"one of my favorite moments in Star Trek, when Captain Kirk looks over the cosmos and says, "Somewhere out there someone is saying the three most beautiful words in any language." Of course you heart sinks and you think it's going to be, "I love you" or whatever. He says, "Please help me." What a philosophically fantastic idea, that vulnerability and need is a beautiful thing."
-Hugh Laurie
Sunday, March 29, 2009
Friday, March 20, 2009
Braid - PC.
Braid is coming out for the PC in a couple of weeks, I'm excited to try it out. I've been playing through prince of persia: sands of time on the PC and really enjoying it. Up next is Lost Planet, then Deus Ex, I'm trying to play a 'bad' game for every good one I play.
Also, Im jumping into Chrono Trigger DS and playing along with Brainy Gamer's Vintage Game Club.
Also, Im jumping into Chrono Trigger DS and playing along with Brainy Gamer's Vintage Game Club.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Indigo Prophecy: Tutorial.
One of the cooler things about studying level design is that you begin to play games very differently. You extract yourself from the immediate experience and instead view it from a kind of critical 3rd person perspective. It's the same thing I felt after taking a film class and subsequently spending most of my time watching the framing of every shot in a movie instead of just enjoying the popcorn and loud noises. So when playing a supposed interactive film, I knew it would be an analytical affair.
Case in point: Launching into Indigo Prophecy, running the tutorial, and spending as much time scribbling notes onto a pad of paper as actually playing through it.
In the original post I apparently had no expectations with regards to the Tutorial... and boy did Indigo P. blow those non-expectations out of the water.
The tutorial is set in what looks like a hollywood movie studio's back lot. Your tut. guide is none other than the writer/director of the game. Basically they make the tutorial feel like a bonus feature that would be included on a dvd.
Then there are the controls, which are very camera control intensive. The camera itself seems like a key part of your toolset when playing the game. The default camera - which is offset in a kind of 3rd person view - can be rotated 360 degrees around the player, you can go into a standard first person view, but you can also go into a kind of cameraman first person view, where you can look around from the cameras perspective, allowing you to see areas offset from your characters location.
The directors voice over is not very well polished, and they might have used a voice actor instead, but the directors somewhat amateur delivery adds to the 'behind the scenes' feel of the tutorial, especially once the real voice acting kicks in during the game intro.
I would also add that the controls seem a bit odd, using arrow keys and the num. pad instead of a standard wasd variant, it may be another case (see: beyond good and evil) where using a gamepad would be better than using the mouse/keyboard combo. I don't have a gamepad though (more on that later.)
Case in point: Launching into Indigo Prophecy, running the tutorial, and spending as much time scribbling notes onto a pad of paper as actually playing through it.
In the original post I apparently had no expectations with regards to the Tutorial... and boy did Indigo P. blow those non-expectations out of the water.
The tutorial is set in what looks like a hollywood movie studio's back lot. Your tut. guide is none other than the writer/director of the game. Basically they make the tutorial feel like a bonus feature that would be included on a dvd.
Then there are the controls, which are very camera control intensive. The camera itself seems like a key part of your toolset when playing the game. The default camera - which is offset in a kind of 3rd person view - can be rotated 360 degrees around the player, you can go into a standard first person view, but you can also go into a kind of cameraman first person view, where you can look around from the cameras perspective, allowing you to see areas offset from your characters location.
The directors voice over is not very well polished, and they might have used a voice actor instead, but the directors somewhat amateur delivery adds to the 'behind the scenes' feel of the tutorial, especially once the real voice acting kicks in during the game intro.
I would also add that the controls seem a bit odd, using arrow keys and the num. pad instead of a standard wasd variant, it may be another case (see: beyond good and evil) where using a gamepad would be better than using the mouse/keyboard combo. I don't have a gamepad though (more on that later.)
Bioware.. in Montreal!?!?!!!
If this is part of some elaborate joke that the universe is playing on me then I say: well done, universe! The news that Bioware is opening a studio Montreal is just about the coolest thing I've ever heard (other than that time Gabe Newell responded to an email I sent).
I loved my time at Bioware, but had to move back home for a plethora of reasons. When I moved back I had only the slightest sliver of a plan, but since then things have really fallen into place, and this new studio opening is kind of like the cherry on top of a fate sundae that I am very excited to dig into.
Here's a pic of my desk in Edmonton when I was sharing an office with my QA lead / buddy, Homan.
YAY!
