I talked about 3D screens and friend of mine pointed out that there’s new televisions coming… where you won’t need glasses. I know Nintendo has some hand held device that somehow uses two “layers” to create 3D effect (without need for glasses).

Now, will this “next generation” 3D (where the “depth” effect can be so much different than in other movies) happen in games? Will we see more and more next generation 3D that we forget “regular 3D” completely?

I have mixed feelings about this. I can predict that there will be tons of people who say how unhealthy it is for your eyes and how your brain will be messed up and all that… but I feel that we people adapt. I think 3D tech will evolve and at some point it’s not any more unhealthy than staring regular computer screen.

But… will games support it? Will manufacturers go for it?

I find this a really tricky question to be answered. Tons of social & casual games are 2D, and they have become increasingly popular. Wii is doing pretty well in the console side of things, and it has old graphics in it.

I somehow feel that for some games, this next generation 3D will be a breakthrough that will at some point be always used. First person (shooters/rpgs/adventure) games, the 3D will be a hit. (My prediction). I would expect that the immersion of 3D is just so much greater that at some point we won’t see regular FPS games no more. Instead, the new 3D is always there.

Also, some horror games start to use it more and more. There will be more horror games created in 1st person perspective, using the new 3D effect to create more scary environment.

(And as long as games have good writers who understand that horror isn’t about screaming and blood and trying to scare people with sudden loud voices… it’s about waiting for something to happen, this will be good).

In some games, for example RTS games, the new 3D effect won’t be used. Same goes for sports games like NHL, it just won’t cut it.

New 3D requires certain camera view, in my pretty humble opinion. And some camera angles just aren’t good for it, or can just become a mess.

With this all being said… what you think?

(I really think that the 3rd generation 3D will be something that we need. Holograms. We will see graphics that will really fill the living room…. now, that will be something really cool)

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Sharing stuff is that makes all the difference in the world. Earlier in my life I’ve bought things separately and haven’t given much thought about connections. For example, I’ve bought PC and do PC stuff with it. I have a separate radio/CD player that can play radio. Then I have TV which I use to watch TV.

(Being slightly oversimplistic here to make the point, but hopefully it helps)

This has changed a bit. Now I think about connectivity and sharing things. For example, I can use my PS3 with my tv but also want to connect it to home cinema system to get nice sounds. And then I’ve found information about setting the PS3 media server to speak with PC so that it would be possible to get to play spotify via PS3. And then I’ve given though about a new mobile phone so that I could connect it to different devices and listen to music. And of course this mobile phone could use the wlan to connect to net at home.

And so on, and so on. This is probably very familiar to you guys.

Separately, PS3 (without a network connection for example) loses its value. By making it possible to connect PS3 to other devices, the value of all devices is greater. When adding new things (such as the mobile phone) I can leverage the existing system, thus increasing again the value of all pieces.

And this is due the possibility to connect devices with each other.

Now… to think gaming.

How could your game benefit from connectivity? (Might be a tough question in some areas (for example people who do epic single-player RPGs), but very relevant in some areas (especially games for social platforms))

Some food for thought.

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• Sofa
• Bed

I might sit down a sofa and make notes on paper. I might build pseudo code in order to solve certain coding dilemmas. I might lie down and just stare the roof and think. This is all without a computer. Pen & paper you know.

The other place where my code is refined (without even thinking it) is in my bed, while at sleep. I might have some tricky coding puzzle that won’t solve by staring the screen. After failing to see the solution, I might realize that now I just need to stop, go to bed, and see the solution the next morning. And this has yet to fail me.

Sure, I can do “puzzle solving” in front of my computer, but I’ve found it good to prepare and plan the code in my mind while somewhere else. That’s where the hard part happens. That’s where the thinking process takes place.

After the plan is made, it’s easy to sit and start typing the code together.

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It’s forbidden in universities to use flowcharts for software documentation.

I don’t care what they say at the university. If my gameplay can be described using (1) bunch of notes and (2) a flow chart so that I benefit from it, then I use my flowchart. I’m familiar with it and it solves the problem.

Not saying that NSD couldn’t be used in this, but to me it just looks bit different syntax in more compact view. Might be wrong, but since basic flow charts work for me, I use them. I don’t use them to document stuff. I use them to help me for example coding stuff.

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I thought it was slightly difficult to proceed further with just these notes of mine.

So I did what I often do: drew a flow chart describing the main gameplay. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this but I use flow charts (with my own customish syntax) to describe some aspects of the game. I feel that these charts are good in capturing the idea of certain issues.

So, I took my precious pen and draw a chart. It describes how the gameplay works: what happens first, how location is selected, how game progresses, and how game is won. It doesn’t explain everything, for example “resolving challenges” is not explained here – it’s a job for another flow chart or textual description, but this pic gives a pretty good overall view on how things work.

Using both my notes and this chart, I can continue coding.

Flow charts for very beginners
Basically, flow charts explain states. You may draw boxes/diamonds and write things like “Is leader?” and then have two arrows (one with word “no” and another with word “yes”) pointing to two different boxes which describe what happens in certain conditions.

A drawing makes things so much easier, so here’s an example flow chart describing the process of how reading this blog works.

Pretty slick, eh?

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I started wondering if anyone has tried releasing their browser game, wrapped inside an application that simply loads the game from the interwebz. This would essentially turn your browser game into a downloadable game.

You tried this? Considered doing this? Know anyone who has done this?

Is this a bad idea?

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But these didn’t match for the best AI I’ve created.

I was around 15 (I probably wasn’t but whenever I think times before turning 20, I always say 15) when I heard about those intelligent chat systems and of course I had to create my own. It was bloody stupid program where user chats with a computer, but if you happened to write the right questions that I had programmed the system to understand (I did this by just starting typing & asking something from my program, and then taking notes on what I was typing). My lil brother was the tester. I don’t recall exactly what he said but if I’d need to bet, I would think he would probably have wanted to send the chat program to gates of hell so when new arrivals come, they could have painfully tested my program.

Anyhow.

I liked doing that AI. I even managed to make it to exchange 2-3 meaningful sentences. I’m not sure if the chat program actually remembered what you had said, but I feel it either did or I had plans for doing that. Anyway, it was a bloody big list of IFs in that program.

Sort of stupidly cool back then, and thinking the same now too.

What’s your greatest AI invention. Care to share?

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I stopped for a moment to think of the scope of my own project and I realized that I not only could – but should – not do character animations. At least no big limp movements or fancy moves or stuff like that. So, I just decided not to animate my characters.

This also made me re-think how the game should look and I started concepting for simple pawns on a map. Maybe I’ll have 6-corner pawns like I originally tested with Edoiki project or perhaps I’ll just stick with avatar images that move around a map.

The Infected game is all about finding the traitor, so I think this thing will suit just fine the style.

Cutting this artistic thing away now feels good.

Would your project be simpler if:

• You wouldn’t animate your characters?
• You would use something else instead: could you have vehicles instead of characters? (Since those are easier to animate)

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Almost forgot what I was trying to say.

So, the thing is that I’d like know if you can play browser based games on your smart phones. You guys who have iPhones and whatnots… can you tell how well they can handle browser based games? I know iPhone doesn’t support flash so they probably suck quite a bit in this area, but what about other browser based games? What kind of support they have? How well they can deal with Ajax and HTML5 and whatnot.

Please – let me know what your experiences have been.

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One thing is new for sure: their ad made me wonder if this was some sort of new RPG game:

Not suggesting that there wouldn’t be anything wrong with doing games in that style. What you think? Is this the way AAA studios handle things: put better graphics and add something new in the game? (I guess that’s pretty much how games are often done in other markets as well, so cannot point finger to AAA alone).

How you think sequels should be done?

Notice: I haven’t tested Starcraft 2 so I have no clue if it’s a good game or not. Just basing my views on what I’ve read from their features list, what I saw in videos… and plenty of guesswork.

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Pick the ones you are currently getting your games.

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Now, I was thinking this same concept for games. We could start with indie games if you wish. Bit like WoW except you get to play tons of games.

