#louishlim

[simonabitan]

From Legend: Inspirations from Everywhere

It is generally stated that every good game can inspire other games. The very cool thing is that as games are composed by different branches – gameplay, story, art, sound, programming, etc. – a lot of sources can model the game experience.

Designing From Legend was interesting, because it asked for several different and interesting sources.

Emotional Experience

Here are some references for the world created and the story:

Pu Songling's tales are the first source of inspiration we could count on. His book Strange Tales from a Chinese Studio (1740) tells several little stories about how seductive fox-women learn to smart boys to question themselves about their knowledge.

The King of Masks (1996) is a movie directed by Wu Tianming. It tells a story about a Sichuan Change Art master who has to accept that the child he has adopted is a girl. The sex discrimination subject tackled through Chinese tradition was a good reference to find Fulin's story. Another reference for us with a different style was the famous Disney’s Mulan!

A Chinese Ghost Story (1987) is a Hong Kong movie directed by Ching Stiu-Tung. It's also quite inspired by Pu Songling's Strange Tales From a Chinese Studio and was a good reference for its direction: cool fights with fireballs, amazing dodges and a lot of asian culture in one shot!

Interactive Experience

Oboro Muramasa is a nervous zone-type Action-RPG created by Vanillaware. It was our main reference in terms of action, arts and effects. It was also a good reference because of the input limitations from the Wii Controller that we had with tactile devices – OK, it's completely different, but there was control limitations on both devices, so we thought it was an interesting case.

Kingdom Hearts: Birth by Sleep (2010) is an Action-RPG created by Square Enix and first released on PSP systems. It was a good reference for us because it has a 'command gauge' that can be filled by hitting the enemies, changing player's attacks when full. As God Hand (2005) created by Clover Studio, it proves it is possible to create diversity with only one action button!

The Binding of Isaac (2010) created by Team Meat was a cool reference in terms of game structure, because it can generate diversity each game played. Unfortunately, we realized that it was incompatible with the Achievement system – at least if we would have designed something as deep as Team Meat's game. In fact, the Achievement system asks for achievable objectives, which is hard to balance with randomness. Finally, we kept a random effect for the environments and other bonus, but not to compose every fight. Maybe it was possible, but we hadn't the time to integrate it well enough to get the game experience we wanted.

Games from Platinum Games – Bayonetta and most of all Vanquish – were good references because the studio is getting used to create bosses the player encounters several times. With time and experience, they found a balance to make every fight unique despite reusing the same skin: a complex boss is designed, then limited in his behavior so each confrontation is a good opportunity to unlock some patterns to make it more complex – it's better than duplicate the boss to create something harder!

One thing we absolutely wanted was to often use the attack button, because it let us remind the most important command regularly. One of the numerous ideas was to fight during the reward sequence: depending on the fight result, more or less little lamps appear on screen. Each one contains money and can be broken easily with some basic attacks. If the score is perfect, a bigger lamp appear at the center of the screen, giving a chance to drop a magic gate that throws the player in a bonus stage. The main reference was double: Chinese Lamps + Pinata! Even if we hadn't the time to polish it enough to integrate it into the demo, I think such a system could be fun because it lets the player being active, even during the last part of the gameplay loop: the reward sequence.

The last reference I want to talk about is Disney's Beauty and the Beast. At first sight, there isn't common point, but as I liked the idea of living objects from Disney's movie, I suggested the possibility to have living chests in the bonus rooms I described right above. Bonus rooms have always a fixed camera and a random generated content: players can encounter enemies, money, a chest or nothing. This chest has also a random behavior: if the player gives a hit, the chest can stay still, running from the left to right or start to fly. With a few skills, the player can break it to get a cool reward. Unfortunately, like written in the paragraph above, this part was not polish enough to be implemented in the demo.

Conclusion

I think it's important to be able to get references from every media if it can help to create better games. The better way to get profit from that technique is simple: be curious and always search for the information – maybe the coolest side of our hyper-connected world!

[simonabitan]

From Legend: Concept and Intentions

Here is the starting point of a long series of posts about the last project I worked on: From Legend, a 2D beat’em all game taking action in Ancient China. In this first post, I want to talk about the concept of the game that has already been revealed in a previous post – giving more details, of course.

Above: a concept art of the main character Fulin, by Louis Lim.

Our intention was:

To create a mobile beat’em all – iOS, Android, Windows 8 but also PS Vita and more – playable everywhere and by both casual and core gamers.

To get a frenetic gameplay easy to play but difficult to master.

To get a game experience that mixes game mechanics and scenario together in order to create strong emotions.

The player embodies Fulin, a thousand-year-old fox-woman who has mastered the art of masks. It’s a martial art which consists in changing the style of fight as the fighter changes his face. The goal: to cross a dangerous sanctuary to reach Ling, Fulin’s dragon-god, in order to get back what he has stolen to her.

