Noob the Game Developer

Hey there! My name is Yevi. I am a software developer. My experience is NOT in game development; however, as an avid gamer I always think about programming a game. This is about my journey into a dream.

[overthinkingvideogames]

Solid characterization can elevate a game. But as Capcom's Remember Me proves, a poorly conceived villain can undermine a great boss battle.

But there is a dark side to this and, indeed, the entire game.

Like a poorly conceived connect-the-dots puzzle in a children’s book, failed characters can provide clear hints of what a full picture would look like. Remember Me is replete with such characters, and even Madame is no exception, although the expressive mechanics of her boss fight manage to go some ways to filling the gaps left behind by the game’s writing. Yet, like an opera flowing from a poorly written libretto, the game’s “music” (in this case, the mechanics and events) is given very little heft and texture by the narrative.

Both Madame and another villain, the CEO of the antagonist corporation Memorize, Scylla Cartier-Wells, are thus left as sketches waiting for color and shadow.

On the successes and failures of Remember Me.

[ilikelookingatnakedmen]

Urgent PSA for Bioware fans - they’re hiring writers

Bioware are advertising to employ a writer, and they seem to be recruiting on ability rather than AAA studio experience. 

From the ad - 

How to apply to an Assistant Writer position at BioWare?

Write an outline and one dialogue for a short plot

Under 5000 words set within an existing BioWare franchise

Include a choice or complication to demonstrate player agency

Define any emotional beats

Include voice directions

It should be either composed using with Twine or a linked word document.

Requirements

Creativity. Writer will be expected to contribute to the direction of the game and script.

Ability to deliver stories on a weekly deadline.

Excellent written English skills required.

Ability to write from a variety of voices and perspectives (different genders, social classes, ages, etc.)

Willingness to work under direction while maintaining creativity.

Ability to develop a script to occur in a nonlinear manner. Story arcs will have multiple endings.

Organized - need to handle multiple story arcs and their relationships with each other.

Strong ability to communicate.

Applicants must be authorized to work in Canada

Obviously if you’ve already worked for a games company, that will give you these skills… but so will being a journalist or an independent writer, so if you can pass the audition, DO IT DO IT DO IIIIIIIIIIIT

[brelakor]

Reblobbing for others! :)

[sonneillonv-deactivated20220218]

I wish I had even a chance in hell of auditioning for this, but some of you might. 

[mrnelson007]

Hey this is Mega-rad. Pointing this out for anyone else who’s interested.

pagingdrsleep this might interest you in particular.

[caramelzappa-deactivated2018012]

Hey darren

[nprplays]

As Saudi Arabia’s Love Of Online Gaming Grows, Developers Bloom

By: Deborah Amos

The Middle East has one of the world’s fastest growing communities of online video gamers. With a majority of the population younger than 25, demographics drive the market, which was worth an estimated $1.6 billion in 2014. The region’s largest market is in Saudi Arabia — where gamers play a lot and spend a lot, say regional game developers.

In Saudi Arabia’s conservative culture, there are no cinemas or music concerts, so young people turn to video games as an outlet, says Abdullah Hamed, the vice president of a tech company that backs game development. The enthusiasm for gaming is part of the country’s overall embrace of online video and social media.

“The culture in general is very restrictive to what the rest of the world considers entertainment,” he says. “The best way to have fun is to play games. They are cool, pretty and entertaining.”

[overthinkingvideogames]

A deep and rewarding crafting system is a central feature in an increasing number of hit games. Some of the most well-crafted crafting systems have a lot to teach all developers.

This form of crafting has been around for a long time in survival horror games.

[…]

The 2008 Alone in the Dark expands this form of crafting to include other items, including flashlights, duct tape, bullets, bottles, and other junk that can be combined to take on enemies who only perish when exposed to fire. Though overly complicated, this awkward system of cobbling together of nuts and bolts in real time does stay true to the notion of urban decay and scavenging that Alone in the Dark roots around in elsewhere.

On good crafting systems.