Basically, for a monthly subscription (let’s say $9.99) you can play any games you want as long as you keep subscribing to the service. It might be possible to have a lite version which would show ads here and there until you get so annoyed that you want to (1) stop playing or (2) buy the subscription (or (3) more likely: find a hack)

The revenue share could go so that major part of the pie would go to developers (let’s say 70%), rest of it would be split between publisher (10-30%) and perhaps with affiliates (20%). These figures are just in top of my head.

How would developers share the pool of money? I’m thinking that the playing times (and/or downloads) could be tracked. The more downloads/playing time one game gets, the more money that game earns.

Just thinking out loud.

What you feel about this? Part 2 – “spotify for indie games” continues here.

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I’m adding sixth one:

6. finish your game
By finishing games, one learns how to finish games. That’s a crucial thing in this industry. It’s okay to prototype and it’s even okay to drop projects, but if you follow the fifth rule (“no epic projects”) then you should also focus on this rule.

What’s the next golden rule in your opinion?

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Mistake #5 – Getting a development team
Around 2001 I was working on this “MMO” game which started from the idea of “having this dark island where guy moves with a cool torch in his hand”. That’s not a bad start for a MMO, but the worse idea was me getting this “development team to work on profit basis”.

Okay, I eventually found a good friends (this part of the MMO was not a mistake, Tim) but other than that it was a huge mess. I remember taking aboard some people who didn’t have a clue on things. One guy was saying he was a “texture ‘expert’”. Which meant he shot (or “loaned”) some photos of some ancient museum swords. That’s like pretty nice, but spending 2 months to some helmet images that will never get in the game was not such a smart move.

I was thinking that “the more people get in, the better the result will be”.

Now I realize that “the more people got in, the bigger the trouble I was facing”

Okay, maybe some “we’ll share the profits later / do this thing for free” team can prove me wrong, but I thought it was heckofa mess. Fun mess though.

Mistake #4 – Not getting a development team
The other alternative (after realizing how big mess it is to have tons of people around) was to try do everything related to my big idea on my own. This was perhaps a slightly smarter move than getting a huge group (at least for people like me) but then it became obvious that I need more time & donuts to get the ball moving.

Alone, with not enuf skills (modeling, programming, designing, mapping, sounds, music… you name it) it sort of became obvious that this path won’t work.

Well, good news is that from this mistake I learnt that outsourcing and purchasing 3rd party stuff can be a solution. And also the smaller the project scope, the bigger chances for solo survival there is.

Mistake #3 – Choosing a bloody long company name
The reason why I always direct people to gameproducer.net is instead to my company site (polycountproductions.com) that my company name is so bloody long that I just find it easier to use a shorter name. This means my company stuff is “somewhere in the back in the papers” and I haven’t even updated the site for long.

Not such a bad mistake, but still annoys me after 5 years and I keep thinking “I should change the company name”.

Mistake #2 – Starting about 17 projects simultaneously
I’ve improved my skills on this area, and nowadays I have only 1 game project going on simultaneously. I still get new ideas for games and simply write them down or discuss them a bit with my friends, and then write them down. Earlier (long, very long time ago), I might have got several game ideas and plans going on. I still have several side projects and things going on/fading away here and there (it’s just so fun to start new things), but I’m getting better at focusing on one main thing and getting that finished before new stuff.

Mistake #1 – Not making enough mistakes
During the last 5 years in this company gaming thing I’ve been doing more mistakes than ever in my life. I’ve probably learned more than ever in my life. Mistakes are good. Gotta keep doing more of them.

Somebody has said “if you aren’t failing ever, then you are not fighting in the right league” (or something like that, I might have made a mistake here).

Me likes that attitude.

See also 10 worst game production mistakes (article written 3 years ago).

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Anyone tried this?

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The next method worked better: giving ideas/concepts/videos/pointers to material that described what kind of style I was looking, and then told them to “use your artistic freedom” to get it done. This has worked wonders: this resulted in much less time needed for communication and more motivated artist who will surprise you with the quality of his work*.

Let the artists do their job. That’s why you hired them.

* Bonus tip: he’ll also surprise you with the “hours spent” sum if you don’t have any control over resources that he is supposed to use on the work.

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What you feel is a good length for (indie or other) game projects? Why?

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The bottom line is this: doing art takes time and skill. There’s several moving pieces in this thing. Artists have different skills. Some do concept art. Some animate. Some do something else. Finding somebody to do all these* things (and actually to be good at it**), that’s like 8th wonder of the world or something – it takes tons of skills to become a good artist.

*Interestingly, that’s exactly what I’ve planned to do for The Infected game…

**…but luckily my game is not about having perfect art, but perfect gameplay. Sort of.

By simply walking a mile in artist’s shoes and doing what they do can help dramatically in understanding their point-of-view. (I suppose this works for every other position in the team, coders and composers and everybody else).

Recently draw this sketch (and I have more understanding why the artists talk about proper lights, shadows, limb sizes, poses, leg positions and anatomy and everything there is in doing these things). It lacks certain things (arms are different size, his right leg looks weird, both legs are short, cap in slightly wrong position and so on) so I probably need to re-do/change it to use it for concept. But… I’m learning, I’m learning…

Reference was taken from “100 ways to create fantasy figures” by Francis Tsai

Having pics sort of makes more fun blogs posts too. Right?

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Without taking stance on what is “real pixel art”, it is my plan to do stuff that looks good. The reason why I like pixel art is that it is helping me improve my own strengths. I have always liked drawing, but never got into painting or coloring stuff (especially with computer). I simply couldn’t get things to look how I wanted them to look when I tried smudging and whatnot.

With pixel art, it’s simpler… there’s only a few colors to work with.

Okay, that’s all cool and so on, but what about the practical aspect?
Yesterday I got so into doing this pixel stuff that I didn’t write a blog post. I did this arctic explorer instead:

Now, this is far from perfect and it didn’t quite turn out how I wanted (the snow on top was accidental, also the colors ended up being slightly different from what I planned and so on) but it’s one more piece of art done – and by doing pixel art one learns to do pixel art. And here’s the (quite) important part: how much time it took?

I suppose I could try count how much the actual time of drawing take time and come up with 1 or 2 hours or something like that, but in reality I think a more accurate estimate would be “yesterday evening”. Since that what it took. Okay, there was learning involved and things probably will get easier after I have more experience (bearing in mind this is like my 4th of 5th piece of pixel art), but it’s good to note that doing this art takes time.

So, if doing one frame takes like hour or two, and then 6 frames for one animation (that’s like half a day to day), 4-5 animations (week). And that’s one character. Add 50 objects, backgrounds, other characters… stuff. And you get the picture.

Point is: pixel art (like any art) takes time. If you are interested reading more about this aspect, check out Adam Saltsman’s excellent article on pixel art. It has several very good things.

So, what’s my opinion about this?
I like the retro (indie?) feeling pixel art gives you. I see it kind of like the very much opposite of nowadays AAA shader-whatnot screens. And I feel that’s a good thing. It’s like… totally opposite. I would expect some people to love it, and I somehow also feel that doing pixel art makes people think and expect something different.

For my personal situation, I’ve decided to try & learn this stuff. After I get to do some animation, some background stuff, and some objects… I will see if I’ve picked a too big cake to eat (bearing in mind that I want to submit something to IGF, which has deadline in October).

Pros & Cons
Advantages over pixel art, when I’m doing this myself:

• No money needed for art, I’m using my time instead
• I have 100% control over things and can communicate with the team artist now in pretty well (since I’m now the coder and the artist in my team)
• Retro (indie) feel in art, that’s a cool bonus
• It takes time to do, but with proper planning, not necessarily too much time

And the disadvantages (for me right now):

• My own time needed for art, instead of using money
• Might delay the project (not necessarily)
• Still need to learn quite a bit: animating, lights

I’m sure that pixel art works excellent for mobile devices. I’m sure it can work fine for indie games. Adam Saltsman mentions in his article that scaling pixel art is tricky – you gotta stick to a resolution. I feel this to be very true, although of course you can try scaling the art so that you have 4 pixel dots instead of 1 pixel dots (true scaling, simply making things bigger without losing any details). It makes art more blocky, but I wouldn’t say that’s necessarily a bad thing. It depends.

