The Emerald Blog

We are Emerald Digital Entertainment, an indie video game studio. This is our blog.

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Get rapid prototypin' yo.

Ever find yourself investing your time and coffee on something you really like, and wondering "What if no one likes it? What if I'm losing my precious time?". Ever feel like you lose direction on that good ol' project of yours? Ever wish that you could get a glimpse from the future -from the time when your project is finished- to see if people will like it?

Well we got something that's just for you: Rapid Prototyping!

"What is this black magic thou speaketh of, o dark sorcerer, that will rid meself of all me worries?" - I hear you ask. Well, let me explain it, as it's the simplest of concepts.

Rapid prototyping, and Rapid Application Development, are RAD (see what I did there? Heh. No? Ok). They focus on development instead of planning, and are ideal for software products with an uncertain amount of features. Software + Uncertainty. Sound familiar? I'll give you a clue: Video games! Perfect for you!

Rapid prototyping can easily be applied to games by developing basic mechanics, using placeholder assets, etc, and asking friends and random people to play the scenes (please don't offer candy in exchange for their time, specially not to kids, specially not in a van, as it would be counter-productive, except if you get into the local news. Then it would be bad for you, but your game would get a lot of exposure. Anyway...). You can follow some basic steps to achieve a healthy rapid prototype:

Step 0: Be alive.

(Did you check that? Ok. Move forward)

Checking your pulse is a generally reliable way to know if you are alive.

Step 1: Have an idea you think you could make possible.

Step 2: Be clear about what it is you'll want to test. Is it mechanics? Is it the UI? Is it a whole RPG with multiple storylines and branching decisions and skill trees? If it is, go back to Step 1. Then design a scene where testing that will be possible.

Step 3: Build it. As quick as you can, with whatever resources you have at hand (placeholder images, free sounds, standard assets). As a rule of thumb, this shouldn't take more than a week or two (or one sprint, if you're using Scrum). If it's taking longer, repeat Step 2. Else, you could waste an awful amount of time, which is what we all should try to avoid!

Step 4: Test it. Test it with actual humans, not you, game-making alien. Getting honest feedback is the most valuable thing a developer can get. It might not be what you expected, and sometimes you won't like it, but if you take it humbly and tweak some things, it can and will make your game better.

Step 5: Decide. Based on the feedback you got, decide if it's something worth continuing or if you should move on to new ventures. If that's the case, make some changes.

Rinse and repeat!

Just like shampoo. Shhh, no tears.

Pros of rapid prototyping:

Saves you lots of time, as it makes it easier to see what's working and what is not.

Helps you focus, as you're developing and testing a certain set of features each iteration.

Prologue: Why do we know all this?

We didn't use it! And it wasn't good. Of course, we didn't know such possibility existed, so how could we, right? Right?! For our soon to be released game, Meteorz, we were using a Rapid Application Development approach -a kind of Scrum, we'd like to call it-, but never really had much contact with our potential players up until not-so-early stages of development. An that sucked. When we realized the myriad of things we should change, it was very frustrating. We really don't want that to happen to you!

We hope this is useful for you :)

Have a great dev,

The Emerald Team.

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A little teasin'

Besides FSC, we've been working in the first game we started developing as a studio: Meteorz (Yes, with a 'z'. That's how cool we are). It's been a year now, and it's been changed, rebuilt and torn apart. But now, the beginning is close and we feel that, any moment now, Meteorz will see the light, born into the games world. That is why we want people to know about it, so that when it's available, people will download it and play it.

Nevertheless, from our previous experience, we can definitely, positively, completely say that the most trickiest, difficult, epic part of making games (at least for people who know very little about marketing, like us). But Rodrigo (Meteorz's project manager) had a great idea:

*drumroll*

AN INTERACTIVE TEASER.

Behold! The mayhem, the chaos!

A teaser that shows the game's essence, that's quick and, hopefully, fun. And here it is: http://emerald-digital.com/teaser/meteorz/ . It's got music and all the good stuff! Hope you like it, and we'll be happy to hear what you think.

Have a great dev!

P.S: Meteorz's teaser was made with paper.js, a great javascript graphics framework that you should check out 4 defs.

