Murder Simulators

My obsession with roguelikes (head on over to Wikipedia now if you aren't familiar with roguelikes) is pretty well known among my friends at Full Sail. In fact, my first post in this blog was about them, and I'll probably have another post singing their praises later (I still haven't played Shiren the Wanderer on the Wii, but it's on my list).

Given this, one of my friends (Hi, Josh!) sent me a link to an article about a roguelike in which you play a serial killer. After reading the article and watching the video, I had mixed feelings.

First and foremost, I reacted as a fan of roguelikes and as a designer. I was absolutely blown away by the demo! It looks like it's got a lot of depth, the tiles are minimalistic but readable, and the concept is interesting. I assume the psychological backgrounds and any status conditions will affect gameplay, the inventory system was robust but not complicated, and the ability to leave (and, again, I assume) remove evidence could create a lot of interesting gameplay situations.

However, this is a game that is impossible to analyze purely in a cold, dispassionate way. There's a lot going on here. The way it's presented in the demo and article, it's disturbing at best. "Offensive" or "disgusting" are probably more likely adjectives.

My second reaction to the game was that of worry. I was worried it was being specifically made to be controversial. A few elements in particular seemed needlessly inflammatory. The choice of Aphex Twin's "Come to Daddy" for the theme song seems odd as it sets an unfortunate tone for the game. Also, the preset characters using names of infamous serial killers is a bit baffling. There are those that will interpret this inclusion as a glorification of serial killers.

In the original thread in which the game was presented, the designer claims this is not his intention. He was inspired to create the game by the Dexter, the TV show about a serial killer with a heart of gold. He also mentions other possible directions to take the game, many of which are quite interesting. For example, the player could be cast as a mob hitman, or a vigilante cop, or a nonviolent cat-burglar. Unfortunately, the demo does not highlight these possibilities and portrays the player as a mere psychopath.

It's easy to make a game that's offensive and disgusting if that's your goal. It's easy to make ridiculous violence just for the sake of shock value. Making a game offensive and disgusting in order to create controversy and using that controversy as a marketing tool seems lazy. It's uninspired.

Making a game that is disturbing because it challenges the players' rationalizations of their actions is much more difficult. It will probably still be controversial, sure, but that's often a side effect of a good design that makes the player think.

This game toes the fine line between being ridiculously shocking and being merely disturbing. I am cautiously optimistic after reading the designer's original post that he's on the right track. I hope the creator of this game agrees with me that following in Postal 2's footsteps would be a waste of its potential.

Unexpected Inspiration

Well, okay, so I haven't been writing daily, but I have stuck to my gaming fast. It has proven to be successful in getting me to find inspiration from other sources. I've been listening to podcasts, reading more about design, reading a lot of TV Tropes. That's all general stuff. I also watched an interesting documentary about Nazis and the occult, mainly as research for a game I'd been designing.

Today I ran across a magazine regarding upscale garden design. The photographs grabbed me immediately, but I had time to actually read it cover to cover. The articles explained the planning that went into the layout of the garden, the selection of what would be planted, the statues and stones placed for decoration. The synergistic interplay of all the elements got me thinking of parallels in level design. Many of the same principles could be used. Additionally, I've been doing a lot of research into horror lately. The juxtaposition of a beautiful, peaceful garden environment and something sinister struck me as interesting and worth looking into.

I realized too that magazines are a spectacular source for inspiration, especially ones with the high quality photos that this one had. As I mentioned, I've been doing a lot of reading lately, but the images in the magazine sparked my creativity much more than simply text. I'll have to start looking for more images and magazines to help with this process. Until then, I believe I'll start poking around in UDK or Source SDK and see what I can learn. I've always been very interested in level design specifically, as I think it offers the ability to make a lot of very subtle choices to influence the player's experience.

Other Plans

Short post tonight, as I have some pressing matters that will be occupying my time.

Some interesting stuff got announced this week. I'm very intrigued by the news that Clint Hocking is moving to LucasArts. Also, Valve may be creating a DotA game. And the new Bioshock trailer got released today. It has a ... different setting than the first two. We also get to look forward to the next Double Fine game, Costume Quest, a "Halloween-themed RPG!"

Okay, gotta go do other stuff. I'll write more tomorrow, promise!

Overwhelming Options

Today I got up, I went to work, I came home. I sat in front of my computer and caught up on my social sites and daily news sites. Then, I was at a bit of a loss at what to do next.

I had given up playing video games for the next month in an effort to force myself to do other things, but I hadn't really thought about what I'd be doing instead of gaming. I mean, I have general plans of what I'd like to accomplish, but the simple act of filling all my free time was a bit overwhelming.

