Time Out

Ok, I'm breaking away from the game industry for a moment to talk about the Olympics. They have been awesome so far and anyone not tuning in, is missing some great events. But the Olympics have been dulled by my experience with NBC.

I’ve been watching the Olympics exclusively online, since I don’t have cable, and let me tell you, it’s been lackluster. It began last Friday when NBC decided to pass up the opportunity to live-stream the opening ceremony. To ensure that none of the American audience would get to see it, they were extremely aggressive in shutting down any third party site that attempted to stream it in the US. So by the time the real event was over NBC was showing their taped version on prime time, in order to maximize their ad revenue.

Every other country in the world had access to the event live, and we were stuck watching a tape…

All of the events, some 300 of them are being live streamed by NBC to be watched, and while that is extraordinary, they promised this prematurely. For anyone else watching the events online they are familiar with the almost consistent freeze frames, slow downs, flash player crashes or even having their browser hang. Yes I understand that there are a lot of people watching these streams, but NBC had four years to prepare for this event. How did they not get ready for this worst case scenario?

Certain streams were simply absent from being online. The great race between Phelps and Lotche just didn’t air, I read about it as it happened on Twitter… Other comments/complaints I have heard is that the NBC news desk has been reporting about the Olympics before the taped coverage has even played, spoiling the event for viewers.

In our age of social media and instant communication how does a single cooperation own exclusive rights to a global event? I am unsatisfied by NBC’s attempt at coverage and would gladly turn, even pay someone else to do it, but that is simply not an option. Looks like I might be on the hunt for a proxy in London, that might give me at least a constant feed of what’s going on.

 

Black Sheep

The game industry is incredibly tight knit and continues to act, despite its size, like it’s this small community. After going to a few conferences you begin to see the same faces and remember the names. In times of crisis, like the closure of 38 studios the community comes together to support one another and try to help those affected find new jobs. In general the attitude is incredibly positive and open.

However, there is one exception to the rule. Zynga.

When Marguerite and I attended GDC, we must have heard three of four pot shots taken at the company from devs at the IGF finals, or during their talk. It seems as if they are unofficially blacklisted from the game development community.

And why is that?

Because they approach game design from a pure business standpoint. Their games Farmville, Mafia Wars, Words with Friends, are all constructed to leech as much money from its players as possible. And what everyone finds so infuriating is that they are so successful to the point of a near monopoly like control over the Facebook platform.

So everyone was more than a little happy when Zynga’s stock went into freefall last week. Since January their stock was on a slow, but steady decline since Facebook itself has suffered from a shortage of users. But over the course of Friday the shares dropped from $10 a share to less than $3. The founder and the rest of internal business staff all decided to unload their shares at the same time, which screams bad business.

We will see how this plays out, but as of this moment, Zynga looks like it won’t be around for very much longer.

Sir, how fast were you going?

So I am originally from Colorado, a small town about an hour out of Denver in the foothills. And I swear it was one of the last places to get anything close to real internet, except for Northeast Kingdom, sorry Joe. I grew up on dial-up, but we eventually changed over to satellite internet, which gave us about 40K up and down, provided it didn’t storm, or snow, or get too windy. We lived in a canyon between two hills in Colorado which meant that one of these things was almost always happening.

When I was in highschool we ended up getting DSL through Comcast, which meant we went up to something like 80K up and down.

I went to college and bang, suddenly I was pulling down at 800K!!!!!!!!!!!

And wait? What’s this? Google Fiber?!

…

…

Gigabit connection speed.

That’s something more than 100 times faster than what I had at college. What in the world???? Available only in Kansas City of all places, but wow I didn’t think that kind of speed was even possible in this decade, I would have been perfectly happy with 20 mgs up/down.

If you want to drool at the future, check out their site here.

The Chronicles of Mobile Development

Over the past two months we have really shifted away from PC development and more towards mobile, iOS and Android. And thus far our experience has been interesting…

First and foremost when developing for mobile, our code needed to be smart, precise, and efficient. We cannot be sloppy, which tends to happen on the PC. There just isn’t the same kind of commuting power and we fell into that trap once when first porting Loc over to the iPad.

