Eye For Games is about game design and development • • www.efgmagazine.com
EFG magazine 2012.1
Looking back to 1987 Eye For...
Patrick Liu from teacher to producer at DICE Interview
Awesomenauts concept art
Rob Lawrence member at EFG
Concept art
Member’s eye
cover art
Marlies Barends Netherlands, Weesp
cover artist
MARLIES BARENDS
cover art design
For as long as I can remember I’ve loved to draw, trying to capture the world
around me and visualizing imaginative worlds. Still, I didn’t pursue a career in
art until my final year in high school. Up until then, I believed that artists were very secluded people living in some dusty attic while trying to create their one masterpiece that would take them up to thirteen years to finish... You can imagine
how happy I was when I discovered the immense possibilities of art schools! Finally I decided on the study of 2D Animation, where I could learn both drawing
and film production skills. After I graduated for my Master I tried desperately to get a job in the industry - but when every application was turned down, I decided
to take matters into my own hands by becoming a freelancer under the name of Works of Heart.
When did you notice that you wanted
characters, so from that moment on,
design?
towards design. I battled against the
to move on with your passion for art When I began my study, the game industry
was
productions
in
exploding. epic
Massive
proportions
were published every month. And
slowly, information about the actual production began leaking through the internet. Parallel with the film industry,
concept art, designs, and sometimes
even actual making-of videos started to appear. These designs weren’t to
I shifted my direction from movement
What inspired you to make this art?
at Ronimo Games, and finally work
‘eye’ in Eye for Games made me
Design classes, gain an internship on a project for Guerrilla Games. My animation
background
served
the
smaller game projects well, and that provided leverage to specialize my art
direction for the game industry. Ever since, I felt right at home. What
to build the most beautiful fantasy
My pride and joy is my Wacom Cintiq
worlds you could imagine! From the
biggest city to the smallest seam on a wizard’s robes - everything had to be designed. From then on, all I wanted
was for my designs to give life to these imaginative worlds.
Why did you choose to pursue a career in the game industry?
After I learned the existence of art
studies I began seeing the enormity of
art
application
within
various
industries. Animation, films, games and even books all use an immense
use?
software/hardware
do
you
12WX. I have worked for many years
with the Intuos 3, and still do when I need to be on the road, but after a
while I couldn’t get my sketches to
be of sufficient detail. I really needed smaller brushsizes and tighter control. The Cintiq gave me that opportunity
by allowing me to actually see my
hand when I sketch. I still work on Photoshop CS3, an oldie but sufficient for how I use my brushes. And I will leave my laptop out of the picture. It’s positively ancient...
amount of art for their visualisation. I
Does the cover image have a name?
involved in traditional animation as
about that for a while, but a friend of
did not like the tedious frame-drawing
much as I did actually designing the
Funny you should ask! I was thinking mine actually came up with a fitting
E-mail: marlies@worksofheart.nl 2
EFG
game-types... Tower Defense!
school rules to get into the Game
be used as finished images in itself, they were to be used as blueprints
title after I kept confusing various
Actually, it’s this magazine! The word
think of being ‘watchful’ and ‘on the lookout’. I wanted to draw a guard,
being caught (pun intended) off-guard by an immense horde of - zombie-like creatures? He has already sounded the
horn hanging at his side and lit the
beacon high up in the tower to ask for reinforcements - his torch thrown away to grab his sword and defend
himself when the horde already comes
crawling up the stairs... I sure hope
those three lions on his shield might make him feel a little braver. In any case, when I finished the image, I
couldn’t help but think: could it be that we were that horde? Crawling like
a bunch of zombies to get our hands on this magazine? Well, that’s up to
you - but at least I had a lot of fun designing it!
Are you looking for any work in the game industry?
I am always looking for both freelance
projects and industry jobs, so if
anyone has an interesting adventure I could embark on, please let me know!
Portfolio: www.worksofheart.nl / worksofheart.deviantart.com
IF YOU ARE WITH THE
YOU ARE WITH
w w w. E Y E F O R G A M E S . c o m Lead Director
Cover design
Edition support
Member’s eye
Rai Sewgobind
Marlies Barends
Gamistry
Rob Lawrence
Text Editor
Eye For Games is about game design &
Open Mind Gaming
Samuel DenHartog
Peter van Groning
development. For more information you can mail us to: contact@efgmagazine.com
Writers Michiel Meijndert Jerry Kline
This edition is a print edition, but can also be found online on the website.
Ronimo Games Jeff Stewart
Oganalp Canatan Patrick Liu
Rogier van de Beek Marlies Teunissen Anthony Thomas
map of pages
CONCEPT ART - AWESOMENAUTS • 24
map of pages
16
PIXEL THIS! Space Invaders invaded Taito
35
INTERVIEW with Patrick Liu from DICE
30
BLOG contribution JEFF STEWART: Freedom to Choose, or “I. Kant Play This!”
Some games celebrate the choices they give players. Some games are really just toys, a vast sandbox of player choices. Still some offer no real choices other than to participate or stop playing the game.
MEMBER’S EYE Rob Lawrence
Rogier van de Beek
Samuel DenHartog Marlies Teunissen
Anthony Thomas
18
LOOKING BACK TO 1987
22
AWESOMENAUTS
25
WHEN EFG ASKED ABOUT - LEVEL DESIGNER
29
game music & sound
RED DEAD REDEMPTION
32
ENVIRONMENT, SWORDS 15 AND TANKS
GARRUS VAKARIAN
39
GAMISTRY company profile
MUNCH TIME process interview
6
eye for...
7
process interview
THE ART OF GAME DESIGN
10
SO YOU WANT TO BE AN AUDIO GUY FOR GAMES?
11
books
moodboard
process (Qpoll)
process interview
who is?
company profile
In 2009, the Netherlands welcomed a new developer, established by classmates who studied Game Design & Development. Gamistry already created a serious game called ‘Pitcher’, an arcade game on the iPhone by the name of ‘Sticky’ and their latest success ‘Munch Time’ for iOS. Founders
towards. The process from concept to first
five people, Aaron Oostdijk, Alex Kentie, Laurence
we will have done multiple iterations over
Djégo: “We started Gamistry in January 2009 with Candel, Ka Wai Cheung and Djégo Ibanez. The
five of us were classmates at the Utrecht School
of the Arts (HKU), we studied Game Design and Development.”
playable is very important. During that process design, prototypes and art. Those iterations will
merge into the first playable. This will give us developers the first chance to try out our concept as a whole. The ideas we came up with, and
several prototypes tested separately, can now
Developer
Djégo: “Gamistry is a development company, we develop mobile-, web-, and B2B-games.
We work with publishers, for example Chillingo
and Electronic Arts. With B2B, publishing is considerably different from regular games. Those are custom made products for another company.
The most common case with our clients is that they host the game internally based on a license.
We provide services to help implement, host
and publish those products depending on the requests of our clients. In that case we are also a publisher in some sense.”
be experienced together. For the first time we
are able to see some art and the core features of the game and find out what doesn’t work. I’m
emphasizing what doesn’t work, because there
is always something that doesn’t work that you
thought would. Otherwise you wouldn’t need to work with iterations in development; you would
get it right the first time. In our experience this is never the case. Critical major changes surface after playing with the first playable. Which is good
at this stage because it’s early on in the process
and we can still change a lot. From this point on we strive towards alpha, and so on.”
Primary goal on projects
Future
would be, to finish the concept. However I am
games and in the future, projects large enough for
Djégo: “The most obvious answer to this question going to say a first playable is what we strive
Djégo: “Gamistry is currently working on more iOS a PC release. That’s excluding our B2B-projects.”
www.gamistrygames.com 6
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interview
process interview What were your first few thoughts about this game, the characters,
The art style
environment, and the theme?
By Alex Kentie
were connected by a rope. Players would need to swing one character at a time
We went for a crisp, stylized art style
“We initially started the game as a concept about 2 mountain climbers, who and move through an area.”
Why did you guys choose to make a game for iOS?
“The iOS platform is a relatively low threshold into the game industry as a startup company. The costs aren’t that high and the development is relatively short
even with a small team. When we started it was an exciting new platform with a lot of potential. We have created several products for iOS, and felt it was a
to appeal to a broad audience. We
knew from previous experience with these types of games that we needed a large cute factor for the main
character and a natural vibrancy to the environments.
good idea to build upon our experience as iOS developers.”