I checked my Firefox bookmarks to see if anything else online looked interesting. I had gotten into the habit of bookmarking articles that looked interesting but were too long to digest at that moment. It was somewhat lazy, but at least I had a record of them to come back to when I had a chance.

I picked Ernest Adams' No Twinkie Database of bad game design choices to check out. I actually began to explore his site a little more, and found his list of quotes for designers to be inspirational. I also stumbled across a link to download an old design document template created by Chris Taylor, designer of Total Annihilation and (one of my personal favorites) Dungeon Siege. The template is exhaustive but easy to use with many comments from Taylor explaining the entries.

In all, not a bad haul for the first evening. This week I'll use the template to help flesh out some of the game ideas I've had bouncing around in my head for a while.

The ZGXP (Part 10 - Comics and Documents)

The past week was relatively calm for me at ZeeGee Games. Another of the Reader apps I've been working on went live. This one's Looking for Group, a webcomic loosely based on World of Warcraft. The final comic I had been working on should be released in the App Store sometime this week.

Other than that, the workload has been mostly writing and tidying up production documentation. I also wrote up a couple drafts of our new design procedures. Even better, I've started consulting on the design for our kid-friendly Flash virtual world My Tiny Planets. I hadn't been working on that project directly before so I've had a bit of catching up to do, but I'm eager to help expand and improve that game. I'll also be trying to wrap up the rest of the issues for Priest and start closing down that project.

Not a whole lot to report for now. I'll have another design related post (or perhaps a review, I haven't decided) up on Wednesday.

Limbo Fools Me Twice

So I played through Limbo this past weekend. Although the minimalistic style and abrupt, enigmatic ending are sure to get a lot of press, but it's a solid puzzle/platformer at its core. I'd highly recommend it to fans of Portal and Braid.

In this post I wanted to focus on the design choices made in one particular puzzle that struck me as noteworthy. As I'll be discussing my play experience there and how I got around it, I suppose this post contains mild spoilers. If you don't want to hear how to solve one of the many puzzles, be warned.

Relatively early in the game, I came across a huge press on the ceiling and an obvious button on the floor beneath it. I thought, "Okay, yeah, gotta jump over the button to avoid being smashed," and ran to do so. As soon as I got under the press, however, the floor before the button clicked and triggered the trap, smashing me into jelly. "Okay, that's weird." It was a subversion of common platformer gameplay, but I quickly surmised I'd have to jump onto the button and then hop over the rest of the floor.

It worked and I moved on until the same setup immediately followed. Without breaking stride, I leapt onto the button... which then triggered the trap and crushed me again. This one worked as initially expected.

I laughed out loud at how beautiful it was. My expectations had been dashed twice in quick succession. If the first trap had worked like it does 99.9% of the time in other platformers, I would have blown past it and been killed if the rules were inverted on the second. I probably would've been annoyed with the inexplicable change of rules too.

As it stood, however, I died twice. The first time I died because the trap was different from my prior gaming experiences. I died the second time because I had thrown out all of my previous experience due to a single anomaly. And I wasn't annoyed with either death. I was along for the ride. The game was carefully designed to take advantage of gamers' instincts and tweak them to keep things fresh and it did a great job of it in this case.

Games like Limbo (and Braid and Eversion) do a great job of taking the 2D platformers we grew up with and making them mature by manipulating the player's expectations of the gameplay. It doesn't take long for the player to be retrained, though. Eversion does a great job of turning a bright, cheerful 2D platformer into an absolutely terrifying "don't play this with the lights out" experience. However, once the player figures out the "scare" moments, they quickly become routine and (some) of the dread wears off. The double inversion of the trap's triggers in Limbo are a great example of keeping the player on their toes.

The ZGXP (Part 9 - Catching Up)

It's been a busy month, and my blogging appears to have suffered for it. Whoops. On the bright side, I got a lot of pretty cool stuff accomplished since last we met. In addition to completing my final course at Full Sail, I also continued work at ZeeGee Games.

I had my first professional title ship last week, so hooray for that! The Priest ZeeGee Reader app is now live! Check it out if you've got an iPhone or iPad. The app itself is free and comes bundled with the first issue of the new Priest: Purgatory manga. The first issue of the original Priest: Genesis comic is also available as a free download, and the other issues are $0.99. Working with Tokyopop on this has been great, and I'm really excited about all the marketing they're doing for the new Purgatory issues and the upcoming Priest movie.