Is this now too blocky? Imagine this animated…

I very much recommend checking out Adam’s article – it has tons of pros & cons explained in much greater detail on a general level. I’m focusing quite a bit on my current situation.

So, how to make the decision?

Or: what helped me decide

One most important thing is that I’m doing pixel art because it feels fun to do. In fact, I’ve “waited” years to get to draw something but I never quite got (took) the time to draw anything. Now I have purpose (my game project) so I’ve got my drawing pens back and sketching things now, and they come for a purpose. And it’s fun. Cool.

I’m very much keen to see some donuts after I get this game thing done, and right now I’m focusing on what is fun to do? With Dead Wake I was doing the project perhaps relying more on the rational side of my mind, but with my current project I’m perhaps trying to relax a bit more and go with the irrational side of things.

For example, when I’m thinking “should I do this pixel art for my game? What if it delays the project a lot?”

I have a simple answer: “So what? It’s fun to do”

I mean, the outcome of the project isn’t necessarily so important. It’s also the journey. And if I enjoy the journey, won’t the outcome also be enjoyable?

If I don’t enjoy the journey, won’t that mean that the results will most likely too be somewhat unpleasant?

Famous bottom line
So, I’m learning coloring and doing pixel art. I can see that this has impact on time needed for the project, but since this is fun – I’m fine with it. And of course I can always seek middle ground: I might outsource some art (just gotta make sure the artist can make stuff that fits in). And for IGF, it’s not important to have all the art assets done.

I would say many indie games can do just fine with pixel art. Also, doing the art on my own is cool since I do have some artistic skills and enjoy doing the stuff. Since it’s fun, there’s no really no reason not to do this.

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Here’s first arctic scientist (don’t know how much time this took… 30 minutes? Hour? Who knows, lost track of time)

After reading some more, and attempting doing bit more detailed stuff, I managed to get this done (in maybe about 90 minutes, including some web browsing in pixel art gallery):


The larger version is bit blurry, depends on your browser capabilities. Okay, scaled these in Gimp.

Next step me thinks is to try and see if I can somehow animate one of these poor bastards. I intend to first try drawing the animation as explained in this tutorial and see how much time that takes.

I believe this will be sufficient at least for the prototype.

Anyone else like to do pixel pushing? I enjoyed this.

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• Gamedev.net thread where people recommended Anime Studio and Toon Boom
• 2D animation and principle of animation.
• Animation forum thread with suggestions.
• 2D Animation techniques

I found the Anime Studio to be quite interesting, and it has a free trial demo for learning.

If you have some good resources or tips to add, throw them here please.

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Here’s the current member counts:

• steam group – 57 members (+me). This is the group from where I planned to get help in testing networking stuff. These guys were specifically told that they could test the game at some point.
• facebook page – it got 59 people to “like this” (+me). This group was told to join “so that I can get page URL” (after getting 25 “likes”). Not so targeted I’d say.
• Last is twitter account, with 41 followers (+me).

I must say that I’m slightly surprised that the Steam group got so big number compared to others. I didn’t expect Steam group to grow as big (and bigger) than other medias. While these numbers are very low for now, I feel good about this. I’ve hardly even mentioned this stuff anywhere and got people ready to test and give ideas for the game, so the signs are good.

Anyway, for me, Steam is definitely something I don’t want to miss.

When I get more game art (and perhaps a video), I’ve planned to proceed with press releases and see how big these groups can grow. This was just the “pre-start” of building community so to speak.

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Idea #1
I first was thinking of getting somebody to draw me sidescrolling (pixel) art. This is still viable option, although I can drop the “pixel” part too if necessary.

Idea #2
Switch to top-down view. This makes some things much simpler (animations & perhaps character details).

Idea #3
I’ve also considered extending idea #1 so that instead of getting somebody to do me art, I’d draw stuff myself. This will require time so that’s a bit of an issue.

Idea #4
Pre-rendered 3D. I’m quite familiar with 3D but then of course I’d still need to find a way to get this 3D stuff.

Idea #5
One artist suggested hand-drawn backgrounds (2D) and then pre-rendered 3D characters and items. I’m not sure if I’m fan of this style, but idea is worth considering nevertheless.

And of course a mix of these ideas is possible.

I’m not fan of many ideas to be honest. I don’t want to “leave many door opens so I have tons of options”. Makes life more complicated. Next step: picking 2-3 doors and checking what’s behind them. Then going from one for now and being happy about it.

Right now I need something visual for my game.

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I guess I need to get a good list of art I want to get done and then keep hunting. (I have some artists with whom I’ve talked already and discussed different options)

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Anyway. Here’s some of my favorite ways of creating bugs in games:

1. Don’t use functions (or objects and classes, or anything that sounds “too big for my current small challenge right now”)
2. Use tons of IFs.
3. Copy & paste code.
4. Use principle of adding “special cases just to deal this situation” to your code.
5. Edit the wrong files.
6. Add tons of changes and then test all them once (instead of testing each new update after the change is done).
7. Try coding 3 to 7 different issues simultaneously (instead of one)
8. Change some parts of code for testing “just for a while” and then don’t document why you did this.
9. Forget testing in Release mode, Debug mode will be enough. (Not exactly helping to create a bug, but will help spotting some)
10. Leave parts of code open (and of course undocumented) and take a 2 week break
11. Start something big just before you are about to end for the day (and you will find yourself spending the next morning figuring out what was going on)
12. Use some of your previously created code in your current game (and notice how many bugs there lies)
13. Use the shortest possible variable names (“c, cc, i, h, hiryb” instead of count, creditCard, i, height, heIsRockingYourBoat). Always.

You agree, disagree? How about adding your favorite ways for creating bugs?

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In case you want to do some sort of market research, the Steam stats system might come handy.

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If you want to test the game and help me, join the Steam group:
I’ll be collecting people to test the game, and Steam provides good chat options, so this is now the simplest way for me to handle requests.
http://steamcommunity.com/groups/theinfectedgame

To keep up to date with the game info, follow the game announcements on Twitter
I’ll use Twitter to announce stuff, so this is perhaps something you want to consider following:
@theinfectedgame

Also, if you want to help me get a Facebook page done for the game, please consider Liking this:

http://www.facebook.com/pages/The-Infected-Game/129359667102476?v=wall – I need to see 25 people who like that page to get it going. Your aid would be most appreciated.

Oh, and I will be setting up this website too: theinfectedgame.com…

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(Not that I’d even consider using zombie theme in my traitor game. I’m just asking…)

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Initial reaction could feel like “they’ll be spammed with mobile games and artistic non-games”, but my thinking is “this will make my victory taste even sweeter…”

Important dates for IGF 2011 are as follows:

June 28th, 2010 – Submissions are Open
October 18th, 2010 – Submission Deadline, Main Competition
November 1st, 2010 – Submission Deadline, Student Competition
January 3rd, 2011 – Finalists Announced, Main Competition
January 10, 2011 – Finalists Announced, Student Competition
February 28 – March 4, 2011 – Game Developers Conference 2011
February 28 – March 1, 2011 – Indie Games Summit @ GDC 2011
March 2 – March 4, 2011 – IGF Pavilion @ GDC 2011
March 2, 2011 – IGF Awards Ceremony (Winners Announced!)

I participated first time last year, and plan to participate this year as well.

What about you?

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After a bit of debug… I spotted that I was editing the wrong function (and was too stubborn to take a very little time to step through & use breakpoints to get it solved – I thought I “knew” where to problem lied already).

But that perhaps wasn’t so mysterious.

You have some strange bug experiences to share?

P.S. the spam contest ends pretty soon… take your guess if you want to get this cold drink. Beer-worth tip: nobody has not tweeted it only one or two has tweeted about it, so there’s a pretty easy drink available.