I loved my time at Bioware, but had to move back home for a plethora of reasons. When I moved back I had only the slightest sliver of a plan, but since then things have really fallen into place, and this new studio opening is kind of like the cherry on top of a fate sundae that I am very excited to dig into.
Here's a pic of my desk in Edmonton when I was sharing an office with my QA lead / buddy, Homan.
YAY!
Sunday, March 1, 2009
ME2, will Liara remember that night on the Normandy?
Yes.
Shout out to Jack, a good buddy from my bioware days, for finally getting his 15 minutes of fame out of the way. :D
Shout out to Jack, a good buddy from my bioware days, for finally getting his 15 minutes of fame out of the way. :D
Indigo Prophecy: pre-play-preview review.
Interactive film v. video game
Status: addled by a bout of allergies, a robust regimen of anti-histamines, and a weekend long bender.
Contents:
-Explication of the Pre-play-preview review
-Dragon's Lair
-GOW and the QTE
-Farenheit/Indigo Prophecy
-Expectations
The pre-play-preview review is something I thought of after hearing a lecture by Micheal McIntyre, a lead level designer at Ubisoft who came to discuss the new Prince of Persia. Someone asked him to list off some of the great games that need to be played, instead of listing off the usual suspects he responded by saying that the best games to play are the ones with the worst reviews. Why is that? Because you get to examine first hand why it is these games became failures. What poor design decisions were made? Why do you think they made those decisions? And, here's the important one: What would you have done differently?
I will be doing one of these really soon, having picked up Lost Planet on a steam sale.
A corollary to his argument as to why we should play bad games came clear to me as he spoke. The disappointments one would surely encounter play against our expectations as to what makes a good game design. Also: I don't want to play too many bad games, I'm playing in my free time, to relax. I finally have a powerful PC. Let's take advantage of it and have some fun.
So instead I have come up with the pre-play-preview review (PrPPR) where I get a highly rated game I know little to nothing about. Read the first paragraph of it's wikipedia entry to get an idea of what type of game it is. And then create an inventory of what I expect from a good game of that style, a list of hopes and dreams. Hopefully spin some tangential golden silk off of those expectations. And then play the game, come back and post how my expectations were met/missed/wrong etc...
According to the wiki page, Farenheit, err... Indigo Prophecy was designed to be a piece of interactive film, not an adventure game or a action game. So this pre-play-preview review will look at Interactive Film.
I don't have to go any farther than my own childhood to start thinking about interactive film because when I was a kid there was a game at the arcade called Dragon's Lair. And yes, my little ones, it was an interactive film. The game had one button, all you had to do was press it at the right time to progress the film, errr.. cartoon. Not pressing or pressing at the wrong time would branch the story off to a swift conclusion where the hero fails, ending the film prematurely.
Yes, I hear you saying, isn't that conclusion a valid one.. maybe Dragon's Lair was an allegory on hopelessness and tragedy? Just the kind of thing you'd want to market to today's wii-mad emo crowd bent on out-casualing each other til' every game plays itself, right? I dunno.
God of War was a huge hit, and a big part of it's cache was the QTEs. Quick Time Events. I'm not sure why they are called QTEs, it confused a PC guy like me who thinks this has something to do with Quicktime and yet another update download from Apple. A quick time event, essentially, is when a sequence of the games takes the usual control scheme away from the player and instead replaces it with a Dragon's Lair style button timing puzzle. Oooh, shiny.. in God of War there are several buttons to press, a distinct innovation from the one big red button of DL... or is it? What's so cool about these QTEs in GOW is the filmic nature of the action going on on the screen, and the fact that limiting the players input allows them to really watch what is happening on the screen.
Finding a way to map a traditional control structure such that you could climb up a giant metal Zeus' moving arm, jump onto his head, pull back one of his eyelids, stick a lance in there, drop down to his knee, hammer into the kneecap, provoke an automatic response that leads him to kick out that foot and stub his toe on a nearby piece of Greek architecture and so on. [inhale] Phew... would be tough. Instead they map each of these actions to a single button press, they tell you what button to press when by popping a call-out into the hud. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy, almost. The timing on these are pretty precise, if you miss you get thrown back into combat, taking damage, and you have to trigger the QTE again through some normal gameplay. They also switch the sequence of button presses, so you don't end up completely divorcing yourself from the gameplay.