Additionally, I gave my internship midterm presentation to a group of Full Sail faculty last Friday. It was basically just letting them know what it is I do over at ZeeGee, and by all accounts it went well.

I should have another couple iPhone apps for our comic reader shipping in the next week or two, so I'll keep you posted on that. With those projects winding down, I'm moving on to bigger and better things. I've been doing some pre-production design work on a new game and I'm taking a more active production role on our internal project. It's a very exciting time at ZeeGee and big things will be happening in the coming months. I'm looking forward to guiding these projects toward success and can't wait to see what we can accomplish with them. I'll keep better tabs on the blogging and let you know how things are going next week!

The ZGXP (Part 8 - Cans and Strings)

Last week I got into a little more detail on what I do at ZeeGee games during my production internship. I thought I might get into some of the "how" this week. Specifically, I'd like to talk about the communication and collaboration tools we're using.

First up on the hit parade is Google. Google's got a lot of tools. Like, a whole friggin' lot. We're using GMail for e-mail; Google Calendar for meeting schedules; Google Docs for our sprint tracking sheets, time-tracking sheets, and some design docs; and Google Sites for archived projects and training material. Recently we've started trying out Google Wave. It's only really caught on for keeping meeting minutes for our weekly production meetings, but I'm currently trying it out for the design of a new game project. I thought it might be a good idea since the design is still in a very collaborative stage and Google Wave makes it easy to add text or images to discussions.

ZeeGee began using Unfuddle just a little after I started. It's been an important part of our production pipeline and asset management. We've been using it to track bugs using the tickets and are moving towards using the ticket system to track employee hours on all their tasks. Unfuddle is also our SVN repository for all our active projects. SVN repositories are basically places to keep all the files you're working with. They also track any changes made to the files as separate versions, so that's handy. We've been using Tortoise SVN on our PCs and SC Plugin on our Macs to connect to the SVN repositories. Like most SVN repositories, Unfuddle took some tweaking to get set up, but it's been real useful once we ironed out all the SVN kinks and came up with a strategy for utilizing the ticketing system.

Skype is the tool of choice for communication. We use Skype for client meetings and video conferencing. It's also handy for swapping files, code snippets, and web links quickly within the office. We also tend to make plans for lunch and other non-work related things on Skype, mainly because we don't like communicating with each other in person since we're a bunch of nerds. Game articles, pictures of bionic cats, and the occasional Rickroll can also show up in the company chat in Skype.

It seems to me that the choice of communication and collaboration tools on a project really come down to a matter of preference. The Google suite, Unfuddle, and Skype work really well for us at ZeeGee. They're easy to set up, relatively inexpensive, and they do everything we need them to do. Really, what else can you ask for in a production tool?

The ZGXP (Part 7 - Wait, What Now?)

I was talking with a friend of mine from back in Indiana recently. He commented that he had been reading my blog and liked my game reviews. We got on the topic of gaming for a while, but once that conversation had died down he asked, "So, what exactly do you do at this internship you keep talking about?"

It's a valid question, and one I hadn't really thought to answer. Production is kind of a nebulous things, not nearly as concrete as coding or creating art. It's a lot of project management, team leadership, and resource management. I basically make sure that everyone working on my projects is working as efficiently as possible. I keep track of what people are doing and make sure nothing stops them from doing what they should be doing. I also do quality assurance for the projects I'm working on. I need to ensure the projects are kicking sufficient ass at all times. In order to do all this, I have to know what's going on in my projects at all times. I keep track of everything from a bird's-eye view while everyone on my team is working in the trenches. At the same time, I have to know the details of what is going on and what needs to get done so I can delegate tasks to my team members.

The iPhone Reader app was my high priority project last week. I had been doing bug testing and tracking on our internal project, but since we got the new pages the Reader project has moved up on the to-do list. Now I just check in with the internal project team during morning meetings, then move over to the Reader project. I'd been working on creating the panels with our artist so that would move more quickly, but once that neared completion, I started setting things up for the next steps that would follow in the coming days. I contacted the client and got some copy and art assets we'd need. I met with our engineer so he could show us how to actually incorporate these assets. Normally I'd just grab him and have him explain it to me, but he's busy with another project that had a higher priority than mine. His time is valuable and needs to allocated carefully. In a more quality assurance role, I also met with our producer to discuss feedback we got from the team on a postmortem for the first phase of the Reader project. I'm currently writing a presentation for the postmortem and to deliver to the team.