While designing Munch the chameleon
How did you come up with the name ‘Munch Time’?
out from the crowd, but was still very
“The character for the game is a chameleon, and he has a very specific animation when he's eating, which we quickly identified as “Munching”, so we named him
we had to create a character that stood believable as a chameleon.
Munch. Since the whole game revolves around his Lunch, it was an easy step
We decided to go with a not too bright
of the name during our lunch break.”
very recognizable orange features.
from Lunch Time to Munch Time. It should come as no surprise that we thought
in your face color green, with some
Were there any other suggestions for names?
We
and Lunch themes. Feeding Habits was another name we had thought of.
complex and decided that it just had to
“We had ideas such as Lunch for Munch, also revolving around the Munch Cute but Hungry was a name we quickly dismissed, but a funny and perhaps
inappropriate name we thought of was a very literal interpretation of the core
designed
several
patterns
for
Munch, which where all a bit too be toned down to stripes and circles.
activity: Lick the Flower.”
I designed the game so that it would be
How many different things can happen with the chameleon? We’ve already
and cute, with some more realistic and
seen that he can change color.
“Munch can change color by eating color flies that are sometimes found in levels. There are currently 5 flower types. The normal flower allows Munch to swing from it. Another flower will rotate on its own and Munch will continuously swing
in circles when latched onto it. Then there is a flower that acts as a cannon,
a nice blend between super cartoony atmospheric backgrounds. I looked a
lot at the way Disney complements these two in their movies and tried to recreate that effect in our game.
from which Munch can launch himself into any direction. Lastly there are two flowers that will float up or down, like a helicopter and parachute respectively, when Munch latches onto them, allowing players to traverse larger distances.”
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7
interview
What more artistic ideas did you have, but were scrapped?
“We had a few other ideas like falling ground-tiles which where replaced by flowers simply because it’s more appealing and fun. We
also had different colored ground tiles in the beginning. When Munch
would land on such a tile, he would change to that color. However, when we tried to use more colors to make things more interesting, the levels would become a disco and all the play-testers would be completely lost.“
Did you already know what the main character would be like? Or did it change continuously at the drawing table?
“It changed very organically during initial development. At first it was
two characters linked together but this proved to be too difficult and confusing as a casual game mechanic, so we decided to stick
with one character. In order for him to attach he could shoot a rope
and sling from suspended patches of land. Eventually we decided to
Did
the ground, which proved too random and error-prone. From climber
programmer(s)?
introduce specific anchor points instead of letting players attach to we changed to a chameleon because of his long tongue. The anchor points became flowers to which the chameleon could latch onto. The ability to change color sparked our interest for gameplay features to work with, which ended up being the core puzzle mechanic. The color
bugs were used to user-initiate color changes (it was very important
that users always felt they initiated any changes in the game), and we started coming up with different flowers to make interesting puzzles.”
Were there any gameplay functionalities you wanted in the game but just didn’t fit?
“Aside from the fact we initially started with two characters, we did experiments with gameplay. For example, we experimented
with removing the ability for Munch to walk, which would reduce the number of options players had and would streamline their user
Munch
programming
Time
have
challenge
any
particular
towards
the
“There were a few things that were a bit
challenging. One of them was rope physics. There weren’t any decent rope physics approximations we could find anywhere, that simply featured one
fixed point and a distance-constrained object, so
we had to write our own. Most of the examples
we found were multi-segment simulations that relied on the engine’s physics. These solutions were way too slow for iOS devices, and they
introduced a lot of things we really didn’t need.
In the end our system manages to simulate a
rope sufficiently accurate for our needs with only a few lines of code.
experience. This caused a number of problems with the gameplay,
The biggest challenge, however, was our camera
so we decided to reintroduce this again at a later time.”
control over what players would see, but since
which outweighed the benefits of a more condensed user experience,
8
EFG
system. We wanted to have as much clarity and
interview
our levels were so varied in shape and size, we couldn’t stick to a
Help Munch get to his Lunch
fixed camera size. For this reason we created a system that would
Players use Munch's super strong tongue
find and categorize points of interest based on a priority system, and
would then select the best possible set of these items to zoom in/out
to latch onto various flowers that produce
device. iPad’s, for instance, will allow for a larger zoom-out than
to his Lunch. Players can get stars placed
on, based on a minimum/maximum zoom size for each supported
different acrobatic effects, and guide him
iPhone, since the screen is so much larger. Balancing the priorities
around the level if they perform difficult/
and code for that system so that all users on all devices had the best
graceful moves.
possible view of the most important things in every level proved to be quite a challenge.”
With what kind of bugs did you have to deal with?
“Bugs are always a problem, but sometimes they can be very funny. Most of the issues we had involved the game’s physics, which we needed to keep on a tight leash. In the end we decided to not use
any of our engine’s physics simulation, and coded all of the necessary
physics ourselves, relying only on the engine’s collision framework. This made the whole game a lot more stable.
One particularly troubling bug was a performance issue we encountered with the dynamic meshes that we were using to draw all of our sprites. It appeared that the engine was locking the vertex
buffers, which make up the object that is being drawn, while they were being drawn. These locks could last as much as 7 milliseconds, which
is a huge amount of time if you consider we try to do everything in 16 milliseconds to achieve a smooth 60 frames per second. This locking
tended to persist in subsequent frames, which caused problems when
you wanted to change this information every frame. Typical situations
that would cause this were our animating sprites, since they change shape every time they change frame, or things that were scaling to fit other objects. In the end we had to produce a work-around in which we created two meshes for every object, and always altered the one
that was currently not being drawn. This process is known as double buffering, which essentially means you’re swapping the active and
inactive meshes every frame to prevent the GPU from locking your entire game.”
Looking back at the process, did the team learn any new things? “The introduction of a sprite engine with automatic atlassing of
source textures changed a lot for us. We could add more content
take us to please them. We set up a good marketing strategy and decided to release the
game ourselves to see what the game would be capable of doing in our hands.”
How long did the team work on Munch Time?
and it improved the overall art pipeline, since the artist could get
“The
worked to produce the animation frames.”
delays here and there and ended up working a
art done more quickly because it no longer mattered in what tool he
Were there any big issues during the entire process that took a
core
development
process
took
approximately 3 months, but we had some total of 5-6 months to complete the project.”
little while to properly deal with?
Did the team have to take in account an
development time could not take longer than 3 months. One of our
“Our budget is essentially our time. We started
“We decided on the beginning of the course of our game that our
problems however was that we had trouble deciding whether or not
we wanted to release our game through a publisher as we did with Sticky, or if we wanted to go Indie.
We decided to check out what publishers had to offer, but were
disappointed by the amount of extra development time it would
agreed budget?
out with the task to try and have the game
finished in 3 months. Even though we did roughly meet this deadline, that wasn’t the end
of the development process and we needed to spend more time to fine tune things and get the game ready for a proper release.”
EFG
9
books
THE ART OF GAME DESIGN A book of Lenses Title: The Art of Game Design: A Book of Lenses Author: Jesse Schell
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann (1 edition) Type: Educational
Subject: Game Design
Pages: 512 (Paperback) Release year: 2010
The book focuses on viewing your game through many
Author
different perspectives as the player experiences them and
Jesse Schell is the founder of Schell Games, founded
to use methodologies based on these perspectives. Schell
in 2004. He specializes in the design and development
divides these methodologies up in a hundred different
of interactive experiences using design methodologies
lenses throughout the book. By putting the focus on
that were developed during his time at ETC. These
what is needed to make a game interesting for the player
methodologies would form the basis for his Art of Game
Schell tries to give a deeper meaning to the small details
Design book. Besides his career in the game industry he
that can mean the difference between your game being
also teaches Building Virtual World and Games Design at
either a failure or a success and the reasons behind it.
Carnegie Mellon University.
“Anyone who makes decisions about how the game should be is a game designer” – ‘Jesse Schell’
Other books on EyeForGames.com Title: Casual Game Design: Designing Play for the Gamer in ALL of Us Author: Gregory Trefry Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann Type: Educational Subject: Casual Game Design Pages: 400 (Paperback) Release year: 2010
10
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Title: Mass Effect: Revelation Author: Drew Karpyshyn Publisher: Del Rey Books Type: Novel Subject: Mass Effect Genre: Science fiction Pages: 323 (Paperback) Release year: 2007
game music • sound
SO YOU WANT TO BE
AN AUDIO GUY
FOR GAMES?
contributed by: Oganalp Canatan
Well, don’t...
harder than it seems to come up
Just joking! EFG encourages you to take your part in gaming universe
general guideline to the world of game
whether it be a developer, musician or a plain gamer. Know this though, nothing, NOTHING is as easy as it seems. First of all, you have to realize that
So, we will start from scratch as a
learn. There are lots of side branches,
our way to a moderate production
audio is rather a big concept just to
some leaning towards programming, some leaning towards engineering and
newbie career musician, and will work level.
some focusing on composing or SFX.