I'm not sure if the world is ready for a full on interactive film in the Dragon's Lair style (I might check the sales numbers for the recent DL version on the NintendoDS, but not tonight). And while the QTEs in God of War are very rewarding, they seem to mostly take place around the boss battles, making them incentives, carrots on a stick, and to be efficient in that manner, they must be limited, and therefore not the defining gameplay style of the game. Thusly, GOW could never be an interactive film, it's an action game with filmic elements.
Quick side note on Metal Gear Solid. Though I haven't played it myself, I have heard several times that the gameplay is secondary in importance/enjoyment to the cutscene sequences, some of which go on for upwards of 45 minutes. Filmic yes, interactive, no.
So, Indigo Prophecy (produced by Quantic Dream), how are you an interactive film? and why was your name changed from Fahrenheit for your North American release?
Expectations:
-Good ambient audio
-Good dialogue
-Strong design of the main characters
-Simple control scheme
-Great camera work with multiple view styles that change dynamically throughout gameplay
-No roadblocks to progression
-No character customization
-No story told by means other than the direct gameplay experience (ie. none of Bioshocks back-storytelling Cassettes, or Prince of Persias optional chats with Elika)
-A classic story arc (beginning, middle, end. set-up, conflict, resolution, denoument. etc...)
Now, time to play the game! This PrPPR is going to be fun, as I was scribbling up that list of expectations there were a series of objections, how abouts, exceptions and innovations that jumped to mind... let's see what thoughts Indigo Prophecy prompts.
Feel free to play along and post here. Once I get a chunk into the game I'll write up a PoPPR.
Upcoming topics:
-Left 4 Dead, a survivors tale.
-A Rock Band weekend with the non-gamers.
-Generation Y, what am I getting into: a post IGDA lecture discussion.
-QA for dummies, why you should and shouldn't get into QA.
-*BOINK*: TF2 shuffles off to hardcoredom.
Addendum: McIntyre did list a few of his favorite games, the two that seemed to stand out in relation to his work on Prince of Persia were Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, both made by team Ico.
Status: addled by a bout of allergies, a robust regimen of anti-histamines, and a weekend long bender.
Contents:
-Explication of the Pre-play-preview review
-Dragon's Lair
-GOW and the QTE
-Farenheit/Indigo Prophecy
-Expectations
The pre-play-preview review is something I thought of after hearing a lecture by Micheal McIntyre, a lead level designer at Ubisoft who came to discuss the new Prince of Persia. Someone asked him to list off some of the great games that need to be played, instead of listing off the usual suspects he responded by saying that the best games to play are the ones with the worst reviews. Why is that? Because you get to examine first hand why it is these games became failures. What poor design decisions were made? Why do you think they made those decisions? And, here's the important one: What would you have done differently?
I will be doing one of these really soon, having picked up Lost Planet on a steam sale.
A corollary to his argument as to why we should play bad games came clear to me as he spoke. The disappointments one would surely encounter play against our expectations as to what makes a good game design. Also: I don't want to play too many bad games, I'm playing in my free time, to relax. I finally have a powerful PC. Let's take advantage of it and have some fun.
So instead I have come up with the pre-play-preview review (PrPPR) where I get a highly rated game I know little to nothing about. Read the first paragraph of it's wikipedia entry to get an idea of what type of game it is. And then create an inventory of what I expect from a good game of that style, a list of hopes and dreams. Hopefully spin some tangential golden silk off of those expectations. And then play the game, come back and post how my expectations were met/missed/wrong etc...
According to the wiki page, Farenheit, err... Indigo Prophecy was designed to be a piece of interactive film, not an adventure game or a action game. So this pre-play-preview review will look at Interactive Film.
I don't have to go any farther than my own childhood to start thinking about interactive film because when I was a kid there was a game at the arcade called Dragon's Lair. And yes, my little ones, it was an interactive film. The game had one button, all you had to do was press it at the right time to progress the film, errr.. cartoon. Not pressing or pressing at the wrong time would branch the story off to a swift conclusion where the hero fails, ending the film prematurely.
Yes, I hear you saying, isn't that conclusion a valid one.. maybe Dragon's Lair was an allegory on hopelessness and tragedy? Just the kind of thing you'd want to market to today's wii-mad emo crowd bent on out-casualing each other til' every game plays itself, right? I dunno.
