ours? I find this question to be flawed. War has been around forever. Guns are as predominant in our culture as swords were during the Renaissance, and people were allowed to carry swords around as fashion statements back then. One could therefore make the argument that swords were just as much a centralized part of medieval/Renaissance culture as Christ and Mary, and this argument fits more with guns being a centralized part of ours.

However, that still leaves videogames without a Christ or Mary. I believe this has to do with copyright. Videogames themselves have never had a unified God figure, and if they did, he would have been copyrighted and never been allowed to be in other games legally. For instance, Mario may have his games on Nintendo, and he also had some educational games for DOS, but he was licensed. Christ was never licensed to other painters, so what we are looking for, then, is a symbol that is accepted by the culture as openly as Mary was loved and at no cost of legality. Put simply, what is the one, unifying icon of the videogame industry?

The Dopefish.

If you are unfamiliar with The Dopefish, head to www.dopefish.com. All you really need to know, however, is that since his first appearance in Commander Keen: Goodbye Galaxy, this little guy has been popping up in some of the most unexpected videogames, such as Max Payne, Sin, Quake, and Hitman, just to name a few.

I’m sure the first thing that came into your mind was, “That makes absolutely no sense.” Well, allow me to compare the Dopefish to one of the most popular easter eggs, if you will, of Christianity: The Green Man.

The Green Man is a Pagan symbol whose roots can be traced back to Dionysus, the God of Wine. The Green Man is often depicted as an old trickster surrounded by oak leaves and regurgitating vines, an immediate connection to the Eucharist. The exact image of the Green Man changes from Church to Church, but one thing is common: he is always hidden. Finding him is like finding an easter egg in a game. He appears even in the stained glass of Notre Dame de Paris.

So then we get back to our little, mentally handicapped fish. I honestly don’t think him being green is an accident. His easter egg appeances in games have given him the status of our Green Man. Since the release of Commander Keen, the people on the team have continued to put the Dopefish in projects they have worked on, which apparently caught on because there is no stopping him from showing up in plenty of other games. He is, as far as I know, the one common icon throughout videogames, the closest we could ever get to representations of our own version of Christ or Mary.

But what does that say about our culture?

Well unfortunately you have to think about what the human race has turned into since the invention of the internet. You can’t go one day without somebody saying, “Lawl” or “Be Arr Be.” People continuously reference, “I can haz cheezburger?” and let’s not forget the dreaded RickRoll, which made its network TV debut during the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade last year. Our thought patterns have become as close to the Dopefish’s own “Swim, Swim, Hungry” as they ever could. It’s not as bad as us worshipping the gun, but it ain’t pretty.

So the Dopefish may not be the smartest creature around. At least he isn’t the Ravenous Bugblatter Beast of Traal. He’s got the benefit of only being the SECOND dumbest creature in the universe. But there is no denying that there is something magical about finding a Dopefish or a reference to the Dopefish and cracking up hysterically. It goes to show what a great sense of humor game developers have. It also makes you realize, though, that if we were put in charge of creating a religion, the Dopefish would be the kind of God we’d come up with.

And that. Is. Awesome.

The Designer’s Code

Pre-Post Note: Much thanks to Brenda Brathwaite for allowing me to quote the quiz below verbatim.

I had a bit of an eye opener a couple days ago. In Brenda’s “Design Patterns for Games” class (I refuse to call it by its redundant title of “Game Design Patterns for Games”) we were presented with a rather interesting quiz.

Name: __________________________________________  Grade: _________________

Quiz #7

 Being a game designer is about being able to create rule sets for the player to follow in order to achieve a specific dynamic and outcome, typically “fun” in pursuit of a goal. This test is similar to that.

 It is has a set of rules in the form of a narrative that you must interpret in order to achieve a specific dynamic and outcome, in this case, some study in pursuit of a grade.

 Consider these things: 

• Game designers make rules and follow them.
• Game designers have oddly strong bonds to their fellow game designers in the field. We have one another’s back.
• Game designers, to be successful in the long term, must gain the implicit trust of their team.
• You either trust someone, or you don’t.
• Your art as a game designer happens in your head.
• Your lead designer trusts you to do your very best working on the project they have assigned.
  • Reading the chapter and understanding (not just memorizing) its patterns.
  • Considering how these patterns may impact your game and improve it or change it completely.
• No one will know if you gave the project everything you had, or if you gave it some of what you had. You will.
• No one will know if you later thought of something so much better, but declined to say something because it would result in more work for you (sometimes, days and days more work for you)
• But your conscience will know how well you did.
• A strong conscience is a gift.
• This test is worth 10 points. Please go to the top line where you see “Grade” and enter your grade there.

My mind froze up at that last part. I had done the reading, but this had nothing to do with the reading. This was a quiz of our own conscious, and I had to sit there and literally think about everything I had accomplished – and failed to accomplish – in the last four years. It went something like this:

“You suck, everything you’ve made sucks, you’ve never reached a milestone, all projects you’ve done have turned into extended crunches, and you don’t make excuses for it.”