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I’ve noticed that there’s a chance that I find myself making a fuss about organizing my work. I might set up some fancy folder structure for different type of emails and whatnot. And after carefully going through all the stuff and getting everything organized… I just don’t want to do the damn thing. Organizing thus becomes just an excuse to avoid work.

It goes like this (almost a true story to illustrate the matter):
Me: “Hmm, I have this big pile of tasks. Let me categorize these tasks and organize them depending on the house work/repair needed and priorize the work. After that, I’m so totally prepared to get massive progress! Our home will be fixed, clean and so cool in no time.”
(day later)
Me: “Hmm, I’ve now organized the work, but goddamn it’s sunny day out there. I’ll grab some soda and sit on the bench for just a little while.
(another day later)
Me: “Okay… stuff is still in right places, so it doesn’t matter if I’d rather play some video games. I have plenty of time to do that stuff tomorrow. After all, it doesn’t matter if that wall is missing the painting for a day or two.”

And so on.

It’s easy to fall in the trap of thinking that organizing stuff would somehow mean progress.

The number of nails isn’t getting smaller no matter how well you organize the nails.

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Now, with that being sorted, I’m starting to feel that I want to have this place where to announce all stuff. From Dead Wake dev I learned that community forums are double edged sword (good thing is that fans love ‘em, the bad news is that they need moderation time, even with helper mods around).

For this reason I’m pondering where to start announcing this game:

• Moddb would be cool, but they require more complete games.
• This blog might seem like an obvious choice, but I try to keep this for game dev audience, and not too much about player audience.
• Forum (see above: moderation issues)
• Facebook page: issue, I don’t like the fact that I’m giving control to somebody else
• Twitter: it’s not a community building place. Sort of.
• New blog: hmmm. (has some issues: while people cannot start new threads, at least they have opportunities to comment and blog can be tied to Twitter and others. This feels pretty good.)

To me, a new blog sounds like a solution (dedicated to traitor game).

Optionally, a blog that would appear in my own company site (I haven’t needed that for 5 years, so haven’t set it up yet) – but I really want to promote game sites on their own, and then cross-promote games on these different gaming sites.

Where you guys build your community?

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I like network programming too much.

I like seeing those packets arrive the right places. I like checking speed of UDP transfers. I like watching what the server does when clients join and leave… I like coding this stuff and testing different solutions and libraries. I like reading the material about handling lag and think of how to plan do network code (excellent article I wrote back in 2006). This might sound fine, but I suspect that there’s a chance that I’m using too much time to programming this network code.

…maybe I just call this “thorough testing”?

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So, is BlitzMax a “Real Coding Language”?

Short answer:
[insert Cartman laughter here]

Long answer:
Yeah right.

Or who cares.

The person who posted the comment mentioned that BlitzMax isn’t “fast enough” and that only C++ can be fast enough. There’s some truth in that statement. Very little, but some truth. Yes, it is possible that C++ stuff might produce a few milliseconds faster stuff than some other code (not sure if this is true, but for the sake of argument, let’s think it’s true).

Now, this has close to zero relevance to game development.

Perhaps, if you are doing some sort of fancy NASA calculation system to launch a new rocket to Mars, then you might use C++ to program the rockety stuff. Maybe. I don’t know.

And I don’t care.

Since what I care is stuff like this: example number uno, game made using Blitz. Eschalon is a totally cool RPG that probably sells like ice cream in the desert. And here’s example number 2 – another Bmax made game that climbed to the BFG top lists (which means it sold like ice water in the desert – a loads).

And that’s what matters.

The people who think that BlitzMax (Or GameMaker or pretty much any tool) is not a “real language” can go argue about that in the Gathering of Elite C++ Developers and laugh together. Meanwhile, those “puny developer” dudes are doing games 72 times faster and eating caviar while coding new expansions.

Close the worst thing that a developer can do is:

1. Start learning C++
2. Start doing a “game engine” for his new C++ powered game
3. Do everything from scratch using C++, since “it’s a huge timesaver after getting the engine done – after that ‘making the game is simple’”
4. Rinse and repeat for 11 years calling himself “pro for being a Real game developer”

Oh dear.

P.S. With that being said, there ARE fine opportunities on C++ side as well. If you use frameworks and engines and libraries and shit and don’t do everything by yourself. You can be a C++ coder and actually get games done. But that doesn’t mean C++ would somehow be superior to other languages/tools. For me, C++ was bit like eating nails and BlitzMax like drinking ice water in the desert. I’m choosing the ice water. It suits me much better and doesn’t make my stomach hurt.

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But then I was facing a new dilemma: The learning curve.

I started Blitz3D coding in 2001 and then moved to BlitzMax few years back, and I feel that I have pretty solid understanding on how these blitz machines work. I’m looking at iPhone/other game dev possibilities and with Blitz I was stuck.

Learning Shiva or Unity wouldn’t perhaps be a massive amount of work, but nevertheless it would take some time to get familiar with the tools.

Something mysterious happened yesterday. By accident, I came across with this blog post by the maker of Blitz-series. He had announced month ago that there will be this new Blitz version that’s directly aimed to support different platforms (HTML5, Java, iPhone, Android etc.).

Here’s the solution, dropped right into my lap

I was thrilled to see this happening. I could build on top of my existing experience, and simply continue working with BlitzMax with the knowledge that at some point there will (most likely) be this mobile opportunity. Of course there’s still question marks in the development (what stuff is really supported, how will iPhone stuff be done, what’s the time schedule) but as I’m keen to get my hands dirty with coding (rather than invest time in learning a new engine) I feel that the solution is simple:

I just do blitzmax stuff, and see after few months how’s the new blitz “iPhone” doing there. I’m building a game prototype, yet getting more experience which can help me with the iPhone development.

And this also means that I get a few months to see how the iPhone OS4 really works and if it’s something worth diving into.

It’s nice when pieces fall into right places effortlessly.

UPDATE: Looks like it might not be possible to do iPhone stuff with this new bmax. The Apple licence is somewhat iffy on this part. Trying to figure out how it really goes. I’m slightly positive about this.

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Android is relatively new thing in the mobile genre, but it’s going bigger.

I’ve never owned any smart phone (I’ve always thought that the owners need to be smarter than phones), only dumb ones. Now, lately I’ve been sliding into this mobile area. Why? Not sure, but here’s some thoughts on top of my head (these are all just thoughts and ideas in random order – I’ve yet to make any decent moves):

• Non-game development wise I’ve seen that a handy camera recorder would come… handy. These new mobile phones have it. And then there’s of course that email and web and… stuff. But enough of these, now more on the game dev thoughts:
• Scope: indie projects on PC have the risk of becoming Grand Projects (been there). Somehow the whole scope of mobile apps is smaller. Budgetwise this also sounds pretty neat.
• Coolness factor: starting mobile development would give me bragging rights in parties. I could show off what I’ve done.
• Many board games could possibly translate well into a mobile games. I’m a board game guy too, and this is one reason for thinking mobile game development. Some big names like Reiner Knizia have mentioned that they would want to see more board games in the video gaming world (didn’t specify platforms though).
• I’ve been looking into Unity and Shiva game engines and both have good opportunities to do PC and Mac and iPhone/iPod/iPad games (Shiva raises the bar by supporting also Android). I’m currently checking Shiva and going through tutorials (liked Unity resources/tutorials/examples and syntax slightly more I must say)
• Android market is totally new. It has tons of potential (which fellow indie dev kindly reminded me, alongside the fact that you can try development without a Mac). One small concern with potential market size for Android games it that they support Flash. And pretty close to every top seller iPhone app is a direct Flash clone. (So Android owners can just play these Flash games for free, maybe). This is just me thinking out loud, no any solid stats to back up any claims.
• Market is not saturated. Well, I don’t think “casual games” market or “PC games” market for that matter is any more saturated. Heck, they keep saying that “PC gaming is dead” for decades now, and it’s doing better than ever thanks to digital distribution. Some people say that “iPhone games market is saturated”, but hell… there’s only a some million iphones sold and 6 billion people on this planet (I recall there’s over 6 billion mobile phones in this planet to put things into perspective). Smart phones app market is going to be much higher, ask any unbiased mobile analytic.

