Planet SAGD

Gareth Fouche: Don’t do this

Wed, 22 Feb 2012 18:19:15 +0000

I’m sure most of you already know about the Jennifer Hepler story. I’d like to take a moment to say : Please don’t do this.

For two reasons. Firstly, compassion. Obviously, it’s not a nice way to treat someone.

I don’t like Hepler’s stance on videogames, personally. I can kinda see where she is coming from, but I think she’s wrongheaded. If there is a button you can press to skip the gameplay and just watch the story, to me it says the story is too disconnected from the gameplay. I’d prefer to see things move in the opposite direction, for story and gameplay to become more intertwined. It shouldn’t be so easy to mark the spots where the one ends and the other begins.

But disagreement with her is no reason to whip out the personal attacks, about her appearance or otherwise. This is another human being, they have feelings. And yes, she lashed out at her detractors by calling them pathetic virgins. This is what people do when they are hurting, to protect their psyches. In an ideal world, everyone would have rock solid senses of self-worth, insults would be shrugged off and only constructive criticism responded to. That is not this world, and anyone who can’t have some sympathy there has probably never made themselves truly vulnerable by putting something they’re deeply invested in “out there”. Let’s all try not to be assholes, even if the internet makes it so very easy.

There is another good reason not to do this though, and this one is more likely to hold water with the “fuck nice, this is the internet bitch. Harden the fuck up or get the fuck out.” crowd. And that reason is : you weaken your own position and divert people from the conversation you want to engage in.

Are folks rationally discussing the direction and quality of Bioware’s writing right now, or is everyone emotionally worked up around attacking/defending Jennifer Hepler? If your goal is not to be dismissed as a crank, criticize without throwing personal insults. Insults make your position weaker, not stronger. If your goal is to actually make a difference, you should want to argue from the strongest position possible.

Remember, attention is a form of respect. If no one respects you, no one will listen to you. You do want to be listened to, right? Stop making it so easy for them to ignore your criticism.

Judd Simantov: Blank Update

noreply@blogger.com (Judd Simantov) — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 17:41:00 +0000

Hey, so I don't actually have anything to post in terms of work... I just thought I'd check in and post a quick update. I've just been so busy with jobs (stuff I can't show) and I've had absolutely no time to do any personal stuff. Hopefully that will change soon and I can post some stuff. I need my soul back! :D

Dev*Mag: So You Want to Crowd-Source Your Funding?

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 15:17:56 +0000

With Double Fine adventures just hitting the $2,000,000 when I started writing this article; I seem to notice that the Internet, or at least the parts I pay attention to, is abuzz with ‘Kickstarter fever.’ Now I am extremely happy about this since: I love Double Fine, don’t like publishers, and feel this can be the start of something great.

But, I must caution people against thinking that they can crowd source millions of dollars. The reason I say this is because Double Fine has something unique. They have been around for 12 years, created one of the most celebrated cult hits, are making a game for a genre that is almost forgotten, and have two of the most famous people of that genre working on the game. Now that is a tall order to top!

What do you need to crowd-source a million dollars?

This is a question I don’t have an exact answer to, nor does anyone I would imagine. But we can take a good look at the man who has done it. Tim Schafer has worked on adventure games since 1990 where he was a co-writer on The Secret of Monkey Island. Since then he has been the lead of Full Throttle, and Grim Fandango. And these days he is the founder/owner of Double Fine. In terms of social media he has: 5,400 likes on facebook, has been circled 6,392 on Google+, and finally 68,218 followers on twitter. So if video games have celebrities I’m sure Tim is one of them.

The next is Double Fine; I have already stated the companies record. But they have one person I haven’t talked about yet. Ron Gilbert is the creator of the point and click adventure game. Which is the genre of game that DF are crowd-sourcing the funds for. So think about this: they have two of the most celebrated developers of the genre, talk to the community with the same sincerity as an indie developer, did not ask, or expect a million dollars in funding, but now they have two.

