TIPS FROM REAL GAME DEVELOPERS FOR YOUR ADVERTISEMENTS
LEARN WHAT IT TAKES TO MAKE A GOOD STORYLINE FOR YOUR GAME
INTERVIEW WITH FRANK AZOR OF ALIENWARE COMPUTERS
MUST-HAVE TIPS FOR FUTURE INDIE GAME DEVELOPERS
EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW WITH YACHT CLUB GAMES
Contributer’s Page Eric Eric started his graphic design career at the start of his ninth grade year. Prior to this, he had never done any graphic design or journalism. His main interests were in music. He started band in sixth grade playing alto sax at Covington Middle School and Fine Arts Academy. He then moved to Bari Sax in seventh grade. His eighth grade year, he auditioned for the TMEA Region Band and got first Chair in the concert band. He now plays in the LBJ Stage Band and Concert Band. While he spends a lot of his time in band, Eric also loves working with computers in his freetime. He started building his own computer towards the end of 2014 and worked through the summer at Zilker Theater Productions’ showing of Hairspray as a member of the sound crew to pay for it. He finished building his computer in September of 2015.
Jacob
Jacob is a man about playing video games and collecting items. He makes the best sandwiches, and likes to take a good look at you, just to make you uncomfortable. Jacob loves game design almost as much as he loves playing video games, he’s spent time since he was just 8 years old designing game worlds and characters. A lot has changed since then, and he hopes to one day become a game designer, today his programming experience is rapidly growing and hopes to get his first game out soon. He was never really interested in making a magazine, but he’s always liked graphic design, especially since one of his favorite pass-times in the 8th grade was using Blender to make 3D characters and objects. Jacob will challenge you in any Pokemon battle, and considers it his job.
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Brendan Brendan started graphic design in sixth grade, dabbling in Photoshop and animation. Interested in science, he started doing Science Olympiad in eighth grade, winning a first and second place medal in two events at a state competition. He got into PC gaming when he started playing Bloons Tower Defense 1. Not exactly PC gaming, but Brendan got there regardless. He is currently playing Dota 2 and CounterStrike: Global Offensive (though these are subject to change). When he was “asked” to make a magazine, he responded with: “OK, I guess.”
Dani
Dani is a girl that likes video games, art, and various TV shows such as Supernatural. Her special skills include being a pro Netflix marathoner and a chronic procrastinator. Dani currently is enrolled in an art class and enjoys drawing, both digitally and traditionally. She has a DeviantArt and Google+ page where she uploads and shares various art she makes or finds. She has a pet cat named Chi-Chi that she loves very much. She prefers turn-based RPG games such as Pokémon. As an avid player of these games, she has finished ten different Pokémon games.
Gustavo
Photos by Dani Levy
Gustavo was never really interested in graphic design, but he really got into it once he was introduced into it. Coming from Gorzycki Middle School he never really cared much for stuff like graphic design. Gustavo was always interested in technology. He always loved to learn about cool advances in technology and loved to write about it. This is how Gustavo got into graphic design. He figured that by learning graphic design he would be able to share his knowledge in nicer and more effective ways. Of course he was not used to this new form of thinking and struggled at the beginning, but slowly got into it. Fall 2015 | 3
Letter From the Editor Video games are a large part of my life. While I may not know the ins and outs of the internals of video games, I know well enough what can make a game good. Through the progression of this magazine, I’ve learned much more about what kind of sacrifices people make for their work. Many people make video games, but rarely make it far. But what I love most about the video game industry, is that people always believe they will be the next big thing. This means a constant stream of creative new ideas into the gaming world. That’s where the real good stuff comes from. I think we can all stand to learn from the gaming industry. They make great, big things with very little, and sacrifice so much of their own belongings to do it. They’re the real definition of the phrase, “You can do anything, if you put your mind to it.” The creators of this magazine truly follow this phrase. They’ve gotten to speak to some amazing people. I cannot thank them enough for their hardwork and dedication to this magazine. We’ve worked very hard on this magazine and we greatly hope this helps any aspiring game developers. Best of luck to all of you!
