Man In Blue Sweatshirt

How to create a good automated camera in a third-person game

2012-08-08T11:19:00.003-07:00

KH3D has bugged the shit out of me. I enjoy it a lot, but the gameplay can be extremely broken at times. And it's not for bad mechanics--it's for a bad camera, which often leaves you unaware of what's going on around you in intense, large-scale battles.(which is every battle in this game)

I have devised this list of behavior in the hope that it will help people create better third-person cameras. And perhaps Nomura will wander across this and take some notes.

1. FOUNDATION: The camera should show what the player wants to look at, you must predict what they want to look at accurately in order to create a positive intuitive experience. The camera is one of the most important aspect of the entire system, for it is the monocle by which you receive all visual information at any given time.

2. Adjust to the curvature of the ground.
Facing upwards on a hill? Look up. Facing downwards? Look down. Facing off the edge of a cliff? Adjust the camera down so you can see what's on the other side of that cliff face.

3. Zoom out during high velocity sequences.
When you're moving faster, you have less time to perceive what is going on the camera before you move past it. Therefore, pull the camera back to mitigate this blind-siding.

4. (SPECIFIC TO KH3D, THEORY APPLIES ELSE WHERE THOUGH) Drop targeting mechanic, focus the camera on the action.
There are so many enemies in KH3D, and most of your attacks are area-of-effect attacks, so there's very little use in targeting a single enemy to focus your attacks and your camera. The system was shoddy to begin with, often failing to accurately predict your targeting intentions, and it's even worse in this game, where distances are greater and enemies are often more numerous and resilient. Furthermore, in this game it's rare you'll want to focus your attention on any one enemy for more than a hit or two at a time. The camera should automatically adjust by rotating and zooming to display as much of the action on-screen at once, rather than constantly shoving the player's face into the wall while legions of enemies are prepping their devastating one-hit KO attacks behind them, which you have no way to be aware of while you painstakingly take the time to rotate the camera back again. Half the "skill" in this game comes down to planning your movements to properly manipulate the camera just so you can avoid being blind-sided.(total crap)

5. Manual override
Manual camera override should be snappy and responsive. Sometimes the camera system can't predict the player's viewing needs, so the player should be able to adjust it themselves. Obvious, right? Well KH3D seems to even fail on this front, offering only sluggish left/right rotations, and for some reason, not even an option to increase the rotation speed.

6. DO NOT BE AFRAID TO ZOOM OUT
Specific to this game, it feels like it holds a horrid grudge against zooming out the camera. It wants to stay right there, practically centered on your ass so you can soak in all the pretty details baked into the character's texture, so you can see the keyblade front-and-center at all times in all its glory. Bollocks. I hope that wasn't part of their reasoning, because it's not like your eyes would even care for those details when you're busy fighting for your life. Plus, if the camera isn't zoomed out we can't see all the pretty battle particle effects, and that's a crying shame.

Make good cameras.

Please.

please

Oldschool And Nostalgia Is Bollocks

2012-07-29T11:40:00.000-07:00

It writhes me to my core when people refer to games as "old-school" or "retro", at least when used in the sense to refer to them in the sense they are actually outdated and somehow passe.

The reason it's absolute bollocks, is because a game is a game is a game, and at its core the technology secedes to the substance.

To imply that older games are no longer relevant is to say that game design itself deprecates.
Well fuck me sideways, I better stop playing Chess. Might as well throw out all my Magic decks, too.
If someone enjoys a game made in 1980 more than a game made in 2012, that doesn't mean they're "nostalgic", it means the equally legitimate form of interactive material appeals to them more than the modern comparative. Saying someone is being merely "nostalgic" immediately implies that the design has deprecated and the only appreciate thing about the material is the loving memories associated with it from a bygone era.

And the thing that sucks is that video games are passe, forced into shackles by the technology that gives them form. As technology progresses, different formats are created to present games with, and the deprecated formats lose support. Then we look to emulation--the constant struggle that it is. A games is a game is a game, and it's a horrific shame that it becomes harder to access games as they age due to deprecating technology, because no matter how much time passes, a good game will remain enjoyable, and it should be enjoyed. And I don't want to pay over and over again with every new system generation just to get my old game collection revised for new hardware. I want my games and I want them to stay. My music stays, my art collection stays, so why can't my games--an equally legitimate form of media--stay as well?