What we first have to understand,
You can work on all these fields, sure.
knowledge for composing and having
But you have to understand that each
of these audio fields are quite distinct in characteristics from each other, they need lots of studying and hard
work to polish. Working on all three means more.
What I will talk about now is the
composing, music side of things as a musician. We will try to forecast our
needs to start producing music for games. This part will be about what we need as a very, VERY basic setup.
DON’T TRY TO BE THE NEXT JOHN WILLIAMS This is what I saw on the web when I was first into music sountracks. It is a
rather discouring advice, isn’t it? Well,
besides
the
obvious
talent
and
the music ear, is that listening to music is a cheap hobby nowadays.
Music production is not. You need programs,
equipment,
instruments,
time and most importantly, the will
to work on it. It is quite reasonable to
assume that you will be composing,
engineering, producing your tracks
yourself.
is the same as music production for anything, its a seperate profession integrated to this field.
If you are not aware of anything
related to music production, you have
to start from core audio information that can be found at audio production
websites or books, as it is a HUGE, SEPERATE world. These articles will
have some information about general audio production but they will also
asume that you know certain things like how to record a guitar track or how to take vocals.
produce most of the music you hear
you can just compose and oversee the mixing and be done with it, leaving it
to your engineers or mastering studios to handle the rest. This can happen when you are big. Though, probably
by that time, you would be so much
into this audio thing that it would be impossible to leave the studio.
audio terms like “track”, “mixing”,
it nor they care before you prove
scratch. Music production for games
demo reel at this stage. In the future,
to step on your feet. You can be the moment, no one really knows about
TO teach you all about audio from
Alright, it is time for me to give you
clients, website or prepare them as a
Please note that this article assumes
next John Williams, sure, but at the
audio production and its aim is NOT
in total and submitting them to your
the truth is, it is golden. First thing you have to learn is that you need
with something good. This will be a
that you are familiar with general “mastering”, “MIDI” and such and its main aim is to tell you that it is easier to start working on audio productions
for games than it looks but it is
some encouragement. Yes, you can on AAA titles at your home. With a reasonable budget, you can create a
home studio and work on stuff. This
was not possible 10 years ago because
of the obvious need of hardware and live players but since the boom of
VSTs (Virtual Studio Technology), you
can emulate a lot of things such as hardware and instruments so that you
can come up with quite good results. Obviously, live recordings are still
better than computerized productions but with proper work and expertise,
you can create REALLY good music that can match with many of today’s releases.
EFG
11
game music • sound
Relying seldomly on headphone monitors or reference monitors is a bad way to work on audio. contributed by: Oganalp Canatan
Now, after you get the boost, its time
different characteristics so that the
Anyway, we need a powerful computer
down and take it step by step. In order
tools to find and fix problems of a
programs we run under our DAWs
to discourage you to help you slow to be able to do this, you need to get
experienced. You cannot produce a
perfectly engineered song in your first try. Actually, you will probably need a
few years to get that “engineer ears”
but each step will take you closer to
your career goal. Each step will open new doors.
we
recording session. If you use a hifi system to finalize your work, it
may sound pleasing to you on your system but it may be a total disaster
on another set just because your hi-fi system covered up for your mistakes in your mix.
You also need headphone monitors for
LET’S GET STARTED, SHALL WE? Alright,
engineer can have a wider range of
said
you
need
additional
reference
options.
Headphone monitors have a bigger the
equipment. Some stuff can be handled by software but you need some core
equipment to work on your audio recordings, productions.
frequency response range than normal
headphones and they are good to catch specific mistakes. Relying
seldomly
on
headphone
monitors or reference monitors is a
because VST libraries are like small (Digital Audio Workstation). DAW is the program where we record, edit, mix
our projects. Perhaps you have heard of the famous name ProTools before? It is a DAW and it is today’s industry
standart. Just like any other capable
program, DAWs look confusing and intimidating at first. Don’t rush, it takes time to get used to them. They
are different from each other but most of their features are similar. It takes some time to find the suitable DAW for your needs. There are lots of good
DAWs out there like ProTools, Cubase, Nuendo, Sonar, Logic, Ableton and many many more.
bad way to work on audio.
Today, most of these programs are
studio monitors, loudspeakers that we
The previous three paragraphs mean
have to look for
normal Hi-Fi systems, monitors are
in means of numbers. Expensive is
Reference Monitors are one. These are use to work on our music. Unlike the
designed to have a flat, linear phase and frequency response. This means, they are meant to help you notice and
find mistakes in your mix, recordings,
mastering etc. You cannot rely on a
hi-fi set to mix as hi-fi systems are meant to boost various frequencies to give you the feeling of what you are
listening. They are meant to tweak
1.000 Euros to 10.000 Euros to you
not better in this case. You have to get proper equipment according to
your room needs. Remember, you
are working with sound. Even your room shape is important. You have to explore and dig out a bit to learn
about these. But, no rush, we are building a career here!
the frequencies so that the output will
Next item on the list is a powerful
They
start with a small home studio, we
have a pleasing feeling. are
professional
for
listening,
use.
Hi-fi
not
for
systems
are used to check how your work
sounds after the production stage as a checklist item. You don’t have
to go big at first but most studios have several reference monitors with 12
EFG
close to each other’s capabilities. You their specifications
and pick the one that suits you best. I
am using Cubase series for some time
now since most of my work involves MIDI and VST instruments, I found that Cubase is the best one that I
can communicate with ease. On the other hand, my band’s producer is a
ProTools guru and he would suggest me to use it any time, any day. As you
can see, it is a matter of taste and applications.
computer. Considering that we will
Computer should be powerful. What
won’t be going for sound cards with
because each VST channel you run,
DSP racks and such. Don’t care much about the abbreviations at this time, you will have plenty of room and
interest to get acquinted to them over this process.
audio business needs most is RAM each plug in you add puts a pressure
on the computer and RAM is where you will be pushed hard most. For example,
a
standart
4
GB
RAM
Phenom 9xx series computer usually
game music • sound
DAWs look confusing and intimidating at first. Don’t rush, it takes time to get used to them. contributed by: Oganalp Canatan
stalls after 14-15 channels of VST
download. They are like modules you
producers and engineers. You can
Again, don’t get too caught with these
come with a core setup. You can do
about
instruments running at the same time. details. I am simply trying to give you a figure, we will come back to these
technical side of things later on in the
near future where we will discuss the details in full with “why” and “how to” applications.
Another thing we need is a decent sound card. I am not talking about those
gaming
sound
cards
that
add to your DAW. Most of the DAWs
the production there but you need
additional tools, VSTs to get better
results. VSTs also have a varying
price range. Most of the useful tools range from 100 Euros to 800 Euros. There are also very high-end libraries
like the Vienna Symphony with an approximate Euros.
price
tag
of
10.000
learn a great deal of tips and tricks DAWs,
mixing,
mastering,
editing and other production details
as well as any new equipment coming to the scene. If you will be working on
the engineering side of things, which is very important to know if you ask
me, you have to follow this magazine. Their video tutorials are also gems for
newbies and you can learn a lot from their expert technique videos.
supposedly work for audio production.
At this point, before going on forward,
- Computer Music Magazine
“flexibility” of specifications. You need
book(s) and magazines to get a better
and similar to Future Music Magazine,
Don’t believe that, it is a marketing a professional sound card. There are
LOTS of options out there and you
have to find the one suitable for your needs. AVID’s Mbox series is a good start and Mbox Pro 3 is probably a
card more than enough for a mid
I encourage you to read the following hold of this world as starters. Again,
music production for games is the
same as music production for any other thing, its a seperate profession integrated to this field.
size soundtrack studio. I have seen
- The Complete Guide to Game
is a fitting card to use. Of course, you
For
more done with less and I believe it
can check other options and get a hold of things as well. Actually, it is
quite necessary to follow things and I will try to give some suggestions
about where to follow stuff at the
end of this article. Please note, we are talking about small productions at the moment. If you want to record a
full scale live orchestra, the shape of things change a lot.
