My LiveJournal account expires soon, so I've made a move over to Blogger.
Game Musings can now be found here:
http://passfieldgames.blogspot.com/
The RSS feed is:
http://passfieldgames.blogspot.com/atom.xml
Cheers,
John |
|
...but
have no experience.
Unlike
programming and art, game design is a difficult area to break into. This is due
to design being one of those skills that is hard to demonstrate. There are a
lot of courses that deal with game programming and game art - but finding a
good game design course is difficult.
The
best way to learn is on the job - but it’s a catch 22 situation. Unless you
have experience it’s hard to be hired - and usually the best way to get
experience is to work for a game developer. So, if you want to be a game
designer but have no experience what can you do?
Create a Portfolio
Like
most jobs, the best way to show that you are good at something is to have an
example of what it is you do. Game design is no different.
You
need to be able to demonstrate that you can:
- Communicate an idea in a clear and concise manner with no ambiguity.
- Come up with game designs that fit a given theme.
- Design a playable level or feature of a game.
1) Communicate an idea in a clear and concise manner with no ambiguity.
The
best way to do this is to create some sample game design documents. Check out
the Design Web Sites links below for more information on how to write a good
game design document.
An
overview game design document is more than enough and can be under 10 pages.
Remember, keep the design document brief and to the point.
2) Come up with game designs that fit a given theme.
Create
sample game design documents that demonstrate you understand the game’s theme
and that you know how to use this theme in the design. If the game is an FPS
set in Ancient Egypt make sure that the weapon design reflects the theme. A
Staff of Ra, for example, would be a better weapon design decision than a
shotgun.
3) Design a playable level or feature of a game.
The
most important thing you can do is to demonstrate that you know how to design a
great game. The best way to do this is to make games - and these do not have to
published games. Don’t fret if you have zero programming knowledge or art
skills.
The
more examples of completed playable game demos you have the better. These can
be simple card games and board games (made from paper and cardboard), levels
from Unreal, Quake or any other first person shooter, Real Time Strategy game missions
or skate park levels from Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater. It doesn’t matter what they
are - the more you have, and the greater the variety, the better.
If
you’re using an editor to make a level, plan it out on paper first so you can
demonstrate your thought process from idea to implementation. Focus on creating
a good single player level with an interesting scenario and interesting
encounters.
If
you’re making a paper card or board game, don’t get hung up on pretty graphics.
Just text and simple shapes are fine – it’s the game design that matters! Don’t
forget to write up some simple and concise rules to explain how the game works.
In Summary
Write
sample game designs.
Make
games.
Read
about game design.
Play
games.
Again,
I can’t stress the importance of creating a portfolio of work, even if it is
unpublished. The majority of game design applicants I see rarely have sample
design documents or sample demos. If you have these then you’re way ahead of
the pack.
Useful Resources
Books to read:
Game
Design Workshop: Designing, Prototyping and Playtesting Games by Tracy
Fullerton
Game
Design Theory and Practice by Richard Rouse III
Andrew
Rollings and Ernest Adams on Game Design by Andrew Rollings and Ernest Adams
Game Design Sites:
www.gamasutra.com – great resource on
making games.
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/19970912/design_doc.htm
- article on writing game design documents.
http://www.gamasutra.com/features/20041101/rouse_01.shtml
- another article on writing game design documents.
Programs, Tools and Resources:
Tony
Hawk’s Pro Skater 4, Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 – both have a built in game
editor that allows you to build your own skate park.
Blitz3D,
BlitzPlus and BlitzMax – these are easy to use programming languages, ideal for
getting a simple game prototype up and running in no time at all. BlitzMax and
BlitzPlus are ideal for 2D while Blitz3D is great for 3D games. www.blitzbasic.com
PopCap
Framework - visit http://developer.popcap.com/index.php
to join their program and download their programming framework. You need to
know the C programming language and you’ll also need a C development
environment.
http://articles.thewavelength.net/ - site dedicated to game
editors for Half Life, Half Life 2, Unreal and Quake 3.
http://www.planetunreal.com/uedlab/links.htm
- Unreal Editor links site.
http://www.ambrosine.com/resource.html
- a list of links to game creation utilities. Some require no programming
knowledge at all.
http://www.cheapass.com/ - check out the
Free Stuff section for examples of simple card games for inspiration.
|
With all the talk about escalating game budgets for the next generation consoles and how hard it is to bring your game to market - especially an original IP - I thought it would be an interesting challenge to make a game in my spare time. The result is a game called Word Shake that I developed over the last nine months. You can check it out here: http://www.casualgamesarcade.com/word_shake.htm
Word Shake is a Casual Game. It has nowhere near the complexity or graphical finesse of a regular console game but it’s still a game. And people are buying it. And those that buy it like it (it’s free for the first hour, so you get plenty of time to work out if it’s a game you want to own).
