Stargazy Studios - Blog

Feed Me: Game Podcast & Website RSS

2014-11-24T17:18:00.000+00:00

Before making games, I enveloped myself in as much professional and enthusiast coverage about games as possible. To efficiently collate all of this written and audio information, I used applications able to aggregate multiple RSS feeds and display their contents. In doing so, I built a personalised window into the industry, constructed from a diverse collection of handpicked stained-glass.

The same is true today, only my content choices have changed over time. In becoming a game developer, the information I seek has skewed towards the business of creating games, rather than consuming them. There has also been a shift towards selecting sources that efficiently deliver the information that I need.

It is important for a game designer to be aware of, if not experience, as much of the cutting edge as possible. There is not enough time to make games and play everything that is relevant or innovative, so critics opinions are still a valuable resource.

Most websites' written game criticism is heavily watered down with press releases, previews and other op-ed. Those sources that do allow reviews to be filtered into a single feed do not exclusively cover games that push the medium forward. There is a lot of cruft to sate an ad-driven business model.

With limited time to indulge in nonessential coverage, I mostly rely on podcasts for player criticism of contemporary releases, and to identify trends in consumer tastes. The limitation of recording only a few hours of audio a week results in a condensed format, discussing notable games with brevity. There is also the added benefit that a podcast can be listened to, sped up, whilst performing grokked menial tasks.

Finding podcasts that consistently deliver high quality, edifying editorial is nontrivial, as their content is not marked up in a meaningful way for search robots to crawl, and for listeners to rate.

In a previous post, I summarised those podcasts that made up my weekly smörgåsbord of listening content. The majority of these have either been retired, or have disappeared with their defunct parent websites. Those centred around the culture or design of games will remain relevant as long as their archives are intact. However, the medium's evolution continues apace, and new podcasts have emerged to beat the march.

Instead of summarising a snapshot of my current listening habits (to become a tragically outdated graveyard of content sources), I have made a Google Doc that will be pruned and updated:

Downcast is an excellent podcast aggregator for Apple products, and exports its list of podcasts in OPML (a data format underpinned by XML). By passing this document through an OPML to CSV converter, the list can easily be imported into a spreadsheet.

I have added a comma-separated “tags” column to categorise and sort podcasts, so that they can be usefully filtered based on the listeners' requirements. However, I offer no subjective assessment, other than whether I am actively listening to each episode produced.

As for written, web-based content, I consider there to be far less of a discoverability problem. Although Feedly (my chosen successor to Google Reader) has OPML export functionality, my consumption is highly developer-centric, and easily replicable. Most podcasts in the Google Doc have a parent website that also produces worthy written content, and the game developer blogs that I follow are linked to from their owners' Twitter profiles.

I will mention Gamasutra, Develop, Techmeme, iOS Board Games and Pocket Tactics, which are all stalwarts I that read daily, but do not appear in my podcast list at the time of writing.

Happy feeding!

f(utility): Evaluating the Cost of Solo Entrepreneurship

2014-10-27T14:17:00.000+00:00

Stargazy Studios is an independent micro developer in the truest sense. I am the sole designer, programmer and business lead, with art and audio assets for my projects created by talented contractors. This structure was necessitated by my means and contacts when I started making games in 2009. However, after having operated in solitude, I would elect to work with colleagues in the future wherever possible.

The differences between working alone and working in a team extend beyond creative control, and are not obvious without having experienced both. There are notable solo developers who have made significant works, but their individual processes are rarely dissected. I suspect they will have encountered some of the negative effects of solo work that I have, and their knowledge would have been useful when I started out.

Any entrepreneur should weigh the implications of team size in their business model, so I will summarise my observations here for consideration.

To frame the following advice I offer context, by describing the specific work that I do. Game development is a broad spectrum of endeavour, which is defined primarily by the scope of the target product, and the tool chain used to create it. In my case, the majority of my time is best classified as research and development. This is because I was unable to find off-the-shelf tools to craft the game that I wanted to make, and have had to write my own engine to build it. This has been an enormous effort, and not one that I had originally envisaged undertaking.

I strategically chose industry standard technologies, such as the C programming language and XML data encoding, expressly to leverage shared code. What surprised me more than the dearth of code sharing in the game development sector, was that more general libraries, which I would consider broadly rudimentary, were missing from the public domain. I wanted innovative features, unseen in games before, so had expected to have to write some proprietary code. However, the only shared libraries that I have been able to reuse are OpenGL and LibXML, which comprise only a fraction of the functionality of a video game. Data structures, an asset management pipeline, dynamic storage of assets at runtime, rendering and pathfinding are all scratch-built features of my engine, which I am sure have all been written many times over behind closed doors.

What typifies an environment in which research and development takes place is the feedback bubble that encompasses it. The bubble contains only those who are working on a project, so all motivation must be drawn from introspective evaluation. This is why deciding a team's structure is so important. Until your process yields a product that can be evaluated and patronised by consumers, your feedback from external parties is nil. All energy expended between start to release is imperceptible to most people, either because the undertaking is unknown to the target audience, or because those who are observing the process do not have the domain-specific knowledge to parse it.

A practical example of this type of working environment is the academic research involved in attaining a PhD. Research areas tend to be highly specialised, perceptible only to those working in the same field, and individual candidates must conduct self-directed study for several years before submitting their theses.

In the case of a PhD, candidates have the support of their departmental peers, as well as their experienced supervising professor. This mentor-lead structure has evolved over hundreds of years in our academic institutions, refined to yield successful research. So, if adding members to a research team boosts individuals' motivation and success, then why work solo?

Complete creative control over a personal project may seem attractive, but I have found it to be outweighed by the effects of being the sole occupant of a feedback bubble. Feeding off of your own energy and enthusiasm for long periods of time is exhausting, and when you run dry, burn out sets in. Productivity suffers until you have rested enough to rebuild your motivational reserves, costing you an entrepreneur's most valuable commodity: time to market. In a team, individuals' troughs can be offset by other members' asynchronous energy levels, as the desire to perform in line with ones peers takes effect.

Also, unlike PhD research, making a game is a multi-discipline endeavour that lends itself to parallelisation. A team may attempt to make a game with a larger scope than a solo developer, even with the efficiency drag of communication and coordination. As the market only subjectively evaluates the final product, there is no regard paid to the resources spent to create it. The majority of consumers will not be aware of, or be concerned by, the size of the team that made a product. Limiting the scope of your output can make you less competitive in this marketplace, which is another argument for teamwork.

So, again: why work solo? In my case, and for a lot of other independent developers, it is not a choice. It is a matter of risk adoption. Unless you have access to risk-hungry entrepreneurs, willing to work for equity in your product, then you will need resources beyond most people's personal wealth to incentivise employees. If you have the skill set to make games in a small team, then you are highly employable in a range of well compensated technology roles. Game development, and other private sector entrepreneurship, suffers from not having the established support structures and ring-fenced funding of our academic institutions.

I graduated from college in computing with friends, and had worked in technology until I formed Stargazy Studios. I had many in my professional network with the ability to make games, but the issue was that they were of an age that they had begun to take on liabilities, making them risk averse. Salary-backed mortgages, and dependent family mouths are standard societal concessions made in your late twenties and early thirties. As I had no experience with game development, I considered it disingenuous to promise a suitable return to those who did not make natural entrepreneurs. Although new funding avenues have become available with which to pay regular compensation, these require a minimum viable product for application, and do not underwrite the crucial research and development phase of creating a game.

Start something early in your life, as soon as your professional circle includes those with applicable skill sets. Stay involved with organisations that naturally attract entrepreneurs: academic institutions, local interest groups, and co-work and hack spaces. Bootstrapping with fellow entrepreneurs, unburdened by personal liabilities, minimises start up costs, and the risks of failure.

Another way of reducing entrepreneurial risk is to have a successful track record. If you are an alumni of the traditional game development industry, then you are more likely to be able to form an independent team. Unlike the vocational skills attained through many higher learning courses, the only effective way to train to make games is by making games. In addition to being able to attract first round funding earlier, by being a better investment, your peers form a pool of experienced professionals who can be productive from day one of a project. Resultingly, the scope and success of games built independently by alumni teams is enviable.

Those who are young, risk-hungry and highly trained, combined with the veterans of a small, often employee-hostile industry, represent a sliver of those with something valid to contribute to games. However, for the remaining majority, we are unlikely to have resources to build a team.

So, without access to colleagues to bolster productivity and morale, what factors improve an individual entrepreneur's chances of success? They are the same as for those who work in a team, but are more acutely felt without augmentation. After several years of solo work and introspection, I identify the following key sources of sustenance during a project:

Ego

Every day you will be challenged to achieve technical feats, be creative, consume vast quantities of applicable material, meticulously execute clerical tasks, and solve problems made for you by others. This must be done day in, day out with the exclusion of any external feedback. No-one will recognise your utility until you have a product for them to consume. Going into a project like this, you must carry enormous personal reserves of energy, and an unyielding resolve to finish. You must believe in yourself absolutely, with no allowance for second guessing the value of what you are trying to achieve. There will be ancillary drains on your time and effort that will attempt to distract you from your goal. You must be single-minded and selfish, immediately cutting down the tendrils of procrastination or distraction as they sprout. Ultimately, you must do anything necessary to succeed.

A Community of Peers

No-one will truly understand the exertions of the process you are going through without being there to experience it with you. However, if the product you are creating is worth your time and effort to create, then it is likely there are others who are attempting a similar enterprise. Seek them out, and give each other support by offering understanding and aid in your shared challenges. When possible, demonstrate what you have created to your peers for valuable feedback, during what would otherwise be a drought. Solidarity and positive criticism are powerful forces for replenishing energy levels and improving productivity.

Unconditional Love

Friends and, especially, family will want you to succeed. Their emotional investment can be a source of motivation for you to finish your project. As well as any inherent trust that they have in your abilities, it is also important to explain your motivations to them. Without necessarily understanding the process required for its creation, they should be able to see the value in your envisioned product. However, be wary of time pressure exerted by those around you who do not understand the work involved. Continually being asked, “When will it be done?” is not a positive motivator. It devalues your exertions, encapsulating the groundless assertion that you are working too slowly. This is often unintentional, but as time spent on a project is the only perceptible metric to most people, expect it to dominate conversation.

Some days, you will undoubtedly feel beaten up by the seeming insurmountability of your task. Putting the project out of your mind and seeing friends and family can be an effective antidote to this. Remind yourself that it is possible to be happy without having to cross off another item on your to-do list. Also, observing that the wider world won't stop spinning on the basis of your success shrinks your problems. You can then carry the positivity you gain from being valued externally of your work back into your process.

Good advice always seems like common sense when read. Though, practically implementing it is non-trivial, as I found when I relocated Stargazy Studios.

Development was going well, and I had the experience of working solo from a home office for some time. I thought it would be trivial to move to another metropolitan area and continue my operations. However, I did not have the above factors in mind when I committed to a move.

The pool of entrepreneurial risk-takers in a society is small, and is even further diminished when considering a single, niche industry. There are two hubs where you can find a significant community of independent game developers in the United Kingdom: London and Cambridge. In relocating, I moved away from one of these to a city without an indie scene. The lack of peer solidarity, shared interest and positive feedback was further compounded by being distant from friends and family. Weekly meetings with my support network, familiar with my work, and invested in seeing its completion, became quarterly or annual.

In isolation, my energy levels were quickly diminished. This left me vulnerable when antisocial neighbours moved in next door to us, shortly after we had arrived. They destroyed my home working environment with their constant noise, which ate away at my productivity. Eventually I was so burnt out that I took a sabbatical to start another business. My confidence was completely undermined at the time, and I was unsure as to whether my inability to continue with development was a personal failing. I looked at the new business as being a potential transition if this was the case.

