I had a discussion with one of my friends on methods how Internet works for me. This discussion started with thesis that URL is more for technical people. That was in consequence answer to a question: why people start browsing from search engine even for known pages and relatively known addresses.
Somewhere in that conversation I shouted that I almost do not use search engine, only occasionally when I definitely need to search for something I can’t find the other way. Never on a regular way to find “anything”.
This triggered big questioning mark on my friend’s face and big “How?!” reply.
Well short and quick answer I could provide was that I’m a power user with very well defined needs. Search is one of them but only on-demand basis rather than regular access point to the Internet.
So how can I marginalize search engines while browsing and live these days?
It started with a dramatic reflection that Internet is full of garbage and 99% of it is just useless crap I don’t need. I started to split my needs into categories like: looking for knowledge (educational), looking for recent news in areas I’m interested, communication and participating in communities then undefined, occasional search for a keyword that for any reason popped up in my mind.
With that exercise I eradicated “just to waste some time” need, so “I’m feeling lucky” feature is not for me anymore.
For communication and communities it’s easy, Facebook simplified the thing to the very end. Adding Twitter and additional clients for both I have my connections and chasing for news managed.. somehow. Getting recent information cannot be solved at its full extend as it only depends on your contacts recommendations. It’s incomplete.
So for my areas of focus I have I found 9-12 top sites that are my news and new knowledge hubs as information on web sites is very well connected, usually I can follow one site after another without any single try on search. After a while I’ll be rather bored or completely happy with the information already gathered. These sites are speed dialed and thumbnails to these pages appear on my browser’s main window.
Not to get overwhelmed, sites like tweetmeme.com and techmeme.com are blessings more powerful than Google itself. With these sites I realized that in 2010 information stored in the Internet is much better connected by communities than Index Servers maintained in big data centers of Microsoft and Google.
I also found that for community-driven information that’s connected, search engine like Ice Rocket seems to be more attractive than anything else.
This way I surprised that friend I have mentioned, because usually I find myself free from Google and free from massive search usage on my daily browsing routine.
It’s really fantastic experience because when you start feeling it, then on a question “what can possibly kill Google’s dominance in the Internet” you find simple answer – that what has created the Internet as we see it. Which is us – the communities.
With information so well connected outside search engine, I find Twitter and Facebook as the biggest threat guys in Mountain View probably perceive and they should. These relatively new services in Web 2.0 sphere have already marginalized my search usage and I assume that they can only grow.
As for Game-Dev heat map I can easily find three strong regions: US (and Canada), Europe (mainly represented by UK, France, Germany and Scandinavia) and Japan. Some talented studios and people also live and work in Australia but as for number of titles and teams, it has not that impact as those three I have already mentioned.
Trend in the industry is to cut costs and many managers look for countries that are lets say more cost effective to outsource there more and more work. Common to other industries, but as well for game development we have China where I see Ubisoft like good example of huge investment. India is also worth a notice. Many local companies there offer their creative services to western studios. I also perceive my region worth some comment.
CEE which stands for Central and Eastern Europe hides many AAA ready studios. Some countries like POLAND, Czech Republic, Hungary are now in European Union which makes us predictable and reasonable business partners that are still much better considering cost effectiveness than the core, old Union. Also countries from former Soviet Union (Ukraine and Russia) are more and more visible abroad. Just to mention title I’m expecting to play soon – Metro 2033 – is developed in Russia. Great, atmospheric first person perspective shooter called Stalker was made in Ukraine.
Summarizing game development in Russia and Ukraine I see that my eastern neighbors have found their specialty in shooters and strategy games. It’s little bit different in Poland. As for the biggest studios I wanted to highlight in this post, I see that we do of course great job in FPS space, but we also dare to challenge one of the most difficult genres – role playing games (like The Witcher and Two Worlds).
Current strength in Polish Game Development comes from PC development and current state of these studios is to break in or sustain and grow in console markets. This is fantastic achievement considering the past where I had a feeling that we all the time chase global trends being still late for at least 5 years with skill and experience. Now observing current growth I’m amazed in genre, scale, platform and project’s type diversity Polish companies address.
Warsaw, Cracow and Wroclaw are top three places to live if you consider game development career
We do have great example of promoting own, new IPs (Two Worlds, Call of Juarez, Painkiller). We are good at customizing existing IPs to the gaming medium like in Witcher, which originally was a fantasy novel with a super hero story created by a local writer – Andrzej Sapkowski. We’ve got some recent experience with AAA title conversion and porting (Gears of War PC port for Epic Games). Leaders have already realized potential in on-line communities, Web 2.0 and digital distribution learning fast how to market it globally as well as locally.
New players are establishing their position on the scene but in this article I wanted, indeed, focus on fantastic four of biggest veterans in Polish Game Development that have already presented themselves as high quality developers attractive for a global player.
Company started in 1991 in small Polish town. It’d started as a publisher and software localization company. At the end of 90-ties they broke into gaming industry as well as developer opening a studio in Wroclaw. Crime Cities was first title I considered worth checking at the time. It was something like Quarantine meets Fifth Element as I remember. Not a bad start. Then they made Chrome – FPS with quite a decent engine which has become a base for their further developments. Techland still refers Chrome Engine as technology used in their games.
Call of Juarez second installment is truly AAA game
Most important achievement in their history is named Call of Juarez. Game obviously designed to focus on American gamers. At the end of last year they have released sequel called Bonds in Blood. With this title I’m pretty sure that they received proven track in console space and growth warranty. I’m not surprised then looking at their job openings that they have Dev teams not only in Wroclaw (original location) but also in Warsaw (capitol city). Looks like they have opened a second development studio. Good Job!