So, how did I do it?
One thing that made it easy for me to build the game was the fact that I can program. I’m not the best in the world, but I’m reasonably fast and can get my ideas on screen. God forbid if anyone was to look under the hood! But my code is stable and it works. But if you’re not a programmer then don’t let that stop you from making a game. Go out and find one - especially one that wants to make a game. They’re not too hard to find.
Anyway, let’s go over the steps I took to make the game.
1. PICK A GENRE
First of all you have to free your mind of any preconceived conceptions of what a game is. For me the thing that makes games such a wonderful medium is their diversity. Soccer, tic-tac-toe, chess, Halo, patience, Monkey Island, rock-papers-scissors, Resident Evil, Simon says, Go Fish, hop scotch, Grand Theft Auto, Tetris, I spy with my little eye... these are all games. Each game is as valid as the other.
In order to pick a genre I took into account the limited resources I had. I needed a game that:
a) could be done over nine months with an average of three hours a week spent on it,
b) could be delivered on a platform with tools that are cheap (or in some cases free), and
c) was a game that I would enjoy playing.
I love puzzle games and I love word games. I also wanted to do something that hadn’t been done before, so I chose to do an anagram based word game.
Let me stress that my reasons for choosing this genre wasn’t born out of the desire to make loads of cash. That would be nice, but I wanted to make a fun game that was unique and that I would enjoy playing.
There was only once choice for delivery platform - and that was Windows. There are no licensing fees and there are a ton of cheap and free tools for budding game developers.
2. PLAN YOUR TIME
Like most people I have extremely limited time. I have a family, a day job and a social life. So I set aside certain times such as early in the morning before my baby daughter would wake and during the weekend. I made sure that these times were used as productively as possible... however I probably surfed the web a bit too much early on in development.
3. PLAN YOUR GAME
I wrote a spec for the game and made sure that I kept the feature set as small as possible. This wasn’t going to be an epic RPG or a graphics intensive action game. Although I was making a game that I wanted to play, I was also aware that it had to appeal to fans of word puzzle games, so I did a lot of research into this area. I discovered that these games generally appeal to women over thirty.
4. CHOOSE YOUR TOOLS
There are some wonderful tools and engines out there that are cheap or free. I started out using Blitz Basic (http://www.blitzbasic.com/) but moved to C when PopCap released their framework for free (http://www.popcap.com/). I chose PopCap’s framework because it’s easy to use and is rock solid - games built with their framework have been downloaded millions of times.
As I was building the game I used placeholder graphics that I made myself. I replaced these with professional art as the game neared completion. If you require a nice little 2D art package you can’t go wrong with Pro Motion which is a bargain for USD $29.95 (http://www.cosmigo.com/).
For sound effects I purchased a Mojo Audio sound pack from Garage Games (http://www.garagegames.com/) and made the rest myself using the incredibly versatile and free Audacity sound editor (http://audacity.sourceforge.net/).
5. BUILD IT!
This is the hardest part of making a game. Actually doing it.
One thing you have to understand is this: doing 2 or 3 hours a week is better than doing nothing. Within 3 weeks you will have done over a full days work. Never underestimate how much you can get done in the shortest amount of time. Remember, every journey is made up of many steps, but if you don’t take any steps you won’t go anywhere.
With Word Shake I quickly built a prototype to make sure the core gameplay worked. Once that was done I began building the rest of the game. I used my badly drawn programmer art to create menus and the user interface. As the game solidified I passed these on to Pete Mullins, an awesome artist, to create professional copies that I could use in my game. I also used Pete Dodemont, a local musician, to create the music for the game.
All the time I used friends and family to test the game to make sure it was fun and bug free. Finally, after many months, I had all the elements in place and deemed the game complete.
6. BUT WAIT, THERE’S MORE
But it wasn’t all over yet. I still had to get the game to market.
I built a web site called Casual Games Arcade (http://www.casualgamesarcade.com/) to sell the game. I used Microsoft FrontPage and hosted the site with IX Webhosting (http://www.ixwebhosting.com/).
To handle the e-commerce side of things I chose TryMedia (http://www.trymedia.com/). They have an extremely easy to use secure digital distribution package called ActiveMARK which all major Casual Games publishers use. After packaging and uploading the game it was tested and finally approved for release on the TryMedia affiliate networks. The game was now available for people to buy. And buy they have!
But that’s not the end. Now it’s an ongoing job of marketing the title and making sure that people are aware it exists. As I explained this is a niche genre and there is plenty of work to be done to make sure that these potential customers are made aware of the game. But that, my friend, is a topic for another day!
If you have any questions or comments, please feel free to post them here.
Cheers,
John |
It's Halloween - and instead of a trick, I have a treat!
A free piece of entertainment software goodness.