Now that we have a computer, a sound card, a monitor, headphones monitor and a DAW, we can start
writing the basic songs. At this stage,
Audio
Composers,
Designers,
and
Musicians,
Game
Sound
Developers
by Aaron Marks. The technology in
this one is also focused on production side of things. However, as the name suggests, it is more computer oriented
than the other one I have suggested
and so, it gives a better insight to programs and VSTs. This one also has great sample libraries and video
tutorials coming up with each issue.
A great magazine to read. A must for everyone.
this book is somewhat outdated in
- Harmony-Central.com
book covers almost all the essential
websites about everything music on
means of tech specs. However, this things you need to learn about game audio business and it is a must-
to-have source for anyone thinking professional. The book talks about the
production stages, contracts, possible problems you can face while working
with developers and such. This was the book that encouraged me to start working on game music soundtracks.
it is important to note that VSTs are
- Future Music Magazine
for various prices, some are free to
best music magazine aimed towards
seperate products. Some are sold
This is another release of Future media
This is probably the biggest and
This is probably one of the oldest
the net. You can find all kinds of information related to anything music.
From music business to writing MIDI,
from equipment reviews to guitar lessons. It is a great source for those who are in need to polish their general audio knowledge and skills before going into a more professional field.
We will continue on how to use our DAW and MIDI in general to write a
simple track in the next part of this article.
EFG
13
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who are looking for a job can now place an advertisement in EFG magazine or the NewsMag, a new method to advertise yourself and your qualifications. EFG can design this advertisement for you! Publication: NewsMag and EFG Magazine For: Students, Freelancers.
Indie developers or companies
related to the game industry can already advertise in the monthly bulletin called NewsMag.
Publication: NewsMag For: Developers, Companies related to the game industry.
EFG publishes two magazine editions a year. This publication is also being spread around on events, conferences and more.
Advertise now for this price and get the second placement for free! Publication: EFG magazine
$50 $75 $90
For: All related to the game industry.
Why the low prices?
EFG is supporting the game industry, which means that we also support it in the advertisement opportunities. We will keep the low prices no matter what the circumstances. With these prices we hope to widen the gap between you and the current crisis.
These prices are only for FULL PAGE advertisements.
For the advertisement specifications you can contact us at adver@efgmagazine.com
14
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moodboard
pixel this!
SPACE INVADERS invaded tAITO
16
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pixel this!
Designer Tomohiro Nishikado got inspired by the game ‘Breakout’ from Atari
and it was the classic book ‘The War of the Worlds’, which inspired the art design. Besides these two inspiration sources, there was a third one that still had
to come out in Japan, it was the movie ‘Star Wars’. Eventually this combination of inspiration formed a video game concept, which would form the foundation for many video games in the future. CONCEPT
The video game ‘Breakout’ inspired Nishikado to put a video game with the
same goal-achieving levels with complex graphics. On the first few sketches you could find some tanks, battleships and combat planes. But it was especially the book ‘The War of the Worlds’, with the so called ‘Martians’, which looked like
octopi from outer space. With this motivation Nishikado made bitmap images of the octopus and other sea creatures like the crab, squid and jellyfish. The
movie ‘Star Wars’ was on its way to be released in Japan and this movie inspired
Nishikado to use space as a theme for his video game. It also appeared that at
that time a song was released with the title ‘Monster’ and Nishikado used this title, but later it was eventually changed to the name ‘Space Invaders’. DEVELOPMENT
Nishikado wanted to use airplanes in his game but simulating flying objects
was difficult with the technique they had access to in 1970. He even thought
about replacing them with humans, but that thought was soon taken away since Nishikado found shooting on people was immoral. This wasn’t his only backfire,
because the microcomputers at that time in Japan weren’t strong enough for the
design and programming of ‘Space Invaders’. This situation led to the toughest part of the whole development process because Nishikado ended up with making his own hardware development tools, still the programming procedure was a challenge. RELEASE
The development of ‘Space Invader’s took about a year and was made by Tomohiro Nishikado alone. The game was released in June of 1978, it was a
black-white title and published by Taito (Midway, America). A new video game
genre was born and today it’s more commonly known as ‘shoot ‘em up’ and
‘top-down shooter’. This genre became vital to the image of the shooting games of today.
EFG
17
member’s eye
Member’s eye
Rob Lawrence - United States M o d e l e r / A n i m at o r
I’m an aspiring Environment Artist looking for my chance to break into the game’s industry. I’m passionate about games and art and look forward to opportunities to work with and learn from the pros.
Portfolio: http://roblawrence.daportfolio.com/ 18
EFG
member’s eye
Rogier van de Beek - Netherlands C o n c e p t a r t i s t & I l l u s t ra t o r
I’m Rogier, I currently work as a freelance concept artist & illustrator. I started drawing/ painting seriously about 3 years ago. Before that I could barely draw a stickman, so my key work these last years was just to develop myself as an artist and try to get as good as I can, in the shortest amount of time. Next to drawing and painting, I try to run or cycle once in a while. I love to go to the movies and just to chill and hang with friends.
Portfolio: http://beek-art.com/ EFG
19
member’s eye
Member’s eye
Samuel DenHartog - Mexico D i re c t o r o f C re at i v e D e v e l o p m e n t at E n s e n a S o f t
I am the co-owner and Director of Creative Development at EnsenaSoft where we make fun and challenging arcade, board, word and educational games! EnsenaSoft apps are now available for iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac, Nokia Meego phones, Android tablets, Amazon Kindle Fire, Barnes & Noble NOOK, Windows 7 systems, and Windows 8 Metro systems.
Portfolio: http://www.ensenasoft.com/
Marlon Teunissen - Netherlands A r t i st
|
D e s i g n e r a n d i l l u s t ra t o r
Freelance designer and illustrator for various media :) loves playing videogames and everything that has anything to do with games.
Portfolio: www.dreamchasergallery.com
Anthony Thomas - United States L e a d D e v e l o p e r at C l i c h é S t u d i o
At Cliché, we provide a number of services for authors, publishers, businesses, board game developers and educators.
Portfolio: http://www.clichegames.com/
20
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great art to share? It will be featured prominently on the front page.
a process interview, a company profile
These articles will be presented in a
readers will be able to learn more
will be published on the same day,
and a third article by choice, our about the development of the game. Happy
with
the
way
your
game
sounds? We will create an article
focusing on that aspect. Got some
3-a-day deal, meaning that all three preferably on the same day as the
release of the game. There’s also a
chance that the articles will be used in other EFG publications, both digital and print.
• Blog articles
GET YOU BLOG ARTICLE PUBLISHED ON THE FRONTPAGE!
• Columns
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If you have a contributor account and linked your
know and have been through within the industry.
spot an interesting blog article to publish this on
veterans and professionals to share all they Through our new blog system, contributors will
be able to dispense everything they have in their minds. If it is industry related of course. Maybe you would like to talk about how you’re handling
blog to your profile, it is possible that EFG will
the frontpage. It is also possible that the blog will get published in an EFG publication, digital or printed.
lighting in your art, or describe the things you
You can already contact us to keep updated about
or programmer.
some bloggers posting interesting articles.
have done in order to become a sound designer,
this opportunity. We’re already keeping an eye on
GET A FREE COMPANY INTRODUCTION ARTICLE For companies directly related to the
Through
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you’re
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employees, for each company we will
create a company profile just to get your name out.
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EFG
21
eye for...
Being in the year 2012 inspired me to look back, about 25 years into the past. As I discovered what the history of the industry was like in 1987, I realized that I had to share this with you. Not only great titles were being released, but also business events took place that each had their own influence on the game industry.
In January, Nintendo released Zelda II: The Adventure of Link for the Famicom Disk system in Japan only.
Enix (now known as Square Enix) released Dragon Quest II (Dragon Warrior II) for the MSX and Nintendo Entertainment System.
Konami released two titles, both of which haven’t been forgotten ever since; On February 20th, Contra was originally released for the coin-
operated arcade systems. On July 7th, Metal Gear, an action-adventure video game, released for the MSX2 in Japan and some parts of Europe.
On July 5th, Sierra Entertainment (now known as Sierra On-Line)
released Leisure Suit Larry in the Land of the Lounge Lizards. It was originally developed for DOS and Apple II, but was later ported to different platforms.
On August 30th, Capcom released its first competitive fighting game, Street Fighter, as an arcade game.
LucasArts released Maniac Mansion in October, a graphic adventure
game for the Commodore 64 and Apple II. It was the first game to use the SCUMM scripting language coded by Ron Gilbert.
