What Game Designers do (the meme-generator version)

I had a bit of free time, and seeing that stupid meme go around, I had to do one:

On My Mind: The Gentlemen's Agreement of Game Development

The recent spat between Zynga and NimbleBit has been interesting to watch, but for those who aren't familiar, NimbleBit's Ian Marsh has a quick visual summary (click to enlarge):

Now depending on whichever side you feel like taking, you could say that Zynga did wrong by copying identically, or you can say that since it looks different, it is different, or even the idea that both games are just rip-offs of SimTower. In fact, the last option was Zynga's official stance on the topic, attributing all "Tower Games" to SimTower, and that "Google didn't create the first search engine. Apple didn't create the first mp3 player or tablet. And, Facebook didn't create the first social network."

I'm going to let that last statement sink in for a bit.

...did Zynga just lump all "Tower Games" as the same one? Was their argument "Either you consider all tower games to be clones of the first one, or everything is it's unique product?"

Hey guys: Don't make a game with guns in it: you're just copying real life.

WHAT?

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I find this series of events interesting because we've never seen anything like this before with console/pc development, at least nowhere to the scale of this without the side doing the copying conceding. I like to think of this as "The Gentlemen's Agreement of Game Development", which has the following rules:

• Don't do direct copies (1 to 1 mapping of features and visuals).
• Lifting some ideas is fine, but offer your own spin or additions to differentiate.
• Even if core mechanics are identical (genre trappings), the content has to be different

Not every game and developer have to be 100% original, and games often pay homage to their inspirations, but when players see games with similarities, they're still going to see the difference, and the gap is big enough that we players never feel like we need to call it out.

But enough of me talking, let's see some visual examples:

Mario Kart and Diddy Kong Racing (Pictured: Mario Kart 64 and Diddy Kong Racing)

Mechanically, the game maintains the same feel (8 player "kart racing", use of randomized weapons, rubberbanding arcade AI racing experience). There is no direct clone of content (original racetracks, different types of weapon mechanics) and Diddy Kong features different fundamental ideas (story based racing, weapon stacking, different vehicle types).

Legend of Zelda and Darksiders (Pictured: Ocarina of Time and Darksiders)

Darksiders is a game clearly paying homage to Zelda: Dungeon traversal, the handling of item and experience as character growth, a lock on camera, etc. In fact, both Link and War have a horse at somepoint in the game, and there's an entire combat section on a horse. But no one would go saying Darksiders ripped off Zelda: Darksiders features a much deeper combat system, and is dramatically different in both tone and style.

Guitar Hero and Rock Band (Pictured: GH: Warriors of Rock and Rock Band 3)

Sure, at one point, it was the same developer, and in fact, you can attribute notes coming down a lane as an idea from Konami's Beatmania games too, but at every step along the way, something was changed, with various results: Beatmania games have had "hidden notes", Guitar Hero introduced HammerOns, Rock Band added other instruments, and an alternate scoring system, etc. If you put the games side by side today, you can see that in their core mechanics, they are the same (players matching colors with buttons, essentially, Simon says), but they wildly differ in character design, user experience (dealing with interface, etc), and content.

Metroid and Shadow Complex (Pictured: Super Metroid and Shadow Complex)

Shadow Complex is another game that makes no apologies in paying homage to a classic "genre". Similar to Mario Kart and the kart racing genre, the former is such a powerful game that it's features is the template for that genre. Shadow Complex features similar ideas of exploration (areas that are locked away with certain weapons/methods of traversal), but it differs by offering it's own take on combat and weapons. At best, we can call the game "inspired by".

Puyo Pop and Puzzle Fighter (Pictured: Puyo Pop and Super Puzzle Fighter II)

At first glance, these two games look identical, but mechanically, the games are completely different: Puyo Pop's clearing is entirely based on chain size, whereas Puzzle Fighter is based on a unique "breaker" block. The strategies and moves you make for one game does not translate into the other, which is a clear sign that it's a different game. Puzzle Fighter is clearly influenced by Puyo Pop, but it's offering a unique take on the ideas of block clearing puzzle.

Resident Evil and Dead Space (Pictured: Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space)

Again, Dead Space clearly knows it's influenced by Resident Evil 4, which has become the cornerstone of the third person shooter. The over the shoulder camera, the item management, it's "attempts at horror". Yet there are huge differences: Dead Space's aim at "dismemberment"; real time item management in creating tension; it's sci-fi space setting allowing for variations in gameplay.