-Eric Bowen, Head Editor of Select Start
“The reward of a thing well done is having done it.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
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Photo by Dani Levy
Table of Contents p. 2-3 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contributors p. 4 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Letter to The Editor p. 5 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Table of Contents p. 6-11 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . From Kickstarter to Nintendo p. 12-13 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What’s Inside My Desktop PC Tower? p. 14-17 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Design Designation p. 18-19 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Who The Heck is That? p. 20-23 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Writing The Story p. 24-25 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Zelda Stories Through The Ages p. 26-29 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Magic Behind Ads p. 30-31 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Top Ten Best-Selling Video Games p. 32-37 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Inside Alienware p. 38 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . What’s Inside My Laptop p. 39 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The History of Laptops
Fall 2015 | 5
Artwork by Erin Pellon
From Kickstarter to Nintendo - The Story of Shovel Knight By Eric Bowen When video games were first invented, they were a multi-million dollar investment done only by rich game companies. The hardware required to make such a game cost so much, it seemed like video game development was as expensive as rocket science, and just as difficult. But as time progressed, video game development became easier, and the term “Indie Developer” was born. Thousands of indie games are published per year, most not even making it past Steam Greenlight. But one game has rose above the ranks and now even has their own Nintendo Amiibo. In this exclusive interview with Sean Velasco, founder of Yacht Club Games and creator of Shovel Knight, you get to hear how one company has risen to the top in a scoreboard of millions. “I’m happy with how the game has turned out, and the warm reception it’s received.” CEO of Yacht Club Games Sean Velasco said. Yacht Club Games was founded in 2013 by Sean Velasco, with a team of developers, himself included. Yacht Club Games developers are actually a team of former employees of WayForward Technologies, an independent video game developing company founded in 1990. Despite their previous experience, the young game company and its employees had some troubles in the beginning. “Our Kickstarter campaign earned us about $315,000, before taxes and fees,
which funded the entire team, kickstarter rewards, etc.” Velasco said. They started their Kickstarter campaign for Shovel Knight shortly after. The kickstarter went from March 14th to April 13th, 2013. In that time they raised $311,503 USD for their project; more than four times their original $75,000 goal. The company also ran a PayPal donation system for a while that raised them another $17,000, making their total budget around $329,000. While this seems like plenty of money for a company make a game, it in reality is not even enough for a year of development. In his own article published on the Yacht Club Games website, Velasco broke down the budgeting for a game company. “These days, most studios will put the average cost of a developer on a game at around a $10k man month… Essentially, each developer will cost the company 10,000 dollars a month or 120,000 dollars a year.” Velasco said. $120,000 dollars a year per employee in a company with six employees, makes the total $720,000 a year for six employees. Now, as Velasco explains, that doesn’t mean each employee gets paid 10k a month. In reality, that is the cost the company has to spend on their salary, rent for the office space, employee benefits, etc. Their original game plan had them working on the game for two years, meaning their total expenses were $1,440,000. They had Fall 2015 | 7
$329,000. This, obviously, was not going the financial troubles and finally published to work. So, they changed their budgeting. the game. It was met with huge success “First, we took Jake Kaufman’s salary out of and became one of the most popular indie the equation.” Velasco said. games on the market. The game amassed Jake Kaufman was hired to be the over a million dollars on its first week of game’s musical composer, and was will- release alone. That number was more than ing to have his payment on hold until the doubled over the rest of the month. It’s safe game released. This reduced the budget to say, the company definitely has no finanfrom $1,440,000, to 1,200,000. Better, but cial troubles now. So with the young comnot enough. Their next step was to remove pany now able to start development, what all the stretch goal developments until after was the next step? the game releases. They would make the “The first part of development was original game, and then release the extra brainstorming and pre-production, where content later as free updates. This removed we built our basic game engine tech and a year of development, splitting their bud- figured out what we wanted to be in the get in half. The cost is now down to $600,000, game, how big the scope was, and what we still almost twice what they needed to do to make it all had. happen.” Velasco said. “Unfortunately, we’ve The engine of a game is now run out of options – the like the foundation to a manonly thing left to do is cut sion. You need a plain, solid, the amount allocated for reliable block to put all the each person by half. So now fancy stuff onto. It needs to we’re running on $5k man support the fancy things and months – which is extremenot break under the stress. ly low. At first, that sounds This stage is commonly relike $60k per year, but with ferred to as an “Alpha”. It the company costs, taxes, has the absolute basic idea Yacht Club Games Logo etc, in reality, it’s more like and physics of the game, but $30k for each of us over the course of the it’s not done by a long shot. Next comes the year… and that’s before any taxes.” Velasco “Beta” stage. This stage is where you basisaid. cally have the game, but you’re still ironing So each man was getting paid 30k out bugs and adding more content. A lot for the whole year’s of work, and they were of companies, however, release the game all relying on the release being successful. as an “open-beta” during this stage. That With their budgeting, they could now afford means that people can buy and play the to make the game, but with some personal game in its beta, which often helps develsacrifices. opers a lot. The most prominent example of “We budgeted for about a year of de- a game with a good beta is “Minecraft” by velopment time, but we went for 16 months Mojang. Shovel Knight also had a beta. instead, and we ran out of money. No one “We sent a Steam beta to about 200 got paid for about 3 months and we had to close friends, developers, and family. They empty our savings and max out our credit gave us a ton of valuable feedback and bug cards.” Velasco said. information before launch… We gave out The young company pushed through our PAX demo to a few YouTubers during
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our Kickstarter, notably the Game Grumps and the Super Best Friends.” Velasco said. The beta had multiple benefits to the young game company. Some YouTubers did speedruns of the game and found a lot of broken parts to it, allowing the company to fix these bugs before its release. More importantly, interest in the game increased greatly after various YouTubers aired the game on their channels. This created a fanbase for the game before it even released! Marketing and beta-testing all in one, who could turn that down? As Ray Swanick, an avid gamer and player of Shovel Knight, will tell you, this definitely peaked his interest in the game. “The Kickstarter is how I technically did find out about it (Shovel Knight), it’s how I found out about the concept, but the way I actually found out it came out, because I wasn’t paying attention to it, was through ProJared.” Swanick said. Ray Swanick was just browsing Kickstarter one day, when he saw a campaign for an NES-Style video game. This caught his interest, so he decided to check it out. He seemed enthralled by it, but as he’ll tell you, he didn’t quite trust the campaign. “It seemed really interesting, I just don’t get my hopes up with stuff like that because there’s so many stories of peo-