The choice of China wasn’t a random selection. In fact, we wanted a game experience that could allow the player to experiment hardcore perseverance. Yes, perseverance was the most fundamental word of the project, so all the aspects of the game – structure, core gameplay, story and arts – had to fit its meaning perfectly. To unify these aspects, we used a concept known and overwhelming accepted by the players: achievements. In fact, to succeed in performing achievements, the player usually has to repeat normal actions in a game for a long time – to kill 1,000 enemies – or to perform a very hard action during the game – to discover a well hidden secret for instance. Since Microsoft introduced this concept with the Xbox 360, all the industry has adopted it – Nintendo is still an exception! Whatever the case, it takes time so the most perseverant people can unlock all of them in a game. However, they’re not an obligation. Players who don’t want to unlock them can avoid their challenge. The main idea with From Legend is to make them part of the macro experience by linking them to player’s progression.

I exposed the game structure in a previous article about the subject, but let me expose it once again more precisely, because it fits well the concept:

Above: the macro game structure which is a part of the concept.

The structure is simple: during 5 to 10 minutes, the player fights enemies in different arenas, just like in a classic BtA game. When he succeeds in finishing all these confrontations, he can fight the dragon-god Ling – the final boss. The problem is that he’s a lot more powerful than the player who generally loses. When the defeat happens, the player restarts at the beginning of the sanctuary. Fortunately, it’s the opportunity to perform… achievements!

Above: 'to start a game' is the first achievement for easy learning.

In fact, by performing achievements the player can make Fulin stronger. The achievements have different natures and can be performed every time there is a fight. When an achievement is done, a progression gauge increases, then when a segment of this gauge is full, Fulin levels-up and becomes more powerful (max life increased, equipment inventory bigger, new abilities…). Thus, the player has more chances to beat the dragon-god Ling so he can feel he’s getting better with perseverance. If at the beginning a few of perseverance is required to perform achievements, the more the player progresses on the gauge, the more perseverance is necessary.

What kind of achievements are necessary to perform? How the player can perform them? Isn’t the concept too much repetitive? I’ll develop these points in other dedicated posts. The next one will be about the core gameplay – not directly the achievements because it’s important to understand the gameplay to understand how achievements exploit it at its best.

Stay tuned!

[simonabitan]

Some Inspirations for a Jazzy Game (Part 2)

The first part was about the different inspirations for the game design and story. This post is about the inspirations for the universe, which takes a large part of the game, and the music because it’s not possible to present a 'Jazz game' without talking about it!

Universe Inspirations

It’s difficult to say if the universe was difficult or easy to define. We had a lot of possibilities, but the real problem was to achieve the best one in the allotted time.

We tried to keep the universe at a real scale first. It means: no huge buildings, no floating platforms, no odd behaviors, because we're in New Orleans… This created a problem in Level Design, because the city isn’t vertical at all so the architecture of the levels would have been a bit repetitive. Moreover, as the story is a puzzle of Trump’s memories, we decided to get more freedom in the conception of the levels and their appearance. The result is something crazy thanks to narrator's imagination.

Above: a vertical level during the Carnival of Mardi-Gras. 

If the result looks like a colorful dream, we wanted something authentic too, simply because Trump's memories are based on real facts. In these circumstances, there is only one solution: to research a lot of information about Jazz, about the city of New Orleans in the early twentieth century, about its social and economic situation and all that can help to create the willing suspension of disbelief. To achieve our goal, I first read the book My Life in New Orleans – Armstrong's autobiography – in order to capture the context of the birth of Jazz. It was wonderful to learn how dangerous the city was when the musician was a child, interesting to see how easy it was for black people to go in jail in 1920, and great to read the special relationship between Armstrong and his grandmother. There are tons of other elements I want to reveal, but I think it’s better to read it by yourself!

Above: Louis Armstrong's autobiography 'My Life in New Orleans'.

Furthermore, the autobiography is not the only piece of authenticity we used to create the game. We watched a lot of documentaries of course, and we tried to plan Trump’s story on an ancient map of New Orleans to understand it. It’s very hard to see this detail while playing the game, but it was useful for me to understand the adventure of the hero we were creating.

Above: the details of Trump's journey on an old map of N-O.

This method was applied for the characters too. Louis Lim and I first imagined the characters – their story, character, particularities – and after we tried to find if they had an alter ego in real life. Fortunately, we figured out everybody can have a double, even the video game characters!   

Above: Trump's design vs Louis Armstrong reference.

Above: Lady Coquelicot's design vs Coco Chanel reference.

Above: Granny Dolly's design vs Ella Fitzgerald reference.