CD Projekt is also a veteran in Polish publishing and distribution market. They have started in early 90-ties pioneering CD-ROM based games in the world dominated by floppy discs. In 2002 they opened a branch office called Red Studio with one purpose – to investigate game development opportunities for the company. Brave and important investment in huge team that has learned effectively how to make complex role playing game based on IP that is very well known in Poland – The Witcher. Because of novels’ popularity, expectations in Poland were very high. CD Projekt’s aspiration, though, were even higher. They licensed Bioware’s engine – Aurora – used in Neverwinter Nights and planned to sell that popular Polish IP to the world.
Development was long and many started disbelieving in CD Projekt’s skill to produce complete product. Finally two years ago Witcher hit the stores and got critical acclaim in Poland and worldwide. At the end, Team proved that they were worth consumers’ trust and waiting.
Witcher - Major landmark in Polish Role-Playing
Unfortunately, then some troubles started. Company outsourced console port of the original Witcher focusing its core forces on new initiatives. It failed big time in this effort (porting), I presume from lack of experience in such a process. This is a part of bigger issue which I’ve noticed. CD Projekt looks like they’ve overestimated its new investment capacities (my subjective opinion, I hope to be wrong).
They first presented themselves as big investor and gaming innovator. They acquired another old game development studio – Metropolis, they started on-line store (gram.pl) and digital distribution service (Good Old Games). On Xbox360 launch they started distributing Xbox games (deal with MS), and many more. Then they started closing some of its businesses. They shut Metropolis, stopped Witcher’s Xbox 360 development with French developer (as I already mentioned). Finally they have merged with former Polish stock market giant – company named Optimus, on unclear conditions looking for new funds, I presume.
Regardless of these issues (mainly generated by some troubled time we used to call the crisis) this company has great potential and foresight ability. They quite recently announced that they work on The Witcher second installment, no details up to date on platform and game-play specifics.
With this studio I have personal memories. Somewhere between 1999 and 2001 I wanted to join their ranks. At that time I lacked experience they wanted, but the conversation was very interesting and I still recall it with big grin smile on my face. On their pages you can find that they started operations in 2001. Might be true, but the team existed even before and was known in Poland from strategy games like Polanie and Earth ****. These RTS games have continuations already branded by Reality Pump.
Two Worlds - Oblivion's little sister
These games were offered worldwide but I’m not sure if they (and how) were recognized. For me, first title they have made and that should have not been ignored is role-playing game Two Worlds. Reality Pump took different approach than CDP-Red in their RPG efforts. They have created their own IP with open world trying to compete with such RPG giants like Elder Scrolls or Gothic series. They released the game on PC as well as on Xbox 360 which makes them another studio where developers can learn how to make games for current generation video games consoles. Now they also work on a sequel.
Last but not least – People Can Fly. Behind this company’s scenes you can easily reveal true Polish game-dev legend – Adrian Chmielarz. This guy has very much a similar story to say as Peter Molyneux. he’s just not used to be the same charismatic in old English way as Peter has during his speeches. Adrian started developing games as programmer and was pioneering high quality games development from the very beginning. At the beginning of 90-ties where Amiga, PC established their position as home computers and Nintendo fought its eternal war with Sega in consoles space, first Polish game dev companies were discovering true masterpiece ideas but for 8bit Atari and Commodore and starting to make some old-looking and rubbish titles for PC and Amiga. We were definitely behind the time (thanks to the bloody communism) but not Adrian Chmielarz himself.
With his first company Metropolis Software House (mentioned earlier in CD Projekt’s story) in 1992/1993 he developed adventure game – “Secret of the Statue” – that was not worse than so called “Western” counter-parts. Adrian was experimenting with many genres and sub-genres. Secret of the Status was a first person perspective adventure game with digitized pictures (like Myth). His further adventure game, Prince and Coward, had traditional point and click interface.
In late 90-ties he started moving toward shooters. First was Catharsis, a scroller shooter with 3d pre-rendered environment (below movie):
Then he resigned from Metropolis and in 2002 started new company, People Can Fly. This company quickly marked its existence in the gaming world with Painkiller, true masterpiece horror-like FPS for PC and first Xbox.
With such a proven track People Can Fly was later acquired by Epic Games as its internal development studio. Their first project under Epic’s patronage was to port Gears of War to PC. They succeeded and now they work on new yet to be announced big title. Can’t wait for news!
SUMMARY
Polish game development studios as I already wrote have diverse experience and interests. These companies are leaders in my subjective opinion but not the ony ones in the country. New and not so new companies climb the ladder. Some other examples worth mentioning: company called Farm51 and their game – Necrovision. Tate - scene’s long-timer and I think first Polish company that broke into console development with Kao the Kangaroo, ages ago. Another long-time runner is company named City-Interactive. This studio for long was focused on smaller titles for PC and handheld now according to their strategic shift want to make less titles but with higher budget. I’ve got some pictures from their first Xbox 360 production they’re developing
Yet to be announced City Interactive X360 development. Looking good aye? You can find more pictures.
Poland is definitively growing in game development space and it is more visible worldwide. Being born here I’m personally proud of that.
Just short off topic note to have you informed. I’ve got feedback, several times, that reading white text on black background may not be the best option to keep readers focused. It may be true, so I decided to experiment little bit and change it. Some little details on these pages may disappear and appear for a moment. Not text obviously, rather some details like RSS icon on the bottom (which I think should be better on top) and other layout elements. Sorry for your inconvenience, at least it’s no more white text on black background.