ple just taking money and running away.” Swanick said. This brings up one of the many problems with using Kickstarter as your method of raising money. People don’t trust Kickstarter. There are stories all over the place of people taking the money pledged, and using it for personal use. In 2012, Erik Chevalier used Kickstarter to fund his new project. The project was a board game called The Doom That Came to Atlantic City. The game’s campaign succeeded and ended up making him over $122,000. He then cancelled the project 14 months later under the reasoning of “Inexperience in board game publishing” as well as legal issues. He promised to refund all the money he got from Kickstarter, but most did not actually receive it. Chevalier, as it turns out, spent the money on his rent, moving to Oregon, and personal items that were completely unrelated to his project. This act greatly reduced the public’s trust of Kickstarters and is probably one of the main reasons that Yacht Club Games didn’t get additional funds. Thankfully, Shovel Knight wasn’t a facade for someone’s personal gain. One of the final stages of development is Quality Assurance and bug testing. We’ve all heard of the games where they pushed for a release date and release a
A Shovel Knight banner ad. All graphics courtesy of Shovel Knight press kit Fall 2015 | 9
game too early, causing it to be too broken to play. This isn’t always the QA team’s fault, as one Tester of Sonic Boom: Rise of Lyric told the GameGrumps. “Just because we find the bugs, doesn’t mean they’ll get fixed… Crash or progression-halting bugs are the priority, not cosmetic ones,” the tester said. This QA tester emailed the Game Grumps after their finale of their series of Sonic Boom. In the finale, they watch the credits and they make fun of the QA testers. The unnamed QA tester tells us that they found most, if not all, of the bugs people talk about online. The development team just decided that they weren’t important enough. QA and bug testers are vital and what they have to say is important. Thankfully, Sean Velasco agrees with that. “YouTubers and speed runners have been amazingly helpful in reporting gameplay bugs and giving feedback. However, the most important part of a bug-free game is making sure you have professional QA testing- there’s no substitute!” Velasco said. So as we’ve seen, making a game, while significantly cheaper than in the 80’s, is still very expensive and requires a lot of work. You need to plan for what you have, not what you aspire for and make sure you listen to others’ feedback. Make sure you keep this in mind whenever you make your game, because as we’ve seen, it makes a difference. “I’m happy with how the game has turned out, and the warm reception it’s received.” Velasco said.
A Few In-Game Sprites Courtesy of Shovel Knight press kit
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Shovel Knight’s title screen, showing off it’s NES style-graphics - Courtesy of Shovel Knight press kit
Shovel Knight defeating an enemy of in one of the levels from Shovel Knight. - Courtesy of Shovel Knight press kit
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What’s inside my Desktop PC Tower? Your desktop computer tower will have many different things, if built properly. Likewise to a laptop, you need to have the basics. With a desktop, however, you can usually fit some extra things inside. Such as another, more powerful graphics card, more hard drive storage, and even more optical drives. You can find videos and article all over the internet of insanely powerful desktops that costs tens of thousands of dollars. This, however, is just sticking to the basics. 1) Motherboard (Mobo) The motherboard is one of the most important items in your PC, next to the power supply, hard drive, CPU, and RAM. The motherboard has onboard graphics, meaning that a graphics card, while pretty much required to play anything more than flash games, is optional. More importantly,the motherboard is what connects everything together, and is one of the reasons why your computer can work. 2) Power Supply (PSU) The power supply is often overlooked as an unimportant part of your PC. Most people don’t give much thought on their power supply when they buy it. The power supply, however, is very important. It is essential you get a good, reliable power supply with little chance of breaking. If your PSU overloads, it will fry your system, destroying every component inside. Your power supply is more than just the thing that powers your system, it can can cost you a new PC.
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3) Central Processing Unit (CPU) Your CPU is another direly important part of your system. The CPU is, as the name suggests, what processes everything you command it to do. It can have more cores, too. In the example of a Quad-Core CPU, that means that it can have 4 different units processing different things, or it can split the work among them. 4) Graphics Processing Unit (GPU/ Graphics Card) The GPU is technically optional, if you just want to browse the web, but essential for Gaming. Gaming requires a lot of graphical power, that’s what allows you to see the game. They’re also good for editing videos and photos. The graphics card will help greatly in rendering your work, if your program allows it to. 5) Hard Drive (HDD) This one is pretty simple, but required. Whether internal or external, hard drives are essential to make your computer work. It is what stores your files, and more importantly, your operating system (OS). 6) Random Access Memory (RAM) RAM is a temporary storage location for whenever you perform small tasks. For example, whenever you copy and paste something, that file is saved onto the RAM, and then deleted whenever you copy something else.
By Eric Bowen
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1TB SATA Drive
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750W POWER SUPPLY Graphic by: Eric Bowen
What’s inside a Laptop? See page 38 to find out. Fall 2015 | 13
The Design Designation By Jacob Chlebowski “Turning the basic emotion of what you want to express into a reality is the process of making all things really.� Growing game designer James Whitcomb explains. Does the artist show his methods? Will they tell you, until you fully understand, what goes through their mind, what process and route they take, to make their masterpiece? Video Games are one of the many forms of art, it is an expression of feelings, and emotions, sometimes more powerful than any painting. An image can show you the feelings in the colors, and the brush strokes, but a game can show you feelings in the shades, the colors, the movement, the strokes, the environment, and the ability given that allows you to explore that very world. From drawing board to home console, every game begins with pencil, paper, and the mind of a designer. Game Designs are the choices of mechanical gameplay, choices of creation, and how they change and affect the game afterwards. We all view these designs, even if we don’t intend to. Everything you and I see in our gaming experiences is a reflection of the choices made in one of the very first stages of game development, the design stage. These designing aspects can have a lot of basis and idea-spawn behind them. Game designers show both you and I the sense of being amazed at what we see, through the process of a good design. Designing a character, world, mechanic, or concept in a videogame is a
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process done since the very beginning of the art. Every game ever made has some concept design behind it, whether it be the basic gameplay, the story, the charac
Boys of Silence Concept Art, Couresty of Irrational Games, specified details are shown, this process is commonly used.
