Stride Forth Into The Unknown

Posted on July 18, 2009 by Miles

Whilst travelling down to Brisbane and simultaneously listening to Dark Side of the Moon, I started thinking about what i valued in games, and apart from story I discovered that i really enjoy quality exploration. This might seem like a slightly undervalued component, but i believe when done right it can really add something to a game.

Exploration – If a game lends itself to this avenue, I believe that exploration in game environments is imperative to the immersive process because if a player is under the impression that they are in a world with indefinite boundaries, they feel as if they have the ability to explore new and interesting areas, and possibly defy the games creators

Exploration should be surprising and original, obviously is appears to be a colossal resource consumption point, but there are ways of circumventing the issue with techniques like dynamic loading screens, but that’s beside the point. Exploration is a game design fundamental that is intended to capture the imagination of the player by providing them with unknown realms that they are either forced to explore in order for the game to progress, or what I believe is a better way to approach it is to give the player the option to explore completely different, or additional components of mandatory areas. This is important in stimulating the players interest because it enables then to engage their primal urges (this might be a bit farfetched, but I was spaced out on DSotM) to defy the danger and venture forth into the unknown.

Well that’s my two cents on a mechanic which i feel is severely underappreciated and often poorly done due to the fact that the developers (or more likely the publishers) place little value upon it and believe that fine tuning the world the player is more or less imprisoned for 8 + hours is unnecessary. Well riddle me this you fine and strapping young men and woman of the industry, if you had to spend a week imprisoned in a game, would you rather spend it in an accounting office, or in the fantasmagorical world of wonderment?

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Somewhere…Beyond The Sea

Posted on July 15, 2009 by Miles

Well the news only reached me, vicariously, through a post on a forum I frequent that directed me to a link on Kotaku stating that Bioshock 2’s launch has been thrown to the wind, and the title to the much loved original IP by 2K has been given a vague “We expect the title to ship in the first half of 2010”. This in my opinion is frustrating, obviously, being a gamer who thoroughly enjoyed Bioshock not only because I obviously want to play it, but because i really want to see who they have constructed a title with such high expectations. It was many moons ago when i caught wind of Bioshock 2’s production, and being an admirer of the first game, I naturally began scouring the internet for any details I could. But apart from one viral website that released some intriguing yet incredibly ambiguous information, I found next to nothing, so I began thinking, “what do I want to see in bioshock”. Obviously my opinions won’t sway those of the behemoth that is 2K, especially since their team of clairvoyant PR guys are still being poached by IGN, but I decided to think how a sequel should be constructed. First of all, allow me enlighten you with my philosophy on game sequels.

I believe that sequels should be a good contrast between established themes and completely original material, obviously this isn’t always in perfect balance because of continuing themes, and familiar gameplay, but with certain titles I believe special things can be achieved. For instance, take a game that has a pretty generic action aspect, but the developers realise that this is only a vehicle for innovation, and surrounding this innovation more concepts are layered until you have a game. Of course in my gumdrop fantasy world where it rains chocolate smiles, this would be an ideal base for certain types of games, but obviously not all companies decide to elaborate on their possibilities. This is when sequels end up feeling like the first game with shinied up graphics. On the other hand, when a company whole heartedly embrace the idea for change and innovation, a gleaming jewel is found in among the heaps power armour and scowly faces. Take a moment to ponder this while I go ahead and write what I think bioshock 2 should have been.

When i first came across this website SomethingInTheSea Map , it had one real feature, and that was to pick the minds of the fans and challenge them to interpret what they thought was going to be made of this much anticipated title, that is when i started thinking. Since this looked like a quite different atmosphere to the original I immediately jumped to the thought that they may be doing something completely different which excited me, and led me to come up with my own idea for Bioshock 2. Because of the imagery I received the impression that this was the work of some kind of private investigator, so i began pondering how Bioshock would work if this was a prequel, and you play a private investigator hot on the trail of some very mysterious occurrences leading up to the secretive opening of Rapture to the select audience that was explained in the original. But then I thought it wouldn’t be nearly creepy enough so i began to explore could be done with adding atmosphere and i reached the conclusion that at some point along the trail, the private investigator would find a lead that enabled him to gain passage to the currently empty rapture, where he uncovers a series of twisted and ungodly events leading to the rise of rapture. This game would be either first or third person, but the major difference would be the active completion of puzzles the player would take part in, in order to advance the story. Maybe this inspiration arose from my love of the classic story driven adventure game, but it was also inspired by my yearning for change and high levels of innovation in a situation where such an amazing world has been created without the restriction of a single play style.

Since then a glut of information on Bioshock 2 has been spewed into public light, and even though i can agree that it looks nice, and fun to play, I just don’t feel the sense of innovation that went into the creation of the first one whether it be art direction, to gameplay design. I am still going to pick up this game, but i’m still just a little disappointed that that didn’t do some radically different with it, but kind of thing really only tends to play on critical acclaim rather than commercial success.