But all these boil down to “what do I want to do?” and “what would be fun for me?” Right now I’ve stopped prototyping with BlitzMax and testing the Shiva waters (Unity in my back pocket) since I see that these tools have so much things done & ready for me… and they are also good for the next wave of gaming.

Bottom line is: I’ll test things with Shiva (and have backup plan to test more things with Unity, and glimpse of iPhone 2D stuff like Cocos2D), and see how this thing goes. First I can try PC development with this, but then I keep in mind the fact that the mobile stuff is moving fast. Couple of days ago I was thinking how Android market wields such an opportunity that one gotta act now to be in the front lines.

I really don’t know. All sort of mobile stuff circling inside my head. What you think of all this, what you think of mobile gaming?

The good news is that my next step is clear: whether I want to do mobile dev or not, I’m on solid waters with Shiva since it can do everything that I could want. Continuing learning…

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If you have heard some horror stories (or know any links to blogs), could you share them?

I’d like to get some clarity and know more what are the facts.

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So, let’s here see some votes.

And what does the result tells about us game developers?

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They are fancy looking business plans.

I sort of like to take a totally different approach in this. First I define the target market, which is me.

Then I do stuff that I like (online multiplayer, traitor game), thinking of what kind of stuff I’ve bought (I’ve spend money on downloadable games, but not a cent on browser games – so it sort of makes sense to try out with downloadable ones).

It also helps in gameplay decisions. I keep asking myself: what do I like?

Might sound arrogant and selfish, and it might feel like I don’t want feedback from others but I see this actually to be quite the opposite… well, at least from the arrogant part. Is it selfish? Hell yeh, but that’s the reason why I’m doing this stuff. I want to have fun. And when I’m having fun… chances are that others might find my gaming stuff fun as well.

Is it arrogant to do what I like? I think not. I’m still receptive to ideas (after all I like getting feedback), but I simply want to stay in control. It’s like in the Dead Wake development. One guy suggested rocket launchers and lasers in the game. I said “No. Never going to happen.” I didn’t like those rocket launchers and they certainly would not have fit in the gameplay. Good ideas that fit the game, these are more than welcome.

When I’m thinking myself as the customer, many questions become easier to answer.

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Technically this is not so big deal that this couldn’t be done with a fully browser based system. There’s just some things that make me want to use downloadable version:

• I have experience in promoting downloadable (I could imagine getting the game to gaming magazines, but I’d have doubt if a browser game could make it)
• Downloadable games feel “worth more”, thus perhaps making it easier to sell the game. (Of course browser based games are big ones, but at least to me the feeling of “getting the game to my own computer” makes it somewhat more “valuable” to me compared to playing something in browser. Perhaps this is just me.)
• It’s possible to get portals/distributors to promote the game. They are not accepting browser games in Steam you know…
• Music and sounds. With the web technologies I’m familiar (HTML/PHP/JavaScript/AJAX/CSS) there’s practically no possibility to get proper sounds or music in the game. And I intend to keep it non-flash (since I’m the guy who is going to code the game anyway). And music and sounds play an important role in the feelings side of things.

Now there’s just some tiny technical issues that are already solved on the browser games:

• Technically browser based game is very straightforward: just do bit of HTTP calls and throw in some AJAX and things are cool.
• Nobody needs to download anything – sharing the fun gets so easy.

Which leads to my next point. I started imagining that I could simply “port” the browser client into a Blitzmax downloadable version (which would still do http calls). The thing here is that in downloadable game I would (possibly) want something slightly faster than inside a browser. This means that “polling game server every few seconds” is slightly silly, and I’d need a better option for this. I’m wondering if creating one big server (which would handle all games) using for example UDP be a wise move. Or whether I should do UDP server-client systems, and let each player host their own games (here’s the issues with NATs and shite which I really don’t want.)

To me the next thing is to see what kind of technical limitations the downloadable system has, and any tips on this would be most appreciated.

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Here’s some ways to get those games at your disposal!

1. Beg! Don’t beg the developer (that just annoys the developer and makes you look stupid), beg your parents! (that just annoys the parents, but they give in – eventually they always will) If you do the laundry and rake the grass, in no time your parents will give you those 10 bucks (or whatnot) to get yourself that game!
2. Beg more! If your parents think that 20 bucks is “too expensive” then tell them that you will work for 5 bucks per month. No parent can resist this offer!
3. Contribute in the development team’s discussion forums – become a moderator and act like a sane person. In no time you’ll receive fame & glory, and of course the game for pro bono.
4. Set up a fan blog dedicated to the game. Write tons of posts and get people to visit the game site. In no time, a copy of the indie game is yours!
5. Do a video about the game and get it in everybody’s face. Then humbly go and ask if you could get a copy.
6. Participate in contests: the developers have all sort of nice contests where you can win stuff. And the game.
7. Offer to translate the game! Many devs are more than willing to give a copy of the game in exchange for a translation.

Bonus tips:

1. Become a game tester (by hermitC)
2. Become a games reviewer (by Andy)

Or just skip a few beers, spend that money in the game and you should be just fine.

Sober too.

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This made my life easier… and I’ll stick with minimalistic art style for my stealth game prototype.

And hey, if Monaco does it, I feel I’m on quite safe waters here.

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I’ve done some research on the gaming side and noticed plenty of “issues” with some games that try to be stealth games. For example, Escape from Alcatraz (PC) game degenerates into so much trial/error/restarting – and then some shooting & bombing that it goes quite far away for what I think a prison escape game should be (there’s some good ideas in that game – checked the demo – but I feel that it’s not going to be a threat). I read the review for Splinter Cell: Conviction, and there’s immediate issue with it. It’s no more so much a stealth game, but rather action game. It’s so much about killing.

That’s where I see opportunity. The good ol’ C64 times. No killing.

Instead, the prototype aims to offer “planning your escape”, “gathering materials for it”, “executing the escape” – with stealth as well.

I’ll continue working on the gameplay design, and then it’s time to do some coding.

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Now if only tax-man would agree with me that these really are company expenses.

You ever fall into this trap of hoarding “research material” for your game?

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• Dogs stealing food
• Fox(es) stealing chickens, avoiding farmers
• Supernatural aspects for ninjas: ki powers that help transform the ninjas into animals, appearance of ghosts, and adding other supernatural things.
• Jailbreak, like escaping from Alcatraz (although this has been done many times – remember the old C64 game where you needed to escape from a nazi camp?)
• Cavemen: scavenging for food and tools, while avoiding T-Rex and other known animals that always eat human beings. Camp building and things like that.
• School: kids avoiding teachers, classes, and stuff that kids do. (Not very inspiring to me right now, but I’m listing this idea here anyway)

Any other ideas to add on the list? Comments on these?

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I want the game to be about that one-timer experience (which as an ice hockey term might be slightly confusing): the levels will be made so that both players are needed for the victory. A pretty good example is in a below video: (where other guy distracts the guard by making noise from the “shadows”, while the other guy gets the key when the guard is distracted)

Research
In the last years, I hardly even remember playing single-player games (well, a bit yes, but not much) and most of my gaming experience comes from online multiplayer games. It’s left to see whether this experience will show in creating the game, but I have confidence in creating the game such that I would enjoy… and then of course if some others that’s an added bonus.

I started by doing some research and here’s some articles (and a video) about games that use stealth in some form.

Shinobido: Way of the Ninja

1UP: What Stealth is

Splinter Cell: Conviction Co-Op Map Walkthrough Video

Handbook for stealth games:

New stealth games we would kill to play:

In case you have any good resources to share, please feel free to let me know.

What makes stealth & co-op fun?
Here’s some – very few – points that I like in co-op & stealth games.

I loved the L4D system where you need to help the other guy up when he is down. That’s a bloody simple (and probably very unrealistic, since the guy starts running the minute he is up) and it works brilliantly. I could imagine having something similar: a guard (or two) gets the other ninja surrounded, but the other ninja can come throw smoke bomb to help the other guy vanish.

