Terminally Trivial

I've attended a couple of Atlanta-area game development events in the last month and have been meaning to blog about them both.  I'll talk about this last weekend's SIEGE convention soon, but I'm going to first back up to the Atlanta IGDA Chapter relaunch meeting held back on September 23.

The host for the evening was the Atlanta branch of CCP games, makers of EVE Online.  Their hospitality was astounding.  Not only did they provide attendees with plenty of space to converse, but they also provided a full steak and seafood dinner on the house… that alone nearly pays for my IGDA membership. 

In addition to facilities and food, the staff of CCP also gave a presentation entitled How to Make an MMO (in 90 Minutes or Less!).  No, you can't actually make an MMO on the scale of EVE Online in 90 minutes, but you can get a quick overview of the process.  The presentation consisted of a handful of smaller lectures covering many different aspects of MMO development.  Unfortunately, I forgot to bring a notepad.  I do, however, remember one point in particular.

Reynir Harðarson, one of CCP's co-founders, gave a design-focused presentation.  In it, he talked about how that many MMO's are either theme parks (find something to do, get in line, and, when it's your turn, participate in the story/quest/activity) and others are sandboxes (here's the things you can do, have fun!).  EVE is more sandbox than theme park.

Why?  Because players quit games, but players don't quit friends.

That's a simple but very profound piece of advice.  It's true that games that are more like theme parks such as World of Warcraft have been phenomenally successful with such an approach, but I really like the logic behind CCP's philosophy.  I find it particularly interesting as I've been studying the social games space a lot lately (if planting crops and running mafia missions counts as "research").  I'd say that this should be a guiding principle to anyone creating a social game.  I may not be interested in reaching yet another level when I've already leveled up 162 times, but I might just keep playing to help my friend reach his goals.

While the next Atlanta IGDA Chapter meeting will be a social gathering, Clint Hocking is scheduled (if I heard correctly) to be the featured speaker at the following meeting.  I listened to him during the "micropresentation" session and went to the game design workshop he and several others ran at GDC last March.  I'm sure he'll have something interesting to say… and I'll remember to bring my notepad this time.

Eek, a post!

I haven't been posting here since GDC because I have a lot of things on my plate right now, but it is still my intention to recap most of the sessions I attended.

Scott Rogers posted over on his blog that he wanted to see my review of his talk, so I'll go over his first.  Most of my GDC posts will be recap-heavy, but I'll avoid summarizing this time because the slides are available on Scott's web site and Cory Doctorow took detailed notes and posted them on his site.  I'll mainly interject my thoughts on the concepts and ideas that stood out to me.

Scott's talk was entitled "Everything I Learned About Level Design I Learned from Disneyland."  Before I begin, I should state that I used to be an absolute theme park nut.  While I was mostly addicted to roller coasters, I also loved the concept of having "theme lands" which tell a story.  When I was younger, I spent many hours studying over guides and old maps obtained during my visits to these parks to try and recreate trip experiences in my head.  Back in my high school years, I spent far too many hours playing RollerCoaster Tycoon.  In fact, his talk inspired me to dig up the parks I created in the game and see which techniques I was subconsciously using to lay them out.  That might be a fun subject for another post.

That's enough nostalgia and self-admitted nerdiness… let's talk about the talk.  The techniques Walt used that I found particularly interesting were:

Using Light
My single favorite moment of the talk came when Scott discussed the park at night.  If one stands at the end of Main Street farthest away from the entrance and looks around the various areas of the park, it is very dark.  Turn around and one can see Main Street all lit up, inviting the visitor to check it out.  It's also a way for Disney to say, "you know what's really interesting?  You heading toward the front gate and going home."  Using lighting to draw attention is a fairly obvious technique, but I found this to be an interesting application.

Foreshadowing
Foreshadowing is an old technique, but people still use it because it works.  In particular, Walt used posters throughout the park to indicate what kind of major experiences guests would encounter in different theme lands and attractions.

Foreshadowing is also effective in games.  Scott didn't mention it, but my favorite example of foreshadowing in a game is probably the intro to BioShock.  If you haven't played the game, go watch that intro (if you are short of time, skip the plane crash and head directly to the three minute mark).  Observant players will recognize the use of the song "Beyond the Sea," a clue as to the upcoming underwater destination.  Players see several brief ads for telekinesis and incinerate plasmids, most notably at the start of the descent.  The tubes and neon signs also show some of the areas that the player is going to be exploring.  It makes for an intro that's not only interesting the first time around, but one that plays even better after completing the game.