Capcom also released a second game in this year, this time for the NES. Mega Man was released on December 17, 1987 and is also known as Rockman. 22
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eye for...
Square was facing bankruptcy and decided to make one last
The year also brought the industry some new companies like
around and Final Fantasy would later get many “sequels” and
Maxis is the creator of the famous ‘The Sims’ series and, of
game named Final Fantasy. The success turned the company spin-offs.
On December 20, Sega released Phantasy Star on the Sega Master System in Japan. It was notable for being one of the first games featuring a female protagonist.
The arcade got a new beat ‘em up game developed by Technos
Japan Corp. Double Dragon was distributed in America and Europe by Taito Corporation.
Ocean Software developed and published Head Over Heels, an arcade adventure for the Z80-microprocessor-based home computers. Due its success it was later ported to other platforms.
With 40.000 copies sold in its year of release, Dungeon Master became the ST’s bestselling product of all time. It was
Maxis, that started as an independent developer in 1987.
course, the ‘Sim City’ games. Currently Maxis is a subsidiary of EA.
Florida welcomed a video game publisher, well known for publishing video game adaptations of game shows in the
early 1990s. In 1997, GameTek filed for bankruptcy and closed down the year after.
Apogee Software Ltd. (currently known as 3D Realms) was a game publisher and former video game developer. It is best
known for popularizing the shareware distribution model
and also for its franchises such as Commander Keen and Wolfenstein 3D.
Batteries Included (BI) was a computer software and hardware
company and was well known in the 1980s for its PaperClip
word processor. In 1987, Batteries Included was purchased by Electronic Arts.
developed and published by FTL Games.
Electric Transit closed its doors in 1987, due to a lack of
Namco released its own arcade system board called, Namco
publisher was founded in 1985 and specialized in first-
System 1 and by the end of the year they released the second board, Namco System 2.
A new video console was released in Japan under the
name PC Engine, but it was also known for its full name, TurboGrafx-16 Entertainment SuperSystem. The video console was developed by Hudson Soft and NEC.
The first ‘low-end’ Amiga was released by Commodore, the Amiga 500. It was popular with hobbyists, but its most
widespread use was as a gaming machine, particularly in Europe. Amiga 500 would become the best-selling Amiga.
The Video Graphics Array (VGA) first introduced with the
IBM PS/2 line of computers, gave the PC the potential for 256-color graphics.
AdLib released the first mass market PC soundcard for computers using FL synthesis (YM3812 chip by Yamaha).
profits to fund new development. The software entertainment person 3D games for Apple II and IBM PC computers.
Starting in 1987, Atari Games continued to manufacture arcade games and units under its Tengen brand name, which was a video game publisher and developer created by Atari Games.
The year also witnessed an Entertainment Lawsuit between Nintendo America and Blockbuster – a home video and
video game rental service. Nintendo sued Blockbuster for
photocopying complete NES manuals for its rental games.
In the end, Nintendo won the suit and Blockbuster included original manuals with its rentals.
Joel Billings, founder of SSI, acquires the license to the Dungeon and Dragons role-playing games from TSR. This led to the creation of the Gold Box D&D game series, which
was one of the bestselling video game franchises in the 1980s and 1990s.
EFG
23
concept art
EXCLUSIVE
Gijs Hermans, Lead Artist:
“Our main source of inspiration for Awesomenauts are old
school Sunday morning cartoons like: Earthworm Jim, Bionic Six, Mask, Galaxy Rangers etc. We also are big fans of the guys from creaturebox.com.
Generally we take inspiration from lots of things, this can be a Disney movie or a movie like 300, sites like conceptart.org, a museum or
just a walk in the city. Each of us also brings his own inspirations which get combined into the Ronimo style.�
24
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interview
EXCLUEXCLUSIVE
AWESOMENAUTS
process interview
Fans of old-school Saturday morning cartoons can, in May 2012, download a brand spanking new title based on famous cartoon shows like M.A.S.K., G.I. Joe, The Transformers and much, much more. Thanks to Ronimo, we can relive those days through their quirky characters, one of them even reminds us of Bucky O’Hare, and fun filled gameplay.
But what led to the creation of this game called Awesomenauts? Lead designer
The art style
Jasper Koning and lead programmer Joost van Dongen inform us about their
By Gijs Hermans
anything from developing their latest “awesome”title.
On Frustrating Moments
How did you guys come up with the name Awesomenauts?
moments with the drawings. Although
creative process, their biggest challenges and whether or not they learned
Jasper: “After we decided to go for an ‘80s space cartoon vibe, we held a meeting
to decide on the name. Of the few names that we gathered in the previous weeks, Blastronauts stood out. Unfortunately we found out there already existed a game called Max Blastronaut. Still we felt something ending in ‘nauts would be
very suitable for the game. After riffing on those for a while, we came up with Awesomenauts which stuck with us right away. It was even better than the original
Blastronauts, because somehow it feels like its more about individual characters instead of a unit and it also fits better with the over-the-top style of the game.”
“I can’t pinpoint specific frustrating there is always this cycle of getting
stuck on a design and feeling a little
frustrated. But you just go on adding more stuff and doing more sketches and then having that eye opener and
seeing something you like in those crappy sketches and that gives the drive to continue.”
Was everybody happy with this name or did you had to convince some to
On Designing As A Team Effort
Jasper: “Everybody was pretty enthusiastic right from the start. So hardly any
decision, all of the art is created
use this name?
convincing was needed. I think its one of the few decisions during the whole process where we reached unanimity this quickly.”
What were your first few thoughts about this game, the characters, environment, theme?
Jasper: “Personally I wanted to make a multiplayer game where Pirates would face
off Ninjas in a big side scrolling level. On one side there would be a ship, on the other side there would be a Japanese castle. Each side would have unique classes.
“At Ronimo nothing is a one man as a team with everybody bringing
something to the table. We start out
with a few sketches and then we will have a meeting or put them on our
internal forum to get input and this way we iterate until we have a final design.
But the theme was deemed too generic, and having classes bound to teams was
Also a lot of the work is in the end a
a great fit for the downloadable console platforms.
sketch while another artist will finalize
also highly impractical. But we all agreed that a 2D MOBA would be awesome and
Especially since we were heavily into DOTA at the time, and were looking forward to League of Legends.
co-creation, one might make an initial
that design in Photoshop and another
does some of the animations while someone else will do the sfx.”
We’ve also considered to make it Zelda style, but we felt the platforming would better showcase our characters and also make the movement more fun.”
EFG
25
interview
Was this game planned to be an Xbox Live Arcade and Playstation Network game from the start?
process interview
Jasper: “Those two platforms were part of it from the start, yes. Though we knew we would need a publisher to get it on XBLA. Initially we also
considered WiiWare, but we felt the online infrastructure was just too
restricted to make it work. This also meant that we could focus on HD graphics from the start, resulting in a better looking game.”
So was it a fast decision to make this a multiplayer game? Or did you still have second thoughts about adding single player?
Jasper: “The multiplayer was always the focus. Though at some point, we considered making a single player campaign to introduce all the characters and concepts. Eventually we decided against a big single player component because we wanted people to head online
as much as possible. We have a tutorial at the start of the game that demonstrates the basics which can be skipped as well as replayed
Development screenshot from 2009
Animationsheet: Bull
to suit players’ needs, and we have a practice mode that is basically
What challenges did that decision bring to the
provide a nice challenge and sparring ground to test the waters before
Jasper: “Up until then we were also unsure about
the same gameplay as online, but against bots. The bots can actually
heading online. You can even progress your account using this practice mode, but you’ll progress a lot faster when playing online.”
How did you come up with the idea to base the game on ‘80s cartoons?
Jasper: “The initial vision was a fairly dark style, set in a kind of Asian fantasy setting called Shangri-La. But it became pretty apparent early on that the hectic gameplay required a more bold style. By this time we
only had concept graphics, in game the graphics were still sprites from
table?
the pacing of the game. One of the possible visions we had for the game was that it could become a more tactical, slow moving game, possibly with a
cover mechanic. But from then on out the challenge was to continually push the game more and more over the top. Movement and ability use needed to
be as snappy and responsive as possible, and have a high visual impact.”
