Reiding…

There’s a problem with crediting standards in the videogames industry… we don’t have one. After reading about a recent situation I remembered I was left out of the credits of Sin Episodes. Officially, I wasn’t working on the project but I did contribute dialog for a phone message players can listen to in game. If I recall correctly, some panicked guy says he has stolen documents from a major pharmaceutical which implicates them in a big scandal related to deaths of their users. He says, that big pharma can’t be trusted and they aren’t in the business to help you get better but actually sicker so they can sell more drugs. Then you hear the door being busted in and he’s frantically screaming “they’re here”, oh no and then gun shots ring out and the line goes dead.

I thought this contribution to Sin Episodes fit really well within the fiction of the world and left an open hook for future episodes to latch on to. It was also really personal for me, as when I was younger, I took Accutane to help with my acne, which it did, but it destroyed my immune sys and in 1997 I was diagnosed with Crohn’s. Enough of that, my point is, I put something personal into a game and wasn’t credited for it. It’s partially my fault. I was upset when I didn’t see my name in the credits, but I didn’t speak up. Let this be a lesson to all you young game developers, if there’s a crediting problem, do speak up. You’ll be proud for standing up for yourself.

The other thing I want to mention is, as an industry, we need to band together and take credits more seriously. I mean the actual credits in a game. Take the time to read them in the manual or watch them scroll during the game. You might be surprised to see many old friends pop-up or new pals you met at GDC. Here’s another thought, why don’t we as an industry make achievements and trophies, etc, to reward people who do go through the credits… to the very end? I should be securing a new job soon and I’ll push for this at my new gig, who’s with me?

I wonder about the value of selling a game to your audience via the technology it uses. I’ve been reading feedback on the Force Unleashed demo and many people confuse the middleware technologies we used in the game. They’ll call Euphoria the “Euphoria Engine” that handles AI and material physics. Not entirely true. Euphoria only handles a small part of AI behaviors, it doesn’t deal with attacking, defending or pathfinding. It’s used mostly to react to damage and physical forces inflicted on them or to jump out of the way of oncoming hazards for example.

I don’t blame the players for being incorrect, it’s really difficult to keep all of this technical information straight. Is it worthwhile to include technology related information in communications with players? What might be better is to describe and show the experiences possible in a game but leave out the technology that makes this happen. I think at the end of the day, while players may get some satisfaction from being able to talk the talk, what they ultimately care about is walking the walk, i.e. playing the game and enjoying it for what it is.

Gold members of XBox Live can download the XBox 360 version of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed. This is the game I worked on for two years while at LucasArts. I am quite happy with how the demo turned out, proud of my contributions as well as everyone else’s. We all had lots of challenges to overcome but the demo speaks for itself that some amazingly talented and dedicated people helped make it happen.

I didn’t expect to see the Grip Tutorial in it, but it makes sense. I contributed significantly to the gamepay scripting for that, along with another gameplay programmer, game designer, artists, voice actors, sound designers and… yeah, it’s amazing the amount of work and collaboration that goes into a tightly focused tutorial level like that.

Here’s hoping SW:TFU brings lots of joy and excitement to others when the full game comes out this September 16th, 2008.

In cinema, there are many examples of excellent movies that tell a story using a sport as the context for the events that take place. I just watched American Pastime about Japanese in an internment camp who play baseball against many of the soldiers who ran the camp. Then there’s Escape to Victory and Rocky, both starring Slyvester Stallone. Miracle is about the 1980 Olympic ice hockey underdogs that take on and beat the vastly superior Russian elite hockey team and eventually go on to win the Gold medal. It is an amazing story about determination and love for one’s country based on a true sporting event. It’s so inspiring that Michael Phelps (USA Olympic swimming sensation) said he and his teammates watched it before a big meet in the 2004 Athens games.

There a many sports videogames, Skate, Madden, Need for Speed but few have engaging storylines. Why not create a story mode for Madden and give it an engaging narrative treatment that transcends the value we currently give to sports videogames?

Rudy! How could I forget Rudy.

Star Wars: The Force Unleashed demo will hit Xbox Live and Playstation Network this Thursday, August 21st. I and everyone else that worked on it are proud of what we accomplished. Here’s hoping everyone else enjoys it.

I’ve been playing Braid for about 4 days now and have probably put in over 12hrs. I bought it because someone said you can beat it 6 hrs. Even though I’ve put a lot of time into it, more than I hoped I would, I am enjoying the brain twisting puzzles, for the most part. Some are really frustrating, more than they should be.