[blog-emerald]

www.emerald-digital.com

There comes a time in the life of a video game studio when the need for a website emerges. That time is usually day zero, but between school, our projects, work and everything else, we didn't have the time to build our site. Nevertheless, more than a year after we started working together, here it is. It's alive and kicking, and comes with images and all (AWESOME, I KNOW, RIGHT??). it's www.emerald-digital.com. You can take a look at our projects, what we do, who we are, and even contact us to tell us how much you love indie studios :D Share if you like it!

P.S.: Sorry we haven't been posting as much. We promise to get back on track soon.

This cat is visiting our website. You should too. 

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A Game's Progress: Chapter 1

So we've learned a lot since we started making games. One of those things is not to wait until a game is "finished" to get user feedback. Come up with an idea, write it down, prototype it, test it, develop, test, develop, test, [magic happens], publish it.

To give you an idea of how dramatically things can change, let me show you one of our games' evolution!

Brief description: Football Soccer Club Attack is an endless runner where you have to jump and dodge opponents who'll try to take your football. The player swipes up or down to change lanes respectively, and taps to jump over tackling opponents. The more opponents you jump/dodge, the more points you get. You can download it for Android here ;) 

First Prototype.

Here we wanted to validate if the game's basic mechanics had potential. The player was represented by the leftmost square and the opponents were, well, also squares. Opponents would advance toward the player and they'd have to dodge'em or jump over them. GUI wasn't even present in this one!

"I see square people" D:

"Tackling opponents" were just rectangles that the player-square could jump.

Oh hi, Goro. Didn't know you were a sports dude.

Not much to say about this stage, really. We just wanted to see what buttons we would use in the GUI. Then added stick figures because, well, squares can get boring after a while. There was now a score, which you can see in the second image. I guess we didn't know it at that time, but it helped us validate the score system (1 passed opponent = 1 point).

The "Play Now" button was the only one that worked. Yep.

A stick figure, so fierce.

The (football) league of shadows

The Idea here was to show the scene's layout, the proportions and shapes. We also gave the main character a ball. The game's style was still being iterated upon, because form follows function. (So fancy, I know). You can also see the menu in the second image. Great stuff.

We soon added a "crowd", which you can see in the second image. It looked very messy at first, I know, but I promise it gets better.

We weren't even trying, were we?

Squares = people, again.

And then Odin said: Let there be color.

Here we were trying to visualize the game's color palette, and the basic style (if you look really carefully, you'll see the player is no longer a silohuette. Seriously). The main menu was pretty much the same, so no comment about it. The crowd was now very educated and organized. This part was very cool, because we thought the crowd - squares were gonna be placeholders for actual people sprites. Nevertheless, we realized players accepted them as people holding signs, so Rodrigo (the game designer), decided it'd be cool to leave them like that. It would then change a little bit, but its essence would remain.

BEWARE, THE SHADOW MAN WILL TAKE YOUR SOUL. ...And your football.

Is that a shadow beneath the character?

Although the camera had perspective, it looked a lot like it was isometric. Thus, players would often get confused with the characters movement, as translation in the Z Axis can look very much like Y Axis translation. Because of that, we added a shadow to make it clear in which lane the character was. We also had the menu's final version (at least until our next update) which I'll show you later.

The character was now animated, too, which is good for the game for like, y'know, not being crap.

Weeeheeee! Dodge, dodge, jump! Oh. Fudge. Weeeheeee! [...]

THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM

This is the final menu, which looked way cooler than the first version. The style is now defined! We also changed the crowd a little bit, lightening its colors and making patterns. We also reduced the number of square-people because of performance issues. The player's shadow turn into a ring, because some thought it looked weird that the opponents didn't have a shadow (VAMPIRES!).

The main menu.

U ready 4 this?

Main menu after the game is over.

A score of 0?! I wasn't ready 4 this.

AT LAST!

After many weeks of testing, we realized that players liked the game (a score of 4.91 in the Play store isn't really bad ;) ), but that they wanted more content. So we added a Hardcore Mode and achievements, which in turn unlock new colors for the character's uniform. We then had to rearrange the menus and add a new "changing room" scene.