Swords & Soldiers. So we sat down to talk about possible styles, and
What more ideas did you have, but were
Rangers and put up the intro video to the cartoon. Pretty soon we were
Jasper: “At one point we had ideas for a more
somehow the discussion got sidetracked. Someone mentioned Galaxy all gathered around reveling in the nostalgia from great series such as M.A.S.K, Thundercats, Dino Riders, C.O.P.S and Starcom. Seeing how
we all loved that optimistic style and vibe the decision became clear. It also ties in with our love for 16-bit gaming.” 26
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scrapped?
objective based mode, where players needed to
progress beyond certain points to move their base of operations forward. As a result of this
we still have 3 very different levels that have their
interview
own unique gameplay elements. The item system also received a lot
Eventually we decided
of iterations. Initially we envisioned a sort of catalogue where players
against a big single player
could order upgrades. Each upgrade would have nearly the entire
component because we
screen to give gameplay and background information, but the book style navigation was way too clumsy and slow.”
wanted people to head online as much as possible
When it comes to the amount of playable characters and levels,
when and how do you decide that you will stop with adding new ones?
Jasper: “It’s hard to point to the exact moment, but I think it was somewhere around the end of the 1st year. The game has taken almost
3 years to develop. But it did take us a lot longer to nail compared to Swords & Soldiers.”
Was this related to how big the game can be?
Jasper: “Not really, it mostly came from the realization that the core
gameplay was going to be awesome and didn’t need a lot of content
to work. In the beginning we were afraid that we wouldn’t have enough bullet points on the back of box so to speak. But at that point we
realized we didn’t need them, and polishing up the elements that we had would be more than enough work in itself.”
Were there any gameplay functionalities you wanted in the game but just didn’t fit?
Jasper: “Well at the start we wanted all kinds of functionalities, like
different modes and such. But as I said, once we realized how awesome the main gameplay could become we decided to focus all our efforts
Whereas with Swords & Soldiers the vision was very clear and simple right from the start.”
Did the team have to take in account an agreed budget?
Jasper: “Yes, very much so. DTP informed us of the budget we had fairly early on, and we’ve been
trying to maximize that budget as much as we
can. They’ve been very supportive of our efforts so far.”
to make the core as solid and balanced as possible.”
With what kind of bugs did you have to deal
Were there any big issues during the entire process that took a
Joost:
Jasper: “It took us a lot of time to synchronize our visions of the game.
games, host migration and inviting friends.
little while to properly deal with?
Early on we all had very different mental images of where the game
was, and where the game was headed. Only after a few iterations did we come to something that everybody was very enthusiastic about.
with?
“All
kinds,
but
mostly
around
matchmaking. So things like joining and leaving This is just incredibly complex with a game like
Awesomenauts that features drop-in-drop-out.
Handling all rare and exceptional situations is EFG
27
interview
just really difficult. What to do if you try to join a match that is won
For more information
right at that moment, or, even worse: what to do if you are busy joining
http://www.awesomenauts.com
a match when the host leaves and host migration needs to happen?”
Was there a particular bug that gave you more problems than usual?
Joost: “Not really one in particular, it was more a large amount of bugs that all caused a bit of work. This is pretty much unavoidable for a game
as complex as Awesomenauts. On especially irritating bug was when we tried to find an extremely rare random crash in the game. In the end it
turned out this happened because the computer that was connected to the game went into sleep mode when it wasn’t touched for 20 minutes.
Usually a programmer uses that computer, so this happened really
rarely. And since this bug turned out to be something outside the game, we were looking in completely the wrong place for days.”
Playtesting
This game had some beta testing days with people from outside
Looking back at the process, did the team
Joost: “We have two kinds of testing with outsiders, and both were
Jasper: “We’ve learned tons of stuff. Mostly that
the company. Was this helpful?
incredibly helpful. Most importantly, we invited lots of people to come
play the game for a couple of hours and give feedback on whether they liked and understood it and such.
After a while we ourselves get so used to how the game plays, that we start overlooking some gameplay flaws. So we bring in lots of
people who have never played the game before, simply to hear outside
opinions. The other kind of testing we did is ‘normal’ QA: testing for bugs. This was done by a company in India, and they found lots of issues that we needed to fix, so that was really important as well.” Were there bugs that weren’t found by the team itself?
“Lots! When we made Swords & Soldiers for Wii, we did all the
testing for bugs ourselves, and that worked well enough. However, Awesomenauts is so much more complex, that we really needed an
external testing team to try all the weird combinations of things that can happen during the game.” 28
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learn any new things?
we’re way too optimistic in planning work. Even
though we did the same thing for Swords &
Soldiers. We also structured ourselves a bit too
rigidly, resulting in an each discipline turning into an island that was a bit too separate from the rest. Nowadays we try to tie people more close together
across discipline. Finally we’ve learned the joys of
having someone on board that actually doesn’t do anything on the game. We call him a producer
though I’m not sure that’s the proper term. He
deals with a lot of the formalities of running a company. Stuff we used to do on the side and that took us away from the actual developing of the game. Last week we looked back at the way
our time was spent during the last few years, and
he made a very nice and noticeable dent in our time spent on business stuff.”
process
Many students are under the impression
Level design has the function of making the most
Level Design is just opening a level
out of the particular game's strengths, minimizing
editor and putting blocks together. It's
its weaknesses and making a game's primary
much more than that and until more
game mechanic pivotal to completing the level.
students see that, they will be hindered
by their own mindsets of what makes a
Chris Skaggs, CTO / CCO at Soma Games
good Level Designer or World Designer. Glen Swan, Senior Assistant Community Manager at Funcom
As a summary sometimes level designers can be a jack of all trades doing all the work from layout, visuals and scripting (usually seen in the mod community where individuals make entire levels).
Awais Ahmed, Level Designer at Gearbox Software
Sometimes there's a plain Level Builder/ Designer as well, who builds the main layout and handles most of the gameplay, sometimes
I.e. the Level Designer has to
this role is merged with the Scripter or Artist.
understand how the player interacts
combine the existing features in
Rickard EdĂŠn, Games and Level Design Consultant, and Developer
with the game world and how to the best possible way to make the game mechanics work, to create a nice game flow, and later on "polish" everything to improve the quality of the whole game experience.
Specific mission design tasks can include creation of level terrain and structures, placing objects in an environment, setting up encounters with characters and puzzles, and using
Boris Bauer, Senior Gameplay Programmer at Rocksteady Studios Ltd
scripting languages to control the moment to moment state of what the player is experiencing in the level.
Sean Phillips, Staffing Consultant
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29
contributed blog
Blog: http://designface.blogspot.com
Some games celebrate the choices they give players. Some games are really just toys, a vast sandbox of player choices. Still some offer no real choices other than to participate or stop playing the game.
“If you have free will, turn to page 101. If not, turn to page 101.” - Unknown BioShock
In BioShock, the player encounters a collection of
young girls who have been rendered immortal, joined genetically with a regenerative slug from the sea floor.
Upon cornering one of these creepy cuties,
the player learns that these slugs contain the genetic material “Adam,” the progress points of the game. The choice is given to the player, kill
the children or save them? Killing them results in immediate points, saving them results in a few more points at a later time.
The choice that is being presented has almost
nothing to do with the one actually put before the player. It is an illusion. The player knows that
the collection of animated vertexes before them
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By: Jeff Stewart
contributed blog
By: Jeff Stewart
Blog: http://designface.blogspot.com
has no connection to the real world.
The choice in this game received a lot
so dooms one or more of your crew
no natural moral law against harming
gaming black and white choices. The
through, you have begun to achieve
The girls aren’t real, and so there is them.
There are actually two choices here.
Both exist and have outcomes in the game world only. •
Choice of story arc.
Does the
irony here is that, according to Kant, only players who chose the “obvious”
route of not killing children (even in a
of the “meta-moral” ramifications of
- Isaac B. Singer
have no choice.”
the player want fewer points now,
Even when we discover (thank you
the game a bit preachy, since
be gleaned by not killing the children,
saving the girls results in more total points in the game.
spoilers) that more points total may
we can load a saved game and reverse
our decision, thereby proving again
that our decisions were never based
But what if you consider the choice as
You know
that laziness or failure is not an option.
are child killing slaves.
murderer or hero?
or more points later? This makes
some level of prescience.
While the ignorance of a first play-
displaying free will. All the rest of us
“We must believe in free will, we
Choice of reward schedule. Does
mates to death. Upon a second play-
morality-free environment) seem to be
player wish to experience the
story from the standpoint of •
of flack for being once of those classic
on a moral duty, and we’re in it purely
through of the game absolves you some of these choices, playing the game repeatedly raises the “metamorality” bar.
The philosopher Kant would have us consider categorical vs hypothetical imperatives. Namely, that you cannot
judge the morality of an action based on its hypothetical effect.