EarthBound Concept Art, Illustrated by Shigesato Itoi, some concepts are even hand-drawn.
ters, the environments, or the visual style. This idea is something that is so large to tackle, a “Game Designer” is a title given to someone who fits that description, yet in truth it is one of the most honorary, important, and hard worked for titles. Designing concepts can take not only hours, but days, weeks, months, even years! These ideas can also change over the course of any of these timeframes, “Sometimes it can take years to fully perfect something like that, or you come up with something good and stick with it.” as Whitcomb said,“If it sounds stupid, it’s out.” “Many characters and environments are still in design phases and are changing to this moment. My first idea for a character was made when I was seven
Halo Official Art, By Microsoft, your final concepts are going to be much higher quality than your original. Agnes Oblige Official Art, Courtesy of Square Enix, it may even take in entire team to develop your ideas.
Metroid 3DS Cancelled Art, Courtesy-Next Level, sometimes the ideas you have, won’t become a reality.
“No one can make perfection. There was always something you could do to make your ideas better, but once it ships, you have to accept the fact that it’s deemed ‘finished’.” (James Whitcomb) Fall 2015 | 15
years old and his concepts still aren’t Ideas sprout from a varifinalized.” Designer Ethan Brown said. ety of different emotions and ideas Some ideas are tweaked constantly, we experience in our daily lives. and one can strive for that perfect character, that perfect idea that will one day become the reality you see your head. Some people believe that gaming’s charm of inspiration has however been dying down. Times change for the worse, sometimes, as the market is more afraid to accept a new idea, the anticipation for the new black and gray outweighs what can be accomplished through our inspiration. All game concepts come from the mind of brilKoopalings Concept Art, Illustrated by liant designers, and their inspiration given Shigeru Miyamoto maybe it will be first try. anything from a memory to an exhibition.
Midna Concept Art, Courtesy of Nintendo. If at first you don’t succeed, try try again.
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“Places [are] inspired by certain landmarks and areas are planned to be present… I was inspired by the colorful environments of many Nintendo games such as Banjo Kazooie, though I also observe real life places to better these designs.” Ethan Brown said. The surrealism in the video games we keep dearest to heart are inspired from other ideas. Sometimes this inspiration can be from the outdoors we explore, finding caves, and being chased out by hellian pig-beasts. Sometimes they can be tasks or ideas thought up as ‘wouldn’t that be interesting to see in a game?’ Other times they can even be inspired by the works of other artists, like your favorite show inspiring you to create the robot who was made to fight evil, yet he is more than just a robot. The direct inspiration from a game can never be directly traced, as most times it is a collection of ideas. Gamers today even pick up on these ideas, by drawing parallels, or outright understanding a reference. These don’t just come from an image, but a childlike wonder, or an adult-like emotion. Matthew Caplovitz, a local game de-
signer, stresses his feelings that some games don’t have that inspiration, and this has been killing the heart of gaming. “As more imaginative and fun works are pushed aside or rarely seen in favor of the new shooter, I see colors starting to seep away and less characters have actual character. I want to remind people that wacky and childlike games can still be a ton of fun.” Brown says. He strives to see the day where he can show us, the gaming community, that we don’t have to fear the once wondrous ideas of the past, but those ideas are still with us. A videogame is like a tiny universe. Hearts and hours are poured into crafting well-defined elements we see in our favorite games, it takes hard work, dedication, brains, and sense to understand what our games need to be as good as they are. While this universe has it’s Link to The Pasts, it also has it’s Sonic 06s. Either way, the tiny universe revolves around 3 things: Pencil, paper, and the mind of a designer.
Pokemon R/B Concept Art, Illustration by Satoshi Tajiri, if opportunity doesn’t knock, build a door.
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Who the Heck is That? By Jacob Chlebowski Design is important, but sometimes your designs may change over time to become completely different characters! Try to guess who the characters on this page are, and see if you’re right on the next page. 2
1
- Easy -
Who is this pointed wolf? He appears to be have obtained tattoos along with a large mane.
What is that? It’s a... thunder... cloud... tiger...? This one’s got me stuck in the rain. 4
3
-- Medium --
Is this guy a technician? Either way he’s got a cool set of body armor! He needs a shave though.
--- Hard --5
Who’s this lady? She’s got red flowing locks, a body tight suit, and two pistols for kicking serious butt.
Who is this burly warrior? He appears to be a battle-ready pure-bread tribal warrior! He will not fail his people.
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Did you get them right? 6
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- Easy -
It’s Wolf Link! Over time Link gained a more prominent pelt, a chain, some piercings, and lost his tattoos.
What a twist! Our stormy tiger split into two separate Pokemon! Raikou and Suicune. You can tell by looking. 9
8
-- Medium --
Gordon Freeman got an upgrade, his armor is far more kick ass, but his eyes wore out. He lost some weight and gained a handsome shave.
--- Hard --10
Bayonetta! Being stylish, she gave up her red locks for black hair, and her skin tight suit for a suit of... more hair...
Could you recognize him? Kratos the God of War was once a tribal warrior. One day he lost his robes, shaved his head, and decided to murder everyone.