SomethingInTheSea has now been updated, and if you’d like to check it out here’s the link: SomethingInTheSea

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Metal Gear Stolid

Posted on July 10, 2009 by Miles

Yesterday I picked up a copy of Metal Gear Solid: Guns of the Patriots, Tactical Espio….etc etc etc and have been playing it feverently every since. The gameplay is pretty fun, simulating realistic weapons and a harsh, gritty battlefield. But within this lies the problem because unless you’ve been living under a very large, and sensible rock for the last few years, you would have realised that MGS is a stealth game, a feature that, when coupled with full on action, attacks you like a beartrap on rollerskates. You see, the feature itself is pretty effective in allowing you to stealthily manoeuvre your way around well armed and legendarily thick PMC soldiers, but the problem with this is when you are thrown face first into a pitched battle, and the soldiers act as if they are suffering from crippling cataracts, and cannot see you until you are in front of them, upon which they will summon the entire royal armada and it’s dog upon you, where upon you will be faced with waves of telepathic maniacs. Another point often bemoaned by gamers is the fact that having to press L1 to aim, triangle to go first person and R1 to shoot is clumsy and problematic, but personally i never found this to be an issue since you only need to hold down L1 and tap triangle and you are free to walk around and aim as long as you are holding down L1… But i’ll take a quick swerve before I inevitably become bogged down in details. The primary issue i would like to address here is story, and i believe a quote i heard pretty much sums up its utter redundant blather. “Someone once said that a politician can talk for hours without actually saying anything, if this is true than Hideo Kojima could run for president of the universe in an afternoon” – Yahtzee. It’s not that i find this story overtly aggravating, it’s just that it has the tendency to become so immersed in its sheer utter pretentiousness to realise that it is supposed to cleanly deliver the player through the game, not recite half of Atlas Shrugged whilst watching Ghost in the Shell.
Over all, i like Metal Gear Solid 4, it throws enough variety into the mix to keep it interesting without slowing it down with extraneous features, and while the story is what it is, i still find the cutscenes entertaining.

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The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

Posted on July 5, 2009 by Miles

Well, no, the moon has little relevance to this news but I think Time would be more appropriate. So the other day me and my chummy chum designer friend were discussing the future of our production schedule and we came to a few conclusions, some that I agreed with, others I wasn’t happy with at all, but you have to learn to kill your babies in this industry (Note The Machination does not endorse killing babies in any way shape of form, and if you haven’t realised that this was a figure of speech, please have someone escort you to your padded cell). Basically the conclusion we have reached is one that entails resuming the production of Silhouette (if you aren’t clued in on what Silhouette is, then please direct yourself here: http://forums.thebehemoth.com/viewtopic.php?t=3273). Now after much discussion and debate the game has been significantly pruned down to suit our current situation and we hope like anything that we can forge ahead with this games production, now that we’ve essentially reformed our methods in order for our games to be more thoroughly tested in order to deliver a more polished product even if it is a minimalist approach.
As always
Happy gaming and check up some time to see what we’re up to

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I'm torn

Posted on July 3, 2009 by Miles

It seems like I’ve recently received a glut of responses from a post i made on the Australian Gamer forums as towards the hypothetical steps in order to rise for the murky depths of parroted education towards the shining golden bicep of the world that is game design…and it’s on fire…hell yeah. Sorry… well basically my debate is what to do towards this agenda, and it would seem like in order to peruse a particular avenue of the industry i.e. design (namely creative direction) you would have to shrug off all extraneous factors that are so dear to me (animation) and completely embrace a central stream of learning and experience. So to quickly wrap up before my pc screen molested eyeballs completely burn up and fall out, i would like to say that in retrospect, following multiple disciplines would generally seem like a good idea if you are working, or plan to work in a small teams, but for the industry’s sake people have generally suggested to stick to your main interest, but familiarise yourself with any outlying components…but i’m just too much of a conceited bastard to do so, is it wrong to want to hold the reigns of every little action?

In other news, me and my designer buddy are catching up to discuss level design for Run, let’s hope it holds some semblance of productivity.

Posted in Game Design, Games, The industry in general, The Machination | 17 Comments

LittleBigPlanet

Posted on July 1, 2009 by Miles

On a slight digression from out hectic production schedule, we’ve taken some time off to mess around with LittleBigPlanet’s level creation tools, and man, those chaps at Media Molecule really cracked onto something. Some people have complained that the utility is excessively complicated while others have mentioned that it lacked in some features. If we had to side with either, it would have to be the latter, but a steady stream of downloadable contents is appeasing the creative masses and filling the occasional gaps left in the original. But for us, we’re very content making a giant flaming robotic sun chase a poor sackboy on a motorcycle, whilst sackgirl rides shotgun.