Weenies
I've heard of this concept before, but Scott gave it so much well-deserved attention that I would be loathe to omit it from my post.  A Weenie is the proverbial dangling carrot (note to self:  call my next fictional Rock Band group The Dangling Carrots).  For Disneyland, Sleeping Beauty Castle is a Weenie that serves as a central landmark to aid park navigation.  Big name attractions like Space Mountain tell the visitor, "hey, come over here and check me out."  The path to the Weenie can be altered in length, direction, and altitude to evoke different emotions as the visitor heads toward the goal.

While the most obvious video game application comes when creating a world for a character to explore, I got to thinking that Weenies can be figurative as well.  A Weenie could be a certain score, rank, or state that must be achieved.  As long as a player generally knows how to arrive at a certain state, the designer can play around with the path to that state.  It could involve inserting an unexpected obstacle along the way or surprising a player with a special bonus.  Whether literal or figurative, a Weenie is a clever way to entice a player to perform an action.

Morality Tales
The Pirates of the Caribbean (the ride, not the movie), is a morality tale.  By showing what happens to a group of men who live the life of pirates, the rider sees that "dead men tell no tales."

That's pretty awesome.

Like lighting on Main Street, it's another example of how a commonplace design technique in video games correlates to the way Disneyland was put together.

Conveying Feeling Spatially
Scott explained how that the layouts of theme lands can convey a certain feeling.  Frontierland has lots of empty space and room to move through to make the guest feel like being in the sparsely-settled old west.  Adventureland is crowded to simulate the feel of a dense jungle while New Orleans Square contains alternate paths that invite the guest to participate in a relaxing distraction.

Spatial design helps explain the fondness I have for what I call "big dumb games," action-heavy games that feature large characters or objects moving through limited spaces.  Good examples include Gears of War and NFL Blitz.  These games give the player a sense of controlling something out of the ordinary.  It is designed to make the player feel as though it is difficult to control the large character or object, but it simplifies the gameplay by not requiring overly-precise maneuvering and only allowing a limited number of possibilities as to where the player can go.  In other words, this feeling comes from the spatial layout of the game environment.

Another example of using spatial properties to enhance the game experience is in the way interfaces are laid out.  Let's say you were creating a business simulation.  If the goal is to create a light and fun candy store management simulation aimed at a younger audience, then one approach may involve populating the screen with minimal information and having each piece of data take up a nice chunk of the screen.  What about a realistic stock market simulation game?  Then pack that sucker with lots of information on the screen to make it feel hectic (but, depending on the target audience, watch out for the learning curve and overwhelming the player).

Asset Reuse Through Context
Scott discussed how the positioning of the same objects can relate different ideas.  His example used Peter Pan's Flight.  At one point, the rider sees Peter and Captain Hook dueling at the front of the ship.  The vehicle eventually ends up on the other side of the boat where the characters reappear.  This time, Peter and the gang are safe while Captain Hook is out in the water.  When done with thought and foresight, reusing assets to create a different context and tell a different part of the story is an excellent way to save time.

Ride Simulation
One of Walt's design techniques involved creating a prototype of the ride by placing mock-up objects in an office and riding a rolling chair along a path through the ride space.  This example (along with an activity on paper prototyping from a workshop I attended) really drove home the point that prototypes are not just useful in communicating ideas and demonstrating the feasibility of a product's creation.  For designers, they are a way of simulating the experience of the final product without the massive labor investment.

Top-Down Design
This is actually the only technique Walt used that I'm struggling to accept as a universal best practice.  With Disneyland, Walt started with the whole park and worked out the lands, the attractions, and finally the actual experiences that occur during the attractions.  The game design equivalent to start with the overall layout of the game, then focus on worlds, then tackle levels, and ultimately design the individual experiences in the levels.