The whole game is one big experiment in game design, from the game loading without any title screens to its game mechanics of manipulating time. In the game you collect pieces of a jig-saw puzzle after completing obstacles that deal with manipulating time. Some are easy, some are very hard. So far they are hard because you have to know very specific mechanics of how things work in the game, but the game doesn’t teach you these things. There are also other objects that make you immune to the manipulations of time for a brief moment. Basically, there’s a lot of shit you need to learn and apply to complete some of the puzzles, but the game doesn’t teach you. You are expected to experiment and learn about them as you play. This can take an extremely long time depending on how experimental you are. It’s hard to make this clear without specific examples but I don’t want to give anything away. I’ll just say that only by accident when I made a mistake did I learn about a new ability I had.

I wonder if that’s the whole point? Some of the writing in the game does speak about learning from past mistakes. Maybe that is the point, that by playing Braid you get life lessons, such as, it’s OK to make mistakes as long as you learn from them. Though, if someone tries hard enough they can get many life lessons from any game, “Super Mario Bros. teaches you to ‘look before you leap!’”

I’m very very eager to finish Braid with two pieces left to collect. Apparently, the ending makes the whole experience worth it. I’m skeptical.

Over at FullBright blog, (which I wish I read more of) is a concept called “Peace” I really want to see work as a game. Not as a game that you win or lose but a game where you explore your views on the subject of violence. I was going to post a reply in the comments section but it got way to long. I recommend you read Christiaan’s proposal for “Peace” and then read below.

I love the concept and suggest checking out the movie, Rendition. It has a cyclical storytelling approach, where what you see in the beginning is what you see at the end, but from a different perspective. Everything else in the middle is learning a little bit why what you see at the beginning and end occurs.

I feel Peace needs more focus. Focus on the suicide bombing event itself and nothing else. You also need to say something with the interactions players can do. If I were making this game, I would say that violence begets violence, that we must take responsibility for our actions to stop the cycle of violence. Everything in the game must serve this.

I think the sequence of scenes is important. Here are my suggestions:

1. Mother with child caught in suicide bombing. In the café with the daughter, you pick up a newspaper, headlines read, “Increased security amid rumors of suicide bombing.” Daughter asks you, “What’s in the news mama?” Do you tell her that we live in a messed up world and must eliminate our enemies before they do the same to us? Do you smile and give her a kiss on the cheek? Do you try to explain to her the reality of the situation and that violence isn’t the answer?

Mood and pacing: Calm, foreboding, peaceful until the blast.

2. Soldier deals with the chaos afterwards, who’s a threat? Who do I protect? You are given orders to detain anyone you think is a possible suspect and to use any amount of force you deem necessary.

Mood and pacing: Frantic, violent, angry, hopelessness.

3. As someone else, you tell a young boy, 7 his mother died in the suicide bombing. How do you do this? Gently? Not at all? See his emotional reaction, cries, punches you in the legs.

Mood and pacing: Slow, sorrowful.

4. As a paramedic you grab someone injured, put him/her in the ambulance and then discover his/her chest is strapped with bombs. What do you do? Bomb’s disabled, your partner wants to kill the patient, do you stand by and let him/her do that? Do you try to save the patient? Do you join in?

Mood and pacing: Frantic, fearful, angry.

5. You are the suicide bomber. What might make it interesting, is that sometimes they force the bombers to press the activate button and then upon release it explodes. What if players are tricked into doing this and then, “Oh by the way, don’t release Right Trigger until we say so.” What do you, the player, the suicide bomber do then? No matter what, you are a dead man/woman. Do you try to run to an isolated area to not hurt anyone else or say, fuck it, if I’m going, then I’m bringing someone with me. Also, I think it would be very interesting if you see the other suicide bomber that you saw while as a paramedic in the same place as you. It will be interesting to be confronted with the possibilities of your actions and really hit home the idea of violence creates more violence.

Mood and pacing: Slow, fearful, sorrowful, or hopeful.

Google has a page up that lets you play around with some new tech that uses lasers to scan anything in 3D. Because there are no cameras, only data, you can manipulate in realtime the viewing angle of Radiohead’s new music video “House of Cards” from their album “In Rainbows”. One of the scenes is of an outdoor environment and it reminded me of an interview with John Carmack years ago, where he suggested that in the future, level designers/environment artists for videogames will scan in 3D environments of real world locations. Looks like this could be along the same lines.