Production tends to be a very fluid thing. You've got to juggle a lot of balls at once, and the weight of each ball is constantly varying. It's a tricky job. I've dropped a ball or two, but I'm learning a lot and enjoying it. Like I said earlier, every day is different, but that's what keeps it interesting.

The ZGXP (Part 5 - Knee Deep in Comics)

I got off track somewhere along the line in my blog. I had begun writing the blog with a recap of what I'd done the previous week, but last week I regaled you with tales of what I'd be doing this week. Now I don't have anything to talk about.

Well, okay, that's not entirely true. I should fill in the intervening time. It's been almost a week since I made the estimate that I'd have 540 pages of comics paneled by this Wednesday. It was an audacious claim and one that I made hastily, but I'm still confident it's doable. Fortunately, I realized it would be more work than I was counting on and requested some test pages from the client. The new comic would be black and white, as opposed to the color pages for our previous comic with this client. This posed some interesting technical problems. When the image was scaled down in size and quality, we were noticing some weird checkerboard patterns in the stippled backgrounds. It took our artist and me a while to find the right combination of quality and size that reduced this pattern but also left the text legible. Once we had that figured out, I relayed that information to the client so they could scale the pages accordingly for us.

Today the 500+ pages were waiting for me. It's a manga series broken up into 14 issues of 30 – 50 pages apiece. Luckily, our artist (she has a name, and it is "Sara") was pretty much done with her other project, so I managed to snag her for paneling the comics all day. Just today I got through five issues. I had Sara redoing the panels on another comic we needed for the Reader. She got those two books done (about 180 pages) and an issue of our new manga done as well.

So, in one day, even with Sara working on another project for part of it, we got 6 of the 14 issues paneled and tested in the Reader. The paneling being done by Wednesday seems like it will be the easy part. Paneling the comics is only half the battle. The second part of my estimate (it's turned into more of a wager) had been that we'd be able to ship the new comics to Apple by Friday. This takes a bit more effort. We'll need to incorporate some new art assets for the front end of the Reader. We'll need copy from the client. Perhaps trickiest of all, I'll need to snag an engineer to actually tinker with the code to get these assets implemented. Again, there will be some unexpected delays, but it's my job as a producer to expect and avoid them. Tune in next week to see how it goes.

The ZGXP (Part 4 - The Calm Between Storms)

Missed a week of updates for ZeeGee. Last week I worked on bug quashing on our internal project. I'd moved off the Reader since we got the final changes for our implemented and sent off to Apple for review the prior week. We had to go through several iterations with the client, but the product ended up being something we are proud of and the client is excited about.

We just heard today that we'll be getting more comics from the client for the Reader app next week. The process of getting the pages into the app requires several steps. Someone (generally me) first has to downsize the .jpgs for each page to a size that will look good on the iPhone but also not bloat the filesize of our app too much. I then need to draw boxes around each of the panels on the images using a proprietary tool. Once the panels are traced they show up in the app on the iPhone. The user can flip through the panels using swipe gestures on the touch screen.

Once we hammered out that pipeline and made some adjustments to the proprietary tool, it took me about a minute per page to create the panels depending on the complexity of the page. The previous issue we had been working on had 34 pages. Today we heard we'll be getting more three more volumes of the manga for a total around 540 pages. Soo... that will be a bit more work. Given that we'd get this drop next Monday, I estimated I could have the first draft of the panels done by the end of next Wednesday and the final product shipped to Apple by the end of Friday.

It won't be too bad, really. The process should be basically the same. If I can my hands on a few test pages before next week, I can figure out the filesize we need and save time on that. Also, another project could be wrapping up and allow me to nab an artist to help with the paneling. Looking forward to it. I'll let you know how it goes.

Red Dead Redemption Review

Okay, I think I've played Red Dead Redemption (RDR) enough to get some perspective on it. The honeymoon is over, so to speak. I'd been looking forward to it since I heard about it last year, and... it was about what I expected, but not what I had hoped for. It's still a good game, I'll still be playing it a lot, and I can heartily recommend it if you like Rockstar's games, but I feel it could've been better.

Let's go over what it got right:

• It's absolutely gorgeous. The characters, environments, cutscenes — everything looks amazing.
• The Old West is a vastly interesting and vastly underutilized motif for games. Rockstar did it well, but they also added a twist by setting the game in 1911. The juxtaposition of the Old West and the dawn of industrialization and electricity is spectacular.
• The morality system seems to be fairly standard compared to most similar games, but it's still a vast improvement over prior Rockstar games. There are now some long term consequences for killing or robbing civilians.
• John Marston is one of the most complex and nuanced characters I've seen lately. His background story sets the player up so that regardless of the moral choices the player makes they can work in the story. He wants to do good but there is the temptation to slip into his evil ways that the player can indulge. I feel he's a brilliantly designed character for that reason. He's not the blank slate character a lot of RPGs cop-out with. He's got a background, but the player can make their own choices without breaking the role of John Marston.