The Kickstarter Fever

The current developer that I am paying attention to with regards to crowd sourcing is Brian Fargo. Who by the news wants to make a sequel to Wasteland. Wasteland came out in 1988 and may be viewed as the progenitor of the Fallout series. The reason why I am paying attention to Fargo is that he is say he needs exactly a million dollars; he also is somewhat of a prolific developer.

So why the attention to Fargo? That is simple; with all the Kickstarter fever in the air we need some judge of the make or break conditions it take to make a game using crowd funding. Fargo, I believe, is at the right point to see what those conditions are.

Since he is working on an old franchise with fans, which is one of those things that the fans would like to see again. So when it comes to reaching the million dollar mark I believe that this will be the test.

Learn from the indies

Indie developers make some of the most awesome games, and on some of the tightest budgets. For example World of Goo was made on a budget of just $10,000, and it was a phenomenal game. On the other hand Braid cost $180,000. So indies have quite a diverse range of costs.

Recently I have seen almost unknown indies turn to Kickstarter for funding. Then there are indie developers asking just as little as a $1,500 to get there game out. I will however point out that such Kickstarters are, mostly, funded by indie developers.

The moral behind the indies is that you need to have a small game that you can make, and that you don’t need a massive budget to do it. Well this may sound like advise in the opposite direction of this article it is in fact at the core of this article. Since developers want to make awesome games, and fans want to play them.

It’s a trap!

The video game industry goes through ‘fads’. I clearly remember when everything was a: FPS, MMO, Social game, make for mobile devices. Now there might be the fad of we made a game using kickstarter. While it was stated earlier that there was a hope that this could be a viable future. There is still the caution of whether this is the correct choice for people to follow.

The reason I bring thing up is that Double Fine’s XBLA type games were each made using about $2,000,000 and they had received traditional publishing on those. And they have been great success. Taking some statistic Iron Brigade (nee Trenched in the stats) sold 120,126 units. Which at about $15, variance given to the MSpoint costs, the game so far made $1,800,000.

So you don’t always have to go with crowd-funding. But publishers are publishers. And they don’t like taking big risks. So seek funding in the right way sometimes that might be a publisher

Developers as with almost every choice they make need to be careful not to fall into a trap. Whether that is using a publisher, crowd-funding, or using your savings. So if you decide that a crowd-funded project is the way to go. Be aware of the terms of the platform, and what new ones there are.

Make a Game

As a developer and designer I would advocate a model similar to what Double Fine has done. Say the minimum you need to get the project done; then apply a modular design of expansion. So say your core is a: “City management game” which you think will cost $100,000. Call it $150,000 on your initial funding to be safe. But you want it to have cities in the same world that can trade and so on. That feature requires you to have raised $300,000.

The reason I say this is that when people fund a game in this manner they know it might not get done. But you really want to get it done, and they really want to play it. Look at Minecraft how it has grown with its community and how integral that community has been to the development of the game.

So if you only get enough funding to make the first part of the game. Make that first part! Get people playing it tell them if more people buy it then you can continue development and you will implement that feature that they really want.

A Kickstarter is a great way to get a start, and then a closed beta for people who paid, and will pay, is a great way to make a game. Just remember to never close the doors for people who want to pay and be a part of your game!

Funding for start-ups evaporating The recent economic recession, having mostly had little effect on...

RuneStorm Blog: Rooks Keep Skill Icons

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 13:01:26 +0000

Hail all!

So I’ve just finished up a bunch of skill icons for Rooks Keep. Gaze upon them in wonderment right here:

A few things I had to remember to do with the icons:

-They had to be descriptive of their skill function
-Each one had to be colored so as to be easily discernible from the others

So at a glance you can easily tell which icon is for what skill. I reckon I got it

Gareth Fouche: Monday Art Update

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 11:09:36 +0000

It’s been a while, I know, but contracting has sucked away my time for art recently.

But we’re almost back to normal again, thankfully.

Here’s the latest. Just some studies. Click for bigness, as usual.

Stasis Game Team: Level Design 2

Mon, 20 Feb 2012 07:50:07 +0000

I think its important when things make sense. Ive spoken before about level design before ( http://www.stasisgame.com/building-spaceships-the-hawking/ ) and making sure things work in a connected way.