Tip: Mouse wheel zooms in and out

I think, if the tools allowed, anyone should be able to manipulate the data, maybe even grabbing a cluster of points in the screen and moving them around. I do believe that as we move further into the data creation and manipulation age people will not be content to merely observe but instead demand interaction and participation. Everything will be customizable, from the design of our shoes and cars to the gameplay experiences. Everything is leading towards a world where individuals have power, not governments. We’ll have the tools and knowledge to create our own worlds. We’re seeing this now, but in limited form restricted to the privileged few.

Ever have that question asked of you, “what do you do?” and you have a hard time answering that? I always do. A game designer is a relatively new profession and it is little understood. I end up getting very specific and technical. “I create the players experience, like if a door opens or not or creating a bunch of enemies for them to fight.” While that is technically correct, it doesn’t sound impressive and it doesn’t get at what I’m really trying to accomplish. I finally have come up with an answer I think accurately explains what I do, as a game designer.

“I engineer emotional responses in players of videogames using game mechanics and content.”

To arrive at this definition I had to realize that everything I did as a game designer was to create emotions within the player. Most of the time, it’s a sense of Fierro, but other times, I actively seek to make players feel sadness or frustration.

I think it works well. Then someone can follow up with, “and how do you do that?” Then I can explain the various elements I work with, like player abilities and obstacles.

I like it, but what about you?

Here’s an excerpt from a press release on a new social issue game, Dead Ends.

“Dead Ends is a full 3D computer game commissioned by Channel 4 to support Disarming Britain, a major new season examining the effect of gun and knife crime on Britain’s streets.”

Overall, it is an impressive effort by student game developers who had an incredibly short amount of time to make the game, 6 weeks from initial approach to going live with public downloads. I think there are two kinds of social issue games. 1) An awareness building game and 2) a call to action game. Dead Ends succeeds as an awareness building game but I think would be more successful as a call to action game, which requires more resources. Overall I feel its biggest let down is that it doesn’t answer its own question, “why does this happen? Why do teens resort to gang life?”

The game allows you to play as a teenage gang member and a detective trying to find who murdered the teenager. I give big props to the developers for putting the player in the role of the gang member and the detective, rather than some outside observer, such as a journalist which many social issue games use. Yet, despite playing as people directly involved, the game has very little about the real life reasons for teens participating in gangs.

Again, I realize they had 6 weeks and for that it shows how important it is to give social issue games the time needed to develop a game that reaches its full potential by exploring the issues properly. Here are some ways the issue could have been explored further. As a teenager, you live in a low income home with only one parent. For gameplay, you struggle to take care of younger brothers and sisters while cooking dinner for them. You must race back and forth between the boiling pot on the stove and picking up your siblings to keep them from causing trouble. Your mother comes home from work, dead tired and expresses her concerns about paying the bills. Your family needs money quickly or else you will be forced to leave your home. You, the teenager must quit school and find work.

You go to school to hand in your papers notifying them you are leaving and run into a friend of yours. The friend mentions his gang is looking for people and they pay really well. You are free to choose whether to join or not. Pros - lots of fast money. Cons - risk going to jail. You can choose to get a job at a local fast food restaurant instead. Pros - stable, legal job. Cons - doesn’t pay enough and the family still can’t pay the bills. No matter what, due to the circumstances of your situation, you are forced to join the gang and hope for the best.

After joining the gang, you steal cars and earn a percentage on the price of the cars. The more expensive cars are more risky to steal but net you more income for your family. Soon drugs become an option and then turf wars erupt and finally the game ends tragically in the death of the player character.

As the mother, you play a short sequence where you try to do you job as best as possible, but are turned down for a promotion, possible due to a form of discrimination or your level of education.

The other component is to offer a solution. You play the part of someone who’s been sentenced to work with low income kids for a small crime they did. Your character, doesn’t respect the kids who come from low income homes but must learn to do so. You eventually help kids find suitable jobs and take skill building classes after school. The point here is to explore the issues of respect and fear and show the kids other options. The teenagers think fear is the way to get respect. They’ve never been respected in another way by an adult, especially by someone like you. Once your character learns to show them proper respect, they learn that there are other ways besides gang life to get the respect they desire.

With this approach, we see a bit more from multiple perspectives why a teenager may be driven to join a gang and ways to help them realize there are other options.

In closing, I think they could have been able to answer their own question if only more time and resources were allocated for development. Here’s hoping they get another shot at it soon.