So after experimenting with both platforms we’ve got to say, as cool (and as free), as Android is, it is a nightmare to test on. There are just so many devices to have to test on which becomes a huge logistical and ultimately a financial hurtle. The major problem is that they come in every conceivable aspect ratio of the rainbow. (aspect ratio is 4/3 or 16/9 for those of you who don’t know. The aspect ratio is based on the physical construction of your monitor. Is it more square? or rectangular ?)

So what’s so hard about this? Well, between different resolutions of the same aspect ratio, we have to scale whatever graphics we make. But between aspect ratios we have to create all new art, if we attempt to scale it, it looks stretched.

iOS development is far easier in this respect, 1 set aspect ratio for all smaller iPhone & iPods and 1 set aspect ratio for iPads. Thank you apple, we appreciate having a standard.

But iOS development has its downsides. First we got to give them money, like they really need more… but at least its only $100 for a year for the company as a whole, which isn't too bad.

Becoming a developer and getting setup to even deploy to a device is a more than just a headache. As a company we needed to prove we existed, they needed to verify our paperwork, our incorporation, and they called on two occasions to walk Marguerite, step by step through the process.

But once setup, we were mostly set. Haven’t had too many issues thus far besides trying to accommodate the freakishly large retina display of the iPad 3, which we will be testing today.

Getting the hang of it.

As of this coming Sunday we will have kept our doors open for two months. That is just kind of mind blowing…

And what have we done in that amount of time?

Reached version 1.1 of Loc, completed our first piece of contract work, Ported Loc to the iPad, created a new company and its website, began work on restructuring our own website, and have entered preproduction on our second title.

Whew, that’s pretty good I think, but it’s what happens when school isn’t there to get in the way and slow us down.

The blog has undergone its own transformation as well, changed wordpress themes and have discovered Jetpack! A wordpress plugin that allows for monitoring site activity, the new Facebook Like button in the upper right, and nifty Twitter & Facebook like buttons at the bottom of each post. Added in some site navigation and will be going to go back through to better categorize some of the posts. Right now navigation is a bit clunky, doesn’t look that slick, but I’ll be working on that on and off.

So yay! Two month anniversary.

Sports for the rest of us.

So I am a self professed MLG (Major League Gaming) fan.

Ya, it’s kind of that peak of geekdom, but it is a heck of a lot of fun to watch. This past weekend was the Summer Arena for Starcraft II, one of my favorite games of all time, and I got to watch a decent chunk of it.

What is so exciting about it? Why do these events have tens of thousands of people pay to attend in person, or tune in for free online, to watch a bunch of twenty-something year-old's play video games?

Well, it’s just like any other sport, we all want to watch people do the things we could never do. Whether is the incredible strength of soccer players, or the rapid 300 actions per minute and decision making of Starcraft players, it’s all the same.

It started to watch a little after Starcraft II came out and it is incredible how fast this sporting industry has grown. This weekend, this kid of Korea walked away with a $10,000 check for winning 1st…

I’m sure that thirty years ago no-one would have guessed that someone could make a living playing video games professionally. If you at all interested, head on over to majorleaguegaming.com to see what the fuss is about.

Tools of the Trade

So what does it take to make a game?

Not much really. Standard computer setup, it doesn’t really need to be all that powerful either if you’re doing iOS development. Think about it this way, if your game has a choppy frame rate, or a super long load time on the PC, then it will be guaranteed to not even run on an iOS device.

Software is the expensive part, but at the very least it’s a onetime fee. Marguerite is using our Adobe CS6, photoshop, illustrator, inDesign, ect. The standard master collection. We got a wicked deal because we were still students.

Our main platform of choice has been Unity 3D, a strong up and coming third party engine that we played with for almost two years now. It supports C sharp, which we use, but also Java. You can choose to either use Mono-develop to write in, or link a Visual Studio project. And as terrible as mono is, at least it works on a mac.

There are a few really nice things about Unity that keep us coming back. 1. Having the ability to build out to Mac, PC, Android, and iOS almost immediately (given that you structured your code correctly) 2. It has a nice, code free environment where anyone can tweak variables and see the results without having to run over to Matt or Mike for a change.

