'The player is paramount' is a phrase all game developers should remember. Great game designers have a certain amount of love or respect for their players. If you're not helping your players feel happy and fulfilled in some way then you shouldn't be making games at all. Don't make games just to express yourself. Don't make games just to impress other game designers. Think about the players too. Make games that are fun, games that satisfy, games that make your players feel like you care.
Duane Alan Hahn
Monday 28 September 2009
Friday 25 September 2009
Quote for today
Even though I enjoyed the challenge of programming, ultimately the motivation was the fans, the gamers themselves. I kept asking myself, "Is that guy enjoying the game?" In those early days we got fan mail all the time.
Bob Whitehead
Bob Whitehead
Thursday 24 September 2009
Wednesday 23 September 2009
Tuesday 22 September 2009
Work And Play: An Updated Peek Inside The Lives Of Gaming’s Greatest
http://www.kotaku.com.au/2009/08/work-and-play-an-updated-peek-inside-the-lives-of-gamings-greatest/
Monday 21 September 2009
Friday 18 September 2009
Thursday 17 September 2009
Wednesday 16 September 2009
What Every Indie Needs to Know Article
http://www.notesongamedev.net/inspiration/every-indie/#more-440
Tuesday 15 September 2009
Quote for Today
Fallout: A Post-Nuclear Setting
The necessity for, and creation of, SPECIAL occurred near the planned release date, nearly half a year before the game was actually released. The setting of Fallout was decided on long before those events, being “a dark game, based on the horrors that 1950's science had predicted for a future apocalyptic world. So we balanced that with humour, by poking fun at those same predictions in a way that would amuse a modern player.” (ref)
The necessity for, and creation of, SPECIAL occurred near the planned release date, nearly half a year before the game was actually released. The setting of Fallout was decided on long before those events, being “a dark game, based on the horrors that 1950's science had predicted for a future apocalyptic world. So we balanced that with humour, by poking fun at those same predictions in a way that would amuse a modern player.” (ref)
Chris Taylor explains: "We wanted to make a game that felt different from the 'elves and dragons' games of the time. Part of that was the setting and part of that was the attitude of Fallout. The intro movie, with the execution scene that ended with a happy wave was one of the defining moments for us as developers. Giving over-the-top violence, with sexuality and language, combined with a happy-smiley view of the 1950s was a conscious decision." (ref)
During the earlier stages of development, details about the setting had shifted constantly; remnants of a medieval version of the game could even be found in the ‘Goodies’ folder of the original Fallout release. Eventually a retro-futuristic setting was chosen upon because "the artists just thought that 50's tech looked cool.” The artists "set out to make a future science that looked like what the Golden Era of science fiction thought that future science would look like.” (ref) Leonard Boyarsky, as lead artist/art director, played a large role in this vision, being the one to originally come up with the idea, as well as for the idea for Vault Boy 'cards' in the character screen. (ref)
Besides the “future of the fifties” concept, there were many post-apocalyptic influences. Older science fiction movies and novels such as ‘Them’ and ‘A Canticle for Leibowitz’ proved inspiration, as well as such modern works as ‘Road Warrior,’ ‘Brazil,’ ‘City of Lost children,’ ‘Blade Runner,’ ‘Batman,’ ‘Ghost in the Shell,’ ‘On the Beach,’ and ‘Star Wars.’ (ref), (ref) Even the Roger Zelazny novel “Lord of Light” was influential, because of Sam, the protagonist. Tim Cain would “think ‘What would Sam do?’ when testing an adventure seed that required the player to want to help a town.” (ref)
Monday 14 September 2009
Friday 11 September 2009
Quote for Today
Pick a game, make it as small as possible.
This is important. If you've read some of my other pages you should have already read about how much work making a video game can be. That means it's important you start with something you can actually finish with a reasonable number of resources, in a reasonable amount of time and therefore with a reasonable budget.
The bigger the game you want to make the more important it is you have a very detailed plan.
This is important. If you've read some of my other pages you should have already read about how much work making a video game can be. That means it's important you start with something you can actually finish with a reasonable number of resources, in a reasonable amount of time and therefore with a reasonable budget.
The bigger the game you want to make the more important it is you have a very detailed plan.
Just remember that if you find that the 1st level had 100 things to do which was going to take 5000 man hours (about 3 months for 5 people), then if you plan on having 30 levels it's going to take 150000 man hours and if you forgot 25% of the items in the first level then your estimates are going to be way off.
Thursday 10 September 2009
Piotr Koczewski recommend today site
The premier online community for UK music industry professionals seeking jobs in music.