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I don't know whether this gentlemen's agreement that console/pc devs have played by was done subconsciously, but it's obvious that facebook/mobile games don't quite play by the same rules. I don't think I can blame anyone for why we're here, but I hope more devs agree upon not directly copying someone's work and own up to it if they did.

Quick Impressions: Mario Kart 7 (3DS)

Mario Kart has always been an interesting franchise to look at. While it was an innovator, creating an entire sub-genre with the original Super Mario Kart on the SNES, the core gameplay also hasn't changed much throughout the years. While Mario Kart 7 seems to bring to most drastic changes yet to the cart formula (moreso than bikes did in Mario Kart Wii), the old adage "the more things change, the more they stay the same" totally applies here.

Mario Kart 7 (Completed 50, 100cc on 3 stars gold, working through 150, raced a bunch of online ghost and played a few games on multiplayer)

One of the most talked about feature with Mario Kart 7 is that they aren't just go karts anymore (like Nintendo ever pretended they were). The inclusion of water and air traversal may seem gimmicky like the bikes in Mario Kart Wii, but it actually plays out much better than the one-off Wii addition. Tracks were designed with multiple branching paths to support this mechanic, forcing players to choose their traversal route (and the consequences) related to them. The para-gliding mechanic works fantastically, as the extra mobility in both height and speed variation adds additional depth for players to make choices in taking extra risks; however, the water propeller section was only useful in a handful of courses.

It's also interesting to note that this "new mechanic" isn't new:Diddy Kong Racing, originally released as an alternative (from Rare/Nintendo) take on Nintendo's Mario Kart series, added two main differentiating features: a large hub world, and three types of vehicles: Planes, Hovercrafts, Karts. Certain tracks allowed players to choose different vehicles, and these significant consequences to the race outcome: planes are forced up over the tunnels, and the tunnel, while longer, contains powerup items. Mario Kart 7 cleverly adopts a similar "choice and consequences" loop, allowing players to make those choices within the game on the fly.

While Mario Kart features iconic characters and frantic action, players will also undoubtably remember the various tracks that make each game memorable and unique. Ask any fan of Mario Kart and instantly they can tell you which tracks stands out from each iteration of the game. For me: Royal Raceway (Mario Kart 64), Baby Park (Mario Kart Double Dash), Airship Fortress (Mario Kart DS)... For me right now, it's hard to pick a favourite from this new one: The new Rainbow Road Wuhu island tracks is an interesting concept, forgoing the 3 lap count for one giant sectioned race; the new Bowser's Castle and Wario's Galleon offers up plenty of multi-path choices and interesting turns. It might be early to say this, but Mario Kart 7 has probably the best track selection out of all Mario Kart games.

In addition, every game since Mario Kart 64 have included 16 "Retro Courses", fan favourite tracks from the games past. It's interesting to observe the choices and what get's picked. I once had a discussion with a friend on exactly why certain tracks were picked, and I had a fun time researching this. Initially we both quite disappointed that Luigi's Mansion was included again; it turns out this is it's second appearance. I guess we've played Mario Kart DS too much.

• Every batch of Retro courses will contain 4 original tracks from the two most recent Mario Kart releases (in this case, 4 from Mario Kart Wii, 4 from Mario Kart DS)
• The retro course has not appeared as a Retro course before (with the exception of Mario Kart Super Circuit, which included all tracks from Super Mario Kart)

With these rules in mind, I was somewhat disappointed at the choices picked, the most notable with the absence tracks like Royal Raceway and Tick Tock Clock (both pictured above), as they both contain elements that can easily be used with the new hang-gliding mechanic, which leads me to my final thought....

When considering what tracks were to be included in Retro Course, there was probably a lot of design decisions in contrast to previous iterations. In Mario Kart 7, Retro courses had to be retrofitted to take advantage of the new features (and old unusable ones were removed). Elements like the stunt jumps in Mario Kart Wii, notably in Koopa Cape and Maple Treeway, were removed, making the 180 degree hairpin much more interesting. Older tracks tracks added additional ramps and jumps, allowing for additional hang-gliding sections (the biggest impact can be found in the older tracks like Kalimari Desert, taunting players to risk going off-road for the possible shortcut).