However, away from the tainted home office, I was able to recuperate and refocus, finding my energy return with a fresh entrepreneurial challenge. In this clean air, I realised that game development was the path that I wanted to take, and resolved to finish what I had started. Identifying our neighbours as the root problem, I moved into a quiet co-work space to resume Stargazy Studios' development. In the new environment I found my programming productivity return, which was a tremendous relief. The workspace provided a stopgap whilst moving house, where I re-established a professional home office, and was able to continue with my business unfettered.

The time lost to this distraction is lamentable, and was also avoidable. I should have identified our neighbours' disruption as unacceptable upon their arrival. Insisting on moving home immediately upon relocating to a new city seemed costly and selfish at the time, but now I see it would have been the right course of action.

I must continue to be vigilant, and find ways to bolster my energy levels so that I can take action when it is required.

Although the distance from my peers, friends and family is currently immutable, I am finding ways to improve my process to compensate. This is why I have decided to resume writing articles: to increase others' understanding of what I am doing, and to find solidarity with those who have had similar experiences. I am also open-sourcing the code that I've developed to plug the void in the public domain. This offers the dual benefit of allowing peers to avoid unnecessarily replicating my work, and for them to gain a deep knowledge of the challenges that I have overcome.

Without a fundamental change in the way that independent game development is supported, I feel that my struggles are due to be replicated ad infinitum. There are examples in other research-lead sectors of creating resilient environments to foster nascent entrepreneurial enterprise. In the private sector these take the form of incubators, and are prominent in the contemporary Silicon Valley startup model. Incubators offer startups operational resources, the experience and contacts of successful grey-hairs, and subsistence funding. Given that video game development is ideas driven, it is surprising that the asset-rich, pre-digital distribution era publishers have not invested heavily in portfolio-broadening think tanks such as these. It seems like the natural role of a publisher after the democratisation of game development.

At the time of writing, the incubator framework has started to emerge naturally in the independent developer community. Game development cooperatives are forming around prosperous indie studios who are willing to seed startups with their knowledge and financial success. I have always thought that this would be the future of the industry, as is solves many of the problems that I have highlighted with solo entrepreneurship. Mentoring, and a community of peers are baked in, resource sharing can take place quickly and organically, and cooperative members can work on multiple projects, avoiding burn-out and becoming invested in a wider product range.

It is my intention to eventually build such an environment. Great game ideas should be born, regardless of their creators' ability to conquer avoidable operational hurdles.

Game Data Tools: Object-Oriented Design, but Data-Driven at Run-Time

2012-12-10T20:40:00.001+00:00

About twelve months ago, I had a vertical slice of Huscarlas running, and, up until this point, had been able to create the small amount of game data required, by directly entering it into the IDE. However, I now needed to author large amounts of content, expanding the scope of that vertical slice.

Most games have complete levels hand-authored, in their own, game-specific level editor. Each atomic element in the game engine must be placed, and then customised by a level designer. These elements may vary: from interactive objects, like enemy spawn points, to static props, like background textures. At its most basic, creating elements may involve typing lines of data into a text file, which can then be read-in, and parsed at run-time by the engine. This approach is sufficient for game prototypes that require only a small amount of data. The benefit of this approach is that only a simple text editor needs to be incorporated into a game's tool-chain.

A text (or hex) editor is a very general, off-the-shelf data-entry application, but there are no data-entry checks to ensure that data is correctly formatted, or that it is within a range of acceptable bounds. Also, a text editor does not offer you guidance on what that data will mean in the context of a game's engine. Without any contextual information about how the game will treat the data, qualitative judgement can not be used by a designer. For example, how many milliseconds should there be between two adjacent frames in an animation sequence? This is a subjective value that requires the resultant animation to be observed, whilst it is tweaked. Without visual feedback showing how a data-set manifests in a game engine, we are left to pick numbers out of thin air.

A more sophisticated approach is to build a custom, visual editor, which exposes a toolbox of graphical widgets to level designers, each widget representing a game element. These widgets can be placed onto a canvas, and then the editor outputs the represented elements' data into static files, derived from its own, internal model of a game level. The bespoke editor can be coded to sanitise data entry, and the widgets' appearances can be used to provide contextual feedback, showing how the data will be treated within a game's engine.

The amount of contextual information can be improved further, by having the editor interface directly with a game's engine. By allowing an element's data to be placed into an engine's run-time memory, the designer can observe exactly how the data manifests.

Whatever form the authorship tools for a game may take, they themselves must be written. If you are able to repurpose a packaged tool as your editor, then this will save you a great deal of effort. However, I have found the existing tools available to me to be inappropriate, as they are either: too general (not providing me with enough context about how my engine will interpret the data), or too specific (are tightly coupled to a related engine, requiring its use).

Coming from a software engineering background, this seems odd. There are several ubiquitous, contemporary data formats on which to build our game editors. My preference is XML, which has been around for over 15 years. It allows for the expression of most object-oriented concepts, is human-readable, and has had its veracity tested in a large number of applications. It would be logical to assume that these commonplace data formats are widely used to store game data.

In addition, as there are similar, atomic elements shared between most game engines (sprites, 3D models, animations etc.), it follows that the data representing these elements could be manipulated for most games with a single editor. Reusable tools should exist to author similar data, across a range of game engines, storing it in an open format.

This is not the case.

For example, I trialled dozens of editors in order to compose 2D sprite animations from a texture atlas, but found none fit for this commonplace task. Despite this, tools that could be reused across a wide range of game projects must exist; I just think that they have been created multiple times over, behind closed doors. This was frustrating, as it means that we have to replicate this work once again, for our own purposes.

Huscarlas' levels are procedurally generated; an algorithm determines the terrain and enemy placement each time a new level is started. However, there are still manually defined, atomic elements that the engine needs to be provided with. These are the building blocks for the engine to piece together at run-time. In essence, what I needed was an editor that allowed me to control which GUI widgets should be used to input each elements' data (for most data, this would be a simple text entry box, with validation). Specifically, using XML terminology, I should be able to define a schema for a document, and then have an editor configure itself by parsing that schema.

After using extensive search-fu, and systematically working my way through xml.com's list of XML editors, I found just two existing projects to create a self-generating GUIs:

XAmple (developed by Felix Golubov in Java, distributed in the public domain)
A Dynamically Generated XML Editor (developed by Marc Clifton in C#, distributed under a permissive licence)

Although neither contained GUI widgets to contextualise game engine elements, both offered a starting point, and had the potential to become the editor that I needed. Also, as I have described above, they could become an editor for the wider industry. Currently, I'm working with XAmple, as it was built with extensibility in mind, is well documented, and I have experience with Java.

Why, though, am I so focussed on storing game data in XML? Why should it be the data format of choice for the games industry?

My preference is mainly due to XML's ability to represent object-oriented data models. It is easiest to describe a game's elements as objects, listing their attributes and interactions. This approach is grounded in how we describe the world around us, in our own natural languages. XML has a grammar that we, human beings, can use to communicate easily with one another, whilst still being a useful representation for computing.

However, the considerations we have when composing our data are different to those when we are computing the data in our game engine. The data will no longer be used to communicate amongst humans, and so we can store it in a format that is better suited for computation only: optimised for walking, accessing and manipulation. It doesn't often make sense to instantiate the data at run-time as objects, with all of their individual attributes held adjacent in memory. If your code processes large sets of objects, accessing only a small number of their attributes at any time, then it would more efficient to break out similar attributes into their own data structures. In Huscarlas' code, attributes of the same type are stored in arrays. By tailoring our data structures, based on the logic that will process them, we improve the run-time performance. This is a data-driven approach.

When storing objects' attributes in their own, break-out data structures, each must have an index, to indicate which object they belong to. Once an object has a unique identifier, then all of its attributes can share this index wherever they are stored.

We humans tend to give our objects names that are descriptive, and easily remembered, but these are costly to use as indices. If we use strings as identifiers, they must go through a hash function, in order to reveal their underlying index values. When using arrays, it makes sense to assign a group of objects unique identifiers from a sequential range of numbers, starting from zero. This way, each of an object's attributes can be accessed directly in their respective arrays, using the object's numeric identifier as an index.

Manually maintaining sequential, numeric identifiers is unsustainable for a moderate to large data set. In order to facilitate a data-driven model at run-time, one of the first extensions I needed to make to my XML editor, was the ability to generated unique, numeric identifiers for objects.

However, our memorable names for objects must also be preserved. This is so that specific objects can be referenced in-code, without having to know their numeric identifier. By storing the identifiers as named values, using the native syntax of the code base, objects' indices can be easily recalled by name. In the case of Huscarlas, the code-base is written in C, and named values can be stored in enumeration blocks, output to header files.

I continue to add functionality to my XAmple-based editor, and intend to distribute it for wider use once it has matured. In the meantime, I've written Perl scripts to assign numeric identifiers to XML elements, as described above, and have uploaded the code to GitHub. If you would like to implement data-driven, run-time structures, derived from static XML documents, then you can find these helper scripts here:

xmlInjectUids (generate UIDs, storing them in known XML element attribute)
xmlToHeader (generate UIDs, creating a pseudonyms in a C enumeration block)

When is a $60 Game a $0.99 Game?

2011-08-17T11:20:00.062+01:00

There has been a lot of discussion about the erosion of game prices. Most of the blame has been levelled at smartphone marketplaces and free-to-play games, which both offer play experiences at a disruptively low price point.

Unsurprisingly, the most outspoken of all companies has been Nintendo, who've had the hand-held market sewn up for the past 22 years. It seems like every single executive got the memo to go on the defensive about their games' value. There is an element of irony to this, as part of Nintendo's success with its portable consoles has been their cheap and cheerful pricing. It's telling that they had to slash the price of their latest console, the 3DS, when they broke this low-cost model.

However, it's not just those businesses who are directly in the firing line who are worried. Epic Games' president, Mike Capps, publicly registered his concern that this value proposition shock-wave will change the whole industry.

I agree that change is inevitable, but I think lower pricing is only a secondary effect of the true cause of this disruption. Digital distribution is the actual driver of the entropy we're seeing, as it eliminates any type of physical delivery. Without the risk of having to eat the up-front costs of manufacturing and distribution, more developers are able to compete in the marketplace, and this competition is what's driving prices down. These new operations are much leaner than the old-guard, and are doing it cheaper, faster and better. Your ability to write a large cheque doesn't guarantee your place at the table any more; having something valid to say determines whether you can sit and be heard.

This got me thinking about the comparative costs of the content delivery methods used on each of the competing platforms: download for smartphones, and physical media for consoles. Is there that much difference between the 'real', like-for-like price of a game sold using bricks and mortar distribution, and one sold in a digital marketplace? The headline figures are: $60 for a console game, and between $1-$5 for a smartphone game.

From a developer's perspective, delivery cost in a digital marketplace is simple to quantify: 30% of the sale price goes to the vendor. That's it. Done.

The retail shop route is considerably more complex. A contemporary article by Forbes puts the friction costs of manufacturing at 5%, distribution at 1.5%, console owner's fees at 11.5%, and retailer margin at 20%. That totals 38%, which isn't a million miles away from the 30% a digital marketplace rakes (which suggests Apple, Valve and other providers take too much, but that's a discussion for another day).

If the costs of the routes to market are similar, then what other factors are there that can explain how the price of a smartphone game can be a fraction of the price of a retail game (2-10%), and still be sustainable?

Let's consider the population of people who play a retail game: how many of them actually pay the full retail price for it?

It's telling that I had to look up a typical retail price for a game before writing this post; I can't remember the last time I paid full whack for a title. In the US, Brink for the Xbox 360 was priced at $60 for release in May. Using camelcamelcamel.com, I can see that even before the first week of sales, the price had dropped to $45. The price then fell again after 6 weeks to $30, and after 10 weeks, it's now around the $25 range. Of all those who have bought Brink new, how much did they pay for it on average? It's difficult to say without the sales data, but another online charting tool, VGChartz, indicates that 88.3% of lifetime sales were made between weeks 1 to 6, 6.4% between weeks 6 to 10, and 5.3% thereafter. This implies a rough average sale price of $43.