Sources: 1-6 Hyrule Historia - Nintendo 2-7 Ken Sugimore - Pokemon 3-8 Half Life - Valve 4-9 Eyes of Bayonetta - Platinum Games 5 Art of God of War III - SCE 10 Soul Calibur - Bandai Namco
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Writing the Story By Dani Levy You have been waiting for this since midnight, you slept on the pavement, you have been anticipating this game for ages. Finally, you reach the front of the line and get your hands on the newest game in your favorite series. You simply cannot wait to unbox it for the first time and place the disk into the console. As you play through the first minute, you come to a sudden, terrible realization; this game is just like the others! Slumping down into your chair, a wave of sadness washes over you. This game, the one you have been anticipating for months, the one you couldn’t wait to play, is one doomed to a future as a dust collector on your shelf. Many gamers find that as a game franchise progresses, many ideas tend to become overused and almost no new things are added. One of these extremely problematic aspects is the storyline. Game developers often tend to lean towards using whatever worked in their last game to make this one just as successful. More often than not, this method backfires, leaving a highly anticipated game in the dust to be forgotten. What follows will be the steps game developers should be taking to make their games both interesting and original. Christine Nguyen, a budding game developer, has created the perfect balance of storyline, appealing graphics, and gameplay, in her newest game, Cheesequest. In this retro-styled RPG, you are a cat, destined with the task of taking back your
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homeland from the evil mice. Even though it seems like just another boring RPG, the story is what makes this game stand out among others. “A good storyline is important because it sets up practically the entire videogame. It can affect all aspects of your game, from graphics to gameplay to distribution. Not having a storyline in a videogame is like not having a storyline in a movie, it just won’t work,” Nguyen said. And with statistics like ‘four of the ten most anticipated games of 2014 didn’t live up to the expectations set forth by trailers and previous games in the franchises,’ your game’s story has to be up to snuff at the time of release.
Game designer Christine Nguyen Photo by Christine Nguyen
Nguyen believes that the things in as more recent games are emerging, the videogame storytelling that haven’t been gamer is becoming more enveloped in the told before just don’t fit in with what gam- story, walking in their character’s footsteps ers are expecting of a game these days. It rather than just watching as the game plays seems that the only way to correct this on- itself. Nguyen says that the best way to going trend is to build on themes and story bring the gamer into the world of the game that the demographic wants to experience. is to develop plot while still leaving space “Start with a character introduction to carve out your unique gameplay experithen continue with the plot. The most im- ence. portant thing to keep in mind is your audi- “If you have a game with a really nice ence. If you are making a story for older au- and deep storyline, but it has no subplots diences, your characters might need more or proper development, people won’t be as of a backstory and can include themes that immersed into the story and might not unwouldn’t be suitable for younger audiences. derstand all its aspects,” Nguyen said. A game for younger peo When writing a ple, on the contrary, might “A good storyline is storyline, one must keep in need the overall depth to important because it mind that everything has to be toned down a bit, defit together properly. That is sets up practically the pending on how much that why the best games always specific age can compreentire videogame.” have intricate and amazhend,” Nguyen said. ingly detailed storyboards This is the format she uses to create all created behind the scenes. A storyboard her games; she goes step-by-step until a is akin to stage directions in a play. It deperfect final product is reached. Howev- scribes what happens, when it happens, er, Nguyen’s tactic isn’t the only one that and why it happens. It heavily consists of works. A great storyline can start howev- concept sketches and designs, with diaer you want it to, as long as it hooks in the logue when required. “Whenever I create a gamer; similarly to how the lead in a story storyboard, I always begin by outlining the is meant to grab the reader’s attention. major plot points, then I move into drawing The best stories in videogames allow and writing subplot. On the side, I always the player to interact with the story as much make sure to keep track of every aspect, so as the story is told to them. If a gamer can’t no plot holes fall through or questions are make their own decisions and decide how left unanswered,” Nguyen said. the game will go, they can often become After creating a flowing story and dedisconnected from the story and disinter- tailed storyboard, you move on to graphics. ested in playing the game at all. However, How do you make graphics and story fit to-
The Program Nguyen Is Using To Create Cheesequest | Photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons Fall 2015 | 21
gether? How can I make sure the graphics are advanced compared to earlier games? Although the task seems daunting, the answer is very simple. “Whatever tone you primarily used in your story can be written into the graphics as well. For example if you want a game to be dark, you can put small details into all the graphics that foreshadow things to happen,” Nguyen said. As technological capabilities increase, game developers are finding more and more ways to incorporate themes; music, graphics, even the controls are all ways games are becoming more immersive and concept-heavy. Local gamers Cole McCrary and Anna Pedersen, have pretty clear views of what gamers are look-
ing for in a game these days. McCrary explained why he feels Mario games were successful.“The Mario games were hugely successful because in the era when it was produced, there was no burning desire for a complicated storyline.” But times have changed. Gamers no longer just want a ‘save the princess’ type storyline. “The story helps make the player feel a part of the world. Without a good story, the gameplay falls apart and you get a divide between the player and the game; they become alienated,” Anna Pedersen said. “I think that the series Life Is Strange has a very ‘choose your own adventure’ type story where the player always has the choice to rewind time and redo their decisions.”