After that senior year at Champlain College I developed a love/hate relationship with version control, but it’s absolutely necessary. Originally we were going to use Git Hub, a per month subscription that would host our repositories. However, about a week before we got up and running I was stumbling through the Banner Sage’s forums, reading their tech blog and they were using Bitbucket, a free, private, git repository system. Thus far it has worked out great, especially since we are not paying anything.

Our website is CSS that Matt structured around images that Marguerite made in Photoshop and the blog is just wordpress, simple and clean.

That’s really it, not much when you think about.

Sifting

Ideas have no value I was told once by a game designer, because everyone has ideas, and everyone thinks that at the moment of conception their idea is the greatest in the world. That it could change everything…

So the first thing that all game designers need to learn is to be able to let go of their ideas, to be able to admit that there could be something better. One of the ways we condition ourselves to do this is to develop hundreds of them, to not nurse a single thought for too long, to move on and explore alternative thought processes.

Even after committing to a design, we must be able to know when to retreat. Often in production, due to time pressure, or team stress, or a hundred other problems we get locked into a particular mindset, “this level can only work this way!” and sometimes that mindset is just plain wrong, we have to be able to set back, breathe, examine our work critically and reassess in certain circumstances. Sometimes the best course of action is to scrap it and start over.

So how do you know when an idea is good if you spend so much time try to distance yourself from it?

For me it’s a feeling, one of those gut instincts.

It’s when the design just unfolds itself; you don’t need to force it. And one of the best signs that a design has promise is that even in prototype form, when it’s just squares and circles and Google images it is engaging, fun and different.

So here is a teaser, an image from the prototype I have been working on for about a week. I don't want to jinx it, but I have a good feeling about this one.

 

Branching Out

MIDNIGHT SHOWING!

Darkknightdarkknightdarkknightdarkknightdarkknightdarkknightdarkknightdarkknightdarkknight.

Ok, now that we got that out there, we can continue.

So over the past couple of days we have been setting up our branch studio from Birnam Wood Games. It’s called Offshoot-Studios and its snazzy new website went up yesterday, some work is still being done on it, but for the most part it is complete. You can see it here.

So why in the world is a four man team starting another company?

Well, we felt that the contract work we have been doing did not hold up to the vision of Birnam Wood Games, which was to capture a sense of wonder, excitement, and exploration. Our contract work is our stopgap, a way for us really grow as a company and get our footing. And while the work is fun, it still does not conform to the ideals of the company.

So Offshoot-Studio’s was born.

It is the face we wish to show potential clients, to help get them excited about working with us and it helped to narrow down exactly what we were willing to do outside the realm of traditional games. So Offshoot-Studios will be about bringing the idea of gameification, which is the application of game design thoughts and processes, to the business and corporate world.

By no means have we given up making games, not even close. We have actually just wrapped up production on Loc. We only need to test the game further before submitting to Apple and we have started working on two new projects, but until these games can support us financially, we need an alternative.

So if any of you are interested in what gameification is for what you do, please let us know at info@offshoot-studios.com

Just around the river bend.

Don’t say it.

I can hear it already sitting in the back of your throat. I know, I’m sorry I didn’t post yesterday. But it was for good reason; just like any school kid might say. We all took a field trip yesterday, piled into Marguerite's car and drove to Middlebury to go consult/meet our company lawyer.

One of the things that makes us stand apart, in my eyes, is that we all work together extraordinarily well. This is beyond just being able to tolerate everyone's presence. We are a great dynamic team, each with their own unique skill sets and who are more than just colleagues.

I mean, Mike and I live together, we all have board game night once a week (usually), and we all end up going to films together.

Because of this, if someone is feeling uneasy about some aspect, we pounce on it and try to figure out all together the best way to navigate forward. So that was what we did, we took the time to plan on how to get around the next bend.

Apparently this is rare. Last summer, when we were working in our spare time on Loc, there was another group of Champlain kids, seniors who had just graduated, that were trying to start up a company based around an arcade shooter they had made during the Global Game Jam. They were working in the labs and almost every time we were there to just meet up and touch base we heard them arguing, yelling at one another and threatening to leave.