Of course, this is one game among thousands, but it's a fair example of a title with an average critical reception, decent sales, and whose multiplayer population appears to have waned after the first couple of weeks, precluding significant Long Tail sales.

We're still nowhere near our smartphone game price yet, but the average price of a retail game drops dramatically if we consider the population who play the game borrowed, second-hand or rented. This is an inherent factor for games delivered on physical media, and in these cases the developer will see no revenue. There are large numbers thrown around quantifying those that rent games (50%), and those that buy used games over new games (53%). Even discounting players who borrow games from their friends, the impact of rentals and used sales implies that only one quarter of those playing a retail game will have paid the developer. Comparably, everyone who plays a digitally distributed game will have purchased it in the primary market, paying the developer directly. Adjusting for paying player populations, a physically distributed game's like-for-like price now falls 75% to $11.

There is another significant difference between the population of smartphone and console games players: the size. Not including iPad 2 sales, Apple has sold 189 million iOS devices... This is the same number as the Wii (88M), Xbox 360 (55M) and Playstation 3 (50M) combined. Due to hardware differences, it's common for a developer to sell their game on either the Wii, or both the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3. Each approach addresses roughly 50% of the retail console market. If you're only reaching a market 50% the size of a larger market, then your sales potential is only 50% of that larger market's. Let's scale our like-for-like price again, down to $5.50.

Suddenly, a $4.99 price for a smartphone game isn't sounding unreasonable at all.

You may say that you can increase sales of a traditional, $60 game by releasing it on the PC too. However, that would only give you a market population boost of around 30 million. Easily offsetting this, Google's Android devices contribute another 130 million to the smartphone user base. For simplicity's sake, let's assume that we're investigating the feasibility of taking a non-PC retail game, and only releasing it on Apple's iOS devices.

There's another factor that can affect your sales potential: the quality of consumers in each market. How many games does a player purchase a year? Tie ratio research suggest that iOS owners buy a similar number of games as console owners. This isn't surprising given the recent analysis that indicates a typical iOS device owner has downloaded 75 applications. It's highly plausible that a small portion of these are paid games, so assuming parity between the quality of smartphone and console consumers seems a fair.

We've come a long way from the vehemently defended $60 price point. Like-for-like, we're all the way down to $5, but how do we get from there to $0.99? It's simple actually: no-one is spending $10 million to make a smartphone game.

We've got like-for-like prices, but not like-for-like products. A particularly large budget on a smartphone game is tens of thousands of dollars, whereas a $10M budget is considered relatively small for a console game. Being generous, let's assume that a smartphone game costs $100K to make. That's still 100x less money needed to be recouped in sales than an average console game. Perhaps it's a good thing that Apple stipulates a 99c minimum price on the App Store. Accounting for product budgets, our true like-for-like price is a ludicrous 5c!

The fact is, most traditional, heavy-weight game developers aren't making big-budget titles for smartphones, but it's entirely feasible for them to do so. Want to keep you're multi-million dollar budget? Charge $5 for your game; EA is already doing this. Better still, create freemium games whose revenue is driven by in-app purchases; research indicates that you'd be able to triple your budget (IAP total spend per game averages $14).

It's little wonder that these publicly owned companies are coming under fire from their investors for not getting involved. With all the new development talent joining the fray, can they afford to simply cross their arms and pout?

Huscarlas: Old Plurals are not Created Equal

2011-06-13T12:05:00.031+01:00

What you see above is the Old English word huscarlas ("hooz-karl-as"), written in Anglo-Saxon Futhorc. This runic alphabet has its origins in the Scandinavian runes, and was used before the the Christianisation of England.

The word's above form embodies the evolution of my own understanding of Anglo-Saxon culture, language, and religion throughout the development of my game, Huscarlas.

I'd formulated the game's core mechanics before deciding to enrich it with Dark Age English themes. My self-imposed brief was to distil the tactical turn-based genre, and wrap it in a lean, modern interface. During this pre-production phase I'd spent time in London's museums and galleries, hunting for a spark to ignite my concept. It came from the British Museum, whose Sutton Hoo collection lit the kindling of my intrigue with my own past.

Surprisingly, despite being raised here, my education in the history of Britain was somewhat patchy. Beyond a primary school project on the 1066 Battle of Hastings, I'd inadvertently dodged a formal introduction to my country's forebears. Luckily, after this brief spell of learning, I retained that Harold's army included his bodyguards, his huscarlas. They were a highly-trained, standing body of household warriors, who were tasked with the protection of the Anglo-Saxon king. A huscarl was a free man who gave his oath to protect his charge, and could own land and chattels, strengthening his position in society.

I knew that these would be the perfect men to walk the stellar planes in my game, wielding their axes in battle. I set about delving deeper into the life and times of this warrior cast.

The term Dark Ages was well chosen for this period of history, as there are few primary sources that have survived to guide us in its study. Written records appear to begin around the Christianisation of England, when the Latin alphabet supplanted Futhorc. As a result, the sources are late, and mainly ecclesiastical. Physical evidence is also scarce, as the post-Roman British used timber and other perishables in their buildings, rather than the Roman's heavy stone. It would take a lucky encounter with a historical novel to really drive my understanding forward.

By chance, I began reading Bernard Cornwell's Saxon Stories on holiday, and, as its main character is fond of saying, Wyrd bi∂ ful aræd (Fate is inexorable). The series dramatises Alfred the Great's attempt to unify England into a single country during the 9th century. The books rely on meticulous research by the author to imbue them with historical authenticity, and they seared the Anglo-Saxon people's identity into my consciousness. Although factual accounts of the age exist, I absorbed Cornwell's story, which is spiced with these truths, far more readily than the original sources.

The most striking realisation I took away from the Saxon Stories was the stark distinction between England's settled Anglo-Saxon population and the Scandinavian interlopers who came during the Viking age. Before, I had a muddy notion of generic tribes moving across Western Europe to displace the native Britons, followed by their subsequent conquest by the Normans. This has been replaced by the understanding that, although early Germanic and Scandinavian religions and alphabets are similar, their societies were very different during Britain's Saxon age.

Knowing this, I revisited what I thought I knew about the people I'd based Huscarlas' characters upon. I looked for specific facts about the Anglo-Saxons, delineating between them and their Scandinavian cousins. I had to make a rare foray beyond the bounds of Wikipedia to mine as deep as needed for this information.

It was a relief to find my conception of early Anglo-Saxon theology was not invalidated; as with the Scandinavians, they worshipped the gods of continental polytheism. Where Odin and Thor governed Valhalla for the Norse, Woden and Thunor did the same for the Saxons. Though, there is an interesting morphing of some mythology dependent on the territory in which it was told. For instance, The Wild Hunt, who trace their mad, ephemeral pursuit across the skies, includes King Arthur in some British accounts. The Germanic Pantheon has thousands of years of story built on its rich foundations, and I'm pleased to be able to plumb its depths for inspiration.

A somewhat more revelatory discovery was that my initial working title, "Huscarls", was spelled incorrectly. Although this is the most commonly used plural of huscarl in Google's search results, it is neither Old English, nor Old Norse. There are five cases within Old English, all of which can change the ending of a noun and its plural. The technicalities of the grammar took some time to research, but the correct pluralisation of huscarl is huscarlas, as with all strong, masculine nouns in the nominative case. I would like to thank Professor Muir and Professor Drout for corroborating this.

So, the title was changed to "Huscarlas".

The final evolutionary step discernible from the Huscarlas title above, is my re-discovery of Futhorc. In all the novels and primary sources that I'd read, the text was written using the Latin alphabet. However, I had a recollection from my childhood studies of writing runes with a feather quill. Following a trail of examples, through a series of research websites, I unearthed the use of runes by the Anglo-Saxons before Christianity took hold. To me, it seemed to be the script of the old gods, and its use fitting if Huscarlas was to play out in their domain.

I've been left with a deeper understanding of my subject, and a closeness to it that I'd been entitled to, but had not possessed before taking the time to understand our ancestors.

Huscarlas will be laced with my discoveries, and I hope that you'll join me amongst these legends of yore.

Spring Cleaning: Lessons Learned in Indie Development

2011-02-24T14:05:00.006+00:00

Although I've been keeping everyone up to date, through Twitter and Facebook, as to which iOS games have been eating into my productivity, I haven't blogged for a few months. This was by design, as part of my master plan to duck my head below the parapet, plant my face firmly on the grindstone, and get a significant chunk of Huscarlas coded.

It has been a mixture of successes, intermingled with what I would term as "lessons learned". The most useful revelations to come out of my Winter coding exile have been about two things: project scoping, and time planning. Before your eyes wander away to click on something shiny, and not at all like a wanky management term, let me explain why these epiphanies could be interesting to you.

Before sauntering up to the indie-developer table, and presenting my jib for inspection, I'd spent many years consuming developer-written articles on websites such as Gamasutra, Edge and develop. A good number of these focussed on the very two concepts that I present today: scope and time management. Even those articles ostensibly about something else would somehow manage to slip a paragraph or two in about these subjects, just for good measure. How, then, after so much on these topics having already been written, could I possibly have anything new to say? Surely you can just read the same articles and be done with it?

The point is that I'd read these articles, found them fairly dull, and went away thinking that I'd understood what the authors wanted me to learn. I hadn't, and I don't think you can unless you've walked on your own precipitous path of an unscoped, unplanned project.

In reading them, I'd always thought that the principles discussed were only applicable to game projects with large teams with intimidating weekly overheads. The examples given were almost always framed by such projects, which is unsurprising given the dominance of big-budget studios over the last twenty years. As a one-man micro studio, I found it difficult to bring their lessons to bear on my own day-to-day operations.

Here then, I distil my own practical advice from these well-worn topics, filtered through the unusual perspective of a lone wolf.

Scoping

Lesson: Do not invest any time into achieving something unless you know exactly what the finish line looks like.

Learned: I knew that I needed an artificial intelligence for Huscarlas that could move optimally through procedurally generated levels. After reading some enticing articles that vehemently insisted that "navigation meshes" were the future of space representation, I thought I'd try to implement this type of structure. This technique had no published practical examples, and so I started from just the basic theory, with no notion of what the final logic should be. Inevitably, I wasted a couple of months theorising and working on it, before finding out that the examples the articles had cited were couched with provisos, making the technique impractical for my game.

I will never work from hearsay again. Before diving into implementation of an unfamiliar concept, I now need to have read and understood a source that gives a complete explanation.

Lesson: If there is an existing, complete solution to what you're trying to achieve, then use it. Don't try and reinvent the wheel, no matter how interesting a diversion it might be.

Learned: After the punishing distraction of trying to implement navigation meshes, I realised that plenty of games must have, and must still, use a different approach. Nav meshes are a new concept, so something must have pre-dated them. After a small amount of digging, I found well documented, top-to-bottom solutions for using a regular grid of waypoints over a level. This technique is theoretically not as flexible, nor as efficient as using a nav mesh, but it's tried, tested and completely suited for my purposes. I managed to build a working implementation in a couple of weeks.

As a small operation you've got to pick your battles. If you offered me the time I'd wasted indulging in unnecessary R&D in return for having never heard of a navigation mesh, I'd take your arm off at the elbow.

Time Management

Lesson: Wake up each day knowing what needs to be done, and precisely where you're going to start.

Learned: Procrastination will unnecessarily elongate your project, increasing your costs and eating away at your fragile ego. As both project manager and implementer, you should know exactly what you should be doing at all times though, right? Nice in theory, but I've found that without an up-to-date, relevant, and manageable "TO DO" list, the sheer scope of what I'm trying to achieve can fix me in its headlights.

As well as a whiteboard list of tasks to reference, every morning I conduct a project-wide code search to turn up "TO DO" comments that I've left for myself. This search will always contain a unique line that begins, "TO DO: Start Here...".