Latest creation from Quantic Dreams cannot be ignored. David Cage presented himself as great storyteller in his previous game – Project Indigo (Fahrenheit outside US). While playing Heavy Rain, I could hardly avoid comparisons to that previous title. These two games come along with Cage’s redefinition of adventure game with cinematic glamour. Cinematic experience in Heavy Rain popped up another question I asked myself: is still Heavy Rain a game?
In Fahrenheit we had several characters to play with through the story. All of them had some purpose to the main plot and it’s similar in Heavy Rain. Major difference in game play I found, is that in snowy precursor game mechanics were bound to traditional action adventure controls. Balance was only pushed little bit more toward adventure rather action. Action in Fahrenheit was strictly related to some arcade elements blended in and between puzzles and dialogue. Still I had a feeling that I was free to do whatever I wanted at limited stage of scene. In Heavy Rain I have a feeling, that it’s mostly all about the story. I’m not even surprised to see YouTube version of the game. That’s good example of how limited game playability is. My reflection from playing: controls over characters were only a necessary waste of time to trigger new dialogue and choice of action which I rather watched than played. After a while I found no sense to walk around, lurk for some hidden spots.. somewhere. The only exception is one character who makes real investigation with tools that even CSI folks should be envy at.
Arcade elements in Heavy Rain are close to beat-em up mechanics, which is really tough. There is no time to learn these “combos” as next button to press shows up on the screen and you have like a second to push the right one. Honestly, it was really frustrating. This game is about a story. Limited freedom of game-play replaced with really tough control in some “magic” moments is first serious risk I perceive David Cage has taken. People who are not accustomed to gaming but who will like to test current stage of interactive storytelling & drama may fail to finish it because of difficulty. People who seek a game with rich story may actually not find a game in Heavy Rain. Not by their (and my definition). I don’t mind, but I believe many will do. I really appreciate the story. In my humble opinion it is so strong that I dare to compare it to David Fincher’s “Seven” movie.
In one of my previous articles, I described story structure based on a single, main character development from mundane folk to a hero. It’s barely the way David Cage chose for its games, and it’s really fantastic. I have no other examples in gaming, but Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain where you are put in some moment of time, dense with dramatic events and many characters who are involved and engaged almost simultaneously to that plot. In both games terrible crime is chosen to bind characters to the story. Major difference between these games, is that in Fahrenheit player-character roles were competitive to each other. Playing cops and a murderer was a real challenge because they had quite opposite goals. Culmination point was when these goals had blended to a common one. In Heavy Rain, from the beginning, all characters we play have the same goal: solve the riddle and find the bad guy. Shock and culmination point is at the very end when the truth is revealed.
Maturity is another aspect that differs David Cage’s games. In Fahrenheit beginning was really dramatic. Nothing that could not happen in our world was described there. I could easily explain all unreal situations by drugs or psychology, If I only wanted. I didn’t. It was fun to see all those strange moments inspired something where Matrix meets strange cult conjured by Multi-Personal Disorder known very well from dozen of famous movies (like Lost Highway or Fight Club) taken as an inspiration. Dense atmosphere ended fast when I got some jumbo-mambo sci-fi for which even Matrix looks authentic. It’d built a distance to the thriller side of that story and then I started enjoying it as an action game (fight on the roof, what a pace!). Heavy Rain is mature and for adults only story about grim world where terrible crime simply happens. There is no magic, aliens and other stuff that kills the atmosphere of Gotham City’s social failure, but in rainy not dark metaphor. Rain brings sadness not fear, and it’s a feeling that you can’t stop thinking about during the game. As a victim of a serial killer you have occasion to feel how it’d like to get through whole that psychological trauma, you start believing how it could be. Psychological impact on what’s happening on the screen is indeed comparable with “Seven”. It’s first game where I didn’t want to do something which game was expecting me to do to go forward. It was that terrible like in those movies where you moved your head away because you didn’t want to watch something drastic. Power of this story is there just because Cage does not escape from such situations. They make Heavy Rain even more authentic. It’s interesting to experience it, as it’s totally different from all controversial aspects in games we’ve already had. Having sex in Mass Effect or playing a terrorist in Modern Warfare 2 is like eating peanuts comparing to that one scene in Heavy Rain, I don’t want to spoil.
As for hard decisions in game, I found two situations where I wanted to have more time to think of. While playing I killed twice. In both scenes it was so fast that I had no time to reconsider my decisions. In both situation it was not like “kill or be killed” 1sec moment. Game mechanics helped little bit where you have options to push some button and you don’t exactly know what can happen. In both situations I was shocked how fast pressing the trigger was. Then, when it was done and dead body laid on the floor, my first thought was that I didn’t want to do it.
It’s very interesting from social perspective. I strongly believe no-one playing that game is a killer and then you’re put in a situation so strong and serious from story perspective to do so, with exact feeling. I’d not be surprised the find moral questions like what should and what should not be put in games coming from the Press once again. Media like challenges like this and put gaming controversy on the front page. Usually they fail to bring correct message. I presume Heavy Rain is so hard to comprehend, that it will never be covered. If killing in games is a problem considering silly shooters and other games that ignore almost all real aspects of what real death is, then Heavy Rain shows all possible physical, ethical and moral aspects of such. Hard decisions in Heavy Rain bring questions like this often. Playing it and replaying I had one on mind pretty often: “is this really necessary?”. In many cases, for the story, it was.
David Cage has invented very powerful tool to present dramatic and even traumatic stories. For me, Fahrenheit has built very high expectations for the next game from Quantic Dreams. Heavy Rain is even more interactive movie than a game. At the beginning failed to meet expectations built in my mind, I expected game. I changed my opinion and I exactly know why. Maturity and power of the story presented in that game is so tremendous, that with my own high expectations to the game based on Fahrenheit nostalgia, I for sure didn’t expect to see something like this. It’s simply a different thing. Expecting that Heavy Rain will be Fahrenheit 2, new sequel but better was wrong and misleading.
