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.