Zen Of Design

The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer

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Understanding Design Space

April 19, 2009 /

A version of this article first appeared in the April 2009 issue of Game Developer magazine.

In the late eighties, the sitcom Cheers dominated the ratings.  Set in a pub in Boston, the antics of Sam Malone and his everpresent cadre of barflies never failed to provide belly laughs.  The writers of the sitcom pointed out that the bar itself brought a lot to the show. The very nature of the setting meant that new characters and stories could stumble into the front door and into the lives of the Cheers faithful.  The comedic ground was fertile, and Cheers had a long and distinguished run.

By comparison, the recent Fox hit Prison Break was very confined in where it could go.  Set in an Illinois prison, the first season involved the protagonists plotting their escape from prison.  Despite generally good reviews, water cooler talk was skeptical.  Could they really stretch out a prison break for 22 episodes?  What would the next season be about?  And the one after that? Fox gamely managed to keep things going, but ultimately ran out of space to run.  It was recently announced that this season, the fourth, would be the show’s last.

The writers of Prison Break were boxed in.  The inherent nature of the show limited where they could go, and what they could do with the show.  The ending of the series arc was somewhat predetermined, and therefore all of the interest was in the journey to that end.  What’s more, the closed nature of the prison setting limited to some degree the introduction of new characters.  They had very fertile ground to explore, but that ground was very finite.  Subsequent seasons (with the prisoners on the lam, or in a prison in Panama) felt forced.  In game design terms, their design space was limited. Continue reading

IGDA Exploding Over 60-Hour Work Weeks

April 3, 2009 /

Greg Costikyan, whom I greatly admire, has the skinny, and many eloquent, yet cross, words.

Mike Capps, head of Epic, and a former member of the board of directors of the International Game Developers Association, during the IGDA Leadership Forum in late 08, spoke at a panel entitled Studio Heads on the Hot Seat, in which, among other things, he claimed that working 60+ hours was expected at Epic, that they purposefully hired people they anticipated would work those kinds of hours, that this had nothing to do with exploitation of talent by management but was instead a part of “corporate culture,” and implied that the idea that people would work a mere 40 hours was kind of absurd….The notion that a fucking board member of the IGDA should defend (and indeed, within his own studio, foster) such exploitative practices is offensive on the face of it, and has caused a considerable kerfluffle within the organization.

Original comments thread is here.

Kaplan on WoW Quests

March 30, 2009 /

I’ve long wanted to write this article, which is excellent, but Jeff Kaplan wrote it, and he has the position of authority on the matter, being the lead content designer on WoW. Interesting quote:

I’m as guilty of this as anyone else. We’re so fortunate and privileged to work in a medium that is not only an art, but a revolutionary interactive form of entertainment. It’s unfortunate to see so many games try to be what they’re not, including our game at times. Of course we should embrace the concept of story… art, literature, film, song, they’ve all embraced story as well. But they all tell it in their own unique way.

I feel like we need to deliver our story in a way that is uniquely video game. We need to engage our audience by letting them be the hero or the villain or the victim. [Art, film, literature], they’re tools. But we need to engage our players in sort of an inspiring experience, and the sooner we accept that we are not Shakespeare, Scorsese, Tolstoy or the Beatles, the better off we are.

Continue reading

What Are The Odds Two Arrows Hit Each Other?

March 29, 2009 /

My wife sent me this excellent article about an airplane crash that happened over Brazilian airspace half a decade ago.  This particular crash is interesting, in that it is one of the few mid-air collisions between two aircraft – an exceedingly rare occurrence, as most crashes occur on takeoff or landing.  In this particular case, a small executive jet sheared off the wing of a Boeing passenger jet at 37000 feet.

The article is interesting, in that it discusses a couple of failures of industrial design.  Of particular note, virtually all planes have an on-board computer that is designed to prevent in-air collisions.  But it only works if the plane’s transponder is on.  In this case, the pilots of the smaller jet accidentally turned their transponders off.  Unfortunately, the collision computer didn’t have an angry blinking error message, and instead had the benign error code “Standby”.  The two pilots had never flown the jet before, and as such didn’t notice that something was wrong.

Another interesting part of the article discussed how navigation computers have perversely made things less safe.  When humans fly planes, there’s a lot of wiggle room in the exact paths they end up on – there’s no guaruntee that a pilot will follow his exact planned flight path, or go to his exact prescribed elevation.  But when computers are choosing the flight path and driving the plane, it creates actually increased chance that two planes will be put on exactly the same trajectory.

iPhone Developers: “Quality is Irrelevant”

March 25, 2009 /

From Kotaku: a couple of top iPhone developers discuss their experiences developing for the platform. Their conclusions are interesting (and also touch upon web games and user-created content platforms, such as Metaplace and Whirled).

“I think quality is largely irrelevant,” said Saltsman, whose newest iPhone game is about popping zits. “I think the defining thing is how quickly you can describe your product to someone else.”

The example they used was Galcon versus Mood Touch. Mood Touch is “a crappy mood ring for your iPhone. . There, I’m done, that’s it,” said Saltsman. Galcon, on the other hand, took him 15 seconds to describe as essentially an in-depth, one-on-one real time strategy game. It’s obvious which one had the better quality — but Mood Touch made the top 10 in the App Store while Galcon didn’t even break into the top 100 (that Saltsman knew of).

What’re The Swedes Up To?

March 23, 2009 /

I last posted about Project Entropia five years ago. Incidentally, that post is effectively a zombie thread – once every six months ago, out of the blue, someone else decides to post on it, describing their (usually negative) experience with the game. Back then, I asked “these guys haven’t been litigated out of business yet?”

File this under “this must mean something, I’m just not sure what”, but Entropia Universe has been granted a banking license by the Swedish government. The same article claims they generated $420M last year. A subscription-based game that charged $15 bucks a month would need 2.3M subscribers to get that level of revenue.

The Watchmen

March 9, 2009 /

Screw you all…. I liked the Watchmen. Certainly more than this guy.

My take: if you liked the Watchmen, but didn’t treat it as holy scripture, they did a good job. I’m sure some people have issues with what was changed and tweaked, but too be honest, I think too often the director was TOO deferential to the source material. I can’t help but think that someone who had no idea what the Watchmen was all about would have found the whole thing confusing as hell.

In the grand scheme of comic book movie adaptations, it’s probably a solid B. Not as good as, say, 300 or the Crow, but easily lightyears better than LXG.

Also, there’s this:

Original comments thread is here.

Going Out With Style

February 27, 2009 /

Tabula Rasa’s final event is tonight.

We request that all military personnel begin fortifying defenses at every AFS base in preparation for a massive Bane assault. If enemy troop movements are as large as we fear, and the Neph are truly prepared to lead all out war against us, this may be our last stand. Penumbra has been informed of the situation and is standing by on the use of their last resort weapon. We can not afford to be complacent or uncertain, but if it is truly our destiny to be destroyed, we are taking them all with us.

Put shorter, Tabula Rasa is shutting down with an event designed to be the end of Humanity. You gotta give them style points.

Original comments thread is here.

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