For an
action to be moral, it must be made by duty without regard to its effects.
for the points.
In other words, when you replay the
surrounding the girls is also integrated
Mass Effect
happen based on the previous play-
chooses, a slave obeys.” repeats the
dichotomy to it.
a moral one?
The illusion of choice
into the game as a whole.
“A man
city’s founder, as you beat him to a pulp (probably after choosing to save the girls).
Philosopher Immanuel Kant concluded that the only objective basis for moral
value is the “rationality of the good
game (with a theory of what might
The Mass Effect series has a certain Effect,
there
In the first Mass
exist
similar
to the choice in BioShock.
choices
Many
situations require you to make (virtual) life or death choices for the in-game characters. being
One of the most notable
responsible
for
either
the
through) in an effort to better perform your duties as leader, your imperative is hypothetical.
Your moral duty is
usurped by your desire to achieve a better outcome.
You are not
exercising free will, you are being a slave to optimization.
salvation or genocide of an entire race.
“I wear the chain I forged in life....I
In other words, a person can
But Mass Effect 2 is somewhat different.
yard; I girded it on of my own free
out of duty (a law they have given
revolve around you as a leader. By
will, expressed in recognition of moral duty.”
only act in “free will” if they are acting themselves) and not in response to their situation.
According to Kant (and from a meta-
game standpoint), the player who
reacts directly to stimulus, by taking upgrade points, may be considered a slave.
All, or at least most, of your choices
acting as leader, you are responsible
for the situations you place others in.
it.”
- Charles Dickens Using
let you experience this element of
robs your actions of weight.
diligence and duty. Not many games leadership.
Part of your duty is to upgrade your
world (which has no intrinsic morality)
in an effort to ensure the maximum
could be exercising free will.
will, and of my own free will I wore
The bulk of your choices stem from
The player who applies his
own “real-world” morality to the game
made it link by link, and yard by
ship and gain the loyalty of the crew, safety of everyone.
Failing to to do
a
walk-through
or
having
knowledge of what will happen also although
they
could
be
So
perfectly
reasonable, and therefore perfectly moral, they are valueless.
The only
way you can really win, morally, is to
have played and won the first time through.
EFG
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concept story
CONCEPT STORY
RED DEAD REDEMPTION By Jerry Kline
John Marston is a man with a troubled past. John is an outlaw
sent to hunt other outlaws. He’s a prisoner of his past-and the U.S. government. As the United States settles into what we now
know as the modern era (1911 to be exact), the Wild West starts to become tamed. The man who used to be an outlaw is now a
S
pawn of the government.
et in 1911, the era of the Wild West is ending. The locomotive has connected the country, and even nations. Early automobiles have appeared, and while basic in nature, will soon outperform horses.
Weapons are getting more powerful in nature. Buffalos are nearing
extinction on the plains, but bears and cougars are still threats to settlers in the
West. John Marston starts out desperate to hunt down Dutch, his former comrade and partner in crime.
John first has to find out where Dutch is, which means attending to each of his fellow posse members first. These were John’s former allies, before he retired from crime to settle down and raise a family. One by one he must take each of
them out, before moving on to Dutch himself. Since neither of his ex-friends is going to co-operate, that leaves John no choice but to use violence as a means
to an end. He’ll end up fighting his way to them, riddling hundreds of people full of bullets in the process. Whether on the U.S. or Mexican side of the border, no one will be safe from Marston’s guns.
Each encounter gets John a little closer to his final encounter with
Dutch van der Lind. Tidbits of information are doled out as he encounters the former members of Dutch’s gang: Bill Williamson
and Javier Escuela. Of course, it isn’t as simple as John just tracking them down. In addition to other outlaws, John will also
find himself fending off wildlife such as cougars and bears, never mind being thrown into the middle of the Mexican revolution.
The circle of violence is inevitable for Marston. He guns down his
former allies like the bitter enemies they have become. A man unfamiliar with mercy, John receives no mercy in the end. He
32
EFG
John is an outlaw, a husband and father Year 1911, New Austin, West Elizabeth, and Nuevo Paraiso
concept story
Writers on Red Dead Redemption
Dan Houser
Michael Unsworth
Christian Cantamessa
Dutch lets himself fall from a cliff, giving John not the opportunity to shoot him
storms Dutch’s hideout with the U.S. Army, and confronts Dutch
one-on-one. Dutch is a man who is unable to confront change. He longs for the lawlessness of the Old West. Before his death he tells John “We can’t always fight nature, John. We can’t fight change,” and “When I’m gone, they’ll just find another monster. They have to, because they have to justify their wages.”
John survives his final encounter with Dutch, and returns home. There he reunites with his wife Abigail, his boy Jack, and even his lazy Uncle. He takes care of his family, grows close to his boy, herds his family’s cattle, and chats with Uncle.
For once John has the normalcy of life that he has always wanted since his story
began. It’s a poignant moment in the story as our hero finally gets what he wants. Inevitably, John’s past catches up to him. Much like Dutch had warned him, the U.S. Army is looking out for them only. John will
once again have to pick up his gun-but this time to save his family from the encroaching government.
The story picks up again in 1914. Jack Marston has seen both of his parents pass away. He’s a grown man now, not the scrawny kid we saw before. From the way
he is dressed Jack looks like he has followed in his father’s footsteps. He is more of a gunslinger than a scholar.
John wanted his son to lead a life different from his. Like every good parent, he wanted his child to have a better life than he did.
Yet here Jack is, the spitting image of his father-a gunslinger, and
soon to be murderer, all in the name of vengeance. Again, the
circle of violence and revenge will continue. Jack Marston is going to track down the man who killed his father and take revenge.
Jack pays a visit to Edgar Ross, the man responsible for John’s predicament in
the beginning, and ultimately his betrayer. When Jack confronts Ross, vengeance
consumes him. They square off, and Jack guns him down. Ross is left alone
and lifeless, a victim of the same vigilante violence that he encouraged John to enforce. Jack rides off alone, his future uncertain.
Ending with Jack
EFG
33
company profile
In May 2011, three friends decided to follow their passion and began an independent developer in Missoula, MT. Varied perspectives and ideals create the goals and passion behind ‘Open Mind Gaming’. To get a better view about this developer, EFG asked the founder some questions. Founders
Jackson: “Open Mind Gaming was founded May
is alluring; the prospects for success and the
Duncan Cox - our musician. Duncan and I have
a game development company because I like to
2011 by myself, Jackson Smith, with the help of always batted ideas off each other and discussed
elaborate concepts, games and plans. We have
varied perspectives, stances and ideals, yet we are often able to communicate our opinions to each
other in a constructive manner. He has been the ideal partner to venture into this endeavor with.” Developer
“Our goal is to reinvigorate the industry with adventurous and creative games. We want to go
against the grain of first-person shooters; develop games that are both unique and entertaining.
Open Mind Gaming will deliver games that have been personally crafted by three highly
passionate individuals. When we finish our games
we don’t release them unless we’re impressed by
the results. The capabilities of our team also have tremendous potential for growth over the next several years. Each of us thrives by constantly learning and adapting. We challenge ourselves
in creativity and strive to do better. There is a
push inside of me that makes me want to start my own company. I love programming but I can’t
keep myself out of the business side of things.
The challenge that being an entrepreneur entails
risks of failure rest on your shoulders. I founded program and I like to make games. I want to be able to create wonderful experiences for people and play a larger role in connecting them to it. I
felt like I had something to bring to the industry and knew it was my passion.” Future
“In ten years a lot will have probably changed.
Surviving the changes in our life over the next couple of years may become strenuous as we
prepare and graduate from high school and college. On the flip-side - the room for growth
and potential for us to become significantly more
skilled and successful is high. We don’t see any immediate reasoning to expand to an office or
hire new employees - our company is founded on the ideals of a small business. For our earlier
games we plan on releasing them through Steam and Indie City on PC. In the future, we aim to
achieve contracts with Microsoft to develop for XBLA - assuming their cooperation. Moving away
from digital-distribution markets is not currently
an interest. The important part is that there is a mutually beneficial relationship for everyone in the process - both employees and customers.”
www.openmindgaming.com 34
EFG
INTERVIEW
PATRICK LIU
interview
Back in April 2011, EFG got the chance to sit
down and talk with Patrick Liu, producer at Digital
Illusions CE, at the Festival of Games expo in Utrecht. Like many other people in the industry, he
too
started
out
somewhere
completely
different than games. In the meantime, he’s worked on titles such as The Darkness and the Battlefield: Bad Company games. Battlefield 3 was
still in its full development cycle and his answers reflect this.