And now the foibles:

• Killing the player for stepping into a river, pond, or any body of water larger than a mud puddle is inexcusable in a modern game. It absolutely murders the immersion in this beautiful open world. Rockstar had actually "fixed" this "feature" in San Andreas and GTA 4. Since RDR uses the same engine as GTA 4, I cannot fathom why they brought this back.
• Poker, Horseshoes, and Liars' Dice should have been included in the Free Roam multiplayer. I'd love to play those things with my friends!
• Another annoying Rockstar convention is the tutorials explaining gameplay features that will only be used in a single mission and then promptly forgotten by the player. The messages frequently pop up during frantic firefights, distracting the player at the most inopportune times with unnecessary information.
• Additionally, the controls are overly complicated mainly due to a lack of consistency between what buttons do what. The X Button changes functionality a lot depending on context, and the use of the Left Stick to aim in Horseshoes when the Right Stick aims 99.95% of the time in games is very jarring.
• I've always said Rockstar is a bit schizophrenic about their games. The morality system helped RDR by giving the players actions some consequence, but the storyline missions are still very linear. In an open world game if I need information from someone I want to get it quickly by whatever means necessary and move on. I don't want to do five missions for them then have them disappear until I've done five missions for another guy. I feel like Carl Johnson, Nico Bellic, and John Marston would have much preferred just to hold a gun to someone's head instead of running errands, but they never do and the player is never given the choice. This diminishes the player's connection with their otherwise badass avatar.

All in all, RDR is the best Rockstar game yet, but Rockstar games are a strange sub-genre. They write amazing stories for their characters, and they create exciting open worlds, but, to paraphrase Lazlo from GTA 3, these two things often go together like pizza and ice cream. Separately the story and open world have the potential to be great, but Rockstar's games (after GTA 3) seem so obsessive about delivering their story, they limit a player's choice in the open world. Rockstar hasn't quite figured out how to blend their amazing stories and their living worlds, although RDR is definitely a step in the right direction.

Since I'm playing the role of John Marston (RDR is an RPG too BTW), I don't try the things I would if I weren't John Marston. I once lassoed a criminal, then drug him behind me while I rode off on horseback. I rode around in circles, getting a perverse thrill from hearing him scream behind me. Then a weird thing happened: I felt guilty about it. I felt guilty about it because John Marston would've felt guilty about doing it in my game. So, I finally got off the horse and tied up the criminal and delivered him to town.

That connection with the character is amazing, and I'd like to think that's what Rockstar was going for. However, if I believe that, I cannot rationalize the extensive cutscenes without player interaction and missions that have only one predetermined path to success. In the future, I'd like to see their games with branching storylines and missions, and I'm looking forward to Alpha Protocol proving that type of gameplay in a AAA title is not impossible. Once Rockstar gives me the ability to threaten important NPCs for information, or to actually choose how I complete a mission or storyline, they'll have one of the greatest games ever on their hands.

The ZGXP (Part 3 - A Busy Weekend)

The internship at ZeeGee Games has been going well. My team sent off a preview of our ZeeGee Reader iPhone app to the client last Friday and got a lot of positive feedback about that, so that's cool. We got new art assets from the client at 5:00 Friday to incorporate. Normally this wouldn't have been a problem, but we had planned to close up shop at 5:30, an hour and a half early, on Friday. It was a longtime employee's last day and we had a party planned to see him. Max, our Producer, had left earlier that afternoon for a conference, so I was holding the reigns. I checked in with Dustin Clingman, our CEO, to apprise him of the situation. Putting the assets in would require myself and the project's artist and programmer to stay later than we had intended, but not putting them in would be noticeable to the client testing the app all weekend. Dustin left the decision to me. I chose to put the assets in, which ended up making us about 45 minutes late to the party.