In fact, it can be observed that there were more tracks that were "suspended in mid-air" than on ground, which makes the omission of tracks like Tick tock Clock and Royal Raceway even more obvious when you think about it. Tracks like Airship Fortress and Waluigi Pinball only featured a forced jump section where players have no control over the glide time, robbing players of the new experience that they were promised.

Well, that's all I have for now. I guess I may do a full grind review in the future if I ever get three stars on 150cc.

Administrative Stuff: Welcome to 2012?

My last post: November 16th? YIKES.

Sorry folks, busy with stuff, didn't feel like making time to make posts, etc. Yup, I know it's a pretty bad excuse, but hey, it's a new year, let's start over, right?

I've got a few things on my mind right now, covering a bunch of games I just got and played through in the last month or so (Mario Kart, MW3, AC:R) , and it's just a matter of typing them all in. Siri, dictate!

Fingers crossed, first post, this friday!

(Also of note: Yes, I've rolled in adsense, might as well. Leave feedback if you don't like it)

On My Mind: The Problem with Numbers

The problem with numbers and statistics can be used to show anything that the study wants you to see, and people should a)read between the lines, and b)think about what the implications of such numbers mean. I'll give you an example (and extract some of the points that I'll discuss):

Gamasutra: 81 Million play Social Games Everyday

The 2011 PopCap Social Gaming Research survey, as conducted by Information Solutions Group and commissioned by PopCap, noted that, in comparison, 81 million people play social games at least once a day. In terms of spending on social games, the report explained that 31 million players have spent money on in-game purchases, up 86 percent year-over-year.

• What is the definition of Social Game here? Is it strictly a game on Facebook? How about on the iPhone games that are networked? Where would something like Farmville on iOS and Facebook count? Without this context, it's much harder to understand what's the demographic that makes up this audience.
• 81 Million is a pretty impressive number, but what would be more interesting and useful is, how many different games do they play (or is it just one)? If all these people only play one game, and never migrate, then the market isn't really as big as it seems (You can see this in WoW, MMOs are huge if you count WoW, if you take WoW out of the equation, you'll realize that the player pool is relatively small).
• 31 Million Paying user, now that's a much more accurate title for the article, but I guess it's not as splashy as 81 million active users. As for spending; is the question phrased as: "Have you ever spent money on a Social game?" If so, then the percentage will always rise! Better questions would be "Have you spent money on a social game in the last 6/3 months" or "What was the most you have spent in a game?" If 31 million players only paid 99cents for an item once, then 31 million income looks pretty bad for a 81 million Active User. Most social games rely on the freemium model, and the idea that the small group of paying users pay to cover the operating and profit cost for everyone else; knowing the breakdown of how this money is spent, and where it's spent is important.

The survey also looked into the ages of social gamers, and showed that 30 percent of social gamers are under 30 years of age, compared to 19 percent in 2010. 20 percent of all U.S. social gamers are over 60 years old, compared to just 7 percent in the UK.

The breakdown of the makeup of player base is also interesting: Gaming have long been stuck as a "toy" category, and many were glad to push the percentile out of that category as it was perceived that the middle age group (especially Single Male demographic) spends disproportionally large amount of dollars for entertainment (and the recent release of Skyrim, MW3 and other countless collectors edition validates this). While reaching a wider audience is nice, it's questionable about their willingness to spend: an active user is relatively meaningless to your game if they never spend a dime on it.

ISG explained that the social games surge is a "newer phenomenon" in the UK than in the U.S., as 38 percent of UK social gamers have been playing social games for more than 2 years, compared to 51 percent in the U.S..

The word "surge" and "phenomenon" should start scaring you right about now. Consider the recent valuation of Zynga and Rovio, with the latter being the most interesting. A company with one title scoring that much valuation? I'm not going to bother predicting gloom and doom now, but just entertain a thought: Would the audience leave en masse? And what would happen?

In some ways, it's no different than the Wii. Remember the Wii "phenomenon", where millions flocked to Wii Sports? They stayed with that game, not needing any other experience, and never picked up anything else. It's somewhat scary to see the parallel between Zynga and Facebook; Rovio and Mobile; Nintendo and Wii: It may be profitable if you are the company in the driving seat, but good luck if you're coming into the market behind them.