[alamantus]

I finally started working with loading game data from a database in Unity, and I’m so excited! I set up a web-based admin control for variables so I can change variables in Chompy! even after the game is published if I need to. That’ll be super helpful for playtesting because I can tweak settings on the fly for people to test right away! :D

[alamantus]

willywangdev said: I hope you’re doing it through websockets, not through http requests, right ? It is HTTP requests through Unity’s WWW class and PHP, but it doesn’t really matter because it’s one request per game. If it was a real-time multiplayer game, then websockets would be essential, but just updating high scores and retrieving settings is nothing. :)

[alamantus]

That Game Development Podcast...

So I finished recording and editing the first episode of the game development podcast, and I’m currently planning the next one, so I think it’s time to announce some details!

The podcast is going to be called “The Game Mechanics” because it’s the greatest pun you could ever hope for when it comes to something like a game development show. (It’s plural to leave it open for other voices too.)

I’m planning to publish the first episode on July 22nd!

I’ll do my best to have an episode online every Wednesday from then on out (and if that ever changes I’ll announce it).

You can subscribe to the podcast via RSS or iTunes (soon) from the website.

The website can be found at http://thegamemechanicspodcast.tk because I can’t afford another paid domain right now and just plain “thegamemechanics.com” is already taken and I’ll have to really think about whether or not I want to get a .net before I run out and grab it.

I need your feedback and suggestions for content! I have ideas for somewhere around 16 episodes, but I’m always open to better ideas! There’s a link to a feedback form on the website, but it’s not really meant to be used until after you’ve listened to an episode or two.

I’m planning to reach out to (indie) developers to do interviews to give insight into the development process for individual developers, but if you want to be interviewed or know someone you want me to ask to interview for the show, by all means, let me know! I have a pretty small pool of developers I actually know, and I’d like to make developer interviews a regular thing.

So get hyped!

[games-benedict]

Sticking to the game plan

At Polygon, Arthur Gies did an interesting interview with Dean Hall not to long ago. They cover a lot of ground, but it was the stuff about Early Access and having a lose game plan going into development that stuck out to me,

I actually worked with them on it for quite a while. I’d probably have to revise the description of DayZ a bit. I’d say Kerbal Space Program is the perfect example. DayZ — In some ways it’s … it’s not a problem child of early access, but it got so big. It got so popular so fast. It’s a first-person shooter game. People have an expectation of it.

…

Xbox One as a platform has quite an element of that. Microsoft has a walled garden. They’re very particular. That’ll help them quite a bit. Anyone they’re looking into bringing on, they’re going to be putting the thumb down on them to make sure things actually happen. They want it to be a success story. I guess Steam is further down the track. They’re trying to grow an environment where they don’t have to be the police.Towns, 2012For me, I learned one big thing: you need to have a good road map. When I was in charge of DayZ, we didn’t have a good road map. That’s a huge pitfall. People get excited about the end result of it, like Kickstarter, right? But they don’t know all the steps it takes to get there. That was a huge lesson for me, doing a really good road map.

…

I look at DayZ. It gets really frustrating. You get people who are very upset with the development. And that’s why, to be honest, Steam refunds are a bit of a godsend. At least you can say, if someone’s dissatisfied in two hours they can return it, and you haven’t lost a future customer. But for people who have played longer than that, it can get quite frustrating.

…

I love that as a game developer. I don’t like us saying, oh, well, this is our scope, this is our budget, everything else gets put in the sequel. It’s nice to be able to be agile about it. With Ion, for example, we’re being really agile about how we approach it. 

To me, the idea that Hall learned his lesson with DayZ regarding having a design road map is questionable. But it’s not just Hall or Peter Molyneux–this is a problem that plagues lots of different developers. And not just developers, but creatives in any industry or medium struggle with this.

That wouldn’t necessarily be a problem in and of itself, but as fans and consumers get roped into the creative process more and more with Early Access and Kickstarter, best practices matter even more. Being clear about the scope of your project, and sticking to that scope, or at least being transparent and upfront about deviating from it during the process matters.

[overthinkingvideogames]

Fast travel is rubbish.

I first noticed the feeling when I stopped at an inn. They had a roaring fire, plenty of food and wine, and there was a dog lying at my feet. Skyrim had never felt more welcoming. I was replaying the game with some mods installed. One mod took away all the dragonborn stuff and left me starting as a simple bandit schmuck. Another mod made the world of Skyrim cold and harsh to survive in, so I had to light fires to keep myself warm and make sure I didn’t fall into any water lest I catch my literal hypothermic death. But one of these mods had a side option, which was to turn fast travel off. On a whim, I did. It was only days later, in the warm glow of this inn that the feeling began to come over me. And I realised something. Something that all my gaming life I’d never even thought about.