À la mode. Dynamic. Fabulous. Sexy. The football player in the XXI Century.

42! I guess players will feel the support now with the square-people wearing their uniform's colors.

The point I'm trying to make is: A game should be an organic product, constantly changing and evolving. And developers should be able to change with it. Listen to players who are testing your game; they will appreciate it, and more often than not you'll hear interesting ideas from them.

Keep your mind open.

Have a great dev,

Juan Castillo @ Emerald

Go and like Football Soccer Club's facebook page to stay tuned!

FACEBOOK OF DESTINY

[polygondotcom]

The Witness dev targeting 60 fps frame rate at 1080p on PS4

The Witness developer Thekla Inc. is aiming for the open-world puzzle game to run at 60 frames per second in 1080p on PlayStation 4, studio head Jonathan Blow on the PlayStation Blog today.

"At launch on PS4, we’re planning to render at 1080p and 60 frames per second," said Blow, adding that while The Witness hits those marks in many areas, it’s going to take some more work to get the whole game up to par. Even though The Witness is a peaceful-looking first-person exploration game, there are no loading screens as players move around the game world; new areas are streamed in on the fly. Even elements in the distance are streamed at high detail, since the developers want to avoid pop-in.

(Link to the full story)

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Wow. Looking forward to this game.

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Publishing is nigh.

So! Long time no post. We've been very, very busy working on our soon-to-be-released mobile game, FSC Attack. Well, we've been busy doing that since February, but the thing is we are *this* close to publishing. Or so we thought.

FSC Attack was supposed to hit the digital shelves of the Google Play Store two weeks ago. We were counting on that because we had a stable beta version of the game and were ready to test. We were also counting on the beta tests taking no more than a week. Oh, and I almost forgot: we were counting on actual people actually joining the beta on the first day. Turns out we were very, very wrong. Of course there were awesome things about this experience, but first, let's get negative and take a look at our mistakes.

Thinking "This is the final build". No matter how much you test your game on your computer and on your test devices, someone WILL eventually find a way to break your game into pieces and dance on its ashes. Brace yourself, fixes are coming.

Thinking players will rush to get into the beta with no prior awareness / marketing campaigns. This may vary from game to game and, in my opinion, depends a lot on where and when you make your beta-inviting post. We now know facebook is not enough. (DUH!)

Thinking there will only be one beta. Your beta may (and probably will) lead to major changes. Major changes = new beta. New beta = publishing postponed. Plan ahead!

Overcompensating. If you realize something is not going right with your game while the testing is happening, think your changes through. When the beta started, the game was kind of easy, and some people were telling us they'd get bored after a while. We then turned difficulty up many notches, and (of course) they got very frustrated. Remember: put yourself in the player's position. They most probably don't know everything about it, like you.

Not enough kittens. Maybe we should have used more kittens in our beta invitation?

Is it too late? IS IT?

And now, some things we got right. (Yeah!)

Analytics. Although we set up a feedback form, some people that installed the game didn't fill it. The good thing is, we set up some custom analytics that allowed us to know more about the player's behavior and fine-tune some loose stuff.

Taking the time testing deserves. Staying alert for critical errors and common feedback is an important thing while testing. Respond quickly to them and show your players the time they took to test the game was worth the while. In the end, it's all about them. :)

I hope you find this useful! If you have any questions leave in the comments, we'll be happy to answer.

Have a great dev,

Juan Castillo

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Football Soccer Club Attack Beta!

We're looking for beta testers for FSC Attack! If you have an android device, join this community to be able to download the game from the Play Store. We're looking forward to get your feedback!

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FSC Attack & Some Thoughts on Publishing

For a while now, we've been working on Meteorz, our first game as a studio. Nevertheless, a moment came when the game just needed polishing, so we figured we could start developing another project in parallel.

We, ladies and gentlemen, are proud to present Football Soccer Club (FSC): our second child.

The idea came from Rodrigo and Juan Pablo -two of our team's five members-, who just love soccer/ football. We talked about it and thought it would be cool to develop it; after all, it comes from passion!  FSC combines the world of soccer with casual gaming, so everyone can play it anytime, anywhere.