Administrative Stuff: Dare to dream stupid big

At somepoint in 2001, I was still in high school, working on a yearbook for the graduating year. At that time, we wanted (and got everyone) to write something besides their pictures. It's all too cheesy now to even revisit, but one interesting thing I did back then was to stamp down a date 11-11-11.

...no I didn't predict or call out Skyrim back in 2001.

I think back then, I said I'd give myself 10 years, to make something interesting. Back then, I didn't know much about games other than playing a lot: 10 years, to become lead design on some game, and have it ship on that date, "wouldn't that have been something".

Things never turn out the way they should, oh well. Now here I am, sitting at a Starbucks, hacking up some XML datastruct for a hobby project...

I dreaded that date coming, only because it was pushing ever closer to that "failed goal", but it also made me work that much harder to ship what I'm working on now (yes, I'm still working on it, I blame feature creep).

Eyes bigger than my stomach? Maybe, but you won't get there without dreaming stupid big.

So, see you again at 12-12-12?

On My Mind: What is a game designer?

While I'm still on my job search process, I've start to notice something really wrong with the games industry, and more specifically, how we define roles within the industry.

What is a Game Designer?

I've had this happen to me many times: relatives, friends, or other general acquaintances would find out I "make games", and I would go on and give them the 30 second explanation. It's often half assed, and just covers a general overview of what I could be doing, like "yes I make the stuff you see on screen" (WHAT THE HELL DOES THAT EVEN MEAN). I'm not sure if this post is trying to set the record straight (and I'm sure I'll get stuff wrong), but at least some of my observations (mostly anecdotal):

1) A Game Designer has to do everything and nothing at the same time

In a very broad stroke: A Game Designer has their hands in every point of the game development. They're the people that define the look and feel, the experience that the player interacts with, yet they also don't deal directly with any of the actual complexity that exists in the game. While it is true that great art and technology is what the players will first see or use, it's pretty much up to designers to make those first impressions last with a fun and interesting experience.

Depending on the size and scale of the project, a designer could be coming up with the overarching idea, how players interact with the game, the player experience, the general visual design, right down to the minor details of timing and visual feedback. Yet without programmers or artists to support and implement their ideas, they're just that: ideas. You put 5 designers together in a room, and at best is you'll have the world's greatest theoretical game idea. In this light, a game designer is very much like a project manager: ideas are like project requirements, and it's the designer's job to come up with new solutions to solve problems as they arise. Sure, it'd be great if they can predict all possible problems and avoid them ahead of time, but able to change course when problems happen is also a much needed, yet often not talked about skill.

You'll know you have a good designer when they appear to not do anything, yet get everything right in a game. A game can have great artists and great programmers working on it, but if you have lousy designers, no one will care how visually stunning or technically amazing the game is.

2) A Game Designer wears multiple hats at any given point

Most people outside of games think Game Designers is this fancy job where they sit around and just play games all day, which couldn't be further from the truth. However, the idea that all Game Designers do nothing but just come up with ideas is also pretty off-base. It's also interesting to note that this idea of what designers do isn't limited to people outside of games either.

It's interesting to note that the Japanese term for Game Designer typically is "planner", as their job covers issues like schedule management, bug tracking and workflow organization on top of actual game design. While the typical western design won't have to deal with scheduling (job of the Project Manager) or bug tracking (that's for QA), Game Designers still don't get a free pass in terms of just sitting around and coming up with ideas.

If there's one word that sums up what a Game Designer would do, it'd be this:

Communication

In addition to coming up with "the kick-ass" idea and the "nitty gritty details", the primary job of a designer should always be communicating with the rest of the team: relaying programmers concerns to the project managers that more time is needed to finish a feature; relaying artist's need for better tools to programmers, working out solutions to focus on certain features to satisfy manager's timeline, etc...

In this sense, a Game Designer would practically be a part of all the teams: they would need to be able to talk to programmers, understand a general sense of the code, and translate that back to the manager; or be able to talk to artists and understand how animation works and relay info back to the programmers. It's not just, "hey it'd be cool to have explosions here, here and here..."