I had a very interesting discussion yesterday. I want to summarize it below.
There is a fresh new group of developers who want to start making games. They have quite a decent (but various) programming experiences with different platforms, different project types and scale. All outside gaming of course. During my discussion I heard two very interesting questions, I’ve tried to answer then and will answer also here.
1) Which platform choose for casual indie games.
2) What if we choose wrong platform, how about portability?
Questions seem to be academic and I have a feeling, that I answered quite academically. As for first problem, I asked more questions to better understand it. I was curious what games is that group aiming at and for what audience in specific.
Answers I’ve heard were not clear which I understood as the group is rather looking for certain ideas, than have a complete vision of a certain title. Sounds like a pitfall, right? In further discussion we agreed that first goal is rather to better understand technologies and possibilities potential platforms can offer.
Fair enough. Knowing what you can do and binding it together with some assessment on who usually has such a platform and what games that player expects can help to work on realistic ideas and innovations that have better chance to work. It is good to know though, that it’s not real game development. Rather a technological training, which later can help to better discuss differences and potential on platforms like Facebook, iPhone, XBLA, XNA, PSN and Steam, just to mention a few different examples.
Answering to the second question: what if we choose wrong platform, how about portability?
In this case I believe that sticking to basic programming principles can help. Most programming platforms have for sure one thing in common -> objects and object oriented mechanisms. Syntax may vary and language specific elements can trick out porting efforts. Avoiding them should be part of that best practice, I think. Having objects on mind, in front I’d design abstraction layer with objects that share common elements. Any specific platform just should expose it in its implementation.
Simplified example: If I want to develop 2d sprite based scroller shooter, I need objects like screen that supports pixel-by-pixel redrawing, sprites, some routines for clipping, collision detection for sure. Those should have interfaces which are platform independent as much as possible. Then adding DX, GDI, Silverlight with WriteableBitmap, Xna support or whatever technology should become a task bound to platform but not breaking game features themselves.
This approach is implemented in Unity and Unreal Engine too.. what we see there is a common interface (even including WYSIWYG editors) and platform related implementation that we don’t care much designing game at its basic level.
Sounds very much obvious, yet question like this is really fantastic, because it reveals inexperienced developers or developers who have been bound to a single technology stack for long, if not forever. No big deal, good moment to start learning as many different technologies and languages as possible to push the perceptional horizon further.
From these obvious truths in answer, I suggested to these guys a task, challenge for the team of five as I heard.
I suggested them to develop some short game which isn’t time-consuming as for development. Let’s say it’s Tetris.
In this challenge each team member has to pick a technology and/or platform, different to the rest. When everybody finishes, then each developer should take somebodies else code and port it with the thought and structure of the original concept to another platform&technology. Take C# or Flash port of Quake (originally in C) as good example of similar task.
When everybody finishes group should meet and discuss what was the biggest pain and if somebody failed, why?
Conclusions taken from that final discussion should help them to avoid practices that are potentially dangerous in such migration.
Interesting porting paths (to and back), I can recommend are:
Direct3d to OpenGL
Xna to DirectX
WPF Xaml+C# to Direct2D based 2d vector graphics and sprites
From HTML5+Canvas+Javascript to Silverlight and WritableBitmap
Even with Tetris complexity, above examples should be good to reveal some bad habits.
Dreams have powerful impact on many things from our real life to mediums we used to play with as entertainment. From psychological drama to mindful refresh and relax, lucid stories while dreaming, we barely remember them in the morning. That terrible loss and potential hidden meanings were inspiring philosophers, psychologists and entertainers for many years, if not centuries.
Books, movies and games go into dreamworld occasionally and as in first two examples its mostly another art form hard to perform well and so easy to ignore in games I perceive the biggest power of dreams for interactive usage.
I’m not the first one who observed that, in fact I have found many interesting examples of dreams in games already developed, mostly in two scenarios:
SPLITTING WORLDS: DREAMS AIN’T REAL
Dreams by its nature are perfect to give hints and formulate breaks between acts with some important summary and new points in plot yet not revealed fully to give us a reason to stay and ask questions when awaken. In this example role-playing games seemed to be perfect to put dreams in game as specific cut scene in most cases rather to read than watch. Take a look at good&old Baldur’s Gate where without any interaction we were given some clues about the story going forward:
Not so impressive even those times of its origin. Main reason: dreams in BG were only a summary of current achievements. Told well by an intriguing voice of narrator, but completely non-interactive and without any mystery dreams should have.
It’s little bit better in quite a new (comparing to BG) Lost Odyssey, but still has the same flaws even though presentation, including visuals and sound effects, is really well balanced:
In Lost Odyssey, through dreams, we can try to discover some hidden memories from the past. Stories are really well written, but confusing not valuable for the main story at all. After a couple of dreams, I stopped reading them because of schizophrenic lack of useful content. In jRPG I really respect my gaming time. Dreams in their formula inspired me personally only to dwell for new techniques how to present text on screen (as a programmer).
Role-playing games have no monopoly for dreams and fuzzy memories presented in quite a somnolent way. Action games also presented them in many examples. Take Max Payne and its comic book heritage.
Different approach but still passive, unfortunately. Action game like above is really good to show much more interactive usage.