But anyway, enough of shameless self-promotion. Let's get to the point! Because it is our second game, we really wanted to plan it well and avoid mistakes made before. We set some goals:

Focus on testing: It's all about players. If they don't get your game, they won't play it. Testing is the only way to know for sure how your game is going, so we wanted to do it as soon as possible in order to find out what was going according to plan -and what just wasn't working.

Focus on adding value: It's normal for ideas to flow freely when you're in a creative team, but even if some of them sound awesomely sweet, it's really important to think how they'll impact the game. Cool is different than necessary. Of course, if we were on schedule, we would think about adding more stuff.

It was because of the focus on testing goal that we made our first big decision. See, FSC is split into 4 core mechanics -which we'll reveal in time. But even if the game is supposed to be casual and simple, we realized it would take us some months to fully develop it. That is why we decided to take each core mechanic and turn it into its own game. Why, you ask? Because we want to perfect each aspect of FSC. By releasing them separately, we can -and hope to- get lots of feedback on each so at the end we know they're as fun as possible.

At the same time, we hope each of the mini-games will be noticed by football/ soccer fans that enjoy them and will help us inprove them -building a community around FSC.

We really think is a great way to improve the game, so we set out to it and decided the first mini-game we would release would be Football Soccer Club Attack (or FSC Attack as friends call it). We've been developing it for 2 months now and will publish it soon. We'll keep you posted on how this strategy goes, so keep an eye out for incoming posts!

We really hope this gives you something to think about. If you have questions, please leave them in the comments. We'll be happy to answer!

Have a great dev,

Rodrigo Díaz & Juan Castillo

@emeralDigEnt

Official Emerald fb page

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Surprise! Screenshot saturday. We'll tell you more about this project in a couple days :D

Stay tuned for updates!

https://www.facebook.com/footballsoccerclub

https://www.facebook.com/EmeraldDigitalEnt

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The indie way, or the highway?

We took the decision to take the indie road almost 1 year ago, so it seems like a good time to write about it. We've learned a few things here and there, but our lives have changed in many ways. So in case you're considering going indie, we hope this helps!

Creative independence vs. Economic stability.

Ah, the fresh air, the view of the road ahead. The sky above you. A few bucks in your pocket and an idea in your mind. You know you have to go forward, but where will it take you? No one knows. Making an independent game is a thrilling journey, and while you can develop your own vision, no one will catch you if you fall. Can you stand uncertain scenarios? Can you bear with working on a project without receiving a steady income? Will you be able to reject job offerings to keep working on your project? These are crucial questions to ask yourself before starting an indie project. Think hard, your time is a valuable and finite resource.

Chasing your dreams vs. Living a normal life.

Someone reading this might think "DUH, you have to chase your dreams, that's obvious!". Nevertheless, living a normal life is a totally acceptable choice -just not for everyone-. If you choose stability, you may be sacrificing your dreams, but if you choose to try to make your project a reality, you will have to make some difficult choices. You may have to pass on nights of partying and spending time with family and friends. If you have a boyfriend or a girlfriend, it will be difficult for them to understand your decisions. They may even choose not to be in the relationship anymore. Developing an independent game -and any project you're in love with, really- will take up a big part of your time. Be strong!

Setting up a team.

Chances are, if you're thinking about developing a game on your own, you'll need more people to work with you to fill knowledge voids in the various areas of expertise. If you're really lucky, you know people who are just as passionate about game dev and your project as you are, but it's more likely that you have to find them. Can you set up a team that's able to bring your project to life? Getting the right group of people together is difficult, so don't think everyone will love your idea right away.

Becoming a Jack of All Trades (and master of all).

From what we've seen, it's very rare that there are people in an indie team who specialize in business, marketing or PR, which means you'll have to become them too. That may mean overcoming shyness, leaving your comfort zone and stepping into the unknown realm of the unspoken-of, not-so-romantic side of games. Will you be able to go to game dev events, talk to colleagues and build a community for your game or studio?

Sometimes, working as an indie feels like driving your motorcycle into the sunset, but more often than not it's more like you're juggling with chainsaws, on fire. Will it be worth it in the end? That's yours to find out!