Consider it my gift to you.
Enjoy!
http://www.passfieldgames.com/downloads/Spirit_Setup.exe |
This week I've been consumed with the subject of writing for games.
On Wednesday I was on the judging panel of the Fantastic Queensland's Writing for Games competition (http://writingforgames.fantasticqueensland.com/) with Shainiel Deo and David Grant. Together we reviewed the five finalists who pitched their original game concepts to us. I was really impressed with the quality of their pitches - each one was cool and it further cements my belief that Brisbane is the hotseat of Aussie game development.
On Sunday I had the honour of giving a workshop titled "Writing for Games" with Gordon Moyes and Darren Baker. This was part of the Brisbane Writer's Festival (http://www.brisbanewritersfestival.com.au/) held this week, and the workshop was a lot of fun. Gordon is the Development Director at Pandemic Australia (http://www.pandemicstudios.com.au) and Darren is the co-owner and Technical Director of Wildfire Studios (http://www.wildfirestudios.com.au), the creators of the hit casual game Tumblebugs (http://arcade.reflexive.com/downloadgame.aspx?CID=21198&AID=310).
On the subject of writing for games, having a staff writer is a bit of a rarity in the games industry at the moment. But having experienced the huge response to Destroy All Humans! (a game that used a professional writer) it's apparent that this will have to change. If you want to make a Triple A game, you'll need quality writers - the same way that developers realised that if they wanted fun games they needed dedicated game designers.
The time when the game script is handed over to a junior programmer or tester to write isn't over yet - but it soon will be. |
| » Thank Heavens Someone At Nintendo Played EyeToy |
|---|
Congratulations are in order to Sony for shaking up Nintendo. My guess is that their cool new controller for the Revolution system was inspired by the hand gesture interface from Sony’s EyeToy. But what Nintendo has done is take the concept of a game with an easy to use interface and extend it to an entire system. It’s a smart move.
And I love the design of the controller. It takes design cues from in-flight entertainment controllers (the ones that allow you to play Tetris) and adds motion control. The other thing that I love is that Nintendo has actually managed to simplify the controller so that it has even less buttons than the average TV remote. It’s so simple and so inviting. Compare the Nintendo Controller to the Xbox 360 DVD remote and you wonder why Microsoft had to add in so many buttons! Especially when the average person mostly uses the play, stop and menu navigation functions.
The other thing I love about Nintendo is that they realize there is a huge market for console games that is yet to be tapped. When Sony started with PlayStation they realized that the market for games could extend beyond Nintendo’s kid market. It’s ironic that now Nintendo is in that position and is trying to reach the “everybody” market. It’s a market that exists and is being serviced by the casual game makers on PC and Mac - and it’s growing at an incredible rate.
And of course Nintendo are deliberately making a system that is cheap to manufacture and hopefully cheap to develop for. If this results in lower priced games that are fun to play then they are definitely on a winner.
While we’re talking about new systems, I have a few words of advice to those developers who want to make photo realistic games. Hire a professional director, hire a professional writer and cut your game trailers like you would a film trailer.
I had to endure the nine minutes or so of Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots trailer. As a PS3 demo it was amazing to watch, but as entertainment it was incredibly tedious. Games should entertain. After about two minutes the average person won’t care how many polys are being pushed or how realistic the lighting looks. They have movies on DVD that look slightly better. They want to be entertained. It’s amazing how quickly people get used to stuff - the majority of what we’re seeing come out of TGS this week will be taken for granted next year.
I’m sure the official MGS 4 trailer will be cut like a movie trailer and will inspire me to want to play the game. I hope so. I don’t just want to battle my way through a Zelda dungeon swinging my remote/sword around like a maniac - I would like to play some old school controller games with realistic graphics too.
John
Sep. 18th, 2005 @ 02:57 pm
|
| » Ferry Halim |
|---|
If games were movies then Ferry Halim would be Miyazaki.
His games are a sheer delight. They are beautiful to look at, a delight to listen to and a joy to play.
Each game simply drips with class.
So what are you waiting for? Go play. Now!
http://www.orisinal.com
Aug. 23rd, 2005 @ 08:31 pm
|
| » They're Back, and They're FREE! |
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Half a decade ago I designed and programmed two experimental "game" titles. We called them Screen Opera back then - sort of half games/half screen savers. A year or so ago I released them as freeware for anyone and everyone to download and play with.
Unfortunately the download links were inactive but luckily I just upgraded to IX Web Hosting and now have massive amounts of web space to play with. So now I am hosting them on my www.passfieldgames.com site where they should remain until the end of time :-)
The two titles are "The Chronicles of Jaruu Tenk" and "Halloween Spirit Board". Both represent my foray into AI and living worlds and both were done completely out of love on a part time basis (ie. for a zero budget and with extremely limited resources - I did all the game coding, design and writing, while Steve Stamatiadis did all the graphics and Tony Ball did the 3D renderer). Looking back at them now I wonder what we could have done with a bigger budget, a proper schedule and a design that included actual gameplay.