LIVING THE DREAM THAT HAS COME TRUE
How about utilizing dreams not to cut scenes or acts and summarize something with blurred memories and reality hardly real? From previous examples and Max Payne as a bridge take a look at Darkness. Main character is dead, undead, not dead, hard to say. Monsters helping him, all strange things bound to the story and especially alternative worlds in different time and dimensions. That’s all what we could easily call dreams, not an idyllic one. Darkness has them, one of the reasons I love to come back to this game:
Game mood like from famous The Crow movie, but with much more dark magic and horror – dreamworld in Darkness is closer to terrors of Lovecraft’s prose than sissy stories full of banality told us literally in Baldur’s Gate and Lost Odyssey.
Writing so, I may sound ignorant, no point in that. Dreams may vary from joyful sex dreams through, “I don’t need to wake up” and “I won a lottery” relaxations, to “My grandma visited me and warned me” and “I died in accident” or “Somebody killed me”. These different settings and atmosphere of dreams can be used in games, but by its interactive nature it’s much easier to expose fear, drama, regret and other not so clear and positive feelings for which as players we rather like to dwell deeper and ask more questions than stay and relax doing nothing. Sometimes as in the best up to date Call of Cthulhu game, we not only didn’t want to wake up, we hadn’t wanted to fall asleep first place. (WARNING FOR BELOW MOVIE: IF YOU DIDN”T FINISH THE GAME, IT HAS OBVIOUS SPOILERS, WATCHING IS SPOILER FREE UNTIL 1:40)
Great escapes full of drama and not possible in real world I found also in one of my favorite games – Fahrenheit (Project Indigo in US). This game and interactive storytelling offer it has, is one of the best usage of dramatic dreamworld as a game-play medium.
All these examples show, that for this medium visuals and music have to get married fast and furious. I’m waiting for tomorrow’s launch date of Heavy Rain. I presume I’ll have more examples from Quantic Dreams, who named themselves perfectly for this article.
But narration shown in Fahrenheit and Heavy Rain with atmosphere where music, visuals and story come together is not Quantic Dream’s invention. They put a lot of innovation in their games for sure, still I find their precursor from mid 90-ties. I mean game called Dream Web. Take a look at intro where setting is already established:
All above examples remind me only one last thing – my dream. I wish to see more games with interactive dreams blended into game-play. I’m also glad for games that have already showed these dreams coming true.
I really enjoy my time spent on playing Pixel Junk Shooter. I haven’t finished it yet, currently I’m in 3rd stage. I’d beaten two interesting bosses and got addicted to the game mechanics. From developer perspective, meantime, I started asking myself a question: What makes this game so great?
I found this game by reading various reviews and watching movie clips like that one above. First thing I noticed, was how well game mechanics and visuals are connected. Literally it’s just a scroller shooter, but much of its spirit is made by fantastic 2d fluid simulation presented visually in very attractive way.
If you’re a programmer interested in further investigation, take a look at below movie, it shows similar concept:
Above clip shows an application developed by Microsoft MVP Rene Schulte. Rene published .NET Framework sources on his personal pages. He’s programmed basic example of technology that can inspire for Pixel Junk Shooter alike physics in games. The only technical problem left to do, is that in PJS you have different fluids interacting between each other (liquid fire, lava, water, oil, etc). Skill to master by a smart coder, I believe.
Aside of fluids, I can’t stop thinking on Pixel Junk Shooter without connecting it to old Amiga games. Sometimes it’s really abstract but it triggers my imagination for potential sequels.
For example, shooting part of game’s mechanics remind me Cannon Fodder. I dream to play Cannon Fodder with two analogs. It should be so much better and PJ’s Shooter shows that well. In Cannon Fodder though, encounters were more dynamic and not so much was to rescue:
Some of game’s mechanics remind me old games from Psygnosis (currently and for long SCE Studios Liverpool). Take strange combination of Lemmings or maybe rather Benefactor, put it together into a scroller shooter action game with puzzles strictly related to fluid physics. If you take a look at this game this way you immediately start dreaming on more Lemmings/Benefactor alike features. I did, I believe that many ideas should fit well into Pixel Junk Shooter. Imagine situation that little folk you have to rescue moves, and moves in very stupid/uncontrolled way. Imagine situation that you’re bound into a conflict between two sides and rescue good and leave bad guys. Imagine situation, that even though there are two bands of miners who fight/compete for something, you have to rescue both groups before deadly lava will kill them all.
Maybe some of that mechanics will appear in further levels. I’m not sure now, as currently I’m fascinated with maxing up results on these first 15 levels. I’m pretty sure though, that this game will surprise me even more. If not, then it’s definitely worth further experimenting and development.
I’m really glad this game showed up. It proves well my theory of evolutionary design. I’m expecting good sequels and clones of that concept in near future. It’s rather obvious that games where mechanics are strictly bound to physics seem to be 100% success warranty. I can’t recall any example where it was not.
I’m a believer, that each story should have well defined structure. There are many ways to build it, method depends on dimension we want to bring details for. Analyzing and mapping that well defined structure on actual stories, movies and games can help to comprehend it better and use it while building your own storyline.
Hero-centric approach
Many stories are driven by a central persona – a main character. To have that story truly epic, a hero is chosen. Hero who takes a journey first to discover his heroic abilities in a mundane world, then using those skills and with heroic faith mentioned character goes forward to make the world better, rescue the princess and so on, THE END.
There is no better way to structure hero’s journey than using method discovered and named so by Joseph Campbell. In his book “Hero with a Thousand Faces” he defined a theory of so called monomyth. Under this monomyth’s umbrella Campbell described the same or at least very similar structure of many myths coming from different parts of the world and different cultures. Centric part of that theory is that hero, person who sometimes accidentally finds himself on a journey from a mundane life to and epic end.