Have a great dev,

Juan Castillo.

P.S.: You can ask us anything. We mean it. Except that. Please don't ask that.

[btxsqdr]

To be in the right mood for Proven Lands. Upcoming posters

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A project we love.

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Our mistakes, Chapter One.

Since the beginning of our dev days, we've been f***ing up in almost every aspect. We think that's ok, because we feel we've learned from it. At the time they felt bad / funny / frustrating, but they add up to useful experience. And now we stand here before you, the reader, so that you can learn from our misventures and goofs without having to repeat them.

Let us begin.

#1. Underestimating the scope of a project.

This one's pretty much self explanatory. I'll go all wise here and say projects are like mountains. If you watch them from afar, they seem small, but once you hop on your laser unicorn and start approaching them, the horizon reveals their true height. Projects are never as simple as they seem.

#2. "I think they'll understand it".

In games, it's common to have a Game Design Document (GDD), which is written in most cases by the game designer. Sometimes, the game designer thinks the team will understand everything he wrote, or worse: that they'll understand everything he or she didn't write (because it was obvious). Make sure your team members understand everything they should and develop a common language. As someone who's made this mistake, I can tell you avoiding it can save you some problems with the fierce beasts that are programmers - "So you mean the dragon was supposed to spit unicorns?!" *Fatality*.

#3. Getting distracted.

As a programmer, I've often found myself ditching the task I was working on to chase an ugly bug. And if while I was at that, something else came up, I'd also go and check that other thing, and so on. Some people call it multitasking. I call it A.D.D. Nonetheless, not focusing on a single thing at a time makes your productivity drop a lot. Set your senses on the current task you're working on and make it the best you can! Satisfaction guaranteed.

#4 "It'll all work out in the end".

Sometimes, mistake #2 is mended or didn't even happen in the first place. Awesome! But, now that your team understands the game... How do you know players do? How can you be sure they understand basic gameplay, that they get it? Suspense is amazing, but it's a great risk leaving those questions unanswered until the end - then it won't be a risk, it'll become an ugly problem. Believe me, we know ;) So test, test, and test your way to publishing! Alphas and betas are there for a reason. Use them! Also, if you want, read about RITE.

So, for now, let's press pause here. There's just so many crimes we can admit to've commited at once! We well get back on the subject as some other become clearer.

Btw, have any of these happened to you?

Goodbye, reader, and have a great dev!

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The 99% Syndrome.

We previously talked about setting clear goals and why it’s important. But… what happens exactly when your objectives are kind of blurry and you’re lost in time and space?

It’s common, when you’ve been working for a while on a game (or on anything you feel passionate about, really), to get involved emotionally and to start seeing it as an extension of yourself. And so it begins. Just when it seems your project is about to see the light… “I just had an amazing idea!”, “I think we should include that awesome feature!”, and so on and so forth. You start polishing and tweaking and adding more stuff. And that’s good if you know where you’ll stop, but else… *gets the chills*.

I think a game is like a baby. It grows naturally since its conception, but if you don’t deliver it, it will start growing more, and becoming this huge weird thing. Before you know it, you’ve created a monster! Let your game be born and let it be free, or you’ll get the 99% syndrome (also called Gold Plating).

The 99% syndrome is a common condition among software developers, and it affects the project by freezing its progress at (you guessed it) 99%. Let’s take a deeper look:

Symptoms:

Even if people who’ve played your game tell you it’s awesome and ask you to release it, you see it as something incomplete and prone to be improved greatly.

No matter how many extra features you add, it still feels unfinished.

Your project started as a 2D platformer and turned into a 3D, multiple skill tree, open world MMORPG.

Your project is FEZ.

Treatment:

Get feedback from people you trust (except your parents). They’ll be honest and you’ll see if they enjoy it.

Every time you want to add new stuff to your game, stop and think: Is my game still fun / interesting without it? Does it differ a lot from the vision I had when I started developing it? Some new mechanics deserve a game of their own.

Challenge yourself: try to come up with new game ideas to start after you deliver your current one. Write them down and pick the ones you like. That way you’ll be excited about closing a chapter and starting anew.

