Spectrum Development Blog

banter about game development and design

[spectrum-blog]

Game Over Screens

I've always wondered what was the point of game over screens. After some thinking I realized why they were useful back in the days of arcade machines. They were used to ask players for coins to continue playing the game aka pay walls.

Fast forward to modern gaming with game consoles and PC gaming, those screens do not make sense any more. Yet, many games still have them in some shape or form.

A lot of games would present a game over screen after the players die that eventually ask them to continue or quit the game. Some other games might show off cool death animation with super special awesome effects. Other games display statistics about your play style and skill which sometimes throws players off as it shows them how bad they were at the game.

All of the above doesn't sound like something useful or productive for the player. As a player, I want to play the game without wasting time. I want to enjoy your game as much as possible. Designers should respect the players time and cherish it instead of introducing time wasting events.

Every time a gamer plays your awesome game, they are offering their time and making a connection with your product/art/craft/game. This is huge to me. I wish more designers would appreciate this more.

Imagine going out with your friends and someone introduces you to their new cool friend (the game). Your first impression is that they look nicely presentable and you want to know them more. As you start talking with them, they don’t give you their full attention and cut you through the conversation. Would you be interested in talking with this new friend again? Wouldn't you feel disappointed?

The analogy above is exactly what I feel when I play a game that wastes time and doesn't give me its full attention. So the main question is: How does a game give its players full attention?

Here’s what I think the answer is:

Don’t waste the player’s time.

Don’t overwhelm the player with too many options. Keep it simple.

Don’t make the player redo things they already done.

High quality testing. The game has ZERO game-stopping bugs.

Minimize loading times and optimize game performance. Provide visual feedback to the player when they have to wait for something to happen. Don’t leave them clueless.

In Spectrum, I tried to follow all these rules as much as possible. There are no game over screens. Dying and re-spawning is almost instantaneous. Puzzles can be continued so the player doesn't need to redo a puzzle when dying half way through. The HUD is super simple and clean. No unnecessary numbers and gadgets.

I hope you enjoyed this piece. Let me know what you think. Do you agree? or do you really like game over screens and why?

Stay Awesome.

[spectrum-blog]

Human Behaviors

I’ve always wondered why most superhero comics/stories involved fighting/killing villains/evil corporations. This question made me research more into human behaviour and why we (as humans) enjoy action/risk/violence.

Here’s the definition of lust from Wikipedia:

Lust is an emotion or feeling of intense desire in the body. The lust can take any form such as the lust for knowledge, the lust for sex or the lust for power.

I define lustful human behaviours as: 

a set of actions desired by people who are unable to take part in those actions in real life due to universal, societal, parental or personal barriers. 

Examples of such actions are: mass violence, sexual acts(rape, prostitution ...etc.), murder, rebelling, fictional powers, popularity(attention-seeking). 

Note: I understand that some people may disagree on using the word lustful and may find better alternatives, but that’s what makes sense to me.

After that, I decided to research popular and “successful” games to see if the amount of success correlate to the number of lustful human behaviours present in that game. I have found that a lot of successful AAA and indie games have at least one lustful human behaviour in them.

Now, I want you (as a reader) to think about the following questions:

Have you seen any comic/superhero related game that doesn’t involve action (fighting/killing)?

Have you played any AAA game that didn’t involve lustful human behaviours?

Do you own any game that doesn’t involve lustful human behaviour?

Have you ever played an exploration game like Journey?

If you answer No to all the above, then I think you need to relax your mind a bit and explore other types of games that do not involve lustful human behaviours. You will enjoy your time doing so and expand your mind to experience new feelings/emotions. I suggest playing Journey, Anti-chamber, The Stanley Parable and Portal to name a few.

This brings me to my final point which is, what lustful human behaviours (if any) should I use in Spectrum?

Personally, the only one I was comfortable using is fictional powers as it goes nicely with the comic art style of the game and vague enough so that I can define my own power! It doesn’t need to be about killing villains or having a super strong body. So I thought of something completely different which is the ability to control Color/Dimension(s)!

The ability to control Color/Dimension is the main mechanic in Spectrum and is central to solving puzzles and platforming aspects in the game. It also means you don’t have any weapons or fighting skills. For the first time, a comic book game that doesn’t involve fighting or killing villains!

This is a conscious decision even though I know having fighting/killing skills would appeal way more to the mass market, but I don’t want to appeal to everyone. I want to deliver an awesome/fun/unique experience to those looking for something different, special and made with passion. In other words, I want Spectrum to be loved by thousands instead of played by tens or hundreds of thousands.

Thanks for reading.

Stay Awesome.