That’s all for this part. I could spend a lot more time to detail the art direction of the universe, but that’s not my job. I let you take a look to Louis Lim’s work. It deserves your attention A LOT!

Music Inspirations

During the development, we cared about a lot of aspects, and the most dangerous one was the sound part. It was impossible to imagine a game about Jazz, Louis Armstrong and New Orleans without a good soundtrack. Fortunately, our composer Sylvain Hellio said to us he deeply appreciated Jazz music and that to create the OST was more exciting than else.

As Trump finds the members of his band one by one during his journey, the soundtrack is progressive. At the beginning of the adventure, the music is only composed of drum sounds. When the player finds the trumpet, it’s added to the partition, as well as the trombone when Trump meets Bono or the banjo when Trump meets Joe. When the band is completed and the player ready to participate in the contest, the soundtrack become more complex and beautiful. Well, at least it was our intention.

Above: Louis Armstrong's Hot Five Band.

And here come the stunning part!

Sylvain created an orchestral soundtrack with experienced musicians. It was impressive to see all of them playing their instrument – maybe it’s common in New Orleans, but not in Paris – and to discover their beautiful compositions.

Above: The Staff Roll presenting the real band of the game.

One more time, I would thank Sylvain Hellio, Olivier Calmel, Frederic Bodin, Mauro Gargano, Ichiro Onoe and Jan Schumacher for creating such a wonderful soundtrack! Moreover, if you want to ear a bit about it, check the next post!

[simonabitan]

Some Inspirations for a Jazzy Game (Part 1)

JAZZ: Trump’s Journey is 2D Platformer game for mobile supports, from iOS to PS Vita. The action takes place in New Orleans during the early twentieth century, allowing the player to live the birth of Jazz.

Oh, I see you imaging: ‘Cool, so it’s possible to play Jazz like Louis Armstrong!’

Not exactly. There were constraints when the project started. The main one was: ‘let’s create a Mario-like for mobile users’. It appears to be a pity said like that, but today I have to admit it was the best solution for the studio, because we just had the possibility to make a little game, so we focused on the other aspects – arts, musics, story – to balance them with the game design in order to create the best interactive experience possible. In this post, I want to present the inspirations we used to create the game.

Gameplay Inspirations

Even if the JAZZ is finally a platformer game, I tried first to link gameplay with music. As the most famous jazzman was Louis Armstrong – objectively, almost everybody knows Louis Armstrong – it was possible to use the trumpet to curse enemies and objects with the power of swing! Thus, the player would solve puzzles to progress. Another possibility was to control a Jazz band as a whole: the player could use every instrument of a quintet to progress into a full adventure game.

Above: a first 'in-game view' artwork made by Louis Lim.

Of course, as I mentioned it above, it wasn’t possible because of our budget and some other reasons, so we decided to melt music and time. In fact, when the player uses the trumpet in the game, it stops time so it’s possible to beat enemies or to jump on fast moving platforms. The main reference for this mechanic was Braid, but more for physical challenges than mental ones.

Above: a puzzle challenge in Braid. 

Above: a platform challenge in JAZZ: Trump's Journey.

As a result, I can easily say now we could do better by having more diversification in the challenges, but the orientation was good regarding our possibilities. 

Story Inspirations

It was the first time I had to imagine the story of a game. It was both an exciting mission and a terrible responsibility, because I had a lot of ideas but no method to use in order to construct a good story. As I worked with Louis Lim – the Art Director – on it, we both decided to use a famous base to tell: the pursuit of something. The best reference I can give is Mario. He’s always looking for her love – Daisy/Peach Pauline – and he’s always blocked by a strong ‘shadow’ like DK or Bowser. This triangular relation functions well in video games, and we thought it could be pretty nice to use it and break it down in the last part of the game, like in Braid – again – or Limbo. 

Above: Limbo, a game with a stunning ending!

Here, The player embodies Trump, a young jazzman who dreams of being a musician. To do it, he has to start a jazz band by recruiting 4 other members. During his adventure trough New Orleans, he meets the music star Lady Coquelicot. He loves her, and she seems to be attracted by his talent, but the evil Mr. R is always near to remind her the reality: she’s white, he’s black... So, for Trump and the player, the objective changes a little bit: to win the contest to prove to Lady Coquelicot that the hero is someone important!

Above: a Cut-Scene of JAZZ: Trump's Journey.

Last but not least, the storytelling system. We absolutely wanted to place Trump as the narrator of the game, because he lived the same adventure as the player before him, so he could comment it in hindsight. Thus, it places Trump – the narrator – as the mentor of himself – the player – by giving to him an objective point of view of a story deeply unfair for the hero.

We didn’t look for references about that method, but we pretty appreciated the role of the narrator in Superbothers: Sword and Sworcery, because it gives the sensation to enter something extraordinary. Emotions, emotions!