At the workshop I attended during the first two days of GDC, I learned about the very useful MDA framework for design.  I'll post a more detailed description of that later, but a quick one line description would be that the rules of a system lead to trends that evoke a certain type of feeling.  In a case where the aesthetic goal (the desired feeling) is clearly defined, taking the top-down approach makes a lot of sense.  Figure out the theme and what needs to be conveyed and iterate and test designs until the mechanics that support this concept are found.  For Walt, he likely had an overall goal that he wanted to communicate with the park.

But what if there is no required goal?  What if you have at least a fairly blank slate and can experiment to discover something players will find interesting?    I'll sometimes get an idea for making a game that features a certain rules or objects.  I'll then play around with them until an interesting trend emerges.  Then I ask myself what real-life behavior correlates to this trend.  I then have a solid set of mechanics and a goal of what kind of behaviors and feelings I want to emerge from these rules and game objects.  I can further refine my game at the lower levels until I get my top-level goal.

I can bring RollerCoaster Tycoon into this as well.  The game gives players a limited number of rides that can be built.  I could approach it by claiming to want a certain section of the park to have a British theme, but what if I don't have a ride that easily conveys this?  If I see that I have a log flume ride, I can come up with the idea for a land with logging or lumberjacks as its central theme.  Maybe I then notice that I have a stand that sells Candy Apples.  I then decide I can make a tall tale theme land, complete with a Paul Bunyon log flume and Johnny Appleseed candy apple stand.

The point I'm trying to make here is that sometimes it's better to look at the shapes of the pegs you have before trying to put them in the holes.

(Cue a Michael Scott "that's what she said" here.)

There was much more great information in this session, but those are my personal highlights.  As I had mentioned on my blog, I chose to go to this talk in spite of the fact that I had the option of going to one on Rock Band, a game I love.  Luckily, Scott's talk did not disappoint and gave me some excellent food for thought (and a reason to head back to a theme park soon).

I just paid $10 for in-room wi-fi access that I didn't really need this evening, so I might as well blog from my first day at GDC… or, I guess the day before GDC starts.

I wasn't looking forward to a cross-country plane ride because sitting in a cramped space for five hours isn't exactly my definition of fun.  It actually went pretty smoothly for a couple of reasons.

First, I was mesmerized by the Delta airplane safety video.  This is the only time since my first plane trip as a kid that I've paid attention to one of those things.  The production values are extremely modern, full of very smooth cuts and focus shifts that are visually interesting.  It has a few cheesy moments like the "no smoking finger wag," but the actors are very self-conscious about those moments.  The recurring shot with the flight attendant giving directions is well-framed.  It looks like an epic meeting hall in the future, not the inside of a plane.

I just realized I'm gushing about an airline safety video.  I should move on now.

The thing that mainly helped this trip seem shorter than it was is the quality time I got to spend with my Nintendo DS.  I'm not much for portable gaming, but I bought a DS a couple of years ago because it had some interesting games and its touchscreen was something that isn't likely to be replicated in a home console any time soon.   In spite of that, the only time I usually play it is on big trips.

I also usually pick up some new games for each trip.  While I did play a bit of Big Brain Academy (which shocked me in how I had improved in several of its mini-games since the last time I played), most of my time was spent with three "new-to-me" titles:

Picross DS
I finally picked up this game that I knew I would be addicted to before I got it.  All things considered, it's likely my favorite type of puzzle game.  I'm still figuring out new rules and techniques for the possibilities of how the rows and columns of the grid can play out.

Retro Game Challenge
Younger players should enjoy the arcade style games in this title.  Gamers who grew up playing NES games are going to adore it.  Anyone who had a subscription to Nintendo Power back in the haydays of 8-bit and 16-bit (back before the Internet became an on-demand source for gaming information) is going to love the fact that this game encourages players to read a fictional gaming magazine for cheats.  Players don't have to do that, but it makes the easier to progress through the game (that's a design choice I like).  I also love the player's "friend" who shouts and yells whenever the player does something extraordinary.  The writing is also filled with references to gaming culture such as The Wizard and real-life game magazine editor and writer Dan "Shoe" Hsu.  My only complaint so far is the acheivements.  It's not that I don't like them… I just wish there were more of them!  I also wish they were a little less linear (allow the player to try them whenever, not one-at-a-time).  Based on my first few hours with this game, I'd have to recommend to almost everybody.