P.S: the hotline miami picture is from scribblepit @ deviantArt

[spectrum-blog]

Solving Problems

Developing Spectrum has not been a smooth ride at all. There were so many obstacles along the way (some were accounted for and some were unexpected). As a result of that we have grown relentless and resourceful. No matter what problems we face, we eventually solve them. This post is about showing how to solve unknown problems!

Some of the problems we faced:

Technically unable to solve a bug. (see the 3 techniques below!).

Technically unable to implement a feature. (start with a small feature, learn Unity’s API ...etc.)

Lack of experience in Game Design. -> (Read books, attend classes, research other games/game designers).

Lack of experience in people management. -> (just do it and have great communication skills)

Lack of experience in marketing and business. -> (just do it and learn as you go).

Basically implementing something from paper into working version inside Unity that looks and feels as imagined. (learn Unity API’s, workflow, graphics pipeline, how things gets rendered on a screen, shaders ...etc.)

There has been only one consistent contributor to Spectrum and that is myself. I have had a friend help out in the first year and another friend is helping out currently to finish the game and ship it. I have had help from many people (friends, online people and contractors). However, the majority of the time is basically me trying to solve something I don’t know.

Here’s how I solved them and how I trained myself to pretty much solve anything (does not have to be about game dev):

Can you reproduce/describe the problem clearly?

Understand and know the problem. Start from the basics and reason up from there. (this is based on researching how others such as Elon Musk solve problems)

Research online for the problem and seek help early! (people take time to respond so do it early and maybe by the time they reply you have already figured out a solution. Also, most likely someone else has asked your question before!)

I use those 3 techniques everywhere not just in developing Spectrum. I usually end up finding a solution to the problem by the time I’m finished with point #2.

Each of the problems mentioned above deserve its own blog post, which I will do at some point :)

[spectrum-blog]

Accessibility and Design

It is important to us that Spectrum is accessible to everyone interested in games. Accessible not just in terms of platform distributions but also to people with a disability or an impairment.

Once I was in a computer graphics class at the University of Auckland in 2010 and the lecturer was talking about color blindness (a colour vision deficiency that I thought was very rare). I didn't pay too much attention until he pulled up a slide and asked everyone to look at it. Everyone in the class started whispering to each other and chatter started to form. Turns out some students in the class were colour blind to the green/red colors (deuteranomaly) including my friend sitting next to me and he didn't even know he had it before then! (or so he claimed)

When designing for Accessibility, perception of everything matters. Things like Text, Audio, Colours and Controls must be considered. I have actively sought help and advice from designers on the web and online resources to solve some problems. It is something you need to work for from the start to avoid headaches in the future.

I'll give examples for things we have done to make Spectrum accessible:

Release on all major platforms: Windows, Linux, Mac. No compromises.

Full support for keyboard and controllers.

Ability to remap controls of the game.

Ability to control music/sfx volume.

Deliver story through text and audio

Display the key that maps to the player's color all the time. This makes it easy for people that are not good with memorizing keys and those who can't match colors easily. Color blind people will still find it much more difficult than non color blind people but not impossible.

Platforms have textures applied to them and their colors match with the player's possible colors in the HUD displayed all the time. This means if the player is allowed to only use 3 colors, then all the platforms in that level will be of those 3 colors.

You may ask why did we bother with all this? 

First, because we care. Second, because we are engineers and love to solve problems. Third, because research shows that 8% of males are color blind.

[spectrum-blog]

Spectrum's Puzzle Types

The puzzles in Spectrum support the gameplay and force the player to think outside the box. They are not meant to be the main part of the game. Spectrum isn't just a puzzle game or a platforming game. Spectrum promises to deliver a unique experience with an important message to its players.

Generally speaking, puzzles in Spectrum are based on 4 things: State, Order, Time and Color. Sometimes a combination of the above as well. We thought of adding more types but that would violate one of our design goals of being simple. You can read about Spectrum's design goals in a previous post.

As a result of this constraint, we know which types fit where in terms of difficulty progression in the game. For example, we wouldn't throw a time-based puzzle at the beginning levels because the player isn't comfortable yet with controlling colors while doing basic platforming tricks.

In each level there are at least 3-5 puzzles accompanied with platforming tricks and a bit of the story. All of these prepare the player for his/her ultimate challenge which we will discuss later. at the end, the player arrives at a conclusion to the story and the important message we want to deliver.

P.S.: The puzzle in the screenshot has 120 possible outcomes and only 1 solution :D.

[spectrum-blog]

Game Design Goals

In my previous post, I've talked about the approach we took to designing our puzzles. In this post, I'll expand and talk more on the design goals we had in mind for Spectrum.