If I'm ever in doubt, I just do what the man says.

Lesson: If you are unmotivated or stuck on a part of your project, understand what can be done in parallel and waste no time in shifting your sights to a more appealing target.

Learned: There should be no quiet days at the office when you ARE the office. Inexplicably, sometimes it's impossible to get revved up about parsing XML files, or optimising rendering algorithms. Unfortunately these sorts of mundane tasks will befall anyone attempting to create a game by themselves. Instead of pouting, or trying to wade through your disinterest like treacle, it's best not to take such a bloody-minded approach, and just do something different. I openly prefer design to programming, and when I feel a malaise coming on from the lack of reusable code that's available to me, I've learned to switch tasks.

It's both daunting and empowering to have to perform all the roles required to create a game. On the downside you'll have to do the boring stuff at some point. On the upside, you don't have to do it right now.

Looking over these lessons, I realise they can be applied by anyone who multi-tasks, and I'm sure they've been incubated throughout my career.

I battle daily to take my own advice, but if I've lost momentum, or lack motivation, then these simple rules have proven to rejuvenate me.

Changing of the Seasons

2010-11-01T17:45:00.005+00:00

The last couple of months have been stuffed to bursting for me: my parents' ruby anniversary, two stag weekends and two weddings (including one best man's speech), Stargazy Studio's first tax return, the Eurogamer Expo, a couple of #LondonIndies meets, and the organisation of the inaugural BoardGameCamp.

It's a commonly observed phenomenon that tasks tend to take as long as the maximum time allotted to them. Not wishing to actively disprove this, I've allowed any coding time that I may have found in-between my commitments to be consumed by whatever flanked it. Although I've had a jolly nice time over the last nine weeks, Huscarlas is rightfully feeling neglected.

With the coming of the Siberian geese to Britain's shores signalling the onset of Winter, I'm beginning my own social Winter. Whereas I may have felt a little guilty hiding behind thick curtains from a glorious Summer's day, the dank, dreary Winter skies hold no such sway. I'm going to harness my seasonal hermit tendencies and take the opportunity to bury myself in coding Huscarlas.

To those that know me, it's been a pleasure, and I'll see you for the first antihistamine run in the Spring!

I will make one concession during this voluntary exile: the adventurous may enter my cave if they come bearing a copy Power Grid, Dominion or Carcassonne. Playing board games with friends is a perennial cornerstone for me, and the offer of a game is guaranteed to break my isolation. Where Summer dalliances fall to the wayside, I wouldn't give up board game evenings for all the spice on Arrakis.

BoardGameCamp was an unbridled success, and well attended by board gamers old and new. I never doubted it would be a triumph, as I've seen time and again how groups of people can be brought together by a shared play experience. It's always a thrill to introduce a new player to this world of round table gaming, and if you don't have board gaming integrated into your weekly social calendar, now is a great time to start. As the days grow shorter and the evenings stretch on forever, here are some of my favourite games to ward off the Winter months:

Dominion

Build a deck of cards from a shared pool and beat your opponents by producing the most victory points using the cards you draw into your hand. Each card may be used in conjunction with others in your deck, whose contents is continually changing throughout the game. There are 3,268,760 distinct shared card pools that can be created in the game, meaning it's impossible to play every permutation in a human lifetime. Dominion-night is the new Bridge-night.

In one line: "I'll play a village, a festival, a militia, another village, a woodcutter, and a copper, which gives me... 7 treasure, God damn it!".

Puerto Rico

Plant crops on your land and use your income to expand your city or accrue victory points. Predicting and influencing the communal production line is the key to winning. Production from crop to goods to shipping is rarely unfettered by your opponents.

In one line: "Don't you dare start a shipping phase until I've built a warehouse you git.".

Power Grid

Build a network of cities over a shared map, attempting to maximise your reach whilst blocking your opponents. Each city must be powered on your grid, so you bid in open auctions against other players for power stations. You must take it in turns to source raw fuel from a communal market, changing the price of each type of fuel in the process. Actions taken early on in the game can have a knock-on effect that doesn't become clear until the end of the game.

In one line: "I knew I shouldn't have bought that uranium in turn 2.".

Carcassonne

Players take it in turns to place adjacent square tiles, creating networks of city walls, fields and roads. The exclusive rights to each structure are secured by placing a member of your pool of people on any adjoining tile you lay. Once a structure is completed the owner scores points and their claimant is returned to their pool.

In one line: "And with this tile I condemn thine Meeple to eternal limbo.".

Last Night on Earth

Four heroes must navigate a square-tiled board to fight a zombie hoard. The two teams take it in turns to draw bonus cards, move their pieces and roll dice to determine the outcome of combat. Board randomisation and multiple scenarios lend tactical depth to this battle of the slow versus the few.

In one line: "If I roll a 6 to move Jake to here, give the gasoline to Becky, she runs into the mansion with it, and Billy shoots her with his flare gun, I can win this thing.".

Ticket to Ride

This seemingly thoughtful family game is actually the most effective way to channel the ferocity of a 19th century rail-tycoon. Each player draws a set of random destination nodes that must be linked together on a communal map of interconnecting rail links. The rub is that once a link is claimed, no-one else can cross it. The resulting collision of interests can turn a family Christmas into a knock-down, drag-out brawl.

In one line: "Vegas. You had to take Vegas.".

BoardGameCamp Announced!

2010-08-24T13:40:00.001+01:00

As part of a group of avid board game fans, I've been involved over the past few months in bringing a new type of event to life under the GameCamp brand. BoardGameCamp is going to be part of the London Games Festival in October 2010, and you're all invited to join the pow-wow.

The concept is to have a large, free form space in which people can play, discuss and build board games. Each attendee is free to decide what they'd like to get involved with, and can switch between activities throughout the day.

Play will be centred around a board game library, stocked by the event stakeholders and topped up by campers who'd like to bring their games to play with others. Modelled on the PAX library, you'll be able to check out games in exchange for a valid form of ID, and there'll be a great mix of table-top classics and exotic games printed in small runs.

Connect describes the unconference style talks that spring up around the camp site. A play session may plant the seed for an idea that you'd like to mull over with friends, or childhood memories may be unlocked when you rediscover a game you haven't seen since you were young. Talk subjects are thrown up onto an open schedule so that the whole camp can attend.

Build is for those who'd like to create an experience for others to enjoy. Using the classic tools of the trade (dice, cards, Post-it notes and poker chips), teams will aim to design, build and playtest a game in one day. Meet other designers in an ideas market in the morning and bring your game to life.

BoardGameCamp is going to take place at Whittaker House, Richmond on Saturday, 9th October 2010. This is eBay, Gumtree and Paypal's main UK campus, so there'll be plenty of room for gaming. The entrance fee of £10 will cover lunch, so no need to pack your own.

We're all very excited about celebrating one of our favourite hobbies with other gamers, new and old. Tickets will be released soon, so keep an eye on the GameCamp website and Twitter feed for details.

Console-shaped Bottles: The difference between Coca-Cola and Nintendo

2010-08-22T23:17:00.001+01:00

When we think Coca-Cola, we think about a single pervasive product quaffed all over the world. However, the drink has traditionally been brought to market by two independent businesses: the Coca-Cola syrup maker, and the Coca-Cola bottler. The history and the rationale for this structure is fascinating, and makes for an interesting comparison with the videogames industry.

A mere 3 years after the magic Coca-Cola recipe was invented in 1886, the decision was made to sell the exclusive bottling rights to independent entrepreneurs. This allowed The Coca-Cola Company to concentrate on making their famous brew, and to sell it to their bottling rights-holders for distribution. The margins on the bottling business are considerably lower than those in the syrup business, and operating the factories and distribution networks to get Coca-Cola to retail is a capital intensive pursuit. It made sense for The Coca-Cola Company to put their resources to better use by sticking to their margin-rich business, marketing their product and expanding into new territories.

The model was tested again in 1986 when owners of two of the key Coca-Cola bottling companies in North America made it clear that they were going to sell their operations. The Coca-Cola Company could not risk their route to market falling into hostile hands, and had to raise an enormous amount of money through financing to buy the asset-heavy bottlers. Rather than merging with the low-margin businesses, they stuck to their plan and spun them off with the IPO of the bottling company Coca-Cola Enterprises Inc.

How does Coca-Cola's approach to distribution compare with the approach taken by videogame companies like Nintendo, Sony and Microsoft? We can draw parallels between the products: games consoles being the "bottles" from which the game "mix" is drunk. However, I think there are some fundamental differences that have prevented the decoupling of manufacturing and distribution in the videogame industry.

To drink a Coke you need to simply buy one in a shop and then put it to your lips. However to play a videogame, you must buy two products: the game itself, and a games console on which to play it. This would be analogous to buying the Coke bottle separately from the Cola. It's clear that there are two distinct distribution channels in the games industry: games distribution and console distribution.

The Coca-Cola Company wanted nothing to do with the distribution of either bottles or the liquid inside of them. Videogame platform holders like Nintendo have far more involvement in getting their consoles to retail; the equivalent of the bottle business. Like all major platform holders, Nintendo designs, manufactures, and sells their consoles. Coca-Cola spun off its retail distribution due to the low-margins, and I think this is where the differing approaches can be explained.

Making a bottle is a mature process, with little opportunity to imbue a simple product with added value. Bottles are sold business-to-business, where their perceived value is very efficiently correlated to their raw production value. Games consoles are considerably more complex than bottles, and are sold directly to consumers as a product in their own right. This represents a far better opportunity to yield higher margins than the bottle industry. The average consumer is unable to calculate the production value of a complex combination of electronics, and the manufacturer can reinvent the console each generation as a new product, with its own unique selling points. Nintendo's Wii is a great example of this, its components costing a fraction of its retail price. The innovation of using a motion interface provided a unique experience, which inflated its perceived value on the high street. Nintendo is involved in making consoles because the margins are good.

However, when comparing games to syrup in the Coca-Cola model, we can see that the apporach to distribution is far more similar than with consoles and bottles. Independent agents take games to market themselves, much like the distribution of Coke. Although, there is a difference in the way that we consume Coke and games that subtly changes the business model.

The combination of ingredients in Coke is static. We drink Coke because we like the taste, and we don't want that to change. Conversely, the "syrup" in the videogames industry is dynamic, as people don't want to play the same game over and over again. Each new game must have its own individual recipe, so there's no secret formula for Nintendo to sell to developers to be reconstituted. Instead, they make developers pay to release games for their consoles by ensuring that only licenced code will run on them. The bottle has a lock on it, and you can pay to get the key. This offers the console manufacturer a second revenue stream that is as operationally cheap, even more so than the sale of syrup.

The experience offered by a game is a combination of its software and the hardware on which it's running. Whether you drink Coke out of a can or bottle makes little difference, but the value of a game is inextricably linked with the interface experience provided by a console. The Nintendo Wii has shown that this console generation, people are far more interested in gesticulating than viewing high resolution graphics. Incorporating their interface into your design can move software.

The sales of games and consoles are synergistic, as to play a game you need the platform to run it on. Nintendo makes money when you buy both, so securing a desirable game library for their platform is key. Ensuring the features of a console are suitably unique to drive the creation of exclusive experiences has been the traditional approach. As with all the major manufacturers, Nintendo also have world class in-house game developers to create their consoles' killer apps.

It appears as though Coca-Cola and Nintendo have little in common, and that spinning off the distribution of their hardware is a bad fit for the gaming giants. However, we are entering interesting and disruptive times for the videogames industry, which will complicate things further.

Technology is driving games off of discs and down broadband connections. Games delivered straight to a consumer's home are far more convenient for them, but don't think that this is why the big platform holders are clamoring to get into the digital distribution business. A 15% royalty rate is not uncommon for the disc-based business, but 30% is considered aggressive in the digital realm. Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony's cut just got doubled. There is the consideration of the cost of hosting and transmitting these digital assets, but it still represents a significant bump for platform holders.