Immediately after the party, I headed back to ZeeGee's office where we were hosting the Orlando game jam for the Healthy Games Challenge. Got the team together Friday night and worked until Sunday evening on a game. Once again, a lack of solid programmers kind of hurt our game, but I do enjoy the game jams I've participated in. They're definitely good learning experiences. Lessons learned at game jams:

• Severely limit your scope when your time is severely limited.
• Planning is important: If you're starting development on Friday for a weekend game jam, you're probably going to be in trouble come Sunday.
• Clear organization of assets and team member roles saves a lot of time, especially when crunch happens Sunday afternoon.
• Early on, the entire team should be involved in design so everyone has a chance for input and a clue on what direction the they are heading.
• Design docs are damn near worthless if they aren't clearly communicated to everyone on the team. As soon as a design doc is written it should be shared with the team so they have a single point of design reference.
• Rapid prototyping is very helpful in creating a clear design goal and motivating the team.
• Team conflicts need to be addressed early and resolved quickly before they slow the team down.
• Need moar programmarz!!1! I'm beginning to think programmers avoid game jams because if they wanted to make a game in a weekend, they'd sit down and do it. I shall resort to bribing and/or kidnapping programmers next time...

Really, they're all pretty basic producer concepts, but in the hustle and bustle of game jams, these golden rules tend to get forgotten. Game jams are a good opportunity to spend a weekend learning these lessons instead of four years and millions of dollars. That's been my main takeaway from the game jams. Both games I've worked on definitely have potential, but are sort of stuck in development limbo. The experience and lessons learned are more useful to me right now.

I think that's about all I've got for now. My ZeeGee Reader project will be in the Apple Store approval process by the end of the week, so I'll have my name in the credits of something you can buy in the next 6-8 weeks. And that'll be cool. Also, I'll have a critique on Red Dead Redemption up this week. And that'll be cool too.

The ZeeGee Experience (Pt. 2 - Settling In)

I've survived two weeks of my production internship at ZeeGee Games, and things are going pretty smoothly. I've got two projects on my plate currently. While I was initially a bit disappointed they aren't game projects, I've gotten a chance to familiarize myself with them and am really excited about their potential.

The one I've been more heavily involved with, and one I feel like discussing this week, is a new IP (that is, a comic) for the ZeeGee Reader iPhone app, which is an interactive comic book reader. We've been working on some upgrades to the Reader software and reskinning the app to tie it more closely to the theme of the new IP. The team is comprised of just a lone programmer and an art intern from UCF that started on Wednesday last week. Luckily, they're both rockstars, which makes my job much easier. I just let them know what needs to get done each day, and they make it happen. I know just enough about both programming and art to be suitably awed, and perhaps a little frightened, by the arcane arts these two practice. I should be able to talk more about the Reader project within the next month or so I believe, but again, I'm so focused on the day-to-day I haven't remembered the long term details.

I came in at an interesting time on this project; although a lot of the foundational tech was already created with previous comics for the Reader, the upgrades and new IP have made this seem like a whole new project. I had the opportunity to create the sprint tracking spreadsheet for the project and I've been e-mailing the client regularly to request art assets or copy. While the some of the actual tasks I'm doing are somewhat dull, I do enjoy the unpredictability of everything. It's all about the barely controlled chaos. I go in each morning having an idea of what I'm going to be doing that day, but then find we got some new assets or new requests from the client and my plan goes out the window. Which is a lot of fun, really.

I've felt fortunate too that everyone at ZeeGee has been so helpful and cooperative. Chris (Oltyan, Director of Product Development) and Max (Voelker, Producer) have been great. Their advice, constructive criticism, and praise have all been invaluable in making the adaptation to the job as painless as possible. ZeeGee has got a pretty awesome corporate culture all around, and I really appreciate the fact that everyone's input during meetings is welcomed and valued.

Anyway, that's all I got for now. One final piece of advice: Remember that you can't spell "assets" without first typing "ass," and you'll find an unexpected source of amusement all day long.

The ZeeGee Experience (Pt. 1 - The Rookie)

I'm a week into the production internship at ZeeGee Games, and I think I'm starting to get a grasp of what's going on. Actually, perhaps that's putting it a bit strong... I'm starting to get to the point where I can maintain tenuous holds on vague notions of what's going on. This is, however, a vast improvement from last week. In fact, most of what I learned last week was that I didn't know much of anything about what I was doing. I probably should have seen this coming, but I was, in reality, wholly unprepared for this realization.

The production internship at ZeeGee is not, I repeat, not, like Full Sail's Final Project.
This seems like a remarkably obvious statement, and, really, it is. It still seemed a jarring transition to me. I believe this is because Full Sail spent seven months preparing us for Final Project. I was prepared for Final Project. My classmates and I were ready for Final Project because we'd been made ready for it. Our instructors laid out teamwork and managerial and production techniques that would serve us well for Final Project. They had us make plans; oh God, the planning. We had the five month Final Project planned almost to the day. Our instructors discussed the processes, the team members, the External Producers. They warned us of repeated pitfalls, recommended new ways of thinking, instructed us to challenge the status quo. They really got us excited for Final Project.