In Army of Two, there was similar: one guy cannot climb up to a high cliff, but when the one guy first pushes the other upwards he can then give hand and help also the first guy up to the cliff. Brilliant.

I could imagine having system where one ninja could give hand signals to the other ninja (like: “drop now!”) who cannot see the guards, and must trust on the hand signals.

Or, after getting to a tower, the first ninja can throw a rope to the other who can then climb up. I bet there’s tons of different and simple ideas which translate into fun* gaming experience.

*fun = here of course meaning the sort of fun that *I* like

And stealth is fun when it’s done like in Thief (or Hitman). In Thief you had to stay in the shadows and guards went pass you. Thief’s 1st person mode probably adds a dimension that I cannot replicate (due the fact that I will do 2D prototype), but we’ll see if something similar can be received.

Lights were also very important in Thief, although I won’t have dynamic lights and the “dark areas where you can hide” are probably differently done.

And of course stealth is about stealth: moving silently without killing anyone. In some games you could execute kills (which was pretty fun in Hitman), but I’ve yet to decide if I want to have that sort of stuff in the game. If I see that giving the possibility to do stealth kills helps build the co-op experience (like the ninjas simultaneously killing 2 guards from the shadows) then I can consider it, but there’s already so many action oriented stealth games (read: all of the current “stealth” games are like that), that I’m better off by focusing more on stealth rather than action.

The last – and most important – part of co-op games are of course human players. That’s why I design the game to be played online with other people first (and solo play is just “added bonus”). It’s the humans that bring variety into any game. Even though it might sound stupid but there’s not a single repetitive game in NHL ‘10 when you go play online. All the matches are different – since there’s humans.

Next steps
Of course this is still in a very, very, very early prototype level and after more stuff gets done and if the prototype feels interesting enough, I’ll consider doing a game out of it. Right now I feel that I’m getting forward with this and have been working on a (very simple) game design document while doing the prototype.

And of course I’ve drawn some new ninja graphics.

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Year or two back I’d be worried.

Today, I’m not.

I have a couple of reasons why:

• Look at the game who won Indie Grand Prize at GDC 2010 – Monaco is a co-op multiplayer game.
• Secondly: I’m not going to forget single-players, although multiplayers come first, and “solo play” is just an added bonus. How? Well, it’s in my interest to make so that one player can guide those 2 ninjas with one keyboard (perhaps by TAB-switching between the controlled ninja, or by simply controlling one with ASDW keys and the other with ARROW keys). With this being said and done, the game is designed for 2 player co-op.

But these two reasons for me are somewhat “external excuses/arguments over why one should do multiplayer” to which have quite little meaning to why I’m doing this stealth game prototype.

The most important reason:

• I’m interested in doing a game that I’d wanna play. I’ve done some single player games earlier, but the games I play are only online multiplayer. (L4D, NHL ‘10, Zombie Panic and so on). This is the biggest reason why I’m doing a co-op game. Perhaps it’s tricky to succeed, but… I have a good feeling about this. Going to follow my guts here.

After all, that’s why we are blessed of having guts. We need something to follow.

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I did check some BlitzMax archives, and was hoping to find some libraries but couldn’t find suitable yet. (It’s too late now anyway, so I’m better off by checking things tomorrow).

Here’s some articles I googled regarding 2D line of sight – seemed to have some decent info:

• Simple Line of Sight
• Line of Sight Algorithm for Tile Based Games
• Bresenham’s line algorithm

Any relevant links are most welcome.

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A section from that article:

The secret to Farmville’s popularity is neither gameplay nor aesthetics. Farmville is popular because in entangles users in a web of social obligations. When users log into Facebook, they are reminded that their neighbors have sent them gifts, posted bonuses on their walls, and helped with each others’ farms. In turn, they are obligated to return the courtesies. As the French sociologist Marcel Mauss tells us, gifts are never free: they bind the giver and receiver in a loop of reciprocity. It is rude to refuse a gift, and ruder still to not return the kindness.[11] We play Farmville, then, because we are trying to be good to one another. We play Farmville because we are polite, cultivated people.

What’s your take on this?

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@aquito what’s the difference between “online multiplayer game” and a “social game”?

His reply was:

@gameproducer No definitive difference but leveraging a pre-existing network of friends on a social platform for play differentiates ‘SGs’

For more definitions, see yesterday’s blog post defining social games. Don’t forget to check the comments too.

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social games = crap that you use to spam your “friends”

I’ve also heard this:

social game = boooooooring

Or:

social game = facebook + “grow the snowball” gameplay

And then something like these:

social games = games that promote player cooperation and has viral aspects to help players to network with other players and their friends.

But, these aren’t really good definitions. For example, by the last definition, NHL ‘10 could be considered a social game: it has clubs, team searches, friends lists, and definitely cooperation and collaboration (in case you want to win games). It has tons of the elements of a social game (maybe it is a social game then).

What about World of Warcraft?

It’s been here for 7 million years already and it was considered as a “massively multiplayer online” game. Nobody said in 2004 how WoW is a “social game”. WoW like has every single element of a social game me thinks.

I don’t know how these “social games” differ from “online multiplayer games”, and would very much like to hear somebody to explain this in very simple terms.

What are these “social games”?

P.S. I Aki Järvinen about this, maybe we’ll get a reply from him.

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Meanwhile, I was doing some brainstorming for game ideas and preparing the design in my head.

I got to a point where I wanted to code something (after some basic “I try play part of the game using sheet of paper and a pen”) and decided to simply pick BlitzMax for the prototype and go forward. At this point I don’t know what platform I will use, but I’m familiar with Bmax so it was a pretty good thing to pick for some prototyping.

This might seem like a pretty obvious (“for prototypes, pick some tool you are familiar with”) but sometimes obvious things go unnoticed… because they are so obvious.

For me this somewhat works and I’ve encountered certain game design challenges, which has taken me back to poo walks and some pen & paper sketching (it’s so much faster to write & try some ideas on paper compared to coding them).

And the best part is that I feel no pressures from anywhere: I’m enjoying this whole thing, having fun, and have a feeling that I’m onto something good here.

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• The Near Future of Viral Design in Social Games (and an article mentioning this)
• As Apple’s Social Gaming Plans Emerge, Mobile Social Developers Respond and Apple iPhone 4 Upgrade Shows New Focus on Social Games, Developers, and Monetization (if Apple is doing it, one gotta check it out)
• Social games publisher valuations (there’s money involved in all this)

(Found these articles via Twitter #socialgames channell by the way.

Any good articles to share? Let’s make a bigger list together, m’kay?

Update:
And more links from you readers:

• Jeff Tunnel on Zynga valuation (link from lonestarr)
• Inside social games (link from Jake)
• Games for Social Networks by Aki Järvinen (something I recently spotted)

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Well, during the 30 minutes period outdoors I came up with an alternative approach to my design. Now the problem was that:

• I was in the middle point of the trip
• I’m outdoors
• Two dogs to walk
• One of them was pooing
• My game idea needed to be stored somehow

So, I don’t carry a notepad, iPhone, Playstation 3 or any other vehicle with me in these situations, so I needed to trust my memory. When I got back home I was happily forgotten everything. Then I started thinking what I had already solved. Well, luckily I remembered my outdoor solution and also – while writing things down on paper – came up with a few additional ideas for certain issues. All was good.

This isn’t the case always. I find it extremely important to write/draw down any potential ideas/solutions so that I don’t forget them.

But how to dot down ideas that come in the middle of something like this – when you are taking the dogs out. Or when you are jogging. What devilish devices you carry with you?

Oh, and please don’t tell me that you’ve solved this by: “I don’t go out”.

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Hmm. I start to like my monster art more and more every day.

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Yesterday I stopped stopping, and knocked together some prototyping based on game ideas I had. I actually don’t know yet what will come out of this and what platform this will be (or what theme) but I’m using my cute monster warriors to help me out.

