Seth Gorden

It all goes back to Dungeons & Dragons. Never played? If you’re reading this article, odds are that you have. You may never have rolled dice and filled out a character sheet, but if you’ve ever played a video game RPG, you’ve played some variation that was once inspired by D&D. Everything from Ultima to Mass Effect bears with it an influence of dice-rolling, attack and defense stats, and special enumerated abilities. But I’m not writing to discuss numbers. This post is about role play. At the table, much of the experience and plot progression is shaped by improvisation of its players and group leader. Historically, this has not been a strong point of video games.

By necessity, video role playing is nearly always defined by a class or job. Class determines what actions are available to you, and very often it defines your avatar’s appearance. Dialog, where available, is prescribed by designers and writers who have already played and prepared this game for you. And this brings me to the heart of the matter. As a player of RPG video games, what do I get to create? There are a number of talented developers and studios working on this problem from a variety of angles. Herein, I will discuss the obstacles I see, and propose a few ideas on how to address them. I have no complaints today, but I am attempting to accurately identify constraints that can help us discover undeveloped terrain in our role-playing landscape. Let’s explore!

(more…)

As some of you may know, Octodad is a clever game where you are a secret octopus, living the life of a human. Not just any human, but a good human who loves his family. How many games are this humorous and kind-hearted in premise? Very few.

I am privileged to report that Octodad’s project director, Kevin Zuhn, also works with me every day as an environment artist on our super-top-secret arcade game. He’s a smart designer, casual comedian, and an all-around good fellow to work with. Also, he hooked me up with an Octodad t-shirt. It is rad.

If you haven’t done so already, go play Octodad here. It is rad.

On Gamesauce, I recently watched a video about motivating casual players in online games.

The  term ‘casual players’ has seemed a misnomer

to me for some time, and I’m starting to figure out why. At first, ‘casual’ described a kind of play, moreso than a person. But as we love our labels, soon we assigned it to people, deeming them casual whenever their play style did not reflect a thorough knowledge and comfort with the history and mechanics of video games and how to play them.

There is a particular passage in the video linked above that talks about player grouping in online multiplayer games. Apparently ‘casual’ players don’t do it. In the examples given, this refers to clicking a ‘Group’ button from a very accessible user interface. Most of their players never click this button, even when instructed to do so. It turns out that their casual players assume that when they sign on to a game with their friends, that believe they are already grouped. Some make their avatars stand close together in the game when clicking the ‘Group’ button, and timed their clicks so that they pressed the button simultaneously. This, of course, has nothing to do with how grouping works in the game. The presenter in the video spoke about this only long enough to describe their observations and how it affected development of their online game. But let’s dig a little deeper.

(more…)

First of all, Insomniac Games is an awesome group of people. They make quality games, yes. But also, they share arcane secrets from their own research.

Recently, while reading a presentation regarding high-level engine alchemy, I reflected upon the previous (or in my case, current) generation of engine development, which consists of monolithic structures and hierarchies, in an effort to elegantly solve data-access and code-execution problems. Sometimes, aiming for elegance can land you with an over-architected mess. In consider the problem of architecture itself, I have started wondering “What are we really building?” (more…)

There has been quite a lot of excitement, lately, coming through the news about more developers going indie, and consequently creating games where ideas can be tested quickly, and every step is a push for quality, rather than a push for permission. Also noteworthy is the observable trade-off between working for a company like EA, and working independently. That being, in larger companies, there are several people employed whose is job it is manage and avoid risk. If you’re big and want to stay big, that is good. For indies, everyone is there create a product of some kind, be it code or art, or a webpage, or whatever. If you’re small, this is good, because you eliminate red tape, and get down to business.

It’s definitely worthwhile to consider the risks, regardless of your situation, but if you (game developers) ask yourself the reasons why you entered this industry, how many can list “Managing Risk” among them? Seriously. Get excited. Make games.

Also, a noteworthy conversation about The Artistic Necessity of Constraint is offered by Ed Fries, who has recently developed Halo 2600 for the Atari 2600. For some, the minimalism of graphics and gameplay might be lost. But for the retro-nostalgic, or those gamers and developers who find beauty in strange places, his game and thoughts on constraint are compelling an poignant.