It made me think about Triwing, how it’s been pushed to the side just because it’s a shmup; about NightRise, how I am 8 years in and have nothing to show for it; about Absolution, how I messed up my alpha presentation; about Stalin’s Stash and how there are so many better board games that will be at Entelechy this year; what a nightmare the Global Game Jam was; and how despite all of that I am going indie. Very smooth.

“One minute. If you’re not done now, you’re never going to be.”

That’s when I realized it. Everything I was thinking? That was the point. If you can’t reflect on everything you’ve done in 5 minutes, you’ve got nothing honest to reflect on. You either know how you did or you don’t, and if you don’t know how you did, ask around.

For me it’s not about the money. If it was I’d be working my butt off trying to fix the economy on top of trying to get a job. It all stopped being about the recognition a long time ago. I’ve never won a damn thing in my life and I don’t need to to be proud of what I’ve accomplished. But I thought about the fact that my team managed to have a game by the end of the Game Jam, and how far Absolution had come in six weeks, and what a beautiful product Stalin’s Stash had turned into, and I realized that… screw everything else, it’s about making games.

There are two kinds of games. One is the good kind you get a pat on the shoulder for having made and then everyone forgets about it, and the other is the bad kind that no one ever lets you live down. Every once in a while you will get a great game that will change the face of the industry: Sim City, Civilization, Super Mario World, GTA IV, Gravitaiton, just to name a few. But for the most part, even if your game wins awards, for most people it’s just a game and it’ll be forgotten in time. For instance, who can honestly say which Madden game was the best? Conversely, could we please shut up about Daikatana already? The bad outweighs the good, so what can you do but be proud of the bad?

So after thinking long and hard, I wrote down an A, mainly because I had to think long and hard to convince myself it was right. It was more than just, “I did the reading and would have done well on this quiz anyway.” It was that no matter whether my games have been good or bad, I have not once strayed from the first advice I ever received regarding game design:

“Make a game you love. If you don’t love it, no one else will.”

Games, like everything else in life, need love. Supposedly humans need 4 hugs a day minimum for survival, 8 for maintenence, 12 for growth. Basically, you start out with 8HP, or 8 Hug Points. If you get 4 hugs, you don’t lose any points, but if you get under 4 hugs you lose a point for every hug you didn’t get. If you get 8 hugs, you can refill all your hug points, and if you get 12 hugs you get 4 more permanent hug points, thus bringing your HP up to 12 from that point on. See? I just made a game out of hugging. Doesn’t sound very difficult, and there’s no exponential growth for hug demand when you level up. I think everyone should play this game. Why? Because lo and behold, you can make a game about hugs, and that’s pretty awesome. But if your love goes into making a game, how do you hug a game? Sure you can grab its box and squeeze it as tightly as you want, but if a game is a set of rules developed into a philosophy for how we interact within a game state… how do you hug that?

The way I see it, every time you play a game, you are hugging it. Every time you playtest your game you are helping it grow into something better. Then the game is released into the public, people play it for a couple months at most, and then stack it in their collection or sell it on eBay or back to Gamestop. The whole prospect is a bit upsetting, really. If I loved this game while I was making it, then that means that in some way or another it has some semblance of life. Which means it needs to be hugged/played as much as possible in order for it to survive. Best example I can think of? Everquest, 10 years old, and it still has a community. World of Warcraft, 4 years old, still the most popular MMO to the point of putting all new MMOs to shame. Those games, and others, are getting their hugs. What about Grim Fandango? How often does that classic get its needed hugs?

The good dies. The bad lives. You’d think it would be the other way around. We still talk about Hitler, we rarely talk about Churchill. It is the garbage that teaches us the lessons we need to learn, that tells us, “That was a bad idea, let’s not do that again.” The bad lives on for us not to become ignorant of what it was. We all know it’s there, but bad games, like bad people, just can’t be forgotten, and for good reason. They are the ones that teach us the lessons we need to learn, and that is, I think, something any designer should be proud of.

“No one will know if you gave the project everything you had, or if you gave it some of what you had. You will.”

“An A can be a 9 or a 10. Which is it?”

“… 9.5″

I’ve always liked 9.5. Honestly, I like it better than 10. Nothing is a 10. It’s like, “Yeah, I may have gotten a 10 on this test but I totally guessed on that last question.” That’s not a 10. That’s just luck, and good design doesn’t come through luck. The way I see it, there is always room for improvement. We may not see it, but you know what you did wrong. You know what corners you cut, either to save time or to fit technological limitations. Whatever your excuse, it’s an excuse. There’s no room for excuses. What’s done is done.

So I took a less than perfect grade. Why? Because I’m not perfect. I am proud of what I have accomplished because I have given it all the love it deserved. Does that make all my games perfect? No, but it makes the games I wanted to play. I love ‘em. Someone else out there is bound to love ‘em too. The award isn’t what’s important.

Just leave them smiling.

Some Concept Art

Thought I’d share some concept art for the soul pickups from Absolution: Rise of Apollyon. Yes, these are pickups. The red one is Health (+15 HP) and the blue one is Mana (+15 MP).

Randy and I are hard at work at gettin’ in some good looking sprites for the end of the quarter, so keep an eye out for more.