Matthew Haig Futureworks Work Blog

This is where any of my Games Design work will go.

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XB3001: Reflective Diary

Initial Development

To start the Rewinders project we went with a prototype and development practice approach. This meant that as concept and the first prototypes were being developed the 3D artists on the team were practicing workflows instead of making assets for the game. THis worked well as it cut the time spent producing the modular sets and the HIgh Poly assets were cut down considerably and the quality of work was increased.

The base movement mechanics and a simple grenade mechanic were setup within the first month, allowing a strong feel for the game early in development. Concept design helped the second phase of development by also providing a strong idea of the games development

Implementing Design

Once the prototype was set-up, we then built upon the concepts that were made by Niall. The first modular set was developed and 2 traps were designed and brought into engine. The modular set initially had some scaling issues and took a while for it to be implemented, however with the workflow practice having to re-do sections did not take a long time.The early level designs were made and mechanics were starting to be playtested and improved upon.

Iterating on current development

Once the base levels were made and traps were being steadily implemented we decided to start iterating and improving on the base of the game. This lead to a 2nd art pass on the modular design, large arena re-designs and a lot of tweaking on the ranged projectile.  The Rewind mechanic and the UI systems also were in development at this stage.

Sony Crunch

During the project's development Rewinders was selected to be shown off to a Sony representative. This meant that the team had to hard crunch in preparation for the presentation.

The second modular set was fully textured

5 new arenas were implemented

3 traps

Full UI

Level loading system

Rewind Mechanic

Unfortunately it ended with the game being bugged in some unknown way that stopped the begin play functions from loading rendering the game broken. The crunch mode however did push the Rewind mechanic to completion and leave us with a section of very strong arenes that all looked visually rich.

Final developments

The final stages of the project were mainly testing and iterating on the game.

A sticky element was added to the grenade, stronger visual feedback was implemented, UI polish, fully textured assets, sound implemented, lighting pass and a melee mechanic were all added to finish the project.

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XB3002: The Space for Parent-Child Interaction

An important part of this game is to create space and opportunity for the parent to communicate information about the PTSD that they are going through to their child. The games mechanics are designed to create these opportunities to talk about PTSD and still keep the child engaged. This is done in several ways throughout the games design.

The way that the players get moved around the board is an important way of showing PTSD and keeping both players engagement. The Child player’s main role is to use some of their movement roll to assist the parent around the board, this is because the parent player is moving forward at a slower rate on average thanks to the Daily Pickups. This helps represent that PTSD makes it difficult to do what the person wants to do, and how difficult it is can vary day to day.

The Cards themselves are named after mindsets or symptoms,  these titles can create space to talk about those mindsets when the card is drawn and played. The Parent can role play to add more depth to the cards.

For example: The Parent draws the ‘Exhausted’ Daily Pickup card.

They say something similar to ‘I am feeling over tired today, I will be taking today off’ . With PTSD already been given as the game context, this gives information to the child player about PTSD that is easy to understand. In this case, some days PTSD makes you feel really mentally exhausted and on those days they might not want to do anything.

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XB3002: Optional Tested Game-Mode

Optional Gameplay

Both of the tested versions of the game were used and then added a new mechanic which included the base principles of Jenga. This aimed to add a failure state to the game with the players now trying to get to the end goal before the Jenga Tower falls. New cards and a base rule were added which would affect when players would take pieces off the tower. Jenga also provided more room for communication between Parent and Child about PTSD giving a visual way to represent that within the game. It also gave a way to encourage co-operation between the players which can also be linked to them working together against PTSD.

Due to the nature of PTSD Jenga would be an add-on to the game not part of the base game this is because it can create overly stressful situations that many players who have PTSD might not enjoy. This game aims to help people with PTSD and not create more problems so having Jenga as  required part of the game could create issues. Because of this a separate part of the game would be put available to players who wanted to play the Jenga version of the game however the base version would still be playable without it.

The additional rules.

When the parent player draws a daily pickup, one player of there choice removes a piece from the Jenga tower and places it on top.

If the tower falls the game ends

Extra cards that affect the tower

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XB3002: The Card Design

The game uses 2 decks of cards, one is for ‘Daily pickups’ and the other are ‘Board Pickups’. The daily pickup cards are the main adversary for the players and create the biggest challenge. Both decks of cards are designed to help represent PTSD in day to day life, and the challenges that come with it.  The Daily pickups are used to represent the base challenges of PTSD whereas the board pickup cards are used to represent general occurrences in day to day life.

The Daily pickups are Red in colour and the Board pickups are Blue. Daily pickups must be used straight away and board pickups can be used whenever unless stated otherwise on the card.