Here is another example of that, and also a little glimpse into how I plan out and design the different areas of the game.

Each area starts out with the game script. A written description of the area, and how it sits in the story. When I wrote the game script, I kept the writing very ‘fluid’ , and reads very much a story treatment for a film, or a novel. There is nothing specifically ‘game related’ in the game script-its JUST the story.

From the script, I go into each area of the game, and design the flow of the rooms. I really want things to feel interconnected. If you enter one room, and leave through another door, where does that door go? Where does that corridor lead? Does the placement of the elevator shaft make sense in relations to the floors above and below? Now its important to note that quite a bit of this detail is ‘invisible’. The player will never notice where the elevator shaft enters and exits, but I think that on a subconscious level, if things aren’t flowing properly, it can take you out of the experience.

This is something I worked on this weekend, specifically ‘Crew Deck 14 F’.

From the hand drawn sketch, I fire up MAX, and build a very quick proxy of the area. Each room is represented by a simple square, and a label. I set up really quick cameras for each room, and position the cameras so that I can see how each room exists in relation to each other. This also allows me to add in the doors, and check that the flow of the particular area is working.

Then I start working on the bases for each area. Floors, walls, doors, etc. The advantage of working on multiple rooms at the same time is that I can very easily share assets in the scene. There are 2 Sleep Blocks which share assets. To double up the rooms, I just copied the completed room over, and started to alter the layout.

Once the floors and walls are in, I can start to add in the details in the rooms. Blood, bodies, papers, screens….

Interestingly, when I first to the layouts of the room, I start off creating the room as it would exist in its most ‘pristine’ state, and then I start to mess it up. I try to keep the flow of the story with the rooms. If there was some sort of carnage, where did it start? Would most of the damage be concentrated by the doors? Wouldn’t the surrounding rooms hear what was going on? If they did, would they have baricaded themselves into their room, or gone out to investigate? If they barricaded the room, what would they use? Would the dead bodies still be in the room? If they aren’t, where are they?

As I said before, I think that many of these details are invisible. They aren’t noticed by the player directly, but they all come together to create a believable world for the player to explore!

Then comes detailing, lighting, and colour correction. And here is one of the finished rooms, without any interaction elements rendered out (opening doors, steam, flickering screens, etc). Once all of the rooms in the area are completed, I go to each one and start inserting the puzzle elements into them.

-Chris

Gareth Fouche: Gameplay and Story are Exactly Like Music and Lyrics

Sun, 19 Feb 2012 19:34:18 +0000

Well, in response to the recent debate on whether narrative is a gameplay mechanic or not, Kirk Hamilton of Kotaku has posted an excellent article comparing gameplay and narrative to music and lyrics in songs.

I think he’s rather hit the nail on the head there, eh?

Gareth Fouche: Bloody kids

Sat, 18 Feb 2012 10:36:46 +0000

“Guys, I’m 18 and let me tell you, this thing I enjoyed is the most meaningful, important thing anyone has ever enjoyed.”

Are you kidding me?

Best part :

Mass Effect has a simple message: human beings are delusional about their importance in the grand scheme of things

That’s right. The game where you, the human protagonist, run around single-handedly saving the galaxy while the blithely ignorant alien races ignore the threat even when it appears above their heads, reaping destruction, that’s what this game is about.

(Reaping, geddit? I made a pun. I’m so funny.)

I’m reminded of this “Condescending Wonka” meme.

Jacques Krige: UQE Hexen II v1.15 Released!

Fri, 17 Feb 2012 14:42:24 +0000

Its unbelieveable that its been almost a full year since the previous version of UQE Hexen II were released!

When I released the previous version of UQE Hexen II with additional higher and widescreen resolutions people pointed out that the field of view (FOV) is still set at a fixed 90 degrees which is typical for 4:3 letterbox resolutions. When I investigated the FOV implementation in the engine I decided to port the original Quake engine’s FOV setup code over to Hexen II as it seemed as if its implementation pretty much fixed it to 90 degrees. Changing the FOV on the console did not change the field of view at all. After some work on the subject I succeeded in changing the code to actually calculate the FOV value dynamically based upon the currently used resolution.