Our lawyer put it perfectly, starting a company is like a marriage. Everyone has to be invested, actively engaged, and you need to be in it for the long haul.

So advice for anyone thinking of starting their own, make sure you have the right people, more than anything else. A speaker at the Montreal International Game Summit (MIGS) who was giving a talk about start-up development called the people you start with your soul mates. You are going to go through hell sometimes and you need to be sure that they will all be with you through the heat and in the end help pull you out of the fire.

Storms Coming

The video game industry is still extraordinarily young. Its roots can only be traced back to the beginnings of modern computing in the 70’s. In comparison, film has been around for more than a century and even comics got their start in the 30’s.

And as such the industry was this weird, interesting mix of talent from all corners. One of the first developers I ever met was a level designer at Idol Minds, a small studio in Colorado. He had a degree in English Lit. A programmer I met touring one of the studios in Montreal used to work in taxes, he left after feeling like his soul was being destroyed. The lead artist at Funcom in Montreal used to be a professional actor, who fell into performance capture and then animation.

This great diverse set of talents gives the game industry a huge array of different skill sets and backgrounds. There were never any schools that offered a dedicated game development degree, the industry just picked up passionate people who had a drive to learn.

Now all that is changing. We were the fifth graduating class of students from Champlain College who have a Bachelor of Science in Game Design, Game Art, or Game Programming. We are the new generation. We grew up in the “modern console” age; games are part of our culture, part of our everyday life. Being able to go to college and study it as a viable degree shows how seriously the game industry is taken as a competitive field.

So what is going to happen?

Who knows?

Maybe more independent student made studios? That’s what we did, but even then we were an outlier. Half of our graduating class was able to get a job in the industry and that after our original freshmen class size for Electronic Game Design (EGD) was reduced to nearly 60, half of the 120 we started with.

Either way, by being immersed for so long in video games, after studying it for four years, we get to make our mark. A storm is coming, just wait, our generation has only begun to get started.

So What’cha up too?

One of the most important things to remember for any game developer to do is to actually play video games. Sounds weird right? Why wouldn’t we play video games in our spare time?

I had a few friends in college not play any because making video games just took up too much of their time on top of schoolwork. Going to the Montreal International Game Summit (MIG’s) and the Game Developer Conference (GDC) I’ve met a few professionals who also don’t play. For a few the game industry is just a job, it’s not a lifelong hobby, they go in put in their hours and go home.

Generally this happens in those in marketing, PR, or management. The dev’s who actually do the heavy lifting and who live in the trenches of production are always passionate people who love games.Which is absolutely necessary.

Just like in any medium a dev needs to learn from those who came before. By playing games we can break down why something is so successful, why the game “feels good”, why it’s fun; which in the end is what we all want for our own games in order for them to succeed.

So I already talked about my experience with Riddick, I’m playing through Butcher Bay right now and eagerly watching the steam sale, waiting for Max Payne 3 to get even cheaper than it already is.

But what is everyone else playing?

Well Matt is crazy; he is going for the 100% play through on Super Meat Boy (SMB)… For those who don’t know it is one of the hardest platforming games out there. SMB a 2D side scrolling game where you control a boy, made out of meat who is trying to rescue his girlfriend, bandage girl, yes she is made out of bandages, from a evil fetus in a jar who wears a monocle and a top hat. You just need to see it to believe it.

Matt just finished a 100% sweep of world 1 & 2 and is going to start the slog through world 3. He claims that there is no way he will be able to keep it up in the worlds 5 & 6, but I don't believe him. This is the guy who actually beat the Binding of Isaac.

Early access for the Secret World began about two weeks ago and Mike has been playing it on and off. The Secret World is a new Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game (MMORPG) from the developer Funcom. Our friend Joe works there! Go Joe! But unlike the other MMO’s out there the game breaks away a lot of the usual rules.

There is no set class base for one, players can mix and match however they want creating hundreds of unique possibilities. Another big stand out feature is that the game has a very Lovecraftian feel to its design. The horrid creatures that H.P Lovecraft brought to life, such as the Old Ones, fill the world and stand as a great gothic stage for the player.

