Saturday, December 6, 2014

Guns n Stuff

I recently started working part-time teaching an after school program, so my blog hasn't gotten a lot of love lately. but on the bright side I will be shifting more time back here.

Now I got some time so I'm gonna write a post breaking down guns in first person shooters (mostly because I really have enjoyed action games over the years, and it's something I've been chatting about with my designer friends lately).

So to keep things simple, I've found that guns in a first person shooter essentially grind down to one core concept. 'This gun' is better/worse based on the 'relative terrain' the opponent is in. So what does that mean? Essentially each gun has a role or optimal relative terrain. For example in most first person shooters if you have a shotgun its going to be good if your opponent is close to you, and bad (less effective) if they are far away. That seems pretty obvious. It's easy to see how shotguns, sniper rifles, assault rifles all sort of fall on this line of distance vs effectiveness.  In a sense 'distance from the player' is the relative terrain (relative terrain is the answer to the question, 'where is the target in relation to the player?').

But you can take the idea farther than just distance, for instance take a throw-able grenade. Where does a grenade fall on the distance chart? It kinda doesn't, a grenade is best when your target is behind cover or you have a group of targets together. Or think about the Bioshock's Electro-Shock plasmid, it's great when your opponents are in standing water or you surprise a single opponent. Or think about the myriad of games that include a sort of 'area denial' or a trap weapon (like land mines or remote detonated bombs). Those weapons are great when you know your opponent has to move through a specific area.

You'll also notice that the roles guns have often overlap, or in some cases multiple guns will share the same role. This is about creating an interesting choice for the player in what weapon they want to use or feel is the most powerful (the Borderlands series is all about finding the overpowered gun). The guns should feel overpowered for their role. Players then have to evaluate the map and the objectives and their play-style to determine which guns they want to use.

A lot of flack gets thrown around about guns all being the same in first person shooters and how creativity is gone. In reality this isn't so much the case, it's just that the roles of guns are figured out and defined and new guns aren't needed. However by defining guns as having a 'role' based on 'relative terrain' I think we can open up a new perspective on guns in first person shooters. For instance focusing less on distance and more on other environmental factors would be an interesting way to change how the guns in shooters or create new weapons while still retaining the essence of what makes a shooter fun.

* Also I know that I make a lot of assumptions here. Mostly this is in regards to new first person shooter titles and not certain indie games. Lots of really good first person games like Thirty Flights of Loving, Kairo, Jazzpunk, Lovely Planet, and Receiver just plain don't follow this. Also older styles of games like Half-life and arena shooters like Quake and Unreal Tournament are working on a different set of assumptions so these ideas don't transfer as perfectly

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Mountain

I don't think Mountain is a game.

But it can be analyzed like one.

Mountain is an exe that first prompts the user to draw  pictures based on a word three times. These words are randomly selected, and the pictures are stored but seem to be meaningless (they may be used to seed a random number generator, but that's dubious). The exe proceeds to create a mountain (seemingly via heightmap) and the upper right corner shows a small faded icon. Upon clicking the icon the user is presented with the ability to turn the audio on and off (which effects more than just audio). The user is also shown that the controls are "nothing" for the mouse and keyboard.

This is a lie.

The scroll wheel of the mouse lets the user zoom in and out on the mountain. Right clicking and dragging allows the user to rotate around the mountain (faster than the pace the mountain slowly turns at). The second and third row of keys allows the user to make tones. These tones will eventually cause a prompt that sounds a tone and message relating to the simulated weather or time of day. If a player repeatedly hits these tones the time scale of the simulation will speed up, this only occurs if audio is enabled. This will prevent random actions from firing.

Randomly, additional prompts will sound a tone and state text (the next line in a stored text file). If the user doesn't interact with the simulation for a long enough time a random object will crash into the mountain and stay there. These objects may very in scale and objects may repeat, they are random. Weather patterns also change and shift randomly or semi cyclically.

While normally games with such random events and content try to encourage the player to explore, the interaction is restricted to such a degree and events move so slowly that the feeling of exploration is not achieved. Often prompts craft some sort of story, or lend to reinforcing a core experience. Here it seems to only ask questions, as if its trying to provoke thought or craft some sort of character for the mountain. However this character of questions has little importance.

The simulation builds the façade of deep contemplation but fails to deliver any coherent lines of questioning. Its essentially shallow while acting as if it is deep. Games are not new to the use of smoke and mirrors to craft the sense of meaningful choice. However here the interactions are so far removed from any result the effect is a passive experience. The illusion that is being created, the experience that is attempted, is lost.

There is however the meta game that persists around these simulations. The 'game' serves as a starting point to conversations around the topic of games. The experience desired is the one I, the author just had, and as you the viewer are engaged in. It is to think, discuss and create text or media about the 'game'. It exists to start a conversation.

