Monday, March 24, 2014

GDC take away or nostalgic for AAA

This was my second GDC and while it was totally awesome; it was pretty different from my first. The major difference was that this year I totally sprung for a main conference pass; so I was able to get in and see a bunch of talks.

All in All, I really enjoyed the talks and they really have shared a bunch of practical knowledge about the 'triple-a' style game development. I don't mean triple-a in the million dollar budget sense; but more in the style of games that are typically produced and I feel like the knowledge they develop and seek to pass on is important. These games are going to be nostalgic for people; heck they are nostalgic for me. A big part of my formative experience in high-school (before I thought I could make games or if I should) was playing first-person shooters and mods. Dear Esther to me is weird creepy mod; a rehash of assets from HL2, with birds that are way too loud, and a confusing voice over that tells me stuff based on where I go. Part of my remembrance of the Iraq War was firing up the Desert Combat mod for battlefield 1942 (that demo totally sold me on the game). Unreal Tournament... I will buy every Unreal Tournament that ever comes out just because I wanna capture that adrenaline nostalgia of 2005 graphics and gore (I played more UT2k4 than UT99 but I can't decide on which is better; UT3 even has its merits). The amount of hours I have spent playing Rainbow Six... I shutter to think.

OK, whoa, way too much nerding out there for a sec... let's bring it back to what I was saying. The talks and knowledge about these games. The games that are being developed and the knowledge that is out there is in a way very specialized but... It's really a mark of achievement and specialization and maturation that the genre's popularity created. Its like going to the moon. You would only figure out and develop this technology if there are the right forces behind it. There is a lot to be said, and a lot to be loved about indie games and that revolution of novelty. I think its becoming easier to forget the specialization; the massive, epic undertaking of a AAA game and what that collaboration can create.

Or maybe I'm just feeling nostalgic...

Friday, March 14, 2014

Website is being moved!

I spent the last couple of weeks updating my website for GCD... and it still looks horrible. After asking around with some of friends I decided to give Wix a try. I can already tell I'm going to moving my site over to Wix. While the current link will take you to a site I made with Google sites and isn't terrible; it's not good.

However, for the purposes of looking at my portfolio and seeing information, screenshots, and some demos about my game; it's all on my old website and will continue to be the current active link. In the pursuit of perfection and based on feedback I have received from play-testing my website, I'll have something done up in Wix over the weekend.

Sometimes you just have to take what you learned, throw everything out, and re-do it better.|

P.S. Some of the downloadable projects on my website are not running on my machine; There are some technical bugs I'm trying to sort out with that. I'm looking into the issue but I may not have them fixed in time for gdc (in house engines are weird).

P.S.S
Google Site:                                                                              



Wix:



Monday, March 10, 2014

Video Games, High School, and Hegemony

In the last post I stated the differences between perceived high and low culture as a divide between consumers along the lines of familiarity with the media and their ability to appreciate the subtlety. However the axis is not one dimensional; its not as simple as media for the refined and media for the masses.

When I stated that it is high culture, the informed and refined media consumers that both create and consume the media they respect I purposefully neglected another element. different people, even different refined media consumers (ie high culture) have different values on what is culturally significant.

Lets go back to highschool and remember that there are distinct crowds. The preppy kids, the dorks, the counter-culture, and even further divisions by interest or hobby. The preppy kids are generally considered ‘popular’ because the media generated and valued in their group has a sort of minimal acceptance among all groups. In reality the preppy kids form a cultural hegemony and impose their culture on other groups. Now assume the preppy kids decide a particular song is ‘cool’ and play it at their parties, use it in their playlists, ect. The may have cultural significance in the values of the preppy kids and may permeate into other groups by the virtue that the preppy kids like it (it likely however will not, but it will be seen by many just not accepted). However something from the counter-culture may be particularly resonate with themselves and also the dorks and become ‘popular’. This is because it resonates with the values of two different cliques. The people who decide if a media is acceptable by in large gave approval. Now it could also be a fact that a traditional dork creates media that is accepted in the dork culture and preppy culture; and this has the possibility of changing the persons status from dork to preppy.

Simply, put there is a cultural hegemony that is universally recognized by all cultures (the preppy kids are recognized by the counter culture and dorks). Media from recognized cultures will get exposure to cultures that recognize their cultural authority. In the instance that the counter culture creates media that is valued by dorks and it becomes popular (by means of being valued by multiple groups) its going to have detractors among the cultural hegemony of preppy kids. It could also instead create a shift in the cultural groups, changing the values of groups who are exposed to the media to accept the media.

Well where do videogames fall in this? Are they Preppy or Counter Culture or Dorks? Well, truth be told they are not really in either of them. Video Games are not inherently valued (like dork culture or counter-culture), but pervade multiple subcultures. In a way they are currently a form of ‘disruptive culture’. Understanding games in this contexts helps to explain why games are treated the way they are. Games are ‘not taken seriously’ because of their status as disruptive to the normal cultural hegemony.