Marguerite just finished Mass Effect 2 playing through as a renegade Shepard. There was this painful week when I had finished Mass Effect 3 for the second time and then played through the new Extended Cut ending and couldn't talk about it at work. But hopefully she will be getting that one soon, Origin might try to match Steam and do a summer sale as well.

For anyone who doesn't know the Mass Effect franchise puts you into the boots of Commander Shepard, a human war hero and council Specter. It becomes your job to gather a crew and help stop the destruction of the universe. The story is sweeping, as you can probably tell from the plot, but it plays perfectly. From the moment you start, you get sucked into the experience, and all you ever want to do is see what happens next. A cinematic experience, wonderfully crafted and one of the best ever made.

 

Changing Gears

So Loc is getting closer to finally wrapping up.

Thank goodness, it’s been a great game and is even better know that the port to iPad is nearly complete, but we have been working on this game for what feels like ages. And make no mistake, making the transition from PC to iPad was no simple task.

We thought, “Oh it will be fine. We’ll just get a Mac and push the build to iOS button. No big deal.”

Wrong.

The game launched and immediately crashed, didn't even make it to the first screen... Mike and Matt have been grinding away figuring out how it to get it functional and now, about a month and a half later we are super close. I’ll break down what happened during this development port once the game is finished and actually out there on the marketplace.

But at the same time we finished the first major piece of contract work, which had kept us employed and while we are negotiating the terms of the second game we have been dreaming of what to do next. Between working on Loc and running a small bit of QA for our last game I have been prototyping a few ideas, just to see if they are any good.

And what we now have is opportunity, the chance to actually start a new process and take everything we learned from the development of Loc and put it into practice. The common joke around the office is that our next game is going to be so slick, because we now know what not to do.

An announcement won’t come from us in a long while regarding whatever it is we do next, and right now that could range anywhere from space exploration to archeology. The sky is the limit and we just need to reach as high as we can.

And Kickstarter Does it Again

Yesterday Matt showed us all this new android based console that just hit Kickstarter. Yes, I am talking about a new home console system that would hook up directly to your television. It’s not coming from Microsoft, Sony or Nintendo, but a group of entrepreneurial industry vets who want to change the industry.

It’s named the Ouya, a bit of a strange name, but then Nintendo broke all rules when it named their console the Wii, and it looks to be a game changer.

So what is this thing? It kind of came out of nowhere and suddenly exploded in popularity.How much attention has it gotten? To put things in perspective head over to their kickstarter page. They initially asked for $950,000. At the moment of this writing its hit $2.6 million, it’s been a little less than 48 hours…

Just for the sake of it, I threw the Ouya Kickstarter over to Kicktraq, a free prediction system which shows trends for any kickstarter program you put in. According to that, at the rate Ouya is going they will peak at $40 million in 28 days.

This is huge; a major shift that could change how Microsoft, Sony, and Nintendo approach the market because pretty soon there is going to be a fourth console.

Why are people excited? Well for developers the SDK (Software Development Kit) is going to be free! That is a big seller right there. The Wii is locked down; nobody without express permission from Nintendo can make applications for it. The PS3 is in a similar boat. Any 3^rd party developer has to pay a large overhead to procure a special development system as well as software to even create a game. The Xbox, thanks to XNA is a relatively open market place that allows anyone to be a developer. However, we have heard some nightmare stories about the submittable process for Xbox.

So watch out, something evolutionary is coming and who knows what is going to happen next.

Valve is Awesome.

That’s it, that’s all you need to know.

 

 

So I guess why this point was driven home again was just yesterday they announced Greenlight. A community service that helps give more exposure to independent games!

So here is how it works, a developer submits their build to Greenlight and all steam users vote on them. When games reach a certain threshold of positive votes they launch on Steam! So what does this mean? Well, Steam is undeniably the largest market for digital games anywhere that I know of. So these smaller independent games, like us, who don’t have a marketing team, like us, can actually get exposure. And the timing couldn't have been better!

We announced earlier that Loc already came out on Indievania, a great digital distribution service, but one that does not get a lot of traffic. Thus far our sales have not been all that stellar. So Greenlight has the potential to be a huge help for us.