When I got to ZeeGee, I'd say, oh, about 85% of that went out the window. Right out. The production methodologies are waaay more Agile than anything we'd encountered. When we ask about things like a PMP or a Cap Plan, they laugh at us. The entire staff of ZeeGee games is smaller than some Final Project teams; they don't often have the need or the time for that much planning, especially in the middle of a project. We were warned by our instructors at Full Sail that Final Project isn't like the real world, not by a long shot, and this was the real world.

This hit me like a bucket of ice cold spaghetti (water's so cliché) on Tuesday night. Most definitely. I like to consider myself a pretty calm, confident, and collected individual, especially when it comes to making video games, but I was on the verge of panic. I knew what I was doing for the next five months if I had done Final Project; I didn't (and don't, really) know what I'm doing next week at ZeeGee.

Once I'd realized I had some serious concerns with the situation, I could address them better. I talked some things over with Max, our producer, on Wednesday, and he assured me that there was a plan for the interns. We were not going to be getting coffee. We would be running meetings and tracking hours. He assured me our workload would ramp up very quickly, and oh, by the way, he'd be out of town Thursday afternoon and Friday.

They were rather light work days, but it was obviously time to step up. Flying solo went... fairly well, in my opinion. I had one project go better than expected, and my other has run into some unexpected obstacles that have yet to be fully resolved. Such is the life of a producer, I suppose. More importantly, it was definitely helpful in the confidence department, and I'm pretty sure that was the intended consequence. The broad strokes of our education still apply: teamwork, team management, time management, project tracking, quality assurance, it's all still useful, just in a more general form.

The internship will be much different from what I had expected, mainly because I went into it with incomplete knowledge and few preconceptions, but I'm learning to enjoy the thrill of the unknown after spending the past seven months compulsively erasing unknowns. This change in outlook may be among the most important things I take from this experience. Or maybe not. Who knows? I sure don't have a clue yet....

The ZeeGee Experience (Introduction)

I started my new job as Production Intern at ZeeGee Games last week. This opportunity was offered to me as a replacement to the standard Full Sail Final Project experience. Full Sail has asked I track my daily hours and tasks during the internship. I've also been asked to blog about my experiences.

An hours log seems a pretty straightforward affair, but I feel the blog is an interesting opportunity. My only requirement is that I blog once a week and, of course, not break my NDA.

I've purposefully chosen to keep these required posts on my personal, gaming-related blog. After all, this internship does affect me personally and it is within the gaming industry. I could sit down and just write up a list of production techniques and managerial tools I've used at ZeeGee, but that's a report: that's what my hours log is for. Of course everything I'm learning professionally is also important, but if I'm going to blog, I feel like I should add the personal side to it as well.

I can be informative, sure. I can do my job and file my reports. That's the easy part. What it boils down to, really though, is that I can't talk about having a job in the gaming industry without being excited. Or optimistic. Or occasionally being anxious. Or, yes, even temporarily disappointed. I really can't talk about having a job in the gaming industry without being passionate about it. If I'm going to write about this experiment honestly, I think my personal views play an important role as well.

So! I'll let you know what I'm doing and what I'm thinking for the next five months. I'm going to have a great time doing it. I hope you'll enjoy hearing about it.

Lack of Player Control in The Path, Braid, and Judith

I've noticed a similar mechanic pop up in several art games I've played recently. The games include Judith, The Path, and Braid, and the mechanic is wresting control of the player character from the player a certain points in the game. This is generally done to push the player towards a horrifying realization or situation they would probably rather avoid.

I'll try to keep this as spoiler free as possible, but here's the deal: the mechanic I'm discussing generally doesn't manifest until the end of these games. So, you might want to play them a bit first. Judith is a free download and takes about 30 minutes to play through. It's not a big investment, so I strongly recommend playing it. The Path is $10 on Steam. And... well, I'd like to discuss it. You can read what I have to say and decide for yourself if that warrants spending $10 to investigate further. It's definitely not for everyone, so I can't recommend it unequivocally. This leaves us with Braid, and, come on. That's the ONE art game that just about everyone has played. If you haven't, however, I recommend playing even if the "artsy" side of it has been spoiled. Buy it, play it, and keep reading. No spoiler alerts on Braid, because you should already know the twist.