* note the description I give seems to pain that the ‘dork’ culture values the media of all other cultures and may imply that they are on the ‘lowest rung’ of this cultural structure. This is not true. Each culture has its own values and judges all media accordingly, however based on the values of another group (and how it views another group) the time it takes for a media to enter another cultural group may be prohibitively long. Also note the inclusion of only three cultural groups is for the sake of simplicity. In reality there are many more cultures and subcultures at play.

Sunday, March 2, 2014

How to be a good usability/UX playtester

I can't sleep, I'll post the pop culture and games post next week, and I wanna write about what happens in my head when I listen to a playtester and how they can help me.

What I do:

0. Remove debugs and turn on the music and turn off pandora. I don't care if you are Stravinsky, Brian Eno, Trent Reznor, or Gustavo Santaolalla; I need to turn off your music so I don't get desensitized to it. If I really like a song, I make a point to not over listen to it.

1. I tell you nothing beyond "play my game". If you desperately seek a response I will give you terse non-answers. If you ask me how to play I will say I iterated so many times I forgot what the rules were. Sometimes I may ask you to teach me how to play as you read my rules.

2. I take notes as you playing; notably on what you missed, how long it took for you to get something, and what made you squeeze or react. I'm especially looking for your feelings and responses to events.

3. Bugs. I will tell you if something is broken or if you found a bug playtest.I'll note it. If you are hopelessly lost or there is a clear breakdown in my games ability to communicate info; I will tell you and note it as a bug.

4. First thing after you play, 'what's your feel?' Do you like it do you want more? Is it interesting? In my head I'm looking for your reaction to the core experience I delivered.

5. After you play I note what moments you remember. These are often points of contrast (highs and lows) on an engagement curve. Really you should only remember highs; if you remember lows I probably had it linger too long.

6. Finally after play I listen to your suggestions. Most likely you are right about what things are wrong and your suggestions about how to fix them are incorrect (your exposure and knowledge of the game is based on the level you played, my time with this game is orders of magnitude greater).

How you can help:

0. BYOH bring your own headphones. Dumb stuff I know; but you really want to use the ones that every other playtester used? Some of them are freshman and those things aren't always clean.

1. Tell me if you have played before. You are a very different playtester if you have played before or one that has not. This helps me understand your frame of reference to the experience and what you know coming in.

2. Hold your comments till the end, don't feel the need to narrate or try to analyze as you go. If you want to change anything about how you play, just actually say things you would mutter to yourself. This helps me see what you remember about the game. Also say 'eww' when the ui sucks, we need to know.

3. Try to have the core experience; don't just play to break my game. If you do find breaking bugs in my game, that's good; my point is don't change how you play to break my game. Just play. I will test for things to be unbreakable later. This helps me make sure I'm leading you and informing you properly and delivering my core experience.

4. Tell me if this is your kinda game. If you are hard core into platformers and that's what I'm making tell me about it. This also helps me gauge difficulty.

4.5 If this is your type of game suggest similar games for me to play. It's actually very helpful for me to see what conclusions other designers came up with to similar problems.

5. Honestly articulate what you like and dislike. If you hate the game overall that's fine, but do say more than "hated it". This helps me identify what kinda games you like and what sort of player you are.

5.5 Don't take it personally if the game does something that offends you. I'm testing it with you because I know you might be sensitive to the game I need to know if I crossed the line. I'm never trying to offend others but that means I must playtest the game with those who may be offended.

6. Feel free to play again and narrate after you've had your initial impressions. Narration is useful but it does change the experience. This helps me understand you primary experience next to what you see on deeper analysis.

7. Fill out my form; its annoying, I know but it gives me some concrete data. This helps me track changes over different builds with numbers and data. It also let's me yell at programmers with numbers which means they will actually make the changes I suggest.

8. Tell your friends, but no spoilers. Chances are nobody is going to hear about my indie game. Even if its a triple-a experience I can still miss sales projections if I only sell two million copies. Tweet what you like about it or who you think its for or that you at least got to see an early version of it. Obviously I am never asking you to break NDA but this helps me get my work seen and played. It also makes it easier for me to find more playtesters.

9. Give me your card/ contact info. This helps me contact you for additional playtests. I may not get back to you till my next project which could be several months time; but you may be just the playtester I need.

10. Remember, the worse the game is that I'm making you play; the more I trust you. It's scary to put your hard work out there when you know it has problems and needs iterations. I'm scared you will think I'm bad at making games, or a one hit wonder, or I'm not legit or real; but I put aside these insecurities, suck it up and put my game out there because I know it will make it better. Doing this helps me do my number one job, advocate for the player. It also helps me learn to not live my life out of fear, but out of passion; which helps me be free.