Keep your eyes peeled, because on August 30^th when Greenlight goes live we will be submitting Loc to Steam and then it’s up to you all to help us get accepted.

The Chronicals Of Riddick - Being True

Recently I began playing The Chronicles of Riddick: Assault on Dark Athena, which is a good game in my opinion, but not one shared by most reviewers. The difference is that I haven't played Escape from Butcher Bay, which is something I am planning on correcting. I had bought it on Steam a while ago and it just sat in my library until this weekend when I broke it out and started and didn't really stop. And the reason for that is two things: Atmosphere and Gameplay.

-Atmosphere-

The artists did a spectacular job in creating the world of Riddick, the dark sci-fi almost horror-esk halls, the performance capture for animation, and the cinematic, almost movie caliber cut, in-game scenes. Everything fits together as a cohesive whole that sucks the player into the experience.

But what shines about the atmosphere are the characters. Riddick is voiced by Vin Diesel, who just owns the character, playing him in both film, animation and in the games which is sign of dedication. The character is excellent, walking that thin line between ready to help you or leave you to die.

The supporting characters around him are well voiced, some to a terrifying degree. Jaylor gives a madding performance that shows how twisted the universe of Riddick really is.

-Gameplay-

As I stated earlier Dark Athena is a FPS, though it plays with a mostly melee based combat system. The mechanics are simple. Left click to attack, right to block. Time your attacks and try not to get hurt. And while the simplicity of the system is great, it begins to fray in long drawn out fights.

Characters who are far superior, strength wise, don't seem to be able to be countered, so darting in and getting a few strikes before backing up seemed to be the only method to defeating certain foes. And while that is a valid fighting strategy, it would often work just because the enemy is having difficulty switching between a blocking animation and a wounded animation.

But in the moment, it doesn’t matter. It’s just you, your knife, and Ivan the huge tattooed guy who wants to beat your brains out.

Stealth is exceedingly rewarding. Going through an area, taking out foes all the while trying to stay hidden is the meat of the game and is viscerally a sight to enjoy. But about four hours in the gameplay begins to unravel as it switches from melee based to gun based. All of a sudden the darkness you had been slinking around in has been rendered useless as you are now faced with five enemies at a time in a narrow hallway. Riddick is now carrying a club, three types of daggers, a shotgun, an assault rifle, a pistol and a submachine gun… Somehow he transformed from nimble killer into Rambo.

I haven’t finished the game yet to see if it swings back around. And while disappointed that the game did not stay true to its roots I’m going to finish it just because the character work is superbly done.

What Games are changing the Industry?

The Game Industry is a young fast paced environment that continually sees innovation. There always seems to be one or two games every year that simply blows away the preconceptions of what video games are and what they could be. Already, there has been one in 2012 that has done this.

-Journey-

Journey released in March and became the most purchased game on the PlayStation Network(PSN) ever. Created by ThatGameCompany, Journey is a unique experience that takes the player to a world blanketed in sand. As an unnamed character the player begins a journey to the top of a distant mountain.

Besides the outstanding visuals, which have to seen to be even be believed, there is a unique twist that is a breakout from what has ever been done before in the industry.

By chance, one single other player can join your game. This is entirely random, happening only if two players are in the same environment at the same time. Somehow a server watching the game seamless syncs two different player’s games into one.

This opens a new world of cooperation that has never been done before; people who joined my game would actually go out of their way to help me. Not for their own survival, not to speed up the progression of the story, and not for any additional value.

For me, I felt as if my unique story merged with these strangers, and together we were making our own new one. That floored me. But I wanted to push the bounds, I wanted to see what happens if I separated from them. Well, it turns out that the stranger just disappeared. But then they reappeared later! As if we had parted ways, had our own adventures, and somehow bumped into one another. After the excitement wore off, I realized that the stranger wasn’t the same as the first.

And while I still had a great time moving through the world, running into these other people, it dimmed the experience. It felt as if the empty sandy world of Journey was actually teeming with life. My choice to leave the first player was diminished as the consequence was mitigated by the fact that just around the corner was another player.

