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.