The temptation of those margins is bringing other players to the table, armed with innovative new approaches to the hardware aspect of the business. OnLive and Gaikai are proposing to move the computational power running your games from under your television, to remote servers that will simply transmit a video stream to your web-browser or TV. It's yet to to be seen whether the technology has made this a viable, cost-effective model, or whether gamers are willing to forego the focussed design of a company's unique hardware vision. However, it's clear to see that these upstarts are presenting a significant threat to the traditional business model of Nintendo, Microsoft and Sony. We already see developers creating multi-platform releases for the Xbox 360 and Playstation 3, rather than addressing the differences in their features more directly with separate games. OnLive and Gaikai could quickly gain parity if the experience offered is indistinguishable, and if the cost to the consumer is less, then they could become preferred.

If the hardware business is generalised by cloud computing providers, and the experiences available are no longer exclusive to any platform, then where does that leave the big three? Microsoft has the most experience in the cloud services business, but Nintendo and Sony are nowhere. They are not positioned for a disruption of this magnitude. Like the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, their walled-gardens may also become mere legends.

Podcasts on the Menu this Week

2010-08-13T17:35:00.004+01:00

The volume of high quality, edifying editorial being recorded in podcast form has exploded in the past few years. I listen exclusively to gaming podcasts, and even when restricting myself to one genre the choice can be overwhelming. Thank goodness for the double speed playback: twice the information, half the awkward silences.

I try to concoct a mixture of content each week that covers news, reviews, features, and design focussed discussion. Over time I've established weekly staples that automatically get a listen, supplemented by more sporadically released podcasts that are a nice surprise when they drop.

My Staple Podcasts

Mobcast
Four rotating seats discuss four topics chosen each week, including a Bitmob.com community topic. The intelligent discourse examines videogaming trends that may not be covered by conventional news sources. This podcast takes me to a more contemplative place than my usual news-watching perch, and its variety is always a pleasant surprise. Senior members of the editorial staff from EGM and 1UP founded Bitmob after Ziff-Davis sold those properties to UGO.

Gamers With Jobs - Conference Call
Stalwarts of a community-written blog come together to discuss noteworthy news, what they've been playing, meaty feature topics, and listener emails. I particularly like the diversity of the ever-changing hosts and their insight into niche areas of gaming that larger publications often overlook.

The Joystiq Podcast
Joystiq.com is my favourite fire-hose of information. There are several uber blogs covering videogames in minute detail, but none has a podcast as consistently entertaining as Joystiq. Come for the chemistry between the hosts, stay for the comprehensive news coverage and bulletproof editorial.

Rebel FM
Irreverent. This podcast is stocked with the up-and-coming generation of young videogame journalists that talk about what they like, when they like, and only pay passing care as to whether they've offended their employers enough to lose their jobs by the end of recording. Also formed from ex-1UP journalists, this podcast takes a more organic approach to content than the structured Mobcast. Usual topics include games they've been playing, bombshell news items, and relationship advice for geeks, all delivered in a delightfully abusive tone.

Games, Dammit!
1UP.com still has enough quality broadcasters after the exodus to produce another top-notch podcast to fill the 1UP Yours shaped hole that was left. This is evidence that the blog was harbouring well above its quota of journo talent before their dispersion. The content is similar to the news-driven Joystiq podcast, but is delivered by a very different collection of personalities. These guys present opinions with a been-there, done-that attitude, meaning that iterative, uninspiring games are given short shrift. Quite right too!

Surprising Podcasts

A Life Well Wasted
This is Robert Ashley's vision for the maturation of videogame podcasting. The programme examines the human stories behind games, as Robert travels across the US to interview a wildly eclectic group of people. Every episode has a theme that each interview relates to, and is delivered with the level of production found in NPR's This American Life. It's an absolute treat.

The Brainy Gamer Podcast
Michael Abbott is a smart, prolific writer, who loves games and has an academic approach to his analysis. No wonder he's able to attract an incredible array of industry guests onto the Brainy Gamer podcast. His thoughtfully selected topics enable the show to break away from the usual regurgitation and prodding of the news. Listening to this well-schooled host always delivers a great return on your time.

Another Castle
Podcasts by videogame designers are a relatively new thing. Finding the time to externalise your own thoughts and processes when developing a game is difficult, and you're always conscience that your audience may not want to know how the sausage gets made. Another Castle takes the sausage, dissects it, and bombards it with discourse until its elements are known. Charles J Pratt has been a game designer since he graduated from NYU's famous ITP course. The host calls on luminaries associated with ITP to bring their scholarship to bear on the subject of game design, delivering gonzo one-on-one interviews.

Out of the Game
GFW Radio was the jewel in Ziff-Davis' podcast crown before the UGO acquisition. When GFW shed its staff they scattered like seeds, each sprouting new endeavours. Out of the Game is an audio record of the infrequent meeting of the bros. when they get back together to chew the fat. Tangential and enthralling, it's the closest you'll get to GFW Radio after they broke up the band.

Irrational Behaviour
One of the contributors to Out of the Game is Shawn Elliott. He was most famous on GFW Radio for his ability to tell surprising, and often morbid, stories that highlighted how strange life really can be. The breadth of the subject matter, and depth to which each story had been researched, alluded to Shawn not only being interested in games. When he did talk about games he did so in a similarly intelligent way, which put him in the category of critic rather than reporter. It was not shocking that he would go on to apply his critical ability and broader interests in the industry, at Irrational Games. Shawn now produces the Irrational Behaviour podcast to showcase Irrational's staff, and give an insight into how they make their games. Keep your eyes peeled for Irrational Interviews episodes too: Shawn Elliott and Irrational's main man, Ken Levine, endeavour to broadcast interviews with people in the wider gaming industry.

The RPS Electronic Wireless Show
PC gaming is great. The walled garden of console gaming is fantastic for a no-fuss, high premium experience, but if you're a gamer and you're not getting your hands dirty in the crash-happy world of personal computer gaming, then you're only scratching the surface of the marvels available to you. The audience for computer games is enormous as almost everyone with electricity has a PC; even my parents! Combine this with an open platform without licensing fees, and the PC is fertile ground for the weird and wonderful world of niche gaming. Let Rock Paper Shotgun be your guide. The Illuminati of the British gaming press nail proper journalism and criticism with aplomb, and occasionally connect their minds directly to their mouths and record it.

Top 10 SNES Games

2010-08-01T20:38:00.010+01:00

The era of the Super Nintendo defined the formative years of my gamerhood. During the SNES' reign, videogames graduated from being a hobby of mine to being a full-blown infatuation. I loved the 2D sprite-work, I loved the 16-bit sound, and most of all I loved the games.

I'm immediately buoyed by the opening few notes of an original SNES musical score, and screen grabs of my favourite games are highly coveted for wallpaper duty.

A discussion in the pub with a similarly besotted friend escalated enthusiastically, and it has yielded my official Top 10 SNES Games of all time. If you've never played these classics then I beseech you to consider joining our church by downloading them on the Wii's Virtual Console, or by using the ZNES emulator for the PC. Thank goodness they've been preserved in perpetuity; I'd have them guarded in the Tower of London with our nation's Crown Jewels, just to be safe!

As with all Top 10 lists, it was excruciating to omit some games that are legendary in their own right. If you're looking for more titles to play beyond the Top 10 then I heartily recommend: F-Zero, Gradius III, Secret of Mana, Super Castlevania IV, Donkey Kong Country, Rock 'N' Roll Racing, Street Fighter II, Final Fight, Super Mario All-Stars, Super Punch Out!!, and Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island.

New Release: That Zombie Card Game

2010-07-26T11:06:00.030+01:00

Download

The Hide & Seek Weekender 2010 was held on the second weekend of July at the South Bank's National Theatre, and I almost didn't go. This is the story of that near tragedy closely averted, and a game that almost went unpublished.

Hide & Seek specialise in organising off-line gaming events, hosting everything from board games and role-playing, to street running and city exploration. The 2010 Weekender schedule was a diverse mix of all of these, allowing anyone to rock up and play for free. The event was packed with like-minded attendees, all bravely relinquishing their remote anonymity to get involved in a plethora of face-to-face games.

I hadn't heard of the event until one week prior when it was mentioned incidentally in an email chain started by World of Love's David Hayward. We were discussing the upcoming London Games Festival with a group of designers that included James Wallis. He was bringing a new game to the Weekender called Aliens Among Us, and with David hitting The Big Smoke to play as well, consensus was that it'd be a great opportunity to meet.

I checked out the website for the event, and raised an excited eyebrow when I spotted Werewolf on the itinerary (while I'm in my zen-like state, communing with the machines, that raised eyebrow is the equivalent of me jumping out of my seat and shouting “Yowser!”). Ever since I'd read about Werewolf's conquest of Silicon Valley in Wired Magazine, I'd been itching to try out this weird and wonderful game of group paranoia. The lying, cheating and back-stabbing did not disappoint.

On the Friday evening I managed to sandwich James Wallis' Aliens Among Us between three games of Werewolf. I enthusiastically ran one of the games, even breaking out my best DM voice for the occasion. Engaging in what was essentially a smack-talk battle royale, reminded me of the "debates" we used to have at LAN parties concerning one another's lineage or sexual preferences. I hadn't had fun like this since broadband made proximity gaming extinct. The proliferation of the Internet must mean that there are whole generations who've missed out on the treat of being able to look their assailant in the eye as they're verbally abused.

Being oblivious to this sort of event in my own manor may be explained, in part, by the lack of intersection between the videogames media and those covering the wider world of gaming. I hadn't heard a dicky bird about Hide & Seek in the run up to the Weekender, and I actively have my tentacles out searching for gaming goodness (I'm sure that Google must have to maintain a dedicated server farm to rival Jodrell Bank's in order to collate all the videogame news feeds I have coming into Reader). The rift between the two camps is bizarre given that videogames are essentially board games, but with a computer acting as the Dungeon Master.

Missing out would have had further ramifications than my inner werewolf being left dormant. If I hadn't gone to the Hide & Seek Weekender, then I wouldn't have come across the Cadbury's Pocket Game Competition. The brief for the competition was to design an easily portable game that could fit in the palm of your hand. Cadbury's stipulated that there should be no technology involved, and they would manufacture the overall winner for distribution. My excitable eyebrow went into action again as I realised that I had just such a game stored away in a hazy memory of a rainy day at Oktoberfest.

We head over to the boozy beer festival almost every year, and on one cold, dank day we played a card game of my own concoction. The initial stages of designing a videogame are the same for me as designing any other type of game, and given a hangover and a deck of cards, something will normally emerge to lighten the mood. In this case it was "That Zombie Card Game", a riff on Magic: The Gathering's combat, but without the strategic, and often expensive, deck building. All it requires is a standard 52 card deck and two Zombie Masters willing to duke it out for the chance to be crowned the Zombie King.

Each player takes it in turns to either: cast their voodoo to raise a zombie army from the grave; restock their graveyard by burying more bodies; or assault their opponent with the shambling horde they've built. Throw in a lucky Dark-Magic Bolt now and then for a bit of zombiegeddon, and that's all there is to it.

Thanks to the crunchy-looking carrot of the competition, I took the time to publish the rules in a nice, single sheet format. I licenced artwork from Cory Thoman to pretty it up, and the title font was very kindly provided for free by Patrick Broderick via dafont.com. The competition website only supports low resolution grabs of the rule sheet, so I've uploaded the original document for anyone to download and play.

If you have a spare 15 minutes and a deck of cards, download That Zombie Card Game and let me know what you think:

That Zombie Card Game.pdf
That Zombie Card Game.png

GWJ Podcast Mention: "Your Friendly Neighbourhood Developer"

2010-07-21T10:10:00.005+01:00

The Gamers With Jobs Conference Call is a stud in my stable of weekly podcasts. Key members of the community-written blog come together and dissect their week's worth of gaming in a digestible radio show. They cover games they've been playing, noteworthy news, and discussions they've had within their group. There's very little room for puffery in their densely packed programme.