As the game ages and more people put the game aside, Journey will become barren and finding that one person, that oasis in the middle of the emptiness, will have a greater impact. Yet the game is a herald of that which is yet to come. New ways of cooperation are open to us in games that transcend all other mediums.

What Lies Behind Door Number 1?

Thinking over the ideas I proposed yesterday I now want to add an addendum to what makes a great game that drives unique player stories: Choice.

Choice is one of those underlying factors that make us all human and one of the most interesting aspects in video games. Games, unlike all other mediums are not a passive experience; they are interactive, driven by the choices the players make while playing.

To have a unique adventure there must be enough choices within the game to keep players engaged and provide possibilities for differences. Games such as the ones I called out earlier, Skyrim or Minecraft both give a vista of possibilities for player driven choice.

But what makes a choice worth while? The answer is consequence as it is how ultimately how choice X is weighed against choice Y. In Civilization for example, am I going to build this settler to expand my empire, knowing full well that I cannot do anything else for 15 turns? Or am I going to build a warrior incase that barbarian camp just a few tiles away spawns a barbarian who could capture the settler I was going to make on his way to expand my empire.

I had the excellent opportunity this year at GDC to listen to Sid Meier break down and explore his famous quote, “A game is a series of Interesting Decisions”

What he talked about at GDC is that games should have multiple levels of decision making. Snap, or reflexive decisions made in the spur of the moment, whether it is which unit should I make this turn in Civ, or which one of the five enemies who are trying to kill me to shoot first in an FPS (First Person Shooter). Then there are choices that affect the immediate future, which one of these enemies, who cannot see me yet should I eliminate to make this next engagement easier. And lastly there are long term choices that dictate the way a player ultimately enjoys their experience. Choosing a class, from a list of other classes, is a prime example of this. After making their choice the player can never reverse it.

Every game is full of these kind of choices, but not all have a significant consequence attached to them. This is what I feel is missing from a large portion of the industry. Take for Instance the Mass Effect franchise, which is one of my favorite experiences of all time. Yet the choice it strives very hard to instill in the player is diluted by having the option to, forgive the pun, “game” the system. If played in a particular way, pure paragon/pure renegade, the player can get the benefits of both choices in certain scenarios.

So it’s kind of depressing to see that the hardest choices to make in Mass Effect 3 was which one of these skill upgrades should I get? Especially since the game is all about what does the universe sacrifice in order to survive.

I feel as if just having this option obtainable by the player ruins the system. When players get to those major choice points and see a choice greyed out, they perceive that they have “failed” at the game and are unsatisfied by their experience.

So in short, choices are weighed by their consequences. Everything (In a perfect design world) should have an impact on the players experience and force them to reflect and analyze the choice they are confronted with. Only then will our interactive experiences reach a point that is truly unique and give our players an individual story.

Why I like Fireworks.

It’s the fourth, work is closed for the holiday, but I still wanted to write about something. So I am going to deviate from the subject of Game Design, though I will attempt to circle back to it at some the point, and share with you why I still enjoy fireworks on the 4^th of July.

There is something magical about them, even after a lifetime of schooling and developing an understanding about how such things are made. Seeing that first one go off and explode in the sky, it has to be magic.

The interesting thing about fireworks is that they are a universal experience we have all had. It transcends geographical boundaries, age differences, and even language. Nearly everyone has seen fireworks at some point in their life. Because of this shared experience you can ask just about anyone what their favorite firework is. And here is what happens.

First, they get this look in their eye, because they are remembering back to a specific event, probably a childhood where they found wonder watching the sky, or from running away after lighting a bottle rocket, or holding a sparkler. And the secondly they will proceed to try to explain these colors and these motions of the firework they remember, looking goofy all the while.

Another interesting thing I find about the 4^th is the experience you end up sharing with the people around you. It’s like a movie theater effect, where as soon as the first one goes off, all eyes turn towards the sky. I watched the fireworks on the 3^rd, this year in Burlington with something like 100,000 other people. And for that moment, while you’re watching the fireworks you become connected to everyone else by this one experience.

This happens at sporting events, at concerts, at rallies, where we become part of a larger whole, selfless for a time. Afterword everyone dissects the experience, relating their own opinion on what they saw and comparing their thoughts to the person sitting next to them.