This is prototyping the actual challenge in the game, and the actual roles could at this point be pretty much anything (from zombie survivors to samurais to chi masters to whatnot). Now the first aim is to test how the conflict could work out.

Stop sign
Instead of trying to run, for me it felt good to stop. It feels good to look for the right direction and test the waters a bit before jumping in the pool.

Sort of makes sense in real life too.

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Well, this is not the case in EA’s NHL ‘10 for PS3.

Yesterday I thought to play one match and it was pretty good game, except that I don’t remember anything else than the “yoohoo” sound that one of the players kept saying every now and then. When the game was about to begin, somebody was saying “yoohoo” (with a high pitch) in the game. When there was a first face-off, I could hear “yoohoo”. After the first goal, another “yoohoo” took place. After the first period, again this bloody “yoohoo” came there. (If you’ve seen Ace Ventura 2 movie, where Ace was doing those “yoohoo” sounds in the presentation room you might get the picture about how this sounds).

Bloody annoying, and I have no clue how to mute that guy when the game is going. In Valve’s games they tell you (1) who said the thing and (2) give you the possibility to mute him. In NHL ‘10, you are left with the only possibility to rant about in your blog about the lack of the mute button.

Well, enough ranting for today. Prototyping has been going well and I believe I have something to show shortly*.

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I ended up drawing these lil’ chaps here.

Look, they can even bloody animate:

And with awesome background coloring:

I might give this guy (= that would be me) a test run and do something and see how this turns out. My skills are probably at least enough for some prototyping.

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Pros

• I don’t need to think about doing/finding/buying good looking art: that’s what the artist can do.
• Development budgetwise it could be a good move.
• Two guys can motivate each other and bounce ideas back and forth.

Cons

• Losing some control over things: artist (in my opinion) needs to do his thing which is totally cool – I want The Art Guy to have control over what kind of art he does. It’s the “game design ideas” and “how this game should work” of losing control is a potential pitfall. (Of course by looking from the bright side one could say that 2 guys can end up having much better design than just one guy)
• Delays in decisions and stuff: when there’s 2 people involved in something, things are several times more complex than they ever will be when there’s just one guy doing something. But hey… if I wanna create a cooperative game, perhaps it makes sense to cooperate with somebody in the development phase as well?
• Finding a good match is no easy thing to do. (But luckily miracles happen… I’ve noticed this after simply posting on my blog that things start to roll forward. This blog is like a wish well – I’ll throw some ideas on wall and see some of them sticking. Who knows, maybe something good will follow from this blog post as well…)

You’ve seen my game ideas. I’m now pondering whether to find an artist to team up with. I’d handle programming. Artist would handle art. Rest of the stuff would be fought about.

(Just kidding.)

What you think? Which way you are currently going?

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Tools.

Torque2D comes quite close, but not sure how much Torquescripting would be needed and I have some prejudices against Torquescript. Unity could handle also 2D but the discussions that took place in the forums suggest me that there’s some gamestopper issues with the networking (all sort of hacks needed for master server to get it working online for example)

Any recommendations for a 2D online multiplayer game engine?

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My recent plays in PS3 NHL ‘10 gave me one answer: “one-timer

Now, what I really like is the last point. There’s 2 human players. Both players need to cooperate well: one guy needs to go to the right place to wait for the puck to arrive, the other guy obviously needs to find a good place to pass the puck… and actually do the pass (sometimes you see players who simply want to shoot the puck instead of passing).

When one-timer is performed well, I can enjoy the fruits of excellent cooperation. Those one-timers are something I really enjoy in playing the game (in PS3).

So – there’s puck, there’s shot – like who cares? What this have to do with zombie browser game stuff?
Patience grasshopper.

I read doctor Reiner Knizia saying that when he designs new board games he thinks of “what kind of experience the player wants?”. I recently read The Art of Game Design (Book of Lenses) which mentions the same thing. When I’ve done games stuff in the past, I’ve been thinking of it but I’ve been perhaps more interesting in the mechanisms.

Now, with my “one-timer experience” in my pocket I pondered my game idea candidates and did some “playing in my head” (while in sauna) and it became obvious that there’s a conflict in my thinking. I would wanna create such game that would help players feel this “one-timer experience”, and if I was to create a battle game, that would not happen.

In fact, if I look from cooperative perspective, there’s a few game ideas that meet this criteria:

• (Zombie) browser tactical game where 2 unequal forces compete against each other, with several human players on both sides.
• Co-op stealth game
• Traitor game

If there would be some changes in concepts, some of the other ideas could perhaps also meet the “is aimed to create a one-timer experience” requirement:

• If the tactical battle game would change from 1 human vs 1 computer to 2 sides where there’s for example 3 human players on each side, it might have a chance. Although somehow I fear that it might degenerate into not so fun “rts” with balancing issues.
• If my “ice hockey career” game would take place online, it might be actually quite interesting. Not sure exactly how it would be possible to get that “one-timer experience” but I think there might be ways.

Is “one-timer experience” really the experience I want to provide?
This is a tough question, and it goes back to answering to this question: to multiplay or not?. I’m somewhat leaning into working on a multiplayer game, but same time I has some considerations regarding the scope of the game. Well, maybe a prototyping reveals something useful for me.

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I was first thinking of simply using BlitzMax for testing, but then I took a step back and thought that “I might as well do pen & paper prototypes first”. With that being said… I’ve now done some planning on what the goals of these games and then doing some prototyping by using a deck of cards.

It does require a bit of imagination but I’m confident that this will save tons of my time and reveal if the ideas are worth pursuing.

If deck of cards is not enough, I’ll put a few pocket chips in the table… and take pen & paper too.

It’s not like prototyping requires a single line of code me thinks.

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One obvious advantage is that you can render very high polygon objects in 2D (as in Lylian game for example). Another reason could be if you are doing a physics based game and want to stick in 2D (thinking of Crayon Physics)

Besides these, is there any reason? Why not use 3D engine, and then render stuff in 2D?

(I’m talking about downloadable indie games, not Flash games for example)

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You perhaps could share a link or two and lead me near to some good articles?

Or perhaps share your own experience.

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As mentioned in my earlier post, I’m trying to climb to a higher level in game making. I like scripting and adding content – not all the technical stuff.

I checked Unity3D. I’ve been reading tutorials already, checked some things from the forum, ordered & read a book about it and toyed around a bit. (Okay, all this took like a few days in total, so I’ve really gone through Unity fast-forward mode digesting all the information about it). It seems a reasonable candidate for game development plans I have (more on these below)

Here’s list of things that are currently on top of my head right now:

• Block stacking type of game. I’m very proud of my Highpiled game. It’s fun game. It has potential to be a really cool game. It’s also technically relatively easy game to create – it’s more about content. I have several ways how this could become a cool casual game. I’m not totally sure if portals would accept it, but it’s possible. I think it would also be good way to get familiar with Unity.
• Another block game. I have some other ideas on how to approach the whole block stacking thing, and I suppose there are some ways to make a more portal friendly block game. But if we forget portals – would making this be fun? Quite possibly. Even if it would be just a prototype, it would be a nice way to test the waters with Unity.
• Dead Wake 2 (or porting Dead Wake to Unity). At the moment this option is probably the lowest in my hierarchy (due the fact that I don’t have Unity experience so much), and that it would require something more in the game (besides of course the suicide-for-point feature). I can see ways how this could be fun.
• Edoiki: Couple of years ago I ended Edoiki development (mainly for the reason that the project was too big for me). I now have some fresh ideas which resonate into something like “thief meets crimsonland” type of genre. I think adding stealth in the Arkanoid genre (since that’s what Crimsonland and other games are: if you sit down for a moment to think about you’ll agree with me). It would mean quite new design for Edoiki, but somehow it might be a cool thing to do. And now I’d have better tools and skills to pull the project successfully in the end. I have no doubt on that.
• Hidden object game: I sort of hate all the current hidden object games. Yet, I’d wanna make a hidden object game that I like. Must be something in my water.
• Guards: There has been this one game I’ve wanted to do earlier. It was about having several mini-games inside one bigger game. It would be easy way to prototype (since one mini-game is a really small thing) and continue development – or stop it – after doing 1 or 19 mini-games. It would be bit like doing “prototypes”, but using the same theme & graphics style in one game. The mini games could be about a “guard doing his training”.
• Traitor game: This is something that’s practically not used in video games. There are social/party games (like Mafia / Werewolf) and board games (such as Battlestar Galactica) which have brought me the best gaming moments ever in my life and are – in my opinion – something that would work also in computer screen if produced well. In these games, there is one (or sometimes more) traitor in the group… yet nobody knows who it is and the accusations fly over the room. Since it requires multiplayer (at least 3 people, preferably more) it’s slightly more complex to do – if wanted to do properly. IRC/forum versions just don’t quite do the trick. A better approach would be needed.
• Or something totally different: As you can see. Getting ideas is the easy part. The 0,01% part of the game production.