The cards were balanced by using categories, and any of the cards that fell into those categories were changed or removed completely.

Too progressive: This means that the card assisted the players too much in a way that made the game much shorter or less challenging.

Too challenging: These cards made the game severely more challenging and less fun.

Noninteractive / not interesting: The card didn’t effect the game enough or was not received well by players due to it not being interesting.

Too complex: The text and rules were difficult to understand and slowed play down.

The Daily Pickup Deck

The Board Pickup

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XB3002: Board Design

Game board with a single path

Version 1.0:

The average game time was shorter than was aimed due to players rarely landing on the pick ups.

The game being linear in design needed external challenge that the current pick ups did not provide.

Version 2.0:

Clearer defined player paths to stop confusion when going around the corners of the board.

Daily Pickup and Board pickup were switched to allow changes in difficulty by adding more pickup spaces

An increase in pick up spots as the game progresses, to help symbolise PTSD’s possible build in difficulties. This change also added difficulty which encouraged more communication between players when it came to the child player using some of their movement roll to assist the parent player.

 Average play time increased.

A single path means there is only one route for the players to navigate around the board. This style board was designed with the intent of reducing the game's initial complexity. With the game being aimed at someone with PTSD and a child, having the game being easy to understand and explain is very important. Having multiple branching paths can add extra layers of complexity that possibly are not needed. It was also easier to measure and receive feedback in certain important areas like game length and the spaces between pickups. The linear board path allowed faster iterative testing than having multiple 20 past due to the fact that it was easier to do feedback on.

Game board with multiple branching paths

Version 1.0

Base template to test base game length.

No Pickups just to gauge the regular board size without them

Version 2.0

Player Paths became separate and more branching paths were added.

Zones that change if a player can use a ‘Pickup’ there or not.

Coloured pathways to help indicate which player can go where and alleviate player confusion.

Added and tested Pickup locations.

Multiple pathways created interesting and more dynamic gameplay but took a lot more iteration and playtesting for it to feel right. Unlike using a single pathway this version is a lot more challenging at first glance but was also deemed more interesting than the linear paths.

After play testing it was clear that due to the lack of choice in the single path board that the other game mechanics would have to become more interesting, to balance the fact that the board by itself was not providing player choice. Having to increase the amount of cards and difficulty of the game made it also very difficult to balance against the fact that it also wanted to be not overly complex and stress heavy. The game does aim to be played multiple times and a linear pathway based board does create issues in replayability. This was the biggest drawback to using a linear pathways and because of this multiple pathways was decided to be the main board moving forward in production.

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XB3002: Play Testing

Purpose

The game was playtested with specific goals in mind and the playtesting groups I used aimed to give the best feedback within these areas.

Easy to understand the rules and be able quickly set up the game.

The game should be played under an hour, but have plenty of room for conversation.

The game should be balanced and feel fair.

The playtesting group consisted of adults who have children because the game is aimed at parents with PTSD. This group helped test the games ability to be easily understood by anybody, not just those with previous game experience. This also made sure that the core mechanic base was strong and simple enough to be built upon.

The playtesters gave strong insight into playing games with young children and pitfalls that can happen. For example balancing excitement and interest is important ,if the game is to exciting the child can get lost within that excitement and lose all interest in the game, if the game is too boring they will also lose interest quickly. To avoid both of these design traps, the child character is given an important role to play within the game to retain interest, but the game itself is as interesting as the parent wants to make it. This is done by the parent being given room to talk about PTSD and give as much metaphorical power to the game rules as they chose.

For example:

The child player using their roll to help the parent player can metaphorically be the ‘child supporting the parent through PTSD’, or it can just be a game rule.

Game spaces like these are left for the parent player to apply excitement, power or explanation of their choice. This allows the parent player to ‘balance the excitement’  depending on how excitable there child is, or what in reference to PTSD they want to talk about,  this is all in the parent's control.

Constraint based playtesting

Constraints were placed upon the testing sessions later in development, to help get the best feedback per session. These would aim towards testing the overall game balance and how it felt to play. The rigorous play-testing under different constraints were aimed to emulate how the game feels in situations that would happen due to variance or player choice. This allowed immediate player feedback within those areas without waiting for them to naturally occur which would of taken more time. This also allowed faster development and iteration towards the board and card design, which are both areas that required a lot of testing time.

Constraints were placed on:

Time allowed per turn to emulate childlike impatience and choice in actions without much thought behind it.

The amount of cards per deck per play session.

How often the players would draw cards from the decks.