It's because of their enthusiast background that the podcast is so refreshing. While other commercial podcasts strive to cover all the bleeding edge news, the Conference Call only reports something if it sparks interest within their community. This means that they often give coverage to titles that may be overlooked by the mainstream press for being too niche, but merit a mention to the GWJ audience. If you like good games, and your not listening already, I heartily suggest you become a member of that audience.

Before I started developing games, I used to listen to the Conference Call because their tastes were aligned with my own. I enjoy games that offer interesting decision mechanics, and I often discover new titles to play through their coverage. Now I'm designing my own games, listening to the podcast has taken on another aspect for me: market research. Stargazy Studios was founded on the premise that there is a significant population of gamers who, like me, are hungry for innovation in their games. The Gamers With Jobs community fits this profile perfectly, and it follows that Huscarlas is being developed for them.

I think that the Conference Call podcast is successful because of the diverse mix of gamers they can get around a mic'. There are zealots of casual and core gaming, of the PC and console platforms, and they all bring a different perspective to the show. A small portion of the contingent even venture into technical commentary, the like of which is more often heard at a developer conference. It was one of these discussions that was so relevant to indie development that I thought it warranted a response.

The topic concerned attempts by platform holders to lock in content creators, by tailoring their SDKs to be incompatible with others. An SDK is a library of code provided to developers from which to start your own program. It usually takes care of providing the very basic building blocks so that you're not working from a cold start. If you write a game for any of the major platforms, you'll be given an SDK by Microsoft, Nintendo, Sony, Apple, or Google. If a platform holder ensures that a developer is unable to write a piece of code that can be compiled with more than one SDK, they gain exclusivity over your content.

Each platform holder implements their shackling of developers to different extents. The example used on the Conference Call was Apple, who have recently taken the stance that it will not allow any third party SDKs to create programs for its iPhone. This resulted in a vocal, and not overly adult, to-and-fro between Apple and Adobe, whose nose was put severely out of joint by this decision. Adobe's Flash SDK would have let you create games that could run in a web browser, as well as on the iPhone. The unique selling point of a third-party SDK is often that you're able to compile your program to be run on more than one platform. This is great for developers, but not so great for exclusive-hungry platform holders, and seems to be the reason for Apple's lock-down.

The conclusion on the podcast was that you were now unable to develop a game for both the iPhone and Android by writing a single piece of code. Without a cross-compiling third party SDK, it would seem that you need to write your iPhone application using Apple's Objective-C language, which does not have a compiler on any of the other major platforms.

However, there is hope! The iPhone is one of my target platforms, so I was presented with the very same dilemma during my development, and I have a solution. A wise man once said: "To write a C++ compiler, you must first write a C compiler.". This still rings true today, and it's highly likely that a C compiler will be one of the first things written for any new platform. Objective-C is different to C++, but is also built on top of C. This means that all of the building blocks you'd expect to have in a C implementation are in the iPhone SDK. Guess what else has a C compiler? Google's Android has its own C library it calls the NDK (Native Development Kit). And there's more good news: both iOS and Android support OpenGL ES, an open source 3D library. So, with a C codebase that leverages OpenGL ES, you've got yourself a cross-platform game engine for the market-leading smartphones.

Some SDK calls will still need to be made using platform-specific languages on both iOS (Objective-C) and Android (Java). These must be wrapped in C functions to be called from your pure C codebase. My experience has been that there is not an awful lot of this to be done, and the versatility of having a C and OpenGL engine does not end with smartphones. As well as PCs and Macs, Nintendo's and Sony's home and portable consoles can be targeted. Even Microsoft's Xbox 360 has a C compiler, though it muddies the waters a little with DirectX rather than OpenGL.

After emailing the Conference Call crew with my solution, they intend to write a follow-up article on the Gamers With Jobs blog examining the subject of monopolistic platform holders in-depth. I look forward to reading their insights, as this is a war that all developers suffer in, especially indies who don't have the resources to write their code more than once. In the end, if it's too costly to bring your game to a bespoke platform, then it's the gamers who don't get to play it who lose out.

You can check out the initial discussion of Apple's exclusivity grab in episode 194 (00:55:27), and my response read out in episode 195 (01:00:31).

A Diverse World of Love

2010-07-01T09:46:00.028+01:00

The inaugural World of Love event was held last Friday at Channel 4's offices near Westminster. David Hayward organised a day of talks to bring together and showcase the flourishing community of indie developers in the UK. Conducted in a plush basement cinema, World of Love was massively oversubscribed beyond its modest capacity, and I'm sure the venue will need to change for next year's gathering. Even though fire regulations kept the crowd small, what really struck me about the event was the diversity of those involved in the independent games scene.

Specifiying what it takes to be indie has always been problematic. For some it's the shunning of major commercial partners to bring your games into being. For others it's more stringently the non-commerciality of your own games. The shades of grey of the term "indie" shone brightly at World of Love, not only in the audience, but amongst the speakers as well. Gobion Rowlands discussed Red Redemption's courting of pure venture capital to protect the independence of their design process from demanding publishers. Conversely VVVVVV's creator, Terry Cavanagh, eulogised the liberating process of game jams, requiring concepts to be conceived and produced in impossibly short time periods; this approach to design emphasises raw creativity over the focussed vision of a funded project. A full spectrum of business models, or lack thereof, was represented, and I took away something useful from each of the speakers. You can read more about the talks in articles on Edge Online and RPS.

My own aspirations lie somewhere in the gulf between the running of a highly leveraged business, and making art for its own sake. I hope to find enough patrons that enjoy my games to support an ongoing creation of innovative titles. Events like World of Love and PAX provide a great opportunity to float ideas outside of my echo chamber. Huscarlas, being an unusual collision of X-COM tactics and Final Fight brawling, has been met with positive surprise throughout. I hope that the anticipation I've generated in these short conversations bodes well for its release, and my ambition for subsistence.

Despite the apparent differences between individuals at World of Love, the acceptance of one another's alternative approaches to forging games is what bound us together. As long as you were making the games that you wanted to make, then you were part of the gang. I think that this uncompromising attitude towards pursuing the pure, and unfettered creation of your games truly defines what it is to be indie.

indievision Interval

2010-06-21T12:23:00.013+01:00

indievision was set up by Icon's Richard Hill-Whittall to support the worldwide blooming of the indie games scene. It provides articles and news on design, development and business, as well as actively aiding independent developers in need.

My friend Byron recently signed on to help with the editorial for the site, and was kind enough to ask me to write an article. As I'd recently completed my three-part blog series addressing The Quad design model, I was able to combine the meat of these posts into one article for indievision. It serves as a good primer for considering game design using The Quad, and I think the content benefited from another editorial sweep.

08/09/2012 Update: the indievision domain has gone through a number of iterations, and The Quad content is no longer hosted there.

The piece was a combination of these two Quad design articles, still available to be read on this blog:

The Quad: An Introduction
The Quad: Using It

If you find these articles useful, I recommend that you read my follow up blog post, where I go on to analyse how the differences between traditional media and videogames have affected game design.

Fighting Fit

2010-06-12T11:13:00.025+01:00

When I was planning my new life as an indie developer, I promised myself that one of my cornerstones would be regular exercise. It sounds like a strange concession to make. Surely being a successful, self-employed designer only requires eighteen-hour days, and an intravenous drip of coffee right? Wrong.

Before founding Stargazy Studios I spent five years working in finance, one of the most brutal white-collar industries in existence. As with any job that lacks a finite goal, I could pour everything I had into its vacuum and it would still turn around and ask for more. The difference between the finance industry and other sectors is that being wrung dry isn't optional, it's expected. I've been to the edge of office-chair endurance: sleep deprived, palms sweating from the stress, and muscles atrophied from the lack of activity. I can tell you that this is an unsustainable way to live, and creativity and productivity quickly become alien concepts in this environment.

Jeff Vogel, founder of Spiderweb Software, devotes slot three to "taking care of yourself" in his Three Tips For Getting Started In the Indie Gaming Biz. He's been making a living creating games since 1994, so if you don't trust me, then take it from him. It's common sense that fighting mother nature is a front too far when you need all your firepower to craft an exceptional new game.

If you're working from home, the obvious solution would be to get your shorts on and run in a big loop for 45 minutes. Unfortunately running bores me to absolute tears. I grew up taking my dose of exercise playing sport, and no matter how hard I try I just can't get revved up about pounding the pavement. Lifting weights, however, tickles the competitive part of me that running wouldn't dare. With this in mind, I thought I'd share my compact workout schedule with you in case you ever find yourself in the same boat.

If you are new to lifting weights, selecting a suitable regime can be daunting. I've adapted a recommended workout from Bodybuilding.com to form three, one-hour sessions, that can all be completed around a standard foldaway bench. This means that with a short stop at Argos and a bit of Gumtree searching, you can throw together a frugal alternative to a gym membership that you can tap any time you like.

Monday
Barbell Deadlift: 3 sets of 6 reps
Barbell Bench Press: 3 sets of 8 reps
Dumbbell Squat: 3 sets of 6 reps
Dumbbell Bent Over Row: 3 sets of 6-10 reps
Barbell Military Press: 3 sets of 6-10 reps

Wednesday
Dumbbell Lunges: 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Dumbbell Lateral Raise: 3 sets of 8 reps
Barbell Lying Tricep Extensions (Skull Crushers): 3 sets of 6-10 reps
Dumbbell One-legged Calf Raise: 3 sets of 8 reps
Dumbbell Upright Row: 3 sets of 8-12 reps
Standing Dumbbell Curls: 3 sets if 6-10 reps

Friday
Barbell Deadlift: 3 sets of 6 reps
Incline Barbell Press (15-30 degree incline): 3 sets of 8 reps
Barbell Upright Row: 3 sets of 6-10 reps
Dumbbell Squat: 3 sets of 6 reps
Dumbbell Shrugs: 3 sets of 6-10 reps

Check out ExRx.net for technique pointers, and an explanation of the muscle groups being worked with each exercise. You should be able to lift the first set of reps comfortably, the next should be a struggle, and if you're consistently lifting the third set it's time to up the weight. Don't worry if you can't nail all three sessions in a week. Two is still good, and one will ensure that next week's are not such a mission!

The Quad: Using It

2010-05-13T23:41:00.007+01:00

Before going into the practical application of The Quad, I will reiterate its four aspects:

Psychology
The aspects of a game that do not form a part of the rules, and so do not directly influence the outcome. They can have an indirect effect however, if the the player chooses to let them prejudice their decisions. These aspects can include story, character, and environmental themes.

Decision
The rules of a game whose execution are governed by player decision. The probability space of the remaining game is tangibly altered by the branches of its decision tree the player chooses to navigate. That is, the chance of a player winning or losing a game perceptibly changes with their choices.

Randomness
These are the parts of a game's decision tree that are traversed randomly, without player input. The probability of one decision occurring over another is either specified when the game is created, or is seeded by a dynamic source during play.

Physiology
This describes the portion of a game whose outcome is influenced by the player's physical ability. The chances of winning or losing are impacted by a player's dexterity, strength, speed or stamina.

The theory is that videogames can be completely described with only these four elements, and that in doing so they can be more easily compared.

Let's consider the practical application of this model to a game that a large number of contemporary titles are based on: Quake. Quake's core gameplay requires the player to position and orientate a 3D camera, and fire a variety of projectiles along that camera's line of sight. The targets given to the player in the game comprise of either other players or enemy controlled AI. We can break down the sequence of events in a typical piece of play to see which aspects of The Quad Quake is built from.