While I was at it updating the engine’s FOV code I thought to look at a few other minor issues and upgrade parts of the engine that was getting out of date. The bloom code had quite a bit of an update since I heard that the bloom effect were too excessive. I took the liberty to get it cleaned-up a bit and lessen the strain on the eyes which I hopefully now got sorted out. UQE Hexen II generates the bloom effect using the “GL_EXT_framebuffer_object” OpenGL extension. I ended up splitting the frame buffer management code from the bloom code to allow more frame buffer effects to be implemented in the future.

One thing that bugged me a lot with the frame buffer is that I couldn’t get Multi-Sampled Anti-Aliasing (MSAA) to render at the same time as bloom. Once bloom was turned on the jaggies appeared that really broke the softening effect that bloom adds to the scene. I had to do some research on the subject and learnt that you should create an additional frame buffer using the “GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample” extension. You are pretty much guaranteed that the “GL_EXT_framebuffer_object” extension is supported if the GPU supports “GL_EXT_framebuffer_multisample”. The process of getting MSAA-enabled output for further post processing is pretty simple… the engine firstly needs to render the actual scene to the MSAA frame buffer then the content of that buffer gets copied to the standard frame buffer where the frame buffer data gets processed to the final scene as normal.

Some third party libraries also got an update with this release.
The JPG library has been updated with the one used by Quake III Arena which for one allowed the loading of JPG data via a stream of bytes which helped a lot with the recent implementation of PK3 (zip) loading support. Did I mention that UQE Hexen II can now load game assets from either PAK or PK3? The engine can also load game assets even from a mix of PAK and PK3 files. The code responsible for loading data from PK3 files have been directly ported from Quake III Arena as well.

The FMOD middleware library implementation in UQE Hexen II also got a huge upgrade.
It got completely re-written from scratch using the at the time of writing the code version of FMOD. Theres been quite some logical changes apart from only the technology upgrade. The engine now also checks for WAV files as an alternative music playback format if it can’t find a suitable OGG or MP3 file. The dated WinMM-based CD Audio playback code have also been replaced with brand new FMOD code that now manages the playback of CD Audio and the same has been done to the native MIDI implementation. Moving all music playback functionality to third party middleware saves some legacy code from being part of the engine and probably might even help reduce the possibility of legacy issues rearing its ugly head at some point in the future as all source code tend to decay over long periods of time.

With the release of UQE Hexen II v.1.15 it will be the first time the software renderer will be completely omitted from the project as it serves no real purpose anymore and becomes pretty difficult to maintain and keep it error-free. I did however made some changes to the remaining OpenGL version of the engine to enable it to simulate the classic effect the software renderer has given by simply changing some console variable values. To help with simulating the unfiltered effect of textures in the software renderer I’ve added a “Point Sampled” texture mode that can be set from the menu. To get the best classic look and feel for the game will be to set the texture mode to “Point Sampled”, turn off the frame buffer and then starting the game at a smaller resolution like 640×480 for example.

There are numerous more additions and tweaks to UQE Hexen II, but they are too minor to write about.

Download UQE Hexen II and enjoy it!

Garth de Wet: JukeBox - Pro Version 1.5

noreply@blogger.com (Garth de Wet) — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 09:42:19 +0000

Version 1.5 of Jukebox Pro has been approved and is now available on the Asset Store.

This version is the biggest update that we have done for JukeBox and makes the differences between the Pro and Free version more noticeable. I will shortly update the free version with some of the features of the new features.

New Features:

Multiple playlists
User loaded songs get loaded into a User playlist
Many small bug fixes and updates
Improved inspector to handle the new features
An improved example of the system in the form of a Music Player
Updated to use events instead of callbacks, which are very similar. This allows multiple scripts to hook into the jukebox to get song changes.
Seek through songs is now possible
Pausing is now possible too
Price is now $5

New Inspector

Regards,
Garth