Every game you make is something you love. You want it to be perfect, but knowing the difference between polishing and getting stuck is something crucial. What’s your game worth if no one actually plays it? Set it free and set yourself free, too.

Have you ever heard of Zeno’s Paradox? Well, don’t be Achilles. :)

Have a great dev!

Juan Castillo

P.S: Read more about setting clear objectives.

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Pick-a-game.

As I said in our last post, we just started a new project here @ Emerald. We picked the new game from a list of at least 10 other ideas we had, and it was no easy task.

You see, we are five people. Five very different people. That means every idea each of us comes up with may be very different to the other's. That is why I wanna talk about our game picking journey.

Let's start from the beginning. To pick a game from among others, there need to be - I know, cap'n obvious - some game ideas. We always come up with some crazy ideas, which can be kind of (VERY) abstract, sometimes. So, we have to limit them so they may become an actual game someday. I can't tell you how important it is to me to write them down. See, when you come up with a game concept you like, it seems awesome in your mind. That's what's awesome about imagination: it has no limits (except for imagining new colors. That's impossible). So, while it's in your head, your game remains ideal. It's all good, it all works, and it looks beautiful. But when you write it down, then it becomes a physical thing; it turns into something limited. You begin to see its flaws and the ways it won't work. the limitations. You should fret not, nevertheless! You can and should use these limitations to find a way to work them out and refine your game. Paper makes everything clearer.

Once we've written our babies down into a design brief or a small game design doc, we move on to the second part: Pitching our game to the team.

If you work with a team, you've maybe realized that they're people (MAYBE), and that people have ideas of their own. And they probably think they're good, and wanna tell them to the rest of the group. This is where pitching comes in. Taking turns to briefly and clearly express your games works out pretty well. That means: the overall concept, the mechanics, the aesthetics you think would fit it best, and some sketches for the others to get what you're thinking (you have to limit your team's imagination, too!). You can list your ideas so that when everyone's done, you can all discuss them and vote for the one you feel the most passionate about.

As I said before: it's no game! It usually takes some time, but hopefully it leads to a new project the team feels great about. 

What are your game-picking techniques?

Remember you can ask us anything, or leave a comment below. Happy dev!

Juan Castillo.

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newProject = new Life();

We just started our new project, FSC (which I'll describe better as we go further into its production), and, like with all new projects, we are all very excited to start working on it. Nevertheless, before production comes pre-production and planning. And that is where we are right now, so I feel like talking a little about it. Some people feel planning is boring, but even if you've worked on just a  few projects, you can tell the difference between planning and not doing it.

Setting a clear clear scope from the beginning is crucial for the project and the developers' sanity:

If you don't set clear goals, you'll never know if it's actually progressing.

If people working on the project don't feel the progress, they'll start losing interest in the project.

If people lose interest, they'll (most probably) find other projects to work on.

No planning = very poor chances of seeing your project come to life.

Setting clear goals -tasks, features, etc. - is key to another important thing: Testing. Remember: a game is not a game until someone actually plays it. If you wait too long for someone to test your game, and you realize some mechanics are flawed or the game is unbalanced, you may have wasted a lot of time. The earlier you detect flaws in your project, the cheaper it is -both in time and money - to correct them. I have learned something from some projects I've worked on over the past couple of years: it really takes a toll on one's mind to leave a project unfinished because its scope and time required were underestimated.

Bottom line: be as clear as possible about your goals with your game. What are its key features, mechanics, and so on. As soon as you have something that works (even if it's a small piece of it) test it. Get someone else to test it again. Ever wondered why there are alphas and betas before a game gets released? There's why! Then, when the game's core is done and validated, you could say your project was successful. Ship, deliver, publish! Then you can start adding value and new features, and... yes, you guessed right: test them too.

Hope you get your planning going. :)

Juan Castillo.

P.S: You can ask us anything here.

[blog-emerald]

It's alive!

Hi there! Congrats on finding Emerald's blog. Here, we'll be posting stuff about our experiences as an indie video game studio, game dev, our wins, our fails, and cats. We hope to be useful for other people out there pursuing a game-makin' life. Have a great week!