In a way the meta game is self perpetuating, as another's response will undoubtedly be another game to be discussed.

If you want to keep playing this game I suggest you check out these 'games'.
Progress quest
Proteus
One button RPG
(Links coming soon)

Tuesday, May 6, 2014

An in-depth understanding of how fun, meaningful gameplay loops work.

The phrase "Ability to think creatively and analytically, with an in-depth understanding of how fun, meaningful game-play loops work." appeared on a job application.

Well, here we go.

First, let's say what a game-play loop is. It's a segment of game-play that is repeated, often with minor changes. It's like a formula, but really it's more akin to an episodic or formulaic TV show or even a pop song (or poem). It's a structure or flow of game-play actions that's repeated, but the background, setting, the details, all change. It also has a rather static amount of time. Twenty-six minute TV shows, three and half minute pop songs, 'rounds' of game-play (because it's like a 'loop' so it goes in a 'round'). That's a game loop (if it's a 'core' game loop, it's heavily repeated and important).

So, what makes a game-play loop 'fun' and 'meaningful'? It should be an action or series of actions worth repeating, it should be 'Autotelic'. The Author of "Flow", Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, basically says this occurs when the action has challenge that matches the player's skill (I'm paraphrasing). It also contains significant feedback to the user of how well they are performing the actions, and the action has room for considerable mastery.
This is a common graph of 'Flow'.

An engaging loop is not just this combination of skill and challenge; it's also how this occurs over time. In a way, it mirrors the story progression of the Mono-myth or the Hero's Journey. It sets the stage and initially hooks the reader/viewer/user/player; then it has rising actions, and ends with a climax, and then a denouement. This tends to be like a fractal in nature, where individual actions of the game loop, the game loop itself and the overarching game experience, all follow this arc.

In a game loop this kind of has several phases (This is not a five step process by any means, but this is simply how I remember it. I should probably do a more in-depth post on graphing engagement and intensity)

1. Tell the player what they are going to do and the goals (sets the stage)

2. Throw the player into the actions (Initial high point of stuff happening and player figuring it out.)

3. The player gets better at the actions, so if the loop is that you shoot all the enemies, you are getting better at shooting. (these function as the rising actions)

4. The player has a high stakes epic moment, they are prove they are a hero (this is the climax)

5. The player is shown how well they did and the results of their actions are shown to them (denoument)
There is a whole bunch of stuff I can say about engagement curves, but this will do for now.


Now, core game loops in successful games have often had some interesting commonalities. Often when we talk of core game loops we discuss mobile and free to play and stuff; But my best example actually comes from triple-A-games. 

First person shooters are an old guilty pleasure of mine. So, my example is a comparison of Counter Strike (from modders and those Valve folks) and MAG (from Zipper Interactive, 'pour one out'). I actually really enjoyed both games, but there was a pretty significant difference between them. The length of play. Counter-Strike has a three minute round, and if it actually takes three minutes it takes forever. MAG's rounds were around 14 minutes up to 25 minutes (if I remember that correctly). Now as far as popularity is concerned, there are a lot more CS servers than MAG servers right now (MAG was forced to shut down this year).


Both are good games, but have a stark difference in their game round length.


Simply, MAG tried to push a really long core loop onto a really fast game. How many 25 minute rounds are you going to play*? Maybe two. But with Counter-Strike you can always play one more three minute round, even if you have been playing for the last two or three hours. This dissidence between the round play time and the core game loop I think hindered the popularity of MAG. 

You also see this three to five minute round (or short round) repeated in many games where players are expected to repeat multiple rounds**. Most social and mobile games have tasks that take around five minutes to complete. The default setting in most fighting games is rarely over three minutes per round. This short game loop often tends to facilitate repeated play.

Is a short game play loop fun (or better than a long game-play loop)? It might be more fun, and it definitely seems better than a long game-play loop. But it really depends on the goals of the game. Shadow of the Colossus doesn't have a short game play loop. It's a wonderful game.  It's a wonderful game for what it's trying to be.


This has a slower game loop and that's good.
The structure and timing of musical experiences can give many insights into games.


Going to music, LCD Soundsystem's 45:33 is a 46 minute track commissioned by Nike (through the add agency Cornerstone) as something to listen to while running. That track is excellent for that, but it is not a good track for a chart topping single. However, portions of it was later remixed into "Someone Great" and other tracks on the critically acclaimed record "Sound of Silver". Having a short song or a long song was a decision by James Murphy for the task he was making a song for***.

The length of a core game loop is a decision the designers need to make. It needs to serve the game and the experience they are trying to deliver. Short game loops are great for that short, fast and repetitive play. Long game loops give a longer feel, it can be deeper, it can be more contemplative, or it can be for a marathon. They are different and have a different appeal. Pop music sits around the three or four minute mark because a lot of people like that, but a lot of people liked "American Pie" (it clocked in with 8:33').