I’m leaning into “Unity + the simplest possible game to make” formula, but we’ll see. You are free to comment (bearing in mind my new ignore everybody attitude).

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Here’s some more of them:

Pay for the stuff you are actually going to use
Dead Wake was a game where I did actually put quite a bit of money into. Engines, tools, programming aid, art, animations. There was quite a bit of stuff where I put money. In retrospect I can say that there was some stupid purchases (like the fact that I paid for some animations that never got in the final game – that’s just plain silly and the lesson is “pay for the stuff you actually aim to use”). But the good thing is that I chose to *pay* for stuff.

Many, many years ago I tried to do everything on my own since “it was too expensive to pay for other”. Well – I figured it out that instead of trying to do everything by myself, I should – like you know – get other people to do stuff they are good. And focus my own efforts on something else.

Indies shouldn’t do “realistic” looking art
I think one thing that made the project take longer than I anticipated, was the fact that I chose a “slightly realistic” (as in comparison to for example “cartoony”) approach. Okay, those low poly zombies look low poly, but the dark atmosphere in game and all suggested that the stuff needs to look pretty realistic.

I feel that artwise this caused some issues. People expected “more” from things. Shadows needed to look really good, and barrels needed to look barrels. And getting such art might not be so easy… and the fact that AAA studios are doing ultra-good looking art (just look at Alan Wake screenies for example) it means that I’m sort of a competing in a league where I shouldn’t be.

It is somewhat “easier” to go with perhaps more cartoony look or something like that. If gamers see a cellshaded cartoony indie game they say “cool!”, but if they see “realistic” looking game that does not match AAA games they say “this looks crap”.

(Okay, they didn’t say that to me – but I felt that I was somewhat competing with Left 4 Dead art for example. Naturally my game has tons of better shadows, but hey – maybe Valve is learning.)

Sticking to what is important
There were many type of suggestions from the Dead Wake community members. One very early suggestion was “bazookas”.

It was pretty easy to say “No.” to that.

The game is not about bazookas. Play quake live if you want bazookas. You ain’t going to find them from my game.

Making it moddable (by use of scripting)
One of the very early approaches for me was that I made my own system for doing “templates” in the game. Each object has a template: weapons, zombies, objects… and all are simple text files that can be edited in Notepad or something.

I initially thought that this would be for modding, but later realized that this actually was really fast & easy way for me to edit numbers. I could change different values and test them in the game pretty easily. I didn’t need to alter game code to be able to try different weapon damage values.

Consider leaving controversial features in the game
One of the features that I accidentally had programmed early in the game (something like in version 0.5) was that the guy could shoot himself.

Yes, that’s correct. I had made it so that bullets hit any person, so you could shoot yourself in the game.

I don’t know many games where you can do a suicide, and considered leaving that feature. Some community members thought “it was hilarious”. I even considered making it so that the player could get some bonuses for shooting himself with the last bullet. I wasn’t trying to promote suicidal behavior, I was simply thinking how they do this in zombie movies. Sometimes the people in zombie movies leave one bullet for themselves. So, in a way it could fit the theme.

I didn’t leave that version there, but in retrospect I think it could have got a pretty good publicity & made a “nice” viral marketing thing.

(In the end my technology change so that the feature was “automatically gone away” and it would have required work to code it in the game again. I suppose I thought it wasn’t worth it – and perhaps some people could have found it disturbing. Who knows, maybe in Dead Wake 2…)

Multiplayer was there too soon
I started the game with multiplayer in my mind. I think that I was trying to test the multiplayer option perhaps too soon (and was too low-level in it) and this cause more of those “engine dev” instead of “game dev” stuff.

Ditching stuff (like multiplayer)
The good thing was that after using Leadwerks engine for some time I decided to “drop the multiplayer for now”. I thought that it would require quite a bit of work and that I would do it later “if I had time”.

Well, I didn’t – so it was good that I decided to leave it later.

I think multiplayer is another feature that would greatly add interest in the game, but it would have been simply too much work at that time – so it was good that I decided to focus on other things.

Have a great art pipeline
I had a horrible art pipeline. Leadwerks has many good features, but the art pipeline isn’t one of them. The engine uses its own internal models (which is good for efficiency) and there’s tons of plugins available for exporting yor models from pretty much any format… but for me this took tons of time to do.

I bought some art packs, but needed to do all sort of pipeline work to get .X files to become working .GMF files in the game. It’s can be a huge timesaver to have a good art pipeline available.

Over and out
That’s it for now.

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“I love the whole zombie barricade thing. The objects hold well enough to stop the zombies, yet they can push through at a reasonable rate. It’s pretty scary when your barriers start breaking down and they come for you.”

“Once I figured out the game was about preparing your defences it started making interest. Kind of slightly reminds me these siege games like ‘the hord’ which I was playing when I was a kid.”

I hoped that people would get this type of feeling, and seeing that some people have experienced this.

After listening to tons of ideas, implementing some of them in the game, leaving some out and hearing ideas on “how to make things better” (at the time of writing there’s hundreds of threads and replies in the “suggest ideas” Dead Wake sub-forum) is cool - but I must admit that after doing the game it’s also pretty cool to hear some good stuff about the thing you’ve created.

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At one point I tried doing stuff with 2 monitors. The end result was that I didn’t like it. To me, the gap between monitors is irritating. Therefore I simply like using a solid one monitor. Large screen enuf and good resolution enuf to handle several windows in my view.

How you like to work? With one monitor. Two? Or perhaps even more?

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What about you. Do you purchase games that come with physical boxes? Do you like going to supermarkets checking out for some new games to add to your collection?

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Pretty darn cool.

Interesting that the game was priced $1. Would have been pretty sweet to know how much the game would have sold when priced $2. Or $5. Or $25.

Congraz to the developer - awesome job.

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• globalgamejam.org - by IGDA
• igf.com - The big Indie game conference thing. You all know it.
• unity3d.com/contest/ - Unity has their own
• experimentalgameplay.com/ - the prototyping site.
• udevgames.com - by iDev Games. (Don’t know how regular this is nowadays)
• ludumdare.com - good thing, experimentation.

Please help fill the list.

Update:
Here’s several more from you readers:

• TIGsource
• Kokoromi (GAMMA4)
• IndieCade
• Sense of Wonder Night (Tokyo Game Show)
• Indie Games Arcade (Eurogamer Expo)
• Indie Bay Competition (48 hour contest)
• Fizzy
• Game Jolt
• BlitzMax (BlitzMax Community contests)

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I can remember this
journal entry of mine from year 2002.

Those were the times.

Any other old-blitz-farts there missing Blitzcoder?

I really wonder what causes this. What is so special about a virtual place that brings you so many good memories… that you actually sort of miss it. Strange.

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I think I have seen Dropbox earlier, but never really tested nor used it. It might actually prove to be pretty good idea for many things. The basic idea is to have a “shared folder” where you can put your data and access from different computers. The security got me thinking though. If the file syncing happens via some sort of online system, then it is a potential security issue. Yes, they are using encryption, but if the files are online… it’s a potential risk. And this means one gotta think carefully what file to put there.

Have you guys used Dropbox or some similar service. What would you recommend? Has it been a good idea? How has it worked for you?

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