Korg DS-10 Synthesizer
Ok, this isn't really a game.  It's actually a fairly robust synthesizer application.  I mostly spent time on the flight playing with the Kaoss Pad portion of the application alongside a beat I had already created.  My only fear playing this game on a plane is that the headphone jack will come unplugged and suddenly my awesome performance becomes a plane performance.

Playing around with the pad did give me an idea for an educational use.  Wouldn't it be great if there were games that fused music with handwriting motions?  For example, how about a game that asked math problems and students write the number on the screen.  The game would play notes based on how the student wrote the number.  That way, the student could associate the number with the musical tones.  Maybe doing that wouldn't actually help the student learn math, but maybe there could be some practical benefit to it.  Now all we need is for every public school child to have access to an iPhone or an iPod Touch. 

Ok, I imagine this was pretty disappointing for a GDC post.  In my defense, I've only been here about five hours and, other than eating dinner, all I've done is swing by the Flash Gaming Summit after-party for a few minutes.  But I have a big day tomorrow… so to be continued!

Before I leave out for GDC tomorrow, I'll be posting a few more things to this site.  It seems like all GDC first-timers need to have a post where they proudly display their first business card made for the conference, so here's mine:

I had one of the artists at work take the main character from the Industrialism Platform Game and turn him into me.  Does it look like me?  You'll have to locate me at GDC to find out…

I haven't been posting to this blog much because I've been so busy.  One of the reasons for this burst in activity is getting prepared to head to the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco next week.  This is my first time attending and to say that I'm excited would be a slight understatement.  I'll definitely be blogging about the experience.  Expect a slew of Twitter updates as well.

At most conferences I've attended, it's usually pretty easy to pick out which session is the most appealing.  The GDC is a different beast.  Looking over the schedule, there are frequently timeslots with three or more sessions I really want to attend in the game design track alone.  Luckily, most of the sessions are recorded so I can catch them when I get back home.

I'm still presented with a plethora of options.  Here's my current list of choices.  Note that I'm as qualified to pick out the best sessions for you as I am to give you NCAA March Madness picks.  On the other hand, I'm currently 14-for-16 with my bracket…

Anyways, to the list:

Monday and Tuesday

1. Game Design Workshop
I've already signed up for this two-day event where I'll be working in several different small groups to analyze and create game designs.  This should be fun!

Wednesday

9:00 AM
1. Discovering New Development Opportunities : Satoru Iwata

This is an easy choice because it's the keynote, there are no other sessions, and I imagine most would agree the President of Nintendo would have something interesting to say (although I do hope this plays more like a lecture than a Nintendo press conference).

10:30 AM
1. Evolving Game Design: Today and Tomorrow, Eastern and Western Game Design : Panel
2. Fault Tolerance: From Intentionality to Improvisation : Clint Hocking
3. From First Date to a Committed Relationship: Designing for Engagement and Sustained Satisfaction : Scott Rigby

Great, it's the first session timeslot and there are three sessions I want to attend.  While Mr. Hocking and Mr. Rigby's sessions both sound like they could contain useful information, the chance to hear from the lead designers of Fallout 3, Shadow of the Colossus, and No More Heroes is just too tempting to pass up.

12:00 PM
1. Media Molecule: 'Winging It' – Ups, Downs, Mistakes, Successes in the Making of LittleBigPlanet: Alex Evans and Mark Healey
2. Casual Games Roundtables : Roundtable
3. The Art of Braid : David Hellman

The session description for LittleBigPlanet is supposed to be focused on the creative side of the product.  Given that my employer occasionally makes some open-ended and creative games, there may be some useful material presented.  I still may end up swapping it with the casual games roundtable since I can always grab the Media Molecule session on video.  Also tempting is the session on Braid.  That game is gorgeous to look at, so I'd love to hear some of the inspiration behind its art.

2:30 PM
1. The Game Design Challenge: My First Time : Panel
2. Little Hands, Foul Moods, and Runny Noses 2.0: The Research You Should Know When Making Games for Kids : Carla Engelbrecht Fisher
3. Balancing Multiplayer Competitive Games : David Sirlin

This timeslot looks similar to the 9 AM choices:  I could go to the one that is most relevant to what I do or I could go to the one that looks like it could be more interesting than useful.  Since my employer's target market does not include an audience younger than high schoolers, I'll probably choose the panel.  I hear it is supposed to be a good time and, with folks like one of the creators of Portal and Infocom vet Steve Meretzky on-board to make a game about the first time they… well… became a man or woman, the results should be fun.