Kootra and Kichi, the stars of Nguyen’s game, Cheesequest| Ilustration by Christine Nguyen
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Still disappointed by the letdown of the century, you trudge back to the game store to return your game. As you glance through the store window, something catches your eye; a stack of games, untouched by the horde of people that rushed through here earlier to get their hands on the new game. “It can’t be worse than the game I bought earlier,” you think to yourself. You walk in and ask the man at the counter if you can exchange your game for the ones in the stack. He nods, “Good choice bro, I loved
“The story helps make the player feel a part of the world. Without a good story, the gameplay falls apart and you get a divide between the player and the game; they become alienated.” -Anna Pedersen the story in that game. It’s exactly what I love in games!” Once you get home you place another new, shiny disk into the console. You play it for hours on end, not realizing the passage of time; before you know it, it’s midnight! You were just so immersed in the gameplay and story that you had no idea that it was so late. As you go to bed you think about all the failed games you have played. Thank goodness you found this one. The stages a video game character can go through during productution | Ilustration by Dani Levy Fall 2015 | 23
Zelda Stories Through the Ages
By Dani Levy One of the most loved game series of all time, The Legend of Zelda. Innovative gameplay, highquality sound tracks, and a number of iterations that are sure to please gamers of all types. When it was first released, it was the only game of its kind, a brand new way to play. One of the aspects that clearly shows its progression through time is its story. If you compare the story of the first game to that of the more recent ones, you wouldn’t recognize them as the same game. But how exactly have they changed over time?
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1980 - 1989 The first two Zelda games had little to no storyline, with the only main goal being to complete the quest you were given.
1990 - 2000 In these games, you were given a more discernible goal, to save the princess, Zelda, amongst other things.
2001 - 2009 The following years began to build more complex stories, with many goals and new characters.
2010 - 2015 All photos courtesy of Nintendo and the Zelda Team
Building on the trends in the early 2000’s, these games were well crafted and original. Even the remakes that were released shed a new light on the entire game franchise.
Fall 2015 | 25
The Magic Behind Ads By Gustavo Moreno Can advertisements really change things you want to see in a trailer. Gameplay how you think of a game? What makes a shows you what the game might actually be great game trailer, and will encourage like and how it really plays.” Jack Ingram people to want to learn more about your said. game? How can a two to three minute video All of these are aspects of a marketing completely change how you feel about a campaign that make the game successful certain game? Is that and something to want. even possible? Can a “Ads, trailers , and stuff But an ad is trailer really change not just getting a like that are necessary how you feel about a sample of gameplay, game? for a good gaming expe- an advertisement is a “Ads are a part of detailed and carefully rience.They add to the the gaming experience, thought out procedure. hype and experience.” they are the things that An ad has to find its target create the hype before audience. It has to choose By Seth Leifheit a game comes out. They what to include in a two are the things that get minute video to make it as friends to talk about the trailer and about interesting as possible. the game overall.” said Jack Ingram, a very How does an ad work? Advertisements intense and frequent gamer. are one of the most important aspects of a With the thousands of games that are out video game. The first thing an ad does is there and the millions of advertisements capture your audience’s attention. Humor is and trailers, what are the things in a trailer important in advertising. that really do create a sense of wanting the “My favorite type of ads are actually game? Trailers and ads can change not the funny ones. When I am on youtube and only show exactly what you think about the an ad that is funny or weird, well,those are game, but can go from you not knowing usually the ones that I watch all the way about the game to feeling like you need to through. The other ones, like for insurance, have it. Of course there are other sides to I just skip those.” said gamer Seth Leifheit. an advertisement. This just goes to show that ads have to relate “Once Fallout 4 was confirmed to the buyer. Trailers are usually not alone though. they did a presentation at E3, which is a technology/video game conference. For A great example of a marketing campaign me, this was the cherry on top. They talked was Fallout 4. “The game was announced about an app for iphone that they made, a long time ago, I don’t really know when, and then they showed some gameplay. but the way they announced it was just Gameplay is one of the most important amazing. So one day, out of nowhere, the
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reputations.” added Ingram. When making an ad, or just working on marketing in general, you have to be very careful with what you are going to show the public. When game companies release a trailer, you can see hundreds of YouTube videos that then lead to more views. These YouTube videos are usually people talking about the trailer and then dissecting the trailer. Once an advertisement has your
attention, the ad will try to convince you about how the game is something awesome that you want. Of course, when creating an ad you have to be very careful not to undersell the game because it can hurt overall sales, but at the same time you do not want to oversell your game during the trailer because if your game does not live up to everyone’s expectations, then the game will stop selling after a week. Then you lose your customers’ trust. The thing is, is that the next time you release a game, your reputation may ruin the release. A very good example of this is the way Watchdogs worked. During the trailer
stage of the game, Watch Dogs looked like THE next gen game. The graphics were awesome and the story and gameplay looked like something completely new and fresh. Apparently, the game would change the world of gaming from then on out. Of course, they made a huge mistake. They oversold the game in pre-sell by a long shot. Once the game came out, the sales took a nose dive after people realized what it was in reality. Avid gamer, Seth Leifheit commented about the story behind Watchdogs and the issue with their game release. “Watchdogs. Okay, let me start from the beginning to
Photo By Gustavo Moreno
Bethesda twitter page (The company that made Fallout) posted a picture that was a loading screen from Fallout 3. The loading screen said,‘Please Stand By’. One day later there was a link to Fallout 4.” Jack Ingram said. “Fallout 4 was a great example for practically anything. Of course since it is Bethesda, and they are a company with a pristine reputation,so then the fans are really expecting them to live up to their
Fall 2015 | 27
explain this to you. The game was going to be like GTA5, a very good game, but it ended up being unsuccessful. In the trailers, it looked like an amazing game and it was supposed to be a game that would define the next gen series. The game was supposed to be one of the best ever. It wasn’t. You see, it sold well when it was released, but after like two days the sales just sort of stopped, because of the quality.” Seth Leifheit said. Usually, video games end up living up to their expectations, but every once in awhile a game will end up letting people down. This can completely drop sales, and ruin everything about its future reputation. A trailer should have some of the most
1
important things that are in the game, such as storyline, hints, and some action gameplay. A trailer sets up the plot with a rising action, a climax, and a conclusion. By adding all of the aspects of a game, you add structure to your trailer and give it a more enjoyable viewing experience. One of the biggest things about trailers is the fact that you must put time and effort into the trailer. Trailers are a big and important part of a game. An ad can create hype, ruin a game, or even just do nothing. Of course the goal of the ad is to create hype at just the right level. Too little and the game will not sell. This is why video game ads are worth the time and effort.