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Let Run Resume

Posted on June 28, 2009 by Miles

Ok, so we’ve been granted some reprieve from the cruel wishes of the Australian education system which means that we can FINALLY WORK ON GAMES. ARE YOU AS EXCITED AS I AM?! Well to be honest we’ve found other distractions, but that does not mean we’re any less enthusiastic then ever, the guys just tend to prefer to conceptualise games rather than grind away hours in flash, and i’m no exception. But with a little bit of motiviation and a lot of caffeine and late night, we hope (seriously) that we can make some significant progress into this project, and get a large portion of it completed in the coming weeks.

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Visitor Map

Posted on May 10, 2009 by Miles

Free Visitor Maps at VisitorMap.org
Isn’t this a fine and spiffy map?!

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Is the games industry recession proof?

Posted on April 21, 2009 by Miles

An economic recession is one of those occurences that strikes a great deal of confusion and discomfort into the minds of business owers, and employees alike. And while Australia isn’t in an official recession, there has been some pretty hefty action taken in order to try to prevent the economic situation from worsening, and joining the countries that have officially slipped into a recessive state. This situation raises the topic of this entry, the question of whether the games industry is can outlast the recession.

Cheap entertainment has always been a popular course of action in times where less affordable entertainment becomes even less accessible. Games are, in this case, a popular choice because even though they may be hideously expensive new here, still seem to have this aura of worthiness regardless of the price. The great thing about games is that they can be purchased, and played, providing in surplus of 15+ hours of gameplay, engaging the player in a much more interactive and gratifying experience, then say going to a theme park for a day, which while may still be as fun in the short run, provides less value for longevity of entertainment. This is something that develpers have realised, and are marketing to by producing more complex games which incidentally take longer to finish, instilling a positive sense of fulfillment in the player, most likely encouraging them to go out and buy another. Conversly, on the development side, developers are still spending huge amounts of money in order to continue working on the titles that they work so hard to produce, often ending in merely scraping by in these times, thus why it would seem more profitable to become independent and cut out publishing costs.

It would seem that this question has reached an interesting conclusing, gamers will most often feel obliged to go out and purchase games, regardless of the economic situation, while companies will often range from struggling to doing reasonably well in these times, if not occasionally better because of the increased purchases on the “affordable entertainment” from. It would seem like the game industry is not necessarily recession proof, due to high costs of production, but recession resistant because of the large portion of gamers that may, or will not changing their purchasing habits, along side the people who believe that games are a good cheap alternative entertainment.

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Game Development Software

Posted on April 19, 2009 by Miles

When you feel as if you ideas and passion for the game industry have roiled away for long enough, and you feel compelled to spill your creativity out into the digital world, your going to need a platform onto which your ideas will go. Preferably for a first game, this platform will be a good balance of all or most of the utilities you will require in order to achieve familiarity with the program as well as affordability.

When you start off in the games industry, whether it be a hobby, or practice and promotion for your planned career, it’s best to start of with a tool that covers most features, and provides the best “plug and play” usability. My personal recommendation is a program called Flash, which is now owned by Adobe. This program is, in my opinion, the perfect tool for the beginner designer, short of a game makers, like Game Maker. I believe that this is the best start for people serious about getting into the industry because it exposes them to the rigor of animation and coding, and gives them a more satisfying result once their masterpiece is complete. Flash is basically comprised of a stage, which upon your objects are drawn; a timeline which for games should only be used for symbol animations, and start, content (game) and finish screens; the Actionscript utility which is an extension that allows you to either code symbols or keyframes with a Java based language called actionscript, allowing you to give your obects values- ; and finally a large range of tools that go from simple drawing to much more complex features in the lastest edition (CS4) as such as Inverse Kinetics which is esentually a synthetic “bone” structure, which apparently requires no coding for it’s simplest interactive applications.

If you definately want to stay away from the 2 dimensional avenue of game design and want to get straight into 3 dimensional, it is going to be a difficult, but nonetheless interesting task. First of all i recommend you download the free trial of a program called Maya which was developed by autodesk. Maya is a very popular and powerful 3 dimensional modelling program that allows you to do this simplest tasks like remodelling polygons, to full bone structures and surface modelling. Along with maya, other programs you may like to explore are 3DS Max (similar to maya), Mudbox or Zbrush (sculpting and modelling 3 dimensional skins);and Motionbuilder for realtime animations and interactive visualisations. Or if you’re more interested in coding, you may like to download an express version of C++, a language commonly used in games to get a taste for how the C system works, if you’re already a knowledgeable programmer. If you’re a beginner programmer it would be wise to research programming guides.

Hopefully these programs will give you an understanding of what goes into creating a game from the most basic digital elements. If you are keen to begin working on games, i highly recommend download the trial versions of these software packages, to see which one of them suits your style and skill level, and hopefully you will emerge with a wealth of ideas, even if it means you changed your personal scope of game development, for instance from 3D to 2D.

Happing gaming

Miles

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