That's absolute bullshit.

Ether Souls Dev Highlights

2012-07-17T17:13:00.004-07:00

Posting some highlights from the development of Ether Souls:

I made a complete level editor and GUI system in a few days.(four)
And I also made a logo for fun. May or may not use it!

"Ether Souls" Announced, Dev Blog

2012-07-05T04:52:00.003-07:00

I have officially announced my new game project "Ether Souls".

I have made a tumblr to journal my thoughts on this game specifically; you can get started here.

Mock-Cup

2012-07-03T05:18:00.003-07:00

An open letter to Nintendo

2012-07-01T07:44:00.001-07:00

Dear Nintendo,

Please add the ability to store physical games(from a cartridge) to the SD card, for access at any time, not tied to or reliant on the presence or usage of the physical cartridge after the time of storage. While this may be of slight impracticality now, due to the comparative storage size between an average 3DS game and an average SD card, in the coming future it will become more and more practical, and it is undoubtedly a fantastic utility to offer to 3DS owners. Indeed, you are already beginning to offer storage of full-sized games to 3DS owners, as can be seen with the upcoming releases of games like The New Super Mario Bros. 2 for the eShop.

The added accessibility will make carrying the 3DS far more convenient, as people will no longer be forced to bring along physical cartridges and carrying cases, or otherwise, even worse, leave all their other games at home while they carry only one game cartridge which is left in the device. This, as a result, makes the 3DS a much more appealing console in general, an appeal already seen by the demand for digital eShop content. This can be seen as both an alternative and a complement to offering full games on the eShop, as some 3DS owners prefer to also own physical copies, and it helps alleviate potential fallouts in business relationships with retail companies due to the absolute disadvantage physical copies have to digital copies, for portability and accessibility reasons mentioned prior. While digital distribution is undoubtedly the future of game distribution, this will serve as a great service to 3DS owners to help smooth the transition period, especially for those with inadequate internet access.

Overall, this feature offers a major service to 3DS owners, that of which will not go unrecognized. Such a valuable utility will doubtlessly contribute to greater favor for the 3DS console, and as such may prove to be of great benefit to both your company and to 3DS owners alike.

Thank you for hearing my petition,
- Jack Sanders, "Man In Blue Sweatshirt"

Catmeat

2012-06-23T00:28:00.002-07:00

"Catmeat - Arcade Game +"

"Nekoniku - Akeido Geimu +"

SOON COME TO JAPANS NEAR YOU

This was a fun one to make. I was deprived of a vector art release for three weeks, and this is the result! Dohoho. I might actually make this game by the way. Plansssssssss~~~~~

Another Mockup

2012-06-18T20:44:00.002-07:00

Different scene.

All The Things I Did Wrong

2012-06-12T23:31:00.001-07:00

I'm entering a new paradigm now. I'm going to work differently, I'm going to work better.
This post's service is twofold: First, to publicly reflect on my past mistakes, with the hope of benefiting others in some way, Second, to solidify my transition.

1. I worked ambiguously

Instead of planning things out solidly, I would rush in sloppily, basing my work on an ambiguous idea, aided only by fragments of ideas nilly-willy stitched together by my vague memories of past enjoyments. I would work and become frustrated at my piecemeal results and try to redo things, getting out my tape and glue to try to force things to be cohesive. It just didn't work.

2. Overdesign

This was a direct result of problem #1. Prodded on by cautious notions, I completely overdesigned everything--I set out to program such broad, expansive, extensive systems that I could cram any possible mechanic or feature that I *might* have wanted into the game. I didn't design my programmatic needs beforehand, so I overdesigned to compensate. The result of this was an incredibly bulky, painful architecture to work with every time. This was almost always the one ultimate demotivator that lead to the death of my projects. Developing my game and implementing new content became such a chore that I just wouldn't be able to take it any more.