Wednesday 9 September 2009
Tuesday 8 September 2009
Monday 7 September 2009
Friday 4 September 2009
Thursday 3 September 2009
Quote for Today
In your opinion, what are the key ingredients that every RPG should have?
An RPG is a role-playing game, so you are playing a role - that is, you are making choices about the protagonist. In some RPGs the only choice you make is which stat to increase when you level up. A good RPG, I feel, gives you more meaty choices. To do that, you must do three things:
1. Establish a setting with versimilitude. It doesn't have to be a simulation of reality, but it needs to have enough internal consistency that the player buys into it. Then the player can feel "grounded."
2. Create groups or individuals about whom the player has a sense of investment. In Fo3, you are trying to find your father, and since the entire tutorial section has interactions with your dad, this establishes a tie and a sense of character investment. In Fo1 you are trying to save your entire vault, and later humanity. In Planescape: Torment, you are just trying to figure out who the hell you are. All of these games put you in situations where you make connections with people - or even with just your own protagonist - so you have a sense of investment in what's going on. Your choices matter because their outcomes affect the people that you, the player, have come to know and perhaps care about. Sure, they're ultimately just pictures on a computer screen, but if you even paused for a second and thought about whether it was all right to steal from Killian, or to swipe the water chip from the ghouls, or if you cheered when your character killed the Overseer, you just felt investment in the game.
3. Give the player choices that impact that setting and that investment. The "slideshow" at the end of Fo1 (and now at the end of many an RPG) gives you a sense of closure. It shows you that your actions mattered and that you actually made things happen. Similarly, when you have a choice between helping two good people (but you can only help one of them) or having to work with bad people to fulfill your goals (people who would normally be your enemy, but you can't kill 'em 'cause you need 'em), this creates a real conflict of interests that makes you think about what you're doing. Given enough time, or some cheat codes, you can overcome any fight or problem that a game can throw at you. The question in an RPG is less whether you can pursue an option, and more whether you should and why. In the Fo series, you sort of see this in the sense that you can choose to gain karma by doing heroic things without pay or compensation - "heroism is its own reward," so to speak. A more telling sort of choice would be if you have to decide something where you're not sure what outcome is really best and you make a choice based on your investment in the story and your hope for how things might turn out - like the bit with Harold in the Oasis in Fo3 (I won't spoil any more than that).
An RPG is a role-playing game, so you are playing a role - that is, you are making choices about the protagonist. In some RPGs the only choice you make is which stat to increase when you level up. A good RPG, I feel, gives you more meaty choices. To do that, you must do three things:
1. Establish a setting with versimilitude. It doesn't have to be a simulation of reality, but it needs to have enough internal consistency that the player buys into it. Then the player can feel "grounded."
2. Create groups or individuals about whom the player has a sense of investment. In Fo3, you are trying to find your father, and since the entire tutorial section has interactions with your dad, this establishes a tie and a sense of character investment. In Fo1 you are trying to save your entire vault, and later humanity. In Planescape: Torment, you are just trying to figure out who the hell you are. All of these games put you in situations where you make connections with people - or even with just your own protagonist - so you have a sense of investment in what's going on. Your choices matter because their outcomes affect the people that you, the player, have come to know and perhaps care about. Sure, they're ultimately just pictures on a computer screen, but if you even paused for a second and thought about whether it was all right to steal from Killian, or to swipe the water chip from the ghouls, or if you cheered when your character killed the Overseer, you just felt investment in the game.
3. Give the player choices that impact that setting and that investment. The "slideshow" at the end of Fo1 (and now at the end of many an RPG) gives you a sense of closure. It shows you that your actions mattered and that you actually made things happen. Similarly, when you have a choice between helping two good people (but you can only help one of them) or having to work with bad people to fulfill your goals (people who would normally be your enemy, but you can't kill 'em 'cause you need 'em), this creates a real conflict of interests that makes you think about what you're doing. Given enough time, or some cheat codes, you can overcome any fight or problem that a game can throw at you. The question in an RPG is less whether you can pursue an option, and more whether you should and why. In the Fo series, you sort of see this in the sense that you can choose to gain karma by doing heroic things without pay or compensation - "heroism is its own reward," so to speak. A more telling sort of choice would be if you have to decide something where you're not sure what outcome is really best and you make a choice based on your investment in the story and your hope for how things might turn out - like the bit with Harold in the Oasis in Fo3 (I won't spoil any more than that).
Wednesday 2 September 2009
Tuesday 1 September 2009
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