If I worked more with mutliplayer games, I'd also be tempted by David Sirlin's session.  From reading his blog, I can tell he's a very knowledgeable designer.

4:00 PM
1. Curious/New Members: Gaming the IGDA : Cory Seifert
2. Stop Wasting My Time and Your Money: Why Your Game Doesn't Need a Story to be a Hit : Margaret Robertson
3. Halo in the Laboratory : John Hopson

I just joined the IGDA, so the roundtable on being an IGDA n00b seems like a natural choice.  Otherwise, I'd love to see a session that talks more about immersing story as a gameplay experience rather than a passive experience.  I also mentioned the session on how Halo 3 was tested for gameplay feedback, something I read an article about a long time ago.

Thursday

9:00 AM
1. GDC Microtalks – One Hour, Ten Speakers, Unlimited Ideas : Panel
2. Valve's Approach to Playtesting: the Application of Empiricism  : Mike Ambinder
3. How Sackboy Learned to Love Physics : Dave Smith
4. My Lessons Learned from Flagship Studios : Stephen Goldstein

So this is how you get people out of bed in the morning… with a ton of good-looking sessions.  With as many interesting folks as there are on the microtalk panel, I'm leaning toward that session.  I'm sure the Valve and LittleBigPlanet sessions will have useful information, but I'm not sure how relevant it will be for me.  If I were picking sessions on what sounded the most riveting, I imagine the session on the failed Flagship Studios would be my choice.

10:30 AM
1. Solid Game Design: Making the 'Impossible' Possible : Hideo Kojima

There's literally no competition for this keynote, so an easy choice.  I'm not a huge Metal Gear fan (I'm still annoyed at the boss from Metal Gear Solid that expected the player to switch controller ports), but I'm sure this will be interesting.

1:30 PM
1. 10 Things Great Designers Exhibit : Gordon Walton
2. Education SIG : Roundtable
3. How To Talk to an Actor : Tom Keegan
4. Quality of Life Committee : Roundtable
5. From Counter-Strike to Left 4 Dead: Creating Replayable Cooperative Experiences : Michael Booth
6. Camera Based Gaming: The Next Generation : Diarmid Campbell
7. All About Noby Noby Boy : Keita Takahashi

This timeslot is loaded with interesting-looking sessions.  Mr. Walton's session sounds the most practical of the bunch, so I'll probably head there.  I should probably be participating in the Education SIG, so that's high on the list, as is the session on voice acting (there is no budget for that at work and staff members provide the voices, so any tips on voice acting would be great).

The other sessions are all "I bet that will be interesting" sessions.  It seems like QoL has been a hot topic lately with some fiery debate over the remarks made by Epic Games President Mike Capps.  That roundtable will likely be explosive.  If I worked more in the multiplayer space, the Valve session sounds great.  The session on cameras and gaming is probably going to be filled with plenty of "oohs" and "aahs," while the Takahasi session would be a bit higher on the list if it wasn't specifically on Noby Noby Boy.  I haven't played that game, but his Katamari Damacy is such a charmer.

3:00 PM
1. Master Metrics: The Science Behind the Art of Game Design : Chris Swain
2. Helping Your Players Feel Smart: Puzzles as User Interface : Randy Smith
3. Game Writers' Round Table: Techniques, Tips, and Concerns : Roundtable
4. Characteristics of Multiplayer Games: Lessons from the World of Paper Games : Robert Gutschera
5. Experimental Gameplay Sessions : Panel
6. Composer Challenge GDC 2009 : Panel
7. IV Style: Returning to the Roots of a Fighting Game Classic : Yoshinori Ono
8. The Art of LittleBigPlanet: From Conception Through to Finishing : Kareem Ettouney and Mark Healey
9. The Cruise Director of Azeroth: Directed Gameplay within World of Warcraft : Jeffrey Kaplan

I have a long list, but the top two choices are well-ahead of the pack.  The techniques presented by Mr. Swain could potentially be more practical, but the concrete examples Mr. Smith provides might be just as interesting.

