#game post mortem

[askagamedev]

John Romero and Tom Hall talk about developing Doom back in the early 90′s.

Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent questions: The FAQ

[rosesrotofficial]

post-mortem of a cyberpunk killing game demo: part 1!

hi Eidoloners!

it's been ten days since MORTAL COIL released, and i'm here with a little update. this will be Part 1 of 2 for our POST-MORTEM, focusing on the feedback we received for Mortal Coil. part 2 of the POST-MORTEM will be focused on the actual game design process.

first off, it's insane seeing that we've crossed 30+ downloads for Mortal Coil! this was beyond my expectations, and it genuinely warms my tiny rose-rotten heart that you guys care about our cyberpunk death game. your supportive comments have made multiple days of mine (:

now, on to the feedback!

1. monologue vs. dialogue.

see, i do not hail from the beautiful wild-lands of visual novels: i started my craft in the gritty arenas of creative writing. i quickly realised that the stylising of the monologues vs. dialogs in Mortal Coil was an issue when it was pointed out to me: the "" indicating dialog isn't obvious when it's in a game.

the solution for our demo update: we will be adding the character-assigned colour to the dialogs, indicating it!

2. oh, Quietus.

because of the insanely tight 2 week game jam time-frame, we weren't able to have all the CG's we wanted for Mortal Coil. this was evident in the Quietus sequences, as we had to use edited stock photos… Ikuyo and Sonoko were truly doing the jump between Hong Kong and Korea just like that!

the solution for our demo update: our artist, nitunio, has made new concept art of Quietus, which we're super excited to add into the new demo!

3. bleep bleep bleep.

because the game is so text-heavy (… of course), it means that we needed a better way to engage our players.

the solution for our demo update: a lovely suggestion i received (from our newly-christened programmer, rat) was to add a sound bleep to all of our characters' dialog boxes! this is being added as we speak.

these were the primary things that we will be working on for Mortal Coil's next demo! other updates that will be included are:

add 3D-staging to the demo so it’s more dynamic.

add a "new message!" line for the streaming chat so the player knows where to look— as without, it feels overwhelming.

make it so you can “click anywhere to exit” for the email.

add an “open PDF” button for Mortal Coil For Dummies.

etc…!

we can't wait to make and release the new demo to you all soon!

~ Rose.

[askagamedev]

With the recent criticism of Destiny 2 looking more like Destiny 1.5 than a full sequel, I was wondering how designers approach future entries in a series as it pertains to the game outside of the story/lore. Do you make intentional changes that might not be necessary, just to make it feel like a completely different game (like say a fancy new UI)? Or is there no fear of a game being to similar to it's predecessor when building a sequel?

When planning a sequel to a shipped title, we usually do several different things to figure out where to go with it. We look back at the old title to figure out what worked and what didn’t. We also go back to things that we wanted to do but couldn’t before (due to scheduling, resource allocation, etc.) and see if there are things there that we can plan for. In addition to these, we also look at the schedule and try to figure out just how much new content we have time to build.

The first thing we always do is go over what worked and what didn’t. Part of this is gauging the player response to the features in the wild via social media, reviews, metrics, etc. I’ve written about that sort of thing at length before. We also place a great deal of weight on our own internal observations during the original development process - if this system or type of content required a tremendous number of developer hours to ship, we need to seriously consider improving efficiency on it. Alternatively, sometimes the system is too old and needs rebuilding in order to allow artists and designers to create more up-to-date content. This is often large engineering-heavy systems like pathfinding, lighting, animation, etc.

We also often consider old ideas that were cut or that we had during development that were just too large in scope to be considered during the last game. Maybe we wanted intelligent AI sidekicks for the player, but we just had too much on our plate with new hardware, new engine work, and other systems that were just higher priority. Maybe we can revisit that idea for the sequel, because we have the bandwidth to actually do it this time. Perhaps, during the alpha and beta bug fixing sessions, we had a bunch of timing-specific animation bugs that were very difficult to reproduce consistently due to frame-perfect execution requirements. Our solution could be to build a system to let us save inputs with specific frame data, and then play it back so that we can more easily reproduce such issues.

Of course, all of this ultimately comes down to the total amount of resources we have allocated for the sequel. When we’re given the green light to start, we already have a general target date in mind, like Q2 2020. Given the target, we work backwards and figure out just how much development we can fit in these intervening 30ish months with a team this size. Building an open world full of living, breathing characters each with their own personality and schedule sounds like it could be a ton of fun, but isn’t feasible if the game has to ship next winter. It’s really hard predicting the future - the bigger the scope of the thing, the harder it is to predict. Often, the answer to “How long will it take?” isn’t “maybe six months”, but “We think six months, but we can spend a few weeks trying to get a better idea.”

Ultimately, we try to avoid doing things that aren’t necessary because that’s just wasted development budget, and nobody likes wasting resources. Most of our time is spent planning and developing stuff that we think players will like, or things that will help us build things players will like faster. When it’s a sequel, we try to keep the stuff that we think works really well, and we spend our time in ways that we think will naturally evolve and improve the game experience for our players while still retaining enough of the original gameplay that it still feels familiar and fun to fans of the franchise. Sometimes that isn’t super visible, like how the Destiny sequel doesn’t look like a lot has changed graphically. That probably means that they focused their development resources on something else, such as new or expanded gameplay systems, or tools and systems on the back end that allow them to create content at a faster rate. 

Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent questions: The FAQ

[askagamedev]

Dear Ask a Game Dev, you have mentioned before that you have some bad games on your resume. How do people inside the industry tend react when they ship a game that they know is terrible?

A bad game that shipped is still better than a cancelled game. Even if it didn’t review or sell well, it still means that the team finished the tasks, went through the certification process, and released the final product to the public. That’s a lot of work, and the experience one gains from guiding the product past those hurdles is extremely valuable. If there’s one thing most experienced devs have internalized, it’s that no game is 100% terrible and no game is 100% perfect. Even bad games have good parts, and there’s always a lot to learn from a complete development cycle. 

One of the things that I’ve seen from every professional developer I know - we’re always our own worst critics. We know all the faults and foibles of the games we’ve shipped, and we know all of the things that could have been if not for budget, schedule, or leadership. And we know all the good stuff has some interesting stories behind how the team reached that point. Even if the game wasn’t very good when it shipped, I know I did the best that I could while working on it and I can defend the choices that I made to anyone. That’s what really matters in the long run.

Got a burning question you want answered?

Short questions: Ask a Game Dev on Twitter

Long questions: Ask a Game Dev on Tumblr

Frequent questions: The FAQ

[egamesites-blog]

Game Post Mortem

Unlimited Play Free Full Game Post Mortem

Investigate the thrilling and suspenseful case in Post Mortem, the rich and intriguing adventure game that will immerse yourself in the dark, moody and paranormal atmosphere!

  In the 20's, a retired American private detective, MacPherson, is not done yet when he arrives to Paris. The mysterious Sophia Blake hires him to track down the person who brutally murdered her sister and brother-in-law, the Whytes. The beheaded couple were killed in a mysterious ritual way in the most luxurious Orphee Hotel in Paris. The police are not handing the case to her satisfaction, causing her to seek out MacPherson's help.

  The subsequent investigation will lead MacPherson into the heart of the darker side of the city, one of danger, uncertainty and suspicion. MacPherson suddenly finds himself in a situation where it is unknown whether it is safe to trust anyone, in addition to being faced with a confusing, baffling murder characterized by the unsure personalities of the victims.

Post Mortem

Post Mortem Game

Play Post Mortem

Play Post Mortem Game

  See this Amp at http://amplify.com/u/a1jin9