I HATE fast travel. Let me tell you why.

On fast travel.

[ineeddiversegames]

Legal Basics for Game Devs - IGDA Chicago event

IGDA Chicago is hosting an event, “Legal Basics for Game Developers” 6/23  the event is free, registration requested

Legal Basics for Game Developers is coming up on Tuesday, June 23rd from 7-9pm at DePaul. Ross A. Hersemann and Suzanne Jackiw will be detailing everything from copyright to contracts for game developers, followed by an audience Q&A.

[discovergames-blog]

This is the second event at the intersection of game and law that I’ve seen happen in Chicago recently. I can’t make it there, but as a soon-to-be lawyer and a maybe-one-day game developer, I’m happy conversations and conferences like this are starting to become more common.

[overthinkingvideogames]

What games must learn from children's books

A designer studies her favorite works of play and picture to explain what's missing from many modern video games

A necessary part of transformation is collaboration. When my partner spontaneously transformed The Z Was Zapped into a series of visual riddles, they were working in collaboration with Van Allsburg’s book, rather than just consuming a piece of media. Like the stages on which Van Allsburg’s letters are splattered by rocks, any piece of media—a children’s book or digital game or painstakingly detailed tabletop train simulation - is only a theater in which play is performed. The media does not provide the play itself.

This is the fundamental thing most game designers get wrong. Between tabletop gaming’s celebritizing of designers and digital games’ ability to function as increasingly perfect score-keepers, we’re becoming obsessed with rules. Game designers have become pedant legislators, trying to make sure players are playing our games the right way. We’ve become obsessed with controlling play.

On children’s books, and games.

[games-benedict]

How Video Games Make You Work - The New Yorker

The relationship between work and play is inherently entwined—there would, after all, be no PlayStation without the workstation.

Simon Parkin explores connection in some interesting ways, including that argument by Adorno and Horkheimer that “amusement in advanced capitalism is the extension of work.” He also suggests a few reasons why so many of us are so easily drawn to games that revel in digital drudgery.

For instance, he points to the way in which videogame worlds are so diligent in rewarding our labor. They don’t just mirror the routines and details of our work lives, they embellish them, often treating the player more fairly than reality ever could. Something I’d argue is a large part of why certain people (like myself) are drawn to the repetitive,even hypnotic patterns of a game like Destiny.

[yevichora]

I have thought about this quite a bit over the years. Games are supposed to be “not work” and yet I find myself in that trap. What kind of experience do we create for our players? Do we reward hard work, or do we encourage fun only? When creating a game, this is a very important consideration.

[discovergames-blog]

hiroshimishima

 At some point this week, I will (for the second…

So how’s it feel to have, albeit momentarily, a completionist?

Y’know, I’m not sure. There’s certainly something compelling (in both the positive and negative sense of that word) about chasing the goal of getting all the trophies, and it’s fun to knock them out. But it can also turn the act of playing the game - even a madcap game like JC2 - into rote, mechanical, work. 

So, I guess I am sure how I feel about it, ultimately. Completionism (for me) seems to suck all of the fun out of a game, and that’s generally not what you want.

[yevichora]

Context Switch

Working on two different things at once can be a challenge. In programming, working in two different environments at once can be very challenging.

If you have a boss and they come in and say “I know you have been on project X for a year now, but I need you to get up to speed on project Y. Also, in two months, I need you back on project X while they do integration testing. Finally, how long will that take?”

Different managers have a different understanding of how difficult (read “time-consuming”) this can be. Even you may not be fully aware.

When you are working on a project, you store a lot of information about the project in your head. You have server names and addresses, web page locations, frequent bookmarks, common algorithms, run commands, language syntax, etc all stored and easily accessible. When you switch to a new project, you have to relearn all of those elements. Some of the switch can be major like going from Windows to Linux or from C# to C++. Do not assume that will be instantaneous, and certainly don’t let your manager think that.

Contex Switch is a computer term relating to time-shareing on a processor. When a processor switches from one task to another, it takes all of the information related to the old task and switches it with the information related to the new task.

