Thursday, November 19, 2009

No game this year

For the past couple of years I released a game around Dec. - Jan. This year that's just not going to happen. I had a couple of false starts where I was working on a game and then just lost all desire to continue. After some down time I finally came up with a design I was very excited about.

After working on a number of prototypes (movement, enemy AI, etc.) I was again losing my interest in working on the game. I finally realized it wasn't the game design that was killing my motivation, it was Actionscript 3.

AS3's rigid structure, event system and abysmal error reporting were making every moment of development a chore. Gone were the days of quickly getting something playable. While I do enjoy some features of AS3, like the display list, the rest is too much of a hindrance for my coding style. Plus Flash CS4 crashed about 4-5 times an hour.

So I am rebooting in AS2. I worked last night in AS2 and my fire has been rekindled. Hopefully I can get this next game out in the next 6 months or so.

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Reflections on books

Reading is Fundamental
As a game designer I feel it's my duty to expose myself to many different schools of through. I try to break away from "videogame culture" (sci-fi movies, fantasy books, etc.), a culture in which many people are insulated. I actively reach beyond videogame culture by reading (er, listening) to audiobooks. I read my share of fantasy books too but the majority of books I read are outside this common culture.

I have often heard the sentiment that true innovations cannot come from within the game development community because all the developers are too entrenched in their own culture. That for innovation to happen, people from outside of games must break through the wall with their new ideas. I think we all just need to make a concerted effort to break out of our comfort zone.

The idea is that I will stimulate my brain in new ways and be able to come up with new approaches to game design. This definitely works, I find myself excited with new ideas and mechanics. Unfortunately time presses on and I never get to work on any of these new ideas. However, I should at least write them down. I am going to be documenting the books I read and how the they inspire me.

The Book
My most recent book was The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins. I think the topic of this book is pretty obvious by the title and author. Though I share Mr. Dawkins views, I knew very little of this work. My exposure to him was limited to talk show bits and sound clips. He is often demonized as aggressive but his tone and message in the book calmly metered and insightful. It's a fantastic book regarding the core topic but sprinkled insights that really got my wheels turning.

Rules Change by Size
One of the concepts I was grasped by was how our world view is skewed to human scale. To us water is a liquid to swim in but to a microorganism water is a gel to be burrowed through. To us gravity is the most important force but to a water spider it's surface tension.

It would be interesting to truly change the rules of a game by the scale of the creature you are playing. You could argue Spore did this, but when you are swimming around is Spore the water still behaves and impedes just like a human would expect.

Growing from small to large things that were impediments would become insignificant, things that were too large for you to comprehend would become enemies, etc.

Too Serious
I think the easiest outcome of this exercise is "serious games." I need to push beyond that and find interesting mechanics that would make a very compelling game. Something that communicates the ideas but is still fun to play. I will continue this exercise and try to recall some of the ways previous books have inspired me.

Saturday, November 14, 2009

This Unity 3D drink is delicious

I have jumped on the Unity 3D bandwagon and I have to say, it's a smooth ride. It's refreshing to work in a tool that 100% devoted to game development.

I immediately jumped on their 2D platformer tutorial but quickly felt there was too much to wade through. I searched around and found some great tutorials, especially for Flash developers.

Unity for Flash Developers (1-7). These will teach you basic Unity concepts and how many are similar to Flash.
http://www.vimeo.com/2827541

You have to walk before you can run, but in game development, you have to shoot bullets and make explosions before either. This tutorial will show you how: http://www.unitytutorials.com/video/290/muzzle-flash--raycasting--bullet-explosion1

This tutorial takes you from the start as well and shows great stuff like making terrain in Unity. I haven't made it all the way through this one yet but its the best one have found so far. He uses Cinema 4D (which is Mac only I think) to do some modeling . I just downloaded a 30-day trial of 3Ds Max and everything transferred easily.
http://willgoldstone.com/learn/index.php?currentPage=unity_lesson1

Unity 3D definitely deserves all the buzz it is getting. When it gets something along the lines of MochiAds I might have to switch over from Flash.

Thursday, November 12, 2009

The Value of Ideas

Over the past few years I have stated the opinion that ideas, as far as game design goes, have very little value. Actual value comes from working through those ideas, dealing the problems they present and actually making (and finishing) a game. I have recently come to the realization that my attitude is needs to change.

I think many game developers reach this point. The "ideas are worth little" mantra has been repeated by numerous developers. I have become jaded and tired of having the same conversations over and over with people looking to get into game development. Conversations with people who just want to be "idea people," people who have no real desire work on games, they just want to play their ideas. I guess other developers reach the same place. I have to believe other fields, such as writers and film makers, must have the same frustrations.

Combine this with the fact that most game ideas from people are often not game designs at all. "Halo with more guns" is not a valuable and things like this make up the majority of these conversations.

My attitude towards discussing game design with students and people looking to get into game development has become worse and worse. I have gone from being totally open with people, listening and telling them anything I think would help, to telling them, "Go make games. There is nothing stopping you." Recently I have found myself telling people, "If you really wanted to make games you would have done it by now."

I need to remember, like anything else, there are good ideas and bad ideas and I should take the time to talk to everyone. Everyone got started somewhere. Where would I be if no one took the time to listen to my dumb game ideas and help point me in the right direction?

Wednesday, November 04, 2009

Clint Hocking lecture

Last night I got to go see Clint Hocking on this Click Nothing Tour present his lecture, "The Territory is not the Map: Hyper Realism and the New Immersion Paradigm." I have been looking forward to this as Clint is one of my favorite lecturers. Since I missed GDC this year I was not going to miss this opportunity.

As expected, the lecture was thought provoking and incredibly insightful. Clint's presentation style is unique. He seems a bit unsure of the things he is saying. He couples this with seemingly disparate topics and references right up until the point where you feel a bit lost and suspect that he is rambling. At that moment, he brings it all back to a salient point and you are left not only pondering the point but wracking your brain to recall the tapestry of movie clips, literature references, graphs and stories that led up to it.

The talk summarized what the current generation players refer to as "immersion" and addressed that the next generation of players will have a different definition of the term. Game developers need to be aware of this and be prepared. Ideas of linear technological development will not be the answer. An amalgamation of social media and disruptive innovations will lead to this new definition of immersion.

I encourage anyone in the game design discipline to read his lectures (Design Materials on the right-hand side)