First, the player must decide where to position their camera to best target their opposition. This decision will be affected by the player's memory of the map, and the dynamic information that's being fed to them through the display and speakers. Once a decision has been made, the player must execute the correct sequence of inputs to move the camera, and release their projectile. Their success will be determined by the appropriateness of their original decision, and the speed and accuracy of their execution. The same measure of success is applied to the player's opponents, and the winner is calculated in a straight comparison.

Decisions made in Quake can dramatically alter the result of an encounter, but do not trump a player's superior dexterity. Good decisions alone can not overcome an opponent's dominance of Physiology. This is mainly because the various guns in Quake require more than one hit to kill an opponent. Although making the superior tactical choice allows you to position yourself for the first shot in an exchange, as soon as you do so your location is revealed, and your intitial advantage gives way to who can land the most subsequent hits. Quick reactions and the accurate execution of prescribed firing patterns will dictate the result from the opening salvo. It's interesting to note that this equation is turned on its head in other games of the genre, like Counter-Strike, where the increased power of the weapons makes landing the first hit more influential.

As well as Decision and Physiology, we must consider the other two elements of The Quad: Randomness and Psychology.

Randomness governs very little in Quake. There may be a slight variation in the spread and damage of a weapon's effect, but the importance of this in a battle is superseded by Decision and Physiology. The only significantly random aspect of the game is in competitive multiplayer, where the opposition's skill level is unknown until the time of play. Although this can be frustrating if faced with an inappropriately superior foe, but the continually changing experience of these varying encounters results in longevity.

id Software employed sparse Psychology in Quake, as it had done in the Doom series that went before it. Without any notable storyline, context is given through the visualisation of your camera as a gun, and by presenting identifiably hostile targets to aim at. The lack of Psychology did not diminish Quake's popularity, but provided an opportunity for other developers to evolve the genre by bulking out this aspect in their games.

By combining all of these observations together, we can conclude that Physiology is the primary influence in Quake, followed closely by Decision. Randomness and Psychology are both present, but are proportionally diminutive.

In order to visualise our analysis we can weight each of these elements subjectively. This allows us to draw a waffle chart, whose shape represents the genre of a game. We’re able to compare this type of diagram to those for other games to determine their similarity.

Other first person shooters would have a very similar chart. As mentioned above, most extensions of the genre concentrate on creating unique Psychology to set themselves apart. These have done very well commercially but, for me, the most valid successors to Quake innovate through their Decision mechanics. Good examples of this include Counter-Strike and Left 4 Dead. Counter-Strike rewards strategy over dexterity, diminishing the power of a talented run and gunner, and Left 4 Dead dramatically changes your foe, presenting multitudes of weaker targets who can overrun an isolated player. The difference in balance of Counter-Strike's Decision and Physiology to Quake’s can be seen when comparing their respective charts.

There are videogames that have a very different shape when mapped with The Quad in this way. To illustrate the visual difference between genres, I've created a waffle chart for Guitar Hero. Guitar Hero's gameplay can be described as requiring a prescribed sequence of buttons to be pushed in time with a piece of music. With minimal Decision to be made, except for discerning when to use Star Power, and no Randomness to speak of, the game would seem to be almost pure Physiology. The twist in Guitar Hero is that it offers the player extremely compelling Psychology, casting them as rock stars. From the licensed music providing the beat, to the heavily stylised visuals and plastic guitar controller, the game works very hard to abstract away from its simple gameplay. Few would argue that the combined experience is not successful. By drawing a map of Guitar Hero, we can see that it looks considerably different to that of a first person shooter.

Although these “genre maps” are able to quickly portray the proportional influences of each part of The Quad in a game, the perceived success of each aspect is not apparent. However, this information can be conveyed by weighting each area with a score. For instance, Gears of War 2 is a highly acclaimed first person shooter in the same genre as Quake. Below is a genre map constructed in the same way as we have seen above.

Notice the Decision, Physiology and Randomness lobes (blue, green and yellow) are balanced similarly when compared to Quake's or Counter Strike's. Yet the scale of these elements has been considerably reduced by the notable increase in the weight of Psychology. This is due to the effort afforded to the visualisation, characterisation and depth of the world in Gears of War 2 far outstripping that made in either Quake or Counter Strike.

Working with this chart, we can then scale it by an additional “success” factor, or "score". If we glance at the Metacritic review average for Gears of War 2, it provides a rough scale factor of 93%. Applying this to each of the four elements in the chart results in the below diagram.

Now imagine that instead of using a total score to scale all of the elements, each is assessed and scaled individually. Using the vocabulary of The Quad, these charts can be used to accurately describe a game’s genre at a glance, as well as giving the analyst a method of independently rating the success of each its aspects. The granularity of the information portrayed is not suitable for delivering in-depth analysis, but it’s a considerable improvement over rating a game with a single overall score.

The Quad is a unified terminology for what we've already been communicating in our discussions about videogames. We lose nothing by using the terms Psychology, Decision, Randomness and Physiology in our analysis, as it doesn't change the subjective nature of it. The benefit is a common language from which we can build and share ideas. To illustrate this I've created my own Gears of War 2 review chart, representing my personal reaction to the game.

As you can probably tell, I didn't really enjoy my time on Sera. My preference is to play something innovative, and Gears of War 2 certainly was not that. These are some of the notes I made when deciding the scale factors to apply to each element:

Psychology
I enjoyed the artwork and visual effects, but found the story hokey, and the stereotypical characters bland.

Decision
I was disappointed with the variety of tactics I had to apply during the game. Each arena had obviously optimal locations from which to fire obviously preferred weapons. The set pieces could be approached in a similar manner throughout, with no incentive to change tactics. Ultimately, the majority of the depth of Decision in Gears of War 2 had already been explored in the original game.

Randomness
The online matchmaking was competent at grouping me with similarly skilled opponents, but was not as good as Halo 3's implementation.

Physiology
The controls gave me a wide range of options to manoeuvre in-game, including an excellent cover mechanic. My own movements were accurately translated to my avatar's movements, and the reward for being more dexterous than my opponents was satisfying. I enjoyed the conflict between having to watch the arena in front of me, and switching my attention to the reload gauge positioned at the edge of the GUI.

My bias towards games that introduce interesting and varied Decision makes my chart significantly different to the Metacritic chart. We could interpret this as the average contributor to Metacritic finding a game's Psychology more important than I do, and having a reduced requirement for depth of Decision. Of course, they may have simply enjoyed what was in the game more than I did; it's difficult to tell from just a headline number.

I hope I've shown that if we start using The Quad to describe videogames, and display our analysis with more transparency, then the quality of our communication will be improved, along with our discourse.

The Quad: Showing Our World is not Flat

2010-05-12T11:37:00.003+01:00

We all have an interest in understanding why we like or dislike a game. Armed with this knowledge, we'll spend less money on games that we won't like, and spend more of our precious time with the ones that we will.

In my last post I introduced the four elements of The Quad:

Psychology, Decision, Randomness, and Physiology.

Together, they constitute a complete model for describing a videogame. Breaking a game down into its component parts, and categorising them within this model, allows us to build up a dictionary of positive and negative terms to look for in other games.

“I like games where Decision has more influence on whether I win than Randomness.”

“I like games that efficiently lay out the rules governing Decision, Randomness and Physiology, so that I can quickly start playing.”

“I don't like games that force me to consume their Psychology. I prefer to be able to skip this aspect.”

As long as we're given enough information, we should be able to determine whether we will enjoy a game simply from its description.

Unfortunately, the information provided by those selling videogames tends to be incomplete. The focus is on showcasing a game's unique theme or story, its Psychology, rather than highlighting innovation in gameplay. Blinkered sales pitches are due, in part, to the lack of an established vocabulary to describe the portion of a game rooted in Decision, Randomness, and Physiology. Advertisers are limited to communicating with the terms found in the public's lexicon.

Vocabulary begets understanding, understanding begets discourse, and discourse begets progress. If developing a complete vocabulary is a key step towards the betterment of games, and our relationship with them, then why hasn't one already been created? We have a huge global community of people playing videogames, who've had over 40 years to agree on how to describe them. I think that the failure to progress has resulted from the commercial environment in which videogames are sold.

The videogames industry is relatively new when compared to film or television, and positively newborn when compared to print. These mature media already shared a well established advertising model when videogames joined them: they interleave adverts with content on the same distribution network. It's not surprising that these traditional channels were adopted by videogames publishers when they first started publicising their games. By using television, film and print, you could reach a large, pre-existing audience, well trained to absorb advertising in these forms. Additionally, the cost per impression was far lower on these channels than delivering videogames advertising on physical media alongside content. However, mixing media types between advertising and content created dissonance.

Television, film and print only tell linear stories, so their content can be classified as pure Psychology. The vocabulary that's evolved around these industries only extends to describe this one aspect of The Quad. When videogames initially employed these channels for advertising, only a game's Psychology could be showcased using their narrow parlance. It's the equivalent of describing the world as a flat disc, when in reality there's a whole other dimension to it. Before a suitable way of detailing the other features of a game emerged, the limited scope of what could be communicated had impacted the content of games. The environment fostered videogames that could be sold successfully on the merit of their Psychology alone. The resultant prevalence of mainstream titles that rely on compelling Psychology, wrapped around tried and tested gameplay mechanics, is still with us today.

However, I believe that we're on the cusp of traditional advertising having a declining influence on game design. The proliferation of the Internet has provided a unified advertising and distribution channel for videogames. As a result, it's no longer necessary to publicise a game with non-game content. The Internet has also facilitated the rise in influence of word of mouth. Now, my primary sources of information when making buying decisions are game demos, and the opinions of my peers.

Traditional advertising is a one-way broadcast. It provides a sponsored appraisal of a product that you can either accept or discard. This is of limited value when compared to social networking, where two-way discussion is possible, and a trusted consensus is reached by the group. There are no restrictions on the content of your discussions, and the more we talk about games critically, the more the missing vocabulary to describe gameplay is evolving. The dictionary is being written organically by the community, who have the impetus to communicate in broader terms than are being used in advertising.

We're seeing the initial influence of contemporary publicity in indie design. Indie developers have a minimal reliance on traditional advertising due to its cost, and lean heavily on public demos and word of mouth. The unconstrained vocabulary of these channels makes it possible fully describe a game, and generate buzz around innovative gameplay. This is critical, as indie games don't have the budget to compete with the money spent on creating bespoke Psychology for mainstream titles. Open communication is one of the key pillars that supports the strong indie scene that we have today.

The opinions we form through social networking are much more valuable to us than the ones we're fed in adverts. As the forums we use to reach consensus are becoming ubiquitous, the trend is to disregard traditional advertising. Publishers will eventually shift to using the same forms of communication that are already influencing indie design. It's only a matter of time before a broader vocabulary for describing games impacts the mainstream.

The formation of this vocabulary is in its infancy, but you have to start somewhere. Bringing The Quad to your attention is my contribution to seeing gameplay take its rightful position on the throne of game design.

The Quad: An Introduction

2010-03-30T14:57:00.009+01:00

What is a game? Evolution embedded play into the very fabric of being human, and so this is a question that has been pondered since the dawn of man. It may be somewhat baffling, then, that we are still unable to reach a consensus.

Searching the web for the “definition of a game” will unearth many different explanations, each described by someone who sees games in a disparate context. The more diverse definitions you read, the more it becomes clear that “game” is one of those words that's overloaded with meaning. If you consider that we derive what a game is from our own personal perception of play, it's not surprising that there are as many definitions as there are individuals.

The flexibility of the term becomes a problem if you want to analyse an existing game, or create a new one. In order to design a game, it's essential to understand the building blocks at your disposal. We can model a game in an infinite number of ways, all different, and all valid. But to be useful, a model must be complete, whilst remaining simple. It needs to be elegant.