People need to do the same. We need to switch out all the information and replace it with a new context. And guess what? When you go back to the old project after a little bit, you need to go through another context switch, and that takes more time.

Don’t get caught off guard. Always plan on a context switch.

[femhype]

Game Mechanics & The Genre of Story-Based Games: ‘The Wolf Among Us’ + ‘Life Is Strange’

In my hands I hold two games. One is a gritty, violent noir where you play a sheriff trying to catch a murderer in a corrupt and classist regime. The other, a high school drama, where you play a teenage photographer who has to navigate social situations with themes of bullying, mental illness, and teenage rebellion. Now what if I told you they are the same genre: Graphic Adventure?

The games I described are Telltale’s The Wolf Among Us and Dontnod’s Life Is Strange. The mechanics of these games are fairly simple: a single-player character, point-and-click environment interaction, and multiple choice conversation options. These games also share an episodic release schedule with player choice statistics at the end of each episode. The main mechanical difference in these games has to do with pacing.

Continue reading⇥

[nonhoration]

“ That one mechanical style can support such different games is neat! But it also means that defining these games strictly by their mechanics is neither thorough nor meaningful. “

[femhype]

I’ve Been Here Before! Replayability & Cost-to-Value Ratio in Games

Video games are not cheap, which I am sure you all know—especially if you buy new releases. When buying new, you are looking at an outlay of between $35 and $55 for whatever it is. Given that oftentimes this means 20+ hours of gameplay for a single playthrough, it is actually not a bad cost-to-value ratio. And this is if you are playing it only one time. Should you play the game multiple times, the cost-to-value shifts even further in your favor. Then if you use Steam to get games on sale or used, that ratio can improve. How many games are designed for decent “replayability,” another means of increasing value?

There are some games, along the style of 2048, Angry Birds, and Bedazzled, which have a near infinite variability built into them. You may never be able to play an exact variation of a previous game no matter how often you play. This almost always creates a very high value-to-cost, as these games are rarely expensive since the coding is not as extensive. The downside to this style is that the games are, in many ways, very repetitive, because they have a simple premise. You gain a skill in the logic of the game and are able to get better and better through repeated playthroughs, however, it is rare to say that these games are completely engaging, at least not for long. 

I have played the above mentioned games multiple times but have often stopped in the middle of them to do something else—eat, read, what have you. There is little to really catch me hook, line, sinker, wharf, and fisherman like some games.

Continue reading⇥

[ilikelookingatnakedmen]

I personally tend to make games that look ‘casual’, but consistently melt the brains of self identified ‘hardcore’ players trained on endless tutorials, cut scenes and QTEs. Some of the best players are smart 30-40-year old women that have the intense mental stamina for activities like logic, planning and creative thinking. They thrive on hard games. My market doesn’t even exist if you see the world through a ‘casual / hardcore’ lens. Yet there it is, merrily enjoying games amidst the vast diversity of this planet’s billion odd players. Recommendation: No one really makes ‘hardcore’ or 'casual’ games. At best, we use existing markets, tribes and distribution channels to get a tentative foothold in a player’s psyche. But then it gets complicated. Embrace the complexity of your players. Learn who they actually are. Create elegant solutions that serve your many types of players.

[ilikelookingatnakedmen]

Dan Cook on moving beyond boring gatekeeping definitions to actually making interesting games. 

[yevichora]

Even When You Are Sick

I was sick over the weekend. Nothing big, just a cold. The weekend is a prime time for me to work on my side projects like game programming. However, I just didn’t feel like it.

Monday comes and guess what? Still sick. I am a programmer by day. Not a game programmer, but a programmer none the less.

When your brain is fogged and your head clogged with mucous, working sucks. You are still expected to think. Somehow, through the blocked neural pathways, you need to push rational thought and hope it makes it to your code.

This is the difference between a job and a hobby. A hobby you can say, “Screw it, I am grabbing a blanket, a cat, and the remote.” For work, you have to tough it out, expend twice the effort, get home and pass out. Unless you use precious time off which seems wasted on napping and feeling crappy.

What can you do? Well, not much. It is what it is.

Would that ruin game programming if it WAS your job? It seems to me that it would make it less fun if you HAD to do it, even when you didn’t feel like it.