Hero’s Journey has three big phases: Departure, Initiation and Return. Before Departure starts our hero just like in Fable (games), Frodo in Lords of the Rings (book and movie) has his mundane life, he’d just got used to have. Then first motif appears on the horizon which Campbell named “Call to Adventure“. It’s nothing but the signs of the vocation of the hero. Some may be just built by curiosity, some by personal drama, some just happened and still not much is visible both to the character and the audience watching it on the screen, reading a book or simply playing the game. During next step, a “Refusal of the Call“, our character quickly realizes, that it’s not what he wished to have. Folly of the flight from the god is often described in many stories as great wish to come back to the life before adventure started. Frodo in LOTR had that moment when he wanted to give One Ring to Gandalf. Sometimes it’s just an refusal to agree on an heroic status already given, like modest behavior of Aragorn who didn’t want to discuss his rights to the throne for long. Neo in Matrix also wanted to come back to the “unreal” world shortly after awakening. Manifestations of that refusal may vary as you see. Next step in this theory is a “Supernatural Aid“. Sometimes it’s not literally supernatural, but for sure unexpected assistance that comes to one who has undertaken his proper adventure. “Crossing of the First Threshold” is the first obstacle, a guardian, hero has to “defeat” to enter the realm of magnified power. When he succeeds, he passes the gate to the magical world and he starts believing in his heroic ability. This phase is called “Belly of the Whale“. For Neo in Matrix, that guardian is represented by Morpheus in the martial art combat they performed. Neo entered the passage when he’d started learning all possible fighting techniques with fascination described by single yet powerful sentence “Hit me!”. Funny, the same thing Keanu Reeves said in Johny Mnemonic when his hardrived-head was loaded. Frodo found his guardian in the forest while Orcs had attacked his fellows. Boromir was the the guy who helped Frodo to find his passage. Crossing the river is that magical moment.
Anyway, after crossing the passage, Departure ends and Initiation starts. First moments are hard, our hero is on “The Road of Trials“. Those trials are dangerous aspects gods have put on the road. Neo had to learn how to jump from one building to another. Frodo had to find his way from swamps and other dangerous areas directly to Mordor itself. Moments during trials are really tough. It’s easy to start disbelieving even if hero thought he is the One. To reconstruct, even indirectly his heroic faith “The Meeting With the Goddess” is necessary. Oracle in Matrix made the moment providing more questions than answers to Neo. Frodo met Faramir and during those moments when he helped to save Gollum’s life he encountered that phase. Joseph Campbell, giving analogies to our myths, described it as mythical marriage with the Queen Goddess of the World. That’s why I dare to say, that the Goddess and Campbellian marriage in LOTR is between Frodo and Gollum. When Gollum was “fishing”, Frodo realized truly how strong the bound between them was. Next step called “Woman and the Temptress” Joseph Campbell described as the realization and agony of Oedipus. This is the moment when hero’s life is fully controlled by his Goddess wife. It’s a trap. In Oedipus’ myth, mother and wife concept is blurred. While trapped and in agony hero starts looking for a father, a brother. Helpful hand which Frodo found in Sam, but first he was betrayed by Gollum and almost killed by big spider, Shelob. That moment, reunion, is called “Atonement with the Father” in Campbell’s taxonomy. “Apotheosis” is natural after step. To describe it at the best I’d like to quote Campbell: “Like Buddha himself, this godlike being is a pattern of the divine state to which the human hero attains who has gone beyond the last terrors of ignorance”. If that father, brother or god himself is the true partner, a necessary ingredient hero needs to become the Chosen One, during apotheosis these last “terrors of ignorance”, masks of the world are gone. Neo in Matrix had found that partner in Morpheus when he rescued him from Agents. Frodo found that partner in Sam. Good thing to train imagination is that in these two examples, different roles were physically suffering. In Matrix Morpheus was on high, interrogated by Agents and hero rescued him. In LOTR hero was deadly trapped and in scenes full of drama he was rescued by his partner. It shows very well that this generic concept works very well even though you as a writer will like to go with different details. “The Ultimate Boon” is a lovely moment that ends Initiation. The ease with which the adventure is here accomplished signifies that the hero is a superior man, a born king. That’s very much visible in The Matrix.
Even so end of initiation looks like end of the story (a happy end indeed), we still have one more part to tell. It is called a Return. With such heroic impact on everything and big success just achieved hero refuses again. “Refusal of the Return” is like avoiding bullets in Matrix. Neo didn’t need a phone call anymore to escape, there was no need to come back to the real world to refresh, reload or get additional aid even though Frodo was still in the middle of Mordor crowded by villains. In fact true refusal of the return in LOTR was when Frodo hesitated to drop the ring to the Mountain of Doom. Responsibility is refused. “Magic Flight” is the moment when hero triumphs and wins blessing of the goddess and is explicitly commissioned to return to the world with some elixir of restoration of the society. The final stage of his adventure is supported by all the powers of his supernatural patron. After that hero may have to be brought back from his supernatural adventure by assistance from without. “Rescue from without” it is called. Birds did it in LOTR rescuing Frodo from certain death on the top of the Mountain of Doom. “Crossing of the Return Threshold” is coming back from the magical world of heroic ability to the mundane world from the beginning. Hero has to accept it to become “Master of Two Worlds” and experience “Freedom to Live“. Realization of inevitable guilt of life as Campbell described may so sicken the heart that Frodo decided to leave world he’d known. Cycle ends and new adventure may just appear on the horizon or not, helping to build the sequel or forget about the creation.