Tips For Entertaining Your Audience
Gameplay from Fallout 4
Screenshot Captured by IGN Entertainment
Capture high quality gameplay footage. Set aside at least a full day to capture your footage. It takes a long time to capture good gameplay “moments”. Use High quality software and capture with as little video compression as possible.
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2
Create a story with your trailer. Give it a beginning, middle and end. Try to treat your trailer like a very short film. Give your trailer structure, and build to some sort of payoff or resolution at the end. Low View of a Keyboard Photo By Gustavo Moreno
3
Tease the viewer so that what they’ve seen is only a glimpse of what’s to come. Don’t overwhelm the viewer with information, and don’t give too much away. Keep your trailer short (under 90 seconds). Remember to keep it simple and to the point.
Call of Duty: Black Ops 2 by Treyarch Studios Image from IGN Entertainment
4
Engage and entertain your audience. Don’t think of your trailer as an ad because you’ll focus on too many things. Make something entertaining, and focus on one core aspect of your game. Resist the urge to show off every aspect of the game. Ensure the quality level and tone of your trailer matches that of your game Tales of Zestiria by Bandai Namco Studios - Released Screenshot
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The Top 10 Best Selling Video Games By Gustavo Moreno By Gustavo Moreno
Game success can be measured in a lot of different ways. Here we are going to measure them by how much money they have made.
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10 Billion
1.5 Billion 1.4 Billion
Money Made (Dollars)
1.35 Billion 1.25 Billion 1.2 Billion
850 Million 780 Million 740 Million
700 Million
World of Warcraft
Call of Duy: Black Ops
Mario Kart
Grand Theft Auto 4
Wii Play
New Super Mario Bros
Gran Turismo 3
Modern Warfare 2
The Sims 3
Call of Duty Modern Warfare
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http://www.businessinsider.com/here-are-the-top-10-highest-grossing-video-games-of-all-time-2012-6
TREAT YOURSELF THIS HOLIDAY SEASON ALIENWARE STEAM MACHINE
STARTING AT $499
Inside-Alienware By Brendan Lim Nelson Gonzalez and Alex Agubersome, they were heavy, arguably a little ila in 1996 were not satisfied with their flimsy, and they had horrible battery life of computers-or anyone’s computers. They only about 1 hour.” wanted machines that could play anything So Alienware is known for their lapand could edit videos. So they spent their tops and their pre-built desktops, but why entire life savings of $13,000 creating a did they decide to make a console, and company that combines the current best of furthermore, a Steam Machine? After all, the best hardware to get the most powerful the PS4, Xbox One, and Wii U had already machine possible. They figured that other released a few years ago and established gamers were just as dissatisfied with their their player bases. PCs’ incapabilities. “About 4-5 years ago we developed Nearly 20 years later, Alienware the X51 desktop to serve as both a deskis still a leading top slim tower PC,” provider of high “When we started making Azor said. “But also performance lapto be well-suited as a gaming notebooks, we were tops and desktops, PC console solution.” the first in the industry to do Frank Azor, an enHowever, many cusgineer who is now so. We had no precedent or tomers prefer gamthe general maning on the TV using experience to rely on, so we ager of Alienware, a gamepad, either started learning a lot from because they came talks about the past, present, and future the minute we kicked off the over from using othof gaming from the er consoles, or beproject.” perspective of a cause many believe hardware developer. mouse and keyboard In 2002, Alienware was unsatisfied solutions on the couch are inadequate. with laptops, so they made the first gam “As we saw all these really fun PC ing laptop ever. gamepad games emerge largely due to “When we started making gamSteam,” Azor said. “We knew it was time ing notebooks, we were the first in the for us to deliver a solution that enables industry to do so.” Azor said. “ We had no customers to easily play those games on precedent or experience to rely on so we their TV and with an interface that doesn’t started learning a lot from the minute we require a keyboard and mouse and with kicked off the project.” Even though it was a platform that supports open standards,” an industry first, there were some kinks said Azor. that needed to be hammered out. “Initially Alienware is developing a version our gaming notebooks were pretty cumof the Steam Machine, a group of consoles
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able.” he said. “Over time, we are confibeing developed by several PC hardware companies like ASUS and iBUYPOWER. All dent people will choose it over just about any other ecosystem out there. Even if we of the consoles will utilize Steam, the primary platform for PC gaming, and its new don’t sell a single Steam Machine -too late operating system. It also uses a new Steam for that-, it’s been a huge success in that it’s driven the other consoles into getting controller that uses touch pads that are as more aggressive and accurate as a mouse “(The Steam Machine) has adding value to their instead the convenbeen a huge success in that tional thumbsticks boxes to compete with on other controllers. it’s driven the other consoles the Steam Machine’s value, which every Alienware’s Steam into getting more aggressive Machine is based gamer is benefiting off of the existing and adding value to their from and will benefit Alienware Alpha. boxes to compete with the from in the future.” Despite selling “I’m very Steam Machine’s value.” high performance excited about the hardware, there are Steam Machine other elements that make hardware good. launch.” Azor said. “We have been workThis is what Aaron Wheatley, an owner of ing with Valve and our community on this an Alienware 15, said about the hardware. project for over 2 years, and it’s finally “I feel like the fan is too small,” he launching.” Even if the Steam Machines aren’t an said, “so it overheats easily when playinstant success, Azor says the competition ing some of the more demanding games.” that the Steam Machines will bring will be Aaron also notes the longevity of the comoverall beneficial to all gaming in general. puter. “I feel like it will last long because the warranty is really good. If you try to fix “The Steam Machine ecosystem is still evolving, and the other consoles have it yourself, parts for [the laptop] will often over a decade of a head start on it, but the be sold out.” Longevity is a big issue for hardbenefits of Steam and the PC are undeni-