The roundtable on writing could be potentially useful, but I'm not sure if any of those in attendance have experience in the kind of writing I do (focused on education, devoid of any edgy content, longer than a single game, and not endless like MMORPG writing).

The remaining sessions all seem very interesting to me, though I listed the session on World of Warcraft so low because I'm not a big MMORPG nut.

4:30 PM
1. Read Me: Closing the Readability Gap in Immersive Games : Patrick Redding
2. Designing Terror: Inside the Resident Evil 5 Production Process : Yoshiaki Hirabayshi

After a day of "which freakin' session should I attend," this timeslot doesn't have a long list of choices for me.  I'll most likely go to Mr. Redding's session because I've read about some of the interesting design choices in Far Cry 2.  I put the Resident Evil 5 session on the list because a description is not yet available, but the topic seems intriguing.

Friday

9:00 AM
1. Everything I Learned About Level Design I Learned from Disneyland : Scott Rogers
2. Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap: Design Lessons Learned from Rock Band : Dan Teasdale
3. Accessibility 101: Crash Course for Beginners : Mark Barlet
4. The Council of Stellar Management: EVE Online Bridges Worlds for a Society : Petur Johannes Oskarsson
5. The World of Fable II : Mark Smart

In a cruel twist of fate, two of the sessions I most wanted to attend are going on at the same time.  I've heard good things about the material Mr. Rogers presents.  As much as I love Rock Band, I'm probably going to have to opt for the session on Disneyland's design influence.  Of course, the day of the session I might have a change of heart.

The session on accessibility is one I wish I didn't have to skip over, given that it is a topic I often deal with where I work.  I think virtual communities are a pretty big deal and should get more attention than they do, so the EVE Online session also gets a nod.  The Fable II session probably has some interesting content, but it goes toward the bottom because I haven't played it yet and probably would do better watching the video after I have done so.

10:30 AM
1. Beyond Balancing: Using Five Elements of Failure Design to Enhance Player Experiences : Jesper Juul
2. Stretching Beyond Entertainment: The Role of Games in Personal and Social Change : Panel
3. Creating First Person Movement for Mirror's Edge : Tobais Dahl

Ironically, the talk on failure sounds like a winner.  The only issue is that it's only 20 minutes long.  I suppose I'll sneak into the session on Change after that (insert obligatory Obama joke here).  With panelists like Will Wright, it should be fairly interesting.

I'm a big fan of Mirror's Edge, but I'll have to pass on that session since I don't work with first-person gaming.

11:10 AM
1. Paper Prototypes of Spore : Stone Librande
2. Aarf! Arf Arf Arf: Talking to the Player with Barks : Patrick Redding

This timeslot has a couple of quick 20-minute sessions, both of which look intriguing and relevant to me.  This will probably be a day-of decision, but right now I'd lean toward the session on Spore just to see how they used paper prototypes for such a game.

12:00 PM
1. Flash SIG : Roundtable
2. How to Start Designing Games On Your Own (and What that Really Means) : Tom Sloper

If I were attending GDC as a student, I'd proceed directly to Mr. Sloper's presentation.  I may still end up checking it out as there isn't a session that really grabs me for this timeslot except for the first meeting of the Flash SIG.  Again, this may end up being a day-of decision.

2:30 PM
1. Learning from the Atari 2600 : Ian Bogost
2. Talk the Talk, Walk the Walk : Darius Kazemi
3. Lionhead Experiments Revealed : Peter Molyneux

Mr. Kazemi's session is similar to Mr. Sloper's session:  it's by a guy who knows what he is talking about but whose lecture may not be the most relevant to me.  More importantly, there is a very attractive session by Ian Bogost on analyzing the Atari 2600 for successful (and failed) designs.  I put the Lionhead session on the list, but it ranks low because I don't feel confident that it will move from the interesting to the applicable side of things.

4:00 PM
1. How Did the Interview Go? : Panel
2. Games Have Feelings Too! : E. Daniel Arey

I haven't touched any of the career development sessions, but as young as I am I'd be foolish to think that I'll never apply for another job in my life.  Interviewing is something in which I don't have a significant amount of experience, so I may check this session out.  Alternatively, the session on emotionally connecting to gamers could be useful as someone who is trying to motivate kids to learn.

That's the list as of right now… any other sessions I should consider?  Or did I undervalue or overvalue a session above?