Studying Joseph’s Campbell monomyth’s theory is really fantastic adventure itself. Reading his analogies in many myths from our history is amazing. Mapping this structure on books, movies and games may be really enlightening. Building your own storyline and being aware of the journey is a benefit worth considering.
Many writers and game creators base their plots on that theory. They don’t need to declare it, it’s obvious and visible. Many have modified the original concept and theory has evolved.
One of the variations strictly based on analyzing movies is Nine Acts Structure invented by David Siegel. In past years it was published on-line, but original dsiegel.com pages are long gone. I found good reference in Internet Archives. Modifications David Siegel made mainly focus on setting two goals. It gives an illusion of nonlinear plot. Steps (or acts) David Siegel described are outlined below.
Nine Acts Structure with two goals (D. Siegel)
Act 0: Someone Toils Late into the Night.
Act 1: Start with an image.
Act 2: Something bad happens.
Act 3: Meet the Hero (and the Opposition).
Act 4: Commitment.
Act 5: Go for the wrong goal.
Act 6: The reversal.
Act 7: Go for the new goal.
Act 8: Wrap it up.
As you can see many aspects are similar, some aggregated but the clue is, that somewhere in middle of way hero realizes that he wanted to achieve wrong goal. That’s the culmination point and then he finds true goal which opens second part of the story.
Conclusions
I encourage you to carefully take a look at these steps and their different variations (Internet search on Hero’s Journey can bring even more references). I have given you some snapshot analysis of Matrix and LOTR. Try with other movies like Avatar for example. Try with games too. Try to build your own story based on this structure, it’s real joy.
In this article I mixed my interpretations with some real quotes from the book, Joseph Campbell wrote. I recommend to get it and read it. My thoughts are based on the 3rd edition published by New World Library in 2008. It should be easy to buy it.
I’ve started evaluating Unity 3D. It looked like a cheap start for Indie/Hobbyist experiments, that’s why I’ve chosen it. After a couple of hours of my play with the tool set, I still have some concerns regarding its potential. I’m pretty sure though, that it’s really great app for prototyping. I started with open terrain generator. Standard project Unity provides, named Islands, is also based on open terrain. Default project reveals beautiful landscapes with nice props thrown in various locations, birds flocking above you and other game elements pretty common in areas like that one, already designed. I closed default project and started my own, also with terrain as a starting point. I was amazed how easy and intuitive tool they have provided. Implementing LOD based terrain generator is not hard task to do. That hidden lore had been explained very well at the end of 90-ties with all possible algorithmic variations, I did implement my own at that time too. To have the engine complete WYSIWYG editor is natural next step tool for real creation.
Above picture shows Unity’s toolbox for terrain generation. It has options more similar to Sim City rather than game development from programmer’s perspective, which is cool by the way. I raised and lowered terrain, did some smoothing with the land’s texture. Adding material works as direct painting on the landscape. With palette of “grass” billboards and tree geometries, I can fill up terrain with some flora and other props (rocks, etc). Nice tool, effects of my 2h long work still are far from a game, but it proved itself very effective in unblocking creative thought around a story.
If we think of classic adventures and especially role playing games, story is often if not usually bound to some map. Every enthusiast of fantasy books and fantasy games should love maps too. It is so amazing to trace what your heroes did, making a virtual travel painted with your finger on those maps. As I said, I clicked here and I clicked there. I raised some mountains, I dug some holes to fill them up with lakes and seas. And started walking around and imagination triggered even on such a primitive example. One stage of my work is exposed below:
From top-down view I copied map like looking image to a painting tool, just to think a little bit more about as a storyteller. “If there is a land what landmarks it hides” was my thinking. So I started putting some dots on the map highlighting areas like below example:
With Tolkienian, classic-fantasy approach to the setting, I separated some details.
I have a hilly land in the middle of the map, surrounded by land I filled up with trees (North-West). South reveals coastal area with two bays, connecting probably to some bigger sea or lake. Northern-east brings big desert or any other kind of desolated area. Southern-East brings big mountains.
Naturally middle is crowded by Men. Forest filled up with elves, mountains with dwarfs. Classic fantasy world works for me. Desert brings only death and forgotten lore. I started adding some details there. In hilly area which cuts that desert, I added some place for some serious villains yet to be designed and figured out. In the middle of sand I put a marker for an Oasis with nomads and many opportunities for adventure.
There is a road ending up near that desert. I put there some small town visited often by merchants and travelers who want to cross the desert to reach some other country on the other side. No road goes to the land of elves for a reason, part of an emerging setting I’ve made. In the middle of the Country of Men I left big, flat and empty space. Good to place there biggest city in the area with city walls and other medieval details. Rest of the hilly country can be used to design some farmlands. Farms on hills remind me Ireland, and their rocky borders between each farm. Could be nice to put those there (Medieval economy was mostly based on farming, plenty of them should be spread around, looking gorgeous) . On the coastal area we have more civilization to describe. Big cliff with only one route to reach the top looks good for a castle construction. Big fortress for a local monarch. Maybe not a king, land seems to be too small for a kingdom, but some local duke who keeps the colony on the borderland between elves, dwarfs and who knows who lives in that dusty desert. Near the castle I added second, small town that feeds its citizen mostly from the water surrounding it. Fishers, smugglers, many different moods for adventure I believe that you can imagine in that area.
Summarizing, from simple point and click map generation I’ve got:
1) A royal colony, far, far away from the country. Ruled by local duke who keeps the land for men in very difficult neighborhood of elves, dwarfs and other unnamed villains.
2) In this very dangerous, yet very interesting area,obviously economics is based on farming and trade. Skilled merchants have their connections to kingdoms of dwarfs and those held by Elves. Most risky business of them gave a birth of legends that very rich country with ancient and high culture lives on the other side of desert. Dwarfs and Elves know more but say no word about that land.