While at this year's PAX East I attended a panel presented by the creators of the GeekNights podcast, Brandon DeCoster and Scott Rubin. It was called “Beyond Candyland”, and sought to explore the theory behind the best German-style board games. They identified “Decision” as the distinguishing factor between games rooted in "Randomness", like Monopoly or Trouble, and games of skill, like Puerto Rico or Dominion.

Both Randomness and Decision can decide who will win a game, as an event of either will alter the probability space of the game yet to be played. The difference is, you have complete control over the decisions you make, and can take gratification from your performance if you're victorious through Decision. This is why we favour games that are more heavily weighted towards Decision over Randomness.

As well as Randomness and Decision, the GeekNights duo completed their model of a board game with “Psychology”. Psychology consists of the elements of a game that can not mathematically change the outcome, but augment the rules, like story. A player could choose to completely ignore the Psychology in a game, as it does not alter the probabilistic outcome of the decisions they can make. Poker is an example of a game that is almost pure Psychology. The cards you are dealt are determined through Randomness, and the probability of your hand winning against an arbitrary number of hidden hands is a solved problem. In theory you should only bet on hands with a probability of winning of more than half, so the Decision is made for you. Poker would be a pretty boring game if everybody followed this strategy, simply becoming a game of the luck of the draw. The fun of Poker is in reading and bluffing your opponents, trying to beat the odds. It is a game of accruing or falsifying information outside of the rules of play, which is achieved by reading and influencing human Psychology.

Randomness, Decision and Psychology comprise an elegant model to describe board games, but it needs a bit of work to be able to be applied generally to all games. Brandon and Scott observed that if you add Physiology as a fourth component, we are able to extend the model to include sports. They proposed that when a game rewards dexterity, strength, speed or stamina, it becomes a sport, and that perhaps videogames can be considered sports. I would draw a semantic line between videogames and sports, but agree that both are categories of games that can be classified by this simple, four-axis model.

The model is intuitively complete. All human faculties are addressed, any rule system can be specified, and we can describe all environments in which a game can be played. We now have an elegant model for the entire universe of games. Every game can be constructed from four components, and four components only: Randomness, Decision, Psychology and Physiology. This is an incredibly powerful observation, as it gives us a vocabulary we can use to accurately describe a game and compare it with any other game.

I've dubbed this model “The Quad”, and find it particularly useful when dissecting videogames. It's a common crutch to say that you like a game because it's fun. However, fun only describes what you feel when your body produces the chemicals to reward achievement. In order to understand how this state of elation is induced, The Quad can be used to identify which aspects of a game lead to you having fun. You can then look for these components in other games, or aim to recreate them in your own.

In my next post I'll be following up this introduction to The Quad by applying the model to games that I like and dislike, and looking at the differences between contemporary indie and mainstream games.

Unhazy Stargazy

2010-03-16T16:02:00.039+00:00

I've known since early 2007 that I'd work under the name Stargazy Studios to develop my games. The word stargazy has a whimsical quality about it, but also means a lot to me and what I'm trying to achieve as a developer. I think few would guess that it was a cookery programme that provided this inspiration.

Stargazy is taken from the title of a classic Cornish meal, stargazy pie. It's a visually striking dish made in the most southwesterly county of England. Fish are arranged underneath a pie crust like spokes on a wheel. They are placed with tails at the centre of the pie, with their heads poking out skyward from underneath the crust's edge. The fish appear to be looking up in to the night sky, gazing at the stars.

Although I'm a big food fan, there are many classic British dishes, and so that in itself does not make stargazy pie exceptional. It was Mark Hix's version of stargazy pie, created for a national competition, that was extraordinary enough to christen a games developer.

The Great British Menu is a competition to bring Britain's top chefs together to demonstrate their cooking prowess on behalf of the nation. The chefs compete with each other to have their dishes selected for a final banquet, which has been prepared for guests that have included the Queen and the British Embassy in Paris. On the competition's incursion into the gastronomic heartland of France, Mark Hix represented his Britain with stargazy pie.

France's rivalry with Britain is famous. Particular pleasure is taken by the French in nurturing the perception that their cuisine is far superior to their poor Rosbif cousins'. Mark Hix harnessed British ingenuity, irreverence, and dry humour to strike a blow to Gallic aloofness. Instead of the pilchards traditionally used in stargazy pie, he selected rabbit and crayfish to make the filling. The result was stunning; the dish was sensationally delicious, and shot in to the premier slot of the main course at the banquet. The twist was that both rabbits and crayfish are considered pests in Britain's fields and waterways. By using them in his dish Mark was saying that British cuisine is so good that you'll adore it, even if it's stuffed with vermin! As the French dignitaries, chefs and celebrities eulogised the pie, they simply reinforced Mark's message. It was a proper work of genius.

I think Mark's stargazy pie epitomises what it is to be British. It demonstrates inventiveness, humour and downright gumption. The name Stargazy Studios was chosen to celebrate these traits, and I will honour them by imbuing my games with their qualities.

Stellar Scintillation

2010-03-04T13:46:00.031+00:00

If you were in space looking out in to the vastness of the galaxy, you wouldn't see the stars twinkle. They only dance for us, here on Earth.

Our turbulent atmosphere is made up of pockets of air with differing densities. As starlight travels its last 100 km before reaching us, it refracts many times across the boundaries between these pockets. The resulting interference changes each star's position and brightness in our vision, causing them to twinkle.

I've always found looking up in to the night sky a dwarfing experience. Contemplating the sheer size of our universe, and the bodies that move in it, is humbling. Everything else is scaled down as I try to grasp its infinite boundaries. I find it meditative; everyday problems are squashed in to obscurity.

If you view the front page of StargazyStudios.com in a Flash enabled browser, you'll see a star field. A new one is generated for you each time you visit, always unique. The stars will twinkle gently, and if you let your eyes relax, you'll see a light show ripple across the field. It's your own personal night sky to enjoy, for as long as you choose to watch.

A Joystiq-shaped Megaphone

2010-03-03T18:27:00.017+00:00

Justin McElroy, of uber gaming blog Joystiq, was kind enough to take some time out from covering quintuple-A releases to talk to me about Stargazy Studios this week.

Justin put a shout out on his Twitter feed to indie devs looking to tell the world a little about themselves. I realised that during the whirlwind of activity it took to get Stargazy booted, I'd not taken a breath to let people know what I'm doing and why. Joystiq's invitation was an ideal opportunity to exhale and spread the word.

In the interview I talk a bit about how Stargazy Studios was started, and what I'm striving to achieve. I also name and give a high level overview of my current project, Huscarlas.

I fully intend to get myself out of bed at PAX East for the Joystiq Blueberry Muffin Tops Breakfast. If you'd like to say high over a bowl of sugary treats, then look out for the big British chap who's definitely not a morning person.

You can read the interview over at Joystiq now: http://www.joystiq.com/2010/03/02/the-joystiq-indie-pitch-stargazy-studios/

D.I.Y. Screenshots

2010-03-03T10:18:00.014+00:00

Even if your game design grew from wanting to create a specific graphical aesthetic, the chances are you'll be using placeholder artwork during preproduction. It's common practice prove a game's concept with a prototype, before ramping it up in to full production and creating your own bespoke graphics. It just so happens that full production resembles preproduction very closely for an indie project!

At the moment, my game's graphics are built from free resources that can be found all over the web. This is another example of how people's generosity, facilitated by the Internet, is supporting small creative teams. It contributes to the disruption of the traditional publisher-funded model, by allowing developers to kick-start their prototypes without having to bankroll artwork creation.

Here are some of my top picks for game resources you can find online:

Lost Garden: Danc's personal game design blog. His regular posts are an insightful read, but he has also provided sprite characters and tilesets for the express purpose of prototyping.

OpenGameArt.org: A community site that offers a wide selection of 2D and 3D artwork submitted by its members. Their entire purpose is to provide freely licenced art. The licencing agreement for each graphic is clearly detailed, so you know whether you are able to use it for prototyping, or even release it in your game.

GameDev.net Wiki: The Wiki of game designer touchstone GameDev.net. It has a whole section on game content resources, not just limited to graphics. You can find links to sites that provide fonts, music, and sound effects, as well as 2D and 3D artwork.

So if you'd like some screenshots of my game, throw together a bit of Danc, molotov.nu, and Nicu Buculei in Paint and you're there! It's actually surprising how effective this technique is for sketching out a level design before you've got an editor in place. If you compose something cool, put a link to it in the comments or @ me on Twitter.

On the Roam, Coding for iPhone

2010-03-01T09:50:00.014+00:00

2010 is my 10th year living in London. Its sprawling roads are packed with intriguing and diverse places to sit down and wire up. One of the mandates I had when I founded Stargazy Studios was that I'd enjoy my city more. You can't enjoy it if you're not in it, so getting out and about was a priority.

Since its inception, I've been taking the Stargazy machine daytripping. The aim is to discover new adhoc office locations every week. Each excursion is planned around finding inspirational surroundings that aren't normally used as a working environment. Untethered, MacBook in hand, any perch with a view can become my office chair for the day.

My inaugural code-roam was in an absolute favourite haunt of mine: the British Museum. This place is packed with powerful history. You are able to walk from the Elgin Marbles to the Rosetta stone in about fifty paces, passing Aphrodite on the way.

My top spot for working in the British Museum is with the Assyrian lions. Wide benches offer a workable plateau to code on, and the corridor-style layout means that people feel compelled to pass through, so it's never too busy. Those benches are pretty hard though, so give your rump a break by getting a coffee at the Camera Cafe. Their java is good, and it's just around the corner from the British Museum. You can reconnect with the world using their WiFi before heading back in to the ancient realms of the museum.

If you want to try something similar, or just find yourself in London and want to track down some free WiFi access, check this map I've put together. Most chains have WiFi, but this map has more unusual spots on it that have been recommended by Timeout and others. If you want totally free access, avoid eateries; they tend to want you to eat or drink something if you're sitting in their establishment!

As well as StreetNet in Islington, the Square Mile and Westminster are covered by The Cloud and BT Openzone respectively. This means that you should be able to pick up a WiFi signal anywhere in those areas. Remember, an Englishman and his umbrella are rarely separated, especially if he's braving the British Summer to code in the park.

Why Indie, Why Now?

2010-02-20T00:32:00.020+00:00

There is something at the core of all human beings that is satisfied when we are playing games. Evolution has ensured the compulsion to play is threaded throughout our very make-up: play, win, survive. I'm a fool for games, and we have entered a renaissance period for the art form. A powerful trifecta has driven us into this time of creative plenty: motive, means, and opportunity.

I see design as an extension of play. When you are conceptualising a new game, you must think through the rules, playing them in your mind. The number of games you can play this way is only constrained by the limits of your imagination. I started designing games shortly after I found my passion for playing them. Always having a pen and paper to hand, I have built up an ecologically irresposible collection of design notes. It's difficult to contain the desire to create games from everyday situations. For me, a rainy day and a deck of cards is like the proverbial curry to a pisshead. I've got oodles of designs queued up, nagging me to bring them into form. Indie culture is recognised for rapid development and innovative design. Standing astride these two pillars with Stargazy Studios, I'll take my design dough and bake it into delicious gaming morsels.

The democratisation of games development came about with the creation of digital distribution platforms. As disruptive a technology as the MP3 format was for music, digital distribution has ushered in a new era of gaming. Demand for new gameplay can be addressed by anyone with a computer, the ability to code and a great idea. Social networks and blogs allow us to instantly commend our favourite games to friends and followers. Word of mouth has the power to highlight the exemplary, bringing their merits to the attention of a wider audience.

A critically large population hunger for progressive games. We have grown up with videogames, and our vocabulary extends to the full breadth of what's been offered so far. We want games that present us with new problems to solve, and broaden what we think of as play. There are already enough enthusiasts craving innovation to support successes such as Defcon, Braid, and World of Goo. Our ranks are swelling as more gamers search for something fresh and exciting to play. It is thrilling that we find what we're looking for in independent games.

Vive la Revolution.