Alienware’s Steam Machine next to Valve’s Steam controller. Courtesy of Alienware 34 | Lasa Ezine Select Start
ware in general, because the number of transistors in an integrated chip has been consistently increasing. So in order to play games at the top settings, gamers will often swap their computer parts for newer ones, or will overclock the existing parts for extra computing power. Overclocking is the idea of running your computer at faster speeds than the recommended amount, which causes it to run faster, but can also cause the components to overheat. “We allow our customers to upgrade their systems without violating their warranty terms.” Azor said. “This enables cus-
tomers to get many more years out of their systems without having to replace them.” And people think more about the hardware’s graphics than the graphics in game. “It’s a relatively easy brand to recognize,” Clay Bertotti, a freshman, said. “So you can tell-oh that’s an Alienware computer, instead of that’s some weird third party computer.” How long does it take to develop hardware? After all, newer versions of tablets and smartphones come out annually, so it shouldn’t be that hard to develop laptops? Laptops are actually quite difficult
Then and Now A comparison of yesterday and today.
Alienware Area 51m
Photo Courtesy of TechNewsWorld.com
Operating System: Windows XP RAM: 1 GB Storage Capacity: 60 GB Graphics Card: AMD Mobility Radeon 9700 Screen Size: 15.4 inches Weight: 8.8 lb
Battery Life: 1 hour Resolution: 1,600x1,200p Price (in 2002): $2500-4000
Alienware 18
Operating System: Windows 8.1 RAM: 8 to 32GB, depending Storage Capacity: 1TB Graphics Card: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M Screen Size: 18.4 inches Weight: 12 lb
Battery Life: 2 hours Resolution:1920x1080p Price(in 2015): $2099-4499
Photo courtesy of Alienware Fall 2015 | 35
Razer’s OSVR, a development kit for Virtual Reality software developers. Photo Courtesy of wareable.com
to plan for, as hardware designers have to find a balance between the almighty processing power and battery life, weight, cost, and heat. “We typically begin our planning process 3-4 years before the product will actually launch,” Azor said. “And we usually kickoff engineering and development about 18 months before launch. We have an incredible focus on quality, therefore we carefully plan and engineer our products to ensure they exceed expectations and last longer than our competitors. ” When designing hardware in general, one has to plan for the imminent future or the next technological innovation so that the hardware is able to keep up and/ or is optimized to handle the demands of the new software. Azor believes the next step forward for gaming is where you can step forward to control your character. “In the near future gaming immersion will take a huge step forward with the introduction of Virtual Reality solutions
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like those from HTC, Star Breeze, and Oculus.” Virtual reality is an idea originating from the 1950s that technology will be able to simulate real or made up worlds through 3D rendering and responding to real world movements in game. For many years, the technology required to make VR reality just wasn’t there, but the largest problem holding back VR was nausea from extensive use. However, hardware developers now have the software to map your surroundings (so that you don’t kick your coffee table) and overcome the nausea through more realistic 3D rendering and high frame rate. But regardless of whether or not VR is going to be the next big thing or just like the 3D TV hype bubble, you should be just as excited for the future of PC gaming as Azor is. “I love PC’s,” Azor said. “I love technology because it’s always changing and therefore always keeps you on your toes.”
GET THE POWER TO PLAY THE BEST
ALIENWARE AREA 51 Starting at $1599
What’s Inside my Laptop?* By: Brendan Lim
Fan The fan on laptops can’t sit perpendicular to the motherboard so hardware designers connect the heat sink to the fan.
RAM
RAM sticks are placed sideways instead of vertically. This cuts down on the thickness of the laptop, however it’s harder for it to disperse heat.
Heat Sink The Heat Sink is flattened to take up less space than normal, however this may cause overheating problems
CPU Battery
Ports
The desktop’s power supply is replaced by a battery so that users can carry it with them.
Ports actually take up a lot of space and contribute to the thickness of the laptop, which is why laptops like the Macbook Air traded ports for thinness.
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The CPU may be smaller in laptops to allow enough clearance for the Heat Sink to fit on top of it. *What’s inside a Desktop PC tower? See page 12 to find out.
The History of Laptops By: Brendan Lim
IBM 5100 IBM
Advertised as a “portable computer” weighing 24kg(52lbs), this computer is considered the first “laptop”
Dulmont Magnum Considered as one of the first laptops with a clamshell design, this Australian laptop and its peers changed laptop designs for the better.
Gavilan SC Also sporting a clamshell design, the Gavilan SC features the first touchpad on a laptop ever on the hinge
Powerbook 165c Apple’s laptops are a lot more colorful in their design than before, but this one has the first color graphics on a laptop ever and a trackball.
Graphics by Brendan Lim
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COVER GRAPHICS BY YACHTCLUBGAMES.COM/SHOVELKNIGHT-PRESS-KIT/