... But the money seems to follow the short game loop.

*DotA and LoL immediately seem to work against this, but I'm not convinced. Much of the game-play in these games has been described as a sort of competitive vs MMORPG. In a sense it's kind of a game about whom can grind and optimize a character the best in the shortest amount of time. Under this analysis a 30 minute round for a game that is essentially about the meta-game of optimization is actually relatively short when compared to the number of hours a player would expect to sink into an RPG.

** This three to five minute round is not a hard rule for creating an engaging game; the tempo, or speed at which these games are played effects the optimal length for a good round. In general, real time competitive games tend to be the shortest and turn based strategy games tend to be the longest (for example, a 15 minute turn in Civilization V can be very engaging). I think MOBAs might be even longer, but I honestly haven't gotten much into them so I can't make a good judgement. I really need to discuss tempo in games (and we've known about it for a while), but that is beyond this article.

*** Or he wanted to invoke a pavlovian effect in the listeners of Sound of Silver who are also runners. 

Monday, April 28, 2014

graduating... and going forward

P.S. I'm kinda done with school now. Not that you ever stop learning, but yeah.

I've never been super big on the fan-fair of such events; I have a hard time explaining it.

Now I just need to get a job... so what kinda job do I want?

Well, on the one hand I've been digging pretty deep into Unity 3d lately, so maybe a job doing that. Although, I also like learning and working in new engines; there's sort of a rush to digging in and figuring out what an engine can do. I really like building what people interact with, trying to make something interesting and engaging for them.

I'm probably most concerned with actually job hunting. I spend the last several years of my life making games. Now time for something completely different? (sort of, anyway, you can think of anything as a game).

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.


Friday, January 24, 2014

Video Games, Art, and Pop Culture:

Many people will debate whether or not video-games are art; however there tends to be a missing aspect to the discussion which is the role of culture and its perceived high and low forms. Art is commonly seen a s a form of high culture or a culture that is appealing to a refined and educated consumer; where popular works are seen as low culture and appealing to masses of consumers.


Essentially a refined and educated consumer will have a particular view of a piece of media (often academically referred to as ‘the text’*) through their knowledge of other related media and analytical training or conditioning. Thus, the refined and educated consumer will have a consumption of media that is consistent with high culture. They will take in and notice subtleties of a media that masses of consumers would not notice, or find confusing, or outright disturbing. It should also be noted that the refined and educated consumer is most likely to provide feedback and influence regarding the media (create additional works of related media or ‘text’). 


When the masses of consumers entertain themselves with a particular piece of media it can be said to be ‘popular’. Since these people are not as refined and educated as consumers associated with high culture; it can be implied that they only have a cursory understanding of what is actually being depicted in the media. The creator and the refined and educated consumer with the high cultural understanding of the media are dismayed when their subtleties are misunderstood or ‘the message is lost’. It should also be noted that in contrast to refined and educated consumers, the masses of consumers are not likely to create their own media or create media lacking in the subtleties or are imitations of popular media or don't provide any meaningful feedback or influence.

 However there is considerable dissonance in what is culturally valued and what is monetarily valued. Pop culture being enjoyed and consumed, almost by definition, by a large number of people often equates to monetary success. Yet this monetary success often comes at the simplification of the media and sometimes the disdain of refined and educated consumers (leading to the concept of ‘selling out’). In a sort of way the high cultural value of a media scales inversely with its popularity, and often its monetary success.

In my next post, I’ll go over what this means for video games. I’m sure you can already guess that the popularity of video games means less of an acceptance as an ‘Art’ form but there is more to the story than just popularity and acceptance.

* I prefer the term media as opposed to text. The academic definition of ‘the text’ can actually mean books, movies, posters, artistic works, criticisms, video games, blog posts, pictures, reviews, live-streams, music, performance ect. It does not need to be textual (or written as words) to be text.

Tuesday, January 14, 2014

Still Sailing

Well that was rough...

It's been a kinda rough couple of weeks with a project falling through and the finishing up of several game projects.

On the bright side I will be posting some additional projects I've worked on from the winter; and I will have some additional content coming up on the blog over the coming days.

I've also done some cursory work making my website look better (mostly layout and 'branding' stuff). I still need to get in there and start dropping some content on that. I've also realized that due to updates to the Zero Engine (in house DigiPen engine) a lot of my older projects are kinda 'broken' or can't be opened with the current version. On the bright side, I'm going to be getting to do some stuff in Zero again; so there will be newer and better stuff coming out soon.

Also, I went to Honolulu for the holidays with my family. It's good to see some sun in the middle of all the dark of a PNW winter.