3) Game Designers with the same title can mean different things in different environment

My last job title "Game Designer" was probably the most generic and boring titles out there, and it also doesn't tell people a whole lot about what I do either. This "problem" isn't specific to just "Game Designers" either: a quick search on what Level Designers do ranges anything from event scripting, stage and geometry design(level blocking), to even the visual design of levels. What's scary about this is if you as an professional puts down "Level Designer", you better be prepared to cover the entire spectrum of topics like level flow and movement, to path traversal, environment blocking, to even visual design or event/AI scripting within the topic of level design.

These can all be considered level design, so what's a level designer expected to cover?

This inconsistency potentially leads to many problems: A combat designer on a 3D action game (like what I did before) won't even share the same language and understanding as someone who's a combat designer in a FPS: both designers would be concerned about "timing", but their priorities and concepts won't directly translate to the other.

Where this annoys me the most, especially during my job hunt, is realizing that even if I say I've worked on combat design, depending on other people's understanding of it, could mean completely different things. It's quite possibly the only branch of game development that faces this issue: You ask programmers and artists what their title is, and you'll have a fairly good understanding of what their speciality is - an UI programmer's role and job description will never deviate as much as game designers; Someone who is a user experience designer on one game will wildly differ in experience to others with the same title.

4) Not all Game Designers work with the same scope

A full game production is a fairly large task, and there's a huge difference between different design scope. The above picture of SimCity and The Sims is a pretty good representation of how big the gap can be.

I recall a conversation once with a few designers on who works well with which scope, and I found that discussion very important in identifying everyone's strengths. Not everyone is going to be great at looking at the big picture of the game; nor will everyone be great at looking at the nitty gritty details. As an example, you want someone who understands the nuisances of ammo capacity and reload working on game balance than someone who doesn't understand it.

I'm not suggesting the idea that you pigeonhole someone strictly in their own specialty, but don't confuse idea contribution with idea implementation: everyone is entitled to ideas and opinions, but having a macro designer implement fine details and vice versa can only result in frustration all around. Someone who focuses on the Big Picture may just brush off minor details as unimportant, and would only suggest sweeping changes when things don't feel right; someone who fine-tunes details maybe over-specific on the big picture, which doesn't work well with the ever-changing dynamics of a game project.

?) A Game Designer "should" have a general understanding of all types of games

Here's one that I thought about putting down, but I don't know whether this is true at all. Personally, I think I try hard to "cover" as much ground as I can, but I know that I can't possibly know it all. I know I don't play enough RTS to say anything too meaningful in a development environment, so I wouldn't dive head first into it if I was given a choice. I feel that a good designer should always "know what they don't know, and know where to get help".

However, this also runs directly head-on against what a game designer needs to do in a production environment: be the person that has all the answers, ensuring everyone understands the direction even if it hasn't been determined. I hate to think what kind of projects have run into this issue, and what the results could have been.

Here's a thought experiment that I've repeated over and over: let's assume you as a designer was dropped into a project of X genre, how well would you fair? What kind of decisions would you make? How comfortable would you be with telling people your ideas? Here's an example:

With the recent launch of NBA Jam and upcoming NFL Blitz, what if EA said: "hey, let's get working on Wayne Gretzky 3D hockey" again (or better yet, Midway's "NHL Hitz"). What/how would you approach it?

Obviously, the quick and dirty answer would be: know the sport, know the history of the series, the expectation of the genre, what fans expect from it, and built upon that... seems to easy, right? Well, maybe not: How much rubberbanding should the AI have so that the game still feels interesting without feeling cheap? Is having power-ups within the game too "gamey" and not true to the sport? How much of a role should checking have in the game? As an arcade game, how much complexity should the control scheme have? Suddenly, a simple idea of a game balloons into something much more complex and much less defined.

Sure, personally I know what an RTS is, what mechanics are involved, etc, but I know I don't know enough to make a gut call on anything about people's design choices other than being the casual observer. I think I can say the same thing to many other genres, and I sometimes get a good chuckle from others who think they have all of it covered. As much as Miyamoto is an awesome guy who's done great things with games, I highly doubt he can make Halo. He can "make" an FPS, I have no doubt, but will it understand the nuances that people expect from shooters if he hasn't made one before (or is immersed within the genre itself)? There are reasons why certain dev teams dedicate themselves to a specific genre: you retain the people with the knowhow in that genre.

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I'm pretty sure I've rambled on for too long, and I still probably wrote stuff that doesn't make sense. I hope I've clarified some of what I do (or did). Feel free to add comments or ask questions and I'll see if I can append to this.