God of War was a huge hit, and a big part of it's cache was the QTEs. Quick Time Events. I'm not sure why they are called QTEs, it confused a PC guy like me who thinks this has something to do with Quicktime and yet another update download from Apple. A quick time event, essentially, is when a sequence of the games takes the usual control scheme away from the player and instead replaces it with a Dragon's Lair style button timing puzzle. Oooh, shiny.. in God of War there are several buttons to press, a distinct innovation from the one big red button of DL... or is it? What's so cool about these QTEs in GOW is the filmic nature of the action going on on the screen, and the fact that limiting the players input allows them to really watch what is happening on the screen.
Finding a way to map a traditional control structure such that you could climb up a giant metal Zeus' moving arm, jump onto his head, pull back one of his eyelids, stick a lance in there, drop down to his knee, hammer into the kneecap, provoke an automatic response that leads him to kick out that foot and stub his toe on a nearby piece of Greek architecture and so on. [inhale] Phew... would be tough. Instead they map each of these actions to a single button press, they tell you what button to press when by popping a call-out into the hud. All you have to do is sit back and enjoy, almost. The timing on these are pretty precise, if you miss you get thrown back into combat, taking damage, and you have to trigger the QTE again through some normal gameplay. They also switch the sequence of button presses, so you don't end up completely divorcing yourself from the gameplay.
I'm not sure if the world is ready for a full on interactive film in the Dragon's Lair style (I might check the sales numbers for the recent DL version on the NintendoDS, but not tonight). And while the QTEs in God of War are very rewarding, they seem to mostly take place around the boss battles, making them incentives, carrots on a stick, and to be efficient in that manner, they must be limited, and therefore not the defining gameplay style of the game. Thusly, GOW could never be an interactive film, it's an action game with filmic elements.
Quick side note on Metal Gear Solid. Though I haven't played it myself, I have heard several times that the gameplay is secondary in importance/enjoyment to the cutscene sequences, some of which go on for upwards of 45 minutes. Filmic yes, interactive, no.
So, Indigo Prophecy (produced by Quantic Dream), how are you an interactive film? and why was your name changed from Fahrenheit for your North American release?
Expectations:
-Good ambient audio
-Good dialogue
-Strong design of the main characters
-Simple control scheme
-Great camera work with multiple view styles that change dynamically throughout gameplay
-No roadblocks to progression
-No character customization
-No story told by means other than the direct gameplay experience (ie. none of Bioshocks back-storytelling Cassettes, or Prince of Persias optional chats with Elika)
-A classic story arc (beginning, middle, end. set-up, conflict, resolution, denoument. etc...)
Now, time to play the game! This PrPPR is going to be fun, as I was scribbling up that list of expectations there were a series of objections, how abouts, exceptions and innovations that jumped to mind... let's see what thoughts Indigo Prophecy prompts.
Feel free to play along and post here. Once I get a chunk into the game I'll write up a PoPPR.
Upcoming topics:
-Left 4 Dead, a survivors tale.
-A Rock Band weekend with the non-gamers.
-Generation Y, what am I getting into: a post IGDA lecture discussion.
-QA for dummies, why you should and shouldn't get into QA.
-*BOINK*: TF2 shuffles off to hardcoredom.
Addendum: McIntyre did list a few of his favorite games, the two that seemed to stand out in relation to his work on Prince of Persia were Shadow of the Colossus and Ico, both made by team Ico.
Thursday, February 26, 2009
Silhouettes, form over function.
What is important in design?
Well, recently I have found a few examples where people are pointing out that before you get into the details, you have to focus on the shape of the silhouette.
Here and Here
Clearly this holds for Character Design, try applying it to pure level design, graph paper style... and try not to keep making maps that look like ms.pacman kill screens, the silhouette of the digital elephant man... confusion abounds.
Picked up Prince of Persia a few days ago, the lead level designer is coming to talk to us in class. Unfortunately he didn't work on Beyond Good and Evil (discussion pending) or the PoP DS game. So I'd better get a few levels into PoP...
If I wasn't behind on texturing a medieval town I would say more words, but I gotta grind some 3dsmax.....
ding
Well, recently I have found a few examples where people are pointing out that before you get into the details, you have to focus on the shape of the silhouette.
Here and Here
Clearly this holds for Character Design, try applying it to pure level design, graph paper style... and try not to keep making maps that look like ms.pacman kill screens, the silhouette of the digital elephant man... confusion abounds.
Picked up Prince of Persia a few days ago, the lead level designer is coming to talk to us in class. Unfortunately he didn't work on Beyond Good and Evil (discussion pending) or the PoP DS game. So I'd better get a few levels into PoP...
If I wasn't behind on texturing a medieval town I would say more words, but I gotta grind some 3dsmax.....
ding
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