Can you describe yourself in a few words?
So, from 2001 till November 2005, you’ve been working
I have a lot of respect for people in general. I try
been a biology teacher, but also a project leader for
Patrick: “I would say that I’m very open minded, to see the best in everyone. I’m very determined, I know what I want. I’m a nice guy.”
What does an average day look like for you?
Patrick: “There isn’t any average day, but I spend a lot of time in meetings, I spend a lot of time writing emails, or reading emails, but really my
job is to communicate. To talk with people, to
make them perform their best, to make them work together. To solve a lot of tricky problems, to make a lot of tricky decisions.
Everytime we make games there are complications and I make sure that problems are solved. Presentations I do a lot of, that as well.” What is your biggest passion?
Patrick: “Except for games, I would say food. I
as, and on, many different things. For example; you’ve
the Swedish Military Defense. How come you’ve been working on several totally different functions?
Patrick: “I think I’m probably that kind of person. Either I’ve found something else that I want to do, or I’ve actually been
headhunted a lot. I don’t know how, but people ask me. So
yeah, I’ve been in a couple of businesses and I think that’s a strength. There are a lot of people in the industry that are either very young and they haven’t had another job before, or they’re very old and they actually founded the company and haven’t done anything else either.
From my point of view it’s nice to have a perspective on the rest of the world, how it works, with companies and
organizations and stuff like that. I love games, this is the best job I’ve had so far. I won’t say I would stay in the
business forever, but right now I’m not seeing any ending anytime soon.”
like food, both my parents work with food. I grew
What was going on or what happened when you finally
to a nice restaurant with nice food. I like baking
Patrick: “I’ve always loved games, obviously, but it didn’t
up with food. I like to find new food, like going a lot, so I have my own sourdough culture. I
bake regularly, so I would say, making and eating food.”
Do you also have other hobbies?
Patrick: “Obviously I’m a geek, like everyone
else. I love comics. I love reading and I have a big collection of comic books. Sci-fi, fantasy, whatever. I have a large collection of comic books.
I also like music, I play music myself. Movies, tvseries, so I really love everything.” 36
EFG
thought, this is what I really want to do?
really strike as working with games, earlier. I’ve been
a freelance artist for a long time and I’ve been teaching
programming as well, on a university. I was active in the demo-scene for a while, so I’ve done a lot of stuff related to games. It still didn’t strike me as something I could do, was
qualified to do. But when I worked as a project manager, a
consultant, I just send an application to Starbreeze Studios. There wasn’t a specific post, I just said; “I’m a project
manager, maybe you have use of my skills,” basically that.
They were probably impressed, because soon they hired me.”
interview
“The day I stop learning new stuff, I quit the business” Let’s talk a bit about Starbreeze Studios. How
did you experience your journey at the studio? Patrick: “It was very chaotic, I learned a lot. I’m
workplace I’ve been in, in any other industry, the working environment is great. It’s the best place I’ve been so far.”
still in touch with those guys, we’re good friends
How did the process for working on Battlefield: Bad
as my mentor. He taught me a lot about the
Patrick: “It was also very chaotic. Back then, I think it was the
and I’m still seeing my old boss, who I still see industry, producing the Darkness and all that. I also started pre-production on the new Riddick
game before I went over to DICE. It was a very meaningful experience.”
Did you encounter many challenges while working at Starbreeze?
Patrick: “Oh yes! I don’t know if I had more
challenges than I have now at DICE, but every
Company go?
biggest production for DICE. Obviously it’s Battlefield 3 now,
but back then it was a lot bigger than their previous titles. Taking into account that we also developed the Frostbite
engine in parallel, the story, the destruction features, going
on complex next-gen consoles for the first time, those were a lot of challenges at the same time. I think we had some growing pains back then, but we learned a lot from it. The process is more smoother now, of course.”
project has it’s own challenges, new things to
What does DICE mean to you at this moment?
think I’m going to keep learning stuff. The day I
we are very competitive, with the games we have in the
learn. I don’t think that’s going to stop ever, I stop learning new stuff, I quit the business.”
What has been the biggest challenge until now within the game industry?
Patrick: “I don’t know, it’s hard. I’ve been more involved with the business side, obviously. So I have to keep in check how the business works, how
Patrick: “DICE is in a very good place right now, I feel
pipeline. We feel very safe in what we do, we have a strong leadership in the studio, but we’re still not at the top yet. I’d argue that we were at the top adhering
Battlefield 2, but since then have lost it, obviously. I like to be the underdog, I like to be in a fighting position, so we’re at a very good position I think.”
the stockmarket works, how consumers behave.
Do you have any goals which you still try to achieve?
over, but we need to handle somehow. Those
Patrick: “I don’t know.. I guess I want to create something
There are a lot of factors we don’t have control
are the kind of challenges I come across and probably the biggest ones.”
At this moment you’re the producer at DICE. How is this working out for you?
Patrick: “Very nicely, I like it there a lot. It’s a very well organised studio. Comparing it to any other
Or perhaps already achieved?
new, maybe start a new franchise. Just do something fresh.”
On your journey towards DICE and eventually at DICE,
what has been the major new thing you’ve learned? Patrick: “I’ve grown a lot as a person during the last six years
and I think the one most important thing is to trust my gut feeling. There are a lot of decisions being made everytime, EFG
37
interview
“That’s something I’ve learned, to trust your gut feeling” we have a lot of data that helps us in the decision making, but in the end it will always be your gut.
By experience I now know that my gut is right,
often. So that’s something I’ve learned, to trust your gut feeling.”
Do you have an idol or a source you get
inspiration from? You mentioned your mentor at Starbreeze, or are there other people? “There
Patrick:
are
a
lot
of
inspirational
people for me. What’s funny is that I work
with people at DICE that have been there since
the beginning. A few of the founders are still there and working with them is very humbling, because they’ve been in the industry for so long. I have a lot of respect for them and luckily they
have a lot of respect for me, as basically their
manager, as well. Just seeing them work is amazing.”
Do you play any video games? Which one is your favourite?
Patrick: “Ever? Oh, that’s hard. I need to bring
up two. One of them is Monkey Island and the other is The Legend of Zelda, A Link to the Past.”
Alright, we’re at our ‘mystery’ question now: if
you could choose, which video game character would you like to be? Why?
Patrick: “The first thing that comes to mind is
probably Gordon Freeman, because I’m usually
a quiet guy that likes to observe. He’s kind of
anonymous, in the design of the character, but he still
has a lot of personality in his actions.
I like that a lot.” Do you maybe have any advice or tips for our future readers?
Patrick: “It’s extremely cliché, but I would say:
Follow your heart, do what feels right. Combine
that with self-awareness, be aware of who you are and what you can do, and then follow your heart.”
38
EFG
who is?
who is?
Garrus Vakarian
Name: Garrus Vakarian
Homeworld: Palaven Gender: Male
Race: Turian
Eyecolor: Blue
Skin color: Sandstone grey/sand
Special: Alias name 'Archangel'
Occupation: Turian Agent/Rebel Specialities: Engineering
Combat style: Firearms
Primary weapon(s): Sniper – Assault rifles
Additional info: Garrus is an NPC, who is
recruited in Mass Effect by Commander Shepard.
Garrus sees the galaxy as ‘black and white’, there is no grey.
“Fighting a rogue Spectre with countless lives at
Garrus is a loyal, dedicated humanoid who would
say that beats C-Sec.”
sit around, reading books. Everything and all is
stake and no regulations to get in the way? I'd
Being a Turian brings characterized features of its
own to Garrus Vakarian. He cares about the crew
rather choose to be in action every day than being seen as either good or bad, innocent or guilty, black or white.
and never puts his own needs ahead of the group.
When Garrus is called to be in action he is ready
accountability, as they need to own every decision
ashamed for his badass attitude, while performing
Turians are taught to have a strong sense of personal they make, good or ill.
Turians are dedicated to their mission and are willing
to do what needs to be done. They will not easily
for it with his sniper rifle next to him. He isn’t headshot after headshot. Some cockiness goes along with his trigger-happy persona, but you will never lose his respect and trust.
surrender to a mission that shows failure.
Do you have a great character you’d like to share? Submit your character to EFG and maybe your character will be featured next time! contact@efgmagazine.com EFG
39
Eye For Games
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- Rai, Lead Director at Eye For Games
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