Limiting max and minimum rolls to test game length due to roll variance.

The amount of max turns / max time per game, to test possible boredom limits.

What pathways the players would take around the board.

Different beginning spaces per player, to test how the game responds to large gaps in between players on the board.

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XB3002: Paper Prototype and Early Development

The game went through several stages of development and testing which started with paper prototyping and worked up to final development. This was so the game could be fully tested and balanced as effectively as possible within the timeframe, which would help the game hit the goals that had been outlined for it in pre-design.

Paper prototyping was used in the development process to help efficiently test the board game within early stages of its development. This was so that the game could be balanced and play tested before any production was started. Initial prototyping allowed the development process to speed up because the game was being constantly tested and improved upon throughout the design process. These playtests provided invaluable feedback which improved the game overall.

The paper prototype initially started off as a basic one path board and an excel sheet was used to store all of the card data. Players rolled a 20 sided die when they had to draw from the deck and a game master read the card to them. This was to help simulate the randomness that you would get from drawing from a normal deck without printing the cards. The excel sheet also allowed the cards to be updated on the spot if there were obvious balance holes or card information needed to be reworded.This allowed faster iteration and development than if they were printed cards.

Once the groundwork for the game had been tested, variations of the game were created for heavier development and play-testing. In the paper prototyping the cards and base movement had the largest feedback and iteration so the next stage of development was mostly focused on the board layout.

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XB3002: Introduction to the project.

To design a board game that is used to help parents who have PTSD communicate this to their children. PTSD is complex and it is difficult to explain why the parent has such a hard time sometimes. There is space in design for this game to help work towards solving this issue and work with the parent in overcoming the difficult nature of the PTSD.

It should cover the following goals:

Create communication: To create a game that allows interaction and communication between parent and child about PTSD. The game should create space for the parent to talk and communicate about PTSD to their child.

For it to be interactive: With PTSD being such a complex problem, interaction is needed to help maintain the child's attention. This helps them connect and therefore understand what the parent is going through.

Enjoyable: On some level the game should be an enjoyable experience that is not stressful for either party. This allows it to be played more than once and also lessens the chance of information being ignored due to boredom.

Base Game Rules:

The first day:

Turns/rounds are referred to as ‘Days’ within game.

At the game start each player places their pawn at the beginning of a pathway, Both players roll a 6 sided die and move that many spaces forward. 

The child player can use any of their roll to instead move the parent instead of themselves.

 If any players land on a pickup that player draws a card from that deck and follows the instructions on the card. The Parent then draws from the daily pickup deck and uses the card straight away unless stated otherwise.

The next day starts. 

The game lasts 7 days, and both players must be on the final space by the end of the last day.

Players win if they are both on the final space before the 7 days are up.

Audience

This game aims at a unique niche audience of familys suffering with PTSD. Currently there are very few interactive tools that aim to help these families. At the moment there are a few books that are aimed at this audience but currently no games.

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Case Study: Firewatch

Firewatch: A narrative first person adventure game developed by Campo Santo released February 9th 2016. The story follows a volunteer lookout in the aftermath of the Yellowstone fires of 1988. The narrative contains several underlying personal issues like isolation and mental health.

The reason i’m writing about Firewatch is because of how it uses it small mechanics effectively to help the narrative all the way through the game. Firewatch feels like the successor to Gone Home in the way it is written and paced, however the extra mechanics allow in my opinion for it to be even more effective.

The Radio:

The Radio is the key to what separates Firewatch from Gone Home, it has the ability to link the player to the characters at any time they want, the player has a direct link to the narrative that they control how it’s delivered to them.

Initiating conversation: 

Like previously mentioned the radio gives the player almost complete control of the pace that the narrative gets delivered to them. The only time the player doesn’t get to start the conversation is during big story parts and it feels natural to accept the call and respond.

Picking what you want to say:

This is also important to note, because it follows the same theme of giving the player control over the narrative. So along with initiating conversation the game allows you to choose your response which might even be to not respond at all.  This allows players to get specific information or indulge in personal ideas about what's happening in game. Not only this, by having the player choose what they want to say, the player becomes more connected to the main character. This makes big twists and anything that impacts the player character have more of an affect on the player.

Overall Firewatch uses its mechanics in clever ways to help the narrative and in doing so in my opinion makes the story more engaging.

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Games Proposal: Tutorial in Local Multiplayer

When it comes tutorials, local multiplayer games have pros and cons. One of the benefits is that you can have players teach each other the game as they play. The main negative is that traditional tutorials are uninteresting for the players that already know how to play.