Games do this too, but in a different way. Two people, who play the same game, share the same experience, but it happens at different times and sometimes with minor differences. Yet afterword we do come together, just like at after fireworks, and reflect and share our interpretations of it.

Games that allow for a wide diversion for individual adventures are the ones that do this the best. They get people talking, get them engaged and excited about the subject. How many Minecraft stories have you heard? How many different adventures have you been on in Skyrim? This is all thanks to procedural content generation.

As a designer I am hugely interested in this field. I want players of our future games to tell their own unique stories about their experiences and to get excited about what else they could discover next. Loc does this, but in a very small contained way. By having players able to potentially create their own path on the levels they can create their own unique story. Watching two people in the same room play is fantastic, “How did you do that?” or “Oh, I did it this way.” A dialog begins that bridges two people's experience.

This is just the beginning hopefully, and with our second game, whenever we get around to it, we can explore this phenomenon further. But for now, I can just be satisfied by hearing about what someone thought of the fireworks.

The Bigger They Are…

Within the past few months quite a few big time developers have folded. Whether it is from financial difficulties, missing projected deadlines or other sources it has been huge for the game industry. Hundreds of veterans of the industry suddenly out of work.

Here is the list from this year thus far:

March 31^st Sony Online Entertainment (SOE) closed three studios, Denver, Washington, and Tuscon. 205 employees

May 24^th 38 Studios, Providence Rhode Island, and its subsidiary studio Big Huge Games, Maryland. 379 employees

June 28^th Radical Entertainment, Vancouver, unknown number of employees.

This is especially scary for recent graduates who have not had industry experience yet. The market was just suddenly flooded with talent, which is obviously more valuable than we are. Looking at this list, we at Birnam Wood are all thankful to be able to have this job.

But the thing is, each of these companies was a major studio, 38 probably being the largest. Their “death” does not spell the end of the game industry, not by a long shot. Last year alone twelve companies went under, but dozens of little independent studios opened.

As more of these larger studios falter, more of the experienced developers call it quits and open up their own studio. The Independent movement is on the rise. Bringing with it innovation and quality to an industry that has become swamped with sequel after sequel.

There are exceptions and some of the games at E3 proved that. Watch Dogs, the Last of Us, and I would even consider Assassins Creed 3 to be a break from its own genre. But I believe that the Independent games, Fez, The Witness, Monaco, Skulls of the Shogun, Splunky, and so many others are who are going to be bringing the future to the industry. Change is coming and 2012 is going to be an interesting year.

And you thought it was over (Loc Part 11)

Releasing a game is just the beginning we found out and also the easiest part. The next step was to try to market the game, or at least our company image to try to get some contract work in order for our company to make it through the summer.

We all had backup plans, other full time jobs we could pursue in case, but ultimately we wanted to be game developers, after all just spent four years studying to be one.

We reached out to anyone and everyone who could help to try to generate an interest, not only in game industry, but also from the local community. Through a couple of connections we managed to get an article/interview with the Burlington Free Press. You can find the article here, and it was an a great morale boost. People suddenly recognized Marguerite on the street and our general education teachers, who had no idea what we did outside of class, stopped to congratulate us.

With Loc’s release we sent out a media packet to any press contacts and go exactly zero returns… But other, small indie game websites found us and latched on. Video Games Interactive was the first press site to review our game, you can read the whole thing here.

The Pax East (The Penny Arcade Exposition) arrived a week after we launched. It is the largest gaming event on the East coast and somehow we managed to work our way into the Champlain College booth. There we gave out flyers and let passersby play the game. It was a great experience for us, seeing strangers enjoy Loc was awesome. We plan on returning next year, but this time with our own booth.

And so ends the chronicle of Loc, from its incubator start a year and half ago, to now. Yet development is an ever evolving beast and again we have found ourselves pulled back to working on it. Loc 1.1 was released two weeks, you can find the notes on it here, and we have officially announced that an Ipad version will be launching by the end of the summer, with DLC (Downloadable content) that will add an additional 36 levels to Loc.

So stay tuned, we have only just begun to make games.