First off, let's start with Judith. I was first made aware of Judith during an art game panel at GDC. Jason Rohrer was discussing the game, and its use of this specific mechanic of taking control from the player. The story begins with illicit lovers Jeff and Emily meeting at an abandoned mansion for a romantic tryst. Upon entering the mansion, Emily immediately becomes lost, and the player as Jeff must
search for her. The game soon changes, however, and the player takes on the role of Judith, a woman who previously lived in the mansion. The player controls Judith in the past, and explores the mansion through her eyes. The player soon finds Judith's husband has been hiding terrible secrets in hidden passageways within the mansion.

The game's website states "Judith is a game about control." This becomes apparent when certain sequences where the player is playing as Judith are taken over by the computer and Judith moves automatically without any player input. Without giving away too much of the story, Judith in the past and Jeff in the present progress through the many locked rooms and uncover all the dark secrets of Judith's husband. However, Judith begins to do much of this without the player's input. She is compelled to know more about the man she married, even if the player has lost the nerve to continue forth. This leads to a disconnect between the player and their avatar, Judith. By the end, I felt Judith's husband was more sympathetic than she was. Her husband practically begged her not to continue, but, like the player, was powerless to stop her.

The Path is an art game inspired by the darker versions of the Red Riding Hood fairy tale. The player is given the simple task of guiding one of six sisters down a forest path to their grandmother's house. Should the player stray from the path, they run the risk of running into wolves in different guises.

If Judith is a game about control, The Path is a game about death, temptation, and the loss of innocence. The player controls the girls as they travel to their grandmother's house, but upon reaching the house, control is taken from the player. The only input the player can make is to move the girl forward a single step; this action is performed by making any key input. The interior of the home is a strange, nightmarish landscape the girls must traverse in order to reach their grandmother if they followed the path, or a more gruesome end if they met their wolf on their journey. Regardless of how the girls got there, the house's interior is a frightening place, and the player is apprehensive about hitting a key to move forward at times. Other times, the environment is so oppressive, the player may sprint through sections, even though it carries them closer to their final destination. Still, as in Judith, the player would rather not be in that situation to begin with, and no matter how you do it, the only option is to move forward.

Braid is a bit more interesting. It's a platformer, but there are time control mechanics in play as well. For instance, player's character, Tim cannot die. The player can rewind time at any point in the game. The game is ostensibly about Tim's quest to save The Princess. There are, however, many layers of meaning once the entire story of Braid is uncovered. At its core, the game is not so much about lost love, but obsession.

The mechanic I've been discussing doesn't show up in Braid until the very end of the game. The player has finally reached The Princess, and she is show escaping from the monster Tim's been trying to rescue her from. Tim runs through a series of doors opened by The Princess running above him. Tim eventually reaches The Princess's castle.

Upon reaching this point, however, the player's controls are locked. He cannot move normally. Instead, he can only use the time-reversing function. When the previous sequence of the Tim reaching The Princess is reversed, it becomes apparent he was not saving The Princess, but chasing her. She was not opening doors to save Tim, she was trying to block his progress. She was not running from a monster, she was running from Tim and saved by the "monster." Tim has been an unreliable narrator throughout the game, and the player has been his accomplice. This is particularly interesting because this does not occur to the player until the last sequence of the game, the point where they lose control over Tim's actions. While it is fairly apparent that things are not going to end well for the player characters in Judith and The Path, this revelation slowly dawns on the player as they are replaying the uncontrolled sequence. This seems to heighten the regret the player feels in Braid: The player had little way of knowing they were doing anything wrong.

These examples are just a few ways this could be used in games. This mechanic could be used to create a sense of powerlessness or remorse in the player if used effectively.

Oh, Hello There

Graduate school can keep you busy. Like, really busy. Or, at least, busy enough to interrupt a good writing flow when you've got it going. I have been meaning to post here since I got back from GDC in March, but inertia is a bitch, and I was firmly focused on school and everything else was just a nagging "To-do" item.

However, I'm at the point in my career where I need to start blogging regularly. People seem to think I have some interesting things to say, and who am I to disagree? That, in and of itself, is some of the best motivation one can have to write. More importantly, I believe I have interesting and relevant things to say, and I need to let more people know about them and see what they think.

Serendipitously, my classes are now winding down, and I'll have my thesis all but complete by the end of the week. Although I'll be moving on to a production internship at ZeeGee Games next week, I'll make the time (and and keep the motivation) to continue writing at least once a week about whatever is grabbing my attention at the time.

Today is Monday. It seems as good a day as any to be as the day I will continue to update this. Check back Monday mornings and I'll have something new and (perhaps) interesting to say here. If I don't, I encourage you to send me angry e-mails.