Above: a story sequence in Superbrothers: Sword and Sworcery.

Above: a story sequence in JAZZ: Trump's Journey.

There are a lot of other points to see, but I’ll reveal them in another part. Stay tuned!

[simonabitan]

An Unforgettable First Experience

The first post is always quite hard for me to write because I never know what is the most important to show first. Is it a simple “hi” or just a little text about what will happen next? Maybe both? Well, after careful consideration, I decided to write about something important for me to share: my first experience in the video game industry.

It was a Game Designer job at Egg Ball, a French company which developed mobile video games. And by “mobile”, I mean all devices that allow the player to enjoy “nomad” experiences.  It concerns all types of smartphones/tablets — iOS, Android, Windows 8, but also gamer devices like Sony’s PS Vita. In a word, Egg Ball used to make games that could be played all the time, everywhere.

Anyway, I worked for this company during almost 3 years from September 2010 to April 2013, and it was an unforgettable experience!

  I experienced during these 3 years the same good feeling that we can encounter when we play videogames: the Csikszentmihalyi’s flow of happiness (no sh*t). It’s a state of complete absorption with an activity — not necessarily playing video games — that crushes notions like time or starving. Who hasn’t dropped a big “Oh my god, I’ve played 3 hours!” after beating a huge badass’ boss during a supposed little game session? That achievement means your skills were at least as high as the challenge proposed by your activity — playing a video game in this case. Well, that very good feeling of total involvement, I felt it when I worked for that company.

Indeed, during these 3 years, all the projects I worked on were as big as my skills in game design. Even if my first project was a little match-3 puzzle for children, it was a very good challenge for me to make the greatest game possible. After that first experience of creation, I learnt a lot about my mistakes so my general skills in game design increased.

It was the same for the second project, the third, and so on. Finally, the last project was an ambitious 2D beat’em all game with more complex mechanics, more storytelling moments and more characters to develop than the first little match-3 puzzle. But even if the challenge to create the “greatest” game experience was a lot harder, and even if I had more responsibilities because of my new Lead status on the project, I felt I could do it simply because I wasn’t the same designer as before.

Above: Hamtaro (Match-3 puzzle) vs From Legend (Beat’em all).

Obviously, this feeling of happiness doesn’t mean developing games at Egg Ball was easy. Like many developers, we suffered from our ambition when starting a new project, working hard from the morning to the evening, often night. However, I think it was a good pain, even if I saw the company rise and fall like Icarus because of its ambition. We made games as a team, so we suffered as a team, we succeeded as a team and naturally we failed as a team. All the bad moments, as the good ones, are essential to progress so I can easily affirm these 3 years were positives!

To conclude this first post, I simply would thank the colleagues I worked with and especially the 3 co-founders: Julien Victor, Louis Lim and Nicolas Badoux. Thank you for trusting in me from the first second to the last one.

I won’t forget!

[louishlim]

Egg Ball (2011) (Publish by Bulkypix) : The Pirate King

Time management game for iOS platform. 

During the Pirate era, Blanks is the actual "Pirate King" of the seas. The player have to beat him to becoming the new Pirate King and wearing he's magical white coat.

For your quest of becoming stronger than the White Pirate, you will be helped by stranges pirates who will help you for upgrading your ship. But it's not free ! you have to collect gold and souls to paid them.

Bingowin, one of our character in this game:

My inspiration comes from games like Odin Sphere for the 2D travelling, and the manga One Piece for the story and the grotesque design.

Maybe one day I could make a comics about this game story.

Game info : 

The Pirate King iOS

Youtube Video :

[louishlim]

Egg Ball 3nd Game (2010) : Table Tennis Soul Tournament

Multiplayer arcade table tennis game, using iOS device bluetooth/wifi connection

Youtube video for the game presentation :

Bring your friends, choose your paddle, the ball and the table and play for an arcade type of table tennis game ! 

This game have maybe the most craziest marketing ideas we have ever made at Egg Ball. We've decided to make 10 real-life teasing short video showing "Paddle-man" running after "Eggy" the small chick. 

check our youtube channel for it : 

TTST Teasing video with Paddle-Man and Eggy the chick

I didn't have any route for the art direction at first, I've wanted to have a gender-less character with no complicated design, because it wasn't the most important thing of the game and we didn't have lots of budget for the game.

I just wanted to show a simple and beautiful design for a good lisibility for the game comprehension without complex scenario. But I needed a character for some action pose for my illustration to show the arcade aspect game. 

I really enjoy those illustration with simple shape.

Game download link : 

Table Tennis Soul tournament iPad (table)

Table Tennis Soul tournament iPhone/iPod Touch (paddle)