So how should the tutorial section go about these pro’s and cons?

The answer is to have the game leave room to let the players teach each other.

The picture above is Towerfalls first level, when a new player starts the game this is what they will most likely encounter. Each player starts in there own cornered off space in the map, where they cannot be shot by anyone else. This allows room for them to quickly be taught the basics of Towerfall without getting killed doing so. 

Rewinders opening level: The In-game Tutorial

There are several mechanics in Rewinders that the level design in the first level encourages to be taught and learnt.

The starting safe space:

At the start the players are all in there own safe corners, no player has a direct shot on one-another. If a player was to shoot there cross-diagonal player, the gap is too long of a distance for the grenade to travel and hit them. The grenade will bounce of the sides of the platforms.

This space plays the same role as Towerfalls cubby-holes, in allowing basic controls to be learnt early without hurting each other.

The Fire Hazard: 

The players can quickly identify fire tends to be a bad thing and to stay away from it, however the spacing encourages the use of rewind to make passing them safer for them. Rewind is one the basic mechanics so hopefully is taught at the beginning. Also the first load screen shows the player controls, which it is listed on.

The end of the level:

The restriction on the amount of the grenades makes it likely that the last 2 players are going to be lacking ranged attack, forcing close combat. This teaches both how melee works and also the importance of using the Hazards / Rewind to their advantage.  

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The personal restriction of GameMaker Studio

For my honours project i initially came to the conclusion that the prototype i wanted to build was best for suited for 2D. Using dialog trees and easy to explore open world made 2D look like the best option. Similar to classic games like Earthbound, Chrono Trigger and the original Zelda’s. So i decided to use an engine that was completely new to me but was good at building 2D games quickly and GameMaker Studio is one of the better options to do this. 

Initial testing was effective, i was able to make simple platforming within a very small amount of time and found the programming system easy to pick up and use. 

The biggest issue in initial production was creating a main mechanic that thematically worked with the narrative around it. Initially it was going to be a platforming mini game that the goal of the area was the answer the character gave in the dialog tree. However in practice it didn’t feel natural and had the ability to be frustrating and overall unwanted. But i still wanted a main mechanic that helped tie the player and character together. It also created a buffer between the players choice and the result, which separated the player and character which is not what i wanted to happen.

So i revisited my initial plan for the prototype, and it became harder to commit to an idea in engine i am not familiar with. Which led to fighting between game style and a solid mechanic, i didn’t want to sacrifice either option. It wasn’t until i remembered an early idea about using player time to trigger events that i remembered a way that i could build in 3D and have it still feel the same as games i have already listed. 

This has led the project back to an engine i know (UE4) and away from GameMaker Studio. The main mechanic is now planned to be time, which i will write about in a future post, and thematically an Animal Crossing esque world design works really well. Helping tie the player to the character since that is all the character knows, the village is there whole world. 

Overall i believe the decision to use GameMaker was the right choice at the time, just as i also believe it is the right choice to not use it anymore. Personal restriction and changes in the project moved me away from it.

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Changing my honours project due to engine & personal restrictions

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Narrative Design: The Beginners Guide

My honours project is going to be a heavy narrative design based game that uses its mechanics to heavily reinforce that. Because of this i think it is definitely important to talk about a little game called ‘The Beginners Guide’

I will be avoiding spoilers due to it being only days old at this point in time and it is very much the type of game that has a personal impact that is worth playing for that unique experience. And that is exactly what the game is, an experience. The game takes you on a very personally journey through someones work that the player connects to.

On a purely technical level The Beginner’s Guide is practically a master class in level design to provoke emotional responses. It uses this and the story-line that flows with it to create almost an emotional mirror that you see yourself in. And  that’s the most beautiful thing about this game is the level of personal contact that you make to it without realising.

Its a game that left me feeling shell-shocked, thinking about my own life in ways that are not entirely comfortable. It hits the weak-spots and not just in me, ive seen and spoken to several people who fall down that rabbit hole of self reflection and personal feeling. Its surprising, impressive and really is a one of a kind. It stands alone, and did something that have never experienced before in this format.

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XB2001: References

This post is just references for the XB2001 Module. 