Our main design goals are: Simple, Fun and Aesthetic. We have done many play tests and interacted with gamers in real life by going to events such as Armageddon and also online such as Steam Greenlight to validate our 3 design goals.

Since then we worked a lot on fun and simple as we have found that most people liked the art style and design aesthetic of our game. We think it is important that the progression of the game makes sense and puzzles help the player learn more about the game instead of being a filler.

We have played many games where it starts easy and then becomes hard very quickly. It's really sad to release a game that most players will never complete! In fact, this is why a lot of the ending of famous video games actually suck because the developers/management do not bother to spend time working on the ending since most gamers are not going to complete the game.

Spectrum is different and has a linear progression level of difficulty. It starts easy and then difficulty ramps up by unlocking more colors and discovering more elements about the world. Spectrum is designed so that you can't brute force your way into finishing levels. You have to actually comprehend what you are doing. Some people will probably not like this design decision and that is fine. We are delivering a different experience and we think it will be a fun experience for those who like our niche.

As a result, our puzzles are carefully designed to help you learn something new. I think it is safe to say that with each level you are learning a new thing about the game. Every level introduces a new element that you didn't know existed in Spectrum.

Thanks for reading.

Stay Awesome.

[spectrum-blog]

Puzzles in Spectrum

Spectrum is a comic book platformer with puzzle mechanics added to it. The platforming aspect of the game is enhanced by the main mechanic in the game: matching colours to interact with platforms 

On top of that, we used colours as an integral part of the puzzle system that we made. For example, some puzzles will only be solved with certain colours. Upon solving a puzzle in Spectrum, a new event might happen or new platforms might appear to progress forward/backward or to destroy things. 

A feature we implemented in our puzzle system is the ability to continue the puzzle where you left off/died. We really didn't like the idea of re-doing a puzzle when the player dies and our play tests have shown that gamers didn't like that either.

As with most platformer games, the player dies a lot. However, with Spectrum the player is expected to die a lot more often, especially when they are still learning the game. This is the case because Tadashi (the main character) has only 1 hit point (so one hit and the player dies) and landing on platforms depends on the player's skill of matching colours in a timely fashion (which ramps up in complexity the more colours the player unlocks).

To make this as less annoying as possible to the gamer, we have improved the in-game performance so that when a player dies, they are almost-instantly back alive at the nearest checkpoint. It happens so quickly that it barely feels the player died (similar to the re-spawning speed in Fenix Rage).

As mentioned earlier, our puzzles can be continued were they were left off. For example, Puzzle A unlocks Platforms 1 and 2 upon solving correctly. The player tries to solve Puzzle A and he/she succeeds. Platform 1 and 2 appear but the player dies when trying to get to them. What happens now? In Spectrum, since the player has already solved the puzzle, there is no need to re-solve it so Platform 1 and 2 will be visible and the player can move on.

Thanks for reading. The next post we will talk more about what type of puzzles are there in Spectrum.

Stay Awesome.

[spectrum-blog]

What am I doing?

I think Spectrum is 90% done. In fact, Spectrum was 90% done since June 2014. However, the remaining 10% is the hardest bit. Ask any person creating something new and they would probably agree that the remaining 10% is the most difficult thing to do.

I have already showed a demo of the game in 2014 and done many play tests to understand what players liked/disliked.

The 10% left includes polishing, making sure things feel right, ironing out the experience to make sure there are no bugs ...etc.

Spectrum has had many collaborators and people who have helped out. The credits section will be impressive!

I'm really tired. Lost weight (10kgs). Gave up things I like to do (playing sports, hanging out with friends, being social) in order to make time for finishing Spectrum. Its been almost 3 years. I always ask myself. Is this really worth it? and the answer I always get to is ... I am not sure. However, I'm having fun sometimes and I have seen people have fun while playing Spectrum so let's finish it and see what happens.

I have spent money, time and energy making this game and if I don't finish it and release it then I'll probably collapse. So let's not collapse and finish it!

My next post I'll talk about improving performance and how Spectrum improved from taking seconds to restart to milliseconds!

Thanks for reading.

Stay Awesome.

[spectrum-blog]

Belated Hello World

Hello internet. My name is Spectrum. I have been in development for more than 2 years now >.>.

This blog will contain posts about what is it like to develop video games as part-time/hobby while working full-time. So let's start by rewind back to August 2012.

The first line of code was written on the 26th August 2012!

The following was my original sketch of Tadashi (the main character in Spectrum):

Rewinding forward to 2014/2015. This is how Tadashi looks today:

And in 3D:

We have gone a long way since we started and we can't wait to finish it off and share with the world. We will discuss what's left in the upcoming posts and everything in between.

Thanks for reading.

Stay Awesome.