Still, I'm quite proud of the results that we achieved and hope that they can serve as inspiration to other budding garage game developers out there. Just five years on there are so many more tools and resources that have made game creation a whole lot easier!
If you have time to check them out, please do and let me know what you think.
In the coming months I'd like to dig into my giant grab bag of IP that I own and see what other interesting games I can upload now that I have the space. I'll keep you posted :-)
John
Aug. 14th, 2005 @ 07:00 pm
|
| » Wanna Be A Games Designer? |
|---|
I don't usually advertise on my blog, but we're currently looking for
staff at Pandemic Studios, Australia and that includes games designers.
So I figured I'd post the job advert here - just in case you're a games
designer who would love to work with the team that made Destroy All
Humans! Incidentally, Destroy All Humans! made it to number 2 in the UK
charts and is number 2 and 3 on the EB Sales List as of June 21 (see this link http://www.gamerankings.com/itemrankings/launchnews.asp?newsid=147348).
So, without further delay, here is the job posting! (If you're interested send an email to jobs@pandemicstudios.com.au).
----------------------------------
Is designing games your dream job? Do you
like open world games like GTA,
Mercenaries and Destroy All Humans!? Want to work on cool,
original titles that are AAA quality? Want to work for a company that has a
history of producing hit games?
Now’s your chance!
Pandemic
Studios Australia is looking for Designers for our next game. We plan on
outdoing our UK and
US chart topper Destroy All Humans! – and you can be a
part of the design team.
Job Type: Full Time
Skills Required
- Ability to make
cool, fun missions and environments that fit into an existing game design and
fiction
- Ability to develop
and spec out key game features and shepherd them through prototyping and
implementation
- Desire and ability
to learn on the job
- Ability to take
direction and accept critical review of your work
- Passion for and
broad knowledge of console games with an ability to critically analyse them
- Excellent
communication skills
Responsibilities:
- Develop and document
clear and concise specs for missions, environments & features
- Use proprietary
world building, configuration and scripting tools to create missions and
environments
- Work and contribute
in an open design environment – we want designers that contribute to all areas
of the game design not trained monkeys that sit in a corner
- Work within and
communicate with a large team
Please make submissions
to:
- E-mail:
- jobs@pandemicstudios.com.au
- Use the subject
header: Designer
Jul. 18th, 2005 @ 08:08 pm
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| » Game Design Master Class |
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I presented a game design workshop as part of the IGDA Brisbane Chapter Master Class on Sunday, 19th June 2005.
It was the first in a series of Master Classes organized by the local chapter and it was an amazing success. Prior to arriving on Sunday I knew we had 24 RSVPS to attend. I figured maybe half of those would be interested in design, but just in case I printed off 30 copies of my class notes.
Boy, did I underestimate the gaming community in Brisbane! I don't have the final numbers, but early estimates are that between 70 and 100 people turned up for the afternoon sessions that covered design, art, production and programming.
Just yesterday I was told that Queensland represents 45% of the Australian game development community - which is the highest percentage concentration of game developers in the country. Of course, you learn not to trust such statistics, but after Sunday I'm inclined to believe it. When I began making games in Brisbane in the early nineties, you could count the number of developers in Brisbane on one hand (of course, when I wrote and published my first game in my hometown of Kyogle in 1984, you could count the number of developers there on one finger!). But now there are over 400 individuals in Brisbane who earn a wage making video games. Small fry compared to San Francisco, but pretty impressive none the less.
Anyway, the workshop I did was inspired by a GDC workshop that Eric Zimmerman gave a few years back. I have to thank Eric and the team that day for opening my eyes that little bit wider. It's great to make games and still be able to learn new things.
If you want to check out the workshop I gave, you can download it here:
http://www.users.bigpond.com/jaruu/games/Design_2005.doc
Basically it's all about creative brainstorming. The idea is to get people to take a popular game like Battleship and redefine it by changing the genre and some rules. What happens is that people are free to think outside the box and end up creating some interesting game play mechanics they normally wouldn't if they were thinking about wartime battle ships.
We had a lot of great game ideas on the day, ranging from medical emergency games to zombie horror games to a romance game in which you try and woo the girl of your dreams by presenting her with chocolates, flowers and long walks on the beach. They sound strange, but they actually work. And all of this was created within an hour.
Now that I've seen the thriving community we have here in Brisbane, I can't wait to do another design master class. This time I'll come prepared.
By the way, feel free to use the workshop material. I'd be interested to hear what sort of games you come up with.
-John
Jun. 23rd, 2005 @ 09:31 pm
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