3) Country of Men has several interesting landmarks: Royal Castle, Big city, small coastal city, small town (outpost) near desert, farms and I added some hermit hut near the shore too, just for fun.
I have already defined details, that can help to start thinking forward on the real plot, a reason why would you like to put main, player character in the middle of that land.
Some triggers I’m giving as a summary:
Idea 1: Questioning a ruler of that land. Why would you like the be there as a duke. Just ruling and nothing happens? Boring. Maybe that duke was sent there for exile. King is happy that he’s far away not troubling him. How to use that for an adventure?
Idea 2: Duke is an adventurous conqueror with no mercy to his enemies, who dreams to build his own fiefdom powerful. He found himself stuck on a small territory and strong neighborhood that resists. How about helping him to win against elves and dwarfs. How about tricky intrigues merchants make to block it or push it. If country conquer succeeds, some will loose their connections and business can be at risk. From the other hand, war always equals to profit, so another powerfull clique or complete merchant guild supports that war with resources and politics. If so, then maybe duke is not a conqueror but a naive and weak Muppet playing in somebodies game. How would you put that on stage, when the player character is added to the dramatis personae.
Idea 3 (supplementary): Lets assume that the only connection with the core country is sea. It is obvious, that many of the trades merchants would like to make behind the scenes, illegally. Answer to that is smuggling, gangs and local crime world. Hidden, not so legal guilds, thieves and intrigue can set up adventures and plot. How those guilds and secret organizations will handle the situation. Is that intrigue left only on a street-level murder and assault or maybe involves tricky politics on the court too?
I’ll leave above concepts as an inspiration to you. Story has just begun, but it started simply.. from the map.
After a short break, I'm presenting last part of the thoughts I had shared with students in December. Speaking of design in games I can hardly avoid a feeling that in near future we will reinvent already known wheel but in very new creative way. This is true to all community and Indie game development initiatives. Platforms like generic Web, Facebook, Mobile phones, Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network give an opportunity to look at the past successes in gaming from early to mid 90'ties. 16 and early 32 bit blockbusters come back now utilizing modern graphics and propose new game play but in details. Generally 2D scrolling platform game isn't anything new we know, yet example I like to give – game called Braid is damn new and fresh indeed. I have more examples of those that keep me even stronger in evolutionary approach to game design.
This is good lesson for wanna be game developers, just starting creators going through the "Indie games" scenario. Many of these guys try to be another Jonathan Blow. Many create great games but also many fail for one simple reason. They start with very high expectations to the project like "a game like none other was before in every aspect". Then some get stuck with creativity, some find themselves making the perfect engine forever and so on. Evolutionary approach is one of the solutions for this paradox. I found good example of this on web pages from one of American colleges. I don't remember its name, I found it on "Games Career Guide". Case is, that teacher in that school had given simple task to his students. Task was: take a game you like, look at it with criticism, find 5 things in that game that you dislike and propose changes (features) that would help this game been even better. Genius in that task is that you immediately leave way of thinking like "I'll make the best strategy game world has seen" and no details as your vision scope. Results of that training were published so I'd seen classic "Lemming" with a new lemming type who was building a cannon and firing other lemmings. Very drastic alternative for bridge already featured in the game. Many ideas coming from that approach were crap like nothing else in context of game play, but that's okay. I think this is very best way to think and learn what good game play means.
I believe that technology in modern platforms allows to make any possible kind of game with amazing visuals and other technical aspects of the title. We can choose from casual platforms where these visuals might have not yet been so important and in every game beside some geeky hardcore players market demands unique experience while playing. Thinking on ideas big and small should be first while considering games development. Technologies and business models already exist.
From titles like Braid, Flow and Flower to big blockbusters, I observe that emotions in games take bigger role. From shooters like Halo and Call of Duty, through racing games like Need for Speed to real adventure and role playing games I see that having a story is part of the design decision making. Need for Speed Most Wanted in this case was very surprising to me. Racing like many other released already by EA, you can like or not. But between every major race (a checkpoint in the game) you have a movie alike story to watch and listen which is not bad and quite close the Fast and Furious narration. It's not important for the race winning and totally non-interactive but adds some adrenaline too. Emotional and story driven approach in many different types of games are already highlighted by industry's legends. Peter Molyneux has major impact on evolution in classic RPG genre where you interact in character growth not only counting his levels but also understanding periods of his life from childhood, getting adult, romances, marriage, betrayals. RPG and adventure game is where that should be strongly visible first. Interesting thing was said by Cliff Bleszinski for the British Magazine – Develop. Cliff stated that the future of current shooters is role-playing game. If you take a look at GTA IV, Bioshock examples it's really hard not to agree. Future of adventure games I all the time see in Fahrenheit and upcoming Heavy Rain. Sense of drama and way these games show narration is amazing. This is the potential that was not fully utilized in Mass Effect's dialogue system.
For casual games and massive multi player on-line games social networks should the core element. This is especially true in the Facebook era. If you can create a game where really huge and active community is your key to success, evaluate and test your ideas for that argument and condition. If features you designed can trigger that viral messaging to join the community and play, that's good. In social gaming, it is important to share the experience, to create an atmosphere for conversation, to extend that geeky culture of gamers to the masses. We already know that as for movies and music. When you visit your friends at pub you feel free to mention movies and music you watched and listened to recently. Mentioning games might be still considered geeky and nerdy depending on the company you spend time with. Designing games that will definitively break that stereotype will be a major milestone in casual, social gaming. People like to talk about things that bring positive emotions in their life, use that knowledge.