3. No focus

Remarkably similar to my previous points and often a result of them, my design thematics and mythos often had no focus. There was nothing to unify or solidify them in aesthetic, narrative, or anything else style-wise. The lack of unity made the game feel messy, uninspired, empty, and quite frankly amateur.

4. Lazy, sluggish, negligence

Rather than tackling big things head on, working intelligently and pragmatically, overcoming the learning hurdles in front of me, and so on, I would all too often half-ass a problem and continue with a defunct solution. As only one instance of many, instead of making tools to aid my workflow I would just "tough it out" and go the long way because making tools felt boring and cumbersome. No longer, though. It's a necessary part of the process, and now I'm of a mindset that "it's all gravy".

5. I held myself to relative standards

Instead of considering my work in the broader scope, I would often goad myself by comparing it to my own previous works and to those of my associates as what I believe was a form of desperate self-validation. But by holding myself to lower standards I achieved far lower and limited my vision.

Cheers to a fresh approach.

P.S.
I was only able to make myself jump this cusp after watching "Indie Game: The Movie"--That was an incredible, eye-opening experience for me.

Mockup

2012-06-11T10:23:00.002-07:00

Game Design: Pacing

2012-05-28T17:18:00.000-07:00

Pacing is something we all understand very intuitively, it's the rhythm by which we snap our fingers and tap our feet to the beat, jostling in our seats. It goes deeper though, and today I want to ponderously explore what that is and what it means. I'm going to approach this with an emphasis on interaction design, taking feedback loops and whatnot into consideration.

The first element of analysis is to consider rhythm. With rhythm, you expect the recurrence of a pattern in consistent intervals. So in other words, pacing is defined by "what you expect to come next".

In concrete terms, let's consider a typical puzzle game flow. You begin a level and are introduced a new mechanic. The puzzle with this mechanic is simple and flexible. The level is short. In the next level, the difficulty ramps up a bit, continuing until the pattern repeats and another mechanic is introduced. A sense of pace and flow is created by the repetition of the pattern by which new mechanics are introduced to the player. What if the third mechanic was introduced without any easing in of difficulty, and the player simply couldn't solve the puzzle?

Identifying Types of Pace

If the game sets its pace properly and hits all the right notes for the player it will probably feel very satisfying and smooth. The game will infer to the player, "this is what you're going to get", then gives it to them. The player knows what they are to be given, and they are given it. This is a smooth experience.

However, now let's assume the game throws something at the player which they do not expect. A sudden plot twist, maybe an unwarranted intervention of a puzzle which halts the progression of a level.(by which consistant progression was previously expected) In this case, the rhythm is broken, so it's going to feel jarring and harsh. This might discourage players. Imagine if you're listening to a song and it suddenly shifts, without warrant, from a 160 tempo dubstep mix to a 110 tempo folk track. "This isn't what I wanted, this isn't what I was expecting," the player might think to themselves. This is a discordant experience, where the expectations don't match the outcome and the sense of rhythm is broken.

Analyzing the Sense of Pace

We've established what pace is, that it's something predictable in the game's flow, so now I'm going to extend that, let's use some graphs to demonstrate this.

Let's imagine the x-axis is time and the y-axis is the general progression of the game.

Fig. 1

Now, go ahead and take a look at all the graphs before moving on.

What they have in common is that, even if their pace isn't constant it is consistent and predictable, save for one.

Fig. 2

Fig. 3

Look at Fig. 3, which has a sudden shift in the pace of the game, I've graphically illustrated a discordant shift in the game's experience. It's a point of change that isn't predictable beforehand.

Fig. 4

I want to make a departure from mathematical explanations now, though, and we'll continue this speaking in more direct terms. However, I believe thinking about pace in terms of a graph is an excellent way to demonstrate a simple understanding of it.

Stale Pace

Imagine a song with no variations, no shifts in tone, rhythm, nothing whatsoever. That would be boring, right? If things were homogenous all throughout your experience would probably feel watered down.

This comes, I believe, from never changing the player's expectations. Once something can become patternized and repeated without consideration it is no longer interesting--This is a particularly important consideration for a game designer where the game has a constant set of mechanics.

For instance, imagine an RPG where there was only one set of skills--no progression. Imagine Pokemon where there were only three creatures, and you could only have one in your team. It would feel stale! By continually introducing new concepts there remains points of interest for the player to act on.