Assignment 1:

Total Biscuits WTF Is:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYe5h5kli1g  (YouTube, 2012)

Destructiod’s Tony Ponce Review: http://www.destructoid.com/review-they-bleed-pixels-234271.phtml  (Destructiod, 2012)

Giant Bomb User Review: http://www.giantbomb.com/they-bleed-pixels/3030-35887/user-reviews/2200-24435 (GiantBomb, 2012)

PressHeartToContinue Lets Play : https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL_8APVyhfhpdu7hAXs2m2GeTpOnKbg6Jo (Dodger, 2014)

Images used http://www.theybleedpixels.com

Assignment 2: 

Research :(Corpuz, 2013) (Tab Times, 2014)

Art used: https://sarafabel.wordpress.com/art/ (fabel)

Assignment 3:

2 GDD documents:

Celia Hogan: Superstition Level design Document

Beau Lamb: Enlightenment: Level Design Document

Assignment 4:

Unreal Docs: https://docs.unrealengine.com

Tom loomans: http://www.tomlooman.com/

Assignment 5:

Shark that was used (cartoomotion)

 http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/763930

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Assignment 2:Fighting Games on Tablet

FIghting games are currently quite popular on tablet based devices which means that ‘Old Gods for New’ will be comparable by nature. The reason for there popularity is due to small game loops, easy to pick up and generally enjoyable. In this blog post i will have a look at 3 of the most popular current tablet titles

Soulcalibur

SoulCalibur is one of the largest figthing games on the market because it is a well known franchise. The game offers 19 playable characters, different modes with the arcade style. However the price is in the high end of games on these devices, sitting at $13.99

FINAL FIGHT

Final fight is more of a sidescrolling beat em up than a 1v1 fighting game. However it is on this list to show that complex combos and a in depth control system can be done with well on tablet devices. Final fight uses classic graphics with updated effects to give a good visual style.

King of Fighters Android

A port of SNK's classic King of Fighters franchise, King of Fighters is a japanese franchise and adapts well to the tablet device due to the art style being 2D. The controls do encroach on the screen quite heavily making it difficult to see at times.

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Games i have been influenced by.

StarCraft: For me StarCraft has shown that a games limit is not just the  game itself and can be a spectator event for people watching the game being played. StarCraft Broodwar is one of the pioneers of the 'ESport' genre. And StarCraft for me was the first game that i invested in observing it being played.

Magic the Gathering: Magic the gathering for me was an entirely social experience and the design of the game revolved around playing face-to-face with somebody else. For me Magic was the first major experience of playing a game aimed for the table.

Apocalypse world: This is a Tabletop RPG that i am currently running with a few of my classmates and has shown a different side to designing and shaping a world and its inhabitants. The point of the game is to create a persistent world with freedom for the players to make there own home in the baron wastelands. Apocalypse World has taught me that an NPC needs to be interesting from the first view and the world around the players should feel as real as the reality of the situation makes available, context and interest is key.

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Blizzard Entertainment: Game design Requirements

REQUIREMENTS

A minimum of 3 years’ game design experience

Extensive experience in action real-time Strategy (ARTS) games and be extremely familiar with current and past ARTS games

Experience designing for both a casual and competitive audience

Able to work well in a team environment

Able to work creatively in a demanding technical environment

Knowledge of Microsoft Excel

Absolute passion for playing and making computer games

PLUSES

Experience in other game development disciplines: UI, sound, art, and engineering

Passion and knowledge of eSports in a major competitive game

Previous game balance experience

Experience using the StarCraft II Editor

REQUIRED APPLICATION MATERIALS

Why you are interested in working at Blizzard

What games you are currently playing

**Only submittals with Cover Letters will be considered

http://eu.blizzard.com/en-gb/company/careers/posting.html?id=14000GN

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Naughty Dog Game Designer Position Requirements

Game Designer (Single Player)

Responsibilities

Responsible for the planning, level layout, setup and tuning of single player levels, from high concept to object placement and scripting

Responsible for designing and producing engaging and fun third-person action gameplay and levels

Act as producer for levels you design, as well as other parts of the game, collaborating across disciplines to get work done and clear dependencies, ensuring deadlines are met, and championing aspects of the gameplay

Work directly with artists, programmers, animators and other game designers to contribute to the vision of the game

Responsible for level layout by creating simplified level geometry and performing extensive play-testing and iteration

Work with programmers to develop tools on an ongoing basis

Requirements & Skills

Experience designing single-player levels for console games

Minimum 3 to 5 years of games industry experience

Strong methodology and problem solving ability and with a focus on creative, fun and innovative solutions

Strong and effective communication skills

Exceptional team player with the ability to collaborate without losing sight of the gameplay vision

Willingness to take design direction when offered

Experience playing 3rd person action games

Very good working knowledge of Maya, 3DS Max or similar 3D package

Experience of developing third-person action games a bonus

Experience of scripting set-up for action games a bonus

Desire to be a part of the Naughty Dog team

http://www.naughtydog.com/site/careers/game_designer1/