Stable Pace

Now I'm going to extend what we talked about previously. What if a game consistently introduced new points of interest? In other words, the pace of introducing new concepts.

I would consider this a "stable pace", because the game (should) remains consistently interesting.

Except there's a danger, the same danger: something that can be identified to a pattern is not interesting, just as we discussed before. If the player expects a steady stream of new content all throughout the game, and I do mean steady, is it really that interesting? A major source of excitement is in pleasant surprises, no? Now I want to develop that idea.

Keeping Things Interesting Without Discord

If you haven't noticed the ironic element yet, I'll just throw it out there right now: pacing is the rhythm by which the player expects things to come, yet, if you keep playing the same rhythm it gets boring. That is, if you only give the player what they expect, they get bored.

And now I'm going to rock your world, by telling you to be unpredictable. Yep, just did it, it's out there. My hands are in the air, take me to jail. I told you earlier to be predictable, now I'm saying the opposite. The jig is up, right? Right.

Wrong. By establishing what is effectively the tone of your game, you're telling the player "this is what you're getting in my game", a fighting game is quick to set the tone to say "you're getting intricate fighting mechanics bundled tightly, and not much more", an RPG says "you're about to go on an epic journey where you'll see new things, meet new people, and become the strongest swinging dick in the land."

At that point, it's up to you as a designer to deliver on that. Doing otherwise is the discord we talked about earlier, where you went against what the player expected out of your game. Now we're doing mixups, by going against how the player expects the game to progress. We are evolving their sense of the game and its pacing by changing the pacing, yet keeping it within the same bounds of expectations as established initially.

A large part of this is what I affectionately refer to as "breaking the horizon", and my buddy Alexander Martin(AKA Droqen) wrote an excellent article on it a while back. I'm going to rock your world and tell you to go read that, read it right now, before continuing this article. Sorry to break your pacing.

With these mixups you are expanding what the player considered they could get out of your game.

Utilizing The Sense of Pace

*gasps for air*
Okay, we're concluding now. You've came with me a long way, so I'm going to try to wrap things up for you in a neat little package now.

Pacing is the rhythm by which your game flows, bounded by the expectations you set for the player by establishing a tone. A smooth pacing is one which consistently delivers on what is expected, and a discordant pacing is one which fails to do so. A stale pace is one which becomes boring due to a lack of pacing an introduction of new content. A stable pace is one which overcomes the flaws of the stale pace, yet has the danger of becoming boring by never mixing up its own pace of content flow. Breaking horizons keeps your game interesting by offering something both pleasant and unexpected.

I'm not going to tell you how to utilize pacing, though. That's up to you. Be crazy, be experimental, or maybe just go make a solid experience. I do encourage you, though, to keep these things in mind the next time you're playing a game, and watch carefully for the various aspects of pacing present in the game, how they're mixed up, and how they either succeed or fail to deliver on their promises to you.

Until next time, ciao.

Miraculus & SCHWING

2012-05-28T16:03:00.002-07:00

More visual design, and then some scribbling while practicing illustration techniques.(Or more like, after practicing, where I decided to screw around.)

I enamore

2012-05-17T23:33:00.001-07:00

Clicky for the full image.
My second thing today!

Hive? Some logo design

2012-05-17T19:46:00.001-07:00

Click to lightbox this!

I made this today for fun. I'm pretty fond of the color scheme; I have this thing for analogs. I really like analogs.

Also, my box art commission was completed last friday, I might post it later on. Yay.

So am I a game designer or a graphic designer? The correct answer is "neither"! Why limit myself to a single designation? Muahaha!

Kyoto Beta Released!

2012-05-13T18:00:00.004-07:00

Click for full - image via our feature on IndieGames.com

My project with Eddie Lee and Jack Menhorn is nearing completion! Download the beta on the official website.

Kyoto Is Nearing Completion

2012-05-06T17:48:00.000-07:00

Mmmmm.. Serene.

My project with Eddie Lee(and the excellent musician Jack Menhorn!) is nearing completion! I can't wait to release it to the world. A 95% build should be coming soon.

That Poster

2012-05-01T16:49:00.003-07:00

Click for full!

What's with all this graphic design?

2012-04-30T06:46:00.001-07:00

I just recently finished a poster for my school's art festival--of which I shall post soon.

Today I begin my first job in product design, designing some box art. Details to follow!

Admonition Against Ads

2012-04-24T23:20:00.001-07:00

I abhor ads in and around my games. The thought disgusts me. I find it to be nearly unethnical and to be bad practice, in fact. Or at least, I am against counting on ads as a primary, sought-after source of revenue.

So let's begin.

Low Return
Comparative to a typical sold game, the exposure:return ratio is very low. I hear typical ad rates are 0.02 to 0.05 cents per click(0.0005 USD) or something to that effect. And what is the cost? Your site is now littered with ugly, disgusting ads. With the accessibility and freedom(of the user to not pay money) of this model comes a cost, and that cost is the aforementioned ugliness joined with the fact you are now stealing your user's time and attention, trying to obscure and distract them from what they came to you for.

Incentives
I believe that ads bring with them anti-consumer incentives, which is why I abhor them so sodding much. How do you get more ad money? More clicks! More ads! More site visits! Volume! I, as a game developer, am incentivized to produce a mass marketable, manipulative, disgustingly addicting games in order to quite honestly milk my playerbase for profit. I am incentivized to litter my site with more and more ads, and even go to such drastic measures as to include ad videos. That's absurd! That is so anti-consumer, so so so terribly anti-consumer.

I'd rather provide a quality service at a price point. Sacrificing the quality, the sanctity, of an experience and the user's time is disgusting. It's nothing but manipulating and milking them across the board. There is no respect there.

That is why I will avoid supporting the ad market with my games however possible.
Ethics, for the damn sodding win.

Conquest: Herb Garden

2012-04-22T20:33:00.000-07:00

I finished it! I'm fairly satisfied with my completed project. It was very fun, and most evocatively tiring. I'll do a postmortem later once I've had more time to collect my thoughts

http://www.ludumdare.com/compo/ludum-dare-23/?action=preview&uid=5175

Ludum Dare 48.. 23...10

2012-04-20T17:00:00.000-07:00

I'm going to be participating in the Ludum Dare 48 Hour Rapid Game Prototyping Competition For Sexy Independent(nonexclusive) Game Developers #23 for the 10th anniversary of the event.

This is my first time participating in LD.
I might do a few "devlog" posts during development. Game will be posted upon completion.

The intention of this post is totally to obligate me to produce something.

More Beautifying

2012-04-19T00:17:00.003-07:00

(click for full, as usual)

Yet more visual work. Fear not, lots more core game work goes on in the background, I'm just being a bit more discreet on that for now, mostly because a lot is still up in the air. But some pleasant surprises are in store as well.

Lizard Warrior Video

2012-04-14T23:52:00.001-07:00

Please Join In!

2012-04-14T15:23:00.001-07:00

I've made a little web app(or whatever you want to call it) to collect some statistics:

http://www.maninbluesweatshirt.com/lizardpoll/

It's a total data whoring experiment, but it should be fun and I should be able to make some pretty neat conclusions off of it.

Please participate, and thank you!

Why I've Loved Designing Lizard Warrior and Kyoto

2012-04-11T15:17:00.000-07:00

(By the way, if you haven't heard, I'm working on Kyoto with Eddie Lee)

The other day I was sitting there, sipping some ginger ale(an indie developer not drinking coffee or tea? blasphemy!), and I thought to myself "damn, I love making these games." It was a really amazing feeling, of elation and excitement and joy.

And I wondered why.
I realized it was because I wasn't basing my game on genres, conventions, or tropes. I was just going for it. Doing what felt right. As a whole it's a liberating experience. I feel very free. My creative juices are gushing right now, dood.

I'm not aiming to innovate, or go "further" than other games--I'm just going my own thing, going in my own direction, designing my games with my own vision for what they could be in the end. Some elements are inspired by games before it, some inspired by any other manner of the things which have influences me in my life, and some simply a product of my